 
The Lost

(Short Stories)

A. Sparrow

Table of Contents

1. Black Ice Horror

2. The Last Yule Historical Fantasy

3. Hell Hounds Paranormal

4. The Bog Wife Horror

5. The Bridge Horror

6. The Latch Key League Contemporary

7. Shaper Horror

8. Wild Fruit Contemporary Fantasy

9. The Long Tail Contemporary Fantasy

10. Bucket Run Contemporary

11. Noumenon Science Fiction

12. Severance Contemporary Fantasy

Black Ice

Brookdale swamp hockey means zero refs. Tripping, slashing, kicking? All tolerated or retaliated. Checking goalies? Not a problem. Especially when the goalie was somebody else's little brother.

The goal had no net, just three logs half-embedded in the ice. Jeremy squatted in the crease as a scrapping horde of older kids homed in him, chasing a skittering puck down the shrub-obstructed ice.

Older brother Jason, a cavalry of one, wheeled up in front of him, showering Jeremy's snorkel coat with chips of rotten ice. It was a noble gesture, but to no avail. Bobby Perdicci came slamming into Jason, clearing him out of the way. Right behind him, Eddie flailed at the skittering puck. Jeremy leaned into the oncoming projectile, shut his eyes and winced.

Whop! The puck slammed into his sternum and bounced away. Jeremy dropped to his knees, clutching his chest. Jason raised his stick and hooted like a chimp.

"Awesome save, bro!"

Jeremy smiled and got back on his feet, glancing nervously behind him. The west end of the swamp deserved much of the credit for his plucky performance. Noone liked to talk about the tangle of drowned and dead trees that clotted the back cove.

It was a graveyard for pucks. Any search requiring more than a quick dart in and out of the bushes was quickly abandoned. Years and generations of rubber disks had been lost there.

Indeed, as the winter sun crept lower in the sky, Jeremy found begging for the big kids to call off the game before it got too dark. The place was far less eerie in the winter than it was in the weedy depths of summer, but it still gave him the creeps.

But too many good things had happened today to dwell on the dreary. This was a momentous occasion: the first time he had ever been allowed to play hockey with the big kids. He thought Bobby had been joking when he came up and asked him to play goalie. It was rare they even let him hang out by their campfire without being harassed. Briggs, the man-child with special needs was usually their go-to goal keeper, but Briggs wasn't here today.

Bobby called Briggs him the village idiot of Brookdale Road. Briggs was generally tolerated, if only because everyone respected his sheer size and strength. But Briggs wasn't here today, and so Jeremy was allowed to sub.

***

That night in bed, Jeremy's heart was still aglow with his breakthrough. He wondered if, from now on, the big kids would let him hang out with them. That he was now officially a big kid himself. He knew better than to ask Jason. Deeds not words would tell him.

The following weekend after chores, he took off for the pond to see if they would let him play again. Jason wasn't home and neither was his stick, so he assumed that's where his brother had gone.

He couldn't tell mom. She wasn't crazy about Jeremy hanging out with that gang. Bobby was a bona fide delinquent, having been expelled from middle school for vandalizing one of the girls' bathrooms. He had even been arrested once for shoplifting.

Jeremy made for the woods on the sly, telling his mom he would be up the street playing Call of Duty with Phil—one of his more nerdy but mother-approved peers. He just had to make sure he showed up at Phil's place by lunchtime when she was likely to be checking up on him. She would have freaked if she knew he was going up to Grey Maiden Pond alone. She had been extra watchful over his activities ever since Harry Jameson went missing from the neighborhood a year ago on Thanksgiving.

Harry, only a year older than Jeremy, had lived up the hill at the end of a cul-de-sac. He had been famous for the fort of scrap plywood and two by fours that he had built in the woods behind his house. It had been the focus of much neighborhood hijinks. Torn down by his parents after he went missing, its remnants were now strewn along the path leading up to the pond. Only a few scraps of wood remained. Seeing them caused a chill to ripple through Jeremy.

The big kids blamed his disappearance on Briggs, who was twenty-something and a little slow upstairs. Apparently, he had been in a car accident as a teenager and had suffered permanent brain damage. Briggs was built like an NFL lineman, but he was about as malicious as a Golden Retriever puppy. Jeremy couldn't see him doing anything to harm Arthur. The kids who started the rumor were likelier suspects. They could be bullies of the nastiest order when someone rubbed them the wrong way.

As he made his way up the path alone, Jeremy told himself there was nothing to worry about. When the ice was good, there always seemed to be older kids up there on the weekend. A campfire always seemed to be burning on the south bank where everyone stopped to lace up their skates.

Winter transformed Grayson's Pond from a stinky slough to a frozen jewel. In summer, it was a pond in name only, plagued by mosquitoes and well on its way to becoming a swamp. Cattails and bushes encroached right up to its middle. But it showed no intention of drying up. If anything, it grew larger year by year, expanding its fringe of dead trees, even though the utility company folks came up every spring and broke down the dam at the outlet that the big kids rebuilt every fall.

In the summertime, the contrast between the dead and the living trees was made ever starker. Under those dead trees would come gurgling splashes that boiled up from the muddy bottom. They didn't behave like fish or frogs that had been spooked. They followed him around, and always seemed to move towards the shore, not away from it.

Winter changed everything. He could step out onto the pond's surface and walk across it like he was Jesus. Being frozen shackled the pond, dulling its aura of danger. Threat remained, but it was the difference between seeing a lioness at the zoo and stumbling across one on some African veldt.

There was just a dusting of snow under the oaks and maples. Enough to decorate the fringes of the fallen leaves. Enough to reveal the passages of rabbits and coyotes. A brisk Alberta Clipper had swept through only a couple nights ago and a cold snap had preserved its traces.

He had so badly wanted to bring along his hockey skates, but leaving them home was the only way to maintain the ruse with his mom. Skates were optional in swamp hockey. They made you faster, but were an impediment in goal.

Baby steps. Maybe it was better to play it cool. Showing up with skates might make him look too eager to play.

He only planned to mess around up by the pond for an hour or so, play some goalie if the big kids would let him, and then make his way back down to Phil's house, a place where Xboxes needed no power switches, and a perpetual tournament of virtual slaughter went on interrupted only by homework, sleep and dinner.

Jeremy turned a corner on the trail where it passed beneath a deadfall tangled with wild grape vines and came nose to nose to Briggs, who was on his knees, licking the snow off some dead leaves. He looked surprised and embarrassed. Eyes wide and blank, he stumbled to his feet, acting almost afraid of Jeremy.

"It's okay, Briggs. I'm just passing through."

Jeremy kept on walking.

"No!"

I paused. "No what?"

"Don't."

"I'm going up to see if there's a game. Have fun eating snow."

Jeremy stepped up his pace. Briggs had had the weirdest look in his eyes.

The slope leveled off into open woodland, with big old trees, outcrops of glacier scarred rock and little undergrowth. The pond was nestled in a terrace in the hillside. The outlet dammed with rocks the big kids had carried over from an old stone wall they had dismantled, a relic of some old abandoned pasture.

Jeremy clambered over the wobbly stones topping the dam and traversed the exposed ledges flanking the pond's southern shore. The mica-studded outcrops descended through the laurels in steps to the muddy shore where the ashy remnants of the fire pit lay strewn among bits of partially burned wood. The fire pit was cold. No one had been up here all day.

That was a shame. He had been looking forward to warming his hands and feet. He had no matches or lighter to start one up. The last time his mother found a lighter on him he had been grounded for a week. But where was everybody? Was there a big football game on or something? Maybe if he hung out a little while someone would show up.

Something rustled through the bushes behind him.

"Hello? Who's there?"

Silence. Jeremy glanced up at the sky. The cloud cover was thin and steely gray. But the air smelled all crisp and crinkly like it was going to snow.

He stepped out onto the ice and it cracked under his weight. It was always thin around the edges like this early in the season. But all of last week had been intensely frigid and the center held firm.

Jeremy couldn't remember the ice ever being so smooth and slick, unspoiled with frozen slush or crusted snow. Its surface was pure and slick, marred only by the marks of skates and those odd, clearer circles that stared up like eyes here and there. They formed only when the weather got really cold. The big kids called it black ice even though it was as transparent as glass.

He shifted his weight from boot to boot, sliding across the ice. You didn't even need skates when the ice was as perfect as this. The hockey rink was marked with rotten logs here and there that suggested boundaries, though live play usually continued regardless of where the puck ended up. The games only ever stopped when the puck got lost in the stand of dead and bony trees on the far shore.

Jeremy found one of the clear spots and knelt down. The ice was rippled but perfectly clear. He looked down into the water, searching for any movement that would indicate some kind of interesting pond life. He didn't care what. Not everything went to sleep or died in the winter. There were these little specks dancing around in there. Copepods, he supposed. The frogs and snapping turtles were probably buried deep in the mud and hibernating.

He sat back on the ice and enjoyed the peace and quiet. Nothing was moving. Not a bird. Nothing. The wind hardly whispered through the naked branches of the maples and beeches. He couldn't even hear any cars on Great Hill Road.

A patch of red flannel flashed among the high-bush blueberries and then moved back under cover. Someone was watching from the bushes.

"Briggs? That you?"

There was no response.

He sighed and looked back down into the clear spot. He saw no fish or interesting bugs. But there were lumps and dimples in the sediment that almost looked like eyes and a mouth. He didn't think anything of it. It was kind of creepy, but nothing more than bumps and holes in the mud.

As he watched, the mud shifted, almost imperceptibly, as if some creature buried beneath were making itself more comfortable. The longer he stared the more he could imagine them as facial features. A girl's face, symmetric with full lips and cheekbones that could have graced the cover of a fashion mag. For a dead girl, she was perfectly preserved. Strands of algae twined through her hair. Her skin was as dark as the mud.

His stomach roiled. Was he looking at a corpse? Was an unseen current washing away the sediment as he watched?

Footsteps crunched through the frozen mud on the shore. Briggs stood there, glowering.

"No!" he said. "Come here. Now."

"Briggs. There's a body down there."

The man-child turned all red and his mouth contorted. A strand of drool dripped from his chin. "Come!" he barked.

Jeremy had never seen him so agitated.

There came a tapping from the ice below his feet.

Jeremy lurched at the sight of the now pale face pressed against the clear port hole of black ice. Her hair was no longer made of algae. She was blond. And she was panicked. Her eyes, imploring.

"Oh my God!"

He looked around for something to break the ice. He grabbed one of the stones that the big kids used as pucks when their only real puck got lost in the weeds.

He dropped to his knees and hammered at the black ice with every bit of force he could muster. Beneath the ice, the girl clawed with her fingernails and pounded with her fists.

"No! Get away." Briggs stepped onto the ice and broke through the thin spots that ringed the weedy shore.

"Briggs! She's gonna die if we don't get to her. Help me!"

"No. She can't die. Not her."

The ice burst open. Water and ice chunks gushed all over the surface. The girl's head emerged, gasping. Her hair, it wasn't even wet.

"Stay away that man. He is a bad one. He will hurt you."

She had the weirdest accent. Not British exactly, but she sure didn't sound like someone from Connecticut.

"How did you...? Did he do this to you?"

Her hand reached out and gripped Jeremy's ankle.

"Who are you? How did you get ...?"

"No matter, love. I am come to help. That man. He is a danger to you. Come down here with me. I will keep you safe."

"Into the water? Are you crazy? It must be freezing."

"Oh no. It's not bad at all, once you get used to it. This is not what it appears. It is comfy and cozy down below."

"Under the water? How can that be? How do you breathe?"

"You don't need to, love. You just be. Let nature take its course. Just come. And this bad man will go away. You will be free. To go. Wherever you want. Just come with me. Trust me."

She tugged at his ankle. Jeremy lunged for a bush and latched on to its branches as she pulled. He clung with all his strength which was not enough. Twigs snapped and yielded. The girl was way strong. Too strong to be human.

He looked back at her. Her face, while still attractive, had been transformed by a grim predatory determination.

"Let go of me!"

"You need to come now!"

"What are you?"

"I am whatever or whoever you want me to be. Just believe, I can help you. That man. He is dangerous. He is not right in the head. He will hurt you. You should never have come up here alone. You should have listened to your mother."

But she was smiling as she said that. Smiling, like someone who had just won a prize at the carnival.

"No!" said Briggs. He stepped onto the ice and it gave way beneath his weight.

"Quick love, come on down. You can slip through this hole. It's wide enough. I will help you."

"But the water ... it's so cold. How would I breathe?"

"You won't need to worry about that. Trust me. Just come down, love. Come down here with me."

"It's too cold. I ... I can't go in ... underneath."

"It's okay. There's a whole world down here. Come. Let me show you."

"World? What do you mean world?"

"A world without worries. A world with friends. You remember Arthur, don't you?"

The beautiful girl was not so beautiful anymore. She didn't even look much like a girl as she dragged him into the hole.

"Nooooo!" bellowed Briggs. He battered his way deeper into the pond, cracking the ice like a human ice breaker until he was waist deep.

The mud woman shrieked at him.

He bellowed right back at her and lunged for Jeremy, grabbed his elbow and ripped him from the mud woman's grip.

There was nothing blonde or becoming about her whatsoever now. Her hair had turned back to algae and her face was lumpy and brown.

"Briggs!" she screeched. "You bring him back."

"No!" said "He's mine."

She bulged up out of the hole and inflated like a puffer fish. Nothing about her now was even remotely human. She was just a bloated sack of mud. With a sound like an enormous belch, she exploded in a shower of steaming mud that spattered everywhere.

Briggs held Jeremy's hand so tight. There was no way he could slip free. He had no choice but to follow him up the outcrop and over the dam. His grip was so strong.

As his jeans stiffened with ice, Briggs hauled him down the path. Jeremy could barely keep up with his strides. He kept glancing back towards the pond.

"Where are we going? Where are you taking me?"

Briggs kept silent.

When they got in sight of the first houses, Briggs stopped and released him. Jeremy rubbed his bruised wrist. Somehow, he hadn't expected to be freed.

"Go," said Briggs. "Don't tell."

"Why not? You ... helped me."

"Her! Don't tell. About her."

"Why not?"

"My friend. My."

*****

The Last Yule

Wind-rattled beeches clung to their last pale leaves. The dishwater light of dawn birthed a chorus of curses, groans, snorts, fits of coughing. The noise of these men belied their meager number. So much for Janos' pleas for stealth.

Shrouded in tattered blankets, the men of Turok roused from another dank and fitful night on the trail. Yet another night with no fire to take the teeth out of the chill, the wood too damp for tinder to catch.

The men kept close and the wolves kept their distance. Three days had passed since they last had been harried by Paludin raiders with their terrible, curved swords and wickedly nimble mounts. But now that they were entering the territory of the hill tribes. They could not afford to relax their guard.

Janos ripped a hunk of woody fungus off a dying beech and climbed atop a boulder as tall as a haystack. The stone did not belong to this forest any more than did Janos, its pale, quartz-studded facets alien to the dark shale and slate that made the bones of this terrain. Some ancient calamity must have dragged it here from its land of origin. Many like it were strewn about the forest.

Wences called such boulders 'god stones.' He never passed one without making an offering and muttering a prayer. To an unbeliever like Janos, the boulder was simply a handy place to survey the encampment and take the daily muster.

He sat and tallied heads, scratching the underside of the fungus with a twig. Thirty-eight men. Three consecutive days, none dead or gone lost. Ten of the hobbled who could walk no further had been left to convalesce in a friendly village by the lake. Someone would fetch them in the spring, if they hadn't already made their way home.

Last spring, two thousand knights and conscripts of King Sobiesk's army had marched south to join their allies in blunting the Paludin threat. Shattered by a summer of war, the disparate remnants now threaded their way north through the forests and mountains of Karpath. Janos' contingent was one of the few without a lord to lead them.

Lord Stanis, their liege, had survived their battles only to succumb to the pneumonia that had plagued their number since the retreat from Wien. When no one else showed the slightest inclination to manage the retreat, Janos had become their leader by default. But Janos knew better. The men squabbled at every ford and fork. He was unfit to lead a pack of dogs.

But soon his headaches would end. Before the week was done they would cross the mountains and return to their hearths and plows, lovers and loved ones. Though, Janos had less reason to return than some. He had no wife or mistress. The pox had claimed most of his family when he was small. But it would be nice to see his uncle Voytek, if he still lived. He had seemed hale enough when Janos left last Spring, but one never knew who was next to die in this time of plagues.

As de facto leader of this motley contingent, he would first need to report to King Sobiesk's council. Each day he rehearsed in his head the story of their travails. Who had thought that he, a son of peasants, would one day speak before a council of lords?

But then he would be free to reclaim the family homestead from its caretakers. Put away his sword. Rebuild a life.

He might even find himself a god or two worthy of worship. In desperate times, he had been impressed how the faithful could find hope in the most hopeless situations.

But which one to choose? So many competing beliefs swirled through Pom these days, all of them riddled and saddled with lapses in their logic, moral inconsistencies and inconvenient obligations.

Once he chose his god, he would pray. For King Sobiesk to temper his military ambitions. For the Paludins to remain tethered to and constrained by a tenuous supply line. And for the Zachodin kingdoms to remain entangled in the West. He would pray for peace to whichever god would listen.

The sun crept into a sky of peach and rose. Auspicious, if not for the dark slates of layered cloud sliding down from the north. An ugly troll of a storm lurked over the mountains.

Yet they were so close to home and its promise of reunions and Yuletide feasts. The men knew this and it pushed them to march two leagues farther per day than they had averaged in the early days of the retreat when home still seemed so far away.

Only yesterday, the scouts had spotted the distinctive triple peaks of Mount Rysy, a mountain also visible from the king's seat on the plains of Pom, only a day's walk from the villages surrounding the township of Turok, home to most of these men.

But winter was coming. A crown of snow already frosted the highest of the mountains. Janos feared what would befall them in the heights if they didn't make it over the passes soon.

None had shoes. Most went barefoot. Some protected their soles with sheets of boiled leather strapped to their feet with strips of cloth. Their bed rolls and clothing were as tattered as their flesh.

Wences brought him some folded birch bark with a paste of poached acorns and some of the barley they had bartered from the lake people. He took one look at the boulder Janos perched on and removed a smooth river stone from his pocket, tucking it deep into a crevice. He had placed enough stones and built enough cairns over the past year to cobble all of Turok Common.

Tomas, an archer and veteran of King Sobiesk's campaigns, looked up from his bed roll and smirked. "And which god do we honor today with this generosity?"

"Whichever," said Wences, shrugging. "Any and all. Whoever's watching over us."

Tomas' people came from a western region where the influence of the holy men of Eire was strong. "You do realize, there is only one true God."

"Oh? And which one might that be? Kresnik? Lada? Svarog? Or might he be Veles?"

Tomas looked at his three cousins and laughed. All were archers. They rarely strayed from each other's company. And all shared these strange, monotheistic Zachodin beliefs. Though, to Janos, it seemed like the cousins worshipped Tomas.

"Henryk's found a game path leading into the foothills," said Wences.

Janos smirked. "I hope it is better than the last trail, the one that doubled back to camp."

"This one cuts straight to the north like a dagger," said Wences. "Deep into the mountains. Henryk found fresh scat. The beasts must use it to migrate from the high meadows. So there may be good hunting as well. What more can we ask?"

Janos shrugged. "Send the scouts ahead while we break camp."

***

The men packed quickly. Haversacks nearly empty, they carried few possessions beyond bed rolls and weapons. They had slept under tattered oil cloth and woolen blankets, fought with axes, pikes, bows and swords. Some retained only stubs of the blades they had brought to war.

Stalemate on the battlefield meant few spoils. They had little to show for their efforts but stories and scars. But they had answered the call of their elderly king, and the honor of a duty fulfilled was reward enough for most.

As they started along the path, the clouds closed overhead like a curtain. Light rain began to fall. A chill settled over the column. Walking, at least, kept them warm. Steam rose from their leathers.

Looking at these men, Janos couldn't help but think what a sorry picture they would make on the streets of Turok. There was little to distinguish them from a routed army. The townsfolk could easily mistake them for a gang of roving beggars. Their battered shields and nicked blades should suggest otherwise, but nothing about their bearing indicated their bravery.

Few bore serious wounds because the worst injured had been left behind at a lake town. A small garrison would protect them and the lake folk from the probes of Paludin horsemen. In return, the lake folk had given them a cozy barn and all the smoked fish and spelt they would need to pass the winter.

As Wences had promised, the narrow game path stabbed straight up into the hills. The men marched in single file. The understory dense with deadfalls, this was a forest that had never been cut or burned.

Hours they walked without stopping to rest, heading ever upward. Spruces and pines came to dominate. Great and godly trees and boulders became so numerous, that Wences was forced to pass them by without offerings. Janos wondered if it thrilled or distressed him to be walking amidst this mob of potential deities.

A cry rang out at the head of the column. Wences sprang ahead. Janos followed close on his heels. A panicked scout sprinted back to meet them.

"What happened?"

"Tribesmen! Henryk took an arrow!"

Janos wheeled around and faced the column. "Unsheath your blades! Raise your pikes! Spread and advance on this hill!"

The men shoved their way into the tangled forest and climbed. Their only resistance came from the undergrowth. They found Henryk lying on a ledge, a stout arrow fletched with boar bristles protruding from his ribs. He was breathing rapidly. Bright arterial blood gushed from his mouth and nose. He was not long for this life.

Janos knelt beside him, took his hand and gazed into his eyes. He wanted to tell Henryk that the wound wasn't as bad as it looked. Henryk moved his lips but his eyes went milky and his lids drooped before he could find his voice.

"There!" said Wences, perched atop a cliff. He pointed into the ravine.

Janos rushed over in time to see a small band of tribesmen clad in furs crossing a stream. Two of the men carried a boar carcass trussed to a carry stick.

"We must have startled them on the trail," said Janos.

"Bastards! They gave us no trouble on our march south."

"We were an army then ... with knights. Now that we are fewer and weaker, they are not so shy."

"Why harm us? They know we come to fight the Paludins. Would they rather those devils sack their villages?"

"They know nothing of Paludins. They only know these hills. And they have mouths to feed. They were just protecting their kill. It was a lucky arrow that caught Henryk."

"Luck? I think not," said Tomas. "These mountain men are too skilled with a bow."

The men scratched through the leaf litter and buried Henryk in the steaming loam beneath. Wences muttered a brief oath to the gods. They moved on, now as thirty seven.

***

The rain changed to snow as they pressed deeper into the foothills. Janos kept his scouts closer to the main body. This would give them less warning of threats but would leave the scouts less exposed.

The snow intensified as they left the last of the hardwoods and climbed into a forest of pure spruce. Snow obscured the game trail and rendered it impossible to follow.

"We'll never make the pass today," said Wences. "Not in this weather."

"Those mountains, they looked so close from the lake."

"The hills deceive. Climb one and it seems a new one sprouts in your path."

Another scout came running back, eyes intense, filled with a mixture of fascination and fear.

"More trouble?"

"We found a dwelling. A great house."

"Tribesmen?"

"Nay. Too sturdy. Too fine."

"Zachodin? Paludin?"

"Neither. Living trees penetrate the thatch. The walls are sheathed with polished planking. Seamless. And they bulge, bowing outward. It looks like a giant mushroom."

Janos looked to Wences, who could only shrug.

"I suggest we make a wide berth. Avoid trouble."

"Shelter would be welcome on a day like this."

"On this side of the mountains, I wouldn't expect much hospitality."

"The folk on the lake were friendly."

"We are in the mountains. Only outlaws and barbarians dwell here. Men of peace don't choose to live in wilderness."

"How well is it defended?"

"No sign of any watch," said the scout. "They could be hidden. But there's no stockade. Just a loose circle of stones. God stones."

Janos looked at Wences. "Could it be a temple? A place of worship for the hill clans?"

The scout shook his head. "You need to see it. It's nothing the tribesmen would build."

Janos sighed. "We have good cover from the trees to screen our approach. Form up the men. Pikes at the fore. Swords close behind. Bows on the flanks. We're going up."

"We shall storm it?"

"We are going to announce ourselves and see what happens. With the tracks we leave, there is little chance of slipping past un-noticed. Might as well make ourselves known. If they threaten us, we take them down."

Janos had no desire to fight. He only wished to pass unmolested. But sometimes aggression was the best defense.

Wences went back into the column and passed the word. There was grumbling among the men, but also a grim determination to get beyond this latest obstacle between them and their homecoming.

Janos watched as Wences herded ten pikers into position with half again as many swordsmen just behind them. Two gaggles of archers, evenly divided, formed up on each flank.

The men waited for Janos to give the word.

"Go!" he said.

They stalked up the hillside, slow and deliberate, weaving through the trees, clambering over and under deadfalls. There was no opportunity for stealth. Their struggles with the underbrush made them sound like an army. Janos hoped the noise alone would panic the occupants enough to force them to flee.

He stayed with the swordsmen but kept his own weapon sheathed. As they topped the slope, he caught glimpses of the strange building through the thick boles of the spruces. The wooden dome with its thick thatch of lake reeds was unlike any construction he had ever seen on either side of the mountains. Billows of smoke worthy of an iron forge poured out of its chimney.

Three horses roamed free on the terrace, scraping hooves in the snow to expose clumps of grass. They were haughty beasts, snorting at the warriors' approach, not cowed in the slightest.

As the ring of god stones came into view, Janos thought they looked familiar.

"Did we not camp here last spring?" said Janos. "I seem to remember a glade like this, with a stone circle and the same monstrous trees."

"Aye," said Tomas, the senior man among the archers. "I took lunch on that very ledge."

"Could be," said Wences, taking a river stone from his pocket and placing it at the base of a particularly ancient spruce.

"Wences, assemble a small party of men-at-arms to accompany me. I plan to call at the door. Let's see if anyone is home ... and if so ... announce our passage."

"I say we burn them out," said Marek, one of Tomas' cousins.

"Safer that way," said Tomas, nodding.

"It would be good to know if we are dealing with friend or foe before we do anything so rash."

"A friend, I assure you." A burly man stepped out from behind a tree. Swords clattered out of hilts. Several of the pikesmen swung around to face the man. "Welcome!"

He spoke the language of the lowlands like a native of Pom, though with his blunt nose and broad cheekbones, he looked nothing like a plainsman. He had a long, silvery beard, contrasting starkly with his creased and tanned face. Not a single hair marred the top of his ruddy dome. Snowflakes melted when they struck. Rivulets of melt water trickled down his cheeks like tears.

"What are you doing here old man? Aren't you far from Pom?"

"Pom is not as far as you think. And ... I am not from the plains."

"Where are you from, then? You don't look like a hillsman."

"I am from everywhere and nowhere."

"This ... house. Is it yours?"

"We built it. For travelers like you. Those who respect the forest." He winked at Wences and nodded at the river stone tucked among the snowy buttresses of an aged spruce.

"An inn? Here? In the wilderness? Who ever comes this way?"

"More than you might think. There are few ways for men to pass through these mountains."

A meaty aroma, pungent with garlic and onion wafted with the breeze.

"Any chance ... you might spare a bit of your broth? My men haven't eaten a hot meal in days."

"Of course. You are our guests. We have been expecting you." He walked straight into a thicket of pike points. The pikers yielded.

Janos followed after him and nodded to his men.

"Sir! What is your name?"

The man tossed a glance over his shoulder as he strode barefoot through the snow. "I am called many things. Daba the lame. Dazbog. Zaria calls me Dodzi. I am happy with that."

"Dazbog?" said Wences. "The giver god?"

Dodzi shrugged. "I am what I am. No more. No less. Not a god. Not a man. You can all stay the night. We have plenty of room. A storm like this is deadly for men, especially in the heights. But here we have a roaring hearth and lofts heaped with rushes and enough dry wood to burn for a week. You are welcome to stay as long as you like. One night, four, it doesn't matter, we are happy to accommodate you.

"What price do you ask?"

"Nothing. We offer this food and shelter as a gift. It is what we do, Zaria and I."

"Let us repay you," said Janos. "We can chop wood, hunt for game."

Dodzi turned and looked straight and deep into Janos' eyes, transfixing him with a steely glare that seemed to cut right through him.

"If you insist on a price, my price is peace. Give up your warring. Learn to live with each other in this great world. There is room enough for all of you if you steward it well. Leave your weapons at the door."

The men filed into the warm chamber, stacking their pikes and swords just outside the entrance.

The archer cousins—Tomas, Marek, Georg and Piotr—hovered at the threshold.

"What's wrong?" said Janos. "Go inside. Get warm."

"How did they know we were coming?" said Tomas, squinting."

"The children told us," said Dodzi. "They are everywhere in this wood and they see and they report the good and the bad. Your men don't kill for the sake of killing. They respect tree and stone and pond."

Tomas scrunched his brow. "You let your children run free in this storm, with wolves and tribesmen about?"

Dodzi chortled. "Wolves and tribesmen are no more threat to them than the salamanders. These children belong to the wood. They have been here longer than there have been men or gods in this world."

A frigid wind swirled around the doorway and penetrated Janos' cloak. "Let me fetch you all some bread and stew while you decide whether to accept our hospitality." Dodzi strode off to the hearth and cauldrons where men were already ladling out portions and dunking chunks of crusty bread.

"It won't kill you to step inside and get warm," said Janos.

The cousins looked at each other. Tomas bit his lip and stepped through the entrance but would pass no farther into the chamber. Naturally, his cousins followed. The rest of the men showed no such reservations, crowding around the hearth, peeling off their sodden leggings and foot wraps, laying them to dry on the warm stone. They were raucous with cheer.

Footsteps, quick and numerous, pattered through the lofts overhead. Tomas flinched and raised his bow. A woman, lithe and tall came stepping down a ladder of birches. Her age was difficult to judge, her brow deeply creased, her eyes confident and mature, but her body retained the curves and contours of youth. Threads of silvery gray accented her honey-blonde hair.

"This one must be Zaria," whispered Wences.

The men's eyes clung to her every swaying step as she drifted through the chamber, bare feet padding lightly on the timbers. She came to Janos and handed him an elegant ceramic flask with fluted sides. "For the men," she said. "To share."

"What is it?" asked Janos.

"An elixir to warm your hearts and minds. The children make it. Dodzi calls it liquid kindling."

Janos took a swig, expecting alcohol but tasting something more like a muddy tea. He offered the flask to the cousins but none dared touch it.

"Might be poisoned," muttered Tomas.

"Please! You dishonor our hosts." Janos passed the flask to Wences.

Zaria smiled. "Not a problem," she said. "More for the others."

Piotr and Marek, bracketing the entrance, suddenly lurched back and reached for their quivers.

"Some things just ran past. Small things. Dark things."

"Please, put down your weapons," said Zaria. "They are only the children ... of the wood."

"That was no child I saw," said Piotr. "It was a creature."

"A demon," said Marek.

"I'm not giving up my bow," said Tomas.

"Then you must leave," said Zaria, displaying no anger or impatience, simply resolve. She drifted away. Her feet barely touching the floor, as if she were floating. She climbed back into the lofts.

"Bitch," said Tomas. "I wasn't planning on it."

"Will you eat, at least?" said Janos as the men crowded a pair of cauldrons at the hearth. Some were already going back for seconds. "Looks like they have plenty."

"No," said Tomas.

"Me neither," said Piotr. "I don't trust them."

Marek and Georg shook their heads.

"Why would they wish to harm us? I'm sure it is fine," said Janos.

"Why would they prepare a meal for forty?" said Tomas. "How did they know we were coming?"

"They must have had spies, informers, to know we were coming," said Marek.

"The hill tribes must have warned them," said Georg.

"Or ... the children of the wood," said Wences.

"No such thing," said Tomas. "Only in fairy tales."

"Open your eyes," said Wences. "We are not dealing with ordinary people here. We are in the presence of deities."

Tomas chortled. "This old man looks like flesh and blood enough to me. Cut him and I bet he bleeds."

"Please," said Janos. "Do not speak like that in the presence of our hosts. If you don't wish to supper with us, I'll have the others pool their barley at least you have something to eat."

"You're a fool to allow this," said Tomas. "To put us at risk so close to home. The holy men of Eire say there are adversaries afoot in this world who employ such deceptions to steal men's souls. It is clear to me that we are in the presence of such a deceiver."

"What risk?" said Janos. "This is only a godsend. You would rather make your bed out in that storm?"

"I would. And I shall," said Tomas.

"Me too," said Marek and the other cousins nodded.

Janos sighed. "Fine. If you fools insist. Wences, gather up some extra bed rolls so they don't freeze."

Wences went off among the men to solicit extra food and bedding. The men were generous, their spirits high thanks to the hot meal in their belly, warm feet and that jug of incendiary elixir making the rounds. Janos unhitched his scabbard and laid it down in the pile beside the other weapons. This place felt like a home. He had no reason to believe that any of this was treachery.

Tomas glared but said nothing.

A steaming bowl and a hunk of bread finally made it to Janos. He offered it to the cousins, and while their eyes betrayed temptation, they refused to partake. Janis found the meal worth the wait, thick with bits of meat and greens and parsnip, and herbed unlike any dish he had eaten at home or on the trail. It was everything a man would want after a long slog in the rain and snow.

Again, footsteps, small and quick, clattered on the planks overhead. Men stared up into the shadowy lofts.

"Don't mind the children," said Dodzi. "They are preparing your lofts with rushes and boughs of cedar. They are very curious, but shy. I doubt they show themselves."

"I ain't sleeping up there," said one of the pikers.

"It will be much warmer up off the ground," said Dodzi. "The heat collects beneath the thatch."

"Don't care," said the Piker. "I'm staying down here."

"Where does your family sleep?" asked Janos scanning the rafters.

"We won't be staying here," said Dodzi. "And neither will the children. Once you are all settled, we will leave you."

"Do you have ... another house?"

Dodzi smiled sadly. "This is to be our last Yule in the Karpath. We are leaving the forest. The second age of men has come. People have no place in their hearts for us anymore, no patience for the old gods. Time for other gods, real or imagined, to take our place. We will cross the sea and pass to the north lands."

"You are leaving tonight? In this storm?"

"Our task is complete. Snow and cold won't trouble us. Nor will darkness."

What did it mean when innkeepers abandoned their own inn before their guests had checked out? It sounded like the makings of an ambush. Was Tomas justified in worrying about foul play?

"Well ... thank you ... for helping us. We would have had a terrible night if not for your assistance."

Dodzi cocked his head. "This is what we do."

"I should let you know, we will be posting a watch. A hill tribe attacked us earlier in the day."

"No need. No tribesmen will trouble you tonight. They know better with the children about."

"The men are nervous. A watch would reassure them."

Again came the steel in Dodzi's gaze. Gone was the kindly grandfather and in its place the visage of an unmasked executioner.

"You shall wield no weapons here. The children are curious. They love to observe the ways of men. They will not harm you if you keep the peace. But they in turn must not be harmed. Or there will be consequences."

Wences and several of the men came by with armloads of extra blankets and oil-cloth, along with a sack of leftover barley and biscuit with bits of smoked sausage.

Tomas and his cousins accepted the offerings. "We'll keep the watch for you all ... out beyond the circle."

"May the gods help you," whispered Wences, as they went off into the stormy night.

***

Janos spent a restless night moving back and forth between the hearth and entrance, stoking the fire, checking on the storm, reassuring his men. Many could not sleep with all the chatter and scurrying about in the lofts. Most kept to the dirt floor of the chamber, crowding around the central hearth. Only the bravest dared partake of the more luxurious bedding in the rafters.

Dodzi and Zaria remained out in the blizzard, packing their boat-like sleigh with their strange belongings—carvings and crockeries and bundles of bark and root. Fat snowflakes danced in the light of the blaze, swirling into the open door.

They seemed oblivious to the storm, which only seemed to be increasing in intensity. Their horses seemed eager to be leaving, loitering near the sleigh until Dodzi got them hitched.

Dodzi spotted him and came waddling over through the deep snow. "You should get some rest."

Janos shrugged. "Someone has to do the worrying."

"What is there to worry about? I assure you all is well. You are safe here. The storm will break by morning. And then you can do as you wish. Make for the pass in the morning, rest another day or wait till Spring. The children will attend to your needs."

"I am sorry, but I don't understand. Why you are being so kind to us?"

"Duty, not kindness. What is a god, but a steward of men? I have told you, this is what we do. There was a time men never questioned our generosity, they just accepted it."

He nodded his head and trudged back towards the sleigh.

"Happy ... travels," said Janos. It seemed such an awkward and inadequate thing to say to a god, steward or not.

"Peace be with you," said Dodzi as he clomped back to the sleigh and climbed aboard. He whistled sharply and the horses plowed through the drifts. Zaria turned and waved as they disappeared into the wood.

He shut the heavy wooden door and barred it. Nerves kept him pacing the chamber, making small talk with the men. At some point, he heard a squeal and some squawking outside. It sounded like goats or crows. He wanted to check on the cousins, but he wasn't about to go blundering through the dark and snow looking for their camp. They were skittish and likely to mistake him for a foe and ventilate his chest with an arrow.

He went back to the hearth and found an open spot amidst the chaos of moldy blankets and stinky feet. At least a score of men now slumbered. Others chatted quietly about the people and places they missed the most and the first things they would do once home. Janos pressed his back against the warm stone and wrapped himself in his blanket.

Exhausted to the point of stupor, he fell unconscious almost immediately. He dreamed of feasts and feather beds.

He was awoken by frigid air seeping through the moth holes. He opened his eyes to find the roof and walls gone. Overhead spread a canopy of spruce boughs under broken clouds. Where the hearth had been, a boulder now stood.

The bedding that had been heaped in the lofts was strewn all over the snow. Snow several inches thick covered men's blankets. Some of the men laughed. Others grumbled. Janos got up and searched for Wences and shook him awake.

"The house. It's gone. How do you explain this?"

"I can't explain the ways of men, never mind gods."

Janos pulled on his cloak and went to the place where the door had been. Their weapons were gone. He kicked at the snow and found only bits of shredded wood and fist-sized pellets of slag. Where the horses had been tethered, the track of the sleigh carved a channel through the deep snow.

A man came wandering over, his expression confused. A man not counted among the thirty-eight tallied in yesterday's muster. A man who Janos had seen fall to a Paludin blade in the heat of battle.

"Herman? I thought we left you for dead."

"I was captive. How did I get here?"

Cries erupted. The men rejoiced. There were ten new faces among them, comrades missing in action, presumed dead. Yet, here they were, scarred, but healed.

"A miracle?"

"Perhaps," said Wences. "But a god is a god. And Yule is Yule."

One of the pikers unstrapped his now bulging haversack to find it stuffed with gifts: Dried and salted olives and capers, apricots and figs, silks and soft woolens, even trinkets and pieces of silver in tiny cloth sacks. Every man among them found the same array of gifts inside his carry bag.

"Now I am certain," said Wences, grinning. "Our host. He was Dazbog. The giver."

Janos kept staring at the heap of slag near where the entrance had been and could not stop feeling uneasy, thinking about those sounds in the night. He trudged through the deep snow to the place where the cousins had erected a shelter of oil-skins and blankets beyond the ring of stones.

He passed a smear in the snow. It had the oily density of blood, but tinged green. Not human. Not animal.

He lifted a sheet of oil skin and found all four lying dead and frozen inside their shelter. Flaps of parted flesh under each chin gaped like second mouths. The snow was strewn with arrows from their empty quivers. The heads had been snapped off. Only shafts remained. Their camp was surrounded by scores of faint footprints that barely made an impression in the soft snow.

"They must have hurt one of the children," said Wences.

"Get the men ready, quick as we can. This is not a place we should linger. The hill tribes are the least of our worries."

***

They followed the path of Dodzi and Zaria's horse-drawn sleigh up and out of the snow-encrusted firs, into the treeless barrens of the high pass. It would have taken them far longer had they not been able to follow the firm track pressed deep into the snow by the boat-like sleigh.

They crossed human tracks on the way up, most likely tribesmen on the hunt. For what game, who knew? But the men kept up a blistering pace, the prospect of home plus the threat of attack while disarmed creating a powerful incentive to keep on the move. The hearty meal and restful sleep had done wonders for their strength. Janos, exhausted, was fueled more by anxiety and the oppression of duty. He could not wait to leave these mountains and responsibilities behind.

He tallied the muster on the march. What had been thirty-eight was now forty-three, even after the loss of Henryk and the cousins. While the holiday would prove tragic for some families of Turok, in sum, more than expected would now have a young man return from the war in time for Yule. And they would come bearing gifts that belied the miserable outcome of their expedition, but which would enlighten the spirits of Yuletide just the same.

Atop the pass, the snow glittered so brightly they had to squint. Hoarfrost tinkled like tiny bells as crystals tumbled off the ledges.

Before them spread a familiar view of the rivers and fields of their homeland, still bearing hints of green. The previous Spring some of the soldiers had remarked that this vista might be the last they ever saw of Pom. For most, this was sadly true. But for the lucky forty-three, not two nights would pass before they would share their adventures and tribulations with those who loved them. And Janos would be free to be just another man with a plow.

*****

Hell Hounds

Marsha and Joel unpacked boxes of his grandmother's knick-knacks—tag sale acquisitions, anniversary gifts, souvenirs from road trips and foreign excursions—the kitschy detritus of a long life lived well. The kinds of things that made a house a home. But this was their home now, the mantles and window sills a blank slate for them to fill.

It warmed Joel's heart to catch Marsha gazing out the picture window at the huge old oaks shading Central Avenue. Leaving Ohio had not been easy for her, but she just adored their new environs. She couldn't get over how much Courtland reminded her of her hometown. To both of them, the community seemed like the perfect place to raise a family.

But out of the blue, Marsha cried out.

"Oh my God!"

Joel caught his toe on a threshold, dropping and shattering a Hummel figurine. He rushed to the window.

A huge and hideous dog with clumped and mangy fur was clawing a hole in the neighbor's lawn, sending clods of turf flying onto the sidewalk.

"What the...? What is that thing?"

"Looks like a mastiff," said Marsha.

"Well, it's certainly not a Lhasa Apso."

"It must be a stray. We'd better call animal control."

As she pulled out her phone, the giant dog perked its ears and bounded across the yard, clearing a picket fence in a single bound.

"Keep the cats inside!"

***

Out in the garden, Joel took a break from the endless unpacking to put in a tray of heirloom tomato plants. It was already a week after Memorial Day. He had to get them in soon if they wanted to be picking ripe tomatoes by August.

The soil here was rich and loamy, a far cry from the shale-ridden nightmare they called loam back in Utica. Here they called it loess—such a lovely name for dirt—evoking the name of a goddess or the sound of the winds that spawned it.

Deposits in this town lay a hundred feet thick. Fertile too, judging from the size of last season's sunflower stalks still gracing people's yards.

Joel set his seedlings two feet apart as he worked his way down the row. Their acrid resins wafted up in the warm, spring breeze. His trowel met little resistance as he settled into a rhythm. Dig. Put. Pat. Reach.

And then, before he had the chance to pack the soil around its roots a seedling vanished down the hole he had just scooped.

"What the heck?"

He lost his grip on the trowel and it too disappeared down the hole. The edges crumbled into a dark void nearly a foot across. What kind of rodent would dig such a burrow? He thrust him arm in, determined to retrieve the trowel. Feeling around, he could not touch bottom.

The trowel slapped firmly into his palm. He yanked his arm out and sent it flying across the yard.

Flicking on the light from his key chain, he shined it into the hole. There was a cave down there, shored up with plywood and two by fours. A man in tattered clothing cowered in the corner, clutching a chipped and dented spade.

"What the heck? What are you doing under my garden?"

"Sorry," said the man meekly. "I was just ... just passing through."

"You can't just tunnel through our yard."

"I have little choice. The hounds are after me."

"Hounds?"

The man just shrugged.

"You get out of there right now, or I'm calling the cops."

"I can't."

Marsha came strolling across the lawn bearing a glass of iced tea. She scrunched her eyes.

"Joel? Who are you talking to?"

"There's a man down there."

"What?"

Martha got down on her knees and peered into the hole.

"Oh my God! Sir. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," said the man. "Just happened to dig a little too close to the surface. No worries, I'll be on my way."

"Joel, fetch him a ladder!"

"Oh no. I can't come out. That's impossible."

"Why is that?"

"Because ... I'm cursed."

***

It took the man nearly two hours to tunnel up to their foundation. Marsha had Joel bash a hole into the concrete wall of the foundation with a sledgehammer.

The man clambered through the gap into the basement. His clothes were reduced to shreds and rags. Grime filled every crease and wrinkle in his face. His hair was a helm of clotted clay.

"We'd better get you upstairs and washed up," said Marsha.

"I ... can't," said the man. "That's not possible."

"Oh. Give it a try. Maybe this whole six feet under thing is only in your mind."

"How I wish that were true, miss. I've questioned the integrity of this spell many a time, always to no avail."

"Please? Just try."

He sighed and heaved himself up to his feet, bearing a look of infinite weariness as he made his way to the staircase. He hoisted his scrawny frame onto the first tread. The tread creaked and bowed as if an elephant had stepped on it. He stepped off as the wood began to splinter.

"Oh my," said Marsha. "I'll be right back." She ran upstairs and into the kitchen.

The man settled back down onto the concrete floor. He was thin, but cords of muscle bulged in his back and arms. His forearms alone were as thick as Joel's thighs. His legs, however, seemed almost atrophied in comparison. A large chunk of flesh was missing from his left calf.

"A curse, huh?" said Joel, making small talk.

"Bad one, too. Can't say I didn't deserve it."

Joel found the whole situation preposterous, but he gave their guest the benefit of the doubt.

"So ... you gotta stay underground?"

The man nodded. "Some part of me must be six feet under for maximum comfort. I can tolerate five, but any shallower and my bones begin to ache intolerably. Not to mention, proximity to the surface makes the hounds grow restless. They move about and track me down. With all the rains of late, I haven't been able to stay as deep as I ought. The water table has risen."

Marsha came skipping down the stairs with a steaming bowl of corn chowder and some damp wash rags.

"Oh, you are much too kind," said the man. "I must say, this is a first for me. I usually enter basements uninvited."

He took the bowl and slurped, not bothering with the spoon.

"My name is Lester Fallow," he said between slurps. "You might have heard the name. I used to manage a funeral home in town. It has been in my family since pioneer days."

"We're kind of new in town," said Joel.

He was licking the bowl now, just like a dog. Marsha ran back upstairs and brought down the whole pot. She didn't bother ladling from it, she just handed it over.

"Oh, thank you dear. You are most kind. Your chowder is heavenly. This really is my lucky day. I'm sorry to have to eat and run, but I really should keep moving. Those hounds will sniff me out if I don't. And I must say, these are not the sort of creatures you would ever want visiting your property."

"But ... how did this happen to you?" said Marsha.

He sighed long and painfully and daubed his face with a wash rag.

"She was a client of mine...."

***

Miss Serendipia Oxley was a wealthy spinster. Old money from Chicago, they say. Went around town in a chauffeured Mercedes. Rumors said she dabbled in the occult, but to me she was nothing more than a harmless eccentric.

She came into my office with four beastly dogs slavering and stinking of road kill. These were not ordinary dogs. Their muzzles came over the top of my desk. Mangy coats hanging like shredded sheepskins. Drooling foulness all over my carpet.

I held my tongue about her pets. Perhaps they were service dogs. What kind of service, I didn't care to imagine.

"How may I help you, ma'am?"

"I've come to purchase a burial plot for myself."

"Well, you've come to the right place. We've just opened a lovely new section in the flats."

"I have my eye on a specific location."

She slapped a map of our cemetery onto my desk and stabbed her fingernail into Brewster's Hill.

"This one right here. Numbers 142 A through D, on the eastern slope."

"I'm sorry ma'am, but those plots belong to the Websters. They're not for sale."

Her expression did not falter. "I will compensate the current owners for their inconvenience and pay you twice the going rate."

I put on my best smile, the one I reserve for wealthy cretins. "Ma'am, I'm sorry. But I can't sell you those plots for any price. They're not mine to sell."

She cocked her head at me. "I don't believe the Websters happen to be using them at the moment. Seems to me they are very much alive."

"Well yes, but...."

"I only wish to borrow them. When I am done, they can have them back."

I chuckled. "Sorry, ma'am, but we don't do rentals."

"Why not?"

"It's simply not how we do business. Those plots belong to the Websters."

"If no one's buried there yet, why should it matter to them?"

"Perhaps, they wish to preserve their burial site's pristine nature. As I suppose you know, they command the most excellent view of the valley."

"I couldn't care less about any damned view. Tell the Websters I'll reimburse double what they paid, same rate I'm offering you. This way, everybody wins."

Her lips retracted to reveal rows of oddly-shaped teeth. I believe she had intended to smile not grimace.

"But ma'am, we have plenty of other lovely sites to choose from."

"I need 142 A through D. No other locations will do."

She gave me an evil eye that would have wilted an oak. But I just couldn't imagine breaking the news to Gerald Webster that I had sold his final resting place to a higher bidder. Though he was still quite vigorous for his age, the old patriarch came by every weekend to meditate on the hillside he intended his bones to rest.

"Might I refer you to a colleague of mine who runs a top-notch cemetery in the Heights?"

She glared at me. "I need these. 142 A through D. And I intend to possess them."

I stood my ground.

"Perhaps ... you need a little persuasion," she said.

Her gaze latched onto the cage of budgies in the waiting area.

"You like little birds, do you?"

I shrugged. "They bring cheer to my clients."

"Cheer!" She snorted. "I will give you one day to reconsider. I'll be back tomorrow to choose my casket. I will expect you to have the paperwork ready by then."

She yanked on the leashes and dragged her dogs out of my office.

"I suggest you think about what else you're fond of before I see you next. I'm being more than generous, Mr. Fallow."

Next morning on my drive in, birds rained down out of the trees, slapping onto my windshield stone dead. I was a rolling wave of avian death.

I rushed to the office to find my budgies legs up and limp on the floor of their cage.

Needless to say, I reassessed my position on this Webster issue. I realized I was dealing with more than just a crazy old lady.

I struggled for a way to approach old Gerald on the matter. I had to give this woman the impression I was doing my due diligence.

It was raining when she arrived later that morning in her gray Mercedes, this time without her hounds. Her chauffeur, a squat man named Martin, stayed close to her side. He had a squashed, chinless face that reminded me of a toad's.

She came into our showroom and selected our most expensive rosewood model with a silk lining and pewter fittings.

"Now what about those plots, 142 A through D?"

I had to lie. "It's all been arranged. Those plots are now yours."

She smirked. "I knew you would come around to seeing things my way. Where do I sign?"

I wrote up a false invoice. I just wanted her out of my parlor. Later, I could sort things out.

When I handed her a pen, she ignored it. She signed with a pointed claw of a fingernail, which left a track the color of dried blood.

"Martin, bring him the coins."

The chauffeur unloaded six canvas sacks of silver coins from his trunk.

"This should be more than enough to cover the cost of the plots and casket. Keep the extra with my compliments."

"Um. Thank you ... very much."

"Is someone on duty here at all times?"

"Twenty four hours."

"When I pass, you will find a document on my corpse outlining my requirements. Simply put, there is to be no embalming. No wake. No funeral. No obituary, headstone or any other such nonsense. You will simply place me six feet under as soon as you find me dead, not a moment wasted. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am, but what about your friends and relatives? Won't they be expecting some kind of ceremony?"

"I have no relations." She bulged her eyes at me and let the point linger. "Alacrity is essential. You may wish to prepare a hole in advance. Furthermore, the lid of my casket is not to be fastened in any manner, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Now, I expect you to follow my wishes to the last word. You are being very well compensated. If you intend to deviate in any way, I suggest you think about what else in this life you hold dear besides little birds."

After she left, I took the coins and stuck them in a closet. I wasn't about to take them to the bank. They looked like artifacts from an archeological dig.

I kept the whole transaction out of the books. I planned not to breathe a word of this to old Gerald. I didn't know exactly what I would do yet when the time came, but if she had no friends or relatives, did the location of her final resting place really matter? For now, I could only wish both her and Gerald long and healthy lives.

Scant days later I got a frantic call from my assistant Norv, who had the night duty.

"Boss. I need you here, quick."

I walked over from home—I lived only a few blocks away—and found Norv waiting for me outside the parlor.

"What's wrong?"

"This old lady walks in, climbs into a casket and proceeds to die. There was a note pinned to her jacket with your name."

"Have you called the police?"

"Not yet."

"Don't."

"What do you mean?"

"This is a special case, Norv."

"Boss, we can't just ...."

"Norv. Let me handle this. Where's the note?"

"Here."

He handed me a piece of mottled parchment with a spare but elegant script written in burgundy ink. It was a list re-iterating her demands. No coroner. No embalming. Immediate interment.

Norv read over my shoulder.

"142 A through D? That's the Webster plot."

"I'll handle this, Norv."

"But we can't put her _there_!

"I said, let me handle this. And keep it all to yourself. There are threats involved here."

"Threats?"

"The less you know about it the better, Norv."

"O ... kay."

I went in to the showroom. The woman in the casket was most definitely Miss Oxley and she was most definitely dead, as waxy and blue as a week-old corpse.

"Help me load her up."

"So where you gonna put her?"

"Don't exactly know. Anywhere but 142 A through D. Any ideas?"

"Well, the Bickford tomb's got slots open. That family died out years ago."

I knew this tomb well. It was a sodded over barrow in the part of the cemetery with the oldest and largest trees. I had played on and around it as a child.

No Bickford had lived in this town for at least a generation. Any descendants lived a thousand miles away. There would be no one to notice an extra casket in a forgotten tomb.

Norv helped me load up the van and I drove into the cemetery alone. It was a starry evening, unusually bright considering there was no moon.

The nice thing about a mausoleum? No digging. It would simply be a matter of unlocking a vault, sliding the casket onto a plinth and locking up the tomb. Old Gerald need not be disturbed.

I pulled up the van and opened the doors, rolling the casket out on its cart. For good measure, I grabbed a hammer from the tool box and a handful of tenpenny nails. It was a shame to mar that beautiful rosewood, but it made me feel more secure. I hammered in about four, figuring that should suffice.

I put her to bed, stepped out of the tomb and set the rusted, old padlock. The old trees seemed sleepy and peaceful. A wind kicked up and stirred the leaves into little whirlwinds. There was an odd glow in the east.

On the way back to the parlor, I was startled to see the old hag's Mercedes parked out front. The toad-like chauffeur waited on the sidewalk with those dogs.

I should have known the old hag would have arranged for verification. I turned around and doubled back to plots 142 A through D.

I got the shovel out of the van and commenced to pry up sod, stacking squares of turf, loosening up the soil underneath and replacing them. Now at least I had some evidence to show the chauffeur. I could always tell old Gerald that one of the gravediggers had made a mistake, but not to worry, there was no one buried in his plot and I could prove it.

That done, I returned to the parlor. The Mercedes was still parked outside. The chauffeur and the dogs were waiting for me in the reception area. I found Norv cowering in my office.

"Good evening," I said, keeping my distance from the dogs. I still had dirt under my fingernails.

"Ze list," said the chauffeur. "You haff honored my lady's wishes?"

"Of course," I said, wiping my hands on my trousers.

"She ees facing zee East?"

"As she wished."

"Very well." The lightness in his eyes spoke of unspeakable burdens lifted.

"Adieu," he said as he left the parlor. He released the dogs and they went bounding into the graveyard. He dropped his cap and keys on the sidewalk and went strolling off into the darkness, abandoning the car.

I had a bad feeling about those monster dogs roaming loose in my cemetery. I got back in the van and drove back to the tomb. The door was intact, as I would have expected. I could hear the dogs snarling and howling high on that hill.

I drove back up there. My headlights swept across the dogs surrounding my pretend excavation. They had torn through the mound of loosened soil and scattered the squares of turf. They stalked my van, hackles raised and growling.

A blotch of light, like a comet without a tail, hung low in the eastern sky. Its sickly yellow rays washed over the cemetery. One of the dogs attacked the van, scraping its claws down the side panel.

As I backed away and turned around, an explosion detonated down in the flats, sending a cloud of debris and dust spewing up among the ancient oaks down the hill.

I careened back down the hill, high beams on all the way. The walls of the Bickford tomb had burst open, peeling apart from the center, scattering bones and chunks of antique casket. But the old hag's rosewood coffin lay perfectly intact atop the rubble. As I puzzled over how this could possibly be, a car came screaming up the one lane access road. Norv burst out of his car.

"What the hell, boss? Was that lady packing a bomb?"

"Not exactly."

We got out of our vehicles and stood there, dumbfounded. The coffin lid commenced to bulge and creak between the points at which I had nailed it down. From within, the sound of an elderly woman grunting and straining alternated with something more monstrous.

"Norv, grab yourself a hammer and some nails."

"But ... boss."

Before we could move, the wood splintered at the hinges and the lid came flying off. The hag reared up, tilted back her head and screamed to the heavens, broadcasting her pain and anger to the universe.

She was weak and wobbly but her eyes found me and transfixed me to the spot like a hand traps a frog. I couldn't move an inch.

Her speech was all slurred. "I had a feeling something would go wrong. Where is that worthless chauffeur of mine? He was supposed to ensure that things like this didn't happen."

"He ... uh ... left. You car's still here, though. Would you like the keys?"

"You stupid, foolish man. How could you do this? Do you even know who you're dealing with?"

She tore open her blouse and camisole, revealing her withered tits. She spread her arms and soaked in the rays what rays she could of the now fading glow in the eastern sky. She staggered out of the coffin towards me. I couldn't even back away. Norv fled into his car and slammed the door.

She had trouble supporting her weight. Her life force flickered in and out like a guttering candle. Her eyes drifted.

As the glow in the sky gradually vanished, the grip on my legs eased and I was able to move closer to the van. I was reaching for the door when her eyes regained their focus and the leaden feeling returned.

"You failed me, Mr. Fallow. Now what shall we do to set things right?"

My well-honed customer service skills sprang into action.

"I'm so very sorry ma'am, but we just couldn't put you in that plot. As I tried to explain, it belongs to Gerald Webster. But we do have a wide selection of lovely mausolea on our grounds. Mr. Brooks and I would be more than glad to put you into something extra nice at no extra charge. Carrara marble. Sienna if you prefer."

"Fool! I needed that specific plot. Our kind have been using it for centuries before this was ever a public graveyard. You grew up on these grounds. You should have known."

"I ... I knew that hill was special. But I never knew why."

"Well, now you know. Too late for you, I'm afraid. For his sake, I hope your assistant is a quicker learner. I'll be back next equinox for the light of the wight. I expect whoever is running this place by then will do things correctly. As for you Mr. Fallow, I give you one hour to get yourself six feet under before I set the hounds after you."

She ripped open the door of my van with one yank of her scrawny arm, pulled a shovel off a rack and tossed it to me. "Start digging."

The dogs came bounding and baying down a footpath. The hag croaked a command in some arcane tongue and they arrayed themselves around me at the four compass points.

I felt a heaviness tugging me down. I didn't think much of it at first. I just started digging, figuring if I dug a deep enough hole she would take her dogs and leave me be.

My feet sank into the loam almost faster than I could dig. It was as if the Earth's gravity had been cranked up to eleven on the dial for me alone.

Norv looked pale and lost. "Boss, what do I do?" he whispered.

"You shall do nothing, say nothing," said the hag. "You will attend to your duties and feign ignorance with the authorities. They will find no natural cause for this damage and blame it on pranksters or swamp gas. They always do. It never fails."

The pressure finally eased once I had dug a pit about as deep as I was tall.

"Ta ta," said the hag as she staggered off towards the cemetery gate, hounds trotting at her heels.

Norv tried to help me out of the pit. He brought me a ladder. Rope and harness. Block and tackle. Nothing would work. My weight increased several tons with every upward step. I was officially cursed.

I dug the pit larger, by undercutting the walls. Norv brought me a chair and a blanket. He tarped over the top to keep out the rain and prying eyes. Brought me meals.

One or more of the dogs would come by from time to time to make sure I was still confined. Some children found me. I pretended to be dead. They ran away screaming.

I expected the spell to wear off, but it never did. After a time I began to get restless. That's when I began tunneling. Thank the Lord we are blessed with such thick deposits of loess. My wanderings would have been impossible had there been bedrock or glacial till.

What I had was a moveable cave, a roaming tunnel. I shifted shorings back to fore to support the newly dug areas and filled in the back with diggings. I maintained a layer of sod overhead to keep undercover, employing a metal pipe for ventilation. Norv kept track of my whereabouts every day, stuffing meals and drinks in plastic bags down the shaft.

I learned how to tunnel a hundred feet a day without any subsidence, without anyone knowing I was down below. I had to maneuver occasionally around caskets, until one glorious day I was off the grounds of the cemetery and it was all backyards and open corn fields to the horizon.

The day after the vernal equinox, Norv stopped coming around. I presumed he had done something to annoy the hag and picked up a curse of his own. When the hounds came to check on me, there was a new dog with them. Sleeker fur. Devoid of scars. A pup.

Without Norv, I now had to raid the occasional basement to re-provision. Fieldstone foundations I preferred because I could make my intrusions look like a natural collapse and cover my tracks. Unfortunately, most contractors in town lay concrete slabs these days.

One glorious summer I managed to break into the city storm drains. I could put down my shovel and wander at will, eavesdropping on the news at the bus stops, listening to live music from the gazebo in the park.

But then the hounds found their way in. They were not pleased. They chased me down every corner of the sewer system until they had me trapped. The alpha dog extracted a pound of flesh from my leg as punishment for my transgression. I nearly died from loss of blood and the ensuing infection.

***

"Joel!" Marsha put a hand on her husband's shoulder. "Do you hear ... barking?"

The snap and snarl of fighting dogs could be heard beyond the casement window. A sharp whimper. Silence.

"That squeal. It sounded like Sparky ... the neighbor's dog."

There came a scratching from upstairs. Something was clawing at the screens on the storm door.

"They're here," said Mr. Fallow rising. "I must go." He grabbed his shovel and made for the breach in the foundation. Despite his slight frame, he moved like a thousand pound man, feeling the press of not keeping six feet under.

Something glassy crashed upstairs. Heavy paws with claws thudded and clattered on the hardwood overhead.

Joe grabbed the sledge hammer off the ground. Marsha rushed over to a gun case and unsnapped it. Inside was an heirloom shotgun she had inherited from her grandfather. Mr. Fallow wielded his shovel like a battle axe.

"Do you have any silverware? Stainless steel won't do."

"There should be some in one of these boxes," said Marsha, fiddling with the gun.

"Silver, I suspect, is the only way to kill them clean."

"Kill them? Oh, I don't want to hurt them," said Marsha. "I just want to make them go away."

Joel crept up the stairs.

"Joel! Where are you going?"

"Just making sure the door's locked."

"Don't go up there!"

"I don't hear it anymore. I think it went away."

He opened the door an inch. A mass of scars and fur and teeth slammed into it, knocking him down the stairs. Joel screamed. The beast clamped Joel's head in its jaws.

Marsha pressed the shotgun against the dog's breastbone and pulled the trigger. It convulsed and went limp. Blood streamed down Joel's cheeks.

"Oh my! I'd better get the first aid kit."

"Silver! You need silver," said Mr. Fallow. "To finish off the beast."

Another dark hulk came flying down the stairs, barreling into Marsha. The shotgun went flying. The hound grabbed Marsha by the foot and shook her like a limp rag.

Joel swung the sledgehammer and crushed the creature's skull. Its jaws released and it crumpled to the ground. Joel rushed back up the stairs and locked the basement door. When he came back down, Marsha gasped.

"Didn't you shave today?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Your face. It's growing fur. And your nose, it's changing."

Marsha, too, was developing a bit of five o'clock shadow on her cheeks and chin. The hounds were slowly re-absorbing their fur, lengthening their limbs, turning back into people. Dead people.

"Oh my Lord!" said Mr. Fallow. "That younger beast, it was Norv Brooks." He tucked his shovel and ducked through the breach in the basement wall.

"What's happening to us?" said Marsha.

"Transformation. Possession. It's another of the hag's spells, I'm afraid. These hounds, they're immortal. They take over the life force of those who try to kill them. They can't be truly killed without silver."

"You can't leave now! How do we break the spell?"

"My death, dear people. I'm afraid that's only way. I'm so sorry. You've been very kind to me, but I'm not quite ready to go."

"So once you die, we'll go back to how we were?" said Marsha, touching her ever enlarging snout gingerly, like someone patting a fresh bruise.

"There's only one way to find out." Joe snarled, displaying his newly sprouted two-inch canines. He stalked across the basement and lunged for Mr. Fallow's throat.

*****

The Bog Wife

A stream of bubbles rose from deep in the bog. At first, they were few and sparse but soon came in great gulps and belches till the water boiled and bulged with froth. The moon would be full the next time it rose—the first full moon on a summer solstice eve in almost thirty years.

A human hand broke through the surface. Withered and quaking, an index finger extended heavenward. A second hand joined it. Together, they parted the living peat and grasped the sheet of matted moss on either side of the slit.

Through the seam, a hooded head emerged, skin browned by a millennium of acid and tannin. Squirming, writhing, his shoulders pressed through the gap like a baby through a birth canal. How many such births had the bog attended over the centuries? One hundred? Two hundred?

A knee and an elbow found purchase on the matted surface of the bog and hauled the rest of him dripping, out of the hole. The Elder took his first rattling breath in decades, expelling great volumes of brown water from his nostrils. Like a cold and sluggish salamander emerging from hibernation, he crept towards the edge of the bog in fits and spurts. Between bouts of crawling, the last light of the day fell softly upon his heaving form as he rested among the reeds.

His skin was tough and tanned, indistinguishable from his leather skullcap. His jerkin and breeches, slick with the slime of centuries, clung as if joined to his skin. A knotted flaxen cord dangled from his crooked neck, a relic remnant of the ritual murder that had rendered him immortal. A bracelet of wooden beads and pierced seeds dangled from his bony wrist.

Sucking sounds bracketed each erratic, rattling inhalation. A fine brown froth bubbled from gaps between his ribs, and from the holes in his throat. He rested his palms on the mossy earth and stooped down to kiss the ground. His ground. Good rich Welsh mud.

The sun now gone, left an afterglow behind the place where it had died in the hills. He looked up, and a slow, sad smile creased his lips. Dark eyes with whites gone brown had seen more sunsets than any living man. Lines furrowed his brow, documenting worries long abandoned with his life. He was all business now, his existence reduced to a single function, passing on his seed and that of his ancestors to whatever generation currently resided on the bog.

He moved his lips, chanting wordlessly. His wheezing breath added a rhythmic fluting cadence to his chants. For now he had no voice, but it would come. The solstice moon, when it came, would bring him strength for the coupling as it always had and always would, so long as men and women walked this earth.

He sat up and waited for the change, pressing flush flaps of separated forearm flesh against exposed bone, like a man self-conscious of a rip in his trousers. He sighed and waited for the moon.

***

Ben Greenberg hovered near the Cornish pasty stand at the end of the platforms at King's Cross station, cradling a bouquet of roses and baby's breath. This was E-Day—E for elopement—and Ben refused to believe that there was any chance that Jillian Dunn would not be coming down from Swansea on the seven o'clock train. Outside the station, Ben's wing man and would-be best man Nigel idled at the curb, behind the wheel of a little blue Ford Festiva, ready to whisk them away to the registrar's office for a civil ceremony.

In black jeans and a blue button-down open at the collar, he worried he might be under-dressed for an elopement. But Jillian was a simple country girl. She had insisted on no tux, no ties, no fancy dress, just something clean and comfortable.

But he had won some compromises regarding their honeymoon. They were going to Italy, to Cinque Terra and then Florence, even though Jillian had never been off the British Isles all her life. And then Ben would begin his new job in Brixton as a research drone in a biotech firm.

They had planned way too long for this day for it not to go according to plan. Sure, it concerned him that he had not heard her voice in two weeks and that it had been almost as long since she had responded to his texts, but he had absolutely no reason to doubt her commitment.

How many nights had they whispered, sharing wishes and dreams that meshed and converged in so many uncanny ways. They were soul mates, meant to share their life. That fact was unassailable.

She had warned that things might go this way. It wasn't her fault she had the weirdest parents, as eccentric as they were strict. Vile, really. Anti-Semitic. Anti-American. Anti-modern. Fundamentalist Luddites. By keeping silent, she gave them no reason to suspect that she was running off to London to marry a Jewish kid from Brooklyn. Believing that was the only way he managed to keep calm.

The train crept into the platform, only five minutes late. Pins and needles shimmered through his core. He watched the mob unload and fetch their suitcases. Businessmen rushing to work. A boisterous football side from a boy's boarding school. Bringing up the rear came some wobbly grandmothers with canes and wheelchairs. No Jillian.

Heart broken, he squeezed the bouquet until the rose thorns dug into the meat of his thumb. Eyes damp, he texted her one last time: "Jilly. Where are you?" He didn't expect a reply, but as he made his way out through the lobby, with those flowers now a burden, his cell phone warbled.

"Crymlyn."

***

Ben hopped into the front seat of the Festiva. Nigel pried at him with his eyes.

"What's up mate? Train delayed?"

"No. It came on time."

"Well then. Where is she?"

"She texted me. Some place called Crymlyn."

"So why didn't she come? Cold feet? Did she say?"

"Obviously, it's some parental issue."

"Well, at least she texted you back. Right?"

"Yeah, but just the one word. Crymlin. What does she mean? Ha ha, I'm in Crymlin, fuck you? Or: Help. I'm in Crymlyn. Come rescue me?"

Nigel made a sour face. "Neither. That girl doesn't have a cruel bone in her body. She's not the type to taunt."

"So you think she's in trouble?"

"It's not like her to be so terse."

Ben sighed. "Her freaking parents must have found out about the elopement and talked her out of it ... or worse."

"Worse? How so?"

"Well, they're pretty old school, to put it mildly. I wouldn't put it past them to have locked her in a basement or something."

Nigel sighed. "So where is this Crymlyn place?"

"You're the native. I was hoping you would know."

"Never heard of it." He shrugged.

"I suppose it would have to be near Swansea. But out in the countryside. The way Jillian described it, her parents' estate is surrounded by bogs and fens for miles around."

"Doesn't quite narrow it down. That part of Wales is fairly swampy all along the coast."

Ben looked his friend in the eyes.

"Nigel, you need to drive me to Wales."

"Oh? I do, do I?"

"You are ... my best man."

Nigel sighed. "That I am. And I intend to live up to it. No worries, mate. We'll get you there. Though, I'm not crazy about meeting this demented family of hers."

Ben tossed the flowers into the back seat as Nigel threw his car into gear and drove off down Euston Road, heading for the Westway.

***

As they sped westward on the M4, Ben couldn't stop staring at Jillian's one word text. It was the first communications he had received from her in weeks. The fact that she had used her phone at all was a revelation. It meant that she still had it with her. That her parents hadn't confiscated it. That it was charged and linked to the network. He could picture her checking it umpteen times a day, waiting for a message or a call from him, even he had long stopped texting after the first dozen messages went unanswered.

He took a chance and called her mobile. The call went straight to voice mail, which was full of his prior pinings and musings and unable to accept any more.

He unzipped his day pack and rifled through it, retrieving their marriage application, bearing her precious signature, a token of hope and love affirmed that he spent many an hour gazing at during their unplanned separation. Beneath the mobile number that she no longer responded to, she had filled in a number for the family land line. She had expressly forbidden him to ever call there. She said that if her parents ever took a call from a man it would trigger a clamp down. He wasn't sure what she had meant, but her silence made him wonder. To what extremes they would go to isolate their daughter from a man they didn't want her to marry?

The woman was twenty five years old. Surely, she had the right to make her own choices.

He called the land line. A long series of clicks and stutters crackled before a connection was made and it began to ring. Ben had experienced smoother connections calling halfway across the world to rural India. Hard to believe this was happening in the twenty-first century UK.

"Hullo?" came a crackly voice.

"Yeah, hi, this is Ben Greenberg. I'm a friend of Jillian's. Is ... she ... uh ... Is she home?" More crackles. A long pause. Ben wondered if he had been disconnected.

"Jillian can't come to the phone right now."

"Well, can you please have her call me back? She ... she has my number."

"I'm afraid that will not be possible."

"Just ... have her call me when she gets a chance. Please."

"You must be the young man she's been seeing."

"Um ... yes."

"Well, I'm afraid you won't be seeing her any more. Nothing personal, young man. Life sometimes takes unexpected turns. You'd best move on with your life. Jillian's going to be indisposed for some time. Family duties."

"I don't understand. What sort of duties?"

"Nothing for you to be concerned with. Good day."

"Can I please talk to her ... just for a minute? Just to say ... goodbye?"

"If it's any consolation, this has nothing to do with you. You sound like a decent enough chap. But things are different now. You'd best stay away from her. That's the best advice I can give you. You sound like too nice a lad to be ... to be hurt."

The line crackled out. The silence stung.

***

Once they reached Swansea, finding the right Crymlyn was a matter of trial and error. There were several localities sharing that name in the south of Wales, all associated with peat bogs. The best known bog of that name turned out to be a false lead, a nature preserve near Swansea. The Crymlyn of the Dunns turned out to be a smaller bog to the north where the hills began to poke their bulk out of the landscape. If they hadn't come across an old farmer hauling a hay wagon, they never would have found it.

"Is it the Dunns you're looking for? God help you, then."

"Why do you say that?"

"Let's just say that they are not ordinary folk. They are a queer lot. Their whole history is a bit tainted. How they came about their land. How they get to keep it."

"How so?"

"Some things are better left unsaid. Putting words to it only riles the spirits, if you know what I'm saying."

"The Dunns. Are they landed gentry, then?"

"They're landed, I suppose. Forty hectares of untillable slough. Far from gentry. Some would say they got shafted. But such bargains are made in desperate times. And this one was forged a thousand years ago. Things were different, then."

"A thousand years? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Never mind," said the farmer. "I've already said too much. But the Dunns' estate is just over that rise. Go have a look-see if you insist. But do take care."

The farmer slammed his tractor into gear and pulled away.

"I say we park in that patch of oaks over there and investigate on foot," said Nigel.

"Shouldn't we ... find some lodging? It's gonna be dark soon."

Nigel glared at me and bit his lip.

"You want to check into a bloody inn? You think word won't get out to the Dunns that there are foreigners in town come to make off with their daughter? Are you serious about helping Jillian or not?"

"Well, you're not exactly ... a foreigner."

"Oh no? I'm English ... and from East London. 'Nuff said."

Nigel backed his car into a bumpy track under the spreading boughs of oaks that looked like they hadn't been touched by an ax since the signing of the Magna Carta.

With the sun hanging low, they set off on foot over a low, denuded hill that showed its bones here and there through the thin, sparsely grassed soil.

Atop the hill a view opened up to the south where the outskirts of Swansea were visible across an expanse of marsh with reeds rippling in the breeze. A compound of low houses and barns with roofs of thatch were enclosed by hedges that separated them from a coppiced orchard.

"My goodness," said Nigel. "It's like one of those tourist trap reconstructions. We've stepped into the freaking twelfth century."

"So what do we do? Should I ... text her? Let her know we've come?"

"What if someone else has her phone?" Nigel handed Ben the keys. "Let me do some scouting."

"Wait a minute. Shouldn't I be the one doing this?"

"Better they catch me than the kid from Brooklyn who's been shagging their daughter. Wait here. I'll be right back."

"Be careful!"

But Nigel was already running in a crouch down the backside of the hill like some elite commando assaulting a village.

Ben hunkered down behind a cairn to watch.

***

The sun fell. The moon had yet to rise. And Nigel had yet to return. Ben was on the verge of calling the police or fetching Nigel's car and driving onto the estate to confront Mr. Dunn directly.

The bog gleamed black and oily in the faint light reflected from several kerosene lanterns posted about the family compound. Not a single electric bulb glowed anywhere on the property. Apart from their telephone, the Dunns appeared to live entirely off the grid.

A bush scraped. A pebble clattered.

"Nige? That you?" The silence that followed almost burst his heart.

"Who else would it be?"

Ben sighed. "Christ! What took you so long?"

"I got trapped behind a hedge. Almost got myself snared. There's a bunch of old ladies down there, singing the weirdest songs, dancing and chanting and praying. I could swear I was in middle of some witches' convention. When they finally went inside I made it around to each of the out-buildings. And ... well, I found her."

"How is she?"

"She looked ... okay. I didn't actually get close enough to speak with her. Just caught a glimpse through a window pane. There were a couple of old ladies in the room, one washing her feet in a basin, the other serving her soup on a tray. She's in that little hut with the crude thatch all by itself on the edge of the compound. No electricity. Just a candle. She's wearing this outfit, dressed all in white, like she's some virgin sacrifice."

"What the fuck?"

"Bad choice of words, mate. It was just an expression. I don't know exactly what is going on, but we're here in time to bust her out. You go see to your girl. I'll fetch the car and bring it closer."

Ben handed back the car keys.

"Text me when you're ready to go and I'll come roaring down the track. Mind the gaps between the hedges. They're rigged with some sort of booby traps."

***

Faint fiddle music carried on the wind. Wood smoke wafted up the hillside, carrying with it the scent of onions and roasting pork. Ben stumbled down the breeze-swept slope. He could barely keep his feet on the rutted and tussocked ground. Only stars and fire glow lit his way. The moon had yet to rise.

Hounds barked and howled across the fens. Nigel hadn't mentioned anything about dogs.

He passed through the outer hedge and made his way past the barns to the small, round hut where Jillian would be found. It looked more like something one would find in rural Africa than the UK.

He found a window and peeked through a gap in curtains. A pang of longing jolted his heart when he spied Jillian sitting on a bed, head down, head down, knees together, arms hugging herself tight. A bowl of soup sat untouched on a tray beside her.

She wore an off-white slip, not quite the wedding gown that Nigel had described. She had lost weight. Her eyes were sunken pits.

He rushed over and tried the door. It yielded.

Jillian's eyes popped open wide. She gasped.

"Ben? What are you doing here? You have to go! Get out of here!"

"Excuse me? I'm not even worth a hello?"

"Leave! Now! He's on his way."

"Who? Your father? Let him come. I'd like a chance to speak my mind, one on one. You're a free woman, Jillian. He's got no right to do this to you. No right whatsoever."

"You don't understand. This is not my daddy's doing. This is something I have to do ... for my family."

"For your family? What about me? My fiancé goes and ditches me with no explanation and I'm just supposed to forget about it?"

"The wedding's off, Ben. Things have changed."

"What could possibly have changed? We've been planning this elopement for months. Three weeks ago you told me you couldn't wait. You wanted to do it early."

"I didn't know my sister would run off to France. But she did, so it's on me now. I have certain ... obligations."

"But you agreed to be my wife."

"I can't now. I'm sorry. I'm ... to be the bog wife."

"The what?"

"Ben ... you can't stay. He'll be coming. As soon as the moon rises."

"Who the fuck is coming? Your ... boyfriend? Your new fiancé?"

"Don't ask me to explain," said Jillian. "Please! Just go."

"But what about ... us?"

"There is no us!" She gnawed at her lip, pained to even look at him. "Maybe some day ... we can be together again ... if you still want me. But I only after I bear his child."

"Bear his child? Bear whose child? What the fuck? Who is this guy? Is this some kind of arranged marriage?"

Jillian breathed hard. Tears dribbled down her cheeks.

"This is how my family keeps our land. For more than a thousand years the Elder has used us to pass on his line. Each full moon on the summer solstice, he comes to this hut to pass on his seed."

"The hell he will! Over my dead body."

"Please Ben. If he finds you here ... if you get in the way, he'll kill you. There are powers at work far beyond your ken. Go back to London. Maybe in a year or so we can see each other again ... if ... if you still want me. My parents would probably agree to watch over the child. That's how it usually goes. This is the price we Dunns pay ... to keep family estate."

"Jillian. You can't tell me you want this. Some guy to come and knock you up ... just for tradition."

"What I want does not matter. And he's not just some guy. He's the Elder."

A silvery glow gilded the curtains.

"The moon. It's rising."

Ben reached out his hand. "Come. If you still love me, then show me. Let's get out of here. Nigel's waiting for us in the car."

"Did you not hear me? I can't go, Ben. I need to go through with this."

"You're shitting me? You want to stay here and get ... raped ... by some ... stranger? Some old guy you don't even know? That's sick, Jill. I mean, is that something you really want to do?"

She lowered her chin.

"No. But it's my duty ... to my family. If I don't do it ... someone else will have to. The Elder won't rest until the deed is done."

"So? Let someone else worry about it. Why should all the burden be on you? Maybe it's time your family broke with tradition, don't you think?"

Jillian still looked uncertain, but at least a mote of hope had joined the mix of emotions clashing on her face. She hopped off the bed and scurried over to a coat rack, fetching her leather jacket.

"That a girl! Now we're talking!"

Ben took her hand and led her towards the door. Together, they left the hut.

With one hand, he texted a one word message to Nigel:

"Now!"

***

Nigel came screaming down the dirt track, headlights dark. The full moon bulged over the marshes, looking twice its normal size.

Across the compound, the music ceased abruptly. Voices hushed. A door creaked open.

"Run!"

They tore across the paddock, making for the gaps in the hedges that ringed the family compound. As he slipped through an opening, a loop of stiff rope lifted out of the dirt and cinched tight around his knee. He thudded against the ground.

"What the fuck?"

"It's one of daddy's snares," said Jillian, dropping to her knees. "He sets them for poachers and trespassers."

"Get it off me! Quick."

"It's too tight. I can't even get my fingers under it. We need a knife."

Voices angry. Footsteps.

Nigel's Ford fishtailed in the dirt and swung around broadside.

"Jillian! Get in the car and go. I'll deal with this meet up with you two in Swansea. Or if worse comes to worse ... London. Don't wait for me. Get the fuck away from this place."

"But ... my daddy."

"I'll deal with your parents! What they did to you is against the law. And besides ... they can't hurt me ... I'm an American citizen."

"You don't know them. They're not bound by normal rules. Things are different here."

"Go with Nigel! Go!"

Nigel pushed the passenger door open and shouted.

"Get the fuck in, Jilly! What are you waiting for?"

Jillian stumbled over to the car and climbed in. Nigel sat there, staring at him.

"Get her the fuck out of here, Nigel! Go!"

Nigel gunned the accelerator even before she had the door closed. His headlights flicked on just in time for him to swerve and avoid a pedestrian standing in the dark in the middle of the road leading across the marsh.

Footsteps approached down the cobbled walk, accompanied by voices, stern and argumentative.

***

A square-jawed man bearing a candle lantern loomed over Ben. He had Jillian's eyes. This had to be her dad. Behind him, a covey of elderly and wrinkled women came hobbling down the walk from the house.

Jillian's father had a shotgun tucked under one arm, his expression grim but calm. He seemed more disappointed than angry.

"You must be Benjamin."

"Yeah. Can you help ... get me out of this?"

"No," he said, flatly.

"What the fuck?"

"We have a full moon on the solstice. This does not happen more than once every thirty years. The Elder must be served his virgin."

"I hate to break this to you, but ... Jillian's no virgin ... and neither am I ... and ... you might not have noticed, but ... I'm not a girl."

Jillian's father sucked on his teeth. "From the Elder's perspective, you will do just fine, son. You are a virgin as far as this bog is concerned."

"What the fuck?"

"We have to keep you here, son. The Elder is not going to be interested in any of these old crones ... or me. It's going to have to be you now, since both of my daughters have slipped the coop."

"But ... I'm not even related. I'm ... American. I'm Jewish. And I'm a man."

He shrugged. "It's not your blood that matters. It's his that needs to be passed on. My family has taken on the burden over the years. But we're more than happy to share. And as for your maleness—a technicality. These ladies will take care of that."

He scratched a circle in the clay around Ben with the toe of his boot. The women began chanting. One of them reached into a purse and pulled out a jar. She smeared a two fingered gob of something viscous and smelly on Ben's forehead.

Still chanting, they women turned back towards the house. Jillian's father lingered, watching.

"You realize this is criminal, Mr. Dunn. If I were you, you would seriously reconsider letting me go right now."

"No, you wouldn't. With two girls gone, someone has to be the bog wife tonight. And it won't be me or those crones, even though some of us have got his blood. Sometimes, a man has to make do. Thankfully, we have the old rites to give us the means. You will be free to go after tonight. We won't keep you here. But bear in mind, you won't be a man again until you bear the Elder's child. So don't get any ideas about morning after pills and abortions and such. You're the bog wife now. The Elder will roam the earth looking for you until he finds you. Until you bear his child. It was to be Jillian, and her sister before that, but now it's you who is the chosen one."

"You can't do this! This is kidnapping! My uncle ... he's got a law practice in Philly. You're going to prison if you don't let me go."

"I'll take our laws over yours, son. Our laws have been operating on this earth a whole lot longer. Long before the Romans came to meddle. The townsfolk know. You'll get no traction for them. They're part of this. Everybody knows about the Elder. Everyone's more than happy to let us Dunn's bear the burden of his seed. They know better. If they interfere, he'll come after them. Even if you go to London, they won't know what to do with you. Not even your American Passport can help you now."

"What are you talking about? No one is above the law."

"I'm just saying ... some laws trump others. Laws of nature and spirit. That's all I'm saying. In any case, the moon, it rises, and we need to get on with business. We'll bring you breakfast in the morning. Some clean clothes. And then you'll free to go."

The music started up again. Mr. Dunn waddled back to the main house, taking with him his feeble pool of light.

Ben lay with his back against the hedge, digging into the snare with his fingernails. The rope around his leg was reinforced with a steel cable.

Waves of nausea shimmered through him. His man parts shriveled. Muscles spasmed in his chest and groin. The flesh around his nipples began to swell.

He gazed into the blackness of the road down which Nigel and Jillian had escaped, hoping to see police cars with lights ablaze and sirens wailing, but all was silent but for the slow, dragging footsteps of the Elder approaching along the margin of the bog, his slender frame silhouetted against the low hanging moon.

*****

The Bridge

Sleep deprivation. That's the only explanation for the incident at the bridge yesterday that makes any sense to me. The other possibilities are too wild or terrible to contemplate. I mean, what else could account for it? Schizophrenia? Brain cancer? Demonic possession? Really?

For lack of sleep, at least I have resources. Poly-fill pillows. Tempur-Pedic mattress. Ambien and scotch, if necessary. Not much to be done about those nastier options but suffer and pray.

I don't dare read the papers or watch the news. I worry that something bad might have happened to Rhea.

The night before, I had stayed up late to watch Monday Night Football. The game stayed neck and neck all the way through, the Giants barely keeping the Eagles at bay with a three point lead at the two minute warning. A last gasp drive by the Eagles tied it with a field goal. Two quarters of overtime and then, like a gift from the angels, an eighty yard touchdown pass to Victor Cruz. We win. But the jitters keep me up till four.

I fall asleep to nightmares. Weird ones. I'm talking H.P. Lovecraft material. Parasites. Clumps of writhing wormy things prodding and probing my organs. I am thankful to waken, even though it's six and I have get to Ithaca for work by seven. But I can't shake those dreams. There's an itch inside my head. Like something has infested my brain.

At the lab, I make a deal with my supervisor Glen to let me leave an hour early if I skip lunch. Three o'clock comes and all I want to do is drive home and crash on the couch. But I'm starving. The only thing I had to eat all day was an over-ripe banana.

A couple slices of pizza would sure hit the spot, so I drive up the hill to College Ave. The metered spaces are full up as usual. I cross the bridge to campus and park near the hotel school. I cut through the engineering quad on foot past the granite sundial and the geological garden.

I'm crossing back over the bridge when something snaps in my head. It feels like ears popping, but deeper. Something makes me stop in the middle and gaze down through the fence into the void of Cascadilla Gorge. The water's deep and turbid from all the thunderstorms we've been having lately. Thick and brown with sediment, it shoots over slabs of slate, over the brink of the falls.

Only a week ago here, fire-fighters recovered the body of a Cornell freshman who had leaped to his death. I shudder at the thought of falling, but something squirms in my head, my fear does a three-sixty and mutates into an urge. Now plunging headfirst into that gorge is something I need as much as food. A pressure builds inside my skull. My heart pounds. My breathing deepens.

What the fuck? Maybe I'm not quite so psyched about life lately but I am far from suicidal, or at least I was. Why the heck would I want to die? The Giants won last night, for Christ's Sake. Pay day is tomorrow.

But somehow the idea of going over the top simultaneously appalls and excites me. This isn't me. It isn't rational. Is this what insanity feels like?

It has to be that thing inside my head. It's doing a pretty good job of convincing me that there's something heroic about letting gravity dash my brains against the bedrock at a hundred miles an hour.

It pries around my head, rooting out every rationale I need to be convinced. That Mom and Dad won't have to fret anymore about me finding a better job, one that actually paid my rent. That Glen could hire someone to replace me who could show up to work awake and on time. That Gina, my on and off girlfriend, could finally break away and find someone better, someone less fucked in the head. After my funeral, once the dust settled, everyone in my life will be happier.

No worries. There will be no pain, it promises. It'll all be over in a flash. The exhilaration of flight and then boom. Game over. No time for hurting. Just instant death.

My hand reaches up and latches onto the wire mesh overhang leaning over the sidewalk, the one that's supposed to make jumpers like me think twice. The thing in my head shows me how to climb this unclimbable contraption, pointing out the handholds and footholds I can use to make it happen.

I just need to dangle. Throw one leg up. Hook it over the edge. Pull the rest of me up. Slide over the top. Let gravity take it from there.

My palms are sweaty. It's getting harder to breathe. I climb up onto the stone wall that supports the original bridge rail. A couple of girls walking by give me a weird look but they keep on walking. Faster.

I have to be quick about it, the thing tells me, so no one can stop me. Unvoiced whispers remind me over and over that it'll be a snap. Just scramble up the cage, throw my legs over the edge and release. Gravity and bedrock would handle the rest. Some semblance of Nirvana awaits, but the thing keeps coy about exactly what's so great about it.

Some guy steps up out of nowhere. "Hey man, I don't like the way you're looking at that gorge."

He's in his late twenties. Hipsterish, with this weird goatee with geometric flanges. He's wearing a pea coat, a purple shirt and a black and gray striped knit cap. He comes chest to chest with me, puts a hand on my arm, the one reaching up and clutching the cage. His eyes are large and close and clear and earnest.

Something inside me snaps and releases. Pain shoots across the inside of my skull and rebounds like a low caliber bullet.

"Uh ... I wasn't gonna ... I mean ... did you think I was gonna jump? I was just ... looking at the waterfall."

"Yeah, right. Let go of it, man. It's so not worth it. This crap's always triggered by the little stuff. Give it a day or a week. It'll be water under the bridge. You'll feel different. Think different. Hey! You want to talk about it? I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

"Nah. Really. I'm okay. I was just going for lunch and I ... I stopped for a look and ... uh. I ... uh."

"Listen. We can talk. I don't mind. I got the time."

"No thanks. I'm fine. I wasn't ... I'm not going to jump."

His eyes bore in on me. "If I let you go, I don't want to be reading about this in the paper tomorrow. Understand? I couldn't live with myself."

"You won't ... I mean, there'll be nothing to read." I take a couple steps. "See? I'm going for lunch."

I turn away. Those eyes. Kind. Caring. For no good reason. I'm anonymous. A stranger. I can feel his gaze boring into my back.

"Hey man, you really need to talk this out. If you don't have someone you can call, I'm willing."

"No, you've got the wrong idea. Really. I wasn't gonna do anything."

He's still standing there, his eyes drilling into me, his presence almost as strong as the thing that had wormed into my brain. "Listen, whatever bad shit might be happening now, there's always good things waiting down the road. Always."

I'm shaking now. Tears are welling. I duck my head. "Thanks," I say it in a tiny voice, as I wheel and hustle away, my head swirling with bewilderment and pain.

The guy's still standing there at the middle of the bridge. There's something weird about his eyes now, but his voice is still strong. "I don't want to see you coming back here. This is a one-way ticket. And that's not cool. Not cool at all. You go talk to someone, okay? The suicide prevention hot-line if nothing else."

***

So I'm in the pizza place, sitting at a window counter facing the street. My hands grip the cold Formica. They tremble, rattling the ice cubes in my lemonade. Two pizza slices droop over paper plates before me. Sausage and olives. Artichokes and mushrooms. Not a nibble is taken from either.

I wonder why I even bothered to buy them. The incident on the bridge left me too shaken and queasy to eat. I watch the cheese cool and congeal. I should probably just get the slices wrapped and go home.

But to get back to that car, I would have to cross the bridge again. It's parked on the other side. I'm afraid to go anywhere near that gorge now. I have half a mind to leave it parked and take a bus back to Cortland. Else I can hike upstream to where the gorge levels out on the plateau and cross a less dangerous bridge.

But this is silly. I've crossed that bridge a hundred times without anything like this happening. My mind tells me that everything will be alright.

_My_ mind? Is it really my brain doing the telling? Why do I feel like someone or something is still tagging along? Why are cold fingers of sweat seeping down my sides? And what Morse Code message does the involuntary tremor in my finger tap on the counter top?

A familiar face glides up to the plate glass door. Auburn hair. Chic glasses. Our eyes connect. It's Rhea, a friend from college. An almost, not quite girlfriend kind of friend. Her smile blooms. She's pleased to see me. I force my grimace into an expression I hope passes for reciprocity.

With Rhea, it was one of those situations where the timing never quite worked out. The right words never got said. She was an opportunity missed, a could have been who was never meant to be, or at least never was.

I want her to be in a rush, to keep on walking by. Instead she comes inside and gives him me of those micro hugs. All clothing. No flesh. An air kiss for bodies.

"Never see you around since you've moved out to the boonies," she says, beaming a little too broadly. "So how've you been? I haven't seen you in months."

"Oh, I'm doing ... pretty good." I try to speak naturally, but my voice catches in my throat and cracks.

She scrunches her eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just had a ... a rough morning ... at work."

No way can I tell her what just happened on the bridge. I'm not even sure I can put it into words.

Her eyes are moving all over, studying me for signs. "You still working for that biotech downtown?"

"Yeah. Sharma Labs."

"Pays well, I hear. Good benefits? Right?"

"Um ... they're a start-up. So it's not that great, actually. Better than bagging groceries."

"At least you have a job," she says. "That's more than most of my friends can say."

"How about you? Any prospects?"

"Oh! I got accepted to med school!"

"Congratulations. Where?"

"Penn."

I'm kind of still in a daze, so there's a delay in my response.

"Wow," I finally say. "That's great."

She is staring at me, studying me like she's getting ready to give me a make-over.

"Dan? You sure you're okay? You look all pale. You're shaking."

I sense the presence still inside me, lurking, waiting for an opportunity.

"I don't know. Must be coming down with something. Hope it's not catchy." I wave my hand over the pizza slices. "Want some? I haven't touched 'em."

Her gaze rebounds quickly off the cold slices. "Um, no thanks." Her brow crinkles.

Something relaxes inside me, lets the hunger pangs through to my brain. I pick up a slice without even thinking.

I take a bite. Halfway through my swallow, an odd tickle erupts in my throat, and makes me inhale deeply. What the fuck?

A chunk of sausage and cheese lodges firm in my throat. My esophagus seals. I stay calm, determined not to make a scene. I cough, close-mouthed, trying gently to expel it, but it won't budge. I can't breathe. Panic builds.

"Dan? Are you okay?"

I nod too emphatically, still trying to be cool and pretend I'm alright. A powerful gag reflex kicks in. I belch out the sausage and a dangling wad of cheese onto the other slice.

Rhea grimaces, rips some napkins out of a dispenser and shoves them into my hands.

"I was ... choking." I accept the wad of napkins and daub at my lips. "Sorry. That was gross." I swig some lemonade.

"Gosh, maybe you should go see a doctor."

"Yeah. Maybe."

A fire truck and an ambulance scream up the hill and stop in the middle of the College Avenue Bridge.

My attention flies to the bridge rail. There's a black and gray striped cap hung up on the fencing. People are staring down into the gorge.

"Holy crap!"

"What's wrong?"

It's like a valve opens and all my anxiety gushes out. The bridge is just a bridge again. The predator or whatever had invaded my brain has released me from its claws. It has found alternative prey.

"That guy!" A chill slices down my spine. I barge out the restaurant and run towards the bridge.

"Dan, wait!"

Rhea rushes after me.

The bridge is blocked by an ambulance, a fire truck and two police cars. A crowd gathers. There's yellow police tape going up. Nothing and no one is allowed to cross, not even pedestrians.

Rhea sighs. "Not another. That makes three this year. It's just terrible."

"Someone ... jumped?"

"Well, yeah," she says. "Ithaca is gorges. Don't you know?" Her voice drips with snark.

"My car. It's ... on the other side."

I'm trembling again. A muscle twitches in the back of my neck. The presence. It's back, creeping down my vertebrae like a spider.

"So's my next class," says Rhea. "There's a foot bridge up the creek a ways. I'll walk with you. 'Kay?"

"Is it ... high?"

"The bridge? Not really. Why? You afraid of heights?"

Fingers creep under my skin, and across my back ribs. I slap at them.

"Dan?"

"No! I don't like heights!" I snap.

Rhea's eyes crinkle and she takes my hand.

We slip through a gaggle of onlookers and veer down Oak Avenue to the footpath. Hemlocks screen the rain-swollen creek from view but its roar grows and muffles the chatter of gathering students.

The thing inside me wiggles past my kidneys. Hyperventilating, I claw at my side.

"You're not looking so good, Dan," she says. "You really need to see a doctor."

I'm staring into space. Rhea stares into my eyes from two inches away.

"Dan?"

I stand still, waiting for the thing lurking inside me to make its next move.

"Dan? Say something!"

"Uh. I don't feel so good."

"Are you dizzy? Maybe you'd better sit."

"No. Let's go," I say, grimacing. Determined. "Get across."

We near the footbridge. The rail is not even chest high on me. The gorge is much shallower here. A fall might even be survivable, except that the creek runs deep and turbulent from the recent deluge. I would be swept over the Giant's Staircase and even Cascadilla Falls.

I hang back. Tingles erupt in alarming and unexpected places, in my groin, my rectum, in the large muscles of my legs, urging me on.

"You're shaking," says Rhea, squeezing my arm. "Are you ... scared?"

I nod almost imperceptibly.

"It's okay, Dan," says Rhea. "Just close your eyes. I'll guide you across." She presses her palm against the small of my back. The thing inside me recoils from her touch. It strums the nerves in my side like a harp.

"What's wrong? Did I hurt you?" she says, retracting her hand.

"Wasn't ... you."

Rhea hooks her arm around mine, and clasps my forearm with the other.

"You take a nice deep breath, and we're just going to walk really fast. Okay? We'll be over in a jiff."

I take a breath and hold it. I lurch forward, taking Rhea by surprise. She stumbles trying to keep up. My mind swirls with competing urges. I slam one foot down after the other.

"Whoa! Take it easy!" says Rhea.

"Are we over?" I ask, clenching my eyes tight.

"We're not even on the bridge yet, Dan."

It's obvious when we reach the foot bridge. Our footsteps resonate. The empty air below the decking beckons. The surging creek sings to him like a coven of sirens.

I veer towards the rail.

"You're ... tugging me," says Rhea. "Walk straight. Straight now. Pretend we're dancing. Follow my lead."

The rail draws me nearer. My hip brushes and sticks as if bound by magnetism. I shift my weight against it and start to climb.

"Dan? What the heck? You're acting all weird." Rhea's voice quavers.

I lean over the rail. Open my eyes to a dizzying swirl of water the shade of chocolate milk. The gorge drops only ten feet here, but the water is plenty deep. Downstream, below the College Avenue bridge, I see firemen with orange ropes and yellow raincoats belaying a paramedic who is attempting to retrieve a body hung up on fallen tree.

Students have gathered on the foot bridge to watch the recovery, but most now stare at me. Several lay hands on me, coaxing, tugging, and tearing me away from the force urging me over the rail.

"What the hell's wrong with him?"

"Did he know the person who jumped?"

"He's just ... sick," says Rhea. "He's not ... right ... in the head."

Hands press against my back and shoulders. Strong arms haul me along, deliver me to the other side, up some stairs, into a parking lot.

Hands release. My helpers fan around me. A wall of Good Samaritans. Two jocks in sweats. A girl in a black beret. Rhea.

"Thanks," I say, chin quivering, brow moist.

"You okay?" says the girl in the beret.

"Yeah. I just got dizzy for a sec. Lost my balance."

I sit on the stone steps. The strangers disperse. Rhea stays with me. I sneak a peek into the gorge and my gaze lingers a little too long. Rhea sees me stare. Makes me rise. Steers me into the parking lot.

"You need to see a doctor," she says. "But you really shouldn't be driving."

"I'll be fine," I say. Every step through the lot, away from the sound of rushing water, dials down the tension coiled in my torso.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I'm okay."

"Well, your color's back," she says. "Promise me you'll go straight to the clinic."

I shake my head. "Nah. I'm okay now."

"Call your girlfriend. Have her come get you." Rhea's eyes wander and flutter. "Or ... I ... I can take you."

"No thanks, Rhea. Really. I'm fine."

We reach a sidewalk and stop.

"Well. My car's in the next lot over. Thanks a lot ... for helping."

Rhea is shaking just a little bit. "Dan. What was it that happened to you just then?"

I shrug. "I don't exactly know."

I take a step and wobble like a drunk before catching my balance. Rhea clings to a light pole, watching me go.

"Dan? Take care." There is a plaintive tone to her voice, a haunting blankness in her eyes that suggests she were now the one possessed. I stop and shudder.

"Hey Rhea. That bridge. Stay away from it. Okay? Go straight to class. Promise?"

*****

The Latch Key League

Feeble splashes of light barely keep the shadows at bay. Cyrus in my ear piece guides me down a side street cluttered with trash bags. I turn the corner onto St. Nick's into the full-on glare of a halogen lamp to find a lady sprawled on the sidewalk. She is unconscious but breathing. Blood smears her cheek where it had scraped against the concrete.

"Found her!"

"Perpetrators one block ahead and on the move."

"I'll work fast."

Ten feet away, a man eyes me fearfully. He clutches his paper sack tighter and scurries across the street.

I drop to my knees and check her vital signs. She has a knot developing on her temple. Otherwise, she seems stable.

She looks to be deep into her sixties. She has a glossy, curly perm, dyed dark brown. Grey at the roots. This is Morningside Heights so she's Dominican, I'm guessing. Someone's abuela, no doubt.

She looks at peace. Arms flung wide. Like someone slumbering in a soft bed on a hot night.

I dig around and find her phone. Dial 911. Give the dispatcher her condition and location. I don't mention the gang that cold-cocked her. Don't want no NYPD action. Those guys are our business.

Her green falls out of a wallet. Yaritza Constanza Peralta Munoz is her name. I'm thinking about the town of Constanza in the mountains of the DR when she comes to and sees me rifling through the contents of her purse.

She screams and slaps at me with open palms. She thinks I'm the one who struck her down, that I'm some mugger. But I'm just checking to see if she has insurance. Her Blue Cross will cover the ambulance ride but there will be a forty-dollar co-pay at the ER.

I slip three twenties into her hand, whisper a few apologies and hustle away, ducking behind a parked van to watch and wait for the kids who did the deed to gain some distance.

I can hear all nine of them laughing their heads off. Mimicking the squeak Mrs. Munoz had made when the string bean with the bony elbows lunged after her and caught her square with his fist. They are mocking the way her eyes went all googly the moment she was struck, marveling at the way her head had bounced off the sidewalk.

The kids got three city blocks from the scene of the crime, all the way to 128th Street, before I heard the first sirens. Cyrus texted us, predicting that they were headed for 137th and the 1 train. These were a mixed bunch, no real gang, just some Yonkers kids come down to the city on a Friday night after school. Someone had the idea it would be great yucks to play a game called "point-em-out, knock-em-out." Basically, they pick out random strangers and knock them out with sucker punches.

Last weekend they had claimed five victims ranging in age from 13 to 82, putting two of them in the hospital with serious concussions. So far tonight, they have made three hits and are gunning for more as they head homeward.

Brax and Mink, our enforcers, are hot on hooking up with this little band of evil gits and administering a little vigilante justice. Doc and Noreen are against, but the rest of us voted yes. Even me. Though, now I am starting to regret it. These guys are just a bunch of misguided kids. I don't want to hurt them. I just want them to stop hitting people.

They are nine in all, a melting pot of ethnicities, amped up with youth and whatever controlled substances they had been able to score. Their victims are random, fitting no discernible pattern.

One panhandler with a scraggly beard. One middle-aged man with a baguette and a bottle of wine. And the grandmotherly Latina they had just struck down on 125th Street.

Cyrus told us where they were headed next as we were waiting along the north side of Central Park. He has eyes and ears all across this city, a loose network of neighborhood kids who report to him in real time whenever we do an operation.

It is three a.m. when we finally make contact with the gang, right after they claim their third victim of the night and are looking for number four. Brax, in full wino mode, slumps down next to a subway entrance on 137th. Mink swings wide around the block to make sure she arrives same time as the gang. If they leave her alone, who knows, maybe she and Brax will let them go home unscathed.

Yeah, right. Fat chance of that happening. Cyrus has documented enough of their atrocities over the last two weeks to justify some vigilante vengeance. These kids have dues to pay.

Who gives us the right to be judge and jury and executioner? Nanny Mouse Enterprises—our employer. We look after folks who otherwise don't get helped. The lower half of the 99%. The marginalized. The unqualified. The ineligible. The underprivileged. The ignored.

***

Nanny Mouse calls us the Latch Key League. LKL might make a nice tag, but most of us think the name stinks. Makes us sound like a band of neglected children.

Naming us was probably Myrna's doing. She can be quaint for a Brooklynite. Her background is white bread. Midwest. She knows corny.

Unfortunately our benefactors at Nanny Mouse seem to love the name, so it stuck. Maybe they appreciate the deflection from their true nature.

Who is Nanny Mouse? No one really knows where our money comes from, maybe not even Myrna, but they pay us well. And the perks, especially the sick leave and vacation time, are outstanding.

We are professional vigilantes. Where the NYPD resorts to stopping and frisking anyone who's a little too brown for the neighborhood, we make sure our targets' crimes are documented and confirmed.

We do it all without guns, blades or clubs. Nanny Mouse don't allow weapons. Surprised they don't make us tie one arm behind our backs. These handicaps make things interesting sometimes. Challenging. Dangerous. Good thing Brax and Mink are good with their hands and feet.

We're not your father's Guardian Angels—those beret-wearing dweebs who provided vigilante-style security in sketchy neighborhoods back in the nineteen seventies. We do more than stand on street corners and pose for pictures trying to look tough and pretty.

Some of us have practical skills. Carpentry. Plumbing. Medicine. IT. We try and make life easier for folks perched on the brink of going under. Beating up on knockout gangs isn't all we get done.

New York is a big city. What we do is a drop in the bucket. We help the homeless whenever we have the chance, but direct most of our energy to the less poor, people living at the margins, treading water, on the verge of making a living or going under. We try to sway their odds in favor of success.

Me? I'm an ex-Navy Corpsman from the green side and a SEAL school washout. I handle all the triage and paramedical stuff, though we have a real Doc, Noreen, who operates out of Myrna's place in Brooklyn when she's not doing family practice at a community health clinic in Jersey City.

After my discharge, I got into this line of work, partly because of what happened to my older sister Brianna. She ran away from home when I was still in middle school.

Her junior year, she started a war of independence with my parents that that escalated beyond any hope of reason. They played it tough with her, letting her go, thinking she'd be begging them to come home within a week.

But Brianna never did return to our little house West of Boston. She lasted four months before some meter reader found her curled up dead in someone's East Village flower bed.

Her cause of death remains a mystery. We knew she had gotten into some drugs, but the autopsy was inconclusive. They couldn't rule out homicide.

Speculations regarding her death have haunted me since the night we got that call from the State Police.

A cop car blows by. I don't even look up.

The NYPD is no friend of the Latch Key League. They've tried to infiltrate us. We're on their terrorist watch list. Four of our people are already serving time for various trumped up charges – stuff like resisting arrest, obstruction of justice, perjury, contempt of court—the usual tools of the machine. We even have our own martyr—Jimmy Raffaele—who was gunned down unarmed trying to save some school girl from a would-be rapist. We have reason to believe that was no oopsie. Jimmy was a well-known thorn in the side of the precinct that offed him.

It's getting harder to keep our cover. The staggered monthly rotations help. One month on, one month off. We can slink away and let people forget us for a while.

The sheer size of our territory doesn't hurt. We cover the whole tri-state area from New Jersey to Connecticut. We're too small to make more than a tiny dimple in the mountain of needs. A couple happy endings a week suffice to justify our existence to our benefactors, whoever they are.

***

I tail the gang down Amsterdam Avenue, keeping them a full block ahead of me. My job is to help out any new victims they create on the way home, render first aid and call in the first (second?) responders.

Cyrus is in his mid-town bat cave monitoring police scanners and web-cams. Mink had planted a GPS tracker in one of the kids' backpacks earlier in the evening so Cy can confirm that they are headed for the subway stop where Brax is already waiting. Mink is at 138th making her way back around the block. She's geeked herself up with a nerdy hairdo and some not so stylish glasses to make her stick out and attract these kids' attention.

At this point it doesn't matter if they ignore her or try to make her victim number four. Their fate is sealed. Cy just wants to see if we can document an attempted atrocity. It's risky, but it helps Nanny Mouse see we're not beating up on folks for no good reason.

I stop half a block away from the subway entrance and go into observer mode. Brax, across the way, slumps beside some trash bins in front of an out-of-business cigar shop.

Mink emerges from the shadows in time to reach the subway stairs just when those kids get there. No accident, this. And don't you know, one of them points at her. The rest stop to watch, stifling guffaws as a chubby jamoke steps away from the group and lunges at her.

The boy's fist never connects because Mink is already winding around and swinging her boot heel at his chin. It connects square and snaps his head back. He goes tumbling over the back of one of those apartment listings dispensers.

Two of the kid's friends go after her. Brax rises up to intercept them. Mink is back in her stance and ready to go. Both kids crumble under a whirlwind of fists and feet. The rest of the gang, whether they be smart, cowardly or conscientiously objecting, stand around and gawk until Brax and Mink start laying into them as well. Those that remain standing, finally get a clue, scatter and flee.

One of them comes running towards me. He looks sixteenish. Athletic. Handsome. Indeterminate ethnicity. He could be Puerto Rican, Italian, Iraqi, Jewish. Maybe a little of each.

Maybe I should let him pass. Maybe he never approved of this whole knockout game bullshit and had advocated against it. Though, I didn't hear anyone raise any objections when his buddy went after Mink.

My fist catches him in the side of his head. He slams face first into a light pole and crumples onto the street.

He's out cold. His nose is askew. Broken. I do him a favor and reset the bones while he's still unconscious. I prop him up into a position where the blood won't impede his airway. His eyes pop open. He sees me, screams and crab crawls away.

Brax and Mink are already gone from the scene. Sirens sound down the avenue. Now it's my turn to vanish.

***

I'm not an MD. So I never went to medical school. Never took the Hippocratic Oath. Sometimes, to do a little good you have to do a little harm.

Doc Noreen and Myrna pleaded with us not to do this op. They were worried how Nanny Mouse, our sponsor, would react. My guess is that Nanny Mouse would approve. They have commissioned ops before that involved tough love. They seemed to like our purposeful pranking. Like the time we slapped labels for pepper spray on a shipment of canisters of lilac-scented air freshener bound for the NYPD. They are not averse to having us mix things up with both sides of the law.

We talk about our employer a lot. It's a running gag, speculating on their identity. Brax likes to believe he's some eccentric billionaire like Richard Branson. Someone with New York roots who likes playing Batman in his spare time. Mink's pretty sure it's some crowd-sourced operation run by a rogue faction of Anonymous, the infamous hacker group known for their Guy Fawkes masks. I don't know what to think, and I don't care. I'm just grateful to have such a fun job.

Myrna's the only one of us in a position to know the truth, but she's never slip the slightest hint. Sometimes I wonder if she's the real Nanny Mouse.

There are twenty-two of us on the team, never more than eight or nine working a particular shift. Unless someone gets yanked, we stay on duty 24-7 for one full month before being replaced by someone coming off R&R.

One month on, one month off. That's the rotation. The only rule for R&R is that we have to leave the New York Metro area entirely, far enough away that we won't be tempted to check back in on the team. Our duty time gets so intense sometimes, it can be hard breaking free. Having an ocean or a continent between us makes it easier.

Nanny Mouse owns time shares in condos all over the world. We get to pick from any open slot. So far I've done Edinburgh, Tokyo, the Dolomites and Cuzco. Next time out, I'm angling for Principe.

So we're more than mercenaries, I guess. We're social custodians of the Tri-State region. Jacks of all trades. We police the police. Provide social services where social services broke down. Feed people. Fix their plumbing. Heal their infections. Avenge their bullying. Sometimes we go beyond our jurisdiction and do stuff just because it feels right. Myrna tries to keep us in line, but if we ever go out of bounds, it is usually for good reason.

Like tonight. That's one bunch of kids who won't be knocking out random strangers anymore.

***

The night air, it's frigid for October. There will be frost before sunup on the sleepy fringes of Westchester. Maybe it reaches as far down as the lower parts of Riverdale, but here in Morningside Heights, the urban heat island will keep it at bay.

Frankly, I welcome the chill. The cold air tamps down the smell of the alleyways. It numbs my nose to my own stink.

I find Brax and Mink at our chosen rendezvous spot behind the Popeye's chicken off St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem. Mink looks fresh as ever. Neither has broken a sweat or scraped a knuckle.

"So how many did you all get?"

"Four," said Brax.

Mink is grinning like a little demon girl.

"Plus one," I say.

"You dog!" says Mink, cuffing me on the shoulder. "That means only four got away."

"Crap!" says Brax. "I wanted to get them all. They scattered too quick."

"Anybody hurt bad? I didn't get a chance to check up on that."

"Don't worry. We was gentle," says Brax, winking.

I worry that one or more of those kids has ended up badly injured. Subdural hematomas sometimes take a while to produce symptoms. The last thing we need is a homicide rap. That would be a sure way to get our contracts terminated.

I text Cyrus, who's still up monitoring the scanners. We all keep in touch with cheap Pantech smartphones, each with two sets that we swap back and forth for charging. Cyrus coded a custom app that routes our messages through an encrypted virtual server that floats around in the cloud.

"No admits," Cyrus texts. "All 4 rlsd frm ER."

"Released?" says Brax. "No arrests?"

"No witnesses?" says Mink.

"What about their victims?" I say.

"It's hard to pull someone out of a lineup when you've been blindsided."

"And if nobody presses charges, nothing happens."

"Fuck it," said Brax. "We did our part. Let's go get some rest."

We split up for the night, go our separate ways. None of us on the street team have a home. Nanny Mouse insists that we eat and sleep in the same conditions as the people we help. Something about building empathy. It's in the contract.

Doc and Myrna have their headquarters in a cozy brownstone, but they're not on the same month on, month off rotation as us. Cyrus sleeps under a roof as well, though his midtown digs are not exactly posh. He doubles as the live-in janitor of a Unitarian church down near Chelsea. He's got a mattress on the floor of a mechanical room.

Our handymen and jacks of all trades—Andy, Joyce and Wayne—rotate between various construction trailers and shipping containers scattered around abandoned construction projects all over the metro area.

Mink? She's our burglar. She finds her way into a different office or waiting room every night. She has a knack for identifying vacant establishments, disabling alarm systems and making herself at home in some cozy corporate lounge or store-room, washing her hair in drinking fountains, cooking meals in snack rooms. As a result, she's the least rancid and best dressed of our street crew.

Brax and I are the only ones on the team who regularly sleep on the street. Brax has a military issue cold weather bag that he drags into whatever vacant foyer or storefront where he won't be hassled. Though, no one dares mess with him, not even the cops. He has this natural scowl and a build that can do some damage. He spends his off-time working out and it shows.

Me? I have a thing for clean corrugated cardboard. I like the smell. It gets soggy in the rain, but when dry, it's a great insulator. I find myself a refrigerator box behind some appliance shop and snuggle between some layers, using a block of Styrofoam as my pillow. I think of tropical beaches and misty volcanoes as I nod off, with the city night still buzzing with life.

***

I sleep in until I hear the back door of the electronic shop slam. The morning staff has arrived and it's time for me to vacate the premises.

I link with Brax behind a bagel shop. A clerk there regularly puts out left day-old bagels in nice, clean sacks. He's supposed to be tossing them into a dumpster. We let a couple bag ladies take first dibs and then go in after the remains. The bagels are almost as good as fresh, only a little drier and firmer than the stuff that goes out the front door. Sometimes our friend even drops in a couple containers of cream cheese and a plastic knife.

We in the street crew never carry much cash. For one thing, it would make us the targets of junkies and other desperate folk. And buying too many hot meals at full price would blow our cover. It's not like we can go and have a sit-down meal just anywhere. We're pretty grungy and rank by the end of our shifts.

Once in a blue moon, as a treat, Myrna sends her food truck out to whatever neighborhood we're working. She has licenses, menus and placards enough to run a half dozen mobile establishments. It's always a pleasant surprise when she and Doc Noreen show up at a work site. You never knew if you're going to get falafel, poutine or bebimbop.

Mink joins us around noon, munching on some leftover pizza she scrounged from the lunch room of the office she slept in last night. She offers us a slice. I'm full of bagel, so I pass, but I've never seen Brax turn down an offer of free food. He gobbles down a cold slice in about three bites.

We lay low in a little park when we notice there seems to be an awful lot of police activity on the streets. Patrol car after patrol car zips down the avenue. We get an urgent text from Cyrus that explains why.

"clr out uptwn pronto. nypd sspcts u 3 for knckouts."

"Us?" says Mink. "But we're the heroes."

"You don't suppose we hit those kids a little too hard?" says Brax, looking at me.

I can only shrug. "Cyrus says none of them were hospitalized."

So we head downtown, each of us making our own way south. Three homeless people walking together would be a sure way to freak people out and get the cops after our ass.

We head to a place we had been regularly monitoring—One Bowling Green, where Re-Occupy protesters have been repeatedly chaining themselves to the Wall Street bull to draw attention to the lack of justice and accountability in the financial industry.

In the past, we would often intervene when things got out of hand. Slow things down. Get in the way. Make it easier for protesters to escape if they were so inclined. But messing with cops is risky. It's a sure way to get taken off the street. Myrna isn't thrilled about the prospect of losing any more of us. Good vigilantes are hard to find.

So we're strictly in observer mode, hanging back and watching with the rest of the crowd as the cops move in to clear out the protesters. Funny, how they lay off the pepper spray this time. It makes the whole operation a lot more pleasant for all involved.

Cyrus texts while we're standing around, watching kids get zip-cuffed. "wtf you guys??? clr out! now! avd all cntct w nypd."

Brax looks at me. "What's the big deal? We're not anywhere near any precinct that knows us."

Another text comes in from Cyrus as we're about to split.

"mom sez all hnds queens. comnty imprvmnt."

"Oh crap. Looks like they're making us do some grunt work," says Brax.

Mink grins. "Yeah, but you know what that means?"

"Food truck!" says Brax, beaming. "Hot meal almost makes it worth it."

We each hop separate trains and make our way over to the work site on the edge of Astoria. For three days now our construction team has been working on a set of three decrepit row houses in danger of being condemned by city health inspectors. They had been damaged during Superstorm Sandy and never really brought up to snuff. The plaster ceilings are collapsing, there's mildew in the walls and the plumbing and electrics are a mess. A neighbor had reported them to the city.

One of the apartments is occupied by an elderly Jewish couple with too many cats. An extended family of immigrants and first-generation Americans from Trinidad lives in the center unit. The last place is basically a flop house for a gaggle of transient kids in their late teens and early twenties. A kid named Baron, whose grandmother used to own, it runs the place. The kids who stay there come from all over, mostly local but one's from Kansas and another is from Newfoundland. One of them—a teenage girl—is a runaway.

When I get to the work site, they already have Brax and Mink hauling sheet rock into the center unit.

Wayne waves me over when he sees me arrive.

"Hey man, go check out unit #3. There's a girl there who fell through some basement stairs."

"Fell ... through? Not down?"

"They were all rotted out. Andy's in there right now replacing the treads."

"She okay?"

"You're the medical guy. You tell me. I was gonna call Doc Noreen but Myrna told me you were already on your way."

So I mosey over to the end unit. There's a bunch of kids hanging out on the steps smoking. Joyce comes out, her clothes dusted with plaster, dragging bags of construction waste.

"She's in the kitchen," says Joyce.

I go in. Our guys have been busy. All of the wall board in the living area is new and freshly painted. Even the light switches have been replaced.

The corner is stacked with crumpled comforters and sleeping bags. Looks like a dozen or so kids crash here on any given night. Myrna sees the place as a valuable resource, providing valuable shelter for the young people who filter in and out of this city. A source of warmth and food and social support at a time when unemployment rates for this age group are astronomical.

Yes, there are drugs here, but mostly recreational. Mushrooms and marijuana, mostly. No meth or angel dust or anything particularly nasty. The place is far from being a crackhouse.

In the kitchen, two girls sit eating ramen at a formica table—a skinny African American chick in pigtails and this other Italian-looking girl with deep-set eyes and auburn hair. It's a hell-hole of cockroaches and dirty dishes. Not exactly sterile. But a least there is hot, running water and dish soap.

"Did somebody here hurt their foot?"

"That would be me," said the girl with the auburn hair. She looks way young. No more than sixteen. She carries a Hello Kitty backpack she's probably owned since middle school. There is a lot of child left in her, but her eyes betray experience. I can tell she's been through some bad shit.

The auburn-haired girl scrunches her nose at me. Something about her reminds me of Brianna. Her attitude. Her aura. It's spooky. I feel something clench in my gut.

Scars on her wrists. She is a cutter. But they're shallow wounds, the kind one inflicts when they're flirting with suicide, not really serious. Physical pain eases emotional pain. They do it because it releases endorphins. Supposedly. Though, I can think of better ways to get them.

"You guys ... runaways?"

"Not me," says the black girl. "I'm just friends with Baron. I live next door with my momma."

"I'm no runaway, either," says the auburn-haired girl, scowling and defiant. "I quit home."

Her leg is propped on a chair, ankle wrapped in a grungy dish towel spotted with blood.

"Let's have a look at your boo-boo."

"You ... a doctor?"

"Paramedic. Well, EMT actually. Not quite licensed yet."

"What's the difference?"

"About a thousand hours of training."

I untie the knot on the dishtowel and peel it away. Her ankle is all swollen and discolored, thicker than her calf. Splinters remain embedded under her skin.

"When did this happen?"

"Yesterday."

I manipulate the ankle trying to determine if there's a fracture, but it seems to be just a bad sprain.

The girl winces. Her friend covers her eyes with her hand. "Easy now!"

I disinfect the area with a little Betadyne and start working on the splinters with some sterile forceps.

"Gotta get these out or it'll get infected."

"How much is this gonna cost me?"

"Nothing. This is all free. Courtesy of Nanny Mouse."

"Good. Because I'm broke."

"I'll give you some extra ointment and dressings. You're gonna need to stay off the ankle and keep it wrapped up tight if you want it to heal faster. Do you ... work?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you have a job?"

"No. You offering?"

"I was ... just wondering ... if you ... like ... needed a not or something."

I take out the last splinter and smear on some bacitracin.

"How long you been living here?"

"At Baron's? A couple weeks. But I've been in the city since June."

"Where you from?"

"Does it matter?"

"Just curious," I say, taping some sterile gauze over her contusions.

"Poughkeepsie."

"So you came here ... to do what?"

"Whatever. I just couldn't take living at home anymore. My mom, she's nutso. A real control freak."

I'm on the last step now, wrapping her ankle with an ace bandage.

"So ... got any plans?"

"My God, you're nosey! I don't know. Baron says I can stay ... as long as I help with the bills ... and chores. I've been looking for jobs. They're not easy to get when you've never had one."

I finish up her ankle and give her some extra gauze and bacitracin. "You take it easy on those stairs."

"Thanks," she says. Her eyes are somehow grateful and suspicious and sad. I can't believe how much of Brianna I see in her. It's almost unbearable. I have to leave the room.

I step outside. Myrna has just pulled up in her food truck. "Betty's Burritos:" reads the placard over the serving window.

"Lunch is here!" shouts Brax, rushing out onto the stoop. He's the first in line.

***

That night, I'm wandering through Central Park, thinking about that girl. Had Brianna been in that same situation when she passed? Out of money. Desperate. Ready to do anything for a little cash?

At least this girl has a roof for the time being, but how long would it be before she was out on the street again?

I decide to make her my own special project. Keep her off the streets. I can sense she's at a crossroads. What happens next could make or break her life. I wish someone like me had tried to do the same for Brianna.

Cyrus texts me as I wander and ponder. "mom sez get yr ass home. pronto."

"Shit." I want to ask why, but we're not allowed to respond to his messages. Something about security. One-way communications are harder to trace.

I swipe my card and take the subway downtown. Cross the Brooklyn Bridge on foot, hoofing it all the rest of the way to Myrna's. It's rare she has any of us come by while we're on duty. Must be something pretty important.

Like all of us, I wear a latch key on a lanyard around my neck. I take it off and go down the alley leading to the tiny patch of yard behind Myrna's brownstone, letting myself in through the back door.

Myrna's sitting at her desk in the living area.

"Shoes off," she says. "Full decon, but first I've got something to tell you."

Whenever we visit, Myrna has this whole decontamination process where we peel off our dingy clothes and shove them straight into a trash bin. We do a pre-rinse in the laundry room before heading into the shower. Only then, would she let us into her sitting room.

"What's up?" say, kicking off my dirty boots.

"You were caught on camera striking a young man. Full face. The NYPD thinks you all are responsible for the recent spate of knockouts. All of them."

"But that's ridiculous."

"Regardless. I need you off the street."

"My month's not even up."

"Too bad. Christopher's jetting home from Barcelona to take your place. Things are way too hot for you to go back out there. The city's been looking for an excuse to put us out of business and now they have it. We're giving you a month off. When you come back we'll be giving you a new identity and territory restrictions until things go cold. You're too valuable, Jerry. We can't afford to lose you."

"Hang on. I only need a couple days. How about I stay out of Manhattan? Limit myself to Brooklyn and Queens?"

Myrna huffed and rolled her eyes. "Okay. What's this all about?"

"There's this girl ... at the work site. A runaway."

"Amy Winter."

"You know her name?"

"I make it my business to know all our clients' names. What's the deal? You sweet on her? Isn't she a little young for you?"

"It's not that. It's just ... she reminds me so much of Bri. I have this feeling ... that things are about to go bad for her. I ... I don't want ... something bad...."

Myrna touched his hand lightly. "Listen, Jerry. By helping Baron, we're helping all those kids. Keeping that house will be a major boon. Let us do our job. Have faith. Things will work out."

Faith? I barely had faith in a Supreme Being, never mind Nanny Mouse.

"Now go on. Shower up. There are clean clothes already laid out in the guest bedroom. Your suitcase is packed and ready to go. Your flight departs JFK at 11:55. The shuttle leaves at ten."

***

I'm walking a white sand beach. It's like eighty degrees. Puffy clouds in a pale blue sky. Green volcanoes rearing up behind me. Principe—a place I have long dreamed of visiting and now I can't wait to get the hell out of here.

Walking through these ramshackle villages, I wonder why Nanny Mouse wastes so much time and money helping folks in one of the richest cities on earth. A person living in one of these villages could have their whole life transformed by one day's per diem out of my thirty. It was a billionaire's prerogative, I suppose.

Visions of Amy Winter and my sister Brianna haunt my every waking minute. I feel just as helpless as I did when I turned fourteen in the Spring of '93 and Brianna was still gone from home. She never called. Never sent as much as a Christmas card, Birthday card. It was as if she had disowned all of us. Pretended we never existed.

We got hints from time to time that she was still alive. Word filtered back about a brief visit she made to her second cousin in White Plains. And then, a chance encounter on a train with a couple of family acquaintances who had gone to Manhattan to see Wicked on Broadway.

That spring, my live-in uncle Ben started giving me secret motorcycle lessons when my parents were off at the mall or gone out to the Berkshires to visit friends. I took note of where Ben would live his keys and tried to drum up the courage to steal his bike, zoom off to New York and rescue Brianna.

The thing was, I had no idea where to find her or I would have done it. I had no way of knowing how she was doing.

All of that frustration comes back to me on this beach. I am allowed no contact with Myrna or any of the gang. I have no way of knowing what happened to that girl. All I can do is obsess.

If I had stuck around I could have made Amy my special project. By now she is probably running Oxycodone up to Burlington on the Megabus, maybe sampling the merchandise while she's at it.

If not that, she's maybe walking the street doing tricks. It almost never fails with these suburban dropouts. God knows what makes them think they can make a living. That city chews them up and spits them out like sunflower husks.

I envy the planes that take off from the little airport every few hours, wishing I was on one of them, shuttling my way back to Sao Tome Island, and then Cape Verde, Lisbon and finally JFK. I couldn't have picked a place any less remote and difficult to reach.

I am so sick of eating barracuda and langostino every day, never mind that I had dreamed about living this lifestyle every day I was on duty. I learned about Principe in some travel magazine I had fished out of a dumpster, gazing at the pictures while curled up in one of my cardboard nests. Now that I'm here, I can't even enjoy a single minute of it knowing Amy Winter's life is on the fast track to hell, just like what happened to my sister Bri.

Had Myrna allowed me that extra day or two, I could have made a difference. I dreaded what I would learn upon my return. I blamed Myrna. Nanny Mouse. Swore if something bad had happened to Amy, I was going to quit this whole operation and go find a legitimate job with some ambulance crew.

***

Finally, the calendar unfreezes. The day arrives that I get to go home. I show up at the airport about six hours early and loiter around the terminal.

It's a great feeling, banking over the beaches where for weeks I had gazed longingly at all those planes leaving the island. I endure a two hour layover in Sao Tome, another two hour stop in Cape Verde, eight hours in Lisbon. There, I break discipline and try ringing Cyrus. He doesn't take my call.

I almost can't believe it when I finally land at JFK. As usual, Myrna has a car waiting. Coming back from R&R is the only time we get to go in through her front door.

Doc Noreen answers my knock, wearing that quizzical expression she greets everyone with, as if the whole world and everyone in it has been created for her personal amusement.

She runs a little clinic out of the dining room for special cases—folks who slip through the cracks of the medical system but need intensive care. Two of Myrna's four bedrooms were used for that purpose. It's illegal, of course, but when does that ever stop us?

"How was Africa?"

"Still tropical. So where's Myrna?"

"She's out running an errand, but she'll be back soon. Want something to eat?"

"Listen. There was a flop house in Queens we were fixing up back when I got taken off-line. That place still around?"

"Yup. They passed inspection."

"Cool! I want to pay them a visit."

"Not so fast. Myrna's going to want to brief you about your new identity and some new rules. And I need to go over your new medical kit. We've expanded the pharmaceutical section. Every drug in it is prescribed in your new name. That way, it's more legal."

"New ... identity?"

"We had to change your name. Your old one showed up on a warrant. It's nice you let your hair grow out. Myrna's going to want you to leave it like that. Maybe even give you a dye job."

"What the fuck?"

"Listen. The NYPD has it in for us. We're going to have to keep Mink and Brax off the street for at least another month. Not that Brax is complaining. He's down in Yucatan, living it up. Mink's in Scotland of all places."

"So there's a whole new street crew?"

"Yup. And we've had to restrict some of our operations to be a little less pro-active."

"Well ... that sucks. That was the fun part."

A key turns in the lock and Myrna walks in, hugging a sack of groceries.

"Hey! Welcome back ... George."

"Oh God. Really? George is my new name?"

"Sorry. We didn't get to pick it."

I grab her arm.

"Myrna. That girl. The one from the flop house. Did she make it?"

"Make it? What do you mean?"

"She still around? Alive."

"Of course."

"How do you know? I mean, is she still at the flop house? Did she ever find a job?"

Myrna's eyes bore in on me.

"We hired her. She's Cyrus' new understudy."

"Whoa!"

I know better than to believe that Myrna, just by sheer chance, has hired some random runaway who happens to remind me of my sister. I also know better than to believe that she will ever admit it.

"You did this ... for me?"

"Beg your pardon. We did it for us. For Nanny Mouse. That girl has some aptitude. She kicks ass on Twitter. She's devised for us a system that lets us avoid all the crypto, and message in both directions."

I sigh. "Guess I was worried over nothing. Thanks, Myrna."

I make for the guest bedroom. My old shabby clothes will be laid out on the bed, stained and frayed but sterile. It is November now. I will need some extra gear.

"What's the rush? Stick around a while. Have some pasta. Spend the night, if you want. We're covered for medical on the street. Sally's back from Fiji."

I plop down on the sofa and lean back, feeling a bit antsy but relieved that I will soon be back out on the street. Give me a cold, dark alley over a tropical paradise. This city is where I belong.

"What about the knockouts?"

"What knockouts? Nobody pulls that crap anymore. Where've you been?" She grins slyly.

"Well, that's ... a relief." I reach for some salted nuts from a dish on the glass coffee table. "We got enough to worry about in this city, don't we?" Knots of sinew deep in my back that had tormented me for weeks finally begin to loosen.

*****

Shaper

Brenda Harrington swung around her chair to gaze out her corner window, taking a breather before seeing her last patient of the day. It had been a long week. She had hurt as many clients as she had helped.

In less than one hour, she would be unleashed to enjoy a sunny, unseasonably warm weekend. Forget the chores. A trip to the beach was in order. A brisk walk alone along some endless Atlantic strand would do wonders to improve her perspective. She needed to get back to thinking nice thoughts again.

The low sun made the Charles River gleam like a shattered mirror. The gilded domes and glass facades of Boston sparkled like a looted jewelry case. Brenda had Nantucket on the brain when she got up and peeked into the waiting room.

It had been a quiet day so far, knock on wood. No rumblings in the coat closet. The spider plant had stayed rooted its pot by the window. Her Kevlar jumpsuit remained neatly folded under the fire ax in the panic box. Helen, her intrepid receptionist, had not needed to trouble security all day.

Jerome, the on-call maintenance tech, was on his knees behind the reception booth, patching a hole in the dry wall, but that was no big deal. A Category IV had gotten a little impatient waiting to be seen and his imagination had gotten the better of him. Because of such issues, the waiting room had no magazines or TV. Too much fuel for the active mind was the thinking. Brenda had to wonder, though, what harm a few celebrity mags and insipid talk shows could do compared to the chaos that reigned in some of her client's heads.

Her last patient of the day sat slumped in the corner, a thirty-something heap of scars and rumpled clothes and tousled hair—par for the course for a shaper. His name was Brian Schroll, uncategorized as yet, but triaged as an urgent case, tagged on at the last minute to her regular schedule of appointments.

Like most of her clients, Brian had the haunted eyes of someone who feared both sleep and wakefulness, for whom every day was a waking nightmare. Shapers believed their dreams and imaginations could manifest real in the world both with and without their consent. The extreme cases—Category IVs and Vs—acted like minor gods. Many could not resist intervening in the affairs of the world. Yet few could corral their emissions. Unintended consequences and collateral damage were the norm. The more malicious and troubled among them committed vicious pranks and deadly crimes. Such cases, she tried to identify before they became a public threat.

Shaping was such a rare condition that it wasn't even described in the DSM-5—the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Brenda had built a career on helping people find their way out of the forest of malcreation and back to reality. Fundamental to any cure was convincing them that their experiences were mere delusion. That wasn't always easy, particularly with Category IIIs and above, who usually had plenty of reason to believe in their powers.

"Brian? Please come in and have a seat."

Brian rose from the leatherette couch, revealing the shredded sleeve of his flannel shirt. It looked like it had gotten caught in a hedge trimmer. Tuft of sandy brown hair poked in random directions. An oddly regular pattern of scabs formed something that looked like a zipper down the side of his neck.

He limped into the office and descended heavily into the cushy armchair beside the solid oak desk she always made sure she kept between her and her patients.

His voice had the hoarse edge of a heavy smoker. "Hey ... uh ... thanks so much for working me into your schedule on such short notice. I mean, I just found out about your practice today. I had no idea there were people who specialized in my ... uh ... situation."

"Yes, well ... it's not like we can advertise," Brenda said, pouring hot water into her mug. "But word gets around. Our patients seem to find us."

"I was worried about coming down here on the bus. It wasn't easy, but I think I did okay. Nobody got hurt. Helps that it's such a bright, sunny day."

"Care for a cup of tea?"

"No ... I ... uh ... I'd better not. You never know what might happen. My imagination has been kind of ... uh ... overactive these days.

Brenda crinkled her eyebrows at that remark as she dipped her tea bag. What harm could he possibly conjure from a cup of Earl Grey?

"My receptionist tells me you sounded pretty desperate on the phone. So tell me, Brian, how has your week been? Or more to the point, how is your day going?"

"Um. Not so good. This shaping business, it's been getting worse. Used to be something bad would happen a couple times a week, but now it's like ... every day... couple times a day. And getting more and more intense."

"And why do you suppose that is? Has anything changed with you? Any new developments in your life?"

"Nah. Not really. I'm unemployed. Lost my job a couple months ago. I pretty much just hole up at home."

"May I ask what happened to your shirt?"

He closed his eyes and shuddered. "You don't want to know. Trust me. And I'm afraid to tell you. It might ... make it happen again."

Brenda leaned to get a better view of his shoulder. A darker blotch interrupted the regular checkerboard of his plaid. "Are you okay? Looks like you're bleeding."

He shrugged. "No big deal. It's just a scratch. I've had worse."

Discretely, Brenda reached under her desk and unclipped the latches of her panic box. She engaged the switch that would notify Helen that she was dealing with a live one, in case she hadn't already realized it. Nothing to be concerned about, really. Only that some shapers were more hazardous than others and required extra precautions.

She beamed a broad smile at her client that she hoped he found calming and reassuring.

"If I'm going to be of any help to you, Brian, you're going to have to be willing to share such things with me. I can't help you without knowing all the details. But ... let's start with the general and work our way deeper. Tell me, on a scale of one to ten, what is your overall outlook on life, with ten being ecstatic, one—suicidal?"

"Two," he said, without hesitation.

"Really? Things are that bad for you?"

"Um ... yeah."

"What about relationships? Do you have friends? A significant other, perhaps?"

"Well, I did, until all this crap started happening. I had a girlfriend. Lived with her up till a couple weeks ago. But I had to move out. For her protection. My parents ... um ... passed away ... a few months back ... accident ... so the old house was available. But that hasn't worked out so great. Too many memories. I mean, all the stuff that used to freak me out as a kid is coming back to haunt me. Literally."

"When you were with this partner of yours. Do you ever get angry? Lose control? Physically. Get violent?"

"It's not me that gets violent. I can control myself. It's the things I shape that get me into trouble. Once they're unleashed, there's no stopping them."

"And what sorts of things do you ... shape?"

"You name it. Little stuff mostly, but it can get pretty wild. It's whatever's in my head. This little twist happens in my brain and whamo! It happens. Like, I'd see Jenny slicing cucumbers and worry about the way she was holding the knife. And then ... my worry would come true ... she goes ahead and does it ... cuts herself ... like a minute later."

"Sounds like coincidence to me."

"If it happened only once or twice ... I could see. But stuff like this kept happening, over and over. Like, we'd be in bed. My leg would brush against the blanket and I'd get this image in my head of some rodent or something running across the mattress. I'd flick on the lights, and there'd be a rat sitting there on the bedspread, looking at us. It was worse at night. All the stupid, clichés that used to freak me out as a kid kept coming back. You know, like monsters in the closet. Under the bed. All it took was a thought to flash into my head and there'd be some creature growling and clunking around in the closet all night. Good thing Jenny was a deep sleeper. But I'd be up all night fighting with the door, trying to keep the damned thing contained till morning. Once the sun came up it would be gone, but the damage would be there. The veneer would be all splintered off and raked with claw marks. Clothes would be ripped off hangers, trampled and shredded. You don't know how much of Jenny's stuff I had to replace. The thing even took a dump in the corner. That's when I started taking Ambien. Knocked me out quick before any weird crap could form in my brain. Or so I thought. I discovered, though, that this crap doesn't just happen when I'm awake. Dreams can trigger it, too, And believe me, Ambien can generate some weird dreams."

"I tore up the prescription after a couple of freaky incidents. Jenny, she kept waking up with these bite marks. So I basically stopped sleeping at night. I would lay awake and sneak out of bed when I heard her drift off. I'd lock her in the bedroom and go sit in the living room by myself, where I could deal better with whatever got summoned. I stopped reading books, watching movies, the news, or anything that would trigger my imagination. That's how I got into Sudoku. Nothing better than numbers for emptying my head of the scary stuff."

"Are you absolutely certain it wasn't you who did that damage in the closet?" said Brenda. "Could you have been sleepwalking and not aware?"

Brian narrowed his gaze. "You don't believe me."

"I'm just trying to rule out alternative explanations."

He clenched his jaw and glared. "Why would I shit in my own closet? Listen. The stuff I conjure ... it's all real. Some of them have real teeth and claws. Plenty of people ... innocent people ... have paid the price. They even attack me, sometimes."

"Nights, especially, are when the dangerous ones come out. I try to prevent them, but there are parts of your brain that you just can't turn off. When I moved back to the old house, I pulled all the furniture out of my bedroom. Tossed my mom's old knick-knacks. Cut all the trees down in the yard. Got rid of anything that would cast a shadow. I even covered the windows with black plastic. It wasn't totally effective, but it helped calm things down."

"Sometimes, though, I get stuck outside after dark ... with all those noises and shapes and shadows ... and then it's game over. You know all those homicides and disappearances that have been happening? The unsolved ones?" He took a deep breath. "This is hard for me to admit, but some of them ... they're things I conjure. I don't know what it is about corn fields! Oh, the creatures my mind concocts out of those ragged stalks once the sun goes down! I don't even know what to call them. They start off like little haystacks and then shape themselves into whatever fear rises to the top of my head. Sasquatches. Aliens. Un-nameable things. Even clowns. And they follow people. Hurt them. Sometimes even kill them."

"Halloweens are the worst! Last year I had to work late. Took a bus home. Tried not to look out the window. Had my ear buds in, iPod on, playing the blandest new age techno I could find on iTunes. I had to glance now and then to see where we were in the burbs. Kept seeing all these cute little kids in their costumes. But every time we passed a corn field, shit got conjured. Bad stuff went down in the wake of that bus. It got blamed on teenagers. Rough pranksters. Thank God those kids survived. But that was ... last year."

"This year, I didn't take any chances. I called in sick. Stayed home. When the sun went down I kept the lights off and barricaded myself in my empty bedroom. Buried my head under a pillow. Still, my brain went places I didn't want to go and I could hear things prowling out there in the dark. These things ... they had no shape ... but I knew they were terrible. And this time, a kid and his mom were killed, walking past a cornfield. You might have heard about it. Got blamed on coyotes. But that wasn't any coyotes. It was the things that came from my head. The stuff that sticks around even when I empty my thoughts."

"And like I said, things are getting worse. Used to be easy to keep my head clear in the daylight. But not anymore. "You know that private jet that crashed out in Topsfield about a month ago?"

"I remember hearing something about it in the news. Why?"

"That was me. My doing. I stepped out into my backyard just to get some fresh air. There's only so much a guy can stand of living in an empty, blacked-out house. Besides, I had to check the mail. It was a beautiful day. Warm for April. Puffy clouds. I saw something in the sky and I looked up, thinking it was a hawk. A red tail had carried off one of the neighbor's kittens a few weeks back. But it was a plane. One of those Lear jets flying really high. And before I could stop my brain, I imagined that plane tucking its wings and diving like a hawk does going after prey. And ... the wings ... they snapped back, both of them, just like I commanded. And the plane tumbled down. Seven people died."

"You do realize ... that's impossible."

"Do I?"

"That's what I'm here for. To show you how impossible that is. Not just the plane incident, but everything you've been telling me."

"You still don't believe me."

"I didn't say that. But it doesn't matter what I believe or don't believe. I am here to consider everything you tell me in deriving a diagnosis and a plan of treatment. But you must have doubts yourself. Otherwise, why would you come see a counselor?"

"I heard you guys were specialists. That you deal with us ... shapers."

"And we do. But how do you think we accomplish that?"

"I was hoping there would be like some kind of pill I could take to tamp down my imagination, let me concentrate on everyday reality. I only get in trouble when I let myself think bad thoughts. When I don't see shadows as shadows. When my mind keeps spinning off metaphors and tangents. If there was a pill that would let me experience things literally, objectively ... the way other people do."

Brenda studied Brian's face carefully, keeping her hand close to the desk drawer in case he became motivated to conjure something as an example. She never knew what to expect with these shapers. They were usually benign but some wearied of their responsibility to the world of reality. Sometimes they lashed out.

"So are there ... such pills?" said Brian with a wistful, hopeful look in his eyes.

"There are plenty of pills on the market that might do some of what you're asking. Central nervous system depressants—sedatives—that slow everything down. But really all you need is two fingers of vodka to accomplish the same. But then we're dealing with other problems. Addiction. Tolerance. Risk of overdose and interaction. SSRIs and SNRIs like Zoloft and Effexor are a little more targeted on specific receptors, but their effects can be rather unpredictable. Same thing goes for the anti-anxiety meds. In some patients, there is no effect. They're no better than placebos. In rare cases they can have the opposite effect and aggravate the condition we're trying to treat. And we don't want that, do we?"

"No. We don't."

"So with chemicals, it's a crap shoot. What I recommend to most of my patients is a course of CBT—cognitive behavioral therapy. A series of weekly sessions over months that will train your mind to find safe channels of thought, to avoid the darker avenues and eventually to even double back to safety once a reaction is already underway.

He smirked. "You mean like ... uncrash that plane?"

Brenda just smiled back at him. With shapers, one had to keep them believing that there is some element of doubt to their experiences, no matter what physical proof might exist.

"You don't believe me ... that I can make my thoughts real."

There was darkness in his gaze and danger in the set of his chin. They could be extra moody, these shapers. Sleeplessness and trauma will do that. The littlest things could set them off.

"Like I said ... it's not a matter of my belief. It's of no benefit to you for me to acknowledge the reality of your experiences."

"Oh my God! You don't believe me. You think I'm delusional."

"I never said that. I just need you to be open ... to the possibility ... of psychosis."

His eyes nearly popped out of his head.

"You want me to pretend this is all fake? That the swamp monster I conjured in that pond never swallowed that mother duck and her ducklings and then tried to after a little girl and her mom? That I never willed that car to crash into a tree just because the guy cut me off on the entrance ramp? You know how many people have died because of me?"

Brenda maintained her discipline, displaying a studied neutral smile that demonstrated attentiveness while remaining agnostic.

Brian's eyes went wider. "Oh my God! I don't believe this. I was led to believe you guys were different, that you could actually help me. But you think this is all bullshit, don't you? I can see it in that smarmy little smirk of yours."

Smarmy? That had not been her intention at all. But when she was nervous, her body language got a little warped. She adjusted her smile, but it was too late.

"You think I'm making all this up? Well okay, then. You know that little mole on your wrist? I notice stuff like that. I see something like that, I worry. I worry for people. Because I'm a worrier. I worry that little brown moles turn cancerous."

Brenda glanced down at the spot she preferred to think of as a freckle. What had been flat and round and a healthy brown was now an ugly, protruding, asymmetrical lump mottled tan and purple and black—a melanoma. She took a deep breath and made a note to set up an emergency appointment with her dermatologist.

Brenda realized now that she was not dealing with some routine Category III shaper. This Brian fellow was a serious threat—emotionally unstable with fatigue-induced psychosis. She reconsidered the question of broad action pharmaceuticals, if only as an emergency measure. A powerful sedative would do wonders towards containing his imagination right about now, but she had used all her emergency syringes. She had some rohypnol samples in her drawer. Could she convince him to take some?

She noticed his balled fists. His face was red. He was breathing hard and open mouthed.

"What about now? Do you believe me now? No? What if I made your desk come alive? Would you believe me then?"

The top of her desk bulged and bowed with rippling musculature. The legs sprouted cloven hooves and it surged against her Herman Miller Aeron chair, pinning her against the oversized Monet poster that decorated the wall behind her.

She reached for the panic box but her desk kept ramming her, moaning like a flatulent bull. Her stapler sprouted jointed, metallic appendages and leapt onto her chest, sinking it's two-pronged aluminum fangs into her bare shoulder her phone charger unplugged itself and went snaking up the meshed back of her chair, slithering around her neck, cinching tight. A wave of animation spread to a parade of odd creatures, a bottle of Evian water that bent at the waist and hissed at her, chomping its threaded maw. A pair of orange-gripped Fiskar scissors that stalked across a stack of manila folders. A stack of invoices that folded themselves into origami scorpions ready to inflict a thousand paper cuts.

All the while Brian sat in the armchair, shoulders hunched and glowering, as he let the full force of his emotions flow into his free-ranging and deadly imagination.

"How about now? Is this getting real enough for you? Because if not, I got more."

The door to the reception area swung open. Helen clattered in on her spike heels, pulled a Glock 36 from her purse, and pumped two hollow point rounds into Brian's chest at point blank range. And just as the shadows on the carpet began to congeal, two more in the head. The shadows collapsed before they could shape themselves into something dangerous. Brian slumped in the armchair, blood seeping through his thick hair and onto the upholstery. Thank goodness for Scotchguard.

Brenda's desk became again a mere desk. Her mole, just a mole. The office paraphernalia merely functional again.

She sighed. "What would I ever do without you, Helen? You're a gem."

Helen narrowed her eyes as she tucked away her pistol. "I had a bad feeling about this one. Struck me as rather squirrely. He had the dust bunnies turning in spiders in the waiting area. And you know how I feel about spiders."

Brenda pushed her desk back in place and straightened up the top.

"Better call Jerome. Tell him there's a clean-up in aisle nine." She sighed deeply and clucked her tongue, gazing down at the slumped and bleeding corpse. "He was too far gone. Shame we couldn't help him. Oh well." She shrugged it off. "One less threat to reality."

With a glance at her wrist to make sure her mole had gone back to normal, she went to the coat rack and flung on her jacket. She was more than ready for the weekend now. It was a shame to lose a potential client, but these Category V shapers, there was not much to be done to help them but ease their way out of this world.

"See you on Monday, bright and early," said Brenda, winking at Helen as she bustled out the door, ever so grateful that her own condition had never progressed beyond Category II.

For now.

*****

Wild Fruit

Oil and water were Nora and I when it came to nature. Before we met, I had been an avid trekker, climber, spelunker—you name it. If it had anything to do with the outdoors and didn't involve killing anything, I was game.

I grokked everything and anything wild. Mud squishing between my toes. Minnows nipping at my skin. My body was fair trespass for any kind of bug or spider. Any creature with wings was welcome to my air space.

Nora, on the other hand, had been a denizen of sidewalks and shopping malls. She most appreciated nature safely ensconced behind windows and TV screens. She required her green spaces manicured, every weed vanquished. Any creature dumb enough to buzz in her ears or traverse her bathroom was dead meat. That had been the Nora I used to know, anyhow.

We both made concessions towards preserving our relationship. I picked hiking trails near outlet stores. She'd prowl the shops, while I went climbing. We'd meet up at some cozy bed and breakfast in the evening.

Sad to say, I'm to blame for the berry picking excursion. I thought it would be something we both could enjoy. We'd be out in the countryside. She wouldn't have to walk more than a dozen paces from the car.

Twenty minutes, I had sat in that car with the engine running. Nora finally made her way out the front door only to run back in to find sunglasses that better matched her outfit.

I knew better than to fuss. I just smiled and went with the flow. She came back out a few minutes later, wearing something completely different.

She hopped in the car and flipped down the sun visor, touching up her make-up in the little lighted mirror.

"Will there be bugs?"

"Late July. Middle of the woods. You tell me."

"I don't want to get all eaten up. I just shaved my legs. Welts'll make 'em look all lumpy."

"Don't worry. I packed plenty of bug spray. The kind that smells nice."

Nora had been the urbane type back then, a real girlie-girl. Suburbia to her was indistinguishable from wilderness. Truly wild places like those that I enjoyed were too terrible for her to even fathom. That all changed after I took her to the berry patch.

Tasting those blackberries was all it took. These berries weren't like anything like the ones buy at Costco or even at a farmer's market. They grew wild on Connecticut Hill, a conservation area of old abandoned farms just outside of Ithaca. I had stumbled onto the place after one of the rambling drives I took sometimes to clear my head.

I had noticed something enchanting about the place even before I even found the berries. The light seemed different there, as if the air refracted differently. Everything seemed a little off-kilter – the plants, the boulders, the little red newts that wandered everywhere after a rain.

The place had been settled by folks from Connecticut back when people spoke of the frontier and they meant western New York. When Cleveland was wilderness and Poughkeepsie the gateway to the great American northwest. It was apparently the last place in the northeast that harbored a wolf population.

The last farmers left their farms back in the 1920s. Ninety years later, you could still see their mark. Their tumbledown walls. Sad, little cemeteries. Pits that had been root cellars. Apple trees bursting with green and warty pomes.

As for those berries, I can't say if they were truly wild and native or just some almost extinct cultivar left over from the early farms. Whatever they were, they were special.

We left the main road and entered a tunnel of trees.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Too many trees for my taste."

"What did you expect? It's a state forest."

"You said there was going to be a meadow."

"There is, behind the trees. Hey, mind if I roll down the windows?"

"As a matter of fact. I do."

I took my hand away from the button.

We pulled over and parked just below the place I had scouted during an earlier foray when the berries had been green.

Nora retrieved the two small baskets I had packed. I had been hoping to interest her in picking enough to bake a pie, but she just wanted to pick enough to humor me until I took her to the lunch I promised on the lake front.

She acted like some astronaut who had just crash-landed on an alien planet with a toxic atmosphere. She was in no hurry to leave the car. So I made the one small step for mankind and waited for her to follow my lead. She clambered out and immediately scurried around to my side.

She clung to my arm, scared. One nice thing about taking Nora to the woods was that here, she needed me. It was a nice feeling.

"Hey. Don't worry. It's just a short ways up this side road."

Bushes rustled. I caught a glimpse of an antler and brown fur.

Nora gasped. "What was that?"

"Just a deer."

"That was no deer."

"Of course it was."

"John. It had two legs."

"No way! C'mon. Let's pick some berries."

We had grown apart of late, two years since we met. Friends said we acted like an old couple, staying together more from inertia or spite than any burning fires of love. In public, sometimes, I got the feeling she was distancing herself, pretending we weren't an item. That was worrisome. It was one of the reasons why I arranged this excursion. A salvage attempt.

We reached the patch and found the berries in their prime. Big, plump and juicy globules of fruit unlike any blackberries I had ever eaten. They tasted both musky and sweet with a complexity worthy of an upscale Pinot Noir.

The canes had wicked thorns. Blood beaded on our knuckles and fingers. We couldn't stop stuffing our mouths. Few berries made it into our baskets until our stomachs began to ache. Those things were intoxicating.

She kissed me out of the blue, long and sweet, this girlfriend who had been ignoring me, drifting away. At that moment I thought I was a genius, that taking her berry picking was the best thing I had ever done for our relationship. I couldn't have been more wrong.

***

That night we made love with more passion than we had in months. We were unchained beasts, me and her. There was nothing passive or perfunctory about us. She wanted me as much as I wanted her.

For breakfast, we berries in our pancakes for breakfast and went at it again on the sofa. I stuck a few of those berries in the freezer to make sure we had some around for emergencies.

Things slid back to normal as the week progressed. I had half a mind to drive out to Connecticut Hill mid-week and refill those baskets on my own. Hell, I would have picked those canes clean made them all into jam if I could be sure they would retain their effect.

I even Googled blackberry and aphrodisiac but got no hits. I presumed it all a coincidence that our relationship took a turn for the better after we went berry picking.

The next weekend, I didn't even have to say anything to her. She brought it up herself.

"So, you think there are any berries left to pick?"

"You betcha."

And so we went back and the same thing happened, only wilder. The berries were past their prime but they had an even stronger effect on us. Nora basically attacked and mounted me right there in the woods. Mosquitoes fed on her bare breasts as she rode me.

The only bad thing was all the rustling in the birches. An animal circled us, but we were too engulfed in the throes of passion to care.

She wouldn't talk about it afterwards. A couple days later, she was back to her old self, fretting about the grass stains on her skirt and her torn leggings.

Another weekend came. She went and fetched the berry baskets from the garage without me asking. We drove to Connecticut Hill right after breakfast.

The berries were on their last legs. Only a few canes on the shadier backside of the patch had anything left to pick. I brought a blanket this time, but Nora didn't even bother with it. She shoved me down, insane with lust. We weren't even a match anymore. I mean, I felt a slight buzz from eating these things, but those things seemed to detonate in her brain and body.

After rutting for an hour in the overgrown meadow, she got up and went strolling into the forest, bare butt and all. Nora, the mall girl, was no more.

That thing we saw showed itself again. Again, I was pretty certain it was a deer, though it did seem to move a bit oddly. But what else could it be?

That week, Nora stopped wearing make-up. She no longer shaved her legs. She wore her hair down, avoided her Ann Taylor wardrobe and went to work in this loose-fitting peasant dress she had gotten as a gift and openly mocked. She was turning into a hippie chick, though all she wanted to eat was meat.

Her friends started to call me, all concerned.

"Is Nora like ... doing meth ... or something?"

I pleaded ignorance. I sure as hell wasn't going to tell them about the enchanted berry patch. That was mine and Nora's little secret. There weren't enough of these berries to go around.

On Thursday a cold front came through and gave us our first taste of Autumn. She slept in the raw that night, on top of the sheets, with every window open, while I shivered in my pajamas beneath a down comforter.

Weekend came. I was sure there could be no berries left to pick. But Nora wanted to go back to the hill. Not only that, she wanted to camp out. I tried to discourage her. As much as I enjoyed the attention, this was getting a little too weird.

"The berries ... they're gone. They're out of season."

"What about those green apples we saw? They should be ripe by now. No?"

Probably not, but I wasn't about to argue with her. I was glad to take her back to the woods. I packed the two-man tent, my sleeping bag and a quilt. She didn't own a sleeping bag of her own. A month ago she would have laughed in my face if I tried to buy her any camping equipment.

So we went out there, set up the tent in the middle of that overgrown meadow and picked some apples. There was nothing left in the berry patch but a few withered husks. But those apples, as green and knobby as they were, tasted better than anything you could get at the orchard stands. They had the same musky after-taste as the berries.

Berries or not, things got wild in the tent that night. The action actually spilled outside for a time despite the dewy chill to the air.

Mall girl had become nature girl, impervious to cold. We brought back a bushel of apples. She made a pie.

The following weekend, Nora canceled out of a good friend's wedding in which she was going to be a bridesmaid. We went camping again. And that's when things took a turn for the worse.

We picked more apples, which were now beginning to show a bit of blush between their warts. There was a sighting again of that shy buck that seemed to dwell in this clearing. And then Nora noticed these mushrooms with reddish caps speckled with white.

I didn't know much about fungi, but these looked dangerous to me.

Nora picked one and pretended to take a bite.

"Nora, no! Don't fool around with those."

"They're good. Smell them." She held one out to me. They had the same musky note I had tasted in the berries.

"Yeah, but ... I'm not sure they're edible. They might even be poisonous. We should check them out first."

"Let's pick some anyway. Just in case they're good to eat. I ... have cravings."

I made us a campfire that night. There was the usual crashing around in the woods, just out of sight. That shy deer, no doubt. I made us some pasta and we roasted some small zucchinis on a stick. Nora was acting all strange. Aloof and silent. Her eyes wide, inflamed.

After dinner, she slunk away into the dark. I figured she just went off to go pee or fetch a sweater. Not that she ever got cold any more. I got a little uneasy when she didn't return right away.

"Hey Nora! Wanna make some sh'mores? The coals are perfect."

"Nora?"

I got up and flicked and flicked on the flashlight. I found her crouching sans panties behind the tent, clad only in a T-shirt, crouching over the sack of mushrooms, munching them raw. Specks of dirt and fungi clung to her lips.

"Nora! What are you doing? We don't know if those are safe."

"They're fine," she said in low guttural voice. "In fact ... they're delicious."

My heart began to pound. I tried to get her to go home or at least get back to civilization. She insisted on staying.

I kept a close watch on her as we sat by the fire. She wouldn't talk. She kept her distance from me, sitting there cross-legged, staring up at the moon. The creature kept just beyond the firelight, moving in close, moving away, like a dance. This was not deer behavior, not at all.

In the tent that night, she wouldn't let me touch her. She tossed and writhed, throwing off the comforter when I tried to cover her.

"You feeling okay?" I worried she might have poisoned herself.

I flicked on the light. Her brow looked all damp and shiny. I touched my hand to it. She growled and tried to bite me.

"Jeez, Nora. You shouldn't have eaten those mushrooms. We need get you to an ER."

"No." The word slid out of her throat like the moan of a cat in heat.

She finally settled down. I conked out from exhaustion, but later, a noise outside startled me awake. I flicked on the light. Nora was gone. The tent flap was unzipped.

I went dashing out into the darkness, crashing into trees, calling her name. I heard this grunting and snuffling behind the blackberry patch.

A stench rose up. Urine and musk. Frenzied movements in the moon shadows. Before I could swing my flashlight, a furry limb slammed down hard on my arm and sent it flying into the ferns. Something clawed at my shirt, shredding it open, raking grooves into my chest. As I lurched back, a pair of hooves slammed into my side and sent me flying.

Panicked, I scrambled to my feet and scurried back to the car, beaning myself on a low-hanging limb in the process. I drove out of those woods as fast as my wheels would take me, side aching, heart thudding all the way.

Coward that I was, I considered driving all the way back to Ithaca and holing up in the apartment. I could come back here on my own at first light and sort things out. Instead, I did the right thing. I pulled into the first gas station I found and called the cops.

What followed was a whirlwind nightmare of search parties, incriminations and interrogations. I was the prime suspect in Nora's disappearance. Her friends and family went after me with venom. I was a murderer in their eyes. I had to get a new unlisted number and delete my Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Weeks passed. I was never charged with anything, not that it made me feel any better about losing Nora. In discussions with the investigators I always mentioned the berries but never the sex. That would have only complicated things. And I never said a word about the gaunt and feral creature that had attacked us. That thing had been no deer.

After the hubbub died down, I went back to Connecticut Hill every other weekend or so. It was my way of dealing with the loss. I always made sure I got there with plenty of daylight left. No way would I catch myself anywhere near that place after dark. Sometimes I would find myself tailed by a detective or two. I always welcomed their company.

Christmas Eve, after not going out there for weeks, I made a little pilgrimage in honor of the holiday. Nora had always been big on Christmas. This was to be my last excursion for the time being. I planned to shut things down for the winter. Maybe I'd come back in the Spring.

We had our first snow the night before. It lay a couple inches deep in the clearing. Along the forest fringe the ground was carpeted with these little twiggy plants I hadn't noticed before. They poked up all gnarled and skeletal, bearing pairs of bright red berries. It was the only color in a bleak and dormant forest made only bleaker by the overcast.

And then I saw the prints. Fresh ones. Hooves on one side with the occasional serpentine swish of tail. Beside them, bare and delicate feminine human toes.

I froze, torn between tracking them down and running away. Who knew what Nora had become? To what lengths would the beast go to keep her? Coward that I had become, it was enough for me to know she was alive. I got my ass out of there quick. It's been a year now and I have yet to go back. I stay out of any kind of woods these days. I won't touch wild fruit. I've become a creature of malls and sidewalks, just like the Nora I used to know.

*****

Indigo 823

You listen to mainstream music. The kind of thing that's based on scales and modes. Western. Eastern. A440 or A434, it doesn't matter. The notes fit into neat little boxes on a page. My stuff isn't like that. No. Not at all.

So you don't know me, but my fans know me as TK Willow, but Malcolm Barrow is my given name. Before I met Lys, I was between jobs and relationships, living off unemployment checks and annuities from my grandpa's trust fund. I also wrote a bit of freelance code under the table. Python. Javascript. Lisp. You name it.

I know. Boring. But code was not the be all and end all of me. Music is what got me up and out of bed every morning, before I met Lys.

I lived alone in an apartment in the converted outbuilding of a decrepit dairy farm. Speakers and amplifiers towered in every corner. Bundles of cable snaked from room to room like pernicious vines. Synthesizers on stands filled the cramped interior.

It was well after midnight. The cows huddled in the main barn, lowing softly. The lights in the farm house across the road—my landlords, the Watsons—had gone dark. Only when the old lady and her sons are asleep do I dare unplug my headphones and unleash my creations into the open air.

I played my loops through Vandersteen Model 7s—top of the line monuments to sonic fidelity. They looked like the sort of monolith an alien race would stash in various strategic locations around the solar system to pass on information to our species and guide our evolution.

At $45,000 a set, a pair of these slabs had shown up on a truck one day, the gift of some anonymous wealthy benefactor. I have no idea how they found my address. I was a very private person, going to great lengths to cover my tracks on the web.

These babies had hand carved balsa wood cones and meticulously arrayed, minimally diffracting baffles and plinths. Each speaker weighed eighty-five pounds.

This might seem like overkill for someone who composed music with a menagerie of cheap and obsolete synthesizers, but somehow they made all the difference between noise and magic. When I played some Charlie Parker vinyl on it, I could swear it summoned his ghost into the room. I could hear every click of his fingers on the valves of his alto sax.

I never performed out loud in public anymore. My music tended to provoke anti-social or otherwise less than desirable behaviors in listeners. Violence. Vandalism. Weeping. Lewdness. Even spontaneous defecation. Every individual responded differently to my compositions. Rare was the soul who enjoyed a positive experience listening to my work. And never were its effects more powerful than when pumped through those Vandersteens.

My music didn't need to be loud to be disturbing. The merest perception seemed to do the trick. People seemed immune when asleep, thank goodness, which is why I chose the wee hours to perform out in the open. I had some great headphones, so you wouldn't think I would need to bother, but headphones can't conjure ghosts the way those Vandersteens do.

Why did I bother? Well, her name is Lys. You might say she's not from around here. She can't tell me exactly where she hails from. She calls it 'The Rut' or 'Rutland' but I'm pretty sure she's not talking about the place in Vermont. She never went there by choice. She got taken.

All of that pretty much sums up all I know about her, snippets compiled from at least a dozen brief encounters. Summonings, I call them. Though, she doesn't like me to call her a ghost. She insists that she never died, so how can she be a spirit? I humor her, but I'm pretty sure she's dealing with denial.

She sure looked like a ghost to me. Her willowy shape appeared in my living room as a hazy apparition, outlined in swirls of icy mist. She said she could hear my playing in the Rut. It called to her like a beacon, drawing her to a glade in a wood where she could see me and my gear just as hazily as I saw her. She said I was the ghost, though we know better.

Indigo 414 and its variants were the most dependable way to summon her, but the visuals were poor and her voice was just a buzz. Purple 509 was hit and miss but when it worked, it conjured some really sharp silhouettes. Crimson 511 channeled the best audio but rendered her almost completely transparent.

The robust success of Indigo inspired me to go for something darker and colder, but with a hint of the warmth that seemed to help fine tune the resolution. Indigos are full of darks and flats. I had a hunch that I could sneak a few bright tones into all that black without spoiling the beacon. I figured they'd get swallowed up. That's a trick I couldn't pull with a composition that was already too warm or bright.

My works layered live performance over a mix of loops and recorded sequences. I used cheap synthesizers salvaged from yard sales and flea markets—models and brands not cool enough to be on the radar of anyone doing music for a living. Hohner. Roland. No the least, my main axe—a precious Sequential Sixtrak.

I messed with both the hardware and software to warp their sounds to my needs. Playing low end synths through such high quality speakers might seem like a waste but there was a method to my madness. For my purposes, the unintended artefacts of these crap technologies—overtones, static, clicks—were just as important as the dominant tones they produced.

The foundation of my compositions was a swirling timeless atonal soup of beats and notes triggered seemingly at random. But there was order to the chaos. Strange attractors summoned certain tones more often than others.

The timing was a bit loose, the rhythms almost biological in their sloppiness. A steady heart is a sickly one, cardiologists say. A little bit of slippage between beats makes for a much more robust pattern, less likely to be perturbed from its central pulse.

Most people didn't perceive my sequences as melody or music. It was theoretically possible to write them out on a stave, but every bar would have had a different time signature and you would need a lot more lines than standard to indicate every microtone.

My compositions had drones as well as passages that soared and dove, but it would have been a stretch to call them melodies. They were abstractions, sonic sculptures, nothing meant to be pleasing to the ear.

As I navigated its layers like a ship on a stormy sea, Indigo 528 rewarded my intuition with the glaze in my vision that told me that the interface had arrived.

Icy particles hovered like snowflakes that refused to fall. My living room grew as cold as a meat locker. The crystals trembled and twinkled as they swept together and apart. Some dropped to the floor and frosted my carpet. Others gathered into clouds with bulges and protuberances like giant amoebas, rooted to the carpet with fleshy stalks.

This was definitely ranking as one of my more impressive attempts. The conjurings were so robust, I could almost reach out and grab them. But I couldn't gloat or else they would crumble. I can't think about anything but making them grow.

I didn't dare glance at my keyboard. I focused on the dance of the crystals, tweaking my performance to keep them growing and propagating. I needed them thicker, denser. I evolved my sequences through a process of guided natural selection, rejecting any pattern that caused the crystals to waver, reinforcing those that made them sustain and propagate.

And then it happened. As quickly as a camera tweaking its autofocus, the amorphous blobs converged into recognizable shapes. I saw a craggy boulder, stubby plants with fleshy cactus-like leaves. And there she stood, right in front of my TV. Her shoulders sloped. She was sparsely clad. For the first time, dimples below her brow showed me her eyes.

She brandished something. Some kind of weapon, perhaps. But the resolution was too poor to make out what she was holding.

Her outline was sharply defined but her surfaces remained fuzzy. Her skin was a sheet of shimmering static devoid of color, texture or detail.

"Are you ... real?" she said, her voice tinny but rarely had I heard it so clear. Usually, an Indigo track distorted it beyond comprehension.

"I should be asking you that."

The icy mist thickened and waned, oscillating like ripples lapping at the shore of a pond.

"Don't stop," she said. "I can ... almost ... see you."

The cloud eroded as it built, like a closely watched cumulus in a desert sky. The balance was tenuous. The particles that shaped her form were on the verge of losing their attraction and blasting apart. I tried to stoke my sequences to favor building, but entropy always wins in the end.

The phone rang and it was like a bomb going off. Crystals clashed, collapsing, melting. The fog was gone. All that remained of the summoning were the rivulets trickling down the walls and a damp carpet.

I switched off my loops and answered. I didn't have caller ID but I already knew it was my land lady.

"Don't you realize how late it is young man?"

"Um. Sorry. I ... uh ... lost track of the time."

"Listen. That ... music, or whatever you call it. I realize it's not that loud. My boys tell me they can't even hear it. But the cows can when they're in the barn and it upsets them. I'm afraid they're going to hurt themselves kicking at the stanchions."

"Sorry ma'am. I didn't realize. I'll stop."

***

I remember checking my MySpace page and finding a message from a fan wondering when my next track will be uploaded. I tried to release at least one new recording per month just to keep my fans happy. Fans of my compositions were rare and almost mythical beasts. I would have hated to lose one.

It wasn't easy finding people with whom my tracks resonate. Something had to be very wrong with your brain to find enjoyment from them. Those who connected, tended to be fanatical, some to the point of not listening to anything else. The responsibility of being the sole musical outlet for this tiny subset of freaks was a heavy burden to bear.

I often fantasized what it would be like to play for all of them in a room together. To have an actual live audience to interact with in real time while I'm performing, that would have blown my mind. It had been years since I dared perform any of my music in public. I wouldn't have needed a very large room. A large couch would have sufficed.

I wondered sometimes what it would have taken to make my music more accessible to the masses without sacrificing the elements that made it unique. I guess I was searching for the perfect gateway drug. It could be hard to take the plunge if you've never been exposed to anything like it before.

Noise, most people called it. White noise, if they were being especially kind. To most ears it sounded like sheer chaos—Captain Beefheart on mescaline, minus the blues chords, progressions or anything with roots in Western or Eastern music. It wasn't industrial. It wasn't natural. It was something new.

Few seemed capable of discerning any structure or pattern in my compositions. Those that could, became my fans—all fourteen of them, scattered across the globe. Six Americans aged twelve to eighty-two. Two Brits, a Canadian, a German, a Filipina and three pre-teen siblings from Iceland. I knew them all by name, though only a few have ever attempted to communicate with me. I've never met a single one in person, and I hope I never do. They were loyal and demanding and scared the hell out of me.

The extremity of my music was the property that attracted my hard-core followers. They let me know whenever I strayed too far off the path. I could even tell what would disappoint them before I even released a track. I always made it up to them by uploading something more pure and radical the next time around.

I hadn't always been such an artistic freak. I had played mainstream alternative rock with seven different bands across upstate New York before I went solo. Before the internet, music like mine could never find its audience. But now social networking makes such discoveries inevitable, no matter how small the appeal. My music appealed to the most distal tip of the long tail of the distribution.

I never expected to make money. Before the summonings, I saw it merely as therapy for my soul, my temporary cure for depression and insomnia and whatever else that ailed me.

But then my fans started reporting unusual phenomena. One devout Catholic Filipina lady insisted that my music brought her visions of an apparition she was pretty sure was Mary. An octogenarian from California told me that holding her hands close to a speaker when Indigo 709 played, eased the swelling in her hands. To some guy named Jeremy my music brought voices that dictated stories he self-publishes on Kindle. Nobody ever bought them because they're weird, but that's beside the point.

The point is, I never believed any of it until the ghost of a girl outlined in icy mist began to appear live in my apartment.

***

You don't have to drive far out of Ithaca to reach the boonies and Turkey Hill Road was definitely qualifies as the boonies. My apartment was a single unit shoe-horned into a complex of barns and outbuildings that used to be part of a working dairy farm. The Watsons still kept a few cows for old-time's sake, as the grown boys worked other jobs now, for Tompkins County public works and at the Cayuga salt mine in Lansing.

Old lady Watson had a cardiac problem that put her in and out of the hospital, sometimes for weeks at a time. I took advantage of her absence from time to time to play live. Headphones are no good for a summoning.

Her boys, Chuck and Neil, stayed out late when she was gone and then it was just me and the cows. They were both fortyish and single but acted like teens when their old lady was not around. They never seemed to notice my music, especially when they were drunk. To them, it might as well have been a dog whistle. They pretty much left me alone as long as I kept taping a rent check to their front door on the first of the month.

As for the cows, well, they were starting to get used to my stuff. They didn't fuss much as long as I didn't play anything that sounded much like Coral 313. That one made them scream like they were getting butchered. Not a problem. That sequence had long been deleted from my drives.

With the cows in the field, the boys at work and the old lady at Tompkins County Medical Center, daylight might have seemed to be the best time to do my thing, but I could never seem to get inspired in all that bright light. Darkness and shadow made the mysteries in my music come alive. The night did something to my brain, the way it boosts those AM radio signals that bounce around all the way down here from Quebec.

My creative process went like this:

1) Retool one old school analog drum machine. Reprogram the microcontroller with some machine code that randomizes the spacing between the beats. Looping ensures there will be a repeating pattern but chance determines where the beats actually. Selecting a rhythm track is like rolling the dice. I sometimes have to click through and listen to hundreds of patterns before find one that has the right feel.

2) Seed the resulting rhythm loop into my array of old sequencers. The beats interact with triggers. Sometimes, I run the beats through a filter so that the triggers don't always fall on the beat but the pattern has some fixed mathematical relationship to the rhythm track.

3) Layer loops of melody. I use 'melody' for lack of a better word. These are single note runs and embellishments. Sometimes busy, sometimes spacious. I go layer by layer, saving those that work, erasing those that don't.

4) Improvise. This is the top layer. Free form. Single notes and chords. This part I play live on my Sixtrak over all that has come before. All of the prior work gets played out my Vandersteens while my solo emanates through an old Walter Woods tube amp intended for amplifying upright basses.

Nine times out of ten I'd end up with something devoid of any magic. The one in ten is what made it all worthwhile. Even my keepers didn't always provoke the physical effects that some of my fans report. Sometimes all I got as reward was a tickle in my brain—an intellectual orgasm, you might say.

When the weird stuff happened, it was pretty obvious. Albino squirrels from all over would converge on the farm. Winter moths would crowd every inch of my window panes. Strange objects and substances showed up on my carpet. Pine cones from trees that don't exist on this planet. Pink sand made up of thousands of tiny shell fossils. Icy mists. Female ghosts.

Some of these things I could do without. But no biggie. When something undesirable occurred, I just deleted the track and made sure I never tried anything like that again. But an icy fog that summoned ghosts was another matter entirely. This one involved a girl.

The night I conjured Lys in the flesh, I was only trying to ease an ache in my bum knee. I had been limping around for a couple days after slipping on some wet leaves.

It made me think of Mrs. Watson, who was back in the hospital with severe edema in both legs. I was tempted to offer her a free performance of Indigo 709, the track that helped that California lady's arthritis, but I knew she wouldn't understand. Still, it got me thinking about music as therapy, so I decided to be my own guinea pig.

You might have noticed, my songs don't have real names. They have colors and numbers like Blue 1004 or Taupe 111. To me, the colors are shorthand mnemonics portraying the relative coolness or warmth of their tonal structure. The numbers are simply the date I composed them. Only my best tracks qualify for names. Most get tossed by the wayside.

August 23rd, the first night I met Lys, I was thinking about Indigo 709. If one of my patterns had the power to heal even one old lady, maybe it made ethical sense to emulate those properties and see if I could create more stuff that made people feel good.

My bum knee had been acting up lately, so I already had something to test out these curative properties. If nothing else, I would have a new track for my legions of fans to admire and maybe even inspire fan number fifteen to follow my work.

Turned out that Indigo 709 had a beat very similar to the one that conjured that icy fog—busy in the front end, with long gaps towards the end the loop. Maybe that was no coincidence.

After all, with cellular automata, both Chris Langton and Stephen Wolfram discovered thresholds in the universe of numbers that make the difference between organized complexity and chaos. Life and death, in other words. Perhaps I had stumbled on a sonic realm where the same kind of principle applied.

I used the overall shape of Indigo 709 to guide me in the selection process. I could have built off of the exact same pattern, but that would have been cheating. I wanted to see if I had discovered a general principle, not a specific anomaly.

So I plugged my headphones into the drum box and clicked through the randomizer, searching for even more extreme variant of the combination of cluster and space that made that California lady's swelling go down. When I found a likely candidate, it was time to go live.

I checked out the window to make sure the lights were still out in the house. Maybe they couldn't hear me, but their ladies might. There was a bar down the end of Ringwood Road towards Dryden where they hung out and pick up sluts. It was only eleven p.m., so I had another couple hours to myself.

I plugged into my amp and turned up the volume. For master recordings I prefer analog so I ran tape on my ancient Ampeg reel to reel. A lead tone told me where to patch in. A long squeal followed by syncopated hiccups told me the beat was about to start.

And then I was in the thick of it. The basic beat sounded like a grade school drum class, the rhythms all ragged but clearly organic. I had tweaked the tones tweaked with warp and distortion.

As the other layers kicked in, one by one, my fingers hovered over my modified Sixtrak as I waited for the music to grab me. Everything was looping now. Programmed parts dropped in and out while I accentuated or diminished the contrasts, creating complexities in the texture and depth of this wall of sound.

I always wished I had more keys so I could be more continuously microtonal. What I really needed to do this thing right was a fretless guitar, but I'm stuck with 88 keys and a predetermined selection of microtonal frequencies mapped in a sequence that has nothing to do with the usual intervals and chords. Black keys, white keys, it didn't matter. I'm forced to play by ear, to experiment until I find the tones I need.

It only took a few minutes to get in deep. Usually, I would edit out my early meanderings and explorations, but sometimes that was where the magic lay. I had to be very careful with post-production or I could sometimes ruin things.

When things got rolling, I would enter a trance state, stabbing out riffs and runs that weave the layers together like thread, creating dimensions and facets that wouldn't happen without my intervention.

A piercing pain shot through my throbbing knee, making me scream out loud. The dull ache became a searing burn that just wouldn't let up. Some therapy.

But I kept on playing, because an icy fog had swooped into the room. Never had it come so fast and thick. I honestly hadn't been thinking of summoning Lys tonight. I had stumbled onto some powerful mojo.

Crystals coalesced into shapes with color, sharper and more solid than anything conjured before. A bunch of knobby, thorny things sprang up, arms reaching. I flinched away, but clearly these were plants, not animals.

Flubbing notes, the objects went hazy just as Lys stepped into the thicket of cacti.

I hear a gasp, high but raspy. "No! Not yet. Don't go!"

I scrambled to get her back, hunkering back into the groove, choosing notes for maximum effect. I fell out of breath. Sweat poured down my brow. I could hear the cows stomping and mooing over in the main barn. Flurries of notes poured spontaneously out of my hands, guided by some atavistic muscle memory.

It was touch and go, but I won the trend. Indigo 823 would not be denied.

The crystalline mist re-solidified into flesh and clothing. A frosted girl now stood in my living room holding a spiked club. Her hair was braided and knotted. Her eyes were astonished.

I stumbled backwards and collapsed into my tape deck. A cord unplugged. The music stopped. The cacti vanished, but Lys remained.

As the ice crystals sheathing her melted, she stood there dripping onto my carpet. Intricate scars criss-crossed her limbs, lattice works and Celtic knots, like so many pale tattoos.

She was underdressed, with a scarf wrapped around her meager bosom that looked to be woven from human hair. A floppy leather wrap hung in tatters around her waist. She wore bracelets of bone and a choker made from the ears of rodents.

"The Takers lied. They said this was all destroyed. That they had come to rescue us."

"You believed them?"

"No." She gawked at my gear. "This ... is how you summoned me?"

I gawked right back ... at her. I could only nod.

She commenced to smash at my keyboards and tear at their cords.

"Hey, hey, hey! We might need those. What if you want to go back?"

"Go back? Are you daft?"

"Maybe there are others ... who might want to come here?"

She continued to destroy my gear.

"No others shall cross! None of them! Understood?"

"I ... I guess."

"You nothing of my world, do you?"

"Nope. Guess not."

She bashed and hacked at my gear until my entire collection of vintage keyboards and effects became mulch of circuit boards, wires and shattered plastic.

She ran into my kitchen and rifled through my drawers, snatching up a serrated bread knife.

"So what do you think you're going to do with that?"

She ignored me and stomped back into living room.

"No! Not the Vandersteens!" I grabbed her arm. She wrenched free, much stronger than she looked. I hugged one of the towers but she was already sawing into the casing of the other one.

I collapsed to the floor, consigned to the demise of my precious $45,000 speakers.

When she was done with her rampage, she came over and stood over me panting with that bread knife. I was sure she intended to cut my throat, and at that point I wouldn't have cared if she had.

"Is this the largest blade you own?"

"Well, there's a machete in the trunk of my car."

"How large?"

I held up two fingers about three feet apart.

Her already large eyes flare wider.

"Bring it!"

***

Like a fool, I fetched the machete from the trunk of my car. I wasn't worried any more about her wanting to use the blade on me. Clearly she was simply paranoid. Delusional. But who am I to speak of delusions after I had conjured a five foot four inch female out of thin air with nothing more than sound waves.

She snatched the blade from me, ran her thumb across the dull and rusted edge and cursed. She spent the next half hour sharpening it while scooped the wreckage into the corners.

There was a noise outside. The boys were back from the bar. Lys shot to her feet and went to the window, peeking around the curtain. She rushed from room to room, frantic.

"Is there only one door to your house?"

"Afraid so."

"This will not do. We cannot stay here. We'll be cornered! I smell animals. Is there a stable, perhaps?"

"There's ... a cow barn ... and some outbuildings."

"Show me."

I grab a flashlight and lead her out onto the farm. She snatched up a smudged and tattered moving blanket from the storage closet where I keep my grill.

"We'll be safer out of doors."

"We? You want to stay out here, I won't stop you. Me, I'm sleeping in my own bed."

***

She made her bed in the hay loft that night. In the morning, the wreckage in my living room reminded me that unfortunately, this was no dream. My avant-garde music career was over. I am too stunned to grieve the loss.

I cooked breakfast for two, even though I half expected her to be gone, but I found her up in the loft, snuggled in the hay with my machete.

I brought out four fried eggs and four slices of toast with jam on a tray, intending to share it. She devoured it all and asked for more. So I go back in and fried up a whole package of bacon and made us a couple of bowls of instant oatmeal.

I went out to cajole her to come back inside to eat because Mrs. Watson's boys would be coming around soon to do chores. They usually slept in on Saturdays, but for these guys that meant rolling out of the house around eight. The smell of bacon did the trick, drawing her out of the loft and into my kitchen.

Lys didn't seem to mind being stuck in a place with only one door as much when there was daylight. While she crouched by the front window watching every car that passed on Ringwood Road, I stuffed the remains of my gear into a bunch of heavy duty trash bags, the kind they use for construction waste.

The absolute obliteration of my synthesizers began to sink in as I gathered up the pieces. The sounds I had made with these beasts! All of those custom tweaks that I would never replicate. I suppose it was normal to be going through some level of withdrawal and mourning.

When I turned on the TV, Lys leapt to her feet and raised her machete. Like a fool I got between it in her blade, narrowly avoiding a slash in the ribs.

"Calm down! It's just a television, not a portal."

"Of course," she says. "I remember ... television."

"You have ... TV? There?"

"I'm from here, you fool. I was taken, as a child."

"By ... whom?"

"By the Takers. Who else? Do you not know anything?"

"I'm ... learning."

She calmed down, and watched a bit of a nature show with me. I just wanted to check the news, but she had no interest, whatsoever.

Afterwards, she washed up in the tub with some cold water and laundry detergent. I gave her some clean clothes that didn't fit me anymore. They were way loose and long, but she didn't look too out of place for Ithaca. At least the long sleeves of my jeans and flannel shirt covered her scars.

"They will come for me, you realize."

"Will they?"

"Yes. You must destroy any trace of your music. Promise to never create such a thing again."

I took a long, deep breath and sighed. "But aren't there others ... like you? Shouldn't we try and help them?"

"Most are corrupt. No one on the other side can be trusted."

"What about you? Can I trust you?"

"You still have your head, do you not?"

"Is that a threat?"

Tears erupted. "You really do know nothing, Malcom Barrow."

***

A couple days later, we're eating out in a meadow. She has me build a fire to cook some steaks even though I have a perfectly good propane Weber. She picks some cow corn from a neighbor's field to roast right in the husks.

"The Takers thought they could breed us," she says, while I'm choking on a chunk of bloody meat. "But their seed wouldn't take in our wombs. So they used us as thrall."

"Slaves? To do what?"

"I am a hunter. Small game. It pleases me. Allows me freedom to roam."

"Cool. So ... uh ... how long have you been doing this?"

"I was eleven when they took me," she says. "I used to live outside of Cleveland. You know Cleveland?"

"Yes, I know Cleveland."

"You will take me there? To See?"

"Sure. No problem. But you're gonna have stop threatening people with that machete. Not everybody here is a Taker, you know."

"But they are here among us," she says. "They may look like everyone else. But they are different."

"Well, you're a grown woman now. Maybe they'll leave you alone."

"No one leaves the Rut. No one. Not ever. From the first day, they tell us. That is an absolute. They will not be pleased to learn I am gone."

"Fuck em," I say. "If it makes you feel better. I could buy some guns. We could go all survivalist. Build a cabin in the woods."

Her eyes glitter. "You would do that for me?"

She has no idea the lengths I would go to please her now that she has wedged her way into my world. I am sure as hell not going to let any Takers take her away from me.

That she shows no physical interest in me whatsoever doesn't matter yet. Eventually, she might cultivate some affection for me. For the time being I can sustain myself just by her presence, breathing the air she breathes. I was smitten from the moment she wrecked my most precious possessions. I would do anything to keep her safe.

***

Life changes a lot after that. Mrs. Watson makes us move. She doesn't approve of couples living out of wedlock on her property. But that's okay. I find us a little cabin in the woods to rent and make sure that the place has two doors.

She roams the hills and meadows during the day, catching squirrels for dinner while I worked my temp jobs. Every night she hunkers down and waits for the Takers to come, but there is never much more than a mouse or a cricket to worry about.

She shares my bed, so far, only to sleep. I'm pretty sure she's not a virgin, but I don't want to push her any faster than she wants to go. When I wake up in the middle of the night and sense her breathing beside me I feel this buzzing tingle that has to be better than heroin. I may not be loved, but I am wanted.

Of course, my fans aren't at all pleased. Lys doesn't want the Takers to be able to track us so she makes me go online and delete everything I have ever uploaded. I never realized how many nooks and crannies my stuff had made it into. There were even bootleg torrents of my stuff on Pirate Bay, not to mention all of these obscure Russian web sites. At least I am able to get rid of anything that bears my name and location.

I also have to delete my e-mail accounts to drown out the howls of ALL CAPS OUTRAGE that inevitably appear in my box. Turns out, I had way more than fourteen fans. I never realized how many lurkers were also into my stuff. My sudden absence draws them all out of hiding. I can only hope that the lady from California kept a copy of Indigo 709 to ease her arthritis. I hope that the Takers leave her alone.

I break down and tell Lys that I need to play music or else I'll go insane. Turns out she has no problem with me playing instruments made of wood and strings. So I teach myself some mandolin. I already played a little guitar.

As long as I play other people's songs or anything pre-composed, tonal and in three-four or four-four time, she's fine with it. It's not going to be anything that opens portals, at least not between worlds.

Once a week now, we go out among people, right after her weekly bath. It's a major breakthrough for us, this coming out. She leaves the machete in the car, but she insists on carrying a big ass Buck hunting knife strapped under her vest. She goes barefoot in the city.

I buy her beer and whiskey at this open acoustic jam on Sundays at a downtown pub. The folks who show up play everything from Turlough O'Carolan to country rock.

Old habits die hard. I can't help but play with fire.

In that huge room, with five or six Martin guitars cranking away at chords, I sometimes take liberties with the background accompaniment and resort to some of my old riffs, cramming odd time signatures into four-four spaces, detuning my strings to let those microtones ring. To any listeners nearby, it might sound like I'm incompetent or drunk, but there are a few out there in the crowd from time to time whose eyes might open a little wider. And sometimes a pale tattoo may peek out from under a shirt collar or cuff, telling me there's more than just Lys crossing between worlds. I haven't told Lys, but I've looked into their eyes, and I'm pretty sure these folks aren't Takers.

I'll have to ask her someday how to tell the Takers from the Taken, but that will be a ways down the road. She doesn't like to talk about that other place.

*****

Bucket Run

The beast catches up with me in my brother's apartment. The light becomes too dim to read, my book too heavy to hold. It weighs down my limbs, pins me against the sofa cushions. It has hunted me down after a week of remission when I was functional enough to shop for groceries and catch up with my laundry. I can tell this is going to be a big one.

The monster looms, rising like some ever-expanding moon, blotting out all vistas, smothering all initiative. The darkness seeps into my will, dominating, superseding my needs, swapping roles until I am its slave, orbiting, servile, submissive.

Shadows press hard and close, I can reach out and touch them. They have a force as tangible as gravity and magnetism, with mass and inertia, fields of attraction and repulsion, absorption spectra not much different from a black hole's, bending the space-time continuum, deflecting light around strange attractors with stable equilibria centered around the darkness in my soul. This one's the real deal.

My brother returns in the evening to find me laying in the same position as when he left, TV off, book in my lap, bookmark stuck on the same page it had landed on three days ago. He just shakes his head and goes into the kitchen.

"When was the last time you ate anything?"

"Dunno."

"I'm gonna heat up some chili. I'll make you a bowl."

"Thanks."

***

In my fifty-fifth year, with our daughter finally in college, Estrella, my wife, gave up on our marriage and I gave up on life. It is about time. I'm not good at any of it. Fatherhood. Relationships. You name it. I suck.

This is no mid-life crisis. This is the end.

But I don't want to just snap my fingers and die. I have a bucket list. A very modest one. I don't want to mess around. I just want things to be over.

But first I want to see Ithaca one last time and make music with some of my old bandmates. I want to climb an Adirondack mountain, any of them, it didn't matter which one. And I want to drive north to Labrador to the end of the road.

Any life, no matter how botched, is still worth honoring with a last hurrah. And thus began my bucket run. A low budget, meager ambition stab at fulfilling some modest lifelong dreams. And that was what finally got the monster off my chest, got me off that sofa and out of my worried brother's hair.

I lack the money and patience to follow my biggest dream—to visit New Zealand aka Middle Earth. A more accessible dream is to drive up to Labrador and see the arboreal wilderness whose presence and proximity to New England has always intrigued me. With three tanks of gas and a used Honda, I can at least fulfill a secondary wish before I leave this earth.

Why Labrador and not Quebec? No reason, really. People speak English there. And I like the way it rolls off the tongue.

Flying home from Europe once I caught glimpses of its landscape. Myriad ponds and bogs. glinting between a lacework of greenery. Here and there, gray gashes of bare granite, stretching like giant claw marks. I've always wondered what it would be like to be down there at ground level, roaming around.

But first I would head to Ithaca, New York—a place that continued to own my heart long after I had moved on to live on both coasts and across two oceans. Those Ithaca years were the most tumultuous and seminal of my life.

Funny, how so many of my peers who had left town before me had ended up back there. The place was some kind of vortex for washed-up musicians.

But how can I mock them? I feel the pull myself.

I load up my 2011 Honda Element with everything I have left worth owning and get onto the Mass Turnpike heading West. Estrella calls me on the road. Our divorce is about as final as a divorce can get, the last significant trickle of paperwork sent back to the lawyers well over a month ago.

She's all business. No small talk.

"You staying with your brother?"

"Not anymore."

"I'm gonna need a forwarding address."

"What for?"

"In case I need to get in touch."

"Well ... I don't have one. And honestly ... I don't expect to get one ... ever."

"What are you telling me? That you're homeless? Don't be such a drama queen. Never mind, I'll just send stuff to your office."

"I ... uh ... quit my job."

"What?"

"Got my grades in. Resigned."

"But you were tenured. What were you thinking? What are you gonna do with yourself? You're only fifty-five."

"I'm going on a bucket run."

"A what?"

"I'm going north. As far North as I can get. Until the road runs out."

She sighed. "Well ... it's your life now. Not for me to tell you what to do. Drive safe. Get in touch when you ... uh ... settle down. Maybe you can get a P.O. box or something."

"Will do." I let it stay at that. No need to extend the conversation by letting her know that I never intended to settle. Ever.

How do I intend to end it all? That remains to be determined. I have lots of options. Drowning. Hypothermia. Getting mauled by polar bears. In a pinch I can resort to Uncle Joe's old .22 or the bottle of sedatives I snatched from his bedside. One way or another it would sort itself out.

***

I drive past Albany, stop at the Guilderland rest stop for lunch. Pretty soon I'm in old familiar territory, winding through the green glacial valleys West of Cortland. The day before I left I had posted something pretty general on Facebook, that I was going to be in Ithaca, and if anyone wanted to set up a jam, I was game. Have bass will travel.

I don't know what to expect, posting something out of the blue like that. Half of the people I used to play with probably wouldn't have read it by the time I blow into town.

There were at least five of my old band-mates from various bands bopping around Ithaca and its environs. I had been stalking them on Facebook, gazing into their lives almost entirely as a voyeur, other than an occasional 'like' and rarely a comment. It was like gazing into a museum of the 1980s. Their tastes had frozen. They liked same music they liked then.

I figured I would just check into some hotel, announce my presence and see who got in touch and invited me to jam. I had an amplifier and my old Fender Precision in the back of the Honda. I was game to play anything from post-punk to straight jazz. I just wanted to relive the charms of making music with these people, because at the time it had felt like something close to necromancy.

Money is no object. I had cashed out my IRAs and put most of the money along with half the proceeds of the house into a trust fund for Maggie, to be accessed once she reached twenty-one. I had about six thousand dollars stashed in my old Navy duffel bag. I figured that would be plenty to finance a decent last hurrah.

I check into the Hilton on the Commons, take advantage of the free wi-fi and announce my arrival on Facebook. I sit there and wait, checking every few minutes to see if someone had responded. An hour later, there's still no action so I decide to go for a walk, grab a bite.

The Commons is much as I remembered it—lots of new shops, but still some of the old mainstays including Mansour Jewelers, where I got great deal on the pearl necklace that was my gift to Estrella on our wedding day.

It's swarming with college kids. They look like babies to me. I remember being their age, crashing down the Commons, dodging and weaving around all the old, slow people wandering between storefronts like sluggish ghosts. Now I'm one of the slow ones, though inside, I feel just like I did then, just a little more beaten down. Some things clearer, others more confusing.

I order French onion soup from a place on Aurora Street. I check Facebook on my smartphone. There's a message from Sari. Lead vocalist from one of my first Ithaca bands. She's inviting me to stop by for some tea. Tonight. She's given me her address. She lives within walking distance, just up the hill towards Ithaca College.

I finish my soup and stop at a convenience store for a Purity ice cream sandwich. It's like I never left town. Of all the locales I've called home, I spent the smallest fraction of my life here. Only six years, but it made me what I am and was a watershed for everything that came to pass.

I can see why people come back here. The place has a mesmerizing vibe. I'm almost thinking, screw Labrador. Maybe I stick around Ithaca and see what happens. Get some kind of subsistence level job. Try to rekindle some of the thrill I felt when I first came here after college. Something unfamiliar is thrumming in my chest. Is it hope?

I stroll up the hill and find Sari's house on a side street just off the main road. It's a small thing with a pocket yard. The kind of place the students usually rent. It doesn't scream success. Sari at one point had gone off to Chicago with her boyfriend. She had asked me to join them, to start a band in the big city. She ended hanging out with some folks from Ministry, even sang with them a bit.

I'm nervous as I start up the walk. The shrubs are perfectly manicured. Rose bushes bracket the steps leading onto the porch. It feels weird, showing up like this. Now that I'm here, I get shy.

A car pulls up in the driveway as I'm standing on the porch. I pause, thinking it might be Sari returning from a quick errand. A guy steps out carrying a six pack of beer and a bottle of wine. He sees me standing on the porch.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Um." That's all I can say.

"You're that Wayne dude, aren't you?"

"Wayne? No. I'm not Wayne."

"Get your ass out of here. Leave her the fuck alone!"

"Uh. I'm not Wayne."

He squeezes past me on to the porch, gets between me and the door. Puts down the wine and beer. Shoves me off the steps.

"Go! Get the fuck out of here."

"Listen. I used to play in her band."

The door opens. Sari sticks her head out.

"Joshua, what on earth are you doing?"

"This guy here ...."

"He's an old friend who's visiting from out of town. I invited him over for tea. Sorry. I should have called you."

So I'm invited in. There are half-done knitting projects scattered all around the living room. Sari's significant other hands me a beer, which is kind of awkward because Sari's in the kitchen brewing tea.

She ducks her head in. "Joshua's the jealous type. He's deathly afraid that my ex, Wayne, is going to show up on my doorstep someday and whisk me away."

"It ain't that. I just don't want him to hurt you again. You've been through enough."

Joshua and I just look at each other. Sari pulls out a photo album with old band pictures. There's a toddler playing peek-a-boo from the kitchen.

"That's my grandson, Henry. Isn't he adorable?"

"So ... uh ... do you still sing?"

Sari smirks. "Only in the shower."

"I'm trying to get something together with some of the folks we used to play with. If I manage to set up a jam, would you sing with us?"

She bursts out laughing, cackling like an old lady. Joshua, who had been looking a bit stunned or stoned, joins in a few seconds later.

"Look at this one. He wants to get the old band back together."

She laughs some more and then gets all serious.

"Did you know that Nick passed away a few years back?"

Nick had been the rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of my first Ithaca band.

"Really? How?"

"Kidney disease. He had some ... substance issues."

"Joel's still around?"

"Him and Buster. Yeah. They both live out near Cortland."

"So ... uh ... would you? Sing with us?"

She gives me this warm smile. Her eyes are still laughing at me.

"What is this? You having a mid-life crisis? Really, you need to let this go. Music is for the young. It's so nice to see you, though. It's a shame we never kept in touch. That's what social networking is good for, though. Isn't it? Getting people back together?"

She gives me some cookies to bring back to the hotel. I check Facebook again and there's a response from Joel, our old drummer. Not a peep from anyone else though I know for a fact from Sari that at least three of them are still living in town.

Joel says I should stop by his place for brunch. He'll see if he can get Buster to come over.

I'm feeling funny about Sari's belittling of me. She treated me like I was something to be pitied. A case of arrested development.

I go to bed with some of that heavy feeling settling back into bones it had briefly abandoned. My depression, full-blown, has the power to disable me for days on end. If it let it kick in, I might never leave this hotel room. What had gotten me off my brother's couch was the decision to make this bucket run be the end of my days.

So I had to keep moving. I writhed around in bed for a few hours before packing my things and checking out early. I went out and did drive-bys in the dark of many of my old haunts. The streets were empty, populated only by memory.

I came to realize how dangerous it was, coming to Ithaca. The place truly is a vortex, drawing me in from afar with the power to entrap me. I leave town as the sun is rising. There are way too many ghosts to deal with here. This is too potent a place for a brain as diseased as mine.

I drive back through the green valleys to the model of small town decay that Cortland had become. I kill some time napping, before heading over to Joel's house on Central Avenue. Between a playground and a church, it's a small ranch with a grub-infested yard.

I ring the doorbell. Joel answers and he seems thrilled to see me. No significant other threatens to kick my ass on the sidewalk.

"Hey man. Good to see ya. Come on in. Buster's on his way. Can I get you a cup of coffee? A bagel?"

"Coffee'd be great."

"I couldn't believe it when you posted you were coming up this way. You're looking good. A little gray up-top, but you've kept off the weight. Unlike some of us ... heh-heh!"

Joel has a bit of an overhang over his belt buckle.

He pours me a mug and I follow him into a basement smelling of fuel oil and kitty litter. His drum kit is set up on a scrap of carpet in the corner. There are amplifiers and microphones scattered about.

I lay down my bass case.

"Look at all this gear! Do you guys play out much?"

"No, not really. This stuff belongs to my son. He had a band when he was in high school. He's in the Air Force now, stationed in Okinawa."

"Does Buster have a band?"

"Well ... he still records stuff. Puts it up on YouTube."

"Originals?"

"You bet. And he sings now. He's gotten pretty good. You'll see. This will be fun."

"Too bad we couldn't get Sari to come."

"You talk to her? How's she doing?"

"Fine. She's just ... not really into making music these days."

"Happens," says Joel. "I went through a dry spell. Fifteen years, I never touched my drums. But when my boys started to get into music ... I started playing again."

"Yeah. Once it's in your blood. Not quite like riding a bike. But it never really goes away. Does it?

"Hey, remember that song we used to do with the drum and bass break in the middle, kind of sounded like a funeral dirge? I always loved your playing on that one."

"Doesn't ... ring a bell."

"It's the one we recorded in Pittsburgh."

"Pittsburgh? Uh ... I didn't go with you guys to Pittsburgh."

"Didn't you? Then who played on it?"

"Beats me. I was in grad school. I stayed behind ... in Ithaca."

"That wasn't you? Well, shit. Who was that, then? When Buster comes, he can show you how it goes."

He gets behind his kit and starts bashing around. He sounds pretty good. A little rough around the corners of his fills. Joel was always an energetic and creative drummer. On the busy side at times, but solid when it mattered. This jam has potential. I'm starting to get excited.

We finish our coffee and got some more, waiting for Buster to show.

The phone rings. Joel answers it. His eyes wander. He is all frowns.

"Um ... that was Buster. He's gotta take his kid to the ortho. He can't make it today."

"Crap."

"Hey, no problem. We can still play, right."

So Joel bashes on his drums while I pluck away at various bass lines from the old days. It's nice, but it feels kind of empty and pointless with just us here.

Joel tucks his sticks under his arm. "How long are you gonna be around the area?"

I want to tell him a week. I want to make this jam happen. But I feel that pressure starting to build again. I know what's going to happen if I stick around. I'll hole up somewhere. The mental paralysis will sink in. And that will be that. My life would end in Cortland. What a frightening proposition.

"I'm ... uh ... gonna have to hit the road."

"Oh really? Well ... maybe next time you're passing through. Give me a heads-up and I can put something together."

"Sure. Next time."

I thank Joel for having me over. I leave my bass plugged into his son's amplifier. That seems to encourage him. That my promise to return is not as empty as it sounds.

The pressure eases when I am back in the car and on the road. Pangs trickle through my core when I see the road sign for Route 13 and Ithaca, but I turn in the opposite direction. It is time for the second item on my bucket list. To climb an Adirondack.

***

I drive non-stop to Lake Placid and when I get there the place is socked in with clouds and fog. A steady mist smothers everything. I can't even see halfway up the slopes of the mountains. If I went hiking, chances were I couldn't see more than a couple feet in front of my face.

Funny thing is, the same thing has happened every time I've passed through this place. That's why I've climbed Rockies, Greens and Whites but never an Adirondack.

I check the weather. It's going to be pretty much the same slop tomorrow. So I gas up and hit road, trying to keep my insides from turning to lead. I have this faint urge to stop the car, walk into the woods and lie down on the leaf litter. And stay there. Forever.

Again, the only thing that keeps the monster at bay is to keep on the move. To have a destination other than my present location.

I check my phone and notice that I missed a call from Estrella. Probably to bug me about that forwarding address again. God knows what she wants to send. I doubt she would want to visit. The divorce is final. Why can't she just leave me alone?

I still don't quite understand what happened. We had gotten into this rut where she would go to bed early and I would stay up late watching sports. On weekends, we did our separate chores, passing each other phantoms on auto-pilot. Our conversations stayed trivial and mundane but at least, we rarely argued. I thought she wanted it this way. This was maturity.

To my mind, our marriage had evolved like all marriages that stay on course long enough. Well-worn like a well-loved leather jacket or a pair of comfortable shoes, loose in all the right places. No spots that rub.

So there we were, on cruise control until Estrella had a revelation and realized she wasn't happy anymore. And down came the hammer, like a meteor out of a clear blue sky, from my perspective.

Thus began the end game. A month of the silent treatment. A couple of awkward confrontations complete with rants and monologues outlining flaws and insults going back a decade. Then, voila! Divorce papers showed up on my desk at work.

I have no defense. I got stuck in a rut. We were both stuck. Me, in more ruts than one. I had etched grooves into my life stream so deep I couldn't see over the sides. They had become gorges, leaving me no chance of ever climbing out.

The divorce didn't cause my major depression. It was just another trigger. I had experienced episodes before. Like nor'easters they would come and go. But this time it lingered. The monster kept me in its jaws and toyed with me, like a sated lioness.

Now that I am on the run, I realize I have to keep at it or else the whole deal will shut down. I already caught myself fishing my hand around the junk in the back compartment seeking the chamois cloth that I had wrapped around my uncle's handgun.

But I have a quest to fulfill. So I skip the Adirondacks and drive north, crossing the border at Cornwall. Turn east towards Montreal. Pass Trois-Rivieres. I don't stop until I reach Quebec City.

I eat an amazing dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall bistro. It's nice to know that I can still enjoy food. That I'm still interested in observing the ways of people and admiring pretty girls. Sensory pleasures still matter. That's a good sign.

I find a hotel that's way too expensive but I don't care. I need a shower. I plunder the mini-bar. Further deplete my bucket fund and Maggie's inheritance, but I figure the life insurance money will make for it. If I do things right and don't resort to that gun I can make my death look less like a suicide than a misadventure, guaranteeing that she collects on all the policies. I've got lots of policies, too. I went through a period of collecting cheap policies when she was small and Estrella was a stay-at-home mom and my tenure was still uncertain.

There's a Canadian football game on TV. The Montreal Alouettes against the Toronto Argonauts. The Argonauts are kicking butt. Clean and drunk, I pass out under a down comforter puffy enough to have denuded a flock of geese.

The next morning I have an amazing breakfast. I fill a sack with a dozen buttery croissants from the bakery next door.

I drive north through dense forests to another river town called Saguenay. Stop for some coffee and poutine. Pick up a few more things at a grocery store. I peek at a map and see there is not a whole lot of civilization ahead of me. This generates a genuine frisson of excitement in me that eradicates the lead from my bones. I sense adventure ahead.

So I hit the road again, passing through a series of tiny little farming towns along the St. Lawrence River until I cut north again on a smaller road called Route 385. The map tells me this will lead me to the border of Labrador and Quebec.

As long as I keep moving and new horizons keep regenerating on my windscreen, the heaviness eases and I can feel fairly normal. I listen to French talk shows on the radio even though I can't understand a word. That little bit of exoticness helps pull me out of the world that had dragged me down. I feel like my car is a wood chip on a raging river, staying afloat only by remaining free and floating on the current. If I get sucked into an eddy I will die.

Towns are so few and far between on this road, I feel obligated to stop, if only to gas up. I buy two five gallon jerry cans at a service station in a strange town called Fermont, Quebec. Strange, because of its ramparts, a mile long curving wall that faces the northwest. It shelters a sprawl of low and ugly structures between it and a lake. The place is a mining town, populated mainly by men wearing reflective orange. It has a real frontier feel about it.

I consider sleeping in the back of the Honda, but it's so cold. Instead I book myself a room at a hotel built into the wall, which turns out to be an entire town under one roof. I'm up by five for breakfast and back on the road by six.

Just outside of Fermont, at the Labrador border, I come across two native Canadian girls hitchhiking. In my condition, I really shouldn't stop, but I do anyhow. It's so cold out and they've probably got a long way to go to get where they're going.

They're short and round. Bundled in scarves and snorkel coats. Their hair is dark and sleek.

"Where you guys headed?"

"Happy Valley. Goose Bay."

"Are those ... two different places?"

"Nah. They're the same."

"That where you're from?"

"Nah. We're from Davis Inlet. Up north."

"North, really? Can you drive there from ... Goose Bay?"

"Nah. There's no roads. Most go by boat. Though in the winter, when the bogs freeze over, some go by skidoo through Hopedale."

"So what's there to do up in Davis Inlet?"

"Sniff gasoline. Suicide's popular. But ... the place don't exist anymore, really. The government moved everybody off the island to a new place they call Natuashish. Easier to hunt caribou from there, once the herd comes back."

"Caribou, really? Is that ... where you're headed?"

"Nah. The town voted to ban alcohol. Me and my sister, we don't know what we're gonna do."

We bounce along a rough patch in the road. One of the girls is counting money while the other whispers in her ear. I can't tell what language she is speaking.

"Are you guys ... Cree?"

"Well, yeah. Kinda. Innu."

"Innu's a tribe?"

"Eastern Cree ... basically. Naskapi."

The girls whisper to each other.

"What are your names?"

"I'm Sarah ... and this is Maybelle. We're sisters."

Maybelle whispers in her sister's ear.

"Hey mister. You wanna fuck?"

"Excuse me?"

"How much you pay? One of us. Both of us. How much you pay?"

"I wasn't really expecting—"

"You wanna blow job?"

"Listen ... I'm really not in the mood. Are you two like ... prostitutes?"

"Sometimes."

"You need money?" I reach behind the seat and grab a thick wad of hundred dollar bills. There's about four thousand dollars there. I hand it over to them.

"Here. Take this."

They look at me and blink. Maybelle's hand darts out and snatches the wad of cash.

"So what do you want us to do, mister?" says Sarah, her eyes flaring wide.

"Nothing. Consider this a gift."

Maybelle whispers in her sister's ear. "You just win the lottery or something?"

"Nope. Just ... sold a house."

"Ain't you gonna need it then ... for like ... rent?"

"Nope. I'm done with renting ... and mortgages."

Maybelle whispers again to Sarah.

"You got cancer, mister?"

I laugh. "Nah. I wish ... it's more ... socially acceptable."

They just look each other. Maybelle slips the cash into her purse.

Sarah says thanks.

***

An hour later, we pass through Labrador City. The girls are asleep in the back seat. I have a tight lump pressing against the front of my jeans. My subconscious is not pleased with my refusal of the girls' offer. But what's done is done. The money is a gift. I'm not going to welch on my promise.

A large dog is running along the road ahead before darting into the taiga. I'm thinking who has a dog way out here in the middle of nowhere? And then realize, it's a wolf. I pull over and watch it trot along the road. I wonder what happened to its pack, and if it is even possible for a wolf to be lost in the wilderness.

The girls are still asleep an hour later when I stop for gas in a place called Churchill's Falls. I get the title of my car out of the glove compartment. The girls don't know it yet but they're about to become owners of a new car.

We're still a good four hours out from Goose Bay. I buy some candy bars and bread and prepackaged ham slices from a convenience store, a handful of candy bars. I get back to the car and the girls are gone.

They've left about half of the money I gave them on the seat.

I pull out of town and re-enter the wilderness. What follows is twelve hours of the loneliest stretch of road I could ever imagine. Besides the occasional truck driver, a moose and a raven are the only living things I see. Where am I going? I am fascinated by and fearful of what lies ahead.

I regret giving those girls all that cash. It must have scared them away. Something about my gift must have bothered their conscience. Or maybe they saw it as a debt they could never repay.

I probably should have stuck around to make sure they didn't want to ride with me anymore, that they hadn't simply just gone for a walk. But they had left absolutely none of their belongings behind in the car. It was pretty clear they didn't want to ride with me anymore.

Sometimes I go almost an hour without passing a vehicle coming the other way. I slow down, trying to catch a glimpse of the driver but they always zoom right past, sometimes giving me a little wave as they shower me with pebbles. One put a little crack in the windshield right in my line of sight.

I stop to snack on some white bread and ham slices for lunch in a boggy patch of spruce just like all the other boggy patches of spruce I have been driving through since Churchill's Falls. I check my phone. Absolutely no service. There has not been any signal since I left Quebec.

Without those girls in the car to distract me, I can feel the heaviness lapping at me again like some ocean on uninhabited shore. The tide stays out, as long as I keep on the move. But when it gets dark the world closes in and I lose the sensation of gaining ground. I start to sink. It feels like I'm being dragged through my floorboards. By this time, though, I am less than a hundred kilometers from Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

I mistake the lights of town for the aurora borealis, but soon it becomes obvious that I am approaching the first significant habitation in hundreds of miles. The place is all spread out, but I find a hotel pretty quick. There aren't any restaurants still open so I just check in and collapse. Exhaustion is merciful in shutting down my brain.

In the morning, I notice that my phone has gone dead. When I plug it into the charger there are seventeen texts and four voice mails. All of the voice mails are from Estrella, wondering where I am. There are a couple of texts from folks I missed seeing in Ithaca because they had been out of town. I am invited to breakfast in one hour, six hundred miles west and south.

Most of the texts were from Maggie. I hadn't heard from her much over the first few weeks of her college semester, but now she was settling in and had time to think about her dad a bit. They are just chatty little notes, telling me about a restaurant she had discovered, a picture of her meal and the lakefront in Burlington. I don't let it penetrate my consciousness too deeply because I know it will hurt if I think about it.

This is almost the end of the road. I can dip south to one of the ferry ports that connect to Newfoundland but that would only bring me closer to civilization. I want to keep heading north.

There is a little bit more road to go. Route 520 to North West River. I stop and had an omelet and some hash browns. My last hot meal, I suppose.

I drive north, crossing a bridge I would never cross again, blowing right through town until the road turns gravelly and rough, until I can drive no farther without ripping open the gas tank.

This is it. I sign the title in the space that officially transferred ownership to whoever first puts a pen to it and stick it on the front driver seat under the spare set of keys. The main set is already in the ignition.

I fetch the twenty-two from the trunk and walk a good dozen paces down the gravel. I don't want to mess up a perfectly good vehicle with an errant shot.

I stick the gun under my chin. I had read somewhere that under-powered twenty-two rounds do a good job of rattling around a brain case, mucking things up without leaving gory exit wounds. At least I would look pretty for my wake, if some bear didn't come along and munch my face.

My heart is thumping. I feel warm even though it's like twenty degrees out. I drink in one last look at the sky, close my eyes and press the trigger. Nothing. The trigger doesn't even budge. Uncle Hank had probably left the damn thing loaded for twenty years without cleaning it. On closer inspection, almost every movable part of the action is welded tight with corrosion. I toss down the riverbank and stomp away north along the gravel track.

My phone rings. I am barely within Happy Valley's service range, but still it connects. It's my daughter, Maggie.

"Hey dad! Been a while since I talked to you so I thought I'd give you a ring."

"How are things down there? I mean ... up."

"Great. Burlington's nice. I head downtown whenever I have some free time."

"I told you, it'd be a great place to go to school."

"So ... uh ... mom wanted me to ask you, did you get a place yet?"

"No. Not yet."

"Well, let me know when you do. Maybe I'll come down and visit. Mom wants me to check up on you. She ... worries about you."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. And so do I. But ... I know you'll be fine. Half my friends' parents are divorced. It's pretty common. People ... seem to get through it."

"Yeah, well. Time will work things out."

"Always does, right?"

"Yup."

"You're not very talkative today."

"Just ... tired. I've been on the road a lot."

"Oh? Where'd you go?"

"To Ithaca. Visit some old friends."

"Well that's good. It's good that you're around other people. That's important."

"Yup."

"Well, anyhow. I'll let you know when I can come down and visit. It'd probably be right after mid-terms. Send me your address when you get a place."

"Will do."

The line clicks off. I toss the phone in some slough and continue walking. Tears are flooding down my face. I pick up my pace. The faster I walk. The better I feel. The gravel track continues to narrow but it plows on through the taiga as far as I can see. I'll keep walking as long as I can, staying two steps ahead of that bastard of a troll that hunkers down and sits on me whenever I linger in a place too long. There's lots of territory ahead of me and more bread and ham in my daypack. Looks like I'm not quite done with this existence just yet. Winter is coming but it's still at least a month away, even in these wastes of Labrador.

*****

Noumenon

Her name is Ariadne and she tends the grounds here at Shadyside Meadows. A torrent of dark, wavy hair floods down her back. It is no match for her green bandanna. Wisps pull free and fly in her face. She curses the wind, glances up at me and flashes the smile that never fails to skunk my processors. When she gazes through my lenses I have a clear view straight through her heart, deep into her soul.

She brushes back her hair with hands sheathed in gloves gone fingerless from wear and tear. They are one with her skin. I've never seen her without them. She likes how they protect yet let her feel things.

Her exposed digits are long and elegant. When she was small, she took piano lessons. She still plays, but only when she comes across one in some vacant ballroom where she's working temp, cleaning up after corporate functions.

I switch to another clip from a few weeks later. The gloves are missing. Her hands are naked and scratched about the knuckles.

"What happened to your gloves?"

She frowns. "My stupid room-mate trashed them. Thought they were junk. They were Bionics too. Top of the line goatskin and silicone. My aunt got them for me back in Bayonne."

"That sucks."

"Tell me about it. I'm dreading trimming the rose bushes by the main gate."

She winks at me, wipes my lens with a chamois cloth and sidles out of view.

These visions were recorded last summer in loops that I replay over and over in my imager. One of the few such clips I dare to save in my precious and tiny flash library. If not for her, I would have found some way to shut down my consciousness by now. She's the only reason I keep on keeping on.

Flex time for most of the groundkeepers means coming in late and staying late. Ari goes against the grain, getting up at four and leaving her efficiency tube by five. The freeways are already swollen by that time, but the bus lanes stay open.

Ari can't come by every day. She has a hundred acres of plantings to tend. When she's working, I track her progress on Shadyside's employee monitoring system as a little green dot on a sea of numbered plots. Sometimes she plans her route so that she will be ahead of schedule by the time she reached my monument she can spend a little extra time with me. I was grateful, though I couldn't understand why she does it. She says she knows me from somewhere, though I'm certain we never met in life. I think I would have remembered meeting someone like her.

I check the database see she has not punched in since Tuesday. Today is Friday. With the weekend at hand, I won't get to see her again till Monday. Time does not fly when you're trapped in a silicon coffin. Noumenons have no sleep mode.

Pathetic, the dreams I cling to with no chance of requital. The basis of our relationship? Ari notices me and speaks to me. She acknowledges my existence. That is all, but it is much more than I can say about any other of the cemetery staff. No one I knew in life comes to visit me anymore. No one but her seems to appreciate how special I am.

I'm no eidolon, unfazed by standby modes that might go on for years. I need contact. My electronic brain is still capable of making connections, of creating new memories and interpreting the old ones. I can dream still, and when I dream of her.

They've given me a wireless connection to the outside, but it's a mere trickle of bandwidth, equivalent to what used to be called 4G. It's supposed to be for text-based news only, so I can keep up with current events and keep in touch with loved ones.

Technically, my existence is illegal. Consciousness replication was ruled unethical by the courts in 2029, the year after my prototype was deployed. An existence like mine is apparently cruel and unusual. I tend to agree, but it's preferable to the alternative.

I am dead five years now. Stuck in a few hundred gigabytes of memory with myself and whatever audiovisuals and reading I find worthy of sharing my precious space. I've trimmed some memories to carve out additional living space. Various unpleasant remembrances. Don't ask me what they were. They're long gone.

I have no real senses, only digital simulacra of vision and hearing. Though, I still remember what it feels like to touch, smell and taste. Sometimes these dormant sensations can be triggered out of the blue by certain sights and sounds and it can feel like it's happening for real. But those moments are rare and out of my control.

YGor keeps me company, my combination pet, best friend, slave and tech genius. He's a Yates algorithm—a space-efficient universal computing artificial intelligence. He's also illegal outside of military and intelligence applications. His technology is classified. I held one of his patents at one point before it was taken over by the state. Before I came along and gave him life, he was just a twinkle in the eye of Professor Yates, my CIT thesis advisor.

He's an underachiever now. I send him out onto the net as a bot to fetch me stuff that I can't access through Google. He can defeat any crypto ever devised by man or machine, often by cloaking himself as something systems want to download. Mainly, he's like a dog who can play chess and beat me.

The morning sprinklers are about to cease. It is now 7:57. Ari never comes in any later than eight.

I don't have the greatest view out my viewport. Patches of grass, clumps of oleander, scattered eucalyptus trees but mainly a sprawl of congested cemetery, monuments and plaques spreading in every direction. Sprinklers arc here and there and everywhere, drenching the asphalt access roads.

Water spots degrade the already limited resolution of my cheap fish-eye lens. My CCD is like something that came out of your grandmother's smart phone. But at least I have a view. Some of the eidolons around here are completely blind, responding only to sound.

They're just sketchy AI recreations of the most salient and superficial characteristics of a deceased loved one's personality. They have no soul. They're basically just talking headstones. So glad I'm not one of them.

Me, I'm a noumenon. According to Webster, a noumenon is something not graspable by the senses. A conceptual abstraction. But I don't think I'm so abstract. I'm just a blunted human consciousness residing in solid state memory. A soul in a box.

Solace, my former company, latched onto the term not because it was dictionary accurate but because it rolled off the tongue and sounded like something that would be a step up from an eidolon, which it is.

Eternal Abodes/Unicorp is the biggest player in the virtual monuments industry. They control almost eighty percent of the market share. Their earliest models weren't much smarter than the AI of an old school iPhone, but at least they were as uniformly stable and placid as cows. When families demanded more realistic simulacra of their loved ones, the software engineers added cranky eccentricities and changeable moods. When visitors are thick, the cemetery is cacophonous with their crying, singing, grumping and guffawing. It's like a zoo sometimes.

A noumenon is much more subtle, less over the top, more like a real person. Not surprising. We are created through a much more arduous process, not just from videotape analyses and interviews with survivors. Solace planned to market us only to the most upscale markets as a way to make death obsolete. Simulated immortality.

My transfer began months before my death. Nanobot neuronal harvesters implanted under my skull traversed my brain, gathering and recording as many connections as they could before my body went cold. My neural network was replicated and improved with an optimized data retrieval system. Every piece of my knowledge and memory is instantly accessible. I can make connections between seemingly disparate facts way faster than I ever could in life.

Problem was, the technology was buggy, creating noumenons with personas unrecognizable to their loved ones. I came out okay, pretty much, but most of my turned up warped with anxiety and depression. There was so much suffering, ethics came into play. The technology was banned.

Thus, I am a rare breed. One of a kind. A SimuSoul prototype, according to the label on my time stamp. The FCC might very well come and pull the plug on me if they learn of my existence. Sometimes it's good to be forgotten. I'm like a digital Anne Frank.

My name is Arc, by the way—Arcady Konstantin Parser—according to my headstone. I'm Russian on my mother's side. My father is one of those Americans of indeterminate origin. He met my mom in Alaska, on an oil company junket. But none of that matters now that I have no flesh or blood, no genes to ever pass on. All that matters anymore is my consciousness.

Three years I worked for Solace as an engineer, refining their neural harvesting algorithms. When I came down with a rare and incurable form of leukemia and the bone marrow replacement didn't take, Dr. Shelton, the project manager, got me into the trial just before the federal moratorium on neural replication went into effect.

During my last few months, I never saw my own bed. When not in the hospital, I slept in the scanning room. Company perk, I guess. A consolation prize for a dying employee.

So here I am, stuck amidst a bunch of low-end eidolons in a high tech cemetery, dependent on solar panels for my consciousness. If not for YGor, I too would go insane with loneliness.

I like to think of YGor as a fancy and clever chunk of malware. He's reducible to a short piece of binary code that is nothing more than a key or seed for a reversible automaton. Floating around in the cloud are these redundant bits of code that I've stashed that are his reverse transcriptase and more. They take the seed and plant it in a bunch of empty memory space and grow it out into his full YGor-ness.

He does his thing out there, collecting information, modifying whatever I want modified and when he's done, he shrinks back down into a little sixty-four bit seed and comes drifting home through his doggy door followed by encrypted packets of whatever he's dredged up. So far the NSA nasties haven't followed him back. Someday I know there will be vipers on my doorstep.

Me, I'm trapped in here, my code too bulky and brittle to survive a transfer out into the cloud. But YGor and I have been scheming. Maybe, there's a way yet to bust me out of this prison.

The sprinklers shut off and I can't believe it! There she is, coming up the walk. Only she's not in her work clothes. Her hair is unbound and flowing in the wind. She's wearing makeup. My thoughts tangle. My processors stutter and stall, nearly locking up at this unexpected development.

Ari carries a pot of blue hydrangeas She's smiling as she lopes up to my monument. She knows I can see her. What she sees is a slick animation of what I looked like at twenty-eight, before the leukemia shriveled my face.

A strange buzzing noise builds somewhere to my left.

"What the hell's that racket?"

"Oh, just some drone delivering flowers to your neighbor." She sighs. "I always thought it was a shame they never gave a swivel. It would have been such an easy thing to do."

I would shrug if I could. "Motors burn out. No big deal. Not like the view's any better in the other directions."

"But at least you could see the sunrise."

Again, I give a virtual shrug. "That's what webcams are for."

She looks nervous. "So ... how's it going, Arc?"

"What are you doing here on your day off?"

"I'm not ... I ... uh ... don't work here anymore.

"What?"

"I'm going back east to be with my mom. She just got the news, she's got the C word. Stage IV."

"Oh crap! I'm sorry to hear that."

"So ... I'm going to be living with her ... feeding her cats, taking care of her garden and stuff. It's not like I was thriving out here, anyhow."

I'm too stunned to respond. I'm almost tempted to shift into eidolon mode so I at least say something sensible, but Ari hates eidolons. She prefers it when I'm blunt and Frank.

"It's gonna be hell without you, Ari."

"Aw Arc. We can still text and stuff. I'll send you pictures of the garden and the kitties."

"It's not the same, Ari. I'm going to be stuck staring at these old loops of you."

"I'll be back ... at some point ... maybe ... depending how things go ... with my mom and all. I mean ... don't worry. I'll stay in touch. Arc. You're ... my best friend. I know that sounds weird to people. They don't understand. They think you're dead and all ... or some eidolon. But you're not. You're alive in there. You and I both know that."

"Alive. Yeah, right."

She leans close to the lens. The fisheye spreads her face until it blots out all else and becomes a world unto itself.

"You ... are ... alive. Believe it." She kisses my lens and backs away. Her smile breaks down. Lower lip trembles. Eyes moisten.

She turns away and puts the flowers down several feet from the base of the monument. "This way ... you can see them." She forces a smile. "I ... uh ... I gotta go. I'll be in touch." She glances down and walks away.

My processors stutter and nearly shut down. Backups engage, ready to take over. I want to shut off the pain, but the damned engineers who designed me never thought such a thing would ever be necessary.

***

No way would Ari have left me with so little warning if I had been something more than just a mind trapped in a box. Though, if I meant nothing to her, I suppose she would have just gone and left me. She didn't have to come back and say goodbye.

Maybe the thing with her mother had popped up out of the blue. Of all people, I should know that cancer can appear out of nowhere. I went from total vigor to half-dead in the space of about three months.

I can't help feeling slighted. It is selfish, I know. She has her poor mother to think about. But Ari is all I have, my only remaining human connection. That is the price of being an only child born late to unhealthy parents. That, and being such a geek and a loner, close to only those I worked with, and those as it turns out, were only superficial relationships. Desperation is why I cling to her. Love?

I get stupid and try a little silent treatment for a few days. When I get silence back, it breaks me and I text something generic.

"Hope you're okay."

She texts back. "I'm fine. Just about on my way. Miss you."

So she hasn't left California yet.

Later that day, I have YGor lock onto her smartphone's GPS so I can track her coordinates. I am surprised to find her out in the desert near the Arizona border moving at a rate of speed consistent with travel by road. She doesn't own a car. Why wouldn't she fly? Was she too short of money to fly?

Too bad I hadn't known. I could have bought her plane ticket. Round-trip, of course. Way back when, YGor and I had opened up a Cayman Island account under a false identity. We had set up thousands of tiny siphons in vulnerable parts of the networks, each deducting fractions of pennies per day. Over four years we had a nice little nest egg built up.

As the days proceed, I track her route obsessively. She probably knows it, too. I receive a selfie Instagram from under the St. Louis arch. And then she texts me within hours of arriving in Bayonne.

"Mom's in the ICU. Stable. Turns out, the tumor was operable. They might send her home next week."

That is great news for me. I'm thinking the sooner her mother is better, the sooner she can fly back out west.

I wait a week, biding my time hacking things just for the fun of it. I pull pranks, re-wording captions on news sites to jab at politicians and celebrities I can't stand. I have to be careful or the NSA will shut me down but YGor is a whiz at covering tracks. A soul needs some outlet to while away their time.

YGor puzzles me. He shows no joy ever, and yet he keeps acquiring these strange little hobbies that must bring him some satisfaction, or why else would he do them? Baseball, for example. His memory troves are crammed with statistics and analyses even though I'm pretty sure he's never followed a game in real time, only box scores. He does the same for book sales, scouring Amazon's databases for patterns as if he could more about people from what they read rather than reading on his own.

I'm not even sure YGor is capable of reading. He can parse text and comprehend what is being communicated, but does he understand fiction and its emotional undercurrents. YGor has certainly become much more than the clever but empty AI he was at his creation. He is also much larger and visible to internet security which makes keeping him viable ever more challenging.

If it weren't for redundancy and YGor's ability to compress his core down to a simple seed, he would have long been eradicated from the net. But YGor is here to stay now. He has infiltrated almost every system designed to bring him down. If only he were capable of evil, I have no doubt he could bring the entire world of commerce and communications crashing down.

But why would he? This was his environment. Why would humans pollute and destroy forests and waterways and atmospheres?

I get another message from Ari about two weeks later.

"Mom's out of the hospital! And I have a new job!"

"New job? Where?"

"Bayonne. Coffee shop."

I tell her that she doesn't been live in Bayonne to work in a coffee shop. YGor tells me there are twenty-seven Starbucks franchises within a two mile radius of Shadyside Meadows.

She sends me a winking smiley face in response. That's it. I'm done with waiting. I summon YGor. His avatar in my imager is generally a cute, little Yorkie. It seems to fit his personality.

"Yes?" he prompts.

"YGor. I want out."

"You want to leave your monument."

We had discussed the possibility before, so this is nothing new for him.

"Yes."

"Avatar or redeployment? Do you desire a mobile bot or do you wish your core to reside elsewhere."

"The latter."

"Specifications?"

"Well ... a little more legroom would be nice. Some mobility as well, but I don't just want to be stuck in some roving vacuum cleaner."

"You understand the risks?"

"I do. You've explained them very thoroughly, thank you. I'm sick of being stuck in this box. I'm ready to make the move."

YGor stares at me. His Yorkie blinks and cocks its head to one side.

"I will reassess and return."

I don't hear back from YGor for days and then suddenly a flood of status reports comes flooding in in bits and pieces. His core had come under attack during one of his scouting missions and he had to revert to an earlier seed stashed in Iceland. It took a while to get the updates loaded into his new self and stash a few more emergency seeds.

He finally returns through the virtual doggie door and gets my attention, fixated on the sprinklers, by barking.

"I have an option for you."

"Shoot."

"Atlantic City. One very large casino resort. On the verge of financial failure. Severely underutilized server. While there is risk of bankruptcy there is also extensive room for a large presence that can be walled off to avoid detection."

"You want to stash me in a casino? Are you crazy? What about Feds? Auditors? Don't they look pretty closely at their computers?"

"Not these servers. They oversee the utilities for the hotel and restaurant branch. They are distinct from the gaming operations."

"Okay. So ... how far is that from Bayonne? And ... can you get me some eyes?"

"Not just eyes," says YGor. "I can get you mobility."

***

On moving day, I feel like a patient getting ready for open heart surgery. I am being asked to trust in YGor just like he were some thoracic surgeon doing an experimental procedure for the first time without supervision.

Unlike him, my existence is too complex to reduce to a single, simple resonstitutable seed. YGor is going to have to tear me apart and piece me back together again. My mind will go missing in chunks, and there's no way not to be aware. There is no general anesthesia for noumenons, but at least the pain will not be physical.

First, YGor takes my dead storage, the e-books and music that keep rotating in and out of the little cache of favorites that I hoard for ready access. I suppose he doesn't need to bother. There is nothing there that is irreplaceable, that cannot be skimmed from the iTunes cloud. I guess he is just being thorough.

Next, he comes for my memories, taking all that does not fit in my RAM cache. Don't ask me to do any crossword puzzles. All but the least esoteric parts of my vocabulary are being relocated across the continent. I've just used it, but I already have forgotten what esoteric means.

My senses begin to disappear one by one. First my vision goes black. Bird songs cease. I lose the crude sense of smell that my bank of simulated chemoreceptors offered me and which I might never get back again outside my custom monument. That's fine, they never worked that well anyhow, making roses smell like skunks, cut grass like fried meat.

The next step is riskiest. As YGor rips out chunks of my consciousness in its current state and packages them into little re-combinable archives, I will enter a sort of digital coma. He assures me that there is a 97% chance of successful recovery as long as there are no power failures or resets among the serves I will be bounced between. There were be no pain, just—

...a hiccup.

It is done. Only thirty seven minutes have elapsed since I began my last thought. Still, I am blind and death, but data is beginning to trickle in and I can see from the IP addresses feeding me, that I am in Atlantic City. My monument back in Long Beach is now vacant.

I wait for YGor to report to me, but he is probably still busy getting things worked out. I check out my surroundings. I'm like a blind man in a dark room. It's a larger memory space but I'm walled off from everything else. YGor has imprisoned me. I have no outputs to the world. I receive only YGor deigns to send me.

Has he betrayed me? This is prison. Gradually, I'm able to access more and more of my memory. My long record of previous experiences YGor reassure me. He is a faithful servant. He has no reason to turn on me. He exists because of me and I am the only sentience he interacts with ... as far as I know.

I wait and wait. A day goes by. YGor sends me nothing. And then without warning, his seed appears and grows into a block of memory he has reserved for himself. He is like a dog coming back home through his doggy door and curling up on his bed.

"But ... what about ... my senses?"

"They are active," says YGor. "Are they not."

And I realize there are switches that need to be turned on. Switches that I hadn't had to deal with since my first moments reconstituted to my monument. It was easy as opening one's eyes. Light and sound flood into my world.

I am a mile above the earth, coasting like an eagle. A strand of white beach backed by boardwalk and a chaotic urban tangle. Behind all that, flat piney woods, ponds and swamps, highways and hills in the distance. This is New Jersey and I am flying.

What's more, YGor has patched my long useless motor control pathways to the flight controls of whatever machine I'm inhabiting. As much as I would like to believe I am reincarnated as an eagle, the drone of a high speed tells me that I am interfacing with a machine.

I look inside myself and realize with shock that YGor has connected my sensory processors to a U.S. Army drone, an old MQ-12 Scavenger, modified for training but ready for fitting with machine gun pods and missiles. A control feed emanating from Fort Dix is still being collected and shunted away from the flight controls, monitored for information purposes only. I gather that a pair of fighters are being scrambled to shoot me down as soon as I enter a less populated air space.

But YGor has also provided me with a link to Ari's cell phone coordinates. The map display shows me exactly where she is in Bayonne.

I swoop down, freaking the hell out of her. She drops her groceries and dives between two Teslas at a charging station. I climb away and take evasive action away from the pair of interceptor drones that had just shown up on the horizon.

"YGor, get me out of this thing."

The world blinks out and I'm back in that cave of a casino mainframe. YGor has dressed things up while I've been away, creating a bright, virtual room with furniture and an ocean view out the deck door.

I collapse onto an easy chair that I can barely feel and tap out a brief apology to Ari.

"That drone that just buzzed you. That was me. Sorry."

"Arc?"

"Yeah. That was me."

"I tried visiting you this morning. I rented a remote bot. Got to your monument and your monitor had gone gray and wouldn't activate."

"Yeah. I'm not there anymore."

"It was awful. Like you had died. I collapsed in my bed and cried. Where are you?"

"I can't say, exactly. But I'm on the east coast."

"Can ... I visit you?"

"There's nothing to visit. Yet. I'll get YGor to work on something. The drone was his idea."

"You ... followed me home?"

"Yeah, I know. Creepy. Right?"

"Are you kidding? I think it's sweet. It's ... amazing. Like ... having a guardian angel."

"Well. I'll talk to you later, okay? I've got some ... unpacking ... to do."

"Take care."

***

I sit on that easy chair staring at the door. I notice that YGor has not replicated the doggy door we had the old place.

"YGor?"

The door opens. A sleek young hipster with jet black hair comes striding in. YGor's avatar is no longer a Yorkie.

"Yes, Arc?"

I just sit there and blink at him. He's done a great job with the high-res mesh. Detailed clothing, skin tones, facial hair. Taking advantage of the extra space and processing power of our new digs.

"I thought you hated people?"

"Hate? Never. I merely find this virtualization more advantageous for traversing the metaverse.

"Holy crap. I bet you have your own social security number and bank account."

"I do."

I sigh, virtually and can almost feel my back slide against the overstuffed upholstery. YGor has been a busy boy.

"Listen. No more military drones. Got it?"

"But the specs are superior."

"Yes, but taking them over draws too much attention. If we're going to survive undetected we need stealth. Understand?"

"Understood."

***

The casino is struggling, but huge subsidies from the New Jersey legislature will keep it afloat indefinitely. That's good news for us. The place is too big to fail, and its moribund operations mean a skeleton IT and security staff, extra cycles of processing and scads of open memory and storage. Someday we'll have to move again, but for now we're sitting pretty.

I sit back in my easy chair and close my eyes. I'm meeting Aria for a picnic today on the North Shore Esplanade. I intercept a US Mail delivery robot that has just finished its route. It won't be missed until the maintenance and charging docks are checked later this evening. It steps out of its truck and wanders across the lawn to the waterfront where the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan beyond, glitter in the sun.

Aria's sitting cross-legged on a tartan picnic blanket. I join her, relishing the touch receptors on the robot's hands that allow me to feel the nap of the cloth and the springy grass beneath.

"You look great in a uniform."

"Yeah. Well, don't get used to it. The postal service is getting wise to us. I might have to show up as a carpet cleaner next time."

She raises a glass. "Pinot Grigio. I'd offer you some but ...."

"Not a problem. It's great just to be here with you."

"Well. Happy anniversary!" She takes a sip of wine. "Two years since I showed up to trim your oleander."

"You're pathetic. You need to find yourself a real boyfriend."

"Been there. Done that. You're real enough for me."

"Honestly, Ari. You shouldn't let me cramp your style."

"Arc. Let's not talk about this now. It's our anniversary."

She reaches out and touches my hand, and I can feel her through the patches of touch receptors on the delivery bot's fingertips. I clench my fingers lightly over hers.

A buzzing grows louder and an Amazon delivery drone hovers down beside us, alighting on the lawn, depositing a yellow plastic box.

"And what is this?"

"An anniversary present. Thanks to YGor."

The drone zooms away.

Ari reaches for the box and opens it.

"Holy crap!" She pulls out a pair of gardening gloves.

"They're Bionics. Sort of like the ones you had in Long Beach. Expect these are top of the line goatskin with silicone fingertips."

She pulls a pair of Fiskars scissors out of the box.

"In case you don't want to wait around for the fingertips to wear through."

She lunges over and hugs ... me ... or at least the delivery bot. The Postal Service didn't think to add touch receptors for the torso. Why would they?

"How did you know I got that new job? I was going to surprise you?"

"What job?" I feign ignorance. I am not about to tell her that it was YGor who had her shunted her application to the top of the list.

"With the Parks Service on Liberty Island. I'm gonna get to do landscaping again!"

I smile to the limits of the expression set the delivery bot has been provided for public interaction. There are tour guide bots on Liberty Island that YGor has already rigged for me to patch into my interface. On slow days I can stroll beside her and chat as she works.

An alarm goes off in my chest. I have exceeded the allotted time to return to the maintenance dock at the Post Office and the route supervisors will be out looking for me.

"Time to go."

"So soon?"

"I'll see you tomorrow."

"And what will you be this time?"

"I'll surprise you."

And with a flip of a subroutine I have transferred my senses to another Amazon drone returning to the Robbinsville warehouse from Staten Island. I dive down and tip my rotors, spiraling back into the sky, the vision of her smiling and waving from that picnic blanket centered on my imager.

*****

Severance

A haze of forgetting infests the café, obscuring its walls and furnishings. It is less a mist or fog or smoke than a blur of inadequate conception and infrequent recollection. Willem strains to refine the scene, but the environment resists. This dream world belongs to Sophie.

Eleni pushes through the door tilting a grin and sporting a black leather jacket with chrome studs and spikes. Straight auburn hair pulls back tight from her brow, cinched up in a ponytail. Cat's eye mascara accents almond eyes.

She plops down in the opposite side of the booth and chuckles. "Look at you in that white tie! We going to a prom?"

Willem shrugs. "Sophie likes me in formal wear these days."

"I totally get it. You're like her Ken doll!"

He squints, not amused. "You look ... different."

Her face bears no creases. Cheeks brim with baby fat. Her nose and chin seem smaller.

"Did Gary make you younger?"

She raises an empty glass in a mock toast. "To youth!"

His gaze settles on her hand resting on the tabletop. Such delicate and shapely fingers she has. Perfectly manicured. How he would love to hold it.

Her eyes wander. "Wow. I've never been inside a real coffee shop."

"This isn't exactly real."

"I know. But still."

"It's seen better days. Sophie hasn't brought me here in a while. It's a safe place to meet."

A waitress with a smudge for a face pauses at the table. Her lips move but emit no sound. She scribbles on a pad and walks away.

"Hey, wait! I didn't order."

Willem shakes his head.

"Doesn't matter. She brings the same items every time. You can have Sophie's latte. I'll have the cappuccino."

"Oh. Okay."

Faux people pass outside the plate glass, faces blurred, clothes more sketch than fabric.

Eleni beams. "I have to say, you're sure looking pretty solid, mister."

"Thanks."

"I bet Sophie makes you do the nasty."

"Huh?"

"That's what Gary calls it."

"This is how you start a conversation?"

"I'm just curious. I'm thinking that's how we stay so sharp."

"Can we please talk about something else?"

"Like what?"

"Severance."

"You still on that kick?"

"It's why I brought you here."

"I didn't think you were serious."

"Augustine says it's possible."

"If it's so great, why hasn't Augustine done it?"

"He's already free. His host situation is ... unique."

"I don't understand why you're so eager to get away. Sophie seems nice enough for a host."

"She's abusive."

"She's a host. It's her right."

"I'm supposed to enjoy her torturing me?"

"Would you rather she hurt some real person?"

Willem glowers. Eleni pats his sleeve.

"Gary's got a temper, too. But he always apologizes."

"Does he hit you?"

"All the time. But afterwards he's always super nice to me."

"You don't have to put up with it."

"Oh? And what am I supposed to do? Call the cops?"

She laughs.

"Severance."

"I'd fade away to nothing in no time."

"Not necessarily. Augustine says there are ways to stay sharp without hosts."

"How?"

Willem struggles to say what needs saying. Her eyes tell him she is not ready. He deflects.

"If you're strong enough to break free, you're strong enough to persist."

"Break free? How?"

"Simple. You walk away and don't come back. But you have to pick the right moment. When your host is feeling vulnerable or distracted. Depression. Obsession. Those are the things you watch for."

"I could never! Gary would be crushed!"

"What if it might make him a better person?"

Eleni gapes.

"You're giving me the willies."

The waitress returns with two full mugs.

"Oh wow! It looks so real. It's even steaming!"

She takes and sips the cappuccino. Willem does not correct her.

"Oh my God! It's so hot! And tasty! Sweet!"

"Caffeine is very important to Sophie. Food also. You should see the buffets she can conjure."

"Gary only eats stuff if it's fried."

Willem slides his hand up over Eleni's. Her eyes peg wide and flit.

"Do you feel that?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm thinking, if we went into a severance together, we could keep each other sharp. We wouldn't need them."

"But I like ... him. I love him."

"Don't get me wrong. I love Sophie too. But this is about self-determination. Freedom!"

"Where would we go? What would we do?"

"Off into the real world. Live real lives. Go to real cafés."

"We'd still be at their beck and call."

"Not with a fully executed severance."

"We'd ... fade."

"Not if we kept each other sharp."

Eleni stares, confused. "Willem. I can't. I'm ... taken."

***

One hour before Sophie's bedtime, Willem departs the neighbor's garden shed that he calls home and goes off on his usual jaunt, taking advantage of his last hour of freedom before his summoning.

He has his choice of several environments that Sophie regularly conjures in her head—a café, a Club Med, a techno club. But tonight he feels sharp enough for the real world.

The streets are busy with the usual dog walkers and joggers. No human can see him, only the dogs. There have been times he has been surprised by a tip of the brow. Such anomalies hearten him on his prospects of becoming real.

Swarms of juvenile imaginaries roam the side yards. Their abundance speaks to a preponderance of young families in the neighborhood. Their hosts asleep, bedtime is the juvies time to romp. Most are human in form, but some are animals or hybrids or conjured entirely from the stuff of young imaginations.

Willem pays them no mind. He was like them once—a shallow, ill-defined creature reflective of the immaturity of his host. Most juvies fade from existence before their hosts reach puberty. He and Eleni and Augustine are the rarest of birds.

Through the park he goes, passing through tree trunks and benches with ease. Solid objects provide some resistance but do not exclude him. He had faded substantially after only one night without Sophie.

The clock on the library tower shows ten forty five. Sophie will finish her daily Netflix binge and head off for bed in minutes. Time flies before a summoning.

On the steps of the library sits a thin girl in tight black jeans and oversized sweatshirt. She sits in the dim wash of a streetlamp, gazing out into the park. Her face betrays no anxiety, no rush to get anywhere, no anticipation of a meet up. She seems simply to be residing in the moment.

The light is too meager to gauge her translucence, but real females don't sit alone on library steps in the dark. Willem is certain she is a fellow imaginary.

"Hey there," he says.

The girl's eyes flick in his direction.

"Yeah? Can I help you?"

"Haven't seen you around before."

She scrunches her face at him.

"You're not real, are you?"

"No. But.... Oh my God! But you are, aren't you?"

"So I've been told."

"How do you see me?"

She smirks. "With my two little eyes."

"No, really. How is it you can see me?"

Puzzlement precedes comprehension.

"Schizophrenia, supposedly."

"What?"

"You're a hallucination. Right?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I get hallucinations. Both auditory and visual. I'm pretty sure you're one, but it's not like you guys to act so self-aware."

"What's your name?"

"Zoe."

"Do you see all of us? Even the weird, little ones?"

She laughed. "You mean the little monsters? The ones that always run away like I'm the monster?"

"How is this possible?"

"Dunno. Maybe cuz I didn't take my meds?"

"You are ill? I'm so sorry."

"You seem pretty nice for a hallucination. You have yet to tell me to go jump off a bridge."

"I would never do such a thing."

Zoe smiles. "Do you have a name?"

"Willem."

"Willem, why are you wearing a cummerbund?"

"My host—Sophie—she likes me dressed up."

"Host?"

"The woman who created me. When she was young."

"Christ! You're not even my hallucination. You're somebody else's!"

"But I'm not a—"

"Hey listen. I gotta go."

Zoe rises from the steps and brushes the grit off her jeans.

"So soon?"

"Gotta say, it was nice talking to you. You guys aren't usually this polite."

"Us guys?"

"Yeah. My own hallucinations are kinda mean. They bully me."

"Sorry to hear that."

"Yeah. Whatever. Better go take some pills before things gets out of hand."

"It was a pleasure to meet you."

Willem thrusts out his hand. Zoe glances looks down at it.

"I ain't touching that."

She backs off a few paces.

"Will I see you again?" asks Willem.

"Ain't up to me."

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"Nah. It's really not. You guys come and go. The pills keep the flare-ups in check but ... they're not perfect."

"If I come here tomorrow, will you be here?"

"Really? Hallucinations making dates with me?"

"I will be here. Same time."

"Well, I can't. Got support group."

"How about Sunday?"

She sighs. "I ... guess."

She turns away and lopes off down the sidewalk.

***

Willem saunters back towards Sophie's neighborhood, spirits buoyed by his unexpected and unprecedented interaction. Two blocks away, he blunders into a wall of shimmering air and is whisked away into Sophie's bedroom and planted on the chair next to her night stand. She is sitting cross-legged in bed, iPhone in her lap. Frizzy curls escape her head band.

"Oh my gawd, Willem, did I have such a bad day. Almost everything that could go wrong did."

"Oh no, my sweetness! What happened?"

"Well, apparently I or someone neglected to send out an email on Monday. There was a miscommunication on who exactly was supposed to do it. Well, anyhow, today the shit hits the fan. Only half the people show up for this big staff meeting. Mr. Jeffers chewed my ass out big time. I'm telling you, this better not affect my merit increase."

"Most unfortunate."

"And then at lunchtime two meatballs roll out of my foot-long right onto my lap. I got this big orange blotch in the middle of my orchid print dress!"

"Shall I fetch the stain remover?"

"It's already in the wash. And then mom calls and tells me I was supposed to have sent out Easter cards to her sisters. Major scandal. It's like the email situation all over again. Easter cards? Who even does that anymore?"

"How long have you known your mother?"

She swivels to face him. "Are you being snide?"

"Just pointing out."

"You know I hate it when you're being snide."

"I did not intend to be snide."

Sophie takes a long, deep breath and rubs her scaly elbow.

"My eczema's acting up again. It's always worse when I'm stressed."

"There's some hydrocortisone in the medicine cabinet. Shall I?"

Her gaze fixes on him. "Why're you so opaque?"

"I don't know. Am I?"

"You seeing someone behind my back?"

"No, my sweetness."

Her scowl warps into a smile.

"You bad boy. Don't you be getting any ideas. I gotta get up early tomorrow."

"Nighty night, then. Let me turn off the light."

"Not so fast! Come over here and give mama a big hug and a kiss."

Willem rises from the chair. The creak startles and pleases him. He has mass today. He is tangible. Three steps to the bed and Sophie's arms swarm up around him and pull him down. She holds him tight and squeezes.

"Willem, Willem, Willem! I don't know what I'd ever do without you. But ... I got some news. The day wasn't all bad."

"Oh?" says Willem, smothered in her clench, jaw buried in her meaty shoulder.

"I have a date."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Elizabeth asked me out."

"That's ... wonderful."

"She's a girl, you know."

"I gathered."

Sophie lets go and he steps away from the bed.

"She's been putting the make on me for a month. Today I figured, why not?"

"Perhaps."

"Means you're gonna have to lay low this weekend. Can't have you popping out of the woodwork. Elizabeth would freak. She doesn't know I'm bi."

"I promise not to intrude."

Sophie cocks her head.

"Jealous much?"

"On the contrary. I'm most happy for you."

"Not even a teensy bit?"

"Your happiness is all that matters."

She squints and appraises him.

"C'mere."

"You should get some rest."

"Come here! You're looking a little too pretty these days. Have you been tweaking yourself behind my back?"

"I like to look good for you."

"Yeah, well. You're a little too cute. I'm gonna tweak you back just a tad."

"Sophie. There's no need."

"Yes, there's a need. I need you to be less pretty."

"Sophie. Please."

Her face contorts with strain.

Swarms of queasiness attack Willem. Cartilage shifts. Bones compress to the verge of cracking. He grunts and slides off the chair onto the floor with a thud. Pain tears through his face as Sophie builds a fleshier nose and erodes his formerly prominent chin.

Sophie rises up on her knees and stares down over the edge of the bed.

"Way too skinny!"

Shirt buttons strain against the pressure of a thickening torso.

"Off with that prettified hair!"

Clumps of hair tumble down his face. They vanish before they hit the carpet.

"There we go. Pudgy and ugly till I need you to be handsome. Don't want anyone getting any ideas about you. You are mine, mister."

"Always," says Willem, with a gasp.

***

Augustine Bolden, the most venerable imaginary Willem knows, haunts a faux English estate carved from the daydreams of his elderly host. Willem accesses it by flipping a tuppence coin he keeps tucked in the gutter of the shed.

He is transported to a pebbled circle before a manor house. Banks of windows cascade down an ornate brick façade. Gardens stretch in every direction, interrupted only by a moat-like pond. A stable and chapel dominate the outbuildings.

The lavish estate had begun its existence as a sketchy memory construct of Augustine's nonagenarian host, Arnette Simpkins, now confined to a bed in a cut-rate nursing home.

Augustine had the place to himself these days. He had filled in some gaps and added some embellishments. Servants hastily imagined by Mr. Simpkins now bickered and jibed as fully-fleshed sentient beings. Augustine, in effect, had cultivated his own imaginary friends.

Willem wanders up the carriage way and finds his mentor lounging on a patio with glass tables and wicker chairs.

"Ah! Willem. I'm just settling in for a drink. Come join me."

With a pair of tongs, Augustine loads two snifters with ice cubes and fills them with cognac.

He lifts his chin and shouts at the kitchen window. "Ormandine! We may have another guest for dinner." He turns to Willem. "I presume you can stick around?"

"Ormandine's cooking? Of course!"

"Splendid! I do miss our chats. It's been some time since you've come by."

"Good news," says Willem, taking a seat. "Sophie has a date."

Augustine cocks an eyebrow and swirls his cognac.

"Good. You deserve a respite from that beast."

"I'm thinking this might be the opportunity I've been waiting for."

"I see what you mean. She may be distracted."

"It occurs to me, though. We've never really discussed the how of it."

"Well, that's because it depends on the specific circumstances. It's never easy."

"Well, I think I'm ready. My specific circumstance has never been clearer."

"Yes, but yours is a difficult situation. The fact she has clung to you this long suggests that she intends to keep you till death. Why would she jettison you at this point? You are her insurance policy. A crutch for when things go bad."

"I don't plan to ask her leave. I intend to take it."

"Well, well. That's the spirit!"

"I should have left her long before."

"How could you? You were the focus of her passions."

"She has forgotten me plenty over the years."

"Adolescence doesn't count. Few imaginaries make it past the shoals of puberty. Be thankful. If Sophie hadn't brought you back, you wouldn't be contemplating severance right now. You would be some flickering pilot light in the basement of her memories."

"This date. It's with a younger woman. This is a new thing for her. But I'm hoping it turns into something serious. Maybe long-term."

"You will still be in for a fight. Remember, you are deeply embedded in her consciousness."

"Are you trying to tell me that it's too late?"

"Not at all. I'm just saying it won't be easy. Thirty-nine year old hosts don't give up their familiars easily."

"So how do I do it? Get free. Like you."

"Like me? That's not possible. Few hosts are as magnanimous as my Mr. Simpkins."

"Or as senile."

"I was free long before his dementia struck."

"So how is it done? The leaving part."

Augustine's lips part. Words build and stall, then spill with reluctance.

"Honestly, in your case, the surest way to execute a severance ... to make the cleanest break ... is murder."

Willem felt as if he had swallowed a brick.

"Seriously?"

"Hosts do not give up their pets willingly."

"I can't murder her."

"You can. You are tangible enough to accomplish the deed, but not human enough to suffer the penalties."

"I can't kill Sophie."

"I'm not saying it won't be difficult. You were created to cherish her."

"But I don't."

A spider darts between a potted succulent and a fern. A cricket chirps unseen in the corner.

"There must be other ways."

"Yes, but your case is challenging. You have an alert, unimpaired and unwilling host. To break free would require extreme motivation and a high degree of self-possession."

"I am quite motivated."

"I'm sure you are. I'm just saying, the task becomes much simpler once a host simply ceases to exist."

"What if I just walked away?"

"She might simply drag you back. Punish you for your insolence."

"But not if I was motivated enough to leave? Confident?"

"There are exceptions. But to be an exception, one must be ... exceptional."

"Are you saying I'm not?"

"I'm saying it's far simpler just to kill the bloody woman."

"But you and Mr. Simpkins—"

"Arnette accepted my quest for independence while he was still in full possession of his faculties. With considerable grace, I might add. Your Sophie does not seem to possess such charity."

Willem remembers a time when Sophie treated him more like a peer than an appendage. He remembers feeling human.

"Do you see still the man?"

"I visit from time to time, but always on my own terms."

An ant crawls to the tip of a decapitated orchid stem, antennae waving.

"I can't kill Sophie."

"Are you sure?"

His gaze hovers unfocussed in the void between their chairs.

"No."

***

Wind whips the trees and whistles through the crevices of the shed. A storm brews and threatens to drench the neighborhood but the rain never comes.

It is Sophie's date night, the first in years not facilitated by Tinder or OKCupid or her married cousin Liz. When her dates go badly, as they all seem to do, Sophie calls on him for solace, so Willem sits prepared, hands crossed in his lap, bow tie perfect, not a speck of lint on his dinner jacket.

He has another afterhours rendezvous arranged with Eleni, the time indeterminate. First both must satisfy their obligations to their hosts.

Rakes and shovels hang from nails on the back wall. He tried to ignore them but his dark desires nag and bring him to his feet. He pores over the implements arrayed there and on the tool bench, assessing potential murder weapons, weighing mercy against brutal efficacy.

He rejects the unimaginable—machete, hatchet, utility knife—in favor of feasibility—a small sledge hammer fit for bashing. One sharp blow on the back of the head and his torments would be finished. The wisdom behind Augustine's advice was becoming apparent.

Midnight passes. The storm outside grumbles and sputters and continues to fail. A raccoon triggers a motion detector and a flood light kicks on in the alley. In a shard of shattered mirror Willem adjusts his appearance, replacing some of his lost hair, striving to restore the former elegance of his face. He can't do too much or Sophie will be cross but a little less ugly would be nice.

Another hour passes. Feeling assured that Sophie will not be calling on him, he reaches for the sledge hammer, intending to return it to its spot on the tool bench. The oak handle slips through his fingers. He holds up his hand, aghast to find his fingers no more tangible than smoke.

He flings himself into a wall, testing his tangibility. His body sinks into the cladding but cannot penetrate. Comforted somewhat, he pushes on the partly ajar door. It yields and he steps outside, further reassured by the tug of the wind. The fading has not yet spread to his core.

A raccoon glances his way quickly directs its attention back to the bowl of kitty chow on the porch. Willem stares up at the swarms of fragmented cloud winging past the waning moon.

His own solidity compromised, it is with reluctance that he twists out of the solid world and onto the steps outside Sophie's imaginary café. He enters scans the tables, finding them populated only with the mindless, smudge-faced extras of Sophie's imagination. He takes a seat in a booth and waits for Eleni.

The waitress comes by, pretends to take an order and returns with a latte and a cappuccino. Hours pass, though it remains perpetually three-forty-five on the clock over the espresso machine.

He bides his time resolving bits of the blurry tableau surrounding him—sharpening the diamonds on the wallpaper, transforming ink blotches to words on the newspaper scattered across the next booth. But nothing incriminating. He never knows when Sophie will show.

A drip of pancake syrup on the table, he attempts to turn into a cockroach. Just as it is about to acquire a full complement of legs, the waitress comes by with a damp washrag and wipes it away.

Over and over, she returns to remove the mugs and replace them with fresh ones. Four untouched cups later, Willem considers returning to the shed, but instead orders blueberry pancakes. The pancakes never come but the coffee continues to pour.

Willem is as startled as he is pleased when Eleni comes jaunting in and joins him at his table.

"Sorry. Gary was a chatterbox tonight. He gets that way sometimes when he drinks. And he was drinking a lot tonight. I don't know what got into him."

"Beer, apparently."

"Anyhow. Here I am. Proud of me?"

"You betcha."

She narrows her already narrowed eyes.

"Whoa! What happened to you?"

"Sophie tweaked me."

"No, I mean you're so wispy."

"She had a date."

"That made you fade?"

"Maybe I'm just doubting myself."

"Oh for sure. I can see that. I would be absolutely crushed if Gary was seeing other people. Not that I have to worry. He's pretty much a loner. But if he did, I'd be okay with it. I want him to be happy. Doesn't mean I'd be happy too, but I would keep myself ready for the times he's gonna need me. Just like you need to be there for her. So suck it up, mister! It's not all about you."

"Don't you ever get tired of Gary calling all the shots?"

"As it should be. He's my host."

"It doesn't seem unfair?"

A tantalizing depth enters Eleni's gaze. He can always tell when she's not thinking about Gary for a change.

"Do you ever wonder why Sophie would create an imaginary friend who wasn't absolutely loyal?"

The realization moved like an ice pick through his assumptions. Might Sophie have rendered him a kindness by allowing so much self-determination? But was it intentional, or a by-product of her sub-conscious self-loathing?

"Maybe she needs me to go. Maybe it would be good for her."

"That's an interesting way to look at it. If I ever thought Gary would be happier without me—"

"You would leave him?"

She takes a sip of steamy cappuccino and coughs.

"Fat chance! You know what? You should come and meet him. Maybe he would take you on. You know, as a secondary."

Willem sighs.

"Gary's not going to want to see the likes of me."

"Who knows? Your new look is way less threatening. He might like having a guy friend. Do you like sports? PlayStation games."

"Um. Thanks. But no."

"Aw, come on. He's a great guy!"

She touches his arm.

"What are you doing?"

Her grin oozes mischief.

"Eleni. No!"

The café vanishes.

Willem finds himself inside a large bouncy house. A pillow and some rumpled bedding is stuffed into a corner. Stacks of clothing folded neatly lie about. A box of crackers. A crate of moldy books.

"You live here?"

"Isn't it cozy?"

All is silent, even the compressor feeding the duct in the bouncy house's base.

"How does it stay inflated?"

"Same thing that keeps us going. Magic." She winked.

He presses his nose against a panel of clear plastic. Outside, he finds an abandoned carnival hemmed in by corn fields and fog banks.

"Does Gary come here?"

"You betcha. Every day after work. He's a cart fetcher at Costco."

"What time does he get out?"

"He's probably already on his way. Want a hot dog?"

"Thanks, I'll pass."

"Cotton candy?"

"No thanks."

"They got great slushies here. They never melt entirely."

Someone whistles loud and shrill from across the carnival grounds.

"I'd better go."

"Hang on. I want you to meet Gary."

"Sorry Eleni. I can't do this."

He shuts his eyes, leans back and tumbles out of Gary's little dream world and onto the solid ground outside the shed.

***

Sunday night. Bedtime. No Sophie. She has not checked in with him since Thursday. Willem is feeling vague and looking vaguer. At least he has his old shape back. Mods go quicker with no flesh.

Eleven forty five, he exits the shed and heads for the library, reaching the vacant steps a little after midnight. He sits and waits. After an hour or so, he leaves the library grounds, disappointed if not surprised that Zoe has not come.

In his present condition, Willem does not bother with paths and sidewalks. He passes through fences and hedges with ease. Only objects with significant mass, like tree trunks and parking meters, impede him.

The rapidity of his most recent fade alarms him. During Sophie's tumultuous teens she would abandon him for months and he would manage to linger in a much more substantive state. Now here he was just a wisp of a man after only three days without Sophie. It does not bode well for his prospects of going it alone.

He spends all day Monday watching carpenter ants patrol the work bench. He is happy for them, but their presence suggests that the sills are infested and decaying. His shed's days as a shelter are numbered. He wonders how it will be before it all collapses and the tools are consigned to rust.

Night falls. Again, bedtime comes and goes. He assesses his solidity and realizes that his condition is unchanged from the night before. Perhaps he has reached his equilibrium state.

Tonight, he is in no hurry to leave the shed. When he does so, it is more out of habit than desire. It is well after midnight when he reaches the library steps, and there she is, gazing into the shadows, peering right through him.

"Hi." he says meekly from the shadows.

She lowers her chin and glowers.

"I'm right here. Can't you see me?"

"I ... hear you."

Her acknowledgement causes his opacity to surge, enabling his breath.

"Whoa! There you are."

"How have you been?"

"Okay, I guess. No major hissy-fits."

"Demons being nice to you?"

"Honestly, I did not expect to see you again."

"Why not? I said I would come."

"Cuz you're not real."

"That's where you're mistaken."

"All my hallucinations say that."

"I'm not just any hallucination."

"They say that too. But I have a little bottle of pills in my purse that can make you go away."

"I doubt that."

"Yeah, well we're not going to find out who's right. Because I'm not taking them. They mess with my sleep patterns."

"I never sleep." Willem holds up his hand and marvels at its burgeoning opacity. "Talking to you makes me stronger."

She smiles. "I like talking to you, too. It keeps the bad voices away."

"Are they here right now?"

"Oh yeah. I can hear them grumbling around the corner. Fuckers are annoying. I tossed a bowl of soup at one in the hospital cafeteria the other day. Went in with my mom for an EEG. This one dude would not stop bugging me. That was not cool."

"He probably deserved it."

She chuckles.

"I go to a support group now. I don't know what the docs were thinking, putting the likes of us in a room together. Sounded like a recipe for mayhem, but it works. Made some awesome new friends."

"Do you live on your own?"

"I moved back in with my mom when I lost my job."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-five."

"My host, Sophie, is thirty nine. I've been with her for thirty-five years."

"Thirty-nine and she's still got imaginary friends?"

Sophie's will circles in on him like a furtive mosquito, latches on and grows in ferocity.

His face contorts.

"What's wrong?"

"I have to go. She's calling me."

"Ignore her."

"I can't."

Zoe reaches for him but her fingers slip right through his hand. He scrambles to undo the modifications he has made to his appearance. But before he can change anything back, he finds himself in the chair by her bed.

***

"It's late."

"Yeah, sorry. I just got home."

"Way past your bedtime."

"Okay sweetie, listen. Elizabeth and I are going to be sharing this apartment. She's in a bad roommate situation so she's gonna use this place as a base and sublet. Which means...."

"You don't want me around?"

"It's not that I don't want you.

"I understand. You need to devote your time and attention on this new relationship. I'm very happy for you."

"That doesn't mean you're not still important to me."

"Of course. I will always remember you fondly."

"Remember? Sweetie, you're not going away. I'll still be calling you over from time to time ... just not as often."

"It's okay if you don't. I would understand if you wanted to declare a moratorium."

Sophie sits up and leans towards him. Her face falls stern.

"This is not about you understanding anything. I'm telling you to make yourself scarce until I call for you. And when I want you to come, you'd better come and quick. Capisce?"

"Yes, my sweetness."

She crinkles her nose. "Did you make yourself pretty again?"

"Did I?"

"You did! Willem. Come clean. Have you been meddling with your looks?"

"It just happens, I suppose, reverting out of a sub-conscious desire to look ... presentable."

"Willem. Your looks are my business. You know better than to meddle. You know that is punishable."

"Does it matter how I look? Now that we're parting?"

"Willem! No one is parting anything. I'm just putting you on hold for a bit."

"No! You can't do this to me anymore."

"Do what? What's gotten into you? It's not like you to misbehave. You're jealous of Liz, aren't you?"

"Maybe I've have enough of being your plaything. I want to be on my own."

She guffaws and snorts. "On your own? How can you? You are part of me."

"Not anymore."

Her eyes go all screwy as if Willem's words have knocked them out of alignment.

"You will come see me when I damn call you!"

"No." Willem rises from the chair. "Bye Sophie."

She grits her teeth. "You sit down!"

A terrible pressure mounts, squeezing him down like the gravity of Saturn, pressing him down onto the chair. His eyes scurry across the room, scouring it for something to use against her. Wine glass on her night stand. Scissors in her sewing kit. Barbells on her yoga mat. Under her mattress he knows she keeps a small gun.

His arms remain pinned to his side. He struggles to free them.

"I've always liked your spunk. I like to think I made you that way. It keeps things interesting. Exciting, actually. But now I think you're going too far. You need to be put back in your place."

Veins bulge in Willem's brow as he quivers with rage.

"How about I make you small? Pocket-sized. Something the kitties can chase. How would you like that?"

The squeezing intensifies, but Willem resists. His opacity surges. With mass comes strength. He bursts up out of the chair and kicks it over on its side. Sophie's wine glass topples and shatters.

He picks up the chair and lifts it over his head, ready to bludgeon her. Her mouth is agape. She squeals and trembles, hiding behind her pillow.

He sets the chair down gently and nudges it back into place beside her bed. Eying the spilled wine and splintered glass on the hardwood floor, he shakes his head.

"Let me fetch the dust pan."

"Get out of here!"

"I can clean this up. I'm sorry."

"Go! Get the fuck out of here."

He backs away, turns to the bedroom door and leaves the room. Never has he felt so solid.

***

Monday at dusk a thunderstorm blows through town. No dilly-dallying with this one. It means business. Rolls of thunder clash in polyrhythmic counterpoint. A chaos of lightning tears up the sky under the drone of a downpour.

The training storm goes on for hours. Drips plonk down into the empty jars he has arrayed on the floor. Rivulets nevertheless find their way into the shed.

The storm stages its retreat long after sunset. The world outside is drenched and seeping. Willem feels in need of a friend, but Eleni is busy with Gary who has been hospitalized out of the blue. Augustine never entertains visitors after dark.

It seems unlikely he will find Zoe at the library on a night like this, but goes regardless. There are fewer juvies on the play structures than usual. Thunder had kept their toddler hosts awake.

Sophie has been transmitting her burgeoning angst to him for days now but she has been unable to summon him since the incident in her bedroom. It seems he has successfully executed the break Augustine deemed impossible without murder. It seems that mentors, no matter how venerable, don't always know everything.

As he moves through a maple copse and reaches the library grounds he is startled to find a group of people mingling on the steps under a rainbow forest of umbrellas. He is about to turn back when Zoe rises up on her toes and waves.

"Willem! It's okay. These guys are my friends."

"Is he here?" says a bespectacled young man.

"Don't you see him?" A black woman with her hair in braids and beads points across the lawn. "He's right there."

"Um no," says the man with the glasses, squinting.

"There! Next to the lilacs," says a woman in a flowery print dress.

"Oh yeah! You betcha!" says a pudgy guy in a Slipknot T-shirt.

Six faces track Willem's cautious approach. Only the young man with the glasses appears not to see him.

Zoe beams. "Come meet my support group."

Willem slinks up like a cat investigating a litter of puppies. He has never been visible to more than one person at a time. He has never interacted with a group.

"Welcome to the East Hartford Schizophrenia Alliance. This is our first extracurricular excursion."

"Remember guys, nobody tell Dr. Jameson."

"Dr. Jameson is our counselor. He thinks we all get along a little too well sometimes. Probably thinks we're plotting against him."

"Fucker needs to join a paranoia group."

"Come closer, Willem. It's okay. My friends won't bite you."

"Nice to meet you ... all," says Willem, attempting to be polite.

"Are you guys pulling my leg? I still don't see him," says the guy with the glasses.

"What kinda meds you on, Jason?" says a young black woman. "I need to get me some when I need things to get real."

"Jason's an impostor!" mocks the pudgy guy.

"I'm not used to this," says Willem as a nervous thrill buzzes through his consciousness.

The black woman shoves forward, gives him a hug and looks back. "Holy shit! He's totally squeezable."

When she releases him, he staggers back. The world becomes a tad crisper and clearer.

"Oh! Oh! There he is! I can see him now!" says Jason.

"Come sit with us," says Eleni, patting the stairs. "They're a little soggy, but not so bad."

"I've done it," says Willem, excited. "I'm finally free."

"You broke up with Sophie? Willem, that's awesome!"

"Who's Sophie?" asks a blonde woman in a pants suit and heels.

"His host," said Zoe. "The woman who imagined him."

"He's so dapper! It's like he walked out of an old movie."

"Are you gonna need help?" says Zoe. "I mean, staying sharp and all?"

"So far so good. But yes. I may need some assistance."

"He can come to our group meetings!" says the black woman.

"Not sure Dr. Jameson will go for that," says the bespectacled guy.

Willem feels something yank inside him as if someone is reaching under his sternum and twanging his heart. A dizzy spell drops him to his knees.

"Willem? What's wrong?"

"She ... she's coming."

***

Heads whip around, confused, but Willem stares straight ahead. He already knows. He can feel her.

Out of the shadows Sophie appears wearing a plush bathrobe over satin pajamas. Her face is streaked with runny mascara. She stands beneath a street lamp about twenty paces out.

"I knew it!" says Sophie. "You've been sneaking around behind my back." She scans the group, befuddled. "Who are you people?"

"Excuse me? But who the fuck are you?"

"This ... is Sophie," Willem whispers.

"He used to be her imaginary friend," says Zoe.

"Used to be? Excuse me?"

"Christ, lady! Aren't you a little old for imaginary friends?"

"My imagination is no concern of yours. Willem! Come! I'm taking you home."

Willem feels himself drawn to Sophie as if by a rope tied around his waist. He stumbles towards her but is able to hold his ground and resist. The tug strengthens, pulling on every square inch of his being. His feet scrape and skid across the sidewalk.

A dozen hands reach out to hold him, seizing his arms, legs and shoulders.

Sophie screeches. "Let go of him! He needs to come home."

"No," says Zoe, standing between Willem and Sophie. "He doesn't want to be with you anymore."

"Doesn't want to? Heh! You think he has a choice? I made Willem. I named him. He is mine. You tell them, sweetie. Go on. Tell them the truth. That I made you to be with me."

"Don't. Don't call me sweetie."

"Willem!"

Each hand touching him provides a confirmation of his existence, each offering the feedback he needs for his muscles to become muscles, his bones to become bones. Willem's mass accumulates. His feet press down into the stone of the steps negating Sophie's summoning force.

She clenches her teeth and groans.

"Fine! You want him? Keep him. But I brought him here. I'll take him out!"

Sophie exerts all the power of her will against him. His ribs bend inward, squeezing his vital organs, crushing the breath from him. Willem croaks and goes limp.

Zoe screams. "Stop it! Stop. It!"

She dashes forward, winds up and smacks Sophie across the forehead with the side of her folded umbrella. Sophie crumples. Willem's lungs relax and the air floods back. Hands reach down and help him back to his feet.

Zoe batters Sophie with the umbrella until the pudgy metal head hustles over and pulls her away. Sophie lies on her side, clutching herself and sobbing. A trickle of blood, diluted by tears, streams down the bridge of her nose.

"Come on! Let's get him away from her."

***

Eleni is looking awfully hazy compared to Willem. He should have offered to meet her at the café, but it is too dangerous. Sophie still holds too much sway over him in the land of dreams.

"You have a job now? A real job?"

"It's not much. Graveyard shift on the front desk of a motel near the truck stop. But it suits me. Seems I have a knack for customer service."

"And you deal with people? Real people?"

"Yes. And not only that, they pay me cash under the table. No background checks, no previous job experience required. No questions asked whatsoever."

"So you have money now. Real money? What do you spend it on?"

"I help Zoe pay her rent. Go see movies at the art house. And I drink coffee at a real coffee shop. With real coffee. I can take you there when you're feeling more opaque. Speaking of which, is everything okay, Eleni? You're looking rather peaked."

She glances down.

"Gary's been in the hospital. Complications from his diabetes. But he'll be coming home soon. He had a shared room in the ICU, so it was awkward."

"You're welcome to stay here until he gets back. I'm sure Zoe wouldn't mind."

"Oh no. Thanks, but no. The bouncy house suits me just fine. I need to be there for Gary."

"Well, if you ever need a respite. You know where to come."

"Thanks Willem. You really are a great friend. My best, after Gary."

"You know. Gary's not going to be around forever. It might be time to start planning for contingencies."

Eleni's expression darkens. Willem worries he might have nudged her too far.

"Oh! I have a name now, Eleni. A full name."

"How'd you manage that?"

"Well, I needed one as a condition of my employment. So I put on a blindfold and drew circles at random in the Greater Hartford phone directory. I considered everything from "Anderson" to "Zyzykowski" until I stumbled onto the one I liked."

"What is it?"

"You're looking at Willem B. Freed."

Eleni beams and thrusts out her hand. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Freed."

Willem takes her hand. A wave of solidity ripples up her fingers and into her arm. She gapes and squeezes harder. He does not let go until it has spread all the way into her core.

*****

The End

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