Dream Meeting

“I can’t believe you,” I whispered loudly at Durian as a steady stream of unexpected and, sometimes unintelligible, guests streamed through the Victorian front door and disappeared into the foggy house. For a few seconds I held onto the anger, nodding at faces I recognized as they passed. He wasn’t looking at me, so I growled in Durian’s ear, “We weren’t asked to bring in the whole magical world.” Asked was a pretty choice word on my part; there hadn’t really been a choice in the matter at all.

Finally turning, he replied, “I’ve got this. I have everyone signing in with their names and then the leader is separated into the actual house you set up for dinner. The riff-raff are going to this cute little place I went to a rave in once; some kinda disused soda factory or something. There’s lots of room. They can just hang out and I’ll make sure they know what’s going on.” He welcomed in a small contingent of beings with pale skin, goth clothing, and pointed eye teeth. When he noticed I was glaring, he answered my unasked question, “Yes, I invited the leaders of a few choice vampire clans. They don’t travel alone, obviously.” He seemed far too pleased with himself for bringing a guest I’d had a relationship with.

As the steady stream lessened and we were left with the dribs and drabs of the magical community portalling in, I squeezed Durian’s arm until he squealed. “I get that this is your mind, your rules out here, but there will be no issues with this meeting lest I make rash decisions,” I purred, extending my claws into his imaginary flesh slightly until he tore his limb away.

“Relax. I got this,” he snapped, rubbing his arm and sauntering into the house.

Long before the final decision to have a unity meeting was made, I had considered it a bad idea. Yes, hosting people and beings from all corners of the planet and species encompassed in our magical community was important, but some consideration of the specific members and leaders could have been better taken care of.

I growled and stepped into the house, the outside dream fading away and a strange blank place came into view. Standing at a podium with a large book on it was Durian. When I entered, he chuckled and offered a strained smile. “Uh, so, hiccup. Some of the groups put all members down as leaders and all the leaders of a few different groups decided to put themselves down as such,” he explained, waving his hand over the squiggles on the page. Without my asking, though I was thinking it loudly enough for him to hear it, he replied, “Well, there are about a hundred beings in there.”

Rolling my eyes, I stepped to the large door set in a wall of puffy white cloud, and turned back to the idiot. “This was why I wanted to touch base with everyone before the meeting,” I snapped, walking through the door and finding myself crapped into a room with way too many people. I cleared my throat but it was almost inaudible in the din; one hundred people having discussions all at was too loud for a regular voice.

I made my way up to the front door and opened it, causing a large gust of wind to violently shake through the group until everyone fell silent. Snow began to drift in so I shut the door and cleared my throat. “Alright, everyone, it’s great to see you all but we need to cut down our number before dinner,” I announced using a silent amplification charm. When there was a small amount of murmuring, I cut them off and continued, “If you all make your way up the stairs, you will find rooms designated for your community groups. Please head in and discuss amongst yourselves who will speak on your behalf and have them come down to the dining room.”

Slowly, everyone filed upstairs until I was left in the old Victorian front room with Durian, a forest nymph, and my cat, Aster. The feline’s silken black fur vibrated as she rubbed against my leg. Now, I say cat. Technically, not really a cat: five fluffy tails, three eyes, and seven toes on each foot put her decidedly not in the cat category. She meowed, the sound echoing in my mind and making my stomach grumble.

Nodding at the others in the room, I explained, “She doesn’t have food, though this is a dreamworld so she doesn’t need it, I’m gonna go fill her bowl.” If you own a cat, you understand why even if she didn’t need it, I’d fill her bowl.

When I returned from the kitchen, there was a third person in the room. I would have recognized those black eyes anywhere; it was Terrance, my ex. “Did they actually vote you as their leader or did you force yourself onto them, too?” I snapped before he could say a word.

With that stupid “victim” charm, he clutched his heart and gasped, “Well, of course, they wanted me as their leader, Ollie.” Some vampires used their strength to threaten their way to the top, but Terrance did quite the opposite.

Durian was pacing in front of the stairs, staring into the gaslight at the top. “Seriously? This is such a bad plan,” he grumbled, taking a step up, then down.

As I was about to assure him that, while it may not be the best, it was the best current plan when Terrance grabbed my hand and turned me to face him. “I called you a while ago. Well, a few times. And, recently, too. But I heard nothing back from you,” he murmured with a pained smile. When I didn’t reply, he chuckled and pointed to the front door with his free hand. “Would you mind if I commandeered that dreamspace to show you what I wanted to in the, you know, real world?” he pleaded with shining eyes and a truly heroic amount of charm.

Nodding, I waved at it and the door opened on a silvery mist. Durian shot me a look and I rolled my eyes back. If this got Terrance to leave me alone, it was worth it.

We stepped through the mist and stepped onto a bright, sunshine-drenched building in the middle of a metropolis. Dropping my hand, Terrance asked, “How do you like my new skyscraper?”

With a laugh, I countered, “What use do you have for a skyscraper? Have you even been able to stand here, in the real world?”

“You mean in the daytime?” he growled, pulling his lip up to show off his fangs like he always did when he felt a little threatened. Rolling his eyes, he replied, “Well, you don’t know what I’ve got going on down there. An entire floor dedicated to, uh, me having a reflection again.” He puffed out his chest and tried to look as suave as possible.

I blinked. “A cure? You’re working on a cure?” I muttered in amazement. All these years, there’d never been one. Then, it hit me. With a sigh, I grumbled, “For Sadie?” All the years we’d been together and he’d been pushing for me to get turned so we could be together forever. All the lies he told to turn other people. And, now, he was going to cure himself for a wretch.

I nodded and stepped back into the house. For a few seconds, I considered cutting off his little dream, letting him rot between my mind and his, but then he stepped through. “Come on, Ollie, it’s not like there was the chance before, but now,” he pleaded.

“This isn’t a personal meeting, Terrance, it’s an important one,” I snapped, turning to Durian. “Anyone else come down yet?” I asked with a little more snap than I meant.

Nodding, he replied, “Everyone has made their decisions and the council arrived. You were out there a long time.” He made a waving motion at the second floor and I nodded.

With a single wave, the second floor disappeared and everyone was deposited into Durian’s dreamworld. I followed him into the dining room and stood in the corner as Terrance took his seat.

Nat, who was head of the witch’s council, stood up and announced, “So begin the first of many unity meetings. Everyone has agreed to the terms and we can begin with a statement from each leader, then a short break for snacks.” With a dagger glance at me, she gestured to the nymph to her right.

---

Opening statements turned into nearly an hour of general bitching. The one I thought made a good first impression was the forest nymph; she spoke in flowers, explaining that they were having an issue with a construction site overstepping the bordering forest. Finally, we reached the lycanthrope, a woman I’d known for nearly two centuries. For a start, she talked about how she’d had two pups lately born with blue moon disease and how that was an issue for everyone. Technically, yes, the disease caused the wolves to have far less control of their urges, but there wasn’t a community-led solution.

With her statement taken, Nat stood again and dismissed the group. Everyone moved into the other room for snacks while Nat dropped her head on the table and groaned. “Why did no one put any of this in their submissions to the agenda?” she asked me as I took a seat beside her.

“Well, I think partly because everyone thought they’d get a turn to speak, not just one from each community,” I replied quietly. Through the door, I could see Durian chatting jovially with a few of the naturals. Clearing my throat, I suggested, “Next time, everyone should really have meetings of their own before bringing their community concerns forward instead of having this mess. Maybe a week in advance, then a real schedule could be crafted.”

Nodding at the table, she replied, “You’re in charge. I thought Durian could handle it, since he can’t do anything else, but clearly, he’s useless.”

I chuckled and replied, “Actually, I think you should send him to the other meetings. Then he can prepare them to speak about their concerns. He can be a diplomat; he’s actually very good at speaking to people. People like him.” I envied that. No matter how much planning or thought I put into a social endeavour, it was so much work just for people to tolerate being around me. You couldn’t think yourself out of having zero charisma. As I was about to explain that I was more of a behind-the-scenes kind of person when the front door swung open and a cloud of snow swept into the room.

Everyone was shivering and staring as the snow converged into a large furry creature. Growling deeply, it motioned wildly, causing everyone to scatter. It shook and coughed before grumbling and making a choking motion. Finally, it chuckled, “Sorry, snowball in my throat. Uh, am I late?”

Beside me, Nat groaned and whispered, “My guess is that one told the yetis what time the meeting was at in their time. They’re usually very punctual.”

Mirrors Everywhere

The first month was the hardest. She sobbed for hours at a time, felt pangs in her heart when she looked at the curb of a sidewalk, and everyone had the same uncomfortable expression when they looked at her. The counter was quiet and empty. She would reach for the phone to text him before remembering. She’d search the doorway for his rugged face when the lock clicked and the breath would catch in her throat when someone else entered. She went to bed empty and would rise aching.

The first month was the hardest. He wandered the other side in search of home, cried out for her in the too-bright, too-warm day, and watched the shadows of the living trudging through the veil. The world was strange and he couldn’t find their town. He heard a distant ringing that would stop suddenly. He’d watch couples holding hands down the street and would ache for her and for life. He didn’t sleep.

---

The second month, she could hold back the onslaught of tears at the smaller things. She left the house for brief periods out in the brisk fall air. The counter remained empty, but she got used to the quiet. She sent the texts she wanted to, the things she wanted to say, and occasionally that made her smile. She’d stopped looking up at the door to avoid the pain. She went to bed empty and would rise in a trance.

The second month, he found the right town but hung back, wandering along the highway, unsure if he could bear going home. He let the late-spring birds and warm sun warm him from the outside in. The world was chaotic and he finally brought himself to walk the streets. He heard voices, well, a voice quietly speaking to him but couldn’t see anyone. He watched over their friends and neighbours, looking away when he passed by the house. He didn’t sleep.

---

The third month, she spoke of him. She put up the twinkle lights on the house, earlier than anyone on the street, and told him, aloud, that it would be the most fantastic Christmas he’d ever seen. The counter filled with cookies and cakes decorated to the nines. She left him carol-filled messages. She’d hung a string of bells on the door so she could look up when someone came in. She went to bed empty and would rise rested.

The third month, he heard her clear as a bell and went to their house. He watched, through the veil, as the lights twinkled in the spring sun. The world on her side was full of snow that didn’t touch his. He heard her singing wherever he went and felt her happiness. He watched as she made up the house like a festive beacon. He watched her sleep.

---

The fourth month, she lit candles and made her Christmas wish early. She just wanted to be able to talk to him, to see him. When she went to bed, she whispered to him that everything would be okay. He heard her and told her he loved her. She could have sworn she heard him speak.

---

Yawning, she touched the pillow she hadn’t washed in four months, his pillow. She sat up and shivered; she hadn’t set the thermostat yet and it was perpetually cold in the house until someone else came in to turn it on. Normally, someone was around when she woke up, but the house was empty. Her friends had a running schedule to make sure someone was always there for her, but today, Christmas morning, everyone was spending time with their families.

When she looked into the massive mirror hanging above the dresser, an ill-advised wedding gift from her mother-in-law, she could have sworn she saw someone else’s eyes over hers. She reached up and was surprised not to feel the prickles of a beard. It seemed as though he was sitting with her. The fingers of her hand looked rough and large in the reflection. Blinking, she got out of bed, losing herself in the thick frame, and gingerly stepped towards the wall. When she peered back around the edge, her haggard face was blocking the bed.

Sucking in a breath, she stepped aside and, sitting with his lower torso and legs hidden by the bedsheets, was her husband.

“Luke?” she gasped, feeling the familiar name rubbery as it rolled off her tongue.

He grinned sheepishly and breathed, “Clara,” with all the reverence of a spell. Rolling to the other side of the bed, his side, he stood and stepped carefully to her side.

Without touching, they stood there for a long time.

She could practically smell his aftershave. When she reached her fingers out to brush through his, she shivered. “It’s, it’s not you,” she assured him when jumped away. Smiling, she went silently to the thermostat and turned it up, waited for the heat to kick on, and returned to the mirror. After a few seconds, she explained, “I keep forgetting it. You used to set it.”

Nodding, he replied, “I uh, I think I set it low before, uh, before things.” He was quiet for a bit, trying very hard to both think about the accident and not. It was a strange feeling; wanting to remember and forget at the same time. “You need to take better care of yourself, Clara,” he commented, holding his hand up as though she brush a strand of hair from her forehead.

Shutting her eyes and wishing to feel his skin against hers, she replied, “I will, I will Luke. I just, I needed to know you were, were somewhere. Were okay. I’m lost without you.” She couldn’t bear to see his face when she said it; it hurt her and she knew it would hurt him, but it needed to be said. Aloud.

“My dearest Clara, you are the sun that warms my skin, the rain that swallows my tears, no matter what I’m doing or what world I’m in, I will be there, with you, for the rest of my years,” Luke whispered.

Clara could practically feel his breath on her skin as he whispered it in her ear. When she opened her eyes again, he was sitting at the edge of the bed, staring down into his hands and she murmured, “I just, I’m so happy to see you. And, one day, we will be together again.”

---

For days, Clara sent everyone away when they came by bearing gifts and food and friends from far away. She didn’t want to share Luke with anyone, even those she loved. When her mother-in-law stopped by, she embraced the woman but didn’t say a word about Luke. She convinced herself it was because she just needed the days, weeks, months back that he was gone; that was a lie. Really, she thought she was losing her mind and she couldn’t bear the thought of the hallucination breaking. It would break her.

When she slept, she found herself in their backyard in the summer. Luke was always there. He kissed her and touched her in ways she would always remember. They would lie in the warm sun and just hold hands for hours. Everything around them would stop, time would stop, and they would just be there, together.

When she would wake up, he was sitting next to her, invisible other than in mirrors. They talked for hours and she started to get better again. She was cooking for herself, washing the sheets, singing to the radio.

People would come over and Luke would hide; he knew why and he was perfectly okay with it. He didn’t want to know if he wasn’t real, either. But didn’t that thought, recognition, prove that he was?

---

After a few days of drunken happiness, Clara and Luke got down to talking about the accident. Neither of them really wanted the conversation, but they both needed it. Luke was worried it may be the key to his moving on, while Clara just wanted that closure for herself. The big question hung in the air like a black cloud of ash, threatening to suffocate both the living and dead alike.

“I never expected to live that long, anyway,” Luke finally spoke, pacing in front of the mirror.

On Clara’s side, from her spot on the bed, this pacing was a strange trick of the mind; he was in front of her, but also not there at all. She was focusing on that thought until she could no longer put it off. Nodding, she replied, “But was that the final straw?” She didn’t want to know.

When they started dating, Luke told her about the depression; a million girls would have left him on the spot, but not Clara. With a sigh, he shook his head and replied, “No, I uh, I just wasn’t paying attention to the road.” There was a dullness to his eyes that was a sign of shame. Could have been because it wasn’t an accident, or because it was.

“Okay,” she murmured, unsure what she believed. It required further conversation to dig to the truth, but she was so tired and she didn’t want to know. 

After ten minutes, Luke cleared his throat uncomfortably, and commented, “It’s a hot day over here. I’m gonna grab an iced tea. Do you want anything?” It was a running joke between them; offering things that simply weren’t possible.

Clara nodded and replied, “One hot cocoa, please. It’s frigid here.” Standing up, she followed his absence from the mirror and found him standing by the fridge in a full-length mirror she’d installed. Half her walls were now peppered with reflective surfaces of all kinds; every glimpse of her beloved anchored her.

When Luke pretended to turn the kettle on, tapping his own switch into the on position, they were both surprised as a click echoed between the two worlds.

Clara turned to see the light on on hers.

For a full minute, neither figure moved; they may as well have been wax statues on either side of a frame.

Finally, as though to test the reality of the click, the click that echoed across the veil, Clara flicked the switch off with a rewarding tick sound.

Clara’s real-world kettle, which had begun to gurgle as the element inside heated up, hissed lightly as it turned off, while Luke’s began to shake with heat. Again, they remained stationary for an entire minute. Neither of them wanted to do anything, to risk the cosmic alignment being knocked out of balance.

Abandoning the beverage, Clara rushed into the living room, Luke following her like a shadow through the mirrors.

They both stopped in front of the fireplace, now adorned with a spectacularly large gilded mirror. An equally extravagant book sat open under it with only the very middle pages visible in the reflection.

Taking a deep breath, keeping her eyes on Luke, she turned the page in their wedding guest book. She took a step back so her husband would know she wasn’t touching the pages.

When he carefully turned the page in both worlds, he gasped and chuckled lightly.

Neither knew what the rules were, why some things were the same in both worlds, why he could affect some things, but they didn’t care. The why wasn’t important.

Behind the Curtain

“Nope, I can’t do it,” he groaned, pacing in front of the wall-sized mirror and pulling at his face, “I just, nope, no, no, can’t. Just can’t.” He was fluffing up the back of his hair and wrinkling the cuff of his dress shirt as he fidgeted. His breathing was shallow and he had panic in his eyes.

After radioing to the third AD, I finally stepped out from beside the curtain and stated, “You’re on in two.” He stared at me like a baby deer and I sighed, “You know those lines, Landon, and your understudy already went home because he ate that bad chicken last night.” Over my headset, the AD let me know they were running a few minutes late because someone threw up on the right staircase. Why I needed to know that, I will never understand. “Okay, Landon. What’s the issue here?” I asked, realizing I actually had time to solve the problem instead of just shoving the actor on the stage.

“I never came out to my parents, Lil,” he cried, flopping down on the crummy brown sofa that had been in the dressing room forever and starting to sob.

For a moment, I was too shocked to speak. It wasn’t the fact that Landon was gay that got me, mainly because it was obvious and didn’t really need to be said aloud, but the fact that he thought his folks hadn’t noticed. I mean, maybe they hadn’t, but, well, it was obvious. With a sigh, I sat down next to him and replied, “I hear ya. But you’re not coming out to them today. I mean, unless you decide to. And that’s up to you, but this is just a play.”

“What happened when you came out?” he countered, rounding on me with his puffy eyes and dripping nose.

I nodded and replied, “Well, I wrote a play about coming out, didn’t I?” For a moment we both sat lost in our own worlds. “It wasn’t as bad as I make it seem, but it was awkward and I was nervous and it just kinda all came out,” I murmured softly. “That’s my story. Yours doesn’t have to be like that if you don’t want it to, but you really do need to just get on that stage and read the words you’ve been practicing for three months or,” I continued, talking out of my ass while I searched the realm of possible threats for one that would scare Landon, “Or I’m gonna start talking about the Scottish play.”

That got his attention and he gasped, “You wouldn’t.”

I raised my eyebrows and growled, “You wanna bet?”

Drying his tears, Landon tore from the room and a few seconds later the third AD radioed that they were all ready.

With a yawn, I stood up and crossed to a wall completely full of sticky notes in a myriad of colours and with a hundred different styles of handwriting on them. I pulled a new, purple tab off the pile and took the sharpie. In my messiest writing, I scribbled, “psychologist,” and stuck it in a tiny blank spot just below the title of the wall. Cut out of construction paper and glued haphazardly at the very top of the peeling wall were the words “Jobs for Creatives.” Someone had scrawled those words under one of the makeup tables and people had replied with the professions they’d given up to become writers or actors or stagehands or directors. After a few years, the entire underbelly of the tables was plastered with hundreds of melancholy words so we’d made it a “thing” at the theatre.

I wound my way back around and through the backstage before slipping out the propped door at the back; honestly, my job largely consisted of handing off problems to other people so I spent a good deal of my time staying out of everyone’s way. Leaning on the graffiti-filled wall of the alley, I lit a cigarette and let the smoke burn through me. After a few moments of peace and calm, the door squeaked open and my eyes flicked to it. Occasionally, the owner or another tenured staff member came to shut the doors, since they weren’t supposed to be open, and I indeed to be prepared to beg my way back in.

Instead, one of the set builders shuffled out and stared at me. He cleared his throat and asked, “Did you get a chance to look at my play yet? Elfonso Davidson.”

That was one thing that just sucked so much about being a known producer; everyone was a writer. I took another pull on the cigarette and shook my head. “No, sorry. Hoping to open up the next set of play considerations next week, though,” I explained. It was true. Not that I’d likely choose his, after a quick skim.

Rocking on the balls of his feet, he murmured, “Do you have a minute? I could maybe outline it or set the scene?”

I chuckled, looked at the smoke in my fingers, and replied, “You have until I’m done my smoke.” Sinking to the ground, I raised my eyebrows and made a sign for him to get going.

With an excited smile, he stood at the opposite wall, catching himself as he fell into it. “Uh, well, see, it’s this horror story about this old church from my hometown. It’s kinda like a legend there that this chick, I call her Belinda, is killing guys who are unfaithful to their wives when they go to get their kids baptized. Anyway,” he started, his words bumping into one another and making what had the small potential to be a decent horror story sound silly, “I had pictured long shadows on the stage and like, actors or speakers or something out in the audience so people would be thinking, like, ‘I hear whispers.’” Nodding to himself, he smiled expectantly as I put out the dregs of my cigarette on the pavement and stood up.

“Yeah, man, that sounds really good. I’ll definitely read through it next week,” I assured him as I headed to the door. With one hand on the latch, I got a call about a missing shoe and muttered, “Ridiculous,” before slipping back inside. “You said you had the shoe, like, five minutes ago,” I whispered as I slid behind the curtain and checked the floor where Hailey had been standing, waiting in the wings before her big entrance.

A muffled, near-unintelligible sentence came through the earpiece about not knowing what happened. Sighing, I tore back into the dressing room and opened the box labelled “Hailey’s accessories” in sparkly pink pen over duct tape. As I pulled the sneakers for the second act out, I muttered, “I have replacement shoes, meet me halfway.” When I reached the marking for the halfway point, the fourth AD ran to me, grabbed the shoes with horror in his eyes, and peeled off.

I returned to the dressing room, hoping to not run into that builder again, and found the director sitting on the floor with a towel over her face. After doing a silent once-over with the other assistants to make sure they were all good for the moment, I sat down on the couch across from the woman and cleared my throat quietly. She didn’t stir so I asked softly, “Are you okay?” This wasn’t the first time I’d discovered a superior hiding away from a production, and probably wouldn’t be the last.

After a moment, she replied, “My husband is here and I just want to be alone.” I knew they were going through things at home, but we tried to leave that stuff at the door. “I want him to go back to his mother and just get out of my life,” she snapped, dropping the towel to reveal bloodshot eyes.

“Well, I can assure you that hiding out here while your show is going on isn’t gonna be the kick in the ass he needs,” I sighed, snapping the pen on my belt open and shut to give my fingers something to do. I needed another cigarette.

“My show?” she asked with a mirthless chuckle. Shaking her head, she replied, “No, it’s not my show. It’s yours. Your writing is more poignant than mine is so they always pick yours.” She stood up and stormed out of the room, dropping the towel on the floor and glaring at my reflection in the mirror for effect.

Putting my head in my hands and pressing until I saw stars, I groaned. When I looked up again, Elfonso was standing there with the envelope I’d written his play name on and put onto the pile on my desk. I blinked and silently cursed the theatre’s policy against anonymous production staff; I’d been fighting for it for two seasons already because people would come up to me at the most inappropriate times with their ideas.

“So, I’m thinking, like, brown grass and stuff, maybe that astroturf from this play but, like, dirty and painted and stuff,” he yammered, taking a seat beside me and setting the envelope in my lap. Thinking about it for a moment, he continued, “And you remember we did a show with a piece of an old car, like, a real one? Okay, I was thinking we could use that, but with like a couple of broken windows.” He was nodding to himself when I held up my hand and he sat back with a look like I’d kicked his dog.

Standing up, I reiterated, “I will read your play next week, and no sooner. If you bother me or any of the other producers again before we reach out to you, I will put this play in the trash.” He sat there, stunned. “Go it?” I asked, harsher than I’d really meant, but I needed to get the point across.

When he nodded, I left the room, leaving the envelope on the couch.

“You really know how to lift a guy up,” whispered a sultry voice from the darkness as I stepped through the curtains and into the concourse hallway. Turning, I smiled at Tory as she followed me and took my hands.

Rolling my eyes, I replied quietly, “I just can’t deal with that when my play, my play, is going on. I spent months getting this thing ready and he wants me to waste time talking about his silly horror story?” I felt like a child, but I worked hard to get where I was and I wanted to enjoy it a bit.

“I know you want all the plays you guys put on to have meaning and something to say, but sometimes you can just have fun with it,” she murmured, pulling me into her arms and standing there quietly.

“I just, I know, but I worked so hard to get here so I could have a voice and-” I whined, stopping myself when I realized how I sounded.

Pulling back so she could look in my eyes, Tory replied, “Your largesse can extend to this guy. You have it in you.”

I nodded and muttered, “Yeah, next week.” Pecking my girlfriend on the cheek, I slipped back towards the stage where she couldn’t follow me.

By the time I got back out the back door and into the alley, the natural light had completely faded and I was left in the eerie blue glow of the neon sign above the door. It was for a strip club down the way and buzzed constantly. Lighting a cigarette, I let the buzz fog my mind for a few seconds before exhaling a puff of chemicals up into the unnaturally light night sky. When I was out here I felt so alone. This kind of easy-to-be-in alone. Where I didn’t feel like I had to explain myself to anyone, even Tory. She just didn’t get it, this whole play thing; she was an attorney who never really learned to be creative. The stress and the pressure to do something meaningful and to hold everyone to that standard was just so, so intoxicating. I needed to do well so I could push others to do well so culture would do well. Ugh, I sounded like my mother. My mother, the esteemed actress, who I could never live up to. Who reminded me all the time that I wasn’t who she’d wanted me to be.

Groaning, I ground out the last bit of my smoke and whispered into my microphone, “If anyone sees Elfonso, please send him to the dressing room.” 

the Pilot

“How are you doing?” Aiden asked in a whisper. I could barely see the outline of his face on the dark screen.

Clearing my throat, I replied quietly, “Pretty much all fine. How’s Hamish?” He couldn’t see the sorrow in my eyes as I thought about what it was like on-world right now. I was glad; he didn’t need to see that. When he didn’t reply, I changed the subject, “Tosin promised to bring you on the next mission if I can manage to keep the intern alive.” Again, silence. “My plan is to leave him here. If he’s here, he can’t die,” I chuckled, trying to keep it light.

Finally, Aiden replied, “They’re closing in, Dey. Like, down the street, close. What’s the mission?” Hearing the terror in his normally-strong voice hurt.

“It should have been me stuck there,” I spat.

I was going to continue on a rant when he cut me off, “No. I couldn’t be keeping it together up there. I’d be in jail and you’d be stranded.”

“Well, it’s been five days and I have only managed this one opportunity and it may already be too late,” I murmured around the lump in my throat.

“Just finish the mission and come get us,” he stated simply before the call cut out. It was spotty there and the ship’s communication array didn’t include a booster to the planet’s surface.

I stayed in the pod for a long time just running through the conversation with Aiden. When I went to leave, I whispered, “The agreement doesn’t include Hamish. I don’t know if we’ll be able to save him.” For months, the three of us had managed to survive that hellscape of a planet and now I’d made a deal for just one of them. I’d have to tell him Tosin barely agreed to the deal as it was, which was true, but I knew it wasn’t going to make a difference.

Stepping out, I nodded at the next person in line who ducked in and shut the door. The line stretched all the way down the hallway and around the corner; some of these people were going to waste their entire personal time just to get a few minutes of time speaking with a loved one. Most people are reluctant to use the pods; that time is very precious and it was hard to see loved ones in such turmoil.

I turned down another hall and found myself at the center of the ship; the atrium gaped out and up like a globe fish tank. A half-dozen floors opened to the space with elevators and other lifts whirring across, carrying goods and people at amazing speeds. Sighing, I walked up to an escalator and hopped on the revolving mat as it flew up from the main level and headed along a magnetic track towards the top floor. Everyone wore metal-soled shoes so they could ride transport like this without falling off. I passed a gaggle of girls chatting idly about a visit to the mall ship while a gentleman with a traditional spacesuit helmet tipped his head at me. The patch on my jacket let everyone know I was an interstellar pilot, which afforded me respect so a nod wasn’t unexpected. If only they knew I’d only been off-world for a few days. They certainly wouldn’t be bowing to me.

When I got to the right floor, I stepped off and took a few shaky steps; I still wasn’t entirely used to the gravity and transportation here. Confidently, I showed the human guard my badge and he waved me through to Mission Plaza. Only the highest level missions and crews were permitted up here. Clearly, someone had made a mistake with me, but I wasn’t going to remind them.

I reached the office I reported to and used my badge to open the door. Inside, the crew was already sitting around drinking vibrant green liquid and snacking on bricks of brown matter. When I sat down, Tosin cleared her throat and announced, “Now that Dey has finally joined us, we can begin.” What she meant to say was that a stupid on-worlder was holding up their mission.

---

I flicked the autopilot switch and checked the stability as we hovered just above a large plot of sand on a planet whose name I couldn’t pronounce. Because I’d been trained on-world, this kind of flying was my specialty and the main reason I was on the mission list; no one really wanted me there, but some higher-up management person thought I was the best choice. Nodding to Carver and Illian, I stood up and slipped my bag onto my shoulder, grabbed a large electric machete, and hooked a flare onto my belt.

“Do you really need that stuff?” Carver asked as I stood beside the door and checked my jet fuel.

Rolling my eyes, I replied snarkily, “We’re dropping on an inhabited island on a planet we don’t know a lot about and are going to enter a dense jungle. Yes, I really need a machete. I’d go for a regular metal one, but this is all we have available.” I was more comfortable in a fight than anyone else on the mission, but they staunchly refused to take my lead so my partners were relatively defenceless as we made the short drop to the surface. Turning back as the boys headed towards the forest, I confirmed the ship was stable and radioed to the other ship, “Landed, about to embark, ship stable. Over.”

For a moment, my radio was silent before Tosin replied, “Copy. Same. Out.” She wasn’t the chatty sort, but she could fly a spaceship better than anyone I’d ever seen.

After about five minutes, having struggled through a few feet of dense brush, the guys realized they needed a machete. I took the lead and we made it to the blue hole in a matter of minutes and stood at the edge of the forest in awe. It was a large pool of water so deep it looked inky black and was dotted with caves and water plants floating near the edges. Hanging all around were vines and flowers, but there were no birds or creatures. “Something seems wrong,” I murmured to the guys as I crept around the water, checking for signs of intelligent life.

Illian took out his sample kit and replied, “I’m just happy we aren’t fighting off, what did you call thems?”

“Jaguars?” I sighed as I listened intently to the sounds of the forest. Water dripped, winds blew, and waves crashed, but no animals could be heard. I started off into the forest on the other side of the pool, to the annoyance of my partners. After a minute, there came a deep, mechanical rumbling sound that made me stop. Suddenly, a hole opened up just a few feet from me and a giant metal vehicle breached the surface like a giant sandworm. A door opened up and a woman in armour of leaves and metal stepped out with a large metal knife. “Oh, hello,” I gasped, surprised to find another human.

Glaring at me, the woman snapped, “What are you doing here?” Her stance relaxed slightly as I put the machete on my belt and held my hands up.

“Oh, we’re looking for a substance in the blue hole back there. Something about fuel. I’m not the scientist on this mission, I’m the pilot,” I explained, uncertain what to say, exactly.

She touched her face and sighed with exasperation. “That’s why we’re here. We came a few decades ago and have been digging for it ever since,” she explained, motioning to the metal monster around her. Shaking her head, she stepped forward and passed me a mission disk. “Can you bring this back with you and tell them we’re still here. Maybe send some food and reinforcements. We still can’t reach it and we’re running low on some stuff,” she stated as though leaving a mission team abandoned on a hostile planet was normal practice.

Unhooking my communicator, I handed it over and assured her, “Of course. You can use this to contact them directly and I’ll leave a com beacon in orbit so you won’t get cut off.”

She took the device, nodded at me, and returned to the giant metal worm. As the ground rumbled again, it disappeared again and I headed back to the blue hole. When I stepped out through the trees, Carver and Illian both looked relieved.

“We thought you were dead,” Illian commented as he held up a small bag of foliage samples. Shoving them into his bag, he asked, “What were you doing?”

I rolled my eyes and showed them the disk. “I was speaking with the last group they sent on a mission to determine the viability of whatever is in this planet. They’ve been stuck here for decades,” I grumbled as I put the disk back into my pocket and tapped my controller to summon the ship to our location. Staring up into the bright stars, I exclaimed, “Get ready to fly up there in a second.”

---

“Look, I just wanted to talk about general practices, if that’s something that can happen,” I pleaded with Tosin as she typed on her screen.

For a moment I sat, wiggling my toes, in my chair until she finally looked up at me and glared. “Look, I’m writing out this mission report so if you don’t mind,” she snapped, making a shooing motion with her hand.

Groaning, I asked, “Did you not realize we found a lost mission on that planet?”

Again, she was immersed in her typing. When she looked up this time, she asked, “I thought you left?”

I stared and shook my head. “Fine. When are you going to save Aiden?” I asked, making sure she was looking at me as I did so. She tilted her head and I clarified, “My friend on-world. You said I, if I kept the intern, Carver, safe, then you’d save my friend.”

“Oh, that,” she groaned, turning off her screen and setting me with a sorry smile. Sighing, she replied, “Well, see, the next mission is on-world. He won’t be able to come back with us, but he can be part of the mission while we’re there.” She read my shocked features and added, “Bit of a misnomer on my part. Apologies. Now, get out or I’ll not let you see your friend.”

I found myself in the communications line, twenty people deep, without memory of how I got there. When I finally shook my head, I left the line and returned to the atrium. With a sigh, I walked into one of the restaurants and asked the worker, “Do you have any lilac honey?” It was a completely innocuous sentence, other than no one had seen a bee in nearly twenty years.

Nodding, he replied, “Yeah, my grandma makes it herself.” He waved me through a door that opened into a back room. I went down the long hallway, through the kitchen, and through another door at the far end. Up three flights of stairs and with two right turns, not straight, I found myself deep in the bowels of the enormous ship. I opened a door with a special key and stepped into a large library.

“Dey, I didn’t expect to see you today. I thought you had a mission,” Zela commented, looking up from a book on polar bears.

Slumping down at a table, I dropped my head on the cold metal surface and grumbled, “Tosin lied. She won’t bring Aiden or Hamish back, just let me see them on-world.” After a minute, I sat up and asked, “What would you do? What would a real member of the Seven do?”

She chuckled and replied, “Well, a real member would probably hire the Bear, a political henchman and supposed pirate, and fly him into airspace to do what you need to do. He’s a big, burly guy who’s a lot nicer than he looks.” Glancing back at the book, she murmured, “But I’m certainly not telling you to do that because Tick would be pissed to know I’m telling you to use someone outside of the Seven.” After thinking about it, she put the book down and glared through me. “I don’t get why Tick thinks we need to adhere to known jurisdictions when it comes to personal missions, yet we can’t possibly trust someone outside of the unit,” she snapped. For a rebel group, they did tend to stick to some restrictive rules.

“Where can I find this Bear?” I asked, standing.

Zela was our eyes and ears on the ship and, consistently, knew where people were. “Well, The Duchess is trying to get rid of the Duke, so, I’d say at their lunch,” she replied quickly. She knew. It wasn’t a guess.

---

When I got to the restaurant they were eating at, I showed my badge and was permitted a table. Spotting the couple, I looked around for a large man. He was seated behind them, hands crossed on his table and food untouched before him. I was about to walk over when the small orchestral band on the stage started to play an upbeat song and the Duke and Duchess got up to dance; it was custom for wealthy and powerful people, apparently. They went on for a good ten minutes before they left, leaving the Bear sitting solemnly at his table.

He spotted me staring and glanced around before nodding at me. Leaving, he left a note on my table and I quickly followed, waving off the waiter as though my date didn’t show.

Outside, I looked at the note and went to the office number in uneven writing. I knocked and the door opened on its own to reveal a tiny space with two chairs and a filing cabinet. Seated beside the cabinet was the Bear.

I stepped in and sat down. For a few seconds, the Bear sized me up, taking in the patch on my uniform and the way my hair wasn’t perfect. “What do you need?” he asked in a gruff, warm voice. He actually kinda sounded like a bear.

Nodding, I cleared my throat and replied, “I uh, I need someone to rescue my friend. From the surface.”

“I can do that. I’ve rescued people all over this region and others. I’ve also procured items from far away for, well, for a price,” he explained, pitching his skills.

“I don’t have a lot of money,” I murmured, thinking back to what little coin I had hidden on-world and the small amount of provisional currency the Union had bestowed upon me to start me off off-world.

Smiling, he shook his head and changed the subject away from payment, “Is there any chance the person you want picked up is still, you know, alive?”

“Ostensibly? No, I don’t. And it’s two guys that I need,” I replied quietly. When he stood up, I sighed, “I shouldn’t have come. It was a stupid idea and they’re probably already- Wait, what are you doing?”

The Bear had gotten to his feet, flicked a hidden switch in the back wall and was now pursuing a large wall of gear that had appeared. As he pulled a large swath of fabric out, he murmured, “Getting my spacesuit. I’ve seen your work down there but your ship can’t protect me from everything and who knows what I’m gonna face down there.”

Standing, I asked, “Why would you do this? You don’t owe me anything. And I don’t have the money for a suicide mission.”

He turned to me, towering like a bear, and stated, “You’re the Seven, right?” When I nodded, he continued, “My sister was with the Seven. She uh, she didn’t make the last mission she took.” There was a tear in his eye so he turned back to the wall.

“Then why would you do this?” I asked.

Sniffing, he replied, “Because I owe you guys more than I can express. We were from on-world and you guys, you saved her. She was spiralling watching the world burn and then she found purpose.” I could see the sadness in his eyes when he looked down at me. When he spoke again, it was with a catch in his throat, “You guys, girls, are the reason I’m, well, I’m a-”

“Pirate?” I finished for him, grinning up at the bear of a man.

He nodded and the Bear put a helmet under his arm before announcing, “Let’s go save your friends or die trying.”

Tree Rings & Fire

As I shimmied along the ledge with my bare toes feeling out the best stone, my canvas bag bounced on my knee, tempting the thundering shower of water to soak it. It took a little finesse to get under the falls without getting soaked and not every trip was positive; I used to keep a few slightly-damp towels on the other side in case of mishaps and missteps. Ducking under the last little bit, I was greeted by a warm fire and the strong scent of burning herbs. Holding my hand up, I did a short incantation and wiggled my fingers. There is no less ridiculous way to describe some steps in magical casting. An inhuman, chortling sound came across my lips as I blew out, echoing like a flock of birds were unsettled somewhere in the cave. Dropping my hand, the sound stopped and I stood rolling on my heels.

“Took you long enough,” muttered a tall woman in a deep, creaking voice as she stepped out from behind a towering stalagmite of solid quartz. As she came into the light, I could make out the weathered bark of her dark face; she was like a tree come to life. Her eyes were drops of amber set in front of a flame and her fingers clasped a long, green staff with leaves sprouting from it. Covering her wooden body were layers of moss and leaves draping like a living dress.

Smiling, I replied with a slight bend of my knee, “Elowen. Good to see you again. You’re growing well.”

She pursed her lips and sighed, “I still don’t know why I’m here, Aster. I don’t appreciate being summoned without cause, especially to this side of the portal. And in particular when it’s by a-”

“-a human. I know,” I cut her off smoothly. The Lady of the Trees and I had a, well, at times contentious relationship. Most of the time, though, it was very cordial; the key was not asking her for anything, which I was about to do.

“As the Keeper of the Gate, you ought to know better than to just lollygag around,” she continued in her older-than-dirt tone, “and what’s this spellwork here for?” She held her fingers near the bowls of fire I’d set up and glared into the light.

Clearing my throat, I replied, “Well, I have been at this for three centuries and sometimes I want a little vacation.” At that, she turned to set me with a look that would melt most mortals. “And since no one ever comes to relieve me, I thought I’d try out a little alert system,” I explained, trying to keep the childish whine out of my voice, “so if anyone tried to get through the portal, this circle would trap them and I would be alerted.” Still, the piercing look. “Look, I have left this cave for very brief periods to, you know, look out at the stars and enjoy life a little, but this spell could make it possible for me to have a real life,” I concluded.

Elowen put her hand on her hip and sighed, “Well, you know why you’re here. You know what you did to find yourself the Keeper out in the land of mortals.” In all the time we’d known one another, all the way back to my birth, Elowen had been like a second mother to me; she did the whole real-talk thing better than anyone I knew.

“Yeah, I did one stupid thing and I’m cursed to live forever out here, unable to leave,” I snapped, dropping my bag on a stone I used as a table. Turning, I waved my hand to part the waterfall. With a glance back at the tree woman, I made a running jump through the hole in the water. I soared through the air and a tinkling sound echoed in my mind and between the trees; it was horribly loud and everything around me sparkled like it was about to burst into flames.

Having stepped to the edge of the falls, Elowen called, “I meant to ask how you got out into the world!” Her voice boomed and made the nearby trees shiver with terror.

“Oh!” I gasped and turned. Taking a breath, I did the long incantation to break out of the containment spell, I moved my fingers and, one by one, the web of intricate and delicate spellwork fell off. When I stood there, free from its bonds, I turned my hand to create a tiny flame and dropped it into a nearby bush. Catching immediately, it spread into a ball of fire before I trounced it with another wave of my hand. I looked back at Elowen and shouted, “If memory serves me, the enchantment stopped me from doing damage to anything, magical or not.” She stayed silent. I chuckled and closed the hole in the falls before making the short journey back up the side of the cliff.

When I returned, she was standing with her back to me. “When did you create that spell?” she asked, sounding nervous. The only other time I’d heard that tiny waver in Elowen’s voice was the day I was exiled to this shitty job. It was like she couldn’t look at me.

I chuckled mirthlessly. Touching my mouth, I replied, “Hundred years ago, maybe. Perhaps a little longer.” Suddenly, she turned, uncertainty clear on her features. “You guys didn’t want me so why would I come back? I just use it to go out into the mortal world,” I sighed. Once, it had been painful; staying here. Now, this was home, kinda. This was pretty well all I’d ever known. “I’ve seen warriors and hunters and creatures of every claw and tooth come through here, even queens and knights. I’ve done the job you asked of me and requested nothing from any of you,” I continued, feeling the anger I’d felt centuries ago bubbling up again.

“Your sister came through when she was queen?” Elowen asked quietly. I’d found that tree folk tended to not, excuse the pun, beat around the bush, so this indirectness put me off a little.

Tempering the anger, I snapped, “I saw her once while she was queen, then I saw my great-niece, and then my great-grandniece. Neither of them knew who I was.” The Lady of the Trees was staring at her hands. “Do you know what that’s like? I was erased. They, you maybe, erased me,” I murmured, sitting down on a large rocky outcrop and trying very hard not to cry or throw something.

We stayed in a state of tension for ages before Elowen finally asked sheepishly, “Perhaps you’ve been erased as the princess, but I’ve heard a tale several times perpetuated by people I would largely rely on for such information of a monster at the end of the world.” She was staring at me now, the vine-y tendrils flowing from her head swayed gently. “They made it sound like there was a horrifying, destructive beast in a dark castle, but I saw no such thing,” she continued, watching my expression, “and I certainly wasn’t caught up in something’s web.”

Nodding, I stood up and stretched my arms. I smiled at the tree woman and threw my right fist into my open left palm. The world shook, thunder cracked, and the cave around us dissolved into a jagged black obsidian castle. Where there had been a tiny room, there was a huge, cavernous throne room fit for a queen. Above our heads, a charred bone chandelier swayed lightly with candles burning. Candelabras all over the room cast bright light as gaping, organic holes punched through the stone let in natural light. I moved my hand and the doors behind me opened on a sharp outcropping of a balcony and I turned to face the sun.

“How did you-?” Elowen began, but I was taking a run toward the edge of the tower and didn’t hear her.

As my toes left the ground, I whispered the familiar, transformative words and took the leap. Spreading my arms out, my skin turned to stone-hard scales and webbing stretched into wings across my arms. Claws and teeth grew sharper and longer, and suddenly everything was fiery and hard. I flexed my wings just before I touched the ground and dove up into the air before Elowen’s shocked face. Touching down just inside the door, I padded thunderously to the middle of the room and blew a few fire rings at my chandelier. I could see the tree woman was sufficiently terrified so I smiled with sword-sized teeth and took a deep breath. The journey back was a little more painful, but I was always happy to have fingers and fully-functioning vocal cords; using telepathy to speak to people was annoying.

“I recognize that I wasn’t the right choice for queen, I really do, but I will not concede that I am far more powerful than my sister ever was,” I murmured as I shut the doors again and walked barefoot into a smaller room. This one had several expansive windows that made Elowen gasp. On the left was a view from the cliff on the other side of the portal; it was a stunning view of a large swath of the kingdom. The middle was inside the actual throne room. The right was of the ocean back home. It sparkled in the fading sunlight. Because of the twelve-hour time difference, it was morning here and soon-to-be night there. Sighing, I explained, “The mortals can only see the falls; they’re in the basement, basically.” The woman was just staring out into the world. “The containment spell only works on me when I’m there, but I don’t go out of my way to cause destruction. I may have stopped a few adventurers from getting through, but I think I was doing this world a service,” I added, sitting down on the bench in the middle of the room.

For a long while, we remained stationary. Elowen seemed in shock. I was trying to forget about everything I’d been so mad about; I’d pushed it down for so long that when it did pop up, it was almost explosive. Centuries later, the scars were still pretty fresh. I forgot them sometimes, hid them from the world and myself.

Finally, I felt calm enough to stand next to Elowen and, together, we watched a lone knight crossing the throne room with a large iron lantern. Sometimes I missed normal, boring stuff like that; it was nostalgic.

Clearing my throat, I changed the subject for us both, “To get back to the issue at hand, Elowen, as the Keeper of the Gate, I have to inform your side of the portal that it’s in danger.”

She looked at me and frowned. “What do you mean?” she asked, cobwebs of home falling from her mind.

“Mortal development, I’m afraid,” I replied, heading back to my throne room and leading the tree woman down the winding staircase and out the front door. The black obsidian rose up and around the original waterfall, encasing it entirely but leaving the entire surrounding intact; I didn’t dare alter it. Instead of a simple cliff face, it was now a cliff with a large stalagmite protruding out from the front of it, engulfing a large portion of the front like a dragon. We wandered down the long trail on the edge, taking sudden switchbacks every few minutes.

“Not very wagon-friendly,” Elowen commented when we finally arrived at the base. She was staring up at the massive, obtrusive building.

Chuckling, I replied, “I don’t get many visitors, anyway. And, even if I did, I probably wouldn’t get them from that side of the Gate.” I headed off between two trees and plucked my way along, ducking branches and jumping bushes. “It’s about two hours south,” I called back to the tree woman, pulling a phone out of my pocket. When I turned back, she was gone so I stopped and searched for good, mortal road trip music. I put on some Hendrix and slid the phone back into my pocket, working a small, powerful spell. After a few seconds, the guitar riff rippled through the trees and the world was alight with screaming strings, crashing drums, and deep beats.

Elowen finally caught up to me and we headed out as she stared around, searching for musicians. I let her be confused for a good half hour before finally explaining, “Transference and amplification charm, if you’re wondering.”

“Of your own device?” she asked, staring at me as I hummed along with a rocking Tragically Hip ballad. I nodded and kept on walking. She struggled to catch up to me and gasped, a little out of breath for a tree, “Have you written any of your custom spells down? In a book, perhaps?”

I stopped and she almost ran into me. Shaking my head, I snapped, “What? You wanna take my genius back with you? Tell everyone there that I should have had the throne? That I would have had the power to prevent three wars and hundreds of casualties over the years?” My anger was bubbling up again.

“Well, I mean, maybe it could be-” she started before fading away, uncertain what to say.

I cut her off as she found her voice, “Could be a bargaining chip? For my freedom?” For a moment, I was too angry to speak. “Or servitude? You could let them know who’s been protecting them all these years,” I growled, wanting to hurt her and the whole damn world I left behind. But I had a new job, so I just added, “I don’t serve you anymore. I protect this place from you, from your side.”

---

The next hour and a half, neither of us spoke. Birds and squirrels chatted with one another overhead as the music I was playing echoed around us; this was like my heaven. Sunlight dripped from overhead leaves in intricate, organic patterns on the mossy forest floor. Trees swayed here and there to the natural rhythm of the world.

When we reached the point where I could just barely hear the construction, I stopped and turned off the music. I stood staring up into the trees expectantly until Elowen asked, “What?”

Chuckling, I stepped up to a tree and placed my hand on the rough bark, shutting my eyes. “Oh, Lady of the Trees, can you not hear them screaming?” I purred, opening my eyes and looking at the woman.

She shook her head and replied, “No, Aster, I can’t. They aren’t alive, not like they are back home.” Frowning, she added, “There’s energy, but not that kind of life.”

I straightened and grabbed her wrist, pulling her towards the tree. “That’s where you’re wrong. Come, put your hand here,” I commanded, pressing her fingers against the trunk and taking a step backward.

For a few seconds, she stood listening, feeling. “No, all I can hear is your heartbeat. You’re stressed, worried,” she finally murmured.

“That’s not me. That’s the trees. But, yeah, I am worried. About this world,” I sighed, listening for anything larger than a raccoon amongst the underbrush; I didn’t have an invisibility charm that would definitely work on Elowen so we needed to steer clear of construction workers. “But really feel it, Elowen,” I pleaded, “Tap into that, these trees are all connected.” I couldn’t figure out a better way to help her understand this place, this world. “Look, they speak to each other, just in a different way than the ones back home. Even I can hear it sometimes,” I continued, trying to convince her with everything I had.

She shut her eyes and put both hands on the trunk, her fingers entwining across the surface as she listened. “They’re humming?” she murmured with uncertainty.

I smiled. I’d finally gotten through to her. Nodding though I knew she was focusing still, I replied, “Talking, that’s talking.”

As she continued to link with the towering tree, she spoke in a sort of trance, “It’s not in a language I can comprehend.” Breaking free, she looked around at the trees as though she expected to see a familiar face but didn’t. Suddenly, she furrowed her brow and looked at me. “That’s how you feel here? Like you’re speaking a different language?” She was the maternal woman I’d known for so long again, caring, forgiving.

“It was,” I replied, breathing around the lump in my throat, “But then I started listening to the music. The music is just fantastic. Stunning.” Emotions were roiling; not just anger, but love and peace and good things, deep things.

Smiling, she prompted, “Like that, what we were listening to?”

I nodded and continued, letting the emotions left over from the music sparkle in my words like sea glass left on the beach after high tide, “Yeah, but there’s also music with so much heart you can’t stand it. You can feel the pain and the exultation and the horror, the sadness, the joy. Through their music, the mortals have immortalized their deepest emotions, encased them in the fragile plastic of CDs and records. It’s like life everlasting, music.” Before I was entirely overtaken by the mere memories of music, I cleared my throat and pointed through the trees. “It’s uh, it’s just over there. The trees are talking about destruction, they’re pleading for it to stop,” I murmured, trying to block out the noise.

“What are the mortals doing?” Elowen asked in her official tone.

Holding my arms out, I replied, “They’re building housing through this whole area.” When she blinked at me with her eyebrows raised, I tried a different tactic. “They’re expanding their territory and creating a new settlement,” I tried in colloquial terms, “Generally, they cut everything down and then build their little buildings and streets before putting in a few new, manicured trees and shrubs.”

Nodding, she asked, “But they can’t see the castle?”

I chuckled and replied, “True, but they can destroy it and the waterfall. They want to, in their plans, use the river as part of the design of a kind of creekside oasis. But that means segmenting it behind the waterfall to have better control and flow down the way.” Elowen was trying to picture a modern mortal settlement without ever seeing one so I cut to the punchline, “They’re going to stop the flow of water from our world because the falls won’t go through the cave anymore. Actually, there probably won’t be a cave anymore”

“Oh,” she murmured, understanding the issue now, “So?”

I cleared my throat and sighed, “Well, we don’t know what would happen if magic stopped flowing here.”

Rolling her eyes, she explained in her most condescending tone, “Dear, the magic coming through is just overflow and it only affects the direct vicinity.”

I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t. I took a trip across the world and, guess what? Magic worked, in full,” I snapped, feeling hot again. Taking a deep breath, I added, “This world is saturated with a low level of magic. I have no idea what would happen if that stopped. Or if the portal were destroyed.”

Elowen started to walk back and I followed, trying to force the anger to ebb by expending energy; it worked, to a degree. “Then we would keep all the magic, Aster,” she finally sighed as though it were the most obvious and correct option. “Who’s side are you even on?” she muttered under her breath.

Running up in front of her, I threw my hands up to stop her. “Again, Elowen, our worlds are intertwined. I think this world acts as a kind of filter,” I explained. When she glared at my hands, I dropped them and continued, “The magic is unstable on the cliff back home above where the waterfall is, right?” She nodded. “Well, this world skims just enough off the top to allow the magic our world has to be useful. We have to do something.”

“Fine, what would you like me to do?” she asked, centuries of rings in her eyes. I shut my eyes and cast us both back into the throne room of my castle so we could speak more freely than that close to the mortals. Chuckling as she stared around us, she snapped, “You could have done that to get us there instead of walking two hours?”

I laughed and nodded before getting back on track. “Send someone, Elowen. Tell someone. Do something,” I pleaded, taking her rough hands in mine. Nodding, I muttered, “I can’t protect both worlds all by myself anymore. And I shouldn’t have been asked to.” I dropped her hands and stared at the throne I’d built for myself out of stone.

After a minute of consideration, Elowen suddenly commented, “You won’t become queen.”

Scratching my head, I turned back to her with a fire trying to burn through me. “I don’t want the throne, the real one. I don’t want to be anything or beholden to anyone,” I replied quietly. I chuckled and noted, “If I wanted the throne, I’m pretty sure I could have just taken it, you tree. I could have burned through your forest and killed anyone that didn’t want to bow.” The dragon in me was rearing its head in those words; I didn’t let it out much for that reason. It could protect us all, but it could also destroy everything if I didn’t keep a handle on it. “Really, I want someone, anyone, to help me fix this and then I would be happy to never speak to any of you again,” I stated, pushing the monster in me down again.

“Why me?” she gasped, still looking shocked from my well-mannered outburst.

Growling, I asked, “What do you mean?”

She searched for the right words and clarified, “Why summon me, specifically? You know lots of people over there, still. You know who’s alive with this window spell.”

I smiled. “The trees,” I murmured. Throwing the doors open to the balcony, I continued, “I thought you’d be the most receptive because, even if they aren’t in the same world or speak the same language, the trees here are your responsibility, too. It’s all one forest, Elowen.” I stepped out onto the jagged stone to survey my pseudo kingdom. When I turned back, I let the dragon’s eyes and claws come out to solidify my unspoken threat. “Even if you don’t care, you need to go back and make a big issue out of it, Elowen. Mountain out of a molehill,” I demanded, letting anger flow through. Tilting my head, I chuckled and made a pun, “Make a castle out of a cave, maybe.”

Just Let Me Say

I sat down on the warm grass, the sun beating down and birds chirping loudly in the trees nearby. I hadn’t been back since the burial. I guess I was waiting for the right time and it was never the right time, even now. How do you tell when you should visit missed loved ones? Maybe you do it all the time, out in the world. You see something that reminds you of that thing they used to do and it’s a warm, comfortingly uncomfortable feeling; sorta like sitting here in the sun. I suppose I mean how do you tell when you should visit the grave of someone you loved? It took me over a year. Seasons changed on the little stone plaque. It snowed and the wind blew and smoke enveloped it and the grass grew. Maybe there isn’t an answer.

“Hi,” I whispered to the cold slab. I’d never done any of this before. What do you say? Hope they got you a good cloud? I’m not that religious. I miss you? I think she knows. Besides, I wouldn’t want people to be sad when they talked or thought about me. You would have loved this thing that happened the other day? That sounds a little more my speed. “I know this is a long time coming, but you would have loved who we got to speak at your funeral. He used to be the Archbishop of the Anglican Church,” I told her, smiling. I didn’t say all the reasons I was happy he spoke, but they were mine; she would have loved to know he was a big wig. I loved that he was a great guy, that he agreed to do it, that he was one of the least religious people I knew ingrained in a church. Chuckling, I added, “I’d like to see your sister or even niece top that.” If I was wrong and she was hearing things we said about her, she would already know about that stuff, but I wanted to tell her in person.

For a while, I just sat there pulling at the grass. “Haven’t been writing much lately,” I began, pushing down my hatred of one-sided conversations, “But I have a system. You know how I like systems and organizing that stuff.” I thought about the million times I’d talked to her about a new way I’d come up with to get myself writing; I’d given myself a word count goal or a prompt challenge to help me focus. All the different storylines I’d yammered on about. That one character I loved to death but was gonna kill off. The little pieces of me I’d left scattered like a breadcrumb trail throughout my stories.

“I keep finding myself getting stymied by politics and equality and stuff,” I sighed, knowing she wouldn’t have understood any of that. It was just an extra level of nuance I couldn’t shake no matter how much it stopped me from getting words on the page. Sniffing, I brushed a tear from my eye and chuckled, “I don’t know why I get so attached to these things and so emotional about them. I just, I don’t know. I don’t know why I don’t just say these things so they can be out there in the world.” I looked around to make sure no one was nearby; it was pretty private out here and no one else seemed to be visiting today, at least not nearby.

Taking a deep breath and returning to breaking up grass bits, I murmured, “I don’t know why I never told you this before. I kept wanting to and it kinda ate at me that I never told you. Which is ridiculous because you didn’t know there was something I wasn’t saying.” Feeling a pang of discomfort, I groaned and sniffed. “I know a lot of people wait until they have a partner to do this talk and stuff, but I guess it’s a little more complicated than that and I did want you to know, even if I didn’t have a partner,” I continued, fighting back more tears. I was at a cemetery; I was allowed to cry, even if was for a stupid ass reason. “So, uh, I am gay or queer or whatever. Specifically, I’m pan-romantic, an offshoot of bi-romantic. Basically, I am interested in men and women and everyone in between,” I over-explained in a tongue-tied word dump. Nodding at myself, I continued, “The other side of that is that I’m ace or asexual so I don’t like people in, like, ‘that way’.” I made air quotes at the slab of stone. “Like, I guess I have what most people would consider platonic relationships with people, but I still like the hugging and kissing parts, just not the other parts,” I chuckled, trying to think how I might have tried to explain this to her in person.

“Anyway, on top of that, I’m non-binary, which I know you wouldn’t have possibly understood,” I added, touching the short curls of my hair. I cleared my throat and continued, “You know, that part was new. You would have just gotten the first part, probably. But I wasn’t even out to anyone else and I just, it was never the right time, you know? And I guess I just, it was like there wasn’t a reason, and still isn’t, for anyone else to know. Like, I was always searching for a reason.” Nodding, I looked up at the sky for a minute. “I’m Kai, now. It took me a long time to realize I wasn’t a man or woman. Like, way longer than it should have. Well, all of it did, really. But if I’d grown up in the world now, someone would have been there to tell me these things and it would have made so much more sense,” I mused. I thought about all that a lot. On a roll, I continued, “It wouldn’t have been this huge journey from lesbian to feeling like there was something wrong that I didn’t care about the stuff everyone else did, and then realizing I like kinda anyone as long as I like their soul or whatever and could see living with people of all genders, and then realizing I wasn’t broken and that you can just be romantic, and then that I should have realized I’m non-binary a lot sooner. It was quite the journey, Gramma.” Staring off into the trees, I was quiet.

I cleared my throat again and came back around to writing, “That’s where my writing keeps getting stuck in the mud. I want to put that rainbow spin on things and a lot of the time you just gotta let it be. And then I just get stuck.” That was it, that explained it all; I kept getting stuck. Sighing, I added, “And that’s where I realized all this stuff and really came into who I was; writing. I write until I figure shit out and I guess it just permeates the whole thing, little bits of me.” Biting my lip, I looked down and sighed at the plaque.

“Thanks for letting me say that to you. I really needed to get that off my chest,” I murmured as I stood up and brushed the grass from my jeans. Turning, I chuckled, “I do miss you. Love you, Gramma.”

Community Service

For a creative type, Liz could be organized better than anyone. In the painting room, her corner was carved out with a line of perfectly-scrubbed tile, colour-coordinated materials, and perfectly-trimmed brushes. Even the blank canvas and line of pencils on her easel were neat and every tip sharpened to the correct point. Next to her, the other artists seemed like complete slobs with globs of paint splattered on the floor and messes of brushes wallowing in murky bottles of painted water. Even Evan, the architect-turned-starving-artist, had pencil shavings around his easel and mismatched paint swatches littering his entire table.

I came in to make sure Tristan and Tyrion hadn’t left their phones in their aprons again and spotted Liz’s sketchbook open on her next piece. Normally, I managed to ignore my wife’s drawing books, but tonight as I walked by, I just caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. Then, I took a long, lingering look. Staring up at me with warm gray eyes was me, kinda. It was three of me, sorta. There was a central figure that had my eyes and short, curly hairstyle and that mole I hated on my chin. That one was wearing a nice plaid shirt with a t-shirt under it, like I did. To the left, sharing my left eye and adding a dash of deep blue to another eye, was a masculine figure. He had a short beard and hair that curved elegantly to the left, but was very short compared to what I had now. The mole was less prominent amidst the hair. He was wearing a suit and rainbow bow tie. Well, she’d written a note in about it being rainbow. On the right, sharing the other eye, was a woman. Her second eye was bright pink and her hair was long, pinned up, and curled under a rainbow headband. Again, the mole. She had a low-cut top, outrageous earrings, and a rainbow necklace. It was me, Danny, all of me. I wanted to hug Liz, but I wasn’t supposed to see this yet.

Groaning, I pried myself from the sketch and checked the twins’ pockets. When they were empty, other than a few shards of charcoal, I left without another look at the book. I needed to forget the drawing. As I turned the light off, a shivering outline remained behind one of the easels. I shut the door behind me and wandered down the hall, checking rooms to make sure all the lights were out. As I passed the writer’s room, I spotted the figure again; it was like electricity come to life and shifted soundlessly in the air.

When I finally reached the staircase at the end, I opened the electrical panel with my key and switched the power off to the whole floor, other than the kilns. No one had booked a night class or session, save the curing of some pots and mugs, so the lights didn’t need to be on. It wasn’t as though people didn’t just show up, but I always made a point to welcome people back if they needed an escape at odd hours; creatives were like that.

With the final task done, I turned to the boxy, concrete staircase. Seated on the fourth step with its head resting on its hands, was the electricity creature from before. Taking a deep breath, I walked right at the figure, who stood up, shivering and casting eerie lights around the stairs. I shut my eyes and walked through it, holding my breath. When I’d turned the corner, I opened my eyes and looked back. It was glaring with dark, void eyes. With a staticky shriek, it launched itself at me and I swung my keys through it. With a kind of fizzle, it disappeared and everything was calm and quiet.

Finally, I took the stairs up to the third, residential, floor, where Liz and I lived.

The whole building used to be a school that we’d converted into a kind of community haven for outcasts and creatives. The first floor was our very public area, the second was dedicated to mostly academic and creative pursuits, and the third and fourth were residences and living spaces.

On the bottom, we used what had been there when we took over. The large kitchen was in full-time use to serve meals and snacks at all times of the day, as well as hosted simple cooking classes, and facilitated prepared meal prep. At the far end, the enormous gym was utilized for subsidized sports, some larger meetings, and occasionally emergency shelter; we lived in interface wildfire country so we had been set up several times to provide temporary shelter to evacuees. There were many other meeting rooms for rent, a large bathroom and shower facility, and general living spaces that anyone could use. We had a few rooms kitted out with televisions and computers for entertainment, and even a fully-functioning drama room with a stage and seating for several hundred. Not many people used the drama room for productions, but we had hosted a couple of fundraisers. From dawn to dusk, it was constantly bustling and loud with volunteers, staff, residents, and community members utilizing everything for free or at very little cost. Plus, we had a large playground and several sports fields outside.

The second floor boasted the main entrance to the two-storey library, stocked mainly with donations from anywhere and everywhere. We had a pretty good selection and had nearly filled the entire thing. Other than having an issue with the automatic doors on the first floor, the library was fantastic; three engineers had come in stating we’d need to redo part of the structure if we wanted to fix the issue, so we just sent people up to the second floor if it was on the fritz. Every other room on that floor was dedicated to a different pursuit, with a few open to anything. Desks and computers and easels were set up where they were needed and sign-up sheets to reserve rooms were posted next to every door. On the inside of every room was a sign-in sheet so we could prove use to obtain our funding.

The residential floors had very strict rules against, well, a lot of things. For the most part, we rented to families with small children, but we were also open to marginalized groups and had a soft spot for LGBT youth. We were able to provide very cheap accommodations with childcare built-in for families, living spaces with decent entertainment, skills training, and food all under one roof. The biggest catch was that the bathrooms were shared, only a few to a floor, and they were, well, school bathrooms. We’d installed showers in every one and rooms were assigned to specific ones on the third and fourth floors; the other floors were fair game so often people would venture down to use the facilities at night. And, yes, the residential rooms had locks and separate keys.

I trudged up the steps and stood in front of our door for a few minutes before going inside. Because of the way the classrooms had been converted, most of them were one-room so there wasn’t any way to sneak in. Liz was sitting on the couch reading from an enormous book; her glasses were at the end of her nose and she was squinting.

Smiling at me when I shut the door, she asked, “Find the phones?”

I laughed forcefully and replied, “No, only charcoal.” Holding up the evidence, I wiped my hands on my pants before sighing. “They want me to go tell them, right? And I can’t, you know, call them,” I grumbled as I grabbed some water from our cooler.

“Pretty much,” she murmured, clearly having gone back to her book.

Glancing down at my watch, I leaned on the other couch and grumbled about it being too late. I took a sip of water and my head went fuzzy. It was pressure and sound swirling and the world started to turn.

---

When I woke up, I was lying behind the couch with a pillow under my head, the taste of metal on my tongue, and Liz was hurriedly speaking to someone on her phone. I tried to lift my head but couldn’t. Instead, I waved and she came over, tears on her cheeks. “Oh, yes, they just woke up. Danny? Danny, can you hear me?” she murmured, kneeling at my side.

Nodding, I whispered, “I’m fine. Tell them I’m fine.” My head was killing me and I could see spiders dripping from webs across the ceiling. Shutting my eyes, and groaned, “Just let me sleep.”

There was a short pause as someone spoke on the phone before Liz was gently shaking my shoulder, “Hey, Danny, they said not to let you sleep. Sorry. I just, they’re on their way. I have to get someone to open the door. Can I call you back? Okay. I’ll just use their phone. Hang on.” Again, a pause as I blinked up at the furry bodies and spindly legs. “Yeah, Danny passed out and I need you to come get my key to let the paramedics in. I can’t leave them,” she murmured into my phone. Must have been Denise down the way; she was very trustworthy and would be up this late already. Liz looked down as she put my phone back and whispered, “I’m just going to the door. Don’t pass out on me.”

I felt like forever waiting for the ambulance, and when they arrived, Liz was frantic. She talked about the first time I passed out, on a train heading out to check this place out, and every one, in order, since. If they hadn’t told her to just skip to tonight, we would have been there all night.

The paramedic, a very nice young man with a short beard and warm eyes, had me sit up after he’d assessed me a little. Once I was leaning against the couch back, I felt a little better. The nausea subsided a bit. Behind him, the door opened and a lovely, warm light burst through light the sun times a million. Seeing that I was looking over his shoulder, the man frowned a little and asked, “What are you looking at?”

Shifting my gaze back, I sighed, “The light coming in the door is lovely.” I felt a little stoned, but maybe it was just some kind of symptom hangover.

“Do you have a history of hallucinations?” he asked pointedly.

I stared for a moment before replying, “How did you know that?” Behind me, Liz was making some odd sounds; she’d forgotten to let them know about that and she was kicking herself.

Patting my arm, he stood up and went to Liz. “We’re going to take Danny to the hospital,” he announced to her quietly.

I shook my head and struggled to my feet, leaning on the couch. “No, no, we’re not going to the hospital. I already know it’s not good,” I stammered with my head spinning. When Liz helped steady me, I reiterated a chat we’d had a hundred times, “I don’t want to know what it is, babe. I just wanna keep going until, you know. You knew that.” This wasn’t the first time she’d called an ambulance, knowing I didn’t want it, because I’d passed out and couldn’t stop her.

---

When I woke up in the morning, sunlight was streaming on the fluffy couch in three-twenty. Groaning as I sat up, I rubbed my eyes and tried to stretch my back out. As comfortable as the couch was to sit on, it sucked as a bed. I crossed to the door and stared at a piece of cardstock that had been slipped under the door. It was a painting of our logo and the front of the school with our new sign on it. I remembered the night Liz did it.

We’d taken a walkthrough of the property and all she had to draw on was a stack of blank postcards. For an hour we’d each taken turns talking about how crazy it was to suggest we open up a community centre in the middle of three towns in this enormous compound. It had been crazy. Actually, it still was. She’d spent two minutes on the drawing and had brought her paints out as we discussed potential plans. When she was done and the paint was dry, I took the postcard and wrote out our mission statement on the back. To help. That was pretty much it. Be what people needed. And, really, we were. I turned it over to my scratchy handwriting and looked in the corner of it, where you were supposed to write the address it was going to. I’d drawn a little monster in pen. It was what I was seeing that night, in the school. I was always drawing little things like that to remind myself that the hallucinations were coming from my imagination.

The real reason Liz brought it to me was that I’d told her about the hallucinations and the headaches and everything that day. I talked about knowing there was something wrong, but that I just wanted to live my life. She’d taken a long walk and I had suspected she wouldn’t be back. Finally, she came back in and proposed both marriage and that we buy the school. That day, we decided to just live our lives.

I headed back to our room and found it empty. Not surprising. Downstairs, I could hear the community centre in full swing so I headed into the painting room. Also empty. Sighing, I went to the librarian’s office and stood in front of the red door. I took a deep breath and knocked.

For a minute, I was just standing in front of an empty room as a small gaggle of students whispered behind secondhand Shakespeare books at a table nearby. When it opened and Liz was standing in front of me, I pulled her into a tight hug.

Tears prickled my eyes as I whispered, “I’ll go to the doctor. We’re going to be at this school until we’re old and wrinkly.” She pulled back and smiled through her own tears. I took her hand and we went in to call the hospital.

---

It was a rainy day when Liz dropped me at the train station on the way to the hospital. She’d been gutted that she had a necessary funding-related inter-city council meeting on my first day of treatment, but I assured her there would be a lot more to come. As we stood in the downpour, I finally admitted, “Oh, I saw your sketchbook. I think you really captured me.” I just wanted to tell her that in case something happened. I knew nothing was going to happen, but the world was a crazy place.

“Guess I need a new birthday present, then,” she mused, squeezing my hand as I stepped up into the train. Smiling, she waved and shouted, “Love you!” over the PA crackling about last call out of town.

After the Crash

The guardrail crumpled out of the way, letting us pass right through. For a moment I could hear the metal itself as though it was the only sound in the universe; this high, whining, tearing sound that hurt my ears. As the broken edges trailed gashes in the side of the car, I threw my arm out to catch my sister. She had her eyes closed and was shrieking in that horrifying, silent way. I drew a breath that caught in my throat and reached to unbuckle her from the seat as the left side tires left the soft, grassy shoulder, brakes locked up and sliding. Soundlessly, I frantically tried my buckle but it was stuck. I’d been meaning to get it fixed for ages. We were tipping over and falling and she was trying to open the door and everything was deafeningly quiet and horribly too loud at once; my ears hurt. When the rocks met us, the car was on its roof and the sound was like a drum. It vibrated through the car and hit me. I reached to grab my sister, but she was gone. Darkness was crushing around me, knocking the breath out of my lungs. Water was flooding in. I was drowning. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see anything.

---

I gasped as I sat up in the uncomfortable cot, sweat dripping down my back and hair plastered to my forehead. For a while I kept my eyes shut. I didn’t want to relive that moment ever again, but I also didn’t want to live in a world without her. Taking deep, calming breaths, I finally blinked the sleep from my eyes and snapped the fingers of my right hand in the darkness. Across the room, the blinds on the high windows shuffled soundlessly out of the way, letting the streaming sunshine in. It wasn’t until I was sitting with my leg hanging off the bed that I realized music was playing on the speakers; I recognized it.

For a few seconds, I just sat there straining to hear it before it hit me in a sickening wave. It was the song playing on the radio when we went over. Struggling to hold it together, I grabbed my prosthetic arm and sidled up to my other leg. I checked the connections, watching the mechanical muscles moving, and crossed to the door. I was looking forward to having a shower and changing out of these uncomfortable clothes.

---

When I finally got down to the mess hall, it was almost empty. Breakfast was at seven, sharp. There were a few temporary exceptions, like me, but for everyone else, you snooze, you lose. I grabbed my plate of fruit, eggs, and veggie sausage, then I took my customary seat away from everyone; it all tasted divine after the nightmare.

“You were screaming in your sleep again,” whispered Carlos as he sat down next to me on the back bench. He was holding his coffee like it was gonna make a run for it; after all this time, he still couldn’t get the hang of his bionic fingers.

Chuckling as I swallowed a grape, I replied, “I thought these rooms were soundproof.” 

“Me, too. Until you arrived,” he sighed, looking at my metal and plastic hand. He started on the topic I usually forced him to avoid, “Hey, do you know-”

I cut him off with ease, “Who was in charge of the music this morning?” When he stared at me, I snickered, “There was no music when I came down, was there?”

Shaking his head, he replied, “No. How are your sessions going?” It was connected to his obsession, but it wouldn’t give him the answer he wanted.

I brushed a strand of hair out of my eyes, cursing only having one good hand to put it in a bun, and murmured, “I have an indicator session after breakfast. I am dreading it. I think they’re gonna say I’m never gonna be ready.” Shoving the rest of my plate away, I put my head down. “They’re gonna ask me to leave,” I muttered to the table.

Chuckling, Carlos picked my plate up and replied, “If they were gonna do that to anyone, it would have been me.” With that, he left.

I was okay being alone. I sat up when my watch buzzed to remind me of my appointment. Frowning at it, I got up and grabbed a cup of coffee on the way down the hall. Everyone had chores this early, or they were off training; everyone who was capable of such things. Apparently, I wasn’t. Today, though, I would find out my fate. Was I about to get the boot as an amputee or was I going to be able to join the fight? Only a board of geniuses could know.

When I shuffled to the door, I stared at the red light above it. As soon as it turned green, I would walk through there and find out who I was going to become. I paced for a few minutes, listening to the gentle puff as my leg joint bent and unbent. Finally, the light changed. I took a deep breath and stepped through the door.

Most sessions were held in a small, sun-drenched room with a comfortable couch, a desk, and walls of books. These “indicator” sessions that were to determine how much progress had been made, were in a kind of tribunal courtroom with a long table of highly intelligent people and a very uncomfortable chair before them. I sat down in the chair and looked up into the familiar and unfamiliar faces; not everyone who sat on this council worked on-site.

“Hello,” I squeaked after a lingering uncomfortable silence. Clearing my throat, I smiled shyly.

“Mila, so nice to see you again,” Erin, the psychiatrist who assessed me, replied pleasantly. She tried to make everyone feel as comfortable as possible, but even her brightest ray of sunshine couldn’t reach the dark room we were in. Clearing her throat, she motioned to the rest of the table and announced, “This council before you has deliberated, taking into account your mental state and preferences as I have taken them, on whether you will be sent to the mainland with the limbs currently in your possession or if you will be asked to join our cause. In the latter circumstance, we would reassess your artificial limbs.” I blinked at her, unsure of what to do. She smiled and asked, “Do you understand and agree to these terms?”

Nodding, I replied, “Absolutely.” I wanted to tell her she needed to reassess me. I also wanted to say I was feeling better today; no post-traumatic symptoms whatsoever. But I was too terrified to speak.

She looked down at her paperwork and read aloud, “As long as Mila continues her sessions with Erin, me, as long as is required by Erin, her services would be requested in a security designation, based on her limb usage, so long as she is able, at which point she would be relegated to the education centre.” Again, it was deathly quiet. “Do you understand and agree to these terms?” Erin prompted, glancing up at me.

“Oh, of course, yes, I do,” I stammered, trying to calm my heart.

“Great!” Erin exclaimed, shutting the file before her and glancing up and down the table. With a nod to each councillor, she sighed, “Now it’s time for a session, Mila. This way.” Heading through a hidden door at the back, she waved for me to follow.

Nodding at the table, I murmured, “Thank you so much,” and followed the doctor through the door and into her sun-soaked office. When the door shut, I muttered, “Thank you for not, you know, saying I should be sent away or something.” I took a seat at the edge of the couch as Erin got her paperwork sorted.

“Well, you’ve proven that you can make immense progress, even if you’re still having issues with the dreams and occasional hallucinations,” she replied, finally looking at me. Smiling, she continued, “And I think you want to be of service. I think that will help to ground you so you can stop feeling like you’re drowning in your sorrow and grief. This is your life now and I think sending you to the mainland would have been a disservice to you.” Straight talk was one of her specialties. Fixing her classes at the bridge of her nose, Erin got on with the session, “Did you dream of your accident again?” When I nodded, she made a note. “Let’s talk about your sister. You two were close and she was just going to start in your classroom when summer break was over, correct?” she prodded, tilting her head.

When I first arrived, just thinking about school would have left me a puddle on the floor. “Yeah, I was taking her to the beach to soak up the sun. I’d been waiting for years for her to get into my class and we were both really excited,” I elaborated. These were truths she already knew, but it was helping me to get past it, I think. In the quiet, I started to just talk, “I loved her so much. I was ten years older than she was so we were always getting the ‘is this your daughter’ thing in my late teens, right up until that morning. We stopped for ice cream and the lady at the booth asked if my daughter wanted sprinkles. I just laughed and said yeah. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Say, ‘actually, ma’am, this is my sister’? Who cares? I mean, after the day we had, who cares about anything?”

I was starting to spiral so she shifted my attention. “What would you want to say to her, if you could speak through the ether?” she asked, trying to keep me focused.

Sniffing, I replied, “Why didn’t I take you for lemonade instead? We could have had a picnic in that field out behind the school instead. I’m sure Gavin would have understood if I cancelled our booking that day.” The tears were hot and I didn’t even bother to brush them away.

Erin sat back in her swivel chair and asked, “What do you think she’d say to you? After everything.”

I’d asked myself that question so many times. How mad would she be? Would she even want to talk to me? Would she yell? Shaking my head, I sighed, “I’ll never know.”

“No, we won’t. But that’s it. You have the ability to speak to her, even if she can’t answer,” Erin tried, lining the tragedy with as much silver as she could muster.

We stayed quiet for a moment as I thought about it, all of it; my sister, the accident, the feeling of drowning, my ribs breaking. Sitting up straight, I asked, “Why did you put me in for security?”

She smiled, her eyes twinkling like someone who knows something you don’t. “You wanted to protect people, your sister, so it was an obvious choice,” she replied. Likely, the council just wanted me there because I was about to be fitted with a bionic leg and arm, but I wanted to like her reason.

Instead, it came out as sarcasm, “Oh, yeah, ‘cause I protected my sister really well. Why would you trust me with your people when I couldn’t even manage to keep one kid alive for a weekend?” Through the training and the amputations and the medical miracles they’d performed here, I couldn’t find a reason they’d chosen me; I was a nobody who should have died. There wasn’t anything special about me, until they fixed me.

Nodding, she thought through her answer before replying, “I think that’s why you need this. You need to realize that everyone has horrible days. Everyone screws up. But just because you made a mistake once, doesn’t mean you can just walk away from who you are. You were meant to do this, to protect people. Teach them.” I flopped down on the couch and stared up at the white ceiling. After a second, she continued, “The first time you left home, to go to college, you said you were president of a reproductive rights group, right?” When I cleared my throat, she chuckled. “You wanted to protect people then, and you want to now. I just want to make sure that is facilitated,” Erin concluded, making a few notes in the file. I could tell they were intricate because her pen didn’t leave the page as she scribbled.

I got up and sighed, “I hope you’re right. I don’t want you to have wasted your time.” Fixing my hair again, I headed for the door.

“Have you visited the forest on the other side of the island?” Erin asked, shutting the file and standing up. I shook my head. Nodding, she stepped in front and opened the door for me. “I’ll take you,” she murmured as we both stepped through into the backlit hallway.

Down hallways and around corners we went, occasionally going through a doorway here or there. Finally, we reached a door to the outside. The whole wall of this corridor was glass and the other side was a forest of mature trees, wild brushes, and birds fluttering between trees. Smiling at me, Erin led me through the door and out into the crisp air. It smelled fresh and natural and nurturing. We headed down a trail and took a left. After five minutes, we arrived at a field of saplings taking in the sun and bowing in the wind.

“This is our memorial forest,” Erin explained, stepping off the path and carefully picking her way through the tiny trees. Pointing at a particularly spindly and tiny specimen, she pulled out her phone and scanned a tiny placard stuck in the ground in front of it. On the screen popped up a notice of who the tree was for; my sister. She handed me the phone and spoke quietly, “You can come here anytime you like to talk to her, Mila. And she can hear you.” As the tears started to flow liberally, she took her phone back, squeezed my shoulder, and headed back to the path.

When she was too far away to hear, I whispered, “Thank you.”

Stalker

“You’re really good at that,” he murmured as I took a swig of water and snapped the cap back on the bottle.

Turning to glance at him, I asked, “What?” People tended not to talk to me before, during, or after a set; they had their own shit to deal with, I’m sure, and stroking my ego or knocking me down didn’t register.

He cleared his throat and the stage gopher’s eyes glinted under the high lights. “I uh, I just mean that you’re good at making people like you,” he explained, his voice quivering. As I checked my hair in the mirror, listening for a cue from my comic relief guy, Royce, he added, “I could never do what you do. No one likes me much.”

Rubbing the middle of my forehead, I rounded on the guy and put my hand on my hip. “What I do isn’t to make people like me,” I replied as I crossed my foot over my other. I held my other hand out like I was holding a skull and continued, “I don’t tell all those little silly and, quite frankly, embarrassing anecdotes to make the audience like me. I do it to make them realize I’m a human person who makes mistakes; it helps them to connect with me, whether they like me or not. Everyone does stupid things sometimes, and my talking about it out loud to thousands of people, helps people to understand me, and ideally, themselves, better.” That wasn’t the first time I’d given the speech; it was the first time I’d given it to one person, though.

Laughing quietly, he sighed, “But isn’t that harder than making people like you?” He was a little short, rounder in the middle, kinda like me, and he wore his glasses too far down his nose.

I considered this question thoroughly before I replied, “Actually, I find it a lot easier. It’s just telling a story. Sure, it’s true and, in a lot of cases, doesn’t show me in an ideal light, but that’s kinda life.” For a moment, he just stared at me. Funny how a thousand people all staring at once feels extremely comforting, but one person just feels awkward. “It’s kinda therapeutic, talking through things in public; you don’t have the opportunity to pull the weeds before you go out there and just have to say whatever you’re gonna say and let things happen,” I continued, thinking about the first few shows I’d done. Airing out my uncertain sexuality for everyone to see had brought me a certain amount of understanding while, simultaneously, being mortifying.

As I took another long drink from the ice-filled bottle, the man asked enthusiastically, “So, you really did end up in a plane crash?”

“Oh, uh,” I began, blinking and trying to remember the last time I talked about that, “yeah. I mean, it was less of a crash and more an emergency landing on a highway in Chilliwack.” For a moment I mulled over the timing. It must have been at least two years since I moved on from that part of the set; when I, personally, got through an issue, I tended to never speak of it again. That was how I kept things fresh. Keeping the pain and discomfort fresh. I never told people about that. “That was from, like, seventeen, that story,” I murmured as the comic set into his final joke.

Nodding, the man replied, “That’s when it happened, but you spoke about it until late twenty-nineteen. One of the final shows before the world went on its head was the first set you did without it.” He was looking at me with a hungry? look that made me insanely uncomfortable. “I think you replaced it with the story about your best friend, Maia’s cancer diagnosis and decline,” he continued, now smiling as though that were the most normal thing. Honestly, it may have been the most normal part of the conversation.

I set the water down and headed back onto the stage as Royce passed me and winked.

---

When I finished the rest of the set, I was going to ask the manager about the man, but he was gone. Chatting idly with the comic, he casually noted that a gopher had left as soon as I got back on stage. I didn’t press the matter. It was a little creepy, but some people were a little weird talking to me; I think it was the bald-faced honesty.

“Did the gopher have a name?” I asked, trying to sound casual. I was also picking at Royce’s penchant for not noticing there were other people around; he could be fairly narcissistic.

Chuckling, he thought for a moment and replied, “I think it was Tim or Tin or something short and to the point.” Tim. “What, did this guy piss in your apple juice?” he asked as he threw his notes into the canvas bag he’d been lugging around, and misplacing, for our entire professional relationship.

“No, I uh, I just,” I stammered. Royce stared at me; I wasn’t one to get tongue-tied. Sighing, I grumbled, “I just wanted to ask Tim how many of my shows he’d gone to and maybe if he wanted a signed copy of my book. He seemed like a pretty big fan.” I mean, I might have asked the first part, but there were a lot more things I wanted to ask him. Like, perhaps, how he knew all that stuff about me. And, maybe, if he could just leave me alone.

---

Emma slammed the hotel room door as she rushed in, threw her bag down on the end of my bed, and made a run for the bathroom. Without shutting the door, she started to use the toilet and shouted, “Ugh, I hope the place you’re at has decent facilities. The women’s room at the community center is like a port-a-potty on East Hastings.”

Snickering as I typed up an idea for a new presentation, I replied, “Uh, yeah. It’s uh, it’s the community theatre. There may have been a waiter and a string quartet.”

“Ha-ha,” she snapped back, turning the tap and flushing the toilet on her way out. She began digging through her purse when she returned, tossing lipstick and a charger and what seemed to be a piece of chewed, petrified gum onto my bed. Glancing up, she winked and stated, “You and I are going out for dinner at a snazzy restaurant downtown and my new friend is paying.”

Truly, I was amazed how often she managed to do that; seduce a wealthy benefactor before making her escape with a bottle of champagne and a box of lobster. Staring at her, I sighed, “No, I won’t be privy to your scheme tonight.” I attempted to stay out of her conquests, but sometimes she needed a wing-woman.

“There’s a shiny silver coin in it for you,” she tempted, holding out a silver dollar.

Rolling my eyes, I got up, grabbed the coin from her fingers, and stood in front of the small wardrobe. I liked unpacking completely, even if we were only staying in a given city for a couple of days. It helped me feel not so untethered from the world; maybe it was just having some familiar items around me. Opening the door, I stared at the capsule wardrobe of neutral colours and plain styles.

“Something glitzy, dear; we’re going someplace nice,” she purred, checking her makeup in the mirror and adjusting her voluminous breasts; it was no wonder men, and sometimes women, threw themselves at her. I was about to remind her that the dressy clothing I had consisted of a smart suit with a bejewelled tank top when she snapped, “That pretty little number with the gems and stuff will do.”

---

When we stepped up to the restaurant, I immediately felt out of place. It was one of those reservation-only joints with three-digit single meals and famous people seated at every other table. At the podium, Emma gave her name and the man standing there looked us both over; I couldn’t see us hitting their dress code, but all he did was smirk. Depositing us at a small round table beside a large, rough pillar in the middle of the room, he returned to his post and a waitress eyed us from across the room.

I looked over at Emma and raised my eyebrows. “So, where’s your date?” I asked, brushing my hand on the pillar and frowning. When I glanced up, I realized it wasn’t actually a pillar. “Oh,” I exclaimed softly as I realized it was an enormous tree growing right in the middle of the five-star restaurant.

“There he is!” she shouted, standing up and flagging down the man who’d just entered in a fancy suit; exactly her type. She was jumping up and down like a child, her shirt barely containing her chest. I rolled my eyes and she spat, “Shut up. I think I like this one.” Doubtful.

When he finally arrived, kissing her and shuffling his seat so they were hip-to-hip, I finally got a good look at his face. I froze and whispered, “Tim?” My stalker was dating my roommate?

Unconventional Love

“Do I seriously have to wear this stupid thing?” I shouted at the thick velvet curtain. I was fiddling with corset laces that were clearly meant to be done up by someone else and couldn’t seem to keep my bosom in the front. In the mirror, I could see where the laces were bunching, but no matter what I pulled, it wasn’t making it any better. From the curtain came a sarcastic laugh and it was suddenly pushed to the side, light streaming in from a giant crystal chandelier. “Vani!” I shouted, hurriedly turning away from the open doorway, “I’m changing!”

Vanessa rolled her eyes and shut the curtains. “I thought you needed some help,” she murmured, glaring at the mess of cords behind my back, “and, besides, it’s nothing any of us haven’t seen before.” Chuckling, she started pulling things, knocking the breath out of my lungs and crushing my ribs. “Really, Kai, I can’t believe you’ve never wanted to try one of these on,” she muttered as she turned me around to tuck my breasts into the bodice before tying a very neat bow in the back.

Staring at myself in the mirror, I groaned, “You realize I’d be far more comfortable in-”

“-a riding suit like the other half of the wedding party is wearing?” Vanessa cut me off, knowing exactly what I was going to say. She was stern in that moment, but the hardness vanished when she saw my face. Sighing, she brushed her hand over my cheek and whispered, “I know my sister just doesn’t get it and you know I want you to be there but-”

“-if it makes me too uncomfortable you’d suffer through without me,” I cut her off with a sad smile. Bending to kiss her lightly, I straightened, pushed the corset around a bit and tried to sigh, which was a mistake as it felt instantly tighter. I twisted and gasped, “I’m not gonna abandon you, but I would really like to at least not wear something this tight.”

Squeezing my hand, Vani sighed, “Alright, I’ll go get the one I picked out for you.”

I turned and snapped, “Then what the hell is this, this boob cage, if not what you picked out?” Desperately, I attempted to unlace the corset and Vanessa rolled her eyes before helping me.

“Oh, uh, this was just the fanciest and most regal dress and I thought since you never wear dresses, you may need a little perspective,” she replied quietly.

“You mean the one you picked out will look so lax compared to this hell that I won’t fight it? That’s not gonna happen. You are in for a world of hurt, missy,” I muttered breathlessly, trying to keep the frown on my face and remain mad but already failing. When I was finally able to breathe again, I turned and immediately smiled as she was laughing. “Seriously, Vani, I am gonna just, I’m not gonna wear it,” I grumbled, dropping the corset to the floor and crossing my arms to oppose the smile.

Rolling her eyes, she slipped through the curtain and returned a few seconds later with a piece of clothing I couldn’t identify right off. She hung it on the hook, moving the remaining bits of ball gown cotton and silk to the back hanger. Gingerly plucking the corset off the floor, she laid it beside the fancy dress and began to pull apart the new outfit. “So, this one has a corset, but it’s leather, not as tight, and it goes on over everything else. The dress is a little heavier, and it isn’t as long, but it still has that, that-” Vanessa began to explain, holding her hands out and searching for a word that evaded her grasp.

“Aesthetic your sister was going for?” I offered as the various layers of this new costume were delicately laid across the bench to reveal the silken slip underneath.

I touched the slick fabric as Vani turned, triumphant, and replied, “Precisely. I’ll go grab my dress and be back to make sure you don’t need help.” With that, I was left alone with a terrifying piece of expensive, foreign attire that I would likely never again don. Well, after the wedding, that is.

Carefully stepping into a pair of bloomers, I pulled the slip on and did up the clasp in the back. I could have left it at that and been fairly pleased. The four other layers of material appeared quite daunting. I got the actual pants on fine, tying the band carefully and fixing the hems that would bunch up under a pair of high riding boots. I was most excited about the boots; they were something I may actually wear. As I pulled the heavy skirt over my head, to avoid ruffling the material as much as possible, groaning to myself about the layers of warm clothing and the fact that the wedding was slated for early summer. Pulling that layer reasonably tight over my hips, I pulled on the tunic and fixed the ruffles everywhere. The collar was very wide, sliding partway down my shoulders, and exposed the tattoos across my upper back and shoulders. A flock of ravens hid scars I didn’t want people to see. After getting everything settled, I turned my attention to the ornate leather corset sitting on the end of the bench.

I was just reaching for it when Vanessa returned and gasped as the curtain fell behind her. “Oh, you look amazing!” she gushed, touching the ruffles at my wrists and the birds flying over my shoulders. There was a twinkle in her eye as she stepped back to admire the skirts. Stepping back to the curtain, she pursed her lips and donned a sly smile. “Alright, so, this whole thing is amazing,” she stated, waving at me, “but I also picked out another piece that, depending on the weather, you may want to wear.”

“You mean I can just wear sweatpants and a t-shirt?” I joked, trying not to admire how hot I looked.

“Haha, no,” she replied. She rolled her eyes and added, “It’s something to put on top of everything, including the corset. I’ll see you out there.” With that, she left.

Finally picking up the leather, I undid the ties as much as I dared and pulled it on over my head. Turning it, I got it in the right spot and pulled the laces. This one was far less complicated and didn’t cut off my breathing; the perspective really did help. After quickly putting on the boots, I opened the curtain with dramatic flair and smiled at Vani’s reflection in the giant, three-piece mirror.

She was wearing a light cotton dress with a little filigree along the wide collar and wrists. It was pale pink, floor-length and plain. Standing on the raised platform with her hands resting gently on her stomach, she looked like a statue. “You look like a Greek goddess,” I murmured as I came up behind her, wrapped my arms around her, and put my hands over hers.

Smiling at us, she whispered, “And you look like a sexy pirate.”

“Haha, I just need a hat now,” I replied, resting my chin on her shoulder and swaying from side to side with the quiet music dropping from hidden speakers.

“Actually, this will fit perfectly,” Vani stated slyly as she pulled out a long gold-embroidered coat from a hidden hook and tucked it around my shoulders, “and I think I saw a hat out front.” I put my arms through the jacket and she did the clasp in front before smiling. Picking up my hands and holding them out between us, she checked out the edges of the outfit in the full light, pulling one of the ruffled sleeves out.

Leaning in, I kissed her lightly before murmuring, “I love you so much.”

Vanessa tried to keep smiling, but her eyebrows knitted together and she dropped my hands so she could hold her stomach again. “What if I’m showing?” she asked, turning to look at herself in the mirror again.

Sensing that she wanted to stand alone, I offered, “Well, I mean, we could tell her.”

We’d gone round and round in circles on this topic too many times to count. “It’s her wedding, I can’t do that to her,” she muttered, turning to see if the dress showed anything. When she looked back at me, she cried quietly, “Besides, this is the third time, Kai. I can’t, I just can’t. If I have to tell one more person about a failed pregnancy I just, I-”

“Hey, hey,” I murmured, putting my arms back around her and pulling her close, “I get it, Vani. I do.” We stayed like that as she quietly sobbed into my shirt. When she stopped crying, I pulled back a little to look into her eyes and whispered, “Look, if you’re showing, we’ll deal with it and, and I’ll tell her. Day of the wedding, during the toast, I will call her on her honeymoon if I have to.”

Smiling, she reached up to brush my cheek. “I love you,” she murmured, tears still rolling from her eyes.

“I love you, too,” I replied and kissed her again. This time, I pulled away and whispered, “You have to go away or I’m gonna start crying and I don’t know if I have enough lung space to sob.” Chuckling, she wiped her eyes and disappeared behind another curtain.

I stood adjusting the sleeve on my shirt to make sure it was visible until I spotted a flash of embroidered ivory silk and looked up the hallway. Standing like a large white bell was Vanessa’s twin sister, Natalie. She was looking in one of the too-many mirrors in the dress emporium.

I ran up the steps and beamed at her; she looked so happy. Glancing at the curtain Vani had disappeared behind, I cleared my throat and asked, “Hey, Nat, can I talk to you?” When she looked over, I looked behind me again.

Nodding, she replied, “Yeah, sure. What are you doing?”

“Oh, uh, Vani isn’t right behind me, right?” I asked, feeling hot under the bright lights and too many layers of heavily embroidered fabric.

“No, I don’t see her,” she murmured, glaring down the hall.

I looked at the nearest door, leading to the “Midnight Garden” and opened it. “This way, ma’am,” I announced, bowing her through the wide doorway. Inside, it was a vaulted ceiling with fake dark blue and green plants crawling the walls, faux marble pillars, and a large cabinet overflowing with props. This room was used for wedding and celebration photos; there were dozens of themed rooms like this in the store.

“I know you’re not my biggest fan,” I began as soon as the door was closed. I needed to talk to Nat before Vanessa realized I was missing and I was so nervous and pacing.

“No, it’s, it’s not that. It’s just,” she started, sitting down on a small stool and letting the hoops of her dress flop to the side. She looked like a melting ice cream cone. Exasperated, she sighed, “Vani has never been this serious with someone before and I guess, I guess I’m just worried about, about-” She cut herself off and motioned mutely with her lace gloved hands.

“-heartbreak,” I murmured, nodding, “I get it.” She smiled as I briefly stopped moving around. We were on the same page. “Especially with the miscarriage and everything,” I added, still unable to talk about it without the back of my eyes prickling. I started pacing again, taking a wide circle around a wishing well full of glittering underlit glass.

Nat sniffed and murmured, “She uh, she told me about the other one, too.”

Again, I stopped and stared at her. Sighing, I chuckled, “I uh, I didn’t know that. I uh, she was really broken up about it for a really long time. It was, the second one, was really, really tough to get through and I guess with all the baby stuff we just kinda forgot about, well, about this stuff.” I was motioning mutely to her dress and the plants and the arbour. “You know?” I asked, finally carefully sitting down on a wooden bench.

Chuckling, Natalie asked, “You wanna get married? I actually did not see that coming.” Not that we knew each other that well, but I’d gotten to know Vani’s sister at an almost-friend level in the last few years. “You just don’t seem the type, you know, the, the,” she struggled, looking just like her sister searching for a word.

“The settling down type?” I suggested. I’d heard that a million times before.

Shaking her head, she replied, “No, no. You can settle down without the piece of paper. Your conviction is all you need. You don’t need the big, public commitment thing because you, you love her unconditionally and completely.” She was smiling as I tried to sniff impending tears away. “And I know Vani, she doesn’t care as long as she’s with you. She’s madly in love, Kai,” Nat concluded in her puffy, elaborate wedding dress.

It took me a couple of minutes to gather myself again. I knew all these things but I didn’t realize Natalie did. Still sniffing a bit, I murmured, “I just want her to have that fairytale wedding she’s always wanted. I want her to have everything she has ever wanted and ever will want. Everything.” Tears were still streaming down my cheek and I bit my lip. Sighing, I nodded and continued, “And I remember at Jason’s wedding, you two, and that was so cute and I don’t want to steal any of your thunder or anything so if you’re not okay I will obviously make other-”

Natalie held up a hand to cut me off. “If this is you simultaneously asking me for my sister’s hand and asking if you can propose at my wedding, then yes on both counts. As long as you let me help,” she replied to my beating-around-the-bush method. Standing and hiking up the bell skirt, the bride-to-be held a hand out to help me up. “Also, great outfit. Vani wouldn’t let me see it until you tried it on,” she commented, looking me over. “She didn’t want you to feel like you had to wear it just because I loved it. But it is exactly you, I think,” she added as we headed back into the main store area.

---

“Alright, my one and only request from you as the bride, your gift to me, is to show me the ring. Come on, Kai,” Natalie whined as we stood in the dressing room waiting for the first dance song to start. The last three weeks had been dotted with simple planning for my proposal and it had all culminated in this moment for Natalie; finally seeing the piece of jewelry her sister would be wearing for the rest of her life. Somehow, in all the wedding preparation time and massive headaches that this kind of undertaking had been, Nat had managed to keep her attention on me and the ring.

Sighing, I murmured, “Alright. I guess I’ll just send the hand-crafted bassinet back.” She stared at me and I rolled my eyes. “Fine. You wanna see it?” I muttered, pulling a small, square box out of the inside pocket of my jacket and passing it over to her. Resting in deep indigo velvet was an oval pendant engraved with waves and stars encompassing a two-tone stone.

“Is that labradorite?” Natalie gasped, touching the cold stone surface. When I nodded, she asked, “You made this?” Again, I nodded, feeling my cheeks getting hot. “You don’t like convention, do you? But it is stunning.” She shut the box and handed it back.

“You’re right,” I replied as I carefully put the pendant back in my pocket, “I don’t like to be conventional. Though, in this case, it’s all about practicality.” Thinking back to crafting a few rings that just weren’t going to work, I smiled at Natalie’s inquisitive expression. “With her arthritis, I knew a ring wasn’t going to be a symbol of our love; she wouldn’t be able to wear it. This is a mix of the two of us; she’s this airy, starstruck dreamer and I’m this, this grounded, roiling mess stuck in an emotional ocean,” I mused as the band did a couple of tests.

“Have you picked out rings or no rings at all?” Natalie asked, bouncing on her toes.

Nodding, I replied, “Well, I’ve made a couple. They have this same engraving on the sides and Vani’s is adjustable. I know it’s not the ‘circle of love’ thing, but I think it could work, you know, for us.” I chuckled and added, “Or maybe no rings at all. I’ll talk to her about it. See what she thinks. Well, after this.” Butterflies had been forming in my stomach for hours and now that the time was here, I was petrified.

Finally, the music started up and it was time. There wasn’t anything more to think about, any planning I could put into it; this was it. Taking Nat’s hand, I pushed the double doors open and stepped onto the top marble step of the garden. Across the way, a waterfall feature was catching the last bits of sunlight as it died beneath the waves of the ocean. The lovely sound played perfectly with Natalie’s favourite song and I smiled at her. She was waving with tears streaming down her face; so happy.

When we reached the sunken center of the dancefloor, her new husband stepped up and bowed, reaching for her hand. I gently handed her over and stepped out of the limelight as everyone clapped and a few of Natalie’s college friends whooped. Siddling to the closest table, I sat down beside Nat’s mother and she wrapped her arm around my shoulders. Just after the proposal, she’d lost her husband and they had to rethink a lot of the aspects of the wedding that had been geared towards him; it took months to decide who would step in to walk her down the aisle and longer to decide who would have the father’s dance. Jason had walked his sister down the aisle and I was taking the dance part. It certainly wasn’t because Jay couldn’t manage more than an off-beat sway.

Giving my future mother-in-law’s hand a gentle squeeze as the song neared the end, I stood up and swayed at the edge of the top step. It ended and I stepped forward, taking back Natalie’s hand for a short song as her husband went out to find Vani. The band leader announced the father-daughter dance and there was scattered applause and laughter; those who knew Jason would definitely understand why I was taking on this particular responsibility.

“Thank you so much for doing all this extra stuff,” I whispered to Nat as we swung around.

Smiling, she replied, “I see how happy you two make each other. Now all you’ll need is a kid.” I wanted to tell her so badly that we were expecting, especially because Vani was starting to show in the dress, but I knew we had to wait it out.

As the song neared the end, I spotted Vanessa looking uncomfortable and unsure beside Natalie’s husband and I bowed to Nat as he led my future wife down the steps and into the light. The couple departed and I cleared my throat. “Uh, this has been a beautiful union of two of my favourite people, but I thought there was one thing that could make it even more special. These last few years have been the best of my life, Vanessa, just being with you. And I wanted to make sure that I get to spend the rest of them with you, too,” I began in as loud a voice as I could muster with everyone staring at me. Vani was standing there with a shocked look on her face; exactly how Nat had looked. Bending my knee, wishing I wasn’t wearing four layers, I pulled the box out and continued, “I know we’re not exactly conventional, but I love us anyway. I love you, Vani. Will you marry me?”

The next few moments were like a slow-motion silent film. She took a breath, bit her lip, and mouthed the word you never wanted to hear after that question. Then, in a flash, she was gone, and I was left in this horrible, uncomfortable silence. Blinking, I remained there for ages, so long that Natalie had to help me up and out of the way, still in a silent bubble. I think she was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear her.

Finally, the world came back up to speed and Natalie was murmuring about Vanessa being in shock. I took a breath and pushed past her on the way to the main building. Bolting up the stairs and down the hall towards the room Vani and I had been in the last couple of days, I stood there for a moment with my hand raised to knock. What if she wasn’t there and I was knocking at an empty room? What if she’d found someone else? What if? I had to stop myself from spiralling and took another breath.

Trying the handle, the door opened; it was unlocked. I stepped inside the spacious room and shut the door behind me. At the side of the bed, Vanessa was piling her clothes back into her bright yellow suitcase, tears drying in layers on her cheeks.

When she spotted me, she picked up the pace and I crossed the room. Grabbing her wrist so she’d stop, I asked, “Hey, wait a sec, what happened?” She stared up at me and sobbed. I wrapped my arm around her and whispered, “Is it because you’re showing?” That had been a huge problem for her before, but it didn’t seem like something to get this upset about.

Shaking her head, she knocked my arm off and gasped, “No. I uh, I remember this feeling, Kai.”

I blinked. “Feeling?” I asked, unsure what she was talking about.

Vanessa bit her lip, shoved the suitcase, and sat down on the bed. “I think I lost the baby,” she sighed heavily.

For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. “Oh, I’m so, so sorry. Vani,” I murmured, taking a seat next to her and pulling her onto my shoulder. Stroking her back as she sobbed, I repeated, “I am so, so sorry.” This continued for several minutes before she sniffled and blew her nose. In the quiet, I asked, “What can I do?”

“I have to get out of here,” she replied between quiet sobs.

Nodding, I started, “Okay, I’ll just grab some-”

“No,” she stated, sitting up straight and looking at me, “I have to go without you.” Her crystal eyes shone as she continued, “I have to leave you. I can’t, I can’t give you what you want.” Standing, she zipped the suitcase and tried to avoid my gaze.

I stood up and grabbed her wrist, turning her to look at me. “What are you talking about, Vani?” I asked.

Sniffling, she sighed, “You wanted a baby and I just, I can’t. It’s just not happening.”

Holding her hands, I shook my head. “Oh, babe, I don’t care about any of that as long as I’m with you. I love you,” I replied sternly. When she still didn’t seem convinced, I continued, “I wanted you to have a baby for you. Because that’s what you’ve always wanted but I’d be just as happy with adoption or surrogacy. I don’t care if it’s ours, as long as it’s healthy and you’re happy.” I couldn’t believe she didn’t know all that.

“But you’ve always wanted a baby,” she murmured.

Chuckling, I replied, “I do. And we will. But, first, let’s get you taken care of.” I kissed her on the forehead and whispered, “I love you, Vani. Whether we have kids or not won’t ever change that.”

When I looked down, she was still looking worried. Biting her lip, she stated, “Actually, before any of that, you need to go out on that balcony and let everyone know the wedding is on.” Before I could argue, she held up a hand and added, “I’ll be fine for a few extra minutes, Kai.”

A minute later, I was standing on the darkened balcony with the band leader asking everyone to look up for a moment. I dropped down on my knee again and opened the box. When Vanessa actually looked at the pendant, she smiled and nodded. We hugged. Everyone clapped and cheered. Then we were off to the hospital. It was unconventional, just like us. It was perfect.