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_Four Windows: Seattle_

(Part One)

edited by

Christine Smith

&

Jessie Kwak

Published by Four Windows Books, LLC.

First U.S. Edition: September 2014

Cover art by Tyler Ayala-Turner

Cover design by Ian Smith

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Copyright © Four Windows Books, 2014

_Trace,_ copyright 2014 by Ian Smith

_NeuTraffic_ , copyright 2014 by Andrew Gaines

_School of Sight,_ copyright 2014 by Alisha A. Knaff

_Shifting Borders_ , copyright 2014 by Jessie Kwak

_Introduction_

IN MAY, JESSIE KWAK AND I went out for coffee. The weather was gorgeous and something felt like it was about to explode into the world — Four Windows was conceived that day. Jessie and I have both been writing our whole lives, but had just realized that writing doesn't have to be as laborious and painful as we were always led to believe. We had both discovered that giving ourselves deadlines and the right to experiment renewed our love of writing. Now we were writing for a more generous reader, trusting our audience more, and being more honest and creative with our words. We realized that this sort of liberated writing needed to be shared with the world. We decided to start our own publication, to create a "novel incubator": a place for experienced and talented writers to come together in community and support one another through workshops and through aggressive deadlines.

This publication cares for both its writer and its reader. When serial publications first became popular in the 1800s it gave Victorian readers a cheaper and more manageable way to access great fiction. Readers today are busy. Their time is their greatest currency. Writers are the same, most of the time having to hold down full time jobs in addition to their writing. Offering these stories a bit at a time gives you, the reader, great stories that you can devour at a pace that is mindful of the world we live in. The graduated deadlines keep our authors writing without giving them too much time to second guess their narratives. Together with the workshops that we hold throughout this process, the nature of the serial publication is the real beauty of Four Windows Books.

I have greatly enjoyed watching these incredible storytellers develop such compelling characters. I've fallen in love with their worlds and with my city, Seattle, over and over again as I've read them. I can't wait for you to do the same. I can't wait to hear your theories about what will happen next in the serials — I have my own! Join this community and tell us what you think on our Facebook page, on Twitter, or on fourwindowsbooks.com.

I can't wait to hear from all of you!

Happy reading,

Christine Smith

15 September, 2014
TABLE OF CONTENTS

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_Trace,_ by Ian Smith

As if money troubles and complicated romances aren't enough of a problem, Joanne Shaughnessy's latest round of treatments for her phantom limb pain seems to have sparked a mysterious ability to hear the voices of the dead — an ability which catapults Joanne into the center of a high-stakes battle whose outcome may just shape the next stage of human evolution.

_NeuTraffic_ , by Andrew Gaines

In a near-future, post-revolution Seattle, John Graham has a simple mission: deliver a message. But when his route home becomes the latest casualty of inter-state warfare, John is forced on a journey through the now-dangerous streets of his changed city, and the now-unfamiliar byways of his changing mind.

_School of Sight,_ by Alisha A. Knaff

Is it crazier to believe in fairies than, well, to just believe you're crazy? When a young sibyl gets their first glimpse into the invisible world of shapeshifters, witches, and vampires that exists alongside ours, they find themselves ensnared in a web of questions about their sanity — and in an equally dangerous game between powers they don't always understand.

_Shifting Borders_ , by Jessie Kwak

When a resurrection goes awry in a cold Seattle cemetery, mother-of-three Patricia Ramos-Waites finds herself possessed by the ghost of her sister's dead lover — and the target of a Central American drug-smuggling ring who desperately want to get their hands on the ghost she's hosting.
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_Trace, Part One_

by

Ian Smith

"WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR ARM?"

Joanne looked up and bit back the reflexive snark that had formed on her lips — the kid was maybe eight; pale and bespectacled. He stood in front of her uncomfortable waiting room chair clutching a ragged copy of Harry Potter in one hand, and an inhaler in the other. He seemed unable to keep his eyes off of her stump for more than a second.

Joanne made a show of looking him up and down before leaning in to whisper, "Do you really want to know?"

The boy nodded, simultaneously suspicious of the conspiratorial tone and excited by it.

Joanne raised her right arm and pointed at him so he could see the scars that traced the few inches of her arm beyond her elbow. "It was eaten by a dragon!"

"Nuh-uh! There aren't any dragons. They're made up."

She brought her left index finger to her lips, urgency in her eyes, "Shhhh! They'll hear you. I only barely escaped last time, I won't be able to protect you."

"Kevin? Kevin! Don't bother that poor girl!" A woman crossed the waiting room in three strides from the reception desk, and snatched him by his elbow. "I'm sorry, miss." She said over her shoulder as she hauled him to the opposite corner of the room.

"He's no trouble, we were just talking."

"Joanne Shaughnessy?" a nurse called from the door.

Joanne rose and slung her bag across her body. As she walked away she gave Kevin a quick wink and pressed her finger to her lips.

*

After the blood pressure/pulse routine, the nurse swished away and left Joanne alone in a room with a cross-sectional poster of a child's trachea. She absently rubbed her stump, mildly annoyed that she wasn't feeling anything now. This was the way of it: sometimes the pain was so overwhelming it was all she could do not to cry out, but as soon as she was in front of a medical professional, nothing. It made her feel crazy, like it was all in her head — and, in a way, she supposed it was. The problem certainly wasn't with her nonexistent arm, was it? But her nonarm seemed to know when it was least convenient to act up, and when it was vexing to behave. She was reflecting on the strangeness of personifying a missing part of her body when the door swung open.

The doctor entered wearing a button-up shirt that boldly straddled the line between professionalism and a luau. His cheeks and the skin under his eyes sagged a little, reminding Joanne of a basset hound. His gaze flicked twice between the chart and Joanne's face in a pattern she recognized. She certainly didn't look like a Shaughnessy. "Hi, Joanne? I'm Dr. Keller. Have a seat. So what brings you in today?"

Joanne braced herself to repeat the litany of initial medical inquiry. "I have persistent phantom limb pain that's resisted conventional treatments, so I was recommended here."

"Mmhmn, mhmm. Right arm, transradial...I don't seem to have the circumstances for amputation?"

"That's unfortunate. Neither do I." Her attempt at humor fell flat. She hadn't yet discovered a good way to have this conversation with a medical professional. She knew it was relevant, but that didn't make it any more pleasant. "I was adopted with no medical history. My arm had already been amputated before I was deposited at the agency. The people who made that decision are somewhere in China, and I doubt they recall."

"Hmmmn, can you describe the sensation for me?"

"It varies quite a bit. The most common is a prickly burning, but sometimes it's crushing, pinching, cutting...." She gave a shrug.

"Always painful?"

"Yes."

"Mhmm...."

He tapped away at his laptop for a bit, giving Joanne the chance to return to her observation of the artist's rendering of juvenile vivisection. Her phone buzzed, and she slipped it out of her pocket.

Katy:

Hey! How's it going? Are you cured?

Joanne:

Yup! They just pulled a new arm off the rack and popped it on.

Katy:

Awesome!! How well did they match your skin tone?

Joanne:

All they had in stock were Melanin Deficient Waif and Zulu Princess. I am now officially 1/8 African-American.

Katy:

You should have taken the melanin deficiency, then you could borrow my nail polish.

Hey, wanna do me a huge favor?

"Can you visualize your arm?" Dr. Keller asked without breaking the chatter of his typing.

"Sure."

"Can you try to open and close your missing hand?"

Joanne held her arm out and the muscles wrapped around her stump twitched rhythmically. He watched for a moment and returned to typing.

"Can you close your eyes and point to where your hand would be?"

"Why?"

He looked up, blinked twice. "I am just trying to infer what your nervous system thinks your arm is up to."

Joanne clenched her jaw, but shut her eyes and pointed with her left hand to where she imagined the right to be.

"Ok, open your eyes? It looks like your proprioception is still functioning for your missing limb. And it seems to have grown with you, which is not at all guaranteed. Have you ever had any bodywork?"

"Excuse me?"

"Bodywork...like a chakra reading or biorhythm evaluation? Aura alignment? No?"

Joanne shook her head. This was clearly a mistake. "No, I haven't. That's always sort of smacked of bullshit to me."

Dr. Keller tilted his laptop half shut. "You know that this is an alternative medicine clinic, right?"

"Well yeah, but I thought that meant you'd do homeopathic stuff along with the regular meds."

"Sure, sure. Some of the doctors here do, but there are a multitude of different medical traditions. My work is grounded in the Eastern idea of chi balance, and I'm participating in some initially promising research for both pain management and disability compensation. If you're willing, I'd like to do a series of regular visits to try some different centering techniques."

"I don't know. I haven't given much thought to my chi before now."

"Right. Well, I'll tell you what. You'd make a really interesting case study for my research, so I'd be willing to pay you a stipend if you can come in for an hour every other week and follow some basic lifestyle guidelines. And of course, your medical care would be covered, as well. Would you like to talk it over with my research assistant and see if you're interested in participating?"

A little extra money and a few less expenses would not hurt anything right now; the savings she had moved to Seattle with were wearing a little thin. "Yeah, I guess so."

*

For the next two hours she was grilled about her medical history and personal habits by an overly perky grad student. The stipend was not incredible, but anything to stem the flood of cash out of her bank account was welcome, and she only had to swear off alcohol, prescription and recreational drugs, and agree to take a distressingly long list of herbal supplements which she needed to pick up in the International District.

As she was leaving the medical complex, her phone buzzed again.

Katy:

...so I'm going to take that as a no?

Joanne:

Shit. Sorry the dr. decided to acknowledge my presence again and I got distracted. What's the favor?

Katy:

Wanna be my wingwoman tonight? I'm going to a thing and I might need backup.

I know it's not your favorite thing.

Joanne:

What's in it for me?

Katy:

I'll buy your first round?

I'll make piroushki tomorrow night?

Joanne:

You know it's going to take more than that...

Katy:

I'll listen to the entirety of any album you give me and discuss how brilliant it is with you?

Joanne:

What? That's not payment. You should thank me for the endless labor I put into improving your shittastic music taste.

Katy:

Shut up. I know you too well for that.

Joanne:

Three albums. And piroushki.

Katy:

Thanks, hon! You're the best!

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Joanne squinted against an errant sunbeam peeking through the cirrus blanket that covered the city and checked the bus schedule. Well, she had just missed the 16 and another wouldn't come for thirty minutes. She could either wait or she could walk under Aurora and catch a bus across the Fremont Bridge instead.

She started walking mostly just to be doing something, and thumbed her way through the King County Metro website to figure out which bus would get her to the ID the quickest. Not the way she had planned to spend her afternoon, but if she headed straight over, she could be back to the apartment in time to get ready with Katy.

*

Joanne stepped off the bus in the International District station, the last underground stop before the transit tunnel disgorged its travelers to disperse throughout the forsaken lands south of the stadiums. The scent of curry entwined itself in the more familiar smells of black coffee and wet concrete, and the walls echoed with a busker's saxophone wailing out Moon River.

She ascended the steps to street level, and felt a wave of nauseating anxiety — like the free falling terror of hearing a professor announce an exam that she'd forgotten to study for. There were Chinese characters on signs and the frenetic song of tonal language all around her, foreign as hieroglyphs, but all reminding her of where she was not from, what she did not know, who she could never be. It was tempting to burrow straight back down into the bus tunnel and be whisked back into the comfort of the codified counterculture of Seattle proper — she spoke that language as fluently as a native and could happily blend into the menagerie.

As soon as she recognized the desire, she steeled herself against it. _Fuck that. What are you afraid of? No one here gives a shit about you._ She took a moment to orient her phone to her surroundings, and then headed off down a side street.

She walked past the Tiantang Medicine Shop twice before finally Googling a picture of the building — two red characters painted over a nondescript door marked the entrance _. Jesus. What a fucking tourist_. She opened the door to be greeted by a heady wall of aromas — licorice, pepper, and ozone with a slight undernote of sewage.

A wrinkled man hunched on a stool behind the counter, wispy-haired and liver-spotted. He was gazing disinterestedly at a talk show when Joanne entered; he regarded her in solemn silence for a moment then focused back on the television. The shop was lined with shelves, and each shelf held an amalgam of irregular plastic bins containing dried bits of organic god-knows-what. There were a scattering of identifying cards about the shop, but only a few were in English, and those bore such cryptic legends as 'concentrated gel of antler velvet' and 'codonopsis'. After a minute of surveying the inscrutable, she gave up and approached the man behind the desk. "Excuse me, could you help me find some of these herbs?"

He replied without taking his eyes from the brewing domestic dispute, "You from Dr. Keller?"

There was a note of disdain in his voice that made her want to deny it, but her list was on his letterhead. "Yes, I just started seeing him."

"He's a fool." Without ceremony, he slid from his stool, took the paper from her hand and started scooping various powders and plant matter into bags.

"I'm sorry?"

"He's big fool. You should know. He read some website or take some class and he think he knows _zhong yi_." He spat out a little laugh and set the first baggie on the counter. "But he always write the same thing. Pagoda tree fruit, aloeswood, tangerine peel. Every patient. He thinks you are a test tube. I only tell you so you don't expect too much." More baggies on the counter. "I have to go in back. He asks for junk I wouldn't sell. Wait here."

Joanne made a conscious effort to relax her clenched jaw. She considered fleeing the shop before he returned to disapprove some more, but she decided to see it through. _It's not as though I had a much higher opinion of him._ Seeking distraction, and desperate to avoid the tinny talk show spat playing out in all it's 10-inch glory, she turned her attention to an array of weathered figurines adorning the front edge of the desk. There was a small jade dragon, a terracotta warrior, an immaculately kimonoed geisha, a porcelain man painted with a long beard and a red face, and a collection of wooden Buddhas ranging from lean and placid to chubby and grinning.

Her gaze kept returning to the terracotta warrior. It was one of the smaller and plainer figures, but she found herself curious about it. She imagined a sculptor, carefully carving rivets on the tiny armor. In her mind's eye she could see him, shirtless next to the kiln, with a blade no larger than a needle working the details in the stiff red clay man in his hand. That's silly, she thought, this is probably stamped out in a factory in Dubuque. But the image persisted — a craftsman, surrounded by sculptures as tall as him and taller, but carving one tiny one. Laboring on the details. She could feel the stiff wet clay in her hands, feel the warmth of the fire all along her right side. Her world narrowed to the tiny warrior and the salty taste of sweat and tears and...blood?

Her reverie was temporarily disturbed by a quiet burst of Chinese as the herbalist placed a phone call, but she tuned it out and looked at the figurine in her hand with the sensation of a fading dream. She didn't remember picking it up, but it was cradled in her left hand with her nonhand clasping it. Suddenly self-conscious, she carefully placed the clay warrior back on the counter and took a studied interest in the aged business license mounted to the wall over the register. After another couple of minutes the herbalist returned. He set down another set of baggies a short distance from the first group and appraised Joanne as if for the first time.

"He's a fool, but he pays you, yes? And I charge him double. So everyone is happy. But you should know."

"Thank you. Uhm...how do I take all this?"

The herbalist barked another short laugh and gave an exaggerated vaudeville shrug. "This junk? You ask Keller. I never touch that stuff." He pointed to the first group. "These you take in tea, half a teaspoon each. This one? Maybe give you gas. You should know."

The bell over the door tinkled softly as another customer entered. Joanne gathered the baggies, carefully keeping the groups separated between her fingers. She turned to leave and found herself eye-to-eye with a middle-aged Asian woman made up with dark eyeliner and scarlet lipstick. The two women regarded each other for a moment, then the newcomer clucked her tongue. " _Ni hui bu hui shuo Zhongwen_?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I don't speak...." She wanted to say Chinese but she was suddenly worried that she had misidentified the language and didn't want to give offense.

" _Mei tzuo, ni giu shi bu hui shuo. Phud phasa thiy di him? Hangug-eo? Kuso nihongo_? Do you speak anything other than English?"

Confounded and a little defensive, Joanne dusted off some seldom-used neural pathways and replied, " _J'ai pris francais a l'ecole_." She tried to step past the woman, she found her way blocked again.

Her eyes searched Joanne's face. "Hmph. _Votre francais est merde aussi_. So, what? You born here? You never learn the language of your family?"

Joanne bristled, "I was adopted, ok? Now, excuse me."

The woman stepped in front of her again as Joanne tried to push past, bumping her with a hip and keeping her pinned in the back of the shop. Several escape scenarios played through Joanne's mind, each more ridiculous. Finally she sighed and crossed her arm with her stump. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"That's better." The woman scowled and peered into Joanne's face again. "You have job?"

"What? I don't think that's any of your—"

"Pah! You don't have fucking job. Look, I make you a deal, ok? You make some easy money. You come upstairs and answer questions and I give you fifty bucks, ok? You answer them right, maybe there's more. "

Red flags went off in Joanne's mind, jumbled memories of Stranger Danger PSA's combined with her father's warning that anything that seemed too good to be true probably was.

The herbalist cleared his throat behind Joanne. "Ming's ok. She's harmless. A little crazy, but harmless."

"I don't think I'm interested in your...very weird offer ma'am."

"Don't fucking ma'am me. It's easy money." She opened her clutch and withdrew crisp twenties. "There, that's sixty. You want the fucking money or not?"

She did want the money, but all common sense decreed that it was a horrible idea. But that didn't stop her from being curious.

"I don't really have time — a friend is expecting me soon."

"So you'll come back tomorrow? One hour, sixty dollars. That's a good deal."

Ming did seem a little crazy, but not necessarily in the violent psychopath sort of way. She hoped. And agreeing to come back later seemed like the most expedient way out of the shop.

"Sure. What time?"

"Come any time before noon."

"Ok, see you then."

*

When she'd moved to Seattle a few months ago, her plan had been to crash on Katy's couch for a couple of weeks until she got steady work and then a place of her own, but one or the other of them always found an excuse to put off the eventual move until she silently and unintentionally slid across the line from houseguest to roommate. Katy's place was on the top floor of an older building in Lower Queen Anne, with creaky wooden flooring and a narrow stripe of a view of the Puget Sound from the balcony. It only had one bedroom, but the living room was reasonably large and Joanne could pull out the divider to visually (though certainly not audibly) wall off her corner from the rest of the flat. And the overstuffed couch was more comfortable than any bed Joanne could have afforded anyhow.

Joanne had showered and now sat wrapped in a towel on the toilet lid, her right elbow braced against the counter, with a nail polish brush clamped between her stump and her bicep. She carefully ran each of her left fingers under the brush, pausing occasionally to raise the bottle up to rewet it. Just as she was applying the last strokes to her thumb she heard the familiar sounds of Katy arriving — the creaking slam of the door, the tumbledown thud of her messenger bag, the sharp clops of shucked shoes, and traditional pouring of the post-bus-ride glass of water. Joanne screwed the bottle back onto the lid and dropped it into her small box of cosmetics. Katy leaned into the bathroom beaming, "Hey Jo! Are you ready?"

"Wet nails and wet hair, but otherwise, I'm yours."

The two had met at Bozeman High School in Montana — mere acquaintances forced together when they were asked to junior prom by best friends, who bonded over criticism of the gym decorations and sharing roving hands avoidance tactics. Joanne had been supremely grateful for Katy's company but had still been surprised when she'd called her up to hang out a week after school let out. The two spent most of the summer together and by their senior year they were inseparable. They let it be known that they were a package deal when it came to dances — ask out one only if you were willing to double with the other and her date. They always got ready together — which mostly translated to Katy getting herself ready and then playing dress up with a life-sized Joanne doll. It was one of Katy's greatest pleasures. Joanne's independent streak had initially compelled her to resist Katy's offers until she realized it had nothing to do with her disability — Katy would happily beautify whomever she could get her hands on. Once she gave in, she began to really enjoy it. Katy always made her look amazing, and Joanne didn't have to think about it at all, which she preferred.

When she had moved to Seattle, they had fallen back into the routine anytime they were going out somewhere together. Now Katy had Joanne sit on the hamper that served as her parlor chair and began to blow dry out her hair. "I'm thinking, kind of a messy loose up-do tonight — sound good?"

"Sure. What is this thing we're going to?"

"It's a happy hour after a tech meet-up. Mostly a chance for start-up dudes to suck up to potential investors and poach talent from Amazon, it sounds like."

"And we're going why?"

"First of all, free drinks. Second, off the charts dude-to-lady ratio, so maybe we find you a little something." Katy winked at Joanne in the mirror, and she rolled her eyes back.

"And...."

"And...there's this guy I met at a bar who asked me to come and I haven't decided if he's a prospect or not. I want to give him a fair chance to sweep me off my feet, but also have an escape route handy."

"Gotcha. Do I need a cover story? I'm not exactly tech industry."

"Just say you're a database admin or something super boring like that. Probably no one will question it."

"And if they do?"

"If they do just give that lovely eyeroll you've been practicing and say 'I thought this was the happy hour?' and then hijack the conversation. Should work like a charm."

With a few deft twists, Katy had Joanne's hair wound into a complicated but loose knot at the top of her head. She spent a few moments picking out strands to frame Joanne's face, carefully constructing a look of elegant nonchalance.

"You look simply mahvelous, dahling. Shall we retire to the boudoir?"

Katy hadn't let Joanne live out of a suitcase for more than three days before she insisted that she unpack into her closet. The girls shared clothes often — they were about the same height, and though Katy had wide shoulders and hips to match the wide cheekbones of her Russian heritage, she generally liked a tighter fit than Joanne, so it worked out. Katy had her try on a few outfits before settling on a navy blue cocktail dress with an asymmetrical hem and a pair of kitten heels.

"I feel like I'm going to be super over-dressed for this."

"Probably, but damn do you look good! Don't worry, I'm going to get all fancy as well. These nerds won't know what hit' em. Do you mind if I try something new with your eyes tonight?"

Joanne laughed. "Knock yourself out, lady."

They moved back to the bathroom to make the best use of the natural light from the high window, with Joanne taking her original position on the closed toilet and Katy sliding the hamper over to sit in front of her.

Katy loaded a little triangular sponge with Joanne's foundation. "Any news on the job front?"

"Nope. I promise you'll be the first to hear." She saw Katy's jaw clench and immediately regretted her tone. "It seems I am going to be selling my body to science though, so I should be able to chip in a little extra this month." She smiled with an apologetic little eyebrow raise.

"Oh? Finally decided to get rid of that extra kidney, eh?" Apology accepted. Katy had weathered enough of Joanne's barbs over the years to know they were mostly empty of any real venom.

"Nah, apparently my nonarm pain is weird enough that even the weirdo doctors don't know what to do with it. Dr. Hippy wants to try to balance my chi and is willing to pay me to take a shit ton of herbs."

"I hear weed is very good for chi balance."

"Alas, not one of the herbs he prescribed. And I'm not supposed to take any drugs while I'm part of the study. Or drink. Or eat excessive amounts of genetically modified foods."

Katy brandished a powder brush. "Wait, no drinking? Shit, girl. What about tonight?"

"Oh, believe me, there will be drinking tonight. Clean livin' starts tomorrow."

"Phew, thank god. Close your eyes."

Katy brushed and dabbed in silent concentration for a bit, and Joanne stayed as still as possible. She wondered what chi felt like. She searched inside herself for some spiritual substance in need of balancing, but she felt nothing. Nothing but the hard toilet seat beneath the silky material of her dress and Katy's careful application of pigment to her eyelids. In her mind's eye, she could see both of her hands resting on her knees, but she could only feel the left one. She conjured a mental image of some sort of glowy spirit energy flowing from her body down into her nonarm — filling in, balancing out. Her arm started to ache, as it often did when she focused on it too hard. Or if she passed it through a solid object. Or sometimes even just watching someone do something unfamiliar that required two hands. She had read about similar complaints from people who had lost limbs later in life — phantom sensation rooted in cognitive dissonance or some shit. But she'd never found another account of someone limbless from birth experiencing that sort of thing.

"Ok, what do you think?"

Joanne opened her eyes. Katy was gifted, no doubt. She had done a smoky fade combined with a slight cat eye point to her eyeliner that made her eyes seem almost double their normal size. "Remind me again why you don't do this for a living?"

"Because it wouldn't be fun anymore if I did it all week. This way it's a treat for both of us. I picked up some vodka. Want to go make a couple of preflight cocktails while I whip this hot mess into shape?" She drew a circle in the air around her face while making pouty lips.

"Sure thing. And thanks, Katy."

"Anytime, Jo."

*

They were indeed overdressed, but no one present seemed to mind. The bar was new and desperately hip, and the only light sources were indirect — glowing through fabric, angled off the ceiling and tracing the wall to shine down onto the floor. The overall effect was dim ambient lighting and almost no shadows, giving the interior a surreal dreamlike quality.

Katy found Maurice, her semi-date, and Joanne found a surprisingly good selection of alcohol to choose from for an open bar. She ordered a Hendricks and tonic and floated towards one of the standing tables near the corner. Once she had located Katy in the crowd, she watched her and Maurice interact. He was laughing at something she had said, but his laughter seemed thin and calculated. Joanne took a sudden and strong dislike to him. She thought to text Katy her assessment, but her friend seemed happy, so she decided to butt out.

She glanced over the handful of pamphlets advertising upcoming meet-ups, hackathons, and recruiting events on the table while squeezing her lime into her drink. They read like a half-translated message from another world: English sentence structures peppered with nonsensical acronyms and familiar words used in ways that made no conventional sense whatsoever. She was puzzling over one particularly cryptic passage when she sensed the inevitable approach. _Here we go_.

He was a tanned and athletic man, maybe late-thirties, wearing a sports jacket and an unbuttoned collared shirt. He smiled toothily and extended his hand to Joanne. "Hi, I don't think I've seen you at one of these things before. I'm Mitch."

Joanne turned so her lack of a right hand was clearly visible and took Mitch's outstretched hand with her left, squeezing his knuckles and giving a polite shake. "Joanne. This is the first I've been to."

Mitch did a double take and valiantly tried to recover, but his silky smooth pick-up was irrevocably rumpled. "Well...welcome. I'm sorry, I didn't see your...uh. I mean, it's nice to meet you."

Joanne was used to the awkwardness and had built up several means of defusing it over the years. She considered letting Mitch twist in his fumbling recovery, but decided to let him off the hook. She tilted her head to draw his eyes off her arm and smiled. "Nice to meet you as well. What company are you with?"

Grateful to be back on solid territory again, Mitch gave the elevator pitch for his nascent data mining enterprise, and Joanne nodded along. She walked the careful line of polite interest without ever actually encouraging further conversation, and he eventually excused himself with a "Hope to see you around more of these."

Over the next hour there was a steady stream of casual conversants: a guy who suavely offered to buy her a drink from the open bar, a guy who told her she looked _just_ like Lucy Liu, a guy who blurted that his company had an initiative to hire more handicapped people. Katy still seemed happy, though Maurice continued to skeeve Joanne off. He was too forced, too focused.

She tilted her glass to get the last watery remnant of the drink, then headed back to the bar. She ordered another gin & tonic, and while the bartender was pouring she noticed a familiar toothy, cat-eyed bear tattooed on the forearm of the guy sitting next to her. She grinned and glanced at him. In the moody lighting of the bar he had a deathly serious look on his face — hand to brow, eyes narrowed in concentration. He was staring intently into his phone, and in the lenses of his glasses she could see the bright colors and motion of some sort of game. He startled visibly when he noticed Joanne looking at him.

"Nice Radiohead tattoo."

"Oh! Oh, thanks." He smiled, and then self-consciously thumbed his phone into darkness. He had dark eyes and dark hair just long enough that it stayed tucked behind his ear for a second before falling back across his cheek. He seemed unsure whether the conversation was already over or just beginning.

"My name's Joanne."

"Matteo. Or Teo...mostly Teo."

"Hi Teo." He had a little bit of a deer in the headlights look about him, and Joanne didn't want to freak him out so she turned her attention squeezing every last drop of juice out of her lime.

"What's your favorite album?" He was taut as a wire next to her.

Joanne smiled again. "Amnesiac. You?"

"Kid A. But those were both from the same recording session, so the distinction is a little artificial." He blinked and then looked away as though he had been too forward.

Joanne noticed that her little table in the corner had been taken over by a trio of jocular programmers. The stool next to Teo was empty. "Mind if I sit?"

"No. Sure. Go ahead."

She set her drink down and seated herself. He seemed on verge of saying something, but when it became clear that nothing was forthcoming, Joanne jumped in. "So who else do you listen to?"

Teo smiled lopsidedly. "I've been on a James Taylor bender lately. But I tend to go through phases pretty regularly. Radiohead has been one of my few constants."

"Hence the tattoo?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Joanne realized that she hadn't caught his reaction to her missing limb. She almost always noticed. Either he was completely oblivious, or he had just taken it in stride, which was rare. And refreshing.

He absently tented two coasters together and asked, "So who do you work for?"

She considered just blurting one of the names she had read on the pamphlet earlier, but instead she leaned in and said, "Can you keep a secret? I'm an impostor."

He gave a small snort of laughter. "Heh, that makes two of us."

She grinned and felt her cheeks unexpectedly flush a little. "Oh?"

"Yeah, in theory I am here networking, but mostly I'm just regretting life choices. You?"

"I'm mostly here to make sure my roommate doesn't go home with a serial killer. But the drinks are nice."

"Yeah."

Teo raised his beer a few inches off the table and tilted it towards her. She clinked her glass against the neck. "Cheers."

They both took a drink, and the silence that followed began to stretch towards awkwardness. Joanne cleared her throat, searching for a thread to follow. "You said you were regretting choices?" _Brilliant. Such a sparkling conversationalist._

"Uhm...yeah. It's nothing really. Super first-world problems. I just expected things to be different after college...."

"Did you study computer science?"

"Yeah. But...I don't know. None of this shit seems to matter, you know? I just cannot get invested in it. I mean, whatever. It's a paycheck. I'll lay down code for whoever hires me, but I'm just having a really hard time seeing myself shackled to a cubicle fifty hours a week."

Joanne nodded. "I hear you. Look at the bright side though. At least you got a real degree. I majored in English. I could have just written the government an IOU for $32,000 for all the good that does me. If you ever need a really snappy essay on Joyce's short fiction though, I'm your gal."

"I'll bear that in mind." He studied her face for a second. "So what do you do? When you're not bilking drinks from technocrats and playing bodyguard for your roommate?"

"Right now? Not much. I do a little bit of freelance writing and a little bit of copyediting, but I'm looking for something more steady." She thought about telling him that she was also a pseudoscience guineau pig, but wasn't sure if that crossed the line from quirky to crazy.

From across the room she caught Katy's gaze. Joanne arched an eyebrow and Katy flicked a glance toward the bathroom.

Joanne finished her drink as a matter of principle and said, "Will you excuse for a minute?"

"Oh! Sure. Are you...uh. Sure." He seemed flustered, like he wasn't ready for the conversation to be over. Joanne smiled and felt her cheeks darken again.

"I'll be right back."

She weaved between suits and beards to the restrooms and got there just a moment before Katy. She found it immensely gratifying that there was a small line for the men's room while at the moment they had the ladies' to themselves. The walls were painted electric blue, the fixtures and stalls glossy black. On the counter between the sinks there was a slim vase containing one brilliant violet orchid.

Katy set to work touching up her makeup and Joanne watched silently for a second before saying, "Well? What's the verdict?"

"I dunno, I think he's worth a shot. He's really sweet."

"Is he? He looked like a smarmy tool from across the room."

"No, he asked about me, we talked about family. I think he's just a little awkward."

"If you say so. I think he fancies himself a player."

Katy turned with a scowl she couldn't keep a smile out of. "You're a little black raincloud tonight aren't you? So tell me about the one you got on the line over at the bar."

"What? We're just talking."

"Uh huh. Uh huh. Sure. Is he Latin? I can't tell in the lighting out there. I bet he'd be really handsome with a haircut."

"Stop it. He's not even interested."

"Like hell he's not! The bartender is going to need to start wiping drool in a minute here."

"Whatever."

Katy put her hand on her hip. "Don't you whatever me, missy. I think you should chase that. Be good for you. You've been like a nun since you moved here."

"That's not what I came here for."

"Mmmhmm. Well, I officially release you from your wingwoman duties for the night. Go see if there's any sparks with tall, dark, and nerdy."

"Ok. Don't hesitate to call if things get weird, yeah? In all seriousness, he rubs me the wrong way."

Katy toyed with Joanne's stray hairs, maximizing their carefree charm. "Thanks, hun. I think you're being overprotective, but I appreciate the concern. Shall we?"

"Sure."

Joanne watched as Katy headed back over to Maurice. She was a grown woman. She could take care of herself. She knew to ask if she needed help. After just a few words exchanged, the two were headed for the door. Katy tipped Joanne a big wink and gave a little head nod in the direction of the bar.

Joanne blew out a breath and tried to sort out her feelings on Matteo, now that she was forced to admit that she wasn't just killing time. He seemed nice, was looking for meaningful work, and had permanently emblazoned himself with one of her favorite bands. Seemed worth at least investigating.

A little nervous flutter echoed through, but she tried to quash it. _Play it cool. You can do this._ She walked to the bar and smiled at Matteo. "Hey."

"Hey! How's it going?"

"Good." He had a genuine smile. And he did seem interested. Joanne ran her thumb across her painted nails, felt her legs shaved beneath her dress. It had been a very long time. Her smile turned to a grin. "How many drinks do you think we can wrangle out of them before they cut us off?"

Matteo laughed. "There's only one way to find out, I guess."

She raised a hand to the bartender. "You want another Fat Tire?"

"I'll switch to vodka and Red Bulls."

Joanne nodded and ordered for them. "So do you listen to anything local?"

"Yeah, actually! I've been to a couple of good shows lately. I just saw a band called Something in the Trees last night — they actually remind a lot of some of the stuff on the The Bends."

"Nice! I'll have to check them out."

"Yeah. I try to get out to local shows a couple of times a week." He swallowed. "If you're ever interested, we could go catch something together. If you want."

Joanne was gratified that, if anything, Matteo was more awkward at this than she was. "That sounds good. What's coming up next—"

Joanne caught her breath, as it felt for all the world like someone had just crashed a cymbal on her nonarm. Stinging pain raced up her arm and spine and she involuntarily twisted away from it. This was not new, but it was stronger than normal — she had a sudden irrational thought that her phantom limb was punishing her for seeking out new treatment. She felt a hand steadying her good arm. She cringed — she was in public, and worse, in conversation. This was no time for let her nonarm rule her. With effort, she straightened on her stool and pushed the buzzing pain down.

"Are you ok?" It was not Matteo, but some other besuited tech guy, shortish and wearing a lopsided Google Glass-ish augmented reality monocle stepping in to steady her.

"Yes. Fine. Thank you." A part of her felt dim betrayal that it had not been Matteo — he was sitting next to her still, eyes wide with concern, clearly uncomfortable that someone had interposed himself, but unsure of what to do about it. She slid her arm from the man's grasp.

He looked at her searchingly with occasional glances at Matteo. He adjusted the AR device and squinted. "You're sure? You looked like you were really hurt."

"No, I'm completely fine. Thanks again."

The little man nodded, and with another glance at Matteo, he melted back into crowd.

Joanne gritted her teeth and focused for a moment on stirring her drink with its tiny straw. She turned to look at Matteo. Concern and confusion was written across his face.

She forced a small smile. "Any chance we could pretend like that didn't happen?"

Matteo's eyebrows raised. "You're okay?"

"Yeah. Just fine."

"Okay."

Joanne looked around. She already stuck out like a sore thumb and now she felt like everyone in the room was simultaneously staring at her and avoiding eye contact. "Do you want to get out of here?"

"Sure. Where to?"

"Anywhere."

Matteo shrugged on his jacket, and the two of them headed out into the evening's light drizzle. Neither noticed a pair of eyes behind the lens of a smartglass monocle watching their exit with great interest.

*

These were not her sheets. Before her eyes were even open, she was distinctly aware of the foreign textures and smells.

She peeked out at the world. Daylight filtered through blinds illuminated a small, unfamiliar room. A bed with brown sheets. A side table dotted with change and the loose ends of charging cables. A dresser with a chunky sound system perched atop it. Jeans in a heap on the floor. A squat, black box dotted in winking green lights humming quietly. Her dress hung from the doorknob. Joanne felt a hangover like an avalanche waiting to break — at the smallest wrong movement or loud noise she would be buried.

Unfortunately movement was not a choice. Her bladder demanded she explore, find relief. She sat up, and felt the fully expected cleave of the axe into her skull. _Fuck_. She still had her panties on. She frowned. There would be time to puzzle this out after she found the bathroom. For now — bathroom.

She shimmied her dress on and opened the door. Mercifully, the bathroom was directly across a small hall. Trying not to make any sudden movements, she peed and washed her hands and face. She looked at herself in the mirror, saw her mother's disappointment, her father's concern, and told herself that she was ok. It was ok. It was going to be ok.

Joanne opened the door to the bathroom and headed down the short hall to the common area. There was a couch facing away from her with a two feet sticking over the armrest. She crept closer and peeked over the back of the couch. Matteo had folded the cushions over him in a makeshift blanket, and had an arm thrown across his eyes. He still wore his jeans, but his torso was bare and Joanne searched it for memories of last night.

They had left the tech meet-up for another bar where there had been shots. And possibly karaoke. Her memory devolved into a series of snapshots. Don't Stop Believin'. Street meat. The walk back to his place. The kiss outside. Clothing coming off and...nothing.

Joanne felt gross and sad and embarrassed. She went back to the bedroom and found her bra. She shut the door, slid the dress off again, wrapped herself in the bra and performed the long practiced catch-fastening ritual with one fumbling hand. It was hard this morning like it hadn't been in a long time. Each breath brought a fresh crest of pain crashing over her skull.

She spun the bra to its proper orientation, pulled her dress on once again, and located her shoes. By the time she was put together and ready to sneak out, Matteo was sitting up on the couch, rubbing his stubbly face like he could massage out the alcohol.

_No use avoiding it_. "Hey."

"Hey! Good morning! Do you want some coffee or something?"

Joanne grimaced. "No, I think I'm alright."

Matteo stood up suddenly and winced in regret. "Oof. Sorry if things got a little out of hand last night. I haven't drank that much in a long time."

"Me neither." Joanne began moving toward the door.

"Uhm. I'd really like to see you again. Did you still want to catch that show next week?"

"Uh, yeah. Maybe. I gotta go."

"Hey, before you do. Nothing...nothing happened ok?"

"What?"

"I mean we were kissing, and you were taking things off and it looked like things were going to happen. But you were real drunk, and...just...I just want you to know that nothing happened. I took the couch. Ok?"

"Ok...thanks. Bye, Matteo."

"You can call me Teo...you did last night. Most of my friends do."

"Ok. Bye."

*

Joanne stumbled out into the day, powerfully grateful for the thick gray cloud cover. She slid out her phone to get her bearings — it was 10:42. She was in the Central District. Her stomach rolled uncomfortably and liquid pain splashed from her spinal column all over the interior of her skull if she moved too sharply. Coffee was in order.

She walked down the hill to next main street and followed her nose to a little espresso shop. Everything about her appearance screamed "walk of shame" but she could not give a damn.

Once she had an Americano in hand, she decided it was time to check in with Katy.

Joanne:

Welp, I'm still alive — you?

Katy:

Just. Barely.

__

Joanne was about to begin the process of planning a bus route home when it dawned on her that she was supposed to meet Ming. It was a pretty short walk from here, and while it sounded like the worst thing she could possibly subject herself to right now, she suspected that her bank balance could use a little help after last night's binge. She clicked down the hill in the mercifully short heels and crossed under the I-5. Just as she was approaching the herb shop, she had a sudden twinge of self-conscious alarm. She tagged her location into a text.

Joanne:

Hey. I'm upstairs from this herbalist in the ID. If you don't hear from me in an hour, freak the fuck out, ok?

Katy:

Wtf?

Are you ok?

Joanne:

Yeah I'm fine.

I think.

Katy:

Not reassuring!

She looked up to find Ming standing in the doorway, fanning herself with a handful of twenties. _Let's get this over with._

Ming lived in a studio apartment directly above the Tiantang. A collage of colorful silks hung from the walls and covered the stately four-post queen bed that dominated the room. Ming bustled in and waved her hand. "Sit. I'll make tea."

Joanne looked around for a chair, but saw none. After briefly considering the bed, she opted for the floor. She self-consciously folded her legs under her, feeling preposterous in her dress and heels, but Ming gave no indication of noticing. Joanne watched silently as Ming went through a practiced routine of tea preparation, pausing only briefly to light a stick of incense on a shelf. She arranged cups and pot on a tray, turned, took one-and-a-half steps, knelt to put them on the floor before her guest, then settled onto the floor herself. The spice of the incense, the gurgle of pouring tea, and the morning light filtering through red curtains would usually put Joanne at ease, but in her current state all they did was reawaken her clammy nausea.

For a moment they sat in silence, each absorbed in the mesmeric swirl of steam rising from their cup. Then Ming seemed to wake up, and she fixed her gaze on Joanne once more. "Name?"

"Joanne Shaughnessy."

"Birth name?"

"None I know of."

Ming gave a dissatisfied snort. "Birthdate?"

"Either June 12th or 13th, there was a discrepancy in the paperwork."

Ming scowled.

"Year? Or do you even know that?"

"1989."

Ming leaned over to a nearby side table and slid the drawer open. She drew out a small sack, and shook a dozen foreign coins out on the tea tray.

"Pick one."

"What for?"

"Don't think — grab one!"

Joanne glanced down a picked a small brassy octagonal coin. Ming smiled. Her teeth were small and round and pearly behind her lipstick.

"Why did you pick up the warrior in the shop?"

"What?"

"The little terracotta warrior. Why?"

Joanne had been relatively certain she was alone in the shop at the time.

"I'm not sure, it was interesting. How did you...."

"Uh, uh, uh! It is my hour for questions. What was interesting about it?"

"I don't know. It seemed well-made. Old." The image of the craftsman flashed through her mind.

"Hnn. Many things are old. Well-made. You touch them all without asking?"

"No."

"So why this? Did it glow? Speak to you? Seem to levitate?"

"No, I don't know. I just felt a...connection."

"Mmm, yes. You feel connection like this often?"

"No. Not that I can think of."

"Do you have any pets?"

"What? What does that matter?"

Ming clicked her tongue. "My questions."

"No...no I don't have any pets."

"Good. Terrible nuisance. Are you religious?"

"Not really."

"Not really?"

"No. I'm not religious."

"Well. That's too bad. You'll figure it out. You don't have job. If you work for me, you can make good money. Cash. What do you say?"

Joanne was not sure that she heard Ming correctly. "Work...for you? Doing what?" Her nonarm started to itch and tingle like insects were walking across it. The sensation gave her goosebumps.

"I want you to buy things for me. Uh uh uh, child. Nothing illegal. Antiques mostly."

"What kind of antiques? Why?"

Ming gave an exaggerated eye roll. "Ugh. You have too many questions. You ask me three questions then you make your decision. You can have more questions later."

Joanne sipped her tea and thought for a moment. "Why me?"

"Because you can do the job. Many people cannot."

"That wasn't much of an answer."

"And that wasn't a question."

"How did you know I picked up the statue?"

"My ancestor spirit told me. Also, I saw you from outside." Ming's expression remained neutral as she said this, but there was laughter in her eyes.

Joanne thought for a moment and massaged her stump, wishing she could just scratch what itched. She sighed. It wasn't like anyone else was accosting her with job offers. "How much?"

"Now that's a real question!"

*

Joanne:

I'm not dead. Things got pretty fucking weird though. Lunch break soon?

Katy:

Jesusfuckingchrist. Don't do that shit. Yeah, in 30. You're ok?

Joanne:

I'm fine. Can I pick up some Salumi and meet you? My treat.

Katy:

Oooh baby. I can't stay mad at you when you sweet talk me like that. See you in a bit.

*

She just beat the lunch rush, but not the rain as she turned down 2nd. Through the mist, the Space Needle was just barely visible, framed by the glass and concrete corridor of downtown. She sheltered the sandwiches with her body and scampered from doorway to doorway to avoid getting her dress too soaked.

Katy worked at Fibonacci, an uber-hip graphic design shop in Pioneer Square. Though she was nominally the receptionist, functionally she ran the place: she was the master of the schedule, chief of office morale, and first point of contact for every customer. She had come in as a band-aid intern and quickly became a favorite — they hired her on full-time before the end of the month.

Joanne showed up with her paper sack of sandwiches and Katy waved from the egg shaped chair she was nestled in today. No one had their own desk; it was all communal workspaces and laptops, every wall a whiteboard. She tidied her space and let someone know she was headed out, then stepped with her friend into the drizzle.

They found an empty bench under the pergola and Joanne unpacked their lunch. "Do you want the soppresatta or the porchetta?"

"Halfsies?"

"Sure." Joanne carefully transplanted half of each sandwich to the other wrapper and handed one to Katy.

"So what happened at the herbalist that warranted scaring the shit out of me?"

"I'm still not sure. I got a job? Maybe?"

"What? I don't even...what?"

"I met a woman and she offered to pay me to buy antiques and stuff for her. She thinks I have a sixth sense or something."

"Whoa. You do find the weird ones."

"Right? There was this statue in the herb shop and...oh I don't even know. Now she wants me to find other pieces that 'speak to me.'"

"And she's going to pay you to do this?"

"Yeah. She gave me sixty just to come up to her apartment and another hundred to go buy things. She said she'll give me two hundred a week to shop for her and pay out a five hundred dollar commission for each piece I find that meets her standards."

Katy cocked her head to the side. "Her standards? What is she looking for?" she asked around a mouthful of cured meat.

Joanne shook her head. "I have no idea. She seems to think I'll know it when I see it."

They both chewed for a moment lost in thought, then Katy spoke up, "Well, damn. Eight hundred a month is a lot more than you were making this morning. Even if you can't find anything Crazy McMystic pants thinks is worth the extra, there's worse ways to get paid than cruising antique shops."

Joanne laughed a chunk of soppressata right into the back of her throat, and spent the next several seconds coughing violently. She wiped tears from her eyes, wishing she had bought drinks as well. "How did it go with Maurice last night?" she croaked once she had sufficient control of her respiration.

"Ugh. You were right, he was awful. And now let's solemnly promise to never ever mention Maurice again."

Joanne drew an _X_ over her heart. "Deal."

Katy got a sly smile on her face. "How about you, you minx? I can't help but notice you're still rocking the same little number that I left you in at the bar last night."

Joanne felt blush spread across her face. "I stayed out last night."

"With the guy from the meet-up? Tell me everything!"

"Katy, I got real drunk. I think I blacked out. He slept on the couch. I...fuck. I don't know. I feel really dumb."

"Oh, sweetie. It's ok." Katy balanced her sandwich on her knee so she could give Joanne a sidelong hug. "It happens to everyone. Are you alright?"

"Yeah. I think I'm fine. I don't think we made it past making out. I'm not sure if I'll be able to face him again."

"Whatever. If he's standup enough to let you crash at his place and sleep it off, he's probably fine. He was drinking too right?"

"Yeah he looked like he didn't feel awesome this morning either."

"Well don't sweat it. And don't make any decisions just yet. See how you feel in a couple of days." Katy frowned and turned her eyes up to watch the rain running down the glass of the pergola for a second. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, Jo."

Joanne snorted a little. "Hey, I was supposed to be _your_ wingwoman last night. No worries."

"Still. I'm glad you're ok."

A little lump formed in Joanne's throat. She swallowed and tried to bring the mood back up. "Soo...hey. You up for a little antiquing after you get off work tonight?"

"Sure! And then piroushki?"

"Hell yes!"

"It's a date."

*

"These are all shit."

"All of them?" Joanne's first haul of antiques was spread out in front of Ming's tea set: a small mirror, a curved letter opener, an ashtray with a spiraling pattern in the glass, and a carved wooden fisherman. Looking at them now, she had to admit they seemed a sad lot, but yesterday each had seemed full of promise and mystery.

"You can come back later today and I tell you for sure. But probably they're all shit. Where'd you find these?" Ming was slicing vegetables on her kitchen counter, wrapped in a silk dressing gown. Her hair was twisted up and pinned messily, but her makeup was flawless.

"The antique shop under the viaduct downtown."

"Pah, no wonder. That place is shit. For tourists. How did you pick them?"

Joanne thought back to giggling with Katy, picking out things that caught their eye, seemed like they might be mystical. "Uhm, I don't know. I just tried to feel it."

Ming glared over her shoulder at her. "Were you just trying to feel it in the medicine shop?"

"No. I was just waiting."

"Yes. You were still. Open. Patient. You can't force it, or just pick up shit because it's pretty. That's not how this works."

Joanne felt scolded and oddly defensive. "Maybe the thing with the statue was a fluke. Maybe I can't find what you're looking for."

"Hey, catch!"

Joanne looked up in surprise just in time to see several glittering objects arcing through the air towards her. She reflexively snatched out at the cloud while turning her face away. Bits of metal peppered her head and shoulders.

"What the fuck?"

Ming jutted her chin out and nodded to Joanne's hand. She uncurled her fingers to reveal a familiar little octagonal coin. "Is...is this the same one I picked last time?"

"Is it?"

Joanne looked at the other coins on the ground, none looked like the one in her hand. "That...could be coincidence."

Ming wheeled on her. "Don't be stupid. It is not coincidence. That coin belonged to my great aunt, she used three coins every day for sixty years to read signs, predict auspicious days. She die with these coins in her hand. One was passed to my mother, and she passed it to me. There is love and death and hope and blood in that coin. You feel that. It calls to you. If you deny that again I will strike your face."

Joanne sat silent, unsure of what to say. Ming caught her breath, brushed hair away from her eyes.

"You don't want to work for me, don't. But do not insult me by wasting my time."

After a silent moment Joanne said softly, "I don't know how to do it."

Ming's voice softened as well. "I don't either, child. Everyone must find their own path. I see potential in you. I feel it. But you have to listen and find it for yourself. Now drink your tea."

*

Joanne had never been to an estate sale before, and today she was at her third. It was more mundane than she had expected, but also a little creepier because of it. She was currently standing in the kitchen of the deceased John Hegley before an open cupboard filled with Cheerios, each tagged with a bright orange sticker marked '1$'. Mr. Hegley had clearly been a bargain shopper. Most of the large furniture already bore 'SOLD' tags, having been picked over by antiquarians first thing in the morning, leaving her to sort through the silverware and cereal. The house was an aging craftsman in Eastlake that probably had a beautiful view of Lake Union before the city had come of age and sprouted a ring of high rise condominiums like barnacles.

She felt a little foolish. So far nothing had spoken to her in the way that Ming had suggested it would. She had picked up some vintage shoes for Katy, and a combination salt and pepper grinder of the sort she'd always fancied, but nothing had stirred anything deeper in her than idle curiosity.

She wondered what it was about the little terracotta warrior that had caught her attention, sparked her imagination. It had happened naturally, she wasn't consciously inspecting it. Maybe she was still overthinking it? She tried to force her attention to drift, but it was like chasing a dream after waking — the harder she focused on not focusing, the more impossible it became.

A man with a pinched face came into the kitchen and eyed her suspiciously before rifling through one of the open drawers of kitchen implements. Joanne left him to his business and floated aimlessly upstairs. There were three open doors in the hallway. The first was marked 'guest room' but that she suspected had once been a nursery. The walls were painted a muted rose, and in addition to the nondescript bed and reading desk there was a weathered rocking horse. It had a pale mane of frayed yarn and its painted-on eyes had begun to flake away. She gave it a little push on the nose and the horse creaked rhythmically against the wooden floor. Did it seem to have some special meaning? Did she feel drawn to it? Was it worth five hundred dollars to some kooky lady in the International District? Was validating someone else's crazy making her a little crazy as well?

She stepped out of the room and peeked into the bathroom. The shower curtain was five dollars, the wrought iron toothbrush holder fifteen.

The final door led to a master bedroom, a study in browns. It was walled on either side in bookshelves faced in sun-faded spines, and the far wall had a heavily draped window flanked by a matching mahogany roll top desk and captain's bed. The thick shag carpet gave the impression that all the furniture was sinking into mud. She pulled the drapes to one side, but the sunlight made the room feel even smaller, more like a discarded husk. She let the cloth fall back into place and as her eyes readjusted to the dimness, she tried to imagine the man who had molted this shell. The desk was bare, probably cleared of personal papers and effects. There was a sign taped to each of the bookshelves requesting that they not be disturbed; they had been left to the Seattle Public Library in the bequest. The bed was tall and had a mothball smell to it. She noted that one side of the mattress dipped lower. Maybe he was a widower who never got used to having the bed to himself, never thought to rotate the mattress without someone there to tell him to do it.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

Matteo:

Hey! How's it going?

She thumbed away the text. She didn't need the distraction right now.

She tried to imagine waking alone in an empty house every day. Hearing none but your own creaking footsteps. Joanne had never lived alone, and though she had always wanted to have a place of her own, right now it sounded like the most dreadful thing in the world.

On a whim she knelt to investigate the drawers under the bed. The first slid open to reveal a disorganized tangle of once-white underwear. The second was neatly divided in half between socks and ties. The third one seemed stuck, and she tugged, then leaned her full body weight back against it to no avail. The fourth held belts, suspenders, spats, and a shoehorn.

She stood up and brushed some stray hair out of her eyes. She felt frustrated, ready to leave. Joanne glared at the third drawer, her completionist nature goading her into trying again. She sat in the shag and braced her feet to either side, glanced at the door to make sure no one was there, and yanked, putting her back and legs into it. The drawer creaked and budged slightly at the bottom, but did not open.

Joanne scowled. The bottom had moved, so it must be stuck at the top. She leaned in to inspect the crack between the drawer and the frame, then pulled out her phone and flicked on its light. There was a glint of metal at the dead center of drawer — a bolt holding the drawer shut. She braced her stump against the wood and pressed her face to the crack trying to make out any details, but all she could see was the silver stripe reflecting the light. There was no keyhole, no visible latch. She traced the crack with her light but couldn't see any other mechanism.

Matteo:

Did you still want to go catch a show sometime? There's a couple of good ones this weekend.

Joanne almost dropped her phone as it buzzed in her hand. She rocked back on her haunches and took stock. She was aware that she was being a little invasive, but at the same time, the bed had already been sold to a Mr. Paul Vincenze according to the tag, so whatever was in the drawer was going to come into _someone's_ possession soon. And she wasn't sure if it was just her natural curiosity or maybe one of Ming's feelings, but she felt driven to find out what was in the locked drawer. But if she was going to get more aggressive, she wanted to feel less exposed.

Padding silently through the shag she listened for a moment at the door, and hearing no one, she positioned it so that, while still open, it would block the view of the bed. She shrugged off her backpack and placed it behind the door in what she hoped could be interpreted as carelessness rather than deceit. It wouldn't stop anyone from opening it, but it might buy her a touch of warning.

Working as quickly and quietly as she could, she pulled up the sheet and peeked at the inside of the frame. Nothing. She ran her hand along the wooden lip for a few feet in either direction, but felt only the hardwood worn smooth with age. She made a quick check of the joints surrounding the drawer, the handle, and the headboard, but everything seemed perfectly mundane. She despaired for a second that it may be inaccessible without moving the entire bed. Chewing her lip, she tried to think through this logically. The bed was an antique and it seemed unlikely that the drawer had been inoperable since it was built. This seemed like a retrofit to her, so there must be somewhere that the alteration was visible. The next place she wanted to check was under the mattress, but she had no idea how she'd explain that if someone walked in. But on the other hand, it wasn't as though someone was going to call the police just because she was lifting a dead man's mattress. Right?

Impulsively she grabbed the mattress and hoisted it up enough that she could get her right arm under it. It sagged with the weight of age and she had to wriggle down so that she could support its mass with her shoulder. A powerful aroma of aging man descended upon her — Old Spice and urine and decay. The mattress was supported by a series of slats running across the width, each around four inches wide and screwed in to the frame at the edge. They seemed secure and sturdy enough. She tried to wiggle one but it held firm. She was just about to shrug the mattress back into place when she noticed an odd thing — there was a divot in one of the boards as though from a hammer swing that missed its mark, but from what she could see, the whole bed was screwed together.

She shuffled half-a-step back to get a better angle, then dug her thumbnail into the dent and pushed. The board slid smoothly, revealing a thin wire that disappeared between the slats and the frame — she'd found it! Unfortunately, there was no way for her to reach down and open the drawer in her current position. She could feel tension on the board as she held it in place, and as soon as she removed her hand, it slid back to its original position with a thud. Joanne winced, but there was still no sound from the hallway.

_Damn_. This was certainly a two-hands design — one to pull the latch board, the other to slide the now unlocked drawer free. She knew that the handle to the drawer was too small for her to simply hook it with her stump, so she tried to slide the board with it. There was no way — the tension on the board was great enough that without that tiny bit of purchase a fingernail in the dent provided, she couldn't get it to move. She tried to slide the latch and then lodge her thumb into the gap, but it pinched like hell and didn't keep it open enough to release the catch. To add insult to injury, her nonarm was complaining about being shoved through a solid object, and she began to have a strong sensation of vibration — like someone had wrapped a magic fingers motel bed around her arm.

Joanne knew a possible solution, she just balked at it. She could trip the latch with her good arm and pull the drawer open with her teeth. She knew many amputees who regularly used their mouths to deal with things designed for the dual handed world — she had once seen a one armed cyclist change out a flat using his teeth as much as his fingers — but it always felt like an admission of failure to her. _Now's not the time to get prissy._ She quickly rubbed the handle with the tail of her shirt to knock the worst of the dust off of it, and offered a heartfelt prayer to whomever would listen that the deceased had had good hygiene. She lifted the mattress once more, slid the latch with her good hand, then let the mattress fall back down, pinning her arm between the it and the bed frame. She braced her elbow against the floor, licked her lips, and curled her tongue around the handle and pulled it into her teeth. She fought a gag, and pulled her head away from the bed. The drawer didn't move. The metal tasted oily and bitter against her teeth. She wriggled her arm under the mattress, striving to make sure the slat was pushed as far as it would go. With a huffed breath through clenched teeth she arched her back and wrenched her neck, feeling the resistance through her jaw and deep into her skull as the drawer mercifully squeaked an inch out.

Joanne spat quietly and winced as she sat up to see what her struggle had won. She tugged the drawer the rest of the way open, and the first thing her eyes fell upon was a gun.

It was an old gun, blocky and fastened in a leather holster gone hoary with age. Joanne had seen guns before, even shot them a few times with her dad, but to stumble upon one in this manner was profoundly unsettling. Her pulse raced and the vibration in her arms took on tuning fork intensity. She sucked in a breath and held it, forcibly tearing her eyes away from the weapon to survey the rest of the contents. Near the front there was a small framed picture of two men in forties American army uniforms, grinning for the camera, arms slung over each other's necks. There were two letter sized envelopes and a larger manila one, and below that there was a carefully folded khaki shirt. Her vision narrowed to take in this small mystery, and she felt the tip of an idea — imagination or memory or something deeper, she wasn't sure. It was a chord struck within her, a taut thread vibrating through and beyond her. She felt...like she did with the terracotta warrior. Lost to time and place for a moment, unmoored. _God damn it, maybe that crazy bitch is right._

Joanne's heart froze as she heard the top step of the stairway creak. Despite her hard work to get into the drawer, her guilty impulse was to slam it shut. The bolt was not designed to automatically retract, so the drawer couldn't close all the way until the latch was pulled again, leaving it jutting an inch out from the surface of the bed. Panic. She crossed the room in a bound and snatched up her satchel, then knelt with it in front of the bed, hoping that she was blocking enough of the protruding drawer that no one would notice.

"Hello?" A middle-aged woman who had the look of a Botox survivor swung wide the door and gave a practiced smile. "Do you have any questions, sweetie?"

Joanne returned a forced smile of her own. "Nope. I think I'm ok. Uhm...how much are the belts and suspenders?"

"Any clothing not specifically tagged is ten dollars."

Joanne swallowed and tried to force her breathing under control. "Are...were you related to the deceased?"

"Oh no, sweetie. I'm just here to oversee the sale. Died without a next of kin, poor dear."

"Oh. So who are the proceeds of the sale going to?"

The woman's smile compressed to a line.

"He named PFLAG as the benefactor."

Silence hung in the room for a second, colored by the woman's disapproval of the charity and Joanne's disapproval of her.

"Well, if you have any other questions, you be sure to let me know, ok?"

"I will."

The woman left through the now open door. Joanne blinked hard and blew out a breath. She felt pretty certain that, gun notwithstanding, outright purchasing the contents of the drawer wasn't an option. She briefly considered just walking away, but if this was the kind of thing that she was supposed to be finding for Ming — well. That had a whole host of other implications. She had felt something, or thought she had. As reluctant as she was to believe it, maybe there was something to Ming's crazy bullshit.

There was also the moral question to consider — who exactly would she be stealing from in this case? Mr. Vincenze who had bought the bed, she supposed, but he had only purchased the bed, not really the contents of the drawer. In a way, he was unintentionally stealing from PFLAG. If she took it, she could pass on some of the money to the program that Mr. Hegley had intended to benefit. And that was a good thing, right?

With this flimsy justification lodged firmly in place, Joanne padded to the hallway to make sure that the coast was indeed clear, then slid open the drawer, carefully folded the khaki shirt over the rest of the items, and attempted to wedge them into her backpack. No good, it was too full. Her pulse quickened again, and she dug her hoodie out of her bag to make room. Once the shirt-wrapped parcel was securely zipped in, she contemplated the sweater she'd removed. She wondered if the woman downstairs would think anything amiss if she was wearing it when she left. It was a little warm in the house, so it might seem suspicious if she noticed. Joanne wondered in a flash what exact crimes she would be charged with if she was caught lifting a dead man's effects, including an antique firearm.

Best not to do anything to attract notice — she was going to have to stash her hoodie up here somewhere. She glanced around wildly for a second before it occurred to her that there was an entire closet of clothes at hand. If she hung it amid the other clothes, it would probably just end up getting sold or donated with no one the wiser, right? She smoothed her hoodie across the floor and grabbed a hanger, threading it into each of the shoulders. She pinned the hem to the ground with her stump and zipped it tight. _Shit._ This was one of her old hoodies that her mother had well-meaningly stitched the right sleeve into the front pocket so it wouldn't dangle. Not awesome for blending in.

She heard muffled voices and then the dreaded creaking footsteps up the stairs. _Shit shit shit._ Joanne grit her teeth, leaned her body weight against her stump over the pocket and yanked as hard as she could outward on the sleeve. She heard a popping sound as the stitches gave some, but they still held the arm of the sweater nonchalantly in the pocket. The steps paused for a second, and Joanne violently wished that they would find something interesting in the guest room. She gave another sharp pull and the sleeve tore free, her mother's hefty cotton thread curling from the cuff.

She heard the footfalls resume down the hallway. She had just enough time to stand and hold the hoodie out in front of her as if inspecting a potential purchase before a middle-aged couple rounded the corner. She gave a clench jawed smile at them and got bare nods of acknowledgment in return. After exhaling her held breath as silently as possible she took the hangered hoodie back over to the closet. She had a sudden unexpected pang of sadness as she hung it up. It wasn't one she wore often, but it _had_ been a gift from her mother. She shook her head and left it, already committed to the course. Joanne put her best blank mask on and walked out of the house, staring at her phone as it buzzed again.

Matteo:

Ok. Let me know if you're interested. Have a good one.

*

The world was a very different place when you find yourself unexpectedly the bearer of lethal force. Joanne rarely gave a thought to guns, but now it was hard to think of anything else. Was it loaded? Did it have a safety? How old was it? Would it still fire?

She walked away from the house as quickly as she could without attracting attention. She wasn't thinking much about where she was headed until she found herself walking by a grade school, feeling like an irresponsible menace.

The only thing that made sense to her right now was to go back to Ming's. She didn't want to take the gun home, that was for sure. But beyond that, she was at a loss. It was only a couple of miles to the International District, but it seemed an insurmountable distance. She didn't want to walk across town with a firearm rattling around loose in her bag. It seemed like it might be a crime to take a concealed weapon on the bus. Maybe she could take a cab? That also seemed awkward, but like it might be the best option. She turned up the hill and headed for Broadway, thinking it likely that she could flag a cab up there. Normally she would just call for one, but she was paranoid now, and wanted as little of a trace left behind her as possible.

She regretted her decision once she crested the hill. It was a nice afternoon and Broadway was crowded. And cabless. She took a couple of deep breaths and told herself that if the gun hadn't spontaneously fired yet, it wasn't very likely to. With forced normality, she made her way down Broadway hoping the cabs would be thicker on the south end.

Despite her best efforts, she spooked several times. One car honked at another's third failed parallel parking attempt. A guy in a basketball jersey asked _sotto voce_ if she needed any shrooms. A child ran squealing from a shop and straight towards Joanne before his mother caught up to him and scooped him up. She could feel the blood pounding in her ears.

Finally a taxi emerged from a side street and she waved at it frantically. The driver was already running the meter when she got in, but she didn't even care.

"Where to?"

"International District, please. You can just let me off at the big gate."

"Sure thing."

The cabbie was mercifully not in a conversant mood, and Joanne had a few minutes to calm down and order her thoughts accompanied only by Jim Croce crooning Bad Bad Leroy Brown from the radio.

She had stolen a dead man's gun and, really, god-knows-what-else — she hadn't had a chance to open the envelopes yet. She wished she'd had the chance to look through them before presenting them to Ming, but she just had no interest in disturbing the sleeping killer in her bag. She wondered how much the gun was worth on its own merit, and if it would have any value to Ming.

The cab dropped her at 5th and King, and she walked the last few blocks to Tiantang. She pressed the grimy button to buzz Ming's apartment.

No response.

She pressed again.

There was a burst of crackling static and she heard a tinny little version of Ming's voice ask, "Who the fuck is it?" She sounded out of breath.

"Joanne. I need to show you something."

"Fuck." More static and then a click as the intercom cut off.

_Was that a go away fuck? A give me a fucking minute fuck?_ Joanne shifted uncomfortably not knowing if she was meant to wait or not. Just as she was starting to formulate back up plans, the door thunked and buzzed mechanically, signaling that Ming had let her in.

On the way up the stairs she passed a sharply dressed Asian man who gave her a knowing wink as he cinched up his tie. As Joanne turned the corner at the top of the landing a deep smell of cloves and sweat washed over her. Ming's door was propped open by a throw pillow, and she sat on the edge of her bed with her dressing gown wrapped around her, untied, smoking a thin black cigarette. Sheets and pillow were strewn across the floor. Ming blew a stream of smoke from the side of her mouth and said, "This had better be pretty fucking important."

"Sorry. I didn't know I'd be interrupting...."

Ming rolled the hand holding the cigarette in a "get on with it" motion.

Joanne unslung the bag from her shoulder and set it gently on the floor. She pulled the zipper open and removed the folded shirt. She set it on the ground and laid it open revealing the gun, picture, and envelopes.

" _Oh, ta ma de_! Shut the fucking door! What did you bring here!"

Joanne twisted around and pulled the pillow out of the frame, allowing the door to swing shut. Ming was standing now, craning over the pile, her eye darting from detail to detail.

"I think you found something here, _nu_. What are the papers?"

"I don't know. I didn't get a chance to open them."

Ming raised an eyebrow and gave a prompting little nod. Joanne picked up the first envelope, it had a surprising weight to it. She bent the flap back and revealed a small collection of military medals each attached to a faded ribbon. With care she slid them out on to the ground — a pair of bronze stars, a purple heart, and a handful of discs engraved with figures. She arranged them so that none were overlapping and smoothed out the ribbons.

The second was lighter; she slid out three crisply folded pages bearing a law office letterhead. It was written in litigious formality, but Joanne gleaned that it was a letter informing Mr. Hegley of their client's, a John Calavasos' death and that he had been named in the will. The second page included an itemized list: his medals of service, a set of letters of a personal nature, his dog tags and the deed to a property in Alaska. The third page was a terse legal statement outlining a condition of nondisclosure and confirming the receipt of a signed affidavit from Hegley agreeing to its strictures.

Joanne refolded the letter against the ground and tucked it back into its envelope. "Just some legal documents."

Ming held a hand out, and Joanne hesitated feeling a sudden irrational protectiveness of Hegley and his privacy. As if she wasn't the one who broke into his locked drawer, and stole these treasured items in the first place. She compressed her lips and handed it over.

The manila envelope was of an older style — fastened with a bit of string wound around a brad. The paper was soft and limp with use, but was still surprisingly sturdy. She opened the flap, then carefully cradled the package against her chest and reached in to pull out an irregular stack of papers. Letters, postcards, and what looked to be a few inked bar napkins were interspersed throughout. She leafed through the first few and noticed that they seemed at least roughly chronological. Maybe these were the letters mentioned in the lawyer's list? Joanne flipped through a few more and noticed they were ordered chronologically. She slid the lowest papers from the bottom of the stack — the first was dated September 1945.

Dear John,

It feels strange to write to you after so many days spent entirely in each other's company, but I need to talk to you and so I guess that means letters. I know I was the one that asked to go our separate ways and put the whole thing behind us, but I can't. Even now with Julie knitting a baby blanket in the parlor, I can't. I thought once we got back home everything would go back to normal but it hasn't, at least not for me.

I don't want to intrude in your life. If you don't want me in it, I don't blame you. But I'd love to hear from you.

John C.

Ps: King's pawn to e4

Dear John,

You're a real son of a bitch. I've spent the last three months trying to forget all that horseshit, and just when I'm getting somewhere you decide it's time to drop me a line.

Julie is on the nest already? You didn't waste any time.

I hope you're happy and have a hundred children.

If you want to apologize, you know where I'll be.

Go to hell,

John H

King's knight to f6

Dear John,

I didn't think you'd come, and when I saw you here I didn't think you'd ever leave again. What are we going to do? I know you're not going to leave Julie, and I'd hate you for it if you did with that little one on the way, but where does that leave us?

Thank you for coming and for giving me one beautiful memory that isn't bathed in olive drab...

Your move still.

Dear John,

I think a piece of me will always be with you, and I think that piece will have to be enough...

Bishop to c4.

Dear John,

It's the hardest thing in the world not to talk about you, even to perfect strangers...

Rook to h6.

Dear John,

Julie gave birth last night. A little boy. I named him Jonathan Daniel. Everyone asks why I didn't name him Jonathan Raymond Jr. But he's not named after me...

Kingside castling.

Dear John,

I am stunned and humbled by your choice. I wish I could meet Johnny, but I thrill to think of you holding him. Maybe someday...

Pawn to d6.

Dear John,

I bought a fishing cabin in Alaska. When do the salmon run?...

Knight to g5.

Dear John,

That was the best week of my life. Promise me right now that we'll do this again...

Pawn to a5.

Dear John,

I called your name in bed the night after I got back. Lucky thing it's my name too, Julie just thinks I'm self-centered...

Queen to g4.

Dear John,

It's hard to get out of bed the mornings after I dream of you. I just lie there and grasp at the fading memories and try to keep from crying...

Rook takes your Bishop.

Dear John, If I could do it again, we'd have stayed in France. We'd have a villa and we'd drink wine and we'd never have to spend the night apart. Knight takes your Rook.

Dear John, I think I'm going to get married. She's nice and good and we can have a life together, I think. I need someone here to keep me from going mad in the months between fishing trips. Will you be my best man? Queen takes your Knight.

Dear John, I will always be your best man. And I can guarantee you one hell of a stag party... Bishop to d4.

Dear John, How's married life? Julie thinks you and Anne are both swell. Such husbands, we... Still your move.

Dear John, I pretend she is you... Knight takes your Rook.

Dear John, I hear the salmon are running early this summer... Pawn en passant.

Dear John, your hands... King to c7.

Dear John, love you... Bishop to e5. Check.

Dear John, found our letters... King to c6.

Dear John, lost the baby... Knight to b4. Check.

Dear John, it's cancer... Knight takes Knight.

Dear John, I can't... Bishop to c3.

Dear John, be with you... Rook takes Bishop. Check.

Dear John, always... Queen takes Rook. Check.

Dear John, my heart... I concede. Good game.

Dear John, Dear John, Dear John, Dear John...

To whom it may concern:

Joanne gasped, shook from her reverie. She blinked and her eyes snapped to focus on the room — Ming peered at her over the top of the legal letter, a curl of smoke snaking up her wrist. The letters — the earliest two, the ones she pulled out of the stack — were wrinkled from the strength of her grasp. The rest still lay in an uneven pile in front of her. Untouched. Her right arm cocked from her side, elbow bent. Her nonarm was a throbbing ache.

"What is it, child?"

Memories washed over her again — hair on the back of tanned fingers, deep and abiding longing, ice cold loss. Her mind spun with temporal disorientation. She had lived two lives in the time it took Ming to smoke a post-coital cigarette.

"I don't know. I...." She couldn't find words that didn't make her sound like a lunatic.

Ming knelt next to her. "What? Did you see something?"

"I...could feel them. The two men. Like I read all their letters and also all of the things behind the words."

"Good! Good, child. This is what you were looking for."

"What? What is it?"

"Don't you see? Spirits. A piece of them gets trapped in the important things. Not always, but sometimes. And you can feel them, hear their whispers. It is a rare gift."

"Bullshit."

"Fah, child. I can see your eyes — you know it's true, you feel it. You found these letters, brought them here. Just like the statue called to you. And the coin. You are a _wu_ , a sorceress."

"That's fucking crazy."

"Yes. It's a crazy world, child. We all feel it at times. You just feel it more."

Joanne had no answer for that. She stared at the paper in her hand and consciously relaxed her grip.

Ming reached out, pushed Joanne's hair out of her eyes, and gently took her hand. "Nothing has changed. The world is as it was. This has always been. And there have always been those who see."

"But why me?"

"Always questions with you! Why not you?"

"I don't know. I wasn't looking for this."

"The people who look for it don't find it, _nu_." Ming's gaze drifted. "My great aunt, she speaks to me. Not always, but when it matters. She told me you were coming that day in the herb shop. I did not ask for this. She does not speak to my mother or my sisters. Only me. There are connections in the spirit world that no person understands."

"How does she speak to you?"

"In dreams, the most. Sometimes an odd memory at the right time. Sometimes I just feel things. I don't always know what's her and what's just my head."

There was a brief silence before Ming realized she was about to drop ash all over her carpet, and she rose to stub out her cigarette. "You drink brandy?"

Dr. Keller and her promise to abstain flashed through her mind, but these were extraordinary circumstances. "Yes. Please."

Ming pulled three wide tumblers from a cabinet, and a bottle of bottom-shelf brandy from the top of the fridge. She poured a healthy measure in each, then waved Joanne over.

She handed one glass to Joanne and carried the others to her small bedside table. There was a small, framed black-and-white photo of a woman in a high-necked, cap-sleeved dress on the table flanked by a pair of incense holders, as well as a mango in a shallow bowl and long thin silver tray with a dusting of white powder in it. Ming sat on the bed, and set one tumbler in front of the picture, and gestured with the other. "Come, I'd like you to meet my Aunt Xiulan." Ming raised her glass and took a generous pull.

She opened the drawer under the small shrine, and withdrew a pair of incense sticks and a fresh cigarette. She lit all three, placed the incense in the holder, then half-turned and ran her hand across the bed as if searching for something. Joanne choked on her brandy as Ming came up with a used condom, which she carefully laid out on the silver tray.

Ming shrugged. "It is tradition to honor your ancestors with incense, food and flowers, but I find Aunt much more receptive to...other offerings."

"That's really gross."

"Feh, see if you don't miss fucking when you die. I'd miss it more than incense, I tell you that."

The women sipped their brandy in silence for a bit. The smell of sex was stronger now and harder to ignore — Joanne cupped the glass close to her face, grateful for the strong fumes filling her sinuses.

Ming cocked her head to the side, her eyes on Joanne's stump. "Your arm. It hurts you?"

Joanne flexed her nonarm and rolled her right shoulder. "Sometimes. It does now."

"Huh. Does it have to?"

"Excuse me?"

"Does it have to hurt?"

"I don't know that I have any control over that."

"Aunt Xiulan thinks you might."

"What does that mean?"

"Put your arm out. Close your eyes."

Joanne was well beyond questioning the absurd at this point. She did as Ming asked.

"Try to feel your arm. Not the pain, but the arm. What do you sense?"

The steady pulse of ache was difficult to ignore, but Joanne tried to visualize tunneling under it to the arm beneath. She imagined that the arm was not the source of the pain, but a separate phenomenon. To her surprise, the rhythmic pain slowed and diffused, becoming much less insistent. There was something more there though, something under the pain, slight as a breeze. She attenuated all her focus to her nonarm, trying to feel it as though it still had flesh and nerves with which to send messages. It was a long, liquid sensation, gently pulling down the length and entwining around her fingers. Silk. She felt like her arm was wrapped in silk and being gently caressed.

Confused, she peeked her eyes open, but there was no visible change. The pain was gone and replaced by the cool water feeling of a silk massage.

"That help?"

"Yeah...that was...did your aunt do that?"

"I don't know. I think she wanted to help. She seems to like you."

Joanne rubbed her stump, "Well thank her for me, I really appreciate it."

"Thank her yourself."

Joanne hesitated, not sure if Ming was serious or not. "Uhm, thank you Xiulan."

She felt a slight spasm of pressure around her right hand — as if someone had given it a little squeeze. Joanne took a deep breath and another swallow of brandy. "So, what now?"

Ming stood with twinkling eyes. "Now, I pay you."

She opened the main cabinet of the nightstand, revealing a small gray lockbox of the sort Joanne associated with bake sales. She fiddled with the combination lock securing it for a second and then popped it open. She grabbed a handful of bills and counted out twenties into five piles of five on the bed. "There. 500. Good work."

Joanne cocked her eyebrow. "For the letters?" Again she felt a wash of protectiveness for John — for Johns, really. "What will you do with them?"

"Uh uh uh...that is my business, _nu_. Yours is finding them."

"What about the medals? And the gun."

Ming tilted her head to the side and considered the other objects. "I am not sure about the medals. Or the uniform. If you want, I will keep them and if I find a buyer, I'll give you your fee. The gun you take with you. I don't want that thing here. I bet you can sell it for good money though."

Joanne scowled. She had really been hoping Ming would take it. "May I borrow a towel or something to wrap it in, at least?"

Ming nodded and handed Joanne a threadbare dishtowel with yellow ducks printed in the corners. She wrapped it carefully and placed it back in the main compartment of her bag. She shouldered her bag, and turned back to Ming. "Thanks."

"You did good, _Jia-en._ You did good. See you soon."

Joanne stepped back down into the street, blinking. She had expected it to be night somehow, but it was still quite bright out.

She slid her phone out of her pocket to check in with Katy, saw the string of unanswered texts from Teo. She smiled and spent the walk from Ming's to the bus terminal composing and recomposing a reply.

*

There were three screens on the desk. One was rotated ninety degrees and was filled with the dense scrolling text of compiling code. The second showed a map of Seattle with a pulsing blue dot crawling its way along the bus tunnel through the heart of downtown. The third was shared between an open Word doc and a large gray window with a series of digits encoding the serial id for various cell towers and the latency of connection with a particular signal. Every few seconds another set of serials and latencies were added in a chunk, and the map on the second screen would update. With the latest burst of serials, there was an additional line:

sms sent from 2065455309 to 5057792329: Hey! Sorry it took me so long to respond — crazy day. Who's playing this weekend? I think I owe you a drink for being such a hot mess the other night. Thanks for being cool.

A few seconds later another batch of serials appended with a message came through.

sms sent from 2065455309 to 2067972913: Hey lady, you off work yet? How does Thai sound? Fair warning: it's entirely possible that I'm going crazy.

The chair let out a squeak as the owner of the desk plopped into it to read over the last few minutes of activity. He adjusted his AR monocle and opened a new email:

Mr. Vincenze,

I think I may have a way we can apply some pressure to Ms. Shaughnessy...

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_NeuTraffic, Part One_

by

Andrew Gaines
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_WHEN_ ___THE_ ___FIRST_ ___BOMBS_ ___WENT_ _off we were hit with that instinctual panic and ran ran ran though there were those among us who had planted them we all ran scared of the fiery fruit we'd been waiting for for so long some cried revolution some cried terrorism some simply cried and looted and pillaged and raped as if their eyes had rolled back in their heads and they saw their own pulsing animal insides and went mad we were all mad mad mad mad mad mad at the rich capitalists mad at the rich communists mad at the rich church leaders mad at the rich government mad at ourselves 'cause really we knew we were all to blame but how else does one react when all one sees all day is violence in the revolving world around us but think bring it home let's bring it home and sacrifice again new blood to our old angry gods and start again so start we did with the bombs exploding all around us in mad harmony we started to sing with them a primal anthem as we ran pat pat pat the shots began to add their cadence and in the thunder of our composition we lost two of our team the first time a number of us saw reality splatter and seep into the pavement before our spoiled eyes though we knew the media had been skewed in their representation of war they had also left us unknowing of what the human anatomy does to all five senses as the order of the inside is forced into the chaos of the outside oh god it smelled but like the flowers we just didn't have time though some stopped and we never saw them after that all we could do is run run run until we reached our checkpoint and a third of us broke_

John awoke to a rough shake on his shoulder.

"Hey. Hey! John Graham, right?"

John peeled his face from the notebook. It was getting near dusk; the shadows of the pines across California Avenue had overtaken him in his sleep. Shit. He looked over to see a bearded young man, probably in his late-twenties, staring down at him. The man's forearms had the tell-tale size of a regular solar-sailor. John sighed.

"Yeah, yeah, that's me. Shit, must have dosed off. Sorry about that. I take it you're my new Tee-Cee."

"Correct." The man held up his identification card: Marvin Reynold, Thought Commuter License 214. To most people, it looked like an old pre-rev driver's license from Oregon, expired in 2029; those familiar with the Thought Commuter system could read the code hidden among the endorsements and license number.

"Damn, kid, it's been two and a half weeks since the last Commute. What took you so long?" John held up his own identification card, then put it back into his breast pocket. He had a feeling this wasn't going to be a great night, but he figured that the sentiment was due to the thudding headache left by his interrupted — albeit unintended — sleep.

"Nothing, sir, nothing. I got my message, I came here. Shall we do this?"

John led the young man the required hundred yards away from his Hamilton Park station table, towards the woods. Pretending to look at the view, Marvin Reynold, Thought Commuter number 214 of the New Cascadian Order, delivered, word by carefully (and quickly) memorized word, the message from Chief General Steven Hammond to Arms Mayor Perr Smith, to be delivered, word by carefully (and quickly) memorized word, immediately.

"Are you serious? It's almost dark out!"

"Orders are orders, you know the regs. Speaking of which: where's your cabin? I could use a nap, too."

John pointed down the block with a sneer. "Green one, on the left. Door code 453."

"Thanks. Nice tattoo by the way."

"What? Oh. Shit," John muttered, and wiped the penmarks from his forehead, smearing his memoirs across his face. Shit, shit, shit.

*

John picked up his government-issue bike and began to pedal; he estimated that he still had another hour before sunset, enough time to get most of the way to the District; he hated riding in the dark. He let gravity pull him down the hill to Harbor Avenue, then pedaled as fast as he could to keep his momentum along the flat, bay-side street. Across the water to the northeast lay the city of Seattle, which wove its way over and through the arboreal hills that composed its landscape. He sped across the Lower Spokane Bridge, dodging the upper bridge's rev-era remains, and then chugged through the concrete swamp to the aging interstate. The Olympic Mountains to the west began to cast their ancient dusk upon the city; his home in the Wessea neighborhood was already blanketed in shadow. The sky burned pink and orange flames of whispered clouds; the ruins ahead of him sparkled as the remaining uncovered windows of the towers, their fallen titans, reflected the day's last promise; John was pedaling too hard to notice.

Reaching I-5, the long, now divided snake of the west coast, he pedaled hard up the onramp, keeping right on the bike lanes. Not that it mattered at this point in the day. He was passed by only a handful of solar sails, weary commuters heading home from a long, tiresome day. Bikers were even fewer in number, though John saw three or four ahead of him, pedaling their calves off, desperate for their destination; his own legs burned, and his lungs ached as he hauled the summer air in through his dry mouth.

Halfway up the interstate bridge, he stopped to walk, cursing. He should really be keeping in better shape. He had one damn job to do, a simple one, and it turned out even that was a challenge. As soon as he got back, he thought, he'd start up a workout routine. This time he meant it.

Over the divider wall, he saw the glowing silhouette of the Citizen District, its solar lights taking full advantage of the day's charge. He could make out the brick vent towers of his destination: once an underground parking garage for the University of Washington, now a Kafkaesque maze of government offices and meeting rooms. At least the Green Square covering was nice, trees and grass and native flowerbeds, park benches and an ancient statue of George Washington. At the crest of the bridge, John hopped back on his bike and coasted off the interstate.

*

Citizen District, the illuminated, electro-brain Capitol of the New Cascadian Order, was the epicenter for the growing semblance of N.C.O. Patriotism and Personhood in the Northwest. And it was working very hard to spread its constantly generated shockwaves throughout the rest of the region.

Architecturally, little had changed from what John remembered from the pre-rev days. Tall, early twenty-first century buildings crowded the shorter, dwindled supply of old brick University remnants. Demographically, however, a serious shift had occurred. Gone was the large and constantly overflowing population of the rent-raising, amateur-drinking, pill-gobbling student body, with its complementary fringe societies: street youths, fledgling burn-outs, and spoiled yuppie look-at-mes. In their post-rev place came the true believers, the vigilant faithful: the New Cascadian Order Citizens. The Citizens came in many different shades of civil and militant patriotism. Some were afraid of the outside world, paranoid that everyone else would want the bounty and beauty of their little chunk of the continent. Some were uncomfortable with the new lack of governmental structure, and, with great personal diligence, set to provide what the post-rev world so obviously neglected. Some just missed the old days. Others, usually of a younger — but still elite — mentality, were fervent crusaders for a new, sustainable, spirited Cascadian cohesiveness. Last, but by no means least, were the growing numbers of scholars and scientists of the University of Cascadia, equal parts fierce historian and bold futurist. These different shades, no matter their denomination, worked together to give the district the distinct scent of overwork, dedication, and elbow grease, all fermenting in a Cascadian flag salute.

John's mood had met his muscles by the time he reached Citizen Hall. The entire dusky street — lit now only by the solar lights — was framed by the dull, grey-green sine waves of bike racks. But after ten minutes of searching for an open spot, he gave up and left his bicycle leaning against another, hopefully hidden in plain sight. He approached the entrance to the Hall, a cave-like hole in the hill, fifteen feet wide, ten tall. John paused, stopping to catch his breath, and his nerve. He was a proud Cascadian, without a doubt, but John hated the beast that waited for him in that cave; the old world and the old governments may have been slain, but Bureaucracy, their faithful, egalitarian servant, lived on to serve new masters.

Eying the laser turrets on either side (the hall was much more heavily fortified than it appeared), John showed the attending guard his official ID, which stated that he was of Senior Rank, giving him access to any level of personnel. The guard did not question, and let him pass. John smiled an internal smile; he always enjoyed it when people thought he was more powerful than he really was. One of the perks of the job.

In reality he was little more than a glorified carrier pigeon, but the genius of the Thought Commuter system was that only those within the system of communication had the need to know of it. The vast majority of the New Cascadian Order strongly believed what the rest of the world did: leadership of Cascadia resided, solely, in Seattle. It was a miracle of careful, paranoid planning, and, to date, incredible luck. Even those that were aware of the truth only knew half of it. John certainly didn't know where Chief General Steven Hammond was, and he was pretty sure that Arms Mayor Perr Smith didn't exactly know either, being, at this point in the game, quite a few links down the communication chain. John admittedly felt that the system's brilliance was somewhat overpowered and plagued by its convolution, but they weren't paying him to feel, they were paying him to deliver messages. Word by carefully (and quickly) memorized word.

John took the elevator to the lowest floor. The sounds of the aging machinery took over: a dim, clanking, constant roar. The elevator shuddered somewhat; it must need maintenance. When he — thankfully — reached his destination, John stepped into a large crowd of upper-level clerks and mili-government officers eagerly awaiting their turn to ride the elevator back up. John wished it was the end of his shift, too. Four months to go.

Squeezing through the crowd, John winced. No matter how many times he had been here, he was always floored by how immense this place was; the veritable cubicle labyrinth would make any pre-rev big business blowhard lose his mind. The glow from uncountable monitors rivaled the overhead lights; John's head started to thrum almost immediately. There was a long-standing joke that Citizen Hall was kept heated by the brain power churning. Whatever truth there was in that — it was told mainly by the bureaucrats themselves — it didn't matter to John; even with the large fans humming in the background he started to sweat.

_Left, right, straight, left, left, straight, straight, straight, right, right, right_ ; John focused his attention to navigating the floor, stopping to ask for directions only twice this time. As impeccable as his memory was, this place had him beat. By the time he reached his restricted destination his head was spinning and his uniform was soaked.

*

Arms Mayor Perr Smith had been elected three years ago, after serving in the Cascadian Protection Force for six years immediately post-rev, and as Senior Staff under Arms Mayor Barrett Robbins for three. She was a tall woman of forty-four, with the stern, tired look that — in John's mind — placed her firmly in the camp of the Cascadia-needs-order-why-won't-these-people-accept-our-leadership Citizens. Well, that was alright, he supposed. Like the Sociocrats and the Plutocans of the pre-rev days, voters loved to switch the in-charge ideology.

He missed Robbins though. A goofy, kind man, Barrett Robbins lacked the discipline to enforce much, but made up for it with a bizarre charm and an undeniable zeal. He bled green, sweated blue: a Cascadian Crusader to the core. His many supporters loved him, and then subsequently loved that he was the kind of man who would take early retirement and leave his post to pursue a career in mushroom farming somewhere out in the San Juan Islands.

Perr Smith, on the other hand, was actively (and accurately) believed to have been the capability behind the little order that the Robbins Administration had been willing to implement. During the short campaign after his unexpected-but-within-character resignation, her energetic, passionate speeches took full advantage of this belief, and her election — approved by headquarters — soon followed.

Three years had done much to drain that energy and passion, though. As John was admitted into her office, he saw the Arms Mayor sitting at her desk, elbows firmly planted, palms rubbing her greying temples. She was dressed in a dark, conservative suit, stuffy if it weren't for a few unbuttoned buttons at the top of her shirt. But this wasn't some power-play tease — Perr Smith had no need to use sexuality — this was an unbuttoning of existential necessity. It had obviously been a very long day, another in her endless procession of very long days. She looked up from her monitor, and her expression exasperated "What now?" before her voice had the chance. "Oh. Hello, John."

"Hello, Ma'am."

"Cut the formalities, John, I am far too exhausted for it."

"Yes, Ma'am." He was in a sour mood himself, and spun the snark into his voice. She squinted, then smiled.

"Alright, John, as you wish. Good thing you caught me when you did, I was about to head home. We both know the drill. So. Headquarters has a message, what n—" A rumbling roar cut off her "ow" with the question mark of a small seismic shake.

"Goddamn it, what the fuck now?" Smith punched a button on her desk. "Wilson, find out what the fuck that just was. Now." She turned back to John. "You. Message. Immediately."

John was a little shaken, but impressed with her conversion from tired Mayor to efficient Commander. He got right to it, word by carefully (and quickly) recited word.

" _Zero-ex-megap-little-rednut-zipzip-five-zero-nine-break-wingy-four-two-three-seven-nine-seven-one-thousand-medilamb-kip-son-flaw-reggie-poe-nine-ninety-nine-_ (Smith was writing this all down, furiously)- _six-pim-worker-lifer-shopshop-were-wear-wor-pred-linse-seventy-two-aardvark-nightly-prog-zonky-eight-eight-eight-_ (John was always glad he never had to decode this shit)- _william-nervey-endings-yor-mun-gander-eleven..."_

"Wait, wait, wait," she interrupted, looking up from her note-taking, "Yor-mun-gander? I think that's a Midland atta—" __ Before she could finish, a young Staff man — John guessed it was Wilson — slammed the office door open.

"Ma'am! The I-5 Ship Canal Bridge has been bombed. Strikers."

Perr Smith paused, staring.

"God- _fucking_ -dammit."

The Arms Mayor stood up, walked quickly to her door, placed her fingertips against the young man's chest, and gently pushed him out. John continued to stand in the office, still a little dazed from his Commute so far. Things sunk in quickly though, and his legs began to quiver uncontrollably at the thought that he missed Death's visit by only twenty minutes.

"Wilson. First, don't barge in ever again. Second, call up Captain Ling, tell him to send out the anti-aircraft patrols, full alert. Third, Scotch."

*

After he finished his Thought Commute, John was escorted to a break room for the night, while the Arms Mayor scrambled to decode the message and sort out what had happened. It was a stark space, utilitarian, with four bunk beds and a handful of magazines on a small table. He picked up an old printing of Cascadian Today, browsed through articles extolling the ever-thriving restaurant scenes or the great finds to be discovered in the Vintage district that was (then) growing on Royals Hill (this was before Her Highness went off the deep end), and read a gonzo story from an Anarch-Rev about their exile from the Midland. This led his thoughts to Jane, and he wondered how her people were handling the attack. Probably with a riot. Or an orgy or something, he guessed, with a bitter, aching amount of residual lust. No one really knew what happened Downtown anymore. John didn't really want to. He dozed off.

_columbia tower falling down falling down falling down columbia tower falling down my fair lady and we all fell down with it and rolled on our sides in laughter laugh laugh laughing our guts out from the shrapnel and the ecstasy and the fear of fire fear of smoke fear of dust fear of truth_

__

He was woken up by an aide, and instantly his head was sent reeling from the deficit of sleep. His body ached and his brain tore somersaults in his skull; his entire being wanted nothing more than to keep sleeping. He closed his eyes, and struggled desperately to do so. The aide, a twenty-something girl from the sound of her voice, had to tap him on the shoulder for a number of minutes, saying, "Please sir, the Arms Mayor requests your presence immediately," and, "Sir, please wake up. Wake up, sir," and other such variants with increasing intensity and volume until, finally, she grew frustrated enough to give him a rough shake and a loud, curt, "Sir!"

He blinked at his watch, a pre-rev gift from his father. Four a.m. About three-and-a-half hours of sleep. Ouch.

He sat up and shook his head, trying to shake himself into reality. The aide shoved a standard issue breakfast biscuit and a steaming cup of synthibean towards him. The drink smelled like burnt sock, and the first sip confirmed this quality. It did wake him up though, but whether this was due to the quality of the synth or to the energy summoned to battle nausea, John couldn't tell. The biscuit tasted fine, at least.

"Please sir," the aide was saying, with no small amount of annoyance. "Follow me."

John followed the girl back to the Arms Mayor's office. _Right, right, right, left, straight, straight, left, left, left, right, left, right._ There was no way that this path made any sense, he thought groggily. It did give him enough time to finish the putrid synthibean though, and by the time they reached the office, his head was painfully buzzing and active.

Smith looked at least five years older than when he had seen her last, so few hours ago. What before was wrinkled but firm, now appeared sallow, her life-force draining from her every minute she remained awake. John cursed under his breath, and was thankful his office was just the simple Tee-Cee, even if it was such a — usually — mind-numbingly boring job. He half-expected her to lie down and die right before his eyes. The aide disappeared, and John shut the door just loud enough to jolt the Arms Mayor's attention. She shook her head gently, with quiet desperation.

"John Graham, I trust you slept well."

He nodded unconvincingly.

"Great. Alright, here are your orders. I need you to deliver this message to whomever is next along in the chain, and get it to the Head."

He nodded, again, unconvincingly. Perr Smith squinted at him for a moment, looked down toward a hand-written sheet of paper, then glanced back up briefly.

"Pay attention, Graham. Here we go: _commode-sub-nineteen-pinto-larva-seven-seven-seven-yor-mun-gander-komodo-quetz-lobber-cascwa-bribe-loo-wester-eleven-hawk-quill-one-four-nine-seventy-two-thirty-rah-rah-tweener-pill-mal-events-asher-lev-lev-zero-ex-twenty-mess-echidna-eleventy-wash-wash-jay-wash-jay-needer-plumage-chicala._ " She paused a moment. "Okay, that's it."

As the Arms Mayor shredded her notes, John carefully (and quickly) went over the nonsensical message in his head, embedded it to memory, then stood up.

"Wait. You know I can't tell you what's in that message, but now that your previous Commute is over, I can at least let you know what you brought. In short, the Head knew there was going to be an attack, but it was supposed to be within the next couple of weeks. It looks like either their intelligence was off, or your connecting Tee-Cee went on fucking leave for a while. Good news is, it's only supposed to be a warning strike, we aren't at war or anything. Yet, at least. Casualties were minimal. Still, things are probably going to be a bit tense in the city. We're trying to calm everybody down, but, well, you know how it is. This Commute of yours is going to be pretty fucking heated, and it can't really wait until things die down. Sorry about that."

Shit.

"Thanks for the heads up, ma'am." He turned to leave.

"Wait, John," Perr Smith seemed hesitant, and looked down for a moment, "I've got one more favor to ask. A personal one," she grinned wearily.

John raised his eyebrows. "Uhh... Sure?"

"Shut the fucking door on your way out."

John chuckled, gave a weary but honest salute, and opened the door. Around him, the maze buzzed quietly with the tired desperation of so many government workers, all eager for their shift replacements, all praying that their replacements would actually come. The aide was nowhere in sight. He turned back to ask the Arms Mayor for a guide out, only to see her head on her desk. His breath caught, and for a moment he was worried that she actually had died of exhaustion and frustration. But, no, there it was: the light, gasping snore of deep, undeniable sleep.

Damn. Well, he could probably figure it out on his own. No use waking the poor lady. John shut the door quietly, blinked his eyes hard, and steeled himself to navigate the Hall. _Right, left, right, left, left, left, straight, straight_...

*

Thirty-seven desperate, frustrating minutes later, John found himself outside of the Hall, cursing the administrative anthill he had just escaped. It was still dark; he considered taking a long nap in Green Square, but decided against it. Better to just get the whole mess over with.

He saw and heard the signs of quickly controlled panic: a few broken windows, dim shouting in the distance, and small patrol forces of two marching through the streets. The Citizen District had the highest level of governmental fervor and steadfastness, but plenty of Citizens — especially before the word was spread that there would be no more immediate attacks — knew that their district was an ideal target. John guessed that many had already gotten the heck out of Dodge, and that was rarely a clean business.

This was confirmed by the fact that his bike had been usurped in the chaotic haste. John made this discovery with frustration and ineffectual cursing. He sat down on the curb, dejected. For a brief moment he thought about the swear jar his mother had put out when he was a teenager; a dollar went in for every curse word that slipped out in front of the family (his father would deposit a fiver every morning as collateral), and at the end of the year they'd buy a tree and plant it, turning bad to good, or something saccharine like that. Today, John thought, he'd be planting a fucking forest.

He stood up and walked down the street, hoping to see either his bike, or another to commandeer — for the good of Cascadia. No luck. It was about a ten, maybe eleven-mile hike back to his station. But hell, if he just pushed through, he could make it back by lunch, deliver the message to Reynold, and sleep through the rest of the day.

Maybe he could even find someone willing to tow him along by solar sail. He had his doubts though; he wasn't sure how well the city was handling the bridge bombing, and escorting a stranger all the way over to Wessea probably wasn't high up on anyone's immediate to-do list. He could try bribing, but his big payday wouldn't come until post-shift, and he needed the credits he did have for food this week. Oh well. Four hours wasn't such a bad hike, right?

Montlake Bridge would be the nearest exit out of the district. He walked down the hill, stopping to ask a passing patrol if they had seen an unlocked bike lying around. Both patrol officers laughed.

"If it wasn't bolted down, good luck, man," the young patrolwoman chuckled. "After the bridge went out, Citizens were heading north like the second rev was coming."

"Fair-weather Firs." The young patrolman grinned.

Damn. Well, it was worth a shot. He thanked them and went on his way; past the university buildings, past the hospital, he turned the corner — only to see that the bridge was up. A squad of a dozen or so soldiers was on his side, most looking across the water. As he got closer, he understood. A few bonfires, chanting: a good old fashioned protest. It was still a bit too dark to make out how many there were. One of the soldiers approached him.

"Sorry, Citizen, the bridge is up."

"I can see that, thank you. Any idea when it's going back down?"

"As soon as the protesters disperse."

"Right. Any orders to disperse the protesters?"

"Classified."

"Right. What about a boat? Do you have a boat I can use?"

"No, too much risk of confrontation with protesters."

"Right. Any chance I'll be over that bridge in the next hour or so?"

"Doubtful."

"Right. Thanks."

Frustrated, John thought briefly about swimming over, until he remembered the news-site images of new bacteria and flesh-rot infecting swimmers stupid enough to dive in during the heavily polluted days immediately following the rev. He knew that a lot of work had been done in the past couple of years to clean up the waters; people were even fishing again. But giant, scaling pink rings and grey-green molding skin flashed across his mind, and he gagged; he wasn't going to take the risk.

John turned back the way he came. Though he doubted that he'd find anything different, he figured he might as well try the old University Bridge. He headed west, and as he did so the diffused glow of the rising sun — still hiding beneath the covers of the Cascadian Mountains — illuminated his surroundings: the red brick of the old university buildings, the patchwork green grass, the trees that had seen so much of the world around them change since they had been planted, and yet continued their lives as they always had. Nothing really changed.

Away from the shouts of the protesters, which had picked up to a muffled roar with the coming daylight, John thought about his time as a student. It had been a few years since he had actually spent any time in the area, and his mind wandered as his feet marched. The girls he had dated, the girls he had wanted to date, his barely-used education in Financial Analysis, the parties, the after-party-parties, the naps in the grass, the late nights, the drugs; it was all floating by in the vague wanderings of a tired, unfocused mind. He thought about the dreams he used to have about his future, about reform, about the Big-Deals, the Real-Things, the This-Is-What-Matterses. Fourteen years, twenty pounds, countless wrinkles, and one collapse of society later, he wondered what it would be like to go to University as the person he now was. Man, think of all the good he would do! He'd study physics, or mechanics, or solar engineering, and maybe actually focus this time around. Well, maybe not. It sounded exhausting. Maybe instead, what if he was a student now, but younger? To have grown up in the post-rev world; to have a completely different set of ideas about the Big-Deals, the Real-Things, the This-Is-What-Matterses? He remembered his parents telling him that they didn't grow up with the Internet; it rose to prominence when they were teens, and dominance when they were already in adulthood; they always wondered what it must be like for kids like him, who grew up in the days of unlimited access to the entire world and all of the good and the evil that engendered itself in that wild west of electric data-space. Not to mention growing up with legal weed. He and his parents could barely connect — though they had tried. He could only imagine what kids these days were like with their parents. And what about his connection with his own possible future kids one day? What kind of possible future world would they grow up in, possibly, one day? His thoughts jumbled back to the girls he had dated; he thought about Jane.

_come on John show for me and I'll show for you sweet smile red lipstick buzzed and throbbing ache her hand slow slow slowly unzipping green dress sequins sparkling and _

__

John looked up, and was violently wrenched from nostalgia by a sight very much in the present. Where once there had been an enormous bridge striding like a giant across Portage Bay and encompassing so much of the view from this neighborhood, there was now a sharp, horrible absent space, beautiful and shocking to John's unprepared eyes.

Two thousand feet of what used to be I-5 lay scattered across the area, crushing dozens of buildings and greenspaces, many of which were still smoking. The water below was now home to a poisoned, man-made reef, with chunks of support beams and freeway lane jutting out like a nightmare seamonster. The air was dusty and rank with obliterated concrete, and he noticed the lingering stench of ozone and ammonia. He thought back on the previous night, how he had stopped to walk up the bridge and catch his breath and take in the view. He felt woozy, fell onto his backside, and swore.

It took him a few minutes to wrap his mind around the enormity of this "warning strike." He knew they happened every few years, but it had always been outside of the pseudo-Capital. Tacoma had been hit twice, Portland once, and even Spokane had had one. Ever since the rev, a rotating cast of Nation-States found it in vogue to try to start up another war. Sometimes it was due to jealousy of the N.C.O.'s resources, sometimes it was to give their people something to rally behind, sometimes it was just a good old-fashioned go at greedy border expansion. Even Cascadia had tried its hand during an early post-rev year, by attempting to expand into the northern parts of California Nation. That particular little skirmish was dropped due to complete lack of support from the Cascadian people north of the Columbia, which was exactly the sort of roadblock these aggressions usually came up against. Politicians would lose favor and drop the act, or they would lack the resources, or the manpower, or even a good enough reason. The post-rev struggles left most of the world in a loose stalemate. No one had the actual ability or desire to wage war effectively, but nothing was really set in place to stop it, either. The world had become a playground to a bunch of young child-states, all trying occasionally to convince the others of how tough their absentee father-states were.

These shows of playground dominance did have real consequences though, as John now saw. He bet that it would be at least five years until it was rebuilt. Well, if it was rebuilt. Now that he thought about it, as enormous as the empty bridge space was, it was easy enough to take one of the other, smaller, non-empty bridge spaces across the water, and, though it wasn't nearly as convenient, it's not like there was really enough traffic to snarl anything up. Hell, the increased traffic through the area might give it a bit of an economic boost. John shook off his shock. Damn you, Midland, he thought sarcastically, you've inconvenienced us for the last time.

John turned his attention towards the University Bridge. It, like Montlake earlier, was up.

John wished he could be surprised, but by now he was feeling more resigned than defeated. In the golden hour light, against the backdrop of postured destruction, he saw another rag-tag squad of Cascadian soldiers facing off — with the mutual protection of the raised bridge — against a protest that was borderline riot. John thought he could even make out some Anarch-Rev standard Mohawk haircuts. Many of the protesters were waving pieces of flaming lumber, makeshift torches taken from the wreckage of the neighborhood; a village mob ready to burn away their misplaced fears. A number were throwing bricks towards the soldiers, without much effect; the bricks landed, at best, halfway across the water. Their shouts had yet to be organized into any sort of chant, and by the time the sound reached the north shore, any words had been reduced to angry rabble. John truly had no idea what their point was.

Even if he could get across the water here, John had no desire to now. He was no stranger to the mob mentality, and heaven help any Citizen that stumbled into that scene before it calmed down. Which probably wouldn't take too long, he guessed. Seattleites loved a good protest, but they usually had other things they wanted to do after a while. It wasn't so much that they lacked the energy, or the attention span, though these might have both been factors. Everyone was just pretty good at keeping to their own interests. It was part of what made Seattle such a pleasant place to be an individual, and such a difficult place to be a community organizer. He gave it a day or so before everyone would want to get back to their lives, and the bridge would lower, and the wreckage would get cleaned up a bit, and things would get start to get back on track. Sans Ship Canal Bridge.

He didn't have the day to wait though, and the sooner he got home, the sooner he could go to bed; even thinking about bed made his head throb with the threat of a sleep-deprivation-induced tension headache. Just like back when he was in college, except this time he didn't have the drugs.

He sighed. This Thought Commute was turning into quite the tour. The Fremont Bridge was next up on the list, as the grander Aurora Bridge had been destroyed during the rev — its collapse a twelve year foreshadowing of its larger brother's new fate.

Fremont. He used to live in Fremont, self-proclaimed Center of the Universe, back in the pre-rev days. He wondered if he still knew anyone there. John headed west.

*

The interstate rubble did not prove to be too difficult to scale, though it did take him some time to find the right path; scrabbling over the pieces he could scrabble over, scuttling under the pieces he could scuttle under, and simply walking around when neither scrabbling nor scuttling was an option; it was fifteen minutes — and one scraped, bruised knee — before he was on the Wallyhood side of the destruction. He had passed two dead bodies; the shoeless, stripe-stockinged legs of some poor girl jutted out of the debris of one of the destroyed houses, while another corpse, a man's, was crumpled, shattered, and hanging from tree branches like a broken marionette, tangled and twisted in its own strings. A biker on the bridge, John guessed, and tried not to imagine his own puppet limbs hanging from the tree. He thought briefly, during a scrabble-over, that he was probably scrabbling over a few more unfortunate "minimal" casualties. By now though, at least the living had been rescued. Life-detection sensors had been critical during the rev, and the world had yet to grow so cynical that rescue didn't come first after these sorts of events. Clean-up and corpse-detail might take some time though.

Though there were still a few signs of destruction once John had made it past the bridge — a smoking ex-house here, a sinking boat there, a chunk of roadway jutting out where it shouldn't be — Wallyhood was looking to be its normal, quiet self. Here, the bridge's absence in the view wasn't so glaring, as long as he was facing west.

As he walked along 40th Street, he saw a few people leave their houses and apartments; some, in bathrobes and tattered morning clothes, gaped at the wreckage and chaos and wept; others called out to their spouses and children, then hurried back inside to pack up and leave the city, John assumed; many, however, still wore the business casual uniform of the hard working, immutable middle class. John even saw a few hastily tied ties. Though a few of this latter group would gape at the wreckage, then go back inside or weep openly beside their bike or solar sail, most were plugged in enough to have heard the news: this was only a warning strike, no immediate danger, please continue with your daily business or report to your nearest govstation for volunteer recovery duty. More importantly, they had enough resigned faith in the system to believe it. These bankers and accountants, salesmen and middle-managers, programmers and marketers, these who kept the business end of the economy solidly moving forward — or at least moving — took a moment to reflect on the attack, then hopped on their bikes and solar sails, and sped off to their seven-to-seven jobs around the city. Most never used I-5 anyways, heading north to the various business centers around the area: 45th and Stone, Greenlake Town, or The Tangle.

John, however, lacked their steadfastness. His head was reeling from the lack of sleep, and the synthibean buzz had worn off sometime during the crossing of the I-5 debris. He lay down on a grassy corner of the Latona intersection, dejected.

_the vampire boss of credit credit life blood credit in a thick straight vein into her wet gaping mouth running over with his and his and his and her own vampire boss and his and his and his own insatiable hungers of the one great big swinging chain and it has been wrapped around our ankles chaffing and cutting and bleeding out from our soft feet to our screen burned eyes long since dried out but if we just blink blink blink blink_

__

John blinked hard, and shook his head, tried to shake away the sensation of a vise inside his skull.

"I really need to get some more sleep," he murmured aloud.

"I'd say so, bug."

Startled, John looked up to see a kid — no, wait, he must be an adult, maybe mid-twenties? — wearing slacks rolled up at the ankles, a button-up shirt with sleeves rolled up around the elbows, a gaudy patterned tie, worn loose around his unbuttoned collar, and what looked like a brand new cyber-monocle; John could smell the sweet perfumed scent of a heavy layer of sun lotion coming off of his pale-beige skin. The kid was grinning down at him, standing at the side of a bright red solar sail.

"I've been pokin' at you for the past ten minutes; you okay, bug?; you were twitchin' and mouthin' and stuff, I thought you were having a seizure or somethin'."

Bug. Probably raised in one of the Hives.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, thanks. Just tired."

"Yeah bug, you look it; here, eat this."

The Hive kid tossed him a bar of CarboNow, which John immediately tore into. He spit out a muffled "thahnksh" between the chalky bites.

"No problems; hell, I'd give you a snorter if I had any on me; you look like shit; I was about to call the medis or somethin'; what happened to your knee?; were you in that bombing?; fuck." The Hive kid still wore a big grin.

"No, no, thank god, just banged up my knee, and I'm tired."

"Go to bed; beats the street."

"Trust me kid, I'm really, really trying to." John swallowed down the last bites of the CarboNow bar, and looked past the toothy Hive kid to the red solar sail. "Hey, any chance you could give me a tow with that thing?"

"Where you headed, bug?; I got a tow-pad back at my apartment, right over there."

"Wessea."

"Ah, hell, can't do that, too far; I'm runnin' late for work already; sorry, bug; my boss'll be on my ass; but it's all good; we gotta keep this country buzzin' an' all, especially with the bombing; my boss called me up saying he needed us more than ever right now; so true, too, you know?; economy crumbles if we don't keep going at it; I can take you north though?"

"No, no thanks. I'm going to try Fremont Bridge."

They both turned in that direction; the Hive kid beamed. "Party."

"Probably. Anyways, thanks for the food and for checking up on me. What do you do, anyways?"

"Second chief assistant to sales operations lead, mattress tech division!" His smile widened somehow, and he straightened up his gaudy patterned tie, twisted his brand new cyber-monocle lens, and hopped on his bright red solar sail. "And I'm late; see ya, bug; oh, and watch out for the cloth man!"

The Hive kid sped off. John was sad to see the red sail go, but he chuckled and imagined himself jumping off the tow-pad at top speed, just to get away from the kid's damn chatter. Hivers. He pondered briefly what 'the cloth man' was; probably more Hiver slang. John stood up, and stretched. The nutrient-bar had definitely helped; still, John knew the pick-up wouldn't last for too long. Hell, maybe he'd get some food while he was in Fremont. It would be pretty great to swing in to the dockside café down the street from his old apartment. John's mouth watered with the thought of The Hangover Standard: three real eggs, toast with Better, and four thick slices of TemPork bacon. He hoped they were open today, but hell, if Randy had kept the place open during the rev, there was no way he'd be closed now, right?

His thoughts now heavily preoccupied with food, John turned south to take the BG bike trail down closer to the water's edge, which, if he remembered right, would take him right past Randy's for a bite to eat — he was counting the detour as a necessary part of the Commute — and then straight to the Fremont Bridge. He'd coast around Her Highness' neighborhood, skirt along Lake Union, hop right back on the remainder of I-5, and have a pretty straight shot home, Commute over, bed. He missed his bike. He never should have been so stupid to leave it unlocked, but what was he supposed to do? Besides, Citizens weren't usually the stealing type. He was no stranger to the paradigm shift of impending or imagined doom, but it wasn't like he could have known that a warning-strike was coming. The bombing was the surprise; the results, not so much. Shit.

As he made his resolute march along the trail, he began to hear faint rhythmic pops. And booms. Drums?

_doom doom doom boom boom boom rat a tat tat pat pat pat dance for me children dance dance and doom doom and boom boom boom_

__

"What the hell is wrong with me lately?" he rubbed his temples. Yup, those were definitely drums. Must be coming from Gas Works Park, he thought. Through the trees, he could just make out the park's jutting namesake.

*

His path took him alongside the entrance to the park, an enormous wall of pines one hundred feet tall, deep and dark and heavy with history. He couldn't see a thing through the thick green, but the drumming was loud and intoxicating, and John's curiosity momentarily overrode his hunger and his exhaustion. Besides, he thought to himself as he crossed the old, unused parking lot, maybe he could find a bike to, you know, borrow for a while; these guys were usually into sharing, right?

He walked over the broken concrete that led through the trees and into the sundrenched park. Ahead of him, the giant bones of the old gasification plant lay basking; now almost a century and a half old, the half-dozen kaleidoscope towers of ancient rust and graffiti were surrounded by acres of meadowing grass. Beyond the plant sat Lake Union, slowly heating up in the morning sun that lit its way across the blue-grey buildings of Seattle and the white, eternal Space Needle tower, to the south across the water. The park was a crucible of the then, the now, and the now again.

And, in this particular now again, it was full of the underwashed, spirited, and ever-alternate denizens of Seattle's counter-culture, outlaw heart. The air was a sick sweet stench of body, bonfire, meadow, and marijuana. Surrounding the gasification towers, rows of shirtless, tanned drummers beat out a cacophonous and barely-held-together ritual rhythm with a plethora of djembes, congas, bass drums, tambourines, and bare clapping hands. The End of the World, or any occasion in which it might possibly be a possibility, was a fantastic excuse to pray-slash-party, and this enormous drum circle

_boom boom boom patpatpatpat to my left a big splash where once was a man to my right to my right to my right oh dosey doh dosey doh just when we'll stop oh no one knows_

__

was providing the pulse. John took an educated guess, and yup, there it was on a small hill to the west: a squirming, writhing, oily little orgy of those whose main mode of operation was "get it while you can." From the sounds coming from that direction, John could tell that quite a few of them were. To the southwest, on the tallest hill in the park, which rose almost to the level of the highest kaleidoscope tower, a dancing, chanting chain of revelers snaked their way up and around to a large bonfire burning upon the crest.

John laughed quietly. Cascadia loved its hippies, and hippies loved Cascadia. Still, he'd seen enough. He turned to his right, where seven neo-soul-searchers had just pedaled up to join in the possibly-going-away-party for N.C.O. modernity. He approached them as they were setting their bikes down in the grass. It was worth a shot.

"Hi there." He paused, unsure of how to go about borrowing a bike from a complete stranger. "Uh, those are some pretty nice bikes?" Maybe he should have hung back and stole one once the drums had captured their attention.

"Aye, hello pine-brother," replied a cute girl with long dreadlocks, clad in a dirty, well-worn t-shirt and a short hemp skirt. She smiled at him, and he blushed. He thought she looked a bit like a younger Jane, but less edgy; maybe he was just a bit aroused from the faint erotic exclamations behind him. "Are you here for the Gathering?"

"Uh, no, not exactly? I was actually wondering...."

"Oh, come on, it's going to be _it_." She grabbed him by his elbow, and he blushed deeper, too embarrassed at this point to fight back. He stammered that he had to get somewhere, but his protests were weak. The other members of the little group, four men and two other women, smiled; one of the men, who wore greasy jeans and a black vest with no shirt, put his arm around John's shoulders and turned him towards the southwest hill and the bonfire.

"Come on, man, _this_ is where you need to be." The man and the cute girl started to lead him forward while the others laughed. John pushed back slightly with his heels, but only slightly. The man reached into the left breast pocket on his vest and pulled out an expertly rolled joint. He grinned wide.

"You look uptight, man, you need to loosen up a bit. Let the Citizens deal with that bombing shit, we gotta be alive, man. Gotta send out our Love Energy to overpower all this fucking hatred, man. We're the ones with the fucking power. Here man, get loose." John found the joint pressed into his lips, and Cute Dreadlocks held up a lighter, flame to the protruding tip of the joint. Well, why not, one puff; he had been feeling uptight, and maybe this would take the edge of his increasingly erratic thoughts. John inhaled.

_smoke filling up our lungs to bring our heat in parallel we get high high high and burn and the city gets low low low and burnt and we are crisped and we are coughed out and we are refuse in the air_

__

John held the smoke in for only a few seconds and heaved it out, coughing. The others laughed even harder, and continued to lead him up the hill. The drums, the smells, the bodies, the drugs: this was a new sort of refinery, and though his head had taken on a different strain of buzzing and his limbs were looser, his stomach sunk. He had to get out of there. He began to strain away from The Vest, whose grip suddenly tightened.

"Come on man, don't just hit and run."

"Yeah," Cute Dreadlocks purred, pushing her body against him, and leaning her head on his shoulder. He could feel her left breast on his elbow. "Besides, you got to at least meet Papa Stocks, he's the one who called us all here to join him. He's got everything you need, man. He's up there." She pointed to the bonfire on the top of the hill. Their footsteps marched in time to the bass drum.

_boom boom boom doom doom doom dance and dance and dance and dance while the world sings a scream and a wail and a whimper and we wake up the next day with a bad hangover and no memory of who was in our bed the night before but they left scratches on our back and our sheets are covered in blood but oh that beat boom boom boom its infectious_

__

Up and up and up they wound around the hill, passing through the multitudes of Freaks and Piners; the other members of their party hung back one by one, stopping to greet friends and lovers, fellow pine-brothers and pine-sisters, until only John and his two guides remained; John was dizzy with the barrage of human contact, and the thrum of the drug and the thump of the drum; his knee ached. They reached the summit, where a large bonfire, grasping high over the heads of the people surrounding it, burned upon the old, pre-rev sundial that capped the hill. In the heat and the light of the fire there was no shadow, there was no time.

"There he is!"

Cute Dreadlocks removed her left breast from John's elbow, and ran up to a man wearing what looked like a multitude of colored rags. She gave him a kiss on the lips, then whispered in his ear, pointing back towards John and The Vest; she was smiling, rather pleased with herself for finding a stray sheep, it seemed. Stocks and the girl approached John and his other "shepherd." He was middle-aged, dark tan, heavily balding, and wearing wire-rim glasses. His robe was a patchwork of colored cloth rags and dried grasses, and over the fire and the others around them, John noticed the increasingly pungent scent of sharp herbal incense: citrus, pine, and rosemary; to John's frazzled senses, Stocks was wavering on the borderline between power and parody, like a strange cross between an owl and a peacock.

"Jaclyn tells me that you are here for the Gathering, but you don't know it yet." His voice was resonant, though it seemed like he barely moved his lips. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards, slightly. "My name is Thomas Stockson, though please, my Family calls me Papa Stocks. And welcome to my Family. Now, what might we call you?"

"Uh, John Graham? But, I'm not here to join your 'Family,' I really, really have to get going — uh, could I borrow a bike?" John spit out, in vain, pleading desperation; he struggled to focus.

"John Graham, John Graham, John Graham," Stockson chanted in a tone of chastisement, "John, John, John. You are only showing us just how much you need to stay! You and our entire generation! You see, children," — he turned to Cute Dreadlocks Jaclyn and The Vest — "John Graham here, like the majority of his generation — and mine, as I too was of his flock — we found out during the post-rev years that all of the hard work we had put in to be who we were, all of the skills we had learned, all of the things we had treasured — or thought we treasured — meant very little." His Family was enthralled, and a few more turned to listen, grinning; John had a nagging suspicion that they had heard this speech before, and loved every word.

"Not that these things were meaningless, per se; rather, during our necessary self-examination, the violent navel gazing that follows any big fight or pubertal growth spurt — of which the rev was certainly a societal analog of both — our generation found that, truly, we just hadn't put in that much hard work, we hadn't learned many skills, and our 'treasuring' was only a fondness of the convenient."

John knew that this was true, and knew how much he hated this truth. Even though he thought similar things himself, to hear them from someone else left him feeling more bitter and angry than regretful. The corners of Stockson's lips curled even higher; John looked away, into the coals of the bonfire. Stockson continued his speech.

"Treasure. You cannot reach treasure through a curriculum, or through social media reviews, or through public self-inflation. You know that, that is why you are here, why you are part of the Family," he opened his arms wide, and his ragged dream robe spread out in self-benediction. "But many of us were left with nothing, with nothing to treasure, with nothing left to make matter."

"We tried, though!" John interjected. His heart ached in

_buzz and glow buzz and glow and my eyes burn but just one more click just one more till I go to bed with my mermaid lovers till human voices wake me and I drown in_

__

memory.

"Yes, some of us, it's true, tried to make things matter again, and followed the glory of an Idea." He swiveled from side to side to address his followers. "Let us remember, children, to always respect our Citizen brothers and sisters." He turned back to John. "But too many, far too many of us found ourselves to be poor and penniless in our souls, poor and penniless in the currency of Reality, in spite — and often because — of our meaningless ' _wealth._ '" His words sneered. "And so many of us today, even after the rev, still waste our time chasing fool's gold. It is a pity."

_waiting waiting waiting tell us what to do tell us what to do tell us what to do we are so hungry_

__

"Treasure, my children, treasure is only found through adventure, through mystery, though sweat, or through _bloodshed_." Stockson bared his teeth and smiled. John's anxiety was rising steadily, and he tried to shake the loose but vigilant grip of The Vest. He failed.

"Oh, come now, John," Stockson said, stalking around him in a slow circle. "You shouldn't think that this is one of _those_ Gatherings. That hasn't happened in eleven years, if I remember right. Besides, our Family is a peaceful one." He paused, standing still. "Still, I can clearly see that you are in need of treasure, you are poor with your worry and your fear and your doubt. And you cannot be blamed for this poverty!" He pointed back towards the missing bridge, and the smiles of many in the audience slid into frowns.

"But let us end your poverty, John Graham. Let us give you treasure." The smiles returned.

"Hey, man, let me go. This is bullshit! I was just walking through the park, I don't have time for this shit, I have to go!" John struggled some

_we were all of us gripped in the heat of our feverous lust and not one of us made it out not one of us escaped its pulse pulse pulse the boom boom boom our doom doom doom_

__

more. Another man joined The Vest, and grabbed John's right arm. "Get the fuck off me! Let me go!"

"John, John, John, my son, do not worry! Do not fear! Do not doubt! We will let you go." The flames rose high behind Stockson, and his grin was wide and toothy. "We will send you on your adventure. Find your treasure, child."

Thomas Stockson reached into his robe, and from one of the many colors he brought out a syringe filled with a light purple liquid. The Vest and the other man held John still. Stockson removed the cap as he approached. With a quick, practiced efficiency, he slid the needle into John's arm; it felt like a wasp sting, and continued to burn. Cute Dreadlocks Jaclyn reached around him from behind and slowly depressed the plunger.

For a few moments, nothing happened. The mid-morning sun continued to shine down upon the hill, adding its heat to the blazing, timeless fire. Lake Union, to the south, continued to lap gently. The phantom of the Ship Canal Bridge continued to haunt the skyline to the east, while the gasification plant continued to resonate with the uncontrollable rhythm of the Gathered drummers. The saturnalia to the north continued to be rather internally preoccupied. To the west, Fremont continued to be the Center of the Universe.

As John continued to struggle, Thomas Stockson gently pulled the syringe from his arm. "Find your treasure, John Graham."

Cute Dreadlocks Jaclyn grabbed John's neck with both hands, kissed his cheeks, then stepped back with a wink. With a nod of Papa Stocks' head, The Vest and the other man released John and disappeared into the crowd. John took a step forward, hesitant. He was angry, and scared; who the fuck did these people think they were? What the fuck did they just give him?

Suddenly, the sun seemed to soak up the color and the heat from the fire and the hill. Lake Union froze. The drumming got louder, louder, louder — and stopped. John heaved

_I am of fire and I spit death from my fingers and watch as you weak crumble and kill or be killed says the man that everyone knows is right but we hate to admit it so we spit spit spit death death death rat a tat tat pat pat pat on hell as it is on earth_

__

forward and fell to his

_come on John one more time I know you got it in you and I'm just yearning for it and she moaned slightly and I grabbed her_

__

knees and clutched at his

_jesus christ did you see that oh fuck fuck fuck he's gone man pete is gone fuck man he's dead jesus _

__

skull, and screamed; his eyes

_hey john can you grab the mail on your way home from school yeah sure whatever don't sure whatever me young man and please get off your phone when you are at the table two eggs scrambled one piece of toast slightly burnt fire fire fire spit fire and death one piece of real honest to god bacon and a glass of orange juice and I never did finish my homework shit_

__

felt like they were being squeezed from their sockets. The Family of pine-brothers and pine-sisters

_came all over her and collapsed exhausted and spent and in love_

__

stepped back, frightened. John looked up in agony

_and I got in line for the food oh god I'm hungry I'd just kill god I'd even rip the meat right off the_

__

to see Thomas Stockson, Papa Stocks, with his face

_torn apart and cast aside with the rest of the fuckers who got in our way_

__

confused, guilt-ridden, and obviously alarmed; the lupine grin

_the larger cities got it worse I heard dc was ripped apart man air strikers shredded the bastards_

__

inverted and mouthing that something was wrong; the asshole and his

_are you sure you want to do this_

__

peacock rags dissolved into

_Mister Graham are you ready for this just one shot and you'll be_

__

his Family crowd.

John's head felt like it was being crushed under the rubble of the bridge, and as the color of the world returned, saturated to the point of devastation, and the noise of the drums returned, with a feverous _doom doom doom boom boom boom rat a tat tat pat pat pat_ he felt _the sundial below him shatter_ and Papa Stocks' Family Gathering cleared off the crest _and melted down the sides down and down and down their skin and blood and organs wound down the hill slicking the meadow_. In front of him, the fire _froze,_ then, _with a rush,_ _grew tall, five hundred feet at least it breached into the sky,_ with _a cap like a demon mushroom_ , which _spun around and lifted off, up, up and away to another galaxy_. His eyes so wide _they split open his crow's feet_ , he scrambled backwards to escape the overwhelming heat.

John tumbled over the lip of the hill's plateau, somersaulting and sliding _through the slick of the human slime_ and the meadow of gold. The _blood-ooze churned and squirmed and formed bodies_ who gave him enough space, fearful of his screams and his pained face.

_the mound burned quietly filling the air with that unyielding stench of regret and of loss and of humanity's damnation and once that devil's perfume penetrated our nostrils it never left it just festered and rotted and singed our brains into submission_

__

The Gathering was still beating and prancing and pulsing with the beat of the drums, save those who parted to avoid John, a Mad Moses fleeing the Burning Bush and taking the Purple Pharaoh with him. _No escape no escape no escape what the fuck is happening?_

__

_boom boom boom doom doom doom boom boom boom_

_falling down falling down_

_down_

_down_

_down_

_and crumble_

__

As the drums continued their cadence, the sound _grew and grew and grew and overwhelmed_ the hill until it _began to shake and churn and heave_ and with a final _crack it split in two_ and _crumbled into mud_ which _slid out_ and _swept_ the drum circle and the _giant dome_ of the orgy __ and _the Gathering was drowned in mud and meadow and washed into_ Lake Union which _glowed purple_ and John _'s mind crumbled into mud along with it, and fell through his nostrils into the flood, and washed into_ Lake Union which _glowed purple_ and John

ran _ran ran ran_ ran

headed west.

*

_we destroyed the world of our fathers yes we the lesser sons of greater men but the great men had ravaged the world leaving nothing but a scarred womb for the unborn and no no no they were not great but terrible and we were terrible too we had to hit the restart button just hit restart just hit restart and maybe just maybe it will work properly this time but this is no code or motherboard overheat our programming is not of silicon but of dna and our society is not structured in ones and zeros but in language and laws and ideas and difference and man and woman and children who struggle for meaning in a world that refuses to yield it_

__

_Medilamb-kip-son-flaw-reggie-poe-nine-ninety-nine_

__

_she was pregnant you know pregnant and didn't tell me just aborted and mentioned it off hand but that figures I wouldn't really expect anything different_

__

_fuck fuck fuck oh fuck what's happening_

__

_I pulled the trigger and in a beat of a heart I stopped someone else's and I never saw their face I just saw them sink down as the blood splattered against the wall behind them oh god what have I done_

__

_I kept doing it_

__

_If you want an omelet I can make you one before you go she said_

__

_the explosion took out the twenty-fifth floor and the top of the building fell into tower beside it I hear like three hundred people died or something and they are still trying to get survivors out of the place man fuck that would be so goddamn scary_

__

_Seven-seven-seven-yor-mun-gander-komodo-quetz-lobber-cascwa-bribe-loo-wester_

__

_now there may be some minor side effects but nothing too bad and hell it'll still beat your last post_

__

_rebuilding was more political than we had hoped everyone wanted to do it their own way just like always but this time it had to be done and the world was split and divided and remapped with new boundaries new lines new keep outs new this land is my lands_

__

_christ kid you can't do much of anything can you_

__

_static bleeds over the screen the station is disconnected_

__

_...............\\.\ .....\\.\\\\.\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\..\\\\..............\\.\ \\.\\.\\.\\\\.\ .\\././/././ ///////////////// /././/.\\.\\....\\.\ \\.\\\\\\.\\\\.\\\\. \\\\\\..\\\\.\\\ .\\\\....\\./ ././/.\\.\/\\././//......\\./\\. /././/\\./....................................................... ////////// \\././\\\;./. /.//..//._ _\\\\././_ _/././/./\\.\ .\\.\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\ ;;\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ //////////// \/\ /////////////\/ \/..\/ \//////////// \\.//\/.\/ .\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\. /.//.\\.\\\\\\./. \//.\\./..\ ./.\/ ..\\.//.\\. /\\./.\\.//.;///// ////.\\.\\.\\.\\............. \\............. \\..................\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\. \\\\..\\.\\./. /././\ .\\. \\.\\./.\/..\\.\/;././.;/ ./ ///////////;././/..\\....\\.. \\.;\ .\\..\\..\\..\\\\\;;\\\\\\\\\ ;\\\\\\\\\ \\\\.\\.\\. /.. /././//// // /.///.////./. //./.// .////./ ./ /.././/./..........././. //// ////; /./././/.././. /.//.//.//. /.//// /////./././. /./ /../././/./ ././.././. /\\..\\\ \;\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\ \\\\\\\ .\ .\\............ ......\\.\/././.;;\ /.\/.\\.\ .\\./. /././.\ .\\.\/./././ \\.\\\\./ ././\\. \/.\\.// /// /././/. /././/./. //./. \\.\\. \/.\\../.\/...;\ \/../\; .\\.\\.\\.\\\\\\\ \\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\ .\\.\\.\\.\\.\\\\\\\\\;;\ \\\\\\.\\.\\.\ .\\\\\\\\\\\\./.\/ \/\//\/\/\/\ /;\/\ /\/\/\ /.\/\ ./\/\/\/\\./ \\./\/\\./\/.\ /\\.;;/\\./;\ /\/\\./\ /.\/.\/.\/\/\ ;/\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\/\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ /\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\/\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\;\ \/ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\\\\\\\\\\\ ;;;;;;;;;; \\\/\\\\\\\\\\\\\ __\\\/_ _\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\.\\.\ .\\\\.\\.\\.\ .....................\ .\\\\...;..............\ \\.............\\.\\.\\\\./.\ /.\\.\\. \\.\\\\./.\\.\\\\./ .\/.\\.\\.\/./ .//./. / //./;//. /./// /.//. /. //;//// .//././/./ //.//.\\\\.\\\\.\ \\\\.\\. \\.\\.\\.\\. \\.\\\\\\.\\.\\\\\\.\ \\\\. \\\\._ _\\\\.\_ _\\.\\\\.\\\\.\\\\.\\.//./.// .//\\.\\\\.\/ .\\\;;.; \//\\.\\\\.//\ .\// .\/\\. \/.\\\\./ /./\\.\\. \/.// .\\.// .\\\/.\\. /\\.\//.\/ .\/\\./\\./\\./.\ /.\/\\./.\ /.\/.\\./.\/.\ /. //.//.//.//. /.//.//./.// ./ .//......./\\. /\\./\\./\\. /\\./;\ ./\/;\\./\;/.\ ; /\;\\\;\; ;;;;;\;\\\;\ \;\ ;\\\;\\.\\. \\\\.\\. \;.;.; \\\/. ;\ /\\.\/. \/\/;\/\/ \/\/\/ \/ \/ \/\ /\/\/.\/\/.\/\ . /\\./\\./.......... \\./\ ./\/./.\ . /\\./\\./. \/.\\.\ ./ \\./ \\./. \\./ \\. /\\./\\./ \\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\..\\\\..............\\.\ \\.\\.\\.\\\\.\ .\\././/././ ///////////////// /././/.\\.\\....\\.\ \\.\\\\\\.\\\\.\\\\. \\\\\\..\\\\.\\\ .\\\\....\\./ ././/.\\.\/\\././//......\\./\\. /././/\\./....................................................... ////////// \\././\\\;./. /.//..//. __\\\\././_ _/././/./\\.\ .\\.\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\ ;;\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ //////////// \/\ /////////////\/ \/..\/ \//////////// \\.//\/.\/ .\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\. /.//.\\.\\\\\\./. \//.\\./..\ ./.\/ ..\\.//.\\. /\\./.\\.//.;///// ////.\\.\\.\\.\\............. \\............. \\..................\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\. \\\\..\\.\\./. /././\ .\\. \\.\\./.\/..\\.\/;././.;/ ./ ///////////;././/..\\....\\.. \\.;\ .\\..\\..\\..\\\\\;;\\\\\\\\\ ;\\\\\\\\\ \\\\.\\.\\. /.. /././//// // /.///.////./. //./.// .////./ ./ /.././/./..........././. //// ////; /./././/.././. /.//.//.//. /.//// /////./././. /./ /../././/./ ././.././. /\\..\\\ \;\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\ \\\\\\\ .\ .\\............ ......\\.\/././.;;\ /.\/.\\.\ .\\./. /././.\ .\\.\/./././ \\.\\\\./ ././\\. \/.\\.// /// /././/. /././/./. //./. \\.\\. \/.\\../.\/...;\ \/../\; .\\.\\.\\.\\\\\\\ \\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\ .\\.\\.\\.\\.\\\\\\\\\;;\ \\\\\\.\\.\\.\ .\\\\\\\\\\\\./.\/ \/\//\/\/\/\ /;\/\ /\/\/\ /.\/\ ./\/\/\/\\./ \\./\/\\./\/.\ /\\.;;/\\./;\ /\/\\./\ /.\/.\/.\/\/\ ;/\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\/\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ /\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\/\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\;\ \/ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\\\\\\\\\\\ ;;;;;;;;;; \\\/\\\\\\\\\\\\\ __\\\/_ _\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\.\\.\ .\\\\.\\.\\.\ .....................\ .\\\\...;..............\ \\.............\\.\\.\\\\./.\ /.\\.\\. \\.\\\\./.\\.\\\\./ .\/.\\.\\.\/./ .//./. / //./;//. /./// /.//. /. //;//// .//././/./ //.//.\\\\.\\\\.\ \\\\.\\. \\.\\.\\.\\. \\.\\\\\\.\\.\\\\\\.\ \\\\. \\\\._ _\\\\.\_ _\\.\\\\.\\\\.\\\\.\\.//./.// .//\\.\\\\.\/ .\\\;;.; \//\\.\\\\.//\ .\// .\/\\. \/.\\\\./ /./\\.\\. \/.// .\\.// .\\\/.\\. /\\.\//.\/ .\/\\./\\./\\./.\ /.\/\\./.\ /.\/.\\./.\/.\ /. //.//.//.//. /.//.//./.// ./ .//......./\\. /\\./\\./\\. /\\./;\ ./\/;\\./\;/.\ ; /\;\\\;\; ;;;;;\;\\\;\ \;\ ;\\\;\\.\\. \\\\.\\. \;.;.; \\\/. ;\ /\\.\/. \/\/;\/\/ \/\/\/ \/ \/ \/\ /\/\/.\/\/.\/\ . /\\./\\./.......... \\./\ ./\/./.\ . /\\./\\./. \/.\\.\ ./ \\./ \\./. \\./ \\. /\\./\\./ \\.?_

__

John sprinted, tripped, limped, tumbled, crawled, and leapt as he fled Gas Works Park. His consciousness was reeling; around him, the neighborhood, a metaphorical estuary between Wallyhood and Fremont, was peaceful, quiet but for the faint bumps of the drums in the east. The docks that lined the coast of the lake were gently going about their business; boats returning, boats leaving, and the gentle rocking of the moored; their business was their own, and the shipments of food from the north were not going to sail themselves, warning strike or no warning strike; they had no time for a lone raving prophet. The sun, making its way across its zenith, was _freezing_ the day, which was showing all of the regular indications of being a completely normal hot, humid, and muggy _zero_ summer Thursday _..\\\\.//_.

As he made his blind way _\\\\\\\\\\.._ the solar sail barge-trucks, loaded with foodstuffs, gave John space.\/\///\\\\. One, driven by an _enormous ant ant ant antennae feelers feelers numb_ older man _,_ had to stop as John, bleeding from the knee and _relive relive relive come back_ moaning unintelligibly, fell into the street in front of him.

_//...;.;;/;;/;;..\\\\\/\\.;;/\\.;\\./;;.\\\;/;;\\.;;/\\\\\/\\\/_

_we left her bleeding there in the rubble we placed so haphazardly we didn't know what we had done we didn't know what we were doing we didn't know what to do_

_.........\\\\\\\/\//\\\\...//\//\\\/\/./././/.//.//.//.._

__

"Hey! Jesus, are you okay, dude?" The _ant_ got off of the barge truck and approached, hesitantly. John screamed and writhed away from the _giant ant feelers feelers mandible!_ , before slipping under into a mumbling trance. He vaguely felt himself being picked up by _tentacles_ and carried _for hours_ to a nearby building.

_hey get back in line back in line with the rest of the sheep please feed us please we don't know what we're going to do please please please_

__

"Randy, hey dude, glad you're open. I gotta tripper or something here. Must have come from the goddam Piners at the park. Jesus, poor little idiot fuck, fell down in the goddam street. Fuckin', phone the medis or something? My barge is sitting in the road and I gotta get this shit up to Orangewood. I guess they had a run on a bunch of the grocers up there what with the news of the bombing and all. Jesus, what a day. I'll be back in a few hours dude, I'll get my usual." _Onyx grapefruit eyes_ stared down at him. "Poor little idiot fuckin' Piner."

A door opened and closed again.

"Hey kid!" His eyes were pried open; _colors and a_ florescent _flare; nostrils; pigs pigs pigs lungs filling up with meat_ ; he gasped.

"Kid!"

John saw a man _?_ that looked incredibly familiar, but _ancient, skin sagging off his face like candle wax like flesh rot like tender pulled pork and barbecue sauce._ He blinked hard, his head nodding back and forth, drool gently flowing from his open mouth.

"Oh, shoot. I know you. You're that kid that lived up the street."

_Thirty-five-oh-three albion place north seattle washington nine-eight-one-zero-three studio room twenty by seventeen odd indent in wall one foot deep six feet tall add book shelf eliot pound jane's bukowski harry potter how to succeed in business and the coming singularity full size mattress in corner no bed stand tan sheets never made smells of sweat and kirkland signature cologne giant bottle in bathroom weak pressure shower the kitchen_

_pigs pigs pigs and earth and musk_

_rarely used always went down to Randy's_

__

"John, right? Shoot, what's it been, eight, nine years? It's me, kid, Randy. You alright?" Randy, who must have been _one hundred and seventeen or_ in his sixties by now — John had never been exactly sure of the café-keepers age — swore under his breath. "You don't look so good."

John's head rolled _off_ and he stared; he uncontrollably began to count the old postcards tacked to the ceiling. He heard Randy _?_ _stomp_ away;

_boom doom boom doom_

__

_oh look there's one from nashville I dated a boy from nashville once you know he always sang me country songs he was sweet I get jealous and blush but look at the nashville postcard anyways_

__

"Drink this, kid." Randy grabbed the back of John's head, and slowly poured water from a large plastic cup into his mouth. John grabbed Randy's tattooed hand, and the cup. He had _never_ been so thirsty, though he had not realized it until now; he began to gulp. The patterns along Randy's hand were _singing quietly_.

"I haven't seen you since you got shipped off for food production duty. I heard that detail was hard stuff, but I never thought it would turn you Piner. Shoot, knowing you, maybe it was some girl." Randy laughed gently, but his eyebrows furrowed. "You sure aren't dressed like a Piner. You kind of smell like one though. Either way, you are definitely in outer space, my friend, God help you."

John looked around. Bright _glowing_ red booth chairs with _pulsing_ cracks in the fabric, old plastic tables, beige linoleum floor _swirling_ underneath him, and a long, _flowing_ , subway-tiled bar; _///../_ ; he knew this place. He steadied his gaze with an effort, and pushed the cup away.

"Randy?"

"Yeah, John, it's me. You coming back down to earth?"

"Shit, how the hell did I get here? And what the fuck is up with your face, man?" Randy's face was still _sliding off in gentle, replenishing chunks_. The _face?_ , Randy's face, replaced a relieved smile with a worried frown; the man, Randy _?_ , set down the cup and wiped his wrinkled hands on his apron.

"I guess not, or at least, you ain't quite in the atmosphere yet. Unless you mean the extra wrinkles."

"Randy, shit, Randy, man, I'm glad to see you, I was thinking about you, man, this is a bad day, fucking Piners doped me up with some purple shit, made all the visions worse, and I think I lost it man, the static, I'm so goddamn tired, and hungry, fuck they doped me, I'm tripping here pretty bad." John started to pant heavily, fear compressing his chest in demonic CPR.

"Calm down, kid, just calm down. You're okay. Thank God you fell where you did. A barger carried you in, said you crashed in the middle of the street over there. You must have run into that psycho, Stockson. The Civs gotta get that guy under control. You're going to be okay, though, don't worry, we'll get you through this. Just stay here."

s _wallow the air swallow the air breathe breathe breathe not like columbia tower just breathe breathe breathe not like columbia tower_

"John. John. You're okay. You're okay, kid."

John's breathing slowed as Randy talked him down over the next fifteen minutes. A few boatmen and bargers came in on their breaks; Randy, born-again ex-junkie, stalwart veteran of pre-rev America's Afghanistan Wars, and stubbornly good man, waved for them to grab a beer on the house. John began to orbit the atmosphere.

"Hey, John, stay here, kid. I'm going to go get you some food. You look you could use it."

_........;;.;.;;;;;;; ;.;;./ \/\// ;;;/\/\; \/\/;/ \\\/;_ _\\\/\_ _/\\\/\ \\\/\\\/\ ;;; \;\/\;\/ \\\/; \\\;\/\\\ /;\\\\\/ \;\;\\\;;\ \;\;\\\;\/ \;\;\\\/;\\\ ;\\\;\_

__

*

_./// /.//././\ /\\\/\\\/\ \//\/ /// \\\\\///\ /\/./ /./ /.//..././/./ .\\\\.//. /\\.\ //./ //./.\ \/./.// /../././ ../. /.\/\/\ //\ /\/ \/\/\/\ \/._

__

_John knew that smell. He knew that smell with the surety of a goose flying south, the surety of a dog when it hears its master's car come up the driveway, the surety of a family when they enter their freshly burgled house. He knew that smell. He was sure of it._

__

_John opened his eyes, slowly. Yes. Of course he was right. _

__

Three real eggs. One piece of toast with Better. Four slices of TemPork bacon. The Hangover Special.

__

_John picked up his fork. The eggs, scrambled — John always had them scrambled — fluffed their way onto his fork, and he swallowed them down gently. He always had a bite to start, then finished the toast and TemPork, saving the remainder of the eggs for last. He loved eggs. One of these days he should try raising chickens; but he heard the grain was getting pretty expensive now._

__

_He took a sip of his black coffee. It tasted terrible, but, well, he never went to Randy's for the coffee, anyways._

__

"How's it taste?"

_  
John looked up to see Randy standing beside him, tattooed and scarred limbs jutting from a dirty, loved apron. He was smiling, but it must have been one of his bad days again. His eyes were scared or something. He looked off. Poor guy. Around him, the café was looking to be its normal self. Red booth chairs, plastic tables, beige linoleum, and a white subway-tiled bar. Classic rock music playing quietly in the background, some 90s shit from before his time. Something about a guy named "Jeremy." Around the café were a few unemployed truckers and kids like him_ looking his direction. _Odd._

__

_"Pretty freaking great man, as per usual. Thanks. Coffee still tastes like crap, though." John smiled. He always tried to watch his mouth around Randy — he had once heard the man complain about how kids swore too much nowadays, and he wanted Randy to like him._

__

"The synthibean? Kid, we haven't had coffee in years."

__

Synthibean, that's right. _\\../\\\/_ _"Well, whatever it is, it tastes like crap."_

__

_"You should've had what I did," Jane smiled across the table at him._

__

_"I hate Bloody Marys, you know that."_

__

_She laughed, her voice still heavy with its morning husk. _

__

_"Besides, I'm not too worried about the drink; it'll do the trick." John beamed back across the table at her. "Now let a man get down to business!"_

__

_Jane waved her hand dismissively, rolling her eyes. She was still smiling though, as John picked up his piece of toast and took a bite. He liked this Better stuff, it was "Better" than the butter they used when he was a lot younger. It was sweeter, for sure. He was still not quite sure what it was made of though. Oh well. Tastes good. He dipped the toast in his coffee slowly, letting it soak up the swampy liquid like a sponge. He raised it back to his mouth, carefully giving it a quick lift to try to negate drippage — mostly successful — then let the coffee and the toast and the Better swirl together in the pools of his mouth. He took his time._

__

_Jane looked bored, and rolled her eyes again. "Jesus, you always get so orgasm-y over breakfast. It's fucking creepy."_

__

_"You jealous?" He laughed, happy. "Everyone has their thing. Mine's breakfast. What's so wrong with that?"_

__

_"Just keep it in your pants, perv. The old guy won't let you back in if he has to clean up your jizz from his booth."_

__

_"Gross, stop." John looked up to see if Randy had heard them. He was watching them,_ intensely _— what was up with him today? — but he made no indication that he was offended. Well, John was sure the kind old man had heard worse in his day._

__

_"You want a slice of my TemPork? Trust me, it'll get you there, too." He waved a stiff slab of substitute towards her and grinned._

__

_"Ugh, no. Only the real thing for me, none of that soy crap; I want meat." Jane had been slowly drifting into vegetarianism — including the fake stuff — not for moral reasons, but for budgetary ones. She started ripping little pieces from her napkin; she knew it was a bad habit, but didn't really care to take the effort to control it._

__

_"More for me then." John began to rip off chunks of TemPork with his teeth, and chewed loudly in exaggeration. "Mmmmmm...."_

__

_Honestly though, he was pretty sure he couldn't tell the difference in flavor between this and the real thing. He had a suspicion that Randy pumped synthetic bacon smells into the café for ambiance; that probably helped. John couldn't remember the last time he'd had real bacon anyways._

__

_..\/\/\\\///\// June Ninth, Two-Thousand Twenty-Two; as part of my high school graduation present from my parents; they didn't eat any though, just me; six slices, two were overcooked; salty and greasy and delicious; they were on a white plate, with two over-easy eggs and some cantaloupe. Bacon wasn't overly expensive back then, or, at least not restrictively; most everyone just knew at that point that substitutes were the right thing to do, at least here in Seattle./\///\\...;_

__

_He finished his slices and took a few more sips of his coffee. Now for his favorite part. The eggs were clouds in his mouth, and he barely had to chew. He just had to savor, and savor he did. He closed his eyes._

__

_"God damn it, I've made a mess." He opened his eyes to see Jane and a shredded napkin. "Anyways, are you done? I finished my drink somewhere during your third climax."_

__

_He wished he wasn't, but he looked down to an empty plate. He sighed._

__

_"Yeah, we can get out of here. I'll get the check." John took out his billfold. "Hmm, that's odd. What the hell did I do with my credit card? Crap, I really hope it wasn't stolen. I probably left it on my desk." He paused. "Crap, hopefully. Looks like I have some cash though."_

__

_"Thanks for the play by play, hon."_

__

_John pulled out a faded green twenty dollar bill and placed it on the table, Alexander Hamilton .//\;_ orcas _;;\\\ staring up at him with a haunted, vengeful expression._

__

_"Alright, alright, let's get going then. Hey, see you later Randy! Thanks as always man, it was delicious!"_

__

Randy started. "Hold on, kid. Are you sure you're okay? You should sit back down."

_"What? I'm fine Randy, trust me, The Hangover Special did its job like it always does. I left a twenty on the table. See ya later!"_

__

_John and Jane walked out of the café. _

__

Behind _them_ , Randy reached out, then shook his head and crossed himself. The other clientele watched John leave, then went back to their beers and small talk.

_John and Jane strolled along 34th. The rain was falling gently in the warmth of the summer and Fremont was swirling in a lazy bustle of bikers — and a few cars; everyone minding their own business in the polite, non-committal fringe space of contentment and anxiety so unique to their city._

__

_"I love it when it rains like this," Jane said, reaching for his hand. They took a right on Albion, and started to walk uphill. "Hey, mind if we walk around a bit? If I finally got you playing hooky, I'm at least going to take full advantage."_

__

_John was easy to persuade, though, for some reason,_ his knee was hurting _; still, he always had a hard time saying no to her. They took a left on 35th and strolled past the mish-mash of townhouses, ever-growing condo buildings, and stalwart hippy homes proudly waving Tibetan prayer flags in the face of unstoppable modernity. A few blocks away, they heard angry chanting._

_  
"Sounds like the Hub is getting protested again. I mean shit, I agree with them a bit, I guess, but what the fuck is a protest going to do? You can't just yell at time and expect it to stop. If you want to take things backwards, you gotta take it way back." The rain always made Jane get philosophical._

__

_"Did you hear about what the Sociocrats brought to the Senate last week? A few of them are arguing that pretty soon bank accounts will be so hack-able that we should start preparing for a complete disintegration of personal funds, and go full commie."_

__

_"Pffftt."_

__

_"Of course, the majority of the Sociocrats tried to distance themselves from it, and the Plutocans tried to run with it as another reason to impeach Stewart, poor old guy."_

__

_"Man, who cares? Fucking, nothing ever happens except more rules. More fools, more rules. Fuck 'em."_

__

_"I still can't believe you don't cee-span even a bit. You don't care about what happens to our society?"_

__

_"I care plenty; I want it over with already. It's boring."_

__

_"The way some people are talking, you won't have that long to wait."_

__

_"Good."_

__

_They walked in silence for a while underneath the Aurora Bridge — fifteen stories above them and stretching over Lake Union to the south — past small consignment shops and Thai food restaurants, bars and a bike shop, then headed north along Fremont Ave. Though many in the neighborhood had tried to stop it — John remembered hearing about protests when he was a teenager — the main stretches of Fremont, both 35th and Fremont Ave, were completely comprised of six to eight story apartment and condo buildings with an assortment of cafés, restaurants, and bars on the ground floor, many of which were able to keep the original building facade. It was actually pretty nice, John thought, but people were always conflicted between the desire for change and the fear of the new. The buildings were filled to the brim with techies, about half of whom worked directly from their homes; the remainder took the short walk down to the Hub. John never really felt like he fit in here; he wasn't actually that tech-savvy, and most of the time it seemed like they all spoke a different language. Still, John really liked living in Fremont. The place buzzed with a hand-roasted blend of nerd-quirk, pretension, and eternal cool._

__

_"And what are you going to do, mister junior-accountant?"_

__

_"What do you mean?" They took a right and headed back east on 36th, towards John's apartment._

__

_"When America crumbles into its own asshole, everything turns to shit, and we start over as manure for the future."_

__

_"Poetic." John didn't know though. He wasn't really sure what he could do if that day ever came. "I don't know. I don't know what I'd do."_

__

_"I'm sure you'll figure it out, babe." She squeezed his hand and smiled at him. God, he loved her._

__

_The rain was picking up....\\\/\///\//\/\//_ the sun beat down from the west;;;;/.\\\\./ _and they stopped underneath Aurora. To their left, the Fremont Troll gazed down at them with his one shiny eye, clutching at the real antique Volkswagen Beetle that was forever trapped by the concrete ogre. John always got a kick out of the old statue; when he was a kid, his parents had relocated their telling of Three Billy Goats Gruff to Fremont, and the first time he was taken to see the statue he wet his pants; embarrassed for years, he now embraced the story; it made for good party-anecdote material._

__

_"Anyways, I got something I know you could do." Her eyes gleamed with their customary mischievousness. She reached her arms around him and pushed him against a support beam._

__

_"Shit, Jane, what about all of the tourists?"_

__

_"Come on, John, if they're here to sight-see, we'll give them a show. We owe them that, right?"_

__

_"We're almost at my—"_

__

_Jane stopped John's protest with a kiss. John gave in, overwhelmed and happy; today was a really good day. She threw herself into it, and John's head slammed hard against the beam and she said_

_./. /.;;.;. /./.;.\\.\;. \\.\/ /// /\/\; ;;..;.;. ;.;\/\ /\\.; .;\/;. ;.;\/; .;/\;.;/\;.; /;;;;;;;;; ;;;.;.\/\ \\\\\\\\\\.;.;. \/;.\/;.\/; .;\\.\;. \;.\;.\;. ;\\.;\;.;\/\; \/\; \\\ \/;\\\;\/\;/ ;\;/. \;/.\\. \\\\.\\.\\.\ /;\\. /\\. ;\;.\/;\//;// ;\;.;.\ ;./;.\;. //.\;\ /.\;/.\;/.;\ /.\;/ .\;/.\; /.\;/ .;\/.\;/.\; /.\;/.\ /\///\\\ \\\\.;; wester-eleven-hawk-quill;//;\\\/\\\\..\\. jane?;..;.;/ \/\/.;.;..\one-four-nine-seventy-two-thirty-;.. ;;\\\\\/\\-;. .;.;/ \/\\. ;;.;./ ;;.;//;.-pill-mal-events-asher;/./.;;; //;;.\ \\\;;;.; ;// ;;..\\\; .;.;;/. ;..;; /;.;;// ::>\//\\\ ..;;.\//\\\\. ;;./_

_;/.\ ;/.\;;;\\\; .\/./ .;/\; \/.\/; .\/. /;\/./\ ;\/.\/;/. ;/.\\\/ ./\;\\\/ ;/\\./; \\./;\\\\. /;\\. /;\\./\;./\;/.\ ;.\;\;\;jane\;\\.; \/.\;/.\; /.;\\.\;/ .\;/.\; /\\.;\/.\;/.\; /. \;/.\;/ .\;/.\;/. \;/.\ ;/\\.;/.\; /.\;/. \;/./;\\\\. \\\\.\; \/;\ /./;\\./\; /.\;. \;/\\.;/. \/; /\\./;. \;/.\/;.\;/. \;/.\ ;/./\_

__

John opened his eyes to see the Troll, nose broken and hubcap-eye missing, staring at him in resolute interest. Tears rushed to his eyes and blood trickled down the back of his neck. John had had enough; he was overwhelmed. He screamed in confusion, screamed in rage, screamed in anguish; the tears flooded his cheeks as the psychedelics continued to flood his consciousness. His body ran, and he let himself be swept away; away from Stockson, and Randy, and Smith; away from Fremont, and his old apartment, and the Aurora Bridge and Hub Memorial, and the Fremont Hive. He ran towards the blinding sun, he ran until his lungs burned up or his knee crumbled or his mind was finally eclipsed. He didn't care what happened first. John ran west.

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_School of Sight, Part One_

by

Alisha A. Knaff
_I could not have defined the change—_

_Conversion of the Mind_

_Like Sanctifying in the Soul—_

_Is witnessed—not explained—_

__

_'Twas a Divine Insanity—_

_The Danger to be Sane_

_Should I again experience—_

_'Tis Antidote to turn—_

__

_To Tomes of solid Witchcraft—_

_Magicians be asleep—_

_But Magic—hath an Element_

_Like Deity—to keep—_

__

_-Emily Dickinson_

The thing about being maybe-kind-of-almost-sort-of-perhaps crazy is that...well, you start to get paranoid. At some point in the maybe-kind-of-ness, you start to wonder if everyone around you notices the maybe-kind-of and if maybe-kind-of they don't think there's any maybe-kind-of about it. Thinking you're crazy? _Makes you fucking crazy_.

I see things. And I don't mean that in an 'I'm so hyper-observant I see the things that most people overlook because I'm super deep and can stare into your soul until you can't help seeing what an incredibly sensitive, deeply caring, perfectly empathetic individual I am and falling madly in love with me because I'm the only one who understands your painful, tragic past, now take me in your scintillating arms and let me show you just how much I _feel_ , Edward' kind of way.

I just...see things.

For the past two or three years — no, I know exactly how long it's been. Of course I do. You notice when you start going maybe-kind-of crazy. For the past three years, since I came out here for school, I've seen things. The kind of things other people just ignore, sure, but I also see things that other people just don't. Or if they do, they never talk about them.

Like, there's this homeless lady that I walk past on my way to the bus stop every morning. And I know other people see her; they give her money or smile or do that thing where you casually look away because you don't want to be hit up for spare change. So other people definitely see this lady. But I _see_ her.

She's an artist. Whenever she thinks nobody's watching, she pulls out this battered notebook — you know, the kind with holographic unicorns and things on it — and starts to sketch. She isn't drawing what's around her, not really. She's drawing what's in her head. I know that doesn't sound all that crazy, right? But the thing is, sometimes I see what she's drawing. Not in her notebook, not on paper, but when I see that she's drawing, I look around, and I _see_ things I know aren't there, people who aren't there and who aren't...well...people, really. They're blue or winged or have too many limbs or eyes or heads. Sometimes other things too, trees or buildings that don't exist or don't exist anymore. And when I look back, she's drawing all that.

Or like, there's this kid at school. Total, hardcore, 90s throwback, Marilyn Manson, goth kid. Pale face, black lipstick, huge black duster. He puts off this _massive_ "DO NOT TALK TO ME" vibe. But I saw him last week feeding bits of his lunch to this stray cat that's always hanging around campus, and I swear I caught him with a black-lipsticked smile on his face when the cat brought him a dead mouse. Only, it wasn't really dead. I mean, it was, right? I knew it was, but then it stopped being a mouse and became this tiny talisman, very much alive in its own way.

And then there's my Econ professor. She is the dorkiest, dippiest, dweebiest person I have ever met. I mean, if she were a man, she'd have a comb-over and ninety-five different bow ties. As it is, her hair is always frizzy, and I think she has the world's largest collection of mustard-colored cardigans. Everybody knows this. Everybody sees this. But every day, when she walks into the lecture hall, I have to look away because she is fucking _glowing_. I'm not even being metaphorical here. She's not secretly pregnant; she's _literally glowing_.

And I figure, if this were a commonly recognized phenomenon, I would have heard about it, right? Someone would have said to me at some point, "Oh, you have Econ with Sternquist? Man, you better bring shades to class. You know she glows, right?" But nobody has ever said this to me in my tenure at this fine establishment of higher learning, so I am pretty damn sure I'm the only one who sees it.

Or I _was_ pretty damn sure.

I'm not sure what gave me away. Maybe I was squinting up at the lectern, or maybe I shaded my eyes or something, but one afternoon in Econ, the guy sitting next to me snorted and whispered, "I know, right? Should have brought my sunglasses."

That paranoia I was talking about earlier? Yeah, it comes out in times like this. Was it a trap? Was he trying to get me to admit that I was crazy? The things that go through my head in moments like this are bordering on ridiculous. Beyond bordering, really

But he looked completely genuine, and I must have looked completely gobsmacked because he just grinned and turned away, and I was left feeling maybe-kind-of crazy all over again. (It doesn't go away, this feeling, but sometimes I can ignore it for a while.)

I made it through Econ just fine. I was overly conscious of squinting and shading, but I felt like I'd been pretty normal for the hour and a half it took to ignore the glowing and the cardigan and take copious notes on a subject I had absolutely no interest in. I headed out after class, and it was something of a relief to be back in the cloud-filtered sunlight that Seattle was so good at. I had a little time before my next class, and I thought I'd go grab some coffee and finish my essay for my Personal Writing class. (Let's not get into what it's like to write about yourself when you're worried about your sanity.)

But when I turned toward the coffee shop I liked to write in, I almost ran into sunglasses guy; he was grinning again and very definitely looking to converse, which I'm not normally opposed to but really didn't want to get into with someone who might blow my 'no really, I'm totally sane' cover.

Sunglasses, of course, were not the dominant feature of sunglasses guy. (He hadn't brought them, after all.) Actually, he didn't seem to have any particularly dominant features. He was your basic College Guy. Indeterminately sandy-ish hair color, browny-hazely eyes, Seattle U sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers, messenger bag slung oh-so-casually over one shoulder. And that grin.

It wasn't like the grin made him glow like Dr. Sternquist. It just sort of...brightened him. It made him almost pleasant looking where he otherwise would have been almost painfully average.

"I'm not crazy," was his opening salvo, and my return shot was, "That's my line."

He laughed and pushed the indeterminate hair in its indistinguishable, shaggy cut out of his face. "Okay, then _you're_ not crazy."

"That's what I just said."

"You wanna get some coffee?"

Five minutes ago I really had, but I had really not wanted company for that. Now, though....

Well, he had just told me I was not crazy when I was pretty sure I maybe-kind-of was, and that was a lead I had to follow up.

"You're buying," was my answer when it finally came, but even the really-probably-too-long time it took me to decide on an answer didn't seem to make him change his mind on his previous statement. He just smiled again and pushed the hair back again and tilted his head toward my coffee shop.

"Fair enough."

There wasn't much talking on the way. Awkwardness in social situations is a by-product of paranoia, I think. Just before we got there, though, he said, "I'm not a psych major."

"...okay."

"I mean...I'm not trying to use Intro Psych to diagnose you, and I'm not probably actually qualified to say conclusively that you're not crazy, but I'm pretty sure you're not crazy for the reasons you think you are, unless you think you are for more reasons than seeing Sternquist's aura."

That was a whole lot to process so I took really-probably-too-long again before my brilliant mind came up with, "Her what?"

"Her aura," he repeated like this was a thing that people just knew and accepted and talked about casually as they held open coffee shop doors for Econ classmates. "Do you know what you want? They do a kickass Mexican mocha."

I had heard often about the Mexican mocha and never really been interested in trying it, but honestly? I was still stuck on the aura thing, so I just nodded and said, "Yeah, sure, sounds good."

"Awesome. Get us a table?" And then he was off ordering coffee, and I was left to look around the room helplessly and try to act normal even while thinking this guy was also maybe-kind-of crazy, and that's probably why he didn't think I was. Really, I was just enabling his delusion, and he was enabling mine. Not that it mattered. Being crazy with another crazy person had to be better than doing it on your own, right?

I had to think it would be, at least, so I found a table back in the corner, away from most of the other occupied tables, and in a few minutes he came over with two steaming mugs and set one in front of me. I didn't quite know how to transition from 'thank you for the coffee' to 'what do you mean I'm not crazy?' so I just ended up blurting out, "What's an aura?" and then, because I knew that sounded kind of stupid, "I mean...I know what an aura is, but what did you mean by it?"

"That's what you see when you look at Sternquist. That glowy thing." He was casually sipping his coffee and getting foam bubbles on his stupid smile and making no sense at all, but it was better nonsense than I'd been making for the past few years, so I decided to run with it.

"How do you even know about that?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

I wanted to flick mocha in his face because if it were obvious, I wouldn't be asking. Obviously. But I was trying not to look insane, and I'd had a lot of practice at it lately, so instead I very calmly said, "If it were obvious, I wouldn't be asking."

"Right," he said. "Sorry." And he did look sorry, so I stopped having mocha flicking ideas for the moment. "I see it too. It's not because you're crazy. It's really there."

I decided to go for the obvious question, then, the one that had been nagging me since I sat down in Econ the first day. "So how come nobody else sees it?" I didn't mean it to come out as a challenge, but I could hear the skepticism in my voice. I tried to mask it by taking a sip of my own drink. (Which was, indeed, kickass. Damn him.)

He shrugged. "They're not seers."

Well, that was just...beyond maybe-kind-of. "What?"

"Seers," he said again, like I just hadn't heard him the first time. "At least, that's what my grandma called us. I've heard other names. Augur, channeler, prophet, not a big fan of that one.... I kind of like sibyl myself. The group I'm with here says witches, but I think that's a little broader."

"So you think I can see the future." My hopes of being sane after all were rapidly dwindling if this guy was the best the 'you're not crazy' front had to offer.

"No, not really. I mean, sometimes? There are some seers who really can. That's why I don't like prophet, though. Misleading. You're just...well, a few centuries ago they would have said you had the Sight."

"The Sight. Right. The Right Sight." My skepticism was showing again, but I didn't try to stop it this time. "And you think I'm some kind of chosen something or other who can see special things and whatever?"

"Yes!" he said, vindicated, it seemed, and totally missing the Skeptical Eyebrow of Doom I was giving him. "Well, maybe not chosen something or other, but...well, you _can_ see special things, can't you?"

I thought back to the goth kid and the homeless lady and the glowing dweeb in the Economy department. I really didn't want this to be true, though. "Maybe," I offered after a moment. "But it's not like I get psychic readings on people or anything."

He laughed again, finally wiping the bit of foam from his upper lip with a distracted thumb. "No, of course not. It's not _Long Island Medium_ here. 'I'm getting someone whose name starts with J,' or any of that bullshit."

It was a bit rich that he was spouting crazy talk while telling me a reality show was bullshit, but I loved that a little.

"Look, I know it's weird, but that's what it is. I promise. I'm not crazy and neither are you."

I sat back and for a moment I just sipped my mocha. He really didn't seem crazy, despite all the weirdness coming out of his mouth. He definitely didn't look crazy. Just your average Joe College with a great smile and good taste in coffee. I was not by any means ready to just accept this as truth, but something about it just...felt right.

That's a lame excuse, I know, but it did. It just felt right. It felt like all the questions I'd been having lately could be easily answered with this one wacko explanation. I'm not one to believe in things like this. I wasn't even sure I believed in some kind of higher power, really, so when I say that this explanation spoke to my soul, I know exactly what that sounds like, and I know it doesn't sound like I'm not crazy.

"Okay, smart guy," I said finally. "If I'm not crazy, how come I don't see this aura thing with other people?"

I didn't really think I'd caught him with this question, but I thought maybe, just maybe, it might give him some kind of pause. Either that or it might give him a chance to say the thing that would convince me he was actually telling the truth.

"Well, there aren't that many vampires around."

That was not the thing I was looking for.

And anyway, that was just too much for me, and I laughed — snorted, really — into my mocha, spraying a little foam as I did.

"Okay, right. Yeah. My roommates put you up to this, didn't they?"

I hadn't exactly confessed my fears about my sanity to my roommates, but they did think I probably had a crush on Sternquist after I drunkenly mentioned her glowing issue one Friday night in a moment of utter weakness.

"I don't even know your roommates," he said, looking perfectly genuine and not at all offended that I didn't believe him.

"Okay, but...that's just stupid."

He shrugged again. He was way too good at shrugging like he wasn't saying insane things. "Why is it more stupid than you seeing her aura?"

"Because...because...." I was stalling, casting around for any viable reason one of these crazy things was more crazy than the other. "Because Econ is in the middle of the day?"

He waved a hand dismissively. "Okay, but you're going off one particular mythos for vampires that is entirely fictional."

"As opposed to all the non-fictional vampire mythoses?"

"Well, yes."

This is the other problem with being maybe-kind-of crazy. You can never tell if other people are actually rational or if it's just your crazy showing. Either way, he definitely seemed to believe what he was saying, and he had just enough of an air of knowing it sounded crazy to make him seem not crazy without him actually sounding like he really thought what he was saying was crazy. It was a whole lot of crazy. This was probably the maybe-kind-of craziest table on Capitol Hill at that given moment.

"Look," he said, "vampires have become hugely popular in fiction and film and all sorts of other pop culture media lately. But those ideas came from somewhere. Even Bram Stoker didn't actually make it all up. He was drawing on folklore. And...some of that folklore was drawing on actual fact. Stoker sort of doctored it to make vampires vulnerable to God, but there's still some truth in a lot of it."

"So what you're telling me," I started, speaking slowly so I could get my thoughts in some kind of order before they came out of my mouth, "is that Dr. Sternquist — dorky, cardigan-collecting Sternquist — goes out hunting at night and drains innocent victims of their blood in order to sustain herself for the taxing life of being a professor of the single most boring subject offered at any university ever."

"Don't be silly," he said with another hand wave. "I'm pretty sure her partner is a willing donor. And everybody knows that accounting is the most boring subject."

Well. He had me there.

"She has a partner?"

I didn't know when this had become more implausible than the blood-sucking, but it seemed like pertinent information at the time.

"That or a really, really close roommate."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. Still wasn't sure I believed in a god or gods, but I was maybe-kind-of starting to believe in vampires.

God or gods help me.

"Okay," I said, leaning forward, mug in hands, kickass coffee basically forgotten about. "I don't believe you, but tell me about vampires."

*

So. Here is the rundown on vampires as it was given to me in that coffee shop.

For one thing, all that church, holy water, crucifix crap is a load of bull. Which would go a long way toward explaining how or why one of them was teaching at a Jesuit university in the first place. Kind of makes sense, too, since they've been around, or so I'm told, since way before the Christian church was just some weirdo sect of Jews getting thrown to the lions on occasion.

Second, sunlight. Not that big a deal, as it turns out. They're just pretty sensitive to sunburn, which apparently comes from the fact that most of them hail from northern Europe. Hence Sternquist, my very Scandinavian professor. There are enclaves in other parts of the world, of course, but I guess it started up north, and of course, European literature and folklore deals mostly with European-style vampires. And I guess the pale skin thing is a pretty dominant gene for them.

Which leads me to the third thing. VAMPIRES CAN TOTALLY HAVE LITTLE VAMPIRE BABIES.

Take that, Bella.

The undead thing is, I guess, sort of true? But all their bits are still working. So. Yeah. Vampire babies. And I thought human ones were terrifying enough. They don't have them often, and they have to have them with other vampires. But Finn said — oh, right. His name was Finn, the guy with the smile. Apparently a lot of seers come from Irish families, and his was big on Irish heritage. Anyway, Finn said that vampires don't manifest until they're teenagers. Most supernatural sorts work that way, which also explains why I didn't start thinking I was maybe-kind-of crazy until after I went to college. I was a bit of a late bloomer.

(And yeah. There are _other_ supernatural sorts. I'd get to those, eventually. One thing at a time.)

So, we've got church and sunlight and babies.... Oh, yeah. The blood thing. So vampires do totally need blood to survive, but I guess most of them come by it honestly. That is, they have what Finn called 'willing donors' or humans who let the vamps feed on them, and they don't hurt these people, other than the biting, and it makes the humans live longer? Because the vampires sometimes give them some of their own blood. It's this whole weird, freaky, blood-swapping thing. Mostly they're like Dr. Sternquist and her partner, where it's a long-term relationship, at least as long term as it can be. Vampires still live longer than humans. They're not immortal, but I guess it's not weird to see a 300-year old vampire. You know, other than the fact that it's a _300-year old vampire_. (Finn's definition of weird was not exactly the same as my definition of weird, as it turned out.)

Anyway. Blood donors. There's also a roaring trade in black market blood bags for those vamps who just aren't ready to settle down with a human yet.

And there are your rogue vampires. Because this couldn't be that easy. These are your power-hungry Vlad-the-Impaler types who get off on taking unwilling victims. Now, it's to everybody's advantage that there aren't just all kinds of exsanguinated bodies showing up all over the place and blowing the big, vamp cover for all the little bloodsuckers, so they tend not to kill their victims. Can't have them running to the police with a crazy vampire story either, though, so that glamour thing? The one where vampires can make humans do what they want by looking at them hard or whatever? Yeah, that's real.

Finn said they don't usually turn people, though. Don't want the responsibility. And mostly when they do turn people it's one of two things. Either it's the nice way (because there's a nice way to turn people into vampires?) where a vampire just can't stand the thought of living without their donor, so they turn them and do this sort of weird vampy marriage thing. Or it's the not-so-nice way, where some rogue vamp is looking to build an army and he (or she, let's not be sexist here) starts turning people basically to cause a ruckus.

But like I said, it's to everybody's advantage that nobody starts looking into the possibility of the vampire subculture being an actually legit thing, so Finn assures me that this is not a common thing to happen. Comforting, no?

Things that kill vampires? Not much. Mostly just decapitation and fire. Wooden stakes, not so much. They're not _exactly_ undead? I mean, you have to die to become a vampire, and they do run a little on the chilly side, but they're very much alive. And they can regenerate from a lot of things.

All this came out over several hours and two more mochas in the coffee shop, and I still did not feel even close to having all my questions answered. Not to mention, I hadn't even touched on the whole seer thing. Somehow it was easier to ask about the weirdness I wasn't really a part of than to get down to the meat of what was actually going on with me. By the time Finn had to leave to get to his evening class, I was no closer to believing I wasn't actually crazy, but I had a whole lot to think about. Finn gave me his number before running off and promised to take me for coffee again after our next class if I still had questions.

"My treat. Least I can do for dumping this all on you at once."

I guess I must have seemed pretty overwhelmed. I _was_ pretty overwhelmed, to tell the truth, but I was trying not to be obvious about it.

I still had that personal essay to write, but I didn't think I was going to get to it that night.

I walked home instead of taking the bus. It wasn't too far. A couple miles, maybe, but I wanted time to think about things before facing the roommates. I stopped to grab teriyaki for everybody before I got there so I'd have something else to focus on.

The door to our half of the duplex squeaked like crazy when I opened it, and Noah greeted me from the couch with a, "Hey!" and then an, "Ooh, teriyaki! I knew you loved me."

"Always and forever," I said with a smile. This was normal. This I could handle without worrying about my sanity or whether vampires were real.

I took dinner into the cramped kitchen where my other roommate, Yael, was sitting at the table doing her homework like the studious little nerd that she was.

"Hey, dinner!" she said when she looked up from her homework to see me at the table. "But it's Wednesday."

We each have one night a week when we're supposed to provide dinner, either making or buying, and on the other nights, we're all on our own. My night is Tuesday.

"Yeah." I shrugged. "Teriyaki just sounded good, and I know Noah would get all pouty if I didn't bring any for him."

"I don't pout," Noah protested from the doorway, somehow having managed to drag himself away from his video game to answer the call of food. "I protest in a perfectly manly fashion."

"You are such a pouter," Yael argued with a sweet smile. "But we love you anyway."

"You're too kind," he said, and for a while I could just ignore everything else that had happened that day. This was normal enough to push it all from my mind.

So I got through dinner and I finished my essay after all — with no mention of vampires or auras or sibyls, just a boring account of falling out of a tree when I was twelve — and I went to bed like nothing had changed. It was really just another part of the maybe-kind-of I'd been living with for a couple years now. Just a different shade of crazy.

*

"Nobody in your family has it?"

I was sitting across from Finn at the corner table again, another Mexican mocha in front of me, somehow talking rationally about all the reasons neither of us was crazy.

"I don't know," I said. "I don't think so? But really? If something like this ran in my family, nobody would talk about it." Repression was a family value as far as my parents were concerned.

"That is so weird," Finn said, like everything else we were talking about was normal.

"Yeah, that is definitely the weirdest thing I've said since sitting down."

"Well, I wasn't going to bring up the whole 'I don't like baseball' thing. That's not weird, that's just un-American."

I had to laugh. Not because it was particularly funny, but because we were having this conversation at all, and because we'd actually gone from baseball to witches in about ten minutes flat.

"Okay, okay, but why is that so weird?"

"Well, it tends to run in families. Sometimes it crops up after a few generations' gap, but I've never heard of it showing up in families with no history of it."

"So...is everybody in your family like this?"

"No." He laughed this time, shaking his head and pushing his hair back. "Usually it's just once a generation. Sometimes it skips a generation or slides across. Like, my grandma has it? But it was her uncle who had it before her."

"So, it's like...genetic?"

"Sure!" He grinned into his coffee. "I mean, magic genetics, but same sort of idea. I'm pretty sure nobody's done any scientific studies on it."

I smiled a little and sipped my coffee. I wasn't really sure where to go from here. I thought I was starting to believe some of the stuff he was telling me, but I wasn't sure what was supposed to happen next.

"So...what do I do with it?"

"Well...there's kinda two schools of thought on that. The easy answer is obviously: nothing. You don't have to do anything you haven't already been doing. Just...now you know why you see stuff."

I'd definitely thought of that. Why did anything have to change? Why couldn't I just go about my business now being fairly sure I wasn't even maybe-kind-of crazy? I'd actually been wrestling with that one a lot over the past couple days. It should really be that easy, but something in me said it wasn't.

"What's the other school?" I asked, though I wasn't sure I wanted to know. Once it was there, once the option had presented itself, I couldn't ignore it anymore. Schrodinger's box was open, and I was stuck with that damn cat. (I've mentioned science is not my thing, right?)

Finn shrugged, and for the first time he looked like he was aware that he was going to tell me something that was important, that could potentially change my life. "Well, the other school is that we have an obligation to use our gifts, that we've been entrusted with them for a reason."

Yeah, that seemed about right. The thing in me that had been telling me I couldn't just ignore this was satisfied with his answer.

"Gifts? Plural?"

"Maybe? Some people have more than one."

Great. Like seeing visions wasn't enough. "How do you know if you have more than one?"

"You don't until you start developing them. The Sight is the most common. I've never met a sibyl who didn't have it. Never even heard of one. But when you start working to strengthen the Sight, sometimes other gifts manifest."

"Like what?" I didn't want to end up seeing more or start glowing myself.

"Commonly some kind of magic. A proclivity for one of the elements, maybe? Usually that only happens if there's werewolf in your blood, though. Most of the time, there's just some kind of domain you're particularly good at."

"Werewolf in my...no, never mind. I don't want to go there. How do I...how _would_ I go about strengthening this?"

I couldn't believe I was actually contemplating this. But what Finn said made some kind of sense. I may not have believed in a higher power, but it did feel like if I had this thing in me, there must be a reason for it. I do believe that we're supposed to use what we're good at to make the world better.

"What are you doing Monday night?"

"Nothing important, why?" It was Noah's night for dinner, but he always picked something that could be reheated.

"Come to my coven."

"Your coven."

"Yeah, it's like a group of—"

I cut him off. I wasn't totally ignorant, after all. "A group of witches. I know. Why are you in a coven?"

He shrugged again, and I wanted to strap his shoulders down. "Like I said, they prefer the term 'witches' out here. It's just a group of people with gifts. We get together and study and practice."

"Like a mini-Hogwarts."

"Sure, if you wanna look at it like that. It's not weird, I promise."

"I'm not sure we agree on what that word means."

There was this smile on his face that I was starting to notice he got from time to time. It wasn't condescending exactly, but it was definitely knowing. "I know this is a lot to take in, but I really think coming on Monday would help. If it's too weird for you, you can leave any time." He glanced at his watch. "I've got to get to class, but...call me? If you decide you want to come."

I nodded and said goodbye, but I had no intention of calling. I wasn't a witch. I didn't need to get involved with some hippies or Wiccans or whatever they were. It was too much. The nothing option seemed like a way better deal, really. I could do that. I could do nothing.

And I was absolutely going to do nothing. Except that now that I knew what the things I was seeing were, or at least where they came from, I was starting to see more of them. The homeless lady by the bus stop? Her drawings started talking to me. The cute waitress at the pho place down the street? She suddenly had cat eyes.

That Saturday, Noah, Yael, and I went out to this bar by our place that does cheap margaritas and doesn't mind that Yael can't turn down a drunken bet and sometimes has to be talked out of taking her top off because she lost at darts.

(Yael is...well, she's Yael. I don't know anybody who doesn't like Yael. She's sweet in a way that should be annoying but somehow isn't, and she makes up for all of Noah's academic failings — and they are many — by being the best student I have ever seen. Obsessively so. She also loves tequila and has been known to stand on tables in bars and serenade everyone. She's a violinist, and she's really incredibly good at it. Probably the only reason she doesn't play the violin in bars is that people will hear her better if she belts it at the top of her lungs instead.)

Most of the people there are regulars, and most of them go to our college — proximity and price make it pretty popular.

We'd been there maybe an hour, and I was going to get us some refills. A guy a little taller than me squeezed his way up to the bar on my right, and I did a little double take. Sternquist glowed, but this guy was like a freaking sunlamp. He grinned and gave me a little wink that let me know he knew I could see it. Probably I was squinting at him, but I made a mental note to ask Finn if vampires could sense sibyls somehow.

"Hello, gorgeous. You going to drink all that yourself?" he asked, nodding to the three glasses the bartender had just slid over and leaning in a little too close for my comfort.

"Just picking up for friends," I said, still a little thrown off by how _bright_ this guy was and how it didn't actually seem to hurt my eyes so long as I looked at him straight on.

"Why don't you drop those off and let me get you another," he suggested, looking me dead in the eyes, a faint smile playing at the corners of his lips.

I didn't want to, and I knew that. This guy was Creepy McCreepface in the flesh, and every rational part of my mind told me that I should be getting on my way now, thanks. But all the irrational parts of me — and it seemed there were a lot of them — really wanted to take him up on the offer. It sounded like a great way to spend my Saturday night. Both parts were pretty intent on getting me to go along with their plan, and I was frozen between the two. The longer I looked at this guy — this _vampire_ — the more the irrational parts seemed to be winning.

They probably would have if I hadn't felt a familiar hand on the small of my back and heard Noah's voice saying, "There you are, babe. Thought maybe you got lost."

So about Noah. I met him freshmen year in my Functions and Algebraic Methods class. He was the TA, and I was hopeless. I would not have survived that class without him. Noah's a civil engineering major, and he's super smart with all that math and physics and whatever else you need to be an engineer and build safe bridges and all that. He also works as a bartender and never does his homework. Ever. He'll help me with math or science any time, but if it's his own work, it just doesn't get done. Basically, though, he's been helping me out of jams since we met, and my sixth sense (or would it be a seventh?) told me Noah thought I was in a jam right now. His interruption was enough for me to pull my gaze away from the light fixture in front of me, and that seemed to clear my brain a little. It still took me a moment to smile at Noah and say, "Nope, sorry. Just a little delayed. You wanna help me with these?" I handed him his glass, and he took it with a grin that he turned on the vampire before steering me back to our table.

I could feel the guy's eyes on the back of my neck all the way there.

I watched him for the rest of the night as surreptitiously as I could manage. When he finally left, he had a guy with him, and I couldn't help wondering if he knew what Creepface was or if he was in for a surprise.

I didn't even wait to get home before pulling out my phone and texting Finn to tell him we were on for Monday. It was starting to look like if I didn't embrace the crazy, it was going to embrace me, and that couldn't be a good thing.

*

The coven met in a condo in West Seattle, just off the waterfront with a view of the city. We stopped at Trader Joe's on the way for some Two-Buck Chuck. Apparently booze was a thing you brought to coven meetings.

"There should be a name for these things," I said as we wound our way down towards Alki in Finn's 1990 Dodge Spirit.

"We just call them meetings."

"Yeah, but that's boring. There should be a better name." I don't know why I was so intent on this other than that it gave me something to think of other than what was waiting at the end of the drive.

"Suggestions?"

I shrugged. "Covenages? Coventries? There's got to be something better than just...meetings. Y'all are doing magic here."

"Coventries. I like it." He glanced over with that smile, and I smiled back.

"Okay. So what's going to happen at this coventry?"

"Well, there's wine."

I held up the bottle to show I got that part already, thanks.

"And you know...snacks and things."

"So it's a party?"

"It's a gathering."

"Of witches."

"Yeah. And we usually talk about what we've been doing and practice some things we're having trouble with. You know, see if we can help each other with anything."

Even I had to admit that didn't sound so terrifying. Practically normal. Like a supernatural study group. None of that really helped as we pulled up to the condo. It was pretty nice. I had to wonder if witching was a lucrative business. I could think of a few ways you could turn a profit with it, but Finn seemed to be a little down on that sort of thing, so I couldn't imagine his friends were into that.

I had been thinking study group, but the woman who answered the door was in her late forties. I guess I had been been living in the college bubble so long I forgot there were people of another age who weren't professors. She was tall and lanky, dark hair just starting to grey, pulled back into a ponytail.

"Hi!" she said, way too cheery for my taste, giving Finn a brief hug and offering me her hand. "You must be Finn's friend. He said he found a new one for us."

"Hey, Sharon, come on. Don't scare the newbie." This from the guy behind her, probably in his thirties, total hipster, complete with waxed handlebar mustache. If I hadn't been so focused on not coming off as an idiot, I would have thought he was a douchebag.

"So," Finn said, ushering me inside, I guess so that we didn't spend the whole night out on the front step. "This is Sharon and Fred. Sharon hosts our coventries."

And this is the reason I should never open my mouth when I'm nervous. Whatever I say is sure to come back and bite me.

"Our whats?" Fred asked, taking the wine bottles from Finn.

"That's what we've decided to call the meetings from now on. If we're gonna be a coven, we should make some use of it." I was glad Finn hadn't foisted the blame for that all onto me, even if that was exactly where it belonged. Nobody else needed to know that.

"I like it," Sharon said, giving me an approving nod. We headed to the living room, then, and it looked like everybody else was there already. Finn introduced me to Katie, a petite blonde with purple streaks in her hair; Davis, an older guy with a goatee and a serious widow's peak; Eleanor, a slightly chubby girl who somehow managed to look like she was walking on air when she moved; and Jerod, who looked like he hadn't gotten the memo that the grunge age had ended.

Hellos were exchanged all around, and Sharon invited everyone to the kitchen to grab snacks and drinks.

It wasn't exactly a festive atmosphere, but it was clear that they all knew each other and were comfortable. Everybody got a glass of wine — even Katie, who was probably underaged — and some cheese and crackers and fruit and cookies, and then we all made our way back to the living room. There was a lot of chatting and laughing and they all seemed to be having a good time. Except for Eleanor. She seemed like she was trying to have a good time, at least, but her brow was pinched together at the bridge of her nose like she was thinking about something else, something not altogether pleasant. I kind of wanted to ask her what was wrong, but considering I'd known her for about three minutes, I didn't think it was my place.

I took a seat on the couch with Davis and Sharon, and Finn just dropped to the floor next to me, legs tucked under him. Everybody else scattered themselves on several chairs around the room.

"So," Sharon said. "Everybody's probably wondering why Eleanor is with us today."

I hadn't been, but there were nods all around me.

"Eleanor has her own coven over on Queen Anne," Finn explained quietly. "We get together with them sometimes, but we usually meet separately."

"Got it."

Eleanor smiled, but that pinched brow was still there. "It's probably nothing," she started, and everyone sort of leaned toward her a little as she spoke, "but we've been hearing some troubling stories coming from the shifters."

"Shapeshifters," Finn clarified for me.

"Wow, you really are a newbie, huh?" Jerod said, half into his glass of wine.

I tried to smile in response, but I'm pretty sure it was more like a grimace. "Yep, sorry. Prepare yourselves for all the stupid questions."

"Don't worry about it," Eleanor jumped back in. "We've all been there. Even those of us who grew up in the community." Her expression cleared a little, probably from having something else to focus on than whatever the shifters were saying.

Speaking of which, "So the shifters?" Fred prompted.

Eleanor nodded, and I noticed that her eyes were a deep, deep blue with tiny flecks of...well...sparkle in them. I wondered if that was a sibyl thing or if there was more going on with her. Nobody else's eyes seemed to be sparkling. "There have been some going missing. And others report blacking out and not being able to remember where they were the night before."

"Full moon?" Katie asked, pushing her hair behind her ear with a frown.

"Not always," Eleanor said. "And it's not just werewolves. It could be nothing. Most shifters are transient anyway; they may have just moved on to their next city."

"But you don't think so," Finn put in.

"No. We think there's something going on. Eli Jefferson blacked out for an entire weekend."

There was a collective intake of breath from everyone but Jerod, who was the next most recent addition to the coven, and I felt completely stupid, but I sort of raised my hand like I was in class and said, "Um...who?"

Finn nudged my ankle. "Eli. You know...Hagrid."

Hagrid was the mostly-affectionate nickname the campus had collectively given our most visible groundskeeper. He was an aging old hippie, and as far as I could tell, his only actual similarity to a Harry Potter character was his enormous beard. I liked him. Most people did. Rumor was he'd sit and talk to anybody who wanted to sit and talk about anything at all.

"Eli's sort of the deputy leader of the shifters in Seattle," Fred offered, tugging on his mustache a little. "Like Eleanor said, most shifters aren't like the werewolves. They move along pretty quickly. Eli's been here for three decades, and he hasn't touched a drop of alcohol or so much as puffed a joint for as long as I've known him."

"So no chance he just got a bad batch of something?" Jerod asked.

"It's highly unlikely," Eleanor said, nodding. Her eyes sparkled a little brighter, and then she took a deep breath and they dulled back down again. "So far only two have actually gone missing, so I'm just going around to the other covens to let everyone know to keep an eye out for unusual behavior or suspicious characters. Especially anyone you haven't seen around before."

"We'll keep our eyes open," Sharon responded for the group. I was wondering how I was going to know what constituted unusual behavior when everything I'd seen in the last week seemed like it was pretty damn unusual.

Eleanor smiled and said, "Thanks," and the conversation moved on to other topics.

The rest of the evening was basically what Finn had described. Katie was having some trouble with her power — she could levitate small objects — and Sharon and Fred walked her through some concentration exercises to help her focus. Eleanor taught Jerod a spell for temporarily altering his facial features, briefly making him look like Paul Rudd. Finn admitted that he'd almost singed his eyebrows the week before trying to light a candle across the room, and Davis gave him a long list of tips ranging from meditation to fire safety.

Once everybody's problems seemed to be sorted, Katie turned to me. "So what's yours?"

"My what?"

"Your power, silly," she said, nudging my foot with her toes from her chair next to the couch.

"Oh, um...I don't really know yet? I only just found out I was...whatever I am on Wednesday."

Finn nudged my other foot from his seat on the floor. "It's not like there's a rush. These things come in time."

"I didn't get mine until I'd had the Sight for a year," Davis admitted. "I thought there was something wrong with me."

"Everybody's different," Eleanor affirmed. "Sometimes it takes necessity to draw it out."

"What do you mean?" I asked, pulling my feet away from both of the nudgers, tucking them under me on the couch.

"Sometimes it manifests only when you need it," Finn explained. "If you're in danger or something."

"Or you really need to look like Paul Rudd," Jerod added. Everybody laughed, and I sat back a little, sipping my wine.

There were vampires in the city, shapeshifters not only existed but were disappearing, the girl next to me had just levitated her wine glass, and I was sitting in a coven on a Monday night wondering what my mutant power was going to turn out to be. I still felt more sane than I had in a long time.

*

I'd gotten so involved in the coventry (yes, it's a stupid name, but it stuck) on Monday, that I'd completely forgotten to ask Finn about the vampire I'd seen at the bar. I didn't remember it again until we were having coffee after class on Wednesday.

"When you say 'brighter,' how much brighter are we talking?" Finn asked after I explained to him about the creeper I'd run into.

"Like...if Dr. Sternquist is a nightlight, this guy is a floodlamp."

"Okay, wow. So...brighter."

"That's what I said."

It was getting to be entirely too comfortable sitting in my coffee shop with Finn talking about vampires. I felt like I should still be pretty weirded out by the whole deal, but it just seemed natural at this point. I guess it made sense that I had a pretty high tolerance for maybe-kind-of crazy.

"And he tried to glamour you?"

"Um...I guess?" With my vast, pop-cultural knowledge of vampires, I'd decided that had to be what he did that made me want to act so monumentally stupid.

"He must have been pretty cocky or pretty old or both then."

"Why's that?"

"Sibyls are hard to glamour. We have a natural resistance. Some stronger than others, but everybody's got it a little. It's kind of a defense mechanism."

"But if he was old, it would be easier?"

"Yeah, and it might explain the brightness. I've never seen a vampire older than about 150 before, but I guess if he was really, really old, he might get brighter."

I thought about that for a moment. I didn't know how old Dr. Sternquist was, so I couldn't really make a comparison, but it did seem to make pretty good sense. "Do you think he could tell I'm a...sibyl?" That, at least, still felt weird to say.

"Oh, definitely. Vampires can smell us."

"Smell us?" I tended to come off a lot like an echo chamber in these little chats, but now I was wondering if I was going to have to start buying stronger deodorant.

"Yeah. Their sense of smell is pretty heightened anyway, but I guess there's something distinctive about a sibyl's scent that they can pick up on."

"Do you think that's why he tried to pick me up?" I really didn't need to have vampire-attracting pheromones. If I did, I was going to have to find a new bar.

"Maybe? As far as I know, our blood doesn't taste any different than a regular human's, but maybe he's got a thing for sibyls. Was the guy he left with one?"

"How do you tell?"

"You can't see it?"

Someday, I was going to get Finn to just sit down and write me a list of all the things I was supposed to be able to do with these gifts of mine.

"I'm gonna go with no."

"Oh!" He sat back a little, looking like this was the most surprising revelation he'd had about me to date. "Well, sibyls have an aura too. Maybe you just aren't looking for it."

"What's it look like?"

"Usually green. Sometimes blue. It's not as bright as a vampires, but it should be noticeable."

I leaned forward to get a better look at him then, arms braced on the table, squinting to see if that would help the aura come into focus. It wasn't until I thought I saw maybe a flicker of green by his ear and grinned, my eyes sliding to his, that I realized just how close I was.

I sat back quickly and took an unconvincingly casual sip of my coffee. "I, um, think I saw it."

He blinked and pushed his hair back and gave me a smile I couldn't categorize. "Cool. Um...well, it should get stronger from here on out. It's like your other gifts. Recognizing them gives them power."

"Is that why that guy's ears are pointed?" He looked over his shoulder to see where I was pointing, making it completely obvious that I was...well...pointing.

"Oh hey, Steve!" he said, waving at the guy, who smiled and waved back. He turned back to me, and I was mortified to see I was still pointing. I put my hand down quickly. "Yeah," Finn said. "Steve's part fairy."

"Oh, god. Now there's fairies."

"To be fair, there have always been fairies. You just haven't always seen them."

"Does he read people's minds or something?"

"This isn't _True Blood_."

"Hey, I don't know! I'm new to all of this."

"Well, he doesn't. He is kind of an empath, though...."

I threw my hands up. "I am never going to learn all this!"

"And you thought Econ was bad," Finn joked, pushing his hair out of his face.

He definitely looked green now. Just a tinge around the edges. Kind of like light filtering through leaves.

"What?" he asked, sitting up a little straighter and rubbing his cheek. "Do I have something on my face?"

I hadn't realized until then that I'd been looking at him intently. "No, nothing. Just...your aura."

"You can see it!"

I glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed his outburst, but everyone was just sipping away at their coffee like normal. "Yeah," I said quietly. "I can see it. No big deal."

"Hey, every step forward is good. The more you take, the easier it is."

This guy was full of platitudes. They were true, but still. Platitudes.

"I really don't think this is ever going to get easier."

That made him frown, and I almost regretted it. He really did have a great smile.

"What do you mean?"

"Well...I mean, if I just keep seeing more and more and doing more and more, it's never going to normalize."

"Sure it will," Finn said, leaning back and looking at me carefully. "I think you're just...looking at it wrong."

"How should I be looking at it?"

"Like you do anything else new. Think about it like learning a new sport or starting a new class. At first there's just _so much_ to learn, and it's overwhelming, and for every new thing you learn, there seems to be another five things that show up that you don't know. But eventually you know enough that learning more is fun instead of daunting."

"This is going to be fun?"

"Sure! Didn't you have fun on Monday?"

I was starting to hate it when he was right.

"Yeah, okay. But that's different."

"How?"

"Because how can a coventry not be fun?"

He laughed, and the green around him got a little brighter. I didn't want to like him, but I was definitely starting to.

He was right about that too. Recognition made it stronger.

*

Finn and I settled into a sort of routine. We had a standing coffee date after class to talk about things that were freaking me out or questions that I had. We talked about other things too. Mostly because I didn't always have questions or freaking out things, but the coffee was natural by now. I was going to have to pick up another couple shifts at the shop where I worked to pay for them if they kept up, but it was nice to have some normalcy around all this crazy. Noah started teasing me about the 'mystery guy' and asking when he was coming home to meet the family.

Mondays were coventry nights, and that was going pretty well too. I still didn't know what my other gifts were, but it was nice to talk to someone other than Finn about the things I was finally starting to think weren't a sign of insanity. We didn't hear about any more shifters disappearing, and I think we all just sort of pushed it to the back of our minds.

I saw Hagrid — Eli, that is — around campus a few times, and I smiled at him more, looking at him more closely to see if I could pick up any signs that he was a shifter. I thought that I saw a bit of a yellow-ish aura once, and his eyes seemed a little more gold than hazel, but otherwise he was just the same.

I was starting to think this new side of my life wasn't going to be so bad after all. Totally manageable.

Of course, that's when I ran into him again: the vampire from the bar.

I was walking home from the bus stop after my evening class, and when I turned the corner he was leaning casually against a streetlight, illuminating the street far better than the actual lamp. I froze, and for a moment all I could do was stare and blink and try to convince myself it was really him.

He looked straight at me and smiled. "Hello, gorgeous," he said and beckoned me closer with one hand. It was the same as it had been in the bar. I didn't want to, but I found myself walking closer, one slow step at a time. I'd closed about half the distance between us when I remembered what Finn had said about sibyls being resistant to glamouring. I thought, too, about recognition making things stronger. _Well,_ I thought, _I recognize that this asshole can't control me._

It wasn't like anything big happened. I didn't feel anything. I still sort of felt that tug to move closer, but I just stopped instead.

He frowned. I couldn't quite bring myself to look away from his eyes, and when he said, "Come here," in a low, commanding tone, I felt that tug even stronger. I _wanted_ to go to him, but I recognized that the desire to move wasn't coming from me.

"No," I said firmly, annoyed that my voice shook a little but still standing my ground.

The noise he made in response to my refusal sent a shiver of fear down my spine. It was a deep, inhuman sound, a sort of growling hiss, and when he opened his mouth, I was certain that even a mundane human could see those fangs gleaming in the glow of the streetlight. My hand moved to my pocket for my phone, but before I could reach it he came at me in a blinding blur of movement and light. His hand curled around my bicep like a vice, and his other arm moved around my waist. And then he took off.

He _took off_. Into the air. Carrying me. Nobody told me vampires could _fly._ We were a couple hundred feet off the ground, and all I could think was that this really should have come up in the several hours Finn spent explaining the undead to me or the weeks I'd spent at the coventry since then. How had nobody ever thought to mention that vampires could fly? Clearly this was pertinent information, though I don't know what I could have done with it in the moment.

I was so shocked by this lapse in my supernatural education that I didn't think to yell or struggle or really anything. Probably good in retrospect. I didn't want him dropping me, after all.

Before I could gather myself enough to do something about the situation, we were landing. I looked around and saw that we weren't actually that far from my place. He'd taken me to Lake View Cemetery. I was still reeling from the flight and a more than a little out of it, and I started to laugh. He took me to a _cemetery_. Somewhere in my clearly damaged psyche that level of cliché was _hilarious_.

I didn't laugh for long, though. In a few seconds he had me pushed back against a tree with his hand at my throat. I could feel the prick of his nails, and I wondered if this was something else Finn had forgotten to tell me or if this guy had actually filed his nails into points. He seemed the type.

"If you make a noise, I will not hesitate to rip your throat out, understood?"

I figured 'yes' would count as a noise, so I cautiously nodded.

"Good." His hand stayed at my throat, and he laid his other arm across my shoulders, presumably to keep me against the tree in case I had any notion of trying to escape. (I didn't.)

"I'm going to ask you a few questions," he said, locking eyes with me again. "And you're going to answer them quickly and quietly. You will not speak otherwise."

I felt that tug again, like a prickling in the back of my mind, making me want to obey. I nodded.

"Very good. So much better like this, isn't it?"

"No," I said honestly. He'd asked for answers, after all.

"Very funny, but I'm not laughing. You're a seer, yes?"

"A sibyl," I corrected him.

"Whatever you want to call yourself. You're new to the area?"

"Not really," I said. I'd been in Seattle for three years now.

"But I haven't seen you or heard of you before."

It wasn't a question, so I kept my mouth shut.

"New to your powers?"

"Yeah, you could say that."

"How new?"

"I only found out what they were a month or so ago."

His expression turned almost sympathetic. "That must have been hard for you to deal with."

"It was. I thought I was going crazy."

He nodded, satisfied, and his gaze intensified. I don't have another word for it. He looked at me _more_ , and his arm against my shoulders pressed back harder. There would be bruises tomorrow, I could tell. "You're going to help me with a little project."

The light he was emitting was practically enveloping me, his eyes bored into mine, and that itching in my mind was almost physically painful, but I thought of the recognition. There wasn't much I was sure of in that moment, but I was sure I didn't have to do what he said.

"No," I ground out, teeth gritted with the effort of speaking that one word.

His grip loosened slightly; he was clearly surprised by my answer. "No?"

"No," I said again, and it was easier the second time, like knowing I could do it meant it didn't take as much work.

He looked at me hard again, like he was trying to work out if I'd actually said that. And then he laughed, high and cold, as cliché as the setting. "Oh, you're going to be so sorry you said that, gorgeous."

"Am I?" I was standing in a cemetery, pinned to a tree by a vampire who had his claws to my throat. It wasn't like I had much to lose at this point by being snarky.

"Well," he said thoughtfully. "Not for too long."

What happened next, I still can't quite explain. He took his hand from my throat and leaned in, clearly ready to bite me, drink my blood, leave me in the cemetery, whatever it was he was planning. Only, he never got there.

I closed my eyes, and for half a second I thought I was done for, but then it was like this little voice in the back of my mind, the same place that itched when he tried to glamour me, just said, "Don't give up so easy."

My eyes were still closed — even his light was shut out — but I could see something in the blackness. It looked like rope, and I just sort of...called for it. In my mind. I didn't even have a clear picture of what I wanted to do with it, but I knew I needed it, so I called. It came flying toward me, and then next thing I knew, the pressure of the vampire was off my chest, and I felt him being pulled away from me. I wasn't done, though; the voice wouldn't let me stop there. I was working off instinct, and I could see something behind me, something big and heavy with spikes protruding from it. Without hesitation, I sent one of the spikes flying toward where I could see the ropes struggling to hold the vampire. I heard it impaling him, and I knew that it had pinned him to the ground.

I opened my eyes.

In front of me, tangled in a mess of ivy, a branch protruding from his chest, was the vampire. He wasn't moving. I approached him slowly, not sure if he was faking or if he really was held by the plants.

His eyes were wide, and his face was livid.

"You'd better run, gorgeous. This won't hold me long."

I knew I should, but I was still held by his gaze. It was somehow even stronger than before. Maybe his anger made it more powerful. I don't know, but I couldn't look away. I think it took him a moment to realize this, and then he smiled.

"None of this is real, you know," he said. His voice was calm, soothing, like a friend very gently telling you something you knew was true but didn't want to admit. "There aren't any vampires. There aren't any sibyls. None of the things you see are really there, and there are so many of them, aren't there? You see so many, many things. So many, many creatures. They can't all be there. Someone would notice."

I frowned, brow furrowing. I knew that wasn't true. It couldn't be true. It couldn't be true because... "Finn. Finn sees them too."

"Even Finn isn't really there," he said, shaking his head sadly, disappointed to break this news to me. "Poor thing. You're just going crazy, and you've made up this explanation to make it seem like you're still sane."

He was losing a lot of blood.

I only say this because it's the only explanation I can come up with for why his gaze stopped being quite so powerful, why it lessened enough for that itching to come back in my mind, for me to remind myself that he couldn't do this to me.

"Liar," I said, and as I did, the ivy tightened around him. He gave a gargling, choking gasp, and I did what I should have done in the first place.

I ran.

*

It was about a mile from the cemetery to my house, and I ran the whole way. I miraculously still had my messenger bag slung across my shoulders, and it whacked my hip with every step. It was raining, pouring really, but I just kept running right to my street, through the gate, across the yard, up the steps, and into the door where I almost bowled Yael over.

"Jesus," she said as she caught me just before I face planted into the living room. "What happened?"

I was way too out of breath to answer her right away, which was good, because it gave me a chance to come up with an explanation. No way was I telling her I'd just sent a tree branch through a vampire's chest in the cemetery using only the powers of my otherwise unimpressive brain. I held up one finger to indicate she should wait for a response and racked my brain for a good — or at least plausible — reason for having run home.

By the time I could breathe again, I said, "Sorry. Just...saw this dog thing? It was dark and late and..." I knew it sounded stupid, so I just finished with, "And I'm a moron. Sorry. It was really nothing. But we got out of class early, and I hung out with some guys from class to watch _The Mothman Prophecies_ in their dorm. I just...got a little freaked out."

There. That was...slightly better? Not perfect, but I was hoping she'd buy it. I'm really not good with scary movies.

"Oh my god, you asshole," she said, smacking my shoulder. "You scared me half to death. I thought you were being chased by an ax murderer or something."

"Sorry," I said again, rubbing my shoulder. "And ow."

"Sorry," she echoed and gave my shoulder a quick rub, not really helping the soreness. "But seriously. Freddy Kruger better be hot on your heels the next time you pull something like that."

"Yes, ma'am," I said, giving her a quick salute as I headed to my room, and pondering just how likely that was to actually happen someday.

*

That Friday, I was sitting across from Finn in the coffee shop, hands curled around my mug, contemplating how to ask the question that had been itching in the back of my mind for the last couple days.

"Hey, vampires can't...fly, can they?"

He snorted into his drink. "Not _True Blood_ , remember?"

"Just checking," I said, and I could feel the frown tugging at the corners of my lips. "I just thought maybe they were like sibyls. You know, like they each had a particular power in addition to their vampiness."

"I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way," he said, and I nodded.

"I gotta go," I said a moment later. "Paper to write."

"For the essay class?" he asked. I nodded again.

"Yep. About an issue of personal and cultural importance."

"Sounds like a blast. See you Monday?"

"Yep," I said again, slinging my bag over my shoulder. I gave him a quick wave and headed out into the misty rain.

I didn't go home.

I just walked along Broadway. I needed time and space to clear my head because this? This was bad.

I'd just been starting to think I was maybe-kind-of sane.

But vampires didn't fly.

If vampires didn't fly, then I had no idea how I'd gotten to Lake View the other night. I took a left down Pike, heading toward downtown. I didn't really have any specific destination in mind, but I needed to be away from...everything.

A woman bumped into my shoulder as she passed me. Her eyes were orange.

A few blocks further down, a busker smiled at me. His teeth were sharpened to points.

A mounted policeman reined in across the street from me. His horse wasn't the only one with a tail.

Everywhere I looked I could see something that wasn't right. Something that shouldn't be there. It had been bad enough when it was once or twice a day. Now I was being bombarded with it.

What if I really was going crazy? What if none of the things I saw were really there? What if I'd just made the whole thing up as a coping mechanism? My subconscious had picked a hell of a time to perk up and bring me back to reality if that was the case.

But it almost had to be. Yesterday, I had seen maybe three new supernatural things a day. On a busy day. I had just seen three in the last twenty minutes. There were so many, many of them. They couldn't all be there. Someone would notice.

I had intended to keep walking until I could calm my brain down and get some idea of how I wanted to handle things, but there were just too many people around, and too many of them were not what they seemed. I got as far as Fourth Avenue, and I couldn't deal with it any longer, so I ducked into the nearest Starbucks, figuring it was the least likely place to encounter anything but perfectly normal human beings. All I really needed was a place to sit and think and not have to be confronted with evidence of my possible psychosis.

I stepped into the line and kept my eyes down just in case, letting the muted music piping into the shop calm me down a little. By the time I got to the counter, I was almost relaxed.

"Yeah, can I get a grande americano with room?" I said automatically, my eyes scanning the bakery case to see if anything looked good.

"Of course," said the guy behind the counter, and then, "Hey! You're Finn's friend, right?"

Finn. Oh god, Finn. Was he even real? Had I just spent fifteen minutes in a coffee shop talking to myself? Or was he real but not really a sibyl? Had I just made that up, too?

I finally looked at the guy, and it took me a moment to place where I'd seen him before. Not at the coven meetings, surely. And then I noticed his ears, and it hit me. "Steve, right?" Steve the half-fairy. "You...work at Starbucks?" I quickly glanced at the other employees, but they seemed to all be human.

"Yeah," he said with a sheepish laugh. "Don't tell my boss I go to other shops on my days off, huh?"

That was not the cause of my incredulous tone, but I didn't exactly want to point that out just now, so I mumbled, "Secret's safe with me," and tried for a normal, friendly smile.

I must have fallen short of the mark, because Steve said, "Hey, are you okay? You don't look so good."

I really didn't think I needed to be getting help from a half-fairy while I was almost sure that fairies maybe-kind-of weren't a thing, so I just shrugged and gave that smile another attempt and said, "Yeah, fine. How much do I owe you?"

He gave me the total, and I handed him my debit card. As he ran it, he gave me a shrewd look, and when he handed it back, he said, "You're really bad at this, you know."

"Bad at what?"

"Pretending everything's okay."

I tried once more for a super convincing 'everything's okay' smile and gave him my name for the order. "Really, it's fine."

I didn't think it had actually worked, but he nodded, and said, "It'll be up in a minute," handing my cup to the barista and turning his attention to the next person in line.

I was more than happy to shuffle out of the way and wait for my drink at the other end of the counter. I fully intended to take that coffee to Westlake or the nearest bench I could find, hunker down with my headphones over my ears and shut off all my senses until they started actually _making_ sense, but by the time I got my coffee doctored up and was ready to leave, Steve was sitting at a table near the corner waving me over.

I contemplated, briefly, pretending I hadn't seen him, but the things is, Steve is tall and burly and basically built like the platonic ideal of a lumberjack, complete with the ultimate in manly — and still somehow perfectly groomed — beard. When he waved his whole arm at you from across a downtown Starbucks? You saw it. Half the customers in the shop were looking over at him.

"I was actually just going to—" I started, but he cut me off with a wave of his hand and a gesture to the seat across from him.

"My shift just ended, and you look like you need to talk."

I probably did need to talk. I wasn't sure I needed to talk to someone who may or may not actually have elf ears. Still, even though I'd just met Steve, I could already see he was basically a giant puppy dog and I didn't want him to pout at me. I was sure he was way better at it than Noah.

So I sat. I didn't put my coffee down, though. I was definitely ready to bolt if he sprouted wings or something.

"You don't have to," he continued. "We can just sit and sip overpriced coffee if you'd rather."

I would rather have. I was pretty sure about that. But I had this lumberjack puppy sitting across from me looking all kinds of sincere, and if I could just block out the ears, he seemed pretty normal too. And maybe there was some kind of fairy dust floating around or something, but I found myself saying, "How much do you know about Finn?"

"Like do I know he's a sibyl?"

And just like that, I felt a little better. Because Steve was definitely real. He'd helped customers before and after me in line, and everyone in the room had looked when he waved. He was not a figment of my imagination, and he was definitely acknowledging the thing I was most worried wasn't real.

"Yeah, that. Basically."

"Of course," he said with a wide grin. "The supernatural community is mostly pretty tight. We all kind of know each other. I mean, vampires keep to themselves mostly, the werewolves are kind of pack-intensive, and the shifters have their own thing going, but otherwise, we're close. You're new to it, right?"

Something I was having trouble really wrapping my head around was the way these people — I guess I was one of them — treated this like it was no big deal. At first, I'd thought it was just Finn, the way he talked about vampires with the same casual acceptance as he talked about last night's Sounders match, but the others at the coven did as well, and here was Steve now, telling me about the supernatural community like it was a book club.

"Yeah," I answered, and even I could hear the weary resignation in my voice.

"It'll get easier," he said, reaching across the table to lay his massive palm across my forearm. There was a certain level of comfort in the touch, and I didn't want to read too deeply into why that was.

"How do you know? You probably grew up with this just like Finn."

"I did," he admitted easily, pulling his hand back like my refusal to be comforted hurt him somehow. "But I've also seen a lot of people go through what you're going through. Not everybody in the community grew up with it, and everybody has to learn to accept what they are and what the world is. It takes time, but I haven't seen anybody fail at it yet."

"How long have you been watching?" He looked twenty-five at most.

"About eighty years?"

I choked on my drink, and he laughed. It was a deep, rich, lumberjacky laugh, but when he spoke there was almost a twinkle in his voice. "Fairy," he said, with a shrug and an almost delicate wave of his beefy hand.

"There's got to be a book with all this stuff in it somewhere."

"There is. Several, actually, but I don't recommend trying to slog through them. Better to learn as you go."

"It's kind of a steep learning curve."

"It can be," he agreed, pure sympathy in his tone. I remembered what Finn had said about him being an empath, and I wondered how much of what I was feeling he also felt. "So what part of the curve's got you down today?"

He was so sincere, and so clearly actually interested, that for a moment, I wanted to tell him all about the vampire and the cemetery and my worries that I was making all this up. I hoped he was studying counseling because something about him made me want to tell him everything that was wrong. I didn't know if it was the fairy thing or if he just had that kind of face.

I opened my mouth to start the story, but something held me back. Something in that itching place in the back of my mind. Instead, I said, "I think I'm still in the adjusting period. There's just _so much_. I saw a cop with a tail on the way down here."

"Derek? Yeah, he's a shifter. Nice guy. Bit of a temper, but he just turns into a chinchilla, so it's not like he's gonna do any real harm."

I honestly couldn't tell if he was joking or not, but I laughed anyway, and he joined me in it. "It's pretty overwhelming, huh?" he asked, and I nodded. Understatement of the...I don't even know. Some really big measurement of time. Epoch, maybe. "Have you told anyone outside the community?"

It hadn't even occurred to me to do this. I'd already resigned myself to keeping it to myself for maybe-kind-of forever. "Do you think I should?

He shrugged. "It's up to you. I definitely don't recommend running around telling everybody you know. You'd end up in an asylum for one thing, if the supes didn't stop you first. Some people find it easier to confide in someone, though. Your parents, maybe? Finn mentioned you don't have a history of this, or don't think you do. They might surprise you by knowing already, though."

I tried to imagine my mom at something like our coventries, or my dad turning into a hamster. The very idea was ludicrous. "Yeah, somehow I doubt it."

Steve nodded, and for a minute or two we were both just quiet, sipping our coffees. It wasn't until then that I realized I had calmed down a bit. Insanity seemed slightly less likely than it had half an hour ago, and there was something about Steve that was just comfortable.

"I think the thing that most people struggle with is the way it cuts you off from other people," he mused after a moment. "We're a close community, sure, and if you need support, pretty much everyone is here for you, but it can be difficult suddenly having a part of your life you can't share with the people you've always been closest to."

That made sense. More than made sense. My parents, my friends, my roommates, they were all outside this new world of mine. When I came back from coventries, I couldn't tell Yael that Katie had managed to lift a whole couch. I couldn't tell Noah about Davis accidentally spraying wine all over Sharon while attempting to turn it into beer. I couldn't call my dad and tell him Finn had learned how to tune a radio to pick up telepathic communications. It was a huge, new thing in my life, and I couldn't share it with anyone I'd known before.

"I don't wanna tell you what to do," Steve continued. "But I think maybe you ought to see if there's someone in your life you feel like you can trust with this. Maybe not with all of it, but with a little bit."

I nodded, not sure yet who I might tell, but considering the people I knew and trying to figure out who might take it the best. There was no way my mom and dad could handle this. Noah was too sciencey to accept it. Maybe Yael?

He sat back in his chair as he finished his coffee, then smiled. It warmed me all over. I was definitely going to have to ask Finn about fairies. "I've gotta get going, but if you ever need to talk...." He held out his hand, and I passed my phone over for him to put his number in. When I took it back, I saw that he'd labeled himself 'fairy-boy.' "See you around," he said as he pulled himself upright, and then, with a quick smile, he was gone.

Everyone else in the shop was just a regular, boring old human, but I didn't need to sequester myself from the supernatural anymore, so I finished my drink and headed out, pulling out my phone to text Yael: _Drinks tonight?_

I almost followed it up with a text to Finn about flying vampires, but that little voice came back and whispered that there were maybe-kind-of some things I still wasn't sure were real.

*

Noah was on a date that night with his fling of the week, so it was just Yael and I at the bar. We weren't exactly deep into our cups, but we'd definitely had a few, and I was starting to work up the courage to tell her about, well, not everything, but maybe some of the things. It was my round, and I made my way up to the bar, determined to tell her when I got back, or at least to start to tell her.

I had just put in the order when I was surrounded by light. I didn't want to turn around, didn't want to acknowledge what I knew was behind me, but I took a deep breath and made myself look.

"Hello, gorgeous," he said, just as smarmy as ever other time. He leaned against the bar a little too close for comfort and I took a tiny step back. He really needed to cut back on the Old Spice.

"Not interested," I answered, pretty sure he wouldn't try anything in the middle of the bar, but not entirely convinced.

He looked at me hard, and I tried to look away, to break the contact I knew he needed to try and glamour me. But I couldn't. "No, of course not," he said, his voice pitched low and slightly hypnotic. "Because you think I'm something I'm not. You think I'm something that doesn't even exist. Vampires? Fairies? Sibyls? What kind of a person creates an entire fantasy world just to convince themselves they're sane?"

As he spoke, the itching came back, getting worse and worse with every word, almost maddening now. I tried to think of Finn and Steve. I tried to recognize that he couldn't glamour me. He wasn't allowed to.

_He's not glamouring you_ , the little voice said. _How can he? That's not even real._

I was still trying to come up with a good argument against this perfectly reasonable-seeming objection when two things happened. Looking back on it, I think if they hadn't both happened at the same time, I would have still been standing there staring back at Creepface. On one side of me, the bartender slid my drinks across the bar and asked for $8.50. On the other, Yael slid up and gave me a hug from behind, grinning first at me and then at the vampire, so much like Noah I almost laughed.

"You forgot your wallet, doofus," she said, sliding a ten over to the bartender.

"Ah," Creepface said, turning his smile toward Yael. "You should ask your little friend to join us."

"Sorry," she said, only half looking at him as she picked up the drinks and handed me mine. "This little friend has a date with Jose. Gonna have to get a raincheck on that."

"I'll hold you to it," he called after us as Yael pulled me through the crowd back to our table. I was really hoping he'd forget that promise.

As I slid into the booth across from Yael, she said, "Hey, you were gonna tell me something, weren't you?"

All of the nerve I'd worked up before getting drinks was gone, and that voice was telling me that I was imagining things anyway. "It's nothing," I said after a moment. "Just wanted to say I got an A- on my essay."

"Good for you!" she said, lifting her glass to me. "Jell-o shots to celebrate?"

"Sure," I answered, giving her the same smile I'd given Steve earlier and hoping she accepted it easier.

While she went to the bar, I kept an eye out for Creepface's streetlight, but I couldn't spot him anywhere. I couldn't decide if I hoped that was because I'd only imagined the glowing or if I wanted him to have picked his victim for the night.

I didn't like what it said about me that the latter might be true.

Yael came back with a tray of brightly colored shots, and once we started losing ourselves in theories about what, exactly, made Creepface's face so creepy, I let myself forget all about it.

That worked just about until the time we stumbled out of the bar at closing, arms flung over each other's shoulders. Yael was telling me about this guy in her o-chem class she had an enormous crush on, lamenting his obliviousness to all her best flirting.

"It's like he doesn't even notice that I'm female. Or maybe he does! Maybe that's the problem. Do you think he's gay?"

"Haven't met the guy," I pointed out, steering her out of the street, even though I was unsteady myself. "Probably, though. You're definitely female."

"Ugh. I could totally be a boy if he wanted me to," she mused. "I mean...hey!" She straightened up suddenly, leaning across me to peer into an alley as we passed. "Isn't that Creepface from the bar?"

Sure enough, when I looked over, he was there with his face buried in some girl's neck. I couldn't see any blood, but I wasn't in any condition to be looking closely.

"Looks like he did okay finding another little friend," Yael said, giggling and leaning against me.

Her giggles resounded in the nearly empty street, and Creepface looked up from his victim/partner. He turned right to me, shining brightly in the dark alley, and he grinned.

There were no fangs, no blood, no sign at all that he was doing anything worse than making out in an alley. I shook my head to clear it and rubbed my eyes a little, sure that I was missing something, too drunk to see what was right in front of me. The girl made a little noise of disapproval and pulled his face to hers to kiss him.

"Get a room!" Yael shouted, still giggling.

It was enough to draw my attention back to her. "Let's get you home, kid," I said, tugging her along the street. I couldn't help glancing back over my shoulder as we went, but I never saw anything more than a beacon of light making out with a very drunk college student.

*

By the time I woke up the next morning (okay, afternoon), I had only a vague recollection of what had happened the night before. I remembered tequila and Jell-o shots and running into Creepface, but everything else was pretty hazy. I was pretty sure I hadn't told Yael about being a sibyl, and I was glad for that. It seemed like a monumentally bad idea now. The more I thought about it, the less convincing my evidence seemed. Even the undeniable realness of Steve didn't seem to make a strong case for me not simply hallucinating. And even if it was true, it _sounded_ crazy. There was no way to get around that. Keeping it to myself was almost definitely a solid plan.

I was tempted to text Steve just to see if he wanted to hang out. I felt better when I was around him, and I could use a little better.

I didn't, but only because I got a text from Finn saying coventry was moved to Sunday that week because it was supposed to be a beautiful day, and Fred had a thing for communing with nature as a group. I figured I could wait for Sunday to get some support in the craziness, so I texted Finn back that it was okay with me and to make sure he could pick me up again. Then I slithered out of bed, pulled on a sweatshirt, and stumbled out to the kitchen where Noah was at the stove making an enormous pan of scrambled eggs with all manner of good things in them.

"Morning, sunshine," he said, pressing a mug of coffee into my hands and directing me to the table.

"You are my favorite person in the universe," I said.

"You only love me for my coffee," he returned.

"Hey, what about me?" Yael asked in a subdued voice that let me know she felt just as bad as I did that morning.

"You are the reason I'm in this condition in the first place. It's okay to celebrate with other things than shots, you know. Cupcakes are always nice."

"Nobody forced them down your throat."

She had a point, and before I could come up with a good retort, Noah dropped a plate in front of each of us, the clattering pounding in my head. "Now, children. No fighting over breakfast. Eat up."

I looked around the kitchen, taking in Yael hunched grumpily over her eggs and Noah scrubbing the pan in the sink, and I felt good about my decision not to say anything. It was just about the only thing I felt good about just then, so I figured it better be enough.

*

Sunday's coventry was at Volunteer Park. 'Beautiful' in Seattle terms in November meant that it wasn't raining, but it was still colder than a penguin's ass. For our purposes that was just fine. It meant that we could have our nature time but we weren't likely to be interrupted by curious civilians, though Sharon was working on a spell to mask our activities if someone came too close.

We had hot chocolate and coffee in thermoses, and Fred had brought chili in a crockpot. On top of that, Finn showed off a new trick he'd learned where he could light a piece of wood on fire without actually burning it up, so we found a log and Finn set it blazing while we all gathered around. It was a fairly normal coventry except for the being outside part. Everybody had something they were working on, and people helped where they could, offering suggestions for exercises or walking them through a process that had worked in the past. Despite the weather, I was actually comfortably warm. Probably this was because on my right Finn was playing with making the fire burn in different shapes and colors and on my left Sharon was magnifying the effect where she could, and they always got warmer when they were working with flames. I closed my eyes for a moment to settle into the heat around me.

Almost as soon as my eyes closed I could see shapes in the darkness, just like that night in the cemetery. Now that I knew what they were, though, it was easier to recognize them as plants. I could see the outlines of the trees around us, the spiky coldness of the grass at our feet. If I concentrated a bit more, I thought I could see the sleeping perennials in the flower beds by the gazebo. I focused still more, and I could see the outlines of the plants in the greenhouse on the other side of the park. It wasn't until I started pushing out toward the homes on the borders of the park that I realized everyone had gone quiet.

I slowly blinked my eyes open, and they were all staring at me.

"Well, damn," Jerod said, eyebrows raised.

"What?" I said and Finn nodded toward my feet.

I looked down to see grass and clover covering my boots and tendrils of some plants I didn't recognize winding their way up my jeans, twining around my legs. Even the log Finn was keeping ablaze was starting to send out new growth.

"Oh," I said.

"Looks like somebody's found their gift," Sharon said, watching me with interest like she was waiting to see what I'd do next.

"That is so cool," Katie squealed, grinning over at me.

"It's really unusual for a gift to manifest in a moment of peace like that," Fred commented, looking impressed.

I probably would have kept quiet about things if it hadn't been for that. I didn't want them thinking I was some kind of prodigy or something. "Actually," I began, a little sheepish. "This isn't the first time it's, um, manifested." I knew I should have said something sooner, but there was nothing I could do about that now.

The whole story sort of spilled out then. Well, not the whole story. I left out the part where Creepface tried to convince me I was imagining things. In the middle of my coven, it seemed like such a ridiculous thing to think, that I couldn't bring myself to admit I'd even been questioning it. That and the little voice was telling me I'd look stupid if I brought it up. Suspicious even, maybe. Like I didn't trust them.

It took a while to tell the whole story. They kept interrupting with questions, but eventually I got the whole thing out. I didn't realize how difficult it had been until I'd finished, and I noticed that Finn had his hand on my back, just a little gesture of support, but it felt nice. Not much but just what I needed, confirmation I wasn't in this alone.

When I was done, everybody was thoughtful. Eventually, Finn said, "This is why you asked me if vampires could fly, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "You said they couldn't, though, so I figured I must be confused." I didn't want to say crazy. I'd been over that ground with Finn already.

"They can't," Davis said. Everyone's gazes turned from me to him. "I mean, we're all thinking it, but it's true. Vampires can't fly. Can't even turn themselves into bats."

"That's the part that really concerns me," Fred put in.

"I know it sounds maybe-kind-of...." I still couldn't bring myself to say the c-word.

"We all believe you," Finn said after I trailed off. "Don't we, guys?" This last was addressed to the group like a challenge, and everybody chimed in their agreement, though Sharon and Davis seemed a little skeptical.

"It's not a question of not believing you," Fred added. "But if this is true, we've got some things to figure out. I might have to talk to Soren and see if any of his pack have heard or seen anything like this before. Sharon, you should call Eleanor and let her know what's going on."

"I'll talk to her this evening," Sharon agreed, but Fred shook his head.

"I don't think we should put this off if we can help it. The sooner we get the word around, the sooner we can hear some news on it."

"You're right," she said, pulling out her phone and moving a little ways away to make the call.

Fred turned to me next. "If something like this happens again, I want you to call me immediately, okay? I don't care what time it is or how trivial you think it is. Have you seen this vampire around anywhere else?"

I told him about the couple times at the bar, leaving out seeing him in the alley on Friday.

"I wish you'd said something the first time," he said with a frown.

"That's my fault," Finn said. "I didn't think anything of it, other than the brighter glowing. I should have brought it to the coven when I found out."

"No, Fred's right," I offered. "I should have said something. I.... You guys are the only people I really know in this community." I thought of Steve and how he'd said they'd support me. "I should have known to come to you."

"Don't beat yourself up about it," Katie said, coming over to hug me around my waist. "You're new still, and we're obviously terrifying." She put on her best stern and scary face, and it was enough to get a quiet laugh out of everybody.

The sound faded quickly when Sharon came back, her expression grim.

"What is it?" Jerod asked, worry etched all over his face. "Did Eleanor have any news?"

"Yes," Sharon said. "But not about the vampire." She paused and looked around the group slowly. "Eli Jefferson has gone missing."

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_Shifting Borders, Part One_

by

Jessie Kwak

PATRICIA RAMOS-WAITES PICKED HER way through the brackish puddles that passed for a sidewalk in this part of town. Reflected streetlight traced oily slicks in the pitted gravel, and a faint mist gathered on her cheeks and fogged her glasses. The neon sign announcing "Oh Pho" cast an orange hue in the premature evening gloom, but through the windows — papered with peeling, handwritten specials — the restaurant looked empty.

No, not empty. Her sister sat at a table near the door, shredding the label of her Tsingtao. Patricia waved, and Valeria scowled. Fantastic.

"Two small number sixes," Valeria said to the waitress before rising to kiss Patricia. They were alone in the restaurant, no surprise for a Monday night, given how far it was from civilization. Oh Pho's regular clientele of commercial truck drivers and warehouse workers had gone home for the night, and it was too far from the artists' lofts and shops in Georgetown's main strip to attract the few people that actually lived down here.

"I saw two of your buses go by already," said Valeria. "You said you'd be here by 5:30."

Patricia wedged her stuffed backpack into the plastic booth opposite her sister, then slid in beside it. "Work was fine today, thanks for asking," she said. "We've been short-staffed this week, so things are extra busy. How are you doing, Val?" She searched her sister's face for cracks there — it had only been two weeks since the funeral, and though she'd called daily, Valeria had been putting her off.

She'd be putting her off today, as well. "Jesus, Pati," Valeria sighed. "Don't be a bitch. You're just never late."

"I can't make the buses run on time."

"But you can call."

So this was how it was going to go. "It's 5:45, Val."

"Yeah. And I've got places to be."

"Then don't let me keep you waiting," Patricia snapped — and instantly regretted it, but didn't apologize. Just another snipe-fest between sisters, she thought.

The waitress returned before any more friendly fire could be loosed, two massive bowls of soup balanced on her tray. Valeria set to plucking out her slices of beef while they were still pink, draping them over the side of her bowl. Patricia used her chopsticks to plunge her beef deeper into the boiling broth.

"I need a favor from you tonight, Pati," Valeria said, shredding basil leaves into her soup without making eye contact. Patricia watched her with a sinking feeling, taking in her sister's black clothes, the black gloves lying on the table, the faint scent of pungent herbs rising above the anise aroma of the pho.

Nighttime favors meant Resurrections.

"I have to help Ava with her science project," Patricia said automatically. She reached for the Sriracha, but hesitated when she saw the nozzle's tip: crusted over and black. Jalepeños would be — Patricia sighed. Would _have_ been fine. Valeria had dumped them all into her bowl, and was busy doctoring her soup into a nuclear accident of gloppy brown plum sauce and safety-orange Sriracha. Chili oil formed a greasy slick across the top.

"It's important." Valeria finally looked up. "It's Marco."

Patricia's heart broke for her sister. "Oh, no. No no no."

"Please, Pati."

"Do you have a permit? A court order? Because how will you explain to my kids that their mom has to go to jail over an illegal resurrection? Val, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry he's gone." She reached across the table, took Valeria's cold hand in hers. The nails were ragged, chewed to the nub like Valeria used to do when they were girls. They were painted a cafe con leche color which nearly matched her own skin, a subdued tone that worried Patricia. Everything about Valeria had been more subdued since Marco's accident.

And then the hand was gone. "Wouldn't you have brought Joe back if you could have?"

That stab, unfair and unexpected, sliced neatly through six years of emotional scar tissue. "Joe is in Heaven," Patricia said quietly. "Why would I bring him back from that?"

"What if you knew he wanted to come?"

"You can't speak to the dead in their graves."

"You can if they want to be spoken to." Valeria met her gaze, eyes fierce and tear-bright, smoky eye makeup smudged around the lids. The restaurant's neon open sign called out the reddish tones in her dark hair, but her curls hung limp, and her lips were chapped under the silver gloss she wore. "When I go out to his grave, I can sense him, just a little bit. He's waiting there. He wants me."

"But do you have the legal paperwork?" Patricia stabbed at her soup with her chopsticks. Legally, a few ghosts were allowed to come back, mostly to help solve unsolvable cases or clear up disputes over wills. Illegally.... Patricia didn't want to know. Valeria had been selling her body for years to a local Mexican Resurrectionist, acting as a Host for the spirits he brought back. Valeria claimed that they only worked the lucrative court contracts, but Patricia knew her better than that.

Valeria hesitated, and Patricia could see her practicing the lie. But then she sighed. "No. I don't. This is entirely for me."

"Then I can't help you."

"Patricia, is it a crime to bring back the man I love? When he wants to be with me?"

"You said you were done with the illegal stuff. I'm not bailing you out of jail again." Patricia struggled to get a grip on a slippery piece of tendon, but her hand was shaking too badly to hold the chopsticks steady. Droplets of broth spattered the table when the morsel hit the soup's surface. "I won't help you."

"I'll be careful," Valeria said. "No one will ever know."

Patricia sighed. "Why do you need me? What about your Mexican guy?"

"Lucho's a businessman. He won't do a resurrection for free, and I can't pay him."

A chill traced itself down Patricia's spine. "So you're going to—"

"I've done it before. I'm not just hosting for him now — he's taken me on as an apprentice. I've done the last few resurrections on my own."

"Val." Patricia almost reached to take her sister's hand again. "Come over tonight. Adrian's at an away game, Ava's got her science project to keep her busy, and I think I might even have a bottle of wine somewhere. You can stay over."

"I can't, it has to be tonight." Valeria slurped a quick spoonful of broth, coughed on the chili sauces.

In the kitchen, the waitress and the cook were talking loudly in Vietnamese, pots banging as they cleaned up from the day. Calling this Monday night a bust, Patricia thought. Ready to go home to their own families just as soon as the Ramos sisters finished their meal. Patricia was suddenly very tired. "He's dead, Val," she said after a moment. "He won't be the Marco you loved."

"You haven't seen them, the way people are when they're reunited. The spooks are just as thrilled as the clients. I've made so many people happy, Pati. When do I get to be happy?"

"Val, this is stupid. You have to move on."

"Yeah, like you did? You still wear Joe's goddamn _ring_ , Pati." She dug into her purse, and threw a ten dollar bill on the table. "Forget it. Forget I ever asked you anything."

"Valeria, wait." Patricia grabbed her wrist, and Valeria didn't try to pull away. "Promise me..."

"Promise you what."

_Promise me you won't disappear without a trace this time_ , Patricia wanted to say, but that would only spark a fight she didn't have the energy for. "Promise you'll talk to me before you do anything rash."

Valeria pulled away. "I _am_ fucking talking to you, Pati." She shrugged her purse over her shoulder and slammed the door as she left.

*

The bus, when it came, was nearly thirty minutes late and tailed closely by another bus of the same number. Patricia had given up on carrying a schedule.

Condensation from the crush of damp bodies fogged the windows. Smiley faces and tags and obscene words written in reverse were drawn in fingertip on the glass, their artists long disembarked.

Patricia was empty from grief. She'd been soaked up and wrung dry so many times in the past two weeks that she could feel the very fibers of her psyche start to wear through.

She grieved some for herself — she would miss smiling, joking Marco — but the largest measure of her grief was for her sister. Marco had brought Valeria back.

Ever since the first tattooed gangbanger Valeria had brought home to upset their parents, her sister had cultivated a sampler of horrible men — from the grunge wannabe drummer who never paid rent and stole her credit cards on the way out to the rich college kid who'd left her with an expensive cocaine habit. One had landed her in jail after he robbed an old woman and left Valeria's cell phone there by accident — not that Patricia entirely believed her sister's pleas of innocence. One had, thankfully, _not_ landed her in jail after convincing her to ferry marijuana down from Canada. Valeria could be an idiot sometimes.

Their mother, Maryam, blamed the boyfriends for talking Valeria into these escapades, but Patricia wasn't so sure Valeria needed much convincing. Once she came up with a crazy idea, she'd do it no matter who it hurt — and no matter if she could talk anyone else into going along.

Over time, Patricia came to recognize the signs that something truly bad was about to happen. Valeria would show up unexpectedly to drop off some prized possession — a photo album of their parents in Nicaragua, or a gift Patricia had given her when they were girls. Right after Gabe had started high school, Valeria had given Patricia their grandmother's opal ring. "Just want to make sure you had it," she'd said before disappearing from contact, only to show up six months later with her hair dyed black, her eyes bruised and sunken, and a court date for fraud.

Marco had mellowed her out. He was a New Jersey transplant who'd come out to Seattle for a weekend visit and never went back, and he'd wax lyrical for hours about the scenery, the closeness of the mountains, the relaxed attitudes of the people. When he needed to blow off steam, he didn't take it out on Valeria or black out on Everclear — he'd just take whichever sports car he was working on for a drive around the Sound, or up the empty roads around Mt. Rainier.

Maybe Valeria was getting older, maybe her semi-legal Resurrection work with Lucho gave her just enough of a thrill, but she seemed to have settled down. She'd had a steady-ish gig that probably wouldn't land her in jail, and a steadfast boyfriend who wouldn't land her in the hospital.

For nearly three years there'd been no more late night phone calls asking for a ride back from Ellensburg or bail money. No cryptic texts saying she was in trouble, followed by months of radio silence. No random offloading of her mementos just before she went on a truly wild bender. No more cocaine. No more pills. Just cold Tecates and the occasional joint with Marco.

Patricia prayed that this new Valeria was strong enough to withstand his loss.

*

Ava was in front of the television when Patricia walked in the door, a pair of scissors in one hand and a sheet of aluminum foil in the other. Bits of foil drifted like snow around her feet. Patricia leaned over the couch to kiss the top of her head. "You're supposed to be doing homework, Ava-bean."

"I am." Ava held up a lopsided star, brushing foil scraps off her arm to sift into the seat cushions. "It's for my project."

She was gluing the stars to the poster board in front of her, creating a glittering panorama around the printouts of Mars facts and a labeled diagram of the Mars rover _Curiosity_. Any normal kid would have stopped with the poster board, but Ava had also made up a scale model of _Curiosity_ (displayed in a shoebox diorama of the Martian landscape), and had even written a short story wherein the rover discovers gentle aliens who hope it has come in peace.

On the television, forensic scientists discussed motives while dissecting a murder victim. "I don't think this is appropriate for you, kiddo," Patricia said. "You know I don't want you to watch TV when I'm not around. You can put in one of your movies if you're done doing your homework."

Ava shrugged, one skinny shoulder jerking towards her ear. "When is Mama Ramos coming home?" she asked, picking up the scissors.

Mama Ramos was what Marco had called Patricia and Valeria's mother, Maryam. His voice took on an Italian cadence when he said it: "I'll do the dishes, Mama Ramos," he'd say. "This is men's work here. Adrian! Front and center." And they'd be up to their elbows in soap suds, talking about the beater car Adrian was fixing up.

Patricia's parents were settling beautifully into the snowbird lifestyle, ferrying their motor home between Albuquerque and Seattle with the seasons. They'd come up for the funeral, but hadn't stayed in Seattle's rainy November gloom for long. "They'll fly back up for Christmas," Patricia said. "I'll call her to make sure." She leaned to kiss her daughter's cheek, and caught a glimpse of blue hanging around her neck. Lapis lazuli, a polished teardrop on a delicate gold chain.

Valeria's necklace.

A chill ran up Patricia's spine. "Where did you get that?"

"Tia Valeria gave it to me."

"Did she say why?"

Ava shrugged again. "Because I liked it. She wanted me to have it."

"Did she give you anything else?"

"She gave Adrian Tio Marco's flask. She said it was his grandfather's."

"His flask? Really, your tia sometimes."

Ava nodded sagely and set to gluing another foil star into the crowded poster board sky.

"Promise me you won't wear that at school, Ava-bean," she said, dialing Valeria. "It's expensive."

"Can I wear it to church?"

"Of course."

Valeria wasn't picking up. The ring tone echoed into infinity — Valeria had never set up a voicemail account, justifying that she wouldn't listen to them anyway. Patricia hung up. _I'll do it_ , she texted.

A second later her phone vibrated. _11:30_

Dammit. _Pick me up._

_K. Wear black._

_K._

Patricia slipped her phone back into her pocket, felt the familiar snag of her wedding ring on the edge of the fabric. She'd had a chance to say goodbye to Joe, to say those last "I love you's," to give him one last kiss. Joe had had the chance to tell Ava to make him proud, Adrian to keep his head on straight, Gabe to keep on painting.

Joe had died a slow death, hooked up to IVs and monitors. Marco was gone in the blink of an eye, the slip of a tire. The fiery tumble of a sports car.

Didn't Valeria and Marco deserve the chance at last words?

*

Forest Lawn Cemetery was a ten minute drive from Patricia's house in White Center — less, the way Valeria was driving. "Slow down," Patricia hissed, gripping the door handle with all her strength. "If you get pulled over, I don't know how you'll explain _that_ to them." She gestured at the duffel bag in the back seat. She had only a vague idea of what it contained, but it smelled sweet and foul as rotting fruit. "What's the hurry? He's not going anywhere."

Valeria's jaw tightened. "No hurry," she said, but she glanced once more in the rearview mirror, and the speedometer crept slightly higher.

They parked a few blocks away, where no one would remark on an extra car, and stepped past the heavy chain that blocked the cemetery's driveway. The earlier mist had shifted to a light rain, which was already soaking through the black Highline Pirates hoodie Patricia's oldest son had left at home. Her only rain jacket was baby blue, and had been summarily vetoed by Valeria.

Rows of flat headstones tufted the well-manicured lawn, following the gentle contours of the hills. Trim Japanese maples dotted the grounds, and a few oaks stretched dark silhouettes against the low clouds. Persistent clouds meant Patricia hadn't seen the moon for over a week, but the city lights infused the fog with the faintest of glows, illuminating their way. Barely.

Marco's grave was in the northeast corner — far from the road, Patricia saw with relief, tucked near the strip of wild brambled forest that covered the ridge's steep eastern shoulder.

A waist-high fence separated the civilized dead from the disordered urban forest, and overhanging branches afforded them just enough cover from the rain. The toes of her sneakers squelched in sodden fresh turf.

Patricia shivered, realizing she was standing on Marco's grave. She stepped aside.

Valeria's duffle bag clinked as she set it down. She stooped to brush the leaves and grass clippings off the stone:

_Marco Caruso_

_1975 — 2014_

"Who will Marco be when you bring him back?" Patricia whispered, and Valeria stiffened but did not answer.

Valeria's face glowed in the flame of her lighter; her jaw was set, her eyes flashing steel. She lit a pair of candles on the headstone, then a propane camping lamp. She shook a pair of coals onto a grate over the flame. "Stop looking over your shoulder. You're making me nervous."

"I thought the cops were cracking down on illegal resurrections."

"The cops around here have drug deals to watch for. They're not out patrolling the cemeteries." Strain as she might, Patricia couldn't see the gate over the rise of the hill — still, she felt exposed and nervous. Valeria looked up from her careful arrangement of...bones? Patricia shivered. "It's fine, Pati. I've done this dozens of times. Hold this." She handed her the flask of vile smelling liquid, and Patricia held it at arm's length. She tried to force herself to relax.

The candles on the headstone sputtered as fat raindrops splashed down through the branches. It was never any use to talk sense into Valeria when she had a plan. When they were kids she'd nearly drowned after breaking into a neighbor's swimming pool in Managua — Patricia had refused to go with her, and Valeria had snuck away to go on her own.

Their father had been angry with them both, but it was Patricia who'd gotten the spanking for not watching out for her little sister. Granted, Valeria had been in the emergency room, but the injustice still smarted.

Patricia had seen that same determined look in Valeria's eye tonight. "What do you need me to do?" she asked, afraid of the answer.

"I'll do all the ritual, don't worry about that. I just need you to hand me things when I need them, and to break the circle if anything goes wrong."

"Scalpel, stat," Patricia said, trying to laugh. She shivered instead.

"Normally the Resurrectionist summons a spirit into a Host, but I've been reading about modifications to the spell that let a Resurrectionist call the spirit directly into herself."

"Reading?"

"I've done the original spell before, and the variation isn't tricky. You're here just because if anything goes wrong, I'll need you to break the circle. Here." Valeria dumped the now-lit coals into a censor like they used in Catholic churches, and handed it over to Patricia with a pair of tongs and a baggie full of some sweet-smelling herbs. "If anything goes wrong, just dump the herbs onto the coals, erase part of the circle with your foot, and put a coal in each of my hands."

"Val—"

"Nothing's going to go wrong. But if it does, you just dump the herbs, break the circle—"

"And put a burning coal into each of your bare hands," Patricia said. She swallowed.

"Right. And keep an eye out."

"For the security guard?"

"Sure." Valeria swung her gaze over the cemetery, searching. When she seemed satisfied that they were alone, she lay down over the grave, her head resting just below the stone. She began to whisper at first, in Spanish oddly accented from years forgetting their native tongue, and then relearning it at the hands of her Mexican Resurrectionist. She seemed tense at first, hands clenched on her belly, but as she spoke she slowly relaxed, drawing her palms down over her hips, smoothing her dress in a way that seemed both self-conscious and sensual. Water began to seep up out of the fresh turf, darkening Valeria's dress, cradling her hips like ghostly fingers. Patricia shivered.

Valeria's voice fell to a whisper, and then she fell silent though her lips still moved. Patricia leaned closer, trying to make out the words. The salt ring glimmered a brief moment, then went dull once more. A faint play of light flashed over the wall of foliage beyond the edge of the cemetery.

Patricia looked up, startled.

Valeria's hands clutched the grass, fingers worming their way into the fresh soil, her back arching, shoulders writhing against the headstone.

The light came again, stronger.

It could be the headlights of a car, maybe, someone turning down a residential street? The foliage above them lit up again. Flashlight.

Patricia's mouth went dry.

"Valeria," she whispered, but her sister didn't seem to hear. "Valeria." A breeze stirred the grass inside the salt circle, toyed with the ends of Valeria's hair. The air around Patricia was still.

The beam of light came again, stronger now. The police. Patricia's mind whirled as she thought up excuses, but there was no excuse that could explain away what they were so obviously doing. Oh, Lord, her job, her kids. The church. "Valeria!"

Her sister moaned.

Patricia glanced back over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of a small group in the distance, rough voices, laughter muffled by the fog. A hint of cigarette smoke drifted on the breeze before them.

Not the police.

"Valeria, we have to go." Patricia hesitated, her foot poised over the line to erase it. What would breaking the circle right now do to her sister?

As if in response to the thought, Valeria's body arched violently away from the ground, her face screwed into a silent scream. A trickle of black blood seeped from one nostril, and when she opened her eyes, the whites were colored an unholy pink.

Patricia fumbled for the brazier. She dashed her foot across the salt line, feeling a hurricane force of wind tear into her as she did. Her hair whipped across her eyes. She grabbed for Valeria's hand, plucked a fiery coal from the censor.

The stench of burned flesh stung her nostrils as she dropped the first coal into Valeria's hand — her sister gasped, flinging it away to hiss in the wet grass.

"Can't take him," Valeria whispered. "I almost—"

"Hey, hey, what you doing?" A shout came from behind them. "Ramos?"

The men were running, now, the glowing butt of a cigarette flicked into the grass, the silhouette of a handgun against the fog.

Patricia grabbed Valeria's hands, tugging desperately against her sister's dead weight. "No, no no nooo," Valeria gasped. Her body arched again, wrenching violently as her heels dug into the fresh turf above Marco's grave. She screamed, piercing the night.

Patricia pulled once more with all her might, dragging her sister's writhing body past the salt line.

She gasped as an ice-cold wind rushed through her, then searing heat; her body suddenly felt too tight.

Too tight, yet surprisingly strong. She yanked her sister to her feet and half-carried, half-dragged her toward the cover of dense brush at the edge of the cemetery.

A gun shot rang out. Bark splintered off the oak above them. Someone let off a stream of curses. "Don't kill her, _pendejo_!"

Patricia boosted Valeria over the fence, then vaulted it herself, tumbling into a clutching Oregon grape that clawed at her baggy sweatshirt. She grabbed Valeria's arm, propelling her through the underbrush like a reluctant toddler, heedless of blackberry thorns and slapping wet ferns, sliding ever downward through the sloping underbrush.

Now running, now tumbling, until Patricia's shins hit against the trunk of a fallen tree and she dropped, stifling a cry. She wriggled her way between the tree and the sodden earth, hugging her sister tight to her, hand clamped over Valeria's mouth.

Valeria shook uncontrollably, but whether from fear or cold — or from the spell — Patricia couldn't tell.

The crashing pursuit continued a few minutes longer, the men calling to each other, the beams of their flashlights streaking terrifyingly close to where the Ramos sisters lay. After a long while the sounds faded to silence.

Patricia stayed still, unsure if they had actually left; the chorus of rushing blood in her ears and her sister's ragged breath muffled all other sounds. A stone dug into her ribs. When she could bear it no more, she lifted her weight onto just one shoulder, shifting so her hand could brush away the stone.

A twig snapped. Less than ten feet away.

She froze, her heart pounding.

"Val. Valium, baby." The same man who had shouted earlier was wheezing now, his voice raspy from liquor and smoke. "I know you're in here somewhere. I know you can hear me, and you know what I want. I'm gonna send one of my boys to see you tomorrow. Call me in the morning, we talk and I'll send Charles. But sweetheart, you think you're smart, you try to lay low? I'll send Javier."

He waited as though expecting a response, but damned if Patricia was going to give him one. Valeria's breath came ragged and hot under Patricia's hand.

After what seemed like eternity, Patricia heard him clamber, swearing, back through the underbrush.

Patricia gripped her sister tight a while longer, her cheek wet with Valeria's tears, Valeria's fingers curled in her hair, her own fingers digging into the wet thin fabric of Valeria's dress. Valeria was shivering, flighty tremors that slowly grew into sobs.

The rich black earth reeked of decay, the slick mat of waterlogged leaves beneath them rotting back into soil. Something crawled over Patricia's hand. It had started to rain in earnest now, gathering in the leaves, dripping in fat drops onto Patricia's back.

"We should go," Patricia said finally, but she couldn't make herself move. She should be afraid, she should feel cold, but the only sensation Patricia was aware of was joy, elation at finding herself in Valeria's arms. _:val, valvalval...:_

Something stirred deep within her, its attention pulsing toward Valeria. She stroked her sister's back, brushed her lips against her cheek.

"I failed, Pati," Valeria said after a long moment. "There's no second chance. He's gone forever."

Patricia kissed her sister's forehead, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Warm, vital blood rushed in her veins. "It's OK, babe," she heard herself say. "I'm here."

A pressure, like the pulsing ache of an anxiety attack, began in Patricia's chest, like her ribcage was too tight, her lungs carved of stone. She forced herself to take deep breaths, pushing against the pain.

"They wanted Marco," she heard Valeria say. "And they probably got him."

"What?" The pressure inside her chest swirled, fluttering against her ribcage. A wave of clammy heat broke over her, and she tugged at the throat of her hoodie, trying to breathe. _Nausea, throbbing head, hot flashes,_ Patricia ticked off the symptoms, trying to remember if she'd hit her head. She pushed Valeria away from her and scrambled out from beneath the fallen tree, just in time to revisit her earlier meal of pho.

Patricia wiped her lips on the sleeve of the now-filthy hoodie. _Sorry, Gabe._

"You OK, Pati?"

Valeria's voice swam to her as though through water. "Who were they?" Patricia asked, and Valeria started to answer, in that hedging way when she was trying to lie without lying. Patricia couldn't make out her words — they sounded muddled, echoey, and Patricia fought down her rising panic. _I think I have a concussion_ , she tried to tell her sister, but her lips wouldn't move. _I think_... And the pressure — the presence? — in Patricia's chest stopped fluttering. It shifted, just ever so slightly.

_:who?:_

"I'm Patricia," she whispered. "Who are you?"

Valeria stopped mid-sentence. "Pati? Oh, shit. Pati?"

Patricia could feel her sister's hands on her face, hear her frantic voice, but all she could focus on was the swirling voice in her head. _:whowhowho?:_ The world went black.

*

Light, pale and gray, glowed through a stranger's lace curtains. Patricia slapped her hand out for her glasses on the nightstand (her nightstand?), squinted as the ceiling came into view. Low and dingy, the gold-flecked acoustic ceiling tiles watermarked in a half-familiar pattern near the wall. She swung her legs off the bed and was surprised to feel carpet. Her carpet?

"I'm home," she whispered, but the feeling of disorientation remained. A door should be there beside the dresser. Where had the door gone? Her heart began to race — but no, there was the door, across from the foot of the bed. Where it had always been. "Get yourself together, Pati."

She stood, dizzy, her vision distorted as though with a new glasses prescription. The floor seemed slightly too close, and she stumbled over the unfamiliar carpet, catching herself on the edge of the bed. Her stomach churned.

She made it to the bathroom, collapsed on the cracked and water-warped linoleum with her back against the door.

"Pati?" The hollow core door shuddered as someone — Valeria? — tried the handle. "Pati, let me in."

Her throat ached to answer, but it was as though she'd forgotten how to use her vocal cords. _:val?:_

Patricia's head felt crowded, split in two, ravaged by a cyclone of half-formed thoughts she couldn't quite make out. _:val its...:_ Patricia lunged for the toilet as bile rose in her throat, her bare knees screaming in agony as she knelt on a knife-edged crack in the linoleum. She vomited, then clutched herself before the toilet, waiting for the nausea to pass.

Slowly, pieces began to fill in. Why was Valeria here? Oh, Lord, what had happened last night?

"Pati?" The door jamb splintered as Valeria threw her weight against the door.

When Patricia was reasonably sure she wasn't going to throw up again she pulled herself up, gripping the bathroom counter. She looked terrible, mascara smudged over sallow cheeks. It was the ghoulish mask of an old woman playing out a college co-ed's hangover.

She rinsed her mouth, then clawed her fingers through the wavy tangles of her reddish-black hair, capturing it in a ponytail. She started to turn away, but something caused her to turn back. She examined her own face with new eyes.

_:not val who?:_

"I'm Patricia," she said, unsure of who — or why — she was answering. _:aah...:_ The presence felt satisfied, slightly less panicked. She felt a sudden chill. "Marco?" A hopeful stirring response. "Marco, is that you?"

The door jamb splintered and broke, and the door's cheap veneer cracked into pieces. Valeria tumbled in afterwards, and at the sight of her, the presence inside Patricia leapt. Blood rushed to her head, and another wave of nausea hit her like a fist. She lunged for the toilet. She hadn't thrown up like this since.... Since those dark drunken nights after Joe had died.

Valeria knelt behind her, stroking her hair, rubbing her back. "Marco, it's OK," she said. "Calm down. Everything will be all right. Marco. Can you hear me?"

Patricia whimpered, not of her own will.

"You remember my sister Pati, right? You're with her. You'll be OK, we'll take good care of you. Don't worry about trying to tell me anything yet, we've got time, babe. Just be cool right now."

Patricia spat and wiped her mouth with a wad of toilet paper. "What time is it?"

"I already called the clinic and told them you're not coming in. I told them you've got that thing, that flu that's going around."

"...already short-staffed."

"The secretary, Cheryle or whoever, she talked my ear off about what a good woman you are, how dedicated you are even when on your death bed. She was very admiring." Valeria smoothed back Patricia's hair. "And she said to stay the hell away if you were sick."

The presence inside her soothed at Valeria's voice and touch, sat coiled and purring like a cat below her ribcage.

"I have paperwork here. Needs to go back."

"They're fine without you, Pati. You're in no condition to go to work."

"Then let me take a shower."

"Fine, but I'm staying in the bathroom. You don't get to be alone for a second until I'm sure everything's all right."

Patricia felt a chill, fragments of conversations over the years coming back to her. A disoriented ghost could kill its Host accidentally, Valeria had said once. It could come back malicious, or simply angry to have been brought back at all. Even the kindest ghost could panic and cause its Host damage in the early hours.

"What did you do?" Patricia asked, her disorientation shifting to anger.

"Exactly what I planned to do," Valeria snapped. "Until you broke the ritual."

"You were screaming! There were men with guns."

"You can't just step into a ritual like that and—"

"You told me—"

"—you don't know what you're messing with! You could have killed yourself—"

"Me? I did what you told me. There were men with _guns_ , Valeria! _Guns,_ shooting at us."

Valeria's jaw clenched. "You didn't have to come."

"And, what? Let you run out on us again?" A wave of dizziness washed over Patricia, as though the fight was agitating the alien presence inside her. She gripped the edge of the counter to keep from falling.

"Pati?" Valeria grabbed her arm, helped her stand. "You OK?" Marco surged at the touch. "I'm sorry, OK Pati? I'm really sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen."

Patricia watched the emotions play over her sister's face in the mirror. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, grief and exhaustion making her seem much older than 38. "How do you get him out of me?"

"Lucho's on his way."

"Valeria...."

"We'll get you taken care of. Both of you. Now take a shower — you'll feel normal again."

Valeria sat on the toilet and thumbed through a magazine to give Patricia a semblance of privacy while she undressed, but Patricia still turned her back. It had been too many years since she'd been naked in front of someone.

"Did Adrian come home last night? I can't remember anything after...."

"He was home already, and he and Ava both got off to school on time this morning. He ate like six scrambled eggs, Pati. Jesus. I can't even imagine what you paid for groceries when Gabe was still living at home."

"They killed a box of cereal in seven minutes flat one morning. I timed them. Did they win last night?"

"Yeah, 62 to 56."

"Good."

The water felt divine. Normally Patricia was wary of the energy bill, but this morning she lingered, letting the water flow over her. Deep within her chest, Marco began to quiver in the silence.

"Keep talking, Val. He likes it. It calms him down."

"Yeah? You can feel him?" Valeria's voice held anticipation, longing, hope. "Marco, can you hear me?"

The presence swirled, then settled once more. "He can hear you. But he, I don't know, he moves around when you talk to him directly. It's making me nauseous. But he's listening. Did Adrian tell you any more about the game?"

"Not really. He spent most of breakfast texting. Is he always that quiet in the morning?"

"He's never quiet when he could give you a play-by-play. Did Ava remember her science project?"

"She did. That girl goes overboard, doesn't she?"

Patricia laughed. "Every time."

She rinsed the last of the conditioner out of her hair, then reluctantly turned off the shower. She toweled off behind the curtain, then dressed discreetly in the bedroom, wary both of her sister's eyes, as well as the new strange male presence within her. "I'm watching you, Marco," she whispered when her sister was out of earshot. "Don't get any ideas."

Lucho would be here at ten, Valeria told her as she fixed cereal for them both. There was a note from Adrian stuck to the kitchen counter by a ring of milk. _Hey mom, try tomato juice + fried eggs people TELL ME it works, haha. Going to a movie w/ L on friday, home late tonight after practice DONT WORRY — A_

"Tomato juice?"

Valeria read the note and laughed. "I told him we'd been out dancing."

"You told him _what?_ "

"Relax, he's a grown kid, he can handle thinking his mom got a little drunk. You looked like you'd been hit by a truck full of tequila, so what, was I supposed to tell him you were out getting yourself possessed by ghosts?" Valeria sloshed a bowl of Wheetie-Ohs down in front of Patricia. "Who's L?"

"Lucy."

"Oh, yeah. Glad they're still together, she's a sharp kid."

"She's good for him, but she got into Texas State. Music scholarship. Adrian says they're going to make it work, but how many college freshmen do you know that can make it work with their high school boyfriends back home?" Patricia sighed. "You never want to see your kid go through his first heartbreak."

"First ever. Gabe still hasn't gotten himself a lady yet, has he?"

"Not that he'd tell me."

"He come home much?"

Patricia shook her head. "You'd think UW was on the other side of the country."

The cereal tasted like cardboard, and the coffee Valeria brewed up left an oily slick over her tongue. She pushed the food away.

"You have to eat, it's important. If you don't start feeling like yourself right away, the ghost can get too strong. The important thing is that you stay stronger than the ghost, or he can take over."

"Wow, thanks. That sounds great."

"Don't, Pati. I already feel like shit. Just eat."

Patricia took another bite of the cardboard cereal, washed it from her mouth with a swig of water. "How long?"

"Lucho should be here in a couple of minutes."

"I meant for the ghost. He'll get it out of me?"

Valeria cracked her knuckles. "It's not so easy, Pati."

"What's not so easy about it?"

"I'm going to let Lucho explain. He knows this stuff way better than I do."

"Obviously."

It was a testament to how badly Valeria felt that she didn't respond, and Patricia was torn between feeling guilty at her comment and being even more angry. She settled on self-righteous indignation and slurped at her coffee, burning her tongue.

A knock on the door finally saved them from the awkward silence. Lucho, smelling of stale cigarettes and wearing his standard pair of frayed gray sweatpants and a torn Nirvana T-shirt, his fingers stained black with...ink? A well-patched, neon pink Jansport bag was slung over his shoulder, probably left over from when his daughters were in high school. It reeked of the same herbs Valeria had carried the night before.

Patricia had seen some of the more famous Resurrectionists on television, but it was almost always the white hippy-types with their mystical tattoos and amulets for sale that made the big cases and advertised their services at exorbitant rates. There was a Jamaican man who also got some press — he looked the part, with his "yah, mons" and his dreadlocks plaited with bones.

Lucho looked like if you saw him on the street you'd turn away, expecting him to ask for a handout. He had to be well-off, though, with his constant stream of government contracts. Valeria said he had a nice house in West Seattle, and was putting both his daughters through private colleges.

That was part of being a Resurrectionist, Patricia guessed. The black Jamaican who practiced his accent, the white hippies who made shows of their stones and tattoos, the Tibetan shamans who pretended not to speak English, and the leathery Mexican _curandero_ who looked like he'd just walked in from the Sonora chewing on snakeskin.

It was all part of the show.

Lucho sat on a chair beside her and took her chin in his gnarled hand, looking deep into her eyes. "How you doing, Pati?"

"As well as could be expected."

"What I expect is to see you throwing up this cereal in a few minutes."

"I already did that."

"Ah. Good. Nena, _café_?"

Valeria set a mug on the table beside the old man. For his age, his hair was still a strong gray-black, his face leathery and wrinkled, but mostly from the sun. This close, Patricia was starting to wonder just how old he actually was. His facial muscles still seemed firm. Another illusion for the job, perhaps?

"Marco, _cabrón_ , you hear me in there?"

Patricia felt him stir. "He hears you."

"You can feel him already? Damn, these Ramos sisters are naturals."

"I'm not a natural."

Lucho ignored her and took a long drink of his coffee. "Has he tried to say anything?"

"Um." Patricia looked at her sister. "He's said your name a couple of times."

Valeria's face lit up. "Really?"

"Don't you start, Nena," Lucho said, sparing her a scowl. "Hey, Marco. You listen, OK? I don't want you to try to answer me right now, just listen. You're probably feeling pretty scared, and I don't blame you. But you're safe, we won't let anything happen to you. How this works is that I'll take you and Patricia through some exercises over the next few days, and pretty soon you'll be strong enough to speak. I'll tell you when that is, so don't worry about figuring it out. And don't worry about trying to tell us anything, there's plenty of time for that."

"Why did you both tell him not to try to speak?" Patricia asked.

Lucho released her chin. "The ghosts, when they come back they always have something they want to say. A few want to tell someone they loved them or something like that, but with most it's something really stupid, like 'the keys to the car are in my sock drawer,' or 'tell Amanda to register for next semester.'" He took another sip of coffee. "The ones we bring back for the courts were mostly murdered, or they have some big-ass secret and they want to tell us what's wrong. They can overdrive a Host's brain trying to talk."

That explained the rush of panicked obsession whenever Marco saw Valeria. "I think he was trying to tell you something at first, Val. He was pretty excited, and...." She touched her throat, trying to think of the words. "It was like my throat was working without me. Like he was trying to make me say something."

Lucho frowned. "Marco, _guey_. Don't try to control Pati, yeah? You need to calm down, and we'll get you out on your own. It's bad manners to try to control your Host. You'll be fine, everything's fine, you're safe."

Marco fluttered in her breast, then settled with a sense of melancholy. "I don't think he meant to," Patricia said. "He feels contrite."

"'Contrite,'" Lucho sat back, laughing. "I like you, _profe_. Now. You good for a minute? I need to yell at Nena for being an idiot. You just sit tight, then I'll come back and teach you some tricks on how to control that _pendejo_ boyfriend of your sister's."

Valeria cringed, but followed him meekly outside. Patricia almost felt bad for her.

Almost.

*

Patricia pushed away the bowl of soggy cereal, nausea winning out over hunger for the time being. She could hear Lucho outside, caught a faint whiff of Valeria's cigarette wafting through the open kitchen window.

She scraped out her bowl, then began to wash the dishes — tidying her anxiety along with the kitchen. Counters wiped, coffee mugs washed, and all the clean dishes set to dry in the dishwasher.

Valeria always made fun of her for that, but it saved space and it had been years since the dishwasher last ran. Maybe when Adrian graduated from high school she'd have a few extra dollars to fix it. Get him a good scholarship for basketball and money might not be quite so tight. If he could just finish out this season as strongly as he started, colleges would come calling.

Patricia had a litany of repairs to the house she planned to tackle after Adrian graduated — starting with the bathroom door Valeria broke this morning. She had no doubt Valeria would promise to pay for it, but Patricia wasn't going to hold her breath. At the very least maybe Valeria would drive her to the ReStore — Patricia couldn't imagine trying to get a door on the bus.

"So they didn't see you, eh?" she heard Lucho say, his raspy voice sharp with anger. "What's it matter if they saw you, Nena? Who else they gonna think did it?"

"Lucho, quiet!"

Patricia turned off the faucet.

"This is my livelihood you're fucking with," he growled, softer now. "Or you even think about that?"

"That's not—"

"You fix this. You lose me my best client, we're through."

"You can't do this without me."

"Val." The silence drew out, and Patricia busied herself with the dishes once more, afraid to be caught eavesdropping. She turned the faucet to a quiet trickle, and let a few forks clatter in the sink. "You fix this," Lucho said. "Or you're in way worse trouble than being out of a job. _No voy contigo_. This is your road."

Inside her, Marco lurched. Patricia gripped the edge of the sink, bile rising in her throat. "Calm down," she whispered. "You're making me sick." Marco settled, slightly, the sensation of his presence only a faint pressure below her ribcage.

The door banged open, and Patricia opened the faucet to full blast. "Pati! So sorry we left you so long." Lucho entered with a wide smile, a jovial _abuelito_ greeting his favorite daughter. Valeria slunk in after, reeking of cigarettes. "I was just telling your sister — ay, sit down, _profe_."

"I'm ok." Patricia straightened and wiped her hands on the dishtowel. "He just moved and startled me, but we're fine now. Aren't we, Marco." She could feel him, as sullen as Ava when she knew she was in the wrong. "You're worse than Ava in a fit," she told him, and felt his...embarrassment? "I'm fine. We're both...fine."

Could you say that a ghost was fine?

_:tell val...:_

"He just said: 'Tell Val.' He wants to say something," she said.

"Don't say anything," said Lucho. "Wait up, _guey_. We'll get to you."

"It seems important."

Lucho studied her a moment, and she saw a fleeting hint of concern on his face. "It always is. You can hear him?" Patricia nodded. "And you think you feel his emotions?"

"Sure — Marco, you with me?" He swirled, and Patricia's knees buckled. Lucho was at her side in a heartbeat, his strong arm around her waist.

"You're sitting now. Dishes can wait." He led her to a chair. "You can understand his words? Normally that takes a coupla days, even for a pro Host and a relatively sane ghost."

"Sane ghost?"

Lucho pursed his lips, a noncommittal gesture. "They go...stale. If they're left dead too long."

"How long is too long?"

"You're fine, _profe_. Marco's gonna be a good ghost, aren't you _cabrón_?"

_:take care:_

"He says he'll be careful." Patricia closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on what else he was saying. She caught the half-formed image of a milk carton. A faint tapping disturbed her, and she opened her eyes to see the cabinet where she kept the cereal rattling. She laughed. "And he thinks I should eat something, I guess. What?"

Lucho met Valeria's gaze above Patricia's head, his expression deadly serious a moment. Then he smiled. "Marco's right," he said. "You eat up, and then get some rest. I gotta go, but I'll be back tonight. Val can walk you through some of the exercises I taught her when she was first learning to host."

"I don't want to learn to host," Patricia said.

Lucho shrugged. "Too late for that," he said. He took her hand in his, his leathery skin as soft as a well-worn paper bag and just as brown. His nails were clean, the tips of his fingers bent at odd angles. Patricia wondered if they hurt him. He didn't move as though he was arthritic.

"OK, _profe_. We gotta teach you some things so you can keep this sonovabitch in line. Marco, _escúchame_." He wrinkled his nose. " _Habla español_?" he asked Valeria.

"Nope."

"What kind of man you with, anyway?"

"Italian."

Lucho sucked at his teeth. "So, Marco Polo, listen up. It's gonna feel weird, someone having this type of control over you, but don't you worry. It's just for now, just cuz you're weak. But you're gonna get back to your full strength soon, you'll be with your chica, things'll be just fine. But you gotta cooperate, cuz if you don't, things'll go bad for Pati here. _Capisce_? And if things goes bad for Pati, things goes bad for you." This last part came out in his best Marlon Brando.

Patricia stiffened. "How might things go bad?"

"It's, uh.... Don't worry, kiddo. We'll be fine, huh? It's like those Cialis commercials, 'May cause vomiting,' you know. You had kids, so think of it that way — it's like being pregnant, you got all these hormones and morning sickness and weird cravings, but it's all smashed into two weeks instead of nine months. Right, Nena?" He didn't look at Valeria for confirmation. "And now I go. You girls play nice today, and I'll be back tonight. I don't wanna hear about no fights, I get enough referee time when my own girls are home." He patted Patricia's cheek, then he was out the door, pink Jansport bag slung over his shoulder.

Patricia stared at her hands. Valeria slouched against the fridge. _If you can't say anything nice...._ thought Patricia, wracking her brain for conversation.

Not that she had any shortage of things to ask: _What did Lucho mean, "you'll be in worse trouble than being out of a job?" Why the hell were men shooting at us last night? Where do you think you get off playing with life and death?_ ****

She kept her mouth shut. She didn't want Valeria barging out the front door just yet.

Dealing with Valeria was always such delicate business. Like she was a wounded mountain lion that might take your hand off, or a grenade that may or may not be live, or a volcano that could erupt without notice. Had she been this volatile with Marco, too? _How on earth did you deal with her?_

As if in response, Patricia felt Marco stir, stretching towards Valeria with longing. Valeria looked up suddenly, blinking.

"Lucho wants me to teach you some tricks to keep Marco under control," she said. "It's pretty simple stuff. Are you tired? Or do you want to do this now?"

Patricia sighed. "Let's do this."

They spent the rest of the morning going over proper hosting techniques. After the arcane incantations of the night before, Patricia was surprised to find today's exercises achingly mundane. Valeria led her through some simple meditations, and then combed through Patricia's possessions for a talisman. To help ground her, she said.

Valeria brought an armload out to the coffee table: Patricia's favorite scarf; a drawing Ava had made her; their grandmother's opal ring, brought out without comment. Patricia's job was to concentrate on each, and tell Valeria when she felt the most "herself." Patricia felt like an idiot.

"This is my talisman," Valeria said, holding out her hand. On her wrist was a fraying black leather bracelet, the thongs knotted through a metal chain.

"You've had that since we were kids," Patricia said.

"That's why it works. It makes me feel like me." She stood. "None of these work. What happened to that Van Halen shirt you wore to death when we were in high school?"

"Seriously, Val?" Patricia leaned back against the couch, wracking her brain for something that made her feel "like herself." She considered the paraphernalia of motherhood, of housework, of her job. But did those things make her feel like herself? Why couldn't she answer such a simple question? "My Bible?" she asked.

Valeria shook her head. "Nothing spiritual, there's too much openness to God and the world and all that. Too ungrounding."

"'Ungrounding' is a word?"

"You know what I mean. You want something that closes you off. That makes you feel like yourself."

"Val, I have no idea what you mean."

Valeria was prowling the small living room, examining the family vacation photos and knickknacks. The room had always seemed dark to Patricia, despite the bright curtains she hung and Gabe's colorful paintings on the walls. "What are you—"

"What's this rock?" Valeria cut her off. "Why is it here?"

Patricia craned her neck to see Valeria holding an agate from the kitchen windowsill. "It's just an agate, Val. From Cannon Beach, I think."

"Catch," Valeria said, flipping the rock to her.

It was nothing special, just a mottled brown agate flecked with amber. She'd found it on their last trip to the Oregon coast as a family before Gabe left for college.

They'd gone in spring, when the hotels were cheap and the ocean was frigid. Ava and Adrian wanted to swim in the pool, and so Patricia had left Gabe to watch them and spent a precious afternoon by herself. She'd hunted through tide pools and ran barefoot in the sand. She'd let the surf break over her feet until her toes went numb, then stopped at a little beachfront restaurant to indulge in a glass of wine and a cup of clam chowder. She'd pocketed the Oyster crackers to take back for Ava.

And she'd found this agate, directly across from Haystack Rock. Nothing special, nothing shiny, but it was like a gift from the ocean she'd spent the day frolicking with. She'd felt electric, thrumming with the energy of the crashing waves, and the possibilities of the future. She felt like herself.

"That's perfect," Valeria said when she told her the story. "Totally perfect."

Patricia turned the agate over in her hand, watching the little glimmers of amber catch the light.

"Val? What did Lucho mean about ghosts going stale?"

"Don't worry about it. He's talking about ghosts that have been dead for years, but never really left our realm. Like a murder victim's ghost that's been wandering untethered for years — you can't try to host them, because they can drive a Host crazy."

"Untethered?"

"Like Marco's tethered to you right now. Ghosts have to be tethered to a Host in order to stay stable in this realm, otherwise it's like they get ripped apart. They want to stay here, but they have nothing to hold onto. They start to break up."

"So Marco can't exist outside of me."

Valeria took a deep breath. "No."

"When it's time for him to go, we send him back?"

"Or transfer him to a new Host."

"Have you done that before?" The way Valeria paused told Patricia everything she needed to know. "Val...."

"We'll figure this out. Don't worry."

"This is crazy." But Patricia said it without rancor, and Valeria simply looked tired, not angry. Patricia bit her lip. They'd made it this long without an argument. She decided to press her luck. "Who were those men last night? The ones with the guns."

Valeria straightened. "Just some guys Lucho and I work with on occasion," she said. One index finger scraped across the cuticle of her thumb.

"Do all your clients shoot at you?"

"No, these guys are — well, they're not nice guys. The resurrections we do for them aren't always legal."

Shocker. "So, what, they're into drugs? Murders?" Patricia kept her voice friendly. _Wounded mountain lion, live grenade, erupting volcano._ She tried to stay calm. What kind of guys with guns needed a Ressurectionist on call?

"I don't know what they're into, just that sometimes they call us."

"And they want Marco." Marco swirled, agitated. "So, what, you're working for a band of wannabe Los Ciegos or something?" At the look on Valeria's face, Patricia felt cold. "Val. Tell me you're not working for Los Ciegos."

"I'm working for Lucho."

_What kind of danger am I in?_ _What kind of danger are my children in?_ "Val...."

"How do you even know who Los Ciegos are?"

"Because I have teenage sons," Patricia snapped. "Who have stupid teenage boy friends who do stupid teenage boy things like join gangs and get killed. But you—"

"It's not like that. They hired Lucho once" — once? As though Patricia believed that — "and we did a job, no questions asked."

"And they want Marco why?"

"He did some work for them, too. Just some cars. Nothing illegal, he wouldn't have gotten mixed up in that. But he learned something they want to know."

Patricia raised an eyebrow. "About their engines? You brought Marco back from the dead to tell them they need to replace their carburetor?" Tears welled up in Valeria's eyes, but Patricia was too angry to care. "What kind of danger have you put my family in?"

"Nothing, none," said Valeria. "We'll get it worked out, I've called them already. I just wanted to make sure Marco wouldn't be hurt — I just, I just needed him." The tears began to spill over, now, and Patricia's compassion broke through her anger. She reached out to touch her sister's thigh. She could feel Marco inside her, aching.

"You should be smarter than this, Valeria," Patricia said.

Valeria slapped her hand away. "Well, I'm not. We can't all be perfect, with our perfect little lives and perfect little kids."

"I'm not perfect, but at least I don't get involved with gangs!"

"You have no idea. You don't know what my life is, but you think you can just tell me—"

"Were you in trouble, Val? Because you've got a family who can help you if you need it, you can—"

"I'm not in a fucking gang, Pati. Calm the fuck down." Valeria pushed herself to her feet.

Patricia tried to follow, but a wave of nausea forced her back onto the couch. "You're getting shot at by gang members," she said.

"That's not the same thing."

"No one I know gets shot at by gang members."

"Maybe you should expand your social circle beyond your church friends!" Valeria was shouting now.

"I don't think I'm the one with the problem."

"No, you never do. And that's your problem."

"I'm not getting shot at!"

"Of course not, Miss high-and-mighty Queen Bitch with the perfect life."

"Valeria!" But she was gone, slamming the front door behind her.

Marco swirled, desperate to follow, and Patricia could feel waves of energy emanating off his presence. The door rattled on its hinges, and a dining chair flung itself toward it, slamming against the wall in a sickening, splintering crash.

Patricia gripped the agate as hard as she could, her fingernails digging into the palm of her hands. "Don't you start," she muttered. "Don't you dare, Marco." And in response she felt a roiling stew of exhausted sadness, regret, and apology. She collapsed on the couch, clutching the agate, uncertain which emotions were hers, and which came from the alien presence drifting within her.

*

Patricia tried to keep busy at first, but she felt terrible, sluggish, like she was wading through molasses. Like she was hung over. She took a look at the broken chair — the leg was shattered. She grabbed the duct tape.

A broken chair, a broken door.

Patricia ran a tight ship — she had to with three kids and a receptionist's salary. She'd lived a good life, she worked hard to provide for her kids and keep a roof over their heads, to give them furniture to sit on and doors to close, and Valeria came in and destroyed it all. Every time.

She was no stranger to life's curveballs. She'd seen how hard her parents worked after they left Nicaragua — her proud mother bagging groceries when her philosopher father couldn't get a position at a U.S. university.

Patricia had worked hard, too, worked herself through college, finished her degree even after marrying Joe and becoming pregnant with Gabe, and she'd gone back to work again as soon as Adrian was old enough for preschool. She'd scrimped to save enough money not only for her children's education, but even to go back to school herself, to start the Master's in anthropology she needed to work in the field she'd gotten her BA in.

You could plan as much as you wanted to in life, but in the end you had to work with the curveballs. One month into her new Master's program, she and Joe both got surprises. She had an Ava-bean growing in her belly. Joe had cancer growing in his.

She'd quit her program and gone to work for a friend who needed a receptionist at his clinic. Joe had held on until the week before Ava's third birthday.

Patricia finally lay down on the couch, her anxious sense of industry defeated by her body's insistence on rest. Her eyes wouldn't focus enough to read, so she flipped on the TV and scanned randomly through channels, finally dozing off to the horrors of daytime television, waking only to hunger and the rattling of her kitchen cabinets.

"Yes, thank you," she said to Marco. "I'll eat something. You're not going to fix it for me, too?"

_:wish go eat:_

"I know." She pushed herself to her feet. "No one ever told me ghosts could be so bossy." She scoured her cabinets for something that didn't require much preparation, finally settling on a can of chicken noodle soup.

Lucho knocked on the door as she was finishing the soup. "Where's Valeria?" he said, glancing at the broken chair.

"I pissed her off. She stormed out."

"She break the chair?"

"Marco did."

"Wha— Marco?"

Patricia shrugged. "I guess. I didn't know ghosts could throw things around so much."

"Oh, yeah." Lucho rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the chair. "Don't worry about it. But Marco, _guey_ , you stop that, you got it? And Pati, you listen to me, too. I don't know what the problem is with you two, but you need each other right now. I'll talk to Valeria. She shouldn't have left you alone right now. You feeling OK?"

"Kind of tired." She touched the back of the chair, wary now. "He shouldn't be able to move things, should he?"

"Some ghosts are a bit more physical than others."

"I've never heard that."

Lucho patted her cheek with a leathery hand. "You know the courts always sequester the Hosts. They don't tell people everything that goes on. So you don't worry yourself about it, OK, _profe_? I still need to run a coupla errands, but you call me the second something seems weird. I'll be here in a heartbeat."

"What would seem weird?"

He shrugged. "Oh, feelings, like that aren't your own. You know, sadness or you wanting to go somewhere you wouldn't normally go. Anger towards your kids for no reason."

Patricia's jaw clenched. "My kids?"

"It can be hard for ghosts to recognize people. Hardly ever a problem, though. Don't worry about anything, I'll get Valeria back here with you before the kids come home. What's your number?" She told him, and he punched it into his iPhone. "OK, I'm calling you, so you got mine now. You call me you need anything at all. Even if you just have a question."

"Wait," she said, and he paused in the doorway. "I do have a question. This morning you said you needed to do some research. Why? I thought you'd done a lot of these."

Lucho flashed her a grin. "Nothing to worry, _profe_. It's just been a while since I trained a new Host. I want to make sure no details have gone rattling off in this old brain." His expression turned serious. "And Marco, you don't know how strong you are, _guey_. Don't break anything else, you hear me?"

"Sorry, Lucho," Patricia said without thinking. "I didn't mean it."

Lucho paused, his hand on the doorknob, a steely look in his eye. "I'll get Valeria right here," was all he said. "You two just sit tight."

*

But Valeria never came. Patricia texted her twice, called Lucho, and got nothing but silence on either end.

Ava breezed through the door in time for dinner, chirping with excitement about how well her Mars rover project had gone over. "Ms. Stucke wants me to put it in the elementary school fair at the Museum of Flight, here, she gave me a poster for it. See?"

Ava carefully unfolded the flier out on the dining room table, smoothing it flat. "Sweetheart, that's fantastic!" Patricia reached out to tuck her daughter's hair behind her ear, and felt a stirring within. She remembered Lucho's worry about her kids, and snatched her hand back.

Marco was distraught at Ava's presence, she could feel that clearly. He radiated emotion, and after a moment of fear Patricia recognized it as a variant of the overpowering sadness that she sometimes felt herself. That jealous, crushing love mixed with a despair that this tender moment would someday cease, that Ava would someday grow up. That longing to enfold her in the most fierce of hugs forever and never let her go.

Marco slumped within her. She could feel his despair. _:tell tio marco misses:_ Tears sprang to Patricia's eyes. "How?" she asked, saying it out loud before she realized. How on earth could she tell Ava that she was getting messages from her dead uncle?

"What, mom?"

"How did your teacher like the story you wrote?"

While Ava told her, Patricia pulled herself together enough to make dinner. Fish sticks in the microwave and cut up vegetables with ranch was about all she could manage, and she promised herself she'd do something a bit more gourmet when this was all over. Ava picked out the bits of cauliflower, crunching into them with relish as she talked.

Patricia's phone rang while she was clearing her plate. Patricia snatched it up, hoping for Valeria or Lucho. She didn't recognize the number. "Hello?"

"Hi, Patricia? This is Toby Ng. Adrian's coach?"

"Oh, hey, Toby."

"Is Adrian there? I'd like to talk to him."

Patricia glanced at the stove clock. 5:48. "It normally takes him longer to get home from practice."

"He wasn't at practice today. One of the other kids said he wasn't feeling good, so he went home."

"What?"

"That's what I need to talk to him about. I made an exception for him to play yesterday, but I told him that if he missed any more practices I'd have to bench him for the next game."

_Bench?_ "What?"

There was a pause, then Toby sighed. "He's not at home, is he, Pati?"

"No." Patricia glanced at Ava, who quickly looked back at her food. "How many has he missed?"

"This makes five in the last three weeks. Pati, I've been worried about Adrian. This is probably none of my business, but is everything all right with you guys?"

"We had a death in the family," she said, but that was two weeks ago, not three. "His uncle."

"Your sister's, ah...."

"My sister's boyfriend."

"I'm so sorry to hear that." On the other end of the line, Toby Ng cleared his throat. "I'm really sorry, Pati. How are you doing?"

"Things have been...tough around here."

"Would you maybe have some time to come by and chat this week? In the, in my office?"

"I can come in tomorrow," she said. She'd might as well. There was no way she was going to work tomorrow if she still felt like this.

"Oh, great. I've got a free period at 1:30."

"That sounds fine."

"And Pati, I'm so sorry to hear about.... I know Adrian was really fond of his uncle."

Marco pulsed briefly in her chest. "Thanks," was all Patricia could manage to say. She breathed deep, unsure how much of the ache inside was hers, and how much was Marco's. "Thanks for calling, Toby. I'll see you tomorrow."

She hung up the phone, and Ava ducked her head as though suddenly very interested in her dinner. "Ava? Your brother has been missing practices." Ava shrugged one shoulder. "Did you know this?"

"No."

"Ava."

Ava broke up a fish stick with her fork, smashing the tines into the meat. "Yes," she said finally. The fork clattered as she dropped it on her plate, scattering shards of fish stick onto the table. "But I only knew once, and he said you knew and not to say anything."

"Why would he have told you not to say anything if I knew?"

Ava glared, ignoring the question. "He said it was all right."

"Where was he going?"

A shrug.

"Is there anything else I should know?"

A shake of the head.

Patricia sighed, and finished cleaning up dinner. She dialed Adrian's cell, but got no answer. She called three more times, letting it go to voice mail each time, then collapsed on the couch beside Ava. Her phone buzzed, and she glanced at the screen.

Adrian. A text. _Home late._

She tried calling Valeria again after Ava went to bed, four, five, six rings, and she dropped the phone to her lap, listening to the faraway trill. Maybe it was ringing somewhere in an alley, and some passerby would hear it and find her sister's unconscious body and take her to the hospital and save her life.

This wasn't the first time Patricia had had this conversation with herself.

She tried to quell the anxiety rising within her, and was keenly aware that not all of it was hers. "Marco? How are you doing?"

_:worry:_

"Me, too. This is all so unreal."

The phone call disconnected, and Patricia dialed once more and let it ring — for good measure. In case the Good Samaritan was still searching that dark alley for Valeria's body.

"What does Valeria normally do when she's hosting?" She felt a mental shrug from Marco. "Right, so she'd be sequestered for all the court cases, but what about the ones she and Lucho do on the side?" The illegal ones. Like this one.

_:take her:_

"Take her what? Or like they would take her somewhere?" He seemed to agree with her. "Where?"

_:gone plane maybe:_

"On a plane?"

_:come back tan:_

"Tan? Marco, that girl could go get groceries at midnight and come back tanned." Patricia, on the other hand, had gotten their father's fair skin and susceptibility to sunburn. "So you've never seen her while she's hosting." He swirled in agreement. "You're no help, Marco. I figured when you die at least you get to be mystic and wise."

_:nope:_

A key turned quietly in the front door. Patricia glanced at her cell phone. 10:30.

"Where have you been?" she asked as Adrian pushed open the door.

He yelped. "Shit, mom."

"Adrian Peter Waites."

"Sorry. You scared me."

Her phone buzzed in her hand and she glanced at it. A text from Valeria. She dropped the phone onto the couch.

"And you scared me. Where have you been?" She searched her son's face. He was the spitting image of Joe: sharp cheekbones and a quirky, puckish smile, but with Patricia's brown eyes and thick, dark hair.

"Practice went late," Adrian said. "Then I drove a couple of the guys home. I left you a note."

"Coach Ng called, Adrian. You weren't at practice. He says he's benching you next game."

Adrian shrugged. "OK," he said after a minute.

"Just OK?" Patricia stood, drawing herself up to match Adrian's height as much as possible. He'd gotten his lanky form from his father, too. "You're lying to me, you're lying to Coach Ng, you're jeopardizing your chances at a scholarship, and you say OK?"

"It's not a big deal."

"Then where were you?"

"I was out."

"Out where?"

He shouldered past and she caught his arm, yanking him back so hard he stumbled.

Patricia let go, heart pounding at her sudden strength. "Adrian—"

"Just out, mom," he said, rubbing his arm. "Leave it alone." The door to his room slammed behind him.

_Adrenaline_ , Patricia thought, staring at her hand. It made you stronger sometimes, right? Well, she was definitely running on pure adrenaline by this point.

Patricia rubbed her eyes, exhausted. Her track record was two for two today — she'd chased out Valeria, she'd alienated Adrian, and all because she dared to care what they were doing with their lives.

Heaven forbid family should care.

She thumbed her phone on to read Valeria's message. _Something came up. Be by tomorrow._

Patricia dropped the phone back on the couch. Damned if she was going to wait by it for anyone else tonight.

She paused in front of Adrian's door and whispered his name. It was silent inside, but she doubted he was asleep. "Adrian?" she said again, louder this time. "I'm sorry." There was no answer.

Patricia sighed, then locked herself in her own bedroom. As an afterthought, she pushed her dresser in front of the door. Marco felt...offended. "I'm sorry, Marco," she said. "I just don't know what could happen."

_:wont hurt:_

"I don't know that, Marco."

_:good mom:_

Patricia collapsed into bed, tears pricking at her eyes. "I don't know about that, either," she whispered.

*

The night was long.

During the day, numbed by the whine of the television and worry for the kids she had mostly felt alone; now, Patricia could sense _him_ laying still at the edge of her mind.

It was as though she'd come home to find a stranger's child, one who couldn't speak her language, and was too young to communicate. Marco felt a little feral, a little scared, able to make his needs known only though half-gestures that she had to guess at.

She couldn't wait for this to be over, for him to be gone — but what exactly did that mean? If he couldn't transfer to a new Host, it meant she was his last chance to be on earth before returning....

To Heaven, she supposed. Had to suppose.

She felt a pang of grief at the thought of losing him once more — but then, he was dead. He had died. They'd buried him. They'd mourned.

He was dead.

She could feel him at the edge of her mind, but he was still now, very still. She could sense the effort he made to be quiet and let her rest, as though he was aware of his intrusion and trying to make himself as small as possible.

Patricia was too tired to try to reassure him, and then, embarrassed, she wondered how many of her thoughts he could read. All of them? Could he understand what she was thinking about him right now?

And as exhausted as she was, she roused herself mentally like a good hostess, and went to greet her guest.

"Marco?" she whispered. His presence shifted, uncoiled. "Where are you?" Her toes tingled, her fingertips, her scalp. _:...you:_

Was that an echo, or an answer? "Are you all right?" In response she felt a deep sadness. "I'm sorry, Marco. About everything."

_:sleep:_

"Yes. OK." And they did.

*

Patricia called in sick again the next morning, promising that it was just a 24-hour bug, and that she'd be fine the next day. With a strange delight at the unexpected day off, she pulled out the waffle iron. Ava was thrilled, but Patricia had planned it mostly as a lure for Adrian. He was prone to slipping out without breakfast if he didn't feel like talking.

A knock on the door pulled her away from the waffle iron before he appeared. She opened it to find a white man about her age, wearing a dress shirt and slacks under a green soft shell rain jacket. The morning's faint mist was beading on his shoulders.

"Hello?" Patricia held the door firmly in her hand. The chain beside the door rattled — a message from Marco, maybe, meant to comfort? Or warn?

The man glanced past her into the house, a quick, professional glance that took in everything and filed it carefully away. "Ms. Ramos-Waites?"

"Yes?"

"Sorry to disturb you at breakfast. I'm Dave Bayer, I'm a detective with the Seattle Police Department." He drew a badge out of his jacket pocket, held it out so she could examine it. "I had a couple of questions. About Marco Caruso. Can I come in a minute?"

Ice flushed through her blood, and her heart began to race. _Stop it_ , she thought, though she wasn't sure if the fear was hers, or Marco's. "My kids...."

"I'll just need a minute of your time, ma'am. We've opened an investigation on the accident, and I just want to ask you a few questions. It's routine."

Relief followed so quickly on the heels of fear that she stood for a moment in silence, blinking at him. She could feel Marco tugging at her. _:invest?:_ "What do you mean you're opening an investigation? It was a car accident."

Bayer took a deep breath. "We have reason to believe the car may have been tampered with."

A surge from Marco, and Patricia caught herself, dizzy, against the door frame.

"Are you all right, ma'am? You look white as a ghost."

"It's been a terrible few weeks."

"I understand. I apologize for catching you off guard like this — but I do only need a moment of your time."

"Of course, please, come in." Bayer's gaze swept her home again as he entered, and Patricia imagined how he saw it: clean-but-faded upholstery, the dining chair with its newly duct taped leg, the cracked kitchen window. "Let me get you some coffee," she said, unplugging the waffle maker. "How do you take it? Ava, go get ready for school."

"With milk, if you have it," said Bayer. "Hi, Ava, I'm Detective Bayer." Ava looked him up and down, and Patricia could see the same calculation in her daughter's eyes as in the detective's.

"Can I see your badge?" Ava asked.

"Ava!"

Bayer smiled. "It's fine, ma'am." He handed Ava his badge and she examined it thoroughly, turning it over in her hands. Finally she handed it back and gave him an arch nod of approval. "That's cool," she said.

"Ava. Get ready for school." Patricia cleared away Ava's plate to set a coffee mug on the table for Bayer, then sat down with one herself. "Now. How can I help you?"

"I've tried to get ahold of your sister, Valeria, but she's tough to find."

_You can say that again._ "She's been grieving," Patricia said. "But I can have her give you a call when I see her."

Bayer nodded. "I'll leave you my card. Ms. Ramos-Waites, to your knowledge, was Marco Caruso involved in anything?"

"Involved?"

"With anything illegal."

Marco swirled inside her, agitated. She looked away, fighting nausea. "He's a good man — he _was_ a good man, I suppose. Everyone loved him."

"Did he have any enemies?"

"A man like Marco? I can't imagine why anyone would hate him. He was the sweetest man, he loved my sister, and my parents loved him. He was great with the kids. Why are you asking?"

"We're just investigating the accident, is all."

A door opened in the hallway, and both she and Bayer looked up to see Adrian stalk into the room, his jacket and shoes already on. "Adrian, this is Detective Bayer. Detective, this is my son Adrian. Honey, eat some breakfast. We'll talk when I'm done here."

"Hey," he said absently to Bayer. "I'm late for school, mom," he said to Patricia, grabbing a banana and leaning to kiss her obediently. The front door clicked shut behind him. Bayer watched him go, and Patricia wondered what information he filed away: young Latino male, red jacket, 5'9", hair close cut and spiked, athletic, poor neighborhood, single parent family.

"Why are you investigating the accident?" she asked, uncomfortable, trying to draw the detective's attention away from her son.

"This is all still preliminary, but we found evidence that his car had been tampered with," said Bayer.

Marco surged with fury. "I was murdered?" And at the detective's expression, Patricia wrested back control. "You think he was murdered?" she said.

Bayer shook his head. "No one's saying that right now. There's just a problem with the car that seems strange for someone who was a mechanic."

"He loved that car," she said. "He worked on it constantly."

"That's what I understand." Bayer finished his coffee and set the mug down. He handed Patricia a card. "Please do tell your sister I'd like to talk to her, and feel free to call me if you think of anything. I'm sure you'd all just like to wrap this up so you can move on."

_You have no idea_ , thought Patricia. _No idea at all._

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*

Marco didn't like her being in public, Patricia could feel that by the way he paced like a caged tiger. His presence surrounded her like the day's fine mist, and she was paranoid that everyone on the bus could feel it, too.

It wasn't very far to Highline High School, but the bus was hitting every stop, and Patricia realized with a sinking feeling that she was going to be late for her meeting with Toby Ng. Marco stirred within her, as if sensing her discomfort. A cool finger brushed her cheek. _:fine:_ "Thank you," she whispered.

She was beginning to understand what Lucho had said about a ghost gaining power. As the morning wore on, she was beginning to have thoughts that were decidedly not hers — vague impressions about places, and memories she shouldn't have. She'd feel an odd deja vu while walking through her own home, and, once, an uncomfortable thought with regard to her sister crossed her mind. "I don't need to know any of that," she'd snapped at Marco, and he'd recoiled, embarrassed.

Adrian's high school was a stately building of red bricks and clean lines, set back from the street by a sodden expanse of lawn. Patricia signed in at the office, let the security guard shine his flashlight in her purse, and then was escorted down the hallway. Toby's office was close to the locker rooms, and the faint scent of pine disinfectant and sweat wafted out into the hallway. The door was open.

Her phone buzzed. Valeria: _Where are you._

_Highline HS. Meeting._

_Pick you up right now._

Seriously? Patricia sighed. _Be done at 2:30._

She knocked on the door frame, and Toby Ng waved her in. He was shorter than most of the kids he coached, but he was slender and well-built, and Adrian boasted he had better ball handling skills than the entire varsity team combined. He'd coached Gabe, too — although to a lesser degree of success, given her eldest son's middling interest in athletics.

Today Toby wore a tweed sports coat over gray sweats and a purple Highline Pirates T-shirt. He pushed aside paperwork and stood to greet her with a warm handshake.

"I'm sorry I'm so late," Patricia said. "The bus...."

"I know how that goes, no worries." He waved her into a chair, then gestured at his outfit ruefully. "Sorry about the sweats — I've got practice after this."

"And you always wear a sports coat to practice?"

Toby laughed, scratching at his temple. "It's, ah, just for receiving visitors." During the heat of a basketball game his expression was always one of pure business; on the rare occasions he smiled, it lit up his entire face. Today that smile was all for her.

Inside her, Marco squirmed, combative. _Simmer down, boy,_ she thought.

"I'm glad you called me last night," she said. "How long has Adrian been missing practices?"

Toby's smile faded. "About three weeks. I know kids are kids, and Adrian's not the first of my starters to test the limits. They usually come bouncing back, but Adrian seems a bit...preoccupied. I'm so sorry to hear about his uncle."

"Thanks. I know this has been hard on Adrian." She took a deep breath. "But you said it's been three weeks. So he was missing practices since before Marco's accident. Is something going on with Lucy, maybe? You know boys, he wouldn't tell his mother anything like that."

"Pati, I gotta say I'm a bit worried about some of the kids Adrian's been hanging out with lately." Toby held up his hands. "Nothing terrible, but you know. Some of the kids that sneak beers and smoke pot. Stuff like that."

"Adrian?" No. _What do you know about this?_ she thought, and felt Marco give her a mental shrug. "Have you talked to him about it?"

"I wanted to talk to you first. Has anything seemed off with him lately?"

"I can barely remember the last few weeks. With work, and Marco...." And Marco again.

Adrian was always gone — at practice, or at a friend's house, or with Lucy. Or with the church group that he and Lucy both belonged to — but they weren't those sorts of kids, were they?

Oh, Lord. Was she raising one of those boys that she read about in the newspaper and clucked her tongue at, thinking, "Where was his mother?"

Toby must have seen it in her face. He leaned across the desk and took her hand, only for a second, but his fingers were warm and strong. Comforting. "I'm sorry, Pati, I didn't want to upset you. I shouldn't have said anything like that, not without any proof."

"It's fine, it's just—" Marco lurched, swirling wildly. _Stop it_ , she thought, but he didn't seem to hear her. She felt a pressure like a hand on her arm, pulling her toward the door. _:valvalval:_ She held firm and he tugged at her, nearly toppling her from the chair. Nausea threatened to overwhelm her again. "Excuse me," she said to Toby. "I haven't felt well today. The ladies' room?"

He pointed her out the hallway, and she barely made it into one of the stalls before being sick. "You're worse than being pregnant," she snapped.

_:val trouble:_

"Val trouble is the story of my life," she said. She wiped her mouth. She hoped the wan cast to her skin was just the bathroom's fluorescent lighting, but she was beyond caring now. Toby was wearing sweatpants, after all.

Patricia made her way back to the office, but at the doorway Marco surged within her, angry. His presence was like a wall, barring her way. "This is not the time, young man," Patricia whispered in her best mom voice. She clutched the agate in her pocket; it was warm and solid. Grounding. She felt the wall waver. "Acting up isn't helping either of us."

Marco slumped in her chest, throbbing sullenly. The wall disappeared. The agate pulsed.

_:val trouble:_

"I know," whispered Patricia. "We'll be right there."

Toby glanced past her as she stepped back in, as though looking to see who she'd been talking to. "I'm sorry," she said. "I really haven't been feeling well today."

"Do you want — I've got some Emergen-C in my drawer, I think. Do you want some water?"

"I'll be fine, thanks."

Toby nodded, but he didn't look convinced. She must look worse than she thought. "Do you need a ride?"

"My sister's picking me up, thanks."

"OK, well...." He reached out to shake her hand, and she held it maybe a fraction of a second too long. "I'll talk to Adrian, Pati. He's a good kid." He smiled. "And, hey?"

"Yes?"

"I — it'll be all right, don't worry, OK? Adrian's gonna be fine."

But with Marco's panic rising by the second, not being worried was the farthest thing from Patricia's mind.

*

Marco pulled her through the school parking lot as though drawn by a magnet — straight toward Valeria, who waited by her ancient silver Subaru wagon, smoking furiously. "Val? Is everything OK?"

Valeria took one last drag, then flicked the cigarette into a puddle. "I'm fine. Let's go." She moved piles of old mail off the passenger seat, and threw fast-food wrappers into the back. Her hand shook as she tried to get her keys into the ignition, and Marco surged, then checked himself, circling inside Patricia like a dog before settling, pulsing with frustrated concern toward Valeria. _:hurt?:_

"Marco wants to know if you're hurt," Patricia said, and Valeria looked up in surprise.

"You really can understand him? Normally it takes at least a week before the ghost can communicate with its Host."

Patricia shrugged. "He can still only give me a few words, but he's more coherent than he was last night. He's very concerned about you. He was restless in Toby's office, he even got physical." She settled back against the seat, closing her eyes. "He tugged me almost out of a chair, and then barred the door so I couldn't go back in."

"Shit, Pati. You serious?"

Patricia opened her eyes to find Valeria staring at her. "Yeah. What is it?"

"We need to see Lucho. I mean, I saw him rattle that cupboard, but that's the most physical I've seen a tethered ghost get. He shouldn't be able to manifest at all."

Patricia felt a chill. "He broke a chair last night."

"What?!"

"Lucho said sometimes ghosts can do that. We just don't hear about them because the Hosts are sequestered."

Valeria jammed the shifter into reverse. "He would know more about that, I guess." But she didn't sound convinced. She turned her head to check behind them, and Patricia caught a glimpse of an angry row of red half-moon marks marring the back of her neck.

"What happened to your neck?" Patricia asked, and Valeria's hand flew to cover the marks.

"Nothing," she said too quickly.

"Valeria Ramos Marquez, why are you lying to me? Those are fingernail marks. Was someone choking you?"

"It's nothing, OK? I ran into an old boyfriend when you were inside, he works as a security guard here now. He was pissed, that's all."

Marco seethed, and Patricia felt his presence as a hand on her wrist, fingers gripping hard. "Let me go," she whispered, and he did.

Valeria glanced at her. "What was that?"

"Marco's upset."

"I'm fine, Marco. Stay cool, all right?"

But as they drove from the school, Valeria's attention scarcely left her rear view mirror. "Red light," Patricia said, and Valeria slammed on the brakes barely in time. Patricia craned around in her seat to see what had captured Valeria's attention. "Val, are you in trouble?"

"I'm fine, OK? Just stay out of my business."

"You made this my business, too." Marco swirled inside her, anxious. "Stop it, Marco," she snapped, irritable. "You're giving me a headache. Green light."

"I see it." The silver Subaru lurched forward. Valeria was silent a moment, focused on weaving through the sparse northbound traffic on 1st Avenue. Patricia kept an eye on the side view mirror. She didn't have much of a view, but she had enough to see the red F250 keeping up with their lane changes.

"How are you doing with this?" Valeria said after a moment.

"Don't worry. I won't throw up in your car."

"That's not what I'm worried about. Hosting is dangerous, Pati. You shouldn't have gotten involved."

"You're the one who asked me come out with you."

"Stop it, Pati. I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm trying to apologize."

"For getting me possessed?"

"You got your own damn self possessed."

"You looked like you were _dying_ , Val. I thought I was doing the right thing."

"That's what I'm trying to say, dammit. That you didn't know what you were doing, and I shouldn't have gotten you involved."

"So if I hadn't been so ignorant—"

"GodDAMMIT, Pati." Valeria slammed her palms against the steering wheel. "I'm sorry, OK? You've got your world, I've got mine, and now I've dragged you way over your head into some shit no one should be involved in in the first place."

Inside her chest, Marco swirled uncomfortably.

"Something involving the guys in the red pickup?" They were still behind them, blinker on to follow Valeria's Suburu north on the 509. Patricia swiveled in her seat to try to see their faces. Two men, both Latino, dark-skinned. Tattoos blazed across the hands of the driver.

"Sit down, Pati, I'm trying to drive."

"Who did you—" Patricia felt her cell phone vibrate, an unfamiliar number. "Yes? This is Patricia."

"Hi, Pati? It's Toby Ng? Is this a bad time?"

She glanced at Valeria, who was glaring at her rearview mirror while she wove through highway traffic. "No, this is fine. Is everything all right?"

"Oh, of course. Listen, I feel ridiculous calling after you just left my office, but I really should have asked you before you went. It's just, could we talk some more some time?"

"About Adrian?"

Toby coughed on the other end of the line. "Not necessarily. About anything, really. I'd, ah, like to take you out to dinner."

"Oh!" Patricia sat back, startled.

In the left lane, the red F250 pulled even with Valeria's Subaru. Valeria ignored them, staring resolutely ahead, hands clenched on the steering wheel. Patricia looked past her, straight into the steady gaze of the passenger, a thin man with a buzz cut, coal black eyes and a crooked nose set in a handsome, chiseled face. He lifted his chin in greeting, and the diamond stud in his earlobe glittered. Behind his ear was a tattoo of a closed eye.

Los Ciegos.

Patricia remembered she was still holding the phone. "Ah, can I call you back?"

There was a long pause on the other end. "Right, sure," said Toby. "Any time is fine."

"OK, thanks."

Patricia hung up, staring as the F250 pulled ahead in a caustic haze of exhaust fumes.

"Who was that?"

The question came in chorus, each sister turning to the other.

"What?" said Patricia. "On the phone? No. You go first. Those guys are Los Ciegos, aren't they."

Valeria tapped a fresh cigarette out of the package, felt around in the ashtray for her lighter. "I've never seen them before in my life."

"That's bullshit."

"Language, Pati! OK. I think those guys are clients of Lucho's."

"They're Los Ciegos. I saw his tattoo: the blind eye."

"I just know that they're Lucho's clients. Who called you?"

Patricia glanced down at her phone. Had Toby Ng just called to ask her on a date? She realized abruptly that she'd blown the question off. He probably thought she'd been offended.

An acrid blast from Valeria's fresh cigarette brought her back. "Earth to Pati."

Patricia slipped her phone into her purse and shook her head. "Toby. You remember, Toby Ng?"

"What, Adrian's basketball coach? What did he want?"

"To, ah, to ask me out for dinner."

"What?" Valeria laughed, rolling down her window. "Nice work, Pati. He's cute."

"I suppose."

"So call him back and say yes."

Patricia turned to stare at her. "Val. I'm kind of possessed right now."

"Right." Valeria took a deep drag on her cigarette, then blew the smoke out the window. "We can fix that. Don't worry, babe. We'll fix all of this."

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_Authors_

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**Ian Smith** is a descendent of the the only surviving species of genus homo. His tribe is distinguished by tool usage, shared mapping of air vibration patterns to physical objects and concepts, and an arbitrarily unshakeable metaphysical belief in linear causality. By day he coerces the forces of magnetism and electricity to generate light patterns that stimulate other hominid's neural pleasure centers, by night he raises his young and constructs carefully crafted misrepresentations of reality.

Seattle doesn't really make sense. It is wildly diverse and still manages to feel like a cohesive whole. It has all of the perks of a metropolis, without sacrificing small town feel of individual neighborhoods. And it has spectacular coffee AND beer, which is really just unfair.

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**Andrew Gaines** was recently found — ragged, scruffy, and only somewhat coherent — among the soggy pines of Washington State. After a period of intense rehabilitation, he now spends his time as a writer, a six-string slinger in a band called Seacastle, and a proud dog-dad to a lovable old pit bull named Sarge. He thinks spare time is a mythical beast that he is destined to chase for eternity, as the coveted creature is always disappearing over the horizon of his ambitions.

Andrew has found that the moss under his armpits dries out after too much time away from the Northwest, and thus keeps his roots spreading deep into the hills of West Seattle. Nutritious!

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**Alisha A. Knaff** is the inventor of the time machine. She was president of the Jane Austen Fan Club from 1800-1806, and helped stop the Martian Invasion of 3003. One of her favorite hobbies is feeding pigeons with Nikola Tesla. In the present time, she teaches high school English and Theory and Practice of Time Travel (by special appointment).

Alisha loves Seattle because she is a pluviophile, and because the secret to time travel is, in fact, a healthy dose of rain and a vitamin D deficiency. Also, all the cool people live here or secretly want to.

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**Jessie Kwak** (Editor and Co-Founder) is a freelance copywriter and novelist. She has recently abandoned Seattle for it's hipster little sister, Portland, where she lives with her husband and their bevy of bicycles, and drinks locally-roasted coffees and hoppy IPAs and cheap bourbons. You can find more of her work and hire her to write you things for cash money at JessieKwak.com.

Despite her current expatriate status, she loves Seattle's tangled streets, watery byways, and gorgeous hilltop views — and the way the whole place smells like the sea when the summer wind blows the right direction. It also rains less in Seattle than in Portland, and she likes that, too.
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_Editors_

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**Christine Smith** (Editor and Co-Founder) is a writer in the MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics program at University of Washington. She lives in a cramped little flat in South Seattle with her two small children and her husband. Much of her energy is spent trying to convince her husband to go back to a land line telephone.

She loves Seattle because of the color green and the diversity in people and because weird is the norm and because community is rich here and because creativity is everywhere and because when she walks down the streets she feels the wind and the mist and the love and can really breathe.

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**Precious Sanders** (Fresh Eyes Editor) is the epitome of contradiction. Foreign-born and domestically raised, she is a deeply introverted, Type A individual with a passion for everything from books to rock music to kittens to tattoos. When not seeking out more pies to stick her thumbs into, she blogs about baseball and attempts to achieve a respectable 5K time.

If Seattle had a Midwestern step-child, it would be Lawrence, Kansas, and it is there that Precious currently makes her livelihood.

We hope you liked the stories!

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We'll be back at the end of November 2014 with the next installment!
