LGBTQ+ – Page 3 – Nicanor Abbott

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.”

Chance Comes Out… Twice

Author’s Note: Adam Chance is who I might have been if I had been a superhero. I have plans to give him at least one full length novel. Maybe a graphic novel.

Adam practically skipped down the sidewalk. A pair of robins bounced across a lawn, pecking at worms in the grass. Early buds blossomed on the trees planted in the berm between sidewalk and street. Squirrels darted across the street. He avoided every crack, and waved to the Johnsons on their daily walk. A songbird chirped and trilled, its music carried on the afternoon breeze. He even hummed a tune under his breath. One of Cher’s. Matt loved Cher.

The closer he came to home, the more somber he became. By the time he slipped off his sneakers in the front foyer, his emotions were fully locked away.

“I’m home,” he called.

“In here.” His father waited for him in the living room. Jim Chance—the Colonel, as Adam called him behind his back—was seated in his reading chair tapping his fingers and frowning at his son.

“Something wrong?” Adam asked. He heard his mother bustling around the kitchen.

“Sit.” He motioned to the sofa.

The tone brooked no argument. Adam knew he was in trouble. He dropped his bag and plopped down to wait. There was always a wait.

They stared each other down. Jim’s eye actually twitched. Adam tried not to look away for fear of being called a liar, for fear of being seen as weak.

“Where were you this afternoon?” The Colonel finally asked.

Several thoughts collided at once, but Adam didn’t know which train of thought to follow.

“Matt Walker’s house. You gave me permission to go during dinner yesterday.”

“I know.”

His mother let a steady stream of water run, drowning out the radio. The colonel had probably ordered Graciela to stay out of the living room.

“So what did you do at Matt Walker’s today?”

Fear bubbled up through Adam’s suspicion. “Just hung out. Read comics. Played videogames.”

“In the basement?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you kiss him?”

Adam paled. Dishes clattered in the kitchen.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” The Colonel stood up and turned away from his son. Adam followed his father’s gaze out the picture window. Mrs. Rowland pushed her stroller. Past the house. She waved. Adam’s father just turned away.

“Did you do more than just kiss? Did you hug?”

“No,” Adam lied. He recalled the way he placed olive hands against Matt’s pale, freckled face. The glowing smile that followed.

“Handjob?”

Pots and pans banged together.

“No! No one got undressed.”

“Oral sex?”

Graciela turned up the radio and sang along to one of her Beatles favorites. “Because I told you before, no. You can’t do that…”

“Dad! I said no one got undressed!” Adam wrung his hands.

“Don’t ‘Dad’ me! Your ‘boyfriend’s’ father called not fifteen minutes ago, describing what he saw through the basement window.”

“He couldn’t have seen much. Not much happened!”

“I doubt that.”

“Well, he’s lying,” Adam insisted. “We were just curious.”

“Curious? What he described didn’t sound curious to me. It sounded like you’re a homosexual.”

Glass shattered in the kitchen. Graciela cursed in her native Tagalog.

Adam steeled himself. “Maybe I am.”

“What?” his father put a hand up to his ear.

“I said ‘Maybe I am.’”

Jim laughed hollowly. “Well, I’ll… sonofa…” He ran a hand over his pink scalp and paced. “Allen Walker was right.”

“What do you mean?”

His father stopped. “He called you a faggot who corrupted his boy. He said you’re not allowed over there anymore. Not that it matters. You’re grounded, so you won’t be leaving the house until you start high school next fall.”

“What?”

“And second, you wouldn’t be welcome there either. Matthew told his father that you had forced yourself on him.”

Adam looked confused.

“He doesn’t want to be friends with a pervert like you. And you’re damn lucky nobody has had you arrested for sexual assault.”

Adam’s heart dropped into his stomach. “But I didn’t… that’s not…”

“That’s not what?”

He and Matthew had flirted for a month, kicking each other’s feet in the cafeteria, giving each other pats on the back and playful hugs that could have indicated close friendship, which was true. But they had also let their touches linger a little too long. They had snuck crooked smiles and scrunched noses and grins for weeks. With Matt, Adam felt warm and safe.

“That’s not what?” Jim repeated.

But Matthew had been the brave one a week earlier, squeezing Adam’s hand during the scary moments of The Grudge. Matthew had leaned over and kissed him when the movie ended. Adam had just gone with it: the smell of Coca-Cola and Matt’s deodorant. The surprising softness of his often-chapped lips. The sudden rightness of—

Slap!

“Answer me when I ask you a question! You gonna to lie to me now? Tell me you’re not some kind of homo? That Mr. Walker and his son just imagined all this?”

Graciela appeared in the archway.

“Why you hit him like that?” she snapped.

“Go back to the kitchen,” Jim ordered. “I’m dealing with our son.”

“Our son,” she said. “And you slap him like a girl.”

“If he wants to act like a girl—”

“Who are you to say what is what?“ She flapped her arms and pointed at him.

“Oh, don’t start with me, Graci—”

“Do you know his heart?”

“I know he’s abnormal. A pervert.”

“By god, that’s his choice.”

Adam broke. Every muscle tightened. His heart rate rose. He tasted bile. The tears and snot started running. Pain washed through and out of his body. He didn’t want to be there anymore. He didn’t want to be anywhere. The room wobbled, grew fuzzy, and—

—Fwip—

atomic world whatthef… space between coffee table atoms sofa atoms reading chair inside the television Mom’s shadow box for Jim fireplace through the chimney waterfall painting through wall ohmygodohmy… family photos hallway bedroom door bedroom

—Fwip—

He screamed in pain and lost his balance, but his feet wouldn’t move. Instead, he heard a tearing sound and a thousand burning needles lanced his soles. He sat back, landing on his bed, still unable to lift his feet. He looked down and nearly vomited.

His bedroom carpet was in his feet.

“M-mom” he cried weakly, and the world went black.

He awoke to Graciela standing over him, praying rapidly in three languages. The vibration in his soles and the sound of cutting told him something was happening. He blinked and she clutched his hands in hers. He glanced down to see his father’s awestruck expression.

“Don’t move,” Jim said. Scraping followed, and Adam felt pressure underneath his left foot.

“Ow. Ah. That hurts.”

“Just stay still.”

Adam focused on the pain. Instead of drowning it out, he traced the pressure, the burn, the prickling, imagining it going up his legs, through his groin, his spine, racing into his brain.

“Almost,” Jim said.

Deep breaths and intense focus allowed Adam to stay awake as his father freed the right foot. Graciela had not stopped praying.

“Now just put them up.” His father picked both of his legs up and wrapped his feet together in an old bathroom towel. Adam adjusted himself to lie properly in bed.

“So… how did you do this?” The Colonel asked. Graciela hissed and shook her head.

“Graci, I need to know what just happened to him. I’m not gonna hurt him.”

Both Adam and his mother looked skeptical.

“Oh for Christ’s—. Look. Adam, I’m sorry I slapped you. I mean it. Okay?” Graciela seemed mollified. Adam didn’t speak.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said, working to sound gentle. “But you can’t move like this, and we can’t take you to a hospital without being able to explain why the carpet has sewn itself onto your feet. Maybe we can pass it off as a crazy glue accident?”

Jim began pacing again. Graciela jumped up and pushed him out of the room. “Rest. Your father and I will talk.” She offered a desperate smile and closed the door behind her.

Adam lay in bed staring at his feet. How had this happened? He didn’t remember physically walking down the hall. He was sitting in the living room, then standing in the bedroom. In between, he had felt tiny, like he was slipping between atoms. Like he was everywhere and nowhere at once. He tried to focus on it, but soon dozed off.

The next thing he heard were voices down the hall. He opened his eyes. Blinked. It was night. His bedroom door opened, and two paramedics wheeled a gurney into the room.

“Where’s my mom?”

“She and your dad are down the hall,” the medic at his torso replied. The pair slid him onto a board and began strapping him down.

“What are you doing?” He wriggled to resist their efforts.

“Easy, son,” The medic placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s just protocol.”

Once secured, they wheeled him back through the house. In the dining room, his mother took his hand, her eyes red-rimmed from crying.

“We’ll follow, Pinoy,” she said. “Your father just need to finish talking with the general.”

“General?” Adam asked.

“You’re going to an especial hospital. They take care of your feet.”

“And they have a general?”

She looked over her shoulder. “Just do what they say. We will see you.” She kissed his forehead.

“Mom?”

Graciela turned away.

“Mom!”

The medics hauled him into the darkness.

“No!” he shouted. They began to wheel him faster toward a plain black van.

Not here, he thought. Not here not here not here

—Fwip—

He landed on the carpet back in his room. Shouts from outside followed as a medic came back inside.

“He disappeared!”

“What?” Chairs pushed away from the table and footsteps raced outside.

Adam glanced around the room, assessing his options. He barely had time to grab a bag before his mother appeared in the doorway.

“Your feet, Pinoy.” He turned to see bloody footprints across the carpet. “Do they hurt?”

“A little.”

She pulled him into a tight hug.

“You’re going to have to go with them, Pinoy. Strapped to a bed or on your own two feet.”

He pulled away.

“What? Why?”

“The general has taken custody of you.”

The gym bag fell from his hand.

“You’re giving me up?”

“Your father think you have something… a gift.”

“He called me a pervert.” She pulled him back into her arms, his resistance softened.

“That is gift, too. You are you. Always be you. Your father… he is not as strong as he pretend—”

“So you’re giving me up?” he whispered. A shadow fell into the doorway. They were right outside.

“I cannot leave your father, and this is what he wants to do. But I will be there when you need. Okay, Pinoy?” She sniffled, and her tears fell against his neck.

Now Adam pulled away fully.

“We’ll see,” he said.

He shoved a few days of clothes into his gym bag. His father stepped into the room. The General, a brute-looking man with a silver buzzcut and thick mustache, stood right behind him. His name badge read Lattimore.

“Adam—“

“You have nothing to say to me,” he barked, then turned to the general. “Let me grab my toothbrush and my shoes, General Lattimore, and I’ll come along quietly.”

Lattimore nodded and retreated. Adam didn’t say a word to his parents, but walked resolutely out.

“No,” his mother hissed behind him. “You can sleep on sofa. Or in your son’s room. You took him from me.” He knew the slamming door was Graciela disappearing into his parents’ bedroom. The click that followed was her locking her husband out.

Nevermore

Author’s Note: There’s a McDonald’s down the street. On occasion I eat breakfast there. The ravens usually eat there, too.

“Oh dear.” Vera fretted as Cor preened her feathers. They huddled on a sycamore bough, rubbing beaks and comforting each other against the chill evening wind. No respite from the weather came in shadow of the red brick edifice, its walls tangled in English Ivy, its slate roof glittering and white from a heavy snow. Nor, really, did the pair expect to find comfort there. They preferred the safety of their nest. Needs must, they had decided, so here they were.

“What?” Cor looked up just in time to hear a white wood window slam shut.

“He finally did it.”

Cor searched the lower boughs. “Oh, don’t tell me.”

“He went inside.”

Thundering followed. “He went… how can…? He knows better!”

Cor swooped to the branch nearest the window, then to the snowy ledge itself, flapping against the wind. Vera joined him a moment later, gazing through the dirty glass at the crackling hearth fire.

“Well, at least he’s warmer,” she offered hopefully.

“Until he gets killed,” Cor groused. Hugo was not his smartest brother. Devoted? Unquestionably. Smart. No.

“Do you think he’s suicidal?” Vera whispered, as she straightened one of Cor’s feathers.

“Who knows?” Hugo had been inconsolable after Mungi’s death.

“You think we should have let him alone the way we did?”

Cor shivered, ruffling his plumage. Vera tisked and set about preening him again.

“You think we should have kept him away from the window at least? Maybe the house entirely?”

Cor hopped a few times, adjusting his placement on the sill and clearing the snow. He peered in at the somber man who, he noted, had stopped pacing for the first time in days. Instead, the bedraggled fellow had pulled a chair of wood and velvet up to the doorway.

“Oh,” Cor observed. “The fool found himself a perch out of reach, anyway.”

Vera ceased preening long enough to see for herself. “Well that’s a good thing, anyway. Don’t you think? They look like they’re having a chat.”

“Since when do the humans listen to us?” He cocked his head and blinked. “They just don’t have the capacity.”

“Well, I hope they work things out.”

Vera’s optimism grated for an instant. Cor had grown accustomed, even happy for it, but now wasn’t quite the time.

“Maybe. But Hugo’s as mad as the landlord, that’s for sure.”

“Well you can’t blame either of them,” Vera snapped up a beetle that emerged from a crack between the bricks. “Losing love so young and all.”

Inside, the landlord had begun gesticulating wildly. He pulled at his hair. His dressing gown hung open on his lanky frame.

“I can blame my brother for his stupidity. And the landlord—if Hugo meets his doom—will have three souls on his hands. He might as well leap into the fire and finish the job.”

“Now Cor, Love, I miss Mungi as much as anyone—“

“Not as much as Hugo.”

“Well no,” Vera conceded. “The two were quite a pair. Boys of a feather, and all. But the whole thing was an accident.”

“It was stupid,” he cawed. “Carriage tipping, indeed. Oh!”

The landlord had stood up. He screamed and shouted at Hugo, flapping his arms and pointing at the window. Hugo held still. Cor hesitated to acknowledge the spark of hope that kindled when his brother hadn’t risen to the ire of his agitated interlocutor. Certainly, Hugo had reason. But reason never entered the equation where humans were concerned.

“He’s… look out, Vera!”

The pair leaped from the sill as the landlord threw open the window. Raucous caws filled the crisp air and loose feathers drifted on the wind to the snowy earth. The man screamed at them, shaking his fist, then disappeared from view.

The couple returned to their nest in a tall pine nearby and watched the open window. They croaked and kraah-ed throughout the night, hoping for a sign from Hugo. Other ravens soon joined them in song. Mates preened and cooed in the safety of deep crooks and crotches of limbs. Uncoupled young cawed and clicked and played in the lower branches and across the snow. On the morning of the first day, the chimney smoke abated. By evening it was gone.

On the moonless third night, the songs of the growing unkindness met with reply: a soft caw from inside the room. Cor swept down and landed on the sill.

“Brother? Are you there?” Cor asked the darkness.

The reply might have been a single human word. Cor understood, then cawed to the others, to his beloved Vera. They descended upon the house.

Olmstead

Author’s Note: I wanted to tell a story that would challenge the traditional horror story, which, at least in American culture, is often used to reinforce values that young people are expected to fulfill without question.

“It’s like a tombstone.”

Jason cracked his gum and peered through the wrought iron gate as the school bus pulled away. Olmstead House sat on the rise, partially obscured by icy naked oaks and snowy thickets.

“Yeah?” Derek ran a thumb along the teeth of his house key. After his punishment for losing the first key, he attached the second one to three linked chains: a Pirate Parrot tag from his mom, an Allegheny Mill penlight from his dad, and a Pokéball chain he won in fourth grade for getting the highest score on a math test. If he was lucky, Jason would invite him over. He could have dinner with his best friend’s family and stave off using his key a couple more hours.

“Uh-huh. Look—“ Jason had sprouted early and stood a full head taller than the rest of their sixth grade peers. Now he draped an arm around Derek’s shoulder and pointed through the gate.

“See there, where the roof stands above the trees? And the windows? They could be letters being worn away, couldn’t they? Now turn—“

They pivoted to look down the hill. Jason held Derek’s threadbare coat to steady him. “Main Street ends right here at the gate.”

“Or begins,” Derek corrected. “It’s how you see it. It also tees into Ridge, so maybe it doesn’t end at all?”

“The name ends, Derek. It becomes something else.”

“Okay. I was just saying.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Sure. Now look—”

They surveyed the bleak downtown. Cinder-caked snow piled on the sidewalks. The display windows of Lena’s Clothier had been painted over. Casey Drugs was boarded up. Derek’s mom waitressed second shift at The Fine Diner until they shuttered last August. Within a week she abandoned Derek and his father. The Dollar Mart, a desperate survivor where Jason’s mom worked day shifts, sat diagonal from Casey’s. Few pedestrians—mostly bank employees—shuffled along the five block stretch. Weeds reclaimed blighted, empty lots. Cars spewed toxic blue fumes as they passed. Not every streetlamp lit up; darkness crept into the corners of Coleridge.

“See, everything on Main Street is dead or dying. It’s like the oldest graves at St. Francis’s. The stones crumble. The words get worn off. They fall over. The grass grows high until somebody mows it. Our town is weedy and abandoned, too, and here—“ He motioned back to the Olmstead House. “Here’s the tombstone.”

“I think you should be a writer.”

“My dad wants me to play football. I hate it,” Jason admitted, then fished for another topic. “Is your dad home tonight?”

“It’s Friday.” Derek slipped off a mitten and chewed a nail. “He’ll be at the bar until late.”

“You want to do something fun?”

“Is it inside or out? I’m getting cold.”

Jason flashed his mischievous grin. “Kinda both.”

“Huh?”

“Go home, drop off your stuff, and meet me back here in an hour.”

“Why?”

“Trust me.”

Forty minutes later, the boys met on Ridge Avenue, both trudging uphill toward the gate. Derek panted from the exertion. He preferred to curl up with a horror story instead of climbing icy hills in the dark. He pulled his hat down tighter.

Jason’s backpack humped off his shoulders, stuffed to bursting.

“What’s in the bag?”

His best friend ignored him. Instead of continuing toward the gate, they descended the hill. Derek half-trotted, half-slid. Where the fence angled into the woods, Jason left the sidewalk.

“Are you serious? My sneakers are already soaked.”

“Just step where I step,” he suggested, already three steps into a drift.

“Why?”

“Because I can get us into the mansion.”

Derek gaped. “Really?” He tried to match Jason’s long strides, often falling short but never wanting to lag behind.

After following the fence deep into the woods, they arrived at a gap where a section had fallen inward.

“Remember the story about the couple who tried to break in?” Jason asked.

“The one they tell at the library every Halloween? Of course!”

Jason nodded and clicked his flashlight, illuminating his face from below. “It happened just after Netta Olmstead died. She bequeathed the house to itself, and people came snooping from around the world. The couple claimed to be relatives. They snuck in right here. But Netta had placed a curse on the house, and nobody ever saw them again.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “I’ve read The Shining, Jason. You’ll have to do better. Lead on.”

Jason clicked off the flashlight and climbed over the fence. It creaked under his weight, collapsing into the snow.

“Damn,” he barked and fell over with a laugh. Derek traversed it much more easily, helped Jason up, and dusted him off.

The pair picked their way through the woods. Raspberry thickets scratched and tore at their coats. Burrs caught one of Derek’s laces and covered his shoe in a cluster. Jason accidentally let go of a low branch too quickly; Derek ducked to avoid getting whipped in the face.

“Watch it!” he snapped.

“Sorry.”

They emerged on the drive just below the house. Weather and disuse had reduced the paving to rubble, but that only made the walk easier.

“No ice,” Jason observed. “Less chance of falling.”

They stopped when the house came fully into view.

“Whoa,” Derek said. “I didn’t know it was so big. It’s huge.”

Jason laughed at the way his friend’s mouth hung open, the way his eyes grew wide. “Like the Overlook Hotel?”

Derek nodded. “Kind of. Not as big—but big enough.”

The house was chiseled gray stone, three stories high with a slate roof. A dozen windows were spaced evenly across the front face, with a large wooden door and small porch at the center. Thirteen windows spanned the second floor width. Five dormer windows marked a third floor.

“No lights on. Guess nobody’s home,” Jason joked.

“I half expected somebody to peer down at us from one of those upper rooms,” Derek admitted. “That’s how it always goes in the movies.”

The boys climbed the half dozen steps and looked back through the trees toward town. A few lights twinkled below.

“You can’t see how bad it is from here,” Jason observed.

“It feels like another world.” Derek shivered. “So how do we get in?”

“Well, According to Mr. Blundt at the public library…”

“…the house is locked against anyone but a true Olmstead.”

“You know my mother’s maiden name?”

Derek shook his head.

Jason smiled and reached for the door handle. It rattled, resisted, then opened with a crack that echoed through the trees. He swung the door wide.

“Pull out your penlight and follow me.”

The foyer connected to a central hall, with a staircase halfway back. Two sets of doors stood on each side, with another door at the rear.

“This way.” Jason turned toward the first door on the left.

“How do you know?”

“Trust me.”

They paused to study a portrait hung between the doorways. A high-collared man with a large nose and thick eyebrows glared down at them.

“Coleridge Olmstead,” Jason said. “Town founder. Lumber and coal baron.”

“He looks as grouchy as his statue in the park.”

Jason nodded and turned. A severe, thin-lipped woman stared back from the portrait on the opposite wall. Derek yipped.

“That’s Leonetta Olmstead. The last owner. She swore that no one but a true Olmstead could ever live here again.”

“She doesn’t look a thing like you,” Derek noted.

“No? I guess not.”

“Your mom is really an Olmstead?”

Jason smiled and guided Derek into a drawing room. The floorboards creaked and groaned under their steps.

“I have to pee,” Derek announced.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Go back into the main hall, past the stairs, and through the back door. There’s a back hallway. The first door is a bathroom.”

“Where are you going?”

He motioned to the next doorway. “I’ll be in there.”

Derek eyed the doorway dubiously.

“You scared?” Jason asked.

“How do you know so much about this place?”

He chuckled. “I’ve been up here before. Now get going. I’ll wait for you in the next room.”

Derek scurried through the central hall, keenly aware of the eyes that seemed to watch from both sides. The washroom was outdated but somehow still functional. He set his penlight on the sink. Halfway through his business, he heard the tap of footsteps directly overhead.

“Jason, you jerk…” he began.

The footsteps ceased.

He rushed to finish and flushed quickly. The footsteps returned at a quicker pace.

“Oh, you’re such a—“

The door flew open. Derek screamed. Jason stared back at him, then down at his open pants.

“Come on!”

“Hold up—” Derek fumbled with his fly.

“No time for that!”

Jason yanked him out of the room. Instead of going back the same way, they ran down the back hall into a walk-in pantry with a spiral staircase.

“Is this a joke?” Derek asked. A heavier pair of footsteps joined the first. Muttering voices echoed downward. Jason pushed Derek ahead into a black and white checkerboard kitchen. While he slammed and latched the pantry door, Derek finally zipped up.

“What are you stopping for?” Jason snapped. “Go!”

Mobs descended from above, their footsteps thunder, their susserations insistent, growing into growls as they descended both staircases.

“I don’t believe—“

“Believe!” Jason said, pelting into the dining room. He slammed the door and shoved a chair under the knob to bar it shut.

Derek did the same with the drawing room door, catching a flicker out of the corner of his eye. He turned to find candles lit at the fireplace end of the table. Two places had been set with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Cokes. His favorite sour cream and onion chips. An Almond Joy above the plate.

He glanced over at Jason, who was trying to pull the window open. The crush of footsteps and angry voices surrounded them. Someone pounded on the kitchen door.

“We gotta get out.” Jason shook with panic.

The doors rattled. The muttering became audible. They called for Derek.

“I thought you were an Olmstead?” he hissed, eyes widening in fear.

“I am!” Jason pulled at the handle, but the window wouldn’t budge.

“Then why are they freaking out?”

“I think—cause I brought you in. They said—”

Derek glanced at the candlelit table, then at Jason. The doors creaked and groaned under pressure. The backs of the chairs snapped as they buckled. He remembered Netta’s curse.

“They said only family, right?”

Jason nodded. “I’m gonna break the window.”

“Wait.” Derek pulled Jason’s sleeve and took out his keychains. He detached the Parrot and Pokéball rings, and slipped the rest back into his pocket.

“Take it apart.” He handed over the Parrot then stripped the Pokéball charm from the ring.

“Quick. Gimme your hand.” Jason wiped his sweaty palm on his hoodie.

“Now!” Derek grabbed Jason’s hand and slipped the ring on his finger. It hung loosely, but it stayed. Jason stared at it stupidly, as if it was something new.

The doors bounced and cracked under the pounding. Voices shrieked Derek’s name. Called him an outsider. A trespasser. The drawing room door bowed inward.

“Quick! Now me!”

Jason fumbled the band, nearly dropped it, but slipped it around Derek’s ring finger as the kitchen door splintered down the middle.

“Do you?” Derek asked.

They locked eyes. Jason’s were wet. He nodded.

“I do.”

“Good. So do I.”

The chair blocking the drawing room door exploded, shooting splinters of wood across the room. Jason threw Derek to the floor and fell on top of him as shrapnel blew holes in the walls and shattered a window.

The door hung open, askew.

No one was there.

They stood up, checked for injuries, and pushed the battered kitchen door back to free the splintered dining chair. Nothing awaited on the other side.

“Put it back,” Derek said. “Just to be safe.” He blocked the drawing room door with another chair.

“But we need to get out.”

He shook his head. “This is my first date. Ever. I’d at least like to have dinner before we run for our lives.”

Jason’s laugh verged on hysterical. Derek joined in. From portraits and mirrors across the house, the Olmsteads waited, watching.

Nightwatch in The Underneath

Author’s Note: I wanted to tell a story about a polyamorous culture. I ended up starting a critique of societies that straitjacket identity while glamorizing consumerism.

Paulina paused in the open shed bay to watch The Topside come to life. The city seemed to float in the darkening sky: white spotlights trimmed the concrete platforms upon which each tower cluster stood. Topsiders illuminated their towers to suggest trees. Narrow bases in white transitioned to bright green at each bulbous top. Ties, struts, and walkways that bound them together had been trimmed in green like heavenly branches. The city transit system, a blue vein that tied the clusters together, carried topsiders from the trunks of some towers to the boughs of others. Every hour in alternation, the high speed rail streaked out of the northern or southern ranges, a yellow flash that stopped to expel its contents before pelting into the darkened ridges. LED advertising and flashing neon signs completed the garish display. Paulina expected that The Topside could be seen flashing and whoring itself from space.

By daytime, the mystique of The Topside disappeared. Each cluster of towers looked like ashen mushroom-headed pricks loosely stitched into a phallic nightmare. Each platform perched on a trio of pillars; each pillar was a hundred yards across and three times the height. No lighting had been spared for The Topside’s dirty gray underbelly. The only illumination to touch the earth were the thin white double lines of elevator shafts embedded in each. In its design and construction, The Topside transformed night into day each evening while casting the land beneath in perpetual deep shadow.

Paulina hitched the cart to the ATV and unplugged it from the treadmills. The children ran the mills daily. What adults saw as work—what had been a torture long ago and far away—provided the clan with a venue for sport and games while tending to their energy needs, especially when their limited solar and wind options failed to produce.

Must’ve been a fun time, she thought. The gauge showed a full charge. She checked the meter on the house battery. The children had charged it as well.

She wrapped her long dark braid around her neck and covered her face with a hand-knitted green scarf. Then she set off to The Underneath, bouncing and jostling down the dirt road, past gardens and fields until she crossed into the shadow of the city. She pulled her hood up to ward off the cold.

The anthropologist waited for her at Pillar Four. She wore a shiny parka and new boots that clearly indicated wealth. The tablet in her hand cast her face in a ghostly glow.

“Leigh Specter?” Paulina called as she slowed.

“Yeah. Paulina Crow?”

“Uh-huh.” Paulina stopped and watched as Specter finished with her tablet. Her gloves were designed for show. Paulina clucked in anticipation of impending complaints.

“It’s cold.”

Paulina patted the seat behind her. “Here or the cart. Here’s better.”

Specter climbed on behind her. The ATV jolted forward; she grabbed Paulina’s coat with both hands.

“You need to hold tighter than that, topsider,” Paulina warned.

Twenty minutes later the pair sat by a roaring campfire centered beneath the platform.

Paulina withdrew two helmets from the ATV sidecase and handed one to the anthropologist. Each had been fitted out with built-in binoculars that could be flipped up or down as needed.

“So tell me about ‘the nightwatch’?” Specter tested the helmet’s fit, adjusted it, wiped the lenses with a gloved finger, and tried again.

“It’s a job.” Paulina poured a mug of hot tea from her thermos. Specter looked as if she would take it, then dropped her hand as Paulina sipped. There was no second cup.

“That’s not the way it sounded when I spoke to Geo Evergreen.”

“What did he say?” Paulina dropped her lenses and scanned the platform perimeter.

“He made it sound like this was the most important work folks did.”

“Did he?” she sounded unimpressed.

Specter frowned. “He did. He also said you had been doing this the longest.”

“Twenty years.”

The anthropologist pulled out her tablet, flipped through some screens with her stylus, and looked to her subject expectantly.

Paulina motioned to the lenses still flipped up on Specter’s helmet. “You’ll never see a thing if you don’t put those down, Topsider.”

Specter frowned. “I thought we might talk first.”

“No.” Paulina still hadn’t stopped scanning.

“What am I looking for?” Specter asked as she flipped down her lenses.

No reply. Another minute passed.

“Geo said this is how you all collect your resources.”

“Some. Over there.” Paulina pointed to a place beyond Pillar Five. “A box of some kind. Paper fluttering everywhere.”

Specter focused her binoculars on the area; papers drifted, then swirled east, caught by the wind.

“Shouldn’t we gather them?”

Paulina said nothing.

“You’re really not one for conversation. Geo said—”

“Geo talks too much.”

From the corner of her eye, Paulina watched the anthropologist shift uncomfortably in her folding chair.

“You gonna rutch around all night?”

“What?” Firelight flickered across Specter’s face. Young, Paulina thought.

“Rutching. Means squirming in your seat, Topsider.” To demonstrate, Paulina wriggled around in her chair, which squeaked under the strain.

“I’ve never heard that word before.”

“It’s not a good enough word for your kind.”

Specter flipped up her lenses. “And what exactly is my kind?”

Paulina smiled. “Topsider.”

“I’m not a topsider. Not if you’re using it as a pejorative. I’ve studied your lingo.”

“Have you?” Paulina snorted and picked her teeth with one hand while scanning another point where the platform ended.

Specter clenched her jaw.

“One of you topsiders just heaved over something heavy.”

“I’m not a topsider,” Specter repeated. “Where?”

“Left of Pillar Six. About ten o’clock from your seat.”

Specter caught sight of the bag just as it hit the ground. A thud and cloud of dust followed. “I’m not a topsider, Ms. Crow. I’m a resident of Arbor Michael, Sky City.”

Paulina chuckled. “Doesn’t matter the address. You’re all the same. Cricaps. Topsiders. Icarans.”

“Oh, come on,” Specter whined. “I’m not trying to give you a hard time. I’m trying to learn from you. I’m trying to build a bridge between your culture and ours.”

Paulina ignored her. “You planning to go native?”

“What?” The surprise in Specter’s voice did not go unnoticed.

“Go native. Come down the shaft and never go back.”

“I know what it means.” She sounded indignant. “It’s an ethnographic term. We train to guard against it before they let us come down.”

“Oh.”

Something small fluttered overhead. Specter followed the sound. “‘Oh’ what?”

“They train you,” Paulina laughed. “As if you can be trained.”

“You really don’t like us, do you?”

“No. I hate you.” Paulina said. “Oh dear.” She pointed to a pair of figures plummeting to earth.

“Jesus.”

Paulina pursed her lips. “So you’re a cricap…” She pointed to the dust cloud where the bodies had landed. “Those two? Icarans. Let’s go.”

They rumbled toward where the pair had hit.

“Aren’t you going to drive faster?”

Paulina said nothing.

“We should call a medic,” Specter pressed.

Now she whistled. “You’re really green, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

They stopped.

“Why are we stopping?”

Paulina pointed to a field of garbage within view of the headlights: plastic bottles, papers, and articles of clothing, mostly.

“Cleanup.”

“We should get over there.”

“Why? No one survives the drop. Most die of fright. Those who don’t get to feel regret and stupidity for a full nine seconds. I’ve timed it.”

Specter watched as Paulina gathered up rubbish. At one point, the ‘neather shuffled over, took out a shovel, and tossed it to her observer. Specter fumbled the catch, nearly dropping her tablet in the process.

“Make yourself useful.” Paulina pointed to shattered pane glass. “Shovel that into the cart.”

Specter tried a different tack.

“So what do you do with it all?” She kept one eye on their destination, hoping for movement.

“Whatever we can.”

“You wear the clothes?” She glanced at the dirty blue hoodie they had recovered.

“If they fit.”

Specter resisted pointing out her opposition to such practices. She was trying to observe and learn, not point out her subject’s cultural deficiencies.

Underway once again, the headlights soon illuminated the bodies; light reflected back on buttons, straps, boot buckles, and other shiny bits.

Paulina pulled up alongside them, dropped the side of the cart, and unrolled a patchwork canvas sheet.

Specter took out her tablet, snapped a few photos, and began to write.

“Do you know them?” Paulina asked.

“We have a million people up there. What makes you think I would know them?”

Both were male. Younger. One had blue hair, the other blond. The leather, denims, and boots suggested counterculture. The jewelry, piercings, tattoos, and buttons suggested it as well.

Paulina watched Specter as she made her notes; the anthropologist seemed voyeuristic, unable to look away but increasingly horrified and pale with each glance.

“Pull their cells for me.”

Specter grimaced. “What makes you think they have cells?”

Paulina looked pityingly. “Cricap, you all have cells.”

“I am not a cricap. And I’m not paid enough to touch corpses!”

“Well, cricap, they are truly beneath you now.”

Paulina stomped around. Reached down to the broken bodies and retrieved the cells from each. She straightened the shattered and askew limbs. Then she paused at their hands.

“Matching rings,” she said. “What do you make of that, Cricap?”

Specter slammed her tablet in the dirt.

“I am not a damned cricap! I was not raised Christian, and I am not a capitalist! I am not a topsider! I do not have money, I have never had money, and I do not have a superiority complex! For heaven’s sake, six of us share a single bedroom flat!”

Paulina stood back, smiling thinly, arms crossed, as Specter ripped off her helmet and gestured with it.

“And I am not an Icaran, whatever the hell you mean by that! I am just trying to learn about your culture so we can all find a way to live better! That’s all!”

Paulina watched as Specter scooped up her tablet, examining the shattered screen. It still worked.

“All done?” Paulina asked.

Specter nodded.

“All better?”

“No,” she sniffled. “This has been a disaster start to finish.”

“Hold these,” she said, thrusting the cells toward her. Specter hesitated.

“Leigh? Please.”

Leigh held the cells and watched as Paulina rolled the broken bodies onto the tarp and secured the last two corners to ropes. Next she used a pair of winches to pull the load aboard. Once the gate had been locked back in place, she unlatched one side of the canvas and finished retracting the ropes, rolling the bodies over as the canvas came free. Blue hair lay face down across blond’s chest. Blond stared blindly into the sky.

“You’re not the disaster,” Paulina said. “This is the disaster. These two. Had they not been trapped in your ways, they might have gone down the shaft, like you, and come to live with us. They would have known they were loved.”

“How do you know they weren’t?”

Paulina nodded to the bodies. “They’re here.”

They drove to the nearest pillar. Leigh followed Paulina into the elevator, where they were greeted by a warm burst of air and gentle synthesized music. A clear deposit box and small cabinet were embedded in the back wall. Paulina removed a pair of blank labels and a marker from the cabinet, wrote the word DECEASED and the date on each, and affixed the labels to the cells. Then she dropped them into the box. They thunked against a small collection amassed at the bottom.

“See that purple one?” she said, pointing to the collection. “I dropped that off a few days ago. Pretty girl. Such a shame.”

They returned to the campsite. Another log from the woodpile brought the fire back to a crackling roar.

“We need to take the bodies up.” Leigh sipped delicately when Paulina shared her mug.

“No.”

“You mean you don’t return the bodies? I thought we cremated our dead?”

“You do. Have you ever looked off the easternmost platform?”

Leigh shook her head.

“Your ventilation system blows everything you incinerate, cremains included, out the eastside vents. Ash covers the land over there. We tried cultivating it years ago, and some crops took—but not for long. Little grows anymore. Go look sometime.”

“So what do you do with the bodies if you don’t return them?”

“We use them.”

She handed back the empty mug. Paulina screwed it on to the thermos.

“What do you use them for?” Leigh had pulled out her tablet and begun writing.

“Whatever we can. When I die, I asked my family to turn me into books, or perhaps a couple jackets.”

Leigh scowled. “What did they say to that?”

“Well, my husbands promised me they would turn me into books. My wife wants the jacket.” She chuckled. “I’ll let the tanner tell them what I can become.”

“Wait. You have three spouses?”

Paulina smiled. “Don’t you have five?”

Leigh fiddled with her stylus. “No. Each of us has our own lives. There’s nothing between us.”

“All in that tiny flat of yours?” Paulina shook her head. “So much easier if you make a family. But your cricaps don’t allow that. God doesn’t like it. Business can’t make money off you unless you’re paired to that perfect one. I have three perfect ones. We’re considering adding another.”

Leigh scribbled furiously for a few minutes after that, and the conversation carried on another hour before Paulina shared the rest of the evening’s plan.

“We stay until dawn, collecting the bodies, and any garbage along the way. Then we go to the tannery and recycling. Then you go home.”

“Geo never said… nobody ever said this was how it worked.”

“What did they tell you?”

“Geo just said it would be illuminating.”

“Is it?”

Leigh nodded. “And nobody up there talks about it at all. None of my other interviews. None of my supervisors. Nobody discusses the nightwatch.”

“But they do talk up there?”

“Yeah, but not about this.”

The pair whiled away the rest of the evening and into the early morning hours. Leigh tried to keep the questions light as she scanned the platform edges, torn between not wanting to look and insisting on bearing witness.

“The Topside shuts down at midnight. We’ll be seeing a body or two soon. The next big rush is at five, when your city wakes up.”

“Our high traffic hours,” Leigh offered.

“Predictable as sunrise.”

“How many a night?”

“Three or four. Sometimes more. You had that cricap cult a few years back.”

“I remember.”

“This jacket came from one of them.”

Leigh stared at Paulina’s jacket several times during the rest of the night as if trying to find the body in it.

They collected another jumper: a male in a suit, his heavy necklace with its gold cross twisted around his neck. A note that read ‘sinner’ had been pinned to his coat.

“Cricap,” Paulina said as she examined the body. “He had a narrow path for living ‘right’. So narrow not even he could walk it.”

“Earlier tonight you suggested I was such a person.”

Paulina read the observation as a challenge.

“The cricaps sell everything, including their souls. They live on greed, then claim divine moral high ground they have no intention of following. Hypocrites.”

“Did I claim a moral high ground with you? Did I strike you as greedy?”

“Not quite, though you thought me too ignorant to know your field. But you did look down on those two dead boys. Too good to tend to them. Not paid enough. That’s Cricap. Your bias that somehow we can show you a better way to live—or that you can show us? That’s topsider. Somebody’ll take that knowledge and sell it. Know why we don’t come to study you?”

Leigh shook her head.

Paulina offered a pointed look, but didn’t provide an answer.

“So why do you do this?” Leigh asked later. An older woman had been added to their grotesque collection, and now, as sunlight cut through the eastern haze, they bounced away from Sky City toward a small collection of stone buildings in the distance.

“Do what?”

“Nightwatch.”

“Somebody has to.”

“What about the men?”

“Oh, some of them do.”

“But so do you.”

Paulina chuckled. “Is this men’s work? That’s Topsider. That’s Cricap. Too narrow. Among the four of us, we have a half dozen children. How would it be if our children—or my neighbors’ children—were the first to find topsider corpses dead in the dirt?”

Leigh said little as they dropped the bodies on the tannery dock.

“What about the clothes and other personal effects?” She studied one of the couples’ matching rings.

“Recycled,” Paulina said. “Upcycled. Sent to the smith and forged into something useful.”

Leigh asked if she could have the pair of rings. The tanner’s assistant nodded. With some effort and a pair of shears, he cut them from the swollen fingers, washed them, and handed them to her.

“Thank you,” she said. Paulina seemed to approve.

With the shift complete, they bounced and jostled back to Pillar Four.

“A story before you go,” Paulina began. “‘neathers used to leave the bodies in the elevators.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. More than once, somebody opened the elevator to descend, only to be greeted by the dead. Your people didn’t like it.”

“I can imagine.”

“I don’t have to,” Paulina said. “I was eighteen when it happened to me.”

Leigh was surprised. “You’re from up there, too?”

“Used to be. Maybe a bit of cricap in me. Bit of topsider.”

“So what made you go down the shaft?”

Paulina stared at the open elevator.

“Soon I wanted to be Icaran. Thought I could touch the sun. But the longer I stayed, the less I believed. Finally I knew: leave or die.”

“That couple…”

“…did not make the same choices as me. We would be richer here if they had.”

Leigh held the rings tightly in her fist. Paulina had not asked why she wanted to keep them, and even if she had, Leigh wasn’t sure she could answer. She considered the shattered glass of the functional tablet against the perfect rings of the dead and broken couple. The answers are here, I’m sure, she thought. Now she needed to learn the questions.

Driftwood

Author’s Note: I’m torn between the Disney-fication of fairytales and just plain feeling bad for Hans Christian Anderson, who, it was suggested to me, saw himself as the Little Mermaid. For the record, I love Disney, and H.C. Anderson, and the persistence of love.

Allie sat in the front row and watched as waves of mourners processed around the peach-and-wainscot reception room. She recognized Miss Archer right away. Gran and Grandaddy’s next door neighbor, she traded pies and casseroles with Gran in exchange for fresh flowers from the garden or the mittens Gran knitted while watching her shows. Ms. Archer dabbed her eyes with a lace handkerchief and rubbed Mama’s back when they embraced. She held both Grandaddy’s hands while sniffling condolences and apologizing for her tears.

“But William, you let me know if you need anything, alright?” she insisted, their joined hands moving back and forth in an affirming shake. “I’m right next door.”

“I will, Melody.”

“You do that,” she insisted, and pressed his forearm.

“Mm hm,” Mama added, gently ushering her along.

Miss Archer stopped in front of the plinth upon which sat the urn with Gran’s ashes. She folded her hands, praised Jesus, and withdrew, wiping a fresh wave of tears in the process.

“Does Miss Archer fancy you, Dad?” Mama whispered during a break in the line.

“No idea.”

Gran’s friends from the public library arrived together. Mrs. Tweed shared a soft smile so foreign from her severe moue and batwing-framed gaze that Allie fretted staring too long. But Ms. Thornton-Johnson, the children’s librarian who smelled of roses and hand cream and never spoke an unkind word, stooped when she neared to hold Allie’s hand and offer a hug, which the girl accepted.

Then Mr. Riley shuffled up in a dapper brown suit and high-polished shoes, fedora in hands. Allie listened closely; she loved Mr. Riley’s voice. It sounded soft and smooth as velvet.

Mr. Riley was a Saturday fixture in Gran and Grandaddy’s house. While Gran and Mama helped with church functions or attended library meetings, Allie, Grandaddy, and Mr. Riley would watch football or baseball games on the television in the parlor. “Grandaddy’s room,” Gran called it. If there wasn’t a game, they might put on a movie, or just read books. Grandaddy had a wall full of them, from home repair to sports biographies to history and fairytales. Sometimes he and Mr. Riley took turns reading to her.

“James,” Mama began, “thank you for coming.”

He embraced her gently.

“Of course.”

He turned to Allie, who jumped up and hugged him around the waist, breathing in his familiar musky cologne. He patted her and held the back of her head they way parents hold their babies.

“You alright, Will?”

From under Mr. Riley’s long arm, Allie watched Grandaddy raise his open hands.

“It is what it is.”

Mama peeled Allie away from him so he could address Grandaddy directly.

“Well, it was a good long run, wasn’t it?”

Grandaddy nodded. “Thirty four years.” For the first time all day, he teared up.

Mr. Riley offered him a hankie.

“No, I got mine,” he said. “Thank you.”

“We’ll talk more after?” Mr. Riley asked.

“Of course. I’ll call you.”

Little by little the room filled up. Allie recognized Pastor White from the church, and several members of the choir. Gran had sung alto for a few years.

Then Daddy walked in. He didn’t bother with the line. Instead, he marched right up the center aisle, rumpled suit hanging off his lanky frame, silence following in his wake. He stopped before the urn.

“He gonna knock it over?” Somebody behind Allie murmured.

But Daddy lowered his head, folded his hands, and stood there a few seconds. Mama took a step toward him, but Grandaddy stopped her, shaking his head.

Daddy turned toward them. Allie saw his red nose, his bloodshot eyes—he looked the same as ever. His brow furrowed, so she turned to the source of his frustration. Mama pointed toward the door, shooing him with a hateful glare; Grandaddy had stepped out of view, into a nook created by the flower displays from the Library Board and the City Council, both of whom had knocked heads with Gran more than once over the years.

Mr. Riley stood up.

“Brian,” he said gently. “If you said your peace to your Mama, perhaps you want to take a seat.”

Daddy glared. “Don’t even start with me, Riley.”

But Pastor White and Deacon Anderson appeared at Daddy’s side. “Not now, Brian,” the pastor said. “Your Mama wouldn’t want this.”

“There’s a lot of things my Mama didn’t want.”

“That’s right. And you carrying on here would’ve been at the top of her list.”

Daddy moved to speak, thought twice, and allowed the deacon to walk him out.

Allie thought about the last time she and Gran spoke.

“Allison, why is it always blue jeans and tee shirts with you?”

Allie stood in the kitchen, one foot atop the other. Gran preferred she not bounce from foot to foot. “You look like you need the ladies’ room,” she had once said. Allie tried hard to keep still, but when she focused on her feet, that pent up energy turned into swaying hips or flailing arms. Gran took to holding Allie by the shoulders when she wanted to speak with the girl.

“You see this suit?” Gran wore her favorite pink pantsuit with a white blouse and gold cross necklace that day. ”When I walk into the library or the city council wearing this suit, this blouse, they send a message. They say ‘I’m here for business.’ Now what do your grass-stained jeans and dirty tee say about you?”

“That I’m twelve?”

Gran tsked. “They say I got to have another talk with your Mama again.”

But she wasn’t wearing her pantsuit the day she died. If she had, Allie thought, she might not have gone face first into her mashed potatoes at Benjamin’s Diner, right in front of her Tuesday supper club.

But when it came time for the funeral, Allie wore a new pantsuit of her own: light blue, in a show of respect.

After the interment and church basement meal, Mama planned Grandaddy’s evenings.

“We’ll be over each night after work,” she began.

“You don’t need to, Denise,” Grandaddy insisted. “I got things under control. Between the church and the library, I won’t need to cook for a month.” He smiled his bravest.

“Mm hm.”

He pointed to the folding table where the ladies’ auxiliary had begun packaging leftovers. “They got chicken soup. Casseroles. There’s a container full of ham that I’ll freeze.”

“Mm hm. What about putting her things away?”

“Her things are already away. That’s what the bureau and dresser and closet are for.”

“Mm hmm,” Mama said a third time. Allie could have told him it was no use, but she suspected he knew that already.

Grandaddy sighed. “Why do I get the feeling this is happening whether I like it or not?”

As the conversation turned toward the specifics of whether and how often to call on Miss Archer, Allie stepped outside. Brian awaited her.

“How’s my little girl?”

Allie scanned left and right. They weren’t alone. Good.

“Fine, Daddy.”

“You gonna come see me sometime?”

She hesitated. “Not until Mama approves.”

Brian huffed and kicked an acorn. “She ain’t ever gonna approve.”

His daughter began shifting. One foot stepped on the other. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have hit her.”

“It was once. An accident.”

“Daddy, I saw you. You hit her five times.”

“But—“

Mr. Riley appeared in the doorway. “Allison, go on inside. Your Mama wants you.”

Daddy stopped her. “No. Stay here.” He turned to Mr. Riley. “I’m talking to her.”

“I can see that, Brian. But her first duty is to her Mama.”

Brian spit on the pavement and shoved Allie aside. She cried out, tumbled over the mums, and landed in the flowerbed.

He balled his fists and started toward Riley. “How bout if I just send you right after my Mama? God knows you gave her that heart attack.”

Allie heard the click, looked up quickly, and saw her Daddy stop cold. Mr. Riley had his pistol out. Up the walk, one of Allie’s former schoolteachers, Mrs. Banks, ushered her husband back into the church.

“I feel bad I had to bring it, and worse I had to pull it out in front of Allie,” Riley said. “But somebody had to be ready if you showed up.”

Daddy opened his hands. “Put it away, Riley.”

“I will, Brian,” Mr. Riley said, “but first we’re going to clear the air, you and I. What you accused me of wasn’t untoward, wasn’t a secret, and didn’t involve you from the start. But what you did to your ex-wife? What I just saw you do to your little girl? Far more sinful than anything you think you saw.”

Daddy said nothing. From between the parked cars, Ms. Thornton-Johnson motioned for Allie to come to her.

Riley didn’t bat an eye as Allie slipped away. “Now you get in your car and drive away, alright? You do that, and we won’t have to hold a funeral here for you next week. Nobody wants a scene in front of your little girl.”

“Brian Charles,” Ms. Thornton-Johnson called out. Brian turned to find a small but angry crowd. The librarian safely held Allie against her. “Everyone here just saw you shove your daughter and threaten our neighbor. You better pray for their lives, and the lives of your father and your ex-wife. Cause if anything happens to any of them, we will see to it that they lock you up till the Second Coming.”

“Amen,” said Mrs. Tweed, whose piercing glare had returned.

Daddy backed up, cowed by the crowd. He got into his car and peeled away.

“Thank you,” Mr. Riley said as he reholstered his pistol.

Mrs. Tweed whacked him on the head with her purse, knocking his hat sideways. “And what the dickens are you doing pulling out a gun in front of a child?”

“I… uh…”

“I thought you were smarter than that!”

“No, ma’am.” He said.

“Just as stubborn as always,” she said, half smiling. “God help us.”

Every night that week, Mama and Allie reported to Grandaddy’s. The first night they just ate and talked. Gran’s plants had missed their weekly watering, drooping behind still closed blinds. Potted plants given in her memory cluttered the old desk. Allie found Gran’s watering can under the kitchen sink and gave them all a much-needed drink.

But by the third visit, Mama brought a roll of black garbage bags and several boxes from the liquor store.

“We put it off long enough, Dad,” Mama insisted.

Grandaddy grudgingly followed her upstairs, but returned while Allie was still deciding what to watch.

“Your Mama sent me back down here to keep you company,” he said, settling into his chair and wiping his eyes with a hankie.

This continued all week. Mama neatly folded, packed, and removed Gran’s things little by little while Grandaddy and Allie watched movies. Sometimes Grandaddy helped, especially after the task shifted from packing her personal effects to emptying the second bedroom that served as her workroom.

“It’s easier,” he explained to Mama. “I was never in this room much. She didn’t like interruptions while she worked.” So he helped a little more and retreated to his room as needed.

That Saturday, Mr. Riley came over. Allie had already claimed her end of the sofa. Mr. Riley staked out his usual place at the other end, closer to Grandaddy, who had brought in a tray of ham sandwiches with brown mustard, chips, and Cokes for the three of them.

“What are we doing today, Allie?” Mr. Riley asked.

Watching a movie.”

“What movie?”

“Little Mermaid.”

Grandaddy laughed. “That’s not a movie. It’s a story in a book.”

Allie puffed up. “No, it’s a movie.”

He sat forward. “No. Book. Right, James?”

“Don’t get me involved,” Mr. Riley said, and sipped his soda.

“Wait, Grandaddy. Is it both?”

“Let’s find out,” Grandaddy said. “You put on the movie, and I’ll go get my book.”

So they watched the movie. At the start, Grandaddy asked Allie to pause, and explained what was and wasn’t in the story. But soon they left off the comparison—at least until it ended.

“And they lived happily ever after!” Allie cheered.

“That’s not how it ends,” Grandaddy said. “Not in the book.”

“How does it end in the book?”

“She turns into a piece of driftwood and floats away.”

“Really?” Mr. Riley asked.

“Driftwood?” Allie frowned.

Grandaddy nodded. “Uh huh.”

“And never gets her prince?”

“And never gets her prince.”

“No offense Grandaddy, but that’s stupid. Everybody should find somebody they love.”

“She got you there, Will,” Mr. Riley chuckled.

Grandaddy tapped the arm of his chair. “But it doesn’t always work out that way, I’m sorry to say.”

The trio sat quietly, watching the credits roll. Finally, Allie spoke again.

“Grandaddy, were you Gran’s Prince Charming?”

He pulled out his hankie and set it on his knee.

“I guess I was.”

“But she’s gone now.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Are you still sad?”

Grandaddy stared at the peace lily on the stand by the window. Gran had insisted it live there. “Sometimes. Yes I am, Allie. Sometimes I am sad.”

“What about you, Mr. Riley?”

He turned, surprised. “What about me?”

“Are you somebody’s Prince Charming?”

He looked at his hands, then at Grandaddy, then at Allie. “Not yet,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to be. Maybe someday.” He paused. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“You!”

“Me too. Maybe someday,” Allie said. “I could find a Prince Charming. Maybe I could be one. If I needed to.”

She got up suddenly, hugged her Granddaddy, then hugged Mr. Riley.

“I think people should be happy. I don’t think anyone should settle for becoming driftwood.”

“Allie!” Mama called.

“Wisdom of a child,” Mr. Riley murmured as she ran to answer her mother’s call.

By the middle of the second week, Mama had removed most of Gran’s things. When they arrived late that afternoon, Grandaddy wasn’t waiting at the door for them.

“Dad!” Mama called.

“Upstairs,” he called back. “Be down in a minute.”

Mama set a bag of prepared meals on the counter.

“Wow, Grandaddy,” Allie said when he entered the room. He had donned a navy suit and a striped bowtie. His shoes shined like mirrors.

“Well, you’re dressed to the nines, Dad. What’s the occasion?”

“I got a date.”

Mama looked shocked. Grandaddy handed a bottle of cologne to Allie. “Your Gran liked this smell on me. Do you like it?”

Allie sniffed and smiled. “Yep.” It smelled musky, comforting, familiar.

“A date? Really?” Mama asked. “Ain’t it a little soon?”

“Denise,” he said. “By God in Heaven I was faithful to my Jeanne every minute for thirty four years. That’s a long time, and I got less in front of me than I used to.”

She began to argue. “But Dad—“

“And I don’t want to become driftwood. So I’m off to meet my Prince Charming. He’s been waiting a long time—as faithful to me as I was to Jeanne.”

He winked at Allie, who giggled, beaming.

“You’re somehow behind this, aren’t you?” Mama said, eyebrow raised, half a smile on her lips.

Allie tried to look innocent. Grandaddy sprayed on some cologne and checked his teeth in the mirror Gran had hung by the coat closet.

When the doorbell rang, he was ready.

A Queen’s Tale

Author’s Note: I wrote the first draft of this on under 20 minutes. I still don’t know what it’s trying to say, other than people need to chill.

Across the sea, in a wealthy and peaceful kingdom, lived a king and queen who longed for a child. For years they tried to conceive, guided by the wisdom of royal physicians, astrologers, and even a few midwives from the surrounding hamlets and woods. Nothing seemed to work. Throughout the kingdom concerned whispers in the public houses spoke of misfortune. Rumors of a curse echoed in candel-lit ducal manors.

Then one morning, the king awoke sick, sore in his newly swollen belly. The physician came at once, quickly pronouncing him pregnant.

Neither queen nor king seemed surprised, but the courtiers were another matter.

“How can this be?” The duchesses chittered in alcoves of tapestry and stone. They fanned themselves and hid their faces in the presence of the queen, who smiled serenely. “What must she think?” they clucked, lines of disapproval etching their faces. “She might be cursed, as well, poor thing.”

A plot hatched in one of the meaner manors. “He’s cursed,” a grim and grimy duke insisted. Although the king and queen saw their court well-tended, some courtiers grew greedy. “He must be removed,” a cabal insisted, enchanted by dreams of wealth and power.

In the muddy farms and smoky public houses, the canopied markets and stone-spired churches, the people carried on with their lives. In the castle, the king and queen did much the same, preparing for their customary tour of the kingdom.

A trio of dukes approached the king. “You are cursed,” they insisted, and recommended he abdicate. “No,” said the king. “I have done no wrong.” He sent the three away.

A trio of duchesses, the wives of the dukes, suggested to the queen that the king had been cursed, and that she should abandon him. “No,” she insisted, “he has done no wrong.” And she sent the trio away as well.

An assassin slipped into the castle one starless night; had the king not been awake with discomfort, he might have met the same fate as his would-be killer.

The tour proceeded as planned. The couple waved to many crowds, met with townsfolk and farmer alike, and banqueted with welcoming courtiers. An eagle-eyed guard kept the royal family safe, and even in the dukedoms of those who sought their ouster, the queen and king remained popular.

Time rolled on, and the king swelled with child; the queen swelled with pride. In the golden fields and public squares, the thatch-roofed houses and wood-shingled mills, the people swelled with pride as well, for no one had heard of a pregnant king, and this made their kingdom even more special.

When a second assassin came to the castle, the guards ensured that he met the same fate as his predecessor, though not before revealing that the three dukes had paid for his services.

When questioned by the queen, two of the dukes confessed. They begged for mercy; the queen asked if they preferred their wives imprisoned. “No! No!” they cried, so the guards led them down to serve their sentences. The third refused to confess, however, even when his wife was taken in his stead. Saddened by the duke’s stubbornness, the queen made three decrees. First, the duke’s lands and wealth would be forfeit, divided between the wives of his co-conspirators. Second, his wife the duchess would remain in the castle, a guest of the queen. Third, the duke would be banished from the kingdom.

“But why?” he asked. “Why give my lands to them? Why keep my wife in your castle?”

The queen eyed him curiously. “Why punish them, when the intransigence was yours?”

He puzzled and blustered as guards led him away.

That very same night, the cries of a newborn filled the keep. Celebrations across the kingdom followed, and no one questioned the loyalty, compassion, and goodness of the queen—or king—again.