Friendship Meetings

Sometimes street corners are full of people who don't cross the streets at all and it's almost time for lunch so I find someone and make friends with a, “Hi!”

“Ah. Hello?” The woman says. Someone is snickering on another street corner but they're probably all kinds of jealous.

“My name is Jay. What's yours?” I ask with a huge grin.

“This isn't exactly a safe part of the city for a boy to be alone in, especially one who is blind?”

“Oh! I'm not trying to have an adventure, just to make new friends. Do you want to be friends? We could be princesses!”

“Princesses.” There is another pause. “This isn't some kind of hidden camera gag, is it?”

“Nope,” I say, since I don't show up on cameras at all.

“And you want to be friends.”

“Yup! Making friends is tons of fun! and I'm pretty good at it.”

The next pause is close to a Charlie-pause. “Maybe you might wan to find someone your own age?”

“I would but kids tend to be kind of meany at times and you smell really nice!"

The snickering turns into laughter at that; two other women and a man, probably realizing I'm Jaysome. “My name is Sara,” she says finally. “And you're a little too young to be friends with me, kid.”

“I am? But you sound nice and I bet your a princess too!”

“What makes you say that?” Sara asks, and there is a kind of power under the words but it's not enough to reach me at all.

“Because princesses are about towers and are traps?” I say, cuz it’s what the bindings feel like on the surface. “But everyone is a tower and we all trap ourselves a lot.”

Sara lets out a hiss, like a surprised dragon. “And how do you trap yourself, Jay?”

“I’m really good at hiding so I hide from myself and sometimes I’m way too good at that,” I say, which is all kinds of true. “But! I almost like making friends and that’s a good kind of trap since people who don’t want to be friends often need friends a lot and I think you’re probably really nice and have lots of friends.”

“Most people wouldn’t see it like – ah, think of it like that.” She pauses. “Jay, do you know what a prostitute is?”

“Uh huh! My phone is connected to the Internet, so I know lots of things.”

“Well, I am one. Most people would say what I do doesn’t involve making friends,” she says. “And it definitely doesn’t involve lunch with little kids.”

“But but but now I’m all kinds of confused because sharing love is friendship and some people aren’t good at that at all,” I say.

She laughs at that. “No, no they aren’t. Sometimes people need someone who won’t judge them more than they need anything else at all.”

“And I can do that back,” I say proudly, because I’m really good at not judging humans like they judge each other.

“So I see.” She ruffles my hair gently with a hand. “You’re an odd little kid, but I think it’s an odd more of the world needs. Tell you what: how about we find a hot dog stand on your way home, because this isn’t a safe part of the city and I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“But I don’t want friends being hurt either.”

“I can take care of myself,” she says, and there is that power again.

“But not letting yourself be hurt isn’t being not-hurt,” I say firmly. “You can’t be nice to other people and not want them to be nice back. It’s like being a soldier right? Because there’s bad stuff to being a sex worker, but there’s bad stuff to any job and sometimes people only think about the bad and get really confusled about stuff.”

“Confusled?”

“Not Jaysome.”

“Uh huh.” She reaches out, and pokes my left shoulder. “If you want to turn around, you came from the south so we can head back that way?”

“But you’re working?” I ask, because I’m finally getting some of the other bindings and I’ve maybe screwed up her day.

“I was. I think I’m doing a different kind of work right now.”

“Like lunch?” I ask, because my stomach is kinda wanting lunch, and eating alone is really boring.

“Like wondering if rather happy kids who can’t see and wander blithely into the nastiest part of the city let themselves get hurt?” Sara asks.

And I’m across the road with her and stop at that in surprise. “Uhm! I kind of try not to because I’m scared my friends will leave me if I’m not Jaysome sometimes? Like I can be a little goofy, but I’ve been told sometimes I’m too goofy and I shouldn’t be doing that and it’s really tough to see where I end and I begin?”

“That almost made sense,” Sara says as we begin walking again.

And I grin at that because sometimes I’m am pretty Jay and the people who were snickering aren’t at all since they’re pretty confused now and I’ve made a new friend so the day was awesome without needing any adventures at all. Plus I manage to kind of adventure by eating two hot dogs at once and Sara is really impressed by that and is refusing to go away until we find Charlie because she’s worried about me and that’s a big friendship-thing too!

*

“Hi,” I call out to Charlie from across the street in a friendshipping hello.

“Please tell me we’re not stopping so you can make another friend?” Sara says, which is a really sad and human thing to say.

“That’s Charlie. We’re hugey friends,” I explain like a Jayboss.

“And you can tell it’s her from across the road?”

“Yup!”

Charlie crosses the road. “Jay? You left your phone in the motel room and I was starting to get worried – ah. Hello?”

“Hello,” Sara says.

“I made a new friend,” I say, because sometimes Charlie can be slow about stuff.

“You made a new friend? Of course you did,” Charlie says. “You brought him here, then?”

“It wasn’t a safe part of town,” Sara says. “Especially not for a kid who can’t see.”

“I doubt it would be,” Charlie says, and there’s some not-nice bindings under those words. “But it was entirely safe for you, then?”

“I can take care of myself,” Sara says, and her voice is flat and very soft.

“So can Jay,” Charlie says without a pause.

“You think being a prostitute is the same as being blind?” Sara asks, and there’s questions people ask where no answers are good ones; I know because I get asked them a lot!

“Say rather that it’s a wilful kind of not-seeing,” Charlie says, and it’s almost like Honcho-words as if she was a magician with their kinds of knowing.

“I came with this kid to keep him safe,” Sara says, her calm a lie. “I didn’t come to have someone condescend to me.”

“I imagine you don’t have kids then,” Charlie says.

“And if I do?” Sara asks, and she’s not sounding very Jaysome at all.

“I know! If you do, I could meet them and we could play,” I say, trying to sound as much like a Jay as I can, because the bindings between them are getting all kinds of nasty. “And playing is fun, and people play in lots of ways and I might be running out of stuff to say because people do weird kind of plays with love-stuff that I kinda don’t get at all because there’s lot of really funny bindings!”

“Bindings?” Sara asks, distracted.

“He means vibrators,” Charlie says.

“You mean the dinosaurs in the Jurrassic Park movies?” I ask, because I’m wanting to listen to movies with dinosaurs that can roar like a Jaysaurus.

There is a pause at that, and then Charlie and Sara start laughing. I turn from one to the other, not sure why the bindings changed at all.

“I’m sorry,” Charlie says. “Jay is – innocent. I was scared you’d taken some of that away from him.”

“I am not,” I say, and I can do flat and indignant tones too. “Because you never believe me when I say I don’t do stuff!”

“That’s not quite what I meant,” Charlie says, and Sara is definitely laughing, but I don’t think it’s at me and it’s not mean. She pushes some money into my free hand. “Coffee shop is across the road. Use the crosswalk, please.”

I do, and leave them to talking and being friends and the crosswalk isn’t cross at all, which is all kinds of good and I have one hot chocolate all to myself and make some new friends!

Flight Day!

Charlie is sleeping now so I get to sneak out the wind and practise flying like a BOSS!

*

“So! I have a big uhm for you,” I say as I bounce onto Charlie’s bed for a good morning hello.

She opens her eyes. “I don’t hear sirens. I’ll take this as not being a worrying uhm?”

I grin like a jayboss at that. “Nope! But but but I went flying last night, and I was mostly with birds and hiding like a boss only I think people saw me?”

“Jay. You hide your nature better than anything else. You can be invisible if you want to.”

It’s not invisible, but I’m smart as a Jay and not about to correct Charlie before at least two cups of coffee!

”But there were fireworks all around me. I can’t see, but I could hear them really well,” I explain.

Charlie groans. “That was for Memorial Day. Not because you were flying.”

“Oh.”

“I imagine it was very Jaysome flying,” she says, poking me on the nose with a finger. “But if people set off fireworks every time you did something awesome, there wouldn’t be any fireworks in the world in under a week.”

“Oh! That makes sense,” and I give Charlie a huge hug and head out the door to get her morning coffee.

*

“Jay,” Charlie says. “Quick question: how big we’re some of those fireworks last night?”

“Pretty loud! So I guess they were big?”

“Because the local paper has a report of a fighter jet shooting at a ufo. The base is, of course, confirming nothing.”

“I might have played tag with birds and got a little carried away?”

“A little.”

“But I was definitely identified so I wasn’t a ufo,” I say proudly.

“You … were identified.”

“I thought the pilot might be more okay if he could see me.”

“You thought a flying boy would make sense to them?”

“Well, more than an invisible shape moving within a flock of birds?”

“Of course. Because doing that is very subtle.”

“Yup!”

And I don’t even know what Charlie would say to that because some bad bindings snag at us and the coffee shop has full of gas and Official People with guns.

And Charlie passes our really fast so I fake it as well because she’s my friend and this is definitely the kind of adventure you rescue friends from!

*

I’m being even quieter than a jay when government people try and search us. Because Charlie is still all sleeping and I might learn Stutf

*

Okay! I’m figuring stuff out like a Boss! Because! the government people have a psychic guy who is all twitchy, and he sensed Charlie was all kinds of nifty but not me at all. But Charlie still hasn’t woke up from the drugs they gave her and unbinding drugs from humans is pretty complicated so I’m waiting and they’re worried and I might be getting a little cross!

*

“She still isn’t awake? Shit. What about the boy?”

“He’s sleeping,” the psychic the government people employ says in his nasal whine and

"Hi,“ I say, jumping to my feet and unbinding the ropes and chains they put on me. The cell door opens as I grin. Some of them don’t like it when I grin, even like a Jay! because they begin shooting at me. I’m tough and I unbind guns and make them fall apart even as a few bullets leave small bruises on my skin.

"I want Charlie to be woken up now,” I explain, and the psychic does some mental thing that doesn’t hurt at all. And I’m getting all kinds of cross, so I grin like a Jaysaurus and some of the men with guns run away. “I can count higher than ten but I’m not going to because Charlie is my friend and –."

"What are you?” the psychic whispers.

"A Jay. And you didn’t sense me cuz I’m all Jaysome!“

"What?”

"I just said, and anyway,“ I begin, but some people don’t want to make friends at all because my bindings with Charlie go all funny as the psychic tries something. And Charlie is hurt and I’m all kinds of mad do I roar like a Jaysaurus with a huge "Rowr,” and the psychic screams and falls, every binding inside him breaking down.

His brains are all kinds of mushy as they leak out of his ears but it doesn’t feel like an oops at all.

I poke the god inside Charlie awake and we try to wake her up but the military people are getting all kinds of unfriendly so I have to unbind parts of tanks and everything before I sneak us away.

I ask the internet how to hot-wire and drive a car and we totally escape. I might have kinda taken the car sideways from the world a little, but it doesn’t crush either of us to death and the screaming of dying metal wakes Charlie up nice and fast. She doesn’t ask a single question, not for a whole hour. But I am grounded for FOUR days from flying!

*

Charlie says we’re all adventured out for a few days!

So I’m going to do a sleeping tonight and not fly at all.

NIGHT EVERYONE :D

*

I woke up and it wasn’t an adventure but! Charlie was woke up by a very sad god she knew and she’s trying to explain human politics to her Uncle Sam and I didn’t know Charlie had an uncle who was a god and politics is lots of weird bindings that don’t make any sense at all.

So I leave them to a talking and head out to make some new friends :)

Cloudy Day

Here is a fun fact: there is no such thing as gas main explosions.

Here is another: if you can eat gods (especially the dangerous kind) it is a necessary thing to safeguard the world but you make no money at it. Which is why I help solve problems for the fae, mostly via having chats with monsters and critters from Outside the universe about how they made agreements with the fae in exchange for glamours that let them hide among humans, and breaking those agreements – in letter or spirit – would be a really bad idea. Most of them actually listen. For the ones that don’t, I have a god inside me I can draw out and I’m very creative with how I define god-eater. It extends to most forms of energy, for a start.

Problem is, sometimes I bite off more than I can chew. Some things are too damn big or weird, and the case in point is some kind of living cloud-thing that was hiding in a sewage treatment plant. Which is all fine, except its presence was causing irregularities in the local water supply. The kind that led to people levitating and scenes generally only found in C-grade horror movies. I’d been dumb enough to chalk this up to an accident on its part. What can I say? I’ve learned to chalk a lot up to accident the past couple of years.

The cloud is green-yellow, with millions of small things inside it. Limbs? Eyes? I’ve no damn idea since they keep flowing into liquid and morphing into new forms as it expands. It’s the size of a living room at present, and the exorcisms I shouted seem to have at least confined it to the general area. So now it’s drifting out of the sewage plant toward me, having some something to he workers in the plant to render them catatonic: only four had turned the colour of overripe melons, so I hoping they were all right. I didn’t have time to check before I can outside for open space.

“Talk,” I say. “The fae hired us: they won’t ignore what happens here. What do you want?”

I’m no magician, to speak words that can’t be ignored, but the cloud does slow and my skin prickles as I feel it staring down at me. I try not to think too hard about radiation. The entity is becoming more and more liquid, and I’m damn sure this isn’t a good sign at all given the kinds of things liquids can dissolve.

“This is a nice world. Warm. Moist. I want it,” a choral voice says that sounds like radio announcers drowning in a hot springs.

“Really? You want to take over the world?” I ask slowly, mostly because I’ve been dealing with fae problems for months, and travelled with government agents for some onths before than and a magician for over a year: I’ve never run into anything from Outside the universe until now that seemed to have read comic books, or at least used them as a basis for taking over a world.

“It is small. You are small.”

It moves closer. The god inside me rolls out over me, all night shades of fur and claws of blood and bone. It used to be the creature living in my closet. It’s a lot easier to make a god than most people think. I take the brief moment of surprise that grants me and pull out my cell phone, texting: ‘WHERE R U?!’

The text back from Jay is, ‘Getting Coffee. You wanted coffee, right?! AND there is a lineup so you don’t need to shout :(’

I text back. ‘Plant. Monster. Binding. Now. PLEASE.’

Adding the please takes seconds I don’t have, and the creature flows over me. The grass bubbles and shifts like quicksand on old TV shows around me. I tried eating some of its energy before I ran out of the plant earlier and almost threw up: whatever the entity is made of, it’s too damn weird to be mere energy. I gather my fear, press it into the god and alter its shape. Claws and fur become a sturdy blanket around me, a shield that shudders under the pressure against it even as it forms. I trained with an exorcist for a time, enough to know certain tricks. My death should let loose an exorcism powerful enough to banish it back outside the universe; it’s not like I’ve ever tested that out.

A whistle fills the air, bright and cheerful, and a kid’s voice shouts. “Hi! I didn’t get the coffee, but!” and the rest of Jay’s voice is drowned out by an awful squelching squeal of a sound as the entity is yanked right off of me; the ground around me is smoking and smells like burnt plastic as I let the god back inside me. I’m alive, and Jay is holding a venti cup of coffee in one hand and beaming.

“You put the creature inside the coffee cup, didn’t you?”

“Yup! It made for a really good binding and your exorcism helped and it was really busy trying to eat you so it didn’t notice me at all.” His grin is pure, shameless pride and I’d bet money that it actually fixes some of the ground as I walk over to Jay. He looks to be about eleven, but it from far, far Outside the universe and can do things with bindings that even magicians can barely grasp. Also, he’s Jay, which means a lot of things in its own right.

His left shoe is missing and the right knee of his jeans torn. I text the fae to come fix up the mess, set the coffee down on the part of the parking lot the creature didn’t dissolve – the fae will know what it is, but I write ‘cloud monster’ on it with my pen just before I can before frowning at Jay. “You know the frame of your glasses is bent?”

“Oh.” The frame snaps back into shape, and his jeans bind themselves back together even as the missing shoe zips through the air from down the street to land beside him on the ground, bound back to him by his will. “I’m okay, though!”

“Jay.” He’s tough and quick, but at present unable to see – which doesn’t make things easy for sensing bhindings when he’s moving at speed.

He pouts, gripping his white cane tightly in his right hand. “You texted loud so I ran here and I only got hit by two cars,” holding up the fingers of his left hand. “I was kinda busy working on that binding and it’s hard to sense other bindings when moving fast but I’m pretty sure the cars are OK.”

“Running into a kid – even one moving very quickly – isn’t good for stranger’s sanity, remember?”

Jay nods. It’s been five months since he lost his sight in an incident that led the magician to cease travelling with us – because he used Jay too often. Now I use him, even when I’m trying not to. I reach over and ruffle his hair gently. “We’ll check on the people and make sure they’re not freaked out, all right? And then I think I might owe you a very big hot chocolate.”

“Nope.”

“I don’t?” I say, trying to keep calm.

“I was hit by two cars so you owe me two of them.”

I count to ten. It never helps. “Of course I do. Two hot chocolates, new shoes and I think we need to work on your skills when running.”

Jay just nods, takes my hand and walks easily beside me. No comment on how he saved me from being eaten, or how he only got into this trouble because of me. We’re friends, so to Jay that’s just how things are. I squeeze his hand, trying not to hold too tight even if my grip can’t hurt him, and wonder how long I can keep using him like this before it’s too much for me to bear. 

Chickens.

 “Jay.” Charlie’s voice is not as sleepy as it should be for four a.m. That’s kind of a warning!

“Hi!”

“How long have you been up?”

“About three hours. I slept almost two,” I explain so Charlie won’t worry at all. She worries way too much even if she’d never call it that.

“And there is a reason you a) have an outfit of a chicken on and b) were wearing it at all?” she asks, but doesn’t tick the points off on her fingers so it might be all OK.

“Yup!”

Charlie sits up in her motel bed. “And that reason is?”

“I did a poem that was really popular –.”

“So you went outside at 3 in the morning to do a chicken dance?”

“Oh! No, but I could –.”

“Let’s not and say you did. Why?”

I could make a joke asking if this is about ‘why did the Jay cross the road’ but! sometimes I’m pretty smart so I don’t. “Cuz I need stuff to write about as a poet, Charlie. You don’t want me writing about you, and Honcho gets twitchy if I write about him too much and I don’t really know other people like I do you so I figured I need experiences to write about instead!”

“Like dressing up as a chicken?”

“Uh-huh.”

Charlie is quiet at that, but it’s not a mad-quiet. “Pack. I’m calling Honcho when he and Dana are awake, and we’re heading to the nearest city where the local magician won’t make a fuss about us.”

“We are?”

“We travel, and we never stay, and that does make it hard for you to make more friends – ones not on tumblr,” she adds before I can protest. “So we’re going to do that. I’ve enough saved up from things we’ve done for the fae for at least two months in a decent apartment.”

“It doesn’t take that long to make friends, because bindings –.”

“I’m going to enrol you in a school. Maybe even a human one, because you are right: you need to make more friends.”

I scratch my head at that, because I don’t think I meant that at all, but Charlie seems determined and I guess this is why the Jaychicken crossed the road?!

Giving Notice

“Remind me to learn how to kill a fae in ways both violent and slow.” Jay starts beside me: sometimes he knows when I’m joking, sometimes not at all. Possibly because I’m never sure either when seriously pissed off. Merryweather & Associates is one of those giant companies with more fingers in the pie than there are pies and fingers; the fae had told us a monster was holed up in their HR offices, disguised as a human woman and draining the life out of staff: we were to explain that draining humans violated the arrangement it had made with the fae for glamour

I’d assumed the fae were joking even if I should’ve known better. They don’t like getting directly involved in fixing their own screw-ups – deals made with monsters and creatures from Outside the universe to hide them from human perception – so they farm out the work. It’s good money, and normally not difficult. When you’re a god-eater with a god inside you and the creature beside you is from far Outside the universe and definitely scarier than he looks, normally the assignments the fae offers are at least not that dangerous.

Merryweather – whatever the hell that even is – has genuine trolls for security. They look like large, hulking humans but are too strong, too tough, and scarily fast for what they were. Four of them behind us is like the Indiana Jones boulder scene, only worse. I skid around a corner, Jay hot on my heels, smash the lock off to an office and dive in, shoving it closed behind us.

“Bind it!”

The door shudders as a troll bounces off of it. The frame and wall around it crack apart but hold together as Jay binds the door to the air, the boy’s frown almost a scowl of concentration. The god inside me is a roiling mass of fury manifesting as rusty claws and darkness-under-the-bed fur. The gods only knew what the staff had made of our running through the hallways. I work on catching my breath and look about us. Cheap office affair: window, desk, computer. Not even a phone, since everyone here probably used cell phones.

“Charlie,” Jay says, grabbing my hand and tugging me back to the door. He looks to be about eleven and human, though he has dark glasses on and his white cane is somehow still in his right hand despite our running like mad down two hallways. Jay is tough, and quick, and good with bindings. Which is why the door and walls are holding but they won’t hold much longer; the air where the walls had been is shuddering under blows.

Trolls get confused with stone but they’re a lot stronger than that. There’s almost nothing about them for a god-eater to eat: I’d eaten their momentum to slow them a little, and that had pretty much been the only trick in my bag. I flex the claws of the god inside me: they are sharp and nasty as claws go, but I’d need to be faster than I am and get all their eyes in one go for us to get away from here.

I swear softly. I’d managed to deliver the message of the fae to the siren working in HR – shape up your actions, stop trying to break your deal with the fae or else – and then the trolls had burst in and come at us. I glance down at Jay, who is squeezing my hand tight and waiting. Trusting me to figure a way out of this. He could get away: he can move fast, and even move in some place – some space – only be can enter, but the odds are very good I wouldn’t survive if he took me with him. It doesn’t even occur to Jay to run, because we’re friends.

I pull my hand free of his gently; the claws of the god have gently pressed his skin, not breaking it. “Can you bind them?”

“Kind of? They’re really solid and strong and I think they maybe used to be mountains? So I could stop them, but not without doing bad things to them, and they might get really heavy and fall through the floor and it would break this building and maybe them too!”

“Oh.” I have no idea how expensive troll security guards are, but I’m damn sure it was enough that Merryweather would not take kindly to us killing them even if we had no choice. I have no idea what Merryweather truly is, and no desire to find out right now. I consider trolls, weak points, claws. I might not be fast, but Jay could be fast and strong enough if we worked it out.

“Can you –,” I begin only for Jay to let out an indignant yelp of surprise.

The remnants of the door and walls explode inward at us, though Jay keeps them from hitting us. I register one of the trolls coming up through the floor and another dropping from the ceiling, springing onto the cheap desk with what I hope sounds like a menacing snarl. They ignore me, judging Jay the true threat. By the time I realize that, one of them has already hurled him through the outer wall, ignoring the window entirely.

It’s a twenty story drop. Jay is tough. I don’t know how tough.

The troll by the hole in the outer wall turned toward me. The one who came up through the floor is beside me, the other two in the hallway. I’m not angry. I’m not even terrified. I have no idea what I am, but the trolls hesitate at whatever they see in my smile. The god inside me isn’t anger, isn’t rage: just focused energy, will, power. What had been fur is now millions of spikes like jagged glass and the air hummed like a thousand angry bees where claws had been. Power, shaped to need.

There are four of them and one of me. The troll in front of me rumbles, and her voice seems almost human, somehow apologetic in tone. “Merryweather prides itself in security services: being infiltrated for any reason is not acceptable to us.”

Which explains some things. They’d probably kill the siren in HR too, once they realized it she was. If they hadn’t already known and just let it slide. It explained much, but I’m seldom in the mood for forgiveness. “Let’s dance,” I whispered, and my voice comes out like something purring, like a naked blade I don’t recognize as me.

“Nope!” Jay’s voice is pure Jay, cheerful and utterly happy as he skids back in the room in a blur to land on the desk beside me. “I decided not to fall so everything is OK!”

“You decided not to fall.”

“Uh-huh.” He grins, radiating delighted pride and unquenchable happiness. “I figured out I don’t need wings to fly, Charlie!”

Suddenly four trolls aren’t quite that scary anymore.

And my idea crystallizes into more than that. “Jay. Here,” I say, and offer up the bindings to the god inside me.

He blinks, eyes wide, then his cane snaps into my hand, bound to me by his power. His speed, his toughness, the strength of a god. My anger. The four trolls don’t have a chance against that, falling with ugly wounds torn into their hides and small savage blows aimed at troll pressure points. I don’t even see Jay move, just watch the trolls fall and he is beside me moments later, panting, the god not burning with fire in his eyes. His eyes remain his, the claws that are manifested close to what I imagine an angel’s fingernails would be.

“This is weird,” he says, and then the god within me is wholly mine again, the power cutting off as the entity inside me slinks deep inside like a wounded thing.

I say nothing, because I have too much to say.

“Charlie?”

I ruffle his hair and return his cane. “You did good, kiddo.” And today has been a day, so I add: “You think you can fly us both away from here?”

“Really?”

“Yup.”

He grins and grabs my hand, doing something with bindings and we are out the window in a leap on his part, the flight a blur of movement that takes us to the top of a building two blocks away. Jay drops me onto the roof and lands beside me, panting for air and grinning so wide that it must hurt even him. I don’t point out that we almost missed the roof: he can’t see at present, but he can sense bindings. Sometimes it leads to problems, but in this case it was only a near problem.

“Next time, when people aren’t around, we need to do that again. Only slower, okay?”

He presses in against me for a hug. “Okay! It was fun, right?”

“It was.” I return the hug, then gently push him back and go to the roof access, reaching within for the part of me that eats gods, eating the state of the lock being open. We head down the stairs to the ground level and outside in a companionable silence. Between holes in walls and flying people, Merryweather will have a lot of explaining and covering up to do. I can’t find it in me to give a crap about what that will cost them.

And I’m definitely looking forward to calling the magician and telling him that Jay knows how to fly.

Making COOKIES!

“If I had kept up with school, I would know a really high number to count up to,” I say carefully. “And I might, just might, have fewer grey hairs.”

Jay considers that gravely. “But,” the creature that look like an eleven year old boy proclaims, “then we wouldn’t be friends!”

“No. We wouldn’t.”

He misses the implications of that entirely, being Jay. “And I can’t see.”

“I know that.”

He sticks his tongue out at my tone. “It means I can’t see your grey hairs so that means you’re still all young and an awesome friend.” And he grins after that, innocent and delighted.

“Tell me, kiddo, did you grin at the cookies?”

Jay scratched his head at that. “Nope! I just made them,” he explains.

“Yes.” I look about the motel suite carefully. The oven isn’t on, the cookies are on plates rather than sheets and the walls are blackened, wood peeling like wallpaper. “Can I ask how?”

“Okay! I made them warm because there is heat everywhere and the oven isn’t connected to the internet so using it would be kinda tough. I’m really good with bindings and chemicals are just bindings, so!”

“And the reason the walls are peeling and smell like chocolate chip cookies?”

“Oooh, that. I think I got the heat from someplace that was pretty weird! But the cookies are really good and nummy!”

“This from someone who ate dirty socks thinking they were a monster.”

“It was only the once,” he pouts.

I sigh, pick up a cookie. Take a bite, then another. And a second cookie before I can stop myself. “They’re good.”

“Uh-huh!” You could bounce a nuclear weapon off his pride.

“Now you get to figure out how to bind the walls back together.” I pause a beat. “I’ll go get milk to go with the cookies.”

I take two cookies with me when I leave, and I am almost certain Jay didn’t bind them to seem delicious even if they aren’t. Almost.

Morning Talks

Morning Talk (I)

The coffee shop I have left Jay in isn’t much to speak of, but they make a good hot chocolate and he’s quite happy to drink that while I go for a walk. At least, that is as much as I tell him I’m doing but it’s always hard to know how much he knows beyond that: when you see the world in terms of bindings, sometimes things make a different kind of sense than they do to humans. That’s what I tell myself when the kid does really odd things like being convinced that exploding a microwave is a valid alarm clock.

I know the wandering magician spends little time on the intenet, but someday I really need to sit him down and discuss my theory that Jay’s entire existence is built on trolling us.

I walk down a couple of side streets in another small city of too many small cities in as many days and make a phone call. No one answers the call, but I am used to that. I let it ring four times, hang up and spend a few minutes window-shopping, which here means mostly studying the works of various local graffiti artists. The man who steps out of a shop doorway to walk beside me is thin and tall, with cool eyes, severe clothing and a face made to be ignored in a crowd. I’ve got used to spotting the forms fae take when they use glamour to appear human, which means some day soon I’m likely to run into a fae who doesn’t bother with their usual glamours of being dull and boring.

Fae glamour, as Jay explains it, are bindings that trick reality itself into believing them. If magic is like a cheat code for the universe, then what I do as a god-eater is probably code debugging; the fae are more akin to a massive overhaul of coding every time they act. Which might be why they delegate some of their bureaucratic work of checking in on various Outsiders and monsters who have made arrangements with the fae to people like me. Also because they are far, far behind in doing this job as I understand it – many of them simply didn’t believe that any creature would try and get out of the deals made with the fae. To be fair, in at least 80% of the cases they’ve been right.

“God eater.” The fae nods briskly as he falls into step, mirroring my pace perfectly. “You have news about the djinn we asked you to look into?”

“Mmm. She was doing the whole ‘answer wishes but be an utter dick about it’ method of being a genie, which I’ve never understood. If I was trapped inside a container for years I’d want people to let me out, not to realize I was probably going to screw them over and close it up again.”

“Most humans do not do so,” the fae says almost dryly. “They know the story, but they think themselves to be the exception to it.”

“Point.” I keep walking, moving further away from Jay to be on the safe side. “We ended up putting the vessel into a trash compactor and Jay bound her into it; turns out a pissed off genie let loose is too damn big for a god eater to eat, at least not fast enough to have stopped her from doing some serious damage. We dealt with it, yes, but we’re going to need an increase in the pay you are offering to do such things.”

“Most would ask the fae for payment in things other than coin.”

“And we all know where that leads.”

“Yes. Yes, you do.”

I pause, wondering if fae started up the myth of fairy gold and the like just to avoid paying gold, but just say: “I can’t keep risking Jay being hurt like this. I am supposed to be looking after him and two days ago he was eaten by an ogre – who spat him out, but even so. At some point we are going to run into something Jay and I can’t handle. If the wandering magician were here, he could probably step in: but he’s not and I don’t have illusions about what I am capable of if Jay can’t bind a threat.”

“You wish to need less assignments from us so that the Outsider is in less danger?”

“Put bluntly, yes. If that doesn’t work, different assignments. Please.”

The fae is quiet for almost a minute. Considering options, communing with other fae? I’ve no idea, but it finally nods slowly. “You are aware that they are few things in this world that can truly harm the creature you call Jay, yes?”

I bite back a reply that won’t win me friends at the best of times. “Jay is blind thanks to a situation involving a former magician murdering your kind for power. That is more than enough of ‘very few things’ for anyone’s lifetime, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps so.” The fae offers up a thin smile. “We accept this agreement.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes.”

I nod. I’m pretty sure this is somehow a trap, but the last thing I want is for Jay to get hurt on my watch. And I’m tired, so tired of having to use him to fix situations I can’t, for throwing him into danger he doesn’t even consider getting offended over. I can’t call the kid a friend and keep using him. And so I shake the fae’s hand and walk back toward the coffee shop.

I can’t shake the feeling the fae is smiling behind me. I resist the urge to turn around, mostly because I’m afraid I’ll lose my temper and find out if I can eat one of the fae. It hasn’t come to that yet and for all our sakes I’m hoping it never does.

Morning Talk (II)

Charlie has gone walking, all hiding things from me but given all the fun we’ve had lately I figure she might be calling Honcho – and maybe to complain about the fun, but I’m not sure. I could be sure, but I’m pretty certain Charlie wouldn’t like that so I just tap out a query on my tablet and wait because I’m a lot better at waiting than Charlie.

There is murmuring near the door, different than the staff complaining about Charlie leaving me alone in their coffee shop and I’m trying to be good so I haven’t told them that just because I can’t see doesn’t mean I can’t hear. Or just loudly telling them I’m going to be some kind of problem – even if Charlie probably would laugh at the idea of me not being a problem some days. The whispers of people are disbelief and awe a little and whoever is coming in has the kind of bindings that fae do, all deep and foggy at the same time.

The fae comes over and sits across from me. “You rang?” The voice is female, soft and amused.

“Yup! I wanted to have a whole conversation in private, but people are staring at us.”

“Well, my glamour is perhaps as young as you. Pale skin, red hair in a spiked mohawk and bright blue eyes. I am worth staring at,” the fae says as a statement of fact, and their hand is over mine, the squeeze light before they let go. There is no binding at all in the touch. “Now people will think we’re dating.”

I cock my head to the side, because there is a binding lurking under the words. “You want to date me?”

“Should I not?” the fae asks, and I can feel the wicked smile that sets whispers into deep murmurs among the people here.

“Fae don’t do that. You don’t let yourselves fall into traps like relationships.” I pause, and reach out with my senses, pressing me wider into the world. The fae recoils a moment in shock, but it’s enough for me to be really sure it is a fae. “And if you are, that means you’re all broken.”

“Broken.” The fae’s voice is low and ugly.

“Well, other fae would say that! I wouldn’t because I’m all kinds of cute so wanting to date me just makes sense,” I say, because I am quite a smart Jay. “But I kind of don’t want a date right now. Charlie just wants more money when we help your kind I think, but I’d like to get favours too!”

“Favours to what end?”

“I don’t know yet.” And I don’t, but it feels important to have them. “Charlie could get hurt and there’s some hurts bindings can’t fix. Things like that, maybe. I could do favours for you,” I offer.

“No.” The fae almost shouts the word, and there is fear under it but I’m pretty sure they don’t know about me and microwaves at all. Plus it was only six of them.

“Favours are bindings; I’m good for bindings,” I say a bit crossly.

“We know.” The fae is no longer smiling and has moved back; we’re definitely not dating anymore. “We see deeper than magicians and wider than gods, Outsider. There are those who among our kind who think we should have no relations with you at all.”

“That’s pretty mean.” I pout, to make sure the fae knows they are being mean. “I haven’t even told Honcho what you are or nothing!”

“You think you know what we are?”

“Hello? I’m a Jay,” I say, which doesn’t make them not-scared at all, so I tell them what I know after, quiet and simple because Jay Facts can be like weapons too.

The silence that follows that is like a Charlie-silence when I do something bad. “We see.” The fae stands. “We will consider this matter and get back to you.”

And there are other fae staring out of this one, and they are really old and definitely don’t want dates at all in ever. “Okay,” I say, pretending I haven’t sensed them all and I get another hot chocolate when they leave and get extra marshmallows by asking really nicely. And I drink it all up and get two more because they are nice and warm and I’m a few kinds of scared because I’m maybe keeping secrets from Honcho and Charlie and it might be because the fae would have to kill them if I told them what I know but I don’t like doing it at all.

The fae text back the word yes. And nothing else. I hear a fire engine across the road, but I’m almost really sure it’s not my fault!

Jaydulgence

“Uhm!”

I dig through the cupboard of the kitchen of the house we ‘acquired’. Hiding from the police takes some work, more than it does in movies and TV shows. “Jay?”

“You’re looking for food in cupboards but I kind of got you a LOT of chocolate,” he says.

I turn, and the kitchen table is filled with chocolates. Bars, collections, boxes. “You bought all that?”

“I didn’t want you to be sad,” he says, as if that explains everything.

“Not getting into altercations with the police might make me less sad as well,” I say as patiently as I can. From what Jay said a ‘really meany’ police officer had been threatening another kid and since Jay can sense bindings with inhuman skill I don’t disagree the kid was probably in danger and Jay did save their life. By assaulting a police office with hugs and getting shot at. That he’s tough and faster than humans means he got away. That we’re hiding in a house two towns away means he wasn’t as good at it as he thought.

“I didn’t mean to,” the kid pouts, and I sigh.

“I know that, Jay. You ‘don’t mean to’ a lot of things. And this is a lot of chocolate, even for you.”

He squirms. Jay’s eyes are broken things hidden behind dark glasses, but he’s holding his cane a bit too tightly, not quite looking in my direction, teeth gnawing a little on his lower lip.

“Kiddo. Talk.”

Jay gapes that I saw through him so easily; it would be funny on other days. “Okay, and maybe I promised someone a story about indulgence on tumblr and I might have forgot because I was trying to learn about Valentine’s Day and then we’ve been busy doing favours for the fae and the police stuff happened and how they’ll need to be indulgent to me because I’m all late with the story and sad about that and I was hoping we could eat lots of chocolate because that is totally an indulgence right?!”

Jay’s grin is huge and hopeful. I shake my head a little. “Wait, both of us eating all this?”

“Well, of course. I said you were my valentine Charlie and! I am clearly yours.”

I blink. “Why?”

“Because you totally put up with me when things get weird and bad and I screw stuff up and I don’t think most humans would. So! that means I’m your valentine, right?”

“Jay.” I take a deep breath, and grin. “I’m not putting up with you. I’m tolerating you, and you have to do more than just tolerate someone to be their valentine.”

“Oh!” He senses the grin and returns it. “We could start by eating lots of chocolate!”

“We could. Would it help if I said this is definitely an indulgence?”

“It would a lot!” He moves in a blur, hugging me tight.

I return the hug, pressing a finger to his lips before he can speak. “It’s okay. I said it was going to be okay, didn’t I?”

Jay nods, then grabs chocolates off the table and hands them to me.

I stare at the groaning table, then sit and begin eating as he opens up others and eats them as well. I’m almost hoping the police find us now, if only for the headlines that might result.

Charlie post on tumblr..

Things we did today.

• had breakfast (pancakes at a waffle house)
• Chatted with a lonely ghost in a park, which Jay able to get close and not destroy the ghost. For which he was terribly proud of himself since we still have no idea why ghosts are exorcised just by Jay walking through them.
• Had a snowball fight, which Jay let me win. I pointed that out, he claimed he hadn't, I said I had seen him drop a snowball at which point he flung himself into my for a hug and cried without tears at trying to lie even if it would make me feel better.
• I dumped a snowball down his coat in response. he spent a good half hour sulking at my 'cheating'.
• Found a rabbit that had died in a trap. I broke the trap open (eating the state of it being locked) and Jay tried to somehow bind the rabbit back into life, but it doesn't seem possible. I stopped him from trying a third time and used my nature to call up the god of rabbits, who agreed to restore the rabbit to life in exchange for a future favour -- from Jay. He, of course, said yes.
• (I'm trying not to think too hard about what the god of rabbit could want; gods can restore the dead, but the cost is an astronomical amount of their power -- to say nothing of the continued cost in keeping the miracle active. Jay, as always, trusts too damn easily.)
• We had lunch as fast food while driving to another town. I checked Jay's tumblr twice for him to make sure everything was OK. I am definitely not going to try this method again, but I think I got through to him about pushing bindings too far on others. Always hard to know how much of this is Jay understanding things vs. not wanting to make his friend (me) mad with him.
• Got a message from a fae about some rogue gremlins who were hiding in an autobody shop doing anti-gremlin acts. Keep machines live past their prime, keep them working when they're broken. Break entropy enough in an area and they'd tear open a hole in the universe and let something from Outside in past the usual safeguards and protections (which include immigration policies, I've been told.) We dealt with them easily enough, though I have no idea what their end goal was.
• Pizza for supper, I read Jay part of a book and he listened to the radio after.
• A good day, all told.
  

- Charlie

Meeting Friends

This is Charlie. I keep a diary, sometimes just to remind myself that my life really is as weird as I think it is. I saw that Jay posted his view of an encounter a couple of days ago, so I thought I’d add mine. Jay still doesn’t know what we really ran into, or why it shocked me as much as it did. I haven’t called the magician to ask him about this, mostly because I think I won’t like his response. Right. Here begins the entry; I try to write them in present tense even though I’m writing after it happens, since that helps me recall everything better. Personal choice. Deal with it.

*

Almost two feet of snow have been dumped on the town we’re in, but it’s not actually cold. Dress warmly and keep away from the more bitter winds and you’re mostly fine. Nothing has turned to slush, there are kids with the second of a probably few days off school having snowball fights and building snowmen and we’re still in that part of small-town American where parents actually let their kids play outside.

It’s a lot rarer to find than you’d think, and probably would be almost unheard of if most people knew the kinds of entities humanity shares the world with. The kid beside me being one: Jay looks to be eleven, but is from far Outside the universe. He senses everything in terms of bindings, at levels even magicians consider impossible to detect but to Jay it’s as easy as breathing. Also as easy is hiding his nature so he appears to be a normal human kid despite being quite tough. That he is unable to see for the foreseeable future (owing to being used to stop something really nasty from happening) hasn’t phased him in the slightest. Which probably says all you need to know about him.

“Charlie,” he says, not quite bouncing through snow over to me from across the road. He’s using his white cane because humans would pay too attention to him otherwise, and dark glasses because his eyes are full of falling stars and fractured light – which would cause people do more than just stare at him. He offers up a huge, happy grin that is entirely Jay and also sets my Jay-sense to tingling.

The huger the grin, the more dangerous the fallout might be. “Kiddo.”

“I’ve been making secret friends today,” he says proudly.

“With rocks or snow?” I try, because one never knows with Jay. He once spent an afternoon making friends with every atom inside a piece of lego.

“Nope, people. The human kind.” And he moves, quicker than humans can – his other trick – and then grins even wider up at me, radiating pride. If Geiger counters for pride existed, Jay would make them explode. Not that his pride was for him, mostly for what he did for others and to help them. “Your left pocket,” he says when I don’t move, poking it with his cane and practically dancing from foot to foot.

I reach in cautiously, expecting to find a snowball, gremlin, or some small animal Jay has decided should be kept warm. Instead I pull out two new twenty dollar bills. I look at them, then down at Jay. “Can I ask where you got this money?”

“I did a favour for the fae last night when you were sleeping and they paid me in cash and I’m all using it to make friends!”

“You don’t make friends with money, Jay.”

“I know that, Charlie. I mean that I make them all happy and they never know it was me because I’m totally a Jay-boss!”

“Reverse pickpocketing.”

“I listened to videos on YouTube and they were helpful so I get to pass that on and help people. It doesn’t take much money to make a person a little happy; sometimes it’s even better thana hug, which is pretty weird.”

“Well, it is better than other things you could be doing,” I say, and he just sticks his tongue out at me at that, then reaches up with his right mitten and grabs my hand, tugging me toward the proper downtown core of the town and telling me he also made a new friend and then about the eight people he’s all helped this morning. It occurs to me that he did the reverse pickpocketing while wearing the mittens, but I decide not to wonder too deeply about that.

I’ve spent my morning migrating gods to new businesses from old or failing ones and generally put the word out that there is a god-eater active in the world again and gods wishing to abuse their powers had best not do so. It’s been pretty easy work: most gods are small and most of those are wise enough not to attract untoward attention. Mostly because powerful gods tend to cannibalize smaller ones. I don’t really know that much about gods: magicians have few dealing with them save to destroy them if they need to, though Jay claims that the gods are part of a network of energy holding the bedrock of the world together.

All I know is gods make themselves when needed, adding energy and strength to a business, home, whatever the location is. As that expands, the power of the god can well, but most gods can only expand so far and few can move from their place of birth without a god-eater helping them. I destroy dangerous gods, I help the others migrate. It’s a learning curve all around, since most gods aren’t that old and no one seems to know what really happened to the order that used to train god-eaters.

I’m busy thinking about such things as Jay drags me to the back alley behind the downtown McDonalds. “I made a new friend, who is all surprised I saw him because humans can’t see him!”

“You can’t see,” I say dryly.

“Well, yes, but I all noticed weird bindings and it’s a new friend,” he says as if that makes it all okay. I refrain from pointing out that Jay would probably react the same if he ran into Cthulhu. Mostly because I don’t want to learn that Lovecraft wasn’t making shit up. He continues to pull incessantly, holding my hand tightly and we move past the dumpster.

The creature behind the dumpster is almost as big as it the dumpster, all dark brown fur, a long trunk, wide eyes. No ears, a pointed tail. I say several words they probably wouldn’t even air on Sesame Street Uncut. “Snuffleupagus?”

“You know him?” Jay asks excitedly. “I know he’s big, but he told me he doesn’t want to eat people at all!”

“Humans do not see me.” The voice is deep and gravelly, not like on the TV.

“Jay isn’t human. He’s helping me see you,” I say, and my voice is almost even, definitely from shock. “Jay, is Mister – is he an Outsider?”

“Nope! Nor a monster,” Jay adds. “He is really cuddly though! He feels like warm laundry.”

“Of course you hugged him.” I rub the bridge of my nose. “Ah. What do you want?” I ask it. Thinking of the creature as an it helps.

“Birds.”

Or it did for a few seconds. “What?”

“Birds taste very good. Feathers. Bones. Muscle.” It smiles, and the teeth are many but not as sharp as I was imagining. “I clean the feathers off with my snout, snuffle them up and eat the rest. There are not many birds in the winter.”

“No, no there aren’t. You can read, yes?”

“A is for...”

“Right Okay,” I cut it off, certain I don’t want to hear this creatures alphabet song. “There is restaurant down the street, KFC. Kentucky Fried Chicken makes chicken. You could sneak in there and eat chicken as long as you don’t eat too much. Or perhaps just all the chicken people throw away into the dumpster?”

“I can do a binding for that,” Jay says, and the creature goes still a moment, and then inclines its head in a nod to Jay.

I have far too many questions. I’m not about to ask any of them. I just smile at it and pull Jay away, and head back toward the hotel. “Jay. You’re sure that wasn’t a creature from Outside the universe?”

“Yup. You knew him, so he is a friend?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what I know.” I let go of Jay’s hand and just walk. Part of me wants to know if he has run into creatures like this before, or to ask if he can find out what they really are. The rest of me decides it might be best if I left some things as mysteries. If only for my sanity.

Watered Paths

The magician hasn’t answered his phone. I have no idea what he is doing, no clue if this is a good thing or not. I’ve been calling him at least once every ten minute s for five hours. I imagine I can hear waves crashing on the shore from the hotel room I rented for Jay and me. Me and Jay. Jay and I; I can’t be bothered to care what it is. I’m six blocks from the ocean, I’ve got the window open and I’ve gone through three packs of cigarettes in as many hours and I can’t rest for trying. The god inside me is a roiling mass of barely contained fury. I have no idea where its anger ends and mine begins, not until the door to our room opens.

It was locked, but Jay tends to unbind locks without thinking. “Charlie,” he burbles as he comes into the room. He’s not even went, with his cane in one hand and a bag in the other, dark glasses not even slightly askew on his face despite him having dove into the ocean seven hours ago.

“What time do you call this?” I snarl, and Jay goes still at that, colour draining from his face.

“Charlie?”

“You were going for a swim,” I say, and he rocks back at the anger I’m not even trying to hide. “You went under water, Jay. That was seven hours ago!”

Jay blinks, holding up the bag in a shaking hand. “I was touching nice coral and helping it, unbinding plastic from fish and I wath just going for a walk,” he whispers. “I brought you some shells?”

I haven’t heard him lisp in weeks. “Shells. Seven. Hours.” He drops the bag and just stands, frozen. “You’re not even wet!”

“I bound the water away from me, and I bound air in my lungs but I didn’t need it,” he whispers. “I was fine. I’m tough and –.”

“You don’t need to breathe?”

Jay shakes his head, not moving, trembling all over.

“And you didn’t know this before you decided to walk under water for seven hours?”

“No, I –.”

“Four hours I was waiting at the shore. I shouted your name until I was hoarse, Jay. You didn’t show up, didn’t find a way to call me or anything at all.”

“I – I didn’t mean –.” He bites into his lower lip. “I was exploring, because the mermaid on tumblr told me all about how cool the oceans were and I can’t see them but I could feel them and – and – and –.” His breath hitches and he falls silent.

“For all I knew you were dead,” I say, and my voice isn’t remotely even at all.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Jay says, the words coming out in a wail.

“You could have drowned or been eaten by a giant squid for all I knew!”

Jay lets out a whine and flings himself toward me for a hug; I backhand him into a wall without thinking. His glasses go sailing, and sightless eyes filled with fractured light and falling stars widen in shock.

“Charlie?” He doesn’t move at all.

“You were trusted into my care,” I say, and my voice is thick even to my ears. “Mine. And you could have died or been eaten or worse and you didn’t even think to find a way to let me know you were fine?”

Someone pounds on the door of the hotel room; I snarl back and hear them run away.

“I was having an adventure,” Jay says, so soft I barely hear him. “I was looking for the mermaid and the ocean feels different and has lots of bindings I got to know and others I got to fix and time doethn’t pass in the oceans like it does on land.” He sniffs loudly. “I didn’t even – I didn’t – I –.”

This time I manage not to strike out when he flings himself, wrapping trembling arms about me in a hug and saying the word sorry over and over. I manage to ruffle his hair and return the hug.

“You had me terrified, Jay.”

“I didn’t feel it. In the – the bindings, because I was all having an adventure,” he says, the words muffled.

“I know, I just –.” I take a deep breath, another, push him away. “Jay?”

He looks up, still trembling violently. I reach out; he doesn’t flinch as I gently pull his bottom lip out from his teeth.

“You trust me, after I hit you?”

“You’re my friend,” he says. “And – and sometimes friends hurt friends and – and – and –.”

I press a finger to his lips and hug him tight, and this time I tell him I’m sorry and ignore his confused asking of what I’m sorry for. I hold him tight until he’s not shaking and let go slowly after. “Shells?”

“I found a lot,” he says hesitantly.

“One bag in seven hours?”

“Uhm. I might have more outside? I kind of bound them into the air and pulled them beside me to the shore?”

I pause. “How many more?”

“Lots,” he says proudly, but still makes it a nervous question.

“Let’s go see them?” I pause. “Even though you can’t see?”

Jay blinks, then giggles at that and grabs my right hand, pulling me out of the hotel room and down the stairs.

Half the parking lot is overflowing with sea shells and bone in a riot of colours and shapes. It’s past midnight, but even so people are circling the pile in confusing, some taking pictures on cell phones. I take a deep breath, letting go of everything I can. “First off, unbind the pictures from their phones. Secondly, won’t the ocean want all this back?”

“I might have said I was only borrowing it. The water thinks long thoughts, so they’ll be okay with a few years,” he says happily.

I let go of his hand and stare down at Jay. “Where do you plan to keep a small mountain of shells for two years?”

“I can keep them in a hiding hole and give them to nice people?”

“Okay. You mind hiding them now before people get really confused?”

“But –.”

“They are very pretty, and I do like them, but people will wonder how they got here and get worried.”

“Oh! Okay,” Jay says, and must bind them somewhere wholly other because each shell is gone a moent later. “I kept the bag upstairs for us!”

“All right.” I grab his hand and pull him back toward the hotel room. “We can look at them now. I can tell you what each one looks like if you want?”

“Really?” Jay grins hugely and pulls his hand free to bounce up the stairs.

I follow him into the hotel room, closing the door behind us. “Kiddo? I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know that,” Jay says. “Everyone gets mad at stuff, and I all scared you and I’m really sorry but!” I try not to flinch at the but. “But now it’s okay,” he continues, “and you can tell me all about the shells and make up for maybe being mean by getting us lots of pizza later?”

I remind myself Jay isn’t human at all, even if he does appear to be a human boy of about 11. I remind myself I am human. I take a deep breath and sit on one of the beds, and Jay plops down on it beside me and pulls shells out the bag and listens as I describe each one he runs his fingers over. I order pizza later, and he spends the rest of the time until dawn telling me about the sand under his feet and all the fish around him and how awesome it was.

“You want me to come with you next time?” I say finally, mentally smacking myself upside the head.

“Could you? We could go mermaid hunting!”

“I don’t think mermaids might want you using the term hunting,” I say dryly, fighting back a yawn. “But yes, we will. And I’m sorry.”

Jay frowns slightly. “I know; you already told me that. And I said I was sorry, so everythng is okay.” The grins hugely at that and bounces off to go sleep in the other bed, and for him everything is entirely okay.

I remember my anger, and the blow I struck. I don’t sleep for several hours, staring up at the ceiling. I think Jay might be awake when I start crying, but he just keeps quiet and pretends to sleep.

Level Up

“I think I’m level four,” a voice shouts in joy as the owner lands beside me on my bed.

“Jay.” I don’t open my eyes. “The hotel manager already talked to you once about bouncing about and shouting at six in the morning.”

“But he was joking!”

I crank my eyes open at that and turn my head. Jay has on his dark glasses covering broken eyes, his smile wide and huge like an espresso kick at 4 am. “He was joking?”

“Beds are made for bouncing,” he explains. “Because they go boing!”

“And the shouting?” I ask because I can’t help myself. Sometimes Jay is like a trainwreck, or at least like Thomas the Tank Engine on speed and laughing gas at once.

“I’m all happy, so you need to know that,” he says.

“And you’re grinning like a fool wouldn’t tell me that?”

“I grin all the time. Except when I don’t,” he explains, then pauses and holds out a hand, his shoes snapping through the air to his grip as he binds them together. “See?”

“You have shoes. I knew this,” I growl.

“But I’m level four now!”

“Please tell me this is a new reason to keep you off of tumblr?”

“Charlie!” Jay sits up and shoves the shoes onto his feet. “See? See? They won’t fit! That means I’m level four!”

“Jay. Calm down,” I snap, and he deflates a little at that as I push him off the bed. “Clothing. Now.”

He blinks, then goes and puts on his jeans and a sweater after rummaging through clothing. The sweater is on backwards; I’m almost positive that’s because he can’t see.

I get out of the one bed and walk over, checking his ankles and wrists. “Huh. Hold still.”

He does, and yelps anyway when I smack him upside the head.

“Notice anything different?”

“That I’m not holding still next – oh!” Jay reaches up, rubbing his head. “You hit me lower than you usually do?”

“I did. You’ve grown at least an inch.” I don’t point out that human children don’t grow an entire inch overnight; I have no idea what it means that he has now. “Now you can train for level five before we go shopping for new clothing?”

“I can?”

“By sleeping for five more hours,” I say, and head back to bed.  

Hungry Truths

I spend the morning with Jay finding an entire nest of fairies for the fae; the fae just want to make sure the fairies aren’t doing anything untoward, as they put it. Which, when I asked for details, apparently means that creatures the size of an index finger have a tendency to gang up on people and eat them. I’m half-tempted to see if they could eat more than Jay in one sitting when he’s feeling hungry, but just settle for using the GPS the fae provide and running into the fairies in the woods – who prove they are not eating people by defending their territory with snowballs.

Jay and I have got really good at snowball fights lately. Between the both of us we win against the fairies and they’re so happy they decide to be our friends – which Jay spends most of the walk back to the motel we’re staying on going on about. I suspect this means he’s lost another follower on tumblr, but decide not to ask. I just walk, let his words wash over me as he tosses snowballs at trees to show his aim is improving when not binding snow to a tree and he even does two forward flips on ice to impress me. Thankfully, no one is around to see a blind kid of about ten doing that, though Jay is good at sensing if other people are paying attention to us; it has to do with bindings. With Jay, most things do.

“So,” I say as we reach the parking lot across from the motel, “you were going to show me something yesterday?”

He looks at me, eyes wide under dark glasses. “Charlie?”

“Jay. Don’t ‘Charlie’ me.” I stop, and he reluctantly stops as well, squirming in place. “Twenty minutes talking all about having made friends with fairies and how friendship is awesome. What do you think that is?”

He blinks. “Me talking?” warily.

“You’re trying to hard. To be funny, and goofy, and probably Jay as well.” I mean the last as a joke, but Jay flinches back from it.

“But –,” he protests.

“Jay.”

“But you can’t see bindings!”

“I don’t need to see bindings to know something is wrong. Talk to me, kiddo.”

“I don’t want to,” Jay mumbles.

“You don’t want to talk,” I say as calmly as I can manage.

“Oh, no! I like that, but! I don’t want to show you the thing I’d show you,” he explains.

I let out a sigh of relief, and nod back into the wood behind us. “A little way back and then you can, all right?”

Jay hesitates, then nods and takes the lead, trudging slowly through snow. It’s hard to tell with the winter clothing I’ve made him wear, but I’d swear he’s trembling in fear. “It wath in the house,” he says, and I start at hearing the lisp in his voice as much as him not looking back at me as he talks. “The one with the evil ghost and the kid I couldn’t help with bindings and he was going to go downstairs and I had to stop him.”

“The boy is fine; the family as well.”

“I showed him parts of me I didn’t know I had,” Jay says as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “Honcho says I have before sometimes but this was by choice and that changes everything. I can feel it, like a set of clothing under the skin? A little like the god inside you but not like that at all,” and he sounds so miserable I want to hug him until he turns and faces me, his entire body taut with strain. The snow under him vanishes between one moment and the next, pushed back or away and

the god inside me rising out without my bidding, throwing its back up like a wall against the sky

a wall against seeing, a barrier against understanding, its fear mirroring my own will for will

beyond it are shadow made of quasars and movement I feel more than see, perception made

of smells the brain cannot process – there is height, width, length, depth, breadth – and

there are other things as well movements scraping places inside me, things a god-eater

could not eat for they are too alien to even be alien and then there is Jay, and his cane

Dark glasses under an almost-noon sky, his clothing the same as always, the boy’s face so pale I see veins under it and he’s shaking all over as the god flows back inside me like some wounded beast.

I don’t say his name. I walk over, and Jay doesn’t move at all beyond a taut tremble that dissolves as he collapses into me when I hug him. He seems heavier than he did before, his sobs shuddering through him. “Honcho said I should show you,” he manages, the words cracking wildly. “So you’d know, but you’re scared!”

“I am.” I hug him tighter. “But I’m more scared for you than I am of you, Jay.”

He makes a keening noise and is just curled up into my hug bonelessly, relief coming off of him in waves of desperation. I don’t try and process what I saw. I think I might in nightmares, but I don’t know. Is it what Jay really is, what he might become? I don’t know; I don’t think Jay does either.

“You shared this with me,” I whisper as I push him away slowly. “And with a human boy to save his life.”

Jay nods unsteadily, eyes locked on my face.

“You are the bravest person I know, to do that knowing what I might do.”

“I am not,” Jay says hotly, almost sounding like himself in that. “I was scared all the time, Charlie! Even when I wasn’t me, and I don’t – I don’t think that Jay is suppossed to be scared at all.”

“Being unafraid isn’t bravery or courage,” I offer, and stand slowly, holding his left hand gently in mine. “The question I have is can you avoid doing that in a snowball fight?”

Jay blinks, gaping at me.

“If you did that during a snowball fight, I would have to call it cheating.”

Jay says nothing at all as I let go of his hand and turn back toward the motel. “You mean that,” he whispers, as he walks up beside me after a few steps, meaning so many things with those words that it hurts.

“We are friends, and friendship-bindings are important,” I say.

“Charlie!”

“What? You didn’t think I’d make fun of you?”

“Not after that,” he snaps crossly.

“Well, tough.” And Jay giggles in fits and starts at that the rest of the way back to the motel.

I try and pretend this is the Jay I know. I try and pretend it is enough.

And he wants it to be enough so much that we almost trick ourselves along with each other.