The Hidden Properties of Fruitcake
(1) (2)
~ An Epiphany Story

The Yearlings
~ A New Years Story

I really love both of these pieces and hope you do, too.

Eva had always dreaded New Year’s because it felt like loss. Even more than her birthday, she felt as if she aged the whole of the year in that last day- December 31st- The End- Finality- Close the book and put it away on the shelf along with all its predecessors- Done.

It had been easier as a child. She had mostly slept through it back then. Her teen years had made it pretty crappy, though- there were parties and dates and happy kisses at midnight. Except, she tended not to be that happy at midnight- she tended to cry. Four boyfriends had broken up with her over it by the time she was twenty-five years old. Okay- maybe she did provoke them a little. It had to be hard to keep wanting to be with someone who wouldn’t go out, wouldn’t celebrate, wouldn’t even kiss you on one of the best party nights of the year (and then got mad at you for trying to cheer her up). Believe it or not, angry, crying, crazy chick was not a good look on Eva.

And, here is was again- New Year’s Eve of her thirtieth year- old enough to be past this ridiculous phobia- to be past indulging in this bout of seasonal craziness- old enough to know better by now. But, here she was, lying in bed at (she glanced over at the glowing digital display from her alarm clock that was counting up or maybe down the last hours of the year) 8:37 p.m. She was lying in bed at 8:37 p.m. hoping to go back to the comfortable bliss that she had enjoyed in her childhood of sleeping through her doom. She was wide awake and shivering- despite the flannel nightgown, two quilts and her furnace being turned up higher than both global warming and her empty bank account should have allowed. She’d gotten up to check the thermostat twice already. Then again, maybe she wasn’t quite as wide awake as she thought, since she could hear them- the dream voices in her head. They were arguing.

“I don’t think she’s going to do well. She feels it too much,” a harsh male voice said.

“Ah- you’re too far from your year,” another, warmer, also-a-man’s voice countered. “I still feel the switchover day strongly, too.”

“That is because your generation is not as tough as mine is- as any of us old-timers are,” the gruff voice returned.

“And you want her to be tough? Compassion is what makes the job go well. It makes for a peaceful year.”

“Bah- too much compassion makes them soft- a world of whiney little brats.”

“Shh- she is listening.”

“Nah- she can’t hear yet, not until midnight.”

“Shh- yes she can. I could hear for days ahead. It comes of feeling it so much.”

“Bah- you’re touched in the head.”

“Still, you do have other tasks that need your attention,” the warmer voice hinted.

“That I do. Good luck with breaking this one in, Ace,” the gruff voice offered, but he didn’t seem all that sincere.

“We’ll be fine thanks.”

Eva felt something heavy lift away, but there was still something- no, someone there. And he was humming Auld Lang Syne. Usually, Eva hated that song, but the deep, warm baritone humming it tonight was soothing. She fell all the way asleep between one chorus and the next.

***

Eva awoke in a flash of pain and loss, knowledge and bitterness, joy and bliss, but as she cried out from it all, a soft hand settled on her cheek and another rubbed small circles on her back. The warm voice from her dream was humming again, giving her something to concentrate on- pulling her up to the surface from the images and the feelings and the sounds that were surrounding her- drowning her.

After a time, she realized that she was crying- weeping- bawling so hard that breathing hurt and her face would be covered in tears and snot if it weren’t pressed hard up against a warm, damp, cotton-covered shoulder. She sat up and looked at the person attached to the shoulder. In the wane light cast by her alarm clock, she could see that it was a strange man. She hopped up and out of her bed, but her legs failed her, her entire being too distracted by the concept of WAR- she suddenly knew war in such harsh and intimate detail- pain and loss and stupid, stupid choices- all of which were so wrong. Someone caught her as she slumped down, preventing her from injury.

It was after midnight, she could feel it without bothering to look at the clock. A new year always felt raw and open until she settled into it. It usually took until late February before the decaying feeling of the end of the old year fully left her, replaced by the burgeoning growth of the blossoming spring. She was back on the bed and someone was saying, “Okay. It’s okay. Just lay back down a minute. I’ve got you,” and it was the same warm baritone from her dream. He was sitting next to her, warmth radiating off him with comforting strength. He was here to keep her safe- she knew it with the same surety that she knew that the next year had dawned.

She sat up slowly, her eyes still closed, her face squinched up against the pain she knew was just held back by his presence. She took a shaky breath, forced her eyes open and asked, “Who are you?” Her words came out breathy and meek.

“Evan, Evan Langson. Nice to meet you,” he said, shifting away from her just a bit, as if worried that he might be making her uncomfortable.

“Oh- yes. Nice to meet you, as well, I guess. Uh- how did you- I mean, you are the same Evan from my-” she stopped trying to speak, unsure how to not sound crazy asking if he was the same man she’d seen and heard in her dreams for the last few years.

“Your what? Where do you think you know me from?”

“My, my dreams- wow, that sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” she said, almost laughing out of nervousness.

“Not so much as you might think. The line between Linear Time and Eternal Time is easier for us to feel than it is for humans. Details bleed through.”

“Oh.” Eva shifted closer to him, missing the earlier proximity. “Wait- humans?”

“Yes. Maybe you should have a glass of water or something to eat.” He pulled something small and crinkly from his pocket and held it out to her in the still darkened room. “Peppermint? They are wonderful for the nausea. I lived on them during the worst days of my year.”

And, just the thought of the little red and white swirled candy perked her up. “Yes, please.” She unwrapped it and quickly popped it into her mouth. After a moment of savoring the candy, she asked again, “Uh- humans? I’m human, you know,” she told him, but eh moment she did, she wondered if it was the truth.

“Ah well, yes you are, but also, no you aren’t. You, my dear, are a Yearling, as am I. We are born of human mothers and fathers, but there is something not quite human added to the mix.” He unwrapped himself a peppermint, too.

“Yearling?” she said the word more to test it out in her mouth than to question the rightness of the name. Yes, she could feel it. She was a Yearling. But what did that mean (except that she was not quite human- which frankly, made so much sense to her).

“So, yes.” He pulled a stack of file cards from his other pocket. “So, there is this whole speech I’m meant to use to explain everything.” He shuffled his cards. “Okay, yes. Here we go. You are a Yearling, a mythical being born into a human family and living as one of them until your year arrives. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this is your year, Eva. I am another Yearling- my year was five years ago, now. I’m meant to be a mentor of a sort, to help you in managing the responsibilities of your year, and of course, to answer any questions you might have.” He looked up from his cards. “Do you have any questions?”

“Well, no. Yes- I, I do, but I’m not sure how to make them into sensical questions. What- what do I have to do?” she finally managed to ask.

“Mostly? Try to be happy,” he answered. “Or at least calm. Most importantly, don’t panic. Panicking is really not good.”

“Okay. No panicking, got it.”

“No, I mean it. You remember the Great Chicago Fire? That was caused by a panic attack over a singed pinky finger, no lie.”

“Okay, I understand. I panic and bad things happen. But what- how is that how it is?”

“Well, all of your moods- your health, you life in general influence the world this year. You have good stuff happen, you deal well with any bad stuff, and the world gets a good year. But, you have a bad year or you, you know, panic, and things go poorly.” He shoved the file cards back into his pocket. “So, there it is.”

“Yes, I guess it is,” she agreed. It really did make perfect sense of her life.

“Oh- do you feel that?” he asked, pointing vaguely off to the left.

She looked in that direction and tried to feel it, but there were too many things- too much knowledge when she reached out for something. It all jumbled up. “What? The thing in Sweden?”

“No, that will be fine. The Swedes hardly ever cause trouble anymore- all that sunshine. No, I meant Eastern Europe. There’s not enough wheat- the crops are failing.”

She thought about Russia and Georgia and all the –Stan countries. There it was, now she could feel it. “What do I do?” she asked not panicking- breathing slow and regular even as she wracked her brain.

“Pancakes,” he stated shortly.

“Uh- I can’t make pancakes for half a continent.”

“No, silly. Just for us. You eat well and the world does, too.” She gave him a disbelieving look. “I promise, it works,” he reassured her. She put her feet into her slippers and pulled on a sweater so that no one would die of exposure in Northern Canada, had another peppermint to prevent an outbreak of influenza in the south of France, and remembered to lock up her apartment to prevent a crime wave in Sri Lanka.

Then, they went in search of a pancake house that was open after midnight on New Year’s.

“We’re going to have a good year if it’s the last thing I do,” thought Eva, smiling.

Peggy woke with the sound of her phone ringing- and thought to herself- who was calling at- she glanced at the time on her cell as she picked it up- 1:47 a.m.?

It was Nannette, of course. Who else? Peggy went to silence the ringer and realized that it had only rung once, which meant it was a text and not an actual call. She clicked through to read it, after a moment of indecision about just rolling over and going back to sleep. It read, “U hav 30 daz 2 live- use them wisely.”

Despite the fact that she had to work in the morning, Peggy flipped the phone open to respond, “Haven’t I told you not to send me existential texts when I have to get up in the morning?”

“bst time 2 ponder ur mortality- when u cant sleep,” Nannette sent back.

Peggy sighed and typed, “I was sleeping just fine until you woke me.”

“How can u sleep in the cold n dark?” the response came with another chime of her ringtone.

Peggy was starting to type her reply when another text came in. Her stupid phone made her read that one before she could write the rest of the one she was already working on.

“rnt u scared of the night?” it read.

Peggy knew right then what she needed to do. She got out of bed- her husband Teddy made a little snore, finally almost noticing that there was noise in the room- Peggy got out of bed, pulled on her robe, pushed her feet into her slippers and shuffled down the hall to her six-year-old’s room. The light was on and Nannette sat huddled in the middle of her bed, her knees drawn up and her phone still clutched in her hands.

“Want me to read you a story?” Peggy asked, climbing onto the bed and pulling Nannette into her lap.

“Yes, Mommy,” Nannette gave in sleepy reply.

Lillia’s Tale

1. Beginnings
Lillia is careful not to let the screen door slam as she steps out into the back. The sparse clumps of grass that dot the dirt of the yard unsteady her feet as she makes her way from the house in the waning dark. She turns an ankle well enough to make her stop and sit a moment, rubbing the offended joint until the sting of it passes. The empty tree limbs in the orchard sway in the warm early breeze that does nothing to offer relief from the summer heat. She goes to her feet again, gingerly testing her ankle. By lucky chance, it has suffered only mildly and she is able to hobble the rest of her way to the mill and the stream that runs by it. She steps into the cool of the running water to ease her injury. Then she looks East through the gap in the trees that is cut by the stream and waits….

2. Middles
It is the middle of the day before Lillia makes her way back up to the house and the sun shines hotly on the back of her neck as she emerges from the shadows of the trees. The pain of her twisted ankle is far from her mind- too much has happened in the hours since her injury for her to care about it even a little bit. She has met her father again, a man both daunting in his height and welcoming in his demeanor. She invited him to come up to the house- Mother would have been thrilled to see him, Lillia was sure, but he refused. He said that being welcome there didn’t mean that he should enter there. But he, like Mother, wouldn’t say anything to explain what that meant. Great-Granny Birdie always tells her not to get in the middle of it and Mother never signs anything in response to Lillia’s questions about why they weren’t together anymore. Lillia goes into the house, snubs her mother’s questioning look (it means something akin to, “where have you been all morning, young lady?”), and goes to her room to sulk. Her parents make no sense.

3. Endings
The day the orchard burned was also the day Lillia’s father left. It was only by the hard work of her family- her father included that the line of the fire stopped before the house. The lone untouched tree is the strange old apple near to the house. It wasn’t a part of the orchard proper and both of her parents, as well as her two old grannies (Birdie and Lil) seem to regard that tree as something somehow sacred. But Lillia doesn’t quite understand what all the fuss is about. It is just an old tree that never drops the strange apples that they never ever (don’t you dare to ever, young lady) pick.

4. Insides
The old cider mill is tumble-down and smells dusky sweet with apples that are long decayed and then dried- the odor worn into the wood by the long years of use. The mill wasn’t used for several years before the fire and there certainly was no reason to keep it up now that the trees are gone. Lillia steps into the mottled darkness below the crumbling roof. The mill is mostly in the shade of the tall trees that line the stream, so the light that comes through the holes is thin and wanting. She sits down on a bench that wobbles a little with her weight and pulls her satchel onto her lap. Reaching inside, she brings out the necklace she found in a hidey-hole beneath the floorboard of her bedroom. The clasp is broken and the silver of the chain is tarnished, but its value isn’t in its beauty- its value never was.

“She thought I was a damned fool for spending my money on a bauble for her, you know?” a deep voice tells her from the doorway. Lillia looks up and sees a very tall man framed by the daylight standing there. “She didn’t acknowledge me for a week the first time I gave it to her. Then she only gave it back to me and went off to ignore me a few more days. I had to keep giving it to her again and again.” He shakes his head and comes closer to sit beside Lillia.

“She does have a stubborn streak, that’s for certain,” Lillia agrees. This man is her father- a slightly older version of the man in the photographs Granny Lil won’t let Lillia’s mother keep hidden away.

“She had her reasons. There were lots of them. She just didn’t share them with me for a long time.” He takes the necklace from her hand and holds it up and tries to catch a glint of light on the grimy stone. Between the wan light and the dirt, there is no sparkle.

“Do you mean you wish you hadn’t given it to her?” Lillia asks because there are a million questions she wants to ask, but none of them fit the moment.

“No- I could never regret that- not any of it.…” Then he gently places the necklace into the palm of her hand and folds her fingers closed over it.

5. Outsides
As she watches the sunrise over the millstream, her feet in the coolness of the fast running water- Lillia flexes her sore ankle, digging her bare toes into the silt. She is watching for the arrival of more than just the sun. It has taken a while, since Granny Lil is a bit hard to fathom- she knows at least a dozen languages and tends to combine them at random as she speaks- but Lillia has put together what Granny Lil was trying to tell her for the last few weeks. Lillia’s father is still here. He stands just outside- always outside. She looks across to the stream’s far shore and there he is- just standing on the wrong side of the stream, not coming over to the side that belongs to the family, not coming in. They stop there and watch each other for a long moment as the sky brightens.

6. Hours
Lillia stands one-footed like a pelican to ease her sore ankle and looks out her bedroom window. The view is of the dry and twisted orchard- black and decaying but, beyond the orchard lays the cider mill’s crumbling rooftop. She follows that erratic line and remembers the morning hours…

They had spent the morning sitting in the falling-down mill, splinters from the old wooden bench poking them through their clothes. They had spent those hours talking- Lillia telling her father all she could remember about her nine years alive- most especially about her mother, her beautiful and lonely mother. Lillia’s father responded by not telling Lillia about why he didn’t live with them anymore, but giving her many stories about the time before she was born and how beautiful and lonely her mother had been back then.

7. Days
It isn’t until days later that Lillia comes to understand that meeting her father and spending all morning with him- trying to convince him to come home and work out what all it is that he and her mother have been quarreling over since Lillia was a baby- that spending all morning with him changes nothing. He isn’t coming home. He may never come home- he certainly doesn’t intend to- and there is little Lillia will ever be able to do about it. The thing that makes her to understand all that- that she can’t fix what is wrong with her parents- is the fact that there isn’t anything wrong between her parents. They love each other. They always have. Mother signed so.

8. Weeks
Lillia doesn’t speak to her father again for weeks. She takes every opportunity to hike down to the cider mill before and after school- she spends all the daylight hours of the weekend days there, as well. She sees him there sometimes, watching her- maybe watching for her, but he doesn’t come near enough for them to speak. He even retreats when she makes to walk towards him, disappearing into the woods on the far side of the millstream before she can reach where she saw him standing. She wonders why he is avoiding her…. Maybe if she can convince her mother to come down to the stream…

9. Months
About two months later, as the summer is truly waning, Lillia hikes to the cider mill in the cool of the morning and finds he father waiting for her. He is standing at the foot of the path, the bank of the millstream a few feet behind him. He is in the orchard for once, properly inside instead of on the fringe.

“You shouldn’t come down here anymore,” he says without even a greeting first. “The winter is coming in harsh- the stream gets dangerous when it ices up.

“I’ll stay out of the stream, them,” she answers, the frustration that has been building in her since they last spoke making her snap, “Or you could come up to the house.”

He smiles at her soft and sad. “No I can’t.” Then he repeats his warning- “The stream is dangerous- ask your Mama- she’ll tell you.” Then he turns and walks down the bank to a place where the lowness of the stream allows for easy crossing and disappears into the woods on the far side.

10. Years
In the time between her talks with her father, Lillia worked at her mother- trying to get her to walk down to the cider mill in the mornings with her. Lillia knows in some small but sure piece of herself that if she can get her parents together- physically next to each other so that they could see each other, could communicate face to face- that the years of separation and denial of who they are- who they are meant to be to each other- it might all slide away and they could- could… could something- she wasn’t really sure. In the midst of one of these moments, when Lillia was trying to sell her father’s charms to her mother, they slid sideways into the tale of how the orchard burned all those years before:

And when the fire started, the smoke coming up and into the house on the winds before we could see the flames, all the family came out to fight it. The house was full back then- my Mamma and Pappa and my brother and sisters still were here, not in China. Oh- and my uncles were here- San and Liam and Joe with his daughter Speria- her daughter’s a little older than you. We all came out to see to the Shade and protect the Tree. And your father- he was so brave- I know he saved us all that day with what he did, even if it did mean he had to leave…

Lillia’s mother signed all this to her in a dreamy sort of way that bordered on dancing- she got that way whenever she spoke of the Tree that remained behind the house.

11. Red
The Harvest hung rich and ripe and red on the trees- apples red and yellow and green on the cusp of perfection. Uncles Liam and San had come home just a few days earlier to help Nat judge when to begin the work of plucking the fruit from the trees. Liam had run the orchard until the year before and he missed it. The travelling workers- the migrants had not shown up just yet and so it was just the family at the Shade having a reunion of a sort when the smell of smoke and the glow of the flames and the tickle of danger came to us.

12. Orange
It was bright as daylight right up near to the flames, and the glow of the fire shone on Nat’s retreating back as he ran straight into the heart of the blaze. I was certain that I would never see his return. I knew why he had gone- we all knew why, even as we knew that he was the last of those who should have gone. I followed him in, the heat intolerable on all sides, but I could see the figure of a man running up ahead of me, so I didn’t turn back. I made better progress down the path then he did since I did not have to worry about stumbling over the uneven ground or dodging the flames. I quickly overtook him and took a moment to glance back at him, hoping to reassure my brave and foolish husband that we would both be all right- that the Shade would be all right. It was then that I saw that, while this man was nearly the same height as Nat, he was far paler and his face was an angry map of scars.

13. Yellow
“Oh Mama! What did you do?” I ask her, knowing that the man with the scars had not been someone to trifle with, even as I knew that he could not have done harm to her that day.

After a moment, I came to understand that speaking to her as she told me this tale was a mistake. For she seems to suddenly remember who I am and that what she is signing is not for me to know because she sits back down at the kitchen table and starts peeling potatoes again.

“Mama?” I ask, hopeful she might be persuaded to tell me more.

Next year, Sweetest, she signs, the same way she always does when I get curious about the Tree or my father or why we never take the offers that are made on the land, which has been fallow since the fire and would be good for growing things again. Next year.

14. Green
There are clumps of new sod that come up every spring between the remains of the apple trees. Every year, the trees are smaller, more rotted away and bleached like old bones. And, every year the grass comes in stronger, darker Kelly green carpeting below. The earth is ready for new growth, the old breaking down to nourish the new, the old scars from the fire healing over. Granny Lil made a vegetable patch behind the house last spring- as if to prove that the land could sustain more than just the one, old, infinite Tree and its changeless apples.

15. Blue
“Sh-” Granny Lil says, her long, crooked finger held up to her mouth. She gestures me into her room and says something I can’t understand while pointing me towards her bed to sit. She pulls a dark wooden box down from one of the shelves in her closet. It seems like she should not be able to hold its weight with how frail she looks, but I know that she doesn’t need my help. If it really were too heavy for her to hold, she would have just floated it to where she wanted it to be.

When she opens the box, I already know what is inside- Granny Lil likes to take it out and show it to me every couple of months. Usually she recites something to me about it. I don’t really ever catch the exact words anytime she tells me, but over the course of the last few years I have come to understand what the story is about. It is a myth about sailors who travel far across the sea and ended up stranded, never returning home again.

The thing inside the box is not old- it is shiny and metallic and set with a large blue stone that has to be cut glass or perhaps even plastic. It looks like something a masquerade costume pirate might plunder. So, of course, Granny Lil values it highly.

16. Purple
Granny Lil has never let me hold her bauble, but this time she brings it out and strings it round my neck. The chain is cold on the skin of my neck and the stone is doubly so falling against my breastbone with a small thump. Granny shuffles to her high dresser and brings back a hand mirror, the back ornate with swirls of metal and glass beading.

“Perse,” she says to me, which sometimes, but not always means, “look at this.”

I admire the mirror’s back as I have many times before. After a moment I turn it around to see how I look with the ridiculous necklace laying over my play clothes, soiled as they were with the day’s adventures.

There is a strange tint cast over my face, a deep lavender glow coming out from the stone of Granny’s treasure. I drop the mirror and pull the chain from around my neck, braking the clasp.

“Granny!” I gasp, holding the still lit trinket out to her as if it is might bite me.

She chuckles a moment before taking it back from me and letting me escape from her room.

17. Brown

I am brown- my skin, my hair, my eyes- not as dark as my father, but dark enough that some of the kids at school call me things unrepeatable- mostly behind my back. Dr, King, may he rest in peace, did what he could, but small minds change slowly. I find myself wondering how much the difference in skin color stands in my parent’s way? When I was younger, I was certain that it was the whole problem and that if I waited long enough, the world would change and they could be together. The older I get, the more I know that that barrier is probably the least of those between them.

18. Black

Where the grass has not grown in again, the dirt is a deep brown, almost black with the ash from the fire of a decade before. The trees, short, bone white branches reaching to the sky are still pitch colored at the bottoms of their trunks. Granny Lil goes out and scrapes the ash off whenever she makes soap, so we bathe ourselves in the loss of the orchard every day. I wish that the scar that the fire and the losses it brought etched into my family could be washed away with the bathwater the same way the ashy soap so easily is.

19. White

Snow falls for the first time and I still go to the old cider mill- remembering my father’s advice about staying clear of the stream. The current is sluggish with ice and snow clogging it up. Papa is there, standing on the far bank, scowling at me for showing up yet again. I wave and call out beckoning him to join me at the mill. I doubt he will follow.

The meager shelter of the mill is still welcome since the wind bites even through my winter coat. There is a thin layer of snow on the floor- thicker is some places where there is less roof that sky above. I brush off the bench and sit a while, tapping my boots- toe, heel against the floor.

“What did I tell you about coming down here?” Father asks. He is standing in the door that never closes because it hangs from only its top hinge and he is clapping his hands over his shoulders and arms to get the snow off.

His words are gruff, but his smile is bright and white and beautiful.

20. Colorless

It is Saturday, so we can spend the morning talking again, our breath showing cold and colorless as we tell winter tales. I tell him of learning the ancient ways of igloo building from Lil and newer ways of snowball fighting from my new friend at school- a boy named Vincent whose family just came from New York City over the summer. Father tells me of winters at the Shade when the house was full of family and the Winter Solstice was a day of great feasting- not like the Sol Days we have now- simple and quiet and more than a little sad. He tells me of the first time he stood in snow- a grown man, born in the South and feeling that particular chilly tickle for the first time. Mama had been by his side- I knew, even though he neglected to say.

Again, we end our time with me inviting him into the house and him refusing the invitation and admonishing me for coming to the mill every day.

“If you want to stop me, come up to the house just once,” I taunt.

“Kiss your mother and heed her, now you hear,” he orders as his answer and he walks to the fording, not looking back.

To be continued…

PROMPT TABLE

It was a Tuesday, Millie remembered that much. Other than that, she couldn’t really be sure if she had imagined it all or not, because until she saw the ugly little man in the grease-stained coveralls and figured out what he was doing, she had always been sure that the Reality Tinkerers were just an urban legend- some crazy junkie’s hallucination told again and again until some of the more mentally unstable started to believe it. And, really, who would believe that there were funny little men who popped into reality just long enough to fix some strangeness that physics couldn’t explain before popping out again just as fast? And, who would believe that these strange little men appearing was some sort of evidence that the world wasn’t what it seemed, but some kind of illusion- a lie- a virtual environment, as the crazies called it. How would anyone sane buy into that? But, there he was, bent over a strange, swirly place in the sidewalk at the back of the alley. The swirly sidewalk looked a bit like a piece of fabric would if you laid it flat, pinched the center, and twisted it until there were curved ripples spanning out from the center- only in hardened cement. If Millie were smart- which apparently she wasn’t- if she were smart, she would have just kept on walking- chalked it up to that extra blueberry daiquiri she’d had at the bar and gone home to sleep it off. Unfortunately, Millie, being not smart, just stood there in the dark street, mouth agape, watching the Tinkerer screw a brace and bit into center of the twisted concrete.

After he pulled the tool out of the hole he’d drilled, he spoke low and calm, without even looking up, “I’m not here, girlie. Just go on home, drink some a water, take some aspirin, and go to sleep.”

And, Not Smart Millie should have listened, but instead, she edged closer and watched the man drop a grommet into the hole in the ground and screw a ridiculously large orange handle into the grommet until it squeaked tight. “Still here, huh?” he asked her, looking up now.

Millie could only nod, awed by the strangeness of the swirly concrete and by something vaguely unsettling about the ugly little man himself.

“Well, if you’re not going to go home and pretend you didn’t see me as you’re supposed to, then come over here and count the revolutions as I fix this. If I don’t get the count right, they dock my pay,” he said gruffly and he waved her over.

She stepped over to him, nearly tripping on the curved ridges in the sidewalk where it was swirled around the ridiculously large orange handle. Upon closer inspection, the Tinkerer was even uglier than she had thought. And he smelled very odd- not bad, exactly- just odd, strongly odd and oddly strong, as if he smelled in neon colors.

“Here we go then,” he warned, then he gripped the ridiculously large orange handle with both hands and turned. As he did, the concrete slowly unwound until it was flat- well, flat-ish. After he was done, and the ground looked like any other lumpy piece of old pavement (save for the ridiculously large orange handle) he asked her, “So, how many?”

“Uh-” Millie answered smartly, having not even remembered to count them.

“Of course,” the Tinkerer nodded, “seven it is.” Then he pulled a clipboard from thin air, clicked the thumb of his empty hand twice as a pen appeared in it and marked down, Seven Revolutions, No Complications or Escalations. He unscrewed the handle from the grommet, popped the grommet from the nickel-sized hole in the ground, packed all of his equipment into a large black tool box that Millie was sure hadn’t been there before, and looked to her. “If you’re smart, honey, you won’t go telling everybody that you saw me. Just go back to your life and pretend that you went straight home tonight,” he advised. Then he popped out of sight.

Millie, of course, told everyone.

And I Will Sing for Your Father

And I will sing for you father
Although I know him not,
And I will call you sister
Despite the truth- you’re not,
And I will hold your children
And stoke their shiny hair.
They may not call me Mama
But I will still be there-
‘Cause there’s a greater truth than bloodlines
And there’s a stronger love than names.
The world may not call us family
Still we are just the same.

Previous Parts (1) (2) (3) (4) (5).

6

“Come on Sheriff- it’s the Armageddon for sure!” Little Jack Miller shouted into Cody’s office door. His round face, flushed with panic, popped inside for a moment, “Well, are you coming?” he asked and he popped back outside just as quickly.

Cody looked over at Prentice and scowled. “Don’t that boy have a lick of sense?” But, he got up and headed out the door anyways because round there, you just never did know.

As Cody stepped outside into the relative cool of the street- it had been uncomfortably hot for days, but a storm seemed to be coming in- as Cody left the stifling heat of his office, his ears were battered by a low thrumming hum pulsing up and down from loud to louder and back again. Cody paused there in the doorway- the sound like a wall he was pushing against. Jitters came to the door behind him- sort of bumbled into Cody’s back, which served to pop Cody through the sound-wall and into the dusty street.

In the street he could see more than a few of the fine citizens of Burgess Gulch running in a right proper panic. Little Jack Miller was trying to get his father’s mule- which was loaded down with far too large a pack for the scrawny little thing- to heed and come on with him. Mrs. Carmichael and her brood were rushing round gathering up what looked like several bushels of potatoes that were rolling across the ground and hopping in time with the thrumming- near everything was hoping in time with the thrumming, come to think on it. Thompson Smith, the blacksmith, was chasing a spooked and half unshod mare that had got away from him.

And, there weren’t no way that that there horse was giving way for sweet Lisel Carmichael, who was all of three, and chasing after one of them wayward tubers. Cody snapped into action on seeing the little girl in the path of the runaway mare, breaking into a run, hoping to get there before the hooves came down on that pretty but unaware head of golden curls. Weaving in and out between the rubbish that was jumping around in his path, Cody reached out and scooped the girl up as he stumbled on something or other that he couldn’t quite avoid. He did his best to roll himself over the girl as they hit the dirt hopeful that the hooves would somehow miss his most tender and vulnerable parts and miss the girl entirely as the horse trampled him.

The expected hoof falls to his body never came and after a spell of waiting on the pain of it, he let his head up to see where the mare had gone. She was a few feet away pulling hard against her reins, which were being held fast by the combined strength of the blacksmith and Prentice. Cody got to his feet, bringing the now crying child up off the ground with him (at least he reckoned she was crying from the look on her face- Cody couldn’t hear a darned thing over the thrumming in the air). Mrs. Carmichael appeared next to Cody. She was wearing a worried look and took the child from him. Cody gladly gave Lisel up for she’d been kicking and poking at her rescuer, and her kicks were getting dangerously close to hitting him in some vulnerable places.

It was then that he caught sight of what all the fussing was about- he’d thought it was all over the horrific caterwauling. There, hovering just above the horizon, out past the edge of town, was- well, Cody didn’t rightly have any idea what it was- but it was big and it was a floating there all on its own. It was tall and narrow, like an upright cigar with a band of what might have been a strange kind of lanterns going across its middle like a jeweled belt, but Cody’d never seen lanterns anything like that in all his born days. Maybe it were gaslight or maybe that electric that had back east that he kept hearing about.

What the lights were didn’t matter much seeing as what the entire shiny flying cigar was was not something easily answered, save that Cody could easily decide that it was something he didn’t much want in his town. If he had any choice in the matter, he’d just as soon have it be on its way.

It was likely that thrumming was directly related to the cigar, even though the sound seemed not to come from anywhere, but just to be there spread about in the air like a noisy fog. Them showing up at the same moment wasn’t likely by chance.

“Get the women and chi-” Cody began shouting at Prentice to get the women and children inside, but gave it up seeing as he couldn’t hardly hear himself, so he reckoned Jitters wouldn’t be hearing much of anything of his order. Instead, he got an arm around Mrs. Carmichael and guided her towards Miss Corbet’s, hoping she’d get his intent before turning back around to start gathering up the rest of the waywards in the street.

***

After a spell, he and Prentice had gotten the last of the folk inside and Thompson had corralled the surly mare. Cody and Jitters took a moment to conference while standing the almost quiet of Cody’s office.

“What do you figure, Sheriff?” Prentice asked, looking excited in a strangely wrong fashion, as if he was too fascinated by the strange thing out there to be scared of it.

“The hell if I can guess what that thing is, but we got to go and have a look see, now.” Cody replied grimly. “You with me?”

“Of course,” was the answer, but Cody didn’t see how there could have been a call for it- he was the Sheriff round these parts, this was his town and he’d be the one to face anything that came at it, but Jitters had no strong affection for the people or place yet. Cody wouldn’t have been in any way surprised if Jitters had cut and run.

“Good.” Cody checked that his Smith and Wesson was loaded and reached for the door.

“Wait, Sheriff. What’s your plan?” Jitters asked, putting a hand on Cody’s elbow to hold him back. Again, Prentice didn’t look so much a feared but, well- almost eager.

“Go out there and see what it is,” Cody said blankly. There weren’t any other answer to give until he had a better look at the darned thing.

Outside, the cacophony wasn’t showing any signs of lessening and neither had the flying cigar done anything beyond the confounding, unnatural hovering that it had been doing before, so at least things weren’t looking worse. By use of a set of entirely un-ingenious hand signals- that is to say, waving at each other frantic-like, they made their way to the edge of town together, keeping to cover wherever they could. Once they passed the farthest buildings, there was no cover, and for that there was nothing to do but step up. So Cody did. He strode out into the open and up as close to the thing as he could without getting right underneath. It was a might higher than it had appeared from the center of town- maybe a hundred yards up at the bottommost point. He could see up into it- the bottom being a great circle of metal with other smaller circles fit inside it shining down at him. Now, what they did or even how they might have been put together was more than a mystery to him, but he reckoned it was best to keep his distance.

Cody debated with himself about taking a shot or two at it with his six-guns, but there didn’t seem too likely a chance he’d do much more than gain the ire of who or whatever was working the thing- for that was the one conclusion he could make for certain- it were some kind of machine and cast of metal, just with much more skill that any normal smith could manage. Instead of wasting his bullets, Cody gave try with the only other weapon he had- his mouth.

“How do,” Cody began by shouting up at the cigar before realizing that he hadn’t any idea what else he might say. He blundered on anyhow. “Uh- I’m Sheriff round these parts and- uh- I reckon I’d like to bid you welcome to Burgess Gulch.” He cursed softly to himself, but again kept on. “We’re a mighty friendly town, really we are, but- well, I wonder if you might see about keeping the ruckus down a bit. It’s scaring the womenfolk.” Immediately, the thrumming stopped and the silence was so clear and strong it almost hurt.

Just behind Cody, Jitters muttered, “Have I gone deaf? Oh- guess not.”

“Thank you kindly,” Cody shouted with a nod and holstered his guns because he figured he’d better give tit for tat. Behind him, Prentice gave a short snorting laugh. Cody wondered if he was laughing at his attempt at being polite to the machine or just his relief at the end of the noise.

They got no further response from the thing, no matter what they said to it, which Cody didn’t know whether to count as a blessing or a curse, but either way, there wasn’t nothing a body could do about it being there. So they didn’t do anything about it being there. The Mayoress gave order that someone was to be on watch over the thing every moment so that they might have word if it did decide to do anything, be it good or ill and, for the first few days, Cody took nearly all shifts of the watch and those he didn’t he assigned Prentice to (just so Cody might get some sleep). After a time, it seemed that the thing in the sky, as most of the townsfolk had taken to calling it, was not going to do anything to or for them- just hang there silently, so Cody let some of the other men in town take shifts- Jeb Carson, the undertaker, and Thompson Smith, the blacksmith, and Vinnie Carmichael, who’d been so grateful to Cody on account of him saving Lisel from getting trampled. And, life in Burgess Gulch went back to a strange kind of normal.

***

Cody woke in the dead of night with the strange feeling that he was being watched. Lighting the lantern and searching the room brought him no evidence that anyone else had been there for days- not since Nannette had come round with pie and sympathy. He poured himself a glass of something wet, drank it down and got dressed. He figured on checking in with Vinnie Carmichael, who was on watch over (or might that be under?) the thing in the sky.

Cody’s boots crunched loudly on the grit and gravel of the Earth as he walked towards the lights at the edge of town. His lantern didn’t light the way very well, but he didn’t have much need of it- he’d walked the route in the dark more times then he cared to think on- he knew the way. Vinnie was there at his assigned post, a shotgun at his side and a dazed look on his face. A look like that wasn’t a new sight on Vinnie’s face- he weren’t the smartest of fellas, so it was a moment before Cody came to see that there was something a might wrong with the man.

“Sheriff round these parts,” Vinnie said with a peculiar emptiness sounding in his voice- as if he were talking from inside a metal barrel.

“Uh- Vinnie? You all right there?” Cody asked cautiously.

“Vinnie- not Vinnie. Bronto,” came the echo-y response.

“Bronto,” Cody repeated slowly. “You mean that’s you? Bronto?”

“Not a true name, but one that will serve.”

“Ah. Would I be amiss if I took you for someone associated with the- uh-” Cody raised the hand holding the lamp in a gesture meant to indicate the machine in the sky.

“Bronto,” BrontoVinnie supplied. “Yes. I am the essence of Bronto.”

“Oh. So machine is Bronto and you’re Bronto, too- his, uh- its essence, I mean.”

“Yes. Sorry about the noise.” Cody was caught strange at that- such an ordinary thing for a great machine that has taken over the body of a half-simple family man to say.

“Ah- well, you did make that right just when you were asked,” Cody conceded. Then Cody and BrontoVinne stood there a spell in awkward silence, each seeming to be waiting for the other to speak. When Cody couldn’t stand that anymore, he asked, “So uh- anything I can do for you? I mean, there must be a reason you put your- uh, essence- into old Vinnie here.”

“No. I just wondered how it felt to be trapped in such a small, soft vessel. It is interesting. I don’t care for it,” BrontoVinnie said.

“You don’t- You mean to say you were just trying Vinnie on for size? And, you’d rather be Bronto the big metal- uh- floating machine than a soft, squishy man?” Cody asked astonished.

“Yes. I do prefer my true form.” BrontoVinnie seemed to shrink just a might without moving at all before he fell forward. Cody stepped up and caught him before he went down face forward in the dirt and let the man down gently before rolling him over to face up.

Vinnie’s eyes were pale and dead for a moment before he blinked up at Cody and said, “We have to move!” and he scrambled to his feet and took off at a run towards town. Cody gave chase, afraid that Bronto might still be in there. A moment later, a burst of heat slammed into Cody’s back, knocking him forward. When the wave of it finished passing over him, Cody rolled over to see the machine- Bronto, flying higher at great speed, fire coming from its great circular bottom.

Come morning, there were a good number of astonished townsfolk staring up at the place where Bronto had used to be, but old Vinnie Carmichael seemed just fine and dandy- better even, for he and the Mrs. were a sight more attentive to each other from that day on.

Then there was the day that Jack Miller wished for a bigger swimming hole for the heat, and he got it. The heat that had gone when the thing in the sky had come to Burgess Gulch returned with a vengeance within a day of if leaving and not more than three days went by before the swimming hole was more a wallow than anything else. Doc Smith was treating those fool enough or determined enough to keep on in the heat during the worst of it. Miss Corbet’s was doing swift business as many of the townsfolk without a summer kitchen had little want of keeping a fire lit for the evening cooking. Cody had taken to sleeping in the cool of the small jail cell in his office instead of his rooms above it. And, the wee ones were running wild with the irritableness that comes with small, uncomfortable children.

Cody and Prentice were just setting down to their lunch- a bit of cold stew left from the kettle of it Nannette had brought on by the night before and the last of the bread Cody had- when Mrs. Carmichael come in all in tizzy, her great breasts heaving as she breathed hard and harsh. “Darn it! Sheriff, I can’t stand for this a minute longer. Now, I have every appreciation for what you done for me and mine- for Lisel and my Vincent, but I can’t keep quiet no more.” She stopped to catch her breath a minute and mop first her brow and then her bosom before going on. “There ain’t now way it’s safe for them young’uns to be playing in there- why we don’t even know where it came from! Now what, pray tell, are you going to do about it?” she demanded. Then she picked up Jitters’ mug of beer from the table, swallowed half of it at one gulp and flopped down in the empty chair between Cody and his deputy.

Cody waited a moment for her to finish drinking and did his best to speak calmly. “Betsy, I’m sure that what you’ve come here to report to me is of the utmost importance and I have every confidence that your feeling that it’s a danger to those young’uns is valid and reasonable, however, I can’t rightly help out if I don’t have any idea as to what you’re talking about, now can I?” Cody poured Jitters another beer as he was talking. “Now, start again from the get go, would you?”

Betsy Carmichael gave Cody such a look. “You can’t mean you don’t know about it, Sheriff?” she asked flabbergasted.

Cody gave her a small smile and a shrug. “Forgive me. I reckon I don’t.”

Betsy stood again, her countenance growing dark with anger. “Come on, then,” she ordered and pulled Cody out of his chair and along behind her out the door by the wrist. She kept on dragging him down the street, past Jeb Carson’s and then out of the town proper. Cody held his tongue, not sure where she was taking him, but fairly amused at her indignant attitude. They passed the last outbuilding and went sharply round to the left. Betsy Carmichael dropped his arm (which was a blessing as she’d been cutting the blood flow from his hand all that time) and said, “Well, have a look!” and pointed in front of her by unfurling both her arms until they were straight.

Cody looked. Then he blinked a moment, rubbed at his eyes and was about to speak-

“Zwounds! Where the heck did that come from?” Prentice exclaimed from behind him (having followed Cody and Betsy, him being such a stellar and stalwart deputy and all).

There, round back of the schoolhouse, was a sight more surprising than the thing in the sky was- if only for the sheer preposterousness of it. First off was the border to it. The dirt in front of Cody was the same simple hardscrabble dust that all of Burgess Gulch sat on, but a few feet further on, the dirt was- well- for one thing it didn’t seem to be dirt at all, more a thick line of purple-glowing light that put Cody in mind of the maybe electric ones on Bronto. The line went fair and straight across maybe a hundred yards before arcing upwards at each end into the air and meeting to form a circle high up in the sky.

The other side of this borderline of purple light, was like a different country- Cody suspected it might be Switzerland. He’d seen pictures of mountains like that, of clear, cool lakes set up high in the Alps, once. The picture had made him cold just looking at it. The mountain inside the purple, with its lake and cooling breeze did the same thing to him now. Cody cussed under his breath.

Down in the lake, Cody could see near every one of the children of Burgess Gulch all but buck naked and frolicking in the waters. And, sure enough, as pleasant as it looked, Cody could see Betsy’s point about the young’uns. They didn’t know how this thing had happened, where exactly it was on the other side of it or when it might end.

“You’re right, Betsy. We ought get them back to this side of things and away from the border of it. Prentice, you stand guard here- keep anyone who comes by a good ways back and most certainly keep them from coming through. I’ll be in there to round up those children.” Cody stepped through and started being the mean old sheriff who spoils all the fun.

***

To the other side of the border felt as different as Cody had imagined it might. It was cooler and the air was soft with the water in it- it felt lush and welcoming. No wonder the children had come in. He started the walk down an incline that wound maybe a quarter mile down to the lake’s edge. The greenery struck him. It was so different, so thick and dark, like nothing he’d ever seen in the West. As he journeyed on, the happy hollering of the children reached his ears. Maybe he should have brought Betsy along to help. Not being a father, nor having had much of a childhood, he didn’t rightly know the ways there were to make a child heed. It might take some doing.

As he got closer to the lake, Cody started to notice that all the greenery wasn’t just one shade of green, but many- more greens than Cody could have thought possible (and lately, what with all that had been happening in his town, what he thought possible had been expanding almost daily) and there were flowers- little blooms tucked into the lushness that he hadn’t noticed before because his eyes were still blinded by the overly aggressive greenness of the place.

Cody came up to the water’s edge to see the pale streak of Jack Miller crossing his path as he ran up and jumped off a rock into the lake. The consequential splash covered Cody head to foot with cool, fresh water and he resisted the urge to follow the boy in and get himself the first set of goose bumps his skin had seen since February. He stepped up on the same rock the boy had leapt from, cupped his hands round his mouth and called out, “Attention Young’uns! This is Sheriff Burgess so now you all better heed. This here lake is off limits, so you best come on out and we’ll head back to town. Your mamas are missing you.”

The response was far less enthusiastic than Cody had hoped for. In point of fact, aside from Jack Miller, who sent a spray of water out from his mouth at Cody, there was about no response at all. Cody tried again, “Come on, now. You take heed and come out of that water. All your daddies will be wanting to tan your hides for disobeying a lawman. It’s against the law not to, now.”

Little Lisel came up behind him, dripping and crying and pushing on Cody’s leg. He bent and picked her up. “What’s the trouble there, pumpkin?” he asked, but she didn’t answer. Right. Saved her life, trying to do it again, and all he gets is her rubbing her running nose on his shirt. At least she weren’t kicking this time.

“Looks like you could use some help, Sheriff,” called a sweetly familiar voice from behind Cody. He turned to see Nannette standing a few feet behind him, a large basket hamper sitting at her feet.

“What ever gave you that idea?” Cody asked as Lisel decided that she’d had enough of being kind to Cody and tried to climb up to the top of his head (succeeding only in threatening to remove large chunks of his hair).

She gave him a smile and a wink, before hollering, “Molasses candy and sarsaparilla for anyone wearing right proper clothing!”

Not five minutes later, Nannette was leading the children up the path to the border with Burgess Gulch like a much prettier version of the Pied Piper. Cody stayed to the rear to help keep the stragglers moving along, a sticky Lisel Carmichael getting molasses candy in his hair as he carried the tot back to her mother.

***

Much like the time when the thing in the sky was hanging over the town of Burgess Gulch, the Mayoress ordered that there be a watchman set at the borderline to keep both children and foolish grown men and women from going through to Maybe Switzerland. Strangely less alarmed than he had been by Bronto, Cody split up the shifts to a larger number of townsmen, taking only one shift at it every day or so. And, much like the time when the thing in the sky was hanging over the town of Burgess Gulch, life went back to a strange kind of normal.

A few days on into this new kind of normal, Prentice was standing his watch over the border to Maybe Switzerland and Cody come by after a nicely satisfying lunch at Miss Corbet’s to take the afternoon shift. “Jitters,” Cody said with a nod as he approached.

“Cody, I want to you to see something,” Prentice called excitedly as a greeting. So, Cody quickened his steps to come see what Jitters was going on about. “Come, come,” Jitters ordered, getting Cody by the elbow and pointing him towards the mountain lake. “Watch the water.” He pointed out into the bright greenness of Maybe Switzerland, which was heading towards sunset (Maybe Switzerland was about four hours off from Burgess Gulch time, getting dark round 2 in the afternoon and light just after the middle of the night.) Cody looked at the sunlight glistening off the water and pushed down the desire to head down there and dive into its coolness. “There- did you see?” Prentice asked, pointing to a slightly different spot in the lake.

“See what?” Cody questioned, trying to follow the angle of his deputy’s pointing arm and finger better, but still not seeing more than he had before.

“The head. Sheriff, there’s something in the lake- something big,” Jitters said warily. “Look! There she is.” He moved his hand again and this time Cody saw a blur of movement in the spot he’d indicated.

“She? Just what do you think is in there?” Jitters might have been out in the heat a might too long.

“I’m not sure, but- have you ever heard of a place called Loch Ness? It’s in Scotland.” How Jitters managed to say that with a face as sober as a priest, Cody didn’t know, for he burst into laughter before the man even managed to say the word Scotland.

Wiping his eyes, Cody managed to catch his breath before he spoke. “Didn’t know you had it in you, Jitters. Very nice.” He laughed some more, slapping Prentice on the back.

“Sheriff, I’m quite serious. There is something there in the lake and it does seem to fit the descriptions that have been given of the creature that lurks there.”

“Yes, yes. Lake monster out there. As if this weren’t a big enough piece of strange having a hole to Maybe Switzerland out here behind the schoolhouse. Go on and take your time off, Jitters,” Cody dismissed him.

“Sheriff-”

“Go on now. Miss Angelina’s got lunch waiting for you over to the restaurant. Nanette made some fine vittles today. Don’t you miss out,” Cody said in a tone that told Prentice that he’d had enough of the foolishness and he really should get on now. Prentice scowled at Cody hard, but went on his way.

Sometime later, Jack Miller came by to stare out at the water. He wanted to go closer, go to the other side, but Cody made it clear that this time if he did that, it wouldn’t be candy and sarsaparilla he got as his reward, so the boy just stood there next to Cody, watching the lake. Before the sun went down in Maybe Switzerland that afternoon, more children and a few foolish men and women were gathered there, as well. All of them watching for Prentice’s lake monster, but all of them keeping peaceable, so Cody didn’t drive them off. It was nice to have the company, to tell the truth of the thing. Funny that Jitters himself wasn’t there.

Jeb Carson came out round dinnertime- the crowd had gone home by then what with it being dark on the Maybe Switzerland side, so there was nothing to see.

“Howdy, Sheriff.” The undertaker came up with an unlit lantern- it was too light to have need of it just yet, but he’d be wanting it soon enough.

“Jeb.” Cody nodded at his friend. “Bit of excitement today. Best look out for bodies trying to get across in the darkness.”

“Yes, I heard about it. Jitters has some kind of theory about Scotland, but the other side doesn’t look like Scotland to me- not rocky enough, nor foggy enough,” Jeb offered. “You reckon it might be Scotland?”

“I reckon it ain’t Loch Ness- there’s towns there. I looked it up in a book in Mayoress Litchfield’s library once. But, that don’t matter none- what matters is that there ain’t no lake monster in there. Also, Prentice just might be out of a job over this.” Cody looked into the blackness inside the purple circle and shook his head.

“Now, don’t be too hard on Jitters. He really does think it’s there and between Maybe Switzerland and the Thing in the Sky, why is it so hard to consider?” Jeb asked.

“Not you, too,” was all Cody could manage in answer and he strolled off towards town shaking his head.

***

By cock’s crow the next day, the crowd was larger than it had been the day before- the news of the lake monster having spread to the surrounding farms and Cody had to have a few trusted men standing watch to keep all the fools from trying to get closer. Every now and again, someone in the bunch would let out a holler and claim to have seen Gulchy- the name they has decided to give the darned thing and the whole crowd would serge forward a little until Cody and his men got them settled down and moved back again. There were a few attempts to run across by some young men (trying to impress their sweethearts with their bravery), but none had gotten farther than a few feet past the borderline before being pulled back. At the end of the day in Maybe Switzerland, the people went on their way and Cody hoped that they’d forget to come back with the midnight dawn.

Cody’s hopes were dashed when a good hour before the next Maybe Swiss dawn, there were already at least a dozen people setting up picnic blankets and building cooking fires a few yards from the line he’d drawn in the dirt to tell folks where they couldn’t pass. Jitters, who Cody had let stay on on account of his previous service and loyalty- which was a hair’s breath better than any of the other deputies he’d had in recent years- Jitters was making his camp at the front of them. Cody resisted walking up to the man- that would only fuel the fires of the thing. Some in Burgess Gulch had painted Jitters and Cody as enemies over this preposterousness and Cody seemed to be cast as the Blackhat, even though he was the law and he was only trying to do right by these people and keep them from any trouble. Prentice showed some sense in that once it started getting light in Maybe Switzerland, he stepped up and took a place along the borderline with Cody’s men and Cody was mighty please with him for doing it.

It was a good solid week of watching Maybe Switzerland before anything different happened, which, while tedious, Cody counted as good. The borderline hadn’t expanded to swallow the town, the imagined lake monster hadn’t come out from the water, up the mountainside and into Burgess Gulch to eat their babies or their livestock or all their metal objects- all that the whole strange thing had done was cause Cody no small amount of pestering and work.

Of course, when something different did finally happen, it weren’t no small thing…

Author’s note: This is the conclusion of the section, but not the end of the story. Burgess Gulch continues in July 2009.

Previous Parts (1) (2) (3) (4).

5

Cody went round to see Mandy the next morning, hoping for some different answers to the same questions, which was of no use, Cody knew, but it didn’t stop him trying. Doc Smith had sent her home, so Cody had to saddle up the horse he never called Clara and ride out to the big house she had outside of town.

The house had used to belong to Cody’s granddaddy, who, not coincidentally, had been Mandy’s father. It had been a bone of some contention betwixt her and Cody’s daddy before the old man had passed, him being the son, he figured on getting that house, but Mandy was the old man’s pride and joy. After that, Cody’s father hadn’t ever spoken to his little sister, ’til the day he died. Wasn’t but a few days after his daddy’s passing that Mandy came round to Cody banking on a new start, which Cody gladly agreed to. Four years on, they had a grudging friendliness and a certain respect- kin was kin after all, so Cody was glad to be on friendly terms with all that was left of his.

His knocking at the great door was answered promptly by Mandy’s girl Carlotta. As she gave him a nod and led him into the parlor, where his Auntie was sitting up next to the fire, a carpet over her legs, Cody was struck with wondering why it was that Carlotta hadn’t come to him about Mandy going missing. She should have noted it far sooner than Cody, what with living in the same house with her boss-lady.

“Cody dear,” Mandy beckoned him into the room, “Come sit here by my side.” She patted the chair next to her. He crossed the room, his heels drumming on the hardwood, and sat dutifully. He hadn’t done dutifully with Mandy for quite some time, but the thought of his strong willed Auntie out in the dirt, suffering was enough to make him dutiful.

“Doc Smith do right by you?” Cody asked as Carlotta came in carrying a large silver tray laden with clinking tea things. The girl served tea for both he and Mandy before leaving on all but silent feet back into the kitchen.

“Yes, yes,” she dismissed. “I’ll be right as rain in another day.”

“That puts a mind at ease. But, Mandy, I wonder how it is that your horse got spooked at all- such a steady mare she is.”

“Why Cody, I don’t have any idea- there must have been something, but I didn’t see a thing.”

“And you’re an able rider. Took ribbons in your youth, now didn’t you?”

“Cody, you have something else you have a mind to ask, just ask it outright. There’s no call for anything but honesty between us. You should know that.”

Cody took a sip of his tea. It was god-awful. He picked up the tiny set of tongs from the tea set and dropped three sugar cubes into his cup, found his spoon, gave it a stir and tapped the spoon on the cup’s brim to get the drips off. The click of silver on china took his attention for a long moment. “Just seems peculiar that you, an able rider on a good and steady horse were thrown so over an imaginary spook. Doesn’t figure,” he finally said, giving his tea another try. Better, but not much. He set it aside.

“I suppose it doesn’t, but there ain’t no other explanation for it, my boy,” Mandy responded.

“Reckon so, unless there’s some oddity you ain’t mentioned?” He tapped his boot heel against the scrolled leg of the settee she was on.

“No, Cody. Unless-” she paused as if listening to something far off or perhaps trying to remember something from ages ago, “the sun did seem to get unusually bright as I lay there. And- and there were voices. I was sure they were imaginings- I did hit my head as I fell- Doctor Smith said so.”

“Think hard on it, Mandy. What did the voices say?”

“I don’t- they were too muffled, Cody. Do you suppose that they weren’t just my imaginings, that there were men there who didn’t help me? Oh Cody, how could they have not seen me, if I could hear them- I was calling out for anyone. How could they not have heard?”

“I don’t know, but I will,” Cody promised her as he grabbed his hat and made for the door.

***

On the same trail where Cody’d spotted Miss Lucy and given chase only to have her disappear, was the spot that Mandy’s memory placed the incident with her horse. Prentice wasn’t keen on them finding anything. He kinda seemed to want Cody to go on back to town and pretend that there weren’t nothing strange about any of it.

“Sheriff, there isn’t no call to be spending your time looking for nothing. The Mayoress was just thrown from her horse,” the deputy complained.

“Now which kind of nothing would you be talking about, Jitters- the nothing that goes against God and Nature or the one that means you want me to pay no heed to Mandy’s word?” Cody sniped back at him as they got near to where Mandy had described as where she got thrown and he dismounted. Prentice didn’t answer save for sending Cody a sour look.

First off, Cody spent some time having a good stomp around the area to see if he could catch his footprints making themselves scarce. Unfortunately, there weren’t none of that kind of nothing to be found thereabouts. Then Cody, not sure exactly what else to look for, went over the ground again, searching for something unusual. He did find that kind of nothing there- the empty nothing- the normal one.

“Sheriff, can we let go of this, now? It’s darned ridiculous to be wasting our time here. I mean, what are you even searching for?” Prentice asked.

“Don’t rightly know,” Cody said in reply as he pulled a few stones that were next to the trail up to see what was under them.

“Of course you don’t! Sheriff, I can’t imagine why you’re believing the word of a drunkard and a woman who was recently knocked silly and is most certainly just misremembering some dream she had, but I’m not willing to stay here and watch your foolishness any longer,” Jitters proclaimed and got up on Buttercup (with some difficulty since his going on had made her a might shy of him and his suddenly loud mouth).

“Go on, if you want. I’ll be wanting to see this through.” Cody waved a dismissive hand at his deputy- Jitters had lasted a sight more than Cody had expected considering how peculiar things had gotten round Burgess Gulch of late. At least he weren’t showing sign of turning Blackhat yet. Of course the Blackhats weren’t what they used to be, Cody thought, but he wasn’t sure why he did.

Prentice set Buttercup trotting away, but maybe a hundred yards on, they come to a stop. After a moment, they turned round and trotted back. Cody didn’t even look up as Prentice got down off his horse saying, “Guess the foolishness is catching,” and got down on his knees to have a good look at the moss growing on the side of a bolder.

***

Even with Jitters added eyeballs, Cody didn’t find nothing on the trail, not nothing or anything else of any worth. But there was some niggling thing about the Blackhats he’d been thinking on since then. A thought that wouldn’t make itself whole enough for him to grab a hold of. It was too little to think through and too much to put from his mind for long, so he went up to Prowess Copse to see if being where they were brought it more clear in his head. He left Prentice behind this time. He wasn’t too certain why- just an urge to go at this alone, perhaps.

The lead Blackhat called himself Deadeye Brody, and much as you might expect, he couldn’t shoot worth a darn, which was a complication when it came to his former trade- that of being Cody’s deputy. His situation wasn’t helped by his general laziness and greed. Cody himself wasn’t one to quarrel with a man who enjoyed a slow pace in life, having made pursuing the snail’s particular brand of existence one of his own ambitions, but he just couldn’t brook a lawman with no regard for law, or at the very least fair-mindedness. So, when it came down to choosing, Dillon Brody chose cheating and Cody choose to cut him loose. He was expecting to have to put Brody down when next they crossed each other.

Prowess Copse wasn’t much of one- just a few scraggly bunches of scrub brush out near the edge of town with some falling down buildings that once were a homestead and some craggy caves that marked the entrance of the goldmine. Whatever Blackhats were lingering round Burgess Gulch could be found either there or over to the saloon.

Cody rode up to the copse, and while he was still a few hundred feet off from the buildings, Deadeye’s voice called out, “‘Less you got a writ, I’d just turn your ass back round, Sheriff.”

“Now, Dilly, you know I can’t get this nag to heed if she ain’t got a mind to,” Cody drawled back lazily. It didn’t put a body in a better position to rile Deadeye. He couldn’t shoot, but his little hired gun, Gater, was a crack shot, and he’d gladly take a poke at anyone Deadeye looked sideways at.

“No further, Sheriff, or you gets it between the peepers,” Deadeye warned.

“Just want to have a little sit down with Miss Lucy, Dilly,” Cody said. “How about you come on out and we talk man to man?” Cody was sitting out in the open, mostly on account of his desire not to kill Deadeye today. The man wasn’t really worth the lead.

Took a moment of silent waiting, but eventually Deadeye stepped out from behind an outhouse that was missing most of its door, and Cody got down off the horse he never called Clara and paced up to Deadeye.

“Miss Lucy- she here just now?” Cody asked.

“Nah, not now, she ain’t. Only ever comes when there’s a new task or it’s pay time. Never made so darned much for doing so darned little,” Deadeye leered avariciously. “Makes honest work seem worth finding, if it’s that easy.”

It was powerful strange to hear Deadeye speaking of work with such energy, and easy work in the mine? There wasn’t a lick of gold in that hole in the ground, never had been. The only reason anyone worked that mine was Tiberius J. Frenic’s Wild West Tales, the darned dime westerns some fool kept setting in Burgess Gulch. More than half the poor souls that come in on the stage come hoping to strike it rich in the mine that Frenic writ was so rich, the U.S. government wanted to keep it secret so as not to lower the price of bullion.

Once they caught on that the mine was nothing save fantasy, they usually went one of three ways- firstly, if they had the wherewithal and the cash, they went on to California or some such place to try their hand at mining somewhere else, or secondly, they made the best of it, settling down and farming or taking on a trade in town- being good honest folk, or thirdly, they turned Blackhat and spent the rest of their days robbing the good honest folk and the newly arrived greenhorns before meeting their end, usually violently and more often than not, at the wrong end of Cody’s gun.

“All right then, when’s the next time you anticipate her coming round?”

“Sundown, not before.”

“Fine and dandy. I’ll be back at sundown. And you tell Miss Lucy I’ll be looking for her then.” Cody left then, but the niggling thing was still there, in fact it seemed to have an odd kind of echo in his head saying that there just might be two niggling things about the Blackhats he couldn’t lay a finger on.

***

On his way back to town, Cody managed to get a hold of what was going on. Took a couple of times through before Cody cottoned on- he’d already had the same meeting with Deadeye days before. It had been before Mandy had been thrown from her horse and before Whitey had dropped off into the bottle and come back crazier than before. He and Jitters had been investigating something- Cody couldn’t rightly say what and they’d gone up there after some sort of answer. Cody shook his head. Remembering was harder than he remembered it being before- at least he thought it was.

* Just prior to the madness that is Nano season, I participated in a cooperative writing thing over at Write Anything. It was posted on the site during the last week of November. Below is a link to the story, Lost On Earth on Write Anything as well as one for the e-book version on Scribd.

Lost On Earth in chapters

Lost On Earth the e-book

* As I wrote at the end of October, I kind of abandoned my serials while getting ready for Nanowrimo, although I was planning to give each of them another 2 or 3 parts before the end of the year. I may not be able to get quite that far in them considering the holiday rush is about to rush me, but I do intend to try and put a bit more of each of them up over the next month before putting them on hiatus and restarting The Golden Apple Tales, Travis Keller (Not So Super Hero), Brave the Arid Ocean and Spirals in January.

Previous Parts (1) (2) (3).

4

Whitey McGee wasn’t a body one normally missed. Now that you come to it, his was a body one was usually pleased to miss, what with the smell. That said, a few days after Cody’d seen the strange woman riding up to the high pasture, he came to notice that he hadn’t had to step past Whitey- who could be reliably found at the mouth of the alley between Miss Nannette Corbet’s and the saloon, reclining with his back against the broken hitching post there- Cody hadn’t had to step past him in more than a day, maybe two. Cody stopped in on Jeb, the undertaker, to make certain that he hadn’t planted him in the potter’s field (he hadn’t) before putting Prentice on the case. Jitters was alternately pleased to have Cody showing trust in him and disappointed at the person he was meant to find. Seemed that looking under haystacks for the town drunk wasn’t the kind of work he’d been hoping for.

Two days later, Whitey came stumbling back into town with a wild-eyed story about beams of bright light and green skinned strangers poking at him while he screamed and thrashed about. Jitters was bit twice by Whitey’s reappearance, firstly because it meant that he would again have to endure the stench of Whitey on a long hot August afternoon when the wind blew easterly, wafting it gently into the door of the Sheriff’s Office, and secondly, it meant that Jitters had failed to solve the first case Cody had given him on account of not being able to find a drunkard on a three day bender. Thing was, Cody had watched Prentice going about looking for Whitey and he hadn’t done a half-bad job of it. The fact that Jitters didn’t come up with Whitey didn’t go against the truth of it that he’d done just the same as Cody would have- looked under the same rocks and behind the same outhouses. By what he did, Prentice should have found Whitey, only he just didn’t.

Less than a day later, it was the Mayoress that Cody came to notice he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of in a day or so, which was just unheard of, so he decided to take on the mystery of the disappearances himself, her being kin and all.

***

Whitey claimed to have been sleeping behind Miss Nannette Corbet’s before he’d been taken up in the beam of light. Course, no one had any remembrance of him being there at the time, nor of a bright flash of light round that time, neither. Cody and Jitters went round there and had a look at the bare ground, which was all there was to see.

“What you looking at, Sheriff?” Nannette cooed at them as she leaned on the frame to the kitchen’s back door, her arms crossed.

Prentice gave her a scowl. “Official business, ma’am,” he snapped and leaned down lower to squint at the nothing that was there in the dirt. Cody left his deputy to it and stood to speak to Nannette.

“You heard ’bout Whitey, now haven’t you?” he asked conversationally as he reached up and brushed a wisp of her dark honey colored hair off her cheek and put it behind her ear.

“Course, Cody. Darn idiot stops everybody who passes by to tell the whole foolish tale,” she replied, leaning into his hand with her cheek and smiling real pretty.

“Then you know he claims the varmints took him from hereabouts. You see anything of him or maybe a great flash of lightning round a week past?” His voice was hardly more than a whisper- she was close enough for him to save the extra breath as he spoke.

“Not a bit, Cody.” She leaned in closer, barely making a sound herself.

“If you don’t mind!” Prentice scolded, his head popping into Cody’s view. “Sheriff, I think I’ve found something of interest.” Nannette pulled away and went back into the kitchen with a lingering glance back at Cody that made him that much more irked at Jitters.

“So, where’s your all fired important discovery?” Cody demanded as he turned to his depute.

“There’s nothing here,” he stated flatly, his face shining as if he were a schoolboy who’d finished the whole primer on the first day of school to please a buxom new schoolmarm.

“I know that, Jitters. That’s why I had moved on to questioning a witness,” Cody said with a smirk.

“No, Sheriff, you misunderstand- the thing that’s of interest is the fact that there is nothing here. No signs that anything has happened here at all. The dirt is smooth- no foot prints at all. Not even from when we walked here.” Prentice pointed across the ground to the place where they’d rounded the corner from the alleyway. The ground was level and unmarked. Cody followed the dearth of footprints round the corner until the place where the scuffing of their boots appeared.

“I’ll be darned!” Cody exclaimed. He wrote his name in the pristine dirt with his finger only to watch it fade into smoothness again.

***

Cody and Jitters had spend the better part of the afternoon poking around behind Miss Corbet’s, watching as the footprints they left in the dirt faded a few seconds after they raised their feet from the ground, but they didn’t find anything that pointed them to either where to find the Mayoress or a reason for the peculiar workings of the dirt. Whitey had come back to himself (or perhaps it were, to Earth), quite coincidentally, in the high pasture near to Redfield’s ranch and so the next place they went was there. Throughout the ride up there Cody kept expecting to spy the mysterious woman- the protectress, as Blackdeer had called her, but there was no sign of her, her oversized duster or her gaudy calico dress.

“Sheriff, there’s nothing here,” Jitters said after they’d dismounted, herded the steer away, and looked round at the turf where it had been twisted up and wavy the last time they had checked. It was not quite so churned up anymore, and grass was growing back in the line where it had been bare.

“Is there? Where is it?” Cody inquired, expecting that his deputy had found a place that acted the same as the piece of Earth behind Miss Corbet’s.

“No, this time I mean- nothing, not nothing.” Jitters made an exasperated face and tried again, “There’s no strangeness here- just normal dirt, see.” He dug his heel into the ground and they spent a couple of long minutes waiting on the smoothing out that never came. “Not at all certain what this means, Sheriff.”

“Never you mind the thinking it out, Jitters. I got that end covered,” Cody assured his deputy, even though he didn’t have a hint what it all meant- it was beyond his ken for sure. “It means that whatever way he come back, if he was even ever gone and not sleeping off his whiskey breakfast, lunch and dinner in some barn- whatever way he come back didn’t do to the dirt what the way he left did.” Prentice looked at him, blinking in disbelief. “Well, it’s something, ain’t it?” Cody asked.

***

Now Cody was about sure that she had been a specter from inside his head, the strange woman, but then she had to go ahead and top her first entrance into Burgess Gulch by walking into town leading an old nag with Mayoress Litchfield a sitting in the saddle two days after Mandy had gone missing. And, as soon as she did, all and sundry greeted her as if she was a favored daughter, beloved there since birth.

“How do, Miss Lucy, how goes things round about the mine?” Jeb asked her, sweet as you please.

“I’m quite well, thank you kindly. It’s poor Miranda here that needs tending to,” she told him as they made for Doc Smith’s office.

Of course, Cody and Jitters went right over to see about how Mandy was. She claimed to have been thrown from her horse outside of town, not far from Prowess Copse. Said she spent the better part of two days lying in a ditch before Miss Lucy came upon her and got her inside to get fed, cleaned up and rested a while before they came into town. Doc Smith prescribed rest and laudanum for her aches, and then all the excitement was finished.

As they stepped outside leaving Mandy in Doc Smith’s capable hands, Miss Lucy stepped close to Cody, smiled that same sweet smile she’d given in the sweat lodge up at him and said, “Awful nice of you to be so concerned for the Mayoress considering, Sheriff.”

“Considering what, Miss Lucy?” Cody asked, but she just shook her head at him and walked off. Now, what in tarnation was he to make of that?

As Cody watched her walk off in her ridiculous get up- still the oversized duster and the lurid calico dress, Cody could hear Prentice speak as he poked Jeb with his elbow. “How is it that they that woman can look like that and still look like that?” he asked in appreciation of her and Cody figured he best just give it all up and find some whisky.

***

Soft knocking roused Cody from the stupor he’d fallen into looking at the changing light of the setting sun play in and out of the whisky bottle glass. As he turned the bottle, the light twisted and hopped along the flaws in the glass. He’d been thinking about how much like that light he’d been feeling lately- someone up there was twisting his bottle round so that nothing looked the same and he didn’t know what was true and what was flawed. There was just about none who came up to his room above the sheriff’s station to get him unless there were some peacemaking problem that needed seeing to. It was something awful rare when that type of problem prompted such a timid knock. Cody wondered who might have been so bold as to come up to his rooms, only to turn so bashful as to knock with such gentleness.

A tug on the rickety doorknob revealed Nannette standing on the landing. She had a crooked smile on her face and a basket that smelled suspiciously of apple pie. “Going to let me in Cody or do I have to get rough with you?” she asked smoothly. Then, without waiting on an answer, she swept passed him into the room. “Sake’s alive, this is a sight,” she scolded, looking around at the disarray that had crept up round the place over the last few weeks.

“Well, you know me and housekeeping,” Cody muttered and came over to help her as she started picking up refuse from the small table he’d just been sitting at. Cody looked at her, again getting hit with the trueness the woman had about her. If he’d had a mind to be getting married, which he didn’t much, he couldn’t have conjured up a more perfect woman to bind himself to. Cody shook that though off- Nannette weren’t naught by a friend to him and seemed not to want to be more than that to any man. There was something about her that was beyond that.

“Come now, Cody, it ain’t all that bad that pie won’t help, is it?” Nanette asked as she laid the table and cut them each a slice, his rough pewter plates sounding harder on the wood than Nannette’s soft use of them made him expect. Then she sat herself down there at his table.

“No, ma’am, it certainly ain’t,” he agreed and took his place next to her, feeling glad not to have slid comfortably into that all but forgotten whisky bottle (for he would have missed this if he had and that weren’t anywhere near to an even trade).

Part 5