Book 1

Chapter 25: The Door Opens Both Ways

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Chapter 26: Lantern Night

The bath really did have their names on it.

Ray found them with his big toe, which was how he found most things. The rim of the tub was a long smooth curve of pale wood, worn silky, and when he slid down into the water and let his foot drift along the edge, there they were, three names cut into the grain, Ray and Ruth and Scarlet, in a slanting, careful hand, with a tiny capybara beneath the last one that somebody had clearly added as a joke.

“I’m noting,” Ray said, to the steam, “that somebody has been planning this for a while.”

“You’re noting that out loud?” Ruth said, from the other end of the tub. “It’s a bath, babe. It’s nine hundred degrees and I can’t feel my knees. Nobody’s taking notes.”

“It’s a fantastic bath,” Scarlet said.

It was. It was a good deal bigger than the word tub, a sunken oval of dark stone with a rim you could sit on, and the water was the color of weak tea and smelled like cedar and something sweeter underneath, like the inside of a drawer where somebody keeps their good sheets. A paper screen on one side let in the light of the beach. Along the other side, the whole wall was open to the evening, and through it Ray could see the sand, and the sea, and the long curve of poles with their unlit lanterns, hundreds of them, each one waiting like a held note.

He had forgotten what it was like to be warm all the way through. He had been a trucker for eleven years. He knew what it was like to be warm in the front and cold in the back, or warm for the length of one cheap motel shower, but this was something else. It went into the sore parts of him and sat down. His shoulders came down from his ears for the first time since a cornfield. His hands, which had been gripping a steering wheel in his sleep since roughly the Clinton administration, let go.

“Oh, no,” Ruth said, very softly.

“What?”

“I think I’m going to melt. I think I’m going to melt into a puddle and you’re going to have to scoop me up with a ladle and give me to Maud.”

“She’d put you in a stew.”

“It would be a great stew.”

“It would be a flawless stew,” Scarlet said. She had slid down until the water covered everything but her eyes and the top of her head, and her hair floated around her like ink, and she was watching the two of them over the surface with a look Ray recognized, because it was the look she got when she was about to start a bit.

“Scarlet.”

“What.”

“You’re doing the face.”

“I’m not doing a face. I’m bathing.” She raised one foot out of the water, lazily, and put the sole of it against Ray’s thigh, under the surface. Ruth’s eyebrows went up. “I’m admiring a husband. I’m allowed.”

“That’s not admiration, that’s a foot.”

“It’s a foot with intent.”

“I’m noting that the intent is very clear.”

“Is it?” The foot moved a little, up along the inside of his thigh, taking its time. He made a sound that, in a human who was not underwater, would have been a word. “I thought I was being subtle.”

“You’ve never once been subtle in your life,” Ruth said fondly, and slid across the tub, and the water sloshed over the rim, and a hand that was not Scarlet’s settled on his hip. “Tell him about the other thing you’re admiring.”

“What other thing,” Ray said. His voice came out about an octave low.

“My wife’s ass.”

“Your wife?” Scarlet said.

“Our wife,” Ruth corrected herself, with enormous dignity, and gave Scarlet’s hip a squeeze under the water that made her squeak. “It’s a very good ass. It’s on a very good wife. I want it in writing that I noticed on our very first night, and it was the second thing I noticed, after the shoes.”

“You noticed the shoes?” Scarlet said.

“I noticed that you didn’t have any.”

“Neither did you.”

“See, that’s why we get along.”

It went on like that for a while, the way it did, a long warm tangle of hands and jokes and bare feet knocking against each other under tea-colored water, a thumb tracing a collarbone, a mouth at the corner of a jaw, Ruth’s laugh against the side of his neck like a warm wind. Nobody hurried. That was the thing Ray kept coming back to. No one had a schedule. No one had a place to be. Nothing was chasing them, not a delivery window, not a table, not an envelope. For the first time since the road, there was no next, and the lack of it was so strange that for a moment he almost didn’t know where to put his hands.

Then Scarlet’s mouth found his, wet and warm, and he remembered where to put his hands.

They did not, in the end, do anything that would have scandalized the neighbors. Ray would think about this later and be faintly proud of it, in the way you are of a good restraint. They kissed, and laughed, and Ruth spent an extended period of time trying to find out whether her toes could reach Scarlet’s ribs (they could), and at one point Scarlet got a cramp and swore in a language none of them knew, and there was a long and undignified negotiation about whose leg was whose. It was less a seduction than a pile. A warm, happy, soaking, very sleepy pile.

“Hey,” Ruth said, eventually. Her voice had gone slurry. “Hey. Look. Look out.”

They looked.

Down the beach, at the far end of the curve, someone had lit a lantern.

It was just one. It hung from its pole a long way off, small and gold, and it burned steadily, with no flicker. Then the next one lit, three poles over, and a figure stood beneath it with a hand held up as if she had just taken her fingers away from the flame. Then another. Then two at once.

Somebody was walking along the beach, Ray saw, and not alone. There were dozens of them, scattered along the strand in clumps, the people from the table, the people who had sat for a hundred years in a long white room and been told what to want. They were standing under the poles one at a time, and each one was reaching up, and each one was lighting a lantern, with no match and no flint and nothing in their hands. They just touched it, the way you’d touch a sleeping animal, and it caught.

“What do they do?” Scarlet said, in a hush. “The lanterns. Do you know?”

“No,” Ruth said. “I’d like to.”

“I think,” Ray said, slowly, “that you have to want something. And then it lights.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t.” He watched a woman with a braid lift her hand to a lantern at the edge of the sea and hold it there for a very long time, and then the light in it bloomed, huge and slow, bright as a coin. “I’m just watching her face.”

By the time the first stars came out, the entire beach was burning.

It happened in waves. A long ripple of gold ran up the shore from one end to the other, as hundreds of hands touched hundreds of poles, until the whole curve of sand and sea was strung with light, soft orange and rose and a gold so pale it was nearly white, trembling in the breeze, reflected a thousand times in the wet shore. The air smelled like warm oil and salt. Somewhere down the strand, someone had started to sing, a thin wandering tune, not a song so much as the sound of someone discovering a voice. Another person joined her. Then a third.

“Oh,” Ruth said. She had put her head down on the rim of the tub, and she was crying again, but not the way she had been. “Oh, that’s so nice.”

“It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever seen,” Scarlet said.

“I’m noting,” Ray said, “that I’d like to do this forever.”

“We are doing this forever,” Ruth said. “It’s in the title.”

Scarlet had the notebook. Ray had no idea when she’d got it. It had been sitting on a towel on the rim of the bath, a little damp at one corner, and she was drawing with the pencil held in her teeth, quick and light, a long curve of lanterns and a long curve of sea and three small shapes in a stone bath in the corner of a huge warm night. He wanted to say you shouldn’t draw in the bath. He wanted to say a lot of things. He looked at the page and said nothing, which was becoming a habit.

After a long, long while somebody knocked on the screen.

“Midnight snack,” said a voice that could have stripped paint. “Don’t make me come in.”

It was Maud. She had evidently found her kitchen. The ladle was in her belt again and she had a floury forearm and a tray balanced on one hand, and she set it on the rim of the bath without looking at any of them, which Ray took as a very high form of tact. There was a pot of tea. There were three small bowls. In each bowl sat a single rice ball the size of a fist, wrapped in dark seaweed, still warm enough to fog the air, and beside them a saucer of something pink and sharp and pickled.

“It’s not soup,” Maud said. “I’m aware it’s not soup. Soup is for dinner. This is for people who got into a bath and didn’t get out.”

“Maud,” Ruth said.

“Don’t.”

“Maud, I love you.”

“I said don’t.” But her mouth did the thing, and she went out through the screen again with the quick brisk walk of a woman who didn’t want to be hugged and was very much hoping to be asked.

Ruth had picked up the rice ball in both hands. She held it for a moment, gazing at it, and then she bit into it, and her whole face did something remarkable.

“Ray.”

“What?”

“There’s a plum in it.”

“Is that good?”

“There’s a plum. In the rice.” She was holding it out to him with an expression of such total betrayal and wonder that he took a bite without thinking. It was salty, sour, bright, and astonishingly good. “It’s not a burger. It’s not a burger, Ray, I’ve been lied to my whole life, there’s a world out there that doesn’t have patties in it—”

“You had a whole bowl of soup an hour ago.”

“That doesn’t count, I was in crisis.”

“I’m noting that you have an extremely flexible definition of crisis.”

“I’m noting,” Scarlet said, around a mouthful of pickle, “that I’m going to marry this plum.”

“You’re already married.”

“I’m allowed to be bigamous with a fruit.”

They ate it all. They ate everything on the tray, and drank the tea, and Ruth licked the grains of rice off the bottom of her bowl with great seriousness, and when they were done they sat there in the warm water for a long, boneless time, heavy and full and happy, listening to the singing down the beach grow thin and slow and sweet.

Somewhere in there, the three of them wound up on the same side of the tub, in a pile, Ray in the middle with his head tipped back on the rim and a wife on each shoulder. His eyelids were so heavy they felt like they had coins on them. He thought, vaguely, about getting out. Then he thought, vaguely, about not.

“Ray,” Ruth said, very drowsily.

“Mm.”

“Do you see her?”

He opened one eye. Far down the beach, past the last of the poles, at the place where the sand ran out and the dark began, there was one lantern burning by itself. A small one, low, dim gold. It hung at the very water’s edge, and beneath it, a very small figure in a very long coat sat on the sand with her knees drawn up and her arms around them, looking at the sea.

Not at the bathhouse. Not at the singing. Not at them.

“I see her,” Ray said.

“Is she okay?”

He considered that. He didn’t know. He knew what it was to sit alone at the edge of something and not want to be talked to, and he knew what it was to want, badly, for somebody to come anyway, and he did not know which of those she was. He knew only that the lantern was lit, and that she had lit it, and that you do not light a lantern for something you don’t want.

“I think she’s fine,” Ray said. “I think she’s just not done.”

“Okay,” Ruth said, into his collarbone, and didn’t say anything else. After a while she was breathing slowly. After a while Scarlet was too.

Ray lay there in the tea-colored water with the tangle of them slung across him, and the beach burning, and the sea going in and out, and a single small light very far away that none of them had gone to. He did not sleep for some time. When he did, it was the way you sleep when you’ve decided that tomorrow can come if it’s polite about it.

When you think you have it all figured out, a human will appear, probably naked and screaming, possibly while on fire. Congratulations, your day is now ruined, but at least you had a good laugh.

– Nuk saying, probably in reference to humanity’s ability to stumble into situations no one ever expected possible

Nirfir got the news at dawn: Sergeant Major Zhou Jian had died of complications from his wounds.

He couldn’t believe it. The wounds had seemed superficial. Then he remembered how quickly the injury had become infected, despite treatment.

I’ll have to inform the squad. This is the worst possible moment for something like this.

He was worried about the squads’ mental health. At first, everything had gone fine. Martife had been reinforced directly by Mammuts, a huge relief. The combat engineers had done wonders, strengthening the soil of the small isthmus to allow the Mammuts to cross it.

Then they were rotated out of the ruins, a week’s reprieve to gather strength, the General himself had said.

The week was the shortest week Nirfir had ever experienced.

After that, they were flown to Shratora, together with the newly arrived troops of the 5th Army.

Shratora was different. The most apparent difference was that the city was still standing. The humans had taken it in a surprise air assault. While the forces in the south, his forces, had taken the brunt of the enemy defenses, Shratora had been an easy victory at first.

The second difference was the fortifications. A massive wall surrounded the city, complete with turrets, dedicated vehicle ramps, and layered defenses.

Nothing could take the city from the army’s hands, or so he had thought.

The third difference was the root of his unease. The Batract had seemingly piled every dead Shraphen body on the continent into mountains beside the city.

While the Shraphen soldiers tried to ignore the dead, Nirfir noticed his human comrades glancing at the piles. He also noticed that the humans seemed angrier.

That worried him. He had hoped Zhou would return soon.

Now he was the squad leader, and he had the feeling the humans were slowly losing it. Wherever he walked, the humans would glance toward the dead and suddenly be overcome with anger.

Yesterday, they had eaten, and when the personnel from Mortuary Affairs joined the line at the kitchen, he had seen every human step away, making space for the defeated-looking officers.

After-action reports said the bodies were brought in overnight, after the humans had taken the city. Obviously, the Batract thought presenting the dead would frighten the humans. Nirfir was sure it was one of the enemy’s biggest miscalculations.

The alarm ripped him out of his thoughts. Like clockwork, the enemy attacked every second night.

But for tonight, the leadership had planned something different. Tonight, they would immediately counterattack. Nirfir hoped the fight would ease some of the rage his human colleagues carried.

His human squadmates threw away the cards they had been playing with and shared an ominous glance. They were happy the enemy had attacked. Chibuike rotated his head while flexing his muscles and cracking his fingers, while Russo only smiled, like a predator happy to jump its prey.

Nirfir was once again glad the humans were on his side.
They are all mad.

They all jumped into the always-ready armored suits that stood with their backs open along the side of the squad’s small barracks.

Monkey King, their trusted IFV, was parked outside, and two engineers who had been updating some software were packing up their things in a hurry.

“All good to go. Kill some Firebugs for me,” one of them said to Russo as he jumped into his driver’s seat.

“I will, Mitsu. I will.” Russo’s tone was still the same, but there was an angry inclination beneath it.

“Sir, Monkey King is in perfect order, just updated to the newest firmware from Earth,” the tech Russo had called Mitsu reported to Nirfir.

“Thanks. Now get into the shelters, or somewhere else. In a few minutes, all hell will break loose here.”

The two techs looked at each other, then glanced at the heaps of dead Shraphen on the outskirts of the city. Always that glance. Then their faces hardened, and their eyes sometimes grew watery.

“Sir? Kill those bastards. Can you do that for me?”

Nirfir was taken aback. The techs often joked with the humans, but they had never spoken to him so directly.

“I hope so.”

They looked again at the gruesome evidence of Batract cruelty and ran off to wherever their duty station was.

The whole exchange told Nirfir more about humans than his shared duty with them ever had. Even though it was almost exclusively Shraphen who had died on the northern continent, the humans felt the pain.

Where most intelligent species avoided feeling that pain, humans sought it out. To get angry. To feel hatred. And then. Then they prepared to seriously fuck up everyone who had hurt them. Nirfir was sure of it now.

Unlike the other times when it had been time to defend the city, Monkey King wasn’t ordered to its defensive firing position, but rather to a staging area in front of one of the gates, together with the whole 4th Brigade.

Today, the fleet and the newly formed Theatre Command had planned something new.

General MacAllister himself had called all troops at noon and informed them of their objectives.

“Soldiers, Shraphen, humans, comrades. Today, when the enemy attacks again, they will get their surprise. The 37th Spaceborne has been training with volunteers from Burrow and is now back to an acceptable strength. And Earth has sent two more armies.”

The General smiled the same predatory smile humans did so well.

“Today, we push them back where they came from. We used orbital fire sparingly over the last few weeks, along with air support, to hide our capabilities. That restraint is gone. Today we push back, and hard. Your commanders have their orders, or will get them shortly. Make me proud and give them hell.”

Monkey King reached the designated position. Nirfir had a flashback to the attack over the isthmus to Martife. Only now he was sitting at the commander’s station.

He had no time to mourn Zhou, but he decided then and there to avenge the silent and methodical human, tonight.

 

First | Previous | Next | Also On Royal Road

Welcome to Calder City, the City of the Future.

Where the Mississippi meets the railroads, Calder City is a bustling American metropolis built on industry, commerce, ambition, and jazz. Think Chicago's industrial muscle and New Orleans's musical soul—a city looking toward tomorrow, where fortunes are made, reputations are built, and the distance between legitimate business and organized crime can be surprisingly short.

Calder City is also the setting for an interconnected universe of crime novels and pulp adventures by Wes Hamilton. Familiar figures from the public domain (Like Nancy Drew, Fu Manchu, Blondie Bumstead - yes, really and The Shadow (From January 1st, 2027)) share the streets with original characters, their stories intersecting across the city's nightclubs, docks, rail yards, hotels, and back rooms.

But this story belongs to Hal Wagner.

Hal is a small-time hood with eyes bigger than his stomach. He knows the docks, the rail yards, and the people who can move freight from one to the other. His friends and connections have kept him in business, but they've also brought him to the attention of men who play for considerably higher stakes.

Tales from Calder City follows Hal's education in ambition, loyalty, and the workings of a city that's much bigger than he understands.

If you like what you read, check out r/publicdomainpulp. We have more to come.

About Wednesdays with Wes

This eight-part serial introduces readers to Calder City ahead of the launch of the larger novel series on Public Domain Day, January 1, 2027.

New installments appear every Wednesday on PublicDomainPulp.Net's Substack, with paid subscribers receiving early access to Episodes Two through Eight.

All eight episodes will be published free on r/redditserials from January 1, 2027. Readers can enjoy the entire story here without a subscription.

TW: Child Abuse

------

There’s guys who wake up in a strange bed and have to ask where they are, and guys who wake up in their own bed and wish they were someplace else, and then there’s guys who wake up next to a woman whose husband could walk in any minute. I been all three. That morning I was in the best one, which is Dahlia’s bed with the sun coming through her curtains in a long yellow stripe, my clothes on the floor where I could reach them, and Dahlia asleep beside me with the look of somebody who had a good time and ain’t sorry about it.

We’d been at the Albion. It’s an old hotel by the market that was swell once, with a marble lobby and a carpet wore down in paths by the weekly people who live upstairs. I could of took Dahlia someplace fancier on what I had, but there’s places in Calder City where the waiter looks at your shoes all through supper, trying to figure who let you in. At the Albion the guy behind the bar knows what you drink, and if you been away a couple weeks somebody wants to know where you went. Last night there was a fella at our table with a system for the horses that only needed twenty bucks to make him rich, except he didn’t have the twenty bucks. Dahlia handles more bets in a week than that guy will see in his life. She let him go through the whole thing like she was real interested, and then she asked him how come a man with a system like that had to borrow the money to get rich off it. He took it pretty good, considering.

“You always got work tomorrow, Hal,” she said when she was getting her coat, because I told her I had to be up early. “What happens to it when tomorrow comes?”

“It turns into business. You ought to know the difference better than anybody.”

“I know somebody has to get paid at the end of it,” she said, and she kissed me on the sidewalk anyhow, and again in the cab.

So now it was late in the morning, the sheet was wound around my leg like a rope on a dock post, and I was trying to remember where my pants went. Dahlia’s place ain’t big but nothing in it is junk. By the door there’s a little table with a drawer where she keeps the books for her numbers, which I never once opened without she asked me to. I had my shirt on and I was going for my pants quiet as a man my size can do anything when she talked from the bed without opening her eyes.

“If you’re leaving, you can bring me my cigarettes first. And let me look at that collar while you’re up.”

I brought her the pack, and she lit one and pointed it at my collar, which was tore along the fold where I been meaning to fix it since summer. She made me take it off, because she said she liked me fine but she wasn’t sewing a collar on a man who couldn’t hold still, so I got the sewing box and sat on the end of the bed while she went at it. I never once offered to get her out of the numbers, because she don’t need getting out of anything and she’d think I was a sap for asking.

“So what’s your program today?” she said.

“Breakfast. After breakfast I got an appointment, soon as I think one up.”

“I got two people to see before noon. You could walk along and watch somebody get something done for once.”

“I get things done. I got supper done last night, and I always manage to turn up wherever there’s music. Those are talents, sweetheart.”

“Then work on one that pays the rent,” she said, and handed me back the shirt with the collar nicer than the rest of it deserved.

She was dressed with her hair pinned up and her notebook next to her plate when somebody knocked. She put her cup down and listened like the knock might say who it was if she gave it a second.

“That’s early for Mrs. Bell,” she said.

The knock came again, three of them, slow and even like the guy practiced, so I said I’d see who it was. It was a man in a dark suit with his shoes shined and his hat brushed the kind of way that tells you somebody else does the brushing.

“I’m looking for Mr. Harold Wagner.”

“Most people call me Hal, and I guess you found him. Who wants to know?”

“I’m here on behalf of Mr. Merriweather.”

There’s only one Merriweather in Calder City who could send a guy in a suit like that up Dahlia’s stairs looking for me. Chuck Merriweather was the kind of rich guy who got in the paper whether he done anything or not.

“Chuck Merriweather sent you all the way over here?”

“Mr. Charles Merriweather would like to speak with you this morning. There’s a car downstairs.”

He didn’t say Chuck, and he didn’t tell me not to, either. I told him I wasn’t done with my breakfast and if Mr. Merriweather could stand the disappointment I’d be down in a while, and he tipped his head about a quarter of an inch and went back down.

Dahlia was right there in the hall when I shut the door. “Chuck Merriweather sent a car here for you?”

“That’s what the man says. Looks like the upper classes finally heard of me.”

If I figured she’d be impressed, I figured wrong. She looked at the door and then at me, the same way she looks at a slip somebody swears they wrote down right.

“Did he say what it’s about?”

“He says it’s private. That’s all I could get out of him.”

“A man with a house like that can afford private,” she said.

“Then maybe he figured out what my private is worth.”

She went back and sat down to her toast. “Well, finish your eggs. The car won’t starve while you drink your coffee.”

I wasn’t going to let some stranger tell me when to leave Dahlia’s, so I had a second cup and promised her I’d act dignified for the both of us, and at the door she said she’d rather I acted like Hal Wagner. “There’s enough other men in Calder already,” she said.

*

I been sent for before, mostly by people I owed money to, but never in a car like that one, and I liked it fine. We went out past the produce sheds and the warehouses and the rail yards. They call Calder the place where river meets rail, because a man can bring a boatload of stuff up the Mississippi and ship it most anywhere in the country from here, and half the city lives off what happens in between, and I know the working end of that better than most. I quit school about the time they wanted me to learn algebra, but I always liked the maps on the wall better than anything the teacher said, and what I figured out from them is that a road on a map don’t do you any good till you know the guy who lets you use it.

After a while the houses got farther apart and started hiding behind trees, and then we were on Merriweather Road, where the lawns go on so long you could lay track on them. Merriweather House sits way back from the road, a big stone pile with porches all along the back and more roof than any family could use with twenty kids. One servant took my hat and another walked me over a floor so shiny I walked on it like ice, past furniture with so much empty rug around it I couldn’t tell if you were allowed to sit down.

Merriweather came across the room to shake my hand before I got halfway in. He had the kind of easy manners that make you think nobody ever asked him to hurry in his life.

“Mr. Wagner. I’m glad you could come.”

“I was glad to, Mr. Merriweather. I can’t say I was expecting it.”

“Nor was I. Until quite recently I had never heard your name.”

He said it so friendly I couldn’t take it wrong, and over coffee he told me how I came to his attention. Some people he knew had been talking about a little job I handled a few months back, and they all agreed the thing got where it was going and nobody had a complaint.

“I understand you managed it without the ordinary commercial channels,” he said. “You knew whom to approach.”

“I know some good people on the river and on the roads, is all. They tell me straight what can be done, and if one of them can’t do it, he usually knows who can.”

“You’ve built up quite a collection of useful acquaintances.”

“I’ve been lucky in my friends.”

He stirred his coffee, and I couldn’t tell if he liked that answer, but it was true. I know guys who helped me out for no better reason than we ate supper together one time.

“I need something moved out of the city,” he said finally. “Not through any of the businesses people connect with me. It’s a simple consignment, already packed. It goes west, out into the country past where the towns give out. No man’s land, really. And afterward I’d prefer never to have occasion to discuss it.”

“Why don’t you send it with your regular freight? You must have guys for that.”

“Indeed I do, and that’s precisely the difficulty. Everyone knows their names and everyone knows who employs them, and when they move a crate people want to know why. Nobody wonders where Hal Wagner is sending a crate.”

I never thought of nobody knowing who I was as something worth money before, and it gave me something to chew on. He had people out west who’d be told when to expect the thing, and he gave me enough days to talk to the guys I knew. When we got to the money I named a number that left room to pay the fellas who’d help me, and he said yes so quick I wondered if I asked for enough. When a rich man says yes that fast, either he’s got you figured right or he knows something you don’t, and I went with the first one, especially when he opened a drawer and counted me out half in advance.

“There’s one quality I value above efficiency, Mr. Wagner. Discretion. I expect you’re familiar with it.”

“I’m familiar with it, but I don’t take it to mean a guy should promise what he can’t do. If I take your money I’ll do my best to get it there. I won’t tell you a railroad goes someplace it don’t, though, and I won’t promise you another man’s help before I ask him.”

His smile got warmer. “That’s an admirable policy. I think we’ll understand one another.”

Riding back into town with his money in my pocket, I started thinking that a man who did Chuck Merriweather one favor could get asked to do him another, and after that who knows, maybe even an office, though I’d have to figure out what an office was for before I rented one. Then I went to work at the only kind of work I was ever any good at, which is going to see my friends.

*

First I went to see an old railroad pal who sits most afternoons at a desk in a little office by the yards, a desk with more of his own stuff in the drawers than the railroad’s. Before I could say anything he asked if I finally came to admit I was wrong about a ballgame from the summer before.

“I was right about that game,” I said, and hung my hat on the nail.

“You talk so much nobody’s got the patience to prove you wrong. My wife says you’ve been promising to come to supper since Easter.”

“Tell her Sunday. I can’t afford to lose her good opinion.”

He kept working while we talked, and I told him what I needed without giving him anything he’d have to answer for later, which was a crate going west that nobody ought to take any special interest in. He wasn’t about to get himself in a jam for my sake, and I wasn’t about to mess up the railroad’s business, and in between those two things there’s always been room for a fella to do a favor. I knew which way his end of the yard faced and what went through it on what days, and he knew I knew, which saved us both a lot of talking. He gave me the name of a guy who could help with the next part and said he’d let him know I was coming.

After that I went looking for a fella whose address, as far as anybody could tell, was whatever part of the country he got to last. I got to know the men who ride the freights years ago, one supper at a time. You don’t give orders to men like that. You ask, they think it over, and if it suits them you make a deal, sometimes for the money and sometimes because they liked your company the last time. This one asked how far and how soon, and then he named a price for the favor and a price for the supper I was going to buy him after, and both of them were fair, so I said okay to both.

By the end of the afternoon I’d seen enough of my friends to know it could be done, and I went to Market Lunch and ate at the counter between a printer and a brakeman, with the windows all steamed up and nobody in the place willing to put up with an empty coffee cup. I never once asked Merriweather what was in the crate. It didn’t seem like any of my business.

*

The crate came to the siding the afternoon we picked, along with a couple of Merriweather’s men I didn’t know and didn’t need to. My friends were there too, two of them guys I’ve known most of my life, and we griped about the heat and figured out when we’d get a drink after. They were walking the crate up toward the car door when I heard something inside it.

It wasn’t loud. If it came out of anybody else’s box I’d of figured something in the packing slid over and forgot about it. But it came again, soft and uneven, and the closest of Merriweather’s men didn’t act like a guy who just heard something funny.

“What’s in that thing?” I asked him.

He checked with the other one, and neither of them seemed surprised. “Didn’t anybody tell you?”

“What didn’t they tell me?”

He jerked his head at the crate like I could go see for myself, and that made me sore, because I took the job and made promises to people I know, and here was this guy treating me like a delivery boy nobody bothered to tell what he was carrying. Up close you could see it wasn’t a regular packing crate. The boards were heavier than the size needed, there was a row of holes drilled along the top of one side, and the end was fixed to open from outside with a hasp so you didn’t have to pull a nail. None of it was new. The wood around the holes was gone dark and smooth from hands, and next to the hasp there were old screw holes where they had a different one before. The man pulled the end open.

Inside, sitting close together in the dark, there were three children.

For a minute I knew what I was looking at but I couldn’t make myself believe it. They were little, squeezed in together and real quiet, the way you get when you been waiting a long time for something you don’t have any say about. The littlest one was turned away from the light. One of the others was holding on to the little one’s arm, and the third one was looking right at me.

“Christ Almighty,” I said. “Those are kids.”

I turned to my friend that was closest, a man I’ve known for years, figuring he’d have some explanation, some piece of railroad business that makes a bad thing make sense once you know about it.

“Sure they are,” he said.

“Well, what are they doing in there?”

“They’re going west, same as you told us.”

“I know where they’re going. I’m asking why they got to go like that.”

He looked at the crate and then at the men waiting to get on with it, and there wasn’t anything sneaky in his face, nothing like a guy who got caught keeping a secret. “That’s how they come,” he said. “I guess that’s how they’re supposed to travel.”

My other friend was close enough to hear. Me and him have ate more meals together than I could count. He didn’t stop what he was doing.

“Did you know about this?” I asked him.

“About the little ones? I knew.”

“And you don’t see nothing wrong with it?”

He thought about it like it was a real question, and he acted like he was trying to figure out what got into me. “Somebody fixed it up, Hal. They’re being sent someplace. Whoever fixed it’s got his reasons, I expect, and they ain’t any of mine.”

All around us the afternoon kept going like nothing happened, guys working, voices down the yard, an engine letting go a big breath of steam that rolled over the cinders and thinned out against the sheds, and this city’s got a thousand ways to make noise but I never had such a hard time listening to it. One of the kids moved inside the crate. I wanted to ask something, a name maybe, or where they came from. Instead I waited on my two friends, and they didn’t have anything else to say. These were guys I trusted when things were bad and listened to when I didn’t know what to do and got drunk with after one of us got made a fool of. They weren’t strangers I could call crooks and be done with. They were my friends.

Somebody asked was it all right to get on with it. I was still standing at the crate, and the kid who was looking at me was still looking at me, and it seemed like I ought to say something, if only to find out what a man is supposed to say at a time like that, but nothing came.

“Go ahead,” I said.

I turned away, and behind me they went back to work.

I stayed till the car was shut and everybody who helped me out had what I promised them, and then I shook hands all around. One of my friends said I owed him a drink. I told him I’d buy him two, and he laughed and said he’d hold me to it, same as we’ve done a hundred times, and I laughed too.

The funny thing about the rest of that day was how regular it stayed. Guys went by with their lunch pails, the streetcars banged along, the newsboys and the cops were on their same corners, and I bought a pack of cigarettes and stood outside the cigar store holding it without opening it, trying to remember something one of the kids did with its hand. It wasn’t anything, just a kid fidgeting from sitting too long, but I could see it so plain I wished I hadn’t looked.

I didn’t know there were kids in that crate when I took the job. The money was settled and the favors were asked before I ever saw what we were shipping, Merriweather never told me his reasons and I never asked, and the guys who handled it acted like it was nothing special. I went over all that twice, in the same order both times. I thought about going back, and then about what I’d say if I did, and who to. In the end I put the cigarettes in my pocket and walked on toward the market, where there was a little money I had to collect and a guy who wanted an introduction I promised him, and those were things I knew how to do.

That night at the Albion the bartender asked if it was the usual, and a couple pals pulled out a chair for me by the piano before I got my coat off. We argued about a prizefight, and when the glasses got low I bought the round. Nobody asked me what I did that afternoon, so I didn’t say anything.

*

A few days later, when word came that it got there, I went back out to Merriweather House for the rest of my money. Merriweather was in the same room, dressed for the afternoon, though don’t ask me how an afternoon suit is different from any other kind.

“I understand everything went satisfactorily, Mr. Wagner.”

“It got where it was going. Far as I’ve heard, nobody’s complained.”

“That’s the result I hoped for,” he said, and handed me an envelope off his desk, and there was enough more in it than we said that I stopped before I put it away.

“I think you made a mistake, Mr. Merriweather. We said a number.”

“I made no mistake. I’m paying you more than that number because you did good work, and I believe good work ought to be recognized.”

He said it like overpaying a man was the easiest thing in the world. I’m used to guys who argue about the price after you already done the favor, or who stall till somebody gets rough enough to remind them, and I didn’t know what to do with my face for the other thing.

“That’s real handsome of you,” I said.

“I’m glad you think so. When something of this kind comes up again, and I expect it will, I’d like it to come to you first. I need a man I can send for when a matter calls for discretion.”

There was a second there, while he was talking about next time, when I almost asked him about the kids. It came into my head that maybe he didn’t know either, that maybe there was some arrangement I never heard about that would make the whole thing make sense if I only asked. He stopped talking and waited for me to say something, and what I said was thanks. By the time I got to the car I was already figuring what that extra money could do.

*

Dahlia was at her kitchen table that night with her books out and the plate from a supper she ate without me. She let me stand there till she finished a column and drew a line under it before I put Merriweather’s envelope down in front of her. She counted it fast, the way somebody counts who does it all day for other people, and something changed in her face at the end, but she counted it again before she said anything.

“Did all of this come from Merriweather?”

“Every dollar, and some of them dollars weren’t even in the deal.”

“You always knew who to ask, Hal. I never saw anybody pay you like this for it.”

“Then maybe I been selling myself too cheap.”

She put it back in the envelope and pushed it over to my side. “What’s he want with you now?”

“More of the same, I figure. He says he’ll send for me when there’s something suitable.”

“Did he say what kind of suitable?”

“He didn’t get into it.”

She squared her books into a pile, taking her time about it. “I suppose you know what you’re doing,” she said.

“Most of the time I do.”

“That’s about as much as anybody can say.”

I told her I wanted to take her someplace swell to celebrate, a real dining room with silver on the tables and a chandelier as big as a hay wagon, where you lift one finger and the waiter comes running. Some of those places charge crazy money for food that ain’t any better than the Albion’s, but I wanted to find out for myself.

“I got enough money for my own supper, Hal,” she said. “We can go if you want. But I’d be just as happy at the Albion.”

“So would I, tell you the truth. Only a guy ought to see how the other half lives once in a while, especially when he’s starting to think he might be joining them.”

She leaned back in her chair. “Is that what you think is happening?”

“Why not? He likes my work. You don’t know where a guy like that could lead.”

“Well, don’t spend all his money before he asks you for something else.”

Then I told her about Merriweather House, and I made up what I didn’t know till she caught me describing a ballroom I never set foot in. “I’d rather you told me what you saw,” she said, and put her books away in the drawer by the door while I told her that instead. The more I talked the bigger it all got, money and introductions and an office with a telephone, and Dahlia said I ought to get enough business to keep a desk busy before I went and bought one, which I couldn’t argue with.

At the door she fixed my tie, and her fingers by my collar where her stitches were still holding put the crate back in front of me before I could do anything about it. I hadn’t told her about the kids, and she stepped back and looked me over and asked if I was ready.

“Whenever you are, Baby.”

We went down together with her hand on my arm, and when a cab came by I flagged it like a man who can go anywhere he wants. I gave the driver the name of the place with the chandelier and sat back next to Dahlia with her hand warm through my sleeve, and there was a good dinner in front of us and money in my pocket and every reason in the world to think the best part of my life was still coming.

I woke to a bell.

One strike.

Then another.

Not loud enough to frighten me.

Close enough that I knew immediately where I was not.

Not home.

Not my temple.

Kyoto.

Mizuno’s temple.

I looked at the clock.

Six twenty-one.

The room was cold outside the blanket.

I remained still.

Another sound.

Sliding door.

Footsteps.

Then quiet.

No second bell.

Apparently not morning service.

Or not one requiring repeated sound.

I did not know this temple’s morning.

That was strange.

A temple morning I could not predict.

I got dressed.

Opened the guest-room door.

The corridor was empty.

No smell of breakfast yet.

From somewhere near the main hall came a low voice.

Mizuno.

Chanting.

I stopped.

Not because I had been invited.

Exactly because I had not.

I could walk in.

I was a priest.

I knew the text.

Probably.

Depending on what he was doing.

But knowing how to enter did not mean I had been asked to join.

I stood in the corridor long enough to feel foolish.

Then went to the kitchen.

Yuko was there.

Coffee.

Not tea.

She looked up.

“You’re awake.”

“Yes.”

“He woke you?”

“The bell.”

“He forgets the guest room is close.”

“I’m in a temple.”

“That is his defense too.”

She poured coffee into a mug.

“Want some?”

“Yes.”

No investigation.

Good.

She handed it to me.

Better than mine.

Possibly better than Takahashi’s.

I did not tell anyone.

“He’s doing his morning service?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Anyone attending?”

“No.”

I nodded.

Then:

“Should I join?”

Yuko looked at me.

“Do you want to?”

There.

“Yes.”

“Then go.”

Simple.

I took one step.

Then stopped.

“Would he want me to?”

She smiled.

“You are asking the wrong spouse.”

Fair.

I put the coffee down.

Went to the hall.

Mizuno was kneeling before the altar.

No robe beyond ordinary morning vestments.

No parishioners.

One small book open.

He heard me enter.

Did not turn.

I stayed near the rear.

He continued.

I did not chant.

Not at first.

Then he reached a section I knew.

My voice joined quietly.

Mizuno paused for perhaps half a beat.

Then continued.

No invitation.

No objection.

Two voices.

Different rhythm for the first few lines.

Then closer.

Not identical.

Nine years had changed even chanting.

Of course.

At the end, Mizuno bowed.

I bowed.

Silence.

Then he turned.

“You could have slept.”

“I was awake.”

“You joined halfway.”

“Yes.”

“Your timing is worse.”

“Your tempo changed.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You became slow.”

“I became accurate.”

“That sounds like age.”

“Yours.”

He closed the book.

There.

Morning reunion complete.

No tears.

Argument about tempo.

Better.

We carried nothing out.

There was nothing to carry.

Mizuno checked one candle.

Adjusted flowers.

Then looked at me.

“Breakfast.”

“Yuko made coffee.”

“Traitor.”

“She was awake.”

“So was I.”

“You were occupied.”

He accepted that.

We went back.

Breakfast was rice.

Soup.

Egg.

Pickles.

Yuko had already eaten.

She was dressed to leave.

“You two have plans?”

Mizuno said:

“No.”

I said:

“No.”

Same answer.

Yuko looked concerned.

“That usually means trouble.”

“We can walk,” Mizuno said.

“Where?”

He looked at me.

“Do you want to see the old place?”

There.

I knew which one before he said more.

A small restaurant we used to visit after meetings.

Cheap.

Too salty.

Owner who remembered everyone’s order incorrectly.

I had not thought about it for years.

“Still there?”

Mizuno looked at his rice.

“No.”

There.

“Then what are we seeing?”

“The building.”

“That sounds disappointing.”

“It is.”

Yuko put on her coat.

“Excellent plan.”

Mizuno ignored her.

I thought.

Did I want to see where something no longer existed?

Maybe.

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“After breakfast.”

Yuko opened the door.

Then looked back.

“Don’t spend all day proving things have closed.”

“We have other hobbies.”

“Do you?”

She left before either of us answered.

The cats appeared after breakfast.

Orange first.

Then gray.

Black stayed outside.

Mizuno fed none of them.

At least he claimed not to.

The orange one sat exactly beside the cabinet where cat food was stored.

I looked at him.

“Coincidence.”

“Of course.”

“You own cat food.”

“For emergencies.”

“What emergency?”

“Cat.”

Fair.

He fed them.

We left at eight forty.

No temple bag for me.

Mizuno had one.

His work bag.

I looked at it.

“Are you working?”

“I might.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“I have one stop.”

“What stop?”

“Old woman nearby. She asked me to look at a tablet.”

“Memorial tablet?”

“Yes.”

“Problem?”

“Lettering.”

I looked at him.

“So this is work.”

“Ten minutes.”

“You invited me on a walk.”

“We are walking.”

“To work.”

“Temples are badly located around parishioners.”

I laughed.

“Do you want me to come?”

He stopped.

That made the question real.

“You can wait outside.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

Mizuno considered.

Then:

“Yes. Come.”

“For what?”

He smiled.

“There he is.”

Wrong friend.

Still accurate.

“I want you to meet her.”

“Why?”

“She’ll like you.”

“That is not guaranteed.”

“No.”

Then:

“And I’ve talked about you.”

There.

Apparently this problem was national.

“Fine.”

We went.

The woman was eighty-four.

Maybe eighty-six.

Mizuno whispered:

“Do not ask.”

I had not planned to.

Her name was Mrs. Nishida.

She opened the door before we rang.

“Mizuno-san.”

Then saw me.

“Oh.”

Mizuno removed his shoes.

“This is Niioka.”

She waited.

Mizuno added:

“An old friend.”

There.

Old.

Current.

Both inside one phrase.

Mrs. Nishida looked at me.

“Priest?”

“Yes.”

“Mizuno’s friend?”

“Yes.”

She smiled.

“That sounds difficult.”

I liked her immediately.

The tablet was on a low table.

Newly made.

One character looked different from an older handwritten record.

Mizuno compared them.

I stayed back.

Not my temple.

Not my case.

Mrs. Nishida looked at me.

“You know characters?”

“Some.”

“Mizuno says this one is correct.”

I looked at Mizuno.

He looked at me.

No request from him.

She had asked me.

I stepped closer.

The old record.

The new tablet.

Same character, older form in the handwritten record.

“Mizuno is right.”

She looked disappointed.

“You answered too fast.”

“I can answer more slowly.”

She laughed.

Mizuno did not.

“See what I deal with?”

Mrs. Nishida ignored him.

“So it’s fine?”

“Yes.”

“Then why does it look wrong?”

“Because the old handwriting forms it differently.”

She looked again.

Then:

“I liked the old one.”

“That is also allowed.”

She nodded.

Problem solved enough.

No replacement ordered.

No doctrinal dispute.

Just appearance.

Then tea appeared.

Of course.

Ten-minute stop became twenty-five.

Mrs. Nishida asked where I lived.

Aomori.

She had been once.

Forty years ago.

Snow.

Apple.

Train.

The entire prefecture compressed into three nouns.

Fair.

Then she asked:

“Why are you here?”

I answered:

“To see Mizuno.”

She looked at him.

Then me.

“After how long?”

I looked at Mizuno.

He sighed.

“Nine years, more or less.”

Mrs. Nishida slapped his arm.

Actually.

Not hard.

“You idiot.”

Mizuno stared.

“Why only me?”

She slapped my sleeve too.

“There.”

Balanced.

I laughed.

She said:

“People die.”

There.

Room changed slightly.

Not dramatically.

At eighty-something, perhaps she had the right to say it without decoration.

Then she drank tea.

“You call before that.”

Simple.

Mizuno said:

“Yes.”

I said:

“Yes.”

No debate.

Outside, Mizuno rubbed his arm.

“She likes you.”

“She hit me.”

“That is affection.”

“Your region has unusual customs.”

“She hit me too.”

“Then perhaps not.”

We walked.

The old restaurant was thirty minutes away.

We could have taken a bus.

Mizuno said walking was better.

I agreed.

Kyoto streets changed around us.

Some old buildings.

Some new.

Convenience stores that could have been anywhere.

Tourists.

Students.

Deliveries.

Bicycles.

Life that had not waited for my return.

Good.

No.

Expected.

We passed a corner.

Mizuno pointed.

“That used to be the stationery store.”

I had no memory.

“Did we go there?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“Paper.”

“That narrows little.”

“You complained about the pens.”

“That sounds plausible.”

“It is now a pharmacy.”

I looked.

Pharmacy.

Nothing else to say.

We kept walking.

The restaurant building was still there.

The restaurant was not.

Ground floor now a clothing shop.

Clean glass front.

Mannequins.

No trace of the old sign.

Mizuno stopped across the street.

“There.”

I looked.

“This?”

“Yes.”

“I remember the entrance being narrower.”

“It was.”

“Building changed?”

“Renovated.”

We crossed.

No plaque.

No preservation.

No reason anyone should know two young priests had eaten cheap meals there years ago.

Mizuno stood near the window.

“Table was about there.”

Now sweaters.

I looked through the glass.

“Your memory may be wrong.”

“It is not.”

“You were always bad with space.”

“You got a chair stuck in a doorway.”

I stared.

“How do you know that?”

“You told me.”

Years ago?

I had told Takahashi recently.

Apparently the story was older than I thought.

“My reputation is contaminated.”

“Long-standing.”

We stood another moment.

Then Mizuno said:

“Well.”

“Yes.”

“Gone.”

“Yes.”

He turned away first.

No mourning ceremony.

No photograph.

We walked on.

Three blocks later, I asked:

“Do you miss it?”

“The restaurant?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Quick.

Then:

“Maybe the time.”

Different.

I nodded.

“Me too.”

Mizuno looked at me.

“Do you?”

“Some of it.”

“Not all.”

“No.”

“Good.”

No.

I smiled.

“You have the disease too.”

“What disease?”

“The word.”

He laughed.

“I had it first.”

That was possible.

We found another restaurant for lunch.

Not nostalgic.

New.

Mizuno had never been.

That mattered enough that he pointed it out.

“Neither of us has history here.”

“Excellent.”

We entered.

We ordered noodles.

Apparently our friendship had limited cuisine.

While waiting, Mizuno asked:

“What do you remember most from those years?”

Large question.

I thought.

Not one thing.

Meetings.

Late trains.

Cheap food.

Arguments.

Temple work.

One night of snow.

Mizuno asleep on a chair during a conference.

I smiled.

“That conference.”

He immediately understood.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I was ill.”

“You were sleeping.”

“Fever.”

“You snored.”

“I had respiratory compromise.”

“You woke when lunch arrived.”

“Natural survival instinct.”

I laughed.

There.

That memory.

Small.

Worth keeping.

He asked:

“Anything serious?”

I looked at him.

“Do you require serious?”

“No.”

“Then conference.”

He nodded.

“Fair.”

Then:

“You?”

I asked.

He thought longer.

“The night your teacher called.”

I stopped.

Which night?

Then remembered.

I had been considering whether to take on a difficult temple responsibility.

My teacher had called while Mizuno and I were eating.

I left the restaurant.

Spoke outside for nearly an hour.

Returned.

Mizuno waited.

I had forgotten he was there.

“You waited.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You left your bag.”

I stared.

He smiled.

“Also because you looked terrible.”

There.

I laughed softly.

“What did I say when I came back?”

“Nothing useful.”

“That sounds right.”

“You ate cold food.”

“Yes.”

Then:

“You didn’t tell me what the call was about until months later.”

I had forgotten that too.

“You didn’t ask?”

“I did once.”

“And?”

“You said not now.”

There.

Again.

This pattern was older than Takahashi.

Maybe older than I understood.

“What did you do?”

“Waited.”

“Months.”

“Yes.”

I looked at him.

“Were you offended?”

“A little.”

“Why didn’t you keep asking?”

He shrugged.

“You were my friend.”

There.

Not an explanation.

Or exactly one.

Food arrived.

We ate.

Then Mizuno said:

“You know what bothered me when you called?”

“What?”

“I remembered that.”

“The bag?”

“No. Waiting.”

He looked at his bowl.

“I thought I had waited before.”

There.

Different from anger about disappearance.

Related.

“You thought I should have called.”

“Yes.”

“You were waiting for me?”

“Not every day.”

“I know.”

“Sometimes.”

He stirred noodles.

“New Year. Your teacher’s funeral. When I changed temples.”

Moments.

Points at which he had thought:

Maybe.

And I had not.

I listened.

No defense available.

No need.

“I’m sorry.”

Mizuno nodded.

Not immediate:

It’s okay.

Good.

He ate.

Then:

“I could have called too.”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t erase your part.”

“No.”

“Or mine.”

“No.”

There.

Balanced without canceling.

We finished lunch.

Outside, he said:

“I don’t want to spend the whole visit discussing why we failed to use phones.”

“Good.”

No.

He stared.

I laughed.

“Fine.”

Worse.

We both laughed.

Then he said:

“There’s a bookstore.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You like books.”

That simple.

We went.

The bookstore was small.

Older.

Narrow aisles.

Mizuno went to Buddhism.

I went to history.

Of course.

We separated without comment.

Twenty minutes.

Thirty.

At some point I heard Mizuno speaking with the owner.

They knew each other.

No surprise.

I found one book.

Then another.

Held both.

Put one back.

Kept one.

At the counter, Mizuno had three.

“You own enough.”

He stared.

“That is Takahashi.”

“Yes.”

“Do not import him.”

“Too late.”

He bought the books.

So did I.

Back outside, my phone buzzed.

Takahashi.

Kyoto sweets.

I showed Mizuno.

He read it.

“Who is this?”

“Takahashi.”

“I gathered.”

He took my phone before I could stop him.

Typed.

I watched.

“What are you doing?”

“Diplomacy.”

He handed it back.

Message sent:

Niioka says no. — Mizuno

I stared.

“You signed it.”

“Yes.”

Takahashi replied almost immediately:

You’re real.

Mizuno laughed.

Then another:

Bring sweets.

Mizuno typed again:

Under negotiation.

I took the phone away.

“No.”

“Friendship diplomacy failed.”

“Give me my phone.”

“It is your phone.”

I put it away.

We returned to the temple around three.

Yuko was there.

Shoes at entrance.

She looked at our bookstore bags.

“Of course.”

Mizuno held up his.

“He bought one.”

“You bought three.”

“Different needs.”

She looked at me.

“Did he take you to the dead restaurant?”

“Yes.”

She sighed.

“I told him not to.”

“You did?”

Mizuno said:

“No.”

“I thought it.”

“That is not communication.”

I smiled.

Yuko pointed at both of us.

“You’re becoming worse together.”

Probably true.

Tea at four.

This time Yuko stayed.

Conversation moved to current things.

My temple.

Their temple.

Money.

Repairs.

The difficulty of finding people willing to do certain jobs.

Not memory.

Actual present.

Mizuno showed me photographs of the roof work.

I showed him one from my own recent construction.

We compared estimates.

Complained about contractors.

Yuko said:

“This is what happens when priests age.”

“What?”

“You stop discussing doctrine and compare roofs.”

Mizuno said:

“Roofs are doctrine with invoices.”

I laughed hard enough to spill tea.

Small amount.

Yuko handed me a cloth.

No one made a lesson.

At five thirty, Mizuno got a call.

A family.

Someone hospitalized.

Not dead.

They wanted him to visit tomorrow if possible.

He checked his schedule.

“Ten?”

Pause.

“Yes.”

Another pause.

“No, tonight isn’t necessary.”

He listened.

Then:

“If something changes, call me.”

There.

He ended.

Looked at me.

“Work.”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

He put the phone away.

Did not leave immediately because someone might need him later.

The conversation resumed.

I noticed because of my own recent day off.

Did not comment.

Dinner was outside.

Yuko wanted a break from cooking.

Reasonable.

Small place nearby.

We walked.

Three people.

No nostalgia attached.

At the restaurant, Mizuno ordered for himself.

Yuko ordered for herself.

I did too.

No sharing negotiation.

Almost disappointing.

Halfway through dinner, Yuko asked:

“What happens after this?”

I looked at her.

“What?”

“You go home tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“Then?”

There.

Future relationship.

Mizuno looked uncomfortable.

I understood.

We had not discussed frequency.

Calls.

Visits.

Anything.

Yuko looked between us.

“I’m not asking for a treaty.”

“Good,” Mizuno said.

“No schedules.”

“Better.”

She continued:

“I’m asking whether you two plan to disappear for another nine years.”

There.

Direct.

Mizuno looked at me.

I looked at him.

“No,” I said.

At almost the same time, he said:

“No.”

Yuko nodded.

“Fine.”

No.

She smiled before either could react.

Then ate.

Apparently sufficient.

Later, walking back, Mizuno said:

“She shouldn’t have asked that.”

“Why?”

“Pressure.”

“Did you feel pressured?”

“A little.”

“Did you mean no?”

“Yes.”

“So did I.”

He nodded.

Then:

“But what does that mean?”

There.

Actual question.

I thought.

“I don’t know.”

“Monthly calls?”

“That sounds terrible.”

“Agreed.”

“Annual?”

“Too formal.”

“Random?”

“Probably.”

“Visit?”

“Yes.”

“Both directions?”

“Yes.”

He looked at me.

“You want me in Aomori?”

“Yes.”

Quick.

His expression changed.

Then:

“All right.”

“When?”

“No.”

I laughed.

“Fair.”

“Not scheduling now.”

“Yes.”

“But I’ll come.”

There.

Future.

Not date.

Enough.

At the temple gate, Mizuno stopped.

“Maybe that’s enough.”

“What?”

“No nine years.”

I nodded.

Not because a rule would prevent distance forever.

Life could still happen.

Calls could fade.

People could fail.

Still.

“We can notice sooner.”

Mizuno looked at me.

“That sounds more realistic.”

“Yes.”

We went inside.

That night, Yuko went to bed before us.

Mizuno and I sat in the small room.

No tea.

Water.

The final night created pressure to say something important.

I felt it.

So did he, probably.

We avoided it for twenty minutes.

Talked about a broken printer.

Then finally Mizuno said:

“I’m glad you came.”

There.

Simple.

“I’m glad I came.”

He nodded.

Then:

“I was angry longer than five minutes.”

I smiled.

“I assumed.”

“How long?”

“Before the call?”

“Yes.”

He thought.

“Years, sometimes.”

There.

Not constantly.

Sometimes.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

No.

He corrected himself.

“I accept that.”

Better.

Then:

“I’m sorry too.”

“For not calling?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

He looked at me.

“For deciding you didn’t care without asking.”

There.

That hurt differently.

“I did care.”

“I know now.”

“I also didn’t call.”

“Yes.”

Both.

Again.

No need to find who had the larger percentage.

He drank water.

Then:

“I saw your teacher’s obituary.”

I waited.

“I had your number open.”

There.

“Why didn’t you call?”

“I thought the funeral would be busy.”

“It was.”

“Then I thought after.”

“Yes.”

“Then a week passed.”

“Yes.”

“Then I thought it would be strange.”

“Yes.”

“Then a month.”

I knew the structure.

“Then too late.”

“Yes.”

There.

Silence turns itself into evidence.

We had both done it.

Not because silence always meant indifference.

Sometimes silence simply made the next call harder.

I said:

“If you had called, I would have answered.”

Mizuno looked at me.

“Probably.”

“No. I would have.”

“You don’t know.”

He was right.

Maybe during the funeral I could not.

Maybe I would have missed it.

Maybe called later.

I corrected.

“I would have wanted you to call.”

There.

More accurate.

Mizuno nodded.

“And I wanted you to call when I changed temples.”

“Yes.”

We both had wishes the other never heard.

No moral credit for unspoken wanting.

Just fact.

Mizuno smiled suddenly.

“What?”

“I’m thinking about Mrs. Nishida.”

“People die.”

“Yes.”

“Subtle woman.”

“She has none.”

“She may be right.”

“Usually.”

He leaned back.

“So we call before that.”

“Yes.”

“Very ambitious.”

“Apparently.”

We laughed.

Pressure in the room eased.

No grand vow.

Just two middle-aged men making a plan slightly more sophisticated than death avoidance.

Before bed, Mizuno stood at the corridor.

“Train tomorrow?”

“Ten eighteen.”

“I’ll take you.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I know.”

There.

Takahashi disease spreading.

I smiled.

“All right.”

“Yuko too.”

“Fine.”

“Breakfast at seven.”

“Yes.”

Then he said:

“Niioka.”

I looked.

“Friend?”

There.

Ridiculous question after two days.

Still real.

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

Sunday morning, I woke before the bell again.

Six fifteen.

This time I knew where the sound would come from.

I dressed.

When Mizuno began morning service, I entered before he reached the first chant.

He saw me.

Small nod.

No invitation needed this time.

Not because I had permanent authorization.

Because I knew the shape of this morning and wanted to join.

We chanted together from the beginning.

Tempo still different.

Less difficult.

Breakfast.

Cats.

Yuko correcting both of us.

Then packing.

My bag had gained one book.

And, against my will, a box of Kyoto sweets.

I found it inside after closing the zipper.

I looked at Yuko.

She looked innocent.

“Mizuno.”

He raised both hands.

“Takahashi.”

“You have never met Takahashi recently.”

“Diplomacy.”

I sighed.

Kept the sweets.

Some battles were inefficient.

At nine thirty, we left for the station.

This time the car conversation was easier.

No need to fill every silence.

Yuko complained about traffic.

Mizuno chose the wrong lane.

She told him.

He disagreed.

She was correct.

Marriage apparently survived this regularly.

I sat in the back.

No role.

Good.

At the station, we had twenty minutes.

Not enough for coffee?

Apparently enough.

Mizuno bought three.

Yuko drank half before mine cooled.

We stood near the same large clock.

The place where I had seen him Friday.

Already different now.

Not reunion point.

Departure point.

Same object.

Different use.

No need to say that aloud.

Announcement.

My train.

I picked up the bag.

Mizuno said:

“Call when you get home.”

“Yes.”

Yuko said:

“Before another nine years.”

“Yes.”

“Before nine months.”

Mizuno looked at her.

“Don’t negotiate.”

She ignored him.

“Before nine weeks.”

I laughed.

“I’ll call.”

“Good.”

No.

She smiled.

I let it go.

Mizuno held out his hand.

This time we got the distance right.

Handshake.

Then he pulled slightly closer.

Not hug exactly.

Half.

Awkward.

I returned it.

One second.

Enough.

He stepped back.

“Come again.”

“Yes.”

Then I said:

“You come north.”

“Yes.”

No date.

Real intention.

Yuko said:

“Go. You’ll miss the train while defining friendship.”

I laughed.

Then went through the gate.

From the platform, I could not see them.

Different side.

That was fine.

The train arrived.

I boarded.

Seat.

Bag overhead.

Phone.

Window.

Then a message.

Mizuno:

You looked old walking away.

I stared.

Replied:

You looked old standing there.

Good trip.

No.

I smiled.

Thank you.

Then:

Thank you for having me.

His reply:

Come again before the roof needs a third repair.

That gave us several years, probably.

Not enough.

Good.

No.

Fine.

The train moved.

Kyoto slipped away into other buildings.

I did not feel restored.

That was not what had happened.

I felt tired.

Satisfied.

A little sad.

And very glad I had come.

Those could coexist.

At the first transfer, Takahashi messaged:

Alive?

Yes.

Souvenir?

I took a photograph of the box Yuko had hidden in my bag.

His reply arrived instantly.

Mizuno is a good man.

I laughed on the platform.

Then:

How was it?

I considered.

Too much for text.

Real.

Pause.

Good real?

There it was.

I looked at the train approaching.

Then wrote:

Yes.

No need for more now.

By late afternoon, I was back north.

Takahashi was waiting outside the station.

I had not asked him to come.

He had texted:

Arrival?

I told him.

That had apparently become enough.

I walked out carrying the bag.

He looked at me.

Then the bag.

“Sweets.”

“Yes.”

He took the bag.

I let him this time.

No argument.

We walked to the car.

Inside, he asked:

“Well?”

I looked ahead.

Not yet moving.

“Drive.”

“That bad?”

“No.”

“That good?”

“No.”

He started the engine.

“Complicated?”

“No.”

He looked at me.

I smiled.

“Real.”

He nodded.

“That again.”

“Yes.”

Then:

“Tell me later.”

There.

I appreciated him more for that than I could explain.

“I will.”

We drove.

At home, Takahashi carried the bag to the door.

I took it there.

“Coffee?”

I asked.

He looked surprised.

“You just got back.”

“Yes.”

“Tired?”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“I want coffee.”

He smiled.

“Then yes.”

We went inside.

I opened Yuko’s sweets.

Train-shaped.

Of course.

Takahashi looked triumphant.

“Mizuno understands.”

“Yuko.”

“Even better.”

We ate two each.

Coffee.

No full report.

I told him about the cats.

Mrs. Nishida hitting both of us.

The dead restaurant.

Mizuno’s hatred of his bell.

The bookstore.

The simulator? No, wrong trip.

Museum had been Takahashi.

For a second the weekends overlapped.

That made me laugh.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Then:

“I have had a lot of trains lately.”

He accepted that.

Eventually Takahashi asked:

“Going again?”

“Yes.”

No hesitation.

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

Then:

“Mizuno coming here?”

“Yes. Eventually.”

“Want me to meet him?”

There.

Interesting.

They had met twice years ago.

Mizuno remembered mushrooms.

Takahashi barely remembered him?

Maybe.

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Takahashi looked offended.

“He knows I hate mushrooms.”

“Apparently.”

“He has information.”

I laughed.

“Then yes.”

“Good.”

No.

I looked at him.

He ate another train-shaped sweet.

“Worth it.”

After he left, I unpacked.

Laundry.

Book on table.

Toiletries away.

No postcards from Kyoto.

No new objects except the purchased book.

I opened the desk drawer.

The old Kyoto postcard lay where I had left it.

I took it out.

Looked at the picture.

For the first time, it felt properly old.

Not because nine years was suddenly longer.

Because Kyoto was no longer contained in it.

Mizuno had gray hair.

Yuko’s hair was shorter.

There were three cats.

A bad bell.

A repaired roof.

Mrs. Nishida.

A bookstore.

A clothing shop where the restaurant used to be.

The postcard no longer had to carry the city or the friendship.

It was just a postcard again.

I placed it back.

Beside the other one.

Beside the envelope.

Closed the drawer.

I had gone to Kyoto afraid of discovering what was left.

That had been the wrong question.

Plenty was gone.

Restaurant.

Years.

Some shared habits.

Versions of ourselves.

Other things remained.

A laugh.

An argument.

An old memory of waiting with someone’s bag.

And much of what mattered now had not existed then at all.

His temple.

His current parishioners.

My friendship with Takahashi.

The lives we had built apart.

The ability to say:

I was angry.

I missed you.

I should have called.

Come north.

I will.

Not restoration.

Continuation, perhaps.

With a gap inside it.

That was fine.

No.

That was true.

Before bed, Mizuno sent one final message.

Home?

I replied:

Yes.

Good.

I waited.

Then typed:

I’m glad I came.

His reply took a little longer.

I’m glad you did.

Nothing else.

I put the phone down.

Friday, I had crossed a station concourse toward a man I had not seen in nine years.

Sunday, I had walked away from him knowing I would see him again.

Not when.

Not how often.

No schedule to guarantee it.

But this time, silence would not get to make the decision by itself.

Out NOW Episode 7: "Each Playing Many Parts" of 'really BAD Shakespeare:

The masks finally start slipping. As secrets unravel and loyalties become increasingly uncertain, Shakespeare begins questioning everything he believes about himself, his destiny, and the people closest to him. Some betrayals hurt more than prophecy. Some truths are worse than lies. "Confusion now hath made his masterpiece."

"Heh..."

A quiet, self-conscious laugh escaped Taesung's lips.

He couldn't help finding the whole thing absurd.

That he had devoted every ounce of his attention—

that his heart had actually begun to race—

over the path of a handful of ants.

How empty had his life become?

How little remained to hold his interest that he found himself following insects across a plaza like a man with nothing left to lose?

The thought was almost laughable.

Almost.

But the feeling didn't last.

When he returned to his laboratory inside the ASI Management Center, an even heavier wave of weariness settled over him.

Rows upon rows of server modules filled the room, their synchronized hum blending into a single mechanical drone.

Everything operated exactly as it should.

Every process.

Every routine.

Every second.

Perfectly programmed.

Perfectly predictable.

The moment he stepped back into that sterile environment, the enormous advertisement he had seen outside flashed through his mind once again.

NEW LIFE.

Relive Humanity's Perfect Past.

...Maybe I should try it.

The thought came so naturally that it surprised him.

Maybe I'm just as exhausted by this life as everyone else.

Almost immediately, another image followed.

The ants.

Their tireless march into the darkness beneath the old tree.

The memory was startlingly vivid.

So vivid that it clashed violently against the sterile perfection surrounding him.

Why had they moved with such unwavering certainty?

Why did every one of them seem to know exactly where it belonged?

Were they nothing more than biological machines, blindly obeying instincts written into their genes?

Or...

Did they possess something else?

Some awareness of purpose.

Some unquestioned understanding of their place in the world.

The thought struck him harder than he expected.

An emotion rose quietly from the depths of his chest.

Not admiration.

Not curiosity.

Envy.

How ridiculous.

How utterly absurd—

to envy an ant.

And yet he couldn't deny it.

Even those tiny creatures crawling across the ground possessed something he no longer had.

Clarity.

They woke each day already knowing where they were going.

Already knowing what they existed to do.

Taesung, a researcher living in the most advanced civilization humanity had ever built,

couldn't say the same.

The questions multiplied.

One after another.

Since the moment he had noticed the ants, the part of his mind that had lain dormant beneath years of emptiness had begun to awaken.

Each question sharpened the next like a blade against stone.

Was that really it?

Had I been dying inside simply because there was nothing left in my life worth caring about?

No.

That wasn't the answer.

For years he had drifted through each day, numbing his senses while passively accepting whatever life the system placed before him.

Yet this—

Standing here, chasing one question after another—

felt completely different.

The curiosity burning inside him made him feel strangely...

alive.

For the first time in longer than he could remember, the crushing weight that had pressed against his chest every waking hour began to dissolve.

Not slowly.

Not reluctantly.

It vanished like a mirage at sunrise,

leaving behind something he had almost forgotten existed.

Hope.

Or perhaps...

simply the joy of wanting to know.

Part 1

The endless field remained entirely unchanged.

Rolling green hills continued to sway gently beneath the mountain breeze, and hundreds of distant targets remained scattered haphazardly across the sprawling landscape.

Jinwoo slowly picked up another wooden arrow from the ground, his gaze drifting toward the empty spot where the old master had just vanished into thin air. The enigmatic words still echoed clearly in the back of his mind.

"Do not watch the target."

"Watch the wind."

He frowned deeply, shaking his head. "...How on earth am I supposed to watch something that’s completely invisible to the naked eye?"

Only the breeze answered his frustration, brushing lightly across his flushed cheek before disappearing into the endless sea of tall grass.

Arena remained entirely silent. No helpful explanations. No step-by-step guidance.

Instead—

The quiet field shifted dramatically. Dozends of new targets abruptly materialized across the landscape.

Some stood stubbornly just a few paces away. Others rolled slowly and unpredictably down distant hillsides. A few swung gently from old wooden frames, shifting wildly with every sudden change in the wind.

Jinwoo stared at the sudden chaos in sheer disbelief. "...You've got to be kidding me."

Arena’s calm, level voice echoed from the sky. "Hit them."

Jinwoo turned his head toward the empty air, incredulous. "...All of them?"

"Yes."

He let out a long, exhausted sigh, his shoulders sagging. "...You're absolutely impossible."

No response followed. Only the steady sound of the wind rushing across the rolling hills.

Jinwoo looked at the closest target. Then the second one. Then the dozens stretching endlessly toward the distant horizon.

He rubbed his forehead in defeat. "...Fine. I'll start with the closest one and work my way up."

He raised the bow, pulled the string taut, and released.

The arrow curved awkwardly through the air before dropping pathetically short of the target.

Jinwoo stared blankly at the ground. "...Seriously?"

A familiar, gentle sound of laughter drifted across the open field.

He whipped around. The old man in faded white robes stood quietly behind him once again. This time, the faintest, warmest smile touched his weathered lips.

"You struggle so much..." the old man said gently, "...because you are trying to shoot entirely with your hands."

Jinwoo blinked in confusion. "...Then what on earth am I supposed to shoot with?"

The old man stepped closer. With a single, deliberate finger, he tapped the center of Jinwoo’s chest.

"With your entire body."

Jinwoo looked down at himself, perplexed, and then back up at the master. "...That somehow sounds even more complicated."

For the very first time... the old man laughed out loud. It wasn't the harsh laugh of a judgmental master, but the warm, shared amusement of someone who had once stood in those exact same nervous shoes.

Jinwoo slowly found himself smiling as well.

Perhaps... missing the mark over and over again was simply the universal starting line where every archer had to begin.

Part 2

Far away, in another corner of the trials...

Hanul crashed onto the hard stone floor of the training yard once again.

Thud.

A small cloud of dust rose around him. For a long moment, he simply lay flat on his back, staring blankly up at the clear white sky above. Then, he let out a long, agonizing groan.

"...Again?"

He pushed himself up, angrily brushing the dirt off his clothes. "This has got to be at least the tenth time I've face-planted."

The elderly Taekkyeon master stood calmly in front of him, his hands folded neatly behind his flowing robes. His expression never once wavered.

"You continue to fall..." the master said smoothly, "...because you are desperately trying to defeat your opponent."

Hanul frowned, crossing his arms. "Isn't that the whole point of fighting? If I don't win, I lose."

The master slowly shook his head. "That is precisely why... you continue to hit the ground."

Hanul stared blankly at the old man. "...You're really going to explain everything like a cryptic riddle, aren't you?"

The old master smiled faintly without answering. Instead, he stepped lightly across the courtyard, his feet seeming to barely graze the stone surface.

There was no wasted movement. No rigid force. No desperate struggle. Only pure, fluid motion.

The master paused, looking back. "If a river... tries to forcefully overpower the mountain... it stops flowing entirely."

Hanul scratched his head in frustration. "...Are you seriously comparing me to a stubborn river now?"

The old man nodded. "You fight against every single movement. You resist every natural shift in momentum. You force every awkward step."

"True martial arts..." the master whispered, "...do not force their way through. They follow."

Hanul slowly lowered his gaze to his own trembling feet. He replayed every fall in his mind. Every clumsy stumble. Every mistimed kick.

Every single time... he had tried to brute-force the technique instead of actually understanding it. The realization left him unusually quiet and reflective.

Elsewhere—

Darin stood once more beneath the breathtaking sky of floating swords. Hundreds of silver blades drifted gracefully around her, tracing intricate, elegant circles through the air.

She carefully copied the master dancer’s fluid motions. One careful step. Another. A smooth, spinning turn—

Her balance held steady.

She blinked in sheer surprise. "...Wait. I didn't fall over."

A bright, triumphant smile spread across her face. Emboldened, she rushed to continue the sequence.

Too fast. Too eager.

Her foot caught the edge of her own garment.

Crash.

She collapsed unceremoniously onto the hard floor once more.

Hanul’s mocking laughter echoed from impossibly far away across the white void. "I knew you wouldn't last!"

Darin groaned loudly into the floorboards. "...I genuinely hate him."

The woman performing the sword dance never missed a beat, her motion remaining as calm, precise, and beautiful as ever.

Without turning her head, she spoke softly. "True beauty... is never about sheer speed."

Darin slowly sat up, rubbing her knee. "Then what is it?"

The dancer raised her gleaming blade, its shining edge reflecting the white expanse above.

"Beauty... is absolute balance."

Silence settled deeply over the separate training worlds.

Each of them had heard vastly different lessons from their respective masters. Yet somehow... they all pointed toward the exact same fundamental truth.

True strength did not begin with flashy techniques. It began with understanding how to move without fighting against yourself.

Part 3

In another distant corner of the infinite white world, Soyeon stood entirely alone.

No weapons. No opponents. Only countless points of glowing light stretching endlessly into the dark distance.

Some lights blazed brightly like dying stars. Others flickered with a weak, desperate pulse. And connecting every single one of them were delicate, trembling strands of pale blue light.

The vast web spread out further than the human eye could possibly follow.

Soyeon slowly turned in a full circle, her chest tightening. "...How can anyone possibly keep track of all of this at once?"

The countless lights shifted constantly, like a living organism. A single minor change sent ripples cascading through the entire network. The harder she tried to track every single connection, the more overwhelmingly chaotic it became.

She closed her eyes tightly, trying to shut out the noise.

A gentle, resonant voice reached her through the quiet. "Do not try... to see everyone all at once."

Soyeon opened her eyes again. The elderly instructor stood quietly among the endless sea of lights, his expression serene.

"Then..." she asked softly, her voice trembling, "...what am I supposed to look at?"

The old man raised a single hand. Far across the space, one thread of light suddenly brightened. Only one. It simply connected two distant points in the dark.

"See... one person."

Soyeon frowned. "Just one?"

He nodded slowly. "Every profound bond... begins with a single connection."

She followed the path of that single glowing thread. One connection led naturally to two. Two expanded into three.

Without even realizing it, the vast, terrifying web no longer felt chaotic or suffocating. Each new thread led seamlessly to the next, forming a coherent pattern of life.

Her tense expression softened into a quiet understanding. "...I see it now."

The old man smiled warmly. "You were never meant... to carry the weight of the entire battlefield all by yourself."

He stepped closer. "You only ever need to reach out... to the person standing right beside you."

The countless lights surrounding her suddenly felt warmer, losing their cold, clinical edge.

Far away—

In reality.

Deep within Earth’s fragile orbit.

Another violent, cataclysmic explosion illuminated the dark void of space.

BOOM!

An entire defensive fleet vanished instantly beneath concentrated enemy fire. Shattered, burning hulls drifted silently into the dark abyss.

Yet, without missing a beat, another brave formation advanced to take their place. No hesitation. No thought of retreat. Only buying a few more precious seconds for humanity.

Deep beneath the surface of Seoul, Arena observed every single battlefield simultaneously through rivers of data. Its calm, mechanical voice echoed clearly across every isolated training ground.

[Archery Synchronization: 11%]

A second system display materialized in the air.

[Physical Adaptation Initiated]

Then another.

[Neural Connection in Progress]

Jinwoo lowered his bow for a brief moment, breathing heavily.

Something felt fundamentally different.

Not in his active thoughts. But deep within his physical body.

Without consciously thinking about it, his feet automatically adjusted their stance. His shoulders dropped and relaxed. His fingers settled with absolute, instinctive precision along the bowstring.

The movement felt hauntingly familiar. Not because he had practiced it repeatedly in this life. But because his body somehow remembered a legacy older than time itself.

He whispered the words almost entirely to himself.

"...I remember."

Far away across the white worlds, Hanul stopped fighting the momentum and learned to flow. Darin slowed the frantic rhythm of her blade to find her center. Soyeon focused on tracing a single vital thread instead of thousands.

At that exact, miraculous instant...

All four children felt the exact same quiet, profound realization wash over them.

They weren't merely learning unfamiliar, foreign techniques. They were finally awakening something that humanity had carried hidden within its blood all along.

Beyond the safety of the white world...

Another violent explosion shook the distant stars, and time continued to slip mercilessly through humanity's fingers.

But for the very first time...

The children had taken their first true, unshakeable step toward becoming real warriors.

Previously:

A family reunion brought old wounds to the surface, Michael's jealousy spiralled, and Mitchell took a risky turn.

Episode 16 Preview:

As hope for one family builds, hope spreads thin for another. Elsewhere, as a marriage hangs in the balance, Kylie makes a life changing discovery that leaves her in shock. And, Michael comes to terms with his true feelings.

19/01/1999 | Tuesday

———

03:11AM. The Strip. Shawcross General Shop.

———

Downstairs in the shop, is dark and quiet. Almost pitch black. Except for the orange glow from the streetlights outside slightly peeking its way through the barred windows and caged front door.

And the constant quiet hum of the fridges and freezers in the shop. Doing their job constantly.

Michael sits on the floor, leaning back against the counter, crying. And drinking.

A bottle of Jack Daniels almost empty in his right hand, his other hand wiping tears on his drunk face. He sniffles, crying about himself. About his life. About who he is and what he wants.

Not that he does know what he wants...

———

05:23AM. Flat 34, Marlas Flats, Marlas Estate. Mitchell's Flat

———

Mitchell's fast asleep in his bed, where he and Alex both fell asleep after having extremely intoxicated intercourse. He's snoring away, still in yesterday's clothes. Reeking of booze and heartbreak.

His flat is all in darkness. Quiet too. Except for the usual noise outside in the estate below.

SLAM!

He jolts wide awake and sees that Alex is gone

Mitchell: "Alex...?" He quietly groans

He slowly gets up, body feeling like concrete

He walks out of his room and down the small hallway

Mitchell: "Alex?" He rubs his eyes

And turns into the living room to see it slightly turned over

He's been robbed

His eyes stretch fully awake now

Mitchell: "Alex!?"

Things have been moved and thrown about. It's a mess. Not a devastation like what happened at number 33 though.

He runs deeper into the living room and starts scanning and scrambling through the mess.

Slowly, he notices small things missing. Things aren't where they used to be. Things like loose change, accessories, some shoes, fags, small stuff like that.

He sprints to the front door, yanks it open–

Mitchell: "ALEX!" he shouts down the hall

He takes a few steps down one direction of the hallway

Mitchell: "ALEX!" he shouts again

And somewhere from someone's nearby flat, someone shouts; "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Mitchell rolls his eyes and sighs, disappointed about what's happened. He walks back into his flat and slams the door shut behind him. Echoing fown the hall.

———

11:19AM. Number 27. The Slater Residence. Living Room.

———

On one of the two three seater green sofas, Georgina lies tangled and weaved in and out of the thick duvet, asleep and in last night's clothes too. Hungover from her night out with Kylie.

Her makeup is smudged and clothes reek of booze.

On the other sofa, sits Kelly and Danielle, both quietly chatting and eating cereal.

The noise from the kitchen is loud though. Same as yesterday. Chatter, cooking, music and laughter.

SMASH!

Someone can be heard dropping a mug on the kitchen floor

Georgina sturs awake and her eyes flutter open and she groans like a zombie

She turns around on her side and faces the living room

Danielle: "Fucking Hell" she laughs

Kelly: "Good night last night was it?" She teases

Georgina: "From what I remember" she jokes as she slowly sits up

Kelly and Danielle look at each other

Georgina leans forward and rubs her face with her hands

Georgina: "God it's bright..." she whispers

Then, Julie walks in from the hallway, out from the kitchen

Julie: "Oh! So you are alive?" She teases

Georgina: "Don't start" she mutters under her breath

Julie: "Here, I brought you a cuppa. Presuming you can keep it down. Good for hangovers they are"

Julie places the cup of tea on the coffee table in the middle of the room

Georgina: "Cheers sis" she whispers and winces her eyes

Julie looks her sister up and down

Julie: "I don't know how mam and dad deal with you" She smirks

Georgina: "That's why I got my own flat innit. Get out of their hair"

Kelly: "You always look like a corpse after a night out?"

Georgina: "Hey, that's a sign of a good night out that is. And you think I'm bad? I dread to see what Kylie's like"

Julie: "Oh God. Why? What did you do?"

Georgina: "She only had a few drinks and she came chucking up all over me"

The other's faces wince

Georgina: "Couldn't even keep a kebab down afterwards"

———

11:43AM. Number 41. Maureen's Home.

———

On the sofa in Maureen's living room, Kylie is in the same state as Georgina. If not, worse.

Theres a bucket on the floor by the side of the sofa, with some sick in it.

Maureen stands in the kitchen, drinking tea and having some breakfast.

Kylie slowly sits up and slouches into the kitchen and walks up to the sink

Maureen: "Blimey"

Kylie: "I feel worse than I look" she whispers

Maureen: "Gathered that" she giggles

Kylie washes her face with cold tap water

Maureen: "Want any–"

Kylie: "For the love of God dont say breakfast"

Maureen: "I'll take that as a no" she smiles and sits at the small table

Kylie leans against the kitchen sink

Maureen: "I dread to ask, but what did you two get up to last night?"

Kylie: "Not that much. We just went bar crawling really. I almost pulled too. But then threw up all over Georgina's shoes"

Maureen's face winces

Kylie: "I know. I dont know why, but i can't handle my drink anymore like I used to. Only recently. For the past week or so, i feel sick all the time"

Maureen: "Might need to get you checked out, is it?"

Kylie: "Yeah, maybe"

———

1:19PM. The Strip. Shawcross General Shop.

———

Behind the counter, Yvonne is fiddling with a clipboard and a pen, while Michael restocks a shelf in the far corner of the small shop.

Although his back is to her, he can feel eyes on him. After he finishes stocking up a shelf with cleaning products, he picks an empty box up and turns to face the counter where he and his wife make eye contact for a second.

Yvonne speaks up

Yvonne: "Where'd you get off to last night?"

She asks quietly

Michael ignores her and puts the empty box in the store room, and grabs another full box of produce

He walks back in the shop

Yvonne: "Michael? Michael im talking to—"

Michael: "What do you care?" He asks bluntly, heading to finish stocking up a shelf

Yvonne walks from out behind the counter and walks up to him

Yvonne: "I care because im your wife"

Michael: "And thats how you speak to your husband is it? By laughing in his face and telling him you don't want kids with him" he sarcastically asks

Yvonne: "I...you caught me off guard okay? I just didnt expect it. Its nothing that we really spoke about before. I didn't know what to say" she says

Michael: "So you make me feel like I'd be a terrible father, is that it?"

Yvonne sighs

Yvonne: "Look, im sorry. Okay? I really am. What i said– it was wrong. I was just scared..."

Michael: "Scared?" He turns to her

Yvonne: "W– well yeah..."

Michael: "Why?"

Yvonne: "Kids. Its a big thing. No? And we're not exactly flush with cash. Kids are expensive"

Michael: "Yeah...suppose. Why would you want a kid with me anyway?" He digs at her, before turning back to the shelf

Yvonne goes to speak again but the bell jingles above the door and Yvonne takes that as her queue to walk away

She walks past Sunita who's in the fridge grabbing butter, milk and sausages

Seconds after Yvonne steps behind the counter again, Sunita walks up go the counter, pushing her black glasses further up on her nose

Sunita: "Afternoon Yvonne darling. You okay? I sense a...weird energy"

Yvonne: "Hi Sunita. Yeah. Yeah I'm..."

She sighs

Yvonne: "I'm fine" she starts grabbing Sunita's items and scanning them

Sunita checks behind her and whispers to Yvonne

Sunita: "How's things with..." she nods at her stomach

Yvonne looks at Michael at the back of the shop, who's in a world of his own

Yvonne: "I made an appointment yesterday morning for an abortion" she whispers

Sunita nods

Sunita: "You sure you want to go through with it?" She whispers

Yvonne: "What other choice have I got?" She jokingly whispers

Sunita: "Yvonne, darling. You always have a choice. Always"

Yvonne listens

Sunita: "Just like you have a choice to tell—"

Yvonne: "I'm not telling him Sunita. We're already in a bad place as it is and we dont need anything else driving a wedge between us right now" she cuts her off

Sunita: "A baby will do that? Really? Think about it sweetheart. Maybe a baby is—"

Yvonne: "A baby is not what we need, Sunita. Okay?" She quietly asks

Sunita nods

Sunita: "Okay. Im sorry" she whispers

Yvonne: "Don't be. You're just looking out for me" she quietly smiles at her

Yvonne rings the receipt up.

Yvonne: "That's four seventy five please"

Sunita fishes out the money from her patterned fabric purse and hands it to Yvonne.

Sunita whispers: "When is your appointment?"

Yvonne: "Tomorrow. At four o'clock" she whispers

Sunita gasps quietly

Sunita: "Tomorrow?? Lord that's quick"

Yvonne nods and looks down at the counter

Yvonne: "I know" she whispers

Theres a question that Sunita has trouble asking, but she manages

Sunita: "Would...would you like me to go with you? For support..." she asks quietly

Yvonne: "No. No thank you Nita. Thank you anyway though. It means a lot. Really. I just...i think its something that i have to do alone. You know? But thank you" she smiles quietly

Sunita: "Of course darling. Im here anytime" she places her hand on Yvonne's before leaving the shop

———

2:03PM. Victoria Arms Pub.

———

The pub is quiet, only a few locals seated here and there.

Behind the bar is Eddie and Jenna. Jenna's serving Jim a pint while Eddie is drying glasses with a cloth before putting them on the overhead rack.

Jenna: "Here we are Jim"

Jim: "Cheers" he mutters

Jenna slowly walks up to Eddie and smiles

Jenna: "You okay?"

Eddie: "Yeah. Fine thank you darling" he smiles back at her

A long silence sits there, like there's something they both want to say

Jenna: "You know you can talk to me, yeah?"

Eddie: "I know" he nods and smiles

Eddie: "Thank you lovely. Same goes for you"

Jenna nods and goes to walk away

Jenna: "Oh also–" she turns back to facing him

Jenna: "You used to do food here didn't you?"

Eddie: "Yeah. Donkeys years ago. Why?"

Jenna: "Well i was thinking, my mum's looking for work and she has loads of experience in the kitchen. Even some in this pub's kitchen. She did the buffet for the estate's 30th didnt she. And well...i was thinking, why dont we make a menu or something. Sunday roasts, breakfasts maybe, stuff like that"

Eddie: "Wow look at you going! You've only been working here a few days and already talking about 'we' and what have you!" He giggles

Jenna: "Oh, sorry. I thought– I was just trying– sorry if I overstepped" she awkwardly giggles

Eddie: "No no. You didnt. I actually like it. You're taking initiative. Its impressive. Bold" he smiles

Jenna: "Yeah?" Her face lights up a bit

Eddie: "Yeah"

They smile at each other

Eddie: "Tell you what, the kitchen could do with some staff again. Could do with getting some cobwebs blown off too. So, why dont you, and your mum if she's interested, make a list of menu's or something. Jot some ideas down and run them by me when you're finished, and we can come up with something" he smiles

Jenna: "Aw great! Thanks Eddie!"

Eddie: "Don't mention it!" He giggles softly

———

3:15PM. St Anne's Hospital. Jamie's Room.

———

The afternoon is grey and still. Nicola sits beside Jamie's bed, her coat folded over the back of the chair, her eyes swollen and red. She hasn't bothered fixing her hair. Barry sits beside her, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. Neither has spoken for several minutes. The steady beeping of the monitor fills the silence.

Nicola gently strokes Jamie's hand.

Nicola: "He's so cold."

Barry: "He's alright, love."

Nicola: "He doesn't feel alright."

Barry looks at his son. His mouth opens slightly, but nothing comes out. He reaches for Nicola's shoulder instead, pulling her towards him. She leans into him, her face crumpling against his shirt.

Nicola: "I just want him to wake up."

Barry: "I know. Me too"

Nicola: "I can't keep doing this, Barry."

Barry closes his eyes. He presses his lips to the top of her head, holding her tightly, but his own face is wet.

A quiet knock interrupts them. The doctor steps inside, carrying a clipboard.

Doctor: "Mr and Mrs Jenkins. I wanted to give you a quick update."

Nicola sits upright immediately, wiping her cheeks with the heel of her hand. Barry takes her hand beneath the edge of the bed.

Doctor: "There's been no significant change in Jamie's condition. He's stable at the moment, but he's still critically ill and remains unconscious."

Nicola: "So that's good, isn't it? That he's stable?"

Doctor: "It's better than seeing him deteriorate, certainly. But it doesn't tell us whether he's going to recover. We need to give him more time."

Barry: "How much more?"

Doctor: "I'm afraid I can't answer that. We'll continue monitoring him closely, but for now, we're waiting to see how he responds."

Nicola: "And...if he doesn't respond?"

The doctor pauses. He looks at Jamie, then back at her.

Doctor: "It's too early to draw any conclusions. I know that's not the answer you want, and I'm sorry."

Nicola nods, staring at him as though she's waiting for him to say something else. Something that will make all of this mean something. But he doesn't.

Barry: "Right. Thank you, Doctor."

The doctor leaves quietly.

Nicola looks back at Jamie. Her shoulders begin to shake, but she makes no sound. Barry pulls his chair closer and wraps an arm around her, resting his cheek against her hair.

Nicola: "We're no further forward, are we?"

Barry doesn't answer straight away.

Barry: "Don't think so love."

She takes Jamie's hand again, holding it against her chest.

Barry sits beside her, staring at his son, unable to promise her anything.

The monitor beeps.

Outside, the afternoon carries on. While the Jenkins family are fractured and barely hanging on by a thread.

———

4:17PM. St Anne's Hospital. Katie's Sick Bay.

———

At her bedside, sits Arthur, Gillian and Julie. Chatting away with Katie. A warm familiarity.

They've been here a while.

Katie's just filling them all in on what the doctors have planned for her.

Katie: "So yeah. They said its half an hour every day to start off with, and they said I'll have loads of support like railings and crutches and someone to hold onto and whatever, and then the better I get, the longer the session will take until I can walk properly again"

Arthur: "Ah fair play Katie, love"

Gillian: "Well done sweetheart"

Julie takes her daughter's hand and winks at her

Julie: "You'll be okay" she smiles

Katie: "I know. Just can't wait to get out of here" she smiles with a sigh

———

5:27PM. Number 41. Maureen's Home.

———

In the living room, Kylie sits on the sofa with her feet up, absentmindedly watching EastEnders, while Maureen prepares to pop to the shop.

She's at the door, putting her coat on and getting her trolley ready.

Maureen: "You sure you don't want anything now Kylie love?"

Kylie: "Nah ta. Thanks anyway" she says back

Maureen: "Alright then. I'll be fifteen"

Kylie: "Bye"

The front door closes and Kylie waits a few seconds before getting up, rushing over to the window and watches Maureen head down the street towards the Strip.

And as soon as Maureen's out of sight, Kylie runs upstairs and onto the landing, and then into the bathroom.

She bends down and forward and reaches her hand behind the toilet tank and pulls out a small blue plastic bag.

She then sits down on the toilet and opens the bag, and pulls out a small white rectangular box that says "Clearblue" on it.

Its a pregnancy test.

At the sight of the box, her heart starts pounding and she can feel her chest shake. Her whole body actually.

———

5:36PM. The Strip. Shawcross General Shop.

———

The shop is very quiet. Apart from the humming if the fridges and machinery. Yvonne is sat behind the counter and Michael is more or less walking around, looking for things to do. He's out of his mind. Mind racing about...everything

He's looking for anything to keep him occupied.

Eventually, he walks over to the counter and up to Yvonne.

Yvonne: "You okay?" She asks quietly

Michael: "Yeah" he says quietly

Michael: "You dont mind if I go out to the pub do you?" He asks quietly, in a gloomy tone

Yvonne clearly doesn't want him to but she puts his request first

Yvonne: "Yeah..." she sighs

Yvonne: "yeah go on then"

Michael: "Alright" he mutters, before heading to the door, taking his coat off the rack and right as he's about to open the door, it opens anyway, and Maureen walks in.

Maureen: "Alright Michael?" She asks politely, making small talk

Michael: "Yeah. Great" he mutters in a moody tone as he brushes past her and out the door

The door shuts behind them as Maureen steps into the shop and Michael walks towards the pub

Maureen: "Bloody Hell what's gotten into him?" She asks Yvonne who's sat behind the counter, exhausted

Yvonne: "...Don't know" she mutters. Even though she does know. Well...sort of.

———

5:49:PM. Number 41. Maureen's Home.

———

Upstairs in the bathroom, Kylie is pacing slowly. She then checks the time on her flip phone and sees that its been at least 22 minutes.

She gathers up the courage, inhales, sighs, and then walks up to the toilet tank where she put the pregnancy test face down.

After taking a deep breath, she picks it up, and turns it over.

Positive

She's pregnant.

Fuck...nonononono...what am I going to do???

Downstairs, the door opens and Maureen shouts up;

Maureen: "Kylie! I'm back!"

Kylie's stomach drops and she gets goosebumps. In a flash decision, she drops the pregnancy test in the small bin in the corner of the room, and covers it with some toilet paper and buries it with whatever's already in there.

Kylie: "Coming!"

———

8:47PM. The Victoria Arms Pub.

———

The pub is buzzing with its evening scene.

Loud music, people at the pool table, people at the dartboard, and people jotted around.

At the bar, Michael is already steaming. Barely able to speak a full sentence.

He finishes another drink. His seventh, at least.

He holds the glass up to the air without even looking up

Michael: "Ed! Ed! Edaaaayy!"

Eddie walks over to Michael quickly

Eddie: "Alright alright! Careful mate, keep it down. What is it? Same again?" He asks quietly

Michael: "Yup"

As Eddie starts pouring Michael's drink he notices the state Michael's in

Eddie: "You alright man? What's gotten into you?"

Michael: "Noth— nothing. Im fine. Fine, me. Why d'you ask?"

Eddie: "Have you seen yourself for starters? You barely come in here much and for the past few days, especially yesterday and today, you're knocking them back like there's no tomorrow"

Jenna: "You're giving Jim a run for his money" she jokingly chimes in

But Michael ignores her

Michael: "I...I dont know man. Im all over the place right now" he barely manages to say

Eddie: "Yeah. I can see that" he hands him the pint

Michael starts getting emotional

Michael: "I...I think me and Yvonne might be done" he sniffles

Eddie: "What? Why? What makes you say that?" He asks caringly

Michael: "I- i dont know. I don't...I dont know anything anymore. What makes her happy...what makes me happy...I forgot– we forgot how to be happy. I– I just miss her. I miss the way we used to be before we would fight all the time about God knows what..." he struggles to get his point across

Eddie watches him and listens. And realises that he and Michael aren't in such different boats after all.

Eddie: "Let me ask you something"

Michael looks up from the bar

Eddie: "What makes you happy, Michael? What keeps you...happy? Excited? What helps you from hitting the bottle and drowning your sorrows? Because i can tell you now, that finding your answers at the bottom of a glass won't get you too far"

Michael: "I...that's why im in this mess..."

Eddie: "What you mean?" He asks quietly

Michael: "Because i dont know anything anymore" he whimpers

Eddie: "Shhh sh sh. Come on. You're okay man. Come on. Perk up" he whispers to him.

Eddie: "Look, just try. Okay? That's all you can do, is try"

Michael: "Try what?"

Eddie: "Try whatever it is that makes you happy. And if it doesn't work, find something else. And you keep looking. You keep trying. Something's bound to" he smiles at him

Michael listens and nods

Eddie: "And when you find what makes you happy, help Yvonne find what makes her happy. Be happy, together"

Michael nods

Michael: "You know what...i– I think you're right" he slurs with a drunken smile

Eddie: "Yup. I always am" he sarcastically smiles

Michael gets up off the stool and almost falls but catches himself by holding onto the bar

Michael: "I'm okay. Im fine. Cheers for the drinks Eddie" he says politely before stumbling his way out of the pub

Eddie: "You're welcome. Any time mate! And be careful on your way home yeah!?"

Michael doesn't hear him, he's already out the door.

Jenna turns to him with a small smile

Jenna: "That was very nice of you. Fair play" she says with a soft smile

Eddie: "I kind of get how the bloke feels. I feel for him"

That sounds more sad than intended but he covers it with a sincere smile

Jenna smiles back

———

9:09PM. Number 41. Maureen's Home.

———

In the kitchen, Kylie and Maureen are both sat at the table, having a late dinner. Mash, gravy, peas and carrots.

They're both sat at the kitchen table and Maureen is chatting away about what happened when she went to the shop earlier, yapping about how tense things seemed between Michael and Yvonne and how awkward things seemed.

But Kylie is far, far away in her own world, not listening or taking in a word that Maureen is saying. Everything sounds muffled and she's daydreaming.

She's in a shock–like state. Mind reeling about what happened in the bathroom upstairs, not long ago.

I'm...pregnant

———

9:47PM. Downtown Streets. Near Pandora's Box Gay Bar.

———

The streets are loud and hectic with party-goers and traffic. With music, chatter and laughter spilling in and out from wherever.

Michael stumbles off a bus and onto a busy street where pubs and a few clubs seem to be bustling.

He walks up to a group of young lads outside a chippy

Michael: "Uh– excuse me! Do- d'you know where Pandora's...uh...Pandora's–"

"Pandora's Box?"

One of the young lads asks

Michael: "Yeah! Where is it?"

They all laugh at him

"Its right there mate" one of them says, pointing across the street and to the right a bit

"Dirty fucker" one of them mutters under his breath

Michael: "Th– thank- thank you!" He shouts, running across the road

—

As he crosses the road he almost gets hit by a passing car but doesn't seem to notice. Or care.

He eventually makes his way into the overflowing gay bar. The music is absolutely thumping the walls and in people's chests.

The air is full of smoke, sweat and breath that smells of booze. Purple, red and blue lights beam people in the face and strobe lights dance across the room, along with men and women all dressed in fabulous outfits. This is a world that Michael is not used to. But yet here he is.

He sees some young athletic men dancing on two poles at the far back of the bar.

His heart drops and he starts pushing his way through the crowd, almost crying. Almost in tears.

Michael: "Mitchell!"

He pushes his way through with force

Michael: "Mitchell! Mitch—"

Michael: "Mitchell!" He eventually gets to the poles and he sees a young lad who looks a spit of Mitchell.

He runs up onto the small platform and grabs the dancer by the arm

Michael: "Mitchell–" the dancer stops, turns and looks at Michael.

Its not Mitchell.

"Get the fuck off me!" The dancer pushes Michael back into the crowd so hard that Michael falls flat onto the floor.

A burst of deep laughter erupts from the crowd

Michael gets up slowly, embarrassed but dedicated to find Mitchell

Michael: "S- sorry! Sorry..."

He then pushes his way through the crowd again, to the bar this time, where a young man in his early thirties with short dark brown hair and a small name tag "Reese" on his black shirt, is serving someone a cocktail.

Michael: "Excuse me!"

Reese doesn't notice

Michael: "Hey! Hello!? HEY!!"

Reese turns to him with a smile

Reese walks up to him

Reese: "Hiya mate what can I get ya!?" He shouts to Michael over the music

Michael: "Is there a Mitchell Thomas here!?"

Reese: "Who!?"

Michael: "Where's Mitchell!?"

Reese: "Mitchell Thomas!?"

Michael: "Yeah!"

Reese: "You'll have to wait a few minutes mate, he just went back there with a customer!" He nods to the curtain that hides a deep red lit, narrow hallway.

Michael sees the curtain and the deep saturated red light peeking through into the main bar. And immediately he knows what kind of stuff goes on back there...

Again, he starts pushing his way through the crowd

Reese: "You can't go in there without a dancer!" He shouts after Michael

But Michael doesn't turn back, he keeps going.

He eventually reaches the curtain, quickly pulls it aside and slips in

The red swallows him whole and on either side of the hallway are small dark rooms, that are also curtained over

From most of them, moaning, groaning and all sorts can be heard

He pulls back the first curtain–

Michael: "Mitchell!?"

No Mitchell

A man pulls the curtain back shut

Michael keeps walking

Michael: "Mitchell!? Mitchell!?"

After pulling back two more curtains of random men having sex

He finally reaches a curtain and when he pulls it back, he finds Mitchell. Giving it to some older bloke in his fifties from behind.

The older guy is almost screaming and Mitchell doesn't even see Michael there at first

Michael: "Mitchell...?" He asks quietly in shock

As soon as Mitchell hears and sees Michael, he stops, and pulls out of the older bloke.

Mitchell: "Woah– Michael!"

Michael's stomach drops and starts legging it out of the red hallway, and back into the crowded bar room. Where there's sweaty bodies dancing and bumping around together.

He pushes his way through the crowd, yet again–

Mitchell calls after him but he keeps on rushing his way through

Michael can feel himself retching, and he finally makes it back onto the street where the cold night air hits him in the face

———

9:56PM. Outside Pandora's Box Gay Bar

———

He stumbles out onto the pavement outside the club, runs to a drain against the wall and throws up.

He retches, and throws up again. A few onlookers watch and wince. While others laugh.

Mitchell walks up to him

Mitchell: "You're okay..." he says quietly, trying to comfort him

He goes to rub his back but Michael pushes him off.

After he finishes throwing up and takes a few breaths, he turns around and faces Mitchell

Mitchell: "I'm..." he whispers

Thinking about apologising

But–

BAM

Michael lands a punch straight in his face and sends him spinning

A few people gasp, others laugh and some cheer

Mitchell: "What the fuck was that for!?"

Michael goes to walk away

He takes a few steps down the busy street but Mitchell runs after him

Mitchell stops him and pulls him and turns him around

Mitchell: "Oi! Stop! Michael!"

He turns him around and sees the state he's in

Mitchell: "Jesus..."

Michael: "What? WHAT!? You happy? Ey? You done this! YOU!"

Mitchell: "Why did you come here, looking for me?" He asks quietly, while music thumps from the club behind them

Michael: "I dont– I dont know! I dont- i- i–" he starts hysterically crying

Mitchell is shocked. He'd never seen Michael like this

He pulls him in for a hug and Michael tries to fight him off

Michael: "I– I– I...I.......I......."

Mitchell holds his face with both hands and Michael holds his arms

They look at each other...

Michael: "I...I love you...." he whispers, he says looking directly into Mitchell's eyes. Michael's eyes red raw from crying and tears running down his face

A long intense silence stands between them both, with the sounds of nightlife surrounds them. Cheering, laughter, music, traffic, the usual.

But right here, right now, it just them two. And the truth. No matter how wrong or right it is.

Mitchell: "Finally..." he whispers with a big smile

Mitchell: "I love you too..."

They both stand there, hands holding onto each other, while the world moves around them, they're both still. In each other's eyes.

With a long, long road ahead of them...

———

And thats episode 16! I really hope you enjoyed! Thank you for reading this far and as always any and all comments are much appreciated! Episode 17 will be out soon! ☺️

EPISODE 1: FIRST CONTACT IS MURDER

POV: Commander Sarah Yao

ACT 1

ACT 2

Earth: January 4, 2029

Vise: Human Era, Year 1, Day 1

 

Despite having just laid eyes on Vise for the first time less than a day before, the planet struck her as oddly familiar. Perhaps because, from orbit, it resembled Earth’s iconic blue marble wrapped in white clouds. Or maybe because she’d spent countless hours in simulators practicing landings on a virtual Vise. Or possibly from studying thousands of images captured by the Eyes of Sauron satellites deployed since the early 2000s. Whatever the reason, the familiarity calmed her nerves. She found comfort pretending this was just another simulation.

She took a deep breath as she held the shuttle’s control stick. The craft responded to her touch as naturally as Kyle’s cradle when she used to rock him to sleep as a newborn. Yet her current orbital position played tricks on her brain. Intellectually, she knew there was no true “up” or “down” in space, but her instincts rebelled at the sight of Vise above her when she was three hundred miles over its surface. She was also flying backward, though it was hard to tell when she had no fixed frame of reference.

A memory surfaced, bringing a smile to her face. She’d tried explaining this concept to Kyle once, and he’d immediately flipped himself upside down on the couch to watch Lightyear, legs kicking in the air as he declared, “Now I can see space the right way, Mom.”

Her son, daughter, and entire life were God knows how many light-years away. But history was right in front of her.

“Ready to dive?” Sarah asked Alex and Carlos.

“Hm... no,” Carlos replied with a nervous laugh. “But let’s do it anyway.”

“You?” Sarah glanced right at Alex.

“I was born ready,” Alex said, her face lit like a supernova.

“Here we go, then.” Sarah eased the throttle forward, her back pressing deeper into her seat. Her brain again played tricks, signaling acceleration when she was actually slowing their backward drift, just enough for Vise’s gravitational pull to take hold.

Sarah’s primary duty as commander in the Phoenix II—one of America’s crown jewels of space technology that no one but a couple hundred people in the entire world knew existed—was monitoring the automated systems. But Simpson’s probable crash reinforced what experience had already taught her: computerized systems might fly the ship, but the difference between touchdown and disaster ultimately rested with the person behind the stick. The margin for error was microscopic. A mere percentage off in angle or velocity could send them to the wrong hemisphere… or worse.

The landing sequence clock showed three minutes and fifty-seven seconds when the shuttle’s control system flashed green. Sarah eased the throttle to neutral and settled in for the next thirty minutes of descent toward the atmosphere. Waiting had never been her strong suit, but space had a way of teaching even the most restless soul patience. Still, her foot tapped as she checked the instruments every couple of minutes.

Vise expanded above her, its features slowly sharpening into focus. Sarah could now see the planet’s solitary continent, a sprawling landmass nearly twice the size of Earth’s combined continents, encircled by a vast, unbroken ocean. Despite Phoenix II’s position over the South Pole, no ice caps marked the terrain.

The control panel flashed, alerting her they’d reached 500,000 feet. Time for the next critical maneuver. Sarah pulled back on the stick, and the planet’s position shifted gradually from above the shuttle to directly ahead, then finally beneath them. She maintained steady pressure until the craft reached the required forty-degree angle of attack, positioning the black silica tiles under the shuttle to absorb the coming thermal punishment. A mistake now, and they would become a very expensive shooting star.

Entering the atmosphere, the shuttle convulsed violently, making every previous turbulence in Sarah’s thousand-plus flight hours seem like gentle rocking. Bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed it back. The migraine pounding behind her eyes didn’t help. Through the viewport, nothing was visible except the brilliant cascade of sparks as atmospheric friction superheated the craft’s exterior. It was like the Millennium Falcon hitting light speed, only far less controlled.

Then the shuttle decelerated hard, like a car braking from highway speeds. The atmosphere had caught them. Sarah initiated the banking sequence, easing the stick to the right while monitoring their trajectory toward the primary landing site. As the craft began drifting off course, warning indicators lit up the panel. She banked left now to start roll reversals, holding the controls firmly to be ready to shift right again at the next interval.

Twelve minutes that felt like twelve lifetimes passed. Sarah adjusted the craft’s angle of attack, easing the shuttle horizontally until it responded more like a commercial airliner. Her migraine receded to a dull throb, and her head felt lighter than she wanted.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

The alarm blared from the control panel, as if pleading with Sarah to grab the yoke. This phase of the descent—control-stick steering—was when commanders truly proved their worth, Sarah knew. If the Phoenix I had really crashed, it would have happened during this maneuver.

“Status check,” she called over her shoulder.

“Systems nominal.” Carlos’s voice was shaking slightly. Carlos was scared, she realized. She was too but couldn’t show it. Not now. Not ever.

Ten thousand feet to go. A vast, dark forest came into view, stretching toward the horizon like something from Alice’s favorite Pandora scenes in Avatar. Their landing zone was a natural clearing amid dense jungle, fifteen miles north of Sune, the capital of Vise’s largest nation. Sarah aligned their approach vector, mentally mapping the terrain against the satellite images she’d memorized down to the smallest detail.

The shuttle bucked violently as it plunged into a dense cloud bank. Sarah checked the nav display and felt her stomach drop. They were directly above the landing zone but heading straight into a thunderstorm. Commercial pilots had options: divert to alternate airfields or circle until conditions improved. She had neither luxury. This was it.

Then she saw the consequence of failure made horrifyingly tangible. About three miles from their landing site, angry flames and black smoke billowed from the jungle floor. Simpson. The confirmation of the Phoenix I’s crash hit her with physical force. Though logic had already written off that crew when communications failed, a stubborn corner of her mind had clung to hope. Now that hope was extinguished.

“Oh my God,” Alex gasped.

“What is it?” Carlos asked, straining forward from his seat behind.

“The Phoenix I,” Sarah answered, her voice tight. “They didn’t make it.”

“Fuck,” Carlos whispered.

Sarah caught the sound of stifled sniffles through her headset, coming from both crew members. She tightened her grip on the stick.

“I know,” she said. “We all feel it. But right now, I need your complete focus. We have our own landing to nail in this storm. We can honor them by not joining them. Clear?”

“Clear,” they responded together, voices steadying.

Sarah gave a curt nod, eyes locked on the instruments.

“Entering heading-alignment cone,” Carlos said as the display showed their craft’s triangular icon spiraling toward the landing zone’s center.

“Copy that,” Sarah said. “Initiating glide slope.”

She guided the yoke forward and right, fighting to keep the triangular indicator centered on her display as they descended at a twenty-degree slope. Her knuckles whitened. The shuttle’s five redundant computer systems offered plenty of automated assistance, but the relentless microbursts and wind shear battering them from all directions made maintaining control a battle of millimeters. Landing a 787 at Bush Intercontinental in this weather would challenge any pilot. Bringing a space shuttle down in a muddy jungle clearing in this storm crossed the line into the nearly impossible.

Sarah aligned the shuttle with the clearing’s longer axis, trusting the instrument panel as a wall of water obscured everything beyond the cockpit’s immediate perimeter.

“Four thousand feet,” Alex said. “Three thousand,” she added a few seconds later. “Two thousand.”

“Initiating preflare maneuver,” Sarah said, easing back on the stick to decrease their descent angle.

“One thousand feet,” Alex’s voice tightened.

Sarah kept her eyes locked on the trajectory display. “Carlos, speed reading.”

“Three-fifty knots,” Carlos reported.

Too damn fast, Sarah thought, jaw clenching.

“Five hundred feet,” Alex called out.

“Three-thirty knots,” Carlos updated.

“Landing gear down,” Sarah said.

“We’re too high,” Alex warned.

“We need the drag to slow down,” Sarah replied.

The landing gear deployment sent a jolt through the craft. Sarah’s harness bit into her chest, squeezing so hard she thought she might faint. She clutched the stick with renewed determination. Any slight overcorrection now would kill every soul on the shuttle in a fiery blaze.

“Two-forty knots,” Carlos said. “We’re slowing.”

“Two hundred fifty feet,” Alex reported.

The clearing stretched six miles long, plenty for a standard runway. But this was far from standard. Muddy, slick terrain awaited them below. Even with the shuttle’s modified landing gear, the drag chute would face extreme stress in Vise’s thicker atmosphere, while the slick mud provided minimal surface resistance. Sarah had run this scenario dozens of times in simulation and even more lying awake at night. No training could have replicated this.

“One hundred feet,” Alex shouted.

“One-seventy knots,” Carlos added.

“This is it,” Sarah said to her crew and herself.

She locked onto the display screen. When the shuttle’s wheels finally made contact, the impact jolted through the craft with unexpected force. Sarah’s neck compressed painfully against her rigid muscles, her body braced for impact.

“Drag chutes released,” Sarah said.

The tug came, but wrong. Not the clean, hard yank she’d felt in simulation. It was softer, fluttering, like the chute had reefed late or half-inflated in the rain. And yet the shuttle still bled speed as if it had struck glue.

“Ninety knots,” Carlos said. “Sixty.”

“Aren’t we stopping too fast?” Alex asked, words vibrating with the shuttle’s shudder.

“Forty,” Carlos said. “Twenty-five.”

A metallic crack shattered through the shuttle’s frame, sharp as a gunshot. Then came a grinding shriek, so raw it seemed to saw straight through Sarah’s teeth and jaw. The shuttle lurched hard left. Not a panicked swerve or a slip on wet ground, but more like a wheel swallowed by a hole that hadn’t existed a heartbeat earlier.

“We lost the left gear,” Alex said, voice strangled.

The cockpit display erupted in staccato flashes: caution blocks multiplying, strut loads spiking and then vanishing.

They slammed to a halt with the shuttle’s nose pitched low. Sarah couldn’t tell how long it took them to halt completely, but it couldn’t have been more than seconds. The downpour obscured any visual reference points, but the monitor told the story clearly enough: they’d used less than half the available landing distance and stopped at roughly two-thirds of what the shuttle’s computers had calculated they’d need. Determining deceleration rates and stopping distances was basic physics, yet somehow NASA’s brightest minds had miscalculated—and the shuttle was now structurally compromised because of it. Still, it was good fortune compared to the smoking wreckage of Phoenix I. What had been a lucky break for her crew might have spelled disaster for Simpson’s.

“We did it,” Alex said, punching the air with both fists.

Sarah leaned back in her seat, a cocktail of exhaustion and triumph washing through her. The dizziness might have been physical or just the psychological weight of what they’d achieved. Either way, Sarah savored it.

She toggled the comms switch. “This is the commander speaking. We have successfully landed on Vise. Remain seated while your bodies adjust to the 1.2 g gravity. We’ll begin disembarking shortly.”

Sarah unbuckled and stood, ready for the next entry in history books. She took a step forward, and her muscles screamed in protest against Vise’s gravity. The fact that she could move at all after a two-year space trip was a testament to human ingenuity: the relentless three-hour daily workouts, the nearly 3,000 hours she’d logged in the centrifuge, the flood of medication to stave off bone and muscle loss and to keep her cardiovascular reflexes sharp, and even the micro-electrical shocks firing through her legs as she slept.

All of it had led to this moment. She had achieved her life’s mission. She would be the first human to set foot on an alien planet and encounter an extraterrestrial race. Yet she only got this honor because eight people were dead. No decent person should feel anything but grief at such a cost. So why, beneath the shock and professional concern, did she sense something else stirring? A feeling she wouldn’t name but made her gut knot. A feeling she would never dare admit to anyone.

Sarah banished the thought. They had landed safely. That was the only thing that mattered.

The floor tilted, and Sarah grabbed the console’s edge, fingers digging into metal as dizziness blurred her vision. Then the entire shuttle lurched sideways, and the realization hit. This wasn’t just her body adjusting; the craft itself was moving.

“What the hell?” Alex blurted.

Carlos gripped his armrests. “Some kind of earthquake?”

Sarah’s mind raced as the puzzle clicked into place. The shuttle hadn’t stopped too quickly because of miscalculations. The NASA physicists had based their models on slick, muddy terrain, a reasonable assumption for a jungle clearing. They hadn’t accounted for a torrential downpour turning the clearing into a swamp. Their landing gear had probably plunged deep into the saturated earth, creating unexpected drag that rapidly decelerated the craft. Now that same sodden ground was giving way beneath the Phoenix II’s weight.

“No,” Sarah said. “Not an earthquake. We’re sinking.”

 

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER] | [START FROM THE BEGINNING] | [BEDTIME STORY]

***

Questions race through Laíla’s head so fast, she is completely distracted by the fact that she finds herself—once again—in chains. What force had taken such strong possession of Zak in his sleep? Why did Makurmek instruct everyone to close their eyes? Who are these strange men that have taken her captive?

She shifts uncomfortably in her seat. The nightcrawlers had the good sense to keep her outside this time around. Conor had started another fire, over which he roasts some sort of meat. She surmises it to be venison, its particular gamey aroma tantalizing her hungry nostrils. In the distance, she can hear the innkeeper and his wife arguing. What about, though, is unclear. Probably her. Her eyes flit to her wagon and the gaping hole she had torn in the side. Perhaps she’d feel less guilty over the damage had she actually managed to escape.

Quiet footsteps approach. Laíla turns to find Hoshana standing in front of her. Her almost white hair is now tied loosely atop her head, allowing her broad facial features to take center stage. She is a striking woman, though her dark expression makes her look absolutely menacing.

“Come”, she orders, pulling Laíla to her feet.

She follows the lady down the line of wagons. Her eyes cannot help but look toward the one she had looked in earlier that day. The door was now closed, which only further piqued her curiosity. She begins to wonder if she too violently thrashes when she is deep into one of her night terrors. If she does, no one in her family ever dares touch her for fear of charring limb. But yet there seems to be a consequence in trying to wake Zak from his trance. There was no mistaking the fear on the faces of the other men. She’d seen that particular brand for near her entire life. The type of fear that is underlined with the confusion of not knowing whether it is for a person of them.

Stopping in front of a different wagon, Hoshana grudgingly takes her keys and unlocks it. Upon stepping inside, Laíla immediately notices this wagon is almost completely empty. No bed, no desk, no chair. Just a single wool rug and a blanket strown out on the floor.

Hoshana enters behind her, balancing a small clay jug of water in one hand and a stack of folded blankets in the other, while a small ceramic bowl remains balanced effortlessly upon her head. Laíla peeks over her shoulder with an intense curiosity, tracking the woman’s movements as she sets the heavy bundle down upon the floor.

“Here,” Hoshana says slowly, her voice cautious in the common tongue. “For bath.”

Laíla peers down to inspect the provisions. Hoshana points a slim finger toward the small bowl, which contains a light brown, soft solid substance.

“Soap,” Hoshana notes, before executing a physical demonstration, rubbing her hands together to mimic lathering an imaginary soap over her own body. “You, uh...you—”

“So fúsi’í bon mi’polta?” Laíla asks, testing her in the sacred dialect. I put it on my skin?

A wave of visible relief washes over Hoshana’s features. “De, de,” she replies quickly. Yes, yes.

Moving with a gentle authority, Hoshana reaches out to pull the her dirt-stained tunic smoothly over her head, and Laíla assists her, until she stands only in her thin nightshirt. The lady then pours a sparing splash of the water onto the brown block, rubbing her fingers over the surface until a modest foam forms. Gingerly lifting Laíla’s right arm, she begins to rub the soap onto the bare skin. She watches the pale lather form as Hoshana’s hands travel methodically up her arm before switching to the other side.

“Á baínà pú ál privinà?” Laíla murmurs, her voice laced with a faint skepticism. The prisoner gets a bath?

“Ál privinà sobrà é ivite,” Hoshana answers without missing a beat, her touch remaining tender. The prisoner is a guest.

Hoshana shifts her hands downward, moving the heavy iron shackles on Laíla’s wrists around with great caution so she might better inspect the raw, blistering burns left by the heated metal. “I have ointment for this,” she notes softly. “I give to you.”

“Ím'ti'gratiske,” Laíla says, her defensive walls cracking slightly in surprise. Thank you.

Hoshana halts her movements for a brief second, looking up into her face. “So it is true then? You are Emberish nomad.”

“I am not Emberish,” Laíla corrects firmly, lifting her chin. “I am Moorian; a daughter of the sun.”

Hoshana lets out a slow breath, her expression unreadable. “I have officially seen everything.”

Laíla raises her eyebrows, her eyes narrowing as she studies the woman’s features up close. “E tà? Tàs Daínishti o Crestiko?” And you? You are Dainese or Crestian?

The lady offers no direct answer to the question, dropping her gaze back to her work. Sensing the evasiveness, Laíla reaches out her chained hands, gently capturing a stray lock of her blonde hair between her fingers. It is dry to the touch, almost like straw. Upon closer inspection, it also lacks any shine or depth. Almost as if it’s been stripped away of any life it once had.

“It appears the moon truly does have two sides,” she muses.

Hoshana immediately swats her hand away, her eyes flashing with a sudden sharpness. “Mi dimo sobrù Raúko,” she states defiantly. My husband is Rockish.

Laíla furrows her eyebrows, her suspicions flaring. “How do you think he would react to your deception?” She steps closer, the iron links clinking between her wrists. “Do not think for a second you can trust a settler. They do not understand our way of life—”

Hoshana lets out a sharp scoff, cutting her off. “Our,” she repeats with bitter irony. She pauses for a heavy beat before drawing herself up. “Ál privinà sobrà á júda.” The prisoner is a judge.

Laíla shrugs her shoulders carelessly. “I am only calling the matter precisely as I see it. Moorians live according to truth. We would never hide who we are just to gain favor from those who despise us.”

Hoshana abruptly turns away, her jaw tight, and begins gathering her things. Laíla watches her hurried shuffle toward the exit, a sudden spike of anxiety hitting her chest.

“Where are you going?” She asks quickly.

The lady pauses at the heavy door of the wagon, turning around slowly to face her captive. “You come to my home,” she says, her broken speech trembling with a rising emotion. “You insult me. You insult my husband. He ask me to help you. He want you comfortable.” She tersely shakes her head. “Níhai. I do not help unkind people.”

“Making simple conversation is by no means unkind,” Laíla retorts, her temper rising as she steps forward. “In fact, it is far more than what any of you deserve. I was brought here—against my will. You and your nightcrawler kin lied to me; entrapped me.”

“I no lie,” Hoshana states firmly, her eyes widening. “I no trap. I only try to give bath to angry girl.”

“Have I not earned the right to be angry?” Laíla shouts, her voice echoing in the wooden enclosure. “I have been hunted through the woods, disparaged as a criminal, shackled—and that does not even include the injustice my people have been suffered since the last turn of the sun. You do not get to speak to me of unkindness!”

She sucks in a breath as her skin sizzles beneath the metal of her chains. The pain shoots up her arms, sending a shiver down her spine. She blinks back tears, refusing to let her enemy see her weakness. Hoshana simply purses her lips into a thin, tight line.

“I make question to you,” she whispers, stepping back across the creaky wooden floor. She places her ceramic bucket back onto the ground, looking Laíla dead in the eye. “You believe you are special?”

The young girl furrows her eyebrows in genuine confusion.

Hoshana crosses back over to where she stands, her posture stiffening.

“I show you something,” she says. She reaches up, pulling down the rough neckline of her linen tunic slightly to reveal the top of a thick, jagged, and hideous white scar running across her collarbone. Laíla stares at the marred flesh, all words dying in her throat.

“Father of my husband do this to me,” Hoshana explains, her voice dropping. “My family travel to sell...uh...” She reaches out, taking a small section of Laíla’s nightshirt between her fingers to find the words.

“Fabric?” She supplies softly.

“Fabric, yes. Conor, mi dimo. He buy some. He use it to make dress...for me. He tell me I am beautiful. We meet in secret after that. He make plan to make me his wife. He ask me to live with him in Rocklands. His family very rich. When they know us, his father very angry. He take me in front of village. He rip off my dress. He beat me. Everyone watch. ‘No nightcrawler for my son.’ He say it over...and over.”

Laíla shudders involuntarily, a chill running down her spine.

“Do not worry,” the lady notes, her voice softening as she adjusts her tunic. “I no special too. My people have many stories like mine. And Conor go against his father and marry me. But he cannot go home. Like me, he is no welcome—but my home also no good for him. Too cold. So we make this life. And I hide my hair so to make life more easy.”

She returns to her knees upon the floor, resuming the lathering of Laíla’s legs with steady strokes. “Mooraithsi welcome everywhere. Daínishti, my husband...we not so lucky. For us, deception make survival.”

Laíla looks down at the white hair atop Hoshana’s head, her heart twisting with a sudden, complicated guilt. She ponders the woman’s words for a long moment in the dim light. Her own words hang between them, but she cannot bear to utter them out loud. That Moorians used to be welcome everywhere. Even scarier, that time seems further and further removed every passing day.

Suddenly, a loud, violent banging erupts against the exterior of the wagon door. The brass knob jiggles pieces of iron furiously. Hoshana stands up immediately, pivoting to face the entrance.

“Pít! Pít!” she shouts toward the wood. Wait! Wait! “I give bath!”

“Hoshana, I need that tonic,” Zak’s muffled, irritated voice barks from the other side of the thick timber.

“You have to wait,” the lady calls back, her tone sharpening. “I come soon.”

“Wait?!” Zak grumbles back, his fist pounding again. “You said it'd be ready hours ago!”

“I sorry,” Hoshana sheepishly admits. “I sell it. I make more when I finish here.”

“I would like to get some actual sleep!” Zak groans through the panel.

“I will make more, Zak; when I finish,” she insists, rolling her eyes.

Turning back to the captive, Hoshana hurriedly scrubs a dry, rough towel over Laíla’s skin, taking immense care to completely avoid the raw burns on her wrists. Laíla watches in fascination as little pieces of dead skin fall away beneath the cloth, leaving behind a smooth, clean surface.

“Wow...” She breathes, running a hand over her forearm.

Hoshana offers a small, proud smile. “You like? I learn from lady in Channel.”

“I never realized how unclean I was...”

“Is true, many people no—”

Zak bangs loudly upon the door once more, interrupting her mid-sentence. Hoshana rolls her eyes toward the curved roof. “Pít, Zilalkkuk!” she mutters under her breath, before turning back to Laíla. “I finish.”

As Zak continues his relentless banging, the lady huffs in frustration and begins to gather her things. Laíla runs her fingers over her newly smooth skin before turning back to face her.

“What tonic is he talking about?” Laíla inquires curiously.

“Do not worry,” Hoshana sighs, waving a hand. “You stay in here—do not touch anything.” She crosses the floor toward the threshold.

“Wait!” Laíla calls out.

Hoshana turns around at the door, the keys jingling in her hand. Before another word can be exchanged, someone knocks loudly upon the panel once again, the voice deep and authoritative.

“Hoshana! Hoshana!” This time, it is Makurmek who barks from the dirt lot.

The innkeeper’s wife rolls her eyes again. “Ím’àscusa,” she whispers to Laíla. “I bring ointment later.”

She exits the wagon swiftly, pulling the heavy door shut and snapping the iron lock securely behind her. Almost immediately, the muffled sounds of a heated argument drift through the thick wood. Laíla creeps silently over the floorboards, pressing her eye tightly to the brass keyhole to watch the transaction unfold outside.

“I just won’t sleep then,” Zak’s voice rages, his silhouette pacing back and forth.

“No, I need you rested for tonight,” Makurmek’s deep voice retorts. “Just wait a little while longer. There is still plenty of time to rest.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Zak growls back, stepping into his cousin’s space.

“Calm down,” Makurmek retorts, his voice dropping low. “We are trying to help you. There is no need to be an ass.”

“Who is helping who Mako?” Zak spits. “Remember I am only here to help clean up the mess you and your father made—”

“Alright!” Hoshana interposes, her voice cutting through the quiet. “Zak, you scream like baby that want milk. I go and look for poppies to make tonic—but you two will make laundry.”

Through the tiny keyhole, Laíla hears Hoshana walk away, cursing fiercely under her breath in the sacred Godstongue as her footsteps fade into the camp. Poppies. That ingredient sounded familiar. Out in the dirt lot, the two cousins remain by the washing basins she left behind. 

“Happy?” Makurmek asks flatly, tossing a wet tunic into the basket.

Zak huffs, his shoulders slumping. “I'm tired.”

“I know,” Makurmek replies, his voice softening with rare patience. “But we're halfway finished with our task. We'll be home soon.” He pauses for a long moment, watching the ripples in the soapy water as the gears of his mind visibly turn. He leans in closer to his cousin. “Perhaps our new friend can help speed things up,” he whispers.

Makurmek turns on his heel and begins walking toward the main campfire. Zak drops the fabric in his hands and follows him immediately, his tone sharpening with deep concern.

“Mako, no,” Zak urges, keeping his voice low. “To turn her over to M is one thing, but we can't trust her. We don't know her.”

“You saw what she did back in the forest,” Makurmek counters, stopping to look back at his cousin with a dark, calculating glint in his eye. “M will want to know the full range of her abilities...”

Laíla pulls back from the keyhole, her breath catching in her throat as their footsteps finally fade into the night. She walks back to the woolen rug and and sinks to her knees as new questions begin to jump from corner to corner in her brain like squirrels.

Thanks for reading. The story continues on Friday.