《Strange Convergences》 His Little Brother His Little Brother The girl was still rubbing her wrists as she slowly approached the stairs, her attention fixed on the rooms beyond the stairwell. Though she¡¯d only had them on for a few hours, the handcuffs would have been cinched cruelly tight, since Geoff had been the one to click them closed. Crydin noticed her roll her shoulder and remembered the awkward angle Geoff had shoved her against the pipe in the wall. All that unnecessary cruelty, Crydin mused, and Geoff forgot to lock the door she¡¯d been kept in. He could use this incident to prove to him how useless malice was when it was applied in the wrong places. Crydin leaned back and cricked his neck, keeping his eyes on the monitor. The girl - Crydin thought her name was Elizabeth, or Catherine, one of those old English names that never seemed to die - was moving cautiously, but not so slow to be impractical. She hadn¡¯t noticed the security cameras, but that was because Crydin had put them in place, not Geoff and certainly not Owein. He¡¯d selected their locations carefully, to keep them hidden from view by all but the most careful observer. If his brother had set up the cameras, they would have been placed in the most practical positions and that would have been done. If Geoff had set up the cameras, they would have had blinking red lights and scattered all over the makeshift cell, making sure to remind the girl she was always being watched by the evil eye. Crydin¡¯s chair creaked, and in his peripheral vision he saw Owein turn in his direction. His brother was more hyperaware than usual, and had been ever since the two of them had gotten in Geoff¡¯s car that afternoon - hell, since Crydin had proposed the whole thing to him. Crydin had been wanting to spend more time with his little brother, but the feeling didn¡¯t seem to be mutual. Owein rolled over in his cheap office chair and stared at the monitor over Crydin¡¯s shoulder. Knowing what was coming, Crydin reclined back, giving his brother a better view of the screen. His chubby finger popped up and his croaking crow¡¯s voice creaked out. ¡°You - you see that?¡± The astonishment was palpable in his tone, as much at Crydin¡¯s lack of reaction as at the event itself. ¡°She¡¯s loose!¡± Crydin released a slow nod, his eyes half-lidded casually. ¡°Indeed she is.¡± He picked at his nails. ¡°It¡¯s impressive how little time that took, I have to admit. She must have a hair clip on her that we missed.¡± Owein¡¯s wide eyes flipped back and forth between the monitor and Crydin. ¡°You¡¯re not doing anything?¡± he asked, and Crydin heard the accusation. He offered his little brother an amused smirk. ¡°What for?¡± he asked back. Owein glared, but Crydin let the smile fall away to show him he was asking seriously. ¡°Why would I do anything, Owein? This is Geoff¡¯s job. It¡¯s his fault for being so clumsy.¡± Owein¡¯s hands came down to grip the arms of the chair and he half-rose, as though about to shake Crydin for answers. ¡°What - aren¡¯t - what about the ransom?¡± he demanded, stuttering through the various questions that tried to manifest all at once. ¡°If she escapes, we can¡¯t ask for any money!¡± As he spoke the thought, Owein sprang to his feet and whipped around to his side of the desk. ¡°We have to put her back!¡± His mad rush was halted by an iron grip on his arm. Owein looked down to see Crydin¡¯s fingers clamping him to his seat. ¡°Relax,¡± Crydin drawled. ¡°And sit back down.¡± Owein looked from his brother to the arm and back. His expression was fierce, but the anger was futile and he knew it. He jerked his arm away from Crydin, who let go easily, before sitting back in the chair. ¡°Thank you,¡± Crydin nodded, and pressed his fingers together. It was times like these he felt more like a professor than a brother, and he was preparing for a proper lecture. If he didn¡¯t teach his little brother the way the world worked, who would? ¡°Now, Owein. If we may return to my original question?¡± Owein seemed to struggle for a disdainful reply before settling on a flat, ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°Why should - no, why shouldn¡¯t I do anything to prevent her escape?¡± Was it Kasey? Charlotte? Samantha? Something repetitive and plain. It bothered Crydin that he had forgotten. ¡°You tell me,¡± Owein crossed his arms and tried to glower, but to Crydin he just looked petulant. Sighing inwardly, Crydin picked up a pen and pointed to the monitor. The girl had heard something upstairs and was frozen on the railing, but Crydin knew Geoff was playing on the X-Box and must have started cussing. ¡°What happens if she escapes, Owein?¡± he asked. ¡°We lose out on the ransom money,¡± Owein shot back. Crydin shook his head, genuinely disappointed. ¡°Owein, Owein, Owein. You¡¯re as obvious as a charging bull, but I¡¯m trying to help you spot the pattern of the broken china. Think about Geoff. This was his plan, wasn¡¯t it?¡±Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! He paused, and waited for Owein to continue the line of thought. When Owein looked mystified, Crydin said, ¡°If she escapes, it¡¯s his fault for making it easy on her. He¡¯s the reason we¡¯re out of the ransom money. Therefore, he owes us. And if he owes us, we own him.¡± He tapped the monitor as though it was a chalkboard. ¡°Money is only good for a few things, little brother. Money gives you things. But favors give you people, and people are far more valuable in the long run.¡± He turned back to Owein to see if he was properly absorbing the lesson. The disgusted expression told Crydin that he was, but didn¡¯t seem convinced by its veracity. ¡°What if she kills him on the way out, then?¡± Owein spat at him. ¡°Where¡¯s your oh-so-cold logic on that front?¡± Crydin shrugged. ¡°We still stand to gain from the situation. On the subject of favors, I owe Geoff several of them. I figure his death would clear that debt cleanly, wouldn¡¯t you?¡± A flutter of shock came into Owein¡¯s features before it smoothed away. Why was Owein trying to hide his sensibilities from his older brother? He knew Crydin caught every gesture, every flick of his eyes to the monitor where the girl was inching up the last stair. He knew Crydin had spotted his knuckles white against the arms of the office chair, the flex in his jaw muscle. He knew how good Crydin was, so what did he think was the point of hiding these weaknesses? ¡°You sound like such a privileged asshole, Ken,¡± Owein spat, and went white. The amusement fled Crydin¡¯s face, and his eyes leveled with his little brothers¡¯. ¡°Owein,¡± Crydin said, his voice flat. ¡°I told you, for this job, you have to call me Crydin. No mistakes.¡± ¡°Sorry,¡± Owein breathed. Crydin studied Owein under half-lidded eyes. His breath was coming short, the anger and contempt replaced so quickly by fear. Crydin observed that reaction, displeased. He waved and Owein seemed to relax, minutely. ¡°No more mistakes,¡± he said, a rare show of mercy. Owein nodded, recognizing it. ¡°You¡¯ll remember when you come up with your own alias.¡± ¡°When?¡± Owein muttered. Crydin raised his eyebrows. Owein gulped, but faced down his older brother. ¡°You say that money doesn¡¯t matter,¡± he said, indignant now rather than angry. ¡°But that¡¯s because you live with Dad now. You don¡¯t know how Mom and I are struggling. She¡¯s working three jobs, I¡¯m working two! Three shifts of which, might I add, I¡¯m skipping in order to be here.¡± Owein gained momentum as he talked, the redness in his face returning quickly. Crydin made a note of that, nodding. ¡°I commend your work ethic,¡± he said, his tone not dry enough to mock. ¡°I need that money,¡± Owein barrelled on, ignoring him. ¡°We need that money, Mom and I.¡± Crydin showed him a face of sympathy. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you ask me for money? Or Father?¡± Owein actually stood up in that furious moment. ¡°After all you just said, talking about favors and owning people?!¡± His voice rose nearly to a shout. ¡°There¡¯s no way I¡¯m getting wrapped up in your crazy schemes! I¡¯m not going to be your pawn!¡± Crydin couldn¡¯t hold the laughter in. He laughed, cackled, then burst out great breaths of air in his mirth. He had more in him, but subsided when he saw Owein frightened, again. ¡°Oh, Owein,¡± he said, his voice chillingly calm for the fit he just had. ¡°How much you have yet to learn.¡± He leaned forward. ¡°The world is an oyster,¡± he said, holding unblinking eye contact with his little, little brother. ¡°Surrounded on all sides, guarded, by sea urchins. Your problem, you see, the problem of so many others - including our poor, bereaved Mother - is that you are so blindingly willing to take instruction from the urchins on how to score yourself a pearl.¡± He slowly wiggled his fingers as though wrapping them around an imagined pearl. ¡°You¡¯ll listen to just anyone, won¡¯t you? Even your older brother. Even your Father, and if anyone is full of poison, you know¡­¡± He let the thought dangle. ¡°You earn money by allowing yourself to be bought.¡± He let the pearl drop into the unseen abyss. ¡°You earn favors by buying people.¡± His hands clasped around an invisible chain instead. ¡°And you can be so¡­ creative on what you spend your people on.¡± He smiled at Owein, a genuine one, but it seemed to hold him statue-still, as tense as taut rope. ¡°Investments, big investments that lead to payoffs down the line.¡± He leaned a little closer. ¡°And while money can buy things, people can buy you whatever you want. The one thing you want more than anything else.¡± For the rest of Crydin¡¯s days, he would remember the expression on Owein¡¯s face - indescribable, inimitable, unrepeatable. Never would his little brother be this weak again, he vowed. Malleable, yes - but not weak. The moment was stolen away when a noise brought Owein¡¯s attention back to the monitor. He gasped and leaped out of his chair. ¡°She has a wrench!¡± he cried. ¡°She¡¯s killing him!¡± He rushed to his side of the desk, tossing objects into his pockets, pausing before the door just long enough to snarl in Crydin¡¯s face. ¡°You may have - o-other priorities, but I¡¯m not giving up on that ransom!¡± The remark was punctuated by the slam of the door. Crydin remained where he was, stock still, his eyes lidded in thought. Slowly, he sat back up in his chair. His neck cricked. After a long moment, he tilted his head the other way to stretch it back again. His eyes flicked to the monitor, and he released the slightest sigh through his nose. The girl¡¯s name came to him then - Emily, it was. That was right, Emily. ¡°We have a long way to go, don¡¯t we?¡± he whispered, unheard, to his brother. ¡°So much you have yet to learn.¡± I Have To Go I Have To Go Rose Hannaford I think it¡¯s time to change my name again. I know I recently changed my name to Basil Fobb Clarkton, but it¡¯s been three days and I think it¡¯s time to move on. Delford Morbox. Not Morbox as in More Box, because if there¡¯s one thing I hate, it¡¯s boxes. People like to try and fit me into them. Morbox as in Morbid Ox, I think. That¡¯s where the idea came from. A Dell and a Ford, sounds idyllic, a little valley with a small stream, but you know who lives there? A Morbid Ox. That¡¯s how I feel. I like that anachronism. I¡¯m gonna go tell my SO. I think they¡¯ll like it too. I go to talk to my SO about my new name, but they¡¯re real distracted tonight. I come up to hear them muttering to themself over and over again about how they gotta find God. They gotta find God and they gotta find him quick, they¡¯re saying. I try to tell them that God exists but he doesn¡¯t hang around this dump, but they ignore me. So I ask where they¡¯re gonna look and they say they¡¯re going to this town called Bug and I ask why they thought God would be living in Bug of all places? Bug is more than just a dump, it¡¯s the dump of all dumps. But they still seem to think that a place like that would be the most likely spot for God to hang out, so to keep them safe I ask if they want me to come along and they say yes. My SO and I are always distant, we¡¯re a strange arm¡¯s-length kind of couple, but for a while now they¡¯ve been even more remote. We get philosophical sometimes, and when words are tumbling out of each other, I can see some truth hidden behind their mouth and I¡¯ve tried to figure out what it is. See, my SO changes a whole lot - they change so much, they can walk through walls. The way I think my SO thinks, things changing implies that things need to change, they have somewhere to go. So it makes them sad because they don¡¯t like needing change or somewhere to go, they think it makes them fickle. Pretty often now, they¡¯ll tell me they have to go and they go away, and I think they just find a nice peaceful spot where no one will bother them and sit there for as long as they can stand it, to calm themselves down. They want to find some nirvana, a place where there¡¯s nowhere left to go, any change would be downhill, and stay there so they never change again. Though they know it won¡¯t just come to them, they¡¯ll have to change in just the right ways to end up there. So eventually they come back to my apartment, because I make the search for those changes bearable. And you know, I want my SO to be happy, but I can¡¯t help but hope they never find their unchanging nirvana. I feel so damn guilty when I think about it, but I love them the way they are. And I¡¯m afraid that when they find that nirvana and stop changing, I¡¯ll wake up in bed with a cold stiff, beatific expression over folded hands and they¡¯ll never ever move or do anything again. That¡¯s probably the scariest thing I can imagine. But I don¡¯t even know if this is true, so I¡¯ve never brought it up to them. We take the train, the Bug train, and we have to work a little to make sure my SO won¡¯t fall through the seat. They¡¯re real agitated, but at least they¡¯re not moving so fast that I can¡¯t hold their hand. I¡¯m more afraid of Bug, but they¡¯re more afraid of not finding God at all. I ask them during the train ride why they want to find God so bad, but they don¡¯t answer me so it must be bad. I ask them what God do you hope to find? And they don¡¯t understand my question, so I say it a different way. Do you want the God from the books, the Bibles, the one everyone makes a mess over, or do they want a God, someone omnipotent and omniscient? They think it over and say they don¡¯t care if it¡¯s the first as long as it¡¯s also the second. No one else is on the train except for an old man a few seats ahead of us. He has a wrinkled old face and a beaky nose peeking out from behind the hood of a gaudy, oversized yellow raincoat and he¡¯s staring into the wall of the train like he¡¯s seeing through it. I feel kind of nervous about him, since anyone going to Bug has to be out of their mind, including us, but he never looks at us and my SO doesn¡¯t pay attention to him. My SO is nocturnal so when we arrive at dawn, they¡¯re exhausted. Bug¡¯s a little wart of a town in the middle of nowhere, where trees and farmland bicker over the available space and the swamp just settles there like a fat cat sitting on your dinner. It¡¯s near the coast so it¡¯s raining all the time. I have to carry my sleeping SO and we look for a hotel. Usually my SO and I attract some stares but the hotel manager doesn¡¯t blink when I walk in and ask for a basement room. Come to think of it, the manager doesn¡¯t blink at all, not once, and I don¡¯t like that and I hurry us to our room. Most hotel rooms smell like soap or mold, and ours fits the bill both ways, but my SO¡¯s already asleep so I put them to bed and stay up reading a book while they slept. I read that book all day but I¡¯m not paying attention, I¡¯m thinking about why my SO wants to find God and why they think He or maybe She or They or even We would be here in Bug. I have a song going through my head when my SO wakes up. It¡¯s a slow song, sung with a lot of hidden feeling and the only instrument is a guitar doing most of the talking. You dug a well, you dug it deep, for every wife you buried you planted a cedar tree. I can hear the rain outside the hotel, but my SO still insists on leaving to go look for God so I figure we¡¯ll ask the Noblink manager about umbrellas, but when we go up to the lobby, Noblink isn¡¯t there. At this point my SO is so uptight that they walk right through the door without opening it, so I gotta hurry if I¡¯m gonna follow them, but I take a quick peek behind the desk to see if there¡¯s an umbrella there. I don¡¯t see one but I do see a map, so I nip it and run out the door to find my SO. I see them in an empty intersection, they¡¯re turning left and right and looking real confused and frustrated, so I show them the map and ask where they want to go. They don¡¯t get it, so I point where we are and say Bug is a big town, we can¡¯t search the whole dang place, where do you think God is most likely to hang out here? And they slow down enough that they stop moving for a bit and look at the map, and they say well let¡¯s start at the jazz bar then. And they hurry off before I can ask them why God would be at the jazz bar, and I start running after them as soon as I think to myself, I guess why wouldn¡¯t God be at the jazz bar? You dug a well you dug it deep¡­ The jazz kind of interrupts that song in my head and makes me all confused, so I stop thinking about it. In the bar, I see instruments with no musicians, but I¡¯m hearing music. I¡¯ve suspended my disbelief for my SO¡¯s sake, I ask what if the music is being played by God right now? But they don¡¯t look at the instruments and look instead at the bartender. No one looks as us, and while my SO is asking him questions I wonder if he and Noblink the hotel manager are related, because while he¡¯s blinking, I don¡¯t see his chest rise or fall like he¡¯s breathing, so I dub him Nobreathe. My SO gets impatient and starts talking so fast I don¡¯t understand what they¡¯re saying, but I think they¡¯re asking why aren¡¯t you listening to me don¡¯t you know how important this is? And that¡¯s when he finally speaks up though he still doesn¡¯t look at us, of course we know how important it is but there¡¯s nothing we can do about it is there? I can see this throws off my SO a lot, and I don¡¯t know what Nobreathe is talking about any more than they do, so they just ask again, where is God then? I know God is here. The bartender just walks to the taps and pours some beer out in a glass. I can tell my SO is seething mad since they hate to be ignored but before they start yelling, Nobreathe slides them the beer and says take it, it¡¯s all you¡¯re gonna get here. My SO looks at it and at Nobreathe for a while. Then they sweep their hand out and smash the glass against the wall, spilling beer everywhere, and I think the music stopped. They stare at Nobreathe a little while longer before turning around and stalking towards the door, madder than anything I¡¯ve ever seen. I sweep up the glass and quickly ask how much, but Nobreathe just shakes his head and says you should go after them or they¡¯ll get lost. I take his advice and run after my SO out of the bar, shaking off the jazz that had settled on my shoulders so I can hear my head music again. They¡¯re at the intersection again and this time they take the map from my hands without a word, though again it takes a few tries because their hands phase right through the paper. The song in my head goes on to the next lyric, The best, the best you ever had and it seems kind of ironic those lyrics when I¡¯m seeing my SO the worst I¡¯ve ever seen them. The only time they¡¯d cried before now was when we broke up for the first time and they came back telling me they had no one else, they were crying so hard that the tears themselves were falling right through the floor and even me when I was hugging them. I hugged them so tight that even if I phased through them they¡¯d still feel me hugging them, and we had stayed that way for a long time. There are a lot of things I¡¯ve never asked my SO, usually when they want me to know something they tell me, so I decided that day that I wouldn¡¯t ask about their family or friends. God knows, or maybe not even he knows, my own situation was complicated enough that I wouldn¡¯t know what to answer if they asked me the same. After that day, we still had a lot of problems but we pushed through it because that¡¯s all we have now, each other. So thinking about that and seeing my SO struggle with the map and thinking about how the people have been acting, I take the map away and say let¡¯s just go walking and see what we can see. My SO looks at me before nodding and I take the third path from that intersection. But before I go very far, there¡¯s something that brushes the palm of my hand and I turn back to see them reaching for me. Whatever intensity or energy that¡¯s been driving them onward has suddenly slackened and I see their face, actually see it for the first time since we¡¯ve come to Bug. It nearly breaks my heart just seeing their face like that. I take their hand gently and they huddle next to me, their haggard breathing beginning to slow. I walk them slow across the road with my arm over their shoulder until they¡¯re ready to walk themself. I stand where you stood, I stand for bad or good, and I am green, and you are wood.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. We walk for a while on the faded concrete and I think about the town we¡¯re in, how none of the people seem to look at us, how I haven¡¯t seen any cars despite the road. I think that maybe this town is as weird as I am or my SO is, maybe it¡¯s one of those things that doesn¡¯t box too well. Maybe I don¡¯t like that last name I came up with, Morbox, because no matter what I say it sounds like More Box so I think about what I might change it to. Thinking about this, I wonder if maybe I misjudged the town, maybe I should just back off and give it another chance. The best, the best we ever had... Soon the road starts getting twisty, and the pavement¡¯s all cracked up. Both of us nearly twist an ankle but we¡¯re still holding hands so we can steady ourselves alright. It¡¯s real flat all around but it feels kind of crowded until the point when the road curves in front of some overgrown farmland. Soon the road leads right out of town, into farm and swamp, but we keep walking because both of us feel something, we don¡¯t know what we feel but we know it¡¯s there. The rain¡¯s getting pretty rough and I hold the map over our heads like an umbrella. We¡¯re approaching the forest the road disappears into when we see a man on the side of the road. He¡¯s wearing a thick raincoat, a gaudy yellow color. We go up to him and he looks at us. I break the silence and just say hey. He says hey back. I ask are you God? And my SO stiffens next to me when the old man says yes, I think so. You think so? my SO asks sharply. If you¡¯re God, wouldn¡¯t you know it? The old man looks at us with such anguish that we both shut up for a minute. My SO then asks well then you know why I¡¯m here don¡¯t you? And the old man says yes I think so and he looks sad again. I can hear my SO getting angry next to me and they ask is that all you¡¯re here to say? If you know why I¡¯m here then why aren¡¯t you apologizing? It¡¯s hard to see the old man¡¯s face, the rain is streaming off his hood so thick it¡¯s like a waterfall, but he says nothing. I turn to look at my SO and I¡¯m so startled I almost drop the map umbrella because I¡¯m seeing through them now, usually it¡¯s them who sees through me. For me this has been a journey of a single day, but for my SO it¡¯s been building, winding, growing for days and days and weeks and months, boiling and brewing in their head, twisting round and round until the only thing that¡¯ll untwist it all is to unwind the spool and find the source of the confusion. My SO balls their fists and they¡¯re vibrating so fast that their fingers go right through their hand and they say, why aren¡¯t you apologizing for making me this way? And like that it¡¯s as though a spigot has been turned and they¡¯re just shouting, shouting shouting, you know I hurt all the time, everywhere in everything, to the point where just seeing something in the world is enough to make me hurt, why would you do this I thought a creator would want their creations to be happy, I can¡¯t even tell if happiness exists or if it was just ignorance all along. I didn¡¯t do anything wrong to be like this I didn¡¯t choose anything that lead me here, it just happened, and that means there¡¯s no choice I can make to go back either so what am I supposed to do? It was you who made me this way, you who made the world work like this, and don¡¯t give me that bullshit that you¡¯re not responsible, you fucking made everything and now you¡¯re just letting it all blacken and fester. Everything''s all gone to shit and you¡¯re not trying to help, you¡¯re just trying to blame, and you¡¯re blaming me. At this point my SO has to stop for breath, the air itself is going right through them, and I can barely see them anymore they¡¯re so transparent. I can see now that I was wrong earlier, when I thought that whenever they said I have to go they¡¯d go to some place where they can slow and settle down, but it¡¯s the opposite. Every time they said I have to go they go out and move so fast that they don¡¯t exist anymore. Instead of chaining up the beast tighter they release it and let it rampage, and when it slows down, they come back together and return to our apartment until it needs to come out again. Only for a while now, it hasn¡¯t been slowing down, this coping mechanism isn¡¯t helping them move on for a while longer. I know for myself that finding those takes a lot of work, and for them all that work has led up to nothing much. And now they¡¯re reaching critical mass, they¡¯re about to blow apart in the rain, and they came to find God to make him fix it all. But God is just standing there in a stupid yellow raincoat, looking sad and saying nothing. I feel anger welling up in my own throat. I drop the map and grasp my SO, I wrap my arms all around them to hold them together and I glare at God. Help them, now, I tell him. I can¡¯t, God says back. Why not? I demand. You¡¯re God, for fuck¡¯s sake. Can¡¯t you do anything you want? No, he says somberly. That throws me off a little, but I push on for my SO¡¯s sake. So what can you do? I ask. I can¡¯t see his face anymore, the torrent going over his hood has gotten so thick. I can¡¯t unmake, he says like he¡¯s explaining himself. I can only make, I can make peace, I can make hope. But I can¡¯t make it and just give it to someone. They have to find it. My SO is shaking, I can feel their whole being fragmenting apart. Terrified that I¡¯m about to lose them, I scream at God then you better fucking make some right here and right now. Because we¡¯ve been looking for that our whole lives and we¡¯re just about at our wit¡¯s end. Water is gushing out of God¡¯s raincoat, the hood and the sleeves and the pockets and the zippers. I stop looking at him and focus on my SO, who¡¯s falling out in the spaces between my arms. I hold them tighter and try to think of anything I can do, I just want them to feel better. And for some fucking reason, that song is still going through my head, it never stops, so with no other idea of how to help them I sing to them. But I start at the beginning of the song, because that¡¯s how you¡¯re supposed to sing it. You dug a well, you dug it deep. For every wife you¡¯ve buried, you planted a cedar tree. The best, the best you ever had. I have a sing a little louder to be heard over the rain. Do I hear a guitar? Someone must have opened the door to the jazz bar, the jazz bar on the other side of town where instruments play themselves, because there¡¯s also a harmonica and a sort of violin. I stand where you stood. I stand for bad or good. And I am green, and you are wood. The best, the best they ever had. My eyes are squeezed tight but the tears leak out anyway. The guitar and the violin give me some time to swallow before finishing the short song with a steady voice. I dig a well. I dig it deep. And for my only love, I plant a cedar tree. The best, the best we ever had. A strum, a warbling stream from the violin, and both they and my voice fade into silence. My SO has stopped shaking. Maybe even the rain has stopped trampling and now it¡¯s just falling. I open my eyes and I see my SO. They¡¯re solid, they¡¯re fully solid, and they¡¯re breathing fine now. They¡¯re hugging me back and taking deep breaths of the rain-soaked air, maybe having a drink along with. I wait a few minutes to make sure they¡¯re really better and then I ask to make sure, hey how are you feeling? They say, thick and muffled against my coat, I feel better, and I say good. And they say where did you learn to sing like that? And I¡¯m confused because I never learned to sing anywhere, so I say I just had that song going through my head all day and I figured it was time to get it out. And I feel shaking again and I get alarmed for a second before I realize they were just laughing a little, and they say I like your singing voice. I look at God, who hasn¡¯t moved from his spot, and with the rain slackened off I can see his face again. I tell him you¡¯re not off the hook yet and he says yes I know, but he doesn¡¯t sound as sad now. I say you still have a lot to answer for and he says I¡¯m aware. But my SO doesn¡¯t look so upset now, in fact they look more peaceful than I¡¯ve seen for a long time, so I say I guess we¡¯ll let you go for now and he says I¡¯m relieved, and he sounds like he means it. And then he says that the rain will last until morning, and the next train comes in about an hour. I¡¯ll leave some towels for you at the station. And then he says if you ever need to talk to me again, I¡¯ll be here in Bug. It won¡¯t be so hard to find me next time, I promise. I have to support my SO on the walk back to the hotel, because even though we have a few hours of night left they¡¯re pretty exhausted. They ask if I have another song in my head and I sing something by the same artist, I don¡¯t sing as beautiful as I did the first one but it seems to soothe them and I resolve to look for lessons or something when we get home. Noblink the hotel manager is at the desk now, though he doesn¡¯t look irritated that we took his map. I let him know his map got soaked and he shrugs like he doesn¡¯t care. I decide I kind of like someone who¡¯s so laid back, even if he¡¯s creepy. I tell him we¡¯re checking out and heading home and he nods but doesn¡¯t ask for money. When everything¡¯s ready to go to the station, Noblink helps carry our bags the couple blocks it takes. It¡¯s still raining, but we find some towels on the seats in the station and dry ourselves off before the train arrives. I try to give Noblink some money as a tip or for our room or something but he shakes his head. Why does no one take money in this town? I ask, confused. He says what¡¯s the point? Paper gets soaked real bad in the rain. He walks away and I think to myself, this town is weird but maybe I won¡¯t be so mean to it anymore. This time we¡¯re really the only ones on the train. My SO¡¯s head is lolling but before they drift off, I ask them what do you think of God? He seemed kind of disappointing to be honest. They wake up a little to answer my question and say, I think so too. I say I bet he doesn¡¯t have the best singing voice, and my SO chuckles once and says I don¡¯t think so either. Then they fall silent, but they have an intense look on their face so I know the conversation¡¯s not done. They say, you know all those times I said I had to go? I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll have to do that anymore. It hasn¡¯t been working for a while now anyway. And they look at me, a little nervous, and say, if I ask you to sing again, will you do it for me? I say of course I will and I kiss them on the forehead because I love them and I¡¯m so happy I can help them. The train takes us back to our place easily and I sing one more time for my SO before they fall asleep at dawn. Song lyrics by Indigo Girls. ¡°Cedar Tree.¡± Epic Records, 1992. Fervindales Shop of Cosmets, Trinks, and Tricks Fervindale¡¯s Shop of Cosmets, Trinks, and Tricks The shopkeep was smiling. Only Dirk saw it; Caedan and Roger ran faster than him. It was a wide, toothy smile, twisting the shopkeep¡¯s face, seen through the jagged teeth of the store front¡¯s broken window. When Dirk turned forward to run, he thought he felt something stab into his back, but it was just a piercing crackle of laughter. ~ Two days ago, the shopkeep had offered them a different smile through the store window as they approached the door through the wind-riven street. Shops lined the road as nothing more than doors in walls, and apartments loomed surrounding them. Outside, the three of them were alone. A small sign tucked away on the window¡¯s corner read Limited Return Policy. At the door, Caedan turned and swept a look at the two of them. "Dirk, you''re distraction," he ordered, his typically sharp voice quiet. "Ask him about his merch, keep him occupied. Roger, you''re with me. Keep an eye out for the kind of security he has." "Bo-oring," Roger muttered, but only in Dirk''s earshot. He looked odd without his glasses; he never wore them on a job. Caedan¡¯s imperious gaze bored down on them, and Dirk couldn¡¯t help a feeling of petulance. The last job they¡¯d done, he¡¯d berated the two of them for hours afterward for forgetting to smash the cameras before leaving. Dirk wasn¡¯t sure why Caedan was so concerned; his family would cover any suspicion that fell on him. It was Dirk and Roger that would take the fall when their families learned what they¡¯d been up to outside of school. Dirk averted his eyes in case Caedan saw his misgivings. After another moment, he heard Caedan mutter, ¡°Keep your head¡± as he turned to the door and scraped it open. Only Dirk didn¡¯t have to bend to fit through; Caedan nearly had to double down, scorched straw hair brushing the top of the doorway. The store was dim and cluttered, with little walking space between the chest-high shelves, though there was a direct footpath to the desk where the storekeep stood. ¡°Welcome, welcome,¡± his voice slithered through the shop. ¡°Welladay.¡± Caedan nodded curtly in his direction. Dirk took the cue, stepping forward with a placating smile. ¡°Hello, sir. I¡¯ve never been here before. Could you show me around, please?¡± In his peripheral vision, Dirk saw the other two spread out to case the shop. Up close, the shopkeep¡¯s eyes looked dirty yellow, with irises slit like a cat¡¯s. ¡°Of course, sir.¡± The shopkeep blinked, and Dirk shuddered, unsure of what he¡¯d seen. ¡°Follow me.¡± It was unclear what the shopkeep thought of these disdainfully glaring high school-age kids skulking about the place, but he seemed unperturbed, so Dirk shrugged and followed. They passed through shelves upon shelves of odd items. Given the name on the store front, Dirk was expecting antiques and saw several, but among the gnarled wood chairs, faded armoires, and a large silvered-over mirror, he saw a number of other, stranger items. A painting of a smiling woman squeezing some black-spurting thing in her fist hung on the wall; a blood-red jewel the size of a pomegranate hung on an amulet called ¡°Vita Morta;¡± a garish purple jewelry box held an assortment of tarnished yet dignified rings; and a treasure box sat pushed all the way to the end of a shelf. It was small enough to fit in Dirk¡¯s hand and its lid was open a crack. Every object had not only a small name plaque but a pocket-sized packet of paper, printed in font too small for Dirk to read at this distance. They looked like tiny instruction booklets. He approached the box, curious at its lack of nametag and booklet. ¡°You¡¯ll want to take care what you touch, sir,¡± the shopkeep¡¯s growl leaped at him as he reached for the box. Dirk jumped away and the shopkeep smiled down at the shelf. ¡°No use touching that one anyway, sir. Hinges rusted. The thing won¡¯t open or close.¡± ¡°O-oh, okay. Sorry.¡± Dirk blinked down at it. ¡°H-how much is it? I can¡¯t see a price tag.¡± The shopkeep raised a gnarled eyebrow. ¡°If you¡¯re willing to take it with the busted hinges, I can offer you a good deal on it,¡± he purred. The box was almost charming, shaped like a miniature treasure chest with a simple latch. Dirk found himself reaching for his wallet before remembering he¡¯d left it at school. ¡°Um, maybe some other time,¡± he muttered sheepishly, patting his worn jean pockets. ¡°Of course, sir.¡± The shopkeeps¡¯ eyes bored into him, but Dirk felt scrutiny rather than pressure. He heard Roger and Caedan muttering on the other side of the store about cameras. ¡°If you desire, I can hold it for you, so no one else can take it while you¡¯re gone.¡± Dirk hesitated. What was he here for again? ¡°No, thank you,¡± he answered distantly before his eyes focused on Caedan¡¯s subtle glare. ¡°No thanks,¡± he said again, a little louder. ¡°But let me look around a little more.¡± He returned his gaze to the shopkeep in time to see his eyes flash. ¡°Yes of course, sir,¡± he responded, and they continued the tour, Dirk uneasily wringing his hands. A few minutes later, Dirk heard Caedan call his name and looked up to see them exiting the shop, Roger already out on the street. ¡°There¡¯s nothing good here,¡± Caedan said, his eyes cold and purposeful. ¡°Let¡¯s get out and get some lunch.¡± Dirk moved to leave. Behind him, the shopkeep¡¯s voice crawled into his ears. ¡°You have a good day, sir. I¡¯ll see you again... soon, I¡¯m sure.¡± A faint cackle followed this statement. Trying not to run, Dirk exited the shop with a shiver down his spine. ~ The shopkeep was smiling¡­ as they stuffed merchandise into their bags, as Dirk quelled the shaking of his hands, as Caedan rasped orders at them¡­ trapped behind the door Roger had barricaded, he was smiling the whole time¡­ ¡°We shouldn¡¯t have done this.¡± Caedan had already emptied the sack and was going through the goods, clearly not paying attention to Dirk¡¯s quavering voice. His knuckles were still bleeding and scabbed from breaking the shop window. He had his face on, the one telling everyone around that he was the one in charge, though it was undercut by the abandoned apartment surrounding them. Dingy walls and garbage-strewn floors were hardly the place for authority. Roger was emptying his own bag, scuffing trash aside with the side of his foot, and scowled at Dirk. ¡°Huh? Why not?¡± Dirk dropped his bag to the ground, unwilling to touch the items inside. ¡°That place¡­ it felt wrong. Not like the other ones.¡± What kind of antique shop would sell such unsettling items? Caedan hadn¡¯t even let them take the little booklets with them. Caedan looked up from the jewelry box he¡¯d taken out of the bag. ¡°Wrong?¡± he asked ironically. ¡°Do you plan to return these to the store then, Dirk?¡± Roger snorted. ¡°Only if you¡¯re willin¡¯ to pay Caedan and me back for them. I don¡¯t do this for fun, you know.¡± Dirk didn¡¯t answer. Was he actually considering it? The idea of those rheumy yellow eyes glaring out at him turned his stomach over. During the run here, he¡¯d been far more jumpy than the other two, glancing down alleyways and dark corners, expecting and dreading the sight of amber slits. Caedan seemed to take his silence as assent rather than terror. ¡°I didn¡¯t think so.¡± He frowned over at Roger. ¡°I thought I told you not to bring that mirror! It¡¯s too bulky. No one will pay for it.¡±This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. The mirror, propped up in Roger¡¯s lap, was pale and faded with spots of grunge across the bottom. There was no reflection of Roger¡¯s small ratlike face in it when he looked up with another scowl. ¡°I brought it here just fine, didn¡¯t I?¡± he demanded. ¡°If you don¡¯t want to sell it, I¡¯ll keep it then. I like it.¡± Caedan raised an eyebrow, but Roger¡¯s gaze had already returned to the mirror¡¯s empty surface. ¡°If you say so,¡± he said eventually, but there was an audible edge in his voice at this insolent defiance. He lifted an amulet out of the bag and draped it around his neck. ¡°If you think we can afford to take personal possessions - what?¡± This was directed at Dirk, who was staring in astonishment at Caedan¡¯s hands. Frowning, Caedan looked down. Slowly, he lifted his hand and examined his knuckles. The last bit of blood trailed off from a wound that was no longer there. There was uncharacteristic confusion in his voice. ¡°That¡­ healed over fast.¡± ¡°Your other hand!¡± Dirk gasped. He was watching the scabs shrink together, pink skin emerging from the bloody gaps. Soon, even the rosy hue of new skin smoothed over and within seconds the only evidence of a wound was a single rivulet of blood pooling in the skin between Caedan¡¯s thumb and palm. Caedan looked up at Dirk, for confirmation that he had seen the same thing. Both their faces were pale. Dirk opened his mouth, but found no words to utter. Caedan¡¯s eyes returned to his healed skin. Then, without a word, he reached a hand into his pocket, heedless of the blood staining his jeans, and pulled out his switch knife. He flipped it open and closed his bony fist around the blade. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Dirk gasped. ¡°Shut up,¡± Caedan whispered. ¡°I¡¯m t-testing it.¡± Surely that hadn¡¯t been a stutter in Caedan¡¯s words. Surely that hadn¡¯t been breathless excitement in his voice. He hesitated a moment, then tightened his fist and slid his hand up the blade. Blood trickled down the stainless steel. Caedan opened his hand to reveal two long slits, one across his lower palm, one over the fold of his fingers. His face betrayed no wince of pain. ¡°You madman,¡± Dirk whispered, but Caedan paid no attention. The wounds were already sliding closed, as smoothly as they¡¯d been opened. The amulet at his chest glinted. The tag labeling it as ¡°Vita Morta¡± was still attached. Caedan noticed it the same time Dirk did. With his free hand, he lifted the chain off his neck. Drip, drip, the spurt of blood returned and the slashes on his palm ceased regenerating. Caedan returned the amulet to his neck. Within seconds, his hand was whole. A wide smile stretched across his face, a wild glint to his eyes. He threw back his head and laughed, a long hyena¡¯s cackle discovering fresh prey. ¡°I¡¯m fucking invincible, Dirk!¡± he crowed. With haphazard, impatient movements, he thrust open the lid of the jewelry box and began shoving rings onto his shaking fingers. He muttered something Dirk barely caught; it sounded like, ¡°I¡¯ll show you, I¡¯ll fucking show you, dad.¡± Dirk¡¯s breath was coming shallow and ragged. Far from Caedan¡¯s elation, he felt dread curling in his stomach. In his mind¡¯s eye, he saw the glint of gold eyes shining, chilling his blood. His leader was tearing into the remaining contents of his bag, shoving more necklaces over his head, and Dirk saw item after countless item slosh out and scatter on the floor. A fallen item caught his attention. Tuning out the frantic movements, he crouched down and picked up the small treasure box, creaked open a millimeter. He brought it close to his face and peered in, but he could see nothing inside. Shaking it, he felt something soft and amorphous float against the sides. Curious, he inserted his fingernails into the open lid and attempted to pry it open. It didn¡¯t give an inch, and when he turned it around, he saw no hinges on the back. ¡°What do you have there?¡± Dirk¡¯s heart pounded for a moment before he looked up and realized Caedan had spoken, but with a significantly different voice. It was lower, an athlete¡¯s growl. Was he taller as well? Eyes trailing to his leader¡¯s hand, he saw blood running down his fingers. The rings had been jammed on with so much force, several had been embedded into the skin, even broken bone. Dirk saw a glint of red-washed white before it covered over with closing flesh. Caedan wasn¡¯t even reacting to what had to be agonizing pain; there was abject greed in his gaze, staring at the box. ¡°I d-don¡¯t know,¡± Dirk stammered, remembering Caedan had asked a question. ¡°I can¡¯t open it.¡± Caedan smirked and snatched the box from Dirk¡¯s grasp. ¡°What do you think this does?¡± he grinned. In his beefy hands, Dirk lost all sight of the box. Two mammoth thumbs pressed down in two directions, but the lid didn¡¯t yield. Caedan¡¯s face turned red with the effort. He released it with a growl. ¡°Probably useless then,¡± he grunted, and tossed it to the ground. ¡°Roger! What else do you have?¡± Dirk scampered after the box and picked it up. There was no damage done to the outside despite the enormous stress applied. There were symbols engraved on the lid, he noticed, and he was trying to figure out what they were when he realized the room had gone eerily silent. He looked up. (Had Caedan always been so large? His head was scraping the ceiling). Caedan was staring down at Roger, aghast. His lackey hadn¡¯t moved from his hunched pose, or even noticed the commotion around him. In the space of however many minutes it had been, Roger¡¯s skin had paled to a papery white. His grey-lipped jaw hung open, exposing a colorless mouth. The mirror had acquired a pinkish tinge. As Dirk watched, the folds in Roger¡¯s eyelids smoothed to bare skin and he saw a vague smear of black drip into the mirror¡¯s image. Caedan hunched downward and thrust the mirror away from Roger¡¯s grasp. ¡°What the fuck! Roger, get up!¡± The effect was swift and immediate. Roger choked out a gasp and his eyes leaped to Caedan with blazing rage. ¡°I said I¡¯ll keep it! It¡¯s mine!¡± he shrieked, and shot forward, hands clutching for Caedan¡¯s throat. Caedan roared and pushed Roger away but he was back on him in an instant, wide eyes rolling, foam dribbling out of his mouth. Caedan clutched him by the throat and lifted him, writhing and snarling, into the air. He raised a booted foot above the mirror and brought it down, but the glass was unmoved; the colors, however, flowed around the blow. Caedan saw it too and took his boot away from the mirror in an instant. He bowled Roger to the ground and flung the mirror up and onto his body. Roger immediately ceased his struggle and laid there on the ground, limp beneath the mirror¡¯s surface. Swerving around, Caedan saw Dirk pressed against the far wall, motionless in terror. He howled his name and rushed forward. He had swelled to a monstrous size and his hands had lost their shape; bulbous, swollen flesh roiled and twitched, though Caedan barely seemed to notice. ¡°Get over here!¡± he roared, and pinned Dirk against the wall. The other shapeless hand grasped a handful of necklaces, pulled them off Caedan¡¯s head, and pushed them over Dirk. Dirk cried out, lashing at the hand choking him, but Caedan pressed him harder against the wall. His face was practically purple with rage, his neck so engorged it was indistinguishable from his chest. ¡°You¡¯re wearing these first!¡± he screeched, his voice sounding barely human. ¡°You wear them first, then tell me what they do!¡± Metal chains scraped against Dirk¡¯s teeth as Caedan forced them down over his head, then began pulling rings off the shapeless blobs of his hands. Dirk kept pushing against the vice grip, but his strength was waning; he felt dizzy and short of breath. The necklaces were constricting against his neck so tightly, he thought he felt the prickle of them across his body. He rasped out Caedan¡¯s name, but the bulbous terror that gripped him no longer resembled his former leader. Abruptly, the hold on his neck slackened. Dirk slipped and through distorted vision, saw Caedan reel back, blinking. Dirk heard him mumble something through ringing ears before he stumbled to the ground and fell, his head lolling to the side. Dirk saw one remaining ring attached to something on the creature and the large jewelled amulet. Blackness - and other, stranger colors - hovered at the edge of Dirk¡¯s vision. With a violent choking gasp, he threw the necklaces off over his head and pulled at the rings on his fingers. He had to stop to hold himself up when dizziness overtook him, and for several minutes he was uncertain which room he was in, which side of the room was pulling at him with the inexorable grasp of gravity or perhaps something stronger, stretching him in all directions like a rubber band twined around all four points of the - He came to with a start. The light in the room had dimmed, or maybe his eyes had. In one corner, he saw a mirror lying on the ground facedown, a pair of disembodied legs a few feet away. In another corner, he saw a long mound of flesh with two glints of jewelry oozing out like a deflating balloon. Shining lights littered the floor like stars, dizzying him. He felt every breath rake his lungs. With liquid-limp hands, he plucked a star. Somehow, he left the apartment, crawling up the stairs. It was night outside, though it had been day when they¡¯d entered the apartment. He was stumbling down empty streets, the moon above the only witness. More than once he stopped to retch but he couldn¡¯t stop for long, he was pulled along the road down the sidewalk, down, down like a spiraling path dragging him down to the store, to return what had been stolen, to end this whole nightmare... His strength gave out a few yards away from the store front and he dropped to the ground like a rag doll. In his fist was the small treasure box. A minute passed. The lid groaned open. Dirk¡¯s finger twitched. The door to the shop opened and two cat slits looked down at the scene before them. ¡°Welcome, welcome,¡± a low voice whispered. ¡°Welladay.¡± The Forest Path Deep in the woods, too deep to be sensible in any human perception, there lies a path, clear of foliage and patterned with fallen leaves. It begins in the midst of the brush, out of nowhere in particular, and meanders with the same lack of focus, winding over hills and around trees and through clearings for which no axe was responsible. There is something inexpressibly sinister about this path, but no one can say for certain what makes it so. No birdsong can be heard while traversing it, nor is there the rustle of any woodland life beneath the leaves. No one has ever seen elk or deer, and while the region is known for its cougar and coyote population, travelers have seen not a sight of any dangerous predator. The only noise any ear can catch is the distant sound of wind in the limbs above. Most who happen across this path leave its confines quickly enough. Even if they don¡¯t notice the eerie lack of sound, the hairs on the back of their neck start to rise, cold beads of sweat trickle down their cheeks, and their stomach churns with a strange anxiety. Due to their haste to be away from this forest path, no one has kept the presence of mind to map it or name it, and so it remains a surprise to all who come across it. The path is quiet, always. The sky above is slate-grey, thick clouds covering the face of the sun. A heavy skin of late autumn leaves carpets the available ground, a skin that never, even in the summer months, fully goes away. There¡¯s a loud rustle nearby, close to the start of this path. A man in a dark blue jacket nearly falls as he forces his way through the thick brush. With intense speed and muttered curses, he brushes the leaves and twigs away and begins to stride along the path. There¡¯s a flex in his jaw and his eyes are not on the world in front of him. He is in a state, this man. Something in the past hour has vexed him. His name is Franklan Rommel. That¡¯s the name on his birth certificate. He prefers to be called Cal, for somewhat complicated reasons. He is not a hiker. This much can be gleaned easily from the state of his clothes. He wears a track jacket, but beneath it he wears a sleek cotton shirt that¡¯s already soaked through with sweat. The jeans are made for fashion, not athletics, and they¡¯re already soaked with mud at the bottom edges. The tennis shoes are old and worn, with several holes ripped through the leather and the sole. The sticky remnants of duct tape can be seen on the edges. He is not an office worker, not yet at least. Neither is he an athlete, though both futures have been laid before him, opportunities with their hands held out wide. He took one of those hands, but he¡¯s still not sure if it was the right one. He doesn¡¯t have much time left if he wants to change his decision. He is not a married man. His fingers are bereft of adornment, though several of them are red and swollen. He is not typically a disorganized man. His hair is tousled, his pockets turned out, his wallet, keys, and phone absent from his person. Neither is he, strictly speaking, a man. Not quite, or maybe not yet. He just passed his twentieth birthday. Some people are men when they are twenty years old, but this one is not. This is a reflection of both his maturity and his personal identity. These questions have been up in the air for him for all his life. But calling him a ¡®boy¡¯ or even a ¡®person¡¯ seem too wrong, too far in other directions he¡¯s uncomfortable in. He has told others that continuing to call him a man is fine, no matter how inaccurate it is, for now. These questions, and others, are part of the reason for the state he is in. But every strong reaction requires a catalyst to truly ignite. He¡¯s stomping down the path, has been for almost an hour now. The brooding in his head is holding his attention, and so he hasn¡¯t yet noticed the stillness of the air, the silence around him, the nonsensical turns to this path. He has not noticed it, but his body has. He swipes irritably at a brow that¡¯s grown moistened with cold sweat. He rubs the back of his neck at the hairs trembling upright. A full hour has passed before his pace finally slows, then stops. His lungs are working heavily from the long hour of furious strides, and his ragged breath forms barely imperceptible clouds of mist before his lips. He envelops his face in his hands. He has not reached a mental impasse, has not found an inner peace from his troubles, but he has lost the energy to continue his aimless steps. His anger molds over into bitterness instead, and gnaws at his toes like hungry rats. He wants a place to sit, a location where he can collapse down and in on himself, where he can hide from every eye, his own most of all. A rock or a crook in some tree roots would serve. He lifts his head to search for such a place, and it is only then that he realizes where he is. He is lost. A faint wind touches him gently on the arms and ruffles the leaves, so that for a moment, there is movement all about him. This unsettles rather than mollifies him, as it seems the bushes and the plants rouse awake to his presence as soon as he does to theirs. Cal Rommel is not an imaginative man, so his awareness of this impression touches him more deeply, more instinctively, than it would another. He stands, transfixed, upon this moment, unable to move, incapable of thought. He has been swimming steadily on the surface of the water before realizing he¡¯s stranded himself in a dark ocean. His breath scrapes noisily through his lungs, and his wildly pumping pulse won¡¯t let him slow it down. He¡¯s never been any good at treading water. An indeterminate amount of time passes with him in this state. A moment comes where two observations make themselves known to this frightened man. He hasn¡¯t eaten since breakfast that morning - the day before him had filled him with nerves, and he hadn¡¯t had any appetite, but it¡¯s coming back in full force now that satiation is out of reach. His second observation is that the light in the clouds casting down at him has dimmed. The thick greyness of the sky makes it difficult to know for certain, but the sun must be setting. Fear had made the time stretch into unknown reaches, but now that time snaps back to reality, and he jerks as he feels the whiplash. He has to move, and he has to move now. He can¡¯t stay here on this path; neither his body nor the world around him will permit it. But does he turn back, or go onward? He looks back at the distance he¡¯s already traversed. The path winds around a rocky incline, roofed by dark trees that glower down at the decomposing leaves. The angles of the land make it look to him like a shadowy hollow, a warren to house an unseen monster. He can hardly believe he walked through it once, and can¡¯t fathom walking through it again. He turns back to the path before him. It climbs up a gradual hill, narrows, and turns to the right, its further direction hidden by brush. The fear of the unknown tugs at him then, argues for the path behind. He¡¯s walked through it once, right? Nothing bad happened when he did. Therefore it¡¯s unlikely anything bad would happen now. His practical side puts in a quiet word. He has no idea how long he¡¯s been walking for. Two hours, three? It would take just as long, if not longer, if he turned back, and night would have fallen by then. And that would only take him to the end of the path, the place from which he started. How big is this forest? his practical side continues, its voice too often going unheard. A path must lead somewhere, right? This one might take a long time to navigate, but it should end eventually, hopefully, somewhere he can find help and make his way back home. Thus says Cal Rommel¡¯s practicality, and thus he decides to continue onward. He decides, but he makes no move forward, takes no onward step. He is not a brave man. Not brave, not practical, not imaginative, but now all the faults of these are crashing down on him. Because he knows what this place is. He can feel the wrongness of this path, the inexplicable fear that touches him, he feels it creep up from beneath the leaves, crawl between his toes, clutch at his knees. The silence hungers for him. He feeds it, unwillingly. He takes a step forward and a twig snaps beneath his foot. The air snaps with it. He can take it no longer, and without any further thought at all, he runs. Up the path, up the hill, through the bushes, around the corner, skidding on the wet leaves, the branches of the bushes grasp at him from the sides and all the while the clouds above close in on the last waning light of the sun. His wide eyes are on the ground before him, watching for roots or treacherous terrain, he nearly slips on the blanket of leaves but his momentum keeps him on. A left turn, then a right, and then the ground opens up to a ravine with the path running along its side. He splashes into watery mud and this time he really slips, his foot careening sideways and sending him into the puddle. He finds himself sliding towards the ravine and terror catapults into his throat and out in a squeaky cry as he grabs for a handhold, anything to keep him from falling down the muddy incline. There¡¯s nothing around, nothing to grasp, but his wild lunge has regained his balance. He¡¯s not falling. He remains in his twisted position, knowing that any wayward movement might send him down, and slowly, carefully, eases his body up the path back to the wet leaves until he can untangle himself and stand upright. He doesn¡¯t stand upright, not for a while. The panic has not receded, but the adrenaline has run out for now. He is afraid, but there is no face to the source of his fear. Running has not allowed him to escape. Now he tries to hide.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. It will not help him either. The instinctive, primal mind has many weaknesses. There are things that it cannot escape, no matter what it tries to do to outrun me. I cannot be outrun. I cannot be outmaneuvered. I always try to explain this, for I am very patient. But the primal mind is not good at listening. His breath finally slows. It has been a long time since he¡¯s run like that, not since he wanted to be an athlete. He thinks he might have gone farther if he¡¯d kept his habits. He drops his head into his hands. He¡¯s leaning against a wall of dirt, some steep incline into which the path sharply cuts. Stringy roots tickle the top of his scalp. He draws his feet in, his knees together, but he is not a small man. It is not easy for him to hide. Cal Rommel turns to stand on his hands and knees. He has found no inner peace, no respite, but he must move on. He crawls for a little while through the mud, until the path begins to climb again and the ravine has been left behind. He uses a tree to push himself to his feet. He doesn¡¯t try to make any more decisions. He just walks on, sticking his hands in his pockets, digging his heels into the earth as he goes. He¡¯s hunched over, as though by making his passage quiet, he¡¯ll avoid some gaze that searches for him. His mind searches for something with which to occupy itself, and lands on the thing that incensed him this afternoon, the catalyst that send him running into the woods. He ruminates on it now, with candor rather than rancor. He thinks about it for a long time. The stakes he had set on it, the result that¡¯s come out of it. He mulls it over, and out of the mull comes a peculiar mood. This thing he had done this afternoon, he had been building toward it for years now. So long, the string had become entangled with different threads, until he¡¯d been dragging a twisted net behind him. He had hoped the weight of it would be removed if he confronted the source, but it had done no such thing. He hadn¡¯t removed the problem, but had tripped himself up. He tries to think about a time when he hadn¡¯t had this weight behind him. He wants to envision a life without this serpentine knot at his heels. It distresses him that he cannot. He asks himself if it¡¯s realistic to hope for any solution to this problem. He wonders if by hoping, he only hurts himself by setting himself up for disappointment. He examines the problem. He holds the net of vipers before him. He sees how there are many problems, not just one, but that the one, the mother viper, has dragged the others with it. He drops the net in disgust. All at once, he feels utterly exhausted. He¡¯s been climbing uphill for ages now, and the fatigue comes to him suddenly at the end of his train of thought. He drops to his knees, a short distance due to the hill he''s climbing, and slips over to lie on his side. He curls up, seeking smallness, seeking oblivion. He¡¯s sick of this life and sick of this hill and sick of this path. He thinks about returning to the hollow of the ravine and slipping down on purpose. He calls it an act of cowardice that he does not, that he remains still on the ground, tied up in the fetal position, wrapped all around by chains, nets, snakes. The sun is almost gone. The world around him is varying shades of grey. He knows the night must be near, and as soon as it comes, he will plunge into absolute darkness and perish in winter¡¯s shadow. He knows I am on the path. I am ranging up and down these hills, my hills, searching for him. I know he is here. I walk slow, but steadily. If he stays, I will find him. If he goes, I might miss him. It is this thought that at last brings him back to himself. He pushes himself upright, and slowly climbs to his feet. He begins his plodding trek onward. Sometime during that span of time, lying on the ground, feeling lost and hopeless, he has lost some fear. It is not a good state of mind he is in. Right now, it is as cold within as it is without. His eyes are uncaring and blank. The hill peaks and the path turns down a few steps before leveling out and continuing onward. He is at great elevation, and if there were no trees around him, he could gaze out upon the landscape. He could see the layout of the town, even pick out his own house, or the house at which he tried to upend all his problems this afternoon. But even if there were no trees, he would not glance around. His eyes are turned within. The path widens into a clearing up ahead. His pace slows. He knows I am here. He can see my silhouette on the path. Despite the despair in his chest, he¡¯s unwilling to face me yet. He knows if he meets me now, that will be the end of it. He thought he had lost his fear, but now it returns, rising quickly like the incoming tide. He falters and hides behind a tree, shrinking in on himself. I know he is there. I will wait. I am very patient, and I know he won¡¯t run. He knows this too. In the chaos of panic, thoughts float to the surface as he gasps for air, making themselves known as he struggles not to drown. The first thought that breaks through that maelstrom is I can¡¯t escape this now. The second is, I have to face it. The second thought lingers, and does not fade. He grasps onto it for balance. This thought should make him more frightened, but it does the opposite. It gives him a sort of calmness. Nearly all his choices have been taken away. There is only one left to make now. He must come out from behind this tree and face me. The choice is, who will he be when he does? Will he be the man with all these weights, all these problems, nets, chains, holding him down as he looks plaintively up, begging for any semblance of control in his life? Or will he be¡­ not? He looks down at these burdens he¡¯s been carrying. Just thinking about them on this path made him utterly helpless, paralyzed with desperation. There are too many problems to carry all at once, all the time. He realizes now he¡¯s been a fool to try and shoulder them forever. He had hoped this afternoon would have given him some help to carry the load¡­ but that¡¯s not how it works. He can¡¯t simply drop them all, either. They¡¯re stuck into his skin. They¡¯re part of him, and walking away from them would be, in many ways, walking away from himself. And no matter what he would do, they would always come back¡­ But what if he just left them behind for now? They would come back. He just needs to put them down for a few minutes. He drops the bundle on the ground, and steels himself. Something feels wrong. He eyes the tangle. Then, unsure, he eases an eye around the tree, looking for me. He sees me. Despite the darkness of the woods, he can see me. He sees my silhouette, my form, my face. He knows my face. He saw it that afternoon. He feels shock for a moment. Then suddenly, it makes sense to him. He understands who I am - in this moment, at least. He turns back to the tangle at his feet. The best way to undo a knot, he realizes, is to unwrap it one piece at a time. He picks at the threads that have, one by one, woven themselves into the main string. It¡¯s gotten so thick, it¡¯s become a rope. It¡¯s that one he needs right now, and that one alone. It¡¯s difficult work. His fingers are numb with cold, and they¡¯re trembling slightly. He still hasn¡¯t eaten for most of the day. It''s not easy what he''s doing, and not solely because his body has these limitations. At last, the untressed rope spools before him, free. He gazes down at it expectantly, desperately. He had hoped for some feeling of resolution, a revelation that what¡¯s doing is the right thing. The turmoil does not cease. There is no sense of ¡°rightness¡± to his actions. I am waiting around this tree¡­ He raises his head and peers around the trunk again. He¡¯s scared, he¡¯s frightened, he¡¯s not ready for this, he can¡¯t let this go wrong. He¡¯s not ready, but he¡¯s not going to get any readier. He steels himself. Just for a minute. Then he slips out from behind the tree. He walks slowly to the center of the clearing where I am standing. His eyes are down, his shoulders caving in. He stops when he is two paces away from me. Then, carefully, he looks up. A string of emotions flutter through his expression. He thought he knew what I was. I am not what he expected. I am the thing that drove him into this forest, this he knew. But I am not her, as well. If it had been something different than she that had sent him careening down the forest path, I would have been something different too. He does not understand, but he understands enough, because I am looking down at him with her face, but without her face. I have her head, her halo, her presence, but between my forehead and my chin there is a blank slate of nothing. He knows what this means, and he knows why it chills him all the way through, why he recoils so viscerally. He swallows and keeps his eyes on me. This moment of contact seems to stretch, even for me. There is a process going on within Cal Rommel in this moment that he could never verbalize, not even to himself. And at the end of the moment, his shoulders relax. He knows what to do. He holds up the rope, the figurative rope at the center of his problems, and says, ¡°You can have this back.¡± I do not move. ¡°I¡¯m sorry about what I said at your house,¡± he continues. His face is ashen, but his eyes are steady. ¡°I¡¯ve thought about you for - for years, and I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll ever stop caring about you. But I approached you because I thought you could fix my problems, and that wasn¡¯t fair, that wasn¡¯t right. I¡¯m sorry about that too.¡± He regards me for a moment, then coils and drops the rope at my feet. His hands tremble for a second, then slow. When he straightens, he feels lighter. He returns his eyes to me, and this time instead of looking within himself, he studies me, curious. He knows what I¡¯m not, but he doesn¡¯t know what I am. I have not moved since he came into this clearing, though he knows I have been searching, waiting for him. He knows that this is my forest path, and now, his. A curious expression of pity crosses over his face. Time settles over our shoulders like a silent snowfall. I have never been beheld for so long, with such sympathy, when he finally breaks away. He gracefully steps around me and walks down the path toward the end, and he does not look back. I watch him go. I know what will happen when he comes to the end of this path. It will end suddenly, abruptly, as though he had come back to the beginning, in the middle of the untamed woods. He will wonder fleetingly if it was a dream before fighting his way through the brush to a nearby highway. It will be dark night, but the moon will provide him a path of its own and send him safely home. His roommate has been worried about him, and when he returns to his apartment, he collapses into a hug to his roommate¡¯s surprise. With a muffled voice, Cal Rommel will ask, finally, for the first time, if the roommate will refer to him as they and them instead. Whatever else Cal Rommel is, they aren¡¯t a man, and they¡¯re ready to find out what, and who, they really are. I know the things that are to happen, and I shan¡¯t follow Cal Rommel to their home, not for a long time, if ever. I shuck the face that Cal Rommel ran from, and I tuck the rope at my feet into my robes. Once again, I begin my long stride down the forest path. The Psychic and the Prophet ¡°How about this one then?¡± Narra tossed a third photograph towards Jumi dismissively. Though their movements and their tone were casual, their intense expression betrayed their anticipation. Jumi was trying her best to live up to that anticipation, but she knew the time would come, inevitably, when she would have to let them down. Narra knew it too. When they¡¯d entered her psychic¡¯s tent, they¡¯d slumped down in their seat as though inviting themself to a poker game they knew they couldn¡¯t win. They were prepared already for defeat. Jumi sluiced the picture up into her delicate fingers and carelessly studied her guest, half-smiling at Narra¡¯s irritation at her gaze. Their manner of clothing was spartan, blank of all decoration save for a button threaded through their jacket proclaiming their pronouns, but even the text on the clasp was bold and declarative, nothing more. Narra did not care about standing out; they eschewed attention and company, as evinced by their coming to the carnival alone. The only part of them that shone were their eyes, dark crystals that glittered at Jumi as she stared back, impatiently asking her, or maybe the rest of the world, a question that she wasn¡¯t certain could be answered. She smiled fully. Most people were probably unnerved by eyes like these. Jumi loved a mystery and a challenge. And speaking of challenges, Jumi finally lowered her eyes to the photograph in hand. She nearly laughed out loud when she saw the territorial watermark splashed across the center of the image. ¡°A stock photo?¡± ¡°They¡¯re still real people,¡± Narra countered. ¡°You should be able to read them as easily as any other photo.¡± Jumi¡¯s laughter simmered in her chest, but she concentrated on the picture. She had to applaud Narra¡¯s ingenuity; they knew how much a reading like this depended more on the psychic giving the listener what they wanted to hear than the content of the image. Giving her a stock photo negated that advantage, or so was Narra¡¯s intention, and if Jumi had been giving this reading to any other person, she would have had nothing to work with. But the circumstances weren¡¯t so cut and dry now. Jumi tossed another smile at Narra over the top of the photograph, and Narra¡¯s lips deepened into a scowl at her impish confidence. The stock image was of two people on a shore grinning at each other, their heads bowed together as though on the verge of kissing. ¡°Trying to drop some hints?¡± Jumi teased, and launched into her reading before Narra could reply. ¡°The woman is a lesbian. Her wife does her hair, and they both love the time they set aside for it. She wants to be an actor, but she¡¯s torn, knowing she has little chance of succeeding. Her wife is in anguish, feeling helpless in her love¡¯s frustration. She wants to help, but she doesn¡¯t know how unless her wife reaches out to her first.¡± ¡°You¡¯re pretty keen on those negative emotions.¡± ¡°They¡¯re the strongest signals, the easiest to pick up on.¡± Jumi replied with a sweet smile before continuing the reading. ¡°The man has just graduated from college, but he wants to go back and get a master¡¯s, or maybe a PhD. He¡¯s worried about money, especially considering one of his family members is sick and needs money for the hospital. He doesn¡¯t want to leave them to their debts, but he knows they don¡¯t want to hold him back.¡± Jumi studied the image a moment longer before looking up to Narra. ¡°How was that?¡± Narra stared into Jumi¡¯s face for a long, silent moment. The chuckle of voices and carnival music outside seemed muffled. Narra¡¯s expression was unreadable, even to an expert like Jumi. At length, Narra sighed and reached out to take the photograph back. ¡°You were close, psychic.¡± Their voice was deadpan, and Jumi could hear their heart sinking through the echoes it made in their throat. ¡°But not close enough.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Jumi propped her chin on her hands, unperturbed. ¡°What do you see?¡± Narra¡¯s eyes flicked up to Jumi. She waited, patient. A near imperceptible sigh, and Narra resettled themself on the chair. Their voice was quiet, the hushed tones of a library patron, and they spoke without looking at Jumi or even the photograph. ¡°The woman¡¯s name is Mercy, and her girlfriend¡¯s name is Beryl. Both hate their own names and love the others¡¯. Mercy made an attempt already to start a career in voice-acting, but she had neither the equipment nor the voice. Rather than moving on and trying new things, she¡¯s still bitter about the failed attempt and won¡¯t listen to Beryl¡¯s consoling. Beryl will leave her soon, believing Mercy doesn¡¯t love her anymore. Mercy will move back in with her parents and spend the rest of her days in obscurity in a dead-end job, somewhere at a desk, and she will die in a collision with a drunk driver when she¡¯s forty-five.¡± Jumi was certain she was imagining it, but every time Narra spoke these pronouncements of the future, she thought she felt a shiver in the air, like violin strings vibrating a breath of chill winter. Narra continued, their stream of thought rolling on like a meandering river. ¡°The man¡¯s name is Stephen. His family neglected him as a child, but neither he nor they realize the impact of what they had done. They believed they were raising him to be independent; he believed he lived in a world where love was a distant thing, perfunctory and stiff. He lives with chronic depression and anger issues, which has resulted in alienating himself from those who would be his friends. He¡¯s acting in stock photos to scrape up some extra money for rent because he¡¯s just been fired from his third job through the fault of his boss rather than himself. He will go to jail when he¡¯s twenty-nine for assault and extend his sentence when he punches one of the guards. He¡¯ll die the year after he¡¯s released of lung cancer which grew unchecked while he was in prison.¡± The silent violin shuddered. Jumi thought she saw her breath mist before her lips. Narra inhaled a deep sigh and opened her eyes to Jumi. ¡°Good enough for you?¡± Jumi had not broken her relaxed position, though she knew Narra would see the pity in her eyes. She blinked to try and brush it away; they wouldn¡¯t appreciate seeing that. ¡°An excellent reading,¡± she praised. ¡°Very detailed, very gloomy.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t come into these tents to be mocked.¡± ¡°Then what do you come into them for?¡± Jumi¡¯s question was serious, but Narra didn¡¯t answer. They glowered at the young woman and stuffed the photograph into their jacket. ¡°The trial still stands. You¡¯re no more a real psychic than the others. I¡¯m wasting my time here.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not finished,¡± Jumi protested as Narra made movements to stand. On an impulse, she shot out her hand and stopped Narra from zipping up their jacket. ¡°Will you stay? I have another reading I can do.¡± Narra blinked in surprise at Jumi¡¯s hand on theirs. It took them a long moment to back their hand away, and when they finally recovered, they grudgingly unzipped their jacket and eyed Jumi skeptically. ¡°I don¡¯t have any more photographs.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t need them.¡± Jumi smiled at Narra again, and she knew Narra caught the difference in this smile. The persona of the carnival psychic had been discarded. She was no longer playing a game. She laced her fingers together and leaned forward. ¡°You can see the future. I pretend to read the past. Yes?¡± When Narra didn¡¯t reply, she continued, ¡°I invent lies to please my customers and make a living. I enjoy it. I¡¯m a writer of fictions, Narra. I¡¯m an improv artist. I¡¯m a comedian making jokes to an audience that doesn¡¯t know. I read my guests and then read them to them.¡±This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°You''re a con artist.¡± There was simple bluntness to Narra¡¯s voice, no spite. ¡°A magician!¡± Jumi corrected. ¡°Which, in this case, are the same thing.¡± Narra was unimpressed. ¡°And?¡± Patience. Jumi waited a moment longer to make sure Narra remembered she wasn¡¯t trying to waste their time. ¡°I read everyone who walks through my tent before they even sit in my chair,¡± she continued. ¡°But I don¡¯t always get it in those first few seconds. Everything they do, everything they say, everything they give me and don¡¯t give me tell me their story.¡± She held out her hand and, realizing what she was asking for, Narra produced the stock photo they¡¯d brought to her. Holding it out to them, she said, ¡°You told me everything about yourself when you told me these peoples¡¯ lives.¡± ¡°Did I?¡± ¡°You did.¡± Narra¡¯s face could have been carved from stone. ¡°How so, psychic?¡± ¡°You can read the future, Narra,¡± Jumi persisted, teasing them a little with the use of their name contrasted with their use of her mere title. ¡°You could read the future when you chose this photograph, printed it out, and brought it to my tent. You knew whose lives you were giving to me. You chose them, and your choice was very telling.¡± Jumi kept her voice quiet. It was her intention to unravel the spool of her thoughts, not to barrage them with it. ¡°Mercy was a woman of ambitions, but as soon as she attempted and failed, instead of moving on and trying again she descended into a spiral of self-blame and doubt, and her relationship suffered as a result. She lost the woman who loved her and lost control over her destiny. And once she lost control, she never gained it back, not even for her own death.¡± ¡°I dispute that.¡± ¡°My summary?¡± ¡°No.¡± Narra¡¯s crystal eyes took on the countenance of a dark whirlpool in a deep well. ¡°That anyone ever has control over their destiny.¡± Jumi nodded. ¡°I understand why you¡¯d dispute that. Can I continue?¡± Narra inclined their head and Jumi continued. ¡°Stephen was a man born into the wrong circumstances, and those circumstances have trapped his life. He wants to struggle against it but doesn¡¯t know how, and lashes out at everyone instead of helping his own case. Despite his fight, the world gradually closes in around him until there¡¯s nowhere left for him to go.¡± ¡°You repeating what I said doesn¡¯t count as an accurate reading.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t begun my reading yet.¡± Jumi leveled her gaze at Narra. ¡°Actually, I suppose I already finished it.¡± She ruffled the photograph with her finger. Narra flicked their gaze between it and Jumi. ¡°I¡¯m sorry you were forced with this gift, Narra.¡± Jumi¡¯s voice was as soft as it ever had been. Narra reached out and took the photograph back again. ¡°I don¡¯t need your pity. It doesn¡¯t help me.¡± ¡°Not my pity.¡± Jumi watched as Narra zipped up their jacket, preparing to leave for the second time. ¡°But what about my reading?¡± ¡°Your reading is bullshit,¡± Narra snapped, their voice suddenly full of venom. They reared back like an angry cobra. ¡°Not yours,¡± Jumi insisted. ¡°The ones I did at the start. The ones of Mercy and Stephen.¡± Narra hissed, turning towards the tent entrance. ¡°You were wrong.¡± ¡°Was I?¡± ¡°Yes!¡± They turned back to Jumi to deliver the full force of their fury, and Jumi couldn¡¯t help but flinch. ¡°You were wrong! I see their pasts and their futures, and your reading was wrong!¡± ¡°Has the future ever changed, Narra?¡± The prophet paused in the doorway. Jumi could see them struggling to contain their anger. Something seemed to change in them, some decision they made, and they turned back to Jumi, eyes blank. ¡°Sometimes. Rarely. As much for the worse as for the better.¡± They took their hand out of their pocket, and in it was a dollar bill. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I¡¯ve been so rude. Here. You do this stuff for a living, don¡¯t you? I owe you for trying.¡± ¡°What about your future?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t see my own future,¡± they replied brusquely. ¡°I concluded a long time ago that seeing everyone else¡¯s took up too much space for my own. I¡¯m holding up your other customers.¡± ¡°Fuck them,¡± Jumi said casually. ¡°I¡¯ve made enough money for the night anyway.¡± She stood before Narra could leave. ¡°Will you stay? Please.¡± Narra lowered their eyelids a moment. ¡°No.¡± Their voice was a husk of something Jumi couldn¡¯t understand, and they slipped out from the tent. Jumi didn¡¯t see them again until the night was over. She was finishing her packing when she saw the silhouette of someone at the edge of the lights. She started with surprise, but smiled in welcome when she realized who it was. ¡°Some psychic I am, that I didn¡¯t know it was you,¡± she said as Narra stepped into the light. In the hours that had passed, Jumi saw the brooding process that had taken place within the prophet. They would have wandered the carnival, looking at every booth but not really seeing anything, feeling alone in the crowd. What conclusion had they come to - or, she realized, what new questions had they decided to bring them back to her? Narra opened their mouth as though to spill everything before her, but paused. Jumi wished they¡¯d vent it out - it seemed like something that was long overdue for the prophet - but they had guarded their thoughts for so long, it would take much longer for them to let their barriers down. Instead, they carefully chose their words, and asked, ¡°Did you mean it? The first reading you gave of the third photograph.¡± Had they parsed it out, what Jumi was trying to tell them? ¡°Yeah, I did,¡± she said, finishing up her packing and zipping the suitcase shut. ¡°I didn¡¯t expect you to react so badly to it though. I¡¯m sorry.¡± ¡°What do you expect from someone whose mind has been forced to comprehend the scale of infinity?¡± Narra recited the words as though they¡¯d heard them from someone else and still couldn¡¯t stomach them. ¡°That they haven¡¯t seen everything yet,¡± Jumi replied easily, catching them off-guard. They tried to work through Jumi¡¯s meaning, and their expression soured after a few seconds. ¡°I don¡¯t understand.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll try to explain.¡± She picked up a nearby flashlight that a carnival-goer had left behind in her tent. The button flicked on and she aimed it to the neighbor¡¯s tent. ¡°The first thing you learn as a psychic is how meaningless it is to call something a truth or a lie.¡± Her hand came into the beam and twisted the light into the shape of a cat¡¯s face. ¡°Everything¡¯s a little bit of both, maybe more of one than the other.¡± ¡°But the things I see always come true.¡± ¡°But what about the things you don¡¯t see?¡± She waved the flashlight all about them, the beam getting lost in the darkness. ¡°You know everything is laid before you.¡± She pointed it back at her hand, which was now in the shape of a dog¡¯s head. ¡°Some things you see, but other things you miss. And the things you see, everything, can change.¡± She dropped the flashlight and spread her hands wide. ¡°Even when the carnival was fully lit and you had the run of the place, you didn¡¯t see those shadow puppets on the side of the tent, did you?¡± Narra stared at Jumi in disbelief and almost spoke again, but they kept silent as they worked through Jumi''s meaning. "You don''t have to force anything," she said quietly, breaking the silence. Tenderly, she made eye contact. "You don''t have to work through it on your own." Still, Narra made no sound. Their mouth continued to work as though words were struggling to come out, but they weren''t sure what they would say. Jumi reached out and gently took their hand, gesturing toward a nearby solitary bench. "Let''s try. Let''s talk." Narra''s confoundment was complete, but they stopped struggling to speak, and as Jumi walked them to the bench and sat them down, they never removed their hand from hers. "Mercy still dies to a drunk driver. Stephen still dies right after being released from prison." "Everyone dies. But everyone also lives." "They both live miserably." "Without any happiness, ever? Never ever feeling anything good after Beryl left? Never ever feeling peaceful during a quiet night in the prison?" "You¡¯re saying that little, barely noticed moments of happiness make up for everything else, every bad moment throughout anyone¡¯s bad life. I can¡¯t accept that." "It shouldn¡¯t have been your responsibility to have to." "But it is. What¡¯s your answer to that, then?" "To find - and notice - happiness in your own life. That¡¯s your only surprise left, isn¡¯t it?" A Poetry Chapter False Lines What is the point Of all these poems, these stories They''re not me I try to weave A spiders web To reflect my shape My silhouette But it''s grand And I''m not grand Or it''s offset And I''m not offset Or it''s majestic or beautiful Or compelling or fascinating Or off-putting or clunky Or awkwardly-phrased What it all is Is shades and signs It''s art And I''m not art I''m me Ode to a Horologium my wrist at all times just look a glance tells me five minutes fast more like five and a half now round my wrist at all times except sleeping and showering and when I write. It''s uncomfortable leaning against the laptop so I take it off lying facedown limbs up dead blink closed eye my fingers wriggle freely gargoyles over tomb or baby blanket passed away but only now I wrap it resurrection of blue plastic seeking sun round black iris lines when I white buckle hugs blue azure veins matches lifeblood snug breaths settle into my skin like lipstick mark Who¡¯s There?Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Written with lines from CypressTheSacred and Macey The fireplace burns Pictures s m i l i n g on the mantle an old chair, an older dog sleeping in a bed of pillows. Gods are said to inhabit houses Lingering just above the rimey fire-smoke P¨¥ct¨¡r¨¥s, family eyes spirit through velvet fuzz air The comfort of a blanket, the coldness of a bronze plate. Violet tapestries fall from unwaked stone Ghosts can see gods but not each other Inhale the scent of home in the dark Nose twitches, head is raised to meet the eyes Of white pictures in the sky, the mantlepiece Holding up the world over two heads alone Red-heat bleeds from a half-open eye. Petrichor Lyre Clouds have always appeared like silky tressed waves rolling ¡®cross the sky The Egyptians thought it was a sea stretching east to west Spit of artificial smear from across the bay. A paper factory. Cold water never smelled so good - morning is little different Brushing against the bushes, reach out my hand and flick the branches Trimmed back by janitor shears. Imagine the road overwhelmed. Back at home the air was fuller, slung its arm across your shoulders Trees are thicker, dropped a crystal in a puddle, turn it amber Call it suburbia like the green doesn¡¯t own the place. I wish I could float away. Drift back on the clouds and sing softly to myself, drink the rain like crystal drops, a blanket for my wing¨¦d feet Ascend the stars. Climb piece by piece, hand over hand Over the fence like a secret garden Of unknowable wonders Velvet, thick Not floating, dancing rock¡¯s blood Ghosts of the pine night Never really was afraid Of its mystery Inhale stardust. Replace the air in my lungs with Celestial Fire. Flesh evaporates, shadow swirls, become a sylph cyclone ~ Take my bones, take my bones away My eyes are water and see gloria, gloria in excelsis miro ????????????????????????????¦È¦Á¦Ô¦Ì?¦Æ¦Ø Drink deep water, and relief collapses over you like a cloak Drink light tea, and your tongue laughs without joke Early morning the aurora of the sunrise greets your eyes Lie on the heel of the windstorm, see the valleys above you sway Hum without noise, tilt your head, dig your heels in the grass Lost, lose yourself; metahumanize Dance when your bones start to stir; sing when your lungs fill with air Cry clear when you read your books, and your soul is stronger for it Only nothing is more important! Span I step into a shadow and Find myself awake I drop my burdens and Find my feet carry me away I wander in soft trills of silent beats Find the music of invisible air I drop like water onto a cave lake Find my breath will merge crackles and growls, what surrounds me? murk and solitude. i do not fear. Find my catch and I wind my fingers through the silk water Find a silence that speaks and I emerge from some deep-grasped cocoon Find the soft light and I know it¡¯s just as profound as what I left Find not a story but a peace and I seek what is already within me I, the House, and also the House Crystal-clear orbs before a scalled finish, a daily intruder that can and often does slice through our roof, raining crimson shards onto pearl walls, I, the house, watch, sometimes in strength, sometimes in agony. That roof bursts so often - yes, sometimes from the blotched sun rimming our horizon, but more often from within the house¡¯s own heart. Droplets leak out from beneath a rocking chair or under bedsheets, and it isn¡¯t long before the house is flooded, pushing me higher and higher until my neck is cricked against the domed glass of the ceiling. I, and the house, have to hold our breath then - out of anticipation, sure, but also out of fear that the escaping bubbles from my mouth might be the final push that shatters this poor worn facade yet again. These are grim times, but I almost prefer them to the times when the water doesn¡¯t flow at all and the sky folds in half like a sunset gone wrong, the pinkness, far darker and more forbearing, creeping like fog until only a sliver at the edge is left to let in the light. This drought, this eclipse, a shivering without cold, a cough without air, a frozen stiffness without a spine, I, and the house, can see near nothing in the wan light of the crescent sky. The inside feels sickly, like old fear-sweat and moldy food, and even though I¡¯m still here watching I feel the word abandonment curling about my feet and gnawing at my foundations. The walls are painted lavender but it¡¯s seeping like a bruise.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. And too long this eclipse lays heavy over I, the house, and also the house, we have no Atlas to hold off this weight. And when the shadows swim thick in the house and I, when wind crawls through my sunken nostrils, when I¡¯m huddled like a child on the cold rock floor, I feel the weight like a hundred oceans piled on top of me, and I await the house¡¯s collapse. I am not the house, and so I wait, and wait, and huddle and shiver and wait. Outside the house it sometimes rains upward, drops of water rising up from parched ground and slipping like little worms through the tiny slit of light that remains. When the relief comes at last I feel nothing, but I watch, and I know the time has come, for now, to an end. The slit widens and narrows again, directly at the zenith, there¡¯s a snick, and out flies the looming disk that has so threateningly glowered over the house and I. The light is blurred but any light now is a balm. Rhythmic spools of breath rumble below my feet, and I am the house again, if only tentatively. I the house can see that it was the house that moved the intruder, during the time when I was not the house. Tomorrow I will be confused, tomorrow I will be frustrated, tomorrow I will return the intruder to the horizon over the house, but now the sky closes and I take my rest. Tale Told to a Disoriented Man Named Kyle ¡°Behind every footprint, there trails a reaper. Not the grim reaper, though it is true that the pale horse rider stalks all those living until they can walk no more. No, this is a reaper of a different caliber. This creature carries no weapon, comes dressed in shadows, and moves without sound, though everyone knows its approach; the body churns in turmoil, and the mind wrings anxious hands as it feels the loom of the spectre coming forth. It does not snuff out life, not directly, but if one fails in the confrontation, their destiny may turn down a darker path. This is not a moral creature, nor is it a rational one; it exists. It simply is. It is the Reckoner. Woe betide those who confront it in battle, for strength in arms will not avail them; it is strength of mind that can stand up to the faceless watcher. Woe betide the ones who look upon the gaze of the Reckoner.¡± -Grimoire Arcanus, a small booklet found in Jumi¡¯s carnival accoutrements You¡¯re awake. Good. How do you feel? ...Your head hurts? Sorry. I did my best, but it took me a while to get you to the hospital. ...What? Don¡¯t you remember me? I¡¯m Narra. I just saved your life. What do you mean you don¡¯t remember? ...Well, I suppose I can tell you what happened. How much do you remember, then? ...Nothing? Then I¡¯ll start at the beginning. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll leave out the most traumatizing parts. You really don¡¯t remember me at all? You were the one who first introduced me to my partner, Jumi. A few years ago, I crashed your beach party because I was feeling lonely. I suppose I didn¡¯t stand out much. I know I¡¯m a bit¡­ standoffish. That¡¯s Jumi¡¯s word. I keep to myself; I don¡¯t trust alcohol and I didn¡¯t want to get involved in the drinking, especially around the blazing bonfire in the secluded beach. Jumi found me hovering on the edge and welcomed me in with a smile, never wavering in her welcome against any of my attitude. I don¡¯t mean to overshare. I just¡­ I feel like you should know this part. For a long time, I have been alone. I¡­ have been by choice, though until only recently I thought it was by fate. It¡¯s a little disingenuous for me to say I believe in fate, because for everyone else, fate is something one puts their faith in. For them, fate is a concept, an abstract, a thought experiment. But for me, it¡¯s a reality. It¡¯s not something I merely believe in; for me to say I believe in fate is for you to say you believe in physics. ...This is a roundabout way of me telling you I can see the future. ...Well, no, not just like Jumi. Jumi pretends to see the future as a carnival act. I¡­ I don¡¯t pretend. I wish I was just pretending, because this curse has burdened me my whole damned life. Sorry, I¡­ It¡¯s hard to rationalize all those years, wasting away, because when I looked at people I saw things no one else saw, just like you would notice their hair color or the shape of their eyes. I lived in a lighthouse for a long time, just myself, so I could avoid looking at people and seeing the way they would die. I could only talk to people through the internet, as long as I turned off everyone¡¯s profile pictures, because even just an image of someone shows me things I don¡¯t want to see. And it¡¯s always a single line. The future, I mean. Most fictions you hear about seeing the future, there¡¯s ¡°multitudinous possibilities¡± and ¡°endless potentiality,¡± but I¡¯ll tell you right now, that¡¯s not how it works for me. I¡¯ll show you. You see that nurse over there? In less than a month, she¡¯s going to die of a cocaine overdose in her ex-girlfriend¡¯s house because she won¡¯t want to use her ex¡¯s phone to call for help for fear of antagonizing her. It¡¯s a straight line from now to then. That older man over there, hooked up to oxygen, is suffering through kidney cancer. He won¡¯t realize it¡¯s cancer until it¡¯ll become too painful to bear, and the doctors will tell him there¡¯s little to be done, considering his age and the progression of the tumors, and his children won¡¯t make it to his bedside in time before he passes on, alone and in pain. That woman kneeling beside her sister over there, she will live a life devoid of sensation, never finding love, never finding her dream career or even a dream at all, and will pass as an old woman, bitter and unfulfilled. A straight line, Kyle. No possible deviations. Everything I see always comes true. ...Sorry. I¡¯m - I¡¯m sorry. I can¡¯t - I¡¯m still not good at talking about this. Yeah, I¡¯ll wait. I know it¡¯s a lot to process. You don¡¯t have to believe me yet, anyway. ...Oh, I can¡¯t see your future yet. I used to, but I can¡¯t right now. That¡¯s¡­ that¡¯s important. There¡¯s only one way I¡¯ve found to change someone¡¯s future, and that¡¯s because there¡¯s only one person whose future I¡¯ve never been able to see. It¡¯s me. My own. I¡¯ve tried many times; looking into a mirror, taking pictures of myself, but I don¡¯t see it in me. I¡¯ve always thought I looked incredibly plain compared to everyone else, without that thread of future tagging along after me. I just thought for a while that seeing everyone else¡¯s all the time took up too much space for me to see my own. But Jumi thought of something else. I told Jumi that I had no future, but Jumi saw it a completely different way. Because when I involve myself with someone else¡¯s future, their future fades away. I can¡¯t see it anymore, because I¡¯m changing it. Do you understand? Until now I¡¯ve seen everyone¡¯s destiny like a train barrelling down the tracks out of control, no points to turn, no brakes to reverse. Every plank has been laid on this track, every surprise already charted out. But now, I¡¯ve realized the truth. The only real surprise left anymore is what I¡¯m going to do. And if I involve myself in what other people do, I change their future. I really need you to understand this, though I know it¡¯s probably not as revelatory for you, hearing about this now. You haven¡¯t felt this powerlessness - at least, not until last night. Yes, the incident last night. It¡¯s past time I told you about that. ¡°The Reckoner is above morals in the same way an animal or an artificial life is. Can one apply ethics to the fox that kills the rabbit? It has snuffed out an innocent life for a selfish reason. Yet selfishness is a forgivable vice when the literal self is at stake, something that mankind seems to have forgotten. The Reckoner approaches, and it does not burden itself with quaint arguments of fairness or readiness. It comes, it arrives, and it waits until you turn to face it.¡± - Collection of Occult Philosophies, an unread book at the back of the Tukwila library It was Jumi who saved your life. We were texting each other when she brought you up and mentioned you were on your way to investigate a new house up for sale. When I told her I didn¡¯t remember you, she sent me a picture of you - at your beach bonfire, incidentally. If she hadn¡¯t sent that picture, Kyle, you would be dead, because that is what I saw - your death. But it was the strangest death I¡¯ve ever foreseen. I couldn¡¯t see what killed you, only that it was going to happen in a matter of hours. I saw your body lying cold, a look of terror on your face. My best guess was that something scared you to death, gave you a heart attack, but since you didn¡¯t really know what it was, neither did I. However, what mattered was that I get to you at the new house and change your future. I may not have known you well, but Jumi did, and she could tell something was wrong when I texted her back. She gave me the address you were investigating and I drove out immediately. I pulled up in front of the remote location and felt alarm bells going off already. Your car door was wide open, and I could see the keys in the ignition. Something had clearly caught your attention as you had driven up, and you must have rushed out of the car to run to the house. The house itself was something special, the kind of place I used to live in; large, modern, sophisticated, which seemed strange given how isolated it was from the main town. I had to drive up a winding wooded road to get to this house, and I had fully expected to find a rundown shack, but this was straight out of uptown. I shut my door quietly, knowing that wouldn¡¯t lock it either and not caring. I glanced at your picture on my phone. Your future was starting to fade from my sight - my mere presence, and intent to interfere, was already changing your path. I still can¡¯t believe I hadn¡¯t realized that sooner. I approached the house slowly, watching the windows. The late evening was sending starbursts across the clouds, silver patterns that were reflected in the clean glass, and I couldn¡¯t see inside - just grey slates from above, like the house was full of the empty void that was rapidly darkening over the trees. ...Jumi has made me poetic. I¡¯d apologize, but it¡¯s one of the things I love about the way she talks. Besides, seeing those reflections had an effect on me. I couldn¡¯t see inside, and it was eerie how my sight was blocked by blinding brightness instead of shadows. The door was ajar, and I saw your key still jammed into the lock. You had run into this house in a hurry, it was clear, but I still couldn¡¯t tell why. I touched the doorknob, but I felt a vague uneasiness creeping over my skin. I had nothing to fear, as far as I knew, but I hesitated at the door nonetheless. The sky had darkened another shade when I decided to listen to my instincts and look for a back door instead. I took your keys out of the lock and circled around, trying to get out of the blinding reflections to see inside the windows. My hopes were dashed as I peered inside, however; the shades were drawn at every entry. I was very lucky to find the key to the back door - it wasn¡¯t on your keychain, and I was poking through the flowerpots in the back when I noticed something glinting in the dirt. The backyard was oddly cluttered for its locale, with a rickety picnic bench and a greenhouse glazed with old plastic and condensation. Scattered plant pots here and there seemed too random for a house that was presenting itself as so urban and polished. The contrast unnerved me. The door creaked, which again struck me as a surprise, but at that point I decided to suspend my disbelief and devote my faculties to locating you. The house was totally dark, the only light coming around the edges of the curtains drawn over each window, and that was fading fast. I took out my lighter from my purse - I don¡¯t smoke but I have a friend who does, and always asks me for a light - and clicked the button on to send a flutter of glow through the stale air. There was too much space in the house. It¡¯s odd to describe, but the furniture was arranged too close together, and the wide spaces were too far apart. This house was supposed to be offered for sale - one of the only things I knew about you was your job as a realtor - yet the arrangement of the rooms didn¡¯t look natural at all. The hall was too long, too narrow. The walking space in the kitchen was too broad. The ceiling was too high. I somehow felt simultaneously exposed and claustrophobic. All houses make odd noises, like creaks or settling groans, but I was hearing sounds that drew shudders down my spine. There was some rhythmic sensation, too low for the ears but present enough to be sensed, a low vibration that throbbed for a few seconds, fading, and rising once again. Creaks sounded slow and methodical, and I couldn¡¯t help but imagine the sound a wooden eye would make in a grainy socket, pivoting around to face a new angle, regarding its intruder with weighted curiosity. I hated that house, and I wanted nothing more than to leave, but you¡¯re Jumi¡¯s friend, and I couldn¡¯t go back to her knowing I barely made it across the threshold before running like a coward. There are some times when I wish I could see my own future, to know when I will die, so I might have some security when faced with situations like this. If I knew I was going to die when I was forty, I shouldn¡¯t have anything to fear until I reach that age, you see? If I knew I was going to fall off a building at age fifty-two, I shouldn¡¯t fear walking into a strange house because I would know I would not die there. Useless speculation, however; if I could see my own future, none of this would matter. I took a step forward and the floorboards didn¡¯t creak, but I felt regard on me even so. I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin to meet that regard, though I knew not where it was coming from. I had no ill intentions toward what might live here, and I would not be cowed. I strode forward and down the hallway, where the strange vibrations were coming from. I turned left down the first door and found immediately both you and the source of those vibrations. We were in a master bedroom, with a spectacular canopy bed in the center, surrounded by nightstands and vanities and all sorts of storage items - and again, the strange proportions were at play here. The bed was much too large, there was too much space in some places and too crowded in others. Perhaps it would not have been so sinister in the daylight, but all I had was the scant flicker of my lighter and the glow of your cell phone. Because that was the source of the vibrations - Jumi was trying to call you, but you were in the center of the room, peering under the bed. You had frozen in place, staring underneath it, and I wondered how long you had been kneeling there in stupefaction. I said your name, tentatively. We still didn¡¯t know each other, and I would have been incredulous had you not been as uneasy in this house as I was. You stirred, and I saw a whip of motion before you turned to face me. I would guess now that you were whisking something into your coat pocket, though I had no idea at the time what that could have been. There were a few long seconds of staring, no recognition at all on your face, until I mentioned I was a friend of Jumi¡¯s who came to check on you. I introduced myself and held out my hand to shake, but you didn¡¯t even seem to notice it. Already there was something in your face, some nameless fear the house had instilled in you, and you seemed to be in a daze. I repeated Jumi¡¯s name and that caught your attention, finally realizing the phone was vibrating yet again. I was surprised we had service at all out there. You put her on speakerphone so she could hear both our voices and know we were safe, relatively. The signal was weak and neither of us could understand a word she was saying, but at least she heard both of our voices. You seemed unsteady after the call, so I offered you my shoulder; but you shook your head and said you felt perfectly fine. You adjusted your tie and put some steel into your voice, saying it was unnecessary for me to come out so far, though you appreciated Jumi¡¯s concern all the same. I won¡¯t lie to you - that took some wind out of my sails. I knew there was something wrong with the house, and you had to know, yet you were putting on airs as though I was just an inconvenient hiccup in an otherwise mundane routine. I narrowed my eyes at you, but again, you didn¡¯t notice - you weren¡¯t looking at me. I asked why you¡¯d been looking under the bed, and you paused before answering that you were checking for rats and thankfully came up empty. I moved to take a look myself, and found nothing, as you said. You put on an indignant face, which I ignored. I was already put out by you lying to my face that I had no desire to begin an argument. You have to understand, my impression of you was sinking by the moment. So when I asked what you were doing in this house, I¡¯ll admit I asked it with considerably less politeness than I ought have. You were about to tell me that you were simply a real estate agent looking to price this home, or at least I assume that¡¯s what you were going to say, when the last of the sun set outside. I felt a chill settle over the house, and some movement of the air whipped the lighter too hard and the light disappeared. The darkness changes people. It strips away some yoke that most people are burdened with and leaves them with fear, a primal fear that no animal, not even mankind, can escape. In the hush, I heard your breathing accelerate, though I could also hear you trying to hide it. I asked you if the power was on and you said in an unsteady voice that it should have been but it had gone out while you were in this room. I clicked the lighter a few times, but my hand was shaking too much and I asked if you had a flashlight. You told me no and I heard a few thumps, your heavy footsteps taking you to the wall to steady yourself. ...I see the look on your face, and I realize I have to pause this story. Look, Kyle. You don¡¯t remember any of this, you can¡¯t tell me I¡¯m wrong, and I¡¯ll admit that I may have been projecting some things you weren¡¯t intending. There are some things I want you to take away from this story, Kyle, and one of them is this exact thing - sometimes, the thought really doesn¡¯t matter. Only the action matters. ...Here, I¡¯ll get you some water. How much of this is coming back? Any? Some? It was plenty visceral for me, and we¡¯ve only started. Do you feel better? Are you ready to keep going? ¡°Destiny is a grand word, a regal yet presumptuous word, but rarely does it invoke a sense of dread. Only when one ponders the meaning of destiny might they feel a shiver, for the concept itself truly seems to terrify the rational. Destiny is one¡¯s life, laid out before them. Their future, their goals, their potential, their achievements yet to come - or possibly their lack thereof. But what do you do with such a grand, regal, presumptuous word when one¡¯s own destiny is something mundane, something average or dull? What does one do if one¡¯s destiny is to waste away in squalor, in stagnation, never changing, never growing beyond an inconsequential little niche? Then, destiny yet retains its dreadful weight, for that mundanity is the rotting carcass of one who has stood against the Reckoner - and lost. For nothing can greater move a warrior¡¯s heart than seeing the worn battlefield haunted by a carrion crow on the other side of their sword.¡± -The Decisions of the Moirai, an ancient Greek text consumed by the fire of Alexandria I finally managed to click the lighter on, and the orange flame leaped at our eyes like a physical attack out of that oppressive darkness. There was no electricity on in that oddly modern forest house. No lights, no heat, and night had arrived. We were both shivering, though you had your suit and I had my hoodie.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I mumbled that it was late, and you agreed, your voice quivering the slightest bit. I indicated that I would lead with my lighter and stepped towards the door. Seeing the hallway, I stopped short. When I had entered the room, I had taken the first door on my left, so the hallway back to the kitchen should have been on my right. But the long hallway stretched down to my left. I felt you stop behind me as well, and your frozen posture told me you had realized the same. I felt the air tremble as you started to shake, and that air stretched tense like an overstressed violin string as you tried to suppress it. You asked what I was stopping for, and I have to admit, in that moment I hated you. I said I was a little turned around and looked to my left. I couldn¡¯t see the kitchen down the hall in the wan glow of the lighter. To the right, I saw a door up against the wall and what looked like a closet opening across the hall. Something had changed, and I knew that meant the rules had changed as well. I wouldn¡¯t have admitted it in the moment, but part of me knew that we wouldn¡¯t get out of that house so easily. I wanted so desperately to race down that hallway towards what should be the kitchen and explode out the back door into the disorganized backyard, but something held me back, something telling me that the hallway to my left was now something different - something dangerous. It was that moment you chose to ask, obnoxiously loudly, what I was waiting for. The abrupt question cut through the silence and nearly made me scream. You pushed past me a little and glanced down both ends of the hallway. I think the kitchen is down this way, you said as you pointed to the left. You started down, but I told you to wait. You stopped, probably because I wasn¡¯t following you with the only light source. You asked what the matter was, and to your credit, you didn¡¯t sound impatient, only concerned. I said we must have been turned around, because that wasn¡¯t the right way to the back door. You protested, but I stopped listening. I pointed my lighter in the direction of the two doors and edged towards them, unwillingly. My logic was in shambles, but my instincts, which had been pulling me in the right direction so far, was telling me not to go down that hallway, and that left only these two options. I moved towards the door set at the end of the hall and heard you scramble to keep up as the light moved away. You started to protest again, but I cut you off with a glare - I know I¡¯m good at glares, they work on everyone except Jumi - and placed my hand on the doorknob. Slowly, I turned it as to not make any noise, and pushed the door open. It did not creak, and I saw therein a study of sorts. Mortared stone bricked around a fireplace on one end, and bookshelves and desks lined the other side. I say desks, but really there was only one huge desk, too large for any practical use, as though someone had glued other desks together to increase its surface area. This massive desk was in a state of disarray, with drawers leaning out, papers scrapped all over, and a large splatter of ink across one page. A lamp sat peering over these papers, but the lightbulb had been removed. I growled as you pushed past me again, but realized quickly that it had been out of disorientation rather than impatience. You moved, dreamlike, towards the huge desk, and pulled out the chair to sit down. I moved next to you to see your face and I saw that same stupefaction I had witnessed in the bedroom, a look of stunned shock that logic cannot explain. You were staring at the ink-soaked paper, and I craned my neck over your shoulder to see what it was. From what I could tell, it looked like a bill, sent by some company called ErollCoan. ...What¡¯s the matter? Who¡¯s that company? I don¡¯t mean to pry, but you had such a strong reaction to it, and you were in no state to tell me anything at the time. ...Oh. I¡­ I¡¯m sorry. I¡¯m sorry for your loss. I can help you, if you want. I¡¯ve had my own bad experiences paying funeral costs without collection getting involved. ...It was just an offer. Sorry. Anyway¡­ um. You reacted much the same way back in the house, when I moved closer to read the obscured text. Your hand shot out and crumpled the paper violently, and it had been so ink-soaked that blackness spurted out from between your fingers. I shielded my face with my hand, but spots ended up on your face. I asked what that was about, but you didn¡¯t answer, didn¡¯t even look at me. It wasn¡¯t anger or hatred on your face, which was what I was afraid of; it was a look of utter defeat. Crushing that bill would do nothing to remove this axe over your head. Ink ended up all over, on the desk, the little lamp, and on the spines of some of the books. I raised my light to look those over, and had to raise it a little higher - the ceiling was tall again, though in this case I realized a specific reason for it. There was an attic-like alcove at the top, reachable by a ladder set into the wall. I told you I was going to look up there, but you still didn¡¯t respond. If I had to guess, you were trying to set yourself straight once again, trying to make sense of all these pieces you were cracking into. I don¡¯t know why you felt the need to put up a front, I really don¡¯t, but you needed time to put it all back together. I approached the ladder and turned back once to see if you were reacting to the disappearance of the light, but when I saw nothing out of you, I began climbing. I reached the top to find a small alcove beneath the triangular roof, with squat bookshelves and a rocking chair in the center of the space. The area looked almost quaint, though the light threw the shadows in sharp contrast, but the heavily drawn curtains caught my eye. I approached the window and reached out to push the shades back. The forest night was dense and murky. The heavy sunset clouds had become equally heavy midnight covers, with nary a star to be seen and only a pearly white smudge where the moon must have been. I could barely make out the silhouette of our cars below, your door still open, mine parked at a strange angle. No tremor of wind caught the branches, no living being stirred the grass. I could have been looking down at a painting, a caricature of the outside, drawn by a being with darkened vision and some eerie sense of the abstract. My breath fogged the glass and I wiped it off, slowly as to keep from squeaking. When I took my hand away, I saw the beginnings of movement in the tops of the nearest trees, limbs lifting and hovering near the window. I suddenly felt watched. I couldn¡¯t move. I wouldn¡¯t. I felt lightheaded with a sudden burst of fear. I had to move slowly, so slowly, to avoid some eye whose alertness I had roused. My half-raised fist retreated down, towards the corner of the curtain. It was probably less than a minute between then and the curtain, but it felt like ages, interminably long seconds as I searched for whatever was searching for me. My hand brushed the curtain and I resisted the urge to slam the drapes closed. Instead they started to glide, inch by inch, to cover the window again, and I felt a moment of relief. Through the branches of the moving trees, the darkness swelled. I saw no eyes, but I saw that darkness approach out of the shadow of the trees, and my heart stopped. I whipped the curtains closed and fell back, hiding behind a wall as though it would reach a hand through the little window. I clinked the lighter closed and almost immediately regretted the motion as complete darkness fell once again across my vision. Nothing happened. Slowly, the tension drained out of my muscles, though my heart was still galloping in my chest. I gritted my eyes shut and dug my nails into the wood of the bookcase, frustrated. What the hell was happening here? What was I doing here in this creepy fucking forest, chasing after a near-complete stranger who walked into a creepy fucking house? I should just leave, now, down that hallway and out the door. Who was I kidding here? What was I trying to prove? Those moments in that alcove were long moments of defeat. In trying to follow my instincts and learn what was strange about this house, I had learned nothing and only caused more distress. I felt less like a good person looking out for the friend of a friend and more like a caged fool, banging on unyielding glass while large eyes looked on at my futile progress. Maybe there were no rules here. I can¡¯t help but wonder now if you were thinking some similar thoughts, sitting where I¡¯d left you in the darkness, waiting for me to descend the ladder to light your way out. I never heard you call out to me during my time up in that alcove. I wonder what the darkness changed in you. I couldn¡¯t restart the lighter until I¡¯d retreated down the ladder again, so I moved carefully to avoid bumping into the rocking chair and began feeling my way down. Despite my frustration and my doubts, I still kept my moves silent and slow, not wanting to cause any sudden sounds in my blindness. When I at last clicked on the lighter, I saw you with your head in your hands, your chair¡¯s back to the desk. I called to you softly, and it took a minute for you to respond. What I saw when you lifted your head from your hands truly frightened me, in a different way than whatever I had seen in that alcove. The facade was back, something close resembling it, but it was a piecemeal job. You were frozen in a casual, half-lidded expression, as though you were trying to look bored, but to my eyes you looked barraged, you looked ready to cave in some hollow within yourself. I helped you out of your chair. You didn¡¯t notice. Number of deaths per year in the United States alone: two million, eight hundred thousand Heart disease: six hundred forty-seven thousand Cancer: six hundred thousand Alzheimer¡¯s disease: one hundred twenty thousand Intentional self-harm: forty-seven thousand All meet the Reckoner. Many are beaten. Those who are meet another Reaper. -Entry from Narra¡¯s diary, circa age three The hallway stretched before us. I felt you shift behind me and I knew you still clutched that ink-blotched paper, maybe patting something in your pocket you had picked up from under the bed. I didn¡¯t ask. The door was still on the wrong side of the hallway. I felt a great frustration welling up in me at this house. What the hell did it want us to do? There was a closet door to my right. Feeling that there was no other option, I turned to open it. That was when you snapped. Behind me, you yelled to ask what the holdup was. I turned to see you glaring at me in open anger. You accused me of leading us everywhere for no reason, and I couldn¡¯t even answer. Any kind of holding it together you had put in place had broken so quickly. You started shouting at me, screaming at me, saying I must have led us into that room on purpose, I must have known what you would have seen on that desk. I couldn¡¯t speak. I wanted to refute something, to offer some proper reason why I had turned into the study rather than go down the hallway, other than the one I knew you wouldn¡¯t accept, that the house was twisting us around, that there was something inside that would be very dangerous for us to see. You know, now I realize why you were so angry. I have the benefit of hindsight to see it was a stress reaction. If you had tried to talk with me up in the alcove, I would have spoken with as much venom as you were in that moment. As it was, I was numb, I was tired, I was confused, and I had no idea why you were suddenly turning on me. With no words from either of us, just anger from you and impotence from me, I turned to the closet and opened the door. I saw a vibrant red coat inside an instant before I heard violent swearing from you. I turned just in time for you to reach out and snatch the lighter out of my hands. You screamed at me to stop it, and I saw you were staring at the coat as well as me, backing away as though it and I were both predators, stalking you before your very eyes. You shouted that we had to leave, and I felt the very ground beneath my feet shudder as you rocked the foundations with your words. You said there was nothing wrong, no stupid hauntings, no visions from the past, you just wanted to go home and forget everything. And then without another word, you turned and sprinted down the hall, taking the light with you. In the middle of the long, distended hallway, I felt naked, exposed. Spine tingling, I threw myself into the closet and closed the door. Complete darkness surrounded me. I could feel the coats pressing against me like a suspicious crowd and I cowered, the coats too large for human size. I flinched, leaning back against the walls, and couldn¡¯t hold back a whimper, until I finally slid down to a sitting position, the bottoms of the coats brushing the top of my head. There was no point in closing my eyes in that absolute darkness but I did anyway, seeking the meager privacy behind my eyelids. I felt the red coat in particular, its sleeve brushing down the back of my head. I had no idea what that red coat meant, who it belonged to, what it had done to make you panic so suddenly, so viscerally. I had no idea what the bill had been on the desk. I had no idea what you had found under the bed. You can¡¯t even tell me now, since not even you can remember. I knew, as I thought to myself in that coat closet, that whatever was happening here was not of my volition, but yours. I am not casting blame or fault upon you - I am acknowledging that whatever ghosts were haunting this horrible house, they were your ghosts, and I was merely an unlucky observer. I found myself again confronting the question, much more seriously this time - what was I doing here? Why did I come? I didn¡¯t know you. I don¡¯t know how well Jumi knows you, either. I don¡¯t think she would have blamed me for running away, even if it had meant leaving you behind. A part of me was even reasonably certain that I could leave if I left without you. Something in my pocket was digging into my hip and I pulled out my phone. I was surprised to see it still had some meager battery left, though the 1% icon told me it wouldn¡¯t be for very long. I turned it on to find my text conversation with Jumi. Your picture was still on the screen. As I watched, your future faded back into view. I saw you, still dead on the floor. I had done nothing, or as close to nothing as to be negligible. Just because a single butterfly can cause a hurricane doesn¡¯t mean every struggle of wings will lead to a storm. I was hiding in a closet in a haunted house, having done nothing. And I hate to say it, but that was the spark that lit me back awake. I knew I could do more than nothing. The one thing I knew for a fact was that I had the ability to change the futures I saw. It was not for nothing that I had come out to that house, hiding in a coat closet. There was still something I could do here that I wouldn¡¯t have been able to do otherwise. I wish I could say it was concern for your welfare that sat me up, sent me climbing back to my feet in the crowded closet, and pulling the red coat down from its hook. I wish I could say I remembered you, alone, facing whatever was waiting for us out in the darkness of the house. But it wasn¡¯t altruism that brought me out of that coat closet. It was stubbornness and personal pride. It was the knowledge that I had to make a difference, now, or else I would have made no difference at all. I heard a moan down the hallway and didn¡¯t recognize it, though I was certain it could have come out of no other throat but yours. I didn¡¯t feel afraid, though. Or perhaps I felt afraid, but I ignored it with that supreme stubbornness. I walked down the hallway. You were in the middle of the absurdly large, badly-proportioned living room. There was no furniture in it now, just empty space. The walls were leaning in, and I heard a strange sound, like a shovel pressing down into dirt. You were cringing on the ground, tears falling down your face and hands, rocking back and forth. I knew you were trying to avoid looking at the thing in front of you. The thing in front of you¡­ I can¡¯t describe it. I¡¯m not sure I¡¯d want to, even if I had fully seen it. I saw a bend in the air. I saw darkness beneath tree limbs. I saw a face, but it didn¡¯t exist. There was something there, but there was nothing there. I¡­ I can¡¯t describe it. It was a figure, like a silhouette, but it was also a darkness, like a lengthening shadow off a long sunset that fades into night. I felt it gathering beneath the arms of the red coat I had decided to wear. It thought I was part of it. It felt like spiderwebs, multiplying beside my ribs, under my elbows, beneath my spine. I approached you. I placed my hand on your back. I felt your heart stamping, stampeding, adrenaline flooding a cavern too small to take all that energy, and I knew you were going to die. Your weak heart was ready to burst, your body too focused on self-preservation to realize it was destroying itself. I felt the spiderwebs reach out for you. I saw them curling about your ears, stroking the back of your hands. I crouched, putting my hands on your shoulders. I whispered your name. I don¡¯t know if I used my own voice. You looked up. You couldn¡¯t see the red coat. You knew it was the red coat. The lighter was clutched in your hand so tight, the metal casing had a dent. I put a hand on your heart. I told you to take a breath. I told you the creature wasn¡¯t here to hurt you. Whatever else it was here for, it wasn¡¯t going to hurt you. I said it again and again until you finally inhaled through your nose. The sound drew the leaning walls in even further. I put my hands on your cheeks. I wanted you to listen to me, focus on me and not the creature or you would panic again. I said you had to do something. I had no idea what you had to do. I had no idea what I was saying. I said you know what you have to do. And then I presented the red coat to you. You looked at the red fabric for a long, full moment. There were spiderwebs in your hair and under your fingernails. There¡¯s something you have to do, I said again, more urgently. I kept asking, what is it? You know what you have to do, so what is it? I saw the moment in your eyes when you came to some realization. You laid the coat on the floor, gently, so gently. With some difficulty, you stood, the weight of the spiderwebs pulling you down. You dug into one pocket and pulled out the crushed bill and dropped it on the coat. You dug into the other pocket and pulled out a locket, without a chain, and dropped it as well. It was only then you tilted your head to look at the creature. I don¡¯t know whose face you saw there. I don¡¯t know who looked back at you. I don¡¯t know if it was you. I don¡¯t know if it was someone you loved. You looked down at the lighter in your hand. You clicked it open. And then, Kyle, my friend, you hesitated. You held the flame open, you had your pile at your feet, you had this creature standing over you, you had spiderwebs spinning you a cocoon, but my friend, you halted, you froze. You couldn¡¯t do it. I knew as soon as I saw you stiffen that you wouldn¡¯t, you didn¡¯t have it in you. It was too soon, it was late, it was unfair. I don¡¯t know your ghosts. I don¡¯t know why you stopped. But you clicked the lighter closed, turned on your heel, and ran as though for your life towards the front door. I don¡¯t know what happened next. I heard a thump, a yelp, and a thud. I felt the air release something, like a sigh or a dissolve, and I felt the spiderwebs melt away from my body. I was still in utter blackness, but I followed the noises I had heard until I nearly tripped over you. My best guess is you ran into the door, thinking it would be unlocked, or maybe you misjudged where the front door would be. Or maybe you knew exactly where it was and threw your head as hard as you could against the nearest hard surface. You were covered in spiderwebs. It took a long time for me to get you out of the house then - the front door was indeed locked, and I had completely forgotten about the keys in my pocket. I wandered in the house for a long while, exploring with my hands, trying to call an ambulance with my phone until it ran out of charge, trying to call with your phone but it wouldn¡¯t turn on, trying to understand why the walls seemed so long, why the floors seemed to slope no matter where I went, why the furniture kept moving when I wasn¡¯t in the room. I clicked the lighter over and over again, but no flame came forth. And then finally in despair I curled up against a wall on my side and felt the keys poking into my hip. I pulled them out, unlocked the door, and got us out into my car where I drove you to the hospital as the sun rose. You¡¯re caught up now, friend. I¡¯ve told you all I can of the night we had. I wish you hadn¡¯t forgotten. I think it must be important for you, and the way I¡¯ve told it, with so many details missing, is so inferior to what the incident must have meant to you. I spent the night away from you to look into your future again. I saw you living, confused, but ultimately unchanged by your time in the house. I saw you spending your days in realty, a business you don¡¯t care about and that doesn¡¯t treat you well. I saw you obsessing over your perceived faults, drawn so inward that one day, three years from now, you¡¯d walk absently into traffic, the light not having turned red when you expected. I saved your life. I gave you three extra years of mundanity. But that was what I saw before I told you all this. I still don¡¯t know what it was that made you leap from your car, keys still in ignition, to rush into a house in the middle of the woods. I don¡¯t know what you saw. I don¡¯t know what you hoped to do. I wonder if you saw the same as me. I wonder if you saw both possibilities, and you made a choice. Kyle, you are Jumi¡¯s friend, maybe my friend, and you have another choice before you. I¡¯ve told you a fantastical tale, it¡¯s true. I¡¯ve told you a tale about yourself that flouts your sense of logic, triggers your skepticism, a tale that, if not untrue, is at least unfinished because it came from my eyes and not yours. I¡¯ve given you a tale of two futures, one short, and one three years long. You have a choice to hear my story and believe it, or to ignore it and dismiss it. And you have a choice to accept these futures I¡¯ve offered to you, or to reject them and build a new one. ...You left these at the house. Here¡¯s my lighter. I refueled it before coming to visit you. If you decide to, I bet you can sneak these to the outside and burn them before you get found. It¡¯s a little thing. It might do nothing. It might be an empty gesture of hope that will ultimately mean nothing. It¡¯s up to you to decide if hope is worth the risk. Now if you¡¯ll excuse me, I¡¯m going to talk to that nurse to see if she can schedule a biopsy for that old man, so she won¡¯t have time to call her ex tonight. I might sit with the woman and her sister and talk to them, keep them company. There¡¯s little else I can do to change the course of causality, but at this point, I¡¯ve learned that even the slightest deviation can turn a course down a radically different path. Think about it, Kyle. Despite my visions, no future is truly charted. I¡¯m beginning to see that now. Maybe you can too. The Reckoner is not a moral being. It has no sense of right or wrong, just or unjust. It comes to embody a crossroad, a challenge, a great weight that may burden or break. Most often, break. It is the face of fate. It comes to all, sometimes more than once. It has another name, however, one that only the most optimistic - the greatest of fools, but also the greatest legends of time - ever name it by. Opportunity. -Note scrawled in the margins of a hotel Bible, a page before the book of Revelation Very Strange Men - Part 1 Caleb awoke with the musky scent of a late summer morning rain melting through his open window. For several moments, he remained there in bed, enjoying the warmth of the covers and the sweet smell of damp earth, with the faintest aroma of hydrangeas. He could faintly see the edged silver clouds through the window, slowly acquiring a shadow of gold and peach. Sunrise was his favorite time of day. At last he rose, stretching heartily, brushing a curled-up dead spider from the old blanket, and swung his legs to the floor. He took his time, favoring the left knee. After the stroke last year, his knee would go numb at random, buzzing like elderly mosquitos, before slowly reacquiring its feeling. He was lucky a bum knee was all the injury he suffered from a stroke that severe. Slowly and methodically, as he did every morning, he got himself showered, dressed, and breakfasted. He ate stale oats in a bowl just barely soaked with water mixed with powdered milk; real milk was a luxury out in the woods, and spoiled too quickly. He read another chapter of his partner Frankie¡¯s book before laying it down and preparing for the day¡¯s work. Officially, he was listed as a lumberjack, a woodsman, though it was hardly his sole mode of income. He scrounged the woods and brought back anything he could find that was useful, anything that the city folk in nearby Fro¦Äi could use. Frankie picked it up at night and dropped off food, fuel, and other supplies that Caleb could use for the next week or so. They¡¯d arranged it eight years ago. System had worked fine since, with the only interruption being Caleb¡¯s stroke last September. He wandered to the drop point as the clouds finally grew to their full luster with the rise of the sun and inspected the bulletin posted with the lockbox. Frankie insisted on locking up the supplies, as a precaution against anyone who might be wandering the woods and stealing Caleb¡¯s wages. Caleb was of the opinion that anyone who¡¯d steal from the stash would be the sort needing it more than him, but Frankie could be incorrigible at times. He smiled. Incorrigible. Frankie had put that word in his book. He¡¯d have to leave a mark for him. It was a great word. There were a few special requests on the bulletin. Nothing particularly rare; a few herbs and grasses that were overcharged at the pharmacy, a few select pieces of wood for Darla the whittler, a piece of bone for a handmade knife, and a woven rope for St?le, along with his regular tithe of firewood. He could get the rope started that night after everything had been brought in; the others should be no trouble. He left the list where it was on the bulletin with a note on when he expected the goods to be ready - he didn¡¯t need to bring the list with him as a reminder. He¡¯d remember. He set out immediately to find the herbs requested of him from the groves he knew they grew in. Never anything illegal - Frankie kept a running tally of how often he was asked for marijuana, and a separate tally for the number of times the asker had defended their request with ¡°it¡¯s for medicinal purposes, I swear!¡± Caleb wanted no trouble, however unlikely it would have come calling even if he had supplied the drug. The most he was willing to risk was the ire of Stacy the pharmacist. Hours later, he returned with a light heart and a far heavier pack than that he¡¯d brought in. Not only had he found the materials to make the rope for St?le and the whittling wood, he¡¯d come across a sharp piece of bone for the knife request. And he¡¯d come across a new bush of huckleberry to boot. He hadn¡¯t the room for the firewood, but he had a stack at home to make up the shortfall for just a fortuitous occasion as this. As he came back within sight of his cabin, he heard, off in the distance, the low melodic tones of a wolf call in the forest. He paused and listened with a worried ear, his good mood fading. It had been many years since a pack had taken up residence in the woods of Fro¦Äi, and the last time had proven very dangerous for the town, and for Caleb in particular. He strode inside and laid out his labors on the rickety dining table, a gift from Darla back when she was still an apprentice to the carpentry career and before she¡¯d decided to work the wood for the sake of art rather than industry. He¡¯d given her seeds for a fine herb garden in return, near immediate after the gift had been given. Caleb never liked the feeling of a thing hanging over him. The lockbox, on the table after he¡¯d received it that morning, laid empty and demanding. He packed away all the bulletin requests and went outside briefly for a handful of his set-against firewood, against the wall. He paused and focused his eyes through the twilight slurry. Was there something moving among the trees? Lurching in fits and starts. A wounded member of the wolf pack, perhaps - at the least, a creature Caleb had no desire to tangle with. He had to drop off the lockbox soon, before full night fell. He¡¯d not be a walking target for the wolf pack if he could manage it. Sealing the box shut, shouldering it on his right and carrying the firewood under his left, he angled to make it through the door and paused only to bar the door and lock the bar. A simple deadbolt wouldn¡¯t bar a wolf or, woe betide him, a bear, but the bar would prove at least a slight obstacle. He set off on the well-trodden path to the road, a two-and-a-half mile walk, a road that, thankfully, was driven by no other than Frankie on his nightly drops. The only other soul that had once driven it had been Martin, the old, withered-hair grandfather who had sold to Caleb the cabin, and his wildfire daughter Stacy, who had come once to demand the cabin back. She claimed hotly that Caleb had tricked her father into enacting the sale, a loss so painful to him that he had left Fro¦Äi in his pickup and never returned; Caleb could only say that Martin had looked more tired than a week of sleep could fix, and had had to be reminded to take the money in return. Caleb remained devoutly respectful to Stacy thereafter, despite her outburst, out of respect to the man that had given him his now beloved home. He received a surprise as he neared the bulletin; Frankie¡¯s van, silver-and-rust-colored, parked on the end of the road with the headlights brightly on. He saw Frankie¡¯s hand waving out the window as soon as the headlights illuminated his approaching form. With a bemused smile, Caleb set down his burden next to the bulletin and went to the back, where the doors were opened before he could even knock. There was Frankie - old, bald, black, sharply muscled, half his face taken up by a smile that Caleb alone ever saw. ¡°My woodsman!¡± Frankie exclaimed as he jumped out the back of the van, and the two shared an embrace. ¡°My courier,¡± Caleb returned when they broke apart, with a crooked smile of his own. Frankie burst into husky laughter. ¡°Another good word, yes? You learned it from my book, don¡¯t deny it!¡± ¡°I¡¯d¡¯n¡¯t dream of it,¡± Caleb chuckled, a rare sound out of him - though he had to admit, any voice was a rare sound from him. ¡°You brought beer with you?¡± ¡°You think I drive without it?¡± came the retort, and belying his age, Frankie hopped onto the back of the van, sitting with his legs dangling, and pulled out a pack. Caleb gratefully accepted the offered bottle, but paused before taking his own seat. The sky was darkening to an abyssal ocean blue, and the howls of the wolves were deep on his mind. ¡°We¡¯ll have to inside,¡± he said, inclining his head to the living quarters Frankie had set up within the van. ¡°There¡¯s a wolf pack hereabouts. Heard their song tonight.¡± Frankie¡¯s smile was replaced with worry as he glanced out at the gloom. ¡°Aye, good thought,¡± he agreed, and climbed to his knees to take a seat inside. Once Caleb climbed up, he shut the doors behind them and clicked on the bare bulb bolted to the ceiling, wired to a car battery. There were enough batteries wired to various amenities in Frankie¡¯s truck to power a whole fleet of cars. ¡°You best stay the night, then,¡± Frankie said after another glance outside through the van window, peering through the coffee-colored curtains like a worried neighbor. ¡°Help me unfold the bed, then.¡± Caleb set down his beer and the two of them wrestled the rusty iron fold-out bed from the forest-leaf couch, occasionally brushing away cobwebs and the indignant spiders that came out of them. ¡°Hope you don¡¯t mind sleeping with some extra company,¡± Frankie grinned at him as they flattened the foldout and chased away the eight-legged friends. ¡°I can¡¯t be counting on it?¡± Caleb asked, slightly surprised. His shoulders brushed Frankie¡¯s, and the other man leaned into the contact. Something in his face had changed - a sad kind of weariness that alarmed Caleb more than the wolfsong. ¡°Have a beer,¡± Frankie said, and pushed his belayed bottle back into his hands. He made to sit on the other seat in the camper van, but Caleb sat on half of the foldout, his back against the wall, giving Frankie a very determined look. Frankie knew the look well enough to sigh and climb onto the bed next to him. The two popped open the bottles and drank, though Caleb took only a sip and Frankie downed half the bottle before setting it upright. Caleb rarely liked the taste of beer and only ever drank to be sociable, but something about Frankie¡¯s demeanor made the bitter water all the more sour on his tongue. He put the bottle aside and sat in silence for a few minutes, staring at the wall. Beside him, Frankie took another swig, not as deep a draught as before. ¡°I¡¯m glad to see you tonight,¡± Caleb said. ¡°¡®Sbeen a while,¡± Frankie replied. ¡°Any news?¡± In the corner of his eye, Caleb saw Frankie tilt and then slightly shake his head. ¡°Not much,¡± he delayed. ¡°Alda ain¡¯t given birth yet. Probably all the better, since Einar hasn¡¯t come back from the city yet. Last they heard of him, he was in Oslo trying to round up some family members for ¡®help.¡¯ Seems he hasn¡¯t rounded up enough ¡®help¡¯ to support the family yet.¡± Caleb grunted. ¡°St?le¡¯s still hung up on his fool contraption,¡± Frankie continued stubbornly. ¡°The rope you¡¯ve been making has helped, but now he¡¯s been asking me to skip on up to Byunsberg for some pulleys and levers and whatnot. Startin¡¯ to look like a half-melted cake made of wood struts in his backyard, now. Not even his wife knows what he¡¯s planning with it.¡± Again, Caleb only grunted. Frankie pursed his lips before doggedly plowing on, ¡°Stacy¡¯s been after my case for all the herbs you¡¯ve been sending to town. She wants folk to come down and buy her pills for their headaches and whatnot, when a cup of your willow tea soothes them just fine. She¡¯s been tryin¡¯ to get folk to stop asking me for supplies, but no one¡¯s listenin¡¯. Be careful of her, she¡¯s on a warpath.¡± Another good word Caleb would likely read in Frankie¡¯s book. But still he said nothing. ¡°Alda, and Einar, and, ah, well,¡± Frankie cast about for his next tale. ¡°Eva¡¯s still goin¡¯ on about Anne, it¡¯s a wonder the rest of town ain¡¯t cottoned on to them. Her mother talks about how they¡¯re such ¡®good friends¡¯ and it makes me want to hurl sometimes, after what she said about us, you remember?¡±Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. ¡°What¡¯s the news, Frankie?¡± Caleb asked again, gently. ¡°Ain¡¯t no news in a nothing town like Fro¦Äi, you know that.¡± Caleb turned and looked Frankie in the eye. ¡°What¡¯s your news?¡± he asked. His voice, always rough from disuse, was quiet. Frankie sighed again and passed the beer bottle from finger to finger. ¡°Went to Byunsberg not long ago,¡± he mumbled, glancing at Caleb and away again like he was confessing something shameful. ¡°Had this rash on my chest that looked pretty nasty. Well, turns out it¡¯s nastier than I thought.¡± ¡°What kind of nasty?¡± Caleb¡¯s voice was a whisper. Frankie sighed. ¡°A cancer kind of nasty.¡± Silence grabbed at the camper van then, a silence where Caleb tried to remember how to breathe through suffocating shock. Frankie stared down at his beer bottle. ¡°Melanoma. All over my chest and creepin¡¯ up my left hand.¡± He paused, then lifted the hand to show Caleb. Dark splotches patterned his palm. ¡°You ain¡¯t gonna die, Frankie?¡± Caleb¡¯s voice shook. Frankie stared down at the floor. ¡°Dunno. It¡¯s treatable, they said. I gotta go to their clinic for a while. They wanted to keep me there when they found it, but I said I had to scrape up the money and came back to get s¡¯more jobs done. ¡®V¡¯been mustering up the guts to tell you for a week now.¡± Caleb felt like pins and needles were pricking the edges of his brain, waiting for some feeling to come back. ¡°You ain¡¯t gonna die?¡± he asked again. ¡°Dunno, Cal.¡± Frankie¡¯s voice was tired. ¡°But I¡¯ll have to go away. Can¡¯t get treated nowhere else than Byunsberg, maybe even all the way in Oslo. And it won¡¯t be a day-trip, neither. I¡¯ve no idea how long I¡¯ll be away, Cal.¡± He turned his face to the side, leaning away from Caleb as though reaching for a beer bottle, though he could have been aiming to slide off the foldout with the same motion. ¡°That¡¯s why I¡­¡± his voice broke. ¡°Why I don¡¯t wanna sleep here. Maybe it¡¯ll make it easier. I might as well be gone already. Maybe we¡¯ll have an easier time¡­¡± Caleb¡¯s breath returned, and he leaned forward to put a gentle, but imperturbable hand on Frankie¡¯s shoulder. ¡°You ain¡¯t gone yet,¡± he said hoarsely. ¡°You¡¯re here.¡± Frankie flinched under his hand and turned a broken gaze to Caleb. ¡°Not much longer, now,¡± he whispered. ¡°Won¡¯t be back for a year, or maybe forever.¡± ¡°But now, you¡¯re here,¡± Caleb insisted, and wrapped his partner in a hug. Frankie returned the embrace after only a moment of hesitation, clinging like a drowning man. Caleb felt as though his grasp was just as desperate, as tears leaked out of his eyes and onto Frankie¡¯s flannel. He thought he felt his own shoulder growing heavy with dampness. ¡°You¡¯re here,¡± he whispered hoarsely, and buried his face into Frankie¡¯s shoulder, inhaling his cinnamon-and-fresh-dirt scent, the woolen bristles of the old flannel, and clung to him the tighter. They fell back onto the bed, still clutching each other, shaking with sobs, until they found what sleep they could. Caleb awoke at dawn with his hands still entwined with Frankie, who was sleeping limply before him. He could see the rise of the sun through the gap in the curtains above them, crowning the evergreens and scattering a flock of crows before it like heralds. He looked down at his partner with the gold light of morning, and he seemed - not stronger, still fragile, still shaking at the approach of the beast he¡¯d have to fight, but more substantial now, more solid. The light made him glow, and Caleb¡¯s love for him made him look sacred. Frankie woke when the bright colors had dropped from the edge of the clouds. He didn¡¯t smile at the sight of Caleb, but his spruce-bark eyes filled themselves with the sight of him. ¡°Ain¡¯t we fools,¡± he whispered, not taking his eyes off him. ¡°Ain¡¯t we fools,¡± Caleb hushed back, ¡°an¡¯ the better for it.¡± Caleb was reluctant to leave Frankie¡¯s van until the afternoon, when his partner insisted on his transportation runs - he only needed a few more before he could afford the week of treatments in Byunsberg. As an afterthought, he grabbed the latest list for the bulletin and gave it to Caleb before pushing him out the door. ¡°Got our livelihoods to scavenge,¡± he insisted. ¡°I¡¯ll be leavin¡¯ you cash in the lockbox,¡± Caleb said. ¡°I got some left over.¡± ¡°Prob¡¯ly eaten by squirrels by now.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll have ¡®em barf it up and send it your way anyway.¡± ¡°Would I even want it then?¡± Frankie laughed. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t be you gettin¡¯ it, the folks at Byunsberg will.¡± ¡°They¡¯ll hold up the little spit-chunks an¡¯ ask, ¡®why this smell like chewed nuts?¡¯¡± ¡°Tell ¡®em it¡¯s a woodsy blessing. The li¡¯l buggers¡¯ll stop chewing their roof for the next month.¡± ¡°Only ¡®cause they¡¯ll be swarming your house. Every squirrel for a hundred miles¡¯ll come running to avenge their barfing brethren.¡± They shared a chuckle, but when Frankie brought his hand up to cover his mouth, Caleb could see the dark blotches on his skin. The laughter died quickly. Caleb set down the now-empty lockbox and took Frankie¡¯s hand. ¡°You damn van-rat,¡± he whispered, and kissed his knuckles. ¡°Don¡¯t you leave before lettin¡¯ me know.¡± ¡°Wouldn¡¯t dream of it,¡± Frankie said, and squeezed his hand before retreating into his camper van. It was a late start to the day, by Caleb¡¯s usual reckoning, but the list was relatively short for today. A few herbs for Alda¡¯s tea and some more for Rakel, St?le¡¯s wife. How the two of them had come together was as mysterious as anything, with Rakel being the most ground-to-earth person Caleb had ever met and St?le¡¯s passions swinging like a clock between interest to interest. Word around town said they¡¯d met when one of St?le¡¯s mechanisms exploded half her apartment wall, and he¡¯d fallen in love with her as she¡¯d screamed him halfway across the country. The two seemed to love each other as much as any couple, but Rakel was always asking for headache relief herbs from Caleb, and he was certain St?le¡¯s wooden contraption in his backyard wasn¡¯t helping matters. He tossed the lockbox on his front yard and headed straight into the forest, determined to get his errands done before nightfall. The wolf pack was still out there, and he wanted to be safe in his cabin when they began their hunt. The herbs he found easily enough, and he stopped by his cabin to drop them off and to pick up his axe. Late in the afternoon, approaching evening, he found a dead tree that he chopped to make firewood, glad he wouldn¡¯t have to put his axe to living wood today. His mind was still full of Frankie. Cut down in his prime¡­ no, no, he¡¯ll pull through... He was hauling back the wood to his cabin when something made him pause. Something amiss had caught his eye, though he wasn¡¯t certain what it was yet. Carefully, he set his firewood bundle down as he eyes swept the scene. The lockbox was at the edge of the cabin¡¯s clearing, his fireplace was yet dormant, he was late in setting his evening fire to warm the night, bundle of firewood huddled at the cabin wall, scattered next to the door¡­ The door. The door he¡¯d barred the night before. The bar was still there, but the bottom had splintered, as though something had forcefully pushed its way through the planks. Caleb reached for his axe, and approached the door quietly. A few clicks and springs, and the lock fell away. He unbarred the door and opened it slowly, to keep the hinges from creaking. A trail of twigs led from the splintered opening to his living area, in front of the fireplace. He had a couch there, a dust-colored hand-me-down from Einar and his family, and it was too tall for him to see who or what laid there now. He inched closer, the axe raised in one hand, and craned his neck. A man laid on the couch. One of the strangest men Caleb had ever seen. His hair was the color of old grass, and tangled with burrs and twigs, tied back with what looked like a plant stem, tight enough to make his already slanted face appear more angular. In fact, the whole man was made of sharp corners and tight angles, with pointed elbows, knotted knees, and sharp finger- and toenails, like a crows¡¯ beak on each finger. His skin was the color of oak, his garments rags, little better than a hastily sewn bedsheet with holes ripped for the various limbs. One of those limbs, his right leg, was elevated, bent in a V and leaning against the couch wall, wounded sharply and messily on the outside of the knee. Caleb saw another wound on the man¡¯s hip, bandaged poorly, with a hand overlaying it protectively. He was breathing shallowly and quickly, his eyes closed as sweat trickled over his eyelids. Caleb lowered the axe as he slowly comprehended the situation. A man had broken into his cabin. A desperately wounded man had burst through his door and flung himself upon Caleb¡¯s couch and passed out. Filling the lockbox would have to wait. He kept the axe close as he moved throughout the house, though once he had his bandages and first aid kit assembled, he carried it in the crook of his arm, not terribly worried about defending himself against so sorely wounded a man. Once he had everything together, plus a fire in the fireplace warming up a pot of water, he knelt next to the couch and carefully pulled the wounded knee towards him. It looked quite fresh, with bits of the man¡¯s clothing frayed into the wound and pus leaking out. Messy, like as not to be infected. Dipping a rag into the lukewarm water, Caleb began carefully brushing the wound, trying to clean the debris away. As soon as the water touched the man, his eyes leaped open and he lurched forward. ¡°Durweard, cur!¡± He cried like an eagle¡¯s scream. ¡°Pay for thy blood with thy life!¡± He clawed forward at an imaginary foe and cried out again, this time in pain - the makeshift bandage at his hip stained red. Caleb pressed his arm against the man¡¯s chest and forced him down. ¡°Quiet now,¡± he commanded. ¡°No curs here. Quiet down.¡± The man was breathing heavily, his eyes flicking fast through all the room and on Caleb¡¯s face. ¡°Who art thou?¡± he demanded, the force of his question weakened by his hoarse panting. ¡°Where am I?¡¯ ¡°I¡¯m Caleb. You¡¯re in my cabin. You broke in. You¡¯re injured.¡± Caleb only ever shed his bluntness around Frankie; everyone else always needed things spelled out for them. ¡°Sit down and I¡¯ll tend your wounds.¡± The man continued breathing hard, but made no more vocal protest. When Caleb brushed his knee wound with the rag again, he looked back to see he¡¯d passed out again. It didn¡¯t take long for the wound on the knee to be cleaned, and as Caleb prepared to dress it, he saw the water simmering above the fire. He took out a small cup and poured in some crushed herbs he knew would fight any potential infection. Once he¡¯d dabbed the concoction on the man¡¯s knee, he dressed it with a tight bandage, one of his rare city purchases from back in the day. Next he turned his attention to the hip wound. Gently, he lifted the man¡¯s hand away from the area and peeled off the makeshift bandage. Blood oozed out from a gash on the hip. Again, Caleb repeated his earlier procedure, cleaning the wound, patting it with the herbal disinfectant, and wrapping it in a new bandage. When he¡¯d finished, he turned to see the man¡¯s eyes on him. Some of the panic had receded from his face, but his pupils were shrunk in the flickering firelight. ¡°Who art thou?¡± he asked again, his voice husky from pain. ¡°I¡¯m Caleb,¡± Caleb repeated, wringing out the rag. ¡°You?¡± The man blinked, seeming dazed. ¡°Thou hast healed me,¡± he said, sounding almost disbelieving. ¡°Yet I breached thine abode, without thy allowance.¡± Oh boy, Caleb thought. Frankie had written a book once where the characters spoke like this man was speaking now. It¡¯d been a headache to read. ¡°So?¡± he grunted as he put away his first aid kit. ¡°You needed help. Don¡¯t care that much about the door.¡± Caleb¡¯s axe, laid on the floor against the corner of the couch, was in his vision as he put his things away. He saw as the handle of the axe, whittled by Darla and given to him before he¡¯d ever bought this cabin, when it curved like rubber up in the air to meet the man¡¯s weak reaching grasp. He hoisted the axe up, curved handle and all, and brandished it one-handed at Caleb. ¡°How knowest I thee shalt not injure me again? I know thee not. Thou hast no reason to love me.¡± Caleb stared at the axe in the man¡¯s hand, answering without taking his eyes off his warped tool. ¡°Put the damn thing down. I ain¡¯t gonna hurt you after I took all the time to bandage you up. Won¡¯t want you bleeding all over my couch, more than you are already.¡± The man¡¯s brow creased, as though he was having as much difficulty parsing Caleb¡¯s words as Caleb was with his. His hand was shaking with fatigue. He opened his mouth as though to continue the argument, but a moment later he closed it and laid the axe against the couch. Caleb took it hesitantly, still staring at the curved handle, before numbly holding it out to the man again. ¡°You mind fixing this?¡± The man stared at the axe, and at Caleb. The axe handle twitched a few times before it straightened out. A moment later, the man fell back, unconscious again. ¡°Oh boy,¡± Caleb said it out loud this time. It took a long while for him to take his eyes off his guest and his axe before he finally stood up to pack the herbs away in the lockbox. Very Strange Men - Part 2 CW: mention of sexual assault The sun was low in the sky when he left the cabin to head to the dropoff area. With a sick man on his couch, it was more important than ever to get fresh supplies every night. He¡¯d written a list of special supplies he¡¯d need to get the man back on his feet and tucked it into the lockbox - Frankie would see it when he made the deliveries. Discomfited by the idea of leaving the man alone in his cabin, and by the thought of the wolf pack waking up to begin their hunt, Caleb¡¯s steps were long and fast, striding through the underbrush that kept creeping over the path he wore in every night. His boots clapping on the hard ground, and the distant chatter of crows, were the only sounds he heard in the woods this evening. He tried to put his axe out of his thoughts as he walked. He¡¯d tried hard, as he¡¯d packed the lockbox, to convince himself he¡¯d been seeing things. He¡¯d never had to do such a thing before. The world, once it¡¯d put itself in order before his eyes, had always been this stark, offensive scape - prone to attack more than not, a dizzying rush of wants and works. He loved the woods so because it put him on even ground. Here, he was no more than himself, and made nothing more in the eyes of anyone, other than this small town, and his beloved. Thinking about Frankie had been little better than thinking about the unnatural. Those off-color patches on his skin haunted him. He wanted to think about the man - the scent of him, his infuriating camper van, the laughter they¡¯d shared. All of these things had been the pattern of his thoughts for eight years now, sinking into him like color to a fabric, but now this stain was sinking in too and he couldn¡¯t resist it. He knew little about melanoma, and most of what he knew came from Frankie¡¯s mumblings about it last night. Perhaps he would live, if he got treated fast - but he was lingering here, out of necessity for one, and, Caleb suspected, out of his sake for another. Frankie could leave his van no easier than Caleb could leave his cabin. Frankie would have to, to save his life; Caleb knew he would leave too, to save Frankie. And he was certain the book-scribbling van-rat knew it, and wanted to spend the extra time convincing Caleb not to. He¡¯d been there the last time Caleb had been in a city - his stroke last year had required hospital time, and Caleb always felt like a siege in civilized ground. Fool man would try to spare Caleb, as much as he¡¯d deny such a notion - Or maybe he¡¯s spending as much time in Fro¦Äi as he can, a traitorous thought whispered in his head, because he thinks it will be the last time he¡¯ll ever have in his hometown. With all these thoughts swarming his mind, Caleb didn¡¯t notice the crowd by the drop spot until he was out into the clearing by the road. He blinked, bringing his thoughts back to the present. Three people were standing there, next to the bulletin, in the midst of a conversation that had clearly paused itself upon Caleb¡¯s approach. St?le was there, Caleb recognized, once he was fully back to himself out of the clouds - the man stood a head-and-shoulder¡¯s width below Caleb¡¯s six feet and three inches, his scraggly brown beard a pale shadow of Caleb¡¯s own. Next to him was Darla, looking imperious as ever with ginger-pale hair flowing down past her waist and mere three inches below Caleb¡¯s own height. The look in Darla¡¯s eyes told him she felt disagreeable about something - the nervous twitch of St?le¡¯s nose, like a wary rabbit, belied some sort of nervousness or uncertainty. But they were mere moons, revolving around the clear leader of their party - Stacy, indomitable, severe, little taller than St?le but with miles more presence than him. Her prematurely white hair was pinned away from her face and cut to a sensible length above her shoulders, and her dark eyes glaring over a beaky nose brought to mind that of a hawks¡¯, a cunning, uncompromising stare that never failed to command a room. She had never had children that Caleb knew of, but if she had, they would have been the lieutenants to her authority; as it was, her two employees at the pharmacy filled that role, as equally cowed by her as they were unswayable by the rest of the masses. It wasn¡¯t merely out of respect for her father that Caleb spoke to her with great politeness. ¡°Good to see you before nightfall, Caleb,¡± Darla spoke first, her arms crossed as though daring an objection from even so simple a statement. St?le seemed to gulp; Stacy narrowed her eyes. Caleb nodded to each of the three in turn, feeling some sense in him tense up, something that only ever happened under social pressure. ¡°Evening,¡± he grunted, and bent to drop off the lockbox. Frankie should be coming by any minute to pick it up; Caleb had remembered to drag out the stash of extra cash he¡¯d mentioned. Maybe he could save him from whatever situation he was sure he¡¯d walked in on. ¡°Why¡¯re you all out here?¡± St?le traded looks with Darla, but Stacy was not one to prevaricate. ¡°We¡¯re chasing a criminal, Caleb,¡± she stated, staring at Caleb in an almost accusing manner. ¡°St?le saw him running out this way earlier and we came to see if we could find him.¡± ¡°Ah.¡± Fro¦Äi was such a small town that crime was rare, practically a novelty. It could only have been someone coming in from the outside, hoping to find easy pickings out in the woods. ¡°What¡¯s happened?¡± A darkness fell into each of the three faces, and Caleb knew before anyone spoke that it was bad. ¡°Eva,¡± St?le said heavily, ¡°Magret and Gunnar¡¯s girl. She¡¯s dead.¡± Eva. Frankie had mentioned her just the night before, swooning after the other town girl Anne with stars in her eyes, stars Frankie had recognized. Caleb felt a weight in his chest and knew he sagged. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± was all he could say. ¡°She¡¯s not just dead,¡± Stacy¡¯s husky voice cut in. ¡°She¡¯s been murdered. An outsider broke into her home, brutalized her before doin¡¯ the deed.¡± Caleb stared at Stacy, tension seizing up his arms and the weight in his chest. ¡°He¡¯ll be the one we¡¯re chasin¡¯,¡± St?le added, indicating the road. ¡°Rakel saw him leavin¡¯ the house last night and told me ¡®fore rushing over to check on the lass. She was just dead, blood still warm. We went after him, lost him for a while. I was coming up this road to let you ¡®n Frankie know when I spotted him in the brush, went back to get some reinforcements. Not long away from this area now.¡± ¡°He¡¯ll spot your cabin, without a doubt,¡± Darla put in. ¡°Got worried for you. I can come back, help keep watch with you, keep you safe.¡± The image of the bleeding man on his couch wavered in Caleb¡¯s minds eye. His hands began shaking. ¡°This man,¡± he said, fighting to keep his voice under control. ¡°Anyone hurt him?¡± Eyebrows went up. ¡°Not that we did,¡± Stacy replied. ¡°Though surely we would¡¯ve had we caught ¡®im.¡± ¡°Rakel didn¡¯t see so,¡± St?le added. ¡°Why do you ask?¡± Darla said. ¡°Saw blood on the ground,¡± Caleb made up on the spot. ¡°Something stumblin¡¯ out there. Might¡¯ve hurt someone else.¡± ¡°Might¡¯ve,¡± Stacy said darkly, ¡°or could¡¯ve been hurt himself. Heard a wolf pack out there last night. We lost ¡®im for most the night and most the day. Plenty of time for a wolf to smell the blood on ¡®im.¡± ¡°Aye,¡± Caleb agreed automatically. ¡°I can keep my eye out.¡± ¡°I should come back to the cabin with you,¡± Darla insisted, taking a step forward. ¡°More folk¡¯ll come and help Stacy with the search, but if he finds you in the cabin by yourself -¡± ¡°I got my axe,¡± he growled, and hefted it for emphasis. There was a slight bend in the handle. He wanted to throw it in the man¡¯s head right then and there, for ruining Darla¡¯s craftsmanship on top of everything else. Darla, the closest person he had to a friend in town, was shaking her head, concern in her face. ¡°You got an axe,¡± she agreed, ¡°but he¡¯s got a willingness to kill. Your axe could be too slow for him.¡± ¡°Not a chance,¡± Caleb snarled out, thinking about Eva dead on the ground. ¡°I see him, he¡¯s a dead man.¡± ¡°But if he sees you first,¡± Stacy insisted, then paused as Frankie¡¯s camper van rolled up. Upon seeing their group in front of his lockbox pickup, he stuck his head out the window, looking worried. ¡°What¡¯s happening, all of you? Caleb, it¡¯s almost night.¡± ¡°Aye,¡± Caleb said, looking up at the darkening sky. The sunset colors had faded and the clouds were tinged with green. ¡°I need to be headin¡¯ home.¡±Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°I¡¯m comin¡¯ with,¡± Darla said again. ¡°Come back in the morning. I¡¯ll be ready for ¡®im tonight.¡± Caleb noticed in a dim, vague sort of way that he always started talking like the people he spent time around, and had already picked up Stacy¡¯s habit of clipping out him like a cough in the throat. ¡°Tomorrow, I¡¯ll need someone watchin¡¯ my back. Tonight, I¡¯ll lay into him all myself.¡± Darla began to protest again, but Caleb was over it. He made eye contact with Frankie for a long few heartbeats, a hello and a goodbye with a single connecting stare, then turned to leave, his axe hefted in his hand. He thought he heard Darla start after him, but Stacy called her back with ¡°you¡¯ll only get lost runnin¡¯ after the damn fool, it¡¯s already dark.¡± Caleb stalked the rest of the way to his cabin, shaking with rage, insensate to the night forest around him - something he knew he ought to regret, with the wolves on the prowl, but the imagined picture of Eva on the ground, wide eyes pouring, spurred him onward, spurred him to plant his axe in the intruder¡¯s throat. And he¡¯d bandaged him, and soothed him, when the damn man had killed a girl! Broken into his house to hide from the crime, on top of it all! Seeing his front door still splintered and broken-in didn¡¯t improve his mood. He strode forward and flung it open, his eyes falling to the couch before the fireplace. The man wasn¡¯t unconscious anymore. He was crouched before the burning fire, a look of combined fascination and terror on his face. This face whipped towards Caleb as he approached. ¡°Whither went thou?¡± the man demanded, taking an ungainly step back. ¡°Thou wast absent upon my waking, left me with this infernal blaze mere inches from my self -¡± ¡°You killed a girl,¡± Caleb growled, and pointed the axe at him. The man stiffened in shock, and looked at Caleb with pain in his eyes. ¡°Aye, the innocent girl is dead by mine actions,¡± he said, his shoulders drooping. ¡°Were it not for my slow mind, my enemy would -¡± ¡°You killed Eva!¡± Caleb roared, and charged forward. The man¡¯s eyes widened and he darted to the side, but his hip gave way and he cried out in pain, falling to the ground. Caleb slammed against the wall, his axe held out in front of him, and pushed off it, his only thought to bury the axe in the man¡¯s head. The man rolled to the side, under the table, narrowly missing the axe blow to the ground. He waved his hand with a groan of pain, and the floor around the buried axe suddenly crinkled, pushing up around the weapon and pinning it in place. Caleb¡¯s muscles strained, but the axe remained in the floor. He looked up with wild eyes and lunged forward, intending to use his bare hands. With another grunt of exertion, the man reached up and tossed a dining chair at him. Caleb dodged it to the side, but abruptly his feet stopped moving and he slammed bodily into the floor, sending sparks through his vision. He clawed forward, but he was stuck fast; looking behind him, he saw the chair had fused with the ground over his ankles, binding them in place. He tried to kick out and free them, but the wood only creaked - summoning all his rage and his strength with an animalistic snarl, he kicked again, but to no avail. ¡°Please, stranger,¡± he heard the man speaking ahead of him, ¡°allow me my defense. If thou find it wanting, I shan¡¯t offer more resistance. I am very weak already.¡± Caleb looked forward and growled low in his throat. The man, who was backed against the wall of the cabin and holding a hand to his hip wound, gulped, but settled in and began speaking. ¡°My name is Silas Green. I am a lawmaker in my¡­ whence I came.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t you talk normal?¡± The man - Silas Green - blinked, and despite his bleeding wounds, lifted his chin with a haughty expression. ¡°I speak perfectly normally. It is thou who speaks oddly to my ears.¡± ¡°You speak like those old Shakespeare books Frankie keeps tellin¡¯ me to read,¡± Caleb stated. ¡°I could barely read one line in five.¡± ¡°I cannot help thee,¡± Silas huffed. ¡°I have my own trouble parsing thy rough speech.¡± ¡°Whatever. Continue sayin¡¯ what you were sayin¡¯.¡± Silas rubbed his fingers together, shifting uncomfortably. Caleb could see the bandage bleeding through on his hip. ¡°I came to thy town in pursuit of a criminal,¡± he said eventually. ¡°One who had already committed a murder. I was the only one who could chase him. He eluded me for days, but I did not lose his trail, and we encountered one another in the house of an innocent. He had already attacked her, and I burst into the house in the midst of his wicked deed.¡± Silas¡¯ eyelids fluttered, and as he continued on, his voice choked, though he didn¡¯t falter. ¡°He held a knife to her throat and commanded that I should leave. He said he would kill the girl if I did not obey. I would not add another to the roster of the dead. I complied to his request and exited. I did not intend to abandon the girl, nor leave the criminal unattended, and I deliberated on what course of action I should next take. I deliberated too long, and I heard a short, sharp scream, cut off quickly.¡± Caleb stared at Silas with a frown, the rage draining from his grip against the table legs. Tears were running down the man¡¯s face but he kept his gaze fixed on the ground and kept speaking, his fingers rubbing together. ¡°I rushed inside to see her lifeless body on the ground. My enemy was in flight, but I could yet catch him. I captured him against the door, as I have captured you upon the ground. I intended to bind him that I may return him to our land and stand him trial for his crimes. He wounded me however, here in the leg, and in my pain he was able to burst free from his bonds. He would have killed me, and I was forced to kill him, upon a sharpened wood skewer. He hanged there and died quickly, I saw it in his eyes.¡± He took a long, shuddering breath. ¡°I intended to return to my homeland, but I could barely walk, and I heard commotion in the town, who must have heard the attack. I was sighted as I left the house the second time. I ran into the woods, deep in the night, and heard the sound of howling wolves alongside the shouts of the town pursuers. They pursued me, hunting me as I had hunted my own quarry. The lead of the pack caught up to my slow steps and bit me.¡± He indicated his hip, only now realizing the extent of the injury. ¡°Oh, God¡¯s teeth -¡± ¡°An¡¯ then you burst in my door, bled all over my couch, and waved my own axe in my face,¡± Caleb finished the account in a sour tone. ¡°After I¡¯d patched you up, no less.¡± ¡°Mine enemy is a canny one,¡± Silas insisted, pressing the bandage against his body and back again, as though that might heal his bleeding wound. ¡°I cannot discount the possibility of co-conspirators.¡± ¡°For a detective of some kind, you sure can¡¯t bandage worth a damn,¡± Caleb commented. ¡°You mind lettin¡¯ me up so I can fix it?¡± Silas regarded him with suspicion on his face, but a brief shuffle to the side caused him to wince and cry out in pain. ¡°I don¡¯t seem to have much choice,¡± he muttered. ¡°Either I die by my wounds now, or I perish through thy retribution.¡± He tapped the soaked bandage a few more times, wincing each time, before giving in. Caleb felt the binding of the wood loosen from his legs, and he stood up, stretching his limbs from their stiff position on the floor, before walking around the couch to pick up his first-aid kit. Silas watched him warily as he approached. ¡°Can you stand?¡± Caleb asked gruffly. ¡°If I ask for an arm, will you offer one?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Caleb stuck out his elbow and Silas levered himself to his feet, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. The stumble back to the couch seemed to leave him in agony. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t have been standin¡¯ so quickly,¡± Caleb muttered, keeping his elbow out until the man was as settled as he was going to be. ¡°You only made the damn thing worse.¡± ¡°I felt unsafe in a stranger¡¯s house,¡± Silas whispered through clenched teeth. ¡°I desired to find an exit before thy return.¡± Caleb lifted up the soaked bandage and saw the gash still bleeding. He checked for infection, looking around the edges for bright red or blue veins, and found nothing - it must have reopened when he was ducking around, dodging axe swings. He grunted to himself and brought up the rag to clean it again. ¡°I still have questions,¡± he warned the man. ¡°If I may ask one before thee,¡± Silas cut in. Despite his clear pain, he opened his eyes and looked right at Caleb. ¡°Why didst thou believe me?¡± ¡°¡®Cause you¡¯re tellin¡¯ the truth.¡± Caleb grunted. ¡°How knowest thou?¡± Caleb turned and raised an eyebrow at him. ¡°I just do,¡± he said. ¡°Guilty men may lie to escape their judgement.¡± A look of pain crossed his face, and Caleb didn¡¯t think it had to do with the hip injury. ¡°I am surely a guilty man.¡± ¡°That¡¯s why I know you ain¡¯t lying,¡± Caleb said, turning back to the wound. ¡°Liars pretend they ain¡¯t guilty, an¡¯ pretend everything else along with.¡± When Silas opened his mouth to say something else, Caleb dabbed the cloth on the injury. Whatever he was about to say got cut off with a groan of pain. ¡°My questions now,¡± Caleb said sharply. He quizzed the man as he cleaned the wound a second time and prepared another bandage. In the process he learned, between cringes of pain and furtive hesitations: that Silas came from the mountain nearby; he was the only lawman of his people, of whom were few already; and apparently, whatever he did with wood was ¡°nothing special.¡± He absolutely refused to elaborate further on it, fixing Caleb with a sharp look and saying only that it ¡°¡®twasn¡¯t his secret to divulge.¡± Though that was one of the points Caleb most wanted answers on, realizing Silas wouldn¡¯t talk, he let it lie as he extracted the complete tale, or as complete a tale as Silas would give, on the incident the night before. ¡°Somethin¡¯ doesn¡¯t add up,¡± he muttered as he applied the new bandage. ¡°Hold still, damn you. Stacy said there weren¡¯t any other bodies in the house aside from Eva¡¯s. Can your enemy turn invisible?¡± Silas drew a frown. ¡°Not to my knowledge,¡± he replied, looking troubled. ¡°He was a shapeshifter of certain renown. It was in his shifted state that he murdered one of my people.¡± ¡°What¡¯d he shape into?¡± ¡°Beasts, of all sort. He was one of a kind. All the greater tragedy he came to misuse it.¡± ¡°Aye,¡± Caleb muttered, making sure the bandage was sealed properly. ¡°Now, I ain¡¯t made of gauze out here, so quit ruining these things and lie still for a while. Let the damn thing do it¡¯s job.¡± ¡°Master Caleb?¡± Caleb raised his head to see Silas gazing over his shoulder, his face gone white. Caleb turned to see where he was looking. In his window, he saw the faint tinge of pale blue dawn, and the visage of his friend Darla, shocked and furious. Very Strange Men - Part 3 Caleb was out the door as soon as her face vanished from sight - he heard a shout behind him, from Silas, and a cry of rage from Darla, up ahead - she was fast, but he knew the woods better than she did, and soon enough her mad rush was curbed by a root bent up at perfect tripping height. He caught her before she hit the ground, grabbing her arm and hauling back; she¡¯d be dizzy for a few moments but he¡¯d save her a concussion. ¡°That ain¡¯t your man, Darla,¡± he yelled over her enraged screaming. He was reminded viscerally of tangling with a rabid bear and he kept his head down, eyes away from hers, and repeated ¡°that ain¡¯t your man¡± until she stopped screaming. ¡°You¡¯re harboring a murderer, Caleb!¡± she shrieked in his face, tugging at her arm in his grip in vain. ¡°You¡¯re keepin¡¯ a monster in your cabin!¡± ¡°He ain¡¯t your man, Darla,¡± Caleb said again, focused and fiercely. ¡°How do you know?!¡± ¡°He told me so.¡± ¡°An¡¯ you believed him?!¡± she shrieked, spit flying into his face. Despite her actions, Caleb knew she was listening; if she was really aiming to get away, she¡¯d be using her nails, her teeth, pummelling every weak spot she could find. ¡°He didn¡¯t lie,¡± he insisted, finally choosing to risk the eye contact. Darla glared at him, heaving with breath, but stopped hitting him. ¡°That man ain¡¯t a murderer, I know it.¡± ¡°He needs to be brought to justice,¡± she snarled. ¡°It won¡¯t be justice bringin¡¯ in an innocent man.¡± ¡°He killed her!¡± she railed, slamming her elbow into Caleb¡¯s ribs. He winced and his grip slackened, and she pulled away from him, though she didn¡¯t run yet. ¡°He ain¡¯t innocent, damn you, you weren¡¯t there!¡± ¡°You weren¡¯t neither!¡± ¡°I was, you damn bastard!¡± Tears were burning down her enraged face. ¡°Rakel shouted when she saw Eva dead, and I helped chase him, I saw him run!¡± ¡°The innocent run when they¡¯re hurt an¡¯ they¡¯re scared, Darla,¡± Caleb insisted, resisting the urge to put a hand to his aching ribs. ¡°He was after the man that did it.¡± ¡°What man?!¡± she demanded. ¡°There weren¡¯t no other man there!¡± ¡°Damn it, Darla, I don¡¯t know, I didn¡¯t see what happened, but I know he didn¡¯t lie.¡± Even as he said it, Caleb couldn¡¯t help a curling feeling of doubt. He knew what he heard in Silas¡¯ voice, and saw in his face, but this was a very strange man indeed. An image of his axe flashed into mind, the handle bending in thin air, the handle that Darla had whittled for him. The floor, rising to trip him and wrap about his ankles like rope. ¡°You didn¡¯t see her, Caleb,¡± her voice broke. ¡°This poor little girl, all broken an¡¯ limp.¡± ¡°I know,¡± Caleb replied, and there was a deep grief in his own voice. He¡¯d rarely go into town, and every time he had, Eva had seemed so bright, shining in her childlike surety that she could break the world before it would break her. Through Frankie¡¯s tales of the town, he¡¯d come to empathize with her, hearing about her falling in love with someone she knew the town would disdain and determined to see it through regardless. He¡¯d silently cheered on her and Anne¡¯s secret romance, and at the same time silently prayed that the world would treat her better for it than it had treated him. And now, all those hopes and promise had been snatched away - by who? A man whose dead body had apparently disappeared? Or a man who had already proven himself to be mysterious? ¡°I don¡¯t think he did it, Darla,¡± he said slowly, struggling to keep the doubt from his own voice. ¡°An¡¯ if I hand him over now, the mob¡¯ll tear him apart before they¡¯ll hear anything out of him.¡± ¡°An¡¯ if we don¡¯t care?¡± Caleb raised his eyebrows slightly. ¡°Then you might as well spit on poor Eva¡¯s corpse, to hand off an innocent man to be torn apart for revenge in her name.¡± Darla jerked back and leveled a poisonous glare at him. ¡°He ain¡¯t innocent,¡± she repeated. ¡°I just know it.¡± ¡°He is,¡± said Caleb. ¡°I know it.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll know what¡¯ll come of this now, Caleb.¡± ¡°I do.¡± ¡°Then damn your worthless hide,¡± she spat, ¡°an¡¯ damn whatever friendship we might¡¯ve had between us. My good wood was wasted on you.¡± With a final look of loathing, she turned her back on him and stalked through the woods until she was out of sight. Caleb hefted a sigh. That breath wasn¡¯t enough though, and he sighed again. When still he felt as though some greater weight had hefted onto his shoulders, he merely turned and began the walk back to his cabin. Something slowed his steps, however, as he neared the house. Silas Green would be there, anxious and awaiting some kind of answer, something that Caleb didn¡¯t have. This knot in the base of his chest that had laid dormant for so long began twisting again. He wouldn¡¯t step in that cabin now, he couldn¡¯t. He couldn¡¯t face it. So he turned aside, and began walking into the woods, letting his feet take him where they would. He hadn¡¯t brought his axe, but that didn¡¯t much matter to him; after what he¡¯d just gone through with Darla, the thought of the axe made that knot tighten all the greater. So like most other things that made him twist on the inside like that, he walked away from it, put it out of his mind, and went wandering in the woods that were more his home than the cabin was. He found a patch of huckleberries and tasted them tenuously to make sure he¡¯d identified them correctly. He had no pack, but he carried a few with him and snacked on them as he walked. A crow cawed above him, and when he raised his head, he saw a nest gathered on the upper branches. He found his favorite pond, fed by a small stream that came in the direction of the mountain, stirring the pool slowly before trickling back away down another path. A few leaves brushed his hands, and after making sure they were indeed Fringes, he plucked a couple leaves and placed them in his pocket. He went along the trickling creek for a while, gathering little leaves and petals where he saw them, thinking about putting them to use for poultices, for tea, or even just for their gentle fragrance. A bird sang to him from the branches of a sapling, and on a whim, he followed it as it flitted from twig to twig, piping out an alarm to other birds that a large creature was bumbling through the foliage. Once it finally flew far away, Caleb glanced around to catch his bearings, and realized he was in a clearing he didn¡¯t recognize. The trees had ceased growing in a near perfect circle, wherein grew a haphazard, unkempt patch of grass, some strands waving in the absent wind, laden with milk-white seeds, while the others seemed trampled together, like a messy haircut. One end of the clearing was backed by a large rock, eight feet up, the toe of the giant mountain. In the center of the clearing was a dead rabbit. Its brown fur was matted with dried blood, around its neck, which was bent crazily to the side. Its eyes were black and wide, filled with an abyss that had swallowed it. The noise of the woods had deadened. Caleb caught the sight of a squirrel¡¯s tail as it raced away in a panic. A breeze wound its way through the tense air; the clearing seemed to breathe. Now Caleb was wishing he¡¯d brought his axe, though some distant part of him was telling him that not even his axe would be of any use here. With trepidation, he began to slowly approach the dead animal, sensing that it had been left there as a message for him, and he might as well interpret the message before searching for his escape. The dried blood was gathered all around the neck, and nowhere else. Some creature with wide, powerful jaws had shaken the thing until it had died, and not bothered to eat it. Some creature had killed another, for no reason Caleb could fathom. He had seen dead animals before, plenty of times, yet somehow, this one set him back, this one made him tremble to look in its black eyes, an abyss that rolled its wide, infinite eye over him now. A growl split the air behind him, and he turned to see a wolf standing on the large rock at the head of the clearing. It was as large as a man, seeming even larger; its black fur was bristled, and its massive paws gripped the rock with a ferocious command to the unyielding stone. All around him, bushes rustled, and Caleb saw the tips of furred ears emerging, yellow eyes glaring. He backed away, tensing his own shoulder and back muscles as though he too had hackles to raise, inhaling deeply to get every inch of volume he could out of his already large frame. His elbows bent out, and he leaned forward on his hips as best he could as he backpedaled. The wolves surrounding him remained in check, unmoving. The lead wolf on the rock gazed down at him with what looked like abject contempt. Wolves were not man-hunters, nor did they do any hunting during the day. Most wolves, upon coming across a man standing his ground in the forest, would leave to find some easier prey. The black wolf on the rock was not moving. It held itself at readiness, preparing to strike - the moment Caleb showed it an opening, it would pounce. Caleb had tangled with wolves before. This wolf was acting like none he was familiar with. He continued to take small steps behind him as he showed his size, but none of the creatures backed down. He nearly tripped over the uneaten rabbit corpse, and a growl arose through the pack. A thrill of fear lanced along the back of his neck. A root grazed the side of his foot and he glanced with his eyes to the side. He had reached the edge of the clearing, and a heavy branch laid a few feet away, as thick around as his arm. Before he could think much further beyond that, he heard a snarl from ahead of him. Too late, he flicked his eyes back to the black wolf just as it launched itself off the great rock, crossing the clearing in two great bounds, spittle flying from its snapping jaws. Around it, the pack surged forward as one, a perfect flank with Caleb at the convergence point. Caleb had no time to flank. A swift step back and to the side widened his stance, and now the great branch was in front of him. He scooped it up, needing both hands, and looked up as the lead wolf launched at him, killing intent in its yellow eyes. He let out a howl as he straightened, using the momentum of his movement to swing the branch up and around, sending it crashing into the side of the wolf. He felt the graze of the creature¡¯s fur as its flight was taken off-course, the force of the blow sending it heavily back to earth, skidding along the dry grass, digging up clods of dirt, before finally slamming into a tree. Caleb levered the branch back to a threatening position, growling again with the effort. The pack had skidded to a stop, and, oddly to Caleb, were gazing at him with almost confused expressions, as though suddenly uncertain of their course and their prey.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. He growled loudly and lumbered forward, stomping the ground. Perhaps now that their leader was defeated, the rest would scatter if they thought he was too tough a catch. Several of the wolves were backing away, wary eyes on him; a few glanced at the downed black wolf. Caleb could see the rise and fall of its chest, confirming that it lived, but it did not stir, and at last the pack departed, flowing around the clifflike rock, eyes never leaving Caleb¡¯s until they were too distant for practical attack. He looked to the black wolf, wondering if he should kill it - whether as a mercy or as a precaution, he wasn¡¯t sure. The pack couldn¡¯t be too far away though, and he didn¡¯t want to press his luck. He leaned the heavy branch against a nearby tree and left, keeping his eyes on the black wolf until the sight of the clearing was swallowed up by foliage. Even as he turned his sight back to the path, he thought he caught a glimpse of the hateful glow of yellow eyes snapping open behind him. Caleb had little time to gather his wits, however. As he approached his cabin, he saw that he had more guests to deal with. A crowd of people were assembled in the clearing in front of Caleb¡¯s cabin. Every one of them turned to regard him as he came out of the woods, and the force of their attention halted him in his tracks. Everyone he knew from Fro¦Äi was there. St?le and Rakel both eyed him uneasily, the only two that seemed to have strong doubts about the whole situation. Magret and Gunnar, Eva¡¯s parents, were next to them, glaring ferociously through reddened eyes, seeming so close to pouncing on his throat that he was forcibly reminded of the wolves he had just escaped. He was surprised to see Einar with his pregnant wife, Alda - Frankie had mentioned he hadn¡¯t returned yet from Oslo - and he stood protectively close to Alda, eyeing Caleb in outright dislike. The only one of the group not paired up was a rough-looking, unshaven man hovering at the edges of the group - his beard was wild and bushy, as long as Caleb¡¯s but not as well-kept, and he peeked out at the goings-on through squinting, disinterested eyes. Caleb had to go into his memory to remember who this man was, and finally recognized him as Skaug, the other loner of Fro¦Äi, not nearly as friendly and focused less on the woods and more on drink. Stacy was at the head of the group, of course, and standing like a lieutenant at her side was Darla. The latter glared hard at Caleb as he walked up to the clear leader of the group, and again Caleb felt a pang at how quickly he¡¯d turned this former friend against him. ¡°You¡¯ve been awhile,¡± Stacy commented, but Caleb held up a finger and went into his cabin without a word. Silas was nowhere to be seen, but he couldn¡¯t worry about that right now. He leaned down to pick up his axe and, hefting it a moment, walked back outside. Darla gave him an angry, incredulous look, and Stacy¡¯s expression hardened as he returned to them armed. ¡°Afternoon,¡± he greeted them both. ¡°Ain¡¯t safe for y¡¯all to be out here. I just got back from tangling from those wolves we¡¯ve been hearing the past few nights, an¡¯ they¡¯re real aggressive. Goin¡¯ around in the day, too, so it¡¯s probably safest for you folks to head out soonlike.¡± ¡°Not happening, woodsman,¡± Darla spat on the ground between them. ¡°Awfully convenient you come right out of the woods talkin¡¯ about day-walking wolves, and unharmed on top of it. I find it more likely you¡¯ve gotten in the habit of lyin¡¯ to folks who¡¯ve considered you good up to now.¡± ¡°Darla,¡± Stacy interrupted without taking her eyes off Caleb, ¡°you¡¯ve said your piece.¡± Darla subsided to fierce stares. Stacy¡¯s arms were crossed, and her hawklike stare bore into him. ¡°Darla says you¡¯ve got the murderer in your house,¡± she stated. ¡°She saw ¡®im on your couch, bein¡¯ tended to.¡± ¡°Aye.¡± Caleb kept his own stare on Stacy, feeling like he was going up against the wolves again. ¡°A wounded man comes into my home, I¡¯m gonna put a bandage on ¡®im.¡± ¡°Even when ¡®e killed a girl?¡± ¡°Silas didn¡¯t kill her.¡± Stacy raised her eyebrows, and Darla seemed taken aback. ¡°Silas, huh? You¡¯ve gotten awfully friendly with ¡®im already, have you?¡± Caleb felt himself bristling and his fist clenching around the axe. ¡°I¡¯m callin¡¯ a man by his name,¡± he replied stiffly. ¡°Specially when he¡¯s done nothin¡¯ wrong.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a nice hole in your cabin door,¡± Stacy said, still not breaking her stare. ¡°Like someone broke in, real desperate like. Imagine what¡¯d happen to the rest of your house if lots of people were desperate, like to go after a killer hiding inside.¡± So it was like that, then. ¡°Your father built this house,¡± he reminded Stacy. ¡°An¡¯ he¡¯d help me tear it down, if he were here.¡± She didn¡¯t move an inch. ¡°We ain¡¯t lettin¡¯ this man go. We can¡¯t leave Eva an¡¯ her family without their vengeance.¡± ¡°And I can¡¯t let you kill an innocent man in Eva¡¯s name.¡± ¡°Then we¡¯re at an impasse.¡± Her glance briefly dropped to his axe and back up. ¡°You can¡¯t win this. You¡¯re one, an¡¯ we¡¯re ten. If you want us to go through you to get to ¡®im, we will.¡± Caleb considered for a moment. She was right; she wasn¡¯t going to budge, and neither was he. And he had no chance of winning any sort of confrontation that was sure to follow, though there was no way he¡¯d let them through without a fight. ¡°You¡¯d lose as much as you¡¯d win,¡± he promised, emphasizing the point by hefting the axe again. He saw Darla¡¯s eyes drop to stare at it. ¡°You¡¯d really try to kill some of us to protect a stranger?¡± Stacy demanded bluntly ¡°I don¡¯t want to,¡± he retorted, feeling like ice water was bleeding through his veins and his muscles. This was escalating fast, too fast. ¡°But I¡¯ll defend myself and him, if need be.¡± ¡°The need will be,¡± said Stacy, and she raised her chin; a cold, clear light came to her eye. In a flash of awareness and adrenaline, Caleb realized what she was about to do. Here she was general, and now negotiations with the enemy had passed. The crowd behind her had been watching the exchange, and at the raise of her head, they ceased to be townsfolk and tensed as one, becoming soldiers ready to begin the siege. She opened her mouth to let loose the battle cry, to command her troops to charge. ¡°Proof,¡± he blurted. Stacy paused, halfway through the breath that would give the command. ¡°I ain¡¯t budgin¡¯ an¡¯ neither are you,¡± Caleb said, repeating his earlier thought, breathless as he worked out what he was going to say. ¡°But we don¡¯t really want to hurt each other, aye?¡± She raised an eyebrow. Caleb took it as assent. ¡°But I¡¯ll budge if you prove Silas ain¡¯t innocent,¡± he said. ¡°I won¡¯t have murderers in my cabin. Prove he is an¡¯ I¡¯ll stand aside. Hell, I¡¯ll burn the house to the ground along with you. Or prove he isn¡¯t an¡¯ I¡¯ll help you find the true killer.¡± ¡°We ain¡¯t detectives,¡± Darla spat. ¡°Then find one,¡± Caleb snarled back. ¡°Unless you really don¡¯t care about findin¡¯ Eva¡¯s killer, an¡¯ just want to kill someone convenient in her name. I¡¯m sure she¡¯d love that. Silas¡¯ll be here ¡®til then, you can be sure he won¡¯t be leavin¡¯ ¡®til we get this sorted out.¡± Stacy¡¯s nostrils flared. She bore into Caleb with her narrowed-eyed stare, but she said nothing. ¡°Like we¡¯ll trust you to keep ¡®im here,¡± Darla snorted. ¡°You can.¡± Caleb didn¡¯t move his own stare from Stacy either. Darla looked back and forth between Caleb and Stacy, as though suddenly realizing Stacy hadn¡¯t denounced Caleb¡¯s offer yet. ¡°This is stupid,¡± she snarled, more at Stacy than at Caleb. ¡°Rakel saw ¡®im! She saw ¡®im walkin¡¯ away from a dead girl!¡± ¡°She saw someone,¡± Stacy corrected her. ¡°It was dark, and neither you nor her got a good luck at this man Silas.¡± At last, she took her gaze off of Caleb and turned to Darla. ¡°No one¡¯s gone back in the house, have they?¡± Darla stared at Stacy, true incredulity written over her face. She glanced once at Caleb again before sullenly answering Stacy¡¯s question. ¡°Just to move Eva outa there. Magret an¡¯ Gunnar slept at my house.¡± ¡°Then we¡¯ll go an¡¯ find something to convince this stubborn woodsman that he¡¯s got a murderer under his roof, even if we gotta give Byunsberg a call to find it,¡± Stacy declared. The crowd behind them murmured, and an outraged cry sounded from the edges. Caleb looked over to see Magret and Gunnar being held back by St?le and Rakel, screaming at him, at the cabin, at Silas inside. St?le yelled for reinforcements, and the drunken Skaug lumbered over to put an imperturbable hand on Gunnar¡¯s shoulder while Einar rushed over to hold back Magret. Stacy gave them an unreadable look before turning back to Caleb. ¡°What if there¡¯s no proof to be found?¡± she asked in a low, cold voice. ¡°Then we go back to our impasse,¡± Caleb replied, making his voice just as chilly as hers. .¡±I still won¡¯t let you execute a man if we don¡¯t know he did the deed.¡± ¡°We won¡¯t be at an impasse for very long,¡± she promised, and made the threat clear with first a look to the axe still in his hand, then a moment where she ran her eyes over the cabin behind him. ¡°You can be sure of that.¡± Finished with what she had to say to Caleb, she turned her back on him and went to the crowd of people milling uncertainly behind her. About to follow her, Darla¡¯s gaze went back to the axe in Caleb¡¯s hand, and she frowned for a long moment before joining her. Any relief Caleb felt at deferring the confrontation was short-lived when he began examining the axe. The curve in the handle wouldn¡¯t be easily noticeable to the layman, but it was apparent to him, who used it every day, and it would be apparent to the woman who had fashioned it in the first place. There was nothing more he could do here for now, he decided, as he looked back over the mass of people now surrounding Stacy as she spoke in a sharp, clipped voice. Magret and Gunnar no longer needed to be held back from attacking him that moment, but they stood unfocused, swaying on the spot, eyes rimmed red. Caleb couldn¡¯t stand to remain outside with so many people any longer. He quickly turned and retreated through the door to his cabin, locking the door as he went. But the tremulous, hunted feeling didn¡¯t go away. He knew Silas had to be somewhere in his cabin, but he didn¡¯t care. Caleb buried his head against the door, pressing his body against it, as though he could reinforce the whole of the cabin with his strength, as though he could push away the intruders that came to threaten his home. I¡¯ll burn the house to the ground along with you, he repeated to himself dully. The cabin was a part of his body. It was like a second skin. He could never have burned it down. His foot brushed against an opening, and he looked down to see the splintered hole broken through the bottom of the door. Whatever nonsense Silas could do with wood, he¡¯d have to do it to fix the damn door, and suddenly Caleb needed him to do it now. He turned and stalked through the doorway on the other end of the long room, the area where his bedroom and bathroom was. He heard voices coming through the door of his closed bedroom - Silas¡¯, along with a young woman¡¯s. Without hesitation, he pushed through the door. There was Silas, sitting on the ground against the wood of the wall. His eyes were a thousand miles away as he spoke. On a stool borrowed from the dining room was a girl, around sixteen or seventeen, leaning her elbows on her knees and listening with a focused, unsmiling face. ¡°- quite a long time ago,¡± Silas was saying. ¡°All the more tragic to our people to lose another of the leyline abbots, though I am told thy words for such a title mean something different to your culture. I was the only one to have been given the gift of Traveling, and thus I was made - well, Master Caleb called me a ¡®lawman,¡¯ and that is close enough to my reckoning, for thine understanding.¡± The two were so deep in whatever Silas was saying, they hadn¡¯t seemed to notice Caleb¡¯s entrance. ¡°There are only two of the abbots left now, hardly enough to stand against the poachers, and what is more, Durweard¡¯s crime did not make sense. I know he had no desire to live in your lands, and the death of the abbots harms him as much as it harms all else. I was charged, then, to return Durweard alive, that we might understand the nature of his crime, and the motivation.¡± He heaved a deep sigh. ¡°I had no idea the lengths to which he would go to escape me, nor the vicious appetites he had acquired in his travels through these lands -¡± ¡°Silas,¡± Caleb croaked. Both Silas and the girl jumped and looked around, spooked. ¡°Master Caleb,¡± Silas said when he had recovered, ¡°my greatest apologies. I had not noticed thine entrance.¡± He gestured to the girl, who had leaped up from her stool at the surprise and now stared at Caleb, stony-faced. ¡°This is Anne,¡± he said, looking to Caleb warily. ¡°Thou wast gone for but a little while when she entered the cabin by the same way I had made my entrance. She was here for vengeance, but I have explained my tale to her, and she understands the death of her beloved was my fault, but not done by my hands.¡± He pushed himself to his feet, using the wall behind him as leverage as he grimaced through the pain. ¡°Thou wast gone a long while,¡± he said, his tone making it a question. Caleb needed space, and he didn¡¯t want to deal with people now. He¡¯d deal with Anne¡¯s intrusion later. ¡°Both of you,¡± he rasped, pointing at the door, ¡°out.¡± Anne and Silas looked at each other, then quickly made for the door. ¡°Silas,¡± Caleb said just before he closed the door. ¡°Yes?¡± the man paused. ¡°Fix my door,¡± he growled. Despite the bedroom door being closed, he still felt their presence through the wood. He tried his best to ignore it, and once he had shut himself in the closet of his room, he was able to forget their presence entirely. The darkness and warmth cloaked him, and he sat there, controlling his breathing carefully, willing himself to relax and calm down, until under a pile of Frankie¡¯s old flannels, he fell asleep. Unevening - Part 1 Careless of me to get so lost, so quickly. Usually I revel in becoming lost, since it means I get to explore new places and learn new things and expand the map that lives and tosses and dances in my head, but today the map got rained on and it¡¯s all soggy and the ink¡¯s run together and nothing makes sense anymore. It frustrates me that I can¡¯t find my way in this stupid backwater bog of a town, Bug Town, the worst town on the face of the world. I hate it and I hate being here, but it¡¯s my own fault because in the middle of the night I just left my house, bought a train ticket, and paced up and down the carriages while it bumped along the tracks to this garbage collection of plain blocky buildings with roads that go nowhere and muddy patches that suck your feet right in like an unknown family member¡¯s unwelcome embrace. As soon as the train stopped I got right out and started walking through the rain because of course it¡¯s raining, but this is more like a sweat than a proper slurry and it just annoys me while I storm through the rundown streets. I should have known better than to come to Bug Town when I was in a state like this, I should have known it would make my mood worse rather than better. Fuck this town. I hate it. I want it to go away, I want it to vanish off the map. I stop in the middle of the street and fold my arms petulantly, though if I¡¯m honest it¡¯s more to keep myself warm in this dismal rain. I¡¯ve never seen cars in Bug so I feel safe to stand here and the sidewalks are all just cracked strips along the side of the road. In fact, I¡¯ve never seen anyone walking around the town, except when the hotel manager, the man I never saw blink, walked us to the train station on our last visit. Fantastic thought that, our last visit to Bug Town. I feel myself souring like the dried skin over spoiled milk. I kneel down with my arms still around me and glare as hard as I can out from under my dripping brows. What am I doing back here? Why did I come back? What did I think I¡¯d find? What have I found? I¡¯m in the middle of nowhere. I¡¯m stanidng directly in the middle of the intersection, letting the rain chill me throughout and not caring. Small industrial buildings line the streets in front of me, like two story warehouses or something, I can¡¯t tell because none of them have signs because Bug Town just likes to fucking mess with people. The street lights above me don¡¯t work. I think the rain shorted out their circuits long ago, and now they¡¯re just weird decorations strung across a street that never sees any cars. The pavement is cracked and chipped and I wonder what must lie beneath that¡¯s tried so desperately to escape. I don¡¯t know how much time has passed when I feel a hand on my shoulder. My eyes were closed. I turn around and see the hotel manager, a man I named Noblink, looking real concerned with an umbrella over his head. Are you okay? he asks. You look like you¡¯ve been out in the rain for a while. The rain has grown stronger while I¡¯ve been standing here and I¡¯m soaked, but I don¡¯t really know what to say to him. I know how precious every second of time is. It¡¯s always been my SO I have to occasionally nudge to bring them out of a glazed-over trance, staring through a fold of space and pondering slow river thoughts, tumbling pebbles and curving ripple lines around any obstacle. They fell into that stupor much more often before our first visit to Bug; now they only fall into it when they¡¯re looking at me. I wish they¡¯d spend that time talking to me instead of thinking about me, though it never used to make me self-conscious. Noblink waves his hand in front of my face and I realize with a start I¡¯ve fallen into the same kind of reverie. I only shake my head, unable to come up with words for this fugue I¡¯ve found myself in. Come on, Noblink says, and helps me up. He grabs me by the arm as though he knows I can¡¯t feel my fingers anymore, and he looks concerned as though he knows how little my numbed digits matter to me. He wraps a towel around my shoulders and I feel the hotel logo bump against my wrist. I can get you to the cafe where my brother¡¯s working, he says as he shares the umbrella. You need to get warmed up. The jazz bar looks exactly the same as my first visit here; beige, plain, boring, full of people who seem like they have nothing better to do than sit at their tables and stare into their mugs of tepid liquid all day. Grey storm clouds rumble threateningly over my head as I take my seat, though I don¡¯t know why they bother with the forewarning since they¡¯re already tossing little ice-cold daggers of rain down into my scalp and my shoulders. It just can¡¯t help raining everywhere I go in Bug Town, can it? The person across from me lowers their newspaper and regards me curiously. I know how I must look, hair like a drowned rat, huddled in a hotel blanket sitting stiffly on the edge of the seat. I¡¯m not looking at them, so all I see is a faded purple cap and skinny arms in a turquoise coat. Hey, they say in a voice that seems naturally soft and warm, do you need a hot drink or something? I jab my finger at the bar where the hotel manager is already talking to the creepy bartender. It¡¯s covered, I mutter. But thanks. My tablemate nods but doesn¡¯t return to their reading, instead rolling up the paper and putting it on the seat next to them, watching me like I¡¯m a fascinating TV show. Their gaze sparks some deja vu in me and pisses me off. They sip a coffee as something hot is brought to me by the manager, who, despite the fact that I¡¯ve never seen him blink, is looking real concerned for my health. My brother at the bar¡¯ll take care of you, he promises. Anything he brings you is on the house. I have to go though, I have to stay at the hotel. Will you stay here ¡®til you warm up? I shrug, but he doesn¡¯t leave until I finally mutter yeah okay. The muted tremolo of the unseen jazz band drifts out the door with him, foglike. The dagger rain from the indoor clouds sluices down into my cup. I drink hot chocolate with something like brandy or irish cream, I¡¯ve never been a drinking type so I don¡¯t know for certain. So, my tablemate asks as I sip at my drink, what brings you back to town? That brings me up short. How do you know I¡¯ve been in town before? I heard about it, they answer. It¡¯s a small town. Word got around. Did it? I make my voice frosty and am satisfied to see them shiver. How¡¯s your partner doing? they ask eventually. That really brings me up short and my cup slams into the table. Excuse me?! I snap at them. Who do you think you are, asking me about them? That makes them recoil, but they seem more startled than intimidated. They shrug a little. Well, they say in a quiet voice, your partner seemed¡­ upset, when you two were here last time. I was curious to know if they were doing okay now. My anger evaporates and I wish it wouldn¡¯t, it was a welcome distraction. I hunch over my chocolate, retreating into the hotel towel, keeping my eyes fixed stubbornly on my cup. I don¡¯t want to talk about my partner. I don¡¯t want to talk to anyone. What the hell is it your business? I finally snap at them, since they haven¡¯t stopped staring at me. You must care a lot about them, my tablemate says, still in that infuriatingly soft voice of theirs. You came with them to keep them safe and you followed them everywhere around a town you hate. You were there for them. My tablemate cocks their head to the side slightly. Why aren¡¯t they here now for you? Fuck off, I say, and my tablemate recoils like it was unexpected. There¡¯s silence except for the pathetic waft of jazz coming up from somewhere and the clack, clack of rain picking up. I sip some more from a cup that seems to be cooling too fast. The bartender is keeping an eye on me and I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m grateful or irritated by the attention. There are people in the rest of this cafe, right? Why are we the only ones talking? I¡¯m sorry, my tablemate says finally. I was out of line. Damn straight, I mutter. I settle a little more into my towel, thinking the interaction is over. Instead a hand appears over my coffee cup. My name¡¯s Cal, they say. I should have introduced myself. I stare incredulously, first at the hand and then at the person sitting across from me, and I finally get a good look at them. The purple cap from before is barely hanging onto a head full of curly sheep-like brown hair, waving all over a chubby face. Thin-framed glasses float on their nose. My SO would have called their face beatific or something grand and poetic like that. To me it just looks childish. The hand is still there in front of my face, and even without my moldering temper I would have no idea how to respond to this interaction. My name has always been a contentious subject. I¡¯m always thinking of new things to change it to, when I find a word that seems to comprise my entire being, like acorns picked from every tree in a forest, but inevitably that sense of rightness fades, acorns mold and turn to dust, and I have to pick a new one. The last name I picked was Delford, but I haven¡¯t gone by that since the last time I came to this town, three weeks ago. So I just silently reach out from my towel robe and shake Cal¡¯s hand, without a sound. Cal withdraws their hand and looks oddly chastened. The bartender, who I¡¯ve never really seen take a breath, finally comes over and replaces my cold cocoa with hot. It¡¯s a little more cinnamony now, no alcohol, and the warm drinks are loosening the knot in my neck, the one that¡¯s been keeping my face all stiff and forced. I can¡¯t help but relax, as much as I wish I could stay in the rotten mood. The downpour slackens. So, Cal says eventually, brightly, obviously trying to restart the conversation. What brings you back to town? I sip my cocoa some, then sip some more. I¡¯m staring into the woodwork of the table. It¡¯s an old table, wood cracked and soft, carved initials on the side, fingerprinted napkin holders, old-fashioned wooden salt and pepper shakers crusted with flakes. I don¡¯t know, I whisper. Cal seems confused at my answer. I can¡¯t tell if they can tell how much I¡¯m confused too. I sip my cocoa. As soon as the cup reaches the table it¡¯s moving back up to my lips, my mouthful barely swallowed. Everything was fine, I say. I hear how clipped and toneless my voice is as I try to explain. They were so much happier after this visit. They¡¯ve reached a whole ¡®nother level of happy. Like they¡¯re at peace. And nothing really happened, you know? But they¡¯re just so¡­ alive now. All the time. Cal¡¯s hands are laid on top of each other and they¡¯re leaning forward, eyes on me. The members of the cafe I¡¯m sure are listening too, since we¡¯re the only ones talking, but every gaze aside from Cal¡¯s is directed at their tables. The bartender refills with more cinnamon cocoa. The music playing couldn¡¯t be called jazz anymore, it¡¯s something low and ambient and soothing. Was that a bad thing? Cal asks when I haven¡¯t spoken for a while. I feel myself tensing up again. It shouldn¡¯t have been. It really shouldn¡¯t have been. All I want is for the person I love to be happy, right? I made the trip here with them because I was afraid for them. I love them. I blurt that suddenly, baldly, and realize I have no idea if I said the other thoughts out loud. I make sure to enunciate them now. I love them, I say again. I¡¯m happy they¡¯re happy. I¡­ I should be, right? The cafe is quiet. But you¡¯re not? Cal asks. I grip my cup and feel a sudden desire to smash it on the floor and scream. I don¡¯t say anything. My limbs feel all tangled like I¡¯m knotted together. I love you but it¡¯s like you¡¯re a different person now and I can¡¯t recognize you - no, that¡¯s not it. I love you but it¡¯s like you¡¯re always rubbing this happiness in my face - no, no. But you¡¯ve changed so much so suddenly, you haven¡¯t changed so bad in all the seven years I¡¯ve known you - but it¡¯s good change, isn¡¯t it? I can¡¯t say that. I love you but why did you leave me behind - they¡¯re still here, still there, back at the apartment, maybe still in bed where I left them this morning. You left me behind - I left you behind - I¡¯m sorry - what the hell am I sorry for?! I feel the rain. It¡¯s raining indoors. It¡¯s raining indoors because of course it fucking is. The jazz falls down with the rain, spiraling harmonies descending into guttural rhythms. The table splits like a broken altar. The lamps all dim and darken but light hisses out from under every face. My eyes melt out of my head. I clench my fingers around my coffee cup and flesh sinks into porcelain. I feel my shoulders hunch back and dissolve into ashy powder. Forks and knives all impale through my stomach and the decanter at the bar scoops me out, the towel tightens and suffocates my arms, I¡¯m the strangest one here, here among the dead. A man in a raincoat wishes me happiness and I tell him happiness is impossible, it¡¯s a contradiction in this world, a contradiction in me. In everyone. A man in a raincoat - no, someone in a raincoat looks up from their table. What¡¯s left of my scooped-out heart creeps into my mouth and drips off my tongue. It¡¯s my SO, my partner, the one I love. They¡¯re looking at me from under the raincoat. The cafe is flooding, but they¡¯re looking at me. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Their lips move. They¡¯re telling me three things with three different voices. I listen raptly through the rain, as hard as I can with my broken body. I love you, that¡¯s the first one. A wish for happiness, the second one. The third one¡­ Hey? Hey! I wasn¡¯t dreaming, it wasn¡¯t a dream; but just like that I blink and they¡¯re gone, the one I love is gone from the table; they¡¯re still back at the apartment. I feel Cal seize my hands and pry them out of the coffee mug. Come back, they say, I lost you for a minute. I withdraw one hand and mechanically pluck one of the spoons out of my torso. Lost me? I ask, and my voice scares even me. You don¡¯t even know me. You just met me. Cal has tears in their eyes and I don¡¯t know why. I don¡¯t know where you went but you went somewhere else, someplace deep and dark, they whisper. Listen, you don¡¯t have to stay down there. You¡¯re confused and upset and frustrated, but you don¡¯t have to work it through alone. You don¡¯t know me, I repeat, then louder. ¡°You don¡¯t know me.¡± I feel suddenly short of breath for the way I speak the words. It¡¯s as though my voice suddenly became more real, more tangible, but I can hear myself in it less. To keep from speaking again, I only think to myself, there¡¯s only one person who might know me and I ran away from them for suddenly being happier than me. Cal wipes the tears from their eyes, then stands. I think I know, some, they reply softly, coming around to my side of the table and kneeling down, so earnest. I don¡¯t have to know all you to know I care. My cocoa is too far away to sip and in any case I don¡¯t want to get stuck on it again. I¡¯m conscious suddenly of all the people here in the cafe, listening silently, listening tenderly, their regard and sympathy heavier on my shoulders than the hotel towel. I think they¡¯re saying something to me, not with their voices and it¡¯s awfully quiet, but I hear it nonetheless. We¡¯re here for you, Cal says, and they¡¯re crying again. I shrug the constricting towel off and stand up. My eyes are closed. I can¡¯t look at all this¡­ all this. I have to go, I whisper. Cal tries to grab at my wrist, but I slip out of their grip and run to the door. I think I hear something about how it¡¯s still raining hard outside and I¡¯m leaving the towel behind, but it¡¯s raining inside too, it¡¯s been raining all damn day. There¡¯s no escape from the rain. ----------- It¡¯s evening, and I¡¯m still wandering around the damned streets. I can¡¯t feel my body anymore. I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s the onset of hypothermia, or if the raindrops are falling through me, the way they used to fall through my SO when they got upset. Sometimes I try to think about what happened in the jazz bar, what Cal and the others were saying to me, but I can¡¯t. It¡¯s like the memory is repelling me, like two different magnets repelling each other. I can¡¯t touch it. I¡¯m afraid to. I¡¯m along one sidewalk and walking behind one of the taller buildings when my foot catches on an upraised turn of the sidewalk and I fall, I fucking sprawl across the soaked goddamn ground, and my thoughts screech to a halt as I gasp for a shriek, but water comes down my throat with the air and I can only cough and sputter for a long while. God damn, god damn, I hate this town, god damn, god damn, god damn! Hello? I hear someone¡¯s voice and I look up to see a lump with eyes. Are you okay? the lump asks, shifting slightly. That looks like a nasty fall. I blink the water out of my eyes and realize what I¡¯m looking at. It¡¯s a person, a homeless man I think, wrapped up in a dark green raincoat leaning against a building. I could barely see them in the dark green shadows. It¡¯s full night now. I hadn¡¯t noticed. The homeless man distangles themself from their lumped-up position and walks over to help me up. My ankle is throbbing and it¡¯s making me limp now, and I need their shoulder to support me as they help me over to the wall. It provides a little bit of shelter, but not much. Here, they say, and I¡¯m wrapped in a similar green raincoat. It¡¯s not much, they say apologetically, but it¡¯s all I¡¯ve got. Can¡¯t expect much from the dollar store, you know? The dollar store. I¡¯ve never seen a dollar store here in Bug. I¡¯ve only ever been to the hotel and jazz bar, and I¡¯ve seen no other places I¡¯d want to explore. I¡¯m helped into a sitting position up against the wall and close to the homeless man, for warmth I assume, though the rain streaming off their raincoat doesn¡¯t make them an optimal source of heat. We sit in silence for a while, and I appreciate the silence the homeless man is offering me. At some point they ask for my pronouns, and I feel a sense of warmth touch me briefly. It¡¯s rare for people to ask me that. I ask for they/them and the homeless man says he/him, though neither of us ask for names. I appreciate that too. But this man¡¯s kindness is reminding me too much of all the silent listeners in the jazz bar. I don¡¯t understand how they could communicate so much without speaking or even looking up at Cal and I. How had I heard their silent support? Why would they offer that to me when it was me who messed everything up? I¡¯m not worthy of their help. I created a problem where none existed. I don¡¯t deserve anything from anyone. Hey, I hear the homeless man break the silence and pull me out of the spiral. You still alive? I nod, but realize he probably can¡¯t see me. Yes, I answer. I¡¯m still alive. You? He chuckles, the cheery sound clashing against the clatter of the rain. There¡¯s another stretch of silence, but now, I don¡¯t feel so alone. For a few minutes, I just focus on breathing in. So, the homeless man says eventually, what happened, friend? I blink. What do you mean? I ask, genuinely confused. There are so many things that have happened, I don¡¯t know which one he¡¯s referring to. To your SO, he answers, and the warmth I¡¯ve built up bleeds out into the dark air. I saw you and them walking past my spot the last time you two came here. They looked awfully perturbed, but you were all¡­ calm. You were the calm one. Now you¡¯re here, the upset one, but your SO isn¡¯t here. I think my jaw¡¯s flexing, or maybe I¡¯m clenching my teeth. Why is everyone asking me this? Why can¡¯t they just mind their own business? I don¡¯t mean to pry, the homeless man adds. I¡¯m just¡­ I¡¯m worried about your safety. If you have a place to go home, I can help you get there? His tone makes it a question. I breathe deep to get rid of the lump in my throat, but it doesn¡¯t work. You want to know what happened? I finally spit out. Fine. I¡¯ll tell you. Nothing. Barely anything. My SO went nuts looking in this stupid town for God. Who knows why? Why would they pick Bug of all places for God to spend his precious time? But we found him here all right. And he was useless, completely useless. He couldn¡¯t do shit. And my SO almost melted away in the rain, in my arms. As though it can hear it¡¯s being talked about, the rain picks up, battering into my open snarling face. I can¡¯t see the face of the man next to me, I only see water. What happened then? he asks. I hear the words, but not the voice uttering them. What happened then? I echo, shrinking deeper into myself, as much to escape the cold as to escape my own thoughts. I sang to them, I finally say. I sang the first song that popped into my head because I couldn¡¯t think of anything else to do. And it¡­ My voice chokes on all the water. I cough and splutter to get it all out. It helped them, I croak. They heard me and it made them better. I made them feel better when not even God could. The ground begins to tremble before my feet. Something pulls its way out of the cracked cement. They got better, I continue, my eyes on the creature coming out of the ground. They got better and stayed better after that. I¡¯ve been singing to them every night for the past three weeks. Another tremble comes from my right. In front of me, I finally see through the rain. It¡¯s a worm. Its head wavers uncertainly in the deluge before it slinks out onto the asphalt. Is that a bad thing? The man asks, and I hear the echo of the question from Cal back at the cafe. ¡°No!¡± I shout, and I cough and choke and retch and nearly vomit. I feel my insides rotting and dying at the sudden utterance, different and worse than any way I¡¯ve ever spoken before. The worms are crawling towards me. Yes, I whisper, but that¡¯s not what I want to say for real, because I¡¯m not a bad person. There¡¯s a worm on my shoe. I can¡¯t even tell what I¡¯m saying anymore, I can¡¯t tell if I¡¯m speaking or thinking or if there¡¯s no difference at all, if my mind has always been so transparent, if that was why my SO was staring at me so pensively the night before I left. I used to be able to see through them. I used to be able to see right through my SO, like they were a ghost, and I¡¯ve been able to see them like that for all eight years we¡¯ve been together. The past three weeks, they¡¯ve never been so solid. How did they do it? It couldn¡¯t have been my singing. That¡¯s just ridiculous. I¡¯ve never even been in choir. I sang to them here in Bug Town, in front of God, because I was so scared they were going to disappear forever. It must have distracted them or something, because they were about to dissolve right away before I started. I wasn¡¯t even that good, and I haven¡¯t even improved at all since. How did just my singing bring them back? How is it keeping them back? How is my singing making them so damned happy? Why can¡¯t I do that for myself? I feel a wriggle down by my feet. The worms are crawling over my ankles and several are burrowed into my socks. Some are wriggling their way up my coat. I¡¯m frozen. I¡¯m petrified. I can¡¯t think. The confusion seizes me. There¡¯s a hand on my shoulder. Hey, I hear the man next to me say, are you okay? Hey, give me a sign you¡¯re still breathing. I don¡¯t want to move, don¡¯t even want to turn my head, so I just inhale quickly to show them the movement of my chest. Worms, worms everywhere, through my clenched fingers, around my elbows, across my throat. Talk to me, buddy, the man says urgently. No. That¡¯s not how they say it. That¡¯s just how I¡¯ve been hearing them. I¡¯ve been hearing them wrong. I¡¯ve been doing something wrong. I¡¯m seeing something wrong. There must have been something I missed. I thought we had had so much in common. We stuck together because we were sad together. We were the only ones we could stand. But there¡¯s something in them now that I can¡¯t understand at all, something they¡¯ve seen that¡¯s changed their life for the better. We aren¡¯t the same after all. They saw something that made them want to go on. They heard it. They¡­ damn it, what changed for them? What was the turning point? What did they see that I did not?! I hear the man next to me curse and swat at the worms that are swarming across me now, over the plastic green raincoat, over my soaking shoes, burrowing in and under the coat and under my skin. I feel them in my chest and in my stomach and in the back of my neck and my head. I straighten and hear my muscles pop but the worms all stay in there, they¡¯re not going away. Talk to me, the man had said. No. That¡¯s not what the man had said. It had been, ¡°Talk to me.¡± So I talk. ¡°I¡¯m alive.¡± And I gag and retch, and out of my mouth comes a pebble that falls out from between my lips and lands in my lap. The man stares, and even through the rain I can see the fear on his face. You sound¡­ different, he says. No, it wasn¡¯t like that. It was, ¡°You sound¡­ different.¡± It doesn¡¯t matter. No. Wait. I take a breath and force it out, ¡°It doesn¡¯t¡­ matter.¡± Gravel trickles out from between my teeth. I don¡¯t see any worms on my coat anymore. They¡¯re all inside my skin. They¡¯re burrowing in. ¡°You need help, buddy.¡± It¡¯s easier to hear it correctly now, but it feels so hollow. So¡­ empty. Maybe it¡¯s the worms curling and twisting in my ears. ¡°Do you have a friend here in town? I can get you to their house.¡± I hack and sputter out my answer. ¡°No. I don¡¯t.¡± There¡¯s something I need to ask now. A longer question. It hurts so much to talk this way, but it must be worth it. This has to be the right way, it¡¯s so different from before. ¡°Do you know¡­ where I can¡­ find a¡­ a¡­ " I can''t stand it. I can''t stand this new way of talking. But I have to though, or I''ll die, I¡¯ll be eaten alive, I''ll be the one to dissolve in this interminable rain, and there''ll be no one to hold me together. "Shelter," I croak, coughing up another rock. "No¡­ no more rain." There''s silence from my companion for a long, long while, and fear begins to curdle in my gut, or maybe it''s just a tangle of worms balling together in my lower intestines, hardening and compressing into boulders and stones and gravel. Is there no shelter? I thought, and felt myself shaking under the thin raincoat. Is there nowhere free of the rain? I remembered the stormy cafe, the dew dripping down the ceiling in the hotel. There has to be a place, clean and dry. Please, God. Tell me there is one. At last, I hear the man''s reluctant tones beside me. "...There''s a place, yeah. A place in town where it never rains and it never will." Such an odd way to answer the question. Such an odd tone of foreboding to talk about a place of rest. "Where?" I rasp. Out comes another pebble. I feel the man''s eyes on me. "I don''t know, man. You look pretty messed up right now. It''s a dangerous place to be in. I don''t want to send you there if you''re gonna hurt yourself -¡± Something punches me in the chest. Not a fist from the outside, but a fist from the inside, propelling me forward and to my feet. I don¡¯t understand this feeling, but it makes me wheel toward the man and slam my arm across his neck. I can''t believe my own actions. The terror I see on his face echoes the horror I feel at this knee-jerk reaction. "Tell me," I say - demand? Plea? - and my voices breaks when I whisper, "Please." My skin trembles. It must be from all those worms buried inside. "There¡­" I hear the man''s voice croak, and with a jolt I realize I''m cutting off his air. I throw myself back, so hard that I stumble and land on my tailbone and splash into a puddle that rips right through the thin raincoat and seeps into my jeans. The man is pointing to a distant building, his finger shaking in the cold. "The abandoned warehouse," he says, his voice echoing down a tunnel so distant that the words barely seem to exist. "There¡¯s a hole in the basement. The bartender¡¯s brother watches over it. His other brother, not the hotel manager. He can take you down." I want to apologize to him, but the rocks are stuck in my throat. I hurt him. I never wanted to hurt anyone. Never ever ever. But I did, the thought comes unbidden, a whisper in the deep. I left my SO behind in the apartment, all alone. I hurt them just like I hurt this man. That''s worse even than when I hurt myself with my actions¡­ I''m dragging everyone down with me. I scramble to my feet and run towards the warehouse, head bent against the rain. I don''t care where this place leads. I don''t care if it leads to heaven, purgatory, or hell. If it keeps me safe from these thoughts, and keeps others safe from me, that''s all that matters. I''ll willingly walk into hell if it means I''ll get some rest from all this rain. Unevening - Part 2 (end) For every step down the staircase, little mists of dust rise and dance over my feet, and I can¡¯t help but feel affronted at this unwonted show of levity when I¡¯ve never felt so low. But I can¡¯t avert my eyes or I¡¯ll fall down the stairs, so I stare hard at the next step down, blocking out my shoes, blocking out those little dances, blocking out everything. The staircase ends on a concrete landing, lit dimly by uncovered fluorescent bulbs. There¡¯s no door or hallway or anything, just a plain room, but one of the walls has been broken through leading down a dirt tunnel. I scuff up white dust and kick a couple of pebbles and briefly wonder what the hell they used to bash through concrete this thick and wishing I¡¯d been there to see it. The tunnel is lit with more fluorescent bulbs, wires running through cables stapled to the packed dirt wall, or maybe it¡¯s just some kind of brown stone, I don¡¯t know and I don¡¯t care. I have to be careful not to slide down the long slope so I go sideways, shuffling along the wall. It would¡¯ve been easier to slide down it on my butt like a slide, but I¡¯m not doing that kind of thing anymore. I should never have been doing things like that. Stupid things, irrelevant things. Eventually the tunnel levels out into a dingy room, a little more brightly lit, and he¡¯s sitting on a stool up against the wall with another hole leading down somewhere dark. There¡¯s a hole in the ceiling for the smoke rushing up from a fitful cooking fire and the smoke curling up from a misshapen pipe, the knotty wood the same color as his thin wrinkled lips. He¡¯s reading something out of a tiny book with yellow pages, out of a stack of similarly small tomes next to his stool. Is this where he lives? Seems dismal. There isn¡¯t even a place for him to sleep, and I¡¯m only assuming the fire next to his stool is for cooking since there¡¯s nothing cooked around it. His eyes wander up from the text to see me standing in his doorway. Damn. I have to speak now. With a deep breath, I summon up a few rocks from the bottom of my stomach and lob them up my throat through my teeth. ¡°You are the brother?¡± I hate this new way of speaking. It feels like I¡¯m hearing someone else¡¯s choking lungs pump out desperate air through my own lips. But it has to be this way. The other way is wrong. I know that now. The old man removes the pipe from his mouth and nods once, slowly, lyrically, and I instantly resent him. How can someone so gnarled and old like him who lives in a hole in the ground have such careful, smooth movements in something as simple as a nod, when my mere words are stumbling and crashing on each other like tides in a storm? ¡°I¡¯m going down,¡± I jerk my chin towards the dark tunnel. ¡°You¡¯re a guide or obstacle?¡± I keep my sentences short and succinct, I don¡¯t care if it¡¯s rude, it hurts to talk. With that same insufferable slowness, this dancer-like patience, the old man closes his book and stands to his feet. I expect the muscles in his back to pop and crackle like a disintegrating log consumed by fire, but his spine is silent and I hate him more. He bends, picks up a log from the fire, and points it towards the tunnel in the room, nodding for me to go first. I don¡¯t move for a moment. Throughout all of today, seems like everyone¡¯s been trying to stop me from moving onward. Cal from the cafe wanted me to stay and talk. The homeless fellow who told me about this place told me to stay away. My SO¡­ well, I don¡¯t know what they want for me today, but it¡¯s better this way, they¡¯re happy, they¡¯re happy now, it¡¯s better this way. Just stay, stay, stay, it¡¯s been nothing but that all damned day. It¡¯s sudden and a little off-putting to see someone pointing me onward for once tonight. This is my choice, right? This is where I¡¯m going. This is better. I move on. I hear him following behind me as I step down into the dark, dark tunnel. The pathetic torch he brought offers little light, maybe just enough for dark-adjusted eyes to see where they¡¯re stepping, maybe to see the shadows thrown about on the old man¡¯s deep-set eyes and drooping mouth and bushy silver beard, but otherwise it¡¯s just a glowing scarlet orb filling the air with the brackish smell of smoke. There are no stairs down this tunnel, but it¡¯s sloping down at a steady rate, so it¡¯s not so hard to walk down without falling as long as I walk slow. It¡¯s quiet, so quiet here, deep in the earth and walking to hell. There¡¯s no sound of wind, no chatter of people, no tinkling chorus of rain which I¡¯ve gotten so used to in this coastal town. I hear no outside world, and it becomes clear to me as we descent that there is no world, there is no earth, in this liminal space between the world and hell there is only darkness. The tunnel walls around me fade and I can¡¯t see the floor any longer, though I feel it beneath my feet. Maybe this is the underside of the world. Maybe the earth is flat and this is what slumbers below. The only thing keeping me from wondering if I¡¯m in a dream is the old man behind me, shuffling his feet against the floor, and I wish his feet would shut the hell up. I turn my head to look at him, at the stick he¡¯s hold whose ember has mostly faded out. It¡¯s just a quiet red glow now, not strong enough to cast any light. ¡°What are you here for?¡± Even in this darkness I¡¯m still tossing boulders through my mouth, and I hear pebbles bouncing against the walls. ¡°Why do you lead me down?¡± If my words are rocks, his gaze is an ocean, and the tide regards me now. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± I¡¯ll get used to this way of talking, eventually. But still the man does not respond. ¡°If you don¡¯t tell me the name I¡¯ll make you one,¡± I warn, and cough at the scratches the words are leaving in my throat. I glare at him as though the pain is his fault, and really it is. I wouldn¡¯t be feeling it if he¡¯d been the one to speak. Rush, goes the tide. ¡°You¡¯re Charon, then.¡± If I had said these words above, I would have shuddered at my own impertinence, my implication. If I had said these words the way I used to speak, the name would have sounded like a benediction. Here, it sounds like an insult, and I do not care. I turn my back to the old man and continue my walk. This tunnel is awfully long though, and no matter how hard I hold on to my air of aggressive indifference, I feel it slipping away through the cracks. I want to talk. It hurts so bad, but I want to talk. I can¡¯t feel my neck through my stomping feet. Time is postmarking me for every beat. I need something real.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. ¡°I haven¡¯t any name right now,¡± I say abruptly. ¡°Thanks for asking.¡± Rush, goes the tide. I turn back, affronted. ¡°You don¡¯t know anything,¡± I spit. ¡°You don¡¯t know shit. I don¡¯t know shit, so you don¡¯t either. Go fuck yourself. Don¡¯t pretend to know what I¡¯m here for, because I don¡¯t.¡± What color were his eyes again? I know their depth now. ¡°I hate you. I don¡¯t want you here. Stop leading me, stop being so goddamned pretentious. Go away.¡± I¡¯ve stopped in my tracks to deliver my tirade, and so has the old man. I wait in the silence for a long minute before turning back around. ¡°Why do you follow, anyway?¡± I ask, hearing the surliness in my own voice. ¡°Aren¡¯t you a guide?¡± A guide is not needed if the way is known, I suppose, and it¡¯s not like I could get lost on the way down this long, dark tunnel. Still, I¡¯m in no mood to be charitable, and the tunnel is too deep and dark for me to keep the silence. A small red light flares in the embers of the old man¡¯s pipe. I see his throat work and his eyes half close, and then a low baritone rumbles out of the wizened old man, a sound like that which would issue from the earth itself. I am frozen in the middle of the tunnel as it changes in pitch, rising, pausing, then falling, and I realize he¡¯s singing. Mute, I turn and begin a slow trod down the tunnel, my feet in step to the glacial rhythm of the guttural tones. I used to sing for my SO too, I almost say, but I hold my tongue because I don¡¯t want to interrupt Charon. The last time we came to town, I was in Charon¡¯s position, following around my SO as they looked for something they couldn¡¯t name, and it only stopped when I took them in my arms and sang a song for them. Ever since, they¡¯ve been hooked on music, listening to my amateur vocals, buying every album of every genre and rocking in place to the rhythm, a beatific smile on their face. And I don¡¯t understand. ¡°My SO and I have been together for three years,¡± I murmur, and though Charon quiets in order to listen, the low tones do not falter. ¡°But we¡¯ve never talked about our pasts. It¡¯s too painful for us. All we had to understand was how broken we both were, and how being together made us feel¡­ less broken.¡± Is the music coming from Charon behind me, or is it coming out of the blackness, the very mouth of the abyss? ¡°But they¡¯re different now,¡± I say, raising my hands as though I can see my SO before me, and maybe I do, I shield myself from their striking eyes - ¡°They don¡¯t need me. They¡¯re better off without me now that they¡¯re better.¡± I say this calm, but I feel like I could scream these words, let loose an earthquake with this compiled bitterness in my chest that drips little by little out of my mouth like river pebbles. ¡°They¡¯re better off -¡± I try to say, but it grows too painful to speak. At that moment, I stop moving as well. The tunnel ahead evens out, and I can see a small chamber. There¡¯s no light, but I can see within. In the center of the room ahead, there¡¯s a hole in the ground. A piton is jammed into the ground next to it and I can see the frayed end of a rope tied to the iron stake. The way to hell, at last before me. The music has ended. I turn around again. I was going to say something, there was something I wanted to say. ¡°Tell my SO I love them. I¡¯m leaving forever, so tell my SO I loved them.¡± But I didn¡¯t say it; I¡¯m not saying that. It was a thought. It was a spoken phrase. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. No. Love them, loved them, now, then, when, which one? Lodged in my throat and I choke, fall to my knees and choke, curl inside and choke. I love them. I¡¯m jealous. I hate them. They uplifted themself out of their lifelong depression and didn¡¯t take me with them. I scream. Take me with you. Please. I loved you. I¡¯m screaming and rocks are gushing out of my throat. Rocks, rocks, rocks, pinning me down. An earthquake. Water bubbles out of the pit and rushes towards me. Water flowing uphill. Take me with you. Don¡¯t go, don¡¯t leave me. Water, flowing uphill, flowing, flowing down. I sob and gasp and fall to the side. The boulders press me in, I¡¯m so small in this corner. Don¡¯t leave me here, I gasp. I love you. I can¡¯t stay here. I can¡¯t stay here. I¡¯ll die, I¡¯ll go insane. Take me with you. I wish you were here. ¡­ Can the boulders scrape aside? Can a light shine through these cracks? Please. Let me see¡­ There¡¯s a puddle on the ground next to my face. The puddle is larger. The puddle is too large. My clothes are damp. I sit up. Water, flowing uphill, flowing through the cracks, and the boulders all lift up and float along the current. I can see back down into that room, I can see that hole in the ground and the ladder down. I turn around and swim back up the tunnel. The water must have brought some light with it, because even though it¡¯s dim I can see my way back up, I can see the tunnel so I don¡¯t drown. I swim hard, pushing my way through the bubbles in my way, but they¡¯re no obstacle at all, I swim right through them, and my lungs are about to inhale all this water when I burst through the surface at the top. The water laps just below the level of the room, and the campfire hasn¡¯t set the stool on fire yet. I stumble forward and fall to my knees, conscious of the old man walking calmly up the tunnel. I hack, I cough, I retch. His hand is comfortingly on my back. With a heave, I throw up an avalanche of rocks to crash on the ground. And now, it¡¯s done. My hand is heavier than I expect and I press the doorbell before I have a chance to think it over, to decide to do something else, to go somewhere or anywhere else, or even what I want to say. My throat turned grey on the train ride back from Bug Town, and I¡¯m not sure if it¡¯s leftover rocks that I never coughed up, or if it¡¯s the marks those rocks left as I forced them through my body. Bug is such a weird place. It¡¯s always raining, and everyone there seems to feel so sorry for you. But I have to stop thinking about Bug and start thinking about what to say to my SO, because my hearing has sharpened like a bat¡¯s and I can hear their footsteps coming closer to the door. One footstep to every heartbeat, that¡¯s how fast my heart is beating, and it¡¯s so loud I almost don¡¯t realize that it¡¯s near a miracle I can hear my SO¡¯s footsteps at all, they¡¯ve never been so solid before. They used to glide through the air, through the floor, through the walls, sometimes even through me. I wonder if the ground pressing against their feet feels like a miracle to them. It does to me, whenever I take off my shoes and socks. Step. I could run, right now, and come back later. I could run away, up the stairs, up the roof, onto the road, away into the forest. I could run away, but I¡¯d run back, I know that now. They may be moving on without me but I know I¡¯ll always try and catch up. Step. I should run away. They deserve a better partner than me. Step. I remember the treacherous thoughts that erupted from my brain, deep in Charon¡¯s river. I wish you were here. Step. I don¡¯t know anything, I really don¡¯t. I don¡¯t know what made me come back. I don¡¯t know what made me swim to the top and not just let myself drown. I don¡¯t know why they¡¯d take me back or why they stick around me at all. Step. All I know is that I love them and I want them with me. Step. Even if we can¡¯t heal each other. Step¡­ Even if they can¡¯t heal me the way I¡¯ve somehow healed them. The doorknob turns. I don¡¯t run away.