The Mysterious Text: A Not A Novel Publication

“Franklin.”

Four years of marriage lead to skills Sarah always calls our ‘marriage-sense’. The tingling of a bridge close to being burn, of a line close to being crossed. Every relationship a tightrope, at least some of the time. I look up from the text message. “I –.”

She reaches over, pushing our laptop away from the table. “It’s been three days.”

“I know. I’m just so fu–.” I bite back words.

“Deana is sleeping,” she says. “And if you wake her, you’ll have more to worry about than me.” But my wife smiles as she says it, the smile fading as she runs her fingers over my chin. “You haven’t shaved in two days.”

“I know, I just –.” I set my phone on our small office table that’s only called that because of the bills drawer. “I know something is wrong, Sarah. I’ve known Aiden since we were six years old: he is – was – is my best friend. I was the first person he came out to.”

“He was the best man at our wedding,” she says. “And convinced me to stick with you after that one party at Clover Point.”

“He did?”

“Phone calls afterwards, three of them. About how long he’d known you, that the drinks must have been spiked. That he turned out to be right helped.”

“Everyone else calls me Frank. Everyone at work, even my parents.”

“We don’t.”

I nod, gesture to the phone. “He used ‘Frank’ in his last text to me. He never did that. Refused to abbreviate anything unless he was in a hurry, and if he was there would be a period so I’d know it was Franklin. So I’d know it was my name. He had a new boyfriend, and he’s always – well, he’d have called Steven before the flight, after it landed. He would anyway, but he was – is – always does with regularity at the start of any relationship.”

“He would have sent us a picture of some street in Vancounver during the first day.”

“And he didn’t. He flew halfway across the country, and we know he left the airport and then – nothing. The police have enough to look into it: they’ll try, but it won’t be hard enough. I could almost hear the interest change when they decided it had to be an affair. I wanted to ask if they wanted another Pickton to escape them, but that wouldn’t have helped anything at all.”

Sarah laughs, as much in shock as surprise. “No, it wouldn’t.”

“And Deana is two, I can’t get time off work. Even if we could afford the flight.”

“I looked into our credit cards,” she says, stepping behind me to run fingers over my neck. “We can’t afford it. If we borrowed, it would have to be a friend willing to wait two years at least to be paid back, love.”

“I know. I know. He could be dying. Be dead. Be in some – and there is nothing we can do.” I don’t delete the message on my phone. I can do that much. I can read Vancouver news from so far away. I can hope. We can afford hope, if nothing else.

I force myself to stand, heading to the kitchen for a night cap and then bed. There is nothing we can afford to sell, nothing I can think to do in a world that doesn’t work like a mystery novel. I don’t know anything about solving crimes, nothing about finding murdered friends. All I know is that it all costs money, and that’s one thing we don’t have.

The Spy Who Came in from the Warmth

The office was small, crammed between a dentist and a lawyer in a strip mall. According to Langley, they wanted to make sure my cover wasn’t blown. ‘We’re protecting everyone in the field,’ is just government-speak to explain budget cuts. As far as anyone else in the building knew, I did tele-sales and some salesmen from the company visited me every so often.

The lawyer’s office was a front for the KGB, of course, under whatever names they were using this year. People act like the Cold War ended, when really it just paused for a time as both sides repositioned their pawns. We only won because we had more money. It’s never about ideolgy, only about pockets and what’s in them.

I’m thinking about that when Schmidt comes into my office. The heater hasn’t worked in three weeks. He’s nursing a tan and looks like he should be sipping margaritas on a beach. Which is what he was doing last week. I keep tabs on everyone out in the field as much as I can.

“Hollis. Buddy. Pal.” Schmidt offers a full-watt smile to hide his confusion. “Word from above is that I was called in?”

“There are issues in Russia,” I say. Which is never a lie: there are always issues everywhere. “Siberia.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your next posting. You’ll need to brush up on your Russian, of course.”

The smile wavers. “I’ve been in deep cover for fifteen years in Costa –.”

“We are aware. This is your next assignment.”

“I don’t understand?”

“It is Siberia or you work in this office. You understand that, yes?”

He looks about the tiny office, unable to hide a shudder. “Replace you, here? I know four languages –.”

“Six. But not Russian,” I say flatly. “You’ll need to sell your clothing and buy winter gear. Langley will send you details about the assignment and cover shortly.”

“Why? Why me, why this?” Schmidt demands. “I came in from –.”

I smile. “No one cares about the spies who come in from the warmth. Your extended vacation from real work is over.”

He blinks. I hear teeth grind together. “I see.”

I doubt he does. But he will in time. They all do.

I don’t explain that his office will be colder than mine. He’ll learn. He might even understand.

Summons Prompt

Prompt: You were summoned to another world to be its Hero. You attained amazing abilities and powers. Traveled to distant, fantastic lands and exotic cultures. Met and fought alongside incredible allies to stop the unspeakable Evil. Lost friends along the way. But now you’ve returned to your own world.

I stare up at my apartment building. It is snowing, but the snow doesn’t bother me. The cold hasn’t bothered me since – since a long time ago. The light is on, and a stranger lives inside. A castle fit for storming, the voice whispers in the back of my head. It’s not really mine. It was never mine at all. But is has followed me from the High Kingdoms when nothing else came with me. I can judge at least six ways inside, be in the apartment in under a minute and... and what, then?

I don’t even know. I’m not sure to this. To not knowing. To walking out of step with the world. My car was impounded and sold two years ago. My parents kept everything I owned in storage. Until they couldn’t afford the fees. It was more important to pay for fliers, investigators, to look for answers that way. My entire life vanished. They kept a few things, but their court-appointed psychologist told them it was dangerous to hang on.

I haven’t asked for the name of the psychologist.

Cell phones weren’t like this. Three, three years? It was three years. I don’t forget things. That is not a gift that I was given. I punch in a number, listen to it ring.

“Mike? It’s me. Christina” Chris doesn’t fit me anymore. “I need a place to crash.”

He says yes, and is at his front door when I arrive at the house his parents left him in their will. He looks nervous. I can’t do anything about that. We were never an item, but I think he had a crush on me before he figured himself out. I’m not above using that.

“I heard about your dad.” That’s a new Mike. A Michael, one I don’t quite know. Strong enough to speak the truth. “He said he won’t be pressing charges.”

I didn’t touch him. “I didn’t touch him,” I say aloud, in the human way.

“He ran through a screen door from the look you gave him.” Mike pushes his glasses up on his nose. “Why?”

“He asked about what happened. He wouldn’t stop asking,” I say.

Mike stares at me, reminding me almost of Griegor somehow. As though he, too, can see beyond what others can. Then he just opens the door and lets me in. Griegor never did that. Everyone else trusted me; Griegor trusted only Griegor.

I like to imagine he survived. But they didn’t call it the Final Battle in their prophecies for nothing. The Undying King doesn’t die; it was in the name. But even so: six seasons of training, the gathering of the Six Shards. Learning how to speak to mountains and command them. Calling on the wind that blew between the stars. Learning how to break the cold bonds of matter. There were other things, but it was a war and only power matters in a war.

Mike asks how the job hunt is going. I say it’s not, and he laughs as thought I made a joke.

I’m not sure when anyone laughed at me before. It’s been a long time.

He offers me a drink. I take it. A trap, the voice whispers, and it is only right in this. I change the drink even as I swallow it, and change it again after. He pours another glass, fingers shaking only a little.

“What did Griegor tell you?” I ask.

“Chris?”

“The stranger. The one with the eyes.” I do not move; Mike cannot, not under my gaze.

“Greg. He said his name was Greg. He says they need you to return, Chris. That there will be others. Traps. Dangers. I’m not the only one.”

“Of course you aren’t.” I stand, pouring myself another glass of the wine meant to poison me. “What else?”

He says nothing. He doesn’t have to. I turn as his cat leaps. Cookie the cat, fur the colour of a warg, eyes burning with the fires of Olnesh.

“Heh.” This time it is me, and the voice within as one. I step aside, pull the fires out and snuff the power with a thought. The poison shifts inside me with the use of power. Clever, clverr Griegor. The world spins. I chuckle as it stops spinning.

“Cycles. That’s what they never understood.”

“Chris?” Mike’s voice is cracking, eyes as wild as soldiers at the Final Battle.

“Oh, no. You don’t get to escape. Not like that.” I touch his forehead, pull him back and he collapses onto his couch. Cookie is on the floor, barely moving. “Griegor will come back, expecting me. Tell him that I was wrong.”

“I don’t understand?”

“I thought he hated me for breaking the prophecy. They expected a man. Prophecies always do. But I came, and won. The battle of Ulsdown, the fall of the Siloon Citadels. The Final Battle. The Undying King can’t die. But I killed him. You can tell Griegor that, Mike. Tell him that Christalia – Christina – Chris, use all those, so he knows: tell him I killed the Undying King.

“But the Undying King can’t die. So there will be an Undying Qeen. If I return: you tell him I am staying here. Not because I want to. Even the air smells off here, now. But I have to. Because if I don’t, the cycle might never end.”

“Chris, you –.”

I smile, and the smile is also the voice within me. I feel nothing as Mike screams in terror. I stop him from dying; it is so easy to do that, now. “You will tell him that the Undying Queen is not to be disturbed. And he will understand that. Or I will make him, and I am not certain our world would survive that.”

I empty the cash from Mike’s wallet, and accept the keys to his care. It will be hours before Griegor can force a passage to this world. Hours before Mike tells him everything. Enough time to cross at least two state lines. Enough time to vanish from the world a little more. I wonder why Griegor is following me, wonder how much he knew: did he wish to be the next Undying King? I have no idea. I have no desire to find out.

This is my world again. Because I have no choice.

I get into the car, turn off the GPS and just drive toward the city limits. And the voice that is Undying laughs very softly in my head, at some joke only it can understand.

Zephyr

The castle has many names among those who choose to seek it. The Eye and Cold Heart were among the kinder, but to those who lived here it was simply home. That does not mean it was safe.

The boy carried a sword larger than his body with ease, slashing and stabbing in cold, violent arcs of savage skill. The boy was chunky and pale, though one glance into chill eyes would stop all but the bravest from calling him fat. He moved swiftly and with purpose, but was wheezing just a little as he moved through a courtyard of cobbled stone.

His target was clearly related: their faces bore the same structure, though the other boy was smaller, thinner, skin tinted blue and his eyes a shocking brightness of green. He carried no weapons, partying the blade and movements with his body alone. He was not yet breathing hard, but unlike his brother he was no longer smiling.

“You are trying to kill me.” His voice was soft, gentle without being compromising as he stepped aside from another strike. “Father will not approve of needless murder of another wind. Look at Eurus, who has lost all favour when he first killed the south wind.”

“That was not deserved! Notus stole from him!”

“Notus is a thief, made of fog as much as wind as you are ice. We are what we are, and you are normally colder than this by far. Is something wrong?”

“I am trying to kill you.” The sword was swung again, with force enough to shatter hoar frost. “What could possibly be wrong?”

“You have before, yes. But there are – degrees of trying, of attempt.” The thin boy spread his hands, pulling them back before one could be cut off. “This is not like you, Boreas.”

“This is everything like me, Zephyr!” Frost stabbed forth from the top of the blade, but Zephyr melted it with a touch.

“Not quite.” Zephyr moved back from another blow. “Coldness yes, hatred, yes: we are what our father made us.”

“You? Could? They sing your praises for melting my ice! For bringing them spring. For rainbows,” Boreas hissed, the words shattering ice crystals.

“And there is less cold every year: this, too, we both know. But do you remember Hyacinthus, brother?”

“We are brothers in name only. Our father made us from wind as images of him.”

“Hyacinthus,” Zephyr continued mildly, “was as close as a mortal could be to bring a wind. No, not a wind: the west wind. I loved him as winds love fire. I killed him as easily as I bring rainbows. I can be cold as well, Boreal.”

“I would have killed him. If you had not.”

“Truly? Because you cannot kill me?”

“No. You melt, Zephyr. You are the kindest of us. You destroy my power, but have never mocked me for it. Every winter, I hate you less. Every spring that comes early I rejoice in my heart.”

“Oh.” Zephyr almost stopped, the blade barely missing him. “Does father know?”

“He created us. Winds given flesh. How could Aeolus not know?”

“This is – complicated. I did not suspect,” Zephyr offered, very softly indeed.

“I did not wish you to know. Now I fear you not knowing even more. That Notus could steal you.”

“We are winds. I do not think it is meant that the north wind and the west are together?”

“We could find out,” And Boreas had no blade at all, and looked somehow small despite being the artic and the ice and the empty wastes.

They kissed.

And so the chinook was born.

Stepping Into Truth

I gulp two fingers of scotch, shoving the plastic bottle back into the backseat of my car, my hair still wet from a shower an hour ago that did something to counter the cigarettes I had this morning. I turned twenty one last week; most people would guess me for thirty. Helps that I don’t need to lie for the booze, doesn’t help the contents of my fridge at home. The drink helps with the cold, and stops my hands from shaking a little.

I hate my job. It’s the only thing I’m good at. I pull the old doctor’s handbag out of the passenger seat of my car, close the door carefully. Wouldn’t do for the door to fall off. Bad image. The client is waiting at the door to the home. Two storey house, basement, brown picket fence. Looks like the rest of a cookie-cutter street except the for sale sign is worn almost to nothing in contrast to sold signs down the street. Windows shuttered, lawn overgrown, and the client’s car is parked half a block away.

Moria Larsen is thin and stern, with eyes like scraped chalkboards and an expression to match But she paid the retainer fee up front and judging by her clothing can afford a bonus as well. Pretty much why I showered, that. From the look on her face, my effort doesn’t make much of an impact.

“You’re late, Mr. Dover.”

“Vance.”

“I have been waiting outside for four minutes. You will go inside, do the deed, and that will be that.” She walks past me, giving me a berth. I probably should have shaved as well. Or not slept in my clothing. Moria moves swiftly, the haste perhaps overkill. She doesn’t want to be here, and definitely didn’t want to wait outside. Fair enough, given what happened here. Sometimes all ghosts do is make a wound that never closes.

I walk to the front door, take the key I was given yesterday. It turns in the door, and I push it open. The air smells stale. No lights, but I have a flashlight in my bag and flick it on. I have three others in my bag, some chalk, a few candles. Also a gun I’ve never used. The gun is pretty much for show: I’ve yet to run into a ghost that could be shot. But you never know.

The flashlight is cheap, but the beam is decent. I walk across carpet, scan the living room. The house is mostly furnished; finding a removal company to take everything away is hard after the press has poured over your life with combs meant only for gouging flesh. The gist had been that Moria’s husband left her a week before she had a business trip to attend. She left her son with a sitter. The baby sitter left with his boyfriend for a few hours and got in an accident so never made it back. And her son, at some point, fell down the basement stairs and died. Broken legs, desperate attempts to get out. Windows closed tightly and no one hearing him.

It doesn’t take much to make a ghost. Sometimes the rumour alone can do it. But it doesn’t take much to get rid of them as well: a strong will can do it, and that Moria hadn’t was interesting. I was the third exorcist she’d tried. Also the most expensive; dealing with the dead isn’t fun, and neither is putting them to rest. But the flashlight works, I don’t sense cold spots: not that I would, given my clothing is better suited to the summer and I don’t have much of it.

I shake myself free of the mundane. “Jamel? Jamel Larsen?” I wait. Sometimes they come to their names. Nothing moves, nothing flies toward me. Expensive living room furniture, the kitchen beyond is as sterile as a magazine photo. I head into the basement from the kitchen. One freezer, a pantry, the rest cement floors and unfinished wood walls. My flashlight doesn’t flicker. There are stains on the wooden stairs and the cement floor. The stars aren’t in good condition, the pantry door double-padlocked and the freezer the same. Odd, but I let it go and head back upstairs. The second floor has two bedrooms, bathroom, master bedroom with its own bathroom. I check the spare bedroom and master bedroom first, and then head to the room that belonged to Jamel.

The door opens. The room is plain, like the other bedrooms. White walls, beige carpet, no paintings. The bed covers have rocket ships on them, the only sign the room was used by a child at all.

“Jamel?”

There is an intake of breath, the closest thing to a cold spot yet. I move to the bed, look under it. The ghost is crowded against the wall, pale eyes and skin glowing faintly as he wheezes for air. He looks too scared to haunt anyone, but fear can be a strange master. He moves back against the wood, eyes wide. I move the flashlight slowly. Eight, the same age as when he died. I saw no pictures. Didn’t want to.

But this Jamel is still eight. Chubby, pale, scared. His legs look whole. I flick the flashlight off and stand.

“You want to talk?”

It is almost five minutes before the ghost crawls out from under the bed. I move back to avoid stepping through the ghost as he stands. He’s wearing a t-shirt that’s almost too small, jeans whose button can’t close and covers his belly. His cheeks flare red with a ghostly blush.

I sit down on the bed. After a bit, he sits beside me, not looking over.

“What happened to the other exorcists?” I ask.

“They tried to hurt me,” he whispers. “I scared them away. In the b-b-bbasement, I scared them.”

“You didn’t try and scare me?”

“I don’t like it. Being down there. It scares me.” I glance over. Jamel hugs himself, lets go quickly, refusing to look at me. “And you feel different,” he adds. “Like I couldn’t scare you.”

“Perhaps not. I had a few drinks earlier. That helps.”

“Moria sent you.”

“She was outside. Briefly. Was that why you were hiding?”

“Partly,” the ghost says. The bed creaks as he shifts position. Most ghosts that can move things tend to use it to harm others. I’m not sure he’s even aware of doing it.

“I am good at exorcising ghosts, but I don’t know what happens after that. No one does. I try not to, if I can avoid it. Knowing what happened here could help, if you can tell me.”

The ghost says nothing, his breath a thin wheezing.

“Your mother took to locking up the freezer and the pantry because she had a fat son. That much I can guess,” I say softly, and the ghost turns his head and nods once. “I don’t know when you fell. Or who caused it.”

“The baby sitter. Austin. Mom told him I wasn’t to – to get more fat. Everything would be better when she got home. Like a command. He – the fridge, I... was hungry, and I hate, and he thought mom would – mom would...”

“Hurt him?”

“Maybe? I don’t –.” Jamel is quiet for a bit, hands tight against his belly. He moves them apart when he realizes I’m looking at him. I just wait. “Austin pushed me. He didn’t mean to. I fell, my legs broke. He said it was because I was so fat, said he’d get help. He called his boyfriend. They were going to – to get a doctor they knew. A vet, maybe? Someone to help, and they never came back.”

“They had a car accident. And have left the city, as far as I know. Austin was in a coma for three days; I don’t know about his boyfriend. They were speeding, the police followed, they crashed. Some people think your mom killed you.”

“She – she – she –.” His voice cracks. The floor shakes a little bit.

“She did, without touching you. Shame is a weapon used against children.”

“She wanted me thin, Handsome, like my name. A p – a proper son.” The ghost stands. Swift, angry, though not at me. He pulls his t-shirt off.

The headline of ‘exorcist involved in ghost porn’ goes through my head. I don’t move; most ghosts can’t remove what they wear, in my experience, and I have no idea what might happen if I interrupt. Jamel has another shirt under it, a spandex affair that makes me wince at how tight it is. That his clothing is tied so deeply to his image says too many things.

“Mom wanted to make sure people don’t know I was this fat,” the ghost whispers unsteadily. “I have spandex pants, too, under my pants –.”

“I don’t need to see that,” I say quickly.

The ghost stares at me, and lets out a sound. “I... I didn’t...” He pulls the shirt back on, faster. His face is red, and the rest of him is pink as well.

“I’ve never been subjected to a ghost stripping before. That’s probably scarier than what I’d see in the basement,” I add dryly.

Jamel stares, then lets out a surprised giggle. “Your face was.... I think I surprised you?”

“Yes. I’d rather not be surprised like that again.” I stand. “I can help you, if you let me.”

He stands as well, not moving. I step through the ghost. Being possessed is painful; possessing a ghost even more so. But it takes a moment, and another, and I’m back onto the bed and shaking from the cold.

Jamel stares at me in confusion.

“Shirt,” I get out from between my teeth.

The ghost lets out a small gasp.

“You couldn’t access what you were; I jogged a few things loose.”

Jamel blinks. His shirt fits perfectly now, with no other shirt under it. His pants do as well, and his breathing is less of a wheeze as the ghost moves slowly about the room.

“You can alter your appearance better. Move things, if you need to. And you’re no longer tied to this place.”

“What do I do?” he asks in a small voice.

“What you wish, but nothing that will lead to an exorcist being called. That’s our arrangement.”

He nods. “I could talk to mom. I could explain, if that would – wouldn’t lead to –.” The ghost boy looks away from me. “It would.”

“Probably. Moria has demons enough of her own, I imagine.”

I have no idea if she does, but it helps him a little. He nods. “There is this shop I liked, a candy one....”

And the ghost vanishes a moment later. I let out a breath, take a few more minutes to gather myself, and walk outside. I tell Moria Larsen that it’s done and that she can go inside.

I walk away without waiting for payment, or to find out if she does.

Hail Story :)

Hail Story

It wasn’t a dark and stormy night, but that wasn’t for lack of trying despite it being two in the afternoon. Rain had turned into hail and Kev and Sue hurried through it. hoods up and trying to outdo each other with curse words as they hurried across the road. The storm was cold, the world wet and they simply didn’t think. One side, to the other. A hop, skip, a jump and there was a bus shelter that was empty like an omen.

The car skidded, and the driver said words Kev and Sue would have had to look up in dictionaries. All the money that Robert was saving for a self-driving car became a horror story inside his head. He wasn’t driving fast in the rain, but one doesn’t need to. You can fall down a flight of stairs and never get back up again, and a car is far much more than than that.

Sue tried to protect Kev. There was that much, but it made no difference who might have loved the other more. There was movement, and more movement, and Robert scrambled out. Ran to the kids. pleaded with a God he only believed in when he had no choice (sometimes this was too often) but neither moved and the rain and hail were hiding too much and not enough.

He called for the emergency services, begged those that arrived for his life to be taken. Offered to give organs, years, anything but it was too late. Robert swung wildly at the first person who tried to comfort him, but the police just handcuffed him and told him he wasn’t going to escape via them. Families arrived. His. Theirs. Parents who had never met, having no ides their children had been dating. A figure that would never be written.

No one blamed him. Robert could not understand. Could not forgive.

As Fixed By Jay:

It wasn’t a dark and stormy night, but that wasn’t for lack of trying the fault of the storm which was just being what storms are you know! despite it being two in the afternoon which is a really good time to be because of tea and snacks!. Rain had turned into very jaysome hail and Kev and Sue hurried through it and were holding hands but you forgot to mention this binding you know!. hoods up and trying to outdo each other with curse words as they hurried across the road being really jaysome and cute about it too!. The storm was cold, the world wet and they simply didn’t think and that’s okay cuz sometimes a Jay doesn’t either when I get really busy!. One side, to the other. A hop, skip, a jump and there was a bus shelter that was empty like an omen. Which isn’t an omen because it was probably really lonely and should have had lots of people at it!
The car skidded, and the driver said words Kev and Sue would have had to look up in dictionaries. All the money that Robert was saving for a self-driving car became a horror story inside his head. He wasn’t driving fast in the rain, but one doesn’t need to. You can fall down a flight of stairs and never get back up again, and a car is far much more than than that.
…. … … I think maybe you have problems with being jaysome!
Sue tried to protect Kev cuz of course people try and protect each other you know!. There was that much, but it made no difference who might have loved the other more. I’m getting rid of that not-jaysome entirely okay?! There was movement, and more movement, and Robert scrambled out. Ran to the kids. pleaded with a God he only believed in when he had no choice (sometimes this was too often) but neither moved and the rain and hail were hiding too much and not enough. Okay, maybe I should just get rid of the rest of the story?! Because gods don’t fix what already happened and everyone knows this!
He called for the emergency services, begged those that arrived for his life to be taken, which even a Jay knows they don’t do so this is more than confusled you know! Offered to give organs, years, anything but it was too late. Only it’s never too late to be jaysome! Robert swung wildly at the first person who tried to comfort him, but the police just handcuffed him and told him he wasn’t going to escape via them even if he didn’t want to escape and the narrator was totally wrong about this!. Families arrived. His. Theirs. Parents who had never met, having no ides their children had been dating. A future that would never be written - only it could be by their ghosts since death is an end and not the end and even @fakesurprise knows this!
No one blamed him. Robert could not understand. Could not forgive.But they were being jaysome and he understood it just fine in time!

caffeine challenge 23

His heart is still beating when you decide you’ve spent enough time with his blood on your hands. Some things even time cannot wash away, some crimes even magic cannot wish away. There are costs to everything, but sometimes it feels as though that’s a lie we tell ourselves to make every day seem better. We paid the cost, we move on.

He stares at me without an expression I’m familiar with, the page in his hand. “This is the start of a story?” he asks, unable to see himself on a page. I don’t leave the start of stories out anymore, not after he made the crack about Twilight fanfic. But this one left itself, almost.

The sneer in his voice at ‘story’ says everything, and too much of that. You can’t be with people who don’t support your dreams, not really. He never did anything except insist that I supported mine.

We met in a too-expensive coffee shop, both on trips with other people – he with his girlfriend of the time, I with my little brother. Taking pictures of famous landmarks, and then of each other. We had a caffeine challenge, matching each other with shots of espresso. We hit it off, but perhaps only after the coffee was replaced by wine at a wine bar. It should have been a warning, but it wasn’t. He left his girlfriend for me. Gabriel sneered at that as only a younger brother can, said he’d leave me to. That false once could only be false again.

He hasn’t left me though. I’m the one who has my bags packed and ready to go in the bedroom. I wish I’d caught him with another woman. I have a gun locked away for a kiss and bang. But it’s nothing that simple.

“It was therapy.”

“Therapy.” He snorts. “You’ve wasted enough of our money on that. Those quacks get paid by the hour: their job wasn’t to save you. It was to string you along and get as much money from you as they could.”

“You cancelled it without telling me.”

“Pretty therapeutic, I say.” He laughs at his jokes. No one else does.

Magic runs in my family. I could do it. Remove his heart, hold it out, talk to him. But we only have so much magic in us for our entire lives. He’s not worth it. He was never worth my magic. Gabriel said that to me, and I never disagreed. But if he wasn’t worth my magic, how was he ever worth me? Sometimes things get so simple it’s a wonder they were ever complicated at all.

I take the paper, rip it apart, walk to the bedroom and come out with my bags.

“Hey,” he says, confused. “What is this?”

There is menace in his tone; I hope I am just imagining it. “I’m leaving. I can’t do this anymore.”

“You can’t just –.” He stands, confusion giving way to anger.

“I am.”

“Is this about that joke at the party about you being fat? I never met to hurt nobody!”

“It’s not that. It’s everything. Please move.”

He stares at me. Takes a step forward.

“Don’t.” I’ve never used magic on him. Never wasted, never spent, but I let a hint of other creep into my tone. I have Gabriel on speed dial in my pocket; if I don’t want to waste any of my magic on him, Gabriel will happily do so.

He steps aside. Slowly, not understanding. I left no note for him. I walk outside, call a call, start down the street toward the intersection.

He doesn’t follow.

I ignore the small part of me that wishes he would.

Toth

This is a story of long ago. No, I do not know how long – what? No, I was not alive then. This is the long ago. There were dragons then. Yes, yes, I know there are dragons now but these ones were old and terrible and the story is not about them after all. It is not wise to tell stories about old dragons in case they might be listening. No, your grandmother is not a dragon. Who told you – never mind, never mind.

Stories grow in the telling, and never in ways you can predict. But this: this is a story of the long ago when the cities and towns of men – and there were far fewer cities back then, with towns huddled about them for protection – and they were small fitful sparks that burned against a sea of darkness and change. Not all the Between-folk had gone Between yet and – oh, yes. Well, of course there were monsters. What would any self-respecting story be if it didn’t have at least one monster in it? In those days there were more monsters than their were heroes to slay them.

Perhaps it is true, as some have said, that any time that needs heroes is a terrible one. I couldn’t say. But there were terrible monsters, as I have said, and – no, your Aunt Jurin is not a hero. Having sense enough to marry a Minotaur is just having good sense. Heroes don’t have that, or there wouldn’t be so many famous last stands. Every song about a hero becomes a sad song in the end. They don’t sing sad songs about your Aunt Jurin. Well You’re a little young to heard the songs they sing. But they’re not sad ones.

Now, then. In this long ago time, there lived a young man named Toth. Yes, I know that’ s your name. I was there when you were given your birth-name name. And if you keep interrupting. I’ll be giving your your death-name in about two minutes. Now where were we? No, don’t remind me. Toth. Even then, it was a very plain name and Toth was a very plan sort. Young, but not too young. Friendly, but not too friendly. He was kind, though never to the point of foolishness. Everyone liked Toth, but no one thought too much of him. Certainly, they never thought he could be a hero. And he was not, for all that he had a secret. Oh, all heroes have secrets. Why do you think they travel so far if not to escape their secret?

Toth was a magician who had no wish to learn magic. He could call the seasons out of order, learn the true name of even those things without names. But while his wish was not to be a magician, his desire was another thing entirely. He fell in love, which was uncommon in those days. Oh, people married but it was all arranged. There simply was not the time – and it was not safe – to fall in love. If Toth had been a magician, this would of course have never happened. One cannot be a magician and love anything more than the magic. But even so, he fell in love and tried to hide it even more than he hid his magic.

He tried too hard, as many are wont to do. People began to wonder why Toth was so ordinary, you see. The effort he had taken to be so was noticed, though not yet understood. But people began to notice other things. How nothing ever went wrong for Toth, not even once. So they called for a mage-seeker to come to their town. Oh, they had mage-seekers then, but they were not the kind we have now. They sought to help mages.

The mage-seeker ran away. Of course no one knew Toth was the cause of that, not then, but everyone began to wonder about each other. What kind of magician would hide their magic, they wondered. The drought of the last year was brought up in many conversations, though not the plenty of the two years prior to that. Every ache and pain was discoursed at length and trust was in even shorter supply than truth. And in time, Toth’s loved asked if Toth was the magician. And Toth told him yes, because Toth was in love but his loved – well, he smiled and demanded things from Toth. Some of them Toth had never even heard of, so terrible were they. No. Not your brother. Well. Probably not.

Toth refused and fled the town. Yes, I know the hunt can send out dogs on those who run. In those days their hunts could send out cats as well but everyone assumed Toth had fled with magic and set no animals upon him. There are many stories told about Toth after that, but the only one that everyone agrees is true is that he met a dragon, and in the due course of time she bore him a son. That Toth dared to love again. Well. What magician has loved once, let alone twice? He trusted her, and this was a very brave thing. Whether she broke the trust, who can say?

She died before Toth did and he made the rainbow to honour her. It was his only act of magic. Oh, of course. I imagine there were others. Spells to silence young children would be a fine start. But this magic was real the way others were not, and it lasted in ways that magic cannot last. All magic is tricks in the end, after all. But not that spell.

Did he love again? Well, some say the mage-seeker sought him out and they lived together in the fullness of time but I distrust stories that must have happy endings. Perhaps he died, or did not, for who can say with magicians? But his son never died and learned enough from his father to fall in love as well.

And that is why, every generation, one child is named Toth in our family. And if I ever hear you belly aching about your name again, I will thrash you so hard that you’ll wish you had scales!

Rebeca’s Choice

The house isn’t on a hill. I think that’s it. Part of it. But I don’t know. One by one, everyone just moved away toward the cities. I hear news, though I’m still not sure how it works anymore. But my solitude no longer contains silence, even if no one has been here in at least ten years. The house sits vacant, and nothing else was developed in the valley. The orchard was going to become lots, but everyone moved away. I don’t think it was my fault, but I don’t know. Some things are hazy. Distant, like the memories of a stranger I once was.

Sometimes I don’t recognize myself in mirrors. I’ve learned to cope. I’ve even learned to drown out the sounds of the world, the signals in the air just background noises like the ocean grinding against the shore. Which is why I don’t notice him until he comes inside. The boy is alone with a glowing phone in one hand, wearing shoes meant for hiking. I know of cell phones, though until now I’d never seen one. He cleans off glasses. It is raining outside. I hadn’t noticed.

“H-Hello?” he says, his voice trying to be loud. “Is anyone here? My name is Damien, but everyone calls me Dami. I’m just here to find a haunter?”

I manifest. I don’t normally, but it has been years and he came without the machines and incense and crystals the others came with long ago. And the deepest parts of me like to see them run.

Dami stares at me. I don’t know what I look like to the living. I have had some run screaming. Some weep. A few faint. This boy just looks offended. “You’re a gastly?” he demands.

“Excuse me?”

My voice is the cold wind between places.

Dami pales visibly at it, but stands his ground. “You’re a gastly, aren’t you? Haunters are quite different.”

“Pardon me?”

“I know you’re a Gengar. And a Haunter is better than a Gengar any day. Do I need to level you up?”

“... what?” My voice is strange even to my ears. Even the insane would break and run by now, but there is something within him resisting me.

“Wait, the app update doesn’t mention –.” I have no idea what the boy is talking about, but I see the moment when he flatters, realizing I am real. Humans like to pretend ghosts exist, but they don’t truly like to encounter us and have realize the world they built their lives around isn’t how they understood it to be at all.

“My name is Rebeca.” I think it was that, at least once.

“You’re not a haunter? I really need one for my pokedex.”

“I am the spirit that haunts this place.”

“I know that,” Dami says. “But I really need to find a haunter.” And he turns his phone toward me, showing an image I don’t understand at all. I do hear the phone. Noises coming from it, into it. This is how the world speaks to me though I am here. In energies passing between phones and other places.

I am not sure what to make of this. “I am the only ghost in his valley.”

I am certain of that much. I think there were others, once. But there is only me left.

“Do you play pokemon?” he asks.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Dami grins. He grins at that, in delight. Delight. “Mom and Dad won’t come looking for me for hours. They generally take a long time to anyway,” he says, dusting off one of the couches to sit down on it. “I can teach you how to play it, if you want? You could help me capture a lot of pokemon, Rebeca.”

I have been dead for a long time, and a ghost for perhaps even longer. I draw my nature about me. I can kill, with the cold between places. I can pull a human into the darkness and leave nothing behind. I have done this before. The memory of doing it hovers about me, whispers in voices I almost know.

“Please?” he says. “There aren’t any other pokemon here and teaching someone new will help me remember things too.”

There are shadows in his eyes he doesn’t own. Darkness he somehow sidesteps, and this – this pokemon is the why of it, the how and the means. It is not a power I know or understand, but he stands in the house of hauntings, and I swear I feel smaller. Not in a way that hurts, but still smaller in directions I can feel but not name.

It has been so long since a human came here. So long since my hunger was sated. But he offers his faith as a meal without knowing, and it has no end that I can feel at all.

“Tell me,” I say, and he begins to explain pokemon, and has to explain his phone, and television, and he talks for so long and so fast I am almost wondering if he is going to talk until he keels over and becomes a ghost as well when he gets a message on his phone.

“Oh! I didn’t get a new achievement, but Mom and Dad are looking for me.” He bounces to his feet. “I should find them before they try and take my phone away.”

Not before they get worried. Not before they get scared. He understands his parents even if he does not understand them at all. “They are not good pokemon trainers, then?” I say, using the words he has taught me.

“No. But I think I can be, for you. If you want to learn more?” he asks, suddenly shy.

I am not certain who is more surprised when I say yes.

He leaves, and is not a reflection I carry with my in the mirrors. I walk the house. I float. I try and haunt, in the manner of the haunters in pokemon, but his faith is not the kind to change another. I dust the house, for the first time in many years. I remember everything he has taught me. I think of questions to ask Damien the next time we meet. And I wait.

Open and Shut Case

 “You’re telling me this is an open and shut case? There is a mob outside baying for the head of Constable Parrish, social media sites are up in arms –.”

“They do so love their false outrage in the morning.” The Detective didn’t move from his chair. “The public does not get to eclipse fact, Ms. Brown. Nor should their arrogance assume they can judge what they do not understand. You cannot sum pages of police reports into a twitter feed, and I am not throwing a constable under the bus for political expediency. You can tell the mayor this however you like, of course.”

“Constable Parrish shot an unarmed man!”

“An unarmed white man, yes. And the good constable is Indian, if you wish to spin that into your narrative as well.”

“Detective –.”

“Call the mayor, Emily. Ask him about October 30^th 1997.”

Ms. Brown marched out of the room, returned in under four minutes. Her expression was made of nothing save shock as the Detective handed her over a folder without a single word.

“There are people who can do impossible things,” the Detective said quietly. “Terrible, impossible and grotesque things. It is not well understood, but Constable Parrish recognized the signs. And killed the target before he could kill a great many people with his power.”

“Telekinesis.” Ms. Brown let out a small laugh. “How do you expect me to spin this to the press, Detective?”

“I have no idea. But it is your job. Let’s see if you’re as good as spinning truth as you are at the rest of it.”

“That is uncalled for,” she snapped, but the Detective held her gaze until she looked away. After a time, she stood and walked to the door.

“Open and shut,” the Detective said softly, and closed the filing cabinet beside the desk with a glance.

The Secret Truth

He said he’d help us find our son. That was his promise, for the 10K we re-mortgaged our home to acquire. Everyone has seen Eric Evanier in the news. He predicted an earthquake in Chile two years ago. Posted about it on facebook, twitter, all the social media outlets when the others ignored him. Before that, he’d worked in a call centre, but he said the gift had come upon him and he’d just known. Just like that: he knew how strong it would be, where it would strike first, how many would die, how many would live.

Enough listened to him that more lived that might have otherwise. Scientists looked more closely at the area to disprove him, only for the truth to fly in their faces a plane right into their their facts. Boom, and it was over. He became one of those talk show regulars, hired himself out for things. And if he wasn’t always right, if he never was that perfect again, it wasn’t much talked about.

He took our money. The fucker took our money, and sent the police on some wild goose chase. They found our son. They found Kevyn, but too late. Nothing Eric said matched up. Not a damn thing, except the colour of a car or some shit. He hadn’t been dead long. That was the worst part, knowing they might have found him if we hadn’t – but we were desperate, Maria and I. We went to churches. We prayed in mosques. We did everything we could to try and bring our son back. Our grief just attracted vultures to prey on us.

It all failed. All the hookum, all the prayers, all the money. Faith is a drink, a high that vanishes too quickly unless you buy another bottle. I’m done with those. I waited, though, waited seven long months after the funeral. I made sure to only use public computers. Found out where Eric lived, surfed parts of the web people don’t to find out how to hack his security system. It was all hard work, which faith isn’t. It was real, which faith isn’t.

He was sleeping in his bed when I entered his bedroom. Not awake. Not aware. Not prepared. I found the gun he kept beside the bed, and that it was loaded. Figured he’d be that kind. I hit him in the face with the barrel to wake him, but not hard. I wasn’t going to make it easy.

He sat up. Eric Evanier didn’t match his publicity photo. Hadn’t in over a year: he had at least fifty pounds on that, probably from eating with famous people. His eyes were pale and wide as he stared up at me. I didn’t bother with a mask. You don’t have to be psychic to work out what that means.

“Steve. Steven Brown.” He didn’t try and run, just sat up and pulled a nightgown worth more than all my clothing about him, in a bedroom worth more than our house had been.

“You remember me.” I levelled the gun at his head. “You’re why Kevyn is dead.”

And then everything went off-rails. He burst into tears, and not the made-for-tv kind. “I did,” he said when he could speak. “Not just him. So many others. I haven’t had a real vision since the earthquake, but everyone knew I was psychic. I read up on cold reading, watched interviews of some famous psychics. Learned to fake things like that did. Sometimes, I think, I got something. Whispers, but never another shout. Never – that. I saw. I knew I wasn’t real but I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t.”

I install carpeted. Installed them, before everything fell apart. I don’t know anything about cold reading or faking seances, but losing your son teaches you about people. About who they really are, and what they mean more than what they say. And I couldn’t shake the belief he was telling me the awful truth.

I could have asked. Asked for details, insisted on a confession. He kept crying, blubbering about how many he’d failed, how he’d tried, and debts he had to pay off by taking more clients. Debts. As if our son was – as if taking our money was something you did to pay for an extension on your home. I shot him. Twice, right in the head like they do on TV, not even thinking. It didn’t help.

I think I always knew it wouldn’t help. But I had to.

I left. Walked out, threw the gun in the ocean, made it to my car. Part of me wanted to burn his home down around him, but I left it. Like a church: you don’t burn them. You leave them so people can see how empty they really are. I drove for hours, found a hotel. Slept. Woke. Slept again. I’d never felt so empty in my life. The bastard was dead, and I had nothing left in me.

I woke up knowing.

There was going to be a fire in Anchorage. I knew the street name. The building number. I could see – could feel – how many would die. And maybe it was because I was so empty, or because I’d listened to Evan, but I also knew that if I told anyone then the knowledge would never come back.

So I didn’t. I didn’t, because I thought I had to be wrong. Because I needed to be wrong. Only the building burned, and everyone died. Right down to the last detail in the vision. Today I woke up knowing of another disaster, like I did the night before. I can see them now. So clearly. I know what will happen. I know what I could change to alter that.

And I know that changing anything will take this gift away from me.

I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry, but it’s all that’s keeping me going.

Reunion

He told anyone who would listen that he used to be a giant. He was neither tall nor short, thin nor fat. Bearded, yes, but most men were this far from the Mountain. I plied him with drinks on the third night of listening to his tales – for I’d secrets of my own, and never offered up stories myself – and his tolerance for the power of Ninkasi was not as great as my own, for as his mouth filled so too did more stories spill forth. He said his name was Jack, who had killed a giant by making her his wife, and other things he said as well. Perhaps some were even true.

He called himself Boral as he told me about a troll he tricked into being stone and the time he led twenty women in a dance that destroyed the last Witch-Queen of the Southern Marshes. He told me about the wizards of Kildesh, who spoke math as others did words, the not-men of far Ishael who lived across a desert more dangerous to cross than any ocean. It was then I realized that he took me for a man – it is one of my gifts that others see what they wish to when they speak with me, though I never know the form the seeming takes. Men often see men, women a women.

I liked to think he would not have shared the darker edges of the tales with a woman, but I could not be certain. His tales grew taller as the night advanced. Others came and went from our table, and I paid for their drinks and our own with small coin, though a great deal of them. The dead take little with them and leave much behind for others to use.

The fire burning in the fireplace had eyes when it thought no one was watching.

“You must have had many other names, to know so many tales,” I said.

And Boral was almost, almost suspicious then but I had bought so many drinks and fed his ego even more. He offered other names in the hours before dawn that are not as quiet nor as lonely as many suppose. And finally, he told me that he used to be a prince. He said it as though it was the one story he did not expect me to believe, not even after he told me his first name, oldest and truest.

“You killed Grendel,” I said.

“Yes.” And he said it without pride, which might have saved him were I kind in even the small ways humans can be kind.

“You should not have done so,” I said, and the fire vanished from the fireplace at the words.

He drew back. “Mother?”

“You killed your brother.”

“Half, surely,” he said unsteadily.

“You squandered the gift I gave you.”

“Whatever else is done with gifts?” he asked, and he was almost something more in that moment.

“Even so.”

He reached for his blade then.

I smiled, for the first time since we had begun speaking, and Beowulf’s hand fell from his blade.

“I am the monster you birthed me to be,” be said, and there was a pleading in his voice.

“Even so,” I said again. And he was brave, and did not run though the innkeeper never slept a night through for the rest of his life.

Don’ts & Dues

The Bookmobile came into town twice every year. For some, the height of the year was the small circus in the summer, or the fall high school sports competitions. For me, it was when the Bookmobile came during the first week of April each year: a converted RV filled with books that were sometimes new and always well-priced. The owner, Ms. Worthing, was old and kind and so British you almost suspected she wasn’t British at all. The best part was the library service where you could borrow one book for every two you bought. She made a brief stop back in the first week of September to collect borrowed books and returned the following April.

For six years, my family jokingly called the first week of April my Christmas.

But it was the seventh year that changed everything I thought I knew.

I had borrowed a whole ten books from the Bookmobile that April, but an ugly flu left me bedridden for a week. My sister promised to return them but only returned four, misplacing the other six during our weekly housecleaning. I thought nothing of it, not even when none of us were able to find the six missing books at all – our house wasn’t that big, after all, and I figured I could do an in-depth search when I felt better and just return them next April. Only catching up on missed classes took time and October saw me with agonizing pains stabbing through my abdomen. I was given drugs and antibiotics, had blood work twice and ended up on drugs that barely kept the pain at bay but also meant I had no free time, not even to read, as I struggled to keep up with school.

Somehow, on October 31^st, the pain went away. My stomach still looked bloated, and my sister joked to anyone who asked that her brother was pregnant, but I finally felt almost normal for the first time in weeks. My parents didn’t want me going out, but after so long cooped up inside the house I felt I had to at least take a walk and went to a small park two minutes from our house over their objections and just watched the full moon and wondered how people coped with worse pains than my own.

It was quiet, which was strange for Halloween, which is why the rumble of a vehicle on the street caught my ear. It sounded strangely familiar and I turned, did a double-take – I even removed my glasses and put them back on – and I stared at the Bookmobile in confusion. I didn’t move, figuring someone was pranking people like me until Ms. Worthing got out and walked over, the engine juttering to silence. I’m not sure she made any noise as she walked.

“You have something that belongs to me,” she rasped, “do you not, Eric Arthur McTavish?”

The pain in my stomach flared to life and I doubled over, the agony too great even to scream.

Ms. Worthing stepped forward, or perhaps I fell into her. Her grip was hard, but her voice almost kind. “I thought better of you, Eric. But no one steals from the Bookmobile.”

And with that, she reached – Ms. Worthing did – with her right hand, right into my stomach, and pulled out all six missing books one after another as I whined in agony.

Somehow the books were unharmed. My stomach as well. I panted for air, shaking all over, and Ms. Worthing just calmly held one of the books up to her left ear as though listening to it. “It would seem I was wrong; you intended to return them entirely, and would have come April.”

I said nothing, trying to grab what had happened in a way that could make sense.

“I owe you a boon for my error, young Eric,” she said, and her eyes looked so old I was finally scared but couldn’t bring myself to look away. “Are there any books that you desire?”

And I did, of course I did, but something stayed my voice. The pain I had experienced, the impossibility of this evening. “How – what are you?” I asked, and my voice was almost steady. “Please?”

“Oh child,” Ms. Worthing said, and there was grief under the worlds, and a strange kind of pride as well.

*

People ask what I am going to do when I get older. I smile – my new smile that my sister called inscrutable – and say something will come up. And I add nothing else at all; even the guidance counsellor has stopped asking, perhaps worried I might tell him. Because when I turn eighteen, the Bookmobile will come a week after my birthday in March, and I will learn everything Ms. Worthing can teach me. And then I will drive my own Bookmobile from town to town in turn. Because that is the bargain that I made, and it is the one that the books accepted.

I don’t think I’ll have a British accent. At least not all the time.

But one never knows.

Weather

The sky is blue. It rains, but it is hard to see the clouds anymore. The DynaCore satellites move through the sky, translucent and beautiful as they are touched by the sun and touch the world in turn. There was a slight misting of rain just before dawn, and it will be warm the rest of the day. I don’t need to look at any interface to know this – it has been that way longer than our child has been alive.

“Is it going to snow for Christmas?” That’s all our child asks behind me, soft and hard at once.

“I believe so. Your father always liked snow at Christmas, and most of the neighbours would like it as well.”

They pause. I have always been good with weather; I find I am good with the moods of people, later than I would have liked to learn this skill. The pause is sharp and hard, a sudden updraft. “And that’s it, mom? A week of snow perhaps, and then this –?” They wave a hand to compass the sky, the growing fields, the sun.

I master anger. It gets harder with every season, with every year. In the face of hatred I do not understand. But I do it. “You have seen pictures of me and your father. Why DynaCorp was built. You have not had to worry about acid rains burning off your skin, weirding storms tearing apart homes and lands, the resource wars that shattered nations and continents,” I snap, louder than I intended to.

“I know that, mom,” they say, as if they do. As if virtual games substitute for experience. “But the weather is gone, and you don’t get that. You’ve never got that, because you don’t talk about small things. Little things. All the conversations that are simple common ground everyone can discuss to fill holes in a conversation. And now the weather isn’t one of those at all, and you don’t – none of you understand what you took from us.”

“There are,” I say as patiently as I can, “many topics of conversation, child.”

They bristle at the child; I don’t think I would have, as a child, but the world has changed. “And weather was one of the levellers, the ones everyone could talk about. Weather was safe, and now you’ve made it bland, mom. You and this company, and everything you’ve done!”

“We made the world safe; if that is the price, it is one people should be glad to pay.”

“And if we’re not?”

I say nothing to that at all. There have been attempts to take down the DynaCorp system, often fronted by religionists, but this is something else altogether. Almost, almost I am tempted to use override codes and let them know what the world was truly like, let them see the truth they don’t understand.

But I master the anger and go back inside.

Tomorrow will be another beautiful day.

And the children will just have to get used to that.

The Mysterious Text: A Not A Novel Publication

“Franklin.”

Four years of marriage lead to skills Sarah always calls our ‘marriage-sense’. The tingling of a bridge close to being burn, of a line close to being crossed. Every relationship a tightrope, at least some of the time. I look up from the text message. “I –.”

She reaches over, pushing our laptop away from the table. “It’s been three days.”

“I know. I’m just so fu–.” I bite back words.

“Deana is sleeping,” she says. “And if you wake her, you’ll have more to worry about than me.” But my wife smiles as she says it, the smile fading as she runs her fingers over my chin. “You haven’t shaved in two days.”

“I know, I just –.” I set my phone on our small office table that’s only called that because of the bills drawer. “I know something is wrong, Sarah. I’ve known Aiden since we were six years old: he is – was – is my best friend. I was the first person he came out to.”

“He was the best man at our wedding,” she says. “And convinced me to stick with you after that one party at Clover Point.”

“He did?”

“Phone calls afterwards, three of them. About how long he’d known you, that the drinks must have been spiked. That he turned out to be right helped.”

“Everyone else calls me Frank. Everyone at work, even my parents.”

“We don’t.”

I nod, gesture to the phone. “He used ‘Frank’ in his last text to me. He never did that. Refused to abbreviate anything unless he was in a hurry, and if he was there would be a period so I’d know it was Franklin. So I’d know it was my name. He had a new boyfriend, and he’s always – well, he’d have called Steven before the flight, after it landed. He would anyway, but he was – is – always does with regularity at the start of any relationship.”

“He would have sent us a picture of some street in Vancounver during the first day.”

“And he didn’t. He flew halfway across the country, and we know he left the airport and then – nothing. The police have enough to look into it: they’ll try, but it won’t be hard enough. I could almost hear the interest change when they decided it had to be an affair. I wanted to ask if they wanted another Pickton to escape them, but that wouldn’t have helped anything at all.”

Sarah laughs, as much in shock as surprise. “No, it wouldn’t.”

“And Deana is two, I can’t get time off work. Even if we could afford the flight.”

“I looked into our credit cards,” she says, stepping behind me to run fingers over my neck. “We can’t afford it. If we borrowed, it would have to be a friend willing to wait two years at least to be paid back, love.”

“I know. I know. He could be dying. Be dead. Be in some – and there is nothing we can do.” I don’t delete the message on my phone. I can do that much. I can read Vancouver news from so far away. I can hope. We can afford hope, if nothing else.

I force myself to stand, heading to the kitchen for a night cap and then bed. There is nothing we can afford to sell, nothing I can think to do in a world that doesn’t work like a mystery novel. I don’t know anything about solving crimes, nothing about finding murdered friends. All I know is that it all costs money, and that’s one thing we don’t have.

Black Peter

Three drinks: that's the point at which the Christmas songs blaring from the radio become tolerable. A few more and I have the horrible urge to join in, any less and I'm not drunk enough to have that warm, pleasant feeling about humanity that only a few stiff drinks can bring about. The thing about this time of year is that you don't drink in order to get a date but to make yourself more bearable. It's not a nice time of year to be alone, but no time really is.

All of which is a damn long-winded way of saying I was mildly drunk, which might be reason to dismiss everything else I'm about to tell you. I don't much care if you do, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Because you're here, and he isn't, and you bought this round.

I think, looking back on it, that the bartender had the Christmas music on to get us to go home. All it did was make the old guy in the far booth weep into his drink. Me? I was at the bar, half-considering finding out what a Christmas Shot was, wondering what Emily had got the kids, if they'd call me tomorrow morning to wish me a merry Christmas: the usual litany of sorrows you don't care about and I can't be bothered to explain.

When he slipped into the barstool to my left I didn't think much of not hearing the door open: who does, really? I did a double-take when he ordered a scotch on the rocks: his voice was soft and scratchy, like a kid who'd had whisky since he was seven you know? He was – hah! You'd think I'd remember what he looked like, but each time it’s like learning it again. He was small and thin and pale, long and lanky hair reaching down past his shoulders. I'd have thought he was a kid except his eyes were darker than his hair and full of adult things.

The bartender served the stranger with barely a glance, his thoughts on overtime and whoever waited for him at home.

“Thank you,” the boy-man said in a soft, raspy voice and for a moment I felt uneasy. There was something almost familiar about that voice, like someone on the telly or some long-forgotten dream. The bartender hesitated a moment and then just nodded and moved down the bar to polish it. Part of me wanted to move away, but I couldn't without being rude and besides the seat was warm already.

I offered up my name and the peanuts from beside me.

“Peter,” said he and smiled. His teeth were baby-teeth small, but all thin and sharp, his fingernails the same when he reached for the peanuts. His fingers were too long, too thin, too sharp, but if he noticed my unease he ignored it entirely as he ate a handful of peanuts, one at a time, chasing them down with the drink as he stared into space with the thousand-yard stare as common to drunks as to soldiers lost in memory.

You know how they say eyes are windows to the soul? His weren't windows at all, just dark pools, bogs under clouds at night. I've never thought myself a poet, never had much use for that crock, but something about him drew that out of me. He looked so small and deeply sad that I spoke.

“Hey.”

He turned. He was quick, no doubt, his smile all hard and brittle as though he knew what I was going to say and had already prepared a comeback about my own appearance.

“You okay?” I said.

“I'm here,” he said, as if that was answer enough. It was, at least on Christmas Eve. “Why do you care?”

“I don't.” If my honesty surprised him, the surprise didn't touch his face. “I thought you might have a story to tell and I'd rather not think about my own.”

“Heh. I might at that,” he said, and then half to himself, “I might at that,” as though it had simply never occurred to him before that night. Peter stared down at his strange hands on the counter – not misshapen – you understand? – merely different, but I couldn't read anything in the angles of his face when he looked up.

“I'm told I was born in the far north,” he said, and his voice dropped to a low chant, as if he was reciting a story told to him long ago. “in the wind and cold and the high mountains. The Old Man told me I was cast aside, left to the winter wolves and ugly snows. But I don't know. I've never met another like me in all my years. My first memory was of his shop: cherry smoke and sawdust, sparks on an anvil.

“And work,” he added, flexing his fingers. His veins stood out, a pale red under flesh: a network of faint scaring criss-crossed his hands. I looked up and the same thin scars covered his face, fading as he relaxed his hands. “Much work, for such a long time, all toward one night. The Old Man would head out into the world with his gifts and wonders and magic. Entire nations waited for him, kings and emperors ceased their endless wars at his coming and the children of the world worshipped him.”

Peter gulped back cider. “Worship is nothing, you know. Children offer it up to parents, dogs to masters. It was awe the Old Man needed. And you don't have awe without fear. I was given a cloak made from nightmares and lost dreams, a whip forged from harsh words and a name. He called me Black Peter, and I was to punish the guilty. Oh, only the children, because only children can be changed.

“The Old Man would stand, huge and terrible behind me, and pass judgement. The good children received gifts. The others, me. I whipped them, and they cried, and I was called a monster in the stories that came later, when the Old Man was the Sinister, and then the Santa but my story never changed at all.”

I made a sound at that, half a laugh, and Peter looked up. His face was all hard lines, his eyes deeper than human eyes went and the small man just drank another gulp of cider and continued talking. I don't know if he knew I was there at all anymore.

“Yes, I whipped them, but he watched. Sometimes he even smiled,” Black Peter said. “He saved his laugh for the good children, but the others saw his smile. Those the whip could not touch became his elves in time. Taken from parents only too grateful to see such monsters out of their lives and so eager they never asked many questions. In time they become jolly, in the stories that came later, and even kind.”

He looked up. He could see me again and was here again, and his smile was terribly gentle and sad when he spoke. “The Old Man let me go today,” he whispered, clutching the drink hard in his hands. “I shouldn't be sad but I am. Funny, isn't it? Everything he made me I never wanted to be but I can't find it in me to hate him for it. I don’t know if that makes him the better monster. I think – I think it’s not that simple.”

I said nothing, but my silence must have spoken for me because Peter looked up from his drink. “You don't believe me.” He seemed actually surprised by that.

“You are trying to tell me you're an elf who works for Santa Claus,” I said, and figured my sarcasm would tell enough of a story.

Peter was silent a few moments at that, then said something. I won't repeat it. We all have our quirks, our fetishes, things we want and never should, desires never voiced. He said one of mine, one I'd never dreamt of acting on, never told anyone about. He mentioned a second as I stared at him, and then a third, softer still.

I tried to punch him without thinking, to stop him from saying any more truth, and he caught my wrist between his fingers lightly. His grip was solid, his arm not moving at all as I tried to get free. “I know precious few tricks,” he said as he let go. “That was the kindest of them.“

“The kindest,” I said and my voice was a shaken rasp.

Black Peter drew back at that and looked away. “I apologize; I should not have done that.”

“Santa gives gifts,” I said, my voice closer to my own.

“Sometimes, yes. More than he used to. Sometimes in your world you call people freedom fighters, name them heroes in the hope that they will live up to that name. He has changed and I am no longer part of that change, no longer part of his story. All things change over time, even truth,” he said and he seemed far too small to contain all the sadness in his voice.

I bought more ciders. Perhaps I shouldn't have, but I had been wrong to call him a liar.

His smile of thanks was as fragile as dew as he drank, then asked why I was there, on that night.

I told him; I won't bore you with the details: you can probably guess them for yourself. He listened in silence and I filled the silence with other things: small bitterness, old wounds, resentments. He knew the worst of me in some ways and I felt obligated to offer up more until the drinks were done.

The bartender dimmed the lights as we stood. I shrugged on my coat, leaving a tip I could ill afford and only then noticed that Peter wore no shoes. He walked out into the snow with me as though into summer, his thin shirt and second-hand jeans pressed against flesh.

“What will you do?” I said.

“Wander. Travel. Wait. He will want me back in time,” Black Peter said, his voice full of yearning and certainty. “If he does not, another will.”

I know what my kids want for Christmas. Not in a shit-father way, but a real one. I know what you want. What your kids want. I know things now. I don’t know what he did to me, but I know these things. Just as I know you have a gun under your coat and that I don’t want to be a monster. Please, use it. Because it is Christmas. Because you are all the hope I have left, officer.