Nicanor Abbott

“Old Ghosts” / Practice with Steering the Craft #3

EXERCISE TWO: Am I Saramago

LeGuin reminds her readers that punctuation is an essential tool of good writing, and so wants us to try this activity that includes a seven day interval.

First, we should “Write a paragraph to a page (150–350 words) of narrative with no punctuation (and no paragraphs or other breaking devices).” A week later, we should punctuate the passage.

Remember, if you’re part of the #WriteLGBTQ and #WritingCommunity groups on Twitter, maybe you’ll join me on this excursion by sharing your response to this post on Twitter! Use the hashtag #steeringthecraft.

I am still working on “Old Ghosts”, but the assignment has forced me to move to an uptempo section, similar to the prompts suggested in Steering the Craft. But while I have a high tempo section, it’s not a part that I especially like. I think I can push this idea further if I add it in as a whole new idea. It’s noted in the text below.

Old Ghosts

A spring wind whipped the woods to life. Daffodils lifted yellow faces to the sun, and blossoms blown from the trees speckled the stream in pinks and whites. Mountain ridge snowmelt strengthened the headwaters. The stream swelled; muddy banks submerged, lost until summer. The peepers chirped away the sun each night. Bullfrogs croaked. Little furry things scuttled beyond the rushes. Snakes slithered over bent logs and wound their way across the surface. Shad and trout returned. And with them came the people.

I happened upon a pair the other day, just after dawn. They set up camp on a fallen oak, a beaten metal pail between them. The older man was scruffy; his hat brim frayed from weather. His trousers were patched in one knee, the waistband taut around his girth.

“Like this,” he said, and cast his line again.

The waif was a scrawnier version of his teacher. From the muddy, waterlogged state of his overalls and the dirt on his face and hands, it seemed the natural lack of grace in boys that age had already taken its toll that morning.

The fishing rods seemed antique, perhaps forced back into service? Bamboo rods had gone out of style even before I was a boy, and their lines were too visible, too thick to be modern.

I waved. My right, of course. They were on my property.

“You there!” I called. “How’s the fishin’?”

They nodded. The fat man doffed his hat.

“I said, ‘how’s the fishin’?'”

They ignored me. The wind blew gently. The stream burbled. A woodpecker pecked a poplar. I could think of no earthly reason they should ignore me, so I called out.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

It was true. I hunted the woods and still cleaned the carcasses in the shed behind the stone cottage. Fished the stream and scaled and cooked that fish on red coals. Cut down the trees to keep the cottage warm in winter, to say nothing of cooking my meals. Cleared the dead wood, picked wild raspberries, planted the garden. Drove the stakes tied with white cloth to mark the corners. I worked it; it was mine.

“It’s disrespectful of you—”

Tee-and-Flannel got a bite. A little tug, a stronger tug, and a trout popped out of the stream. It flailed in the air. The big man punched his shoulder. They continued to act as if I wasn’t there.

“Now, look here,” I called. “I don’t mind you–“

The younger fella released his catch, and the pair sat down on the bank again.

I picked up a stone and skipped it across the water toward them.

“–I don’t mind you–“

“Hey,” Straw Hat called out. “Who are you?” He stood up and pointed at me with a sausage finger.

“I might ask you the same question,” I said. “Since you’re on my property.”

“Excuse me?” he said. “This is my property.” He motioned to his fishin’ buddy. “Get me the rifle, son,” he said. the younger one dropped his makeshift pole and ran up the path.

“You’re gonna get violent?” I asked.

“When you try to steal my land from me, damn right I will,” he said.

“But it’s not your land,” I insisted.

“Like hell,” he said.

I reached down into the water and pulled up a skipping stone. I played a bit of shortstop in high school. I thought I could peg him in the thigh. He was a big target anyway.

Several seconds of glaring silence passed. His boy reappeared with the gun.

“Mister,” I called out. “You touch that gun and I’ll break your hand with this stone.” I palmed it like a baseball.

He grabbed the gun. I chucked the ball at his hand. It hit him square. Then it passed through his hand, his gun, and his son on the other side.

Well, shit.

He raised it and fired. Then he stared. His boy turned white.

“Son–“

“Right through him, Pop, I swear to God.”

NEW MATERIAL HERE

The crack rent the morning sent a flock of geese skyward their honking cacophony carrying away all other sound silence slipped in behind them and I noticed the old Lenape woman with a basket of plants on the opposite bank another one fetched water in a clay bowl a column of revolutionaries stopped to drink before the dusty forward march muskets perched on slumping shoulders weary faced a grandfather joined the man and the waif a teenager in a saggy black drape and smudged eyes sat on a log a pistol in his hand at once the woman rose up the soldiers marched on grandfather, man, and son disappeared the boy blew his head off I dropped to my knees clutched my chest sweat tickled my nose I hoisted up with my walking stick but they were gone all of them gone from my stream so quiet it didn’t even burble and the wind had blown out a calm before a storm a chill raced through me and I swore to write it down just had to go back to my cottage up by the road I staggered with the shock I’m sure it was shock yes it was

END NEW MATERIAL

I kept walking toward them. They turned and ran. I chased after them, but they disappeared up the path. Somewhere beyond the trees I heard an engine turn over. I dropped into the big guy’s seat on the log. The wood had been worn; it was well used. I looked into the pail. It was empty. Rusted through.

So this is where I sit, waiting for the guy and his kid to come back. Seems like it’s been a while. I should probably head home soon. It’s my property after all.

*****

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula K.. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story (p. 18). HMH Books. Kindle Edition.

“Old Ghosts” / Practice with Steering the Craft #2

Week Two, and I’m going to continue with part two of lesson one. The use of writing for sound is not just for description, but for action and emotion as well. Below is the complete short piece integrating the revised passage from last week.

Old Ghosts

“Like this,” he said, and cast his line again.

The fishing rods seemed antique, perhaps forced back into service? Bamboo rods had gone out of style even before I was a boy, and their lines were too visible, too thick to be modern.

I waved. My right, of course. They were on my property.

“You there!” I called. “How’s the fishin’?”

They nodded. The fat man doffed his hat.

“I said, ‘how’s the fishin’?'”

They ignored me.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

Tee-and-Flannel got a bite. A little tug, a stronger tug, and a trout popped out of the stream. It flailed in the air. The big man punched his shoulder. They continued to act as if I wasn’t there.

“Now, look here,” I called. “I don’t mind you–“

The younger fella released his catch, and the pair sat down on the bank again.

I picked up a stone and skipped it across the water toward them.

“–I don’t mind you–“

“Hey,” Straw Hat called out. “Who are you?” He stood up and pointed at me with a sausage finger.

“I might ask you the same question,” I said. “Since you’re on my property.”

“Excuse me?” he said. “This is my property.” He motioned to his fishin’ buddy. “Get me the rifle, son,” he said. the younger one dropped his makeshift pole and ran up the path.

“You’re gonna get violent?” I asked.

“When you try to steal my land from me, damn right I will,” he said.

“But it’s not your land,” I insisted.

“Like hell,” he said.

I reached down into the water and pulled up a skipping stone. I played a bit of shortstop in high school. I thought I could peg him in the thigh. He was a big target anyway.

Several seconds of glaring silence passed. His boy reappeared with the gun.

“Mister,” I called out. “You touch that gun and I’ll break your hand with this stone.” I palmed it like a baseball.

He grabbed the gun. I chucked the ball at his hand. It hit him square. Then it passed through his hand, his gun, and his son on the other side.

Well, shit.

He raised it and fired. Then he stared. His boy turned white.

“Son–“

“Right through him, Pop, I swear to God.”

So this is where I sit, waiting for the guy and his kid to come back. Seems like it’s been a while. I should probably head home soon. It’s my property after all.

*****

Lesson #1, Part 2. Being Gorgeous

LeGuin Writes “Part Two: In a paragraph or so, describe an action, or a person feeling strong emotion—joy, fear, grief. Try to make the rhythm and movement of the sentences embody or represent the physical reality you’re writing about.”

So here are the lines I’m working with from draft one:

They ignored me.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

And here’s my revision:

The wind blew gently. The stream burbled. A woodpecker pecked in a poplar. I could think of no earthly reason they should ignore me, so I called out.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

“It’s disrespectful of you—”

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story (p. 9). HMH Books. Kindle Edition.

“Old Ghosts” / Practice with Steering the Craft #1

With the change in circumstances that accompany the end of the semester, I find myself at a place where I can try a little different approach to this blog. I want to put more time into a book length project, but I don’t want to post too much from it here.

However, it’s important to practice writing, and not just by throwing words on a page and seeing what sticks. To that end, I’ve picked up Ursula K. LeGuin’s Steering the Craft: A 21st-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story. LeGuin is one of my favorite authors, her stories are forward thinking, and her prose is beautiful. Just look at the opening description in The Telling.

My goal is to work my way through LeGuin’s guide while revising (or really finishing) a single short story. I want to see how much the story is transformed when I tend to her suggestions for practice. The story I have chosen to work with is a piece—really a badly assembled skeleton with a lot of loose, flappy, flaking dialogue—called “Old Ghosts”. Here it is:

Old Ghosts

They sat on the log across the stream, each clutching a slender branch with a line tied to the end. I had never seen them before.

The first, a large, greasy man, wore overalls and no shirt. His head covered with a straw hat. The second, hungrier-looking fella wore a white tee with a flannel tied around his waist. A bucket of worms sat between them.

I waved. My right, of course. They were on my property.

“You there!” I called. “How’s the fishin’?”

They nodded. The fat man doffed his hat.

“I said, ‘how’s the fishin’?'”

They ignored me.

“You’re on private property, you know.”

Tee-and-Flannel got a bite. A little tug, a stronger tug, and a trout popped out of the stream. It flailed in the air. The big man punched his shoulder. They continued to act as if I wasn’t there.

“Now, look here,” I called. “I don’t mind you–“

The younger fella released his catch, and the pair sat down on the bank again.

I picked up a stone and skipped it across the water toward them.

“–I don’t mind you–“

“Hey,” Straw Hat called out. “Who are you?” He stood up and pointed at me with a sausage finger.

“I might ask you the same question,” I said. “Since you’re on my property.”

“Excuse me?” he said. “This is my property.” He motioned to his fishin’ buddy. “Get me the rifle, son,” he said. the younger one dropped his makeshift pole and ran up the path.

“You’re gonna get violent?” I asked.

“When you try to steal my land from me, damn right I will,” he said.

“But it’s not your land,” I insisted.

“Like hell,” he said.

I reached down into the water and pulled up a skipping stone. I played a bit of shortstop in high school. I thought I could peg him in the thigh. He was a big target anyway.

Several seconds of glaring silence passed. His boy reappeared with the gun.

“Mister,” I called out. “You touch that gun and I’ll break your hand with this stone.” I palmed it like a baseball.

He grabbed the gun. I chucked the ball at his hand. It hit him square. Then it passed through his hand, his gun, and his son on the other side.

Well, shit.

He raised it and fired. Then he stared. His boy turned white.

“Son–“

“Right through him, Pop, I swear to God.”

So this is where I sit, waiting for the guy and his kid to come back. Seems like it’s been a while. I should probably head home soon. It’s my property after all.

*****

I’m not sure that the piece has much value—I’m not sure yet what it’s trying to say, but I have a few ideas. It’s part of a collection of gothic tales set in Pennsylvania, USA, but it still needs work.

Before I roll out lesson one, if you’re part of the #WriteLGBTQ and #WritingCommunity groups on Twitter, maybe you’ll join me on this excursion. If you have something you’d like to practice with, let’s practice together! Share your ideas as a response to this post on Twitter! Use the hashtag #steeringthecraft

Lesson #1. Being Gorgeous

LeGuin writes “Part One: Write a paragraph to a page of narrative that’s meant to be read aloud. Use onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, rhythmic effects, made-up words or names, dialect—any kind of sound effect you like—but NOT rhyme or meter.

I want you to write for pleasure—to play. Just listen to the sounds and rhythms of the sentences you write and play with them, like a kid with a kazoo. This isn’t “free writing,” but it’s similar in that you’re relaxing control: you’re encouraging the words themselves—the sounds of them, the beats and echoes—to lead you on. For the moment, forget all the good advice that says good style is invisible, good art conceals art. Show off! Use the whole orchestra our wonderful language offers us!”

So here’s the line I’m working with from draft one:

They sat on the log across the stream, each clutching a slender branch with a line tied to the end. I had never seen them before.

And here’s my first stab at “being gorgeous”:

“Like this,” he said, and cast his line again.

The waif was a scrawnier, smaller version of his teacher. From the muddy, waterlogged state of his overalls and the dirt on his face and hands, it seemed the natural lack of grace in boys that age had already taken its toll that morning.

The fishing rods seemed antique, perhaps forced back into service? Bamboo rods had gone out of style even before I was a boy, and their lines were too visible, too thick to be modern.

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story (p. 8). HMH Books. Kindle Edition.

The Trove

Author’s Note: I love NASA and space exploration. Such fertile ground…

Phil Smith traced a finger along the arm of the leather sofa, variables playing in his head. He and Alan Talcott had worked on many projects, from the lunar colony to in-space ship design and maintenance. But they had never faced a problem like this before.

As always, Talcott called for tea and settled into the chair beside him.

“How’s Mikey? Jana?”

“Jana’s good,” Smith’s mustache twitched, but he didn’t look up. “Starting high school next year. Mikey’s in his second year at MIT.”

“Not Caltech, huh? Chip off the old block.” If they had been closer, Talcott might have offered a gentle nudge on the arm, but from his appearance, Smith might burst into tears if he did.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Chip. Yep.”

“Which one got your green thumb?”

“Jana. She’s tending the garden for me.”

Talcott settled into the tense silence of Smith-in-a-bad-place. He had seen it before; he knew to wait it out, to give Smith all the room he needed. But after Jesse delivered the tea, they had no excuses.

“I can see you’re not yourself, Phil. You ready to tell me why you requested this meeting?”

Smith sniffed.

Talcott poured a cup of tea for each of them. “Science or personal?” He dropped a sugar cube in his, tinking the cup with his spoon. He noticed a new liver spot.

“Both,” Smith’s choked reply caught Talcott by surprise.

“How so?” He pushed the plain tea toward his lead scientist, who opted instead to hand him the first of the two folders he had brought. While Talcott commenced his customary page rifling, Smith sipped at his tea. Today the shuffle stopped early.

“Your team analyzed the sample five times?” Talcott’s mouth hung open, a foreign expression on his hard Roman features.

“Uh huh.” Smith focused on the pair of prints hung opposite: Trouvelot’s The Great Comet of 1881 and El Greco’s Christ Carrying the Cross. He noticed Talcott shift uncomfortably out of the corner of his eye.

“And each time they had the same results?”

“It’s in the report, Alan.”

Talcott reached for his tea. The clatter of cup and saucer revealed a tremble Smith hadn’t noticed before. The mission director sipped loudly as he absorbed the contents of each page.

Twenty minutes later, Talcott had reviewed the report twice without uttering a single syllable or asking a single question. When he set the report down on the coffee table, he appeared steady as ever.

“So who knows about this?”

Smith feared this question most.

“The sample analyst—”

“Names and titles, Phil. Please.” Talcott pulled out his phone. The question made Smith cringe.

“Enrique deFuentes, sample analyst. Myself. Dan Blenski, instrument and science—”

“Why’s Blenksi involved?”Talcott’s face turned red exactly when Smith predicted it would.

“Because we asked them to send over the full range of photographs from the collection site.”

“Full range? Infrared? GPIR?”

Smith nodded.

“Those the images?” He nodded to the other folder. Smith picked it up as if to protect it.

“Let’s see then.” Talcott held out his hand.

The images from Perseverance IV were undeniable.

“My God,” Talcott kept muttering. “How can this be?”

Smith finally exhaled, surprised at how long he had held his breath. He needed to pee. “We kept asking the same question. That’s why we had to get the images.”

“I wish you hadn’t,” Talcott laughed. “You should’ve just come to me.”

“But we didn’t know for sure what we were looking at.” Smith tensed up again. “We didn’t do anything wrong, Alan.”

“I know, I know.” Talcott muttered. The second folder joined the first, and he sat there with his head in his hands.

“Thank God for NDAs.” he finally said.

Smith had begun playing with the leather arm again. “You really think the NDAs will stop everyone?”

“Damn well better.” Talcott jumped up and began pacing. Smith was relieved to see him break into problem-solving mode. “I want you to gather the data. All of it. Anything not in my possession needs to be handed over immediately. You and Blenski advise anyone who worked with that data to turn it over. We’ll have Tech Services wipe the machines within the hour. I need everything contained.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“It’s gotta go up, doesn’t it? Director. NASA HQ. Then probably the White House.”

“The White House? But the guy doesn’t even believe in science.”

“No, he doesn’t. But about forty-nine percent of the electorate does. And that’s who we have to keep this away from.”

“The other fifty-one doesn’t bother you?” Smith scratched his bald pate.

“They’re mostly conspiracy theorists, Phil. Non-thinkers. Hmm.”

“Alan?”

“Just go. Get everything sorted out with your team. Quick as you can.”

Smith quickly slipped away. Talcott grabbed the files and settled back at his desk, told Jesse to get Blenski on the line, and reviewed the materials. Fossilized human remains. GPIR imaging of a million year old graveyard. On Mars. All of it on Mars. He paused in front of the El Greco print.

“Not sure if you’re irrelevant or what,” he said to Christ, who looked upward, blood trickling down his forehead and neck. Talcott waited. “Yeah, didn’t think you’d answer.”

Weeks later, when the anticipated leak on Blenski’s team occurred, Public Relations solved it the best way possible. They reposted it on social media from multiple fake accounts alongside articles and images from the old moon landing hoax, Area 51 rumors, and the Roswell incident. That Roswell was celebrating its UFO centennial only made it easier for the public to buy.

Soon the journalists stopped asking for statements. The President and the Pope ignored requests for comment. Only the tabloids carried it—to NASA’s advantage.

Talcott watched it unfold from his office. Once a day he would stop in front of the El Greco. He kept a mahogany box on the cabinet beneath it. The box contained a signed mission photograph from the ill-fated Artemis Colony I, his wedding ring, and the data Smith and Blenski had collected. A trove of painful reminders. Blenski’s image analyst hadn’t been the only loss on the mission.

“Phil?”

Talcott caught up with his former lead scientist in the hallway, trudging out with a box full of personal effects. “How are you?”

Smith wore a blank stare. “Fine,” he said. “Just fine.”

“Want to stop by my office?”

“No, no,” Smith insisted. “I’ve got to get home. Things… to do. Gardening, you know. I just want to grow things. Tomatoes. Cucumbers. Lettuce. Lettuce is predictable.

Talcott pulled him aside. “You don’t have to do this, Phil. We need you.”

Smith shook his head. “No. No. I signed the NDA long ago. It’s alright. I’m just going to garden now. Take care of yourself, Alan.”

The mission director watched the defeated man disappear around the corner, then made his way to the newly-emptied office. Everything had been removed save a rosary, the cross left face down on the desk.

History

Author’s Note: A friend asked me to write a story about industrial buildings-turned-condos… one that paid attention to people and history. This was the result.

“See what I found!”

The words consistently made Ellen Dreyfus jumpy. Junior suffered the same curiosity as his father. Jim senior had channelled that curiosity into engineering, a job in the city, and a brand-new high-end condo in a converted industrial building by the train station. The future of his four year old spawn, however, had yet to be written. He could be bringing a magnetic letter from the refrigerator door, a grasshopper, or a bit of moldy pasta from under the stove—again.

“What’s that, baby?” She squinted at the thing in his hand as she hugged baby Ashley to her bosom. Junior seemed to be holding a piece of hotdog. Or a caterpillar. Or—

A finger.

Ellen knocked it from his hand with a shout. It bounced off the hardwood floor with a light thud and landed on the area rug. Both children erupted into tears.

“Baby, I’m so sorry.” She cradled her children, one in each arm as she stared at the digit. It was wrinkled, ash-grey, and the nail had been split down the middle. Despite her observations, she counted Junior’s much smaller fingers. He took off his socks while she checked Ashley’s hands and feet. Then she counted Junior’s toes. Against all rational thought, she inspected her own hands and feet, worried about leprosy or diabetes or some other illness that could cause digits to drop off—none of which she suffered from.

“You sit here, ok? Don’t move.” Junior nodded, still wiping tears, as Ellen tossed Ashley’s spit-up towel over the dismembered part. Then she called Jim, questioning Junior as she thumbed her cell.

“What’s going on, babe?”

“There’s a finger on the floor.”

“Say again?”

“Junior found a finger under the dining room table. Is… is it yours?”

“No.” She guessed—correctly—that Jim was checking his hands as well.

“It’s none of ours. I check their hands and feet—”

“Why’d you check their feet if it was a finger?”

His penchant for analysis grated at her, never more so than now. “I—just come home, alright? I don’t know. Maybe it was a toe. Do you have all your toes? We have all of ours and I’m not looking at it again—”

“Call 9-1-1, babe. I’m on my way.”

After calling the police, Ellen and her children hunkered on the sofa. Junior and Ashley watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Ellen held her children close and watched the towel, half expecting the thing underneath to start moving.

While Jim Dreyfus raced home, Gloria Hatchett, first floor resident of one of the accessible-friendly units, puzzled over a bowl of wet cat food. The electric can opener always brought the cats running, but today, they didn’t answer. Missy would have been first, inky blackness dropping from the kitchen window to press against her legs. Alexander would prance in, light on his orange tabby toes from his late namesake’s easy chair. Mr. Pickles would slink in from whatever furniture he had chosen to hide under that day. And Queen Anne would come last, skittish as always, ducking in from the guest room, the warm dent and long hairs in the center of the bed evidence of her royal place.

Gloria set the bowl on the floor.

Nothing.

Missy wasn’t in her windowsill.

She crossed the living room. No Alexander. No Mr. Pickles.

Queen Anne was not on the bed, but Mr. Pickles’s gray tail swished back and forth, the rest of his body hidden by the bedskirt.

Gloria attempted to extract him, but he fought, the telltale sound of ripping carpet indicating that he had dug in.

“Spoiled, all of you.”

A growl from underneath, almost as if in reply.

“So spoiled.” She retrieved the broom from the cupboard and slowly dropped to her knees. The crackling made her grimace.

“The nerve of you. All of you. Especially you, Alexander.” She swept the broom underneath and flushed them out. Queen Anne jumped out first, with Mr. Pickles close behind. Her broom met with unexpected resistance.

“Really, Missy?” She swept again. Missy popped out and raced away, a streak of black.

Gloria tried again She stuck the broom under, gave it a firm sweep, and a severed hand bounced out at her, flesh torn away in morsel-sized tatters. She screamed. Dropped her broom. Screamed some more. Alexander jumped up on to the bed and watched her, blinking and licking his chops.

The scene repeated throughout the building. Gary Breen had bounced a red rubber ball down the hall, and instead of returning with it, his schnauzer returned with a desiccated set of three fingers—pinky, ring, and middle—joined by a bit of sinew and tendon. Dana Lowry concussed herself in the shower when she pulled back the curtain and rolled her ankle on a partial hand and forearm left on the bathmat. Jim Dreyfus returned home to find their building cordoned off, blue lights flashing, paramedics and mental health counselors treating the residents.

“What is it?” he asked a young officer who shrugged and urged him away. Ellen’s mom had picked up her daughter and grandchildren. Jim was there just to get answers.

Across the street, an old-timer took in the spectacle from his seat on a low wall. He wore a blue suit too long in the sleeves and leaned on his cane. When Jim waved, he waved the cane back.

“Sit down.” The rumpled man rapped his cane on the concrete wall.

“Nobody seems to know what’s going on.” Jim huffed and sagged.

“Lemme guess. They finding parts?”

“How’d you know that?” Jim asked.

“Oh, it’s history.” The old-timer tapped his cane on the ground. “Used to be they brought the cattle down by rail.” He pointed to the station. “Run ‘em right down the road to the slaughterhouse. Gone now.” He motioned to the condo parking lot. “And they’d get processed right there.” He pointed at the building. “Ain’t been in there in a long time.”

“So what are you telling me?” Jim asked.

The old-timer watched police officers come and go through the front doors. “Tellin’ you there’s a good reason we have unions.” He pulled back his sleeve to reveal a naked stump where his wrist had been.

“I don’t believe in unions.” Jim abruptly stood up. “Sorry about your hand.” He had no time for politics, and he wanted answers, not stories.

“If you see it in there, tell ‘em I’d like it back.” The old-timer chuckled. “Been tryin’ for years.”

Jim paled and hurried away. He pressed the matter with the police, who offered him little time and no answers. He pointed out the old-timer, but no one would listen. After every rejection he turned back, as if expecting the old man to disappear. He never did though. He just smiled and waved with his cane until the last of the emergency services departed, leaving yellow tape across the doorway to warn anyone against entering.

But when Jim tried to speak to the old-timer again, all he got in response were shrugs.

“Come on, man,” Jim pressed.

“What do I know?” The old-timer finally stood up, creaking and cracking, and adjusted his suit coat. “You made it big enough to live there. Do your homework, man. Read The Jungle or somethin’. Attend to your history.”

As he strolled away, the old-timer felt it happen. Body never forgets a missing limb. At the medical examiner’s office, the bag containing all those severed parts had gone flat, the contents vanished.

A Feather for Thoughts

Author’s Note: One of my readers got me thinking about keeping voices distinctive. This is an old draft I revised to try and play with voice.

“Well this is a fine how-do-you-do.” Cerna picked her jagged teeth with a talon and glared into the crib.

“How-Do-I-Do what?” asked Tenga. She preened her red feathers constantly and kept a nail kit in a baggie in her purse, along with a little vial of tea tree oil. She loved the smell.

Midge joined them, preventing Cerna from having to answer.

“All set.” Her yellow slitted eyes twinkled. “The fire is lit and the bodies will—what’s that?”

Like the others, she peered into the crib, where a toddler whacked a stuffed dog with a rattle. He laughed gleefully at the sound of a hundred little beads.

“Cerna. Check the contract.” Midge cringed when the cherub squealed and reached for her. “I distinctly remember only reading two names on the list.”

A snap of fingers and the contract appeared in Cerna’s clawed hand. Tenga and Midge stood on tiptoes to look over her shoulders. Cerna mumbled, grumbled, then mumbled some more.

“Well?” Midge grew impatient, pursing her lips and scratching her scaly arms. “C’mon, Cerna. I’m starting to peel.”

“Sorry girls. We’re only supposed to take Trevor and Lydia. It doesn’t say anything about a baby.” Cerna rubbed the single great horn that sprang from the left side of her head and picked her teeth some more. A line of drool landed on her muumuu.

“Well I doubt it’s named Baby, anyway.” Tenga pointed to the wall where the child’s newly-deceased parents had hung some block letters. “See? It’s named Trevor. Well, maybe it’s named Trevor? Or maybe Daddy wanted Baby to learn his name first? Maybe Mommy and Daddy were in some kind of compet—”

“Shut up,” Cerna said.

“So what do we do?” Midge reached down for the child. Cerna slapped her hand.

“Don’t touch it! There could be a spell on it!”

“There’s no magic here!” Midge flicked her forked tongue. “The parents didn’t have any, that’s for sure.”

Cerna sniffed the air as well, searching.

“And it’s just a baby,” Tenga pouted.

“Who is part of a bureaucratic oversight,” Cerna growled. The heat was intensifying; smoke drifted into the bedroom.

“We could just eat it?” Midge licked her lips and tasted the air again.

“We can’t!” Tenga cautioned. “Remember the promise at the Council of Reeds? There’s a moratorium on eating children.”

“Promises were made to be broken.” Midge scratched more flakes from her arms.

“Not one made before the Council.” Tenga shook her head, certain of immediate consequences. “I want no part of it. It’s Baby Trevor, not Baby Tartare.”

“Well how will they ever know?” Midge flapped her arms and a cloud of dandruff puffed around her.

“How will they not is the better question,” Cerna said. “No, we’ll simply do away with the child like we did with the parents.” She swiped at the child with her spit-covered claws. Her arm bounced off an invisible barrier.

“Ow!” She grabbed her smoking hand and turned away in anguish.

“Well, that’s new.” Tenga cocked her head, curious.

“Maybe we can smother him?” Midge suggested and pushed the child down with a pillow. But Baby Trevor just giggled, even as the wall started to blacken and the smoke thickened.

“Oh, move over.” To everyone’s surprise, Tenga swept the child up in her arms. Cerna and Midge followed her to the living room.

“How did you do that?” Cerna asked.

“With my arms.”

“No, no, no. How come you picked him up when we couldn’t?”

Tenga rocked the baby against her feather-covered bosom. He held firmly to one of her claws. “Why… I don’t know. I just wanted to get him out of that room. I mean hellfire and smoke don’t bother us, but Baby Trevor might choke—”

“You want to adopt this child, don’t you?” Cerna said, and began rubbing her side-horn in earnest.

“Oh, don’t be mad, Cerna. It could be fun! We could raise him as our own. I mean it’s always done in threes, and there’s precedent, I’m sure. The fairies did it with Aurora—”

“But they were all crazy.” Midge sampled the air again. “He would taste good with garlic. I’m sure.”

“Not everything is edible, Midge.” Cerna pulled her away from the child by the back of her neck. “And Tenga, the Fey never have enough to do. That’s why they’re always in other peoples’ business.”

“How about the Fates? Didn’t they—”

“All powerful,” Midge hissed.

“And too busy for mortals,” Cerna laughed. “They’re worse than us. They don’t even see humans as human—just woven bits of thread.”

Midge reached for the child. “Well, I’m getting hungry, and I still say we eat him. Damn the Council.” But the glint in Tenga’s raptor eyes held her at bay.

“Oh, fine then,” Midge conceded. “You two figure it out. I’ll see if they have some snacks or something.” She stalked into the kitchen, clanking dishes and opening cabinets in her search.

A wail of sirens drew close.

“There’s gotta be some way we can keep him, Cerna. Please?” Tenga rocked the toddler, her feathers ruffling.

“I’m sorry, Tenga, but we can’t. None of us are prepared for parenthood; it’s not in our nature. I mean, Midge ate her last brood!”

“I know, it’s just… you know the saying ‘the one that gets away is your undoing?’”

“Uh huh.”

Midge returned with a platter bearing cups of tea and a plate of animal crackers. Tenga sat Baby Trevor on the sofa and snuggled him against her side, petting him with the back of a feathered hand.

“Well, what if this one gets away and becomes our undoing? At least if he’s in our care, we can raise him not to attack us.”

The sirens were right outside. Red, blue, and white lights lit the front yard and shone around the edges of the drapes.

Cerna sniffed her tea. “It, Tenga. Not He. It. Have you considered that if we try to raise it, we might be inviting our doom as well?”

“Sip your tea, Cerna,” Midge said. “It’s chamomile. Your favorite.”

Hammering rattled the front door. Men shouted on the other side.

“There’s not much time now.” Midge purposefully looked away from Tenga. “We can’t kill it and you won’t eat it. You’re going to have to give it up now—let it die in the fire. But I am not going to find out from the Fey how to raise a human child. I have a life, and a fabulous social circle, and a child will just cramp my style.”

Cerna rolled her eyes. “You eat your dates and expel the bones, Midge. That’s not a social circle; it’s a buffet.”

“If we take him, he’ll know where we are. He might hate us, and we’ll be as regretful as one of Midge’s dates.”

Midge looked affronted. Cerna just picked her teeth. Tenga scooped the baby back into her arms. She plucked a zebra cracker from the plate and tried to feed him; he pushed it away and yawned.

“But if we give him to the people outside, they’ll raise him and love him and care for him.”

“Maybe,” Cerna said. “The saying is true for the humans, too.”

Tenga smiled down at the child’s pink face. “But maybe there’s a way for Baby Trevor to know that we’re not letting him get away.” She leaned close and whispered something in his ear. He reached up and plucked a feather from her cheek.

A pair of firefighters burst through the door. Midge snapped her fingers and the back end of the house burst into a white fireball, forcing them back.

“That’ll hold them for a little longer.” She studied her talons. “C’mon, Tenga. I got a date tonight.”

“Poor thing,” Cerna said. Midge bared her fangs and hissed.

“Oh, please. You really think I’m scared?”

The firefighters returned. Tenga laid the boy down on the sofa. He cried out, and the men saw him. They quickly rescued him from the inferno.

Cerna patted Tenga’s feathery arm. “You did the right thing.”

Tenga ate the zebra cookie Baby Trevor had rejected. “You know,” she said. “I prefer Girl Scout cookies. Like the ones from that assignment in Muncie… and the one in Tucson… and the—”

“Yes, yes,” Cerna said. “We could relive it all again, but I still have to get this paperwork filed, and Midge has to go eat her date. Are you going to be okay?”

Tenga nodded. “I’m going to have a spa day, I think. Clavis is so talented with his tentacles…”

In the ambulance, the EMTs examined the little boy.

“What’s he got there?” one of them asked. “Looks like a feather.”

Whence the Horrors

Author’s Note: A little different tune today. A bit of fiction about a particularly scary personal rabbit hole.

April had been a month-long deluge. We used twice the socks; the puddles and rivulets of runoff begged to be jumped in and over, especially after long days in stuffy classrooms with no lunchtime recess. Mom hung our wet pants over the shower curtain rod; they dripped on to a frayed towel spread on the floor beneath. Our sneakers practically lived in the dryer.

Between the school library and the public library, I had gained access to a Halloween-colored collection of books on the horror film classics: The Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein. The school library also owned a book on horror films wherein I first met Count Orlock and Erik Claudin. The public lIbrary’s series from Time-Life Books—The Enchanted World—completed my tour of the terrible fantastic; I was set for a month of pleasure reading.

“What have you got there?” Dad asked.

I showed him the book Wizards and Witches. He frowned at it, as if blaming the book for arriving in my hands.

“That’s garbage,” he said, and walked away.

After that, he didn’t ask what I was reading, opting to lace his question with judgment.

“Still reading garbage?”

Of course, the Playgirl he found under my mattress six years later was far worse to him than anything I had brought home before. As I reflect on it, my only regret is that I didn’t start reading comic books sooner, since those were banned in our house as well.

I rolled my eyes and held up whatever I was reading so he could read the cover.

“Yep. Garbage,” he invariable decreed.

That night I awoke to the light of the full moon shining through my window. The clouds had parted, the patter of rain ending just in time for me to notice the silence. No chirping of crickets or cries of spring peepers. No whirrs or croaks, no skittering of rodents over detritus. Not even the rustle of leaves. We lived on the edge of the woods. Silence was wrong.

“Hey Justin?” I asked. I could see the hulk of my older brother in bed beneath the far window. Overweight and a heavy sleeper, he snored badly. But now I heard nothing.

“Justin, I know you’re awake. Answer me!”

I slid out of bed and crossed the creaky old floor. He didn’t stir. I pulled on his shoulder. He rolled back, eyes glassy, lips blue.

Heart pounding, I ran from the room. The attic door was next to our bedroom, and I heard the clomp of heavy boots descending the creaking stairs. I smelled formaldehyde and ozone. The groaning started before I reached my parents’ bedroom.

“Mom! Dad!”

I pounded on their door, grabbed the knob, and flung it open.

They were dead, too, wrapped in thick webs. Something skittered under the bed. I turned. Something with yellow-eyes snarled from the darkness of the bathroom.

I raced past my sisters’ room, sure of the horror I would find if I opened their door. Instead I bounded downstairs, and struggled with the kitchen door, sparing a glance just as Orlock in his rat-toothed glory crept from around the corner that led to the cellar.

The door was locked. Something grabbed me from behind. I awoke.

It happened again the next night, after which I was too afraid to go to sleep. I pictured them waiting, horrors taking shape in the cellar, in the attic, under the bed, their clomps and growls and snarls held at bay just for me. The stink of them—wet wolf and the rusty smell of blood—came to me in my waking hours.

My father decreed that I had too active an imagination, and confiscated my books. I didn’t want to tell him that he shouldn’t take my Mad Scientist book because Fredric March might be the most handsome Dr. Jekyll I’d ever seen and I really wanted look at him some more.

The third night, I made it outside and across the yard. But Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch caught me in the driveway. I skidded across the stone and gravel, tumbling to all fours as her green claws dug into my shoulder and scratched wet grooves down my back. My limbs gave out. A cackle filled the damp, foggy night.

My palms and knees hurt the next few days.

I made it across the street a few nights later. Nearly hit by a car. The witch caught me running up the road, screaming for help. I didn’t know if the car was real. I felt the whoosh of wind and the blare of a horn. It smelled like fire as it passed, contrary to the icy wind that followed in its wake. But I didn’t dare turn. There was no time to look back.

The first time I reached the neighbors, I actually paused to reconsider. These were not nice neighbors: the windbag, the milquetoast, and their spawn. But I pounded on the door anyway. Screamed for them. Something with claws yanked me off the porch and dragged me across the yard.

Finally, one night they answered. A quartet of shambling corpses. Emaciated cheeks and the stink of rotting flesh. Lolling eyes and broken grasping fingers. Not even the unsafe places were safe. I was alone. They swiped at me; I fought back. Tried to pull me inside. I ripped free of their clutches, tearing my t-shirt, and ran up the road, barefoot, crying, alone…

And then I awoke.

The next evening, Justin called me a faggot at the dinner table.

“Well, you should be more of a man, Brian,” my father said. Mom just stared at her salad. Jane leered at me, complicit in her silence. Little Alice chewed her cud, blissfully ignorant. And suddenly I knew what those horrors had been trying to say.

I determined to face my fears this time—not to run—sure that I was alone. Anything I did in my life, I would do for myself. Love and support did not exist; help wasn’t coming. No one would care for me like me.

The nightmare didn’t return.

I’m older now, and there are days, really bad days, when I think I could dream it again. I am no longer the lonely boy in the house on the edge of the woods. But I can sit in the park, or at a restaurant, or drive home on a perfectly blue day, birds chirping in the trees, and feel a hand, clammy against my neck, or glance in the rearview mirror to see a pair of glowing eyes staring back. Or hear the unnatural creaking under my bed as my husband snores gently beside me.

No, the nightmare hasn’t come back.

And it’s my job to keep it that way.

Timothy and The Timekeeper

Author’s Note: Respond to a Twitter post on Monday. Write all week. Draft and revise on Saturday. Edit on Sunday. Repeat as needed, I guess.

“Don’t forget your lunch,” Bonnie Fender reminded Timothy as he dashed through the cramped little kitchen. The bag waited in its customary place: on the edge of counter in front of the microwave. Right by the door to the garage.

“What kinda chips?” He slung his worn backpack to the floor and shoved the lunch inside.

She didn’t look up from the onion she was dicing. “Your favorite. Got your library books?”

“Yep.”

He reached for the door.

“Not in the same pocket as your lunch I hope.” Chop chop chop.

Timothy sighed in a very put-out way and moved the lunch to the bag’s outer pocket.

She smiled her usual half-grin. “Uh huh. Dad’ll pick you up at four forty-five. Front of the library. Don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

“And don’t talk to strangers.” Now she gestured with her knife. The smell of onion wafted his way.

“I never do.”

“I love you, Baby Boy.”

He groaned. “Love you too, Mom.” The words came by rote, like grace at suppertime, the national anthem, or the Lord’s Prayer—acts so ingrained they no longer required thought.

Timothy had fixed his father’s old Schwinn, abandoned to the junk side of the shed. When Randy saw his son’s work, he visited every pawn shop, church, and yard sale in half the county to purchase do-it-yourself manuals, car repair guides, and home improvement books. The collection gathered dust on Timothy’s little bedroom bookcase. The boy read them out of courtesy and respect, but that was as far as things got. There was never money for home repair. His Dad was lifelong friends with Joe of Joe’s Auto repair and so got the best friend discount. His Mom prohibited him from tinkering with her appliances, many of which had seen better days.

Now he bumped and rattled down the gravel road, headed toward the blacktop secondary that teed at Redshannon Road. From there he pedaled hard down the white shoulder line straight to town. Thirty minutes and five miles later—give or take—he would arrive at any one of several under-the-table jobs befitting a thirteen year old.

The Havelocks lived in one of the town’s few mansions, a leftover from timber baron days.

“It’s historically registered,” Mrs. Havelock reminded him every Monday when she set him to work on the lawn. “So be very careful as you go.” He had never met Mr. Havelock, though he had seen the beady-eyed man watching through a first floor window, and smelled the cigar smoke while he waited on the porch. They never allowed him inside.

On Tuesdays he stopped at the quaint little cottage of Miss Blum. She was young, had taught his third grade class, and loved to redecorate.

“Can you help me rearrange the living room?” she asked every few months.

He had also cleaned the basement, helped change all the window treatments, and exchanged the old second floor bedroom suite with a brand new set. It’s just as well, Timothy thought. The yard only takes thirty minutes.

Mrs. Grantham had him weed the prize flowerbeds that surrounded their split-level. Mr. Grantham gave him run of the weed-eater.

“She don’t complain when you do it,” he confided to Timothy and gave him an extra ten. That was Wednesdays.

And old Mr. Schwartz wanted his grass cut every Thursday. All two and a half acres. With a pushmower. “Gotta build those muscles for Junior Varsity baseball,” he insisted. “That’s what I did when I was your age.”

Timothy didn’t think it wise to suggest he had no interest in sports.

But if the purpose for his Schwinn was freedom, his labor had purpose beyond Friday ice cream money and college savings as well. He had stumbled upon a problem, and his clients were just four of a community of test subjects.

Mrs. Havelock wore a dainty watch with shiny stones in the bezel.

“It’s a lovely watch.” He only glanced up for a moment as she inspected his weeding-in-progress.

“Why thank you, Timothy. I bought it from The Timekeeper over on Main Street.”

“I should stop by there. Mom’s birthday is coming up and…”

Mrs. Havelock’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I’m sorry, Timothy. Where?”

“The Timekeeper?”

She touched her cheek and stared at the house. “Now, I don’t believe I’ve heard of that place.”

The same thing happened with all of his clients. Miss Blum had purchased a mantel clock there, but couldn’t name the place a moment later. Mrs. Grantham’s grandfather clock filled the living room with ticks and chimes, but when she wasn’t looking directly at it, she couldn’t name the seller either. Even Mr. Schwartz, who prided himself on remembering the worst rosters of his beloved Pittsburgh Pirates, could not remember where he had gotten his watch fixed. That seemed truly bizarre to Timothy, because Schwartz loved to tap his finger on it, a non-verbal warning that time was a-wasting.

“Mom,” he asked one evening at dinner. “Have you ever heard of The Timekeeper?”

“The who?” she shoveled another helping of mashed potato on to her plate.

“It’s a watchmaker. On Main Street.”

She shook her head.

“There’s no watchmaker on Main.”

“Timekeeper,” Timothy corrected. “Just before the turn. The shop backs up on Redshannon Creek.”

Randy stared dubiously. “Are you on… drugs?” he whispered the last word. Bonnie stopped eating, her meatloaf hanging from her fork.

“No,” Timothy insisted. His parents laughed.

“Well, that’s a relief,” his Mom said between chews. His dad motioned for the last of the green beans. Timothy watched the minute hand of their plastic wall clock and puzzled. Through his job, his parents, the public librarians, his teachers, and even a few random strangers, he had made a discovery: most folks had been to The Timekeeper, but no one remembered it.

With Mr. Schwartz’s yard complete, Timothy rode down to the shop no one recalled. He chained his bike to a light post and walked in. At once, three clocks chimed the hour. He checked his watch.

They were all wrong.

“Be out in a moment,” came a lighthearted voice from behind a faded beige curtain.

The shop was clean, at least by Miss Blum’s standards. A set of glass lantern and carriage clocks had been displayed on a linen covered table by the window. Their insides whirred and tinked along in a steady rhythm. Grandfather and other longbox clocks attended like wooden soldiers awaiting inspection against the adjacent wall. Opposite, the owner had placed a set of shelves where other antique and mantel clocks formed a ticking skyline of wood, ebony, gold, and silver. The smaller clocks lived on the ends, while a mahogany carriage clock took pride of place. Above the shelves, the wall had been crowded in white or silver-faced pendulum clocks and cuckoo clocks painted with colorful trees and birds, their characters emerging from alpine-scene windows. They hung high and low, and everything, Timothy noted, was free of dust.

He approached the glass case along the back wall. It too was clean, and pocket watches in gold and dark wood lay in satin bedding beside silver ones that revealed their inner workings. There were men’s watches with leather bands and gold faces; women’s watches like Mrs. Havelock’s but even fancier. Timepieces on silver chains. Everything ticked along in comforting certainty, but none of the times were right.

“Hello!”

Timothy startled.

“So sorry,” said the man. And Timothy thought he looks faded. The shopkeeper was elderly, rumpled, and had thrown an old grey cardigan over a white dress shirt, half untucked. Like Einstein or Twain had been dunked in the creek and tumbled through the dryer. But this bushy old man wore silver framed spectacles as well, and carried a gnarled walking stick.

“It’s ok,” Timothy said and stopped. “I was looking for a present… for… my mom.” Dumb. Why didn’t you plan this out?

“Oh? Very good. Now, your name, sir?”

“Timothy.”

“Remarkable. That’s my name as well.” The old man adjusted his sliding glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

He doesn’t have the tired eyes of some older folks, Timothy noticed.

“So that we can tell each other apart, why don’t you be Timothy, and I’ll be Old Tim?”

Despite himself, Timothy smiled. “That sounds good.”

“Yes, yes, it does,” Old Tim agreed. “Now how much are you willing to spend on your mother?”

The color drained from Timothy’s face. “I… I only have twelve dollars.”

Old Tim clucked in dismay. “Well that’s just not enough for anything I’ve got in my store. Perhaps you’d come back later? Bring your father with you?” He motioned Timothy toward the door.

“W-wait!” Timothy balled his fists at his sides. Now or never. “Old Tim. Sir.”

“Mm?” Old Tim looked down his nose at the boy.

Timothy was certain those steely eyes were not the eyes of an old man, and that the shopkeeper could read his mind. He sighed. No way out but through. Just like school.

“This isn’t really about my mother. You see…” And he told Old Tim about his findings. The shopkeeper twitched his mustache and adjust his glasses several times as Timothy explained Miss Blum’s mantel clock and Mr. Schwartz’s wristwatch. The man pulled up a metal stool that screeched as he dragged it across the wood floor and leaned in as Timothy presented more evidence. Mrs. Grantham’s grandfather clock. Jenny the reference librarian, who couldn’t even tell him where the store was, even with the Internet. Mrs. Havelock’s glittering watch and his parents’ inexplicable ignorance.

“…and that’s when I finally decided to seek you out. To get the truth—“ He cut himself off, aware that he had been flapping his arms and pacing, and now Old Tim sat motionless still staring down his nose, not even a twitch of his mustache to reveal his thoughts.

“Please don’t kill me.” Timothy closed his eyes and scrunched his shoulders, waiting for the inevitable deathblow. Dummy. Stupidest last words ever.

Nothing.

He slowly opened his eyes. Old Tim still hadn’t moved.

“Sir?”

Old Tim’s face sagged. Not much, but enough that Timothy noticed. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to forget everything you just shared?”

Timothy shook his head. “I’ve tried. But it’s like when I see a machine that needs fixing, or a task that needs doing, or a book that needs reading. It just gets in there.”

“So you really want the truth?” Old Tim crossed his arms.

“Will it hurt? Will you have to kill me?” Timothy shied back a step.

Old Tim smiled and tapped his fingers on the glass case. “Most truth hurts, young man. But if this bit kills you, it won’t be because of me.”

Timothy’s shoulders relaxed. “Okay then. I want the truth.”

“And you shall have it.” Old Tim thumped his walking stick and wriggled his mustache. “First, you should know that while I am—or was—a watchmaker, I am now also a Timekeeper.”

“Timekeeper? Like your store name?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Or like in gym class?”

Old Tim laughed in a surprisingly high wheeze. “Both. Kind of. When it comes to time there are lords and masters, paladins and conquerors. All manner of being with a host of agendas.”

“So which are you?” Tim searched the old man for a badge of status, but he wasn’t even wearing a watch.

The Timekeeper waved his cane. “None of those. I’m just me. I do a job, just like your folks. Just like everybody else in town.”

“You know we have high unemployment,” Timothy observed. “I read in the paper—”

“You’re a bright lad, but my goodness. Unemployment doesn’t mean you don’t have a job.” Old Tim pretended to wave the idea away. “It means you don’t have a job that makes money. There’s a difference.”

Timothy scratched his stubbly head.

“Will you walk with me?” He motioned for the boy to follow him behind the counter and through the faded curtain. Timothy looked wary; Old Tim sensed the cause. “I’ll go first. You’re younger, faster, and if you feel threatened at any point, you will be able to run away easily. Alright?”

Timothy stared in wonder at the back room. It was cluttered with clocks, trays of gears and pins and wheels of every conceivable size and type. Delicate paper thin tin and wood wheels. Gold and silver ones. Crystals, jewel pins, and bezels. Cases of wood and precious metal large and small. Little chains and clasps. Tools cluttered the long workbench. He paused at the latest project—a golden pocket watch. “Could you teach me?”

Old Tim paused to look back. “To be a Timekeeper?”

“To be a watchmaker?”

“Oh, that? That’s easy. We’ll see.”

A battered plank door of very old greyed wood hung on the far wall. Old Tim grabbed a flashlight from a hook and opened it.

“After me, right? It’s a long way down, so let me know if you change your mind.” He stepped into the gloom. Timothy followed.

As they walked, it occurred to Timothy that he had broken his mother’s rule about talking to strangers, and worse, nobody knew where he was. But Old Tim still hadn’t seemed like a threat. Well, like much of one.

“The town dates back to the late seventeen hundreds, but this post had been established long before…”

In fact, he seemed to know a lot about the history and geography of the area, which Timothy found intriguing.

“…which means ‘red wise river’… the locals believed there was knowledge to be found here in the water, but depending on how the sun hit it, it glowed red, and that made folks nervous. Well, rightfully so, I guess, it wasn’t the creek alone glowing red…”

“How much further?” Timothy noticed that the walls of the passage were damp. He stepped carefully, and wondered how it was that Old Tim hadn’t taken a tumble already. Maybe he has, but who would help him?

“Only a little.” Old Tim had kept a good pace, and Timothy soon found his eyesight had adjusted.

“Wait. Is it just me, or is there light ahead?”

“There’s light, unfortunately.” They reached a level place, and Old Tim now flashed his light on another plank door, this one more worn and rotted than the first. Light glowed around its battered edges.

“You ready?” Old Tim asked.

Timothy nodded. Took a deep breath. Heat came from the other side as well.

Old Tim led him into a vaulted, torchlit chamber. In the center sat a metal lid five feet across. It had no handles, only the mechanism of a clock—what looked like a largish pocket watch—embedded in the center.

“What is it?” Timothy asked.

“A doorway to Hell,” Old Tim said. “And this here,” he rested his hand on a lever in the stone, “is a way to route the Redshannon Creek directly into this room.”

“You’re kidding.” Timothy was awestruck. He stepped toward the lid.

“Sadly not,” The Timekeeper said. “Let me show you.”

He motioned to a small door on the lid. They both got on their knees, and the Timekeeper slid it back to reveal a crystal viewportal into the abyss. The bezel had been etched with runes and symbols, but they were secondary to Timothy. He was entranced by the spirals of light and heat, and by the creatures that flapped and rode the updrafts in the flaming depths. Forms crawled and slithered around the rocky crags. Something hurled itself against the portal. Leathery wings blocked the view.

“That’s enough.” The Timekeeper slid the door shut.

“The characters—Chinese? Runes?”

He patted the boy’s shoulder. “A little of everything. The collected knowledge of the world exists across time, so to make the best seal, you need to access everywhere.”

They trudged back up the tunnel; Timothy felt weightier with his newfound knowledge. Like he was more substantial for knowing. Like there was more to him than before.

“So you don’t want anybody to know the portal is here? Is that why they don’t know about the shop?”

Old Tim had given Timothy the light and told him to lead so that he could run if he chose, but that didn’t seem to stop the shopkeeper from matching the boy’s pace.

“Partly,” he said. “But the strength of people is people. So a little more knowledge across a little more time across a few more people, and it becomes harder for anything to break through.”

“So what you’re saying is the more we connect, the more we protect?”

Old Tim laughed. “You are a worthy apprentice, my boy.”

When they returned to the showroom, Timothy asked again if he could learn to be a watchmaker.

“And maybe a Timekeeper, too?”

The old man nodded. “Let me see your watch.”

“I’m not wearing one.”

“Oh!” he opened the case. “Then take this one. I have some protections in place, but when it’s time for you to return, you’ll know it.”

“But I don’t have the money—“

“A gift, then. For an exceptional day with an exceptional young man. If your folks are worried, you can say it was for helping me clean my shop.” He set the time on the watch and handed it to the boy.

“Thank you,” Timothy said. “But I’m curious about something else. Why are all of your clocks set to the wrong times?”

Old Tim tapped his temple. “Oh, they’re all the right times. Just not the right places. More connections…”

Timothy grinned. “I get it. Connections with people across time and place.”

Old Tim motioned him to the door. “Have a great day, Timothy.”

The boy waved. “I’ll be back on Monday!”

The old man smiled as the boy unlocked his bike and rode away, then turned his sign so that “We’re Closed” faced outward. He would become someone new tomorrow. Someone drastically different. Perhaps he would become a woman. Or change his skin color. The shop would have to disappear of course. A drop of illusion and a dollop of man’s natural tendencies would solve that problem.

As for Timothy, the Timekeeper chuckled his wheezy chuckle. The boy was powerful, and might well return. But the charm would slow him down, as it did everyone else, and if the shop, the evidence, and Old Tim were gone, Timothy would have nothing but a ghost story to share. It would hurt, but both of them would be safer. All humanity would be safer, the Timekeeper thought. Better a boy with a ghost story than to face an angry mob over a gate to Hell.

The Problem in 14B

Author’s Note: One of my readers asked if I was planning to revisit the world of “Nightwatch in the Underneath”. So I did.

Arbor Michael lacked the cachet of Sky City’s more central addresses. The cluster of five towers, each a phallus of steel, concrete, and glass capped in green-tinted mushrooming levels, did not have the views of its neighbors. A direct sunrise or sunset could only be seen in the winter, when the orb peeked at them from between the columns of more luxurious arbors: James to the east, Simon to the west. The north and south arbors, Judah and Salome, suffered a smilar fate as Michael in terms of the views, but had the advantage of being closer in along the City Transit route. The electric blue monorail system didn’t offer Arbor Michael residents a direct line to shopping or learning or government; instead, it wound a circuitous route through the neighboring arbors. Thus, no matter which way a rider went in the circuit, Arbor Michael was always the furthest stop.

Because it lacked the prestige afforded by proximity and scenery, Arbor Michael, like Sky City’s other similarly situated architectural kin, had become a lower rent district. Kate Balintine found that she could afford a one bedroom unit when she chipped in with only five others.

Right now two of those others, Bryan and Maryanne, had exiled her from the bedroom so they could commit a few sins.

“Thanks, Kate. I really owe you,” Maryanne said as she thrust her roommate’s bedroll into her open arms. Maryanne’s blonde hair was already mussed from the foreplay Kate had interrupted during the effort to retrieve her mat, sheet, thin blanket, and pillow.

“Better give me Lyle’s as well.” Kate cracked her chewing gum and held out her free hand.

Bryan lay on his bedroll on the floor, naked from the waist up. When he saw Kate, he pulled the sheet up to cover his chest, but not before Kate noticed the lipstick print on his pec.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before.” Kate smirked and batted her dark eyes.

“Not on me, you haven’t.”

“Like you’re anything special?”

Maryanne pushed the second roll at her, said thanks, and closed the door quickly.

Kate wandered through the galley kitchen to the living room, dropped Lyle’s bedroll on the chair, and spread hers so that she could look out the picture window. Arbor Michael’s “panoramic” views opened on other peoples’ lives. Kate would never admit to voyeurism; it sounded too illicit. She preferred to think of it as people watching.

As she neared dozing, the slide of a keycard, beep, and subsequent squeak of the door pulled Kate back from the edge of sleep. She looked up to see Clay open the cashbox that lived on the end table inside the door.

“Adding or subtracting?” she mumbled.

“Adding.” Clay entered a new line on their digital record, shucked his coat and blue work coveralls, and flopped on the sofa in sweat-stained long underwear. “They at it again?”

“Off and on, based on the grunting and intermittent shrieks.”

“Lyle ain’t gonna like it if he can’t get in there.”

Kate waved at the chair. “That’s why I brought his roll with me.”

“You coulda brought mine.”

“It smells funny. Just like you.” She fanned in front of her nose. “Pew! You stink!”

“Thanks,” Clay replied morosely.

Kate thumped his leg with a gentle fist. “I’m kidding. Didn’t know you’d be home early is all.”

He looked at the galley doorway, as if expecting Maryanne or Bryan to emerge at any moment. “Yeah well, I decided to take a half day. Kinda needed it.”

Kate frowned in question.

Clay ran a dirty hand through his hair. “I should really talk to Leigh about this.”

Now Kate sat up, giving him full attention. He picked at the dirt under his fingernails.

“Something anthropological happen?” she asked. Leigh worked in the Sky City Anthropology Division.

“No, not a work thing…I think I watched a murder.”

Kate’s green eyes grew wide. “No way.”

Clay nodded. “When you’re picking up garbage, you just focus on garbage. Take out the bag. Load the cart. Replace the bag. Drive to the incinerator receptacle. Unload. Away it goes. End of story.”

Kate nodded.

“But there were protesters on my route today. Deviants.”

“What kind?”

“Pagans, I think. Hard to tell. Pagans are often queers. Queers are often socialists. Socialists are—”

“I get it.” She put a hand on his knee, uncertain if her action was meant to silence or reassure him. Maybe both.

“Well, I wasn’t raised to hold to that type. Deviants were our downfall in the first place.”

“Uh huh.” Every young person learned Sky City history in catechism. Both Kate’s parents had taught in the school system, indoctrinating hundreds—including their daughter—into the Truth of God’s mercy, and His gift to the worthy: their home above the heathens, the unclean, the unworthy. Above the Deviants.

“So the Peacekeepers arrived and began arresting them. Some went quietly…”

He cracked his knuckles.

“But some fought back. Started chucking stuff at the Peacekeepers. Bottles. Food. Not much to throw, really. They dumped my garbage cans to find stuff.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “One guy…a big guy. He could’ve—should’ve—been a Peacekeeper himself, all that size. But he was protesting. Carried a baseball bat. Can you believe it? A baseball bat.”

Beyond television, Kate had never seen a baseball bat anywhere except the simulators and the arena. It wasn’t a household item.

“Wonder how he got it?”

Clay shrugged. “Don’t matter. Peacekeepers decided he was the most dangerous. When he swung that bat… well, like I said, he was a big guy. Cracked some shields. Ever hear a bone break?”

Kate turned pale. She could see Clay reliving the experience from the look in his eyes.

“Well, it took six of them to bring him down.”

“Did they beat him to death right there?”

“Nope.” He retrieved a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and sat back down. Took a swig. Closed his eyes.

“They hauled him up to the nearest service gate, opened it, and threw him off the platform. When the crowd saw that, they fled.”

“Jesus.” Kate wrapped her arms around her knees. “Sounds horrifying.”

“Life up here must not be as bad as they claim, I guess. They scurried off, the cowards, instead of dying for their beliefs.” He sucked down half his water.

“I would think you’d be happy.”

He shook his head. “I climbed up to an overlook to get clear and watch the chaos. Saw him go over. Watched him flail. It’s a thousand foot drop to the Underneath, you know? He hit…”

“And?”

Clay just stared at her. “I felt sick. He was the only brave one. The only righteous one. But misguided… maybe.”

Kate absorbed the story, resting her chin on her arms as she imagined what Clay saw. This is what it must feel like to be a therapist. “Maybe.”

“You pity them?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Where’s the compassion?”

Clay just shrugged.

Lyle and Leigh arrived home an hour later, rousing Kate and Clay from slumber. Lyle escorted Leigh to the last open seat in the living room.

“I’m better now,” she said, dropping her bag. “Really.”

Typically, Leigh was the most austere of the group. She didn’t wear any makeup, and kept her hair in an Oklahoma braid. She kept every inch of skin covered save her face and hands. Zippers, buttons, and snaps bound and buttoned her tightly, shielding everything inside from everything outside. But the dutiful daughter Kate had befriended seemed missing now. Her hair had been completely undone, wild, shoulder length chestnut locks tangled and astray. She wore smudged eyeshadow, at least, and left open a few buttons on her blouse. But the transformation wasn’t just physical. She pressed her legs tightly together, hips, knees, and toes. Cupped her elbows. Darted glances around the room. Her jacket sleeve had been torn. She looks violated.

“Were they that terrifying in the Underneath?” She hadn’t seen Leigh since before her last assignment. Even though each worked while the other slept, they at least crossed paths on shift changes. Well, we used to, Kate thought.

“Leigh?”

“Yeah?” Leigh looked startled.

A door opened down the hall and Bryan hollered.

“What the hell, man?”

Clay bolted upright on the sofa. Kate seized the moment to claim the seat closest to Leigh and put a reassuring hand on her arm. Leigh offered a weak smile, eyes baggy.

“Have you slept since coming back from your interview?” Kate asked.

Leigh shook her head.

Lyle’s voice thundered. “Where’s my bedroll?”

“It’s out here, Lyle!” Kate called and turned to see him storming back into the room with Leigh’s bedroll under his arm. His wild mop of curly hair was plastered down under a white gauze wrap. Blood had seeped through.

“What happened to you two?” Clay wiped the sleep from his eyes and shook his head.

“Nothing.“ Lyle said. He put a hand on Leigh’s shoulder. “Ready to go?”

Kate stood up. “I don’t think you two should be going anywhere.”

Lyle shook his head.

Leigh put her hand over Lyle’s and looked up at Kate. “I have to go.”

“What’s your problem, Lyle?” Bryan had donned tee shirt and shorts.

Maryanne stood behind him, pulling him back toward the bedroom by the elbow. “Leave him alone, Bryan.”

“No, we even set his roll out so he wouldn’t come barging in.” He finally gave Lyle a once over. “What happened to you?”

“Leigh and I are leaving.”

Clay shook his head. “No way. Your names are on the housing contract. You can’t leave. Is that blood?” He nodded to Lyle’s shirt collar.

“Yeah. My own. And the contract doesn’t matter.” He reached for Leigh’s arm.

“Now wait a minute.” Kate stopped him. “Maybe before you just vanish we all ought to sit down and talk this out?”

“Icarans,” Leigh whispered, and everyone stopped.

“What do you mean, ’Icarans’?” Kate knelt in front of her.

“Icarans. We don’t wanna be Icarans.”

Kate worried her lip. “Lyle, what’s she talking about?”

He shrugged.

But Clay ran a hand over his face and frowned. “You two were at the protests. You’re Deviants.”

In a flash, Lyle had a handful of Clay’s shirt, his fist cocked. “Call me that one more time, asshole.”

Clay’s weight advantage was negated by both his seated position and his post-nap sluggishness. He grabbed Lyle’s more sinewy arm with both hands. Bryan worked to insert himself between them. “Easy, easy. Nobody’s calling anybody names.”

“Actually, Clay did,” Maryanne observed.

“Shut it,” Bryan barked. “Lyle, what happened?”

His girlfriend tossed her hair and pursed her lips.

Lyle let go of Clay and stepped back. Sighed. “Leigh just showed up at my cubicle, begging for me to hide her.”

“Why?” Kate held Leigh’s hand. She wore a large ring on her thumb. That’s new.

“Because I don’t want to be an Icaran.”

“What’s an Icaran, Leigh?” Kate rubbed the back of her hand.

“They fly. The Cricaps pray. The Topsiders pay. The Icarans fly.”

Bryan crossed his arms. “From who, Lyle? Who did she want you to hide her from.”

Lyle pinched the bridge of his nose. “The Peacekeepers.”

Maryanne slipped back through the kitchen.

“Aw, no,” Clay moaned as he stood. “No, no, no. You got a wanted woman here.” He waved his arms in agitation. “You’re complicit. So now we’re all complicit. And the Peacekeepers? Did they bash you on the head?”

Lyle winced when he touched the delicate spot on his head. “No. I misjudged the shelf in the storage room where I hid her.”

“You’ve got to turn her in,” Clay said. “The both of you got to turn yourselves in or we’re all in trouble.”

“Where will you go?” Kate asked.

“Back to The Underneath.”

Everybody but Lyle stared at Leigh in shock. Then a flurry of movement followed.

Bryan stormed away, muttering about Neathers driving everyone mad. Clay grabbed his cell.

“I’ll report you myself.”

Lyle kicked the cell out of Clay’s hands. Something else crunched.

“Sonofabitch!” Clay shouted as he grabbed his fingers. He sucked in a lot of air and curled his hand, then pushed past them into the kitchen.

“Let’s go,” Leigh ordered. She grabbed her bag and bolted.

Kate and Lyle followed, bedrolls abandoned.

Lyle kept glancing behind to see if anyone was following. Kate scurried along quickly to catch up with their wild-eyed friend. “Why do you think you’ll be fine in The Underneath?”

“I don’t,” Leigh said as they passed into the stairwell and started the long descent.

“But her tablet’s smashed and she’s wearing matching men’s rings on each thumb,” Lyle offered as he passed. “Whatever’s gone wrong with her, it started there.”

“And you’re helping her why?”

“Curiosity? Tired of my cubicle?”

Kate scoffed at his answer. “Clay said there were protests today—”

“Uh huh. She was there.”

Leigh picked up speed, glancing out the window on every other landing as if the Peacekeepers would fly right up to arrest her.

“Lyle,” Kate huffed, “why didn’t you turn her in?”

Lyle never broke stride. “Would she have done that to me?”

A flight below, Leigh quickened her pace. Kate hurried to catch up.

The First Room in the Palace

Author’s Note: Alex has been in my head for a long time. Their story will take place when they are older, but whenever I see them these days, I see Eliot Page playing an adult Alex, which makes me very happy.

“You’re a woman now,” Tessa declared proudly as she sat down.

Alex nearly spat out her cereal. “Jesus, Mom.”

“Well, it’s true.” Tessa’s spoon tinked against her mug. Constant Comment. One sugar.

“Do we have to talk about it at breakfast?” Alex blushed and disappeared behind the cereal box again.

Bradley never looked up from his tablet. “Did you really think you wouldn’t?” he asked his daughter.

“You’re laughing at me, Daddy!” She flicked a Lucky Charm at him. It stuck to his polo.

“Only smiling,” he conceded, dropping the cereal on his napkin.

Tessa paid no attention to her husband.

“So after breakfast, I thought we would light the candles in the meditation room, set the rosemary incense burning—”

“And I’ll struggle with The Art of Memory again while you sit on the cellar floor and talk with The Circle. That book is hard to read, Mom.”

“But you’re getting it.”

“Yeah—one page a day. And its got hundreds of pages…”

“Thank heavens I was able to help you pronounce some of those Greek, Italian, and Latin words!”

“My friends don’t have to learn Greek and Italian! Sarah’s parents don’t make her do it!”

“Well, Sarah’s not like you, is she?”

Alex appeared downcast. “I don’t know anyone like me.”

Tessa touched her daughter’s cheek. “That’s a good thing though, right?”

“Sometimes,” Alex conceded, though she still sulked a little.

Tessa tried again. “So when we get to the meditation room—“

“I’ll practice foreign languages—” Alex groused.

“Listen to your mother,” Bradley said before sipping his Earl Grey. Lemon, not milk. No sugar.

Alex rolled her eyes sarcastically. “Oh yes, mother of mine?” She smiled adoringly. “What will happen when we get to the cellar?”

“Meditation Room. And nevermind.” Tessa fake pouted.

“What?” Alex pressed, suddenly curious, grabbing the sleeve of her mother’s green sweatsuit jacket.

“No, no… It’s not worth discussing.” She sipped her tea and looked away theatrically, holding a hand aloft to block the sunlight as she examined the overhead light fixture. “Bradley, I think we should dust the chandeliers today.”

“Sounds good,” he replied. “Afterward, the two of you should see if Marblehead Little Theatre needs a pair of drama queens.”

Alex stuck her tongue out at her father, then resumed begging. “Tell me, Mom. Pleeeease?”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it?” Tessa asked.

“I don’t want to talk about… woman stuff. Especially in front of Dad.”

“I don’t want you to talk about it in front of Dad, either,” Bradley deadpanned.

“But you’re willing to listen?” Tessa grinned conspiratorially.

“Yes!”

Her mother made a show of cupping a hand to her ear. “I don’t think they heard you in Boston.”

“I’ll get louder,” Alex threatened with a Cheshire Cat grin.

Tessa shook her head. “Please don’t. I just thought for your eleventh birthday, I would help you create the first room in your memory palace?”

Alex nearly knocked over her juice.

“No way!”

Earlier attempts had failed, but whenever she asked for help, her parents exchanged cryptic glances and said, ‘when you’re ready.’ Alex had gotten heartily sick of only visiting limited places in her parents’ palaces, and not being able to build her own.

“So does this mean I’m ready?” She shook with excitement.

“Well, you are a woman now. It’s time.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Dad, are you coming, too?”

Bradley smiled but shook his head. “Your Mom has had ants-in-the-pants over this ever since you were born. This is for the two of you. Besides, it’s a woman… thing.”

After breakfast, Alex followed her mother down the cellar steps and into the cold, low-ceilinged meditation room beneath their red brick home on Salem Commons.

Tessa lit the candles and incense as Alex waited to enter the pentagram painted on the floor.

“Thus far you have been held at bay, Alexandra,” Tessa said as she handed her daughter a cushion. “But today you will find your power. Today you enter the star.” She directed her daughter to sit in the nearest triangular arm. Cellar windows at her back cast trapezoids of light on each side.

“You sound a little like grandmother did.”

Her mother smiled and shushed her with a finger.

“You know what to do. Open your chakras and meet me on my front porch.”

Alex nodded, closed her eyes, and disappeared. The speed with which she did so pleased Tessa quite a bit.

On its exterior, Tessa Hawthorne’s memory palace looked like a farmhouse in a Kansas field. Alex walked up the narrow path through the high grass. On the right, a large blue egg sat beneath an apple tree. On the left, a burnt cross flaked away in the wind. Her mother emerged from the house and sat in a rocker on the white porch. The screen door closed quickly, but made no noise when it slammed into place.

She motioned her daughter to a second rocker.

“That was great grandfather’s,” she said.

Alex nodded. She had seen it in old photos.

“Now before we start building, I should ask you a few questions. Do you know what your palace will look like? Have you given any thought to the exterior.”

“Uh-uh,” Alex said. “I don’t… I’m not comfortable—exactly—with the exterior. But I know what’s on the inside.”

“Odd,” Tessa said. “I thought for sure you’d make it Sleeping Beauty’s castle.”

“I was nine, Mom.”

“It was only two years ago.” She chuckled. “At least you didn’t put us through the princess routine. God knows what Aunt Stella and Uncle Archibald would have said. And Artemis would never have let me live it down.”

“Jason says his mother likes us a lot more than she lets on.”

Tessa let the comment go. Alex and Jason had been friends almost since birth. Artemis and her wife had long believed he would be an ideal suitor for Alex, but Tessa wasn’t so sure.

“So we’re going to build inside, not outside. That’s fine. I’m curious though, Al: why did you put those in my yard?”

“What?”

“The egg. The cross.”

Alex looked nonplussed. “You didn’t put them there?”

Her mother laughed. “Heck no! The apple tree is mine, and I let the grass grow long. But I didn’t put those others out there.”

Alex squinted to examine them more closely. The egg seemed alive. Shades of darker blue, almost to black, swirled around the shell, as if being stirred from inside. The cross looked… wrong. Something bothered her terribly about it.

“I don’t know, Mom. I might have put the egg there. But I don’t know why. The cross… there’s… I don’t know.”

Tessa patted her daughter’s knee. “Something disturbing. Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out later. Let’s go in and build.”

The front door opened into a cluttered living room. Newspapers and magazines covered the coffee table. Flowers and ribbon candy sat on the buffet. Home-sewn pillows sat on each chair and sofa cushion while afghans and quilts draped each back. Three oil paintings adorned the wall above the sofa: a wood-framed depiction of the farmhouse. A castle in a green valley framed in gold. And lastly, their home in Salem in a frame of interlocking oak helixes. A corner case was stuffed with knick-knacks; more of them sat on the end tables.

“This is the Sheehan genealogy. All my ancestors…” she picked up a snowglobe of a child playing a wintery park scene. “Right down to you.”

Alex peered into the globe trying to determine which memory it was. While she examined the globe, her mother took quick inventory of the room.

“So…” Tessa took the globe back. “Do you want to build downstairs or upstairs?”

“I think… I want to build my bedroom. That seems like a good idea.”

They ascended the stairs past a wall of portraits that always seemed to be watching.

“Who are they?” Alex asked.

“Family,” her mother replied. “But not by blood. Coven watchers.”

“That one’s empty.” Alex pointed to a small bronze frame with a black and white photo.

“That’s strange? Imogene in Portland. I’ll check with their coven after we finish.”

A green runner ran the center of the upstairs hall. Alex poked her head into the first room. It seemed to be filled with fog. She tried to see the contents, but nothing would come into focus, like the objects or the room were resisting her.

“You don’t want to focus in here,” Tessa said. “The charm protects us from them in more ways than one.”

“What are they?”

“Memories, Al,” Tessa said. “Everything in a memory palace is memories.”

“But a memory can’t hurt you.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Tessa said, and ushered her daughter out. “A memory palace contains everything a witch needs. We need good things—happy memories, flowers, family. A good potions lab—”

“You mean the kitchen,” Alex laughed.

“Yes. But we also need the bad memories, too…if only to learn from them. And sometimes…” She motioned to a place where a door should have been but wasn’t. “One needs a room of one’s own.”

“Does Dad have a room up here?”

Tessa chuckled. “Of course he does. But it’s not quite a room.”

“Can I see?”

“You’d have to ask him. He’d probably say yes, but we must respect—“

“Each others’ space, I know.”

“Good girl. So… why don’t you bring the door into being. Make it a good memory, so that you have good feelings moving between us.”

Alex closed her eyes, focused, and heard her mother exclaim with delight.

“Last year’s family Christmas photo?”

The frame was silver. Flecks of light glittered and twinkled along its edges. The frame did not hold a door, however; it just hung on the wall.

Tessa ran her hand up the trim. “It’s better than our photo. This silver is real.”

“What?”

“Feel it. It’s not painted wood. You made a silver doorway.”

Alex ran a finger along the metal, proud of her accomplishment.

“Okay. This is it. Make your room, Alex. Put whatever you like in it—whatever you need. As long as you can see it, come to it and build the rest of your palace from here. Just like Grandmother taught me. And her mother taught her. All the way back to Ireland.”

Alex closed her eyes again. Imagined a space—a place—of her own. She squeezed her eyes tighter. Paused. Reconsidered. Became worried.

Tessa took her hand.

“Relax, Al. You know what you need. Just breathe it into being. It will be okay.”

The intake of breath might have been hers. She kept her eyes shut.

“You didn’t make a door,” Tessa said.

Alex opened her eyes.

A cottony wall of white stood before them, filling the silver frame entirely.

“Well, I…” Alex frowned. “I wasn’t sure about… you know, maybe this is enough for one day.”

“Nonsense. Let’s see the other side of the cloud.” Tessa’s excitement turned to worry when she saw her daughter’s face. “Wait. What is it, Al?”

She bit her lip. “I think… I’m not sure what we’re going to find on the other side.”

“But you did make it, right?”

Alex nodded. “I just. I know you’re excited. But I don’t know if…”

“If?”

She hesitated. “If it will meet your expectations.”

Tessa pulled her daughter into a hug. “Al, when I created my first room, it included a lifesize poster of Alice Cooper.”

“Who’s Alice Cooper?”

“Someone my mother did not approve of. Whatever you’ve got on the other side of that cloud, Al, we’ll face it together. Alright?”

Alex pulled away, dubiousness in her expression; Tessa took her daughter’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “You first, since it’s your room.”

She squeezed her mother’s hand in return, took a deep breath, and held it as she passed through the cloud.

They stood still for what felt to Alex like an eternity.

“Well,” her mother finally said. The rest of her words disappeared in a fit of throat clearing.

Alex’s room was midnight sky. Stars had been plastered to the ceiling. The closet door stood open, filled with baseball tees, flannel shirts, and jeans. Several pairs of Chuck Taylors in a rainbow selection lined the closet floor, and a rack of ballcaps hung on the wall. A telescope similar to her father’s stood by the window. She had included a shelf reminiscent of the one in her physical bedroom: books on magic, books on art and sketching. Books on nature. But also books about war and combat. Sun Tzu.

“Where did you see those?” Tessa whispered, pointing to a whole section on gender identity.

“At the Barnes and Noble.” Alex replied softly.

Tessa noticed an empty picture frame on the nightstand. “Are you going to put a picture in?”

“Not sure,” Alex said. Their heart thumped rapidly. Sweat broke out on their brow. They wished their mother would make the next move. But when Alex turned, Tessa was gone. Well, I guess she did.

Alex took a book titled Gender Identity off the shelf and flopped onto the bed. Ten pages in, their Dad poked his head through the cloud.

“Mind if I come in?” he asked.

They motioned for him to sit at the desk.

Bradley let the silence linger, watching Alex read to the end of a section, then motioned to the doorway. “You know, if you put an actual door on there, no one will be able to just stick their head through.”

“I’m not keeping this room.” Alex said, still focused on the page.

He looked around. “Really? Cause I like it.”

Alex huffed.

“Hey,” Bradley spoke gently. “Alex? Al? Put the book down.”

“It’ll be gone when I leave. I need to read it now.”

Their father smiled. “That’s not how it works, and you know it.”

Alex lay the book open across their chest.

“Your mother sent me,” he said. “She’s worried about you. And she feels bad.”

They pursed their lips, skeptical.

“She does, Alex.”

“Then why did she leave?”

“You shocked her, you know?” Bradley looked out the window on a sandswept desert view. It wouldn’t always look that way. Alex’s mood would change it.

Alex rolled over to face their father.

“I know. I almost didn’t make this one. I almost made my friend Sarah’s room. But then I changed my mind.”

“So is this really your room? I see you have my telescope and my star charts.”

“It’s like Jason’s room. I like his ballcaps.”

“Ah.”

“But some of it’s mine. The sky is mine. The books are mine. I knew I needed them.”

“Are you happy with this room?”

Alex frowned.

Bradley waited as long as he could. “Well are you?”

Silence.

“Because if you are, you should keep it.”

“You’re just saying that.”

Her father shook his head. “I mean, maybe put a door on that wall…” he pointed opposite the closet. “So you could come visit my palace directly. And you could hang a full-sized poster of Mika there, too. You know Mom doesn’t like Europop.”

Alex rolled their eyes. “She already hates me.”

“No she doesn’t.”

“Then why did she leave?”

Bradley sighed. “A couple reasons. The first one is you caught her off-guard.”

They offered a put-upon sigh. “Sorry I can’t be what she wants.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“No.” Alex crossed their arms and stared at the wall.

“Then I think you need to talk with her. She’s downstairs.”

“She never left the palace?”

He shook his head. “She never left.”

“I was sure she would leave me here alone.”

Bradley put a hand on their shoulder. “Then you don’t know her as well as you think.” He stood up.

“Can I read this a while longer?”

“Bring it with you.”

“It’ll disappear.”

He shook his head. “A witch’s memory palace doesn’t work like a human one, Alex.” He paused. “Um… Is it okay to still call you Alex?”

They smiled. “Alex is fine.”

“Well, if your book disappears, I’ll take you to the store and buy you one myself. Or we’ll order it off the web. But you will have a copy of that book.”

“You’re serious?”

He nodded and smiled. She returned it, albeit timidly.

Tessa sat in her memory palace kitchen drinking a mug of chamomile. When Bradley and Alex joined her, she poured them each a cup. No sugar.

She smiled at Alex, but it was strained. “I’m sorry I didn’t respond to you the right way. I… I don’t know what to make of it.”

Alex held up their book. “Neither do I.”

“I see that. Can I try to explain what I was thinking? Will you listen?”

A nod. They clutched the book tightly in both hands.

“First, I thought my presence was unfair to you and your father.”

“What?”

Tessa nodded. “I told you about my family tradition. The women passed the first room tradition down. But if I had paid more attention, I might have focused on you more than myself. Your father would have helped you make your first room.”

“Well you didn’t have to walk out.”

“I felt angry and disappointed—“

“You never let me storm out.”

Bradley frowned. “Just listen, Alex. Please?”

“I was wrong to leave,” their mother said. “I’m sorry I did it, but it’s done. And I’m still not comfortable with this new you.”

Alex’s mouth dropped. “But I’m still me!”

Tessa motioned for them to calm down. “I know you are. I know that. Whatever my challenges are with this new… this version of you, they are my problems alone. Not yours.”

Alex frowned and stared at their tea.

Bradley sighed. “Like mother like… um…” he trailed off.

Tessa raised an eyebrow. “It seems we all I have a lot to learn about this… different–“

“Same.”

“Same… but different, you. We’re going to need time, and we’re going to need you to be patient with us.”

“And to help us understand,” Bradley added. “Like what pronouns do I use with you? He? They?”

“I don’t know yet,” Alex said. “Can we use ‘they’ for now?”

Her father nodded. “That’s fine.”

“So you’re both really okay with this?”

Tessa smiled. “You’re my d… My s…” She sighed. “My child. I love you, and it will be fine. I promise. Besides, the only person who needs to be okay with this is you. Are you okay with it?”

In Alex’s new room, an image of the three of them drinking tea appeared in the empty frame. A full-sized poster of Mika unrolled itself from the center of a brand new door. Outside, the blue egg cracked, and a winged horse, shining sable, leaped into the sky and faded away.

“Yeah,” they said. “I am.”