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Stop Dumping on God
By Barb Woolard
The first 846 words of this chapter appear in my January submission, since word count did not allow presenting the entirety of Chapter 4 all at once.
The Influence of Popular Culture
Chapter 4
It’s also interesting to note that Jesus, who can be included because he is believed by many to be part of the holy trinity, is most often conceptualized with shoulder-length hair and full beard, as well as skin color and features which look more Caucasian and white European than Middle Eastern. According to Joan Taylor, artists have gotten it all wrong in their portrayals of Jesus. From the long, flowing mane to the facial hair to the ankle-length robe, Jewish men in Jesus’ time did not look like that. Yet even such iconoclastic works as Jesus Christ Superstar portray Jesus with the classic appearance.
Ms. Taylor comments:
“It should surprise no one that some movies about God have been better received in other countries than in America, where our Puritan, fundamentalist, and evangelical roots run deep. Yet the frequency with which God has been portrayed in our own popular culture is testament to the human curiosity about and fascination with the divine.”
My good friend, the Reverend Richard Jones, points out that pop culture has acted to reinforce current stereotypes of God and has therefore had a net negative effect on people’s attitudes and beliefs, without necessarily intending to do so. One unfortunate stereotype that comes to my mind is the God who lives far, far away in a place where there are mansions and golden streets and a gate keeper who checks credentials before either granting or denying admission. Another is the belief that God is the cause of everything which happens to individual humans and therefore the only one we can beseech to save us from misfortune—including that which we have brought upon ourselves. Qualities such as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence are stock characteristics of pop culture gods. Ironically, the method a film God uses for proving his or her authenticity to a skeptical human—that is, recounting facts and events from the person’s life which no one else could possibly know—is remarkably like the strategy used by Santa Clause in Miracle on 34th Street and other filmsto prove he is the real Santa.
Let’s look at some other examples of God stereotypes reinforced in the popular arts, both positive and negative.
Popular songs have often perpetuated harmful stereotypes. In a Garth Brooks song popular during the 1990s, “Unanswered Prayers,” a man is recounting an experience from a few nights before, when he and his wife were attending a hometown football game and ran into his high school flame. During their teenage years, she was the one he was sure he wanted to spend his life with and had begged God incessantly to make that happen. But after a brief and awkward conversation at the football game, he realized things had turned out exactly as they should have: that the woman he married was a gift and the one from his past “wasn’t quite the angel” he “remembered in [his] dreams.” In the refrain, he sums up the emotional impact that encounter had on him:
“Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs
That just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care
Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.”
I like the idea here, and I could name a few similar experiences of my own, but that would be another book. Sometimes it is a relief that our wishes and prayers were not granted, and sometimes those chance encounters with our past can put to rest old disappointments and cause them to be seen instead as gifts. What troubles me, though, about these lyrics is the stereotype that God answers or doesn’t answer prayers for reasons we have to wait years to figure out.
God does not choose people’s mates for them; people choose their own mates, and sometimes those matches work out and sometimes they don’t. When they do work out, it’s not because God picked the right two people to be together; it’s because those two people had the good sense and good fortune to make a wise choice and the persistence to cultivate a healthy and loving relationship over a span of many years. When a relationship does not work, it has nothing to do with God’s answering a misguided prayer. If the man in the song had married his high school crush and then discovered she was not the angel he thought her to be, would he then have been justified in blaming God for not stopping him from making a mistake? That train of thought gets convoluted. For God to choose people’s mates, God would have to override their free will; and that’s the line which is never crossed.
In Mark Dinning’s song Teen Angel, popular during the 1960s, a teenage boy grieves the death of his 16-year-old sweetheart, killed by a train after he had rescued her from their stalled car. He struggles to understand why she ran back onto the track, wondering whether she might have been searching for his high school ring which was found tightly clutched in her dead hand. The singer has nothing but questions, about his lost love and about the nature of life and death. He wants to know whether she can still see him and hear him and whether she still loves him, questions most of us have asked about our deceased loved ones. Where are they, and even though we can’t see them, can they see us? Will they hear us if we talk to them?
The unfortunate concepts accentuated in this song are that our loved ones are “somewhere up above,” in an unseen, unknown place; and that they have been taken from us, suggesting that death is caused by a greater power who is able to take away those precious to us on a whim or for reasons understood by that power but incomprehensible to our human understanding. When the singer says “Just sweet sixteen, and now you’re gone/They’ve taken you away,” he doesn’t directly mention God—just the indefinite “they”—but the implication seems clear: God is in the business of killing people. How can anyone seek comfort from the same God who would cause pain and heartbreak?
The 1995 song “What If God Was One of Us?”—written by Eric Bazilian and recorded by Joan Osborne—raises important questions about who and what God is and seems to reject the stereotype of God as the guy somewhere far away on a big white throne. The song suggests instead that God might very well be among us but is being ignored and rejected because of not fitting the learned image. In a series of “what ifs,” the song asks us to consider those we see every day—the “slob like one of us,” “the stranger on the bus”—and ask ourselves whether, if God had a face, God might look like one of those people who go largely unnoticed by us and disrespected by many. The refrain dismisses the standard images of God’s greatness and goodness with a repeated “yeah, yeah, yeah” and suggests instead that God may be very different from our learned expectations.
I think the song questions whether it is possible to admit God’s existence without necessarily accepting all of the other beliefs such as “heaven and . . . Jesus and the Saints/And all the prophets” and whether some may see those associated ideas as deterrents to simply believing in God. Can God be separated from religion? And if so, what would God be called, what would God look like, and what is the one question you’d want to ask God face to face?
The song also seems to hint at the modern agnosticism: doubts based on perceived failures of God to live up to the hype which we ourselves have created. Maybe we have made God a lonely being whom no one ever calls, “’cept for the Pope,” and who’s just trying to find the way back to heaven, back to relationship with creation as it was in other eras.
In a 2009 song “You Found Me,” by The Fray, the singer finds God “on the corner of First and Amistad,” “All alone, smoking his last cigarette.” The singer immediately begins firing questions and remonstrances at God: “Where you been?”; “Where were you when everything was fallin’ apart?” “All my days were spent by the telephone/That never rang and all I needed was a call/That never came to the corner of First and Amistad.” God finally showed up “just a little late,” after the singer was already “lyin’ on the floor.” “Why’d you have to wait?” He repeats that he was “lost and insecure,” waiting for a contact from God which came only after all seemed lost and hopeless.
I believe this song encapsulates all of the worst and most detrimental misconceptions of God. How could one pray to a God who allows people to reach rock bottom before revealing Godself to them? A God who inspires enough confidence to hear prayers is the one who has always been there, has always been calling, who was beside you even when you were falling apart, just waiting for you to call and ask for help. The singer seems to have it all backward. What if God does not ignore anyone’s calls? What if some ignore God until a crisis occurs? Those who reach the end of their resources do so because of their own choices as well as circumstances outside their control and outside God’s control. I believe it is we who often save God as our last resort.
“I’ve been callin’ for years and years and years and years/And you never left me no messages, you never sent me no letters/You got some kind of nerve, takin’ all I want.” The singer here accuses God of taking away the woman he loved and leaving him alone, after having ignored his attempts to reach out to God for so many years. Everyone needs someone to blame for their heartache, and God has often been the handy scapegoat; but laying that blame on God robs the suffering human of a possible source of comfort and reassurance. Like the grieving lover in Teen Angel, this man has no one to whom he can pray, because he sees God as the one who has inflicted his pain.
A song I find hauntingly beautiful is Mary Magdalene’s paean in Jesus Christ Superstar, in which she so eloquently explores the mystery of the One who was said to be fully human and fully God. Before meeting Jesus, Mary had been known as a “loose woman,” though details of her life, as well as any supporting facts, are sketchy and do not necessarily support that label. What is known of her is that after meeting Jesus, she became and remained one of his most devoted followers.
In her Superstar song, she wrestles with the disconnect between his appearance and the effect he has had on her. She says “I’ve been changed, yes really changed,” and she doesn’t know how to make sense of what has taken place within herself. She muses, “He’s a man. He’s just a man./And I’ve had so many men before,/In very many ways./He’s just one more.” Yet she confesses not knowing how to respond to him, not understanding why she has been so moved by him and not knowing how to speak freely to him. She feels a discomfiting mixture of fear and love.
What makes this song so poignant for me is that I think it expresses the mystery many humans have struggled with since Jesus came into the world. He looked like a man, acted like a man, lived like a normal mortal, yet had an effect few other mortals have had. So hasn’t every person asked at least once, “Who was he really? If he was God, why did he not save himself from death? And if he was a man, how could he have done the things he is reported to have done, and how could he have known the things he is said to have known? And how did he manage to live a life with no recorded wrongdoing?” And then there’s the ultimate question, “Can I ever really know for certain?”
In the classic Christmas film It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey suffers a series of setbacks throughout his life, which cause his youthful dreams never to be realized. When the savings and loan he took over from his father is in danger of going under, George’s despair reaches a point which causes him to contemplate suicide. God does not speak directly in this movie but does oversee George’s rescue and his realization of his worth as a human and as a citizen of his community through the character of Clarence Odbody, angel in training hoping to gain his wings, which he of course does after rescuing George. Clarence is commissioned and guided by the Senior Angel after a conversation with the Angel Joseph, in which Clarence is described as having the “IQ of a rabbit” and the “faith of a child” but whom they believe to be the perfect one for the assignment.
George prays two prayers toward the end of the film. He prays the first at the depth of his despair, broken and not knowing where to turn for help:
“Dear Father in heaven. I’m not a praying man but if you’re up there and you can hear me, show me the way. I’m at the end of my rope. Show me the way, God.”
This prayer reinforces the negative stereotype that God is “up there” and may or may not hear what humans are saying to God. George feels empty and alone and is not even certain his words will make any difference. The positive part of this prayer, I think, is that George does not ask God to make his life better, to restore solvency to the building and loan, or to drive Mr. Potter and his cohorts out of town—all things which God does not do. Instead, he asks God to show him the way to save his own life and his community—something more in line with God’s profile.
George prays the second time after he has declared it would have been better for him never to have been born and Clarence has walked him through what life in Bedford Falls would have been like had there never been a George Bailey. His faith restored, his worth validated, George then pleads:
“Please God, let me live!”
This is the right spirit but wrong request: George is already alive; what he needs from God is help to sustain the courage and optimism he is feeling at that moment to make his own life continue to have value and impact.
In Irvine Welsh’s short story “The Granton Star Cause,” the book The Acid House (Welsh’s anthology which includes this story), and the movie The Acid House (directed by Paul McGuigan), God appears as a profane, angry white man who meets the main character Bob in a bar. God employs the classic strategy for proving his ID: recounting to Bob intimate details of Bob’s life. Bob lashes out, saying the real God would be tending to starving children, not sitting in a bar having drinks with him.
God responds defensively, expressing exasperation over people’s talking about what he should and should not be doing, having to “enter into some philosophical discourse with some wee undergraduate twat about the nature of myself,” and having to endure philosophical discourses on “the extent of my omnipotence and all that shit.” God goes on, “I’m getting a little bit fed up with all this self-justification. It’s not for you c—s to criticize me. I gave you the place. I made you c—s in my own image. You lot get on with it. You f—ing well sort it out.” God then says the philosopher Nietzsche was way off the mark in declaring God dead: “I’m not dead. I just don’t give a f—.” Just before the story takes a Kafka-esque turn and God turns Bob into an insect, God tells Bob, “You see me and you hear me as you imagine me.”
I see so much to unpack in this bizarre conversation. God’s defensiveness and annoyance over being blamed for humans’ expectations that God should live up to their own mental images, regardless of how ill-informed those images may be, underscores the fact that humans do have flawed expectations of God. As God says in the last quotation, “You see me and you hear me as you imagine me.” The problem here is not our imaginations; it’s our demanding that God live up to the mental portraits which we have created. Instead of seeking to discover who and what God is and relating to God accordingly, we accept the cliches and stereotypes as eternal truths and then are shocked when God doesn’t behave according to the rules we’ve been taught. Our reasoning and discovery processes are backward, but we don’t know it, so we blame God for not being who we thought God was.
The “Granton” God also calls human anger “self-justification” and says he’s fed up with it. I can only imagine God might be fed up with some of our thinking, but why does this God call it self-justification? I think the writer is suggesting that humans blame things on God to deflect their own inaction and the abdication of their responsibility. When God tells Bob, “I gave you the place. I made you c—s in my own image. You lot get on with it. You f—ing well sort it out,” this God echoes my own belief that God sacrificed omnipotence for love, when God gave humans free will and allowed us free reign in how to exercise that will. In the end, it is we who are responsible for sorting things out and righting wrongs, not God. If God were in charge, things would never have been in the state they are right now. We made the mess, so we have to clean it up. We can ask God for the strength and wisdom and courage to begin the work of changing course, but we cannot ask God to turn things around for us. It doesn’t work that way.
The God in Bruce Almighty expresses similar frustration when Bruce vents his complaints against God for the way things are going in Bruce’s life and for the unfair treatment Bruce believes he has received from God. Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey), a relatively insignificant TV reporter, has lost a coveted anchorman promotion to a rival. After next losing his job altogether, Bruce goes so far as to say God is the one who should be fired, because God has allowed these things to happen. God (Morgan Freeman) responds by anonymously summoning Bruce to an empty warehouse where he can respond to Bruce’s grievances. I can’t resist saying here that if there were nominations for a human to be God, I would submit Morgan Freeman’s name. But back to the movie, God, in essence, says to Bruce, “If you think this job is so easy, you try it.” He grants God powers to Bruce for one week, with the two caveats: that he cannot tell anyone (media attention) and he cannot tamper with human free will.
After grossly abusing his powers for a short time in order to seek petty revenge on the rival who was given his coveted job at the TV station, Bruce begins hearing voices in his head and discovers he is hearing other people’s prayers. Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of requests, Bruce simplifies his job of hearing and responding by simply saying “Yes” to all without knowing what the people are asking for, which leads to chaos and another meeting with God, who says, “Not as easy as it looks—this God business.” Bruce complains, “There were so many. I just gave them all what they wanted.” God replies, “Yeah. But since when does anyone have a clue about what they want?”
As Bruce seeks God’s guidance on how to restore order and reason, God comments on the idea of miracles. God says that parting a bowl of soup, as Bruce did earlier in his intoxication with his new powers, is only a magic trick. He says real miracles are things like a single mom who’s working two jobs and still finds time to take her kids to soccer practice and a teenager who says no to drugs and yes to an education. “People want me to do everything for them, but what they don’t realize is they have the power. You want to see a miracle, Son? Be the miracle.” Now that is some good theology, and it’s the point of this whole book. Be the miracle.
Although comical and, to some, distasteful, the God in Oh, God! underscores an important point about the relationship between God and humanity: God works only through humans. God (George Burns) approaches assistant supermarket manager, Jerry Landers (John Denver) and asks him to be God’s messenger to the world, much like a modern Moses. It’s been demonstrated over and over that the only way God is revealed to the world or God’s love shined into the world’s darkness is through the intermediary of willing humans. Humans are all God has for making the world a better place.
In the 1977 film, when Jerry questions God’s care for people, in light of all that goes wrong in the world, God’s defense is, “I care plenty, but what can I do?” Jerry, shocked, responds, “What can you do? You’re God. Whatever happens to us . . .” God finishes the sentence, “. . . happens.” God goes on to explain that God oversees the big picture but doesn’t get into the details, adding “Life is a crapshoot.” Jerry, still confused, asks “You don’t have control over our lives?” God’s answer is, I think, profound: “I gave you a world and everything in it. It’s all up to you.” This reminds me of the Deist view. When Jerry asks what humans can do when we need help, God says, “That’s why I gave you each other.” That line ought to be included in every theology and sociology class in the world, along with every Sunday School class. The answer to Cain’s question “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is a resounding yes.
After God explains that he doesn’t do miracles because they’re “too flashy” and “upset the natural balance, “ Jerry demands to know how God can permit all of the suffering that happens in the world—the classic question of where was God when xyz happened. God’s response is spot on: “I don’t permit the suffering. You do. All the choices are yours. Free will.” Jerry, still not getting it, asks what choices God is talking about, to which God responds, “You can love each other, cherish and nurture each other, or you can kill each other.” Kudos to novelist Avery Corman who wrote the 1971 book Oh, God! and screenwriter Larry Gelbart who scripted the movie for some great theology. “You can love each other, cherish and nurture each other, or you can kill each other” is a tragic summary of the choices facing Americans today. And we continue to choose the last option, because too many people have become incapable of loving, cherishing, and nurturing their fellow humans or even understanding that doing those things is their moral duty. It’s most ironic that many of those who claim the title “Christian” are often the last to understand the sobering truth.
Michael Schur’s fantasy comedy television series The Good Place aired on NBC from 2016 to 2020 and then became available for streaming on various platforms. The Good Place begins with the classic heaven (“The Good Place”) and hell (“The Bad Place”) afterlife: Those who lead righteous lives go to The Good Place and those who do not must go to The Bad Place. Pretty much everything some of us learned in Sunday School and church. Schur recounts the origin of his idea for the series in a foreword for a collection of essays on the philosophy in the series (The Good Place and Philosophy: Everything Is Forking Fine!, Kimberly S. Engels editor). Sitting in traffic on a Los Angeles freeway (something I can relate to through experience on Seattle freeways), he spotted “a man in a white sports car [who] decided the rules of society didn’t apply to him—he is special! He has a white sports car!—and he pulled into the breakdown lane and sped by all of us poor suckers who were foolish enough to abide by a social contract.” Schur updated his mental tally: “That guy just lost twenty points.”
In his creative imagination, Schur had often played this little game in his head, in which he imagined a cosmic scorekeeper out there somewhere observing every human’s good and bad deeds and tallying them until a critical mass on one side of the ledger or the other would determine each person’s ultimate destiny. This time, his mental game led to some philosophical questions, which finally led to the more pragmatic question: “Is there any way this is a television show?”
Although The Good Place begins with the classic good-people-go-to-heaven and bad-people-go-to-hell dichotomy, over the course of the series, that oversimplification is exposed for what it is: an oversimplification which ignores too many complicating factors. It’s not until the third season that viewers learn an important fact: no one has gotten into the real Good Place in 521 years, because of all the unforeseeable consequences of human behavior which on the surface might be labeled “good.” The conventional view of reward and punishment fails to account for the inconvenient truth that it is impossible to do “good” without inadvertently also causing “bad” things to happen. How then can any of us expect God to apply a “fair” standard of judgment, if in fact God were judging us, as some have been taught?
In the essay “How Do You Like Them Ethics?,” David Baggett and Marybeth Baggett write, “The relative importance of intentions versus consequences is one of the vital philosophical questions the show raises.” In the Introduction to the essay collection, philosophical advisors to The Good Place, Pamela Hieronymi and Todd May, offer the example of how a loving human action—buying a rose for a loved one—can have far-reaching negative consequences, including exploitation of workers who pick roses, climate change (transporting roses to market), and deforestation (if forest land had been cleared for creating the farm on which the roses were cultivated). “Points” gained for the loving kindness would have to be deducted for the unseen consequences, causing the good points to be erased and perhaps even a deficit created. Hence, the rarity of a human whose net gains actually qualify him/her for a spot in The Good Place.
Although the show contains no God figure, it does perpetuate some common concepts and personas—such as the cosmic scorekeeper, dispenser of eternal reward and punishment, and adjudicator of final judgment—all roles which have traditionally been attributed to God. To the creators’ credit, however, the show does expose many of the fallacies in those ideas and plants just enough questions and doubts in viewers’ minds to motivate them to go on thinking and conversing about topics which may have previously seemed unquestionable.
If I had to choose a popular culture image of God as the basis for my belief, it would be a toss-up between the God who would mop floors side by side with me while gently and calmly reassuring me I have the power to live a good, loving, and unselfish life (Morgan Freeman) and the God who would sit across the table from me patiently answering all of my questions while I take notes (George Burns). I believe what the God played by George Burns says: “The divine truth is not in a building or a book or a story. The heart is the temple wherein God resides.” That God also says, “I’m not sure how this whole miracle business started. Sorry it did. Makes the distance between us even greater.” And finally, some may find reassurance and inspiration in that God’s statement: “If you find it hard to believe in me, maybe it would help you to know that I believe in you.”
Having taken a rather lengthy look at the influences on people’s views concerning God, I’d like to turn to the crucial question about prayer: Does it do any good?
Code Blue and Little Deaths
By GD Deckard
seven. AMERICANS LOVE PEANUT BUTTER
At first light, they built a fire and fried a can of Spam for breakfast sandwiches. Tired but ready for the day, they climbed down the cliff, sliding and grabbing all the way. The tide was out, and the sun came up into a clear blue sky, lifting their spirits. But by midmorning, Ed wanted, “A hotel. The first place we come to that has a hotel, I need some sleep.”
As if to grant his request, around the next bend in the shoreline they entered a barrio. They were greeted with surprise and curiosity, but warmly. Women in colorful print dresses and men in t-shirts and slacks, all wearing the ubiquitous open sandals that Ed knew as shower clogs, gathered around.
“We’re on vacation,” Ed explained. “We’re just hiking.”
“Vacation?” repeated one who spoke English.
“Is there a place where we can sleep?”
“Sleep?”
“Is there a hotel here?” Douglas asked.
A short gabble established that the word vacation did not translate and there was no hotel in the village. A man ran up and spoke to their interpreter who nodded, turned, and told them, “You go to Mayor’s office. You sleep there.” He beamed. “The mayor, he say, you are under arrest.”
“We are under arrest?” Ed clarified.
“Yes. Under arrest.” Their interpreter’s smile never wavered. “You are strangers.”
“We are under arrest for being strangers.” Ed liked how cool that sounded.
“But. There is man in jail. He – how you say?” He conferred with the runner. “He is village black sheep. Mayor say, you get wrong impression of us. You go to Mayor’s office. Sleep there.” He said something in the local dialect and others nodded and motioned encouragingly. “You come. We go to Mayor’s office.”
They were escorted through a neighborhood of bamboo huts with roofs thatched of nipa palm. The one and two room huts were built on stilts close together, crowding both sides of the dirt road that ran along the beach through the little fishing village and beyond into the jungle. As they went, more people appeared. Everyone seemed animated by good spirits. They smiled at the strangers, grinned at each other, gesticulated broadly, and talked excitedly about this surprising break from the ordinary.
The mayor’s office was a one room wooden building. Inside were some benches and a handsome mahogany desk. Their interpreter swept the desk clean of papers, saying to Ed, “You sleep.”
Ed dropped his pack in the mayor’s chair and, feeling slightly irreverent, he climbed onto the richly grained desk. “Thank you,” he politely replied and lay down. Douglas and Russel each picked a bench and did the same. Their gracious jailors quietly left. Ed fell asleep.
He was awakened by Douglas sounding provoked and Russell chuckling, “That’s all, then?”
“What?” Ed sat up.
“Some kids ran out when I woke up.” Douglas held up his backpack, hefting it as if it were now lighter. “There’s a pack of cigarettes missing.” A quick check all around confirmed that Russell was right. That was all. Nothing else was missing.
Men came and escorted them to the mayor’s house. That rambling, unpainted wooden structure sat raised on concrete blocks. Steps on one end led up to a wide porch that wound around to the front of the building where freshly painted double doors proclaimed the entrance. Immediately inside was an oversize front room with windows on three walls and a large table that nearly filled the room.
The mayor greeted them like newly discovered voters. He shooed out everyone else and seated his guests. Then he sat next to Ed and beamed at him. “You sleep well? Good. You must be hungry.” He nodded to a woman watching them from an inner doorway. She came over, carrying a gallon-size glass jar. “I know what Americans like.” His smile, if possible, widened. He took the jar, unscrewed the lid, and, with a satisfied nod, put it in front of Ed. “Americans love peanut butter!”
It looked like peanut butter. Oils covered the top due to a lack of refrigeration. It smelled like peanut butter. There was no bread. There were no utensils. Ed buried two fingers deep and scooped a gob into his mouth. “Yum. It’s good, thank you.” The words stuck in his mouth, but his expression and his nodding elated the mayor. Ed passed the jar to Douglas who likewise scooped some into his mouth and passed it to Russell.
While they worked to swallow the peanut butter, the mayor explained, “You wait here.” He spread his arms expansively. “Better than jail. More comfortable. A man come. He is our policeman. He take you to see governor.”
“Because we are strangers,” Ed acknowledged.
“Yes!” The mayor was obviously relieved that the Americans understood. “This is nice?” he asked, waving his hands around to indicate the room.
They nodded in agreement. Russell had another scoop of peanut butter. They spent an hour or so with the mayor, agreeing that Americans loved peanut butter, that his house was better than the jail – Ed could only imagine how much better – that this was a good village, that they were happy to be here. Too happy, Ed felt, to ask their host for something he maybe couldn’t give them, like crackers, or bread, or cold milk, or freedom to leave.
They were interrupted by the villager who had been acting as their interpreter. He spoke briefly to the mayor, and they all went out on the porch to greet an arriving jeep. The mayor waved at the driver and nodded at the man in the back seat who wore a uniform. “Our policeman,” the mayor explained, “He take you to governor. You go.”
Alien Invasion: There goes the Neighborhood
By Mike Van Horn
This is the beginning of “Alien Invasion: There Goes the Neighborhood,” which I am close to finishing. It is “book 4 of my trilogy.” It’s a light-hearted tale of aliens who want to come to Earth, not as hostile invaders, but as tourists. My heroine Selena, who narrates, is a singer who has accidentally come in contact with aliens and traveled to one of their worlds. This is not hard sci fi!
1. A Call from the Stars
I was sitting on my deck on a beautiful warm evening, just strumming Gibb and watching the Moon and stars out over the Pacific Ocean, when a call came in from across the cosmos.
I was using the viewspace left over from my Two Worlds Concert to play duets with Noel, my astronomer buddy, who was at the smaller viewspace in the spaceship at the Star Choice Foundation at Moffett Air Field. His image filled the transparent blue sphere created by my faithful AI, Wanda, so it looked like he was sitting here next to me. He on his cello and I on my guitar. We’d been teaching each other our favorite music—classical and country-rock. I’ll let you figure out who plays what. Yes, we’d been working on my hit, “Cotton Candy Lovin’.”
The music was so much better in this “concert-quality” viewspace compared to the smaller one on my spaceship, Star Choice. This was the best practical use of the alien technology we’d found so far.
But then the connection got staticky! What the hell? That had never happened before. A buzzing, grinding sound like those ancient modems made; then translucent blue globes crowded out Noel’s image in the viewspace. A crackling voice intruded over the soothing cello melody. Wanda, from her stand next to me, translated as the voice cleared up:
A humble emissary I,
from the far distant cluster of worlds
known by some as the Galactic Confederation of Oxygen-Breathing Worlds
yet in truth, alas,
merely a sliver of our glorious galaxy, we are,
and so far from your shining world,
mysteriously placed and inaccessible
to our most powerful seekers.
This emissary, I, pleads to establish contact
with a True Singer from the world called Earth
who has delighted those on our world
with her music.
We believe this singer uses the name Selena.
A birdlike visage filled the viewspace, completely replacing Noel and his cello.
I just about pushed my deck chair over backward, I was so startled. Taken aback, nonplussed, dumbfounded, discombobulated. “Holy shit, how is this possible? How is this possible?” My friends on Sfofong, plus the Contact Mentor on Everbright, had assured me that the beings on the Confederation worlds could not contact us, and I had repeated this assurance to everybody here on Earth. Yet here was somebody ringing me up from thousands of lightyears away as easily as the pizza guy calling to check my delivery address. This sent a chill of fear up my spine, because I’d be shown to be a lying or duped idiot.
Should I hang up? Disconnect? Unfriend? Smash my viewspace with a hammer? (Not possible; it was only an image, not a real thing.) I wanted to scream, “Who are you? What do you want? Leave us the hell alone!”
But no, I responded calmly, “This is Selena speaking. How may I help you?”
May I introduce myself?
Hmmm? Ah hmm?
I regained my composure enough to notice several things. A birdlike being, standing vertical. Wispy cornflower blue feathers constantly moving, as if by a gentle breeze. Two large luminous dark eyes, looking at me intently. A beak or nose—I couldn’t tell. A small round mouth, no lips, always moving.
This entity was speaking Contact Fedi, which I recognized from my prior interactions with beings from the Confederation. And it was a Singi, thus communicating in sing-song verse. Unlike me, a Talki, speaking in ordinary boring sentences peppered with swear words.
I nodded like a gunslinger, eyes narrowed, signaling my adversary to draw, hand near my six-shooter. “Yes, please do.”
Shumenipelix, I am called
The world of my birth and rearing and clan, Vvureem.
Shumeh, you may call me if you please.
Like you, I am a permanent female.
A permanent female? I guess to distinguish herself from those, like my friends on Sfofong, that change sex at different life stages. Was this a form of bragging?
Her voice was beautiful; she sounded like a large mourning dove cooing, with a vocal range from soprano down to deep bass. I was sorry Wanda had to translate to English over the voice, it was so entrancing. I confess, her singing soothed my upset.
Ah, we on many worlds have enjoyed
your musical performances.
Ah, we have enjoyed
learning about your world and your people.
We understand that you may have been in contact
with some world races of our Confederation.
It is our wish, the wish of many of us,
not least I, Shumeh,
to have contact with your world.
How to respond? I didn’t know what to say. I just sat there looking into the viewspace at this being from across the galaxy, marveling again on the magical technology (theirs!) that allowed such instantaneous communication. She continued:
To hear more of your music,
ah yes, is my fervent desire.
You even now hold your device
you use to speak music
to accompany your voice
that you held during your concert
to our worlds.
A beautiful harmony it gives you!
That sealed it. How could I say no to such a request? “I would be pleased to have contact with you, as we are now doing.” What could be the harm of chatting—and singing—with this being from across the cosmos?She paused, looking at me, fluttering her feathers.
We wish to inquire
I wish to inquire,
would you, the people of your world,
have any interest,
I hesitate to ask,
in having face-to-face contact
with beings from some of our worlds?
Not least, I, Shumeh?
I nodded yes but said nothing, for fear of squeaking. This was all too overwhelming. But I could talk with anybody anywhere in the viewspace from the safety of huge distance.
And if this is indeed so
and you are willing . . .
At this, a crest of bright feathers rose from the top of her head, and others stood out from the side of her face, giving her a somewhat fierce appearance. Yet she spoke in a pleading, soothing voice.
. . . and if your people on your world are willing
would you be interested in inviting one of us,
perhaps hopefully, I, Shumeh,
come to your world as a guest?
A chill ran up my spine. “You want to travel to Earth? I’m quite sure this is impossible!” I had staked my entire reputation on the assurance that aliens from the worlds of the Confederation did not have the capability of traveling to Earth. And now this.
Breadbox and her crew had been able to travel to Earth because they’d found a network of jumpsites—created by a long-gone civilization—that the Confederation had no access to. All the aliens I’d talked with confirmed this. But now this.
“I must terminate this conversation,” I said to Shumeh the wannabe emissary. I gestured to Wanda to cut the connection. The viewspace faded to blue mist.
I turned away from the viewspace and covered my eyes, almost dropping Gibb. I wanted to shut out any contact with the infinite starry sky. Omigawd omigawd omigawd!
I sat there trembling and sweating, despite the cool evening breeze. Every alien I had spoken with over the last few years had explained why the Confederation beings could never travel to Earth, and that even if they came, they wouldn’t be hostile. But they weren’t supposed to be able to get here, yet here was one ready to come. How could I trust anything she said?
What had happened to Noel? My cosmic call waiting had shut him down. Should I call him back and tell him about this encounter? I was too scared. Once again, Selena the ditzy chick had done something to expose humanity to alien incursion.
Then he called me.
This is the cover:
Elevator Charm
By John Correll
Chapter 2 is being altered to show Elizabeth’s rebellion against her expected role of becoming the heir (the First Daughter) to the Mann clan (business empire). Aunt Ester is portrayed as far more Machiavellian and demanding. We also learn that Ester had a hunter boyfriend which shaped her prejudice. Also, Hannah’s ghostly reflections are given a more ominous undertone.
Chapter 3 is also being altered as I write. In the new chapter 3, Max visits Princeton a month after first meeting Elizabeth. He hopes to connect with her despite being warned not to. A friend informs him that Elizabeth is off at a horse show with Jerome Lanolder. The friend shows Max a tabloid article suggesting Jerome is leaving his wife for a new love interest.
Chapter 3 switches to Elizabeth’s reflections at the SF party of her first encounter with Jerome, like the first version. But, I remove the entire interaction of Max and Elizabeth. Instead, I end with Elizabeth waking the morning after the SF party with a ‘married man’. Which man is left ambiguous.
So for Chapter 4, you’ll just have to pretend that you don’t know who Elizabeth left the party with…
Chapter 4
Martha, Elizabeth’s mother, didn’t have time for anybody but her two-month-old granddaughter.
It had been eleven months since Lizzie ran off with Gino. They scurried off to that party in San Francisco for the weekend. “A Lanolder special”, Gino had told Martha. Ester, Martha’s older sister, beamed with expectation. “There’ll be a black wedding dress, just you wait, Martha,” Ester said.
“What could be more thrilling than a traditional witches black wedding,” Martha dreamed at the time. Yet, to her dismay, nothing happened. After the party, Lizzie refused to mention Gino’s name. Did she sleep with him and decide no? Of course, certain sensible witches choose to raise their babies their own way. Warlocks were a constant bother. Martha even wondered if she should have dumped her own husband when she first had children. He had been a complete waste with his daughters. Then he died, and she felt vexed that he had left her alone.
Martha wasn’t lonely now. She cradled her wonderful granddaughter, Rachel, and paced a neat path in the living room. Her path provided the best view from the house she bought for her daughter. A stand-alone, four-bedroom on a half-acre in Princeton. It was the least she could do to help Elizabeth finish her studies. Lizzie afterall, at the young age of nineteen, had fulfilled a major obligation. The Mann witches had an heir. And Martha finally had another baby to spoil.
Lizzie brought in a coffee-tray from the kitchen and placed it on a table. “Sugar, Aunt Ester?”
Ester, who sat on the edge of a recliner next to the table, shook her head. Martha considered her sister spent way too much time gluing her nose to her phone.
Lizzie slid a cup next to Ester and glanced at Martha. “Mom?”
“No sugar. Just leave it on the table.” Martha faced the french bay windows. “Don’t you love this view of the Institute woods?”
“Yeah, sometimes there’s deer.”
“Oh, Rachel will love that when she’s older. Don’t you think Ester?”
Ester finished chewing a chocolate chip cookie and managed to reply with an “Ummf.”
Martha wondered why her sister ignored babies. Perhaps Ester’s two warlocks messed up her motherly instincts. Yet, whether witch or warlock, babies gave life meaning. And, for Martha, it had been too long since she cuddled such a magical bundle. It almost made up for Hannah’s disappearance. But not quite. Deep down, Martha cradled the hope that her eldest would return. She didn’t care what other witches said. Her family could be whole again.
Martha tickled her granddaughter’s chin. “She has Gino’s eyes. Don’t you think?” she announced. In the past, she would have read her daughter’s mind to discover these little secrets. But in the last year and a half something blocked her. Martha assumed Oma Tilda passed on the same tricks she had shared with every adult witch in the family.
Lizzie shook her head as she plopped on the couch. “Mother. Don’t.”
Martha didn’t need another argument, especially in front of Rachel, so she added, “I know, Lizzie. It doesn’t matter. Tilda gave her a seal of approval, didn’t she? She’ll be another powerful, stubborn Mann.” Martha kissed Rachel’s forehead. But Lizzie’s phone interrupted her grandmotherly affections. Martha hated today’s constant obsession with staying ‘connected.’
Lizzie checked her phone and cursed, “Damn it. There’s another one.” She held her phone to her ear. “Hello? Yes… What?” Rachel began to squirm and scream in Martha’s arms. “Can you repeat that?” The baby’s wails turned into a siren and Lizzie turned to Martha. “Mother, just hand her to me.” Then she spoke into the phone, “Look, I’ll call you back. I’m kind-of busy.” She tossed her phone on the table as Martha handed Rachel over.
The brilliance of grandparenthood: you enjoyed the smiles without dealing with the tantrums or the messes.
Lizzie raised her shirt and started to breastfeed. And Martha watched with a tinge of jealousy. To her surprise, she recalled the pleasure of nursing her two daughters so long ago.
Martha sighed and asked, “Who was that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been getting weird calls for over a month. Last month I got one from China, but they never called back. Then I got three blank messages from Russia two weeks ago. Could you check where this one came from?”
Martha picked up Lizzie’s phone and Googled the number. “India, I think.”
Strange foreign calls finally pricked Martha’s sister’s attention. Ester put down her coffee and cookie. “Sounds like spam. Forward the numbers to me. I’ve got a security expert in the Chicago office. She should be in now. I can check for you.”
Martha forwarded the numbers. “There,” she said.
Lizzie sifted on the couch. “I don’t think that’s needed, Ester. I’ll just delete them.”
Ester swiped her phone. “Nonsense. Maybe you have a virus. It won’t take long.”
Martha seated herself next to her daughter. “I know Gino isn’t the most attentive of warlock’s, Lizzie. But…”
Ester, still focusing on her phone, mumbled, “You just need an effective transform to keep him inline.”
Martha rubbed Rachel’s toes. “Now Jerome, he would be an excellent match. He just broke up with what’s-her-name. And…”
“It’s Tania.” Lizzie shooed Martha’s hand away from Rachel’s feet.
“Yes. So why don’t you accept his invitation to the Clio awards. I can come and help babysit. And you can take a break from being a single mother.” Martha knew Lizzie liked Jerome, and he would be the perfect antidote to that horrid hunter fiasco from two years ago. Martha had sensed Elizabeth’s intense connection when she returned from San Francisco. And even with the distance of time, Lizzie never seemed to recover from being told he was off-limits. Martha imagined her daughter reacted more against the notion of a forbidden love than losing a lover. Yet, just the thought of her daughter sleeping with that brute made Martha’s blood boil. Perhaps she should have accepted Ester’s suggestion on having the hunter run into a little accident. An out of control bus could have laid the annoyance to rest.
Lizzie sighed. “You mean you need a break, mother. Fine, I’ll think about it, if it makes you happy.”
Martha smiled, then Ester’s phone buzzed. Marth’s sister scanned the message and frowned. “Ah, Ms. Jenkins checked the phone numbers. They’re definitely spam. She suggests that you block and delete all of the messages. And definitely don’t open them.”
Martha picked up her daughter’s phone. “Do you want me to do that for you, Lizzie?”
Elizabeth shrugged.
~~~
Max shrugged as Jenny shook her head. She knew he had come to Chicago to present a new software system to Critical Insurance’s lead actuaries. But once his meetings finished, he visited her on the fifth floor, unannounced.
“So the numbers didn’t help,” Jenny asked again. She had discovered why Max asked for untraceable phone numbers when her boss, Ester, messaged her two weeks before about spam phone calls.
Max shuffled a foot by her chair. “No, no. They did. I remained anonymous. But with the app dialing from a different country each time; I don’t know, it might have confused things.”
“But repeated use of a number increases the chance of being traced. You know that, Max.”
“Yeah, yeah. And I got the information I needed. So that’s okay.”
Jenny gave up focusing on her computer screen. “It’s just not the outcome you expected, is it?”
He stepped back and bumped against the divider wall. “You could say that. But look, I appreciate your help. Thanks.”
“So, when are you heading home?” She glanced up.
He avoided her gaze. “Tomorrow morning.”
“You know, Max, there might be a lead IT position here. You should think about it. It would be a promotion.”
“Do I sense an ulterior motive, Ms. Jenkins?” He smirked. Was he flirting with her?
Jenny swiveled her chair towards him. “Look, I’m sorry about Josie. I feel guilty since I introduced you two. If I’d have known what she was up to, I would have built a wall between you two.”
“It’s okay. She’s forgotten.” He scratched his forehead. “Sorry, almost forgotten. I’m still finalizing the divorce. The formalities of legal forms, you know how it is.”
“Sorry, Max. I don’t think I do. But what about — Ester’s niece? Is she forgotten?” Once Jenny asked the question she bit her lip and stared at her keyboard. She failed to hide her furtive glimpses at Max.
He frowned and rubbed his cheek. “You?” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Jenny, your apps all have strings attached, don’t they?”
“Max. Think about it. It’s been two years.”
“Not quite two.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, glanced at it as if remembering his lines in a play, then he stuffed it back.
Jenny eyed his pocket. “You forgot something?”
“Yes.” Max flashed a smile so fast it needed ten thousand speed cameras to catch it. “No, sorry. It’s just a reminder — for later.”
“Another meeting?”
He shook his head then changed it to a nod. “Sure.”
Jenny brushed her hair behind her ear. “Max, look at reality, she’s moved on. Hasn’t she?”
He sighed like a dude realizing all the town’s bars had just closed. “That’s true. I heard a baby crying. I think Ms. Mann has a kid with Jerome Lanolder. You know him?”
Jenny jerked her chair back. She knew Jerome better than Max could guess. But was she jealous of Elizabeth Mann? No. Absolutely not. Jerome had been an impossible dream. Besides, warlocks married witches, like planets orbited the sun.
Max closed his eyes. “Was he trying not to cry?” Jenny wondered. She wanted to scream at him, “Come on, Max. Get over it. She’s just another superficial, selfish witch.” But instead, she strangled her armrests and said, “Do I know Jerome? Just a little. He’s another worthless warlock.”
She remembered transferring to Chicago eighteen months ago. Then she took a life-drawing course at the art institute because it was better than being alone. And while drawing nudes, she befriended Meghan. And Meghan introduced her to Jerome. And then, Jerome and Jenny clicked like two lego pieces stuck together in the pick-up-sticks box. The warlock and the mutt. He invited her to all his parties, even the one in SF. And as Max’s three-month-old marriage collapsed, she spent three days with a warlock. She hoped it was love. Yet, it couldn’t work. He was married and had a two-year-old daughter. He claimed he loved her, but his family wouldn’t let him marry a mutt. “On the other hand,” Jerome told her, “you can be my mistress.” She punched him in the eye, or at least, she thought about punching him.
Jenny noticed Max trying to blink away tears. Then, to her surprise, he asked, “Are you okay?”
She stopped strangling her chair. “I’m fine.” She peered into his eyes and then stood into his space.
He studied her face. Did he have a clue about Jerome? He couldn’t. He grinned a “life sucked but I’m hopeful” kind of smile.
“I read in the StarWitch…” he started. “I mean, the celebrity news, that Ms. Mann accompanied Lanolder to the Clio Awards for a best commercial nomination over the weekend.”
Jenny covered her mouth, but couldn’t stop laughing. “You’re reading…” She steadied herself with her right hand on his shoulder and tried to gag her giggles. “Max Renovier is reading StarWitch? Max, you’re becoming a regular house-warlock.”
“I am not. A friend told me… Hold on.” He glanced from her hand to her eyes. “How do you know about house-warlocks, Jenny?”
“Didn’t I tell you? My grandmother’s a witch. Like you, I’m a mutt. And my Grandma tells me everything.” Jenny closed her eyes and attempted to wash away the image of that Mann witch walking the red carpet with Jerome. “Forget him,” she repeated to herself. She knew she would never see him again, ever.
Jenny moistened her lips and opened her eyes to new possibilities. She added her left hand to Max’s other shoulder. Here was a man she could love. Right in front of her. Smart; funny; not pretentious; good-looking; loved dogs and kids; and not a bad kisser, either. He even scratched Humphrey Bear, her temperamental tomcat, without being shredded. But, even more amazing, he could tie a smart double-windsor.
She grabbed his smart tie. “You know, you could have asked me, once.” She let the soft silk race along her fingers.
Max gazed at her hand. Was that surprise?
“Ask what?” he said.
Her fingers fiddled, twisting and fumbling with his tie. “Ask me out.”
Max didn’t back off. “You? I didn’t think you were interested. I mean there was Nathan, and now…”
She wrapped his tie into a fist and hoisted herself on tip-toe. Then she kissed him. She let her tongue touch his and he played back. Tasting him, she felt his hands wrap around her waist. He tasted her, allowing enough time to imply a promise, a bond, and a hope. Then he slipped away and stared. Confused? In a subdued whisper, he said, “Jenny, I don’t know about this. Legally, I’m still…”
“Shut up, Max,” she commanded.
~~~
One day after Rackel’s first birthday and eleven months after Jenny and Max’s kiss, Mathew, Elizabeth’s great-great-something-or-other grand-father, coughed. Of course, Mathew didn’t have any idea about that kiss. His thoughts were elsewhere.
“I don’t know about this, my love,” he told Tilda. They relaxed at the kitchen table over a cuppa. Their cottage lay a comfortable distance from the Mann mansion, some forty miles outside of Chicago. And on a winter’s day, you could spy the mansion from Tilda’s second-story laboratory. But on the first day of summer, like today. The mansion remained hidden behind the late spring foliage.
Mathew gazed out the kitchen window that overlooked the fresh green fields stretching to a distant forest. He touched the rim of his teacup and thought, “Still too hot.” What he needed was a few relaxing drags on his Bent Billiard, his classic pipe. That would ease his cough, but Tilda, his love, disapproved.
Bertie, his dog, provided the only excuse to sneak a smoke these days. Yet Bertie seemed disinterested in walkies. He slept at Mathew’s feet as if fully aware of the stormy afternoon forecast.
“Shut up, Old man,” Tilda said. She glanced out the cottage window. In the distance, dark storm clouds gathered to the west. “I’ve already made arrangements. I think with Rachel’s birthday, it’s been too long.”
“But, dear. You always tell the grandchildren that spells and romance don’t mix.”
“Don’t be silly. First, I’m not some twenty-something witch; Second, I’m not doing this for myself; and finally, dis isn’t a spell. It’s a nudge in da right direction.” Tilda pointed. “Look, dere he is.”
From his seat, Mathew spied a gentleman riding Excalibur across a distant field. The man cantered towards the lake, oblivious of the coming tempest. “Is that him?” Mathew asked. “If Ester catches him on the property she’ll call security.”
Tilda cackled, a sign that after four hundred years, she was becoming an older witch. “My Liebchen, Ester is in Florida trying to sweet-talk Cole Bradley into a merger. You would hope dat a fifty-something hag would learn to act her age.”
Mathew watched as the man and horse vanished into the bracken and pines. “Fifty-six, dear,” he mumbled.
“Don’t mumble, Matthius. Dare was no magic involved. I only invited the boy to sample the riding course for his mother. She’s visiting next month, and Eli invited her for a ride. You see. Simple.” Tilda leaned towards the window. “And here’s the little mother, right on time.”
Mathew squinted. Elizabeth galloped after the gentleman. But she headed slightly south, towards the main mansion. He cleared his throat. “With luck she might miss the rain, don’t you think,” he said. A flash of lighting blinded him.
Tilda raised a finger to her lips as a drum of thunder rattled the windows. “I hope not, Liebchen.” Bertie weaseled deeper under the table.
Mathew recalled that Tilda, the de-facto head of all the Mann corporations, had overturned Ester’s refusal to employ the young gentleman some three years before. Mathew couldn’t remember his name, something common, like Mathew, Maximilian, or Maurice. It would come to him after he went to bed.
Tilda managed to piece together Elizabeth’s little secret using the science of retrocognition. A practice involving the disclosure of hidden memories. In essence, Tilda played detective using hindsight. For instance, she pronounced that Elizabeth’s gentleman didn’t remember the party where their daughter had been conceived. Tilda’s handshake with said gentleman a couple of weeks earlier provided the clue. Rachel’s father, it seems, had slipped into a spell induced black hole. A hole from which his martini-soaked memories didn’t return. The revelation of having a daughter might come as a shock to what-ever his name was.
Drops struck the window and Tilda jumped up and ran for her laboratory. She shouted as she ran upstairs, “Mathew, throw the circuit breakers for the lightning rods.” Mathew shook his head, Tilda always loved a good storm.
“Bloody nuisance,” he mumbled as he activated the switches in the hallway. Then, a bit louder, he shouted, “But dearest, I promised Bertie a promenade.”
Four hundred years of blissful marriage, and Tilda still discouraged his pipe fetish. Why couldn’t he indulge in an ancient witchly tradition? Warlocks needed an occasional rest from the constant dread of wanting to savor flies with a tongue that stretched to the floor.
Reluctantly, Mathew and Bertie joined their mad scientist in her lab. She turned the transformer to full and fired up twenty bunsen burners. “You two will have to wait for your walk. Dis will be a cracker,” she said.
Bertie, a cross between a poodle, German shepherd, beagle, wolfhound, and five other confused breeds, nudged Mathew’s calves. Mathew patted his head. “Later boy, the weather will pass, soon enough.”
Mathew picked up a beaker. “Don’t you have enough love spells and truth serums, or is this a spell for Elizabethe?”
“Nonsense. She’s figuring out her own way. Right now, too. My nudge, remember. But with the juice from dis storm, I’ll make a serum to tell a spell.” Tilda poured three powders at once into her arc-caldron. Then she clamped two heavy-duty cables commonly used to jump-start a 200-ton locomotive to two massive Frankenstein-esc electrodes on the caldron’s side.
“A what?”
She added more items to the caldron. “A spell to spell out other spells. I need about 100,000 volts.”
Mathew couldn’t decipher Tilda’s spelling. But centuries ago, he figured that the best course, when in doubt, involved total agreement. “Whatever you say, dearest.”
A blinding flash soaked the laboratory. Bertie squeezed between Mathew’s legs with a whine and Mathew stumbled back. Thunder rocked the floor, and the arc caldron glowed a brilliant orange. “Es ist alive,” Tilda roared. Smoke drifted from her singed hair and eyebrows. She waved her hand to extinguish the embers.
Mathew shook his head. “I believe my pipe safer than these alchemic gyrations, Tilda.”
“Go for your walk, old man. I’m busy. And the rain should ease now.”
“I’ll play with Rachel after my walk if she isn’t napping, so I’ll be a while.”
By the time Mathew donned boots and a raincoat, the rain turned into a light mist. He could leave the umbrella, he thought. He proceeded to his latest stash, the best tobacco, hidden in the gazebo by the lake. On the way, he picked up his trusted rock and released it from its quantum locks. His Bent Billiard pipe materialized.
As Mathew approached his hiding place, Bertie barked at two wet horses standing by the steps. “Shhh, hound. Elizabethe must have sought shelter. You know Excalibur and Electra. Stupid mutt, she has a guest.”
Mathew pulled a handful of sugar cubes from his pocket and treated the horses. Obviously, the gentleman and Elizabeth failed to avoid the storm. Elizabeth had been returning from her regular weekend routine. If someone minded Rachel, she took one of the rescue horses and headed to a school she set up three years earlier. Her school provided both therapy and lessons to troubled kids and teenagers from Chicago’s high schools. She even convinced her mother, Ester, and Tilda to fund it. And that despite the fact that it helped commoners more than anyone. Mathew’s ears still ached from the screeching over numerous dinners. But in the end, Elizabeth convinced her family it would be an excellent PR move. She even found a Baroness from Germany to donate regularly. Mathew had no idea how Elizabeth connected with the foreign witch. The gentleman perhaps?
Mathew suspected Elizabeth set up the charity to reminisce about when she and Hannah learned to ride. Of course, the name, “Hannah’s Riding Trust,” left little doubt.
But since little Rachel’s birth, Elizabeth left the running of the school to a vet nurse, a retired teacher, and a host of volunteers. Elizabeth helped when she could, but otherwise she managed the business side of things.
Mathew enjoyed ignoring business. He preferred the title, a ‘warlock of leisure’ and idly stroking a horse’s wet mane: Excalibur’s in particular, was part of his job description. Elizabeth used the massive horse for show jumping, but in the old days, he would have made an excellent warhorse or knight’s charger. A proper stead for Rachel’s father. Perhaps Elizabeth would finally tell her mother the truth. And then Elizabeth wouldn’t need to date that filmmaker anymore.
But Mathew had a better date. He sauntered into the gazebo with coughless dreams. To his astonishment, the floor had become a child’s messy room. Soaked riding apparel lay scattered everywhere, and a heap of blankets huddled behind a sturdy support column. But no Elizabeth to be found.
Bertie snuck off to chase ducks by the lake and Mathew eased himself into his favorite chair. He faced the blankets, fiddled under the chair, and extracted his treasured tin of Frog Morton. Hiding this tobacco by transformation would be sacrilege, like smoking a year of horse shit. Decent tobacco couldn’t stand magic. He stoked his furnace, puffed a couple of rings, and relaxed to the disappearing drips of rain.
A woman’s foot slid out from the blankets with a groan.
Mathew smiled and stood. “Prithee, Elizabethe, what dost thou hidden in the draperies in this tempest?”
The blankets convulsed, and Elizabeth’s head appeared around the column, along with the young gentleman. One of his eyes reminded Mathew of Rachel. Mathew felt Elizabeth’s embarrassment, and something else? Tilda hadn’t radiated like that in decades. Love? Happiness? He closed his eyes. The man escaped him. Nothing. He wouldn’t even know the man existed if he hadn’t seen him. Curious. Rachel’s father was a hunter. Mathew choked on smoke and staggered back. He reached the safety of his chair and collapsed. “Mud in my pipe,” he muttered between fits of coughing. Tilda didn’t mention this. Rachel and the whole family were in danger.
No wonder Tilda kept excessive surveillance on the little girl. The child would turn into more than any ordinary witch could handle. Why did his wife need to be so bloody secretive? Didn’t she realize he might be helpful?
“Granddad?” Elizabeth said. Technically, he wasn’t a granddad. And he wasn’t an Opa to Tilda’s Oma either. He was as English as any Johnson (his mother) and Thompson (his father). The fact that he managed to hold on to a German wife and witch for centuries constantly surprised him. Despite her secrets, he often awoke in the morning and gave Tilda a snuggle and a kiss. He would proclaim undying love and devotion. She, in turn, would roll over and say, ‘Go brush your teeth, old man.’
Mathew exhaled a cloud of smoke to regain his composure. “You seem to have caught me in my vile habit, Elizabethe,” he said. He stood and shuffled to the steps. “I would appreciate it if you kept this ’twixt you and me.” He tapped his pipe. “You know how upset Oma gets. I’ll leave thee and thine to your earthly pleasures so I may enjoy mine in quiet and solitude — shall I? I bid thee farewell granddaughter, and the same to thee sir.” He stepped out of the gazebo and whistled for Bertie.
Second Chance
By Mellow Curmudgeon
Maybe a total of 5 or 6 chapters will suffice for a short novella?
This chapter is entirely new, not revised and extended from previous postings. Hope it’s not too rough.
Chapter 3: Episodes 16 thru 24
~ ~ §16 ~ ~
Snorg has some awkward news for Flahr.
“My engineer friends like the idea of Earth 2.0 as an appendix in the proposal for geoengineering, but they don’t want us to ghostwrite it for them. Our names should be on Earth 2.0; we should get the credit or the blame. My friends remember how accounting prigs punished them for diverting School of Engineering resources to extending Archaeology’s Earth dig.”
“Hmmm. Your friends are right, but I still want our department to have a low profile. Ours is the only department with someone who has a felony conviction for touting democracy.”
“Maybe we can get more departments involved and blend into the crowd.”
“How about the School of Medicine? Habitability isn’t really a binary concept. Our own planet has mountain ranges uninhabitable for lowlanders like us. Some people can live there anyway because their genomes adapted to thin air as their ancestors migrated upslope over generations. We could adapt somewhat by spending time at intermediate elevations. Epigenetics or whatever. Med school participation might give the geoengineers more flexibility about how far and how fast they need to tweak the nearly habitable planet.”
“Sounds good. Who do we know in the med school?”
“Nobody. Glafin met a lot of guys when she thought Stronk was gone forever and tried to move on. Maybe she knows somebody. Maybe people at the med school keep their posted research interests up to date.”
“I hope they are a lot better than we are about that.”
“You can browse their webpages while I talk to Glafin. Who she knows may still be sensitive subject.”
~ ~ §17 ~ ~
Snorg finds nothing helpful in IRI School of Medicine webpages, but Glafin tells Flahr that she does know somebody at the med school.
“He’s creepy. Went on and on about the epigenetics of multiple orgasms. I don’t want to deal with him.”
“You won’t need to deal with him. Give me the contact info. Snorg and I will investigate the creepy guy. If his work looks promising, Snorg will suggest consulting him to the geoengineers. If asked, Snorg can just not recall where he heard about the guy.”
~ ~ §18 ~ ~
The creepy guy has ideas about the ways stress can ramp up the activity of genes that help deal with it. Can ramping up be done proactively rather than just reactively? While his position and funding at the med school are insecure, he seems legitimate. The geoengineers do want wiggle room, so they approach him about things like heat stress and like what they hear.
Better still, the engineers interested in enhanced autonomous rovers for mining decide not to draft a competing response to the Ministry of Resources’ request for proposals. The School of Engineering will present a united front, with enhanced rovers as part of a multidisciplinary approach to the problem.
~ ~ §19 ~ ~
While the democracy conspirators work on their part the grant proposal, Emperor Tendrik VIII works on siring an heir to the throne. Harem manager Drablin analyzes each concubine’s hormonal status when scheduling visits to the imperial bed. Most of the concubines are beautiful (if not drop-dead gorgeous), at least when the resident cosmetologist has finished working on them. Many of the concubines exude a brassy sexuality. Fuck me if you dare.
The new concubine Haylif is different. She is no-fuss pretty and bubbles with enthusiasm at the prospect of serving the empire by birthing an heir, then using the generous bonus that would earn to finance study at the IRI School of Medicine. Tendrik listens as she shares her ambitions in a lilting voice during her first visit to the imperial bed. Tho about her age, he is not so young and hopeful. Trained from birth to rule, he has never been like that. And never will be.
After Haylif’s first visit, Tendrik often insists that Haylif’s next visit be bumped up in the schedule. Drablin would have a fit if she knew that sometimes they just talk and cuddle. To Drablin’s immense relief, Haylif’s eventual pregnancy takes her out of the rotation.
~ ~ §20 ~ ~
Haylif’s miscarriage is not the first in Tendrik’s efforts to sire an heir. Sitting by Haylif’s hospital bed as she sleeps under sedation, Tendrik waits for the doctor to come by. Tho he could summon the doctor, he prefers to ponder his predicament while the doctor makes her rounds.
Shocked by finding the emperor in the room, the doctor starts to apologize and retreat. Tendrik motions for her to enter and questions her about clinical details all too familiar after other concubines’ previous miscarriages. As he feared, this one is like the others.
“What is her prognosis?”
“Physical recovery is likely, but she may lose her fertility. Emotional recovery is difficult to predict. She may suffer from depression or PTSD.”
Tendrik nods gravely, thanks the doctor, and closes the door after she leaves. He sets the door’s timed lock to display “Do Not Disturb” and prevent casual opening for ten minutes. An emperor must not be seen crying.
~ ~ §21 ~ ~
Tendrik is a conscientious emperor. State business occupies him while Haylif recovers. Soon after her discharge from the hospital, Tendrik makes time to visit her in the harem. She is not there. Tendrik confronts Drablin.
“Where is Haylif?”
“She is no longer fertile, so she has been sent to the harem’s retirement home. It’s quite a nice place.”
“Have her sent back here. Now.”
“But …”
“What part of «now» do you not understand?”
Drablin backs away with profuse apologies. She returns a few minutes later, flashing fearful colors.
“Haylif is in the hospital again, b-b-but she is in no d-d-danger. Some k-k-kind of, uh, injury.”
Taking no chances, Tendrik gives Drablin explicit instructions in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone in the room.
“Notify me immediately if her condition worsens. Notify me immediately when she is discharged, then keep her here with a full-time nurse. I will come as soon as state business permits.”
~ ~ §22 ~ ~
The palace complex includes an office not far from the harem, where the emperor can work without ceremonial pomp. An attendant pushes Haylif’s wheelchair thru the office door. Tendrik motions that the attendant should leave and shut the door. Then he kneels beside the wheelchair and places a tentacle on Haylif’s shoulder.
“Tell me what happened to put you in a wheelchair.”
“When I found out that I had miscarried and become sterile, I had nothing to live for. I jumped from a balcony and tried to land on my head, but I rotated too far and landed on my back. I failed to give you an heir and then I failed to kill myself.”
“The miscarriage was my failure, not yours.”
“What?”
“I have a rare genetic defect. Any female that I impregnate is likely to miscarry. I had hoped that the first miscarriage in my harem was bad luck, but the second one was so similar that it prompted me to study the subject secretly. I compared the symptoms in all the earlier miscarriages with yours and with the few publicly recorded cases. There is no longer any doubt.”
“Is genomic medicine helpless?”
“Yes. The defect seems to be a complex mix of genetic and epigenetic factors. Too rare for statistics on the effectiveness of any gene therapy. Only a quack would tinker with the imperial bloodline in a statistical vacuum.”
“Why did you send me back here?”
“I need you here. I will endanger any fertile concubine I mate with, but I must still try to sire an heir. You can keep me from being unhinged by regret. If you can still tolerate me.”
“I will try.”
~ ~ §23 ~ ~
Haylif’s first visit to the imperial bedroom after returning to the harem starts with a question.
“There are so many brilliant researchers in the IRI’s med school. Can you order some of them to work on your genetic defect, no matter how bad the odds are?”
“I can order someone to do something that requires creativity and enthusiasm, but sullen obedience will not produce anything useful.”
“What if somebody already does something that might help? Can you nudge them?”
“That might work. Better still, if there’s something they want to do and are asking for support, they might be easy to nudge. But I would need expert advice about their grant proposal, and suspicion that I have the defect is already too widely spread. Any official confirmation could light a fuse.”
“Tho I’m not an expert, I studied hard to apply for a med school scholarship and was told I almost made it.”
“That may be enough. An order to forward copies of all grant applications from the IRI to the palace is something that would be obeyed cleanly. It would look like one of the occasional spasms of general concern about how much the empire spends on research. We could ignore anything irrelevant. Your visits here could be study dates.”
Haylif smiles for the first time in weeks. “Yes, and we need not study 100% of the time we are both awake.”
~ ~ §24 ~ ~
Halif’s new motorized wheelchair is the best a grateful emperor can provide. It doubles as a recliner, so she can sleep without an awkward transfer to a bed. When awake and sitting upright, she can pull her laptop from a side pocket and read IRI grant proposals.
Thanks to the med school’s participation and “epigenetics” among the keywords, a grant proposal from the engineering school attracts Haylif’s attention. While Tendrik sleeps, she studies the proposal. Scrolling toward the appendix on epigenetic adaptation, she glances at the appendix on governance. Something clicks. She reads and then rereads Earth 2.0.
Tendrik stirs and groans in his sleep. Another nightmare? Haylif wakes him with caresses and whispers a new hope. “There may be a way out.”
Beath
By Curtis Bausse
Chapter 4
Yedia didn’t emerge from her hiding place, a wooden handcart propped against the wall next to a barbershop, until the shots and screams and running footsteps were over, the tumult replaced by an eerie, sinister quietness. By that time twilight was starting to play its tricks.
She stood gnawing her knuckles, wondering if she had the courage to go to Lyrina’s house. Had she been arrested? Killed? The Royal Guard hadn’t pursued the protesters into Larafah, but that didn’t mean the danger had passed. The even more dreaded secret police, the Vahlaka, infiltrated every gathering, prowled in every doorway, and simply to be outside on her own in the almost deserted bazaar would arouse suspicion.
No. Taking a risk like that was beyond her. In any case, there was nothing she could do to help her friend, not now. She had no doubt that a schoolgirl would be spared no more than anyone else, and her only hope was that if she’d been caught, Lyrina’s name and father would be enough to save her. Deciding that this was the most likely, Yedia hurried silently back to her own home, worrying instead about her brothers.
They weren’t there. Only her mother, who seized Yedia’s arm in a fierce, angry grip. ‘Where have you been, child? What was all that noise I heard?’
Yedia hesitated. No point upsetting her with the truth, not until they knew what had happened to Kyral and Bassor. ‘Nothing, Mara. A few people getting excited. They let off firecrackers.’
The lie was so obvious that it had the opposite effect of that intended. Sinking onto the couch in the dingy parlour she rarely stepped out of, her mother hunched forward and mumbled, ‘Where are your brothers? Were they there?’
‘I don’t know. They might have been.’
Her mother made a clucking sound. ‘Do they want to finish me off? Is their own mother too much of a burden to them? And now you go joining in too. Is that what you want? To kill me?’
‘Of course not.’ Yedia sat down next to her mother, hugging the weary, weeping weight towards her. ‘Don’t say silly things like that.’
They stayed this way for a while staring into the dimness and the misery. ‘Nothing good can come of this,’ said her mother. ‘Nothing.’
Yedia went to the poky kitchen, where she scrubbed ineffectually at the grime round the sink as she waited for a saucepan of water to boil. Such a change in their lives since Para had gone! They used to live in a desirable district, not luxurious but well off, with leafy squares and small gardens, shops selling textiles, cakes, books, and several theatres for entertainment – strictly controlled, as her father had found out to his cost. He had taught at the University, an expert on Kranish literature, the classical poets of the past, and he wrote the textbooks widely used in schools all over the country. The news of his arrest had sent shock waves through the community – the author of that seditious play was none other than Mehlin Saragol! Every time they studied poetry at school, Yedia was reminded of her father.
Money was tight now. The revenue from teaching was gone, and her mother, guilty by association, had been fired from her job as a secretary at the Ministry of Education. The income from the books still arrived, but that would last only until they were changed or updated, when a new set of writers would be found. To make up for the shortfall, Kyral had given up his studies and found work as an accountant in the Wholt Exchange. For the moment Bassor continued, but only at Kyral’s insistence, and Yedia suspected it had as much to do with the numerous Foamers in the University as with his professed interest in law. Much as she hated the King herself, she resented her brothers for jeopardising what little comfort was left in their mother’s life. Not to mention her own, for with her mother’s depression, to Yedia befell the tasks of cooking, cleaning, and keeping the household together.
Yedia placed a chunk of wholt and a cup of chaba next to her mother, whose face was turned to the wall. Not being hungry herself, she went into her room, where she lay reading till she heard her mother’s gentle snores. She tried to sleep but couldn’t stop worrying about Lyrina – dozens must have died, it had been a massacre. She got up again, determined now to brave the dark and check on Lyrina. She was putting on her shoes when she heard the tap of a pebble on the window, followed by another, and leaning out she uttered a cry of joy on seeing Lyrina herself, safe and sound. ‘Wait there,’ she whispered. ‘I’m coming down.’
They clasped each other warmly. ‘You’re crazy!’ said Yedia. ‘What if you’d run into the Vahlaka?’ Whether bravery or foolishness, she had no idea. ‘I was so worried!’ Yedia grabbed her friend’s arm. ‘Are you all right? What happened?’
‘I’m fine. Just my ankle a bit – someone stepped on it. I’m sure I still pong though. I hid in a pile of rubbish. I tried to come earlier but the Vahlaka were all over. So I went home and waited till it was safe.’
In the square outside their flat stood Yedia’s abiding comfort, a huge, solitary olbagran tree. Sometimes she thought that this was her only link with the life they used to have, for there had been olbagrans in their garden, and now she soaked up the calm and strength of the tree as they sat with their backs against the trunk, talking in low voices. The town was still now, as if the night was a giant cloth smothering the whole of Tethra. ‘Oh, Yedia, I have to get out of here! I’m more determined than ever now. I’m not going to finish school, not in Tethra. I’ll enrol in Neyk. Or get a job straightaway. Barmaid, waitress – who cares?’ She put a hand on Yedia’s arm. ‘Will you come with me?’
‘Oh, how I would like to!’ Yedia gazed into her friend’s eyes. ‘But I can’t, Lyrina. You know I can’t. I can’t leave Mara.’
‘She has your brothers. They’ll look after her.’
‘Not in the same way. They give her advice, tell her what to do, but they don’t listen to her like I do. And they do nothing around the flat. If I wasn’t there, Mara would waste away. She’s lost all appetite for life.’
‘So tell her to come with us.’
‘No, Lyrina. She’ll never leave. Not with Para still in prison. And now we don’t know what’s happened to Kyral and Bassor. If she was to lose -’
‘Hey, little sister!’ As if on cue, her brothers appeared jauntily round the corner. ‘What’s going on? Still up at this time? Get inside.’
‘You’re all right!’ Yedia jumped up to embrace them. ‘We’ve been so worried. I couldn’t sleep.’
‘Of course we’re all right.’
‘Your face… What happened?’
‘It’s nothing.’ Bassor put a finger to his cheek, where an ugly swelling was visible. ‘A Vahlaka truncheon. It’ll pass.’
Kyral grabbed his sister’s arm and turned her towards the door. ‘Do what I say. Inside. They’ve imposed a curfew.’
‘This is our own doorstep. They can’t stop us -’
‘Yes, they can.’ He thrust Yedia forward. ‘Inside, I say!’
‘Leave her alone.’ Lyrina came to stand in front of him. ‘She’ll go in when we’ve finished.’
‘And you,’ said Kyral, jabbing her shoulder. ‘Get lost. You’re not to come round here again, understood?’
‘You think you can give me orders?’ Lyrina jutted out her chin. ‘I go where I please. If I want to see -’
‘Where you please,’ sneered Bassor. ‘Just because your father’s one of Vahl’s lackeys, you think you can do what you like. Well, that’s all over now. What happened today is just the beginning. You’ll see. You may think you’re safe but when we get rid of Vahl, you won’t be protected any more. No more Vahlaka to keep parasites like you in your lavish lifestyle.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. I hate him as much as you do.’
‘Words, words, words. But when it comes down to it, everyone knows what side you’ll be on. Now get going before I make you. My sister doesn’t need friends like you.’
‘Who are you to decide what -’ With a cry of pain, Lyrina stumbled back as Bassor’s hand came down on the side of her head.
‘Stop it!’ Yedia stepped between them, fists pummelling Bassor’s chest. ‘Leave her alone!’
‘Let her be, brother.’ Kyral put a restraining hand on Bassor’s shoulder. ‘If she’s got any sense, she’ll know what’s good for her.’
‘Go, Lyrina. Don’t argue with them.’ Yedia briefly squeezed her friend’s hand, and in a soft, weary voice, added, ‘I’ll see you at school. Take care.’
For a moment Lyrina stood, lips quivering, whether from pain or humiliation and anger it was hard to say. Then without a word, addressing a deliberate, defiant glare first at one brother, then the other, she turned on her heels and walked away.
Chapter 5
That same fateful day, later to be known as 21/12, Derryn Baskyffe was saying goodbye in the village of Bysterfor, north Glennan. The friends and neighbours kind enough get up so early – barely five o’ clock – to see him off were rewarded with the gentle russok dance of dawn filtering through the trees, and a chance to give Derryn the particular word of advice or encouragement they favoured.
‘Ah, is this the last we’ll see of you? When you discover Saripe, I fear you’ll never want to come back.’
‘Don’t forget us! A thought, a prayer, for the folks back home, just as we’ll pray for you.’
‘Beware those Gollish girls, young man. Stunners to look at but they’ll break your heart. And believe me, I know what I’m talking about.’
This last warning struck a chord. Girls were a much anticipated part of Derryn’s plans, for he had no more knowledge of them than of the unexplored vastness of the Tudovic Desert, and though he intended to set that right at the earliest opportunity, he wasn’t about to lose his heart to the first to give him a smile, however stunning she might be.
Further recommendations followed: be sure to go up the Fenodi Tower, don’t drop your guard too soon with a friendly stranger, go easy on that scrumptious Gollish food. That was his sister Mazzalyn, poking him in the tummy as she said it. Not that Derryn could be called fat, not yet, but being very partial to his mother’s roast rikluds, he’d got distinctly chubbier over the holidays.
‘And you,’ Derryn replied, tapping Mazzalyn’s head, ‘don’t let up at school. A year from now I look forward to us going to Forgleath together.’
‘Unless I take a gap year too.’
‘You said you didn’t want to.’
‘I don’t know. I’ll see. It depends what yours is like.’
An apprenticeship in marquetry with a Saripe cabinetmaker – Derryn had no doubt it would be good. But that on its own wouldn’t be enough to incite Mazzalyn to follow in his footsteps. Like him, she’d reached an age where Bysterfor, stuck in its ways and rigid, was too dull to contain her; like him, what she sought was adventure. To Mazzalyn he’d confided that he wouldn’t be staying in Saripe any longer than necessary – as soon as he saved enough money to travel, he’d make his way to Parinda, maybe even Poldassyn, and the letters he promised to send would, he knew, be eagerly awaited.
‘Be good to Mab and Dab. You’re the eldest now. The only.’
‘You make it sound like you’re going forever.’ She hugged him tight. ‘Take care. I’ll miss you so much.’
‘I’ll miss you too.’ Derryn took a step back and looked at his sister to fix her face in his memory. Soon, he’d read, there’d be cameras cheap enough for anyone to afford, but until then memory would have to suffice. Mazzalyn being a year below him in school, with her own set of friends, too often he hardly noticed her; now of a sudden she looked grown up, the brightness of her features clouded with the sadness of his leaving. ‘Right now I think I’ll miss you so much I’ll turn back before I even get to Drammon.’
‘Not on my rikluds, you won’t,’ his father intervened. ‘They’re being sold in Drammon so Drammon is where they go, with or without you.’
‘With me as far as Throxall, Dab. I’m spending a night in Forgleath, don’t forget.’
‘Ah, right. Blatchom. Give him our regards. And let us know how he’s getting on.’
Blatchom Tregg, Derryn’s best friend, would of course have got up early to wish him well too, but he was in Forgleath now, where Derryn would break the journey, and no doubt make the most of his visit to stay up half the night talking. They’d taken the Forgleath entrance exam together, but Blatchom was in too much of a hurry for a gap year. For him the adventure lay in books and ideas.
Derryn’s mother now – and try as she might, she couldn’t prevent the tears from spilling out. ‘Be good. Be kind. Kind to yourself and kind to those -’
‘Less fortunate. Yes, Mab, you’ve told me a thousand times.’ His mother lived by maxims, gleaned from many sources, which she noted in her Little Book of Wisdom. They didn’t come so much from Father Tregg’s sermons, for these days she only went to church because it was the done thing, but she collected any saying or aphorism which she thought encouraged a life that was full and righteous.
‘I know, I’m sorry. Just…’ She put her hands on his shoulders, gazing at him as only a mother can. ‘Be as you are. And don’t forget to write.’
Derryn, ever so slightly, rolled his eyes: another exhortation on endless loop. ‘I will, Mab. I promise.’
‘I hope you’ll have a nice room. I hope you won’t be stuck in some hovel.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’ll let you know as soon as I get there.’
The apprenticeship had been arranged by his Uncle Halod, with whom Derryn would stay a few days in Drammon before moving on to Saripe. All they knew was that he’d be working for a certain Maramor Simel in exchange for board and lodging and a small amount of pocket money. It was on this condition that he’d got his mother’s agreement for the gap year. She’d never have let him go without being sure he had a roof over his head and three square meals a day. How long would he stay there? As far as he knew, nothing had been stipulated. To become a professional marquetry inlayer would take at least six months, but that was neither here nor there. He had no intention of making it a career.
‘Be sure to tell Simel Maramor you need to take care of your eyes. He’s not to put you close to all that sawdust.’
‘For the love of Yonthe, let him be.’ Warretol Baskyffe placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘Stop fretting. Worrying never helped anyone. He’ll have to get out from his mother’s skirts sometime.’ His father wasn’t concerned with Derryn’s eyes, which were perfectly good. He simply liked the idea that his son would be learning a new skill. Despite his place at Forgleath, Derryn wasn’t the dedicated student that his friend Blatchom was, and another string to his bow would not be a bad thing.
‘Yes, of course.’ His mother sheepishly took out a hankie and dabbed her eyes. ‘But it doesn’t make it any easier knowing it.’
She clasped him to her bosom, the embrace so overwhelming it almost smothered him; then she broke away suddenly, brushed his cheek, and stepped aside sobbing. It was all Derryn could do not to cry as well, and he was thankful when his father, in that no nonsense way of his, quashed the emotion flat. ‘Heavens, woman, you’d think we were sending him off to war! Goll’s just a boat ride away. We could visit every month if we wanted. But you know as well as I do we’d just get on his nerves.’ A quick, firm hug, a playful pull of Derryn’s cheek, and a final, gruff command: ‘Do us proud, son. I know you will. There’s only one rule, remember – don’t get into trouble. Climb up quick now. It’s a long journey ahead and there’s no time to waste.’
Derryn tossed his rucksack onto the cart and clambered up after it. Compared to the public coaches, a cartload of rikluds wasn’t the most comfortable way to travel, but as it belonged to his father it had the great advantage of being free. Hard work, an eye for opportunities and a canny business sense had made of Warretol Baskyffe the biggest riklud farmer in the region, and Derryn had inherited the same respect for money. In his rucksack he had 3000 terls to set him out on his journey; after that he was expected to pay his own way. There’d be no problem in Saripe but if he was going to venture any further, he’d have to keep a close watch on what he spent.
‘Comfortable up there?’
‘Your rikluds make the best armchair in the world, Dab!’
‘Take care, son.’
‘Have a good time!’ Mazzalyn blew him a kiss with both arms. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
With a flick of the reins, the driver jogged the rogs into motion. As the cart rumbled away, and the group of well-wishers dwindled to distant specks, Derryn felt a lump in his throat. He kept on waving till the riklud cart reached a bend and they disappeared from sight. Then he turned his face to the road ahead, to the world that lay beyond Glennan.
Deliverance
Book three of Sly! A Rogue Reconsidered By Mimi Speike
1.
Pedro and Sly have survived being captured by pirates.
What’s next?
Weary, traumatized, and drenched from their frantic swim to shore, Sly and Pedro huddle together under a bridge outside a coastal town. Having put what they hope is sufficient distance between themselves and two enraged pursuers, they feel it’s safe to pause for a rest. Pedro nods off immediately. Sly has volunteered to stand watch.
They will make for Paris. Pedro’s grandfather owns an estate in Normandy but, except during the fall hunting season, he spends little time there, preferring the gaiety of the capital. His uncle’s henchmen, aware of this, will be on the look-out for a Spanish-speaking youngster of Pedro’s age. The closer he gets to the capital, the more danger he will be in. Two seamen, who’d been ferrying him to shore until they capsized their boat during an altercation, are the more immediate threat.
* * *
Carts piled high with produce rolled over the stone bridge under which they sheltered. Farmers and their wives, merry, joking, looked forward to brisk commerce and to sitting with friends over a glass of wine and being brought up to date on the latest gossip. On the town square, booths were in the process of being erected. It was a market day in Aytré.
Sly set off to investigate the lay of the land. He returned with good news: “Luck is with us, my sweetheart!” he cried. “I’ve found as wonderful a collection of oddballs as we could wish for. A Spaniard will not stand out amongst Danes, Turks, etcetera and a Duke will not be suspected to consort with the rogues and ruffians who make up a pathetic band of roving players.”
The oddballs called themselves Cirque Luzak, a grand-sounding name for a fly-by-night carnival. This was street theater, presented on town squares, hastily put up and pulled down, crudely painted tarps the backdrop for unsophisticated doings–some simple athleticism, and so on. It was a dismal affair, but the apprentices, farmers, servants, and lay-abouts for whom it was intended did not object to faded hose and patched vests. They came to forget their cares for an afternoon, on the cheap. They made a donation into an iron pot, if they cared to. Sly also saw it in a positive light. No one of any social standing would be in attendance to wonder about Pedro’s refined manner, nor his soft, smooth hands. “Let’s get gloves on those pretty paws,” he told the boy, “until some honest work toughens them up.”
Jugglers would have done well enough in the midst of chaotic coming and going. What about a dancing bear? What about an act with equipment to set up?
There was always an open space, a park, a field, where one might enclose an area, so that people would be forced to pay to see more involved antics. Berthe Luzak would park her garishly-painted wagon on the square and a few performers would be sent into the crowd to perform simple routines, a taste of the entertainments to be enjoyed a short walk away.
A waif and his cat made no outstanding impression on Berthe and Stanislaus Luzak, but the youngster begged for a chance to demonstrate what they were capable of. Berthe, with no great expectations of it, agreed to an audition. Sly gave it his all, garbed in a satin vest, a huge ruff, and a pointy hat. His clowning won them a probationary slot on the bill, during which Pedro pushed his cat to the breaking point, cracking a whip lent by, Mama B, she was called, or simply Mama.
At the end of a strenuous workout, peevish from nonstop commands, the animal turned tables on his handler, beaning the boy with items from a box of props belonging to the next act up, forcing him to dodge and duck. When Pedro, on one knee, one arm raised, already a trifle off-balance, removed his hat and swung it in circles, acknowledging roars of approval, the cat leapt onto his back. The boy pitched forward, landing face down. Sly balanced upright on his head and took his bow. Comic payback was to be a staple of the act.
The entertainment presented a wide range of talents. One or two were destined for, not greatness, but greater acclaim than they had yet obtained. Another two or three were aged individuals in the nadir of their careers, their only goal, to eat regularly. Most of the acts were going nowhere, never would, and they knew it in their heart of hearts. No one would admit it. The supper table talk was of a bit more polish, of some new business in development, nearing perfection. Another few months, six at the outside, and they would be ready for bigger and better.
The jugglers juggled, catching nearly all their balls and pins. The tumblers tumbled well enough. The clowns cavorted through unexceptional scripts. The show was deficient in many respects but that inescapable fact did not diminish the dreams. We all need our dreams and these folks clung to theirs with a tenacity worthy of Sly himself.
The cat, employing his friend as go-between, offered constructive criticism which was not well received. The troupe did not appreciate advice from an outsider. Still, many of the suggestions had merit. The performances improved. But Sly was not a miracle worker.
“They’re hopeless!” moaned the boy after a particularly dreadful matinee, at which several acts had been hooted.
“A pity,” agreed the cat.
“What’s this? What are you telling me? You’ve been pushing and pushing me to encourage them to hope they might make a name for themselves in Paris.”
“Would you crush them with the truth? If we’re flat frank with them, we’ll never reach your grandfather.”
“Here in the Provinces they skirt by. In Paris, they’ll be a laughingstock. And they’ll blame me, not you, for misleading them.”
“What do you care? You’ll be gone by then.”
“I may be, and I may not.”
“You may not?” The cat sat bolt upright.
“Mother is dead, poisoned, as I would have been if I hadn’t eaten too many pears that day and gone to bed with a tummy ache. I missed the pudding that has always been my favorite. I’ve never met my grandfather.” Pedro looked the cat in the eye defiantly. “Mother never fussed over me as Mama does. Every day at four we had our chat, and I had my dinner, that was it. Mama B. is my gracious but so-busy Mama and sweet old Maria, who sang to me and read me stories, rolled into one. Mother once told me, my life consists of much pleasure and little enjoyment. I didn’t understand her. Now I do. There’s more enjoyment in a thin chicken stew than in all her platters piled high with anything you could want. The title, I can do without it.”
“What’s this?” howled the cat. “I’m not hearing this, am I? You’d refuse a dukedom for a raggedy carnival? My boy! You know nothing of the world. One does not relinquish an inheritance such as yours on a whim.”
“It’s brought me nothing but misery.”
“My dear boy! Don’t do something you will live to regret. Your uncle will not rest until all evidence of his villainy is obliterated. Must you not, at some point, be recognized? Then too, sir, am I not the major part of your success? I will not bide with you forever. I have other plans. What will you do without me?” Pedro turned away. “Hold it, numbskull,” spat the cat. “I’m far from done!”
Pedro, a small sneer at the corner of his mouth, mumbled, “When were you ever done?”
“This life, hand to mouth,” lectured the cat, “you find it amusing now. A year from now you’ll be whistling another tune. You will eventually marry. There will be a family to support. The refused legacy will torment you. You may hope, ten years on, to yet lay claim to it. Unlikely. Your uncle will have fabricated proof of your demise. He will attack you as an imposter. If you survive his henchmen, charged with finishing the job he flubbed.”
Pedro sulked, but he capitulated. “I swear you could talk a mouse out of its hole. You win, on one condition. I want to size-up Grandpère before I make myself known to him. If I don’t like what I see–Mother called him malignant–I stay with Mama B.”
“You can have it both ways, you know,” purred the cat. “Come into your legacy, you’ll do as you please. Take your friends with you. They will share your good fortune.”
“Yes!” squealed the boy. “Mama’s rheumatism won’t torment her in a snug cottage as it does in a chilly wagon. I may even have her as my advisor.”
“Don’t let’s be ridiculous,” sniffed Sly.
“Well! That’s typical of you, isn’t it? Mama’s a wise old thing. I’d trust her judgement any day of the year. You call me arrogant! I’m nothing compared to you! Mama, not the louse, not Stanislaus, is in charge around here. You haven’t figured that out, have you? That’s how brilliant you are. When have you spent half an hour chewing the fat with these people? At least listening to what they have to say? It would do you good to sit and hear them out, politely, no rolled eyes. I’ll tell you one thing: their blunt assessments deflate pomposity fast.”
“I’m pompous, am I?” growled the animal.
“Pompous! Selfish! Smug! You’ve things to do, people to see. It wears me out!”
“I’ve carried the weight of the world on my shoulders for ten years. It’s a hard habit to break.”
“You don’t give Mama half the credit she deserves. If you want to get to Paris, work on her.”
“I shall, sir!” Sly had listened to the woman and had come to the conclusion that she was clear-sighted and hard-headed. No one could pull the wool over her eyes. She was a lot like his own mama, onto your tricks, taking no guff, except in one area: She cast horoscopes, and read cards, and palms.
Sly was working his way through one of her books on astrology, snorting punctuating his progress, whether of approval or derision, it was hard to say. Astrology was an esteemed field. Hardly anyone disputed that the stars had an effect on one’s well-being. It was a branch of medicine, part of any doctor’s training. The volume Sly had latched onto was not the text of a university course, but a work written for a general audience. He’d snuck it off Mama’s bookshelf.
She was a devotee of divination. She certainly looked the part. She wore a flowing purple robe, painted her eyes Cleopatra-style, and dabbed her face with an olive powder. When she was set up to receive clients, a signboard in front of her wagon proclaimed:
Madame Haptchepsut
A Sensitive of Extraordinary Perception.
Ask Anything. Discretion Assured.
The wording undulated around a representation of mysterious eyes set in an exotic face crowned by a striped turban. The violently pigmented art matched the yellow and purple and black and green paint job of her van. Above that vehicle was positioned, during her office hours, a huge papier-mâché, all-perceiving (that was the desired effect) big black eye. If one were informed that a marvelous seer was in the vicinity, and wondered where she might be found, he did not wonder long. There was no doubt about where Madame Haptchepsut sat ready to share her wisdom. None whatsoever.
2. No stone went unturned
in pursuit of an eye-popping presentation.
Inside and out, Mama’s wagon was designed to impress. A black silk canopy concealing an untidy bed area was covered with stars and symbols embroidered in gold thread, to catch the candlelight. Incense burned. A raven sat on a perch, and occasionally on her shoulder (but most of the time, anywhere he cared to).
She pretended to consult the bird, and he responded with croaks she insisted were Egyptian in nature. When she was on duty, seated at her table, she tied a cord around her ankle that communicated with a confederate stationed beneath the van. A jerk on the cord cued the man to strum a small harp, quietly, so a customer might question whether he had or had not heard something significant. It went over big with the bumpkins who were her clientele.
A dwarf in exotic garb, posted outside the door, ushered seekers in and out, introduced them with ceremony, and proclaimed, upon their exit, “Another satisfied customer! Is the Madame not a wonder, my friends? Worth every penny?” No matter what the response might be, he’d boom, “We thank you, Madame,” the clients were generally women, “for your kind endorsement!”
A second dwarf worked the crowd, announcing: “Madame Haptchepsut is now receiving! Let the confused, the curious, and the lovesick repair to her side to receive her recommendations. She is the equal of any clairvoyant in Paris.” The gnome was accompanied by a jackdaw. If he were attacked by a bully, as happened regularly, a word from the besieged shortie sent the bird shrieking at the rascal’s eyes.
Sly was amused by Mama’s heavy-handed presentation, but he pretended to see potential in her. Pedro was overjoyed to be given a promising assessment of a woman he was sincerely attached to by one whose judgment he had full faith in. It had gotten him safe off that pirate ship, after all.
The troupe was set down at Beynac-et-Cazenac, a good-sized town with substantial dwellings. A handsome carriage was stopped in the town square. A party of high-spirited young people disembarked and headed for a sweet shop. One of them spied the colorful wagon at the far end of the Place du Nord.
“I want my fortune told!” cried Arlette Delorme. “I get my way, all day! Those are the birthday rules!” Sly was stretched across the warm stone wall of the fountain fifteen feet away.
“Don’t torture yourself, Lettie,” said one young lady. “We must take your aunt’s advice.” The others looked away. The brave front they had struggled all morning to maintain gave way to somber-eyed silence.
The birthday girl pointed to the face on the tarp across the square. “Oh! Those are wise eyes! That’s a wise face! This one shall tell me how I will change Papa’s mind! She must!” Her friends sighed in unison. “Do as Aunt Cora says! Fine for you to say! You’re not the one sold to an old fart!” Arlette was due to be married to her father’s business partner in six weeks’ time. “Marry a man I detest, then take a lover! As she did! As women do! As we must, for we have no say in our destiny. I won’t! I’ll drown myself first, in this fountain!”
A woman got down from the coach. “Let me speak to her,” she said. “You three go after our sweets. Leave us, please. Child,” she whispered, “we go through this again and again. I believe you reconciled to what must be, and you collapse on me anew. There’s no alternative, my darling. This is the way of the world. At least it’s the way of our world. You mustn’t agonize so. Your Jean-Jacques, he’s a nice boy. I like him, I do. But to marry for love is a bad business. Who’s to say he won’t mistreat you? Wouldn’t that truly break your heart? Love burns itself out. Take a husband who lets you be once you’ve given him an heir. Then, select a lover to your taste. Monsieur DuSell is perfect for you. He’s too wrapped up in business to note discreet misbehaviors. He’ll leave you a merry widow before you’re past enjoying yourself. Let’s you and I visit Madame… I can’t make out the name… my eyes are not what they were. She’ll tell you the same thing, if she’s as wise as she proclaims to be.”
The girl stamped her foot. “I go alone! You’ll twist her words until they seem to mean what you want them to mean. I know you, Aunt Cora.”
“You know me, do you? I doubt it. I’ll tell you what you know, young lady. You know what your mother would say if she were here. She’d say, enough of your nonsense. Into the carriage, now! Luckily for you, I am more flexible. I grant your birthday wish, if I am with you,” said Aunt Cora. “to keep my eye on one whose business is to squeeze every franc out of you that she can.”
The companions returned with a basket of marzipan in fanciful shapes, and a crock of lemonade. “There’s a table in front of the shop,” the aunt pointed out. “Let’s sit and compose ourselves.” She took her niece’s hand. “We have gifts for you, my dear. What have your friends chosen for you? I’m dying to see! We’ll enjoy our treats, and admire your toys. Then, if you must, call on Madame Fleece-The-Fools. If you would consult a genuine visionary, come with me to my Collette, in Paris.”
“How is your Collette any better to be trusted? I don’t see He-Who hanging on your elbow, salivating over you like he used to. How do you know she’s …?”
“Everyone knows, that’s how I know. One waits weeks for an appointment. Coaches line up outside her door. One sees at a glance who her clientele is, and believe me, it is the crème de la crème. Special friends, of whom I’m pleased to say I am one, are slipped in immediately, through a side door. It would not do for it to be seen that a Duchess and, yes, even a Princess, are made to twiddle their thumbs while a mere Countess is let straight in. Collette is the most expensive divinatrice in Paris. No one would pay her price if she weren’t good. The Queen herself swears by her. I admit her philters have failed to curb the misbehavior of He-Who. But she gives me great peace of mind. He-Who will come around. She swears it. And I believe her.”
Was the woman deluding herself? Perhaps, but here’s the thing: you did not count this one out, not if you had a memory, and not if you had a brain. If you thought her silly, frankly, many did, more fool you. As a matter of fact, she encouraged it. She was sharp as a tack, but hid it, until she didn’t.
The aunt had her back turned to Sly all this time. The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. She wore a travel bonnet with a veil. She removed it. As she did, she turned to the cat full-face. He gasped. Aunt Cora was none other than Corisande, Countess of Guiche, whom he had known, slightly, at the Court of Haute-Navarre.
He’d known her dogs a whole lot better.
3. Corisande
Corisande, Countess of Guiche, a frequent visitor to Haute-Navarre, had been picked apart by court gossips, which is to say, by everyone. Her connection to Henri of Navarre in the next kingdom made her of extreme interest to all. That information must be fed to Mama B, who would make good use of it. When Corisande emerged from Mama’s wagon, she would be singing the woman’s praises to the high heavens. Shyster prophet? Not on your life. A marvel!
The birthday party would occupy them for an hour. Sly had time to compose a note. He located Pedro (with Mama, as usual), pulled him aside, explained his intention, and dictated while the boy wrote:
Learned Madame: Look to the fountain. The carriage of my Aunt sits adjacent. She doubts your abilities. Let us have some fun with her. I will entice her to you. Use the following information to astonish her. Excuse my scrawl, I am writing rapidly while she walks her dogs. Her name is Corisande. She plays the harpsicord, but not well. She imagines she has a voice. She gives performances at family gatherings that we all dread. She will sing at my upcoming nuptials. She has chosen her favorite piece, that she never fails to insult. I must I pretend to be delighted, so as not to offend her. She has no children to leave her fortune to, and I am her favorite niece.
Though past the bloom of youth, she is handsome, despite a minor physical indignity which she imagines worse than it is. One shoulder is a bit higher than the other, and one leg a bit shorter. She is never without some flounce on the right shoulder, and she often rests the right hand on the hip. Many put the posture down to an arch attitude, for she is a notable wit.
She lives to gamble. Her husband is passed away. The marriage was not a happy one. Hercule objected violently to his wife’s favored entertainment. He cared nothing about her flirtations, but her gaming drove him wild. At one point he locked her up in a convent, where she introduced the sisters to basset. A mania for the game took the inmates, and she was thrown out on her ear. The unhappy Count (she is a Countess) paid through the nose to have the incident hushed up. This is a family story, none but relatives have heard it.
Mention the name Agathe-Bertolde, if you want to see my aunt jump. She ripped off the woman’s mother-of-pearl crucifix in a farewell tussle, or maybe it fell, I don’t know the strict facts. My Aunt claims she seized it, but that may be puffery. The thing ended up in her possession. She wears it always. She has it on today.
She gambles yet, but her husband’s will has her on a short leash. A lawyer oversees her affairs, pays her expenses, and gives her quarterly pocket money, quite a nice sum, to drop at cards. When that runs through, she makes deals with dressmakers, arranging introductions to society notables for a percentage fee. She acts as a model for their artistry. She also promotes a certain Collette, a seer, like yourself, with the same financial arrangement.
Her salon attracts the most amusing people in Paris for she is gay and, as I’ve said, quite a wit. Papa tells me her ‘Salons’ are always superbly amusing. Her elegant rooms are always packed, and with such an odd mix that he wonders if she doesn’t solicit attendance and charge admission as another way to plump her pocket. I had expected her to be an ally in my campaign to be allowed to wed my Jean-Jacques, rather than the old bore Papa intends for me but, for once, she takes his part.
Marry not for love, she scolds me. In the end, you are sad. This is her pain talking. She is neglected by her paramour. We refer to him as He-Who, short for He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Mentioned-In-My-Presence. She believes the man sincerely attached to her, only strayed. Expect, shortly, a lady of a certain age in blue, and a girl of seventeen in pink.
Pedro to delivered the note, with the explanation that it had been entrusted to him by a young lady in pink and white. Sly crept into the wagon and settled himself on a high shelf, a favorite spot of his, from which to enjoy the fun.
* * *
The festive group emerged from the arcade and made for the carriage. Had the girl had been talked out of having her fortune told? Damn! This wouldn’t do. Sly dashed to the contrivance, clawed himself up the side, and poked his head through a window. As he expected, two dogs curled on the floor of the carriage, Corisande went nowhere without them.
“Hello, boys,” he howled. “Long time no see. What’s the good word, eh? You dips as dopey as ever?” He pushed off and ran for dear life. The canines exploded through the window after him.
He made a bee-line for Mama’s wagon. Her door was propped open in anticipation of a visit. He jumped to the table spread with cards, knocking them helter-skelter, leapt to the raven’s perch, the highest spot in the wagon, and, despite the bird’s robust reproval, informed the bird he had no intention of vacating the post. “Don’t try anything cute,” he hissed. “I have claws too.”
The dogs were in, barking and leaping, and knocking over a small table displaying eastern artifacts, resulting in one of them being broken. Mama surveyed the destruction, wringing her hands. Aunt Cora stood in the door. Her coachman squeezed by, grabbed the pups one by one, and handed them off to the young people waiting outside.
“I’m so sorry,” said Aunt Cora. “They are always so well-behaved. Let me compensate you for the inconvenience.”
“No, no, it’s nothing,” insisted Mama. “A quick pick-up will put all to rights. Madame! We shall commence your consultation shortly.”
“I require no consultation!” answered Corisande coldly. “I am come for my runaways.” She dropped a handful of coins on the table. “For your trouble. More, I fancy, than you would have gotten from your scam.”
“You should return the crucifix, you know,” whispered Mama, placing her fingers at her temples, as if receiving a message from the cosmos.
Corisande froze. “What did you say?”
“Someone lacks her relic, blessed by the Holy Father himself. The name…” Mama closed her eyes. “Albertine? Adele?” Corisande stood in the doorway, half in, half out. Mama convulsed. “I’ve got it! Agathe!” she warbled triumphantly, jerking the cord around her ankle. An almost imperceptible fanfare ensued. “Agathe … Bertolde!” she moaned, throwing her head back, gazing glassy-eyed into an imagined abyss. A second wave of dark dissonance erupted.
4. Give it back! screamed Madame Hapushet in a dramatic tremolo-voice.
“Witch!” Corisande pounded the tabletop. “You want your crucifix, do you? You chose to toss it into the pot! No one forced you. It’s mine, twice! I won it. And Hercule paid you for it handsomely when you accused me of cheating.”
“What’s this?” growled Mama in gruff, masculine tones. I bought that blasted thing off a sore loser?” Mama knew how to go with the flow.
“Hercule, you turd!” screeched Corisande. “You here too? Didn’t you torment me sufficiently in life? You scold me from the grave? Oh, I’m glad I dosed you! I should have done it years ago.”
“More lies! You lie to your husband, in his grave!”
“I finally tell the truth, you fool. By the way, where are you, up or down?”
“None of your damn business!”
“You’re down! Justice is served! You made me miserable, you bastard. Dragging me to a dreary castle at the ends of the earth, surrounding me with your boring relatives! No giddy young companions for your gay bride, she was silly enough already. If I was silly, it was to spite you! I gambled, to spite you! I taught my keepers to gamble, to spite you! I lost your money, to spite you!”
“You continue to lose. What’s the excuse now?”
“I lose, yes, to brilliant, talented friends, writers and artists, living hand-to-mouth. I feed them at my assemblies, and I lose money which covers their rents. They are able to hold their heads up. No one pities them. The world pities me, for being an idiot at the card table. I laugh my head off. I get back far more than I pay out, in terms of the pleasure I get from helping those of far more value to society than I am.”
“What was that about dosing? Are you telling me I was done in?”
“Forget it. It was a joke. The interview, Madame, is over.” Corisande stood up. “Enough of this game!”
Nuts! Where was the astonished admiration for an astounding reading, leading, ideally, to an invitation to rendezvous in Paris?
“Etcetera!” shrieked Sly. The woman was tugging at the doorhandle, there was a trick to it, you had to rock the latch while you pulled. “Etcetera!” he shrieked again. Corisande froze. He clawed the raven, causing Voronin to shriek as well, so that it seemed to be an indignant bird who made a remarkable offer:
Madame la Comtesse!
Etcetera would have a word with you.
Three cards dealt from the tarot will tell you all you wish to know.
“How do you know about Etcetera?” demanded Corisande. “Someone has put you up to a ghastly joke!”
She leaned over the table and swatted at Mama. Mama jerked her chair back to escape the blows. The cord attached to her ankle hooked around a chair leg. The musician on the other end, finding his leg tugged at (the cord connected her ankle to his) produced a crescendo which went on and on, for Mama, standing, lost her balance and careened to the floor, where she continued to gyrate, trying to free herself from a tether now knotted tight.
“Stop, you moron!” screamed Mama as she pounded the side of the wagon. The door flew open. The hospitality-minded Franz poked his head in to investigate the commotion. Mama squirmed on the floor behind her table, out of sight. Perceiving the visitor about to depart, a big smile on his face, Franz began his recital: “Is the Madame not a wond…”
He got no further. The woman kneed him in the gut and barreled past him in a fury.
* * *
Sly reported the episode to Pedro, acting out Mama on the floor, banging on the wall.
“Sweet,” agreed the boy. “Doesn’t get us to Paris.”
“Oh, ye of little faith!” sang the cat. “Take this down. Let’s see, now. Jolie Madame …”
“What am I writing?”
“Another letter, numbskull. It will be addressed: To the Lady of the Purple and Yellow Wagon. Ready?”
“Ready.”
Jolie Madame: I was most uncivil earlier. I threw a fit, as I do when I am very upset. Kill not the messenger, it is said. I add to this, neither shall you beat her over the head with your fist. Mea culpa.
Etcetera! It is another name for the one I call He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Mentioned-In-My-Presence. I once was known to style him He-Who, Etcetera, sometimes simply Etcetera, in Haute-Navarre, nowhere else, to the best of my recollection. My niece has never heard me use the term, of that I am positive. This proof of your remarkable gift I cannot dismiss. I want you in Paris, where you will be lionized. I will see to it.
I realize you must continue to cater to the simple, who crave excess, until you attract a following of betters. Let your look be mysterious, certainly, but please, no bloated turban, no yard-long sleeve! The tassels must disappear. Tassels at your waist, on your sleeve, on your headdress, too much, Madame, too much!
I enclose an item to cover the cost of your reinvention. Repay me by throwing a percentage of your profit my way. This is the deal I have with one grown grand, who begins to balk at paying me my share. I made her. I have been searching for a way to diminish her. I believe I have found her replacement. Your gifts far exceed hers. Come to Paris. Set up as you do, close by the Marché des Enfants Rouges. My man will contact you.
Corisande, Countess of Guiche
Within the carefully folded and sealed sheet of paper, Sly placed a small emerald, pulled from the cache of gems he’d carried away from Haute-Navarre..
The App
By S.T. Ranscht
Chapter 7, Orlando
Natalie’s foot bounced while she sat. “Of course we didn’t find anything remotely similar, but I had to look, didn’t I? I just didn’t want to leave him at home alone, knowing he was probably curious about that thumb drive.”
“Where is it now?” Vihaan asked. Aside from the Hindu shrine he kept and the thin haze of incense, his university office was what most visitors would expect: dark wood paneling, file drawers full of research, stacks of papers waiting to be read and graded, and shelves upon shelves upon shelves of books. Natalie knew for a fact he’d read every single one. The lighting came from windows on the north and east sides during the day, and from an eclectic assortment of table and desk lamps he’d collected during his travels. He had gotten permission to have a tropical style ceiling fan installed, and he’d brought in a small space heater which was currently glowing orange and humming softly as it spread warmth across their feet.
She patted her slacks pocket. “I need to come up with a safe place to keep the Star Disk and everything related to it. I’d like something that’s not obviously a safe, and would be impossible to find if you didn’t know it was there.” She chewed on her lower lip. “Maybe I should just get a safe deposit box.”
“Hold on.” Vihaan opened his phone. “My cousin Avi has his own security company. Trustworthy, creative, and affordable.” He texted her Avi’s number. “I’ll let him know you’ll call. He’ll take care of you. But I have to ask, Natalie — if you’re hiding those things from Erick, are you having second thoughts about marrying him?”
Her head dropped forward into her hands, covering her eyes. “Honestly? I’m trying not to.” She looked up at him. “It’s just that every time the disk comes up, he pushes me to let him take it to the FBI.”
“Maybe he only wants to help. Maybe he’s concerned about national security. It is a suspiciously anomalous piece,” he reminded her.
“I know,” She pulled a crumpled paper from her pocket, “but then I found this.” She put it on Vihaan’s desk.
Smoothing it out, he said, “A receipt for three nights at the Crowne Plaza Times Square?”
“Yes. Saturday, Sunday, and tonight. He told me he was in Florida on Saturday night, and last night he was with me.” She clenched her jaw until the knot growing in her stomach loosened. “I think Orlando is back.”
“The guy you broke your first engagement over?”
She nodded.
“You surprised me when you took Erick back after that.”
Shrugging, she said, “Well, it was a year and a half later, and if I really believe in second chances, I have to believe he deserves one, too. It wasn’t like he hadn’t told me about Orlando from the beginning. When we started dating, we told each other all our little secrets.”
“Do you know how they hooked up originally?”
Natalie sighed and nodded. “He and Orlando — whom I have never met — were college roommates. They became friends when they bonded over Erick’s mother dying during their freshman year and Erick became a basket case. He told me he would have flunked out if Orlando hadn’t been there for him. Then, one drunken evening during their sophomore year, Erick came to Orlando’s defense when he was attacked by some local homophobes. There was fear, there was blood, there was the very real possibility Orlando wouldn’t survive.” Natalie closed her eyes and said nothing.
“But he did,” Vihaan concluded. “And the rest, as they say, is history?” he asked.
“I guess it was pretty hot and heavy for the rest of their time in school and intermittently after that. Still, they weren’t exclusive and Erick saw women, too. That’s just who he is.”
“Did he see other men?”
“He told me he never did, but I’m not sure I believe him. When I met him, he hadn’t seen Orlando in years. He stopped seeing anyone else when we got serious and agreed to be exclusive. And then we got engaged. When I found out he’d started seeing Orlando again, the problem wasn’t that he was seeing a man; the problem was his betrayal. And now, no matter who he’s seeing, it’s the last time he’ll betray me.”
Vihaan leaned forward and took her hands. “I’m guessing you haven’t asked him about it yet.”
“That’s why I’m talking to you, Vihaan. I need a fresh perspective.”
He stared at their hands for a moment before meeting her eyes. “We’ve been friends for what, fifteen years?”
“Longer than I’ve known Erick,” she noted.
“All right, and in all that time, I’ve never known you to shy away from trying to learn the truth about anything.”
“You think I should confront him.”
“I think you should do whatever homework you can, and then talk with him,” Vihaan clarified.
“You’re right,” she said, pulling out her phone to call an Uber.
~~~
“Hey, Lando?” Erick called from the suite’s living room as he tapped out a text. “Matthew just texted me.”
Orlando appeared in the bedroom doorway, still in his sweaty work out clothes. “Matthew, as in your work partner Matthew, or my partner Matthew?”
“Mine,” Erick answered.
Sitting next to him on the couch, Orlando said, “Do you have to miss our spa appointment? I was hoping to wine and dine you later at any restaurant you choose.” Laying his head on Erick’s shoulder, he sighed. “I’m not complaining, but my Matthew expects you and me to have a glorious weekend that will refresh my spirit. You and I didn’t spend much time talking the other day, and I’m going home in the morning. My spirit will suffer unless we get to sit someplace quiet and talk.”
“That’s what I want, too,” Erick said, kissing the top of Orlando’s head. “Matt said it’s not about work, but it’s important. I’m supposed to meet him out front in an hour. You keep the spa appointment, and I promise I’ll be back for the wining and dining.” He stood and chuckled while Orlando slowly tilted over to collapse on the cushions. “I’ve gotta shower.”
Pushing himself up, Orlando brightened. “That’s what I was going to do. Want to conserve water with me?”
“Sure,” Erick said, “as long as we don’t start anything we can’t finish.”
“Nothing we can’t finish in an hour,” Orlando purred.
~~~
Forty minutes after Natalie left Vihaan’s office, the Uber dropped her off in front of the Crowne Plaza Times Square. She entered the lobby and called the front desk.
“Hi, I’m trying to reach Erick Anderman, but I don’t know the room number. Can you connect me, please?”
“Of course.” From across the room, she watched the older gentleman behind the desk check the monitor. “That’s Suite 1516,” he offered. “I’ll connect you.”
A southern drawl flowed into her ear. “This is Orlando. How may I help you?”
Orlando. Natalie’s heart thumped hard in her chest. “May I speak with Mr. Anderman, please?”
“You most certainly may, Sugar. Just a sec.” She could hear him call to another part of the room, “Erick, hon, it’s for you.”
There was a brief tussle — apparently over the phone — a muffled giggle, and a whispered, “Now, stop that,” before Erick said, “This is Erick Anderman. Who am I speaking with?”
Natalie ended the call and headed for the elevators.
~~~
Pausing at the door marked “1516”, she took a few deep breaths before knocking.
The shirtless olive-skinned man who opened the door looked like a six-foot-two version of Michelangelo’s David, complete with tousled black curls. Evidently more modest than David, he held a throw pillow where most people who opened a door would have been wearing pants.
Natalie’s jaw fell open. Who the hell comes to the door naked?
Apparently, Orlando.
Focusing on his sable-brown eyes, she asked, “Do you know who I am?”
A slow grin lifted one corner of his generous mouth. “Yes, I do. I have seen all the pics, honey.”
She didn’t let the heat rising in her face break her eye contact. “Then you probably know why I’m here.”
When he turned to glance at the bedroom, he flashed the thinnest part of his red thong. Unsurprisingly, it did not raise her esteem for him in the least.
He turned back with an apologetic tilt of his head. “Sweetie, I’m afraid you’ll have to give him thirty minutes.”
When she pushed past him, he yielded with a smirk. Erick was coming out of the bedroom, also bare-chested, but zipping up his slacks. He stopped short when their eyes met.
“Natalie—“
“What the fuck, Erick? You told me you broke this off when we got back together a year ago.”
“Oh, honey—” Orlando’s pity began.
“Lando,” Erick warned.
His lower lip pouting, the Roman god swept past him into the bedroom and emerged moments later wearing a loose weave red cover-up and holding a red and black striped beach towel. “I’ll be at the spa if you need me,” he said to Erick, pausing to drop a kiss on his shoulder as he tried to catch Natalie’s eye before leaving the suite.
Erick waited till the door clicked shut. “Natalie, this isn’t—“
“Don’t you dare say this isn’t what it looks like,” she ordered.
Reconsidering, he said, “You’re right. I’m— How did you know I was here?”
“When you told me to use your jacket, I put my key in the pocket, and when I took it out, this came with it.” She threw the wadded up receipt at his feet.
He picked it up and sighed at the floor. “I’m sorry, Nat. Truly. I love you. I swear he called out of the blue. This was the first time since I ended it—“
“Spare me your pathetic story, Erick. Between your undercover assignments and refusing to deny yourself anything for the sake of a commitment to anyone else, your life is built on lies. I’m done. We’re done.” She pulled off the ring and set it on the nearest table. “Come by tomorrow at noon. I’ll leave your stuff in the entry. The lift will be locked, so just take your shit and go.”
He grasped her arm.
“Don’t.” She shook him off and walked out the door.
Only after she was wrapped in a fleece blanket and cuddled up on the bed with her animals did she allow herself to cry.
~~~
Matthew pulled up at the red curb and Erick got in. “Cut the cloak and dagger, Matt. I’m not in the mood. What’s so important?”
“Richard and Joaquín have been talking about your fiancé’s project, and you know Joaquín is always looking for a chance to advance his career. . .”
“Yeah, so?”
One of NYPD’s finest knocked on the driver side window and twirled her finger in the universal roll-down-your-window sign.
Matthew flipped open his ID wallet and looked at the officer.
She nodded once and moved on.
Matthew continued, “He’s started making noise about going to Voight if you don’t.”
“He doesn’t have any details to share.”
“That won’t matter if he makes it look like you’re withholding something from the Bureau. Which I have to admit, Erick, you seem to be.”
“Shit.” Erick closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “I was hoping I could convince Natalie to let me take the thing in. That’s not gonna happen now.”
“Why not?”
“Never mind. It’s not important.” He thought for a moment and mumbled to himself, “I could show him the drive, but I don’t know what it means.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Erick said, turning to open the door.
Matthew gripped the steering wheel. “There’s one other thing.” Erick turned toward him. “I mentioned it to a friend of mine the first time you told me about it.”
“Who?”
He defied Erick’s stare. “It doesn’t matter. But he’s highly interested and well-connected. I’d hate to disappoint him.”
“Just tell him it’s off. And leave Joaquín to me.” He opened the door and got out. Hesitating, he turned to face Matthew. “Hey, thanks for the heads up, man.”
~~~
Orlando returned to a darkened suite. The drapes shut out the late afternoon sun, and Erick lay on the couch, his arm bent over his eyes. Is this what Natalie’s fury had done to him? Or was this the result of his meeting with Matthew? He took a throw from a chair and pulled it up to Erick’s chest. When Erick’s fingers wrapped around Orlando’s wrist, he knelt beside the couch.
“Are you okay?”
“My head hurts,” Erick whispered.
Touching a pale cheek, he asked, “Can I get you something for it?”
His eyes still closed, Erick brought Orlando’s hand to his lips. “Please.”
Returning with pain killers and a glass of water, he helped Erick sit up and tucked a couple pillows behind him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Erick set the glass on the coffee table and patted the cushion next to him. Orlando sat with his arm around Erick’s shoulders, drawing him close.
“I think Natalie’s really gone this time,” he said, taking Orlando’s free hand. “I’ve always said I wanted a wife and a family, and like I told you when I met her, I wanted that with her.”
Giving him a hug, Orlando said, “I know it hurts but would that be so bad? We’ve had this,” he waved their clasped hands between them, “far longer than you’ve known her or I’ve known Matthew, and I’m not ready to give you up completely yet,” he said, kissing Erick’s hand. “Besides, it’s obvious she still loves you. She wouldn’t have been so furious if she didn’t.”
Erick leaned away and tilted his head to look at Orlando. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything. You know that.”
“What was that act you put on for her?”
Orlando laughed. “Oh, that.” Erick wasn’t laughing. Turning serious, Orlando said, “Okay, I admit it. I took advantage of my privilege to turn up my femme to manipulate an angry straight woman. But I was only giving her what she wanted. The stereotypic flaming fag, Queen of Snark — easily dismissed. To Natalie, now I’m not real, and therefore, not a real threat.” He feigned outrage as he drawled, “Why, she wouldn’t even look at me once you came into the room!”
Laughing just a little, Erick shook his head.
Pulling Erick back to his side, Orlando said, “She forgave you a year ago. Maybe she’ll forgive you again. Give her some time.”
“But she stopped trusting me,” Erick admitted. He looked at Orlando’s face. “We used to talk about everything. We didn’t have secrets. She never needed me, but she loved me for who I am and she wanted me. We were happy. Now I’ve fucked it all up. Now I violate her privacy to find out what she’s keeping from me. The only time she lets her guard down with me anymore is when we have sex. I want what we had. I miss being close to her. I’ve tried — I’ve honestly tried to earn her back. And I have to keep trying.”
Orlando stroked his face. “I know. That’s why we broke this off a year ago, remember? I want you to be happy.”
Nodding, Erick said, ”And you know I love what you and I have had, but neither of us ever meant it to be forever.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know why we’ve never talked about this before, but have you ever been involved with another man?”
Erick blushed. “No, I haven’t. Only you. When you called, that’s why it was important to me to see you one last time and say good-bye. I hoped Natalie and I were finally good again when she agreed to marry me.” He dropped his gaze to his hands. “But ever since her crazy great-aunt left her that … thing, I could feel her pushing me away.”
This is the most vulnerable I’ve ever seen him. “What on earth did she inherit? A vast fortune?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“What was it?”
“Some impossible electronic device her great-aunt found in some remote location in Egypt about a century ago.”
Orlando withdrew his arm and turned to face Erick. “What makes you think it’s electronic?”
“I heard it beeping,” he answered.
When he didn’t offer anything else, Orlando said, “Hm. A curiosity.” Still Erick said nothing more. “So, what did Matthew want?”
Erick leaned into the corner of the couch. “It was actually about that device.” Orlando inclined his head to one side and waited. Shrugging, Erick said, “I mentioned it to him and a couple other guys last week over drinks. Now one of them wants to tell our boss I might have knowledge of a possible national security threat.”
“Won’t that look bad for you?”
Erick massaged his forehead. “That’s the problem.”
“Here, let me,” Orlando said, patting his lap.
Erick lay his head down and looked up with a pained smile. “What do you think I should do, Lando?”
“Close your eyes,” he said, his long, tapered fingers slowly pressing against the tightness in this beautiful man’s face.
“I meant about the device.”
“Oh, Sweetheart, it’s not my place to tell you what to do about your job.” He traced those exquisite eyebrows. “You’ll have to decide what to do, but I do think you have only two options — let someone else dictate the guest list or take charge of the seating arrangements yourself.”
With a soft chuckle, Erick asked, “Is that advice from your wedding planner days?”
“Originally, yes, thank you for pointing that out,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Thankfully, days long gone. But I have found it holds up well for business and diplomatic negotiations, public relations debacles, and spy craft.”
“Spy craft? We don’t ‘spy’. We surveil and investigate.”
“Of course,” Orlando corrected himself. “You would know more about that than I, but am I wrong?”
Erick sighed and answered, “You are never wrong.”
“Promise me you’ll think about it, but not so long that you lose your choice.”
“I promise.”
“Good.” He kissed Erick’s eyelids. “How are you feeling now?”
Erick sat up. “Well enough for dinner at the restaurant of my choice.”
“Excellent. What are you craving?”
“Masa, but I believe they’re closed on Mondays.”
“Hmm, 3 Michelin stars,” Orlando approved, picking up his phone. “Not to worry. I know a guy,” he said, texting. A reply came within a minute. “Oh, look — it’s Masa himself, offering a very intimate dinner for two, seating at the counter. 8 pm.” He looked sideways at Erick. “Chef Takayama guarantees a meal we will not forget.”
Cosmic Chalk
By SLRandall
The first part is the revision of last months submission. The second part is new and not fully fleshed … time was not my friend, but in all endeavors … one step at a time.
Chapter 1.
The interstellar transport docked with only a minor tremor. The dim cabin flooded with light and the fasten seatbelt sign winked off. Vor stood and stretched. She sat midway through the narrow cabin of fifty plush, yet narrow seats. It would be a few minutes before the egress shuffle began. This was her first trip to a construction site and a step in her apprenticeship as a Universal Architect.
Nika Pio, Vor’s mentor, seated next to her, stood and reached into the overhead compartment to retrieve their bags.
Vor peered out of the cabin window next to her seat. Whispering, “We’re finally here,” as her breath misted the glass. The docking bridge extending from the spaceport and the curve of the transport’s aft engine compartment filled her view. Looking across the cabin, the blackness of deep space created porthole sized voids on the far side of the transport. Eerily exotic tingles prickled her skin as she contemplated the thickness of the vessel wall between her and deep space.
She turned to Nika. “Is this your first time here?”
Nika nodded. “But I have been to many sites like this one. The first view is always the best.”
“View of what?” asked Vor.
Nika smiled mysteriously. “I will not spoil it for you. As soon as we exit the transport, you’ll see what I mean.”
Nika’s smile reminded Vor of the first time they met.
At the after party of her high school graduation, she had the feeling she was being watched. Turning, she’d locked eyes with the most exotic woman she’d ever seen. That enigmatic smile had tugged at her curiosity. Someone had walked between them. In that space, the woman vanished. Later that evening, as Vor waited for her sister, Liv, to pick her up, the woman had reappeared and approached her. Vor didn’t remember the exact conversation, but had felt compelled to spill her hopes and dreams about her plans to join the military, like her father. Nika had laughed, but not unkindly. She had handed Vor a card and said, “Call me when you’re ready. The military is not for you.” Vor had glanced down at the card, only to realize Nika had vanished when she looked up.
“Come on Vor, we can go now,” said Nika, dragging her back to the present.
They followed the rest of the passengers out of the cabin and down a short passage to the airlock rotunda.
A klaxon sounded, “Warning! Remain Clear of the doors until they reopen.”
A low hum reverberated through the rotunda walls, then a sliding sound and a click. A whoosh of air ruffled Vor’s hair as the doors slid open. She and Nika were in the middle of the crowd and neither one could see over the people in front. Judging from expressions of aw and wonder, Vor was eager to see.
Exiting the rotunda, a sense of vertigo made her stomach jump a little. The docking bridge appeared to be made of glass, held together with metal supports. She clutched Nika’s arm as she stepped out. The floor was solid beneath her feet. Below her was the wide transport, glinting dully as its grey-green exterior reflected the light of the brilliant star, Exima*, which the station orbited. It was then she realized the station was rotating. As the star rose, a blue-green planet came into view.
“The construction zone?” she asked Nika. Her voice was soft with awe.
“Yes,” said Nika, “and if you look over here.” She pointed to the ceiling over the rotunda, where a moon flanked the view. “That will be our home for the next six months.”
“It’s so beautiful,” was all she could say. Fourteen years of study had not prepared her for the view. As they continued the slow rotation, her breath caught when the twinkling gaseous cloud of newborn stars, draped across the blackness of deep space, rose into view.
Nika said, “Ah there it is! That’s the nebula where the construction materials are mined.”
Vor shook her head and just stared. It was all so big.
They stood gazing for a long while, as did many of the other apprentices and their mentors. Eventually, the spaceport personnel began to ask them to move on toward the terminal. As they neared the terminal, the glass gave way to metal, blocking the view. Vor looked back over her shoulder, but the people behind her made it difficult to see. A wide entry way, adorned with character of many languages, welcomed the travellers to the Ursa Major Spaceport. Stepping through, there were escalators leading down toward the main concourse. Suddenly, Vor felt an odd sense of deja vu. If she didn’t know better, she would think she had just arrived at an airport.
Then her phone, which had been silent for three months began to buzz as it connected to service. Several phone call notifications from her mother, scrolled across the screen.
[][][] Three months earlier [][][]
Charles sat wearily on the top step of the wide wrap-around porch.
Stella sat next to him, with one hand lightly resting on his thigh. They watched Vor’s car exit the property and turn onto the paved road. The dust, left in her wake, settled slowly, drifting on the dense, humid air of Oklahoma’s mid August afternoon.
For some time, they sat companionably, listening to the cicadas’ electric buzz.
Stella’s melodic voice broke his thoughts like a cool breeze in the stuffy heat. “Did you tell her?”
Charles sighed. “I tried a couple of times, but she was just so happy. I couldn’t bear to ruin that for her.”
Stella nodded, accepting his inability to talk about his illness to their daughter. Vor was his favorite, though he’d never admit it, Stella knew. She also knew it would fall on her to explain to Vor why she was the last to know about Charles’ cancer. Their other daughter, Liv, had been visiting when Charles got the news. Charles had wanted to tell Vor, but had not. She left, not knowing she would never see him again.
“Stubborn old man.” She tenderly kissed his stubbly face. “You’re not dead yet. I’m going to make dinner.”
He smiled, the deep creases in his face punctuated his tiredness, but his eyes still sparkled with mirth, “Stella Nefolian, I’d be honored to join you for dinner. Could you help an old guy up?”
Laughing, she stood and held out a hand to steady him. “You can join me if you get my name right, mister! That’s Stella Williams to you!”
Grunting with effort, he stood holding tight to Stella’s arm. Swaying a bit as his head took a moment to catch up with the motion, he said, “Ah yes, Mrs. Williams, please lead the way.”
[EDIT]
Oooopppss …. I forgot to add this! Sorry Mellow. Didn’t mean for this to be Hide n Seek!
* The star Exima is the UOC’s name for a star in the Ursa Major constellation which is the Earth named star HD84406. This star was used to align the mirrors of the JWST “Once the telescope reached orbit, engineers on Earth made adjustments/corrections to the positioning of the Webb telescope’s primary mirror segments to bring them into alignment – to ensure they would produce sharp, focused images.” – Nasa/Goddard Space Flight Center.
WRITERS CO-OP: A WRITER COMMUNITY FOR YOU. 
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