Fine Work

Mitch Sherbourne is one of the great unsung heroes of Imaggen: hard worker, dedicated uncle, and understanding person in general. So when he comes face-to-face with the Mill’s questionable new arrival, Dirk Pickerd, he has to play his own game to keep his family safe.

-

It was one of those bright, clear mornings that made even a little place like Mill seem new and alive. Still, Mitch found himself slowing as he reached town; there wasn’t much room to navigate in a place this small if he ran into Pickerd or Batta. He took the long way around to the Leesons’, back behind the grain store and away from the normal meeting places. He felt silly doing it—paranoid with no good reason except a bad feeling from last night—but Wilfy and Quentin’s warnings hung heavy on his mind.

He got there right on time even with the detour. Jan’s Imaggen Nella answered the door. “Mornin’, Nella. Here to finish up those railings.”

“Well, aren’t you on time,” she said with a smile. “I’ve got one of the little ones in sick today so you just shout if you need me. Mr. Leeson went into the office for a meeting, but he said he’d be back just as soon as he could.”

This porch in back of the Leeson house was something of a pet project of his; he’d been working on it all spring, and now it was all done but for a few railings and that last coat of finish. It was made from a nice light-colored wood and big enough to hold a small crowd; there were talks about a town barbeque when it was finished. Mitch got to work and soon lost himself in the soothing shush of wood peeling evenly beneath his blade, the slide of his brush along smooth corners. He soon lost track of his worries entirely, like he tended to do when he was working. He was just touching up the finish on the porch’s step rail when he heard Bret Leeson step inside the house. “That you, Mitch?”

“Yeah, just finishin’,” he called back. “Looks right pretty.”

“I’m sure it is!” The man stepped out onto the porch, and Mitch was distracted by a splinter in his nail just long enough to miss that Bret had brought someone home with him.

“Ah, this is very-ah, thank you, Nella—very fine work.”

Oh, he knew that voice after last night. Mitch winced internally and turned to face Dirk Pickerd. The man looked like he should be sweatin’ right through that black suit of his, even clutching a glass of lemonade. Pickerd’s odd gray eyes looked Mitch over like a searchlight, and he just worked up the gumption to look the man straight back without flinching. “Well, I do what I can,” he said coolly. “Don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Oh, haven’t you?” Bret’s honest face was beaming, oblivious to Mitch’s sudden desire to be anywhere else but right here on this porch he’d just finished building. “Well, let’s just fix that right now! Mr. Pickerd, this is Mitch Sherbourne, the best handy-man in town. Mitch, this is Dirk Pickerd, our very own new employer.”

“Sherbourne,” Pickerd repeated softly. His gaze focused abruptly on Mitch’s face. “A fine name, a very fine name.” Mitch backed up a step under the pretense of making room for Bret to step into the house.

Bret had carried on right over them. “We’ve been talking numbers up at the mill, and Mr. Pickerd walked me back. You’ll never believe it, but he’s promoting me to assistant manager in charge of finances! Isn’t that something?”

“Well, ain’t that nice.” Mitch managed something like a smile and a nod in Pickerd’s direction. “I’ll just leave yeh to talk shop, then.”

“Don’t be silly,” Leeson said with a laugh. “I’ll just settle the porch with you right now. You don’t mind a quick bit of side business, do you, Mr. Pickerd.”

“Certainly, certainly,” the man said with an oddly hollow smile. He set Mitch on edge just by standin’ there; something wasn’t right about this guy, even without Batta in range. It was like he was only a picture of a person with a few extra faces tacked on. In that dark suit, he somehow put Mitch in mind of the charcoal sketch he’d done of the porch before he started it. The thought made him mighty uneasy. “As a representative of Barrows Industries I am proud to support local businesses. A hah.”

“A hah,” Mitch agreed, deadpan.

Pickerd gave him a sharp look, but after a moment he gestured. “After you, Mr. Sherbourne.”

He didn’t have much choice then but to follow them inside. Nella settled him on the sofa with a glass of lemonade that he used as an excuse to direct his eyes away from Pickerd’s unsettling inspection.

Bret filled the uneasy silence with a string of cheerful chatter. “Mitch’s niece Rose is in school with my oldest, Jan. They’re great friends, we have Rose over all the time. She all finished with her work for the weekend?”

Mitch shifted uncomfortably—he didn’t want Pickerd knowing any of this, but there was no polite way to stop the information coming out. He settled on a safe answer. “She’s been complaining somethin’ terrible about projects, but that’s nothin’ new.”

“Jan too,” Bret said with a sympathetic wince. “It must be time for summer.” He turned back to Mitch and held out his check. “Well, there you have it, paid in full.”

Mitch drained his glass to cover a sigh of relief. He pocketed the check and nodded to both of them. “I’ll be on my way, then.” Pickerd was still watching him with that unsettling intensity. Mitch cleared his throat and made a break for the door.

“Hey, I nearly forgot!” Bret called just before Mitch could get outside. “Tell Rose happy birthday from the family, would you? It’s next week, isn’t it?”

“Ah, a birthday? Salutations from Barrows Industries as well.”

“Sure thing,” Mitch agreed with a nod, and firmly shut the door behind him. He waited until he was a good halfway to the bank before he risked muttering, “Not on your life, you suited weasel.”

Variety Pack #2: Alternatives

All of the following excerpts consist of the same two characters, Alia and West. Some of their friends show up too. These all come from a selection of stories called Fragments, in which I used these characters to create 20 stories in different realities, time periods, and situations. It’s a little bit of fictional “If Only…”  that seems somehow appropriate for the last day of the year. Happy 2010.

—

When she failed to scoff or yell or turn away in disgust, he ventured to ask, “Are you new, then?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yeah, sorry.” He glanced at the schedule crumpled in her hand. “Where you headed?”

She smoothed the paper out and squinted at it with blue eyes a few shades darker than his own. “Magickal Defense. I have no idea how people find anything in this place! I followed one boy’s directions, but I ended up in the wrong building. And then I got my foot caught in a trick stair.”

“Sounds like you’ve gotten the normal first-week runaround,” he said sympathetically. “It’ll get better, as long as you–” That sentence ended with, As long as you aren’t me, but that seemed a little much for her first day, so instead he continued, “Here, I’ve got that class too. It’s just up the hall. I’ll walk you.” Belatedly, he stuck out his hand to shake. “I’m West, by the way.”

There were a thousand things attached to that introduction. I’m a vampire, but I have a soul and a guilty conscience. I’m the school pariah, but that’s fine because I can’t stand anyone here. You’ll never talk to me again when you find out who I am in another ten minutes, so I don’t know why I’m bothering anyway.

She shook his hand firmly and smiled up at him. “Alia. Alia Pryce. Thank you for the help, West. You’re the first decent person I’ve met all day.”

It turned out later on that there were lots of things attached to her introduction too. Things like, I happen to have been raised by an organization specifically trained to kill vampires and Your cousin killed my mother and I was actually assigned to be your friend to kill you, but it’s turning out differently than I expected.

—

Later that night, Alia finds herself on the porch, tea in hand, watching Aya and Hope gamboling on the lawn. West joins her and they sit companionably in the fall air.

“Who would’ve thought it?” West says with a shake of his head. “She’s a great mom.”

Alia finishes off her tea and puts the mug aside. “You know, I thought she might be, if we ever lasted this long.”

He glances over thoughtfully. “Did you ever think we would?”

She considers that as she watches Aya tumble dramatically into the leaves, Hope dangling in her outstretched arms, both laughing at their twig-stuck hair. She feels West’s leg against hers, his presence comfortable and familiar, and thinks of all the things they need to do before they take over the Council on Monday. The air is cool, the sun setting, and she feels a warm weight in her chest at the rightness of it all.

“I hoped,” she answers him honestly. “On my braver days, I think I hoped for this exactly.”

—

Three and a half weeks after the world didn’t end and the Council mostly exploded, West started to admit to himself that maybe Alia was gone this time after all. As soon as he let the thought in the world grayed and he felt sick. He took several deep, slow breaths where he sat on his bed, and wondered what exactly he was supposed to do now.

The vampire stood up slowly and went to go find Micah. He could get through the funeral first—there would be time to melt down and run and kill something (anything) after Alia had a nice burial with her friends and family and—

“Micah!” he shouted to keep from losing it.

“Down here!” his friend called back from what sounded like outside.

West tramped down the steps, threw open the front door, and came face to face with Alia Pryce. They stared at each other for a moment. She was bruised and scraped, and wearing completely different clothes than the ones they’d been looking for her body in. Her hair was about three inches shorter, for no apparent reason he could see.

“I’m back,” she told him, with what he thought was less than the appropriate amount of apology in her voice. “Sorry about the delay.”

—

What he absolutely does not count on is the door being opened by an Alia Pryce that has never met him: a woman with Micah McCallister’s ring on her finger and his last name, and apparently his child about four months on the way if her rounded belly is any indication. “Do I know you?” she asks politely, and swipes loose hair back from her eyes with a hand half-coated in flour.

He stares at her blankly. “I’m, uh—I’m an old friend. From the…Council?”

Her eyes shutter unexpectedly. “Look, I don’t know how to make this any more clear to you people—we’re not interested in working for you, and we never will be.” She gives him a critical look-over, and it suddenly occurs to him that she seems a whole lot older than his version. “You’re a little young to be a Council delivery boy, aren’t you?”

Before he can answer, shouts start up behind him. West turns, tensed and ready to fight. He’s gobsmacked into submission as Micah McCallister comes up the walk, a little blonde girl running ahead and a matching boy cradled in his arms, sound asleep.

—

Two years after the apocalypse, they settle themselves on the Continent, where there’s less chance of seeing someone they know decayed and gray and trying to kill them. They avoid the safe places they created, live on their own. It’s not that they want to be together, per say. Alia’s simply forgotten how to be without him at all, and ensuring their mutual survival is an easy habit from better days that serves them now. Occasionally they speak of things and people gone before, but it hurts too much.

Three years after the apocalypse, they’re still alive, but they haven’t survived.

—

She gave the side of his head a stern look. “West.” There was a lot packed into that word. Her hand reached up of its own volition to brush a wet strand of hair away from his eyes. “You’re always welcome, wherever I am. You know that.”

“Thank you. It’s just…” she recognized the expression on his face that said he wished he hadn’t started. But to his credit he finished it, without looking her in the eye. “If I depend on you for everything, what happens when there’s only me left?”

She stared at him, a little gobsmacked. “For the record, I was talking about the summer. We were making life plans?”

West waved her off good-naturedly. “No, no, just had a freakout there. I’m done.” He settled back onto his elbows.

“Good.” She settled next to him, arm pressed against his. “Besides, your life expectancy is probably half mine, even if you are supposed to be immortal. You get into far more trouble.”

They stayed like that for countless more minutes. At some point he sat upright and leaned against the trunk of the tree, and she found her head pillowed on his leg. She had a tilted, monochromatic view of his face above her, surrounded by the dark dripping branches and the gray sky and the black stone of the School. She reached up to brush a disconcerting raindrop off his face where it trickled down his cheek like a tear.“It’d be enough,” she told him so quietly she half hoped it would blend in with the rain and be lost all together. He looked down at her curiously, so she shrugged and explained, “To know you’d remember me, after…well. It would be enough.”

Cold Outside

Arthur Dallancy is a great character that I’ve been playing with for months. A little Casting, a little professorship, and some snow welcome him back in this scene, where he has just returned to the School he headmasters after time away.  Written in honor of the weather currently outside my window.

–

The headmaster’s office was freezing in the morning, despite Dallancy’s best attempts at central heating and portable flame jars. He could practically see the frost forming on his books, like it was on the heavy window pane. A huge fire blazed in the ancient grate in the sitting area. This was the one season of the year when his desk, surrounded by windows and separated by the rest of the room by two shallow steps up, was far more of a hindrance than a pleasure. Sometime around eight thirty, Arthur had finally given into the inevitable and abandoned his beloved desk chair to sit at the couch next to the hearth with the remainder of his Advanced Theory papers. He kept his coat and scarf on, though he finally shed his gloves since they interfered with both his grading and his Casting.

Snow was still drifting down outside, serene and quiet and bitterly cold. The School was beautiful under snowfall, but even the best of modern technology and sealing charms couldn’t keep warm air from escaping the old stone buildings. The occasional squeals and shouts of students below on the lawn reminded him that school was technically in session today, even though it felt like everyone should be inside. He avoided looking out his window when he heard a particularly loud shout around nine o’clock; it was a day for snowball fights, and what he didn’t know probably wouldn’t hurt him.

Theory papers were always his favorite. This semester his class only consisted of ten students, and so he could indulge himself in real grading, scribbling questions and comments in the margins of their discussions. The Simple Law was one of the trickier cornerstones of Casting Theory. He was starting to think he’d left something out of the lectures, because even his best students seemed to be struggling with the topic. Three papers in, he reached for his tea and flinched back when his fingers met icy cold porcelain. “Brilliant,” he muttered. He flicked his fingers in a warming Cast; the motion was a little more vehement than he’d meant, and the tea boiled in the cup before settling again. He picked it up gingerly and took a sip. For the thousandth time since he’d gotten his reading glasses, they fogged over with the steam. “Ach!”

In the middle of his flailing to get his glasses off without setting down his tea, someone knocked on the door. A second later it opened, and not for the first time Dallancy missed the days when everyone was too intimidated to enter without asking first.

“For heaven’s sake, it’s freezing in here!” Elena Moran protested she came in. Well, that was hardly an unusual occurrence—Elena had never bothered with Arthur’s privacy once in the thirty-odd years they’d known each other, and that wasn’t about to change just because she worked for him. Her mouth twitched into a smile when she caught sight of his half-smudge glasses. “Good morning,” she said sweetly. The lack of comment was as good as actually making one, and Arthur offered a half-hearted glare in response. Despite the fact they were both approaching old and flirting with gray (more than flirting in her case), Elena never failed to make Arthur feel fourteen years old again.

Elena settled across from him in the overstuffed armchair and held her hands out to the fire. He noticed that she’d brought her coat and scarf with her, though she left them draped over the chair . “Good trip?”

Dallancy made a face that she interpreted with long years of practice. “That good, eh?”

He sighed and shook his head, sitting back on the couch. “I’m getting too old to gallivant about like this at the Council’s every whim.” This last adventure had taken him all the way to Croatia; he was starting to suspect that the other Council members were sending him on these wild goose chases just to keep him out of the way.

“How many more of these are they going to send you on?” He glanced over to see her brown eyes evaluating him carefully. Dallancy tried to pretend she hadn’t just read his mind, failed, and shook his head.

“I imagine it’s quite convenient for them,” he admitted. “It keeps me apparently active in Council business while simultaneously keeping me away from anything pivotal.”

“Not to mention it keeps you away from being here,” she pointed out. Arthur wasn’t about to admit that one aloud, not even to Elena, but he didn’t have to.

He finished off his tea and gestured to the teapot in a Beckoning Cast. It floated over from its place on the warmer and drifted gently to a stop on the low table next to his cup. It was the kind of unnecessary Casting that he chided his students for, but he was in his own office and it was too bloody cold for him to care today. He raised the pot in silent invitation, but Elena shook her head.

“Actually, I came with purpose. Do you have a minute to walk with me?”

Dallancy glanced down at the remaining papers and knew he didn’t. But he was tired of the office, and he’d only gotten back last night. He’d missed his School, and he hadn’t had a chance to settle in properly yet. A walk would do him good. “I do,” he told her, and stood to fasten his coat. “Where are we going?”

“Out to the wall.” She wrapped her scarf snugly about her neck. “I almost sent you a Caller while you were gone, but Lee and I decided it could wait.”

Dallancy’s worry and curiosity were piqued in equal measure. He finished with his gloves and gestured grandly to the door. “After you.”

She laughed and led the way. “Lee’s already waiting for us.”

Arthur paused at the threshold and snapped his fingers. Light sparked from his skin at the friction, and the lights in the office turned off. He closed the door firmly behind him and followed Elena down into the Hall.

Mountain High Enough

Ano and Becken tend to find themselves in peril, especially when they get trapped in the mind of a mentally disturbed client who’s virtual world is eroding around them. As the team struggles to escape the rapidly disintegrating reality they’re stuck in, the two senior team members take an accidental detour. (Excerpt from Corrupting Paradise, the first story in the series for these characters.)

-

Ano’s head whipped up from the book she’d been attempting to code back into coherency with a velocity that made her neck crick. “Did you hear that?”

Becken was already standing on a nearby couch, his dark eyes piercing the acres of gloomy shelves in the direction they’d walked from. “That really loud crashing noise? It was kind of hard to miss.”

She rolled her eyes a little and activated her earpiece. “Tri? Jenny?”

It took Tri several moments to answer, and when he did it was with a groan. “Yeah, Boss?”

“What happened?”

“We nearly got killed by boiling magma is what happened!” Jenny said. “We rematerialized ten feet above the ground in here right when we should have been dying painful, burning deaths.”

Becken and Ano traded uneasy glances. “Do we want to know?”

“You guys didn’t get stuck in the tropical volcano?” Tri demanded incredulously.

That earned a raised eyebrow from Becken. “Not last I checked,” Ano answered. Ignoring the dark muttering coming from Tri’s end of the line, she got back to her original question. “What was that noise?”

“The dying gasps of the table that broke our fall. Which I will of course be recoding later,” he hastened to add at Ano’s disapproving silence.

Before Ano had the chance to respond, the bookcase nearest to them toppled over, driven by a hurricane-force wind that whipped her hair around and slammed her into Becken’s solid bulk. His arms came around her to hold her in place and she shut her eyes tightly against the stinging wind. As suddenly as the gale started, it ceased. Ano opened her eyes warily.

They weren’t in the library any more. They stood on the apex of a mountain so high Ano couldn’t see any details of the ground below them. Close enough to brush Becken’s head, the bottom of a cloud bank misted cold rain onto them, the liquid sparkling in the blinding sunlight. Far, far below them, a gray-green ocean crashed against the foot of the mountain. Just looking at the sight gave her vertigo. Considering her hover pad experience, that was more than slightly worrying.

She blinked. “Becken?”

“Yes,” he affirmed her silent question. “We are.” He reluctantly let her go, keeping close by her side as he let his protective nature take over. When Ano strayed towards the edge to look down again, he grabbed her firmly by the arm and pulled her back to him, activating his earpiece in the same motion. “Anyone there?”

The only response was static. The big man cursed softly, ignoring Ano’s disapproving look.

Becken was trying very hard not to look down. He hated heights, especially when they were forced upon him unexpectedly. Ano took pity on him and sighed, looking around to find something to distract him with. “Well, it could be worse.”

Naturally, that was the exact moment the hurricane-force gale started up again. Grabbing Ano’s smaller frame to his, Becken planted his feet in an attempt to keep them both anchored to the mountaintop. But the wind was relentless, pushing and pulling at them so forcefully that he felt his feet slip, inch by fighting inch, towards the edge of their small pinnacle of rock, the rain seeking to force them off and into infinity.

She was so intent on staying upright that Ano realized a second too late that she was closer to the edge than he was. She felt her foot slip, and his arms tightened around her in a vain attempt to keep her on solid ground. They swayed, toppled, and then she was floating backwards. Becken grabbed her arm and she jerked to a stop, held up by her hand in his. Her shoulder wrenched and she winced.

Ano had to yell to make herself heard over the roaring wind. “Let me go!”

“You’re insane!” He shouted back, resolutely clinging to her even as he felt her start to fall. His footing wasn’t much better than hers, and he scrambled for purchase as her weight dragged him towards the edge. In a moment of ironic clarity, Ano found it appropriate that they were about to die because he followed her over the edge of a cliff.  Then he lost his footing, Ano fell backwards and the two of them catapulted off the mountain and into bottomless space.

…Only to fall about ten feet before meeting the library’s cold stone floor. Somewhere in those ten feet Becken managed to twist them so when they hit the ground, Ano was on top. For a moment they lay there, breathing heavily, cheeks still smarting from the cold wind that had been tearing at them only moments before.

Ano rolled off of him and gave him a hand up, dusting a stray piece of gravel from his shirt. “Don’t do that.”

“What, keep you from falling off mountains?”

She stopped to think about it. “…Well, no. Not when you put it that way.” He grinned smugly, and she turned away and activated her earpiece again. “Anyone there?”

Variety Pack #1: Action and Inaction

This is my first shot at posting a bunch of story snippets that don’t actually go together, except that they’re all centered around a similar theme. In this case I’ve chosen to focus on action and inaction: various moments when a character or characters are faced with a choice and must decide to do or not to do. It doesn’t matter if you’ve read any of the stories these go to, as this is more thematic, tonal exercise than anything else.

-

The house was empty now, of course. It had been for a long time. Some people, that hadn’t been in town back when it happened, thought that the place had always been empty of any kind of family or people or any life at all. Glancing at it now, it was certainly easy to think that way, if you didn’t know better. It was just a house, as long as you didn’t really look at it.

No one ever went inside the house, or into the yard out back. The townspeople weren’t all given to believing superstitious urban myth, but none of them were stupid. They lived right near the place, after all. They went by it when they couldn’t go around. They saw what happened every year.

During the spring, the huge old half-dead crab apple tree in the front yard covered the roof with thick white-pink blossoms that hid much of the squalor, and probably fell right through the gaping holes in the shingles, down into the abandoned rooms below.

Summer brought the faint stench of old wood decaying in the humid heat of long days; a few windows always got broken during this season by adventurous kids throwing rocks on dares. In the fall, huge piles of dead leaves drifted up against the stained once-blue walls and stayed there until they rotted into the soil. It was appropriate, in a depressing, maudlin kind of way that everyone in the neighborhood tried very hard not to notice.

*

By now, it should be obvious that Professor Dallancy never made his train. This is because he was distracted by a small crowd gathered to the side of the street, near the mouth of an alley between two shops. Curious, he thought. It should here be noted that Arthur Dallancy was not like other people–he was completely incapable of leaving curiosity unanswered. He went to see what was going on, and this is, of course, when he met the vampire Yuki, even if the undead in question was still unconscious in the snow.

“He’s dead!” the woman next to Arthur said hysterically.

“Yes,” he murmured, rather surprised. “Dead, but not finished yet, I think.”

A vampire in the middle of Plain London, on Christmas Eve. Dallancy reached out with a few particular sense towards the cold body and found–no. Impossible, and yet there it was, right where a human being’s was meant to be. A soul. The biggest question he had ever encountered. There was no recourse, really, not for a man so used to entering horribly complex situations without fear or hesitation.

With a string of long silent words and a deliberate, slow motion of his hand, the vampire’s body disappeared. The faint wisp of smoke left around the space, remnant of the transport spell, lingered briefly in the shape of a body before dispersing. Arthur cleared his throat and turned to the hysterical woman to ask, as calmly as he could possibly manage, “I’m sorry–what is everyone looking at?”

He stepped away into the street, already making the gestures of the spell again, identical to the one that had just sent the unexpected visitor away. When he disappared three steps later, leaving a vague halo of gray smoke in the air, no one notcied. Five minutes later, the people gathered by the ally were all well on their way to convincing themselves that they’d been seeing things.

It is amazing, really, what the plain human mind will let people like Arthur Dallancy get away with.

*

Ano saw him, of course. Her eyes went straight to his, and their gazes held there, practically solid in the air. Her Almarian eyes were green, no telling gold to show fear or rage or despair. She wasn’t afraid. Becken hated her for that—for being calm so easily when she was held at gun point and he was hiding there just twenty feet above her. When this place, his world would come crashing down without her in it. When he’d never even told her.

She must have seen something of it in his eyes, though, the split-second she hold it. Her face softened just a fraction. Her eyes dropped at the corners. She’d never said it out loud to him before, but he recognized the message now. I’m sorry.

And that-that was the absolute final straw because how could she possibly–

Becken didn’t move. Because he suddenly understood the message. Not I’m sorry I’m not doing anything. She meant, I’m sorry–there’s nothing you can do.

*

“It’s completely atypical of his historical pattern,” Annison murmured. “I’m beginning to think that he’s not just incognito; I think that except for the people on this beach, no one even knows he’s here. Can you imagine? One of the Greats hidden in the World, inactive all this time right under our very noses.”

Rose had given up on playing; she flopped back into the sand, arms spread above her. York winced at the thought of where all that dirt would end up later. Quentin sat beside her, the two in their own little universe that ignored the barrier between Plain and World that so separated them. Yes, he could begin to understand why Quentin never risked her. “Until now.” He hadn’t meant to say the words aloud.

“Until now,” Anni agreed. “This is something new. He’s changing, and Greats aren’t supposed to do that.”

York looked at the sunlight playing over her hair and the sand clinging to her toes and his chest ached a little. “We all change,” he said, despite himself. “Especially when we’re not supposed to.”

Traces

Another excerpt from the first Imaggen book: Rose, while recovering from a fight with Quentin, goes looking for comfort in the form of photo albums. She finds Wilfy instead, and sees the old Imaggen properly for what’s probably the first time.

-

Rose couldn’t sleep at all, and her head hurt from the crying. She never slept well without Quentin sitting in the corner of the room anyway; the dark seemed strange without him there. Late that night when she was sure the house was quiet, she eased her door open and crept out into the living room. She stifled a gasp when she came upon Wilfy in one of the chairs. His hands were folded across his chest, his legs crossed, and if he’d been a Person Rose would swear he was asleep. But he wasn’t, of course, and the Imaggen’s eyes snapped open as soon as she entered. One eyebrow raised in silent question, but even in the dark she knew it was friendly.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I just wanted to…” she gestured at the low bookcase on the other side of the room where they kept the dictionary, her old storybooks, and the photo albums. She felt a little embarrassed; she’d done this a hundred times before, and she was sure they all knew about it, but she’d never been caught in the act.

Wilfy’s dark eyes looked her over, and the wrinkles around them softened into something like a smile. “That was some fight this afternoon,” he offered.

Rose sighed. “He’s leaving.” The words still hurt to say. Wilfy didn’t look even a little surprised, but then he’d never expected much of Quentin, really.

Wilfy levered himself up in the chair a little and winced, like his bones were hurting. She wasn’t sure he even had bones. Rose watched him with concern—was he always like this at night, all tired and sore-looking, and she’d just never noticed?

“Did he say when?

She shook her head. “Doesn’t really help.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. His eyes flickered over to the bookshelf. “Don’t let me stop yeh.”

She went over and stood before the shelf for a moment, uncertain as always now that she was here. Finally, her fingers gravitated to the last album on the shelf, the big off-white one that was only half full. She hefted it off the shelf, its weight familiar under her arm. Rose had planned on taking it back to her room with her, but something about Wilfy sitting there all familiar and warm and somehow lonely made her sit by the window instead, where the moonlight was brightest. She sank onto the worn carpet and propped the album on her knees.

One by one, she traced the pictures tucked away here in rows beneath a plastic sheath. Whole pages she didn’t recognize at all—great aunts and uncles, grandparents that Uncle Mitch told stories about–but she didn’t pause to wonder at those tonight. She flipped through steadily until she came to her favorite page: the fourth to last. Her parents’ wedding. Uncle Mitch never talked about this. All she had were these pictures, silvered over with moonlight until they seemed like something from a story book.

There were suits and dresses and a tall white cake, and Uncle Mitch with a big smile next to her dad. She paused at the picture of her mom laughing, arms above her head as she threw her flower bouquet behind her. Rose saw herself in that picture, all grown and wrapped up in white lace and flowers. Her dad looked like Uncle Mitch, the same blue eyes and wispy hair. Here in her hands they were happy, still, walking arm-in-arm down the aisle or dancing with their Imaggen’s indicator lights on either side, never to be captured in photograph. Rose wished she remembered what they looked like—no picture could bring them back, not even Named.

She sat looking at the wedding for a while, playing the scenes together in her head, a well-visited dream of the sounds and sights between the pictures. She wished Uncle Mitch would talk about it. He missed them too, but he missed them differently. At least he had more than pictures.

Rose had to blink tears away as she turned to the final filled page of the album. There were only two pictures here. One of her mother, laughing again, lying on her back looking up at the camera. One hand rested on her rounded stomach, the other above her head. Rose liked this one the best: it was almost like having a picture of just the two of them, even if Rose wasn’t born until months later. She touched her mother’s face, just once, tracing her smile.

The last picture was of her parents and Uncle Mitch, sitting on some stone steps somewhere. Her parents’ arms were wrapped around each other, smiling at the camera. Uncle Mitch sat a little behind them, holding Rose as a little baby wrapped up in a pink blanket. He was looking down at her with the same smile she saw every morning, oblivious to the camera.

Rose stared at that picture, trying to remember being there, feeling that happy, until she fell asleep. Hours later she woke up, curled on the carpet with a blanket thrown over her. Wilfy was quiet and still in his chair, so she put the album back and shuffled off to her room, blanket still around her shoulders.

Time to Leave

Things in Mill go wrong, and Rose finds herself on the brink of leaving the only home she’s ever known. The hardest part is getting out the front door, and out of bed. Just a short little excerpt.

-

“Rose. Rose. Come on, Rose girl, you need to wake up. It’s time to leave.”

Rose could barely lift her head from the pillow, it felt so heavy. She blinked and rubbed her hands over her eyes. It was still dark outside, and it felt like she’d only been asleep for a few minutes. “What? Wha’s wr-wr-wrong?” a huge yawn interrupted her. As her eyes cleared, she realized that Uncle Mitch, Quentin and Wilfy were all crowded into her room. Uncle Mitch’s hand was on her shoulder, gently shaking her awake. “What is it?”

“Time to get goin’, honey.” Her uncle’s eyes were dark, his face still in shadow because only the hall light was on. He was very still, and in that moment Rose wondered why she had never noticed how old he was. He seemed so fragile, almost hollow, sitting on the edge of her mattress in the dark. But his words weren’t making sense.

“Leave? Who’s leaving?”

“We are,” Quentin said from the foot of her bed. His voice was quiet, and very serious. Rose looked between them, and then over at Wilfy, who was standing in the door like he was keeping look-out. It was only then that she remembered. A heavy, sick feeling settled into her stomach and throbbed behind her eyes.

“Is your bag packed?” Her Imaggen’s voice was cold and clipped, as if speaking from a distance, or to someone else entirely. He seemed impossibly alien to her in that moment, standing in the stark shadows of her room. Had she ever known him? His eyes caught hers and his face softened into the one she loved for a second. “Get changed and come out,” he said more gently. “We need to be gone quick as we can.”

She nodded wearily. They filed out, Uncle Mitch scooping up her bag on the way. He hesitated at the door, and they shared a helpless look before he closed it and left her to get ready in the dark.

Found

From Collapsing Paradise, this little scene continues where this one left off. Ano gets surprised, Becken gets suspicious, and a few questions get answered about the book.

-

Ano waited until she was alone in the lobby to finally touch the book. She ran a hand carefully over the cover, felt the page edges with her fingertips. Finally, with great care for its considerable heft, she gently lifted the thing and brought it through her office into her quarters, keeping it firmly closed against her side the whole way.

Her tiny kitchen unit was a mess, so she bypassed it entirely and made her way over to the worn sofa in the living room that she spent most of her time in anyway. She put the book down carefully on the low end table and deliberately left it there unopened as she went to get herself a drink of water. Finally, glass in hand, she sat down on the sofa again, put her drink carefully on the far corner of the table, and let herself be terrified.

Ano knew this book. She’d seen it before, albeit a very long time ago. She had no idea what it actually said, of course—no one in all of the twelve galaxies did, in all likelihood—but that had long since failed to matter. If anyone knew this was here…

The thought spurred her into action almost against her will. With careful gestures, she finally lifted the front cover to reveal the title page. There was a long line of odd, curly-cue writing that swooped in a graceful half-circle across the middle of the page. The same stylistic planet symbol was repeated here too, though this time in what looked like a hand-penned sketch in blue ink several shades lighter than the cover. An entirely hand-written book? The sheer amount of time involved in that kind of venture made Ano’s NR-Programming brain hurt.

It was Almarian. Of course, it was Almarian. It was her life, and Elim’s, all the things they’d never known about themselves sitting right here, neatly penned on these pages in lettering that no one alive could read. She realized, somewhere in the back of her mind where she wasn’t frozen in alarm, that she felt a little sick.

Oh yes, Ano knew this book alright—she would remember this title page anywhere. She recognized every odd quirk and curve of incomprehensible language with the exactness that only a photographic memory could bring.

But how had it found her?

More importantly, who had found this book of all books, and then managed to find her as well, and then left it for her without leaving a record? She had spent her entire life making that kind of thing virtually impossible. The fact that it had now been accomplished so silently, so flawlessly, made her skin crawl.

The book drew her attention again. It was like a magnet to her conscious mind; all thoughts bent towards it and stuck.

Feeling very much like she was breaking an unknown confidence, she reached out again and hesitantly turned the title page to reveal an entire spread of the whorls and curves of bizarre writing. She tried to follow what looked like a sentence, but the line ended up curving back into a half-circle underneath itself and branched into another three lines near the middle of the page. Though for all she knew, the sentences could start at the bottom of the page and work their way up. Or maybe they didn’t move in sentences at all, so much as sweeps of thought graphed across the paper…

She turned another page, and then another. It almost made sense, in the small corner of her mind that saw patterns in the way people moved across plazas and heard the things that got said in the silences between words. She had the growing idea that if she just concentrated a little harder, all the writing would suddenly decode itself and reveal its secrets to her. Just a few more–

The knock that sounded on the door from her office made her startle so badly that she actually knocked her drink over. Her nerves were swamped all at once with a surge of adrenaline that left her fingers buzzing. She slammed the book shut out of instinct, just as Becken entered her quarters.

The book gave off a huge cloud of dust that made her sneeze helplessly for a full minute. By the time she manged to focus on Becken through her watering eyes, her friend had managed to maneuver his considerable bulk into one of her chairs.

Ano summoned up all the dignity she could muster, which admittedly wasn’t much. Her heart was still thundering like she’d been shot at. The little voice in the back of her head was saying run, hide, run, run! She ruthlessly quashed it with the cold light of reason. “Did you want something?” She had the impression that she looked as flummoxed and alarmed as she felt.

Becken confirmed her suspicion by lifting a single inquiring eyebrow and narrowing his dark eyes at her in a way that expressed just how oddly she was acting. “Nervous?” he asked in his deep voice.

The question stymied Ano with its bluntness for a moment. Finally, she managed a rather weak, “Why do you ask?”

Becken didn’t dignify that with a verbal response; he looked pointedly at the overturned glass and damp carpet that he had stepped over to get to his seat. Point made, he then held out a small card of beautiful paper delicately balanced between two huge black fingers. Ano recognized it as the card that had come with the book, which she must have left out on the counter. The bright white paper made a sharp contrast with his dark skin, especially in the low light of the room. He tilted it a little so the light would catch the lettering on the card’s surface. The blue ink sparkled with what Ano suspected was crushed precious stones.

“Has your name on it,” he pointed out unnecessarily. When she didn’t immediately respond, he continued, “Found it on the front desk. Figured that anyone who can afford paper and ink like that is worth carrying messages for.” He leaned back as far as the protesting chair would allow him and folded his hands on the tabletop. “Besides,” he said in the matter-of-fact tone that said he was enjoying backing her into a corner, “You jumped like someone shot at you when I came in.”

Ano finally shook herself out of her surprise and stood to get a rag. “It’s not a customer,” she sighed. She mopped up the spilled drink in silence and returned the overturned glass to the table. She felt Becken’s gaze on her, but for the moment she ignored him. Finally, she settled across from him again, and this time she met his eyes calmly.

“It’s not a customer,” she repeated. “It came with this.” She gestured at the book still sitting in the middle of the table, as if he wouldn’t have noticed it before now until she drew his attention to it.

Becken considered the book carefully for a moment, his expression calculating. Though Ano would never say it out loud, it looked exactly like the way Tri had been examining the thing earlier.

Her friend shook off the book’s spell much quicker than she had. He looked at her expectantly over its blue cover. “So? What is it?”

Mr. Barrows and His Music

In this excerpt from the first Imaggen book, we meet one of our villains in the form of Mr. Felix Barrows. He is sickly, powerful, rich, and rather insane. He is also evil, though whether that is entirely his own fault or not is a matter of perspective.

-

The two men passed each other in the hallway: one on his way out, hat in hand, and the other heading for his station. The new arrival was the taller of the two, and he bent his head in greeting as he said, “Running late, Livins. How’s it look?”

“Better get a move on, Sigerson.” Livins shook his head darkly as he shrugged his jacket on. “He’s had the music on all day. I could’ve shot myself in the head and he wouldn’t have heard me over the piano.”

They traded a knowing look. With a sympathetic pat on the other man’s shoulder, Livins turned the far corner of the hall and disappeared back into the normal world. Alone now, Sigerson continued on his way. Sure enough, the music soon reached his ears: it was some piano concerto that he recognized from last week. The sound was even louder than usual; when he finally turned the corner to his security desk, the floor practically vibrated with the noise.

He took a moment to steel himself and put his things behind the desk. The heavy wooden door meant to be protected by his station kept the music’s intensity at bay, but only just. Sigerson waited patiently outside while the song ran its course. He knew better than to walk in during the middle of a piece—the last guy that had tried that not only got thrown out of the office, but got tossed out of the job altogether.

He’d never been musical, really—more of a sports fan, himself—but after five months of working the day shift here, he could pretty much tell one piece from another, and sometimes he could even guess the composer. It was those little things that made Sigerson good at this job. There were still days when he couldn’t believe that he was working in this crazy place, for this crazy guy, and then he had to listen to classical music until his ear drums bled to top the whole thing off.

Still, at least the pay was good. And there were whole days at a time when nothing happened at all.

Finally, the number ended; not on a big, loud note like most of them did, but on a sad, wandering little feeling that died away in the corners and made him shiver a little. After an appropriate pause, Sigerson rapped his knuckles on the door three times and entered.

The office was dark and heavy. It felt like the middle of the night in here, even though it was midday outside. He stepped halfway in, careful not to look like he was intruding. “Afternoon, sir,” he said pleasantly to the dark room. “Checking in like usual. I’ll be at the desk if you need me.” He started to leave, clearly not expecting an answer, but a shifting of the shadows near the back of the room stopped him.

Slowly, the office’s single occupant made his way forward. The quiet shush of his wheelchair’s runners on the carpet played counterpoint to a series of pained, labored breaths, until he stopped just short of the light from the door. Sigerson could just make out the crumpled, folded body in the wheelchair. The man’s eyes glittered like a big cat’s, darting out from a face that looked like it was made of wax-paper.

Felix Barrows, the richest businessman in the World. Sigerson could barely look at him, and had to manfully resist the urge to shudder.

Finally, Barrows spoke in the controlled, deliberate tone that he used for business and music. “The piece, Sigerson. What did you think of it?” The voice rasped through the air like a protesting thing; like something was always trying to mute it altogether.

Sigerson answered cautiously, but sincerely, well-practiced from the handful of other times this had happened. “This one just now, sir? It was nice enough, I suppose. I don’t mind telling you, though, that last bit at the end had its fingers at my spine.”

The man before him released a puff of air in some dead semblance of a laugh. The black suit he wore rustled as his papery hands fluttered into the light for an instance before retreating again. “An apt description. Do you play?”

“Can’t say I do, sir.” When that garnered no response, he shifted uneasily. “…Anything else I can do for you, sir?”

Whatever spark had momentarily fired Barrows’ shriveled form was fading. His voice was tired and dry went it said, “No. No, that will be all. I will be retiring early tonight, Sigerson. I have a meeting in the morning. So much to do…So much…”

Sigerson knew when to leave—the voice was becoming stilted, and losing volume. “As you like, sir. Sleep well, Mr. Barrows.” He stepped back and closed the door with a pent-up sigh of relief. He waited until the music resumed to return to his desk and settle in for the remainder of the day.

“Poor sod,” he muttered to himself. No money or business was worth living like that all day.

He could still hear Barrows’s voice in his head, and it was creepier by far than the minor chords in the music that now pounded through the room.

So much to do. So much…so much…so…

True Story

This comes from the very beginning of the third Imaggen book. It also has the distinction, such as it is, of being the first Imaggen scene I ever wrote. I like it because Quentin and Rose don’t get many more quiet moments together after this, and also because this theme of beginnings and endings is such a strong one throughout the arc. For these two in particular, this conversation will be replayed near the very end of the story, but in a slightly different context.

-

“Tell me a story?” Rose Sherbourne asked into the dark room.

It was a familiar request to her Imaggen; so familiar, in fact, that he had begun to run short of stories that were safe to tell. Naturally, this worried him. It was an undeniable fact that when stories ran out, the only things left to tell would be truths.

He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, being unnecessarily careful to avoid disturbing its IP. “A story about what?” he asked indulgently. “How should it start?”

“Like all good stories do,” she said firmly. “With ‘In the beginning’.”

He shifted uneasily—she’d hit upon a truth without knowing it. She seemed to be doing that more and more these days. He would call it a mark of his influence, but he suspected that most of it was just Rose. “None of my other stories start that way,” he pointed out, hoping to distract her. “Does that mean they aren’t any good?”

Her drowsy giggle made him smile despite himself. But her next words were serious, even edged as they were with sleep. “This story will. Now go on, Quentin. In the beginning…”

“In the beginning…” her Imaggen repeated, thoughtfully. He gazed absently out her window at the moon. He thought about lying for a moment, of course. She would never know it was a lie at all. She’d never catch him for this one, because there would be no way for her to tell.

But he would know. That mattered these days, for reasons having to do mostly with the little Person falling asleep in front of him.

It also had to do with their lives in the past year, and the people they’d met: Professor Annison Payne, who was even now sleeping in the room across the hall under the watchful care of her Imaggen York. York himself, who had become a real friend and confidant somewhere along the way. Lira, who had become a whole colorful knot of complications in Quentin’s head, and who he found himself missing unexpectedly, despite their rocky history. Even Mitch Sherbourne and his old Imaggen Wilfy, back in the tiny Southern town of Mill. Lies were harder for the Trickster of Imaggen to justify these days, when they should have been easier. It was easy to lie to save the ones you cared for—it was considerably harder, Quentin was beginning to discover, to lie to them.

Besides, he’d never been able to deny Rose anything.

And so, like all things do and everything must, Quentin began.

“In the beginning,” he said more firmly, turning with purpose to speak in her direction, “…well. That’s covered it, I suppose. The beginning was in the beginning. The start is in the start. The proof,” he said with evident glee, “is in the proverbial pudding.”

“Quentin!” she admonished with another giggle that quickly got smothered by a yawn. “Be serious.”

He could tell that she was nearly asleep, and maybe that was why he continued when he should have stopped. “Well, that’s right, you know. The beginning was in the beginning. But I think—and tell me, Rose, if my logic is sound in this—I have thought that if the beginning was in there, then the end must have been, too. So, in the beginning, Rose…there was the end.” Her even breathing was a relief. He shook his head and murmured, “Does that make any sense?”

“No,” she whispered, causing him to startle in surprise. “But I think, if it did,” she slurred even as dreams began to pull her in, “if it did, I wouldn’t understand it half so well.”

Quentin stood and moved to the head of the bed. His shape did nothing to block the moonlight streaming in from the window behind him, though his form was in its way. He watched affectionately as Rose’s eyes drooped one more time as she finally succumbed to the sleep all Persons seemed to need so badly.

“Oh, Rose,” he murmured with something like awe. “Rose Sherbourne. Dream about something else.” He looked out the window again. “Beginnings and ending both are subjects too old for that young heart of yours.” His hand, though it never actually touched her brow, still smoothed it of her cares. “Peaceful sleep, Rose.”

At last she obeyed, and Quentin the Imaggen was left alone to watch the moon rise in the Expanse, and to ponder the ends of Time and the beginnings of a twelve-year-old Person girl named Rose.

In the quiet corners of his mind, the two felt very much the same.