Okay, so this is a failing November. (And not just at NaNo.) I wrote this on Friday, just getting around to posting. Current word count: 8819. Just under halfway short of where I should be. The first bit is a continuation of the last posted section, with implied time passing.

//

Half an hour later, many careful snippets and trims after the initial high - spirited (wrong/inaccurate phrase) snip, reality was ready to sink back in. Delia stared at her pixie – like cut with a mixture of awe and trepidation. “Do you think my parents will kill me?” she asked, only half joking.

Tanya clicked the scisssors and grinne dlike a shark, in a morbid attempt at humor. “I’m the one holding the ‘lethal weapon,’” she said with a smirk that only slightly revealed that she, too, was worried, completely oblivious to the ‘lethal weapon’ joke revealing the author’s sudden and insane preoccupation with Whose Line jokes, because even though an extension of the author’s identity and imagination or subcionscious or whatever you want to call it, she is nonetheless only a character who doesn’t really kno what’s going oin, because the author has decided it is thus so for the time being, in keeping with the rules of Reality, which in the manner of all good English teachers has threatened once again to kick her out if she stopped showing up in good form to… uh whatever word completels that rather awkward metaphor.


Francis Meets Tanya

The Sonic was new. It took them just over a month to build it – it was a recprd – breaking speedy assembly – and the citizens of Phoenix Springs had never felt so modern.

It happened over a bag of tater tots. Eager – beaver Tanya had been among the first to apply at the new store, desperate for anything to distract her from the big fight she had just had with Dill, and to stay away from Silver’s unwanted intentions. High school was tough. Aye, she thought, in a very Scotty – esque accent, grinning as she remembered all the fun she and some friends whose names the author can’t be bothered to come up with at the moment, had obsessing over Star Trek, so what else is new. Italics would probably be a good idea if I keep up with the thought – talk.

Man, she thought, as she tried on the unflattering uniform for the very first time. My life reads like a bad summary of a really lame teen chick flick novel type thing.


Tanya attempts to write a NaNo novel, i.e., the author is cheating

Everyone thought she was crazy for attempting it, except for Delia, but that was probably because Delia accepted her – that is to say, Tanya’s – insanity as just another kind of sanity, in a really cliché and modern teen kind of way. For being out in the middle of nowhere, this town really does fit right in with mainstream teen culture crap, Tanya thought. As I know it via the Internet, anyway. Besides, Delia is one of my closer friends, and therefore less surprised about all the weird stuff I continually get off “teh interwebs,” as I have heard it called…

She heaved a sigh and stared forlornly at her computer screen, waiting for inspiration to strike. Sometimes she thought it was because she didn’t have a lovely anthropomorphized muse like apparently every other writer her age (again, knowledge via the internet (whee, I’m writing crap!) but she just couldn’t find an image that worked for her. Male or female? Occupation? Strange object? Nothing really… ha, ha, oh the irony… inspired her.

Which was part of the problem. What with the whole “classes” thing. She’d gotten another lecture from her mother last night, not to mention Delia and the constant worried pokes and prods of various friends, but it was Francis, oddly, she thought of when the rare pang of guilt broke through this strange muffling “shell” that seemed to enclose her life. Francis, who was quietly jamming to his ipod on the top bunk of the bunkbed in her family’s rec room, who reminded her in nonverbal, yet surprisingly potent ways that she wasn’t taking care of herself.

Sometimes it got annoying. His altest efforts to get her to sleep more than two or three hours a night, for example…

Tanya shook herself mentally, and determinedly began tapping away at the keyboard.

It would be nice if I didn’t feel guilty about counting random fourth wall breaking rants like these as part of my fifty thousand words, but then again I’m so far behind at this point… but I fi’m not doing ti right, then really, what is the point? Just write. Don’t think. Pickle, that sort of thing. Just type and let the keys flow. I will get back into this and I will succeed.

Tanya sighed, looking at her new pseudo – paragraph, highlighted it with an impatient click of the keys, and tapped “delete.” “So much for that,” she announced out loud. “And it’s only November second. I suck at this.”

“Talent has nothing to do with identity,” Francis reminded her from his position on the top bunk. He lay with his long legs stretched up against the wall, one foot tapping absently in time with whatever music he was blaring in his ipod, hands folded beneath his neck as he dangled his head over the edge, craning slightly to get a look at Tanya at the desk. His long red hair flopped like a ton of oddly (dementedly) colored seaweed. “Remember your Terry Pratchett lessons.”

“I don’t quite fancy myself a Rincewind, thanks,” Tanya said sourly, but not un – good – naturedly.

Francis flung his arms out behind his head, stretching tensely, and yawned hugely, cracking his jaw open like a snake. Or unhinging. Whatever. He glanced lazily down at Tanya from under hooded eyes, who was in turn watching him with one eyebrow raised and an amused smile on her lips. “So just… write. Don’t even think about it. Just close your eyes and let your mind go blank, put your fingers on the keyboard, and… type.”

“I wonder how they dealt with writer’s block before the all – important laptop and typing ability,” Tanya mused aloud, turning back around to face her patiently waiting laptop.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Shouldn’t close my eyes,” she muttered. “Tiredness always comes… at the most…”

Sleep overcame her, and she slipped forward until her head was resting on her arms.

Francis, eyes closed, knew nonetheless what had happened, and he grinned at the ceiling. “Worked like a charm,” he congratulated himself.


A scene from real life, kind of, and random intermissions, because there’s not enough of those already at all.


Taya hadn’t been sleeping well again. Her eyes refused to shut at night, no matter how late – or how early – the hour, at least usually, until the most onopportune, not to mention inappropriate, times.

There was something comforting, oddly, certainly familiar, at least, about falling asleep in her early morning classew, not to mention overusing commas and distorting sentence structures. After all the weirdness that had been Daniel, and life in general, lately, that almost tangible sensation of normality was as welcome as sinking into a warm bath after coming inside on a blustery cold day.

Ryan Meer “call me Cat” was just as annoying, arrogant, and ctonemptous, or condescending, take your pick of adjectives, Tanya has a whole list full she’s willing to sahre) as ever. When he first moved there everyone thought he was gay, until, unable to hold bavk her “snortiggle,” as Delia called it, laughter, Tanya had started huming swing music, and it finally clicked in peoples’ minds. It didn’t hurt that Sammy had started in on “in the jungle, the mighty jungle…” in a perfect imitation of Timon’s voice; you know, the meer – cat (spacing for emphasis) from Tanya’s all time favorite movie, The Lion King.

Yes, there was something oddly familiar and comforting about “failing” latin. (She wasn’t sure if / why the quotations were warranted, but she didn’t care all that much to worry about it; they just seemed to fit.) the working – on – other – things, the failing asleep on the textbook, the staring blankly off into space unsure where she was or where her drifting mind was, however slowly, heading…

At least Mr. Dixit didn’t care. Or at least, he never seemed to notice. He rarely looked directly at the class at all, preferring instead to stare, left eye twitching a bit, above the students’ heads at the far back wall, or to fiddle nervously with the textbook he helf open flat on the table before him that served as podium. Staring at the blackboard was another favorite, as he scribbled his chicken – scratch, completely illegible notes on it that nonetheless a few students attempted to copy down. Most students just doodled.

The blackboard itself was interesting. For some reason, only half the school had white boards, and the rest were left with chalk and powdery erasers. Even more oddly, it was split down the middle of the high school hallway; the left side, even numbered rooms had one, and the right side, odd numbered classrooms, the other.

Once, or so “school legend” had it, a student wrote a mock - essay on the symbolism of this subject, tracing it back to segregation, the poverty divide, and reeling in about six different interpretations of post modernism. No one knew where a copy of this essay might be found, but its unknown author was revered in certain slightly – geeky circles for the sheer brazenness of actually turning it in and not running for cover when it was givn a heartfelt, big – red - felt - tip – pen kind of F.

Tanya enjoyed writing in her journal during class too, as well as sleeping. It also offered her a nice pillow for mornings like this, should the softness of the inside of the textbook ever fail, when the tiredness finally hit her, in – ignorable and unavoidable as a giant steamroller, determined to slowly flatten her. (That was another Whose Line reference, for those who may have missed it.)

I didn't write anything today.

That's right! At midnight tonight I should have 8,335 words to be right on schedule. As of this very moment - and I'm in the middle of writing a scene or two - I have 5,855. Here's what I've written; the first bit is a continuation of yesterday's last posted scene.

Also... I realize half of this is horrible writing. And there are quite a few nanoisms in there. And to that I say: More Whose Line! More Dr Pepper! Viva la procrastination!!!!

(Oh, and the bits in [[ ]] brackets are, of course, me talking to myself, making notes of things so I don't forget.)

//

“That… really hurt,” he admitted, in a voice that was more trying – to – cover – a - laugh than apology.

I sank down onto the sand, since it was already muddy and bloody and stuck to my clothes anyway, rubbing my bruised arm and glaring at him. “You’re Dillard, right?”

He turned his head to stare at me directly on. “Yes. Dill, actually, no one uses my full appellation. And you’re… Sylvestery?”

I nodded. “Silver.”

“Righty – o. Thanks for breaking my fall.”

I raised one eyebrow unsmilingly. “Uh huh.”

He laughed, and rose out of the water slowly, checking for unexpected injuries. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“What was that? Come on, you don’t just tackle a guy out of nowhere and then walk away without an explanation.”

“Well, I don’t really know what it was,” he admitted ruefully, but in a suspiciously cheery tone of voice. “The author thought it would make a dramatic entry, but she didn’t really have a story worked out.”

I frowned, not satisfied with the answer but knowing pushing the issue would not get me anywhere. “Oh. Right.”

Striding over to me, he held one callused hand as if to help pull me to my feet. “I’m out to explore some caves that are supposed to be down by Party Cove. Wanna come?”

I studied him for a minute, squinting up against the dappled sunlight, filtering through the massively bushy green leafy tree limbs with leaves. In a strange sort of way, he looked kind of like me. We were both tall, darkly tanned, with large, calloused hands; he was more muscular than me, but I didn’t present quite such a calculating, “how can I use you?” face to the world. At least I hoped I didn’t.

On the other hand, he seemed bluntly honest, and quite sincere.

I held out my hand, and gripping each other’s wrists he pulled me to my feet. “Sure. Why not?”


And that’s how it started. An inauspicious beginning, really, but, having nearly killed me, Dill was aware of my existence (which is more than many actual victims can say) and after our foray into the (surprisingly large and disgusting) caves at Party Cove, we became friends, of a sort. Of course later it would all get so much bigger… but it was a beginning.


Tanya Says Goodbye to Delia

It should be a moonless night, Tanya thought as she hurried along the dimly lit, winding path, and it would be, if weather had any appreciation for drama. But as it is…

The narrow navigable lane through the thick, brambly forest leading between her house and Delia’s seemed to have expanded to even longer lengths in the dark of night. She almost wished it really was totally dark; the moonlight’s fuzzy edges and dimness made it hard to make out anything, shadow from object, and especially the real path from the various fake woodland deer trails that led nowhere which somehow all seemed to intersect with this one trail.

Coming around a sudden twist in the path, Tanya gasped in surprise as a tall, menacing shadow rose up out of nowhere and blocked her path – but then she recognized the form of Stephen Stump, the twisted form of the old dead oak tree that looked surprisingly human. Thrice – curst moon – begotten night - time twilight, Tanya thought dourly, stepping around the Stump and out of the forest into Delia’s backyard. [[Don’t ask me how this works with the Evans’ house being in the middle of their twenty - two acres of land. Maybe Tanya just walks really, really fast, and is in Olympic – worthy physical shape.]]

The Tanner family house was completely dark, and the yard was quiet – but a light glowed behind the curtain draped over the open side of the unfinished tree house.

Slightly out of breath, Tanya crept towards the tree house. “Delia?” she called softly. “Delly?”

Delia’s long, fantastically blonde hair fell over her eyes as she stuck her head out the window. “Tanya?” she asked, sounding puzzled, a question in her voice.

“Yeah. Can I come up?”

“But of course.”

The long blonde hair with the curly ends disapped, and Tanya heard the familiar ounds of the squeaky pulley operating, and half the front wall of the tree house rolled up like a garage door to reveal a space wide enough to allow access in and out of the tree house.

Tanya quickly climbed the ladder and made her way inside, heart suddenly beating faster at the thought of what she had come to say. But it went out of her head when she saw the scene laid out on the tree house floor. All the while she was thinking, Mon Deu! This is carppy writing!

Delia had fixed a large mirror over her makeshift table. A large pair of scissors was sitting on the table, and a big bucket sat before the rickety three - legged stool.

“Delly!” Tanya whirled around, horror in her voice.

Delia’s eyes sparkled. “Want to help?”

“But… your hair is so beautiful!”

“It needs to go!” Delia exclaimed, tugging at her long ponytail frustratedly with one hand. “I’m creating my Persona, Tanya! Dia, the Star! If I want to succeed… this is who I need to be!”

“You need short hair to succeed?”

Delia shook her head impatiently. “It’s not just about the hair! This is… bigger than that. It’s part of the whole process of becoming…” She struck a dramatic stage pose. “A star!”

Tanya stared at her friend in disbelief. “Delly, you’ve never even been outside in the world. Never been farther away than Cedar Valley or that other town the author invented but can’t remember the name of. You have no idea what real stars are like. Television just doesn’t—“

Delia’s eyes flashed. “And how would you know any better than me?”

Tanya felt the tension inside her stretch and twist, as though her very insides were turning into rubber snake contortionists. “Fine.”

Whirling around, she grabbed the scissors off the table and lunged at Delia, who shrieked and covered her face with her hands, trying to turn away – Tanya felt a fleeting moment of hurt annoyance, thinking – It’s not as if I was attacking her – and then, grabbing hold of her friend’s unprotected ponytail, let fly with a mighty fateful: SNIP.

The girls watched the severed ponytail fall to the ground as though everything were happening in slow motion.

“Oh. My. God,” Delia declared.

Now that the moment had passed, Tanya felt weak; empty; and very nearly… giddy, almost. She let out a shaky laugh that didn’t seem to be coming from her at all. “…Oops?”
Delia let out a sudden, piercing whoop. “BOOYAH!! It’s gone! It’s gone! And I didn’t have to do it, ha ha ha ha!”

Tanya bent down to pick up the severed ponytail. “This is… really long.” She looked at Delia. “And that is… really uneven.”

“Really?” Delia righted the stool that had fallen over and sat down in front of the mirror, running her fingers through her newly shortened hair follicles. “It is, isn’t it… and not nearly short enough.” She turned to Tanya. “Will you help me fix it?” Her mouth twitched in a mischievous grin. “Since you so masterfully started the process.”

Filled a wicked sense of daring, Tanya grinned back. “Absolutely.” She stuck the scissors handle first in her back pocket so she could use both hands to sort through Delia’s surprisingly fine hair and decide where to cut first. “So what are you really after, like a pixie cut?”

“Something similar, sure.”

“A little more specific, please?”

“Something… dashing. Outrageous. Glamorous. Beautiful. Something...”

“Big, bold and out of control?” Tanya suggested, unable to keep the giggle out of her voice.

Delia laughed aloud. “Exactly that! Exactly.”

Tanya sighed, shaking back her own hair to get it out of her eyes, and drew the scissors out of her pocket as though unsheathing a sword. “Very well,” she replied in a mock – serious tone of voice. “I will see what I can do.” She leaned down so her mouth was right next to Delia’s ear, and met her friend’s eyes in the mirror. “But whatever you do, don’t blame me if you don’t like it!”

Delia smiled. “I’m going to love it.”

“Fantastic!” Tanya replied cheerily, bouncing upright. And so she got to work.


[[Delia and Tanya are good friends, but Delia ends up having this huge fight with Tanya when Tanya reveals what she wants to do, but after her death Delia ends up running into her brother on accident on the other side of the country and he reveals what he's found out about what really happened with said decision (this is 3 years after Tany’as death) and it's all very sweet and then Brian and Delia fall in love eventually.]]

[[Jericha Zoey Zimmerman. “There she goes, she left me with the baby, my muse is being a bitch” – temperamental (wannabe?) artist, Delia’s sister.]]

That's right baby! Almost where I need to be, word - wise. What I statred doing, when Chapter Two just wasn't working out for me, was just writing random scenes. I have no idea if they'll end up staying in this order or not. They were just scenes that seemed like they need to happen, I guess. You know. The elusive beast knwon as Inspiration.

The first section is left over from Chapter One, posted in yesterday's log. The last section isn't finished yet, I just stopped there so I could update before I have to leave for work. I hope to update again before midnight.

Total word count as of now: 4,339.

//

In the middle of town was the Square, a grassy, park – like area, well tended by a genial staff of volunteers, usually the same people who cleaned, decorated, and otherwise served as caretakers for the local parish, St. Andrew’s. Of the several streets leading out away from the square, only one failed to end at any building in town. Hollowneck Trail took a course due west out of Phoenix Springs, leaving behind the old fashioned architecture for the more primal solitude of trees and fields. It quickly became a dirt road, worn smooth by over the years by storms and the countless treads of familiar tires. The Trail comes to an abrupt end at the very bottomest, lowest point in the Phoenix Springs valley, where Swan Feather Creek runs through, at its narrowest point there at the road crossing, but still too wide and deep. Even up until the early ‘80s, or so some of the older folk swore up and down, there was no bridge; instead, a small ferry raft served to transport the eager across and back. None of us kids were ever quite sure we believed that. The low, rusted iron bridge that was there now looked old enough to have been there since Eden – it was certainly rickety enough. It was a dangerous spot, down by the weeds with the snakes thick on the ground, but never more so during flash flood season.

Past the bridge, Hollowneck Trail forks in several places, becoming individual driveways and leading to one or two trailer parks. But if you were to follow the dusty path out to its very end, ignoring all the tempting paths leading away, out at the very end of the very word, it sometimes seemed, was our house.

It was a magnificent piece of work, a sprawling neatly constructed ranch – style home with gloriously wide windows, expansive rooms, and a warm, open feel that somehow always spoke, to me, of summer sunshine and freshly baked cookies.

Tanya said sometimes that it always smelled like almonds, to her. I was never quite sure what almonds smelled like, but she always smiled when she said it. So I took her word for it.

From the beginning of the driveway – edging fence all the way to the foot of Bugbear Mountain and the crumbling rock wall ruin, all twenty - three odd acres were ours. We didn’t own horses or cattle or other animals, but a barn full of tabby cats and a procession of loud – barking, eccentric puppies stole their way into our hearts and pantries in the years we lived there.


Tanya’s Journal – March 20-something

He took me out to the big tree today, after the movie. I knew something was on his mind; he wouldn’t look at me, barely said anything all evening.

I was restless, too. After my confession with Father Albert last Saturday, and the strange way Mom had been carrying on all yesterday… something inside me was stirring, something I couldn’t identify.

He parked with a jerk, thrusting the gears around with unusual force, and I jumped out of the truck, slamming the rusting door behind me firmly, out of habit, though my novel – fed brain liked the idea of me running off with it flapping as loose behind me as my thoughts. A lame, but fitting, symbol. I made straight for the ladder and swung myself up its fraying ropes, so forcefully I nearly lost my balance. As if the movement could drown out Dad’s voice in my head. It’s time you were a lady now, Tanny – my - girl. When’s all this tomfoolery going to stop?

What if I marry Daniel, Daddy? I could have said. The tomboy wife of a damn fool painter – the old biddies at St. Andrew’s would really have something to gossip about then.

The wide limbs of the tree were comforting, familiar, soothing. I settled into the deep curvature of one of the higher branches with relief, closing my eyes for a moment, regaining some composure.

It seemed an eternity had passed, a silent eternity. “Dan?”

A pause. “Here.” His voice cracked; he cleared his throat. Unwilling to move, I could just barely see him in my peripheral vision, facing the wide, round tree trunk with his shoulders slumped and his hands on his hips.

He took a deep, shuddering breath, throwing his shoulders back. Those long, pale painter’s fingers caught in his dark, curly hair, and I almost wanted to climb down and take him in my arms and banish all the strangeness that had followed us lately… but the dullness inside viewed the thought with apathy, and I stayed firmly put.

His hands dropped; the moment passed. He swallowed convulsively several times, as if to speak, but… nothing. Despite myself, something inside me grew taught with nervousness. What could possibly upset unflappable Dan so?

He paced. Back and forth, around the trunk; nervously, like a middle school boy at his first party, afraid to ask the pretty girl to dance. Jerkily. Un – Dan – like.

The nervousness in me wound tighter. My fingers found a twig and twirled over and over again, drawing invisible patterns on my palm. “Dan?”

He ended up staring down at the ground, the fallen leaves and various scraggly weeds, one arm stretched out, palm flat against the rough bark of the tree’s girth.

“That recruiter came back to the store today,” he said finally.

My fingers froze; the stick slipped from my grip.

“And?” I heard myself ask, though my voice seemed to come from a great distance.

“I signed up.”

“My Brave Little Danny, heading off to war.” I didn’t even seem to have heard his words; it barely registered that I was still talking. I was some place far away, where there was no tree, or war, or Dan.

He signed up?

I buried my face in my hands.

Moments – hours? – later, I became aware of his stare. Even with my own eyes tightly shut, I could just see the way those dark eyes were burning into me. Or perhaps I only dreamed it. When I finally looked up, it was full dark. The moon was beginning its ascent, and Dan was gone.


Brian’s Journal – December 5th, 20-something

Today we buried her.

It was an almost completely silent ceremony. I don’t think anyone even cried. Mom’s grief, for one, ran too deep. Dad just stood there, hands in his pockets, ridiculously almost-bald head glinting in the grey winter sunlight. He looked helpless.

It was difficult to even talk around the looming, grotesque fact of Daniel’s absence. [[They don’t know yet that he’s dead.]]

Today we buried my sister.

It’s an unbelievable thought. The echo of her presence, her smile, her teasing laugh, follows me everywhere, lurking just out of sight behind every corner and in ever mirror, with me from beyond the grave as it was not even in life, after she boarded that godforsaken plane and left for who knows where.

How could she do it? What was so important that it took her away from her family for the last few months she had?

I think I hate her for it. But I am too empty even to hate myself for that, and that – that, of all things – fills me with a kind of dull, resentful bitterness that nearly begs for tears.

Today we buried her.

But maybe we buried ourselves with her, because we certainly did not leave her behind. Is this death, then? This looming grey future and dull regret?

Death has no sting. But the dead – their silent words are bitter, and, as beyond the grave, beyond reproach.

If they make me attend class tomorrow, I’ll just skip. The thought of all the pitying, think – they – understand – so – much stares simply turns my stomach.

She is buried. Why isn’t the funeral over?



Sylvester’s Tape – August 20-something

Whoever was holding the camcorder had a remarkably steady grip. A hand appeared briefly, covering the lens and then pulling away again, forming a quick thumbs up sign.

The view spun dizzyingly, coming to rest on a blushing Sylvester. His big, grease-stained hands were folded in his lap; his eyes were sad.

Oh, it was a day just like this one, he began, in response to an unheard question. Gorgeous summer breeze, ripe blueberry sky, nothing but lush green as far as the eye could see – but there was still the smell of autumn in the air. That was the first thing she said, as a matter of fact. “I love the smell of autumn,” or something like that.

“How can you smell it?” I asked her. I was hot in my fancy shirt my mom had forced me in to for the first day, uncomfortable at being new and keenly aware this wasn’t like the other schools, where they were used to strangers. But she was completely undeterred.

“The same way some people say they can smell rain or snow coming,” she answered. “Only stronger. It’s in the soil, the air, the very sunshine practically proclaims it: It’s coming.”

“You’re strange,” I told her frankly.

“You’re new,” she responded genially. “I’m Tanya.”

“Sylvester.”

“Well, Silver,” she said – and the nickname came as natural as anything ever had, and stuck like glue – “welcome to Phoenix Springs. You’ll get along grand here.”

And she was right. She had a habit of being right like that. It used to drive me crazy.

I didn’t see too much of her that school year. It took a while for me to get used to the place and the people, and she was busy with, oh, so many things… Dillard, for one, although, strangely enough, I didn’t even realize who he was until some time later, for quite a different reason.

One of the most unknown aspects of Phoenix Springs, which, had the town been more open about it might have caused something of a tourist rush, was that one long, quiet, bendy arm of Hushpuppy Lake wound down among the backwoods. It wasn’t much good for boating, but the fishing – one of my favorite pastimes - was always fantastic, and the swimming spots were practically paradise.

That was where I first really connected with Dill. I knew his name and face, of course; in a school that small, everyone knew everyone else, not to mention their business, but it was surprisingly easy to fail to socialize with the majority of the student body.

It was the height of July, and the water was just the right temperature. I had given up on fishing hours ago in favor of napping comfortably on what a generous person might call a sandbar, my feet in the water and my arms tucked contentedly behind my head. I was just beginning to contemplate the merits of a leisurely swim across the way to the opposite bank, when out of nowhere—

“AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!”

It was like watching his overbalancing form coming at me in slow motion, as if I was in some kind of sleazy action flick. “Watch out--!” he tried to call, but, too late – I tried to jump to my feet, slipped, and then he crashed into me and we both went flying out into the water, crashing into the shallow waves with all the force of a misguided belly flop diver.

“Get off me!” I spluttered through a mouth full of water, struggling to find enough traction on the mossy, slippery rocks on the floor of the lake to stand up. “Are you out of your mind?”

He groaned, flipping over onto his back, half-floating in the shallow water. I slogged gloweringly back onto dry shore, dripping everywhere, drenching my belongings and turning the dirt to mud. I shot him a dark look, rubbing my sore elbow and checking for other injuries, but his eyes were closed and he didn’t notice. There was a gash in my knee, nothing serious but quite oozy, and several tender places that would probably be big fat bruises come tomorrow.

“What the hell was that for?” I grumbled, not sure what else to say. He looked like he might be hurt, lying half dead looking in the water on his back like that with his eyes closed, but there didn’t seem to be a mark on him. Figured. I always had all the luck.

He raised one arm slightly, pointer finger out in a “just a second” pose. The blood from the gash in my knee tickled as it ran down my leg, staining the dark dirt, rapidly becoming mud, at my feet.

Well, I failed. Four minutes to midnight, it is, and all I've got is a measley 2212. At any rate, here it is... my untitled 2008 NaNo masterpiece.




Chapter One – Brian’s Introduction

Tanya Cherise Evans grew up in a rambling ranch style house in southern Missouri, deep in the heart of the Ozark Mountains, at about the time of the turn of the century. She was passionate, tomboyish, and deeply proud of her Irish - English roots. The last I saw of her, she had boarded a jet plane headed west, camcorder in hand and mind full of questions.

They buried her six weeks later, in the shade of an ancient oak tree in the Phoenix Spring cemetery, right in the backyard of her childhood church. She was twenty - three years old. I was barely nineteen, and I didn’t understand at all.


I stared at the blinking cursor on my laptop screen, silently rereading the first paragraph that – for about the tenth time – I had just retyped. It seemed there could be no good way to broach the subject.

If I couldn’t even open the story comfortably in the privacy of my own computer, written to my own satisfaction, how could I hope to face the coming interview at all, much less with even a cover of surety, or composure? That’s what I get for making it all up as I go along…

Annoyed at the old, circular argument, I looked deliberately away from the tauntingly blank word document and stretched my cramped legs out as best I could within the narrow confines of the airplane seat’s legroom allotment, checking my watch for what seemed the thousandth time. So far this unexpected late summer thunderstorm had kept the plane land – bound for forty – seven minutes, with no end in sight. I watched the droplets rushing down my window, and couldn’t hold back a sigh.

“Damn Dallas weather,” the elderly gentlemen to my left complained genially. A steely – eyed woman across the narrow, dirty – carpeted aisle placed her bony, neatly manicured hands over her young son’s ears, shooting us a dirty look. The little boy, who surely couldn’t have been older than eight, didn’t even glance up from his Gameboy, but he couldn’t smother a buck – toothed grin. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the old man giving me a conspiratorial wink as he settled back more comfortably into the narrow airline chair.

“Them as know me call me Old Coot,” the stranger said, sticking out a weathered hand. Closing my laptop lid with care, I stuck my own out gingerly. He immediately caught it up in a warm, hearty handshake. “They call me Brian,” I responded. He grinned, somewhat toothlessly. “Pleasure. Where ya headin’ out to this fine day, Brian?”

Not a subject I was keen to delve into with any detail. “Denver,” I answered shortly.

“Mighty pretty country up there in those parts,” the old man said affably, apparently not put out at all by my brusque tone. “But the mountains are a little too big for my simple tastes.”

I couldn’t help but smile back at him, relaxing slightly at his friendly, easy – going tone. “Then I take it you’re not from the Seattle area?” I joked, remembering the giant – sized proportioned mountains I had driven through years ago.

He laughed, a deep, congested rumbling that shook his ample belly, and reminded me somewhat of the way my Uncle Ben used to imitate Santa Claus years ago when we were young kids. I smothered a grin.

“Nah, I’m from Ozark Mountain country. Southern Missouri. No place quite like it, ‘specially in the fall. Ever been down out that way?”

I felt the urge to smile drain away. He knew, didn’t he… He had to know. This could hardly be a coincidence. It was all I could do to summon a curt nod.

His friendly brown eyes narrowed a bit as he took in my reaction, radiating concern. “Is somethin’ the matter, son?”

“Listen, Ol—“ I stopped. “People don’t seriously call you Old Coot?”

“Coot’ll do,” he replied without breaking eye contact, making it quite clear the change of subject was not putting him off one little bit.

I shook my head, nonplussed. “Right. Coot. Look, not to be rude and disrupt the lovely time - killing obligatory airplane stranger chat, but I really don’t want to talk about where I’m going or where I might be from.”

His leathery hand patted my shoulder. “Of course. No offense, Brian. Forgive an old man his curiosity.”

Somehow, I couldn’t help but like this guy. “None taken.” I searched for some kind of vague, generic – sounding reply that would seem relevant enough satisfy him, and my thrice – cursed need to explain everything to everyone, without encouraging the conversation further, but found nothing, so I held my tongue.

Silence crept back into the bagin[cabin], punctuated by occasional coughs and sniffles and aggravated sighs, the occasional loud turning of a magazine page, not to mention the bleeps and blorts and other game-y sounds from the kid’s videogame. I closed my eyes and leaned hard against the uncomfortable seat, pressing the cool backs of fingers against my eyelids, forcing myself to take deep breaths, over and over, until the exhale would come without a shudder.

That was when Coot began to hum. Softly, at first, then more loudly, with the toe of his boot keeping time on the floor, his fingers gently tapping in rhythm on the armrest, his knee. With a twitch of irritation I almost wished for earplugs – and then I began to recognize the tune.

My eyes opened as if of their own accord, and the words were out before I could stop them. “Waltz of the Violets?”

Coot grinned at me contentedly. “One of my favorite songs,” he admitted. “My mother was quite the fiddle player, and I picked up a tune or two from her.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Coincidence on coincidence… “Don’t tell me,” I said slowly, not sure I wanted to pursue this conversation but knowing too I’d never be satisfied otherwise, “you’re from Phoenix Springs, originally.”

He winked. “Born and raised. You’ve heard of old Mary Thistlethorn?”

“Heard of her?” I shook my head. “We grew up on tales of her derring – do and musical prowess. Your mother is quite a formidable woman.”

A shadow passed across his face. “Was.”

“Oh.” Open foot, insert mouth, I thought grimly. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t heard.” Thank you, Captain Obvious…

“’Twas recent,” he waved my apology away. “And it was her time. She went happy.”

I stared down at my bulky silver laptop, not sure what to say. “That’s… a great loss.”

“The loss was my own brother couldn’t make it to the funeral,” Coot said sadly, rubbing his short beard. “It seems he had a rash of funerals of his own to perform—he’s a priest, you see—and then, he fell ill himself. Hospitalized, couldn’t travel.”

I resisted the urge to let loose a nervous laugh. Four thousand miles I’d traveled, an insufferable amount of airplanes, countless sleazy hotel rooms, so many questions posed but answered, missed opportunities and circular thoughts and deleted paragraphs—and now, at the very worst possible moment, I had to run into someone connected to the whole business… the very brother of Father Albert, no less.

At last, I found my voice. “So you’re Father Albert’s brother.”

The old man eyed me critically. “Then you are from Phoenix Springs.”

“You had already left when I was born,” I said, “and by the time you returned, after… everything… I was already gone. But I’ve heard of you.”

Coot’s face softened. “That would make you Brian Evans.”

I bowed my head. “The same.”

His voice was low. “I heard…”

I flicked my hand, as though to drive his words, the unfinished thought, away. “Didn’t everyone? But it was years ago.” I sighed. “As they say. Time heals…”

“But what does it heal?” he asked softly, almost to himself. I didn’t reply.

Abruptly, the clouds opened overhead, and sunlight came pouring down onto the rain – dazzled pavement. I squinted against the sudden glare, pulling down the window shade, and began turning off my various electronics, waiting for the pre – takeoff flight announcements to begin. The past had found me before I was ready, and still there was Denver to face.


Five hundred miles later, thirty two thousand feet in the air, I awoke with a start from a doze, grabbing for my jacket to ward off the sudden chill, a slew of words jumbling around in my mind. Words about what had happened, about the old man slumbering deeply in the chair beside me, about what might happen in the future, should I succeed in Denver…

The blinking cursor obediently gave way to my words.

My big sister’s story is one I didn’t know in full for years to come. It took months before my parents could even begin to think of speaking of her again without breaking down completely, and her closest friends scattered across the country in pursuit of their various careers and dreams. And I didn’t find her journal – or the tapes her beat – up old camcorder had faithfully recorded – until just last year.

In the time since then, I have tried to faithfully piece together what I could of Tanya’s story. At times, it has seemed practically pointless, but whenever that feeling stole over me I would stop, take a deep breath, and remember what Tanya always would say about that sort of thing… Which was, of course, kind of the whole point.

Dealing with my sister’s death, and the meaning of her life, has been such a part of my life that now, with the process nearing its completion, I begin to feel a strange sense of… emptiness. Almost as if my soul is awakening from a deep sleep, stretching a bit and looking around a little blearily, asking: now what?

I stared at the screen, wondering where I had gone off course. It started out right, but ended wrong.

I stole a glance at Coot, now snoring softly. Perhaps I should have let him finish that sentence. What had he heard?

Full of trepidation and old memories, I highlighted the paragraphs I had just written and hit “delete”, with only a slight twinge of regret.

Tucking the laptop away in its padded case, I settled back in my seat and pushed up the window shadow. An endless sea of formless clouds tumbled past the plane in the darkening sky, and I found my thoughts returning, as they so often had, to the place of family, and childhood, and happiness: Phoenix Springs.




Chapter Two – Phoenix Springs

Phoenix Springs was nestled back in a deep valley between the ancient Ozark mountains, so worn down as to be called “hills” by those who didn’t know any better, and half an hour in any direction from the next sign of civilization, if you didn’t count Cedar Valley, which was only five minutes distant on a clear day with a fast driver undeterred by flying around mind – bending curves and bouncing up and down tall hilltops. Most people didn’t, count it, that is, since all Cedar Valley had going for it was a post office and a flea market. The younger generation tended to refer to the whole area as the “Cell Phone Graveyard,” or “the land of cell phone death,” but for most of the populartion Phoenix Springs was a little corner of the world time had forgotten, and happily so.

Visitors tended to think of it as a “modern Mayberry,” if they thought of it at all. Many were simply lost businessmen (and women) impatiently seeking directions back to the interstate, or the nearest gas station. But as the main roads grew broader, better signposted, and even grew loop – de – loops, even these soon – gone visitors grew fewer and fewer.

The nearest gas station happened to be the Mule, an ancient, tiny two – pump operation boasting a faded wooden sign with the crooked painted letters “Superb brake work,” owned by Big Jerry, who scorned the “new fangled self – serve craze,” still serving customers and their cars the old – fashioned away. He was nearing ninety and living mostly in the past, which consisted of a rickety old apartment above the store. People said for years it was a shame he had no one to help him out around the place; Sunday school classes used to be driven in droves to come do odd chores and the heavier lifting. Later on, he ended up hiring two of Tanya’s closest friends, Sylvester and Dillard, to work around the place. But that came later.

The Mule was situated on the south side of town, diagonally across from the school; farthest away from where the few stranded visitors came in, that is. The main way into Phoenix Springs was this ancient “blue highway” known variously as County Road 3, Curves From Hell, or, for some unfathomable reason lost in the deep past, Walking Stick. This becomes Main Street, which the Phoenix Springs school – all the grades fitting conveniently into one building – sits alongside of, which winds its away around to be Toffinghoff Lane, where the Mule is.

On Day One, I fell asleep about 6 a.m. I stayed asleep until very nearly midnight. Nearly 18 hours of almost solid sleep, in all. After midnight, on Day Two, I was up for a few hours to check email and read a bit before falling asleep again. (I'm still recovering from a pretty severe illness of some sort, hence all the sleeping.) I woke up 3 p.m.-ish on Day Two in time to call work and find out I had to be there in one hour.

Needless to say, nothing got written. But I did have some very strange dreams, and make friends with one nice customer.

In the late hours, very close to the start of Day Three, I actually had an idea, and began writing. That spilled over into Day Three, and so will be posted with the Day Three post. I hope I can stick with this idea. It's a decent one.

Day Three: By midnight, I need 5,001 words to be just on schedule. Yeah. 5,001. That's a lot.

Bring on the caffeine!!

...Nothing, actually.

Hi everybody! On the first day of NaNoWriMo 2008, I wrote a lot of drivel! These are the rules I was following:

1. Take any suggestion given.
2. All indecisive moments are decided by the flip of a coin.
3. Anything outrageous I happen to see, I have to incorporate. (Such as from whose line.)


Suggestions to incorporate:

1. The character decides everything by coin flipping
2. Someone has green ears; someone else, different colors
3. Snape has to make a cameo appearance
4. Characters have to have momentary hallucination of ninjas
5. Copy and paste AIM/MSN conversations
6. A character doing NaNo with a good and bad shoulder angel
7. "I thought I heard someone listening" (halloweentown)
8. A scene with a temp character who has a "two line vocabulary."
9. Old Coot talks on cell phones and reads minds for a living.


And here's how the beginning of this story went....



Epicocity: NaNo 2008


I pushed him into the fire. It was epic. Unfortunately, the gate was closed and it wasn’t lit, so he didn’t burn. He’s probably grateful, but it sort of ruined the climactic moment for me.

That was the last I was to see of Taylor Fiddlesticks (that’s his name, no lie) for four years. Four long years, during which I nearly managed to forget him all together. Somehow, it just wasn’t long enough for all the bad habits he taught me to fade away.

Taylor was two years older than me, and a complete wild card; in the deepest sense of the term. You could never tell if he really meant you ill or was just too detached and ironic for his own good. Practical jokes were his forte, and he said his only destiny was Probability.

My name is Chance. He would always make some lame pun about probability and chance, and then laugh hysterically after joking how he was going to screw over his chance.

For Taylor, everything was decided by the flip of a coin. It wasn’t double-sided, either — I checked. “Will I go to school today?” “Should I give that complete stranger an atomic wedgie?” “Shall I… go to college, steal that motorcycle, make up a fake identity, jump into that giant bowl of pudding?” The choices are just too hard, he would say with a mocking laugh and a maniacal glint in his eye. Let the coin decide.

Taylor always had a quarter on hand. Me, I could never keep track of change; so this one day when I found a heads up nickel with a blob of purple pain on it, I kept it. It became the efficacy of my will. Even after the fireplace incident, the coin flipping decisions was the one habit from my impressionable Taylor-filled years I just couldn’t break.

Which is how I ended up in this one horse town, with Taylor back in my life, to begin with. I trusted the coin.

That was my first mistake.



I stood in the hot, orange sunlight late one September day in the middle of the tiniest town square I’d ever seen, wondering how on earth to find my way back to the interstate when none of the streets had signposts, without any conveniently near and open gas station to pump (no pun intended) for directions.

The blinding orange sunlight was coming from just over the horizon, due west; it would be dark soon. I pulled the trusty nickel out of my pocket. “Heads, we stay here tonight,” I announced to the empty sidewalk; “tails, we pick a road and keep going.” Flicking my thumb up expertly, I watched the coin tumble over and over; caught it deftly in my palm, and slapped it on the back of my opposite hand. “Heads. Damn.”

Somehow, Taylor never seemed to get the option he secretly wished to avoid.

I sighed heavily, and, shading my eyes with my hand, began looking around for a likely looking street. Where, oh where, do they keep the inns in Hickville?

A sudden “crack!” behind me made me spin around. “What the he--?”

A badgery ol’ coot stood behind me, hand still on his rusty blue truck’s door, which, despite the enormous SLAM, still hadn’t shut, big straw hat jammed on his head of stringy, ten days unwashed salt and pepper hair, baggy overalls stained with mud beneath the knees and ugly, manure splattered boots poking out from under his big billowy bell bottomed overalls like two great ugly stinking fish. He opened his toothless mouth (and I braced myself for a wave of foul stench) but before he could say a word – just long enough for me to notice that, in fact, his breath was minty fresh – when his cell phone whent off.

ONE O’CLOCK, TWO O’CLOCK, THREE O’CLOCK ROCK! the digitalized, canned tone blared, in the worst imitation of Elvis I had ever heard.

“Y’ello,” he drawled into the mouthpiece, flipping it open. “Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh uh… Right.” He flipped the phone shut and dropped it back down into some unspeakable jean overall pocket. “And that wasn’t Elvis, it was Bill Haley and the Comets. Don’t you know nuthin’?”

“Uh…” I was completely nonplussed. “Did I say that out loud? I thought I only thought it. I thunk.”

“I’m a mind reader.”

“And I’m Janice Litman.”

“Who?”

“Oh. My God.”

“ ? “ His silence spoke volumes.

“Never mind. What’s the deal?”

“This is the town where everything’s made up and the signs don’t matter.”

I glared down at him. “Are you matching me reference for reference?”

“Does a tree shed bark in the woods.”

I was taken aback. “Uh… I don’t know?” I shook my head impatiently. “But this is pointless! I really need a hotel. Do you have any around here?”

The toothless old man with the minty fresh breah laughed. “This here town is Hootin’ Hollerin’, the most smallest, most run down est, most tacky, most inefficient, most bad smellingest—“

“No, no I think you’re wrong there. Have you ever been to Atchison, KS?”

“Uh… fraid not? What’s that?”

“The smelliest town west of the Missouri.”

“Ain’t never been west of the Missourah. There here’s my home, stinky as it may be, and here I’ll stay.”

I eyed the Old Coot (as I decided to call him) critically. “You sound like a bad country song.”
His weathered old face broke into the a braod grin, cracking his skin into a thousand and one wrinkles. “Why, that used to be my profession! My very profession, before I turned to the Thought.”

“The Thought?”

“I told you, I’m a mind reader.”

“Right…” I glanced at my watch skeptically. “Now, what about this no-hotels thing?” There was no rule against not doing the impossible when the possibilities failed the coin’s decrees. I could be out of here in no time.

“There ain’t one, but Missy Taylor runs a boardin’ house just up yonder. Follow me up, and I’ll see about getting’ you a couch.”

“…Not a room?”

“Well, we’ll haf’ta see.”

I watched the Old Coot climb with difficulty back into that ancient ragtag truck and its engine roared to life as he – SLAM – closed the door with even more difficulticocity. (That’s Chance-speak for “difficult” and “ferocity.”)

“ONE THOUSAND WORDS!” a scream echoed suddenly in the distance.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing,” the Old Coot said. “That was just the sound of the fourth wall shattering. Pay it no mind.”

“Very well.”

I revved up my tank. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

I followed him out of the narrow parking space and around the one way town square road, out to an extremely pointless roundabout in the middle of what was apparently a cornfield, and then down a long dirt track (which squashed satisfactorily under the massive treads of my tank – which happened to be painted a lovely shade of a teal – and finally up to a ramshackle off white peeling farmhouse. “Well, Teascupper the Teal Tank,” I comforted my stalwart ride as I burst into song, “looks like we made it…” For some reason I was feeling exceptionally giddy.

I popped the top and climbed down, meeting Old Coot at the bottom. “This is it? Short ride.”

“Small town,” Old Coot replied, and led the way up the rickety steps on to the sagging porch. “Missy Taylor?” he bellowed out in a gruff, hoarse voice. Because that’s not redundant at all. “Be ye home, woman? Got a nighter for ya!”

And then… there he was. Complete in a flour print dress with fake boobs underneath and a cheesy red wig.




...Yes. That's what I wrote, between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m. November 1st, 2008. Sad, isn't it? I thought so.

I did it.

30 Days. 50K.

BOOOYAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

~

Overhead, thunder rumbled in the sudden hush. The storm was growing closer now, clouds gathering far above their heads, growing dark and menacing, blotting out the afternoon sky.

Mordor could see out the great floor to ceiling windows on the far wall the early twilight created by the shadow of the clouds, could see too the far distant spire of the cathedral, and as another crash of thunder echoed about the room, felt a sudden twinge of doubt, sharp and ice cold, in the pit of her stomach. What if Madam Eyebrow was wrong…?

“But we must protect the magic,” she whispered.

Adam shook his head. “It’s not magic,” he said, suddenly looking drained and worried. “Mr. Wyntirsilvyr told us all about that “Madam Eyebrow.” She doesn’t like the Balance, she doesn’t like Tristantide, she wants Twilight to reign—“

“But the Balance is unnatural! These… these people… they say they’re protectors, but they only want to manipulate the waxing and waning of the Places for their own power and gain, and—“

“And the only proof you have of this,” Gabriel cut in, whispering furiously, “is some crazy old lady’s word?”

“Well who is this random Mr. Wyntirsilvyr?” Florida retorted. “I’m not saying I believe in anything this Madam Eyebrow has said either, but who is Mr. Wyntirsilvyr, and why should you trust him?”

Adam and Gabriel both paused at that, and looked at each other.

“Gabriel?” prompted Adam. “Well?”

“I don’t know! How should I know?”

“Well I don’t know either.”

“So essentially,” said Lucille, sounding slightly incredulous but also looking a bit amused, “we have two people claiming to be a source of true information utterly contradicting each other and who we listen to, if they’re telling the truth about this at all, if it is real, could either save or destroy everything we know, and even the things we don’t know, if all this business about Twilight is really, truly true?”

“Sounds about right,” said a strange voice behind them.

Even normally unflappable Florida gasped.

A tall, thin man with silver hair stepped out from behind one of the towering shelves. Another clap of thunder came just then, and the lights failed—the only light in the room now came from the rapidly fading daylight shining in the windows and the hundreds of flickering candles along the walls and top edges of the shelves of books.

“Who are you?” Lucille asked, and the fear was unmistakable in her voice.

The strange man, just barely visible in the gloom, spread his hands and said in a voice that smirked, “Why, Jeremiah Minks, of course—Jeremiah,” his voice dropped, “of Dandelion Pride.”

Thunder crashed again. “Gentlemen,” Jeremiah’s voice rang out loud and powerful across the room, “The hour is at hand.”

Thoughts raced through Florida’s mind like wildfire. They’re crazy, she thought. They are just a group of crazy old men who think they can do—magic—

Lightning flickered, and in the sudden sharp relief brought by its brief light, they saw shadowy figures scattered around the room.

There was a short pause. “Sounds about right,” Adam offered in a slightly strangled voice, as he stifled a sudden wild urge to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

“Well I don’t—“ began Mordor loudly, but Florida and Adam made furious shushing motions at her quickly.

“We do not want to be caught!” they hissed.

“Then what are we going to do?” Mordor asked in a mock giving up sort of voice, standing back and folding her arms in a challenging sort of way.

“I don’t know!” said Florida. Adam just shrugged.

They stood in silence for a minute, just listening to the thunder rolls building. A few times lightning flickered outside the far giant windows.

“Where’s… that man? David?” Lucille asked after a moment.

Gabriel straightened up, suddenly looking excited, as though Lucille’s question had given him an idea. “Let’s go find him,” he suggested.

Mordor felt a leap of excitement in her stomach, but tried to sound nonchalant as she answered, “Sure.”

“If he catches us,” Adam warned, “we’re dead.”

“We will be anyway if we don’t do something,” Mordor replied. Lucille shot her an uncertain, frightened look.

“We will be if you interfere!” Gabriel whispered furiously. “The Keepers of Place must maintain the Balance!”

Florida cocked her head, studying the furious face of Gabriel and the indignant expression on Mordor’s face. “What makes you so sure?” she asked. This is all utter nonsense, she thought. And yet… and yet…

“He showed us,” said Gabriel simply.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Adam hastily replied. “There was… I don’t know… it was dark, and we were already turned around and kind of confused, I mean, in the depths of the Park…”

“And then we met Mr. Wyntirsilvyr,” said Gabriel firmly. “Who told us about the Balance, and the Keepers of Place… and their enemy…”

He trailed off, then, looking at the girls with a somewhat lost expression on his face. “He said someone was trying to destroy this place — both of them — however you say it — by putting the balance out of whack, by making Tristantide fade before its time.” He took a deep breath. “And then that—“

“That it was Madam Eyebrow, and she would have… people… ready to interfere with Dandelion Pride’s attempts to fix it,” Adam finished. “But I didn’t realize he meant you.”

“Madam Eyebrow said this place would be destroyed if we didn’t act,” said Mordor faintly, looking crestfallen. “She said…” Mordor experienced a sense of reality falling away, as all her unshakable – misplaced? – trust in that kindly old woman was suddenly shaken by its very foundation.

Florida turned to Mordor abruptly, a shrewd expression in her eyes. “But which place did she mean?”

There was only silence at that.

“So what do we do?” Lucille asked faintly.

Adam shook his head. “I’m still not entirely sure these people are for real. Maybe they’re just… just… a bunch of harmless old people playing games, or… oh, I don’t know…”

“That’s why we’re going to see Jeremiah,” Gabriel said quietly, but with conviction. “You’re going to really see…” He looked towards the girls, glancing at each of them, until finally he locked gazes with Mordor. “Come with us. Agree not to… not to do anything… irreversible… until you’ve seen…”

“Suppose we see nothing?”

Gabriel’s face was tight; even Florida looked grim. “I don’t know.”

After a moment, Mordor nodded. “Okay.” She glanced at Lucille, then at Florida. “Coming?”

Shrugging, the sisters followed Mordor, Adam, and Gabriel around the corner of the great shelf of crumbling books, in the same direction David had gone.

It was eerily quiet. The deep carpet completely absorbed the sounds of their footsteps; only the faint sound of their breathing moved the still air.

And then, as they rounded more corners, peering every which way for signs of a wrathful returning David or of the mysterious Jeremiah, they saw a door – and faintly, from behind its great solid expanse of wood, the sound of murmuring voices.

Gabriel grinned. “Bingo,” he said quietly. He crept up to the door, ready to put his hear to it – and was for a moment distracted by the sign.

Very quietly, Mordor, coming up behind him, read:

Mae govanen, friend; but travel carefully...
Not all things are as they seem
And some are not, except in dreams
Watch closely, here, how you feel
For some dreams, friend, are real.

Lucille asked the question for all of them. “What does it mean?”

Mordor put a finger to her lips, looking darkly first at Lucille then, pointedly, at the doorway. Lucille rolled her eyes.

Gabriel, ever so gently, lowered himself to his knees, and then to the floor; he beckoned Adam and Mordor closer, and the three of them pressed their ears to the faint, almost nonexistent crack between the end of the door and the lushly carpeted floor. Lucille and Florida, careful not to step on them, leaned as close as they could to the door to try and hear for themselves.

The conversation seemed to be taking place a long way away, the sounds of it were so faint. There must be some kind of soundproofing stuff on the walls, maybe the door too, thought Florida.

I wonder, thought Mordor, if we can possibly be hearing them from… Twilight…?

“…telling lies again?” someone was saying.

“David, don’t be tiresome,” someone replied. “There is always…”

The voices became indistinguishable. Then at last, “How can she possibly, though? We are—“

“It must be done,” interrupted the second voice. “He is right about that, at least.”

“And if someone decides…”

The voices trailed away again, and this time, grew silent all together.

Hardly daring to breathe, Florida and Lucille stepped away from the door. Gingerly, Adam, Gabriel, and Mordor got to their feet.

“Now what?” Adam mouthed.

Gabriel looked troubled.

“Let’s knock,” suggested Mordor brashly.

But the handle was already turning—

“Hide!” Florida’s mouth formed the word, and everyone scattered.

Peering out from behind various tall shelves of musty smelling books, Lucille, Florida, Mordor, Gabriel, and Adam watched as a group of old men came shuffling out of the office, led by a man who exuded a personality so forcefully Adam felt sure that this must be Jeremiah Minks. After him came David, talking to—Adam thought he felt his heart fail—Ezekiel Johnson! What’s old EJ doing here? he thought wonderingly.

Then Gabriel elbowed Adam hard, and Adam quickly muffled his exclamation of surprise – and watched in shock at what Gabriel had been trying to show him, as, walking calmly in the midst of several other old men that Adam didn’t know, but thought looked vaguely familiar from around town, Mr. Wyntirsilvyr went by. For a moment, Adam and Gabriel were sure he glanced their direction – but he made no sign of having heard Adam’s gasp, and did not stop. Adam heaved a silent sigh of relief.

Florida and Lucille watched warily around the corner of a distant book shelf, watching the unfamiliar old men going by, and then, strangely, saw a woman – a younger woman… with blonde hair… and big blue eyes…

It was like watching her picture come to life. Florida stopped breathing, stopped thinking, could’ve sworn she felt her heart stop – “Oh, Lucy,” she breathed. “Look.”

Lucille’s whisper was muffled. “It… it can’t be—“

Mordor, however, was watching what the small… group? Procession?... was doing.

Each of them, as they passed a certain place, dropped a single dandelion on the floor. Every other one a blossom, and the others the full bloomed dandelions with white seeds flying in all directions.

What must I do? Mordor wondered. To listen to Madam Eyebrow… to save the magic… Other, darker thoughts rose unbidden in her mind. Stop Madam Eyebrow from destroying the Balance…

All she had heard battled in her mind. Her heart longed to believe Madam Eyebrow, to rush out and snatch up those dandelions and crush them, but doubts lingered, questioning… and another thought, one she had nearly stopped hearing at all, wondered: Are you stupid? They’re just a harmless club of old men, and Madam Eyebrow is a lonely old woman who raves about fantasy stories…

The single file line was nearly gone. Mordor hesitated, almost ready to leave her hiding place, and run to take a dandelion – this must have been what Madam Eyebrow meant, if she could somehow interfere with this, this, ritual…

The last man in the line vanished; out the door and down the secret stairs, Mordor assumed. Now the room was suddenly plunged into darkness.

The steady light of the candles cast strange shadows with their fiery tongues, but other than that, the room was dark.

Mordor leapt, her hand outstretched—

And was stopped by another hand.

Gabriel’s eyes were oddly dark and sharp in the dim, haunting light. “No,” he said. “This woman is the reason Angie and Andrew died. She’s the reason this Place is dying.”

“No,” said Mordor.

“How can you?” Gabriel’s voice was strange and uneven, his hand hot on her wrist.

Mordor’s voice shook. “How can you not?”

***

Insert climax here.

(Sorry guys, no idea what really goes on here at this point or immediately after.)

Actually, that’s a lie. Well, a partial lie. For some reason, the following seem like good ideas – probably because I haven’t reread all this story, and I’m still basing my ideas off how this story should be as opposed to how it’s actually written.

So: condensed plot.

Mordor and Adam should be close friends, and for some reason she will give him her ring, the one only mentioned once, as she comes into Tristantide. For some reason, Adam will think it is a good idea to give this ring to Lucille. Or something. At any rate Lucille grows up a bit and decides to actually have a proper relationship with Adam.

They go to see Madam Eyebrow, and find her gone.

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr cannot be found, and the Park is completely closed up.

Florida and Lucille decide the woman they saw with what may or may not have been Dandelion Pride could not possibly be their mother.

And Gabriel... does something.

***

Warm sunlight woke Mordor.

It was a cool dawn, pale and blue, and the ridged floor of the playground equipment’s walkway dug into her back.

She rose quickly, checking as always to make sure her backpack was there, and – for only a moment – felt for the ring on her finger, and felt a pang at the memory of its loss.

But that was for the best, wasn’t it…

Mordor glanced once more towards the empty, forlorn looking apartment that had once – Didn’t it? Or did we imagine… don’t think like that! You’ll go mad! – been Madam Eyebrow’s apartment.

Mordor sighed, and set about preparing to leave.

Three hours later, she was nestled in an overlarge seat on a greyhound bus, music from her ipod playing in her ears and staring out the window as the grey highway flashed by, its long curve away from the city of Tristantide heading for the interstate… taking her away…

Mordor closed her eyes, and slept.



THE END

2nd to last day! And I'm behind in the word count! And I decided halfway through it should be stormy not sunny! And it doesn't make sense! And the 4th wall got demolished! And I didn't get my Euclid assignment done for my 8 a.m. class tomorrow! And AAAAHHHHH!!!! But I'M ALMOST THERE!!!!! Now... just to find a CONCLUSION....

~

In an upper room, Dandelion Pride stood looking out the great wide windows that lined the back wall of Jeremiah’s office. From the view they could see a great expanse of the city, including the great spire of the cathedral, crowned by the cross. That was where Jeremiah’s gaze was resting, but that was not what was in his thoughts.

Jeremiah was thinking of the little sign on the outside of his door.

There was no nameplate or window, just this small plaque, which read:

Mae govanen, friend; but travel carefully...
Not all things are as they seem
Some things are not, except in dreams
Watch closely, here, how you feel
For some dreams, friend, are real.

Now take a step back.

Yes, reader. You, who have been reading all these many words, and yet never heard me speak—step back with me, away from this snow globe of a world that I have spun for you out of the fine threads of words, and let me speak to you. There is something you must understand. Something you must know.

Surely you feel it, already; even before these words come to you. The lifelessness of this narrative; the inconsistencies that catch at the mind like snares in fabric; the grasping for a conclusion that never comes…

These strange and silly people, these young ones and the old men who call themselves Dandelion Pride… they have flaws and experiences that make them approach life a certain way, but these are thrust into the background, they are taken out of themselves, when there is a point they believe they are working towards, when there is a narrative to follow—a real life story, to be lived.

But in real life, stories don’t always have happy endings. Some stories don’t have endings at all. They just… trail off, peter out,

…Like the above sentence, some without even the dignity of an ellipsis at the end, but only a comma.

The point is, this isn’t a “proper” story. This is a real like story.

I just wanted you to be prepared.

Now step forward again, and watch closely.

The library was intimidating. Lucille, Florida, Mordor, Gabriel, and Adam stood a little closer together than they might normally have, looking around and up at the gloom and space, retreating into shadow, about them.

“Doesn’t look very user friendly,” Adam commented in a low voice. Lucille did not smile, but the corner of her mouth twitched a bit.

“Well,” said Florida, a bit forcedly, “Now what?”

“Good question,” Mordor said, looking around for a window, wondering which one it was from which she might be able to see the cathedral.

Gabriel glanced around at Adam. “Were we going to see about…?

Adam, who had been staring at Lucille, who was pointedly looking the other way, seemed to hear him as if form a long way away. “Oh,” he said, coming back to himself. “Uh, yeah, right…”

Florida turned to give Gabriel an appraising look. “What’s going on now?” she asked.

“We wanted to get in to see the rare book collection,” Gabriel said quickly.

Lucille turned and gave Adam a thoughtful look. “You? Wanting to see rare books?”

Adam shrugged. “Why not? Besides, Gabriel wanted to see them, so I figured, why not. What else have I got to do today, anyway?”

Florida shrugged. “All right. But I’m coming too.”

Adam and Gabriel exchanged a look which they supposed was surreptitious, but n one missed at all.

“All right, give,” said Mordor shrewdly, glancing back and forth between the two boys, who jumped a little at the sudden loud sound of her voice, looking suddenly guilty. “What’s going on? What are you up to?”

“We just wanted to see the rare books, that’s all,” said Adam airily, and having said so, he turned on his heel and marched away from the group, heading towards the back of the library, past the circulation desk and into the dim shadows of the tall, wobbly shelves of dusty books. Gabriel followed him at once.

Without looking at each other, Lucille, Florida, and Mordor immediately set off after them.

~*~*~*~

The semi darkness of the gloom of the library settled in around them as they moved off between the tall aisles of books. Signs, hanging from the ceiling or attached to the end of the tall wooden (and, to Lucille’s nervous eyes, ridiculously wavering and unsteady) shelves. Mordor, nearly as short as Florida, stopped to crane her neck upwards, looking to the ceiling that the shelves made a very good start at reaching.

Gabriel, the farthest ahead of them, stopped and turned, beckoning them closer to him. The straggling group hurried to catch up with him, Adam looking faintly annoyed.

“It’s creepy in here,” Lucille whispered, and to Adam’s surprise she came close to him and slipped her hand into his.

Mordor was just nodding in agreement, looking away from Florida’s put out roll of the eyes at her sister’s jumpiness.

“Is there… something I can help you with?” a strange voice asked.

Lucille jumped, but Adam squeezed her hand in reassurance; the rest of the group watched curiously as a tiny, teetering old man tottered out from behind one of the most unstable looking shelves of books—even Florida eyed it nervously, thinking it looked as though it were leaning to one side a bit—carrying a stack of books nearly as big as he was.

“We… uh… we were…” Mordor started, with absolutely no idea what she was going to say next.

“Wondering if we could see—“ interjected Adam, and Gabriel’s eyes widened.

“—See the rare books collection,” finished Gabriel, shotting Adam a dark look and wishing the other boy could read his thoughts. Do not mention Jeremiah!

Adam looked calmly back, thinking, I’m not stupid, Gabriel…

The old man peered at them appraisingly. “Well,” he said eventually, stooping low to the ground and depositing his loud of books as gently as he could in a neat stack at the end of the nearest shelf, “it is technically within tour hours, I suppose. Don’t touch anything, don’t leave my sight, and be very quiet. Our esteemed patron’s office—“ the little old man tottered off out of sight around a corner, and the five of them hurried to follow him. His voice came back in to earshot as they rounded the corner, stopping suddenly so as not to run into him, which caused them to run into each other instead “—is in that section, and he does not wish to be disturbed today.”

Florida glared at Mordor, who had just stepped on her foot, and Mordor elbowed Lucille for bumping into her, which had caused her to step on Florida’s foot. Lucille just frowned and held Adam’s hand tighter, and Adam peered over Gabriel’s shoulder at the—was it a book shelf, or a door?

It took Mordor a minute to realize what she was seeing. It was not a “secret panel” or a door built into a bookshelf—it was a door in between two shelves of books on a back wall, but with shelves and fake books built onto it, so that it camoflaughed nicely with the shelves. Clever, she thought in rueful admiration.

The tiny old man, who had been fiddling with a giant ring of old and rusty looking keys, turned suddenly and frowned at them. The group found themselves taking an involuntary step back. “Are we clear on what you are to do and not do while we are in this section on the tour?” he asked clearly in a prim little voice.

Glancing at each other, the five friends nodded.

“Very well,” sighed the little old man in a resigned sort of voice, and, turning back to the door, pulled down one of the fake books to reveal a lock, which he inserted a great black key into. With one sharp twist, the great lock clicked, and, as everyone backed up to allow it room, the door swung outwards, revealing a great, carpeted staircase.

They followed the old man in silence, single file, up the stairs, which seemed to be carpeted with a thick, plush carpet. Their feet sank into it with every step, and it muffled the noise of their progress completely.

~*~*~*~
At the top of the stairs there was another door. This door was not a camouflaged door like the one at the bottom of the stairs, but Gabriel had a funny feeling it was on the other side.

The old man bent over a tiny lock, fumbled with his great bulky key ring, and pulling out a slender golden key, inserted it into the tiny lock and jiggled it for a moment.

The door swung open soundlessly, and the wrinkled old man shushing the group behind him, tip toed up the last few steps and out into the great vaulted room. And then inexplicably there was the unmistakable smell of Atchastench wafting through the air. What’s that? Asked Mordor. I don’t know, said Lucille. I think the Author is out of ideas again said Gabriel. Why is it, asked the Author, that my friends always mean that I can’t type properly? And I lose all punctuation. Oh well. Another fifty words down. Now, to rebuild the fourth wall.

The room was not dark like the rest of the library, but brightly lit with hanging chandeliers that sparkled and glittered along the ceiling. Candles, hung in exquisitely worked metal brackets, and framed by glass to keep their flames from dying or escaping rimmed the candles, lined the walls.

The old man sighed and straightened up, as if preparing for a long speech—but at the moment, a great deep voice from somewhere in the back of the room called, “David!”

The old man – David – looked irritably over his shoulder to the direction the voice had come from. “Mr. Minks requires my assistance,” he said primly. “Stay here. Do not touch anything. Do not even move.” He glared at them all. “Do you understand?”

Mutely, Lucille, Florida, Mordor, Adam and Gabriel nodded, without looking at each other. Glaring at them over his shoulder every few steps, as if by concentrating his distrust closely enough into a single gaze he could actively freeze them where they stood, the old man shuffled away towards the other side of the room, hidden by trim and stately shelves shelved with old and crumbling books.

“Come on,” Gabriel whispered, as soon as David disappeared.

“What for?” Florida snapped, looking slightly worried.

Gabriel and David glanced at each other. “We want to meet Jeremiah.”

“Jeremiah Minks?” Florida hissed. “Are you mad?”

Mordor looked around hesitantly. “Is he… meeting with…”

“Mordor, don’t tell me you actually believe in all this mumbo jumbo!”

Gabriel and Adam looked at each other in surprise, and then at the girls. “What are you talking about?”

“All this Dandelion Pride stuff!” Lucille said, looking both uncomfortable and slightly excited.

Gabriel and Adam stood there stunned, looks of incredulousness stamped on both their faces. “How do you know about that?” Gabriel asked, astounded.

“Because we have to stop them!” Mordor said abruptly, her eyes shining bright with some sort of odd inner light. “They must be here! This must be where we are supposed to make a difference, to stop—“

“Did you hear this from that wacky old woman at Rainbow’s End?” Gabriel demanded furiously, a dark flush spreading across his cheeks.

“Wacky?” Mordor said in disbelief. “She knows what those crazies are doing and is going to stop it!”

Adam and Gabriel looked at each other in astonishment. “They are the ones interfering?” they exclaimed at the same time.

“No, Dandelion Pride, they are the ones making al this—“

“Well if you listen to what that Eyebrow woman told you—“

“How can you say that, do you know what she—“

“Everybody, quiet!” Florida hissed, interrupting the argument beginning to break loose.

***
***
***

This was not a good day. Especially where writing is concerned.

But continuing...

~

The library loomed up in front of them like a dry land ship, tall and imposing in its tall and imposingness, with gargoyles like anchors on its battlements.

The three girls were just climbing up the great empty white marble steps to the grand front doors, looking around them a bit nervously. The empty steps echoed.

The shout seemed to come from nowhere, and the echo bounced like a dozen bouncy balls scattering in every direction: “Hey!”

Mordor, Lucille, and Florida jumped, and Mordor actually gave a little squeak of surprise—which instantly turned to an exclamation of annoyance as she saw Gabriel and Adam charging up the steps after them. “You!” she exclaimed, glaring at an out of breath Gabriel. “Jeez! Scare me why don’t you!”

Adam’s face lit with a mischievous grin. Lucille, seeing it, immediately reached out a hand to him, as if to stop him from moving. Glancing at Mordor, she said, “I’d be careful how you worded that, if I were you,” before giving Adam a quick hug. He looked at her, surprised, for a moment—but then he was turning to everyone else, and Lucille had gone to stand by Florida.

“Strange, how we all met up here,” Mordor said. “What are you guys up to?”

“We’re here to see if we can see Jeremiah,” said Gabriel at once.

Adam rolled his eyes.

“We’re here on a wild goose chase, most likely,” he clarified. “But oh well, the sooner we start the sooner we can get this over with. What are you girls up to?”

Florida shrugged. “Getting as far away from Madam Eyebrow as possible.”

Gabriel froze, and even Adam looked a trifle nervous. “Yeah?” he asked in a questioning tone of voice.

Mordor opened her mouth, no doubt to launch into a detailed explanation, but Florida shot her a look that quelled even the unquellable Mordor. “She’s just creepy,” Florida said firmly. “We just came here, just because… No real reason. Maybe we’ll hang about and wait for you, and when you’re done doing whatever it is you’re up to, we can do something.”

Adam nodded. “Sure.”

Gabriel gestured to the doors a few steps above them. “Shall we?”

Adam sighed. “Come on, peoples. Let’s go.”

Grinning a bit, but not before shooting Florida a half annoyed, half questioning look, Mordor, followed by Lucille and Florida, headed up the steps after the boys.

Behind them, in the distance, thunder rumbled; and the first dark clouds began to cover the sun.

The inside of the library was dark and cool. Lucille shivered. The vaulted ceiling rose in to shadows high far above their heads. The circulation desk stood empty a ways before them, off to one side. It was gloomy.

We're almost there! Almost there!!!!!!!! And I have a 150 word head start on tomorrow!! Which is good because I have no climax or conclusion whatsoever!!! Ahahaha!

~

“Once upon a time
There was a Dandelion Pride
And the Lion's Teeth were swift and fierce,
Guardians in the shadows.
As unassuming flowers in the field
They are the sword and shield
The anvil for the steel
The Keepers of Place,”

Madam Eyebrow’s wavered a bit on the last line, but she did not relent, and kept on:

“Moonlight waxes, moonlight wanes
Places grow, and places fade
Never balanced, never won
The mystery of two as one
Once saved, never lost
Guarded always, any cost
But do not ask, nor seek to know
Whence they come, or where they go—“

Mordor was nearly convinced she saw the strange markings on the ancient wood twist, as if trying to escape being read, as if they could run right off the page, if only Madam Eyebrow’s voice, growing stronger with each word, were not holding them tight, fastening them in place—

“In fields of shadow, by sun and moon
In darkest night or brightest noon,”

Madam Eyebrow was nearly shouting now--

“Walking through the fire wreathed
The immortal Lion's Teeth
Servants of the Flowing Time
Here stand Dandelion Pride.”

In the hush that followed, Mordor thought she could hear something — something indefinable, not quite there, but real nonetheless—break.

Mordor shook herself, as if coming out of a deep sleep, or rising up the air after being underwater. She was letting her imagination run away with her. That was all.

But that woodcut…

Madam Eyebrow quickly wrapped the mysterious thing back in its ancient, crumbling wrap, and immediately tucked it deep in the front pocket of her faded dressing gown.

For a long moment, all was still.

Lucille could not tear her eyes away from where the strange object had been sitting on the table. “What does it mean?” she asked eventually, hardly able to break the silence, but unable to hold the question in any longer.

Madam Eyebrow’s face darkened. “It’s their version of the story. It means they will do whatever they deem… necessary… to keep the magic of this place under their control. It means they are out there waiting for me—“ she looked up at them suddenly, sharply, locking her eyes onto each of them individually briefly. “—For you to make a mistake.”

“Us?” Florida did not sound quite as skeptical as she had meant to.

“Don’t you realize?” Madam Eyebrow said quietly. “Someone has to fight back! And this is the moment! Now, as they attempt to control the balance yet again, manipulating it for who only knows what dark purposes! Now is when you must rise, and be strong!”

But Lucille, timid and pale behind her curtain of blonde hair, shrank back into herself at these words; Florida raised one eyebrow and looked skeptical, in her best imitation of Star Trek’s cool, logical, imperturbable Mr. Spock; and Mordor, who felt her heart leap within her as she was offered this first, one and only, real life chance at the kind of magic she’d only read about before in fantasy books, suddenly found herself hesitating.

Madam Eyebrow sighed, suddenly looking ancient beyond reckoning, and she stumbled backwards, sinking deep into the chair.

“You want to know why you. You want to see proof. You want certainty. But life is not certain, little frightened girls. There is no proof but what you decide exists. There are no easy choices. And oh yes,” her voice dropped, and it was soft and dangerous like they had never heard it before. “You must choose. And if you choose wrongly—you will die. You will all die. And the death They will bring with them will consume you, and all you know, and there will not even be time to remember that I tried to warn you otherwise.”

The pause was much shorter this time, after this little speech.

“I don’t have to sit here and take this,” Florida announced, sounding snappish—and, grabbing Mordor by the arm and glaring pointedly at Lucille, she marched out the door.

Lucille scrambled after her looking frightened, but Mordor jerked her arm away on the very edge of the doorway Florida threw open unceremoniously with a bang. From Madam Eyebrow’s view point deep in the rocking chair back in the dark room, she was framed, ringed, by patterns of light, that caught her hair and threw her expression into shadow. And so it was she could not see the young girl’s eye’s as she asked, her voice tight and unreadable, “What would you have us do?”

“A decision to defy them,” came the immediate, certain answer, in a voice of wisdom and authority. “Seven whole dandelions replaced with seven broken ones. One step across the Threshold. At the place,” Madam Eyebrow added, before Mordor could leave or speak again, “where the gryphon reaches for the cross, at the time of the weakest boundaries.”

Florida, halfway across the dusty, muddy playground by now with Lucille, who appeared to be thinking intently, turned to see the redhead still by the apartment, framed in the doorway, half turned to follow them—half in sunlight, half hidden in shadow. Suddenly somehow afraid, and feeling very vulnerable, she shouted, “Mordor!”

“Good bye,” said Mordor, somehow feeling the finality of the word was appropriate—and then she stepped outside, and shut the door behind her.

The click told her it had locked behind her, and Mordor experienced a strange, swooping sensation in her stomach. She thought, somehow, she would not see Madam Eyebrow again.

Strange.

But Florida had called her name…

Mordor turned suddenly to see Florida stopped halfway across the playground, staring at her. It was difficult to tell in the glaring light, but Mordor thought she had a very strange look on her face. “Coming!” she called across the empty expanse, and, shouldering her backpack more securely, followed the other two away from Rainbow’s End.

***

Adam and Gabriel were contemplating the locked gates of Dandelion Pride Park.

“These weren’t locked last night, where they,” Adam commented in a tone of voice that implied it was less of a question and more an insinuated accusation against Gabriel. Somehow, Adam felt, this whole mess had to be Gabriel’s fault.

Gabriel frowned. “No, they weren’t. Not like this. They swung open…”

“Looking for me, I wonder?” said a voice from behind them.

“Mr. Wyntirsilvyr!” Adam and Gabriel said together, whirling around.

The old man smiled sadly. “It’s going to happen tonight, you know. Too bad, too.”

“What’s going to happen, Mr. Wyntirsilvyr?” Adam asked, unable to keep some of the impatience and frank disbelief out of his voice.

“You don’t have to believe, young man,” Mr. Wyntirsilvyr said. “It would have been better if you had never been brought into this at all. Either of you,” he added sharply. “This is not a matter that you should have to deal with. But I…” he trailed off.

“But someone has introduced a choice where no choice should have been, just as she has disrupted the Balance, and interrupted the work of—“ Mr. Wyntirsilvyr’s voice dropped suddenly to a barely audible whisper, “Dandelion Pride. You’re going to be led to interfere, but you are going to have to not. Do you understand?”

“Not in the least,” Adam snapped, before Gabriel had the chance to reply.

“Do you remember that night at the library?” Mr. Wyntirsilvyr asked suddenly.

Gabriel nearly spoke, putting voice to his confusion, but then he saw Mr. Wyntirsilvyr’s strange look was directed at Adam, saw how still Adam suddenly became, and kept his peace.

“How do you know about that?”

“Because I was there, Adam Midman! Do you really think I did not know you were there? Jeremiah may not have noticed you, I do not know, he was very distracted—and with good reason—but I knew you were there.”

“Then why didn’t you say something?” Adam burst out angrily. “Why not catch me out and have me thrown out?”

“Because it would have caused more problems for everyone, in the end,” came the immediate, stern reply. “But you heard us that night. Because I knew you were there, I made sure we left soon enough that you heard nothing too important—but think, boy! Remember! Remember what you did hear!”

Adam frowned, concentrating. “Someone said that… that someone should act. And someone else they should wait. Something about justice and a last advisor being heard from.”

“And what do you think that means?”

“How should I know?” Adam asked incredulously, looking at Mr. Wyntirsilvyr as though the old man were quite stupid. “I don’t know anything about any Convergence or any stupid secret society of paranoid old men with delusions of grandeur—“

He cut off abruptly as the short Mr. Wyntirsilvyr stepped right up to him and stood glaring up into the younger boy’s face. When he spoke, his voice was low and dangerous. “Believe or disbelieve. As you like,” he said very quietly, and the quiet words carried like missiles across the suddenly seemingly frozen afternoon. “But do not presume to speak ill of what you do not understand.”

“The Balance is threatened?” Adam mumbled after a minute, blinking.

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr looked coldly at him for a moment. Gabriel found himself holding his breath. Then Mr. Wyntirsilvyr turned and strode away from them, coming to a halt directly in front of the great locked gates of the Park, his back to them, hands folded neatly behind him. “Yes. And if you want to continue living life as you understand it, you must stay away, and let the Pride do its work—and that includes keeping others from interfering as well.”

He rounded on them, and the glare was back. “Do you understand me?”

Adam and Gabriel glanced at each other, and in that glance the thoughts of a hundred conversations were communicated. Looking away from each other back towards the old man, who was shaking slightly in the wind, they each nodded slowly. “Yes,” the answered together.

“Good,” said Mr. Wyntirsilvyr, and, turning sharply on his feel, strode smartly over to the gates.

Adam and Gabriel could not see what he did, and it was over too fast for them to find out—but Mr. Wyntirsilvyr’s hands touched the great rusted locks, and something happened, because it clicked apart, the gates swung open, and Mr. Wyntirsilvyr vanished inside them, shutting them neatly behind him with one quick, sure push; and Gabriel swore he saw the old man pocket the lock before he vanished into the shadows beneath the menacing trees. But when they reached the gates, as if to follow him, they found them shut fast, completely unable to be opened.

Adam could feel Gabriel looking at him, with that gaze that just screamed, “Well?”

“Okay, there’s something odd about him,” Adam snapped, and, rattling the gates one last, fruitless time, strode off and stood with his back purposely to his friend and the Park and the whole ridiculous mess.

“I think…” Gabriel hesitated. “I think we should go to the library today. I’d like… to see if I can meet this Jeremiah.”

Jeremiah… Against his will, Adam’s mind began to puzzle over the odd name dropped, almost so casually, by Mr. Wyntirsilvyr. Had he heard it somewhere before? Seen it? He couldn’t remember…

“I did some digging,” Gabriel added, a little more confidently, apparently taking Adam’s silence as permission to continue without starting another fight. “Jeremiah Minks founded and still funds the Tristantide Public Library.”

Something in Adam’s brain went click. Ah. That Jeremiah…

“Oh yeah,” he said, turning around to face Gabriel again, thrusting his hands deep in his pockets. “I’ve heard about him. Just forgot. They say,” he added, “that you can get in to see his private collection of rare books some mornings, if you go at the right time…”

Gabriel checked his watch. “It’s almost three.”

“Yeah, but it’s a Sunday. Why would he be in there?”

“It’s Monday, though.”

Adam sighed. “All right. Let’s go.”

***

With several streets between them and Rainbow’s End, Mordor, Lucille, and Florida stopped to catch their breath, Mordor still turning over and over in her mind the last, strange things Madam Eyebrow had said to her.

“I don’t know what to think,” Lucille said at last. “Except I think I want to forget about it all right now and just… oh, I don’t know. Go do something.”

Florida, who looked exhausted, nodded. “I just want to take a nap or something.”

But Mordor was watching the distant rooftops.

The two tallest buildings in the city were just visible before her, over the rooftops of a mostly residential area and a few scattered warehouses. The pinnacle of the great cathedral, with it’s great cross stretching into the sky; and the gargoyle filled, slanting rooftops of the library.

“I think we should go to the library,” Mordor said into the silence. This suggestion met with blank stares. “Well,” Mordor struggled to justify her seemingly random idea, “It’ll be cool in there. And I haven’t been yet. It’ll be open, this time of day. And who knows. Maybe we’ll find something interesting to see.”

Lucille shrugged. “It would be a nice walk.”

Florida glanced back and forth between her sister and Mordor, and gave in. “All right. Sounds okay.” She gestured to Lucille. “After you.”

Grinning, Lucille headed off down the hot, sunshine filled, empty street.

1,285. I'm about 400 words or so behind now. I'm going to fix that right now, hopefully, in the rapidly approaching wee hours of day 27. I won't have a chance later. This is the last week of classes--finals approaching--personal errands to take care of...

And yes, I know it picks up in the middle of a sentence, and that it contradicts some earlier events. If I ever edit this into a coherent story, the earlier stuff will change. Yeah.

~

trying to be fair, even though she wanted nothing more than to see the magic again, and to hear Madam Eyebrow reveal to them what was sure, she felt, to be a great and noble destiny…

I’m talking like a fantasy novel, she thought, amused.

Florida eyeballed the distant apartment seriously, no such pleasant thoughts flitting through her mind. “I don’t trust her,” Florida said slowly, “and I don’t believe in this magic crap she’s got you two—“

“Leave me out of it,” Lucille said hastily, “I’m just along for the ride.”

“—all worked up over,” Florida finished firmly, “but we need to finish this, and finish it soon.”

Silence fell. All seemed quiet, across the expanse of the playground, and Madam Eyebrow’s window looked dark. Nothing moved.

“Come on,” Florida said in a hushed voice. Then she led the way ahead of Lucille, with Mordor bringing up the rear, out through the fence and across the playground.

Watching, still and silent, from behind her ratty curtains, Madam Eyebrow began to smile.

As they neared her door, the three girls drew side by side. After a brief hesitation, with a half glance at her friends, Mordor stepped forward and knocked twice, loudly, on the cracked and peeling paint door.

It opened at her touch.

“I was afraid you might not come back,” said Madam Eyebrow. They could just barely discern her through the gloom that always seemed to fill the house.

As the stepped inside, though—Florida with her usual wariness, blatant mistrust on her face—the coolness the darkness brought was welcome.

“I have so much more to tell you,” Madam Eyebrow said, as the three of them hesitated just inside the door. “Come in, sit down. The danger that was here yesterday has passed—for the moment…”

Lucille curled up in an overstuffed armchair, raising a small cloud of dust, looking nervous. Mordor, trying to reign in her excitement for Florida’s sake, sat carefully down on an old and falling apart sofa, while Florida stood imperiously at its arm, her arms folded obstinately across her chest.

Madam Eyebrow watched her appraisingly for a minute, but then gave a small shrug, as if to say, Well, whatever, and turned to look mostly at Lucille and Mordor.

“I told you yesterday,” she began slowly, “about a balance that exists, between Here and There, and that it is protected. What I did not tell you, as we were interrupted, was the crucial part.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room, the stillness was so absolute. It seemed to Lucille, who was feeling more nervous than ever, that the stillness seemed to come from outside, almost; as if the whole world were pressing in and down on their one protected spot in this room, reaching inwards, as if to capture their moment and take it away from them, wanting to crush them, it was listening in so intently.

“Which is?” Mordor prompted, breathlessly, as the silence stretched on. She was too intent on the feeble looking old woman, settled back in her rocking chair, to notice anything but her own eagerness, the sense of balancing, waiting on a cliff, wavering—one the one side, the boring mundane reality which had always been hers, a reality of running from mistakes and hard truths, of cold nights and unchangeable choices, and this sudden, new, intense discover that there might be more, that… that magic… might actually exist.

“It’s magic, isn’t it,” she said softly, when Madam Eyebrow did not answer.

Slowly, the old woman looked up, meeting Mordor’s intense, glittering gaze.

And then, just as slowly, the old woman gave one tremulous nod of her head.

It seemed like the world breathed out, or perhaps it did only to Mordor—her entire face lit up, and her words had a bright, hard quality of joy to them: “I knew it.”

“The magic of Twilight,” Madam Eyebrow said, her words coming more quickly now, nearly rushed, as if racing to some unseen end—and, Florida noticed, she glanced warily from left to right as she spoke, as though she was afraid of being attacked, surprised, even here within her own home—“is real enough. But the magic that keeps this place in its current… balance…” She spoke the word as if it were some dreadful curse. “Is evil, rotten to its core. It is not a good thing, or natural; it is artificial, imposed—so the resources of this Convergence can be bent and twisted to the wills of those who would love to exploit it for their own ends, with no thought for the way things should or ought to be, with no thoughts for those living here…”

Three pairs of eyes were affixed on her, wide and nervous—even Florida was caught off guard, waiting for the clincher, what was sure to come next.

“Tristantide should not be fading,” Madam Eyebrow whispered, and she leaned forward, completely earnest. “It is not Tristantide’s turn to fade this time, this is not how things should be. But this so called “balance”… it has upset the natural order.”

Lucille’s voice was faint, but something in her face had changed—her eyes were being to kindle with the light of adventure. Florida shot her a sharp look as her sister asked, “What can we do?”

“Ah!” Madam Eyebrow leapt to her feet, surprisingly agile, considering her appearance and great age, and Florida, Mordor, and Lucille each jumped a little, startled. “Now we come to it!”

Madam Eyebrow shuffled hurriedly out of the room into the kitchen. Peering after her, Mordor saw all the papers she had helped to move the other day, stacked everywhere in the tiny room, lit only by its single, grungy light bulb in the middle of the ceiling above the rickety table. She dug through the pile on the middle of the table, tossing papers this way and that way, and Lucille, Mordor, and Florida watched with fascination as she muttered distractedly under her breath, examining first one sheaf of papers and then another, paying no heed as they scattered when she tossed them over her shoulder. At last, however, she pulled from the very bottom an ancient and crackling folder that shed dust and flakes of its paper as she removed it. Carrying it gingerly by the edges, treating it with far more respect than she had shown any of the other documents, Madam Eyebrow brought it back with her into the living room, holding it ahead of her like a talisman, like a holy object, like a sacred symbol.

Gently she laid the faded envelope, tied with—Florida peered closer—what appeared to be twine—on the cracked and dirty coffee table in the middle of the room. Lucille could see where the claws of the feet of the table had dug into the carpet over the years, and when the table had been moved a little, the seemingly permanent indentations left odd deep wounds, like gouges, like scars, in the grungy, faded carpet.

With trembling hands, Madam Eyebrow began to unwind the twine, which seemed to stretch on forever. But at last, she paper fell open.

Inside was a tiny woodcut, with strange markings and runes all around the edge. And as she stared at it, Mordor was suddenly, completely, without a doubt, beyond the shadow of a dobut, convinced that this tiny, unassuming object had not come from anywhere she knew of in this world. This came from the other side. This was a thing from Twilight. And she longed to touch it.

Madam Eyebrow’s gnarled finger traced carefully down the markings in the center, and in a voice that not quite a song, but more than chant, began to read:

***
***
***

I know it ends in the middle of the sentence, but I'm only about ten wrods short of where I'm supposed to be. I'm good with it. I'm tired. Good night.

~

As he took a deep drink, suddenly all the events of the previous day came rushing back to him, and he nearly choked.

Suddenly alive with energy, bursting with adrenaline, Gabriel set the cup down unsteadily on the edge of the counter, where some sloshed over the rim, and dashed for Adam’s room.

“Adam! Adam wake up!”

“Ngh?”

Gabriel jerked the pillow out from under his sleeping friend’s head and whacked him with it hard. “Get up!”

“Ugh?”

“We have to go see Mr. Wyntirsilvyr!”

Adam yawned widely—Gabriel was sure he thought he heard his jaw crack—and rubbed his eyes, brushing his hair to the side and looking thoroughly dazed. “What for?” he grumbled. “I was sound asleep.”

“Because he didn’t tell us everything, remember? We have to go find out—“

“Wait, wait…” Adam concentrated, scrunching up his face as he tried to banish the shadows of sleep in order to think properly.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” he said, oblivious of Gabriel’s sigh of frustration. He held up a hand to stop the furious diatribe he was sure was coming. “I need coffee first.” He took a deep breath, and shouted: “Zechariah!”

The wrinkled, toothless old man Gabriel had seen only a minute ago playing video games pushed open the door a ways and peeked his head in, grinning broadly. “Young Adam calls?” he asked in a thin voice, grinning ear to ear.

“Morning, Zecky. Can you make us some of your Blast Fire Coffee?”

Zechariah—Zecky? Gabriel thought, trying not to laugh—grinned even wider, if that was possible. “Right away!” he answered Adam cheerfully, and shuffled off, shutting the door behind him.

“Zecky?” Gabriel asked incredulously, momentarily distracted from his goal of going to see Mr. Wyntirsilvyr as soon as possible. “Who the heck is that?”

Adam rubbed his face with his hands in an attempt to stay awake. “My great uncle, if you most know. Although the technical term is really grand uncle, actually, not great, although I’m not sure what that makes great great uncles, I don’t know if they’re great grand uncles or grand grand uncles, or what…” he trailed off, the rest of his sentence lost in another gigantic, jaw cracking yawn.

For a moment Gabriel was at a loss for words. Then: “Why?”

“Why do I share an apartment with him, you mean? Well, because it’s cheap, for one thing, and anyway he was disowned a couple of decades ago, and I’m the only family that will talk to him.”

Gabriel felt like he shouldn’t ask, partially because it would be prying and partially because he had a feeling he simply didn’t want to know, but he just couldn’t help himself. “Disowned? Why? What was he disowned for?”

Adam frowned. “I don’t exactly know.”

Gabriel snorted. “Right… is that why you talk to him? Because you don’t know what he did?”

Adam frowned harder as he tried to work the logic of that out. “Oh. Because I don’t know enough to be ashamed of him or something, you mean? Nah. I’ve been disowned too.”

Gabriel was starting to feel that he might as well abandon all reactions of surprise before they simply wore out from overuse this morning, which was starting to feel even more bizarre than talking with Mr. Wyntirsilvyr had yesterday.

“You were disowned? What for?”

Adam grinned wickedly. “For talking to Grand Uncle Zechariah, of course.”

Gabriel was not quite sure if Adam was telling him the truth—of course, it could be a very sensitive issue, he reflected—but right then Zechariah—Zecky, Gabriel thought again of the absurd nickname for the venerable old dude, stifling a laughter, came in bearing a coffee pot in his right hand and two mugs dangling from the fingers of his left.

“Here is the Blast Fire Coffee, young Adam, for you and your friend,” Zecky said , grinning toothlessly, holding out the coffee mugs. Gingerly, Gabriel took one, mumbling “Thank you,” as he did so. Zecky still didn’t seem to notice his existence, however; the moment Adam took the coffee pot and other mug, he just grinned a bit wider and vanished back out the door. Gabriel half expected him to bow.

“What is he, like your servant or something?” he asked, trying to sound half joking and not quite as bewildered as he felt by these strange events. He held out his coffee cup as Adam held out the coffee pot, and watched the dark, steaming liquid slowly splash into the cup. He brought it to his nose and sniffed cautiously. “And this is coffee?” he asked, when Adam didn’t say anything.

Adam held his own mug out in a mock toast. “Cheers,” he said, and, pinching his nose, brought the mug of steaming liquid to his mouth and tasted a tiny sip.

Gabriel watched him skeptically. “It can’t be that bad.”

Adam just grinned at him.

Sighing, Gabriel muttered, “Cheers,” back and took a tiny sip.

And immediately gagged.

“What is that?” he spluttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yuck!”

Adam laughed. “Blast Fire Coffee, best wake up drink in the world, reportedly instant hangover cure, and in general all around noxious substance the FDA would probably band and the Army would probably patent.”

“And… and your grand uncle makes this stuff?”

“He’s the only one I know who does,” Adam said cheerfully. “And call him Zecky, it’s okay, everyone does.”

“Zecky. Right.”

Gabriel looked doubtfully down at the innocent looking liquid in his mug, and then cautiously tasted it again.

Now that he was slightly more prepared for its intensity, he could tell that the sheer brashness of the first taste hid more subtle flavors. One sip became came two, two became three, and soon Gabriel found himself quite enjoying the hot drink, although he still shuddered with each mouthful at the first onrush of taste.

He glanced up a few minutes later a bit guiltily, finally coming back to himself, but found Adam just as engrossed with the drink as he had been.

It was only then that Gabriel remembered about Mr. Wyntirsilvyr.

“Adam!”

Adam choked on his coffee. “What?”

“We have to go see Mr. Wyntirsilvyr!”

“Yes, you said.” Adam sounded a bit grumpy. “Why?”

“Don’t you want to know more?”

Adam looked at Gabriel for what seemed like a long time. “I’m not sure I do,” he said slowly. “He told us there’s some kind of Balance between this place—these places—whatever—and that something bad is going to happen. Might happen. But he also said this isn’t our problem, and we’re not some kind of fantasy saviors going to rush in and save the world or something. And besides,” Adam added, his voice sounding a bit stronger, “I’m not so sure he’s telling the truth, myself.”

Gabriel’s heart sank. “You mean you didn’t feel it? When the world… changed? And we went to Twilight? And you don’t think that if it is all real, even if we’re not supposed to do anything, we don’t have a right to know what’s going on and who’s messing with things?”

Adam frowned, thinking. He sat his empty cup on the rumpled bedcovers and went to look out the window, hands clasped behind his back. “I don’t know,” he said slowly, “what may or may not have happened in that park. It was dark, and we were both a little creeped out by the place to begin with. And even supposing,” He turned suddenly, to fix Gabriel with a very piercing stare, “this is all somehow true or whatever, we ought to just leave it alone.”

Gabriel thought hard, thoughts racing, but could think of no convincing arguments to change Adam’s mind. The idiot had been there, if he didn’t believe his own senses…

“Just come with me, one more time?” Gabriel asked finally. “Just this once more. Then if you’re not convinced—or if Mr. Wyntirsilvyr tells us to—I’ll drop it.”

Adam studied him. “All right,” he sighed. “Let’s get this over with, then.”

***

Lucille, Florida, and Mordor approached the Rainbow’s End playground cautiously. It seemed deserted, as usual—but an unnatural silence seemed to have fallen across the muddy ground, or so it seemed to the nervous girls as they approached the loose place in the fence that would grant them access to the playground.

“Are we sure we want to do this?” Lucille asked nervously.

“She did tell us to get out,” Mordor said to Florida,

It's thanks to Val today's got written. Word wars are amazing! The bit between ~*~*~*~ is the word war stuff. The sentence ends in the middle, but it was generally going for him to be "shushing" the other dude, and I'm going to delete it anyway. I decided having that guy turn u pthere randomly was a bad idea. Anyway... for today... 1,875! Woot!

~

There was something bright in her eyes.

Lucille rolled over and squeezed her eyes shut tighter against the morning sunlight. Thank goodness it’s Sunday…

Then just as she was drifting back off to sleep to pick up her dream about the four wheeler, the state of Arizona, and her cousin Tim, a small, inward voice asked, Is it?

Are you my conscious? Lucille asked sarcastically, quoting Florida’s favorite movie, with the usual flickering thought of disapproval when she compared it to her own favorite movie, The Lion King.

Now what was she thinking about? Oh yes, whether or not she was late for school…

Somewhere from the depths of the house, she gradually became aware, an alarm clock was beeping.

Oh, damn…

“Lucy?” Florida’s sleepy reached from across the room. “’S that your… thingy?”

She took a deep breath and tried to sound awake. “Yeees… ‘s…” Sleepily, she considered. “Alarm.”

“Mnph,” was her only reply.

Mordor yawned. “Are we waking up now?”

“I think it’s a school day,” Lucille sighed and rolled over again, opening her eyes, taking in the sunlight filled room.

Last night, after their thoroughly unhealthy but undeniably varied meal, the three of them had fallen asleep in the middle of a Disney movie marathon.

The television was off, but the movie still in the vcr; Lucille figured whoever had been the last to drop off had probably shut it off.

She had to find a clock… And shut off that blasted alarm…

A deep snore from the other end of the house alerted her to her stepfather’s presence. Ah… thank goodness he’s not awake to yell at me for being late… again…

~*~*~*~

Lucille stretched and rose to her feet and began tiptoeing towards her bedroom, shrugging to stretch her muscles and blinking and rubbing her eyes. Maybe, if it was late enough, to she could get out of going to school… it seemed like there was something else she was supposed to do today, anyway… she frowned… but for some reason, she could not remember, for the life of her, what it was…

Florida rolled over and yawned, looking around the extremely messy living room. The tv was off; she vaguely remembered turning it off about three a.m., when she woke up out of a doze and realized everyone was out cold, Mordor snoring faintly; enough to be noticeable, but after living with her dad’s snoring all these years, not enough by far to be annoying.

She stretched and rose to her feet, and nudged Mordor with her foot as she did so; the girl seemed to be going back to sleep. “Hey, lazy butt,” she said. “I think it’s time to get up.”

“What for?” came the sleepy, muffled reply.

“Well, I get the feeling it’s a Monday…”

“Yeah…”

“School!”

“But I don’t go to school here.” Mordor slowly pushed herself up on her elbows to gaze blearily at Florida.

“Well, I do. And trust me, you don’t want to sleep in all by yourself here and wake up to my dad shouting about who the hell are you and stuff like that, like why are you in my house… yeah all the things parents who found strange kids in their house would probably normally say.” Florida grinned.

Mordor smiled sleepily back. “You make a good point. It has a sharp edge.”

“How very punny of you.”

“Har, har.”

“Do you have a shower I can borrow?”

“Yeah…” Florida cocked her head to one side, listening. “Uh, sounds like Lucy’s in it right now. But I plan on skipping school, so it doesn’t matter if you go ahead of me.”

“Oh I didn’t mean… I mean, I don’t want to make you late…”

Florida laughed, and padded out into the kitchen where she could see a clock. “It’s almost ten. We’re already late anyway—no point in going now. And so long as we’re out of the house in acouple hours, and quiet while we’re here, dad will probably never know…”

“Never know we were here, or never know you skipped school?”

“Well he might have seen us early, early this morning when he got hoe from work,” Florida said contemplatively. “He works the night shift, you see… but then, he may not have, if he’d stopped for a pick me up on the way home, and was too drunk to notice when he finally got here…”

“Ah.”

“So where do you go to school?” Florida asked, as she moved around the room tidying up the scattered pillows and blankets. They’d even used the cushions off the sofa; she began picking them up and shoving them back into place. Mordor began to help her, suddenly feeling the awkwardness of the guest in an unfamiliar house with people one is not quite really all that close or familiar with.

“Well, actually, I graduated, a couple eyars ago.”

“Oh, really? How old are you?”

Mordor looked practically embarrassed. “Um. Nineteen.”

Florida looked at her appraisingly. “Really. And here I thought you were…” she paused, looking embarrassed.

“Thoguht I was what?” Morodr seemed amused.

“More about my age. Fifteen,” she added, anticipating Mordor’s question. “I thought you were a runaway,” she said honestly.

Mordor laughed. “Not exactly, the usual sense.”

“Then what—“ Florida started to ask.

But she was interrupted by Lucille coming in, wearing a terry cloth bathrobe, wringing her wet blonde hair in a towel. “Come on, Florida, we’ve got to go.”

Forida seemed surprised. “What, are you kidding? It’s already ten something. What’s the point of going to school now?”

“School?” Lucille seemed surprised. “Who said anything about that? Forget school. We have to go to Madam Eyebrow’s apartment!”

Florida and Mordor just looked at her. “Um… why?” Florida asked eventually.

“Didn’t she kick us out yesterday?” Mordor asked.

“Yeah? And?” Lucille said impatiently. “She showed us… magic! Don’t you remember? How amazing it was? We have to go back, and find out more! There was something—“

Suddenly, the light of understanding dawned on Mordor’s face, as a warm wave of exhiliarting memories rushed through her. “Something was wrong,” she breathed, interrupting the other girl. “And maybe… if… since she told us…”

Florida was glancing back and forth between the two of them skeptically. “Oh come on,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re going ot say we’re out to “save the world” or something. That only happens in stories!”

Mordor and Lucille just looked at her. “Oh come on!” Florida exclaimed. “You can’t be serious!”

“Well, let’s look at it logically,” Mordor said, as they both looked at her. She began ticking things off on her fingers. “First: this is something that’s supposed to be kept secret. Yet she told us. Therefore, she must have a very good reason for doing so.”

“Second,” Lucille jumped in, “It was magic. And even if we’re not some kind of… oh, I don’tk now,” she blushed a little under Florida’s eyebrow raised stare, “save the world type people, I want to go back and experience that again. It was the most…” she stopped, as if at a loss for words. “the most wonderful thing I have ever experienced. And if something is wrong—“

“Then maybe we can help her solve it somehow, even if we’re not like the heroes in stories,” Mordor finished for her.

“Heroines,” Florida said absently, looking thoughtfully at Mordor. Then she shifted her gaze to her sister, and they gazed at each other for what seemed to Mordor like a long time.

“All right,” Florida conceded. “It’ll get us out of the house, it isn’t school, and if I am right and Madam Eyebrow is up to something nasty and not to be trusted, I’d like to know as much about her as possible so we can stop her or something.”

Lucille laughed. “You know you liked seeing the magical stuff, too.”

“I’m not even sure that happened,” Florida replied seriously. “I know we talked later about it and it seemed like it must’ve been, but…” She shook herself. “Come on, let’s just get ready and go get this over with.”

Mordor smiled. “Alright. And sicne we’re not exactly on a schedule,” she said to Florida with a grin, “I’m totally stealing the shower first.”

“Race you for it!”

As the two girls took off giggling down the hallway, Lucille called uselessly after them in a carrying whisper, “Quietly!”

Shaking her head, she wrapped the towel around her wet hair as securely as she could and went about finishing up the tidying up job the other two had begun.

***

Gabriel woke to the distant sound of a video game soundtrack and sound effects, with slanted sunlight in his eyes and a great neck ache.

As he sleepily tried to assess his position, he became aware that he was not at home. Definitely not at home. And he was lying at a very strange angle… no wonder his neck was hurting…

“Adam?” he said thickly, suddenly remembering how last night had gone.

“Mmph,” said a muffled voice from behind him.

Adam rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up.

He was sleeping on the cushions from Adam’s couch, all pushed together in front of Adam’s bed, where the man himself, sprawled eagle spread on his stomach, odd colored hair flopping over the side of his face, rising and falling with his breath, looked determined to stay asleep for just a few minutes longer, for as many minutes as he could possibly get.

Rising to his feet, and feeling a little wobbly—he wished suddenly for a drink of water—Gabriel poked Adam in the side. “Hey. Adam. Wake up.”

“Mmphngggh,” Adam replied, and rolled over, limp and loose as a rag doll, and about nearly as conscious.

Gabriel sighed, and gave it up as a bad job.

He opened Adam’s bedroom door, hoping to head for the kitchen and grab a drink of water.

The sound of the video game became louder. He followed the sound out into the hallway, past the kitchen, and there—sitting in front of the couch because all the cushions, Gabriel realized, were back in Adam’s room, where he’d been sleeping on them—was someone who had to be Adam’s roommate.

He was the tiniest, wrinkliest little old man Gabriel had ever seen. He was completely bald, but a thin, scraggly beard stretched down from his chin and piled uselessly in his lap. He was currently using the video game to shoot what appeared to be—Adam peered at the screen—aliens, of a very nasty appearance and worse disposition.

“Morning,” he offered, when the little old wrinkled man did not seem to notice him.

“Eh,” the old guy grunted.

“I’m Gabriel,” he said, leaning down and offering his hand.

“Eh,” said the old wrinkled man again, not taking his eyes from the screen.

Gabriel straightened back up and shrugged, sticking his hands in pockets—he realized then he’d slept in his clothes. Oh, well. He’d tried to be polite.

He walked back to the kitchen, searched through a few cabinets until he found some cups, and went to the sink to fill his cup with water.

He nearly spilled it on himself when he turned around and saw Mr. Wyntirsilvyr standing there.

“Sir--!”

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr held one finger

~*~*~*~

***
***
***

This is what happened to me today:

1. Insomnia. 2. Really crap fill word count ideas. 3. A few hours of freezing my ass off fun with a friend. 4. Annoyances galore galore galore. Family life is rife with those, especially where... well anything is concerned I guess. So here's what I wrote today.

~

Here are the plans for the Eight Final Scenes, Kind Of, needing to be of 1667 words each at least in which to conclude this story by NaNo’s end…

1. 11-23-07: Plan. Count it as condensed scenes, and therefore legit word count, because I’m not sure what to do with this story but I’m starting to hate it and see that there is, in fact, no point to it whatsoever. And there goes the fourth wall! Kaboom. Or something like that. I still need six hundred words for today, and I just counted all this planning plot junk or whatever the heck it is… *Goes off on random wail-fest at muse and broken internet and everything*. That is, wail fest without the hyphen. There are no hyphens or compound words during NaNo. Okay, maybe compound words. I’m not a cheater. I swear. Doesn’t help that I’m still worried about history coming up and real homework and the like and can’t sleep! Joy. But back to the story…

2. 11-24-07: Mordor, Lucille, and Florida wake up and it’s Monday morning, go their separate ways, can describe school and Mordor’s wanderings a bit I guess, and then they need to meet back up at Madam Eyebrow’s, where she tells them the Pride is a secret group trying to keep balance where no balance should be—they are in the wrong, and these three girls, plus the two guys, are the Gathering that will stop them. They think she’s nuts, want to believe anyway, ask what they must do. She tells them. They make a decision to give it a shot. Meanwhile, Mr. Wyntirsilvyr is telling Gabriel and Adam that the balance must be maintained and Madam Eyebrow must be stopped at all costs. Make it so neither knows the other kids are involved. The girls think they’re going to have to convince the boys from scratch it all exists, when they’re not even sure themselves, and the boys don’t realize Madam Eyebrow has the girls doing her ‘dirty work.’ After the boys’ big scene, flip back and forth showing them searching for each other, and them all finally coming together, right on the edge of the playground and the Park.

3. 11-25-07: The boys are confused to see the girls. The girls are a bit embarrassed but try to tell the boys what they know anyway. Lots of confusion and argument and word count boosting dialogue opportunities. Kind of like this plot summary, I rather think. Sad, isn’t it. And here I had such high hopes… But my muse is fickle, and has changed his/her/it/neuter/whatever identity again, and now claims its name is Malachi and wants to tell the Candy Bar Man’s story… but that belongs in a different word file. Anyway… continuing…

4. 11-26-07: Dandelion Pride, gathered in Jeremiah’s office. Ready to set out and do their thing. (How this works with the not overtly fantasy bit, I don’t know.) Suddenly realize something is wrong. Someone is where they should not be. Realize the “Gathering” is trying to interfere. This sounds far too desperately short. Perhaps other scenes should be double long, or I should do lots of tedious yet somehow poetic description. Why am I somehow thinking of Night Court? Focus! You’re nearly there! Just a few hundred more words for the day and you’re free to go! And write other things! Or maybe ever sleep! ….Nah. Sleep is scaring me kind of right now. *shakes self* Enough bibliography! I mean biography! Back to the story!

5. 11-27-07: Back to arguing among the group. Then Alice arrives. Interesting reunion scene with Florida and Lucille. Turns out she has the other half of the broken photograph (will need to add that in at the beginning when talking about the photograph/frame thing) and it has the two girls in it. Explains that Madam Eyebrow is nuts. They explain Mr. Wyntirsilvyr is nuts. The boys get mad. Yay arguments and dialogue.

6. 11-28-07: Alice goes back to the Pride, which is now in Twilight. (Er?) Madam Eyebrow and Mr. Wyntirsilvyr show up. And I have no conclusion/climax whatsoever, do I, and all these people showing up is kind of defeating the purpose of the not overtly fantasy damnit thing I keep harping on. Great. Edit: No wait. What they’re supposed to do is get into the library and after the group of old people, ie the Pride, have done whatever it is they’re doing, something with some kind of objects, have them supposed to rearrange and or steal some of the objects. Have them nearly caught. Aren’t. Reason: Madam Eyebrow being deceptive. But they don’t know that. I’m not sure the reader should, either. So describe them getting in there and about to do this thing, the boys trying to stop them all the way. I said library, so why am I picturing the cottonwood tree? Make up your mind, muse! Maybe… yes that’s it… they’re planting another cottonwood tree… in the playground… and the kids are supposed to screw with that somehow. Haha. Except cottonwoods have nothing to do with anything. Oh well.

7. 11-29-07: Work on numerous add-ins mentioned in the list below. Get the word count up to 48,343 at least; that’s the key amount for this day. Make a note for this day’s separate section (between the asterisks bit): Insert climax here. Write add ins in separate document if needed so can have a word count to put on ET. It’s hard to count words scattered throughout several different sections originally written on different days.

8. 11-30-07: The aftermath, where they’re not sure what happened, or if anything did, with Mordor discovering/revealing her pregnancy, telling a bit about herself maybe, deciding to stick around Tristantide; Gabriel should deal with his grief a little bit. Have the weird stuff happen. Hesitate, but go to see Madam Eyebrow—only to discover she’s gone as if she was never there. EJ dies, perhaps in his shop; Adam is told when he shows up for work and there’s police there and stuff. Whatever it is you actually need for that sort of thing. Ignore little practical details like who found him, etc. Describe a little more life coming back into Tristantide. It’s just generally a slightly more hopeful or happy atmosphere, perhaps. Oh, and as for Lucille: she needs to decide once and for all whether she’s with Adam or not and solve and shelve that little drama, and Adam needs… I don’t know what Adam needs. Lucille and Florida also need to sort things out. No idea how to do that. The fight scene at the beginning just isn’t working, I suppose, although at the time it didn’t seem like too bad of an opening.


Other Things:

1. New First Scene. Probably with general observations and Mr. Wyntirsilvyr.

2. Re-write the picture/picture frame scene-ish. Add the important bits, at any rate.

3. Write how Adam and Mordor meet in a shop, to replace the wreck scene.

4. Note that away from the creepy old people this whole craziness seems less probable and harder to believe. Make a big deal out of that. Makes magic less obvious. This is not OVERT fantasy.

5. This nonsense about the Rainbow’s End company? Uh… just make it a funny named playground, the Park’s companion, as Twilight/Tristantide are companions, as the balance has both protectors and destroyers. Write a nice big long paragraph about the odd playground and park next to each other.

6. Describe Tristantide. Make it a town of unusual buildings and cool stuff that’s fun to describe.

7. Write early on scenes about the old people that turn out to be the Pride. Have the group run into them in random places. The shop, etc. Get others to interact with EJ, etc, not just Adam.

8. Have a big scene where they (boys and girls separate of course) discuss whether or not what Mr. Wyntirsilvyr and Madam Eyebrow are telling them is true. Have them examine the oddities and stuff of the old people in question (I don’t know what this means for Alice being one of them, I guess that’s just an anomalous surprise) and decide it’s possible, but in the end leave them no evidence on way or another. But somebody should die. Maybe EJ. And Madam Eyebrow should vanish like she was never there.

9. Add in clues about Mordor being pregnant. Not sure why this matters, but whatever, right. It’s her thing, and everybody has to have issues in this story, because it is too late to do anything about it ooh Another good idea do not use contractions! Ha!

10. If have no spectacular concluding line, bring it back to the dandelion symbolism or something, make the reader doubt whether something magical happened or not, or go for a very fairy tale ish ending, the style of blatantly copied from Tolkien ish or Wilde ish endings or whatever else it is I have been reading lately that is fairy tale ish. Or if all else fails just say that’s the end or something. Break the fourth wall. Be creative. Whatever.

11. If all else fails, actually add the words “the end” at the end, or no wait actually do that anyway, but then if all else really fails go through searching for contractions and expand all of them.

12. It will be fun to print this off, seal it in a brown envelope labeled NaNoWriMo 2007, and burn it. Okay, not burn it, I don’t think I could stand that, but hide it away or something.

13. A really dirt trick would be to make corrections and not delete the old words. Even in really tiny corrections. I don’t want to stoop that low. I don’t want to hate NaNo. Why isn’t is working for me??



***
***
***

511 words today, but I'm right on target overall. Total: 37,048. Two thousand more over the next two days, and then I'm practically home free. Now I just need to come up with a conclusion.

~

So Adam watched EJ closely and worked quietly, trying to be extra vigilant about his tasks as well as attempting to pick up on what ever else needed to be done without being told.

It was a slower day than usual. The store’s only “rush,” which Adam could have taken care of with both hands tied behind his back, when the church going ladies all came in to pick up a few things for Sunday dinner after the last morning service in the great cathedral of a church across town. It was the only building in town that could match the Library for sheer size and audacity in its architecture.

EJ stood behind a row of dusty canned goods with his arms folded stiffly and a deep frown wrinkling his face, watching as Adam cheerfully helped the last of the customers carry their purchases out to their cars, good naturedly brushing aside the usual strongly disapproving hints about his hair and smilingly deflecting questions about “that young lady he had been courting for so long now.”

Adam re entered the shop as the customers pulled slowly out of the parking lot, and a thoughtful look crossed his face as he studied the front of the store, sizing up what else he needed to do, and what it might be nice to get done.

He’d been a good worker, EJ reflected, sensing that a decision was on the horizon now. He’d even attempted to find out about “dent de lion,” that ill advised midnight trip to the library, poor boy… Yes, the decision was very near, now, he could nearly see its shape…

“EJ?” Adam called, rummaging through a cabinet. Yes, EJ felt in his bones, it was coming... Even as Adam continued,“EJ? Where did we put the window cleaner last time?”

…Done.

EJ unfolded his arms and shuffled forward, although the frown did not leave his face. “Never mind the windows, boy,” he said, a little gruffly. “I’d like to talk with you for a bit, before you go home for the day.”

Adam looked up from the cabinet, a bit surprised. “Sure. What’s on your mind?”

EJ beckoned him closer. A little uncertain, Adam approached. Leaning close, looking up in the face of the taller, younger man, EJ whispered, “The Pride is Gathering, young man. They have asked me—sent me—to warn you.” He took a deep breath. Adam felt as though the world hat stopped, and this one, preserved moment was being carried farther and farther away from the rest of Everything—

“Warn me?” Adam’s voice was hardly more than a whisper.

EJ’s eyes seemed to burn with some kind of inner flame. “Do not interfere.”

And then, to Adam’s extreme annoyance, the world twisted.

***

Madam Eyebrow looked out her window into Twilight, searching for someone.

But Mr. Wyntirsilvyr was not there any longer.

There was a knock on Jeremiah’s door, and he swiveled around in his large chair to face it, a smile on his lips.

“Come in, Mr. Wyntirsilvyr. We’ve been waiting for you”

***

Squee. I've lost all inspiration. Hence the random bits. Yeah.

~


Gabriel and Adam sat on the petrified stumps in silence. Darkness hung over them now like a cloud, and Adam had the uneasy feeling that just beyond, perhaps in, the dark rising walls of the forest that surrounded their small gathering place strange things lurked, that should not be there. Mr. Wyntirsilvyr had been quiet for some time, just letting them think over all he had told them.

A place that is two places… or two places that is one place… whatever… Gabriel was thinking. A balance…

Waxing and waning, Twilight and Tristantide, like the moon… Adam considered, his chin propped on his hand, elbow resting uncomfortably on his knee. One leg swung freely down from the stump, the bottom of his tennis shoe brushing the ground, and the other was drawn up to his chest, where is arms were resting. Two as one. Keepers of Place, to make sure the balance is maintained…

But now Tristantide is waning before it’s time; fading; perhaps permanently… someone is messing with the balance… Gabriel’s heart seemed to skip a beat as, for the first time, he wondered, Perhaps… perhaps this is what happened to Angie and Andrew… they came in here, probably on some stupid dare, and ran into… something… someone?... traveling between the two places, the someone causing all these problems now, trying to destroy Dandelion Pride…

Strange, Adam thought, how this “park” is named after the Keepers. Dandelion Pride… “the lion’s teeth…” A sudden idea occurred to him, and he sat up a little straighter—a strange, weird, wild idea. EJ is the one who told me that! At work that one day! About how “dandelion” in French is actually “lion’s tooth”… Could EJ possibly be…?

But now Gabriel was thinking along slightly similar lines, and it was he who spoke first. “Mr. Wyntirsilvyr,” he said slowly, a bit unsure of himself, “I don’t understand why you’ve told us all of this. I mean… what are we supposed to do about it?”

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr looked surprised. “Do? Not a thing, Mr. Anthony. Nothing at all.” He gave Gabriel a long, considering, shrewd look. “You, perhaps, deserved to know some of this—it is after all inextricably linked with the death of your sister, and your friend. On the other hand,” he added, now looking quite stern, “you wandered in here last night completely unprepared for anything, and had I not intercepted you, you would have died.”

Gabriel’s throat seemed to tighten; he could feel Adam watching him, too, shocked.

“Because of whoever’s--?” he started to ask.

“No, no,” Mr. Wyntirsilvyr said impatiently. “That person is not here right now. But those who are not meant to see Twilight, Mr. Anthony, and yet venture into it anyway, as you all unknowingly, were, by following that path, cannot survive Twilight.”

“Then how are we here now?” Adam demanded. He could not keep the slight tremor of fear out of voice.

“You are here,” Mr. Wyntirsilvyr answered in a louder voice, a voice of authority and power that nearly made the hairs on the back of Adam and Gabriel’s neck stand up, “on my authority, with my protection.” His voice and look softened a little, and he added, “Just so long as you don’t go outside this area into the trees.”

“Oh,” Gabriel managed, after a minute, and then for a little while longer silence reigned as Mr. Wyntirsilvyr busied himself with his thoughts, and Gabriel and Adam exchanged looks, trying to understand, to decide what to do now.

“So what happens if the balance isn’t righted?” Adam asked eventually. “If Tristantide just keeps… fading? I mean,” he shrugged, and looked down at his hands, now twisting in his lap as he shifted his position to sit cross legged, “we didn’t notice anything so far, it’s not like any of this… this magic stuff is really going to…” he trailed off as he raised his eyes again to meet the old man’s burning gaze.

“First of all, this is not magic,” came Mr. Wyntirsilvyr first sharp distinction, and Adam remembered belatedly the old man had gone on at length about that, earlier. “And secondly,” he was continuing, eyes flashing, “if the balance is not eventually righted—which means Dandelion Pride would be dead, failed in their purpose—a truly horrible thought—Tristantide will be wiped out, and through it, the rest of the world that you know.” He ignored the shocked look on the boys’ faces and resolutely kept speaking. “Each Maybe exists solely because of the other—but there are those who think they can tamper—“ a slight emphasis on the world revealed his distaste for such a viewpoint “—with that balance, change things so that Twilight itself will never fade, ever again, and last always. Of course, it wouldn’t be Twilight, not like that. Our enemy here apparently has no concept of what things truly are, why the work, apparently, or she would not be so foolish…” he trailed off.

“She?” Adam asked, suddenly apprehensive.

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr met his gaze in deadly earnest. “Madam Eyebrow, of course.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Not this again!”

“Oh no? Then perhaps you should ask—“ Mr. Wyntirsilvyr’s eyes went unfocused as he stared off into the distance, as though seeing something else besides the darkness between the trees “—why she has your friends here, people who have no business being here, just beyond the way, telling them a story very different from what I have told you…”

Adam was less certain now, but still pressed his point. “How can she be—?”

“She is a creature of Twilight, as I am of Tristantide,” was Mr. Wyntirsilvyr’s reply. “You are here because you are Gabriel’s friend, and because you will need to speak with Lucille, and the others, to find out what lies that woman has told them, in what ways she has tried to… to use them…”

***

Jeremiah Minks sat at his desk, watching the soft glow of his lamp, the only light in the room, reflect on the polished, gleaming surface, and waited for the thunder to come.

When it came, it brought a woman.

“Come in,” Jeremiah answered the knocking that was nearly lost in the sudden cacophony in the heavens.

The great thick door swung open at Alice’s touch, and for an instant was framed in the doorway, tall, imposing, and serious, as lightning flickered in through the high, curtainless window behind Jeremiah.

“Where has she taken my daughters?” Her voice was like daggers of ice, but Jeremiah’s expression never changed.

“Alice, hello,” he said, quite calmly. “I was hoping you would join us…”

Another flicker of lightning, and in that indefinable instant, the world twisted. Dark figures, figures of shadow, emerged from the shadowy walls into the small pool of light the lamp on his desk cast.

Jeremiah’s voice carried overtones of darkness now, and Alice, still radiating a cold fury, stepped forward to take her place beside the shadowy figures. “We have work to do.”

***

The world changed again, and Madam Eyebrow’s apartment swam into their view again, as through a mist.

“You must go. Now.” Her voice was harsh, and she looked quite shaken. “I have put you all in danger. But if you leave now… they may leave you alone…”

“Who? Madam Eyebrow, who?” Mordor’s voice was urgent. “We can… help… do something…”

Madam Eyebrow made frantic shushing gestures. “You must not tell them that! No! Or they will…”

“They?” Florida heard herself asking. Everything seemed far away, as though she was in a daze, just waking up from a deep sleep. How, how, could any of this be possible…

Madam Eyebrow only shook her head. “No. Not here. Not now. Go, you must go, leave the playground, get away from the Park, for a while…”

Lucille, Mordor, and Florida looked at each other, uncertain.

Madam Eyebrow turned on them. “GO!” she shouted, and like frightened rabbits, the three girls scampered for the door.

It was strangely dark outside. When did it get this late? Mordor thought. And then—Oh no… if she’s right… if I need to leave the park…

“We should get out of here.” Lucille’s voice trembled, and she shook like a leaf in the thin wind that began to blow.

“Come home tonight, Lucy,” said Florida suddenly, looking strangely young as all her usual stubborn anger faded from her face. “Don’t go to Adam’s.”

Lucille nodded.

Tasting bitterness, Mordor turned, ready to leave on her own—

And froze. “There’s something there!” she hissed.

“What?” Lucille’s voice actually squeaked a little.

“Where?” Florida’s voice was sharp.

Mordor pointed to the edge of the Park.

Something was coming out of the trees—something large—something going fast—

“Run!”

The three of them turned and fled, racing to the way out of the playground.

***

Gabriel, Adam, and Mr. Wyntirsilvyr stood at the edge of the Park, watching as the last of the girls made it through the loose part of the wire fence that was the entrance to the playground.

“Damn,” Adam said softly, thinking of Lucille.

“We are going to have to talk to them,” Gabriel said grimly.

“Good luck,” said Mr. Wyntirsilvyr, with what may have been the faintest trace of sarcasm.

Adam turned to call him on it, but Mr. Wyntirsilvyr was gone.

“Where’d he go?” he exclaimed in surprise, turning around and around as though the old man had merely dropped into the shadows somewhere.

Gabriel glanced around. “I don’t know. But look, that’s really not important… he’s probably gone to…” His voice dropped, as though he was afraid of someone overhearing. “Gone to join Dandelion Pride, probably. If he’s not one of the Lion’s Teeth, he probably wouldn’t have known all he told us, right?”

Adam looked unconvinced. “Maybe. Or maybe…” He hesitated.

Gabriel cocked his head to one side, studying the taller boy. “Maybe what?”

But Adam just shook his head. “Nah…” He waved his hand about, as though that would banish silly thoughts. “Just me being paranoid, I guess. He… he showed us that the… the Convergence is real, we were…” his voice dropped “…in Twilight, er, Tristantide from the Twilight point of view, whatever… Everything else he told us must be true too, right?”

Gabriel frowned. “You think Mr. Wyntirsilvyr would lie to us? Why?”

Adam gestured broadly, a movement that became a shrug. “How should I know? Unless… unless he really wants everything to go wrong, and by telling us not to do something he’s really—“

Gabriel snorted, and interrupted Adam with a quick, “Yeah, right. I trust him, at any rate. There’s something… trustworthy about him, you know?”

Adam nodded slowly. “I guess, yeah… But then, I thought Madam Eyebrow was harmless, too…”

“Because you really thought so, or because convention says lonely old ladies living alone are Grandmother figures to every stray under thirty person they meet?” he asked shrewdly.

Adam gave a little awkward half grin. “Good point.”

Gabriel gestured out to the playground. “So what do we do now? It’s dark, but I don’t think we have to be leaving, quite just yet, if we don’t want too…”

But at that moment, a huge peal of thunder crashed overhead, seemingly directly above their heads. Rain drops pelted down hard, like tiny missiles hurtling to earth, and lightning forked the sky as though some great cosmic snake were reaching out with its tongue to taste the sky, as if the world were some great bird’s egg that might make a good dinner.

Gabriel shielded his face with his arms, and Adam drew his jacket up over his head. “I think we’d better go,” Gabriel shouted above the wind, which whipped through them bearing particles of ice.

Adam shivered violently. “Yeah. If you don’t have to go home just yet, you can come on over to my place, it’s close.” Gabriel nodded, and Adam headed towards the same exit the girls had taken.

“What about your lovely fluorescent pink jeep?” Gabriel asked a few steps later, loudly, to be heard over the storm.

“I don’t know, we skipped that scene, remember?” Adam half shouted back, just as a particularly nasty gust of wind nearly blew them over.

“Oh, right,” Gabriel remembered. They reached the fence, grateful for the relative ease from the fury of the weather its overgrown hedge gave.

And behind them, across the distance of the dust of the playground, dust that was rapidly turning into mud thanks to the rain, from her window, Madam Eyebrow watched them go, a dark, frowning look on her ancient face.

***

Mordor could hardly believe her luck. Not only had Florida and Lucy invited her to spend the night with them, there was free, hot food involved, too.

The three girls giggled in the kitchen as they panned hopefully through the shelves and refrigerator, pulling out anything that looked promising.

“Ooh, chocolate chips!” Lucille exclaimed excitedly from her perch on top of the counter by the sink, from where her height allowed her to easily inspect the top most cabinets. She tossed them over her shoulder, hardly looking. “Catch!”

The half full bag, twisted shut with a bread bag tie, which, incidentally, rhymes with rhey, that is, rhy, damnit, RYE, which happened to be the kind of bread it had previously tied (tyed?) shut, caught Mordor a glancing blow on the head on its way to a plunk landing on the counter.

“Hey!” Mordor reached for a bag of marsh mellows, also on the counter, and chucked them back at Lucille. “Watch you’re aiming at that stuff! What if it had been a heavy can or something?”

Lucille laughed, leaning backwards, keeping herself from falling by the simple expedient of holding on to the shelf in front of her. Her silly grin met Mordor’s good natured scowl. The marsh mellows, which had missed by a mile, she picked up with one hand—earning a sharp, “Watch it, Lucy!” from Florida for her trouble—and tossed awkwardly back at Mordor, where they hit the counter and bounced onto the floor. “If it had been a can,” she said cheerily, “I wouldn’t have thrown it!”

Mordor grinned and shook her head, bending to pick up the can.

Florida, who had been rummaging in the refrigerator, turned around holding a pot of leftover macaroni and cheese and a container of Country Bob’s BBQ sauce. She surveyed the mess of packages and leftovers on the counter critically: marshmallows, chocolate chips, pickles, bacon, hamburger patties, peanut butter, honey, raspberry jelly, waffle mix, green jello, baby carrots, and mustard. She sighed. Never ask three teenage girls to make a healthy meal for themselves…

Mordor seemed to having similar thoughts, as she looked up from her examination of the package of walnuts in her hands, giving Florida a rueful smile.

Lucille heaved a sigh, and hopped down off the counter. “Well… there it is. What can we make, ladies?”

***

The torrent of rain began to slow around midnight. In its place, a mist began to grow, wrapping around the town slowly but surely, cropping up in otherwise mist free places, darkening windows and changing the look of everything it touched. It built deep in the shadows, and tendrils curled and uncurled in the light of flickering streetlamps.

The residents of Tristantide shivered in the dropping temperature and shut their windows and turned up the heaters, muttering about climate changes and how strangely silent, deserted the town seemed, especially on nights like this…

Adam and Gabriel sat talking quietly in Adam’s room of the apartment he shared with his roommate, wondering about Mr. Wyntirsilvyr and pondering the strangeness of the afternoon.

Lucille, Florida and Mordor whiled away the night in the kitchen, cooking outrageous dishes barely palatable and a few real recipes, following Lucille’s lead in pretending that everything was normal, that nothing out of the ordinary had happened—although in the quieter moments, when Florida and Mordor caught one another’s eyes, a silent understanding passed between them: to go back to that place, that place of, whatever Madam Eyebrow said, magic, {{change it so Madam Eyebrow tells them it IS magic}} as soon as possible.

And in the well guarded, dimly lit office of Jeremiah Minks, located in the far corner of the private rooms of the Tristantide Public Library, a Gathering made careful, precise plans, just as they done for time immemorial.

***

The sun rose the next morning on a still mist covered city, and no matter how brightly it burned, the mist stayed.

It had faded some, by noon; it was not so thick as to be impenetrable, just a lingering fog, swirling about peoples’ ankles as they walked down the street, necessitating for drivers that car headlights be turned on…

…And causing EJ to frown. Persistently. Once, he even snapped at a bewildered Adam, who had no idea what he’d done wrong. Although he was tired from staying up so late talking with Gabriel, he hadn’t fallen asleep or made any irreparable mistakes—just a few small ones he’d immediately corrected.

***
***
***

Just barely posting in time today! And only barely on count. Needed for total: 33,340. Have: 33,352. And it's practically already tomorrow when another 1667 is called for...

I know some of this is random, and the italics are missing because I'm too lazy to add them in. But every time you see "the world changed", the italics is on the last word. And... you gotta love cliche cliffhanger endings :D

~

In a moment that must have been born of sheer insanity, the world changed.

Adam struggled to understand, and his eyes blurred trying to focus on a single place that was no longer exactly a single place.

Not as simplistic as to photographs, both semi transparent, laid over one another, this sensation was harder to quantify—for one thing, it stretched into four dimensions, and a funny tickling feeling at the back of Gabriel’s mind suggested to him that perhaps it was even more than that. Of course, he had the advantage of having done this twice already—he tries to glance Adam’s way, concerned, and remembered too late his eyes wouldn’t cooperate.

The world changed again, and vision snapped back into place.

But this was not the place they had left… not exactly. At least, there was a different feel in the air. Something indefinable, indescribable, was… different.

Adam noticed nothing. He was too busy taking several deep, slow breaths; content, for the moment to ignore what all these bizarre happenings might mean and simply keep from losing his lunch. For the moment, he did not even question what it was that had made him queasy…

Gabriel found his voice first. “Mr. Wyntirsilvyr? Are we…?”

“Yes.”

Adam’s impatience overmastered his unspoken resolve to keep his mouth shut. “Are we what? There yet?” he finished his question sarcastically.

“We are, as a matter of fact, although, of course, in one sense, we always were.”

Adam, who had just taken another deep breath, let it all out at once in what was nearly a snort. “You’d better start talking sense real fast, old man, or so help me I’ll—“

“You’ll… what?” Mr. Wyntirsilvyr’s smile was understanding, but nonetheless a little stern. “You are on my territory now, impatient Mr. Midman. But then…” his smile was ironic now. “Once again, I must add, ‘Of course, you always were.’”

Adam opened his mouth, undoubtedly to respond with another empty threat, but Gabriel interrupted him. “Tristantide isn’t a normal town, Adam. That’s what Mr. Wyntirsilvyr has been telling me. Things about… this Park, for one… and…”

“And how close you nearly came to disaster,” Mr. Wyntirsilvyr supplied when the blue eyed boy trailed off. “Young Miss Sophia was very right to distrust Madam Eyebrow.”


***

~~

Once upon a time
There was a Dandelion Pride
And the Lion's Teeth were swift and fierce,
Guardians in the shadows.
As unassuming flowers in the field
They are the sword and shield
The anvil for the steel
The Keepers of Place

Moonlight waxes, moonlight wanes
Places grow, and places fade
Never balanced, never won
The mystery of two as one
Once saved, never lost
Guarded always, any cost
But do not ask, nor seek to know
Whence they come, or where they go

In fields of shadow, by sun and moon
In darkest night or brightest noon
Walking through the fire wreathed
The immortal Lion's Teeth
Servants of the Flowing Time
Here stand Dandelion Pride

~~~

***

~~~

{Add after bit about the tree speaking for the first time}:

Its name was Edgar.

And Mr. Wyntirsilvyr smiled.

~~~

***

“I don’t think it’s right,” Florida said bluntly, staring Madam Eyebrow down.

The old woman adopted a look of mild surprise that was clearly sarcastic, but her voice only gave the merest hint of it as she folded her arms across her chest, matching Florida’s belligerent position, and asked, “Oh? Do explain.”

Florida’s eyes narrowed. Lucille, seeing the look on her younger sister’s face, closed her own eyes momentarily, recognizing the warning signs. Mordor, glancing at Lucille, watched the confrontation half amused, half impressed. Florida was nearly as prickly as she often was. Mordor rolled her eyes at herself mentally as she realized that idea very nearly surprised her. Yeah, imagine that…

Florida began listing off her complaints against the situation, counting on her fingers. “You’re a complete stranger to us. You live in a weird situation, in a deserted part of town. We know nothing about you, but you seem to know more than enough about us. You admitted to spying on us. You keep inviting us in, telling us inside we’ll get an explanation, but for all we know you’re a crazy axe murderer—“

Lucille let out an involuntary gasp at her younger sister’s rudeness, and Mordor attempted to hide her sudden giggle at the thought of spindly, fragile-looking, friendly Madam Eyebrow as a killer in a hastily conjured cough.

Without batting an eye, Florida acknowledged her sister’s reaction in a typically sarcastic way. “—Murderess, excuse me.”

She leaned back on her heels a little, still well outside the door frame, a challenging look on her face as Madam Eyebrow appeared to—slightly to Mordor’s surprise—to take all these accusations, even the last, seriously.

“You make a few valid points, Miss Florida,” Madam Eyebrow began. “But sometimes the appearance of a thing is true, and not false at all—and the appearance your friends see is that I am just an old lady eager for company.” She smiled. “I live a very lonely life.”

Lucille opened her mouth as if to speak, but Madam Eyebrow held up one hand to stop her, adding “Of course, that is not all there is to the story. I am also here to help you.”

Florida very nearly rolled her eyes. “Oh really.”

“Yes. Let me show you…”

And then, in a moment that seemed to stretch for years, as if forgotten and left behind by the rest of time, the world changed.

***

Adam was having trouble escaping the feeling that all of this was just a very bizarre dream.

“You know Madam Eyebrow? And you think she’s, what, some kind of dangerous?” he asked incredulously.

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr regarded him solemnly. “And how well do you know the old bat?”

Adam glared, knowing the truth trapped him. “All right, I don’t, but the only one of us who just met her who didn’t like her was Florida, but Florida doesn’t like anyone.”

“Except people worth liking.”

Adam nodded sarcastically. “Right. Because you know more about her than I do.”

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr regarded him calmly. “I know more than you think, Mr. Midman. And if you would just be quiet for a moment, I would explain to you how close you’ve come to disaster, and what you must do—or rather, not do—next.”

***

EJ was having a conscience problem.

He stared at the old fashioned black phone, complete with dial numbers, and debated. Would he appreciate the warning? Was this just going to get himself into trouble? What if he already knew, and saw this call as… well, something negative? Or supposing he was just being over sensitive, and there was nothing to call about at all…

Shaking his head, EJ turned and headed out of the tiny back office of his grocery store, flipping off the light switch as he went.

He was just about to shut the already locked, windowless door when he heard the first ring.

***

Jeremiah Minks had an ageless sort of face. You could be reasonably certain he was over thirty because of the shock of white hair and the crows feet wrinkles about the corners of his eyes, but his face was smooth, his voice strong, and he moved about with the agility of the healthily, happily young.

Jeremiah Minks was on the phone.

“That’s right, EJ,” he was saying as he leaned back in a great leather office chair, slippered feet crossed at the angles on his great over sized desk. “That’s right. Just as it was discussed before…”

He cocked his head to one side, listening, and a slight frown line appeared on his forehead. “Rainbow’s End?”

The frown line dug deeper. “I see. And what is his name…?”

Another silence. When Jeremiah spoke again, it was in a voice of command, a voice like distant thunder, a voice that tolerated no subterfuge. “You are sure?”

EJ’s answer seemed to satisfy him, however, or at least, pass the test; looking far older and more careworn than he had at the beginning of the conversation, Jeremiah leaned forward to replace the phone on the receiver on his otherwise empty desk, and leaned back in his chair, thinking hard.

So. A Gathering. And a batty old woman who called herself Madam Eyebrow was living at Rainbow’s End…

Jeremiah slowly removed his feet from the desk and sat forward on the edge of his chair, thoughts flashing through his mind like fireworks. He could not be quite sure, yet, just what was taking place, but obviously something needed to be done…

He reached for the phone again. It was going to be a long night.

***

Alice was dreaming of her daughters.

She lay sleeping beneath an old cottonwood tree that stood alone in a field of dandelions, wrapped in a giant blanket. Her light brown hair fell over one side of her face, and a few strands stirred slightly with each breath she exhaled.

The tree hated to wake her, but it was important that she know what was happening… it had been told to give warning, as soon as he knew…

Of course, he might already be too late.

This thought made the tree hesitate. Time ran differently in the Split Same. But it was Mr. Wyntirsilvyr who had told him, and Mr. Wyntirsilvyr knew nearly everything.

Very softly, the tree began calling Alice’s name.

He did not call her Alice.

***

Florida was annoyed.

This was not an unusual state of events. But this time, Florida was annoyed because she was being offered something she had always wanted, by someone she could not, no matter what anyone said, trust.

They stood in a place that was Tristantide, but different. Nothing had moved; they had not gone anywhere, in the usual sense of the term. But Madam Eyebrow’s apartment was different—and the view from the window revealed only a grassy field, covered in Dandelions—no dust, no playground. All that remained was the dense covering of trees that marked the beginning of the Park.

“It’s magic,” Mordor whispered softly, who was staring at the pale, nearly translucent walls that rose up on all sides of them. Gone was the clutter of papers, the ratty furniture, even the old lady house smell—to be replaced with what looked like great trees with black leaves, but, as Mordor was discovering, were really words, living words growing out of the ground, twisting upwards to some invisible light in great vines, growing together in thick, twisty trunks, words in a language she could not understand…

Florida saw the look on Mordor’s face, and felt a twist in her gut. The pale redhead looked exactly as Florida wanted to feel.

“It’s not magic,” Madam Eyebrow said sharply. “There’s no such thing. This is my apartment. This is Rainbow’s End, and outside is the playground, and the Park—“ her face twisted as she said the word, and a shudder seemed to ripple through the air, and the three girls looked around in alarm—“that is, Dandelion Pride. It is all of this… as otherwise.”

“I don’t understand,” Lucille said softly, her pale eyes large. Mordor, momentarily distracted from her examination of the words—trees?—felt a momentary stab of pity for the bewildered sounding girl.

Madam Eyebrow nodded seriously. “Let me try to explain…”

***

“Twilight is a place of Maybes,” Mr. Wyntirsilvyr was saying.

He, Gabriel and Adam were seated on three of the great, petrified stumps that, as the mist cleared from his vision, Adam had realized were scattered around the place. Well, not scattered—as he looked closely, Adam thought they had been laid out in some kind of pattern, but he wasn’t sure. It might make a scene if seen from above, he thought absently, even as he asked, “A place of Maybes?”

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr shrugged. “There are many names for it; Split Same, Place of Maybes, Twilight, Tristantide, The Moon’s Time, Convergence…”

“Two places as one,” Gabriel said softly, staring into the darkness.

“One place as two,” Mr. Wyntirsilvyr agreed.

“Isn’t that two different things?” Adam argued.

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr shrugged. “In the case of this place, no one is quite sure, not even the Keepers of Place.”

“The what?” Gabriel asked. “You didn’t mention them before.”

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr smiled. “That’s because I had to tell you together.”

“Wait, wait, does this have anything to do with this alleged reason you have for why we’re not supposed to trust Madam Eyebrow?”

The silver haired man nodded, quite serious now. “Everything.”

***

“The Split Same are a rare thing,” Madam Eyebrow was telling her quiet, awed listeners—Florida still sanding distrustfully in the doorway, although the door was now shut, after Madam Eyebrow had warned her not to step on the grass. “In all the world, in all of time, it is thought that there has only ever been this one. And so it has…” her voice changed, but whether its careful neutrality carried a touch of reverence or distaste, Lucille found it hard to tell. “…Keepers. Keepers of Place. And there are… others…”

“Who are these Keepers?”

“They look at the Convergence from the vantage point of Tristantide,” said Madam Eyebrow. “But they see Twilight, as well.”

“Are you one of these Keepers?” Florida asked, trying not to sound as hostile as before.

Madam Eyebrow did not answer, but went to look out the window.

“Is it…” Lucille hesitated. “Can’t you say?”

Madam Eyebrow did not answer.

“Is it different times, as well?” Mordor asked, from her place by the tree. Her voice sounded strange, and Florida thought, looking at her, that she was trying to keep reigned in a great, terrible excitement.

Madam Eyebrow turned away from the window, answering at last. “Of course,” she said.

“Then what do you see?” Mordor pressed. “Out the window? Since you can… see… both Twilight and Tristantide?”

The old woman’s face turned cold and angry. Lucille involuntarily took a step backwards, and Mordor and Florida glanced at each other, half frightened, as her harsh whisper echoed across the room.

“I see death.”

***

495 words today. I know it sucks and cuts off abruptly, but I fell asleep, okay? I only got about 2 1/2 hours of slep the night before. So now I need 2,000 words for the 20th to be right on schedule again. No problem...

~

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr watched the two boys approach from a safe vantage point, high in a tree. Mr. Wyntirsilvyr got along with trees. He and they spoke the same language.

Adam and Gabriel were still stumbling about a bit, blinking, trying to get used to the how much darker the evening was beneath the trees. It didn’t help that twilight was nearly gone now, too, replaced with true night. It was so peaceful… so… deceptively… peaceful.

“Gabriel!” Adam’s voice cut through the silence like a knife. “What the hell is going on?”

Ah. And now even the illusion of calmness is broken, Mr. Wyntirsilvyr thought. He watched with mild interest as the argument between the two boys, now standing directly beneath his tree, and, apparently, completely oblivious to his presence, developed.

“There’s a man! We should really talk to him.”

“What??”

“I met him, he told me about—“

“What, here? He’s probably a raving lunatic! Maybe a murderer! No one comes here, Gabriel, give it up already! We have to get out of here before he comes back—“

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr cleared his throat loudly.

The argument beneath his dangling feet stopped instantly, and the air grew thick with tension.

“Give it up, you say, young man?” Mr. Wyntirsilvyr asked rhetorically into the sudden stillness. “That would, at present, be most unwise. You really ought to hear what I have to say first…”

“Who are you?” Adam shouted, trying to keep his voice steady—but the fear showed through nevertheless. “Where are you? Show yourself!” In an undertone, he hissed to Gabriel, “We’re both going to die out here, damnit!”

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr dropped down from the tree lightly, like a cat, directly in front of the arguing boys—Adam and Gabriel impulsively jerked away, startled, and he quickly held his empty hands up, a gesture of passiveness, of harmlessness. “I just want to talk,” Mr. Wyntirsilvyr said. And then, with a nod to the dark haired boy, “Hello again, Gabirle.”

“Good evening, sire,” Gabriel replied solemnly, one restraining, comforting hand on Adam’s shoulder.

Adam seemed to have relaxed a little, but he was still visibly tense and wary, and his voice was suspicious as he asked, “Talk about what?”

Mr. Wyntirsilvyr smiled, a serious, sad smile so sincere that Adam suddenly, inexplicably found himself wanting to trust this strange little man, despite all the creepy, even bizarre, circumstances.

“About twilight, Mr. Midman,” Mr. Wyntirsilvyr said. “And the importance of discerning fact, from fiction…”

***

{Meanwhile, the girls are at Madam Eyebrow’s, where she gives them a rather different story. Note: cut back and forth between the two scenes, showing the contradictions—and the little clues for distrusting each.)
~

Florida stopped at the entrance to the doorway, her arms folded stubbornly, and a thoroughly determined look on her face. “Why?” she demanded.

Lucille and Mordor let out identical exasperated sighs. “Stop being ridiculous!” Lucille snapped at the younger girl.

Madam Eyebrow appeared behind Lucille and Mordor. “Is there a problem?”

Skipped another scene transition again... Wow. A whole 307 words today. Joy. At least the word count is still okay, even if the plot is kind of... floundering. And yes, the writing isn't the BEST. That's not the point right now. The point is, no matter how horrible it is, to get the whole damn story on paper so for once in my life I will have finished something I started!!!!

Mantra: Editing is for December...
Mantra: Just 20,000 more words...

~

Gabriel’s crystal blue eyes were alight with excitement, glittering in the half light of the quickly fading day as he and Adam approached the now open gates of the Park.

“Funny, how all the interesting stuff takes place at either dawn or twilight,” Gabriel said softly, peering ahead down the shady path he had so recently just traversed. “Twilight…” his face grew thoughtful. “The time when day and night are one, kind of, almost but not quite…”

Adam was feeling thoroughly unnerved by this point, watching Gabriel’s intense face nervously. “Er… right…” he ventured. “Look, Gabriel, are you sure this is such a marvelous idea? It’s getting dark, and I really wanted to spend this evening with Lucille, I told her I’d meet her and everything.”

Gabriel seemed not to hear him, still watching ahead into the gathering darkness—where it seemed, there beyond the gates, even darker than evening called for, Adam realized nervously, before immediately brushing it off as being paranoid and silly. Of course it’s darker in there! Everything is in the shade of trees, trees everywhere, everything covered by trees! Don’t be such a paranoid, merdurinous minded moron! he chided himself forcefully.

“…Gabriel?”

“This won’t take long!”

Adam glanced at his watch. “It’s already taken longer than—“

But he was interrupted by Gabriel’s strangled shout of triumph. Adam looked quickly back into the Park, but he could see no difference, nothing that would cause—

“Come on!” Gabriel grabbed Adam by the wrist and dragged him through the gates, straight through the overhanging trees, into the heart of the Park.

Darkness folded in around them, and for a few moments they stumbled on every bump in the path—if you can even call this formed enough to be a path, Adam thought irritably—until their eyes adjusted enough to make out their surroundings a little better.