Why Cats are Good at Jumping

The event of the century brought out the best and worst in everyone. Humans made a mess of things of course, but even the trees and insects grew rowdy with their questions and line-pushing. Birds of every species blocked out the sun, trolls got drunk on fairy wine, and fairy’s got drunk on all the flowers that uprooted themselves to make the long trek to Illinois. The state swelled with magic…. And noise…. And refuse. Meanwhile, not a single garbage can in the Midwestern hemisphere went un-raided by bears, raccoons, or orks, who are quite fond of bread crusts but not the bread itself.

Humans and elves built the stadium, with the elves working half as hard but taking twice the credit. Neither party was actually allowed inside. The Titans had had enough of elves and humans to last an infinity.

 There were dragons too (with and without wings), goblins, dogs, weeds, spiders, gnomes, dwarves, a half-dozen centaurs dressed in fancy suits, a swarm of fourth-generation mayflies who couldn’t understand why everyone was so goddamn excited, two naga who looked hopelessly out of place, and a mermaid in a wheelchair being pushed around by an emperor penguin. His name was Slippy.

There were no cats. Cats were banned from the entire state.

They know what they did.

Correction.

There was one cat. His name was Chesh, and his ears were so flat against his tabby-stripped head he looked like a baby seal. Orange fur covered him from nose to tail, complete with brown stripes and sock-white paws. His eyes were blue. He wore a blue bandana around his neck, which had the effect of making him look like a handsome little man, and also let him carry a permanent marker. A silverback gorilla smoking a joint was kind enough to help him with that.

“Not supposed to be here,” the gorilla said.

“Just want to ask a question,” Chesh replied while giving his front paw a lick. “Just the one. That’s all.”

The gorilla snorted. “You’ll take more than that. I’ve met a few cats in my day.”

“I’m not—”

A shadow fell over Chesh, one with big leaves and even bigger branches. His  tail floofed into something resembling a traffic cone. An oak tree stumbled at him, not looking where it was going and swinging its squirrel-laden branches like swords. Chesh jumped onto the tree; the gorilla stumbled back a few steps.

“Excuse me,” the tree bellowed in its slow language. The squirrels cursed and threw rocks.

“Hey!” the gorilla said. “Get to the back of the line!”

“I didn’t mean too.” The tree waved its branches. Before Chesh could blink, a maple tree cut in line. It was also filled with squirrels.

The gorilla roared so loud a dwarf spilled his beer.

“Fuck yer both!” the dwarf demanded, his shirt soaked through with drink. He dropped his stein and put up his hands. “And fuck yer mothers!”

“Well I never!” the oak gasped.

It should be noted that there were no weapons allowed in or around the stadium, a rule enforced as staunchly as the no-cat one, which is to say quite well but not with absolute perfection. If only a dozen people died during a Titan visit, well, that would be fantastic. The typical death count for an event of the century landed in the quadruple digits—the leading cause of death being dehydration.

Regardless, the dwarf had nothing to swing but his fists. These proved ineffective against a tree.

Chesh scampered to the newly-arrived maple, dodging a nest of hornets and an apple who claimed to be poisoned. He had places to be and Titans to meet. This close, the stadium took up most of the horizon, flourished with vines and flower patterns courtesy of the elves. Chesh knew that if he got closer, he’d see murals dedicated to each of the Titans. He also knew that the Titan he wanted to see would be somewhere in the middle.

Mistress Gravity was the most important, so of course she got to be the center of attention.

The closer Chesh got, the more the crowd cramped together, everyone and everything fighting for a better look. Cameras flashed and food wrappers wrinkled the ground. Flyers with “No Cats Allowed!” floated in the breeze. Chesh did his best to prowl through it all, his head low, his belly even lower, but at some point in the evening—and it was apt to happen—someone noticed him.

“Cat!” a voice screamed, possibly a gryphon’s.

“Where?” everyone said, shouted, roared, and otherwise panicked at once.

“Over here!” a grasshopper called. He chirped his wings.

“Shut up!” Chesh pleaded. “I’m just—”

“He’s right here!”

A wolf stepped on the grasshopper, her nose to the ground. Chesh ran. Flies buzzed in his ears, and fairies followed overhead, their wings lighting like glow sticks. Chesh howled for them to please go away. Humans tried to grab him, and elves tried to be-spell him. A little girl in a black dress with a pink sash gave a high-pitched cry of “Kitty!” and reached, her arms already mid hug.

Her mother smacked her on the hands and scolded, “No honey. Cats have germs.”

A dragon cocked an eyebrow.

A gnome turned himself invisible.

“One of you lot just cast a spell!” a man wearing a very shiny black tie demanded. He looked like the sort of person who made demands all day every day and got very sour when they were not met. “Turn him to ice or whatever!”

An elf made to do just that, his fingers already wiggling, when the grasshopper-squishing wolf bumped into him. The elf said the wrong word, slipped, and transformed the demanding man into a ceramic swan.

“Oops.” His voice sounded like air escaping a balloon.

Chesh leaped the newly-made lawn ornament, his tail spinning like a tornado to keep him balanced. He landed on the ground, darted left, right, and then ran smack-dab into an outstretched hand. Claws grabbed him by the bandanna. They lifted. Chesh gave a mew, his ears back, his tail curved between his legs. His permanent marker fell to the ground.

“You’re not supposed to be here!” the woman hissed. Her teeth were pointed like a vampire’s. “You’ll chase them away.”

Chesh gulped. Or he tried to. The bandanna was choking little stars behind his eyes.

“Paid too much for this spot to be cheated by a thief.”

The crowd stepped just a bit closer at that. Even the moon grew bigger in the sky, eager for a look. The Titans would soon be here, but until they showed up, there was still a hierarchy. Elves and humans stood at the top, mountains of power, and cats wandered somewhere near the bottom. They belonged with the raccoons and dogs and trolls. The strange woman gave Chesh another shake, her lips mumbling both curse words and magic. Flames shuffled behind her teeth.

Then the bandanna ripped.

Her spell made a popping flash above Chesh’s head, one that would have burned him into something so inedible even a goblin would have turned down the meal. Instead, it blinded everyone within eyesight and sent a dragon into a coughing fit. A gunshot split the air. A woman with more sense than most bellowed, “George you put that fucking thing away right now!”

“But—”

Chesh was already running when he hit the ground. Everyone tried to grab him at once, which led to a collision of body parts, mostly heads bonking into other heads, and the spilling of more drinks. The vampire woman cursed, not a real but a bad word, and the dragon coughed a wad of sticky spit onto her back. She fell over. Chesh decided to leave his marker and bandanna. His life was worth more than an autograph.

He still wanted to meet Mistress Gravity though.

Instead of running away, he continued on, causing mayhem with each step. Witches cackled and orks gnashed their teeth. A snake asked him if he’d like some help, but Chesh didn’t trust the rattling sound behind the offer. Best not to risk it. The closer he got to the stadium, the wilder the humans and elves became, fighting each other over the best spots and swapping money for trinkets neither were supposed to own. It wouldn’t be the event of the century if at least one elf didn’t wander back to his home with a pipe bomb or can opener.

The Titans arrived around the time Chesh was trying to navigate a dragon, one whose wings were attached to his arms. He had a stubby neck and was reaching for a better look when Chesh stepped on his tail. The dragon spun about, Chesh went flying, and then the air froze in place. The moon blinked. Every law binding nature to Earth wavered, and if you wished upon a star at this very second, your wish would come true.

There were no shooting stars. Chesh wished everyone would stop trying to kill him.

Nothing happened.

The great titan Conservation arrived first, appearing as a spinning symbol that no one could quite make out. Sometimes they looked like an infinity; sometimes they looked like a series of interconnected loops. Lighting crackled inside their shifting shapes, and everyone clapped—even those that didn’t understand the laws of conservation.

Chesh dodged the dragon by running between his back legs and jumping onto a pine tree adorned with Christmas ornaments.

Thermodynamics appeared next, arriving as three burning wings without a body, head, or legs. More people clapped. The dwarves went wild. One reached over the velvet rope for a handshake, and when he melted his finger down to the bone, smiled so wide he looked like he might cry. It was a story for his kids and his kid’s kids!

Chesh leapt off the pine tree, scattering a handful of glass orbs to the floor, and ran across the back of an alligator. The gator paid him no mind.

Photonics appeared third, and in her usual manor, disappeared soon after. She was a shy Titan.

Gravity came after her, wearing the guise of a bipedal creature draped in a dress blacker than space itself. She did not walk but floated, and every thing that looked at her hovered off the ground. This proved quite useful to Chesh, who was too small to see her but quite good at running under feet. He bolted towards the stadium while everyone clapped, cheered, drank, or did bumps of coke.

“Mistress!” he mewed, his tail high. He wished he had time to give himself a quick bath so he could look his best. “Mistress! Over here!”

Someone shouted, “Stop that cat!” Someone else shouted, “Look! It’s Radiation!” No one was sure what to do, so everyone tried a little bit of everything. Fireworks lit up the sky.

“Mistress Gravity!” Chesh called. The stadium was right there! He could see the velvet rope, magically enhanced so no one could hop over it.

Unless you were a cat.

Chesh made the impossible leap as hands, claws, and in the case of one wolf, a jaw filled with teeth, reached for him. He landed panting, his eyes huge pools of black, his tail just a little poofy. Still, he felt dignified.

“Mistress Gravity!”

“Hello? What is this?” Chesh let out a purr. She was right there! The hem of her dress jerked like clean bed sheets, perfect for playing with, and though her hands were just a little too long to be human, they looked like they gave good pets. Her face was the color of concrete at night, but her eyes sparkled like rainbows. A river of hair swirled around her face.

“Mistress Gravity! I made it!” Chesh chirped. The crowd around him glowered. An elf pulled out a ceremonial sword, not sharp at all, but heavy enough to club a small creature to death.

The Titan knelt, though her body never touched the ground. Rocks and pieces of grass floated around her knees. “Little one, you’re not supposed to be here.”

“Can I have your autograph?”

“Excuse me?” Her voice was soft like the warmest blanket yet powerful enough to hold planets in their orbits. Everything about her was beautiful.

Chesh swished his tail. “I brought a bandanna and a marker because I wanted an autograph. I’m a big fan.” He hunkered low. “But I lost them.”

Another Titan arrived, this one to do with chemistry, but Chesh didn’t care. He only wanted this moment to last just a bit longer. He had worked so hard to get here.

“Little one,” Mistress Gravity said, her tone both amused and annoyed. She waved her hand, and Chesh floated towards her. “You’re … You’re ….” She gave Chesh’s cheek bone a rub. “Too cute for your own good, I suppose.”

“I—”

“But you’re not supposed to be here.” She looked him over. “The last time a cat got too close, he stole something from me.” She smiled. Her smile was warm. “You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”

“Can you make it so when I knock stuff off the counter, it falls faster?”

Mistress Gravity laughed. “No.”

“Oh.”

“And I cannot make it so you fall softer or jump higher or fly.”

Chesh swished his tail. He didn’t mean to. Honestly, he didn’t, but he also didn’t like being told no. “Why not?”

“Because you cats already do those things.” She set him down. “My laws barely apply to you already.”

Another Titan arrived. The crowd behaved like a crowd. Chesh reached up and rubbed at Mistress Gravity’s legs, marking her with his scent. She offered him one last pet.

“I’m sorry about your marker. But you do have to go.”

“Thank you.”

Mistress Gravity smiled. “For what?”

But Chesh was already walking away, a newer spring in his step, his paws just a little lighter than they were before. He couldn’t help himself. He was a cat.

Project T

We only had the machine for a week. It was not enough time. I don’t believe the Black Coats are real people.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

We arrived at the warehouse a little nervous and a little excited, too. The government had promised much, and after another hard semester of PHD lectures, this almost seemed like a paid vacation. Project T. It’s what Agent John had called it in our initial meeting. Project Time Travel. We dropped our belongings off at the door and stepped into a building of polished metal, opaque glass, and dark acrylic. “This place belongs in a science fiction movie,” Jen had said. “Maybe even a good one.”

I agreed. Howard sighed. He was the first to express doubts, but that is always the case with Howard.

We were each given a computer station, one without any USB ports or internet capabilities. The desktops were all navy blue save for one tiny icon in the upper left, a white T. The program’s name read simply: Project.

“I don’t understand,” Jen said when she opened it. Howard and I crowded over her shoulders. “It’s a search bar.”

“But there’s no internet,” Howard said. “That’s what John the Black Coat said.”

“What should I type?”

“Ask it who will win the Patriots game,” I offered. “I feel like gambling tonight.”

Jen typed in the question, and almost instantly a dozen pages of text appeared on the screen. I skimmed them, my mouth falling ever more open.

“This is an entire play-by-play of the game tonight,” I said with a laugh. “Down to the bad calls.”

“So it can see the future?” Jen asked.

Howard shook his head. “Probably runs on a thousand pounds of math and AI learning. I can’t believe it’s this fast though.”

“Hmm,” Jen said, before typing in her own questions.

I must admit, we played with the strange computer program all throughout the week. It was fun, but the more we stayed inside that warehouse, acquainting ourselves with its quirks and equipment, the more jittery and surreal the job became. Project felt like a grounding toy, a Magic 8 Ball with real insight. I recall asking it about the meaning of life and the big bang and getting answers I found satisfactory, if not a little thin. As the hours became days and the days a week, we relied on it heavily for its amazing set of raw data, engineering prowess, and predictive abilities. We could not have finished Project T without it.

That being said, its play-by-play of the Patriots game was flawed. They did win, but Project got the calls wrong. It did not turn me into a millionaire. True time travel, of seeing the future or the past, would come later.

If the warehouse was a science fiction movie, Project T was its monolith. It was a black box about the size of a small bedroom, so smooth and polished its surfaces doubled as a mirror. Its single door sealed so tightly it hid the seam. Its interior was equally bare-bones, much smaller than its exterior with two chairs and one computer station equipped with Project. It fit two people, but barely.

“I’m not getting in there,” Howard said when we first opened it. “Not in a million years.”

He never did, and it’s funny in a way, because I wish we had been able to turn his statement into some form of irony or prophecy. What is a million years when you can travel time? What is ten million years? The Earth is over four billion years old, the universe even older!

A week was not enough time.

“Don’t be lame,” Jen said. She was the first to hop inside, boot up the computer, and begin asking it questions.

I followed her inside, my frame not much bigger than hers but still too big for the cramped machine. When the door closed on us, we both let out little screams. My skin felt clammy, and her eyes turned into saucers. The wall appeared blank, not a closed door but a melted piece of something. I tapped on it with my hand.

“What are you?” I asked.

“How do we open it?” Jen asked, though the question wasn’t for me but Project.

Project told us how to open the door.

Fear and curiosity are interesting things. I crawled out of Project T prepared to leave and never look back, yet I marched to my computer terminal and began inputting commands. Project complied, and two hours passed in the blink of an eye.

Agent John—John the Black Coat—promised us a puzzle, one 90% completed. His agency needed help with the final 10%. We, he believed, could do it. At that moment, I believed we could do it, too.

“Well,” Howard said, a blue dry-erase marker in one hand and a wall-sized equation scribbled onto the nearest glass wall. “What do you think we should do?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think we can do it.

“Same,” Howard said. “But?”

“But it’s a game,” Jen smirked. “I’ve never not finished a game.”

“That doesn’t mean we should play it,” Howard returned.

We debated. We asked Project more questions, some silly just to see what it might say. I asked it about the ethical ramifications of time travel; Jen asked it its favorite time travel movie. Howard asked the most interesting question though, which was this: Who chose us and why?

“I chose you,” Project wrote. “Because I know you will.”

That was when Howard walked out. I followed suit not long after, but Jen stayed behind. She worked all night, in fact. When I came in the next morning, tired from tossing and turning, she was still in front of the computer, her fingers a blur, more of the cloudy windows covered in marker equations. The smell of coffee hung heavy about her head, and Jurassic Park played on my computer terminal. She was grinning at something.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Coffee machine is working on another pot,” she said. “The fridge is well stocked, mostly with garbage. John the Black Coat did his homework.”

I approached her computer and once again found myself looking over her shoulder. She was playing chess with Project and losing soundly.

“It can’t read the future,” she said, moving her pawn one square forward. It was a bad move, and Project quickly countered with a rook. “But it knows so much it might as well be.”

“I don’t think you’re good enough at chess to really say that.”

“It got me in Checkers, Monopoly, Sorry, Candyland, and Connect Four.” She moved her queen next. Project took it with the rook from its previous move.

“I don’t think that means anything.”

Jen shrugged. “I think it’s cheating.”

“The only way to beat a cheater is to not play.”

“Or to cheat,” she said, but she took the hint well enough and we got to work.

She looked exhausted, but in her typical fashion, had more energy than me. She had more energy than Howard, who showed up a half hour later grumbling about bad ideas and the solution to yesterday’s giant equation.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he yawned. “So I worked.”

The next four days became a routine of sorts, with all of us showing up at random hours, working on Project T in long stretches, and playing with Project. Jen kept us supplied with coffee, and the fridge kept us supplied with the kinds of food I used to live on in college and grad school. In a way, we all traveled back in time, to twenty years prior when our bodies could survive on sleepless nights and carbs. I gained ten pounds.

I cannot explicitly say what we worked on or how, but it did take all three of us. Howard did the most heavy lifting, much to his chagrin. We couldn’t have done it without him.

And this is less important, but we played almost 40 different games with Project over the course of that week, some quick, others long. We lost 39 of them. Jen is the only one who beat the supercomputer, and her chosen sport wasn’t Candyland but Halo. She won by four kills.

The final day found us too tired to celebrate our victory. We spent the first hour fighting with the computer. Project didn’t want us to test the machine. That was for John the Black Coat and the United States of America. We were to wait for their arrival and proceed from there. It wouldn’t tell us if we would be part of the test or simply escorted away.

 Jen and Howard are physicists on the cutting edge of their fields. I am too. It’s why, I believe, Project chose us. But I am also a software engineer, and while I don’t know how Project works in the slightest, I do know how to cheat. Jen and myself broke into the cramped monolith and took our seats.

Howard begged us to stop.

“When should we go,” Jen asked. “And where?”

Truthfully, we had discussed it at length. History is filled with mysteries, both big and small, but most are out of the realm of even time travel. We cannot change the past or alter the future. Project T as a craft is also not easily hidden, meaning visiting, say, Kennedy’s assassination would cause more problems than it would solve. Then there’s the danger involved in Earth’s past. All of our favorite destinations were ruled out by either our own rules, the laws of nature, or simple fear of what might happen.

I did, however, come with an idea.

There is a series of landmasses in the Bismarck Sea called the Vitu Islands. They are small and scattered, and based on ancient writings, missing one. We know this from a single text found in Papua New Guinea that dates back almost 3,000 years. It mentions an eruption, but there are no volcanoes in that area.

“Let’s find out what happened to it,” I offered. “It’s far back enough, and isolated enough, that we won’t change history at all.”

“You sure?” Jen asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “If that works, then I get to pick.”

I told Project our preferred date, time, and location, and while it didn’t want to send us there, it couldn’t stop us. HAL it was not.

Project T filled with the strange smells of brimstone and gasoline. I cocked an eyebrow, but before we could cancel our trip, we were already there. Jen yelped. I did too.

The door slid open to a sky of the purest blue I have ever seen. The air smelled so clean it almost hurt my nose. Everything was brighter. Even the clouds appeared fluffier, lighter, not weighed down with pollution. Beneath us, an island missing from history sprawled, overgrown with lush jungles and the sounds of colorful birds. Patches of missing tree growth marked villages and cities.

“My god,” I whispered.

What I should have said is: Why are we flying? Even now I don’t know. Nothing about the machine or our schematics gave it the ability to fly, yet we were high up, perhaps 300 meters. I should have also asked why it smelled even stronger of gasoline.

The fireballs appeared out of nowhere. One minute the sky was clear, the next it was a hellscape of red and orange lights. They formed small at first, about the size of my fist, but quickly grew to the size of cars and trucks. I watched in horror while Jen screamed in my ear as they rained down. Each exploded upon impact, spreading fire and death from one end of the island to the next. Birds flew, their wings aflame, and trees crackled and sparked. Smoke filled the air, my lungs, Project T.

And then we were back in the secret government warehouse. John the Black Coat helped us out. He thanked us for our service, for helping the United States of America. He ignored Jen’s sobs and my frustrated demands. Unlike Project which always wanted to play, John refused. His hands were ice, his grip iron.

“You can’t,” I howled while Howard, fear in his eyes, demanded to know what was going on. “You have to listen to me!”

John led us out. He did not openly threaten us, yet the threat was there. I could see it in his body language, in the little glimpse I got of his eyes when Jen shoved him and his sunglasses slipped. He had yellow eyes. Like a lizard’s.

He closed the door on us, and a week later, a paycheck larger than any I have ever seen showed up in my checking account. I got a letter the next day from John the Black Coat. It read, “On Behalf of the United States of America, we thank you.”

A Dragon’s Treasure

There are only two good reasons for an adventurer to kill a dragon, and while Rig doesn’t fancy himself a good adventurer, he respects the trade enough to follow the rules. He even has a copy of the handbook! He cannot read said copy of the handbook, which was penned over three hundred years ago by Sir Clemonce E. F. Telken (Slayer of Roth the Mighty, six-times Tourney Champ for seven years in a row (one year had to be skipped due to every horse coming down with a rash), Medallion Winner, and author of the best-selling The Adventurer’s Handbook: How to Avoid Troll Tolls).

Per Sir Telken, the only two good reasons to kill a dragon are:

1. To stop it from terrorizing the good people of Lottingham
2. To take its treasure

Now, the only dragon within walking distance is a medium-sized beast named Libre, a green wyrm not known for her terror, murder, fire, or fiendery. However it is said that all dragons hoard treasure like a pig mud, and Rig knows a thing or two about pigs. His father was a farmer; his grandfather was a farmer. Rig meanwhile, is a butcher. He fancies himself quite good with a cleaver too, and when you get right down it, a halberd is just a long cleaver with a better handle. Pigs, meanwhile, are very easy to rob. If a dragon is like a pig, then there isn’t a more suited man for the task than Rig Greenhill!

And it is the perfect day for an adventure. The sky is a pure, cloudless blue, and the trees are all aquiver with green. The temperature is warm—but not too warm. Why, even the road has a perfect layer of dust atop it. The birds chirp. The crickets sing. Rig hums along with them, an old lullaby his mother used to sing back when he was a babe. It’s the only song he knows that doesn’t involve drinking, whoring, or both.

“The drinking and whoring can come tomorrow.”

He grins to the open road. His halberd wavers with his stride, a little heavy when strapped across the back, but handsome too. It cost him his ass, but once he has the dragon’s treasure, he plans on buying another.

It should be noted that what adventurers consider “walking distance” and what butchers consider “walking distance” are two very different lengths. It takes Rig six hours to find the weedy trail that leads to Libre’s meadow and another two to cross it. By this point he is tired, hungry, and cold. He reaches into his pack for a skin of beer. He did not think to bring water.

“Boy howdy, Rig,” Rig says to no one. “You sure screwed this one up.”

The sky is still cloudless, but the blue of it has darkened. A breeze blows from the north, just chilly enough to make Rig scowl. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote laughs.

“Screwed this one up real big,” he says.

Footsore and ready for more beer, Rig finds a comfortable patch of grass. He opens his copy of The Adventurer’s Handbook. The words snake about the pages like bugs, and a few jump out: Pig, fire, the, dragon, cook, troll, and some others. He can’t string a sentence together to save his life, but he can admire the pictures and make educated guesses.

“Should start a fire and cook a troll,” he says.

Rig looks around. There are twigs and grasses aplenty, and he knows how to make a fire. He doesn’t see any trolls though. He’s never had one, and isn’t sure they’d taste very good besides. Maybe it’s for the smell? To drive his spirits high! Or to drive the local wildlife away. The last thing he needs is for a band of coyotes to come sniffing around.

Well, that’s what the halberd is for.

In the end, Rig finishes his beer, pees into a bush, and continues on. His map says Libre’s Hollow is just ahead.

Libre’s Hollow lives in Libre’s Gulch, an unnatural chunk of land carved by dragon magic and spite. Rocks bounce about, slippery with dust, and small bushes grow here and there, nettle-covered and bored. At the end, not a cave but more a hut, is Libre’s home. It too is not natural. It is, however, pleasant to look upon, softly rounded and lit with yellow dots of faerie fire. Its mouth—its door—is inviting. In fact, it is downright cozy. It reminds Rig of his grandfather’s farm, of sneaking out of the house at night when he was a child to watch the stars and wonder what might live on the moon.

“Hmm,” Rig says to himself. This is his thinking sound, which has lost him more arguments than won and generally puts him on the bad side of an idea. “Hmm, hmm.”

Because Rig would be the first to admit he isn’t known for having deep thoughts. He’s not a wizard or an intellectual. He has one now though, and that thought is this: All the dragons in the old tales can talk, and it isn’t right to kill something that can talk. Not without the law saying it’s okay. Libre isn’t a wanted lizard. She’s never terrorized nobody as far as Rig knows.

He opens his Adventurer’s Handbook and flips to page 12. Telken is quite clear on his two rules. Rig can’t read most of the writing, but “Kill” he does know. “Treasure” as well.

“Hmm,” he says again. “Hmm, hmm.”

What ultimately pushes Rig into Libre’s home isn’t the complexity of law but the ice in the wind and the sharpness in the rocks. He is too tired to walk back up the hill. Thus, his only option is to enter the dreaded lair before him, slay the dragon, and take her treasure.

He at least has the decency to feel like a damn fool for it, because he is.

The temperature warms the closer he gets, until he’s through the door and standing in front of what feels like a blazing fire. The aches in his shoulders lesson, and either his vision adjusts to the night, or the cave is bright with yellow lights, because everything is easy to see. It’s a soft place, with a dirt-covered floor and smooth walls that swoop up to a ceiling filled with little torches. They don’t flicker like normal torches but stay constant, almost like the sun itself.

Shelves are everywhere. Wooden, smooth, and chewed about the edges from use, they cover every wall Rig can see, and all the walls he cannot. More act as furniture, if furniture was measured in rows and not chairs or stools. The shelves are about a wagon’s width apart. Each is twice as tall as Rig and many times longer. They do not contain treasure.

They contain books.

Anxiety plays at Rig’s heels. Anger does too, though that emotion is a few steps behind, where it belongs. The thing about dragons is that they aren’t small. Libre is a medium-sized one as far as magical lizards go, but she is still bigger than three oxen in a row and weighs twice as much. Her jaws are capable of snapping said oxen with a single bite. If Rig were to stand on his tiptoes, stretch his arms all the way up, he still wouldn’t be able to grab a book from the highest shelf. There are no ladders or stools to stand on, because Libre doesn’t need them.

Yet what comes out of his mouth isn’t a whimper but a curse, “There ain’t no damn treasure here!”

The book—his, not Libre’s—says dragons collect treasure. Rig can’t read the words between “dragon” or “treasure,” but he isn’t a complete buffoon. He knows what he knows! There’s supposed to be gold and gems and magical artifacts, not … not books! Not a single thing worth taking glimmers in the room. There isn’t even a chair to sit on.

Rig sighs. He marches to the closest shelf and puts his back against it. It’s sturdy enough, and warm enough, and he slides down until he’s sitting on the floor. His halberd falls from his back. The blacksmith promised him it was a good weapon, the perfect tool for a daring adventure.

“Damn thing’s not even good for a walking stick,” Rig says.

Believe it or not, there is a chapter in The Adventurer’s Handbook: How to Avoid Troll Tolls about not falling asleep in a dragon’s cave. It’s actually quite common for weary adventurers to plop down for a sit, doze off, and wake up to being devoured. Dragon magic exudes tranquility as a byproduct of their collecting and shaping. They feel at home in their homes, and thus, everyone that enters also feels at home. It makes them exceptional dinner party hosts, with the caveat that the dinner is typically the guest.

It should be no surprise then that when Rig wakes up, he is not alone. Two reptile orbs stare at him from behind a muzzle of emerald scales and sharp teeth the size of kitchen knives. Libre’s head is a head larger than Rig, and her body is many times that, snaking out behind her and supporting thousands of pounds of muscle and scaly hide. Spikes run across the spine of her back. A pair of green wings fold about her flank like leathery covers. She is the most beautiful and most terrifying thing Rig has ever seen in his life.

She also looks absolutely nothing like a pig.

“Hello human,” Libre says. Her voice is gruffer than a callous, yet quiet too. “What are you doing in my home?”

Rig gulps.

“And why have you brought that wicked looking weapon with you?”

Rig gulps again. He doesn’t know what else to do.

“Yet,” and here Libre sniffs. “You have a book with you. I can smell it on your person.” Her dragon snout breaks into a toothy smile that flashes with fire and brimstone. “It is well read. The spine is bent, and the pages are earmarked. I can smell your fingerprints on it.”

“It’s not right to kill something that can talk,” Rig yelps. The words come out like a squeak. “Not unless the law says so.”

Libre cocks her head. Her tongue snakes out of her mouth, and she wipes her eye with it.  “Sometimes the law is wrong, human.” The dragon leans back on her haunches, peering at Rig not like a lizard but a great jungle cat. He sees her exposed belly and thinks for just a moment about using his halberd. It won’t work though. Her scales are too thick, and his arms are like noodles.

And it wouldn’t be right besides.

“More often,” the dragon continues, “I think, the law is wrong. But are you a philosopher? Or a scholar? I have a great many books that might interest you.”

Rig shakes his head.

“Historian?”

“No,” Rig gulps.

The dragon scratches at her chin. “Do you like fiction? I mostly have fiction, if I’m being honest. I love the romances, even if half the people that show up here are knights thinking I have gold.”

“I,” Rig blushes, and Libre narrows her eyes. He tries to find more words, but they spit about his feet, useless. Instead he hums the lullaby his mother used to sing him. It lets him see her face, and he’d rather look at her than the dragon about to eat him.

“Hmm,” Libre says. She motions with one clawed hand for Rig to follow. And then she’s gone, slither-walking down a row of books. Her tail swishes behind her, its tip a giant, boney spike.

Rig follows her. He doesn’t know what else to do.

He leaves his halberd on the floor.

“I have songbooks down here … somewhere.” The dragon’s head darts this way and that, and she sniffs more than she looks. Her tongue dances along one shelf, tasting the claw marks on it. “Yes. This way.”

“I,” Rig tries, but the thought leaves him. He hums the lullaby again.

The dragon nods. “I recognize it. It’s a Rabe, composed about four hundred years ago, I expect. She liked that kind of soft trill.”

Libre leads, and Rig follows, and soon they’re deep within her lair, lost as far as Rig can tell, and still with no treasure to be found. At some point, Libre stops by a shelf, rears herself up, and plucks a pair of thick glasses from behind a dusty book. The rims are made of copper with little flowers along the sides. She balances them on her snout and looks through them crosseyed.

“I can’t read sheet music without help. Had a wizard make these about a century ago now.”

“You can read music?” Rig asks. He only ever heard it played or sang. Mostly off key.

“Of course, human.” She cocks her head. “Are you not a musician?”

“No.”

“No matter. This way.”

They travel one more shelf over, where the books are a much taller. Telken would advise any would-be adventurer in this situation to take notes, to find all the little details for survival and use them without mercy. Telken would also demand you slay the dragon. Rig does none of these things, because Rig cannot read.

He wishes he could though. It’s the first time he’s ever wished that.

Libre is massive and sharp, yet she browses her books with the delicate hand of a jeweler, careful not to tear or mark any of them.

“Here,” she says after a few more minutes of sniffing, poking, and prodding. “Carianne Rabe. This is her complete works.” Libre hands the book to Rig. It’s thinner than most, yet heavier than it looks. The cover is a vibrant, blue leather that smells strongly of dye despite its age.

“She’s best known for her Symphony on Magic, a rousing piece on the wonders of alchemy.” Libre smiles. “If you know how to listen. But she also composed many lullabies too. Yours is in there, somewhere.”

Speechless, Rig opens the book. He expects to find more insect-like words shifting across the page and instead sees lines, dots, and more lines. There are numbers too, the kind he knows from coins and from counting on his fingers. It’s almost like a map.

“This is how music is written?”

“Yes, human. It is.”

“Huh.”

Rig hands the book back, and while Libre flips through it, he once again hums his mother’s lullaby. The dragon nods a few times, finds her page, and then flips back and forth between it and the next one.

Finally she says, “It’s this one. ‘Rising Star, Falling Star.’ You’ve been humming a mix of the first and fourth verses. There’s quite a bit more than that.”

“Wow!”

“Where did you hear it?”

For the first time since entering the dragon’s home, Rig smiles. “My mother. She used to sing it to me.”

With careful claws, Libre puts the book back on her shelf. “Very good. She had good taste. You could learn the rest, if you want.”

Rig almost jumps. “You think so?” He never really thought he could learn much of anything. Butchering? Sure. Adventuring? Clearly not. He’s weaponless in front of a dragon and too afraid to do anything but listen to her. Telken would be furious.

As if she’s reading his mind, the dragon asks “So, what book do you have on you?” Her eyes sparkle.

Shame drags Rig’s attention to his feet at that. He knows nothing of books, only that whatever he has can’t be very good in comparison to everything around him. Libre clicks her tongue against her fangs, and Rig reaches into his pack and brings out the Adventuring Handbook. He hands it over, and even though it’s no good, Libre is careful when she picks it up.

“Ah,” she says as soon as she sees the title. “It’s this one.”

“Sorry,” Rig mumbles.

“Human,” Libre sighs. “How many words do you know?”

Rig blushes so hard even his feet turn red.

“And are some of those words, ‘treasure,’ ‘dragon,’ ‘and hunt?’”

“I don’t know ‘hunt.’”

“What about ‘kill?’”

Rig nods. He squeezes his hands into fists.

There is so much human disappointment in the way Libre moves that Rig is reminded of his grandparents. She plucks her glasses from her snout and drums at the ground with her claws, digging little trenches into the dirt. She glares, not like a monster but like his grandmother when she would catch him sneaking out at night to look at the moon and stars and think, on rare occasions, of doing something bigger than living his life in Lottingham.

She wasn’t allowed to have big dreams, so why should he?

“Well,” Libre says, “At least you know more words than the last human.”

Rig gulps.

“And I liked your mother’s rendition of ‘Rising Star, Falling Star.’”

“Are you gonna let me live?” Rig shakes as he asks the question. The dragon gives him his book back, and he clutches it so hard he almost drops it.

Libre replaces her glasses. “Yes human, I am. I let most humans live that wander in here.”

“Oh.” Relief floods Rig. He even manages another smile.

“I don’t want blood on my books.”

Rig drops his book at that. He’s too stiff to bend over to grab it, so Libre does it for him.

“It’s a bad book with bad advice,” she says. “But it is a book. Take care of it, please.”

“Is it treasure?”

Libre nods. “Yes. All books are treasure. Even the bad ones.” Libre holds up a claw. “Gold can buy you much, human, but it cannot buy you empathy. It cannot clean your soul. Those are for books and songs and love.”

“I wish I could read.”

“Good.” Libre smiles, and it is a genuine smile, one that reaches her eyes. Brimstone flashes behind her teeth. “The world needs more scholars and historians, not adventurers.”

Libre motions for Rig to step aside, and he does. She walks, and he follows, and soon they are at the entrance to her home. Light shines through. The sun is high, and the soft chirping of birds and crickets swirls about. He stops to grab his halberd.

“I will not teach you to read,” Libre says. “But if you learn, you may come back. My home is a library, not a hoard.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I only ask that you treat them like treasure.”

Rig nods. He can do that.

“Farewell, human. And next time you decide to go on an adventure, may you take a quill instead of a sword. It will do the world more good.”

With that, Libre retreats into her home. Rig dusts himself off, stretches, and begins the long trek back to Lottingham. He is hungry, and he is thirsty, and his pockets are poorer than when he started, but he has a story to tell now.

He’s excited to share it.

Man in a Hurry

The store stank of gunpowder and cat litter. Four bodies lay on the ground, each torn apart and soaking into a growing pile of Tidy Cat. The 45mm bullets hit bodies and just kept going. Whispers filtered in from outside. Someone pounded on the door. A window shattered, and a large brick slid across the floor followed by a river of glass. And the worst part was, nothing made sense anymore! Nothing. Guy was in a hodunk town in Iowa called Frankfurt—population 4,000 on the dot—holding a SCAR L military rifle and wondering how the absolute fuck he was going to get out of here alive.

He had 196 rounds. That left 3,996 people.

The pounding intensified, angry fists competing with Guy’s makeshift barricade of charcoal bags heaped onto a small shopping cart. It would hold for another ten minutes if Guy was lucky. He did not feel lucky.

“Essentials,” he said. “Pretend it’s a ruck march.” The rifle had a strap, and he let it dangle as he ran deeper into the store, looking for a backpack. He could fill it with water and energy bars. After that, well … he wasn’t sure what came next. Des Moines was 140 miles away, and that was a hellova trip on foot. It didn’t help that his phone had stopped working as soon as he entered the town.

His CO had joked when he said he would take the scenic route. “Scenic? Ain’t nothin’ to see in Iowa, rockchewer. Just corn and rednecks.”

“Fucking bullshit,” Guy muttered.

Jake’s Convenience Locker lived up to its name. Guy grabbed a hiking backpack on his way to the grocery section, where he found a wall of glass-door fridges stocked with energy drinks. He popped the local brand called Sprintfurt. It tasted like cherries boiled in piss, but it had a 100mg of caffeine. He dumped another dozen of the things into his bag. Guy didn’t plan on sleeping anytime soon.

Backpack fit to burst, Guy ran for the exit. He wasn’t good, but he was in control. That mattered more. It was how he lived through Iraq, and it was how he’d live through this.

He put two bullets through the door.

He stepped over two bodies.

*

It all started with red and blue lights, a siren, and a short deputy officer with a uniform so primed and pressed it looked like a costume. “Documentation,” the cop asked. He chewed on the word like it was gum. He rested his hand on the butt of his pistol, either a sign of insecurity or paranoia. Or racism. Guy didn’t think there were many black folk around here.

“Sorry,” Guy said. “Got my wallet in my pocket, and the paperwork in the glove. Gonna reach for ‘em.”

“Come on, come on. Let me see your documentation.”

To be fair to the cop, Guy had been going 20 over. However, the roads were empty. No trucks or cars or people walking along the side. He hadn’t even seen a bird fly overhead in the last hour. It was like he had entered some ghost road, one so peaceful it made his skin jittery. It wasn’t right. Guy shoved his hand into his pocket, and the cop shuffled on his feet. Maybe he was high. Not like there was anything else to do around here.

“Here,” Guy said, handing over the license.

“This is expired,” the cop said.

“Bullshit.”

“See, it says right here. Expired February 20^th, 2018. What day is it? Well? Do you know what day it is, because I know what day it is.”

“April 20^th.” Guy took his license back. There was no way it was bad. But when he looked again, it was. “This doesn’t—”

“Come on, come on. Out of the car and hands were I can see ‘em.”

“Fuck.”

*

Guy kept his shots short and sweet. The gun responded to the slightest press of his finger, almost eager to go off, and the residents of Frankfurt crumpled around him. Many were carrying knives or bats, though a few had their own weapons, mostly hunting rifles. They were strangely bad shots. Guy had met his fair share of rednecks, both in the army and out, and most could hit a bulls eye from a hundred feet once they had a few beers in them. These ones though, they couldn’t hit dirt if they were aiming at the ground.

“Just one more thing that don’t make sense,” Guy said. He reached down to loot a corpse of her pistol. It was a cheap 9mm, and it fit comfortably in the waistband of his jeans.

The woman was pretty, or had been. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Pale skin. She was wearing a yellow sundress with two big red stains on it. Guy sucked in a breath. He had only shot her once. He was sure of that, because he had to be careful with his ammo. Yet she had two wounds, and big ones too: One in her chest, where the SCAR had done its work, and one in her gut. Guy didn’t do gut shots. He had a scar from one, and even these batshit rednecks didn’t deserve that kind of misery.

“What is goin’ on!?”

Well. Shoot first, questions later. It wasn’t ideal, but it was either that or die. Guy was not going to die in Iowa.

“Well Golly!” the town’s only mechanic shouted from somewhere behind. “I found him! I found him over here!”

Guy ran. That mechanic had come to visit him in the jail with bad news about his car. He had been wearing someone else’s face.

The worst part about Frankfurt was that it looked like a perfect little town. Idyllic. The houses were modest with big yards, and half the trees had tire swings hanging from them. On his trip in, Guy swore he smelled pies cooling on windowsills. The place was clean, the church big, and everyone smiled. But the smiles were wrong, too wide, too distended, like everyone was secretly a snake. Everyone’s breath smelt like stale meat.

Guy cut through a yard, stopping just long enough to watch an old man light a cigarette. When he smiled, his grin went all the way to his ears.

“Good luck, son.” The man said. “No one ever makes it to tha road, but youa almos’ there. ‘Bout two miles lef’.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Shouldn’ cuss,” The man shook his head and reached for a bucket hanging by his side. Guy leveled his gun. He didn’t want to waste the ammo, but he didn’t want to leave this one alive, either. “Frankfurt’s a ni’ place. No one cusses here. Not ‘till you shauw’d up.”

The man dumped the bucket over himself. It was brown and red, and it stank like a sewer.

“Two mile,” he shouted. “Watch fer deer!”

“Golly!” the mechanic called again.

Guy ran.

*

Guy hadn’t been surprised that the jail stank. All jails stink. This one though, it smelled like ten-week old death. And like all bad things, it reminded him of being in Iraq. Guy shivered. He knew it was funny in its own way, because he had come to Iowa to escape this shit, not get dragged back in. His CO would laugh at the irony.

“Just corn and rednecks,” he said to himself.

“Yeah, yeah,” the cop said. He opened the jail door and shoved Guy in. The door closed with a heavy clank and the rumble of rusted tumblers.

“You didn’t even read me any rights,” Guy said. “This whole thing is bullshit. Just charge me a fine or—”

“Rights?” The cop demanded. “I know your rights. Got ‘em memorized from the book. You want ‘em? Well, go ahead and sit down. Just go ahead. I’ll recite ‘em to you word for word. Right from the book down to the punctuation mark.”

Guy looked at the cot. It looked clean enough, yet it was where most of the bad smell was coming from. He decided to remain standing.

“You’re supposed to read them while you arrest me, not after.”

“Don’t you tell me how to do my job!”

The cop moved further into the jail, towards a desk. He twirled his keys on his hands. Guy told himself he was being paranoid, that this would work itself out—it was PTSD and concussions and every other bad thing that had happened to him overseas. The smell wasn’t real.

Except it was. It burned, and his eyes watered. The cop sat behind his desk, propped himself up, and began to read the paper. The major headline read, “Headless Deer Found Outside Cuddle Family Property.”

*

The SCAR burned; the barrel smoked. It was eager to shoot. Guy ejected another clip and loaded his last one. 50 rounds left, and then he’d have to switch to the 9mm. Nothing still made sense, but he had passed that two mile road and was now deep in an Iowa forest and heading east. If he kept going, he was sure to find a road or a farm or something. At the very least, that mechanic was now dead. He had dogged Guy for three full miles, screaming “Golly!” at the top of his lungs until Guy put a bullet in his throat.

“Okay,” Guy said. He stared into the dark woods. “Ruck march.”

In a way, it wasn’t much different than the swamps of Louisiana. Big trees, big dirt, and paths worn down by animals. Guy could march for hours in this. No alligators, muck, or mosquitoes the size of his fist, either. A cool breeze filtered through the trees, rustling leaves and the beads of sweat running down his face.

He felt safe.

“Ain’t safe though,” he reminded himself.  He opened his bag and grabbed an energy drink. “Not by a long shot.”

Guy marched deeper into the forest. If he got out of this alive, no one would believe him. Pleasantville meets Cannibal Holocaust in the middle of fucking nowhere, and then the only cop was so stupid he left the keys hanging on a hook outside the cell door. It was the town drunk who had let him out, a fat man reeking of gasoline and slurring the word, “goat” as he fought with the buttons on his jacket. Guy had slipped passed him and found the SCAR in the jail’s weapons locker.

It was all too good to be true, yet Guy was still alive, still whole. He was in control.

He marched for what felt like another mile before the quiet forest gurgled with noise. At first it sounded like the whoops of a coyote, but knew coyotes from his time in Louisiana. These weren’t right. They were too slow, almost giggly. He leveled his gun. The sounds were out front and getting closer, heading in a straight line. Whatever they were, they wouldn’t be happy once they got here.

The trees rustled again, not with breeze but with people. The family stepped out of the leaves as a single unit, each naked from the waist down and wearing a shredded flannel shirt, except the lone woman who wore a faded crop top. She cradled a baby and wiggled her fingers at it. Then she wiggled them at Guy. Mud covered them in thick patches, like they had been sleeping in it, and each wore a severed deer head as a kind of helmet. It hid the tops of their faces but left their hanging jaws visible. Their tongues were long and swollen purple. They whooped and jumped, and one strummed a chord on his guitar.

Guy shot him through the right lung.

The rest charged. They didn’t carry weapons, yet they scared Guy more than anyone else. These people passed batshit long ago. They laughed as bullets blew pop-can sized holes in their chests, their blood bouncing through the air, their legs carrying them forward. They moved like people on PCP. Or zombies. A man with a thick beard stretched his grimy arms out wide in a bad imitation of a hug.

“Get the fuck back!” Guy shouted as the man tried to bury him. Guy scrambled back and swung the SCAR like a baseball bat. It hit the man in the jaw and took it clean off, spraying blood and yellow teeth onto the ground.

“Oh tha’s good,” the man slurred as he fell to the ground. “He’s a real—” Guy stomped his face into pulp.

The man’s family clapped. Guy returned to shooting, terror overtaking fineness. They kept coming, and the bullets kept flying. Lead tore apart the forest, turning dirt and bark into little brown fireworks that fizzled out into pools of blood. The gunshots rang loud, only now they sounded like church bells. Everyone died with a too-big smile on his face.

When the SCAR clicked empty, the forest was stained crimson and smelled like gunpowder and vomit.

Guy dropped the rifle and reached for the 9mm. Only the woman still stood, clutching her baby close and surveying her dead family. She shook her head, and the dead deer covering her face twisted about until it faced backwards. Guy took aim.

“Reminds me of a song,” she said. “Sad song. Always makes my daddy cry.”

“Turn around,” Guy said. “Turn around, and go home.”

“You want to hear it?”

“Turn the fuck around or I’ll kill you!”

“It’s called ‘No One Dies Here.’”

The woman began to hum, and Guy ran passed, torn between shooting her in the back or simply putting a round into his own skull and calling it quits. The forest became a blur of stinging branches and large tree roots that threatened to trip him every other step. Sweat ran down his face and into his eyes. When his sides burned and his breathing labored, he forced himself to stop and drink another energy drink. His eyes felt like sandpaper, and his nerves twitched in ways he didn’t like. He was one bad cough away from falling to the ground or losing his mind. For all he knew, both had already happened.

It took most of the night, but Guy eventually found the edge of the forest. He stepped out, the ground going from dirt to gravel to concrete, and stopped. He screamed.

*

Frankfurt waited for him. The entire town clapped while church bells rang and the faint smell of an apple pie carried on the breeze, cooling in some windowsill in the middle of the night. A coyote that wasn’t a coyote whooped from deep in the forest. The entire town had come to see, their jaws hanging wide and clothing stained with blood. Chunks of flesh dangled where the SCAR had done its work, but no one acted hurt. Their too-large mouths cheered like Guy had just won some kind of prize.

Guy took aim with the 9mm. His hand shook. Sweat smeared his vision.

The crowd parted. A man Guy did not recognize parted the crowd, followed by the deputy from before. This new man also wore a police uniform, though his came with a shiny, golden badge. An empty holster dangled from his right hip. Guy took a step back. The man took another step forward.

“I told ya, Atii, I told ya he’d make it. Well, didn’t I tell you? Well didn’t I?” the deputy said. He grinned like this was all his idea.

“Boy howdy, you sure did, Barry!” Atti said through a wide smile. “Mhmm, mhmm!”

Atti was tall, well over six feet and too skinny to be real. The closer he got, the more he looked like a walking skeleton. The skin on his face clung so tightly to his skull that he had no wrinkles, and his eyes and mouth looked like they were made of plastic. He held out his hand for a shake.

“Stay back,” Guy whispered. “Get the fuck away from me, or I’ll—”

“Now calm down, sir. Calm down. I think there’s been a misunderstanding.” Atti made an awkward gesture with his hands. “See, this here’s Frankfurt Iowa. Why, we’re the most pleasant town around!”

“I’ll kill you.”

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

Barry laughed. “You hear that, Atti? He thinks he can kill you! Do you believe it? Funniest thing I ever heard.”

Guy continued to fall back, and the sheriff continued to march at him. He smiled. Guy waved his pistol.

“Sir, if you’d just put that down and listen, we could be on our way home.”

“Go away!”

The sheriff shook his head. “Afraid I can’t do that, either.”

Soon they were back in the forest, with thick trees blocking the sky and fake coyotes shuffling in the bushes. Leaves crunched beneath Guy’s feet. He tried not to trip over tree roots or loose stones, and he tried to keep in control, but everything was spiraling away. He waved his gun, going from the sheriff to the deputy. Would it even work? He had six bullets. He took aim at the deputy. The sheriff was the bigger threat, but he hated the stupid cop. This was his fault.

A hand gripped Guy’s shoulder. He stopped. His blood turned to ice. He could smell the dead deer on her head and the filth on her body, and he could feel her infant squirming against his back.

“Thankya, Clara,” Atti said. His hand fell towards his holster. Up close it wasn’t empty; it carried some kind of thin stick or twig. “My name is Atticus. Atticus God, and we got a place here in Frankfurt just for you.”

Guy’s voice caught in his throat. A shot rang out, thin and weak. He twitched. His finger was on the trigger, and a small hole smoked in the tree trunk to the right of Barry’s neck. The sheriff smiled, and his stupid deputy laughed. Guy took aim, but the woman grabbed his wrist and forced the gun to the ground. Her hands were cold. Her baby squalled into his back.

“Did you like my song?” she whispered.

“I’ll forgive that,” Atticus said. “Because we’re a forgiving lot here in Frankfurt. But first you gotta do something for me. See,” he pulled the stick from his holster. It was made of wood and looked gnarled and old. Someone had spent a long time sharpening it into a knife. “I need you to smile.”

“No,” Guy whispered, or maybe he mouthed. He stared at the knife that couldn’t be a knife, because it looked like a wand. All around him, the people of Frankfurt clapped. He was back in the town again. Blood leaked down the right half of his face.

“You want to hear another song?” Clara asked.

She let his hand go, and Guy put the gun to his chin. The barrel was cold. He closed his eyes.

“This one’s called, ‘Now You Live Here Too’.”

Guy pulled the trigger.

He did not die.

Ghost in the Rain

Word on the street said the ghost was back! Well, if by “street” you meant Discord and “said” you meant grainy images of the old Williamson bench in front of The Cande Shoppe. Skye gave their phone a quick flick and watched more pictures slide by. Out of focus. Filtered. Grainy. Dark. Ugly. Every picture was awful. It was drizzling out—had been for the past week—which explained some of the roughness, but only some. Even a novice photographer could work around a bit of rain. And of all the photographers in the group, Skye was the only novice. The rest knew their stuff. They had the equipment to back it up, too.

The ghost was back!

Skye loaded up a small shoulder bag with the usual going-out essentials plus camera and slung it in place. It was time to get to work! Or party. Did ghosts work, or did they party? Were they even real? Probably not, but it was nice to do a photo challenge for the group and not be the worst by default.

“Be back in an hour, Boo-Chan,” Skye hollered to their cat before heading out the door.

Their cat did not holler back.

*

Rockland Massachusetts sat somewhere between “big town” and “small city,” a.k.a. too small to have good public transit but too big to travel by foot. The Williamson bench was three miles away, and while the drizzle was only that, the clouds threatened more. Skye ruled out the bus right away. Being on that thing felt like being trapped in a corner. Foot was also out because of the rain. So was biking, what with today’s outfit consisting of a rather long, heavy skirt that wouldn’t play nice with gears or pedals. Uber meant spending money. No good adventure started with Uber anyhow.

“Skateboard it is.”

Skye waltzed to their parent’s empty garage to retrieve their old longboard, a full 41” of pressed wood, pink skulls, and peeling unicorn stickers. It had been years since Skye had skated, but “skaterboi” muscle memory was forever. Hopefully. Skye kicked off. The board accepted their weight without complaint, and the wheels glided over the concrete. Skye’s skirt fluttered about their ankles, almost a trip hazard, but only almost.

Strangers and neighbors alike offered waves as they tended their yards or walked their dogs, though most were more confused than friendly. Still, Skye waved back. A wave was better than a scowl. In a perfect world, everyone would be happy for them—because Skye was happy for the first time in what felt like forever—and in a really perfect world, everything confusing and stupid would have clicked into place the moment Skye bought the only pink skateboard in the mall 14 years ago. But, well, no one lived in that world. “It’s the journey, dear” Skye’s mother liked to say. “Not the destination.”

Of course, a truly perfect world could have its journeys and destinations without all the pain in between.

But a truly perfect world wouldn’t have ghosts.

*

With luck being a flighty creature and prone to illness, Skye found themself sitting in The Cande Shoppe with a cup of coffee in one hand and a sea-salt truffle in the other. They took a drink. They ate. The world, meanwhile, hissed like sizzling bacon as thick drops soaked everyone unlucky enough to not be stuck in a gourmet candy store. Skye watched the rain run down the windows and picked two drops. The one on the left looked like a winner, and when it reached the bottom first, Skye ate a piece of candy to celebrate. They repeated this game over and over, sometimes substituting candy for a drink of coffee until all the candy was gone. As far as adventures went, this one was relaxing.

Outside, perhaps 20 feet away, sat the Williamson bench. It accepted the falling water like a good piece of furniture made of stone and metal, not collecting it but letting it drain to the ground where it formed a large puddle. Its stone was white, its metal black. The phrase, “To my loving father, Doug Williams: We miss you everyday” was etched into the front in silver letters.

Skye pulled out their camera. It was an old Sony Cybershot, an antique compared to the cameras used in the photography discord, but what it lacked in megapixils and lighting options it made up for in being only $30 at the pawn shop. In many ways, Skye’s phone was better, but it just wasn’t the same.

They put the camera to their eye, watched the bench grow into focus and then quickly shift out, and took a picture.

“Huh.”

Skye repeated the process, doing what they could to make the camera behave. The bench refused to cooperate though, always turning grainy or distorted at the last second, as if someone was running a dirty thumb over the camera’s lens.

Or a ghost was getting in the way.

“You want a refill?” The barista behind the counter asked. She was young and cute, with a short nose, big eyes, and even bigger hair. An old timey ice-cream man hat embroidered with “The Cande Shoppe” in cursive letters sat atop her head.

“Sure,” Skye said, still focused on their camera. Maybe if they jacked the exposure to some obscene level…

The barista topped Skye’s cup off. “I like your hair.”

“Thanks!” Skye grinned. It was cut boyishly short and dyed dark fuschia. The same red-purple adorned their lips. “Was a home-brew job a few days ago. Got worried the rain might make it run, but so far so good.”

“They won’t let me dye my hair here.”

“That sucks.” Now that Skye knew they had options, their normal blonde was never coming back.

“Yeah.” The barista laughed. “Least I get this neat hat though.” She gave the small store a bored look and continued with: “What’s with the camera?”

Skye handed it over. “Trying to get a picture of the bench. It keeps going out of focus.”

“From the rain?” The barista turned the camera around and held it to her face. She snapped a picture and jumped at the loud shutter noise. “Did it work?”

“Lemme see.”

If Skye’s picture was smeared with a dirty thumb, the barista’s was covered with a palm. It was like the bench had vanished from sight.

“That’s … really creepy,” she said.

Skye nodded. “The bench is haunted. Or that’s what everyone’s been telling me since I was a kid. The Williamson ghost.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Me either.”

The rain continued its game, and Skye took another drink of coffee. The barista hovered around, either bored or curious or both. Skye offered to buy her something since there was no one else in the store, but the barista shook her head no.

“Not supposed to accept gifts from customers.”

“Your loss.”

“I can give you a gift though.”

Skye cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

The barista ran behind the counter, rummaged for something, and brought out a canary-yellow umbrella. She gave Skye a dangerous smile.

“I dare you to touch the ghost.”

*

Rain pattered against the umbrella. Skye walked slowly, their camera dangling around their neck, their heart fluttering in their chest. It had all seemed like a fun game an hour ago, a dumb art challenge for a dumb art group, but now that they were here…. Skye looked back. The barista offered a wave and a, “go on, go!” gesture.

“Better than a scowl,” Skye muttered.

The puddle around the bench pooled into a perfect circle, preferring to go large instead of deep. The bench, meanwhile, looked completely free of water. It was as dry as the inside of The Cande Shoppe. Skye tapped at the water with their shoe, not sure what to expect, and felt something move. The bench was empty. So was the street. They looked back, and even the barista was gone, no longer outside but peering through the glass in the door.

“Uh oh,” Skye said.

“Uh oh,” a voice repeated.

Skye jumped. The camera snapped from its lanyard and fell. They reached to catch it, but a pale hand found it first. Claws jutted from the fingernails, not black or white but seashell pink. Skye blinked. The arm was attached to a woman, equally pale in color with tints of blue about her face, chest, and shoulders. She sat on the bench with her legs crossed, naked save for turquoise scales that ran around her torso in waving patterns. The same scales wound around her wrists like bracelets.

She smiled. She held out Skye’s camera. Her face was both pretty yet otherworldly, made to be seen at a glance. Her lips were pure white, her eyes pure black. Blue hair fell over her shoulders like a waterfall.

“You’re not Mr. Williamson,” Skye said.

“I am not.” Her voice was both high pitched yet husky.

“You’re not a ghost, either.”

The woman shook her head. “I am not.”

Skye grabbed their camera. “I’m uh, sorry to have bothered you?” They took a step back. Bits and pieces of folklore wound their way through their head, none ending well. If it wasn’t a ghost, that meant it was something else. Something elses weren’t usually known for their altruism. Or not-commit-murderism.

The not-a-ghost shrugged. She gave the puddle a kick, and a torrent of water blew high into the air, like a river running up instead of down. The water hovered.

Skye took another step back.

“More of you came this week, with your strange devices.” She reached over and tapped at Skye’s camera. Her arms were impossibly long. “I don’t know why.”

 “Uh….”

 “I appreciate the company though.”

“Huh….”

With a wave, the pale woman brought the hovering droplets back to the ground. Fog shifted around them, forming a ring that blocked the outside world. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Skye tried to back away again, but when they hit the fog, they stopped. It was like pushing against glass. Their heart fluttered into their throat.

“What lengths would you … how far would you go to be happy? To which end of the Earth?”

“All the way,” Skye said without hesitation. “I went to one end, and then the other.”

“And are you happy?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” The woman stepped into the water, and instead of a splash, sunk to her knees, putting her face-to-face with Skye. Up close, her eyes were like black pits. Or maybe black holes. “I have been to the ends of the earth. They are scary places. Sharp. Filled with ghosts.”

Skye swallowed at that, and the woman tugged at the spit in their throat. She could control all water.

“But so is being here.” The woman shrugged at the rain, swirling and twisting it together into first a mirror, and then a window.

Instead of Rockland Massachusetts, Skye looked out at a wide lake, one with playful currents and weed-infested beaches. Strange birds flew through the air, and elk with antlers as wide as cars nibbled at the grass. The clouds were so thick it was like Skye could reach up and squish them.

“This was once a lake,” the woman said. “My lake.” She shrugged again, and the mirror cracked into falling water. “Now it is … this.”

Skye nodded. They didn’t know what else to do.

“But when it rains, I can pretend. I can sit, and I can see it just like it used to be. But only when it rains.”

“And you don’t want to do that anymore.”

The woman shook her head. “I am tired of pretending. It made me happy once, but now it is like eating air. I cannot continue this existence.”

Skye brushed their skirt out of the way and sat on the bench. The hem drooped into the water and darkened. “Well, what do you want to do?”

“I can change.” The woman hugged herself and submerged further into the water, until it covered her nose. She stared at Skye with tired, black hole eyes. “But I am afraid. What if changing makes me more unhappy? What if I miss being a water nymph?”

“Okay,” Skye said. They reached out a hand, and the nymph took it. Her fingers were smooth and wet, almost dainty, yet their grip was impossibly strong. Like iron. Or magic. “That makes sense.”

“It does?”

Skye nodded. “Yeah. Yeah it does.”

With Skye’s help, the nymph stepped out of her pool and sat on the bench. Water did not fall from her but instead clung to her like a second skin. Together, they stared at the rain-drenched city. Birds chirped and bathed in the dripping water, and squirrels darted from tree to tree looking for food. Two buildings over, a dog pressed its smiling face against the glass and barked. Skye waved, and the dog’s tail burst into wagging.

Yet trash soaked in puddles, and instead of meadow there were roads and cars and plastic. Tired people fled the falling water; the place hummed with city noises. Concrete spread further than any grass could hope to do.

“I want to continue living here,” the nymph said. “Even if my home is gone, it is still here. In the dirt. In the ghosts. And I can change, but what if I cease to be? My lake vanished. I can too.”

“You won’t,” Skye said.

“How—”

“Because you define you. Be happy and be comfortable, and go no further. You won’t need to.” Skye smiled. “You’ll know when you get it right, too.”

The nymph shook her head. “I am of nature. There are no city nymphs.”

“Liar,” Skye said. “I’m looking at one.”        

*

When Skye got home, soaking wet but in good spirits, they logged into their computer and dragged the two lousy images of the Williamson bench over. Four seconds later, and they were being admired in Rockland’s photography Discord, just as grainy and out of focus as all the others. It was, everyone agreed, the strangest set of pictures any of them had ever seen. A ghost without a ghost, and that made it undeniable proof that ghosts existed.

Skye smiled.

*

The next day, with the sun beating overhead and afternoon traffic clogging the streets, Skye grabbed their skateboard and headed back to The Cande Shoppe. Their bag played home to a folded up umbrella in need of being returned, one bottle of water for Skye, and a second for the nymph. The forecast was for six straight days of sun and heat, and it wasn’t fair that she only got to see her lake when it rained.

20oz of water wasn’t much, but the nymph only needed a few drops to make her window. This would work. At least until she got used to being a city nymph.

Life on Venus

Editor’s Note: this was cowritten by Nezumi of the Resetera writer’s group and myself

“Well. You’re her pet. How do you plan on cleaning this up?” Jupiter asked, scowling his way through the question.

They were standing in front of a pissed-off dragon, its mound of treasure, and a pile of ash that was once human. Smoke puffed from the dragon’s nose as it snuffled into its glittering pile like a hog mud. It flared its tiny wings in an effort to look bigger and pawed at the ground with sharp hooves. Clypeus knew the only reason it hadn’t attacked yet was because it recognized him.

The golem sighed. Every muscle in his body hurt for no other reason than to spite him. One of Venus’ little “jokes”. He kicked at the pile of ash on the ground, and in a blink, conjured a breeze to take it away.

“The dragon did—”

“The dragon should not exist!” Jupiter roared. He pointed one furious finger at the beast. “You need to stop it! And then you need to stop her!”

“I cannot.”

“I am the king of Gods! You will do as I say!”

Clypeus shook his head. “She is the king of me.”

Jupiter turned his fury on the golem. The statues did him both right and wrong. His flesh bulged and glistened, yet it looked more like marble than skin. Even his giant mane of hair was as immovable as mountains. His height too, was right, the god towering over the golem by at least a head. The wrongness was one of tone. The statues depicted a deity with power and empathy. Jupiter had power, but empathy was for those beneath him.

“Kill it.”

Clypeus flinched. He considered pleading with Jupiter for the creature’s life but knew better. He approached the dragon. He  hated killing, but he was a tool. Tools obeyed the hands that owned them. He could not disappoint Jupiter or Venus, so he cursed back tears as the sky turned dark. Lightning erupted from his spear. The dragon crumpled onto its treasure pile, blood staining the gold.

“I should be protecting you, not them,” Clypeus whispered.

“Oh?” Jupiter mused. “And what does she gain from this?

A shrug, another sigh. “Humans like their fairy tales. They are … powerful.”

Jupiter snorted. “If that’s her plan, then she’s wasting my time and yours. It will take more than a few dragons and stolen trinkets to power her way back to Earth.”

“She considers it a challenge.”

“So be it,” Jupiter snapped. “If war is what she wants, then war is what she gets. And make no mistake: I will not be merciful this time.”

Clypeus considered arguing this, but tools were not made for arguing.

The king of Gods let his fury fall, and underneath was disdain. “There’s some other beast of hers terrorizing the shores of Caria. Go kill it.”

Jupiter vanished from sight.

*

Clypeus walked over to what remained of the dragon. He gently placed his hand on the dead creature’s head and extinguished the body. It deteriorated before his eyes, the flesh falling to the ground and fizzling out of existence. All that remained were rancid fumes and a small gem glistening green in the warm sun.

“I’m sorry,” Clypeus murmured. He bent down to pick up the jewel.

With the tip of his spear, he drew a pair of crossing lines in the dirt and topped that with a circle. Without sparing his surroundings another thought, he thrust his spear into the circle. He closed his eyes.

When Clypeus opened his eyes, he was no longer on Earth. The ground burned hot enough to melt the feet of any human and most gods, and the air pressure threatened equal demise. Clypeus, however, was neither human nor god so all he felt was a warm tingle as he walked towards a purple glowing dome that rose from the ground not far away. 

A large shadow fell over Clypeus and he glanced up to see a skywhale soaring through the atmosphere, diving in and out of the acidic overcast that blanketed the sky from horizon to horizon, its mouth wide open as it sifted the clouds for microscopic prey.

Clypeus smiled as he spotted a smaller one, gliding in the shadow of the first, clinging as close as possible. At least here their children could thrive.

He reached the dome and stepped through the protective barrier as if it didn’t exist. 

The shift in temperature and pressure was immediate, but Clypeus’s body adjusted just as swiftly.

*

Venus lounged on a blanket in a midst of alien plantlife and small, mythical creatures. Her hair was a messy tangle that looked nothing like the gentle waves she sported on portraits back on Earth. Her face may have been considered pretty once, but just like Jupiter’s, now lacked the necessary empathy to invoke any feelings of love.

“Well?” she asked.

Clypeus retrieved the Gem Seed from his pouch and tossed it to her. 

“Jupiter,” was all he said. There was nothing else he could have done.

“Did someone witness the killing?” she asked eagerly.

Clypeus shook his head. “There was a human male, but the dragon killed him.”

Venus cursed. “Well, that was a waste of time.”

She tossed the Seed over her shoulder, where it passed through the barrier and vanished.

She reached into her disheveled robe for a pouch with Ceres’ crest embroidered on it. “Let’s see. There must be something useful in here…” She pulled out another Gem Seed, this one glittering bright orange, and walked over to a small table that held an assortment of instruments. 

Clypeus stared at the point where the gem had exited the barrier. “I had hoped you might consider reawakening it.”

Venus turned in surprise. “Excuse me?”

“The dragon. I had hoped you might want to revive it. To join its older brothers outside.”

“Absolutely not.” Venus turned back to her work station.

“But….”

“In retrospect, I think giving you a tongue, was a bad idea. Maybe I should remove it?”

Clypeus fell silent at the threat and let her continue her work.

He closed his eyes and in his mind journeyed over the scorching plains and volcanic hills of Venus’s surface. They had been empty and barren upon his first awakening, but now skywhales roamed the skies, dragons populated the lakes of molten metal, and herds of unicorns traversed the planes, drilling into the ground with their horns in search of minerals. Slowly but surely he and Venus had turned this place into a home, if only it would have been enough for her. 

“Time for you to do your thing,” Venus’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.

She held out the Gem Seed, now engraved with various symbols and phrases. It pulsed with a bright, powerful light. Clypeus carefully cupped it in his bulky hands. He could feel the tiny spark of life beating inside, eager to grow. Eager to be alive. He brought the Seed to his face and very gently and carefully breathed into it, calling forth the power inside him to imbue protection. Their child would need it to survive.

“Good,” Venus said when he was finished. “Now take this to Earth and plant it in a forest, but make sure there is some civilization nearby. And when you are done I need you take a look at the seed in Caria. I want to know its progress.”

Clypeus froze.

“Did you not hear me??” Venus inquired as she noticed his hesitation.

“Jupiter also told me to go to Caria,” he said. He wished he could lie to her.

“Oh, well, better hurry then.” Venus smiled in a way Clypeus did not like.

*

Clypeus weaved his way through Caria, passed a thousand fishmongers and ten thousand smells, none to his taste. He did not need to eat. He would not dine on flesh if he did. He was a protector, the mightiest tool in the pantheon. He could stop flaming swords, thunderbolts, and even Pluto’s deathly touch. He was made to protect, not kill.

Yet he carried a spear, and soon he would murder another of his children.

If Caria was besieged by some great threat, however, it did not show it. Children played and adults worked, and the poor were herded out of sight by peacekeepers adorned with gold helmets. No one spoke of sea monsters, dead fish, or ruined boats. Clypeus found this strange, as most of Venus’s water creatures tended to be grotesque. For every skywhale there were six krakens or sea serpents. He expected cries for help.

By the time he reached the shore, the sun was beginning to set, spilling purple and orange across the sky. Large, white sails dotted the landscape like pointed rocks. People milled about, many pointing, and Clypeus followed their arms to a dark spot in the water. He recognized it at once.

“No,” he whispered. “No. Not this. I cannot do this.”

Because there were no oceans on Venus the creature lived in the air, gliding through the acidic skies feasting on tiny plantlife. Its face was long and sad, its eyes intelligent. Its tail could crush Neptune’s biggest boats. At night, it sang to its children in loud, long breaths that sounded like wind whistling through a keyhole. Clypeus watched the skywhale breach the surface and spray ocean water a mile into the air. Those on the shore clapped.

“They are not dangerous,” Clypeus said in defiance to his orders. “This is not a dragon! No harm will come from it!”

The golem sat. He was more metal and leather than flesh, yet he could feel the sand. It ground into his joints and tickled between his toes. He dropped his spear so he could scoop handfuls and let them fall between his fingers. There was a beauty to Earth he had never gotten to experience before Venus granted him life, one that even its most powerful deities didn’t understand. 

The night passed. The stars twinkled in the heavens, and the moon approached its end horizon, ready to nap for another day. Clypeus grabbed his spear, though he would not use it this night. Jupiter could not make him kill a whale.

And then a group of people marched onto the beach, each clad in red robes. One lit a candle. The others carried red flowers. They fanned out as a unit, a song for Venus loud on their lips. When they walked into the water, the whale sang back. Clypeus watched them bow and pray.

“Oh,” he said.

It all made sense—until it didn’t. Clypeus had seen several rituals in honor to Venus, with their honey, candles, and destruction of a single coin, yet half of these men unsheathed weapons. Those armed moved back towards the shore and formed a small defensive perimeter while those in the water continued to sing. The whale sprayed more ocean into the sky.

Clypeus stood. He could not be killed by mortals, at least not easily, so he approached the armed men without worry, his spear in his hands though the tip pointed towards the sand.

“Who are you?” a woman called. She eyed Clypeus’s weapon and readied her own, though she held it like someone new to the weapon. “Don’t come any closer!”

“What are you doing here?”

“They said you would come,” she gasped. “That you’ll murder this creature.” 

Though he could not blush, guilt drove his posture. Clypeus shook his head, and the woman did not believe him.

“Who told you this?” he asked.

The woman quivered. “She did. A prophet, one dressed in red. She…” but the woman trailed off, bracing for the attack that would immortalize her name.

Clypeus nodded. He tried to control the rage simmering below the surface, tried to prevent bolts of lightning from striking every idiot on this beach. Except he was the only idiot. Venus was playing him, and Jupiter was playing him. It was all so stupid. Yet it was elegant too. If fairytales held power, then martyrdom held godhood.

“I will not kill you,” Clypeus said. “Nor will I kill the child of Venus.”

No more, the golem vowed. He was done with his masters. He turned to walk away, his spear death-gripped in his molded hands. Halfway up the beach, it occurred to the golem what he had just done. He had made a decision. And if he made one, that meant that he could make more.

The whale sang, and the ocean whisked his footprints away.

*

“What an unexpected visitor.”

Jupiter lounged on his throne in a way that would not be fit for any human king, let alone the King of Gods, but he seemed not to care, and neither did the gathering of lesser Gods that filled his hall with the laugher. Jupiter’s festive merriment was eternal.

Clypeus bowed his head and hoped that Jupiter was too self absorbed to notice his nervousness.

“My King. I have reconsidered your past request.”

Jupiter lifted an eyebrow. “Have you now? A pleasant surprise. So did you do as I asked and put an end to that nuisance of a woman?”

Clypeus braced himself for what he had to do next.

“No. As I told you I cannot do that. As you are the King of me here on Earth she is the Queen of me in her domain, and I must do her wish as I must do yours down here. However….”

Clypeus paused for dramatic effect and indeed Jupiter leaned closer.

“There is nothing keeping me from transporting you into her domain, and once you are there, I would have to do your bidding as much as hers.”

Jupiter considered that for a moment. “And you would choose me? In that instant?”

“I was your shield first.” Clypeus fell to one knee. “I’m begging you, my king, free me from her.”

Head bent low, Clypeus waited for a few agonizing moments, before the sound of Jupiter’s rustling robes made him look up.

“Bring me to her,” the God demanded.

Clypeus got up and, with the tip of his spear, drew the symbol of Venus.

*

The rapid journey through space took its toll even on the King of Gods as Jupiter threatened to fall when they arrived in the middle of the protective dome.

“Finally!” Venus shouted. “What has happened? I’ve been waiting–”

She stopped her head-long rush when she saw Jupiter standing beside Clypeus. Rage swept over her face. “How dare you!”

Jupiter pointed at Venus. “You’re little games stop now. I should have put you to death immediately instead of granting you the mercy of exile.”  A bundle of lightning appeared in his fist.

Venus threw her head back and laughed. “Mercy? Don’t you dare talk about mercy. I’ve seen the kind of mercy you have granted in the past. And you.” She turned to Clypeus. “So this is how you thank me for the gift I gave you?”

The golem answered not with words but with the protective barrier. He was a shield, a tool to keep people safe. It was why Venus stole him above all the other trinkets she needed to survive on her namesake planet. But Clypeus was no longer just a shield; by giving him life she had also given choice. The barrier’s purple glow dimmed, and the change in hue brought with it a change in temperature.

Sweat broke out from Jupiter’s skin and his beard started to smolder. Blisters exploded on his skin.

“What is this!” he roared in fear and anger. He rounded on Clypeus, lightning in his hands. “Stop this! Do as I tell you. I’m your God, you have to follow my word!”

“No.”

The king of Gods cast the lightning, and thunder shook the dome. Clypeus did not even blink. He had been forged to protect everyone from everything, even Jupiter’s wrath. It was ironic in a way that deep down even the Gods knew that they could not be trusted. 

On the other side of the dome, Venus burned and laughed. Flames covered her entire body. Clypeus walked over to her, unnoticed, as her eyes had already melted away. Unperturbed by the flames he grabbed the magic pouch with the Seed Gems before he turned his back towards both Gods and stepped away.

Only the faintest hint of purple remained of the barrier as Clypeus stepped through it. He turned around and eyed the two Gods writhing on the ground as their powers drew out their demise.

He watched for a few more seconds, then shook his head.

“No more killing,” he murmured to himself and with a wave of his hand the barrier began to strengthen once more. He turned away from the dome. The Gods would recover and maybe in time they would see the error of their ways. Maybe they wouldn’t. Clypeus didn’t care. Above him the acid storms roared and the skywhales sang. 

A Promise

Crossing the bridge feels like entering another world. It is old, rickety and worn, sunbleached despite the dense canopy of oak trees and never-ending fog. The boards crack with every footstep. The boys laugh and jump, and the bridge shifts with their weight, threatening to break but only threatening. Magic is not the kind of thing that breaks. Once upon a time, the bridge ran over a little stream, and once upon a time, fairies used it to come and go, pranks perched upon the tips of their fingers and secrets dancing on their lips.

The boys follow the road until it turns into a narrow deer path, and here they continue, grabbing at falling leaves and jumping at high branches. Their play shakes the trees, which are old but not so old they’ve forgotten what life used to be like. They remember, and so do the ghosts. So do the nuts and grubs, and underneath, so do the bodies buried in shallow graves.

A breeze blows, turning the leaves into a soft chuckle. Magic stirs.

It takes ten minutes of meandering play for the boys to find an opening in the grove. It’s a perfect circle, a place once known for its power, but now it is thick grass and even thicker roots. Weedy flowers grow in mismatched patches. To the trained eye, there are signs of civilization: little rings of mushrooms in measured spots or quartz stone gleaming in rocks not known for their shine. The ground smells too earthy, too rich to be simple dirt.

The boys, however, are not trained in the old ways. They see a grove, a place to play, a place to be alone. Each digs into his backpack.

The first boy is short, his voice brighter than a bird’s call. His hair is black, his glasses thick. His eyes are the same color as the moss growing along the rocks. He finds his tree. Like the rest of the grove, his sapling is an oak, shoved into a small, white pot and worn from the trip. He was not very careful.

The second boy is also short, though in a lean way that makes him look like a stick. His hair is blaze-orange, his eyes brown. Sometimes he wishes he had more interesting eyes. Sometimes he wishes he was normal. His sapling is a maple, its green leaves soft and tinted grey.

“Should we plant them here, or further on?” the first asks. His name is James.

“Dunno,” the second says. He breathes heavy, already tired from their games even though they’ve barely started. His name is Braden.

“Then here works just as well as further on.”

Braden reaches back into his pack for a small trowel, expertly swiped from his neighbor’s shed, and James does the same. They get down on their hands and knees to dig. The earth is soft, lush and easily moved, and it doesn’t take long for each boy to have a new home ready for his tree. Dirt manages to grind its way into every crevice of their clothing, which has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the nature of dirt. The magic, however, does watch. The grove and its ghosts do, too.

Not one for fineness, James digs and yanks until his sapling is free of its white pot. Its little stem droops. One of its leaves falls off. James only shrugs and shoves the baby tree into the ground, figuring the dirt and air will solve all of its problems. In any other grove he would be wrong. Here, however, in another world with different rules, the earth gives more than it takes. The sapling straightens as soon as its roots are covered.

“Huh,” Braden says. “Didn’t know it worked like that.”

“That’s ‘cus you read too much,” James says. He smirks, and Braden shoves him. “Now do yours.”

“Okay.”

Braden eyes the ground. He’s dug his hole too close to James’s, and he’s afraid it won’t work. The trees will compete for water and sunlight, their roots will tangle and wither. But more than that, he’s afraid they won’t get along. What if they argue? What if they fight?

What if one of them gets sick and has to move away?

“Just do it,” James says.

“I think the hole is too close.”

James shoves Braden. “I think you’re too close!”

“This is serious,” Braden says. “It’s a promise.”

James nods. “I know.” He holds Braden’s hand in a way he knows he’s not supposed to. No one has told him this; he just knows the adults will scowl and tell him it’s wrong. Gross. These trees though, it’s okay if they’re together. They can be while Braden and James are not.

“Okay,” Braden says, his mind made up. “I’ll plant it here.”

With James’s help, Braden frees his maple from its pot and places it into the ground. Together, they cover over its roots with dirt.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Braden asks.

“I promise.” James smirks. He squeezes Braden’s hand again, and Braden squeezes back. “I promise, and in ten years, we’ll meet at this spot and these trees will be so big we won’t recognize them!”

Braden knows this isn’t true, that trees don’t grow that fast, but he nods anyways. He wants to believe. He lets the thought play through his mind like he through a forest, and the magic is there to accept his call. Like the trees and the ghosts, it remembers.

“It’s a promise.”

The two hold hands as they walk away, retracing their steps over old graves and older dirt. The ghosts watch them pass. A few wave, though none are seen. The boys are too busy looking up at the misty sky, spotting shapes in the swirls of fog. Most look like dragons.

And behind them, their trees grow, their trunks intertwining like a braid.

A Jester and a Fool

Remos watched the jester approach the king’s private chambers for the tenth night in a row. She wore her normal motley—a patchwork of green, purple, and gold—and carried with her an assortment of random items. The bells normally attached to her hat were gone, as were her squeaky shoes. She walked like a thief. Remos did not scowl or groan, for he was a good knight and a good guard who kept to his business, yet this was fast becoming a mystery. The king did not allow anyone to disturb him at night. He had what the doctors and apothecaries called insomnia.

So why the jester?

“Ms,” Remos whispered. “‘Tis a late hour.”

She smiled sweetly at him. Her stage name was Flutter. Only the king knew her real name. Her face was somewhat plain, with dirty-blonde hair that tangled instead of flowed, and she had a slight hook to her nose. Long ago, someone had hit her hard enough to break it. By all accounts then she was a commoner, though everyone who knew her knew that couldn’t be true.

“It is,” she whispered. She had a very practiced whisper. It did not grate or carry or betray secrets. It was a thief’s whisper.

Or maybe a witch’s whisper.

“The king is not to be disturbed.”

Flutter motioned for Remos to move aside. “I’m not a disturbance.”

Remos moved. After nine days, he knew arguing wouldn’t work. The king wanted his jester at this late hour.

At first he assumed they were having sex. A king was due his fun in every definition of the word, yet there were prettier women in the castle. Younger too. And no decent king would stoop to soliciting his jester! But he never heard the telltale sounds of sex crawl underneath the door, and looking into Flutter’s sea-green eyes, he did not think she would stoop to something so low, not even for a king.

“Are you a witch?” Remos whispered.

Flutter cocked an eyebrow. “Are you an idiot?”

Without waiting for a response, not that Remos had one, Flutter pushed the door open with her shoulder and gently stepped inside.

“Close the door for me,” she whispered.

Remos did.

The knight stood in silence, though his mind was its own roar. He remembered when Flutter showed up in court, wearing her motley and dancing for everyone. She was not a good dancer. That made it funny of sorts; then she sang, and while she was not bad enough to be funny, she was not good enough to be good. Her juggling was equally unimpressive, with half the balls bouncing along the floor save the one which landed in Lord Pepper’s soup. That was funny but unintentionally so.

Surely there were better jesters in the land! Remos thought it, and he knew everyone else thought it, too.

Flutter had finished her entertainment with a poem. It was long and rousing, the story of a kingdom at war with another and two lovers caught in the middle. She entranced everyone. Flutter could talk. She could capture people with a net of words and cadence, and when she was done, she had forced the crowd to truly ponder her story. She had made the room just a little more empathetic.

That was, Remos believed, pretty witchy. He couldn’t explain it any other way.

But if Flutter was a witch, she wasn’t the kind he knew to be wary of. Her nose was broken yes, but not covered in boils. She did not cackle when she laughed. She never showed interest in brooms either, for riding or for sweeping. Potions though? Curses? Deals with the devil? Remos couldn’t be sure.

“She carries a strange assortment of goods into the king’s room,” The knight mused, his voice just a hair above a whisper. He cringed. He knew better than to talk while on duty! Why, in all of years of taking the night watch, he had never talked on duty!

Surely then, Flutter was a witch. Only a spell would make him do something so foolish.

Remos knew he must save his king.

He would need to be thoughtful though. There would only be one chance to get this right. Flutter would have laid traps, either with her words or her spells, and if Remos failed, his king would be doomed. “Think,” he hissed. “What spells is she casting?”

Well, the items she carried must be a clue. Remos knew them well enough. First there was the wooden box. It was about the size of his forearm in length, the size of his foot in height, and the size of his wrist in width. Only something truly magical could fit inside. Then there was the wooden stick, which obviously was a wand! Though it was a straight stick, quite polished and capped with a piece of metal. Witches only used gnarled, dark wood for their wands.

“But Flutter is too smart! So of course she would magic something more unassuming!”

Finally there was the glass cup. It was always empty when she entered, but maybe she was collecting something from the king, some fluid. Or maybe the ingredients were in the box! Yes! It was Flutter’s secret cauldron.

Remos unsheathed his sword. All the evidence was there, and witches surely had been burned for less. He must save his king, foil Flutter’s evil plans, and rest assured that he was indeed a good knight.

He gripped his weapon.

He steeled himself.

He flung the door open.

He let the weapon fall and felt his jaw go slack.

The king lay propped in his bed, his head against a thick blue pillow, his eyes half open. Flutter sat next to him on a small stool. She held the wooden box in both hands, her fingers tapping along its face. First they moved lightly yet lightning fast, then slower but with more obvious thuds. The king shivered.

“Yer majesty has a very pretty horse,” Flutter whispered. The whisper was strange, crackly like her mouth was full of spit. She put too much emphasis on every consonant. “Pretty like a pony that goes clop clop clop.” She tapped her hands against the box.

The king smiled. His eyes closed further.

Flutter grabbed her wand and drew it across the box in slow circles. It made, Remos found, a rather pleasant sound. Little tingles ran up and down his back.

Next she grabbed her cup, her secret cauldron. Remos waited for her to throw some ingredients in or begin a spell, but instead Flutter ran her finger around the rim. The glass wasn’t fancy enough to make a hum, but it did produce a quiet dragging sound. She leaned over the king and did this a few times in each ear.

“Tomorrow,” Flutter whispered. She set her cup down and picked up her wand and box. She dragged one across the other. “Lord Gerdwell will come to visit. He wishes to talk to you about his daughter.”

“Mmhm,” the king groaned.

Remos hefted his sword again. Here it comes! This was a spell—a goddamned strange one to be sure, but a spell—and Flutter was about to work her witchly influence on the king! She would sway his mind for her gain, and then she would … she would … Remos dropped his sword again. He truly did not understand any of this whatsoever.

“A king will do what he wishes,” Flutter whispered. The king nodded. Or maybe he fell just a bit deeper into his pillow. “Lord Gerdwell’s sigil is that of a lion, but it looks like an itty bitty kitty.” The last line sent tremors up Remos’s back.

It sent the king into a snoring fit.

“Sleep tight,” Flutter whispered, though louder. “I’ll return tomorrow.”

The jester collected her things and turned for the door. She cocked an eyebrow. Remos blushed.

“I suggest you walk with a light step,” she said. “Or his majesty will wake.”

Remos nodded. “What … what is this?”

Flutter shrugged. “Exactly what it looks like. Are you still an idiot?”

“I guess.” Remos held the door so Flutter could exit without trouble. The king snored and sank further into his bed, sound asleep. Tomorrow was a new day, and he would be well rested to serve his kingdom.

Remos meanwhile, spent the rest of his shift practicing his stage whisper, because he was a good knight and a good guard. His king might need him some day.

Morse Code

“I’m tellin’ you, it’s Morse Code!” Erik shouted, talking more with his hands than his mouth. His eyes were bloodshot. His clothes smelled like weed. “Listen!”

“Erik…” Jacob sighed. “You really gotta lay off the green, man.”

“Short short short, long long long, short short short.” Erik put his lips together and hummed along to the small office fan. “S.O.S. You gotta hear it.”

Jacob did not hear it.  He slapped at the fan, which was, by all accounts, completely normal. Black plastic, three speed, a thin wire cage to let air out but not fingers in. If he got real close and blew into it, he’d sound like a budget Darth Vader.

“It’s not Morse code, dude. It’s just dirty. Clean it and it’ll stop.”

Erik shook his head. “No dude, something BAD is about to happen. The fan knows.” Erik laughed, hiccupped, and then grew exhausted. He sat his on his bed. “I bet it’s aliens.”

“You always think its aliens.”

“It always is!”

“It never is, you idiot. Now lay off the weed for a few days, okay? I honestly think it’s frying your brain.” It’s like Erik had been leaking IQ points over the last month and a half. And Jacob was sick of his apartment smelling like a weed dealership. When it came time to move, they were not getting their deposit back.

“Short short—”

“Do me a favor. Let’s take it apart and clean it.”

“Why?”

“I dunno? Because the aliens fucking said so.”

Erik thought on this before nodding. “Can we eat first?”

*Two hours later*

Jacob and Erik arrived back from the hardware store with two plastic bags, one containing a single screwdriver, the other three meals from McDonalds. It turned out neither of them owned any tools.

“Alright,” Jacob said. “Let’s crack this thing apart.”

“Food first.”

“You’re gonna get fat, dude.”

Erik unwrapped a Big Mac. The sweet scent of grease and processed meat filled the apartment. “Do you want me to eat yours, too?”

“Give me that.”

*Forty minutes later*

The fan came apart much harder than either expected, partly because the screws were rusted to hell, and partly because Erik lost his mind when Jacob pulled the flat head out to use the Phillips one. However, the fan was now in tatters, its blade lying on the floor, the six screws in a little pile of shame. The wire cage was buried under a mound of McDonald’s wrappers. Jacob chiseled at the motor shaft with the screwdriver, trying to get Erik’s hair off.

“Jesus dude, how the hell is this this dirty. Your hair isn’t even this long!”

“I dunno,” Erik mumbled. He crawled into bed and hugged his pillow. “I’m tired.”

“No shit. You ate two full meals, drank half a gallon of Coke, and then spent twenty minutes on the toilet because you’re stomach hasn’t had a vegetable in over a year.”

“Ha.”

Jacob almost stabbed his friend with the screwdriver. “It’s not funny, dude.”

“It’s probably aliens.”

“Idiot.”

Jacob went back to cleaning the fan, and after a few more minutes of hard elbow grease, managed to de-hair it. He looked at Erik, sighed, swore, and then thought about stabbing him again. But no, it wasn’t worth it.

*Six hours later*

Erik woke with a mouth that tasted like eight pounds of cotton, a nasty headache, and his fan pulsing in a very alien way. It was no longer saying S.O.S. but spouting a full-blown sentence. He scrambled out of bed and ran to his desk for a pen. If he closed his eyes, he could just make it out.

“Slow down, for fuck’s sake,” he mumbled. “I feel like shit.”

To his surprise, the fan slowed. The shorts and longs became recognizable. Erik scribbled the words out as best he could. He’d decode it later.

“Fuck, maybe I am smoking too much weed.”

After ten minutes of writing what appeared to be the same pattern over and over again, Erik looked at his alarm clock and crawled back into bed. He could be an hour late tomorrow. His boss wouldn’t fire him for that. At least, he hadn’t yet.

When he realized it was too hard to sleep with a fan jabbering alien code, he turned it off and rolled on his side. The room’s silence stole over him, thick and suffocating. Erik began to sweat, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something evil waited in his closet.

“Fuck,” he hissed. His head throbbed. “Fuck.”

Erik went to the living room. He turned the T.V. on, sprawled onto the couch, and quickly fell asleep.

*Two hours later*

“Dude, get the fuck up!” Jacob shouted. For some reason, he was holding the screwdriver again, Phillips head out. It was pointy. “If you’re late again—”

“Shit, shit shit,” Erik cried. He rolled off the couch in a useless pile of limbs. His face was pale, and for a split second, Jacob wondered if he should take his roommate to the hospital. But no, this was the weed and the junk food. Sympathy was for people who were actually sick.

“If you get fired, I swear I’m kicking you the fuck out.”

“I’m going!” Erik shouted. His eyes were so bloodshot he looked like some kind of fantasy vampire. “Fuck!”

Jacob watched him scramble out of the house, fully dressed but not showered. Erik stuffed a piece of paper into his pocket before he slammed the door.

*Nine hours later*

Erik crawled into the house feeling like a robber. He tiptoed through the living room, coughed into his elbow, and then every-so-slowly made his way to his bedroom. The door tended to squeal, so he left it open. Better to do this quietly, in case Jacob started asking questions he really did not want to answer. Like how he got fired for showing up to work late for the fifth day in a row. Well that and steeling a candy bar. Stupid grocery store.

He unwrapped his note and sat at his computer desk, ready to decode it. It was a long note, or at least longer than the previous one, but Morse Code was a strange language. A bunch of dashes and dots might only be one single word. Hell, for all he knew, his fan wanted him to drink his Ovaltine!

Erik giggled. He was high again.

There were perfectly good translators online, but Erik decided to translate this by hand. The aliens would be really upset if he took shortcuts. He pulled up a website that defined every letter by its dots and dashes and got to work. After an hour of squinting, giggling, and almost falling asleep, he had his directive.

Get clean. Mother is coming.

“Fuck,” Erik said. “The aliens know I’m a pothead.”

This caused him to laugh so hard that Jacob barreled into his room, and the two proceeded to have a very loud, very violent fight that ended in a broken door, a busted lip, and an eviction notice. Or what Erik considered the threat of an eviction notice. His eye stung, but really, Jacob was being an asshole. He refused to believe that Mother was coming, that the only explanation was this: Mother was a mothership.

“I’m going to space,” Erik said to his bathroom reflection. His reflection bled.

*Eight hours later*

Jacob woke up to the toilet flushing. This wouldn’t normally be a cause for alarm, but one flush turned into two which turned into three. Erik had a bad stomach, but not that bad. Jacob looked at the clock, which read 9:00, and swore himself out of bed.

“Motherfucker.”

He barreled into the bathroom not giving a goddamn shit about privacy, and almost fell over.

“What ARE you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Erik said with a plastic grin. “Mother is coming.”

“What?”

Erik dumped a glop of green into the toilet and flushed it. Jacob watched $20 worth of weed swirl around until the black hole sucked it away forever. The toilet gurgled.

“I think there’s something living in my closet,” Erik said. “I looked this morning and didn’t see anything, but it was there last night.”

“Right.” Jacob slumped against the wall. On the one hand, he wanted his roommate clean; on the other, he was legit worried now. Erik would never throw away weed. Ever. “What happened yesterday after we got done … talking.”

Erik shrugged. “I gotta go to Target to get a new fan. Mine is broken. You need anything?”

“We could use more toothpaste.”

“‘K.”

Jacob watched Erik shuffle out of his room, looking more like a zombie sober than he ever did stoned out of his mind.

*Twelve hours later*

Erik plugged in his new fan and thanked God it wasn’t speaking in alien. He didn’t feel good. If he was being honest with himself, he was downright terrified. It was stupid, so stupid, but he didn’t just make that pattern up. It was there, and it had a message for him. Mother was coming.

He looked at his closet and knew something waited for him.

“Go away,” he whispered. “Just go away. I don’t feel good.”

His old fan turned on. Erik yelped. It wasn’t even plugged in. It pulsed, and with his mouth twisted in a silent scream, he listened to the Morse code. It was a complex pattern, yet he memorized it after two cycles. It seemed to go on forever. Then the fan turned off, and he was left sweating ice and desperate to vomit. He rushed to the toilet and could smell the remnants of his pot floating in the bowl.

“Maybe I’m still high,” he pleaded. “Please.”

After a half dozen fruitless dry-heaves, Erik returned to his room and scribbled out the pattern he thought he heard. It couldn’t mean anything because he was just dumb and stoned, but it did look like Morse code. He opened his website and began to translate.

See you tonight.

Erik’s blood ran cold.

*Tonight*

“Please,” Erik sobbed. “Please you have to fucking stay here tonight. You have to.”

“I will—”

“No, not in the house. HERE! In my room. You have to, because the aliens are coming and—”

“Dude!” Jacob pushed Erik onto the bed. He felt as terrified as his roommate looked. It was fun to joke about Erik losing his mind over cheap weed and junk food, but awful to see in action. He didn’t know what to do. The few friends he had on Facebook told him to just call the cops, but Jacob was afraid he’d get arrested as soon as they got here. The place reeked of pot.

“Please, man. You gotta protect me.”

Jacob put his hands on Erik’s shoulders. “I will. And tomorrow, we’re gonna … I dunno, go to the hospital or something. You look awful, dude. Like really awful. Did you eat today?”

Erik shook his head. “I don’t think I can keep anything down.”

Jacob perched at the end of Erik’s bed. It was 10:00 at night, way too early for either of them to be in bed, but Erik couldn’t stop yawning. His arms were sticks, his eyes craters, like he was slowly turning into a skeleton.

“Can’t we just, go into the living room? Play some video games or something. Whatever tonight is, it can have the whole apartment.”

Erik shook his head. “I’m tired.”

“Maybe we should—”

“It’s in the fucking closet, dude!” Erik jabbed his finger at the brown sliding door. “Right in there. Can’t you feel it? It’s watching us.”

Maybe it was the paranoia or the stress, but now that Erik said it, Jacob did feel it. Something was behind that door. He gripped his screwdriver until his knuckles turned white.

“She’s mad at me,” Erik said, his voice threatening to break. “It’s all my fault.”

“Who?”

“Mother!”

Jacob wanted to scream. This was stupid, and he needed to call the police. Damn the weed; it was better that than whatever the fuck was going on. And why the fuck did he have a screwdriver?

Erik’s old fan kicked on. Its cord was nowhere near an outlet. It pulsed in a pattern, first S.O.S. then letters Jacob didn’t recognize. Erik must have, because he began to scream. Something slammed inside his closet.

“What the fuck!” Jacob shouted. He brandished the screwdriver like a knife.

“Help me!” Erik pleaded.

Jacob looked to his stoner friend, to the fan, and then to the thing sliding out of the closet. He dropped his screwdriver. He screamed. He ran.

*Two days later*

Jacob slumped in the hard chair, his hands cuffed behind his back. Two police officers looked at him like he was absolutely out of his mind. Maybe he was. He felt out of his mind. He hadn’t slept in two days. Not with Mother about.

“And you expect us to believe that?” the first cop asked. He had his arms crossed and his sunglasses balanced atop his head. His face was shaped almost like a perfect square.

“Yes,” Jacob said. “It was a monster.”

“We found your screwdriver covered in blood,” the second cop said. “And about thirty stab wounds on your ‘friend.’ So try again, please. We have all day.”

“I didn’t do it!”

“Sure. But try again anyways.”

Jacob sobbed. Why wouldn’t anyone believe him? He felt sick, and he was so pale he might as well be a ghost. He hugged himself with stick-like arms. They had been perfectly muscled yesterday.

The ceiling fan spinning inside the interrogation room began to rattle in a pattern. Short, short, short, long, long, long long, short short short. Mother was coming.