jamieproctor.ca

Grim-Faced Shieldwall of Gorbon
Gifter: Grirk of Gorbond
Rationale: Not my style, thank you very much. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer something you can get two hands around and really swing with.
Re-giftee: Srakeen the Shredder.

Treacherous, Scheming, Untrustworthy Lieutenant
Gifter: Lib the Mad
Rationale: Already got one.
Re-giftee: Lib the Mad. It’s not like he’ll remember giving it to me anyways. This is what, the fourth time?

A Pair of Inept Bungling Oafs Whose Loyalty is Only Exceeded by Their Stupidity and Capacity for Self-Destruction, complete with comically mismatched suits of armor
Gifter: Srakeen the Shredder
Rationale: Is she TRYING to get me killed? One is permissible, two is practically a death warrant for Nirtrazon himself. Besides, I already have Trulb. At least until I can find someone from a good home who wants him.
Re-giftee: Feed the Peasantry’s seasonal gift-box.

Peasant Child of Unknown Family With Secret Fire Smouldering in Her Eyes
Gifter: Trulb
Rationale: What exactly am I supposed to do with a fourteen-year-old? The only thing I hate more than kids is teenagers.
Re-giftee: Mong the Slavemaster. Maybe we can at least grind some labour out of the brat before it gets old and slow.

How To Escape Your Crumbling Stronghold, by Nol Oldlord
Gifter: Nol Oldlord
Rationale: Okay, explain to me this: who the darkhells is going to receive a seasonal gift implying that the gifter expects them to fail and fall like a bleating two-year-old goblin and be THANKFUL for it? Stupid old bat.
Re-giftee: Srakeen the Shredder. I think this one’s going to be making the rounds for a few years.

***

Capacious Darkplate
Gifter: Tordamore
Rationale: Doesn’t fit. I’m not entirely sure why people just go around ASSUMING that I’m a tub of lard, but this seems to happen far too often. The perils of spending most of your time either brooding in the shadows or sealed inside a big metal can, I suppose.
Re-giftee: Nol Oldlord. Two can play the gift-an-insult game, you self-important old prick.

A Handful of Blackened Ichor and Spittle
Gifter: Iz-Na!-Chlun!
Rationale: Seriously?
Re-giftee: Lib the Mad. He’ll probably eat it or something.

Tumultuous Ruin-mace, engraved with loving hands
Gifter: Mom
Rationale: In the name of all that is buried and foul, I have an image to maintain and that image does not include tiny puppies carved into obsidian.
Re-giftee: Trulb.

Giant Flogging-Whip
Gifter: Jormund the Tallest
Rationale: Ugh, ethnic gifts. Look, I don’t have anything against giants, I just don’t really care for their instruments of torture. They’re loud and clumsy and make no sense. Leave the giant implements of pain to the giants, leave the evil overlord implements of pain to me. Everyone’s happiest that way.
Re-giftee: Mom. I know she gets a kick out of this stuff. Wish Dad was still around to tell me why.

Tracking Dragon-Dogs
Gifter: The city of Backlebroad
Rationale: Couldn’t find a stupid escaped teenager, what CAN they find? Half their body weight at that age is smelly hormones and acne! A waste to feed them.
Re-giftee: Feed the Peasantry’s seasonal gift-box.

***

Seven-Hundred-and-Forty-Seven Pages of Scribbled, Crumpled Rantings on Bloodstained Parchment, in No Particular Order
Gifter: Lib the Mad
Rationale: Maybe I shouldn’t have sent him that ichor.
Re-giftee: Trulb. He’s been whining about running out of toilet paper for weeks now.

Giant and Unstoppable Doomaconda with Hypnotizing Eyes and an Eighteen-Syllable Name I Cannot Pronounce
Gifter: Oll the Serpent
Rationale: I can’t say it, I can’t spell it, and I don’t need it. Cold-blooded or no, that thing eats too much. Besides, the castle’s already heavily guarded. What more could I want?
Re-giftee: Mom. She’s been wanting a new pet for a while now, since CHRGHTM descended back to the lowest darkhell.

Towering Parapet
Gifter: Tordamore
Rationale: This fortress is tall enough already, I’m tall enough already, and if we improve on either of those things I’ll start to get dizzy. Besides, traditionally parapets are for brooding on, and I’m not that kind of tyrant.
Re-giftee: Jormund the Tallest. Maybe giants like this sort of thing.

Love Interest
Gifter: Mom
Rationale: Here’s a little bit about me: I am seventeen feet tall, completely sociopathic and happy that way, covered in spiky armour, shed hate and flame from every single inch of my steely hide, and am entirely lacking in genitalia. This tremulous little twerp is as useful to me as tits on a boar.
Re-giftee: ??? I already gave Srakeen a new dishwasher this year, and that’s about the heaviest labour I can see this waste of space doing. Might as well shut it in a tower until I figure out what to do about it.

Creaking and Ominous Graveyard, With Grandiose Mausoleum
Gifter: Nol Oldlord
Rationale: I prefer my victims burnt, and I will leave behind no physical corpse. Besides, I’m going to live forever.
Re-giftee: Nol Oldlord. Take a hint, wheezing dotard.

***

Giant Catapult
Gifter: Jormund the Tallest
Rationale: Worked for one hour, then destroyed by daring midnight raid.
Re-giftee: Dumpster.

Impenetrable Wall-Plating, Hand-Knitted
Gifter: Mom
Rationale: Penetrated.
Re-giftee: Dumpster.

Wailing Doom-Brigade of Chanting Maniacs
Gifter: Iz-Na!-Chlun!
Rationale: Read one augury, committed mass suicide without permission, formed convenient ramp across flarewater moat.
Re-giftee: Feed the Peasantry’s seasonal gift-box.

Trulb’s Heart
Gifter: Trulb
Rationale: It seemed really satisfying to tear it out at the time, but in retrospect he was the last lackey in the fortress.
Re-giftee: Whoever’s standing outside my window at this second.

How To Escape Your Crumbling Stronghold, by Nol Oldlord (used)
Gifter: Grirk of Gorbond
Rationale: Last chapter is missing.
Re-giftee: Fuck my fucking li

This is it, this is the night for it. The only night for it, too. Once a year, once every twelve months.
Listen closely, and follow closer still. This is safe, but only if you do exactly as I say.

Here is your bell. It’s heavier than it looks, but it looks like a wisp of nothing. But it is sweet and silvery to the eye, and its tone jingles well enough. It is what we need, it is what we must, it will do.
Raise it up, bring it down. And don’t stop, don’t stop. I will tell you when to stop, and do not expect it anytime soon.
Do not allow your fear to stutter your ringing or weaken your heart. I am here and will tell you of what is needed. All our tools are here. I have a platter with two vegetables wrenched from the earth this autumn, still dripping with dirt; a vessel of cattle-milk; and a charred scrap of ground meadow-weeds and half-cracked nuts, shaped as a circle. It reminds you of the moon overhead, doesn’t it?
Ring, ring. Don’t stop now, we’re just getting started. Swing it! Swing it as you ring!

And as you swing that bell as high as your arms can rise, start the call. Rising and falling, forever repeating, starting low and rushing upwards, a siren, an announcement. Each time with more energy than the last until you’re almost screaming it. It should start like laughter and end like a warcry. Yes, like that.
And then, you’ll hear it coming back to you.
And you will hear it, trust me. You’ll hear him long before you see him. The chime and clang of bells replying to bells, the hot breath of snorting beasts on the wind. Ten thousand miles in less than an instant’s passing, here from the top of the world where the sun never sets and never rises, drawn across the sky on capering hooves and sweat-runneled backs.
Listen – there it is. Just beyond the horizon and coming on like a comet in the sky, tearing the night on the frenzy of the eight runners.

There! There! Do you not see him? His great coal-blacked boots of leathered hide, the fitful mist-plumes of his heavy breath? And the face atop that suit of blood’s own colour, a face as purple as a rotten bruise, framed by a bone-white tangle that can’t be but cousin of a thornbush. Close now, so close – has he seen us, of course he has, he can see everything everywhere, and he watches all that creep the earth all year. Yessss, that is he. There can be no other. Many mimic the suit, but only one dares don it in this night, in the sky. The others are but his heralds, his messengers, his warning.
The beasts touch our roof first – hear the clutching and scrabbling of each misshapen claw. The sledge arrives soon after, frozen in the cold that lives at the end of the world, dripping with icicles – aaaah, the shingles scream under its runners!
And then the footfall. He is come.
He expects his tribute and he shall have it. Take the plate – there. Steady now, firm hands.
Hold the plate aloft. Do not look at his eyes. Do not shiver overly as the sounds of the devouring reach your ears, as crumbs rain down upon the roof-tiles. They are fearful but they are not harmful, and this is not what can be said of his ire.

There – there! He is satiated, he beckons, he drums atop one kneecap with an ancient glove whose gnarled skin conceals a hand of inhuman form. Approach with care, with love, with absolute trust, and seat yourself upon his crooked bones. You must love him as if he were your own mother, your own father – no, above them! Love him, damn you, or there will be such a sight you will never recover!
Remain calm and clear. It’s not so bad, is it? Do not inhale. Just relax. Do not inhale. Stare up at him now, it is permitted. Feel the fondness within you. Do not inhale. See how he nods? Begin.
Begin! Begin the list, slow-wit! Hurry, hurry with the list, damn you! The night he treads is nigh-endless, but the same cannot be guaranteed of his patience! Read – do not stammer, do not shudder, read for your life and mind! Read when thought bleeds and sanity shrieks! Read it aloud! NOW!

Good. Good work.
You can open your eyes now.

Look – the offerings are gone, devoured by his beasts as we tarried here, nothing left by stems and gnawed fragments. And his mark, the white stain of his paw-print, pale and lurid beneath the black sky. It is as snow, but it does not melt. Do not touch it.
It is done. Look, he is gone from us. But listen, and you will hear him. Can you hear him? He calls to you as he leaves us, as he flies away into his endless trek once more. A blessing and a warning both.
No, I don’t know what the ‘kris-mass’ is. What matters of what he said is this: this is the night before it, and this is the night that matters. Do not dwell on it.
Now flee to your home and family, and hug them with especial love, and remember this if you must remember something of the evening: this only happens only once every twelve months.
And for that, if nothing else, it is a good night.

On a white throne under a white roof under a sky greyer than a grandfather’s chin sat Rime IV, spawn of Rime III, spawn of Rime II, spawn of Rime, spawn of the First Frost. It gazed down from its frozen seat at the small thing of tepid water quailing in front of it on a patch of discoloured snow.
“Occupation,” it proclaimed.
The thing flinched, then flinched again at the precise prod of the coldguard at its back. “Your occupation,” it said. Its voice was a sad, high whistle that was all out of place against its craggy, ice-plated bulk. Were it outside you could’ve mistaken it for a random whimsy of the north wind, and in fact many people had, the most recent just under an hour ago.
“Tailor,” whispered the human. His lips were blue with cold, and the word slurred its way past them uneasily.
Rime IV waved a hand. The coldguard did its duty yet again. And all was ready for the last of the prisoners.
This one was peculiar. Its hide was more ornate and elaborate than the others.
“Occupation,” repeated Rime IV.
“Architect.”
Rime IV’s hand halted in mid-wave. “Elaborate.”
“Nel Mos, royal architect to Her Worship, the-“
One of Rime IV’s fingers twitched. The coldguard delivered a gentle admonishment to the human’s spinal column. “Explain your word,” it fluted.
Rime IV waited patiently while the little sloshing thing collected itself.
“Architect. Royal architect. I design, plan, and oversee the construction of structures. Large and small. Mostly large.”
One of Rime IV’s eyesockets swivelled. “Large?”
The human looked around. “Larger than this. By maybe-”
Rime IV’s finger tapped against its knee, and the coldguard’s talons halted themselves an inch from admonishment. “Continue,” it said.
“…by maybe three times. Oppli Cathedral certainly was, and maybe the Ducal Dome of Nolla too. I’ve had maybe seven or eight less commissions maybe twice the size. A baker’s dozen of a kind to it. And fourteen smaller.”
All six of Rime IV’s eyesockets spun once. “And?”
“And what? I mean, this is impressive, for ice, but-”
The coldguard made up for lost time, as gently as it knew how. “How would you improve upon this?” it whistled into her ear on bended knee.
The human took some time to respond, and seemed excessively fixated on the discoloured snow. Architectural speculation, perhaps? “Well. I wouldn’t.”
“Explain,” declared Rime IV.
“I’d start from scratch with a fresh foundation. I don’t fancy trying to renovate this place, not without knowing what went into the blueprints – which I’m not even sure exist.”
Rime IV nodded.
“No, I’d make something fresh. And if this is what you’ve got, then I’ve got a plan.”
“Large?” it inquired.
Nel Mos looked up at Rime IV for the first time since her sudden fall, and bared her teeth in that strange way humans did. “Large.”
Rime IV waved its other hand. The coldguard raised the architect up with as much delicacy as its carapace provided.
“Accepted.”

The tower’s base was to be stone.
“Why?” inquired Rime IV.
“You want to build big, you start firm. The ground here may be frozen solid, but it’s still just dirt and sod at heart, and at the sizes we’re dealing with, it’ll sink. We start with stones, we can make ourselves a nice firm platform to work with. And you give me a place to build, I’ll give you a beacon that’ll shine from here to the other end of the world.”
Rime IV flicked at the scribbles on the sheet before it. “Ice?”
“Farther up, yes. We’ll start with stone, but it’ll all be ice once we’re off the ground. And we can cover up the stone with a façade, if you’d prefer.”
Rime IV waved its other hand. “Yes.”
“Right now… right now what I need is a quarry. I know these hills are good for what I want, I just don’t know exactly where. Do your people have a spot for that sort of thing?”
Coldguards filed into the throne-room, heavy feet clacking on the smooth floor. Six separate limbs seized Nel and raised her to a position of prominence atop their owner’s brow.
Rime IV pointed. “Go.”

By midday, Nel Mos had been dragged across what felt to be half the Wandering Hills, and stood on a ridge above a craggy granite vale of surpassing beauty.
By the hour’s end she’d set half her crew of coldguard to laying out quarry plots.
A half-hour more, and the first test-stone was being carved free of its cradle, a task that took many once-gleaming talons down to dulled nubbins.
Ten minutes past that and she was halfway down a gully and rolling into her shoulders, head hunched to protect it from the pebbles and the cold. Her internal odometer told her that she was nearly half a mile away already, and accelerating. Her eyes, unfortunately, told her that the largest boulder at the bottom of the hill was a coldguard, standing up, arms opening wider, and wider, and wider.

“Unfortunate,” said Rime IV.
Nel Mos managed, with great effort, to make no noise.
It raised itself from the throne, took two steps and was in front of her, a tower of billowing cold. “Explain.”
“I was just-”
“The nearest hearth-fire is twelve days fast-march,” said the coldguard.
“I-”
“Explain.”
“The nearest warm-dwelling is sixteen days fast-march.”
“The-”
“Explain.”
“The nearest warm-town is two dozen days fast-march, travelling through the night.”
“I wasn’t trying to-”
“Example.”
The coldguard hauled up the architect with five claws and reached out with the other. She couldn’t feel the pain, just a strange pressure. There wasn’t even a sound.
“The stone will be hauled. You will be called. You must wait.”
Nel gave up talking as she was hauled away, all her spare breath spent. Her eyes lingered on the little red nub of her right foot’s biggest toe on the cold white floor of the throne-room as it vanished around a corner.

Days later, the architect was dragged to a high ridge from a low pit of cold slush and colder air, lips blue and body almost past the point of shivering.
“Behold,” said a voice next to her, heavy and creaking with glacial weight; Rime IV, not a coldguard. Her eyes – far-sighted at the best of times – were hazed by exhaustion and hunger, but she did as ordered.
The base was complete, or nearly so: a giant disc that could have served as a god’s gaming token. Dozens of coldguard scrambled over it, hook-hands grasping at slabs, scratching out etchings, prodding and goading at the backs of groaning things of compressed snow and hail that lumbered four-legged, burdened under tons of stone.
“Instruct,” it ordered.
Nel Mos took a deep breath and a deeper thought and began to talk. And as she talked, she began to draw in the snow.
By the day’s end, her second escape attempt had begun – on the back of a slushbeast. That night she ran afoul of a cold snap that turned her mount rigid as an oak.
“Unfortunate,” said Rime IV. And it was her right foot’s next-biggest toe this time, snip-tunk, and back to the pit with whatever nourishment could be chewed and scraped from a squirrel frozen rock-hard and stiff as a board. She cooked it inch by inch with the little warmth that could be secured by her pocket-lens, focusing the drab rays of a sun that hid behind grey clouds.

And so it grew on, and on. Time seemed to fly – the tower’s workers never rested, the tower’s builder never ceased her struggles. A level was built – a grand hall, a soaring library, a royal apartment, a solar. An escape was attempted – a dash into the maze of the under-foundations, an attempted smuggling within a load of construction debris, even the futile effort at overpowering a coldguard for its armour with a broken stone carved jagged. And each and every time another toe, another rebuke. All the same end to every story.
“Replacable,” commented Rime IV after the sixth time. The architect knew it wasn’t speaking of the digit that lay upon its floor. The tower was nearing completion
“Not by half,” she shot back. “The base was the easy part, and the floors after that. If the peak isn’t done properly, the whole thing’ll fall over. You need me.”
Rime IV waved its other hand, and she was taken away for her reward. This time it was a litter of mice, and as she felt tiny bones disintegrate against numbed teeth she drew sketches on the wall of the pit. Plans for a funeral, plans for a building, plans for the same damned thing in the end.
Every day it lived in her head, it grew. Ever time it grew, it turned. Ideas shaped into ideas shaped into ideas.

“Large?” inquired Rime IV. Its eyesocket twisted. Nel had decided that was a raised eyebrow.
“Large,” she agreed.
“Elaborate.”
The architect hugged herself absently to hold in the warmth – something she did without thinking now – and stared up at her work, the quickest she’d ever done. Thrice the height of the Ducal Dome. Nearly twice again the highest spire of the Grand Cathedral. The Gidling Spire, plus a third of itself and a nip more.
“The largest,” she said. “Easily the largest I’ve done. Almost certainly the largest ever. And with ice. Would’ve been much simpler with standard materi-”
Her eyes had been on Rime IV’s hands, and so the blow from the coldguard at her back came as no surprise.
“Do not denigrate,” it whistled mournfully into her ear.
Rime IV turned away from its contemplation of the fixing of the tower’s tallest spire. Five hundred turns of its length would be required to fully run the course of its thread, to screw it down firmly enough to fasten in the bolts that would embed it for all time.
“Complete?” it asked.
Her eyes never left those carelessly dangling fingers. “No,” she said.
Eyesocket twist. All the eyesockets. “No?”
“I said I’d build you a beacon, and I meant it. We’ll need more ice, a lot more, and the best you can find. Ice so perfect I can see my heartbeat in it, clearer than air. Ice so polished I can see my twin in it, better than any mirror. Give me this, and you will have your beacon. And it’ll go much farther than the other end of the earth.”
“Acceptable,” said Rime IV, and that was the last she heard for another day.

It was quick. Almost too quick, in the end.
The tower took shape, a shape of slenderness glad in a thousand shards. Mirrors coated it, and translucent lenses filled its guts. Every surface that wasn’t an illusion was invisible, to the point that ever the coldguards trod carefully and with limbs extended. Only the architect knew her way, propelled by that same devious memory that kept her designs fresh in her skull. Under her hands the tower changed, fleshed itself, turned into something that pierced the sky and stared back at it.
And at its base, at its center, underneath a ceiling that opened up to the heavens hundreds and hundreds of feet above, sat a throne of crystalline ice larger than the grandest mansion. And on that throne, all its bulk nearly lost in the immensity, yet precisely tuned to be the center of the eye, was seated Rime IV, spawn of Rime III, spawn of Rime II, spawn of Rime, spawn of the First Frost.
“Complete?” it inquired of the small figure far beneath it, huddled on the floor. A hundred coldguards surrounded it, having liberated it of the last, smallest toe of its left foot just minutes earlier.
“No,” said the architect, speech slurred through a mouth ever-frozen. “There is one thing.”
Rime IV leaned far back in its throne, its tendrils clinking softly against a thousand perfect reflections of itself. “Expand.”
“The last mirror is being mounted as we speak. Above us.”
Rime IV nodded impatiently. “Done.” Its hand rose, the coldguard stirred.
“Wait. One thing.”
The hand halted.
“One more thing. Just one.”
“Speak.”
“The mirror. The mirror’s being placed. And… it has no name. It needs a name. Speak the name.”
Rime IV thought, and unlike its prisoner, its thoughts were slow and cold. It thought, and it thought, and it thought, and at last it stirred in its seat, both of its mouths opening for the first time since its spawning, since its own name had left its maws.
“It. Is.”
It coughed, deep in its chest cavity. Hollow rattling came from within, and it spoke stronger now.
“It is. It is The Tower of the Last Frost.”
“Yes it is,” said Nel Mos, looking up to the sky. “Yes it is.”

In the end all those escape attempts, all those stories, all that arguing, all that tower, all of it paid off. For the very moment that the last mirror slid into place in the highest spire of the highest peak of the Tower of the Last Frost was the same moment as the sun, wits long-dulled by the winter months, chose to herald the first morning of the first day of the spring.
It was not much of a thing, as far in the north as the Wandering Hills were. A fleeting gleam of brightness in the gloom.
But even one instant of light can go a long ways. Up and down and around the tower nearly a hundred times, by Nel Mos’s designs. Up and down and around and through and into itself, doubling on itself, tripling, quintupling, on and on beyond words and into numbers, turning itself from a beam to a blaze to something fiercely beyond any sensations at all, that took one last rise and plunge and dove down from the heights to refract itself in every direction from that crystal throne.
If there was a sense that could describe it, Nel Mos’s weren’t up to the task. All those weeks of cold had left her with a chill that she felt nothing could lift. Still, she found a word for it afterwards, that feeling that entered her as she saw, for a split instant, Rime IV’s expression change and the air turn bright.
Warm.

It was, in fact, twelve days fast-march to the nearest hearth-fire. Fifteen without toes.
But Nel made the trek smiling every last step of the way.

It began with the two most dangerous of things: a stomach that held too little and a head that held too much. And nowhere was there a more capricious vessel for these two traits than the body and soul of a common crow.
Well, the crow is an ingenious bird. There was no food available? Then he would find it! He flapped forth with purpose.
There was no food in the tall grey woods. They were quiet and dim with the late autumn air, berries plucked and rodents nested.
There was no food in the wide brown fields. They were emptied of harvest, emptied of care, lying cold and waiting for the white blanket.
There was no food by the rushing blue streams. They had sunk into a dull-colour fugue now, as dim as the skies. Fish no longer bothered to leap.
There was no food in the busy many-coloured city. There had been a glut of scraps and filth in the summer, steaming under the sun, but the cold kept people (and their garbage) indoors and out of the way.
And it was there, as he perched on the corner of a building, consumed by annoyance and the bite of an angry belly, that the crow’s eyes alighted upon a none-too-notable thing: two passing noble-men, heads bent, hands waving. Discussing serious matters as serious men did.
And for many animals that would have been that. But he was a crow, and an ingenious bird whose head held too much, and that set him straight-footed as to what was to be done.
The men separated at a street corner with a handshake. Business concluded, backs were turned.
A pebble. A perch. Bonk.
“What was that for?”
“What?”
“You hit me!”
“I did no such thing.”
“Liar!”
“Lout!”
And soon there were blades and shouts and rough things and there was a fine two-hundred-pound meal cooling in the crisp November air for the crow, and he got a good cropful out of it before other, paler, calmer men arrived to take it away. And the best bits too – the soft round things that had stared so emptily at the sky.
One of them threw a pebble at him, but the crow was a canny sort, and he dodged it.

A scant week later and winter had moved in, curdled the waters of the land into solid mass and bedecked the trees in frozen jewels. Food became scarcer still and the crow was not hungry alone. He and his murder grew thin and cold together, fat sleek-feathered bodies wearing ragged. Something had to be done.
Well, it was simple enough. Few things are smarter than a crow, but one of those things is several crows. And they have excellent memories.

Down the streets it trundles, the carriage of the great family, footmen clinging to it like monkeys, wheels dancing on ice patches. The memorial service for their lost boy had been delayed by shock. Nobody had expected to have to arrange such a thing, not now, so young; not here, so close to home and far from war.
They arrived at the cemetery, side by side with another procession, a very similar procession. The cut dealt to their own had been slower and crueler, but there had been no doubt of its result within hours. Their son had lived to help plan his own funeral.
The two groups devoted all their ears to their priests as best as they could, to stay civil. They ignored each other. They ignored the city. They ignored the tired, bare trees that stood around them.
They also ignored the crows.
Bonk.
“Did he-“
“Shh. Not now.”

Bonk.
“Why-!”
“Don’t-“
“I felt that, I saw him look at me!”
“Why would I look at you, murderer?”
“The same to your own!”
“Sto-“
“Shut up! I’ll say what we all should!”
Bonk
Bonk
and it all went along quite predictably from there. Alas, the gap between riot and cleanup was briefer this time, public as it was, but still there was time – and no shortage of targets – for the murder to fill itself to the point of bursting. They had been very hungry indeed, and in the weeks to come and the burials to arrange the glass-blowers found much work in artificial eyes. Ten pairs.

Winter reigned, cruel and clean, sharp enough to cut but soft enough to numb it away. The city shrank under it, and in such a tight space the fighting never quite ceased. In the streets, in the squares, under the rafters. It was beyond the close relatives now, of course. Both could afford to hire men to do this sort of thing for them.
A meeting was arranged. Cooler heads must prevail, this was all out of hand. Already lesser houses, smaller houses were beginning to rustle and rumble, to pick sides. Nobody really wanted this to get much larger. Surely they didn’t.
That’s what they told themselves as they all sat at the long, long table, face to face with those they could not look in the eye. None of them wanted this. It was the other ones. Their fault. Why did they force our hands?
The papers were already on the table, lying alone at its center, still half-unwrapped. Nobody wanted to touch them.
Tap-tap-tap on the glass. A welcome distraction for the man seated nearest to it, a private moment of relief noticed by no-one else. His son was dead, and now one of his cousins, and he had to keep quiet but it was so hard, so hard. Yes, this would take his mind off this room full of people he hated. Whatever was at the window. Just for an instant, he could be somewhere else, in mind if not body.

The crow met the man’s gaze cheerfully. Dangling from his beak was a single, hazy-brown eyeball.
He watched as the man rose from his seat and began to walk towards the far end of the table, and knew that his work was done. And he was thankful that he had remembered the colour of the soft, slippery meal he had enjoyed months and more ago.

Low winter now. Still harsh, but full of rot. Wet, but dead. Slush and slurry in every footfall, muck and mud spattering every drift. Snow turns to ice turns to water turns to slurry turns to ice. And everywhere, everywhere, the men added to the thaw with their own steaming red.
There was food in the tall grey woods, whose trees had been cut to serve as timbers in forts that lay half-burning. A great deal of food.
There was food in the wide brown fields, where farms burned to deny the enemy’s stomachs and many boots turned soil to mud.
There was food bobbing in the rushing blue streams – roiling and furious with the flow of water, churning flesh against stone until the blood ran out down to the sea.
And there was more and more food even in that cold, cold many-coloured city, where many more each day rose and found themselves lacking meals of their own. The beggars had been the first to feel its pinch, but that had been weeks ago, and now an empty plate was a natural plate.
The crow was happy. Its eyes were bright, its beak shone, its feathers were fluffed and contented over a strong and well-nourished body that had just recently passed muscular and moved into plump. Everywhere it went there was food. Everywhere its kin moved there was food. Necessity had mothered this grand invention, and in doing so had obsoleted itself. Its life was content. And look! More food down there, lying on a corner, slumped down to stare up at the heavens that cared not! And its eyes too – what luck!

As the crow wheeled down from the sky, eager and ready, small, trembling hands settled their grip on a primitive little wooden thing, a tumbledown patchwork of old bits of wood and hope and string made from its owner’s hair. It was frail and it was ridiculous and it was a remarkable invention indeed.
But then, its owner had been motivated, driven by the same thing that led to the perfect care in her wrists as she took aim with her little short-bow. Once she would have turned up her nose at such things, but little is a greater call to action than a stomach that holds too little in conjunction with a head that holds too much.

It had been a long day, a hard day, a hot day, a day that grabbed you by the shoulders and shook you until your teeth rattled off your brain and fell onto the carpet. It had seized Pat, used him cruelly, and discarded him with the thoughtful care of a six-year-old with a handful of used tissue paper.
He was hungry. No food since the morning. But there were more important things to do. He had to relax before the morning came again. He had to sit down. He had to stop moving.
So Pat sat. Pulled up a chair (tugged at it, at least), shuffled into place, sat at his desk and stared at the wall.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. His inbox pinged cheerily at him. On the wall, the alarm clock coughed up objectionable noises – he needed to put dinner in the oven and he needed to have started preheating it ten minutes ago.
Pat knew all that. He knew, he knew, he knew. God he knew. But that didn’t mean he needed to hear all about it.
So he turned off the alarm. He turned off the phone. He closed the mailbox, then closed the private mailbox, then shut down the browser (containing his secondary mailbox).
Then he turned off the computer so that the clock wouldn’t stare at him from the corner of the screen, dates and deadlines predetermined and highlighted and ticking away like little time bombs. That was for tomorrow, another country. Today –
Well, tonight
– he was going to get some rest.
Pat leaned back in his chair again. Quiet. Peaceful. A dog barked. Traffic groused. His neighbours spat and shrieked and hissed. The raccoons in his garbage took their example to heart.
This would not do. It would not do and so Pat stood up and put on his coat and got ready to would not don’t.

The dog was simple. Pat had a spare bone left in his compost, barely a day old and still flush with scraps of half-chewed pork. He smacked the animal with it until it produced no noise above a whimper and let it be.
The traffic was harder. Pat settled for driving his truck into the center of the road, locking the keys inside, and setting it on fire with his lighter.
The neighbors had a brick thrown through their window with a couple’s councillor’s address scribbled on it.
And the racoons were shooed away with an old and angrily-dented pot and a firm ladle that had been passed down to Pat by his great-grandmother’s aunt, made of some mysterious blackened metal that was probably toxic but in a way that made you wrinkled and tiny rather than cancer-riddled, if his family history was any hint.

So Pat sat down in his chair again. It was very nice, except for all the things he could hear. Little things, like the hum of the refrigerator, the squeak and rustle of tiny furry things in the walls, the woosh of the wind, the crunching of broken glass next door as the neighbors had sex on their living room floor.
Pat sighed, got up, found a toothpick, and carefully punctured both his eardrums. There, noise fixed.
He sat down again. Then he changed his mind and walked around the house, turning off appliances, turning off electronics, removing the fusebox and chucking it out the back door to stop that constant ticking and humming in the walls, taking a sledgehammer to the furnace to shut off the noise and air that blasted at him from the flooring vents.
He sat down again, again. He got up. He took his old bb gun out from the box under every other item in his closet and destroyed the street lights that he could see from his window, which numbered seven, and he sat down.
There. All done, all quiet, all smooth, all fine. Except for that one light that shone on his ceiling, the light of the carbon monoxide detector. But that was fine, fine. Besides, he couldn’t turn that off or the alarm wouldn’t stop screaming.
It was fine.

Absolutely fine.

Completely, utterly fine.
But that little light wouldn’t go off.
He had to do something about that. How else would he get any rest?
Pat sighed again. As he got up to search for his hammer and chisel, he cursed his grumbling belly. But he didn’t have the time to fix that anyways. He had to relax.

It’s a tradition, they said.
Now, what they meant by that was something particular. Lots of traditions out there, after all. Some of them nice, some of them nasty. Some of them get as much attention as a handshake, some of them get whole months set aside. Some of them only a few people left in all the world that half-remember, some of them everyone knows almost before they’re born.
This was a pretty small tradition. One neck of the woods. One handful of men. One campfire. One night. And an awful lot of stories.
Spooky ones, of course. There’s just something about the way those flames crackle and jerk and turn the whole world into warm-against-the-darkness that makes you start wondering what’s out there looking back in. It was all in good fun, all the stories were, but there was always that little demon of competition inside each of them, every one, that was trying to keep count of who could get the most of his friends squinting to the point of eye-puckeredness to preserve his night vision from those warm flames, aching to keep in sight of what might be out there.
There are limits, of course. Stephen told a story late one night four years ago. Nobody can quite remember what it was because nobody wants to remember it at all, but they almost froze to death waiting it out ‘till sunrise. Better that than a walk in the woods.
One year everyone got too sick to come out. Bad flu season. They almost couldn’t find the firepit next year; the trees had sown their leaves so thickly. Trying to cover up the unsightly blemish on their forest floor, no doubt.
The trees never did seem to warm up to them, or their fire, or their tradition. And maybe that’s not WHY what happened, happened. But it certainly didn’t help.
It didn’t help when Stephen tried to top his old story and failed and the trees creaked soft and slow.
It didn’t help when Louis tried to top that story and succeeded and the trees swayed gently in a barely-there breeze.
It didn’t help when it was Martin’s turn for his story and he kept stopping and starting because he couldn’t tell if he heard something or not and it was the trees rustling their leaves at him.
And it didn’t help when Roy decided to lighten everyone up and rouse their spirits with the latest rendition of their oldest, oldest, oldest favorite, as the trees watched them in that eyeless way trees have. It was a good old story, and it came out every few years. It was as much a part of tradition as the tradition was. And it went like this:

(Once upon a time there was a man, a tall, thin, long-legged man)
(He was strange and silent and so he lived alone, far, far off in the forest, on a small dirt road that wound its way all about the trees every which way)
He liked to whittle, someone would say at this point. That was about all he did. Whittled.
(One day a man found his way there – a merchant on the road. He was tired and cold and hungry and he was so friendly and genial that the tall, thin, long-legged man allowed his hospitality to overpower his misanthropy)
(And so the merchant stayed the night in the house of his strange host, and he marvelled at the fineness of the carvings that had coated nearly every wall, floorboard, beam and hoist and join)
(You could sell these, he said.)
(But the tall, thin, long-legged man frowned at the very notion, and made haste to excuse himself from conversation. It is for me, and me alone, he said. Good-night and good-bye.)
Some people are just like that, you know.
(And the merchant was left alone as his host retired to the tiny pallet in the rafters that was his sleeping-spot. And he pouted, as thwarted profit-seekers do. And then he had an idea.)
(There are so many. He can’t notice if I just take one.)
And there it is, someone else would say.
(So the merchant crept about the house, feeling by fingers and with sharp eyes in the dark until he had found the most beautiful of the carvings, a strange portrait of a dead tree with a sad face and a pair of threadbare branches. And he cured himself at this time, because he knew his small knife would be nowhere near enough to cut the thing free.)
But he wasn’t the only one with a knife.
(But he wasn’t the only one with a knife. And so the merchant carefully crept up the ladder to the tall, thin, long-legged man’s bedside, where he slipped the soft-gleaming knife from his belt. It was artful in its lack of art: purest practicality without sentiment beyond wear-care)
(And just as the merchant raised the knife to cut)
Ohhh no.
(Just as the merchant raised the knife to cut, he felt a hand on his wrist – like that!)
(And because the grip was so sudden and fierce and the merchant was alone in the woods in a strange place and because he was also in the middle of a very unkind thievery, he panicked, screamed, and yanked. And because the tall, thin, long-legged man was so very thin, down he came, head over heels, and together they tumbled, tumbled, tumbled)
(And only one of them stood up again at the end of it. The merchant’s fine clothes were a good deal damper and more cruelly stained than they had been that evening, but his host’s shirt had gone all to pieces, right over his breastbone, sliced to ribbons and a good deal deeper.)

(Now, most men would have panicked. And this one did too. But he panicked in a careful sort of way.)
(First, he went to bed on the tall, thin, long-legged man’s pallet and spent the night shivering with a blanket over the corpse’s face.)
(Second, he buried the body. It was hard because he was soft and hurried and careless, but it was done.)
(Third, he took the knife)
(And fourth, he took each and every last carving on those walls, down to the engravings on the door-handle. It would’ve taken longer if the knife weren’t so sharp.)
All done.
(And once he was done, he went home, along the winding, wooded path in the growing dark. And he walked quickly, because he didn’t want to spend another night in that place. The trees were too thick there, and the sky too far away and cold, and the grave he had dug seemed altogether shallower in his head with each passing mile – and it almost seemed to grow nearer. It made his neck prickle and his feet quicken.)
(It’s never a good feeling, out there in the night. Listening to your breath and making sure it’s just yours. The merchant was moving so fast now, so very fast, and the trees seemed to lunge at him at each turn and twist of the road. Branches dragged across his sides, stroked his face, tore at his soft, flabby skin.)
(And it was then, just as the merchant was growing giddy with fear and felt that he could take not much more, that he saw the light.)
(A light! A light on the main road! He was safe! And he ran, ran, ran, laughing with the relief and joy of it all, until he rounded that last fatal curve in his path and saw the soft-shining candle glittering in the window of the tall, thin, long-legged man’s little cabin.)
Pulled a u-y.
(Now, many people would lie to themselves at this time.)
(Oh, how foolish I was to take the wrong turn on all those twisty corners in my haste!)
(Oh, how silly of me to leave a candle burning – I could have set the forest ablaze!)
(But the merchant was a liar only in his own service, and when he saw that calm little light dancing in the windowpane of the cabin, he stuffed his fat fist in his mouth to avoid a shriek and turned and ran faster than he’d ever imagined, so fast the shush-swish-shush of his clothes against his rolls blurred into one long whisper that was almost a shriek. The path roiled under his feet, dirt mounding and pinching into unevenness that seemed to steal his balance from him, and he blundered and stumbled and wasted more time than he would have if he’d merely walked as the trees reached for him at every turn.)
And
(And then…)
Then…
(The merchant stopped running.)
(And the merchant stopped running because the path was full.)

(It was a strange and silent sight, that thing in the night. It loomed without meaning to – in a gangly, mountainous sort of way. But it could not do any other, because it was the tall, thin, long-legged man, and as the merchant flailed his arms in his desperation to halt himself his palm brushed against cold sticky wetness on the shredded shirt that it wore.)
(The merchant spun like a top and accelerated. And though the thought of looking behind him filled him with sheerest horror, it was inevitable that he did so. And when he did, he saw nothing at all – just a dark shape among dark shapes, moving in the wind.)
(Just a tree! he squeaked as he nearly fell over in his muddle to halt. Just a…)
(And it was then that the tall, thin, long-legged man came around the path’s corner, a stride to a turn, leaning into the curves. And it was still accelerating.)

(No-one ever saw the merchant again. But alas, some of them did see the tall, thin, long-legged man. And he has grown much less fond of visitors.)

And that was that for this year. Sometimes they kept going, used it all as an inspiration, but today it was a signal that they were finally out of steam. And so was the fire, and they were out of fuel, and it was cold out there – they weren’t as young as they used to be, ha ha ha ha, especially Roy, ow, watch it, ha ha. And so on.
And so forth they went, in threes and twos and then finally in ones as they each went their own way through the woods to their own homes, their own lives, along their own paths. Hurrying a little.

One of them hurried a little too much. Stephen was walking the wrong way, and he knew it was so when almost ten minutes passed and there was no meadow under his feet, no stars in the sky. Just trees, trees, trees, endlessly staring trees. He didn’t like that. Things without eyes should mind their own business. And besides, they were strangers to him. After all these years, still strangers. These were wide woods, and he must have stumbled passing far off course – the maples and ash he expected were absent, and in their place he’d wandered into a gloomy stand of thin and needlessly-crook-branched pine. Their needles prickled at his coat, and their sap globbed at his fingers as he felt his way past trunk after trunk.
It was no problem, not really. The forest was only so big, and it was bounded by roads on all sides. He would get out eventually. He would find someone’s backyard or something. See – light. He’d found it.
But as Stephen pulled his way loose past that last wall of needles and spite, he saw that he was still far from the road. The backyard was a tiny clearing, the light a feeble flickering fire in a paneless window, and the home barely a shack – wood and heaped earth, like something a man might have made anywhere from a hundred to a hundred thousand years ago.
And as Stephen backed away from that sight, his throat squeezing, his hand touched something that was not bark. Smooth, hard, polished. Someone had taken a knife to this tree and carved it from base to branches, a full ten feet in extent.
Then the light went out.

Stephen did not hurry. Stephen RAN.
And Stephen, getting on in years though he might have been, was no fat merchant – he had once been a marathoner, and had jogged for pleasure for years. Now he was a sprinter, and a good one. He did not look behind for fear of the long, slender knife he knew he would see clutched in a long, slender hand. He did not look to the sides to see the carefully-carved faces that leered at him from every single pine from this angle of approach. He did not even look at the sky to check his direction, for he followed no crooked path but a line as straight as any crow might fly as he ran, ran, ran, ran, feet pounding, heart in his mouth, ears shut to all but the roar of his veins, eyes slits, running, running.
He passed through the pines and he ran.
He passed through the tiny clearings and he ran. And as he ran his stride deepened, broaded.
He passed through the oaks and chestnuts and he ran. And as he ran his pumping arms swung wider and wider.
He passed through the ash and maples and he ran. And as he ran his spine straightened, lengthened.
Onward, faster and faster, hard on the hunt. There was a thing in the woods and he must run, holding the gleaming terror in his long, slender hand. He must run home, home to stop it before it did more harm. He could smell it on the air, feel its sweat on his cold skin, taste its fear through the open old hole in his chest.

It was not so very far to home. Look! Already the pines were there, waiting.

Welcome to Sounder’s National Park!*

Experience the Experience of Someone’s Lifetime
Whose? His!
Founded in 1823 by Jonathon Jeremiah Jacob Sounder, Sounder’s National Park is America’s first and only National Park to be disowned by the Federal Government. An excessively local iconoclast and exotic game collector of some infamy, Sounder defied the money-grubbing penny-pinching scallywags in Washington and pressed ahead, funding the Park with both his own lifetime’s savings and those of several close friends whose noble sacrifices have been immortalized on our very own Park Symbol: Sounder’s Obelisk. After the spending spree of a lifetime that took him across the kingdoms of the four corners of the earth, Sounder retired to live out his final days in peace on his property, hunting potentially-dangerous game with only his sharp wits, deadly aim, and highly advanced state-of-the-art semi-automatic musket. Following his peaceful death at the age of seventy-three from sixteen simultaneous accidental discharges, Sounder’s heirs opened the Park to the public’s hearts and wallets, and the rest is history.
That said, much if not all of what is written of Sounder’s National Park in most history books is slanderous and flagrantly illegal, a ploy of jealous government-sponsored textbook manufacturers and their lust for the honest and modest profits of our business enterprise. Donate money online at www.SounderNationalPark.org/stopthedefamation to aid our courageous lawyers in the hundred and sixteenth year of our ongoing legal battle for justice in the face of the yellow-fanged fury of a spiteful press.

A friendly reminder….
For your benefit and ours!
Sounder’s National Park and its management staff bear no responsibility or liability for injuries, deaths, harms, costs, regrets, fears, dreams, pains, or doubts that may occur on park property to a visitor as long as the visitor was not paying attention. Don’t worry – by reading this pamphlet, you are ensuring that you are well-informed and well-prepared! The Park is your playground, but like any playground, careless use of the monkey bars will get you in trouble – so mind your P’s and Q’s and make your visit a happy one!**

**Do not under any circumstances attempt to use the monkey bars. Access to these institutions is reserved for monkey staff only and infringing on their privacy is a serious violation of their union contracts, for which you WILL be persecuted.

Changes For the 2014 Season
A new year, and with it comes new fun!! Here’s what you can expect to see for the very first time over the next twelve months!
-A hearty Sounder’s welcome to our newest Park Ranger, Kent Bevvers! Kent is on duty at the squirrel-feeding station come rain or shine, although he may be hiding in the bushes during daylight hours. A reminder to the public: Kent’s experiences in protecting our freedoms abroad have left him somewhat shy, so please observe the following rules to ensure that your visit with him is safe and comfortable for you both:
1-Do not use flash photography near Kent Bevvers. The bright light may startle him.
2-Do not make direct eye contact with Kent Bevvers. He could interpret this as a threat.
3-Do not feed Kent Bevvers people food. His digestive system is not like ours anymore.
4-Do not attempt to pet Kent Bevvers. He may become agitated and nip your fingers.
5-Remember, Kent Bevvers is more frightened than you than you are of him. Be considerate, give him plenty of space, and never come between him and the nearest exit!
-Jonathon’s Socket Lookout will be temporarily off-limits to the public until approximately late February while the railing is replaced, the blockage is cleaned from the geyser, and a new sign labelled “you must be this thin to lean over the scenic view” is erected.
-The Maplepit Petting Zoo is now closed, and all its inhabitants have been given nice new homes across the state with loving couples who will give them plenty of walks and lots of love.
-The Maplepit Barbeque Shack is now open for business! Try our wide variety of exotic foods, from the Roly-Poly Koala-bab to the Goatsy McNuggets!
-Sounder’s Obelisk has been freshly scrubbed of graffiti and is now fitted with a brand-new automated defense system! What kind? We’ll leave it a surprise, but here’s a hint: don’t come within fifteen metres of it if you have braces on. Fifty if you have fillings. If you have a pacemaker, there are Designated Waiting Benches in our parking lot for you to nap on while your family explores our Park.

Classic Attractions
Come rain or snow, sun or shine, war, famine, pestilence and drought, you can always count on these Sounder’s highlights to stay the same! Must-sees!
*The Great Possum Graveyard: Opossums, those crafty marsupials, are well-known for their ability to play dead – but here in our most spine-tingling corner of Sounder’s National Park is where they go when they can’t fake it any longer! After you’ve taken your snapshots of the seemingly endless and somber ‘orchard of the dangling tails’ and gingerly picked your way through the many crunchy paths carved from actual possum-bone, why not stop by the dig sit, where trained paleoecologists under the able eyeball of Dr. Leonard Leopold have so far delved over half a kilometer below the surface in search of the continually-elusive beginnings of this natural mystery. And don’t forget to stop by the ‘Possum Place on the way out to pick up some possum-tooth necklaces for that special someone!
*The Macrosnail: The only living member of its phylum, Megalomucus conquirere, is not a true snail at all, but it’s still a sight to behold! At over sixteen metres across and twenty deep, our Park’s unofficial mascot would be a sight to behold if he weren’t in the middle of the thus-far eighty-six-year process of drowning in a peat bog. At his current rate of sinkage, it’s estimated that ‘Maccy’ will be entirely invisible from the surface by 2022, so get looking while the looking’s good!
*Magnetic South-South-West: It’s here, and it’s real! Separated from the famous Magnetic North-North-East marker by a mere twelve and a half thousand miles of molten rock and iron, Magnetic South-South-West is very nearly as exciting in every way! And there’s a gift shop! With things in it! Please buy some of them.
*Sounder’s Obelisk: The official Symbol of the Park, Sounder’s Obelisk is crooked, scarred, malformed, and blotchy, but that’s not all it had in common with Sounder – it also shares his indomitable, deep-seated bitterness and frustrated will to if not live well then at least live flagrantly. For nearly two hundred years it has borne the deeply-engraved names of those four noble friends of Sounder’s who died and left him vast sums of money in their wills for the purpose of self-amusement. Will you one day arise to find such noble figures in your life? We can all only hope.
*The Stomping Grounds: Perhaps the most long-controversial section of our Park, the Stomping Grounds have been the legendary haunt of that most elusive spirit of Sounder’s National Park folklore for nigh-millennia, if we’ve put enough effort into interpreting the legends of the local tribes in the most interesting way possible. Yes, it is true: the SQUASH MAN may possibly potentially theoretically lurk among these half-smushed hills or hills that look very much like them! Is that an eye gleaming at you from a hidden hollow? Maybe! Is that damp soil from the morning dew… or the sweat of a passing green-glistening foot? Who knows! It’s a mystery and we absolutely cannot speculate on it further but if you’re intrigued by this colourful local tale we have a gift shop for that. Look for the flashing sign with the big green face on it – and bring cash, we don’t have a debit connection there yet.

Sad Tidings
All things in life must pass, good and bad alike…
Jim-Bob Saunders, the great-great-great-great-great-cousin-in-law of Jonathon Jeremiah Jacob Sounder (thrice removed) and spiritual, mental, and biological heart of Sounder’s National Park has passed away from this vale of tears and sweat. And we are all the poorer for it, particularly as he neglected to prepare a will.
A tenaciously philanthropic man, Jim-Bob never stopped trying to give back to others – to his community, through the creation of many lucrative careers in waste disposal within his Park; his fellow citizens, through the construction of many paid water fountains and corn dog booths; and to the staff of his Park, to whom he personally supplied sufficient waste as necessary to keep them employed and working unpaid overtime to boot.
Jim-Bob’s passing has been felt by all of us here at the Park in more ways than one. Meetings are quieter, and the donuts are consumed with less haste and gusto. The floorboards groan and creak as they slowly rise back into their intended postures, freed from a lifetime of unruly and uncaring pressure. The air seems clearer, the autumnal colours appear more lustrous, and the dew tingles in the cool breeze in a way we never saw before. The mice of the offices have become less timid and now raise their offspring on the floor next to the photocopier without fear, boldly scavenging for food in plain sight of management. Food has seemingly acquired new and dangerously enticing flavours, at least one of which is a stranger to all I have asked, existing somewhere in-between sweet and umami. A crane has been found lying dead in the Visitor’s Center dumpster by the eldest of our janitorial staff. He has since gone blind and will not speak to any man.
Good-bye, Jim-Bob. May you get goin’ and don’t come back home ‘till there’s cash money in your pocket. As you told all of us. Repeatedly.
Good ol’ Jim-Bob. Classic.

Rupert Flip, Director of Sounder’s National Park.

*Sounder’s National Park is not affiliated with the National Parks Service in any way, shape, or form. Please do not claim, suggest, insinuate, or imply that this is the case on Park property or you will be fined up to seven dollars and be obliged to wear a muzzle for the remainder of your stay to prevent us from frivolous lawsuits. For more information, look up Sounder’s National Park Service v. National Park Service and Copyright Law of the United States of America.

Boom-boom.
BOOM-BOOM
Nakky Soos groaned without using her throat and tried to focus a little harder on not focusing. She was at the bottom of a glass, and that felt right, down there felt right. It made sense. It was smooth, compact, hard-shelled for security and you could see right through it at all the big world out there it was protecting you from.
But there it was again, raising its voice over the roaring in her forehead’s veins, the world come knocking again.
BOOM-BOOM.
Well, no time like now.
Nakky Soos counted to three in one order or another, acknowledged that she had eyelids, and then lifted one of them. An eyeball nearly as green as hers own peered back skeptically.
“You awake yet, Aunty Nakky?”
Nakky swung her arm, aimlessly and without force or anger. Gimba dodged it with insulting ease, not even the courtesy of a frightened wince. The battered spoon that had served him as makeshift mallet glittered in his hand and made her head hurt even more.
“Go ‘way,” she told him. “’M busy.” Didn’t he see the glass? It was right there, right in her oh where had it gone? It must be here on the counter somewhere…
“Momma says it’s important,” he said. “Momma said fetch you. Momma said so, you’ve got to do it.”
Nakky tried shutting her eyes again, but they got stuck halfway down. Also, it made finding her glass even more difficult. “She that desperate? Your mommy’s a worry-warting shitbird who gave her heart to a crow’s gullet and was surprised when it flew away, Gimba. Go home and tell her I said so. Go on. My exact words. Go on.”
“I’ve got exact words too,” said Gimba.
“Great. Tell ‘em to someone else.” Her hand clanked against something heavy and cold – aha! – that fell over and turned slimy. Woops. There went the pickled onions.
“Momma’s own. She said to get you because nothing else worked.”
Nakky pondered on that, or pretended to, as her seeking hand retreated in shame to her lap. Then she sighed – all for drama – and gave her best go of trying not to pout.
“Which field?”
“The big bendy.”
“Fine. Gimme half an hour. Two half an hours. And a little bit.”
Gimba scampered away, duty done. He had places to go and people to be, the little bastard. Nakky, the most she had to come was work and sleep. Work and sleep. Work and sleep and where the FUCK was that glass, she’d held it in her hand just a minute ago an hour ago.
Oh well.

The big bendy field was an old one. Old and tired. It needed time to rest and sort itself out and maybe dream of days when it wasn’t loaded down with tired and half-sprouted crops but Mett Soos needed things too, and what she needed was food and money. So the field groaned under the burden, and burned under the sun, and it was a damned mess the likes of which Nakky Soos had never seen before when she walked up to it after two hours.
“You’re late,” said Mett. The other people didn’t look at her, so that they didn’t accidentally look at Nakky. It was better that way.
“I love you even more,” said Nakky. Her eyes were little slits of pain underneath her mask, and she couldn’t stop blinking or the sweat would fill them to the brim. “I had to find my mask and my clothes and my drum and my bell.”
Mett leaned in just close enough to be insulting and sniffed loudly. “You’re drunk,” she said, nose crinkling. “You’re late, and you’re drunk.”
“Like you’re surprised. What else you meant to do in this heat?”
“Your job.”
“Told you, it’s not my job.”
“Which is why we tried everything else first. Because you keep saying it isn’t your job. Smarten up, spit that booze out of your breath, and do your job.”
Nakky rubbed her forehead, wincing as the rough wood ground against perspiring skin. “Lissen, you going to yell at me? Because I don’t know if you know this, but my head is fresh to split in half and if you go yelling at me I’m going to pick up both halves and bash your face in with ‘em.”
“And I love you even more than that,” said Mett sweetly. “Do your job, please. This instant.”
Mett knew it didn’t work that way. Mett knew you couldn’t just pop it on and off like a rain-hat. But Mett also knew that the people who weren’t looking at them were listening, and what they were going to hear was Nakky shuffling around and muttering a lot before doing what she was told. Like a sulky child.
Nakky wasn’t sure who Mett’s father was, any more than she was sure of her own. But she wouldn’t have put it past her mother to have slept with a grasssnake, just for sake of the sheer venomous spite of the offspring.
Didn’t matter. No, what mattered now wasn’t here. She had to go out and find it.
Nakky closed her eyes to the sun and the sweat and her sister, and she started walking, but not with her feet.
Five steps up, five steps down. Five to the side and four to the other and then up, up, up.
Ting went the bell in her left hand. A smart little snip of a sound, quickly strangled with a darting movement of her little finger to still the clapper.
Now it was time to get going.

Somewhere, Nakky’s body was dancing without her. She could hear the crumble and crackle of its feet on dry dirt and dryer plants. Nakky envied the bitch. True, she wished she were still back at the bottom of the glass, smooth and safe, but she would’ve sat the rest of her days anchored to that bag of flesh and scruff by her fingernails if it meant she’d never have to walk up high again. It wasn’t safe up there. Too much sky above and below you.
Hey now, said Nakky to all the sky around her. Tall proud lords and ladies of the clouds, grey and serious and stern, ignoring all the little things around them. Hey now, she said to it all.
It ignored her, kept on moving on and on all around her, but Nakky was used to that. She was only playing for now, joking a bit. You can’t just go up and say hi to the sky and expect an answer. You’ve got to speak its language.
Hey now, said Nakky again. Boom.
The world moved again, but this was different. The pace was off. There was a stagger in the steps of the grey people. Something had caught their ears.
Boom-boom, said Nakky.
And now they moved again, and again, and again, but this too was different, this was all new. The world was moving, but it was moving around Nakky. They knew what she was talking about. They knew what she was up to.
Boom-boom, said Nakky. Her lips tingled – not from blood, this wasn’t a place for blood, but with force and sound from far away, rhythmic and solid. Boom-boom she shouted. DOWN!
The sky agreed with her. Very loudly. See them dance, the lords and ladies, see them shout and huzzah.
Here! she said, and she would’ve said more but somewhere her hand went sharp and the buzzing thud in her voice suddenly fell away, far
far
back

Ting, went the bell in her left hand.
Nakky Soos blinked. Nakky Soos swayed. Nakky Soos still had one foot in the air, and that’s why Nakky Soos fell over backwards into the dirt, not sure if she was tensed or limp.
“Uh,” she said, and winced. Her right hand was sorer than anything from the drumming. It was also sore because there was a nasty cut on it. Blood everywhere.
Nakky turned her head very slowly to the right, where her drum lay next to her. It had been cut to ribbons from the inside out. Something glittered in its guts.
So that’s where it had gone off to.
“I think I’ve pissed myself,” she declared to her audience of none.
Well, one. That’s when the sky started to open up.
Boom-boom.

The little bits of her glass were impressively sharp. Nakky saved the biggest and cleanest of them for later, in case she had to cut something up. The rest she threw down her outhouse.
That job done, it was up to the stitches. Nakky was right-handed, and so had to make compromises: she put in only half the number of stitches needed, but made them twice as large as would have been convenient. It hurt a lot but hey, she still had a third of the bottle left over from last night, and she didn’t really need a glass anyways. Would have more if she could corner her sister tomorrow, before she could weasel out of it. You let people get away with not paying you long enough and they started to convince themselves that you never did it in the first place.
She’d get her sister to pay her first thing tomorrow. Second thing tomorrow, after she woke up. Third thing tomorrow, once she ate some of the complicated root she kept in a little clay pot that made her head stop feeling like someone had squeezed a stone into it. Fourth thing after
Nakky slept. And woke up to the sound of smashing crockery.
“WASN’T ME!” she yelled as she lurched herself to her feet. Half her mind was still back when she was little. “I didn’t do it hey you what are you DOING!”
This was directed at the child that was standing on her table, guilty-faced. Spread over half the table were the remains of Nakky’s root and the pot it had been kept in.
“Stupid kid! Do I look like your mother? Go break your mother’s pots!” She grabbed the girl by the arm. “Move! I said move oh.”
Nakky’s eyes were green – like a wad of chewed cud spilt from a cow’s mouth, as Mett had always said, as if hers were really all that much lighter. It ran in the family. Most folks around here had blue eyes. They ran in their families. She’d seen a brown-eyed lady once. She guessed her family far, far away had those.
This little girl had no eyes at all.
“Oh fuck,” said Nakky Soos. “What are you doing down here in my house, little kid?”
Her lower lip trembled.
“Don’t you start-“ said Nakky, and that was as far as she got before the tears came pouring out and the murmuring, stammering wail filled her head from ear to creaking ear. It was a sound she’d heard a thousand times from her nieces and nephews, and it never got more appealing to her.
“Hey!” she shouted. “Hey! Stop that!” The wails continued. “Hey you! STOP!”
She slapped a hand over the girl’s mouth and was rewarded with sudden, shocked silence. Teardrops trickled over her skin, ice-cold.
“Oh fuck me,” said Nakky. “You REALLY shouldn’t be here. Calm down, okay? Just calm down and shut up for a second. Stop it. Please.”
She nodded, weakly.
“Can I take my hand away now?”
Nod.
Nakky withdrew. The lip hovered, but did not bob. This one could keep a promise.
“I bet your parents taught you that, huh?” she said. “Where’re you from? Can’t be anywhere sunny or you’d have eyes for that pretty little face and you’d be warmer than a corpse-tit. Speak up, huh?”
The girl shook her head.
“You got no eyes, but you got a tongue. Speak up.”
Shake.
“You wanna get back to your parents or you want to stay stuck down here? Trust me, it’s no fun. Talk.”
The girl hesitated, then opened her mouth.
When everything stopped shaking, Nakky let go of the floor and stood up again. “uh,” she said. “ag alal. Ebbit. Ight. Right. So. Thunder, eh?”
Nod.
“Well you’re going back home soon as I can send you, thunder child,” said Nakky. “And if we’re both lucky it’ll be sooner rather than later.”
But Nakky knew what kind of luck she had, and did not say the words warmly.

She got up with the sunrise, like it or not. The thunder girl was up and running around her home, poking at things and picking them up and putting them down again with needless force.
“Quit it!” said Nakky. “ow.” Her head felt like it had been rubbed with needles from the inside out.
“This wouldn’t be a problem if you hadn’t showed up,” she said to the girl, who was too busy trying to put on Nakky’s mask and failing to pay her any mind. “Hey! Put that back!”
The girl dropped it. Nakky sighed, flipped her off, and examined the damage. A slight chip off the jaw, hidden among a thousand others.
“Listen,” she told the girl, who was visibly swelling with indignation from the offhand dismissal. “You want to get home, I need this stuff in one piece. My drum’s already shot to shit and I don’t need you rigging up a matched set of broken garbage for me, eh? You understand me? This is important. You understand me?”
The nod was reluctant.
“Good. Now c’mon. I got to go get this thing sewn up, and I ain’t doing it one-handed.”

They walked down the road in the sunset. Well, Nakky walked. The thunder girl rode on her shoulders, victor in a wordless argument that had lasted for hours.
“Right,” said Nakky, shattering a peaceful silence that had lasted since they left town, marked by the slish-slosh of the jug dangling from her belt. “So. Don’t worry yet.”
The girl shrugged, her heels idly beating against blisters on Nakky’s sides.
“Stop it or you’re getting dropped right here and now.”
A final kick of protest, then alert silence.
“I can get this fixed, okay? So what if nobody in town’ll take my money but the barman, eh? I can do this myself. It’ll just take longer, that’s all. I just wait ‘till my hand gets better and…” Nakky sighed under the sheer weight of the skeptical, eyeless gaze directed at her from above. “Yeah. Okay. We need to get you back NOW, not later. Right. Shit, not as if I wanted you here in the first place, not like it’s my fault. Right.”
A thoughtful hum from above rumbled through her from skull to spine.
“What now?”
Drum-drum-drum went the heels, a rhythm of boundless excitement, and then a sudden lightness filled Nakky Soos from her shoulders on down.
“Hey! Get back here you little shit!”
The thunder girl was in full flight, arms and legs pumping, face serious. Nakky’s legs were longer, but not much stronger, and it was some time before her hand closed on a soft nape and yanked its owner to a full stop, sending her feet flying every which way.
One lodged itself in Nakky’s jaw.
“Nffgh,” said Nakky. Practiced to the ways of nieces and nephews, she grabbed the foot and danced her fingers across its base with a spider’s agility. In the ten-second squirming frenzy that ensured, she secured her grip on half the girl’s limbs and pinned the other two between her and the ground.
“Right! What was that about, huh? You’re not going anywhere if you get away from me. Nobody else around here can do what I do, right? You know that! I told you that! What’s the big deal?”
The thunder girl rolled her head. Nakky’s fingers hooked into her tickling claws again. The thunder girl rolled her head faster, wincing in anticipation.
“What now?”
Roll, roll. Side-to-side, exaggerated. All-around.
Nakky looked all around, all around, all around at the damp, soft soil of the field that surrounded them. Big bendy.
“Oh? This where you landed?”
Nod, nod.
A short walk later – made longer by the nagging pain in Nakky’s stitches, which had come loose during their tussle and started to quietly weep blood – and they stood at the edge of a little crater, a hole in the earth made by the sky.
“Rode the bolt down here, huh?”
Nod.
“Stupid girl! You shouldn’t do that! You KNOW you shouldn’t do that! Why would you chase me?”
The thunder girl pouted defiantly, then pointed at Nakky’s hand.
Nakky sighed. “Well, maybe I did vanish a bit suddenly. Still, worrying about things like that’s not your problem. I’m a big girl too, right? I can handle myself. Matter of fact, now that I’ve got a refill, I can handle myself just fine for the next week. Little thunder-girls should pay attention to their parents, not me. Hey, you listening? Pay attention!”
The thunder-girl raised her head again. Little chilly tears were prickling from her empty sockets.
“What now? Your parents’ll see you soon enough.”
That did it. The sobbing fit that followed lasted all the way home and then some, lulled at last to sleep by the wind-blown creaks of the old deadwood tree that leaned over Nakky’s home.
Nakky consoled herself with the contents of the bottle. Adequately, of course, but not excessively. No more than a drop.
An eighth of the jar.
A quarter.

Nakky woke up too early again, with a splitting headache and an empty jug and a sore hand and no thunder-girl. Further reluctant, hesitant investigation revealed a thunder-girl and what was left of one of her shirts, which was being carefully sliced several sizes smaller with a piece of her glass.
“You got six seconds to tell me a good reason you’re doing that,” said Nakky.
The thunder-girl flinched, then pointed at her dress, still smeared brown from their struggle in the field yesterday.
“Clothes now? Spit in sand, you’re needy. Well, live with it. You’ve torn that shirt to shit and we ain’t going to town twice in one week. Even the barman’ll get funny-eyed if I’m filling up again so soon. Hey, what’s that face for?” She followed the line of the girl’s frown to the bottle. “Oh, none of your business. Not like I’m your mother, not like I’m going to get mean on this and turn your face red as sunset. No, this is medicine. Medicine won’t hurt anybody. That’s for mothers to do.”
Thunder-girl tugged pointedly at her dress.
“Not like I’ve got more lying around. Never had much for children, not like my…” Nakky’s mouth sank into her gut as she saw the girl’s immediate interest. “…anybody… else I, I know oh damnit. Fine. FINE! For you, you little brat, I go to see my sister. Alllll for you.”
“Besides, she owes me anyways.”

“I can’t believe you let her run around in that thing.”
Nakky hummed to herself as she watched the children running in circles for no reason.
“I mean, it was barely half of a dress,” Mett continued, with the professional air of a butcher looking for just the right angle to start cutting. “I’m amazed nobody gave you trouble in town for it.”
“They know better’n to screw around with me,” said Nakky without paying attention, and immediately cursed herself.
“You? I’m more worried about her. Little girl like that doesn’t need to get dragged into the sort of scenes you cause every day. How’d you manage to pull her down?”
“Scenes I cause? I don’t ‘cause’ anything. Except rain. Which you still owe me for, by the by – don’t you go thinking three hand-me-downs from your oldest makes us square. That was a damned good storm.”
“Your ‘damned good storm’ came down too heavy, left too soon, and scorched a bolt right into big bendy’s gut. You owe me if anything, and owe me double for the clothes.”
“And YOU owe me triple because it’s your fault I’m stuck with the girl, so you owe yourself for the fucking clothes,” snapped Nakky.
“MY fault?”
“If I hadn’t come out to get some water on your field –”
“If you hadn’t fouled the job up-“
“I cut myself up doing it, drum and hand!”
“Then maybe you should do it proper-”
“Momma?”
Both sisters turned to the door. Gimba froze under their combined glares.
“Th-the girl? She’s run off.”

“I can get her by myself,” Nakky had said.
“You can barely stand up and your breath would knock a bull head over ass. I’m coming with you. That girl needs a responsible adult.”
Nakky had given up at that point. Better to let it lie.
“Come on, girl,” she yelled as she flung open her front door. “Come on out! Why’d you go sneaking away like that? You left me to carry all your clothes for you and I’ve half a mind to-“
“Nakky, shut it,” said Mett crisply. “And quit calling her ‘girl.’ Do you even know her name?”
“She can’t exactly go and say it now, can she?” said Nakky. “And you can shut it sideways up a tree with a grasssnake in your nose. GIRL! You come out here!”
The hesitant pit-pat of small feet on dirty boards cut off Mett’s further protests, and thunder-girl soon emerged from under Nakky’s bed, hands clutched behind her back.
“What was all that about?” asked Nakky. “You didn’t have to do that. You looked like you were okay, did one of those little jackasses do something they shouldn’t? Wouldn’t put it-“
“Hands out,” said Mett.
“My what now?”
“Your nothing. Her hands. She’s hiding something.”
Nakky glared at thunder-girl. “This true?”
Slowly, guiltily, to the slow metronome of a quivering chin, one empty palm was made visible.
“Both. Now.”
The other was revealed, overflowing with its burden. The trek to and from town had not been kind to Nakky’s drum, and had nearly finished the job that the glass had started – that, and thunder-girl’s clumsy feet the night before. Fresh dents and scratches of the last five minutes glimmered dustily on its surface, gouged as deep as small fingers could carve them.
“Now why you going and doing that? We need this drum, little twerp. You’re not exactly doing a good job of fixing it, are you?”
“No,” said Mett, shoving Nakky to the side and plucking the drum as if it were a weevil. “No she isn’t. In the name of every mouse and its mother, why didn’t you tell me that you needed this fixed?”
“Because you’re a giant-“
“I mean, you’re hopeless with a needle. I can’t imagine your girl here is any better. And you won’t go to town for anything that isn’t drinkable, will you?”
“They told me to fuck off.”
“I know Jmit, he’s very polite and so is his wife. You’re full of it.”
“It’s the truth. I told them to fix it, they told me to fuck off.”
“Really.”
“Really.”
“You didn’t, say, barge in, interrupt a paying client to insist you needed this fixed right away, then cause a scene when they tried to get you to wait your turn?”
“I don’t ‘cause scenes’ and you know it!”
“I suppose you’re right. You throw tantrums.” Mett peered critically at the drum. “Yes, I can mend this. Of course, after that you’ll owe me. I’ll be expecting a better rain this time.”
“I owe you squat and I’ll owe you less after this. Besides, I need to call up a storm anyways.”
“Oh?”
Nakky rubbed her hand. “She’s gotta go back somehow, don’t she?”
Thunder-girl’s chin accelerated.
“Oh, not agai-”

The sun rose the next day, and for the third time in a row Nakky Soos rose with it, once more against her will and this time at the bidding of her sister’s firm right hand.
“Nflfpfffrruck offff.”
“Up. You’ve got a job to do, you said so last night.”
“Ugh.”
“Nobody else can do it, sad to say. You’ve got a little girl who’s got to go home, and it’s your fault she’s stuck here. Up. Now.”
Nakky rolled over and stared at the ceiling of her sister’s house. She hated it. It was far too clean and there was no reassuring creak of deadwood above her head and the children one room over were noisy and the air smelled like frying breakfast foods instead of last night’s bitter drink.
“Whuuursshee?”
“She’s already up and helping clean up the dishes. And she still needs a name.”
“Nuumyprollm. Dunnnoet.”
The hand struck again, this time in a more sensitive spot. Nakky yelped. “Up!”
“Fine!”
Breakfast was late, cold, and left-over. Nakky picked through it with no appetite, as was her custom, and stared moodily out the door. Thunder-girl had finished early and was out running around with her nieces and nephews again, playing catch-me and catching and being caught and other things that Nakky considered to have been the better parts of her life.
“Here’s your drum,” said her sister. She slapped down the repaired instrument on the table. “I nearly broke my best needle on it. Why you don’t take better care of that leather I don’t know; it’s practically rock at this point.”
“Has to get the sound right,” said Nakky vaguely. She inspected the thing with half an eye, the other pointed outside. “It’ll do.”
“I’d hope so. I’m not touching that thing again without money up front; the smell’s sure to stick to my table for weeks.”
Nakky’s fingers danced slowly on the table – left hand only. “Eh. Hah! She got him. Your boy’s too fat, that’s the problem, Mett. Gimba can’t run three feet without panting.”
“Please tell me you aren’t getting attached.”
Nakky jumped. “What?”
“You’re taking her back home. She has parents, Nakky.”
“Yeah. Yeah I know. Why I’m doing this, isn’t it?”
“Half a week ago and I’d have said you’d be doing it just to get you time to drink yourself to death in peace.”
“It’s medicine.”
“Amnesia isn’t medicine. I’ve put it all behind me, why won’t you?”
“Me too. Just different.” Nakky rubbed her forehead. “Need more of it, anyways.”
“How’d you manage to drain that so fast this time?”
She winced. “Girl dumped it, I think. Can’t prove it. Listen, let’s get this done. Head hurts and it won’t get better. Let’s have a quiet morning. Okay? Let’s do that. Soon.”

Soon happened in the big bendy, right in the center of the little charred circle where lightning had left a little girl alone.
This time, she had company.
“Leggo, you.”
“She won’t.”
“What makes you the expert?”
“Five of my own. She’s not letting go.”
Nakky sighed deeply behind her mask, then sneezed as she kicked up dust inside it. “There’s gotta be a way.”
“Well, there isn’t. Unless you want to try it the way mother used-“
“No.” She frowned down at thunder-girl, who was currently attached to her midsection with the tenacity of a creeping vine. “Look, this isn’t going to work well at all. I can’t dance with you down there. Mind letting go?”
Headshake.
“Mind letting go please?”
Headshake.
“Let go right now!”
HEADSHAKE.
“Fine. Get up here. At the very least you’ll stand out of the way, okay? Okay. Here-up! Good. Now, hold on tight, don’t kick, and stay quiet.”
“Look who’s talking!” called Mett.
“Stay quiet goes for you too, all of you! Now stop. Wait. Wait.”
“wait”
Ting.

It was harder to move this time. Maybe it was all the eyes on her body back where she left it. Maybe it was the fuzzy sharp feeling of not enough drink in her belly to keep her mind soft. Maybe it was the heavy weight around her neck that was thunder-girl. Nakky craned her neck to look up at her; she looked different far away up here. For one thing, she had eyes, even if Nakky couldn’t place the colour. At least, she thought it was a colour.
She looked farther, and where she looked, she went. Up. Where the world was all sky and the sky was all and it was grey and towering. Distant figures, stern lords, solemn ladies.
Hey now, she whispered to the girl, feeling those distant drumbeats pumping where her body had to settle for blood. Hey, you’re almost there. Almost home. Hey. It’s good.
The grip around her shoulders squeezed a little tighter, then released.
She patted the leg. All good. Hey now! Hey you all! Listen up! Boom!
That got their attention.
Boom! Hey now! Look here! I’ve brought you a place to play and a person to say hello to! Boom!
Whirl around, whirl around, see them spin, the dark-haired, grey-coated lords and ladies of the storm. Proud and tall and stiff and stern, but so full of energy they just might burst. See them spit and yell and bluster.
Hey now, said Nakky. Calm down. She’s safe, that’s all. She’s safe. Look, see? Your daughter’s back!
Look at their glowering faces, the highest of faces. The lightning sparks from the nostrils of the grand old man and darkness eats the eyes of his lady. They aren’t happy. They’re coming down hard. She can see their mouths work, the rumble and roar of them.
What’re you on about” said Nakky. She’s home. She’s safe. She’s been a goo – a mostly good girl. She listened to me when I left her no other options. Leave off her!
They aren’t listening. They don’t listen to little words like those. Nakky knew that. She’d always known that. She’d just figured that was for her alone.
They are coming down hard, the father with words and the mother with more than that. That big sweeping front is raining down around now, with the force of a hurricane and the fury of a gale and the stung pride of a slighted parent. She’s not listening.
Nakky knows that they’re like that. All of them. They won’t listen to you.
Not if you don’t get their attention.
Hey! Stop! Boom!
They can hear her now. They’re just too busy thinking about themselves to care.
Right. Now.
Well, then they’re going to have to hear harder.
Boom-boom!
Nakky’s hand is still sore. It won’t matter much.

BOOM
BOOM

Ting, went the bell in her left hand. Then it fell apart.
Nakky Soos spat violently, trying to figure out which swear-word she’d been halfway through saying. Then she compromised and fell over – face-first.
“Mfffrrrrph. Fffffrruccc,” she said.
Many small hands dragged her upright. They were less successful in trying to remove the lump from her back. It felt heavier than ever – although some of that was probably the rainwater it was sopping up.
“I just fixed that drum,” said someone familiar.
“Not my fault,” said Nakky. She winced and tried to unclench her right fist from the instrument’s innards – it had gone straight through and out the other side. Cramps spasmed up and down her arm like wriggling snakes.
“What’d you go and do?”
“Nothing I wouldn’t do to my own dear mother.”
Mett Soos looked sharply at her sister. “Oh? Is that why your little friend’s still there?”
Nakky put two and two together and reached upwards with her good hand, her left hand. It clasped ahold of a slim ankle. “Guess so.”
Mett sighed. Not in an annoyed way, not as a declaration of offense, not like anything Nakky had ever heard from her sister. Just a short puff of tired air. “Right. I guess you’ll need more clothes then.”
“Guess so,” said Nakky. She wasn’t quite sure how to have a conversation this way.
“And maybe I can lend you some of the old furniture.”
“That’d be…good. Fine.”
“I don’t suppose you’d save the effort on hauling this stuff and just move in?”
“Oh fuck no. But thanks.”
Mett nodded. And then they all went home, all of them, in the meek and timid rain.

After Nakky Soos and the girl got home, the first thing she did was put some food in them. The second thing she did was crowbar the girl off her back and into the bed, head-first. By the time head touched covers the snores were already starting.
The third thing she did was pull out her bottle and look at it. She really, really, really wished it were a lot fuller than it was right now. It would make whatever she had to do next feel much easier.
But she could still hear that little soft snoring from one room over, and she remembered what it felt like to get woken up at the brink of dawn. And that was something that was going to come knocking, over and over again.
Well, no time like now. Nakky was right-handed, but she was still a good enough throw to land the bottle right on top of the glass’s grave.
“Boom,” she said.
She’d clean up the rest of it tomorrow.

Once upon a preamble, an old, old storyteller walked the long lonely roads of the backwoods, on his way from somewhere to somewhere else. And as he walked he sang, to keep his spirits up. And as he sang he got hungry, because his legs were old and creaky and his lungs weren’t much better and damnit they’d made hills less steep back in his youth, when did these things get so tall.
So he had a sit-down, and he had a look around for food. Berries there were none, small stupid furry creatures were absent, nuts and fruits nowhere to be seen.
But just as the old, old storyteller was about to give it all up for lost, lo and behold he did bump his foot upon a soft white thing! “Aha!” he cried. “Is that what I think it is?” And he picked it up and discovered to his great satisfaction that it was indeed an egg, and the ugliest, lumpiest, and soft-shelledest he’d ever set eyes nor fingers upon, and that it smelt faintly of dung.
Cursing his bad back and luck alike, the old, old storyteller wrenched himself to his feet once more and prepared to throw the offending object away, but then a faint twittering voice appeared.
“Whatever are you doing?” it said. The old, old storyteller looked up – his neck fairly snapped in three at this exertion – and saw a fat, stupid-looking blackbird perched up above him in a rough little nest.
“I’m perishing of hunger,” explained the old, old storyteller. Then an idea brewed itself in his old, old kettle-head, and he smiled. “Would you care to make a trade? A single one of your little itty-bitty eggs there in your nest for this, the largest egg I have ever seen!”
“I don’t know about that,” said the blackbird. “But I don’t not know about that either. I’m confused.”
“Heed the wisdom of an old, old storyteller,” said the old, old storyteller. “Once upon a time there was a bird and a man. The bird gave away a small lousy egg and got a big wonderful one in return. The best chick in the world came from that egg, and the bird had a happy and fulfilling life afterwards.”
“I’m still confused,” said the blackbird.
“The moral of the story is that bigger is better,” explained the old, old storyteller.
“The what of the story?”
“Take this, give me that,” said the old, old storyteller.
“Oh,” said the blackbird. “All right!”
So they traded eggs, and as the blackbird explained himself to his wife the old, old storyteller walked down the road with his fresh-laid lunch in hand, sucking happily at it.

In due time, the eggs hatched. There were many of them, and the blackbird and his wife had a tough time of keeping track of them all. There was one, who was big, two, who was bigger; the other one, who was fat; the little one, who wasn’t as small as the other one; and Maria, who was slightly larger than all of the others put together, possessed a mouthful of sharp little teeth and a long, sinuous tail, and had no wings, beak, or feathers.
“It’s so much trouble remembering you all,” complained the blackbird. “And all you do is eat, eat, eat. We barely have worms for ourselves these days.”
“Right,” said his wife.
But as the weeks went by, the blackbird and his wife found their burden pleasantly alleviated. For even as their young grew, their appetites seemed to shrink and shrink. Maria in particular didn’t seem to eat any worms at all. At first this pleased the blackbirds. But then one day the blackbird’s wife noticed something.
“Dear,” she said, “how many children do we have?”
“I don’t know,” said the blackbird. “There was one and two and the other one and the little one and Maria. How many are in the nest?”
“Maria.”
They thought about that.
“That’s not as many….is it?” said the blackbird.
“I don’t think so,” said the blackbird’s wife. “But she’s too lazy to leave. They should all be getting ready to leave now, and she just sits around all day. And I don’t think her feathers are growing in properly.”
So they spoke to their daughter, who was now overflowing at both sides of the nest, and reluctantly informed her of their difficulties.
“You’ll have to go,” said the blackbird.
“Why?” asked Maria.
“It’s not personal,” explained the blackbird’s wife. “It’s just practical.”
“We can’t raise a little nest forever,” said the blackbird. “Especially if you aren’t going to move. You’re too big for the nest. Actually, you’re nearly too big for the tree.”
Maria whimpered feebly, and shuffled awkwardly in the (slightly bloody) down that filled her bed. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”
“Not at all,” they explained. “You’ll be fine somewhere else, when you go someplace else. You just don’t fit in.”
“Oh,” said Maria. And then because it had been a long while since the other one, she ate them.

Days later and Maria wandered through the woods, lost and alone (and a bit sore from the fall). “All by myself, with nowhere to go, with nothing to be,” she lamented loudly. “Where will I fit in? Where am I meant to be? What am I meant to do?”
“I take pity on you, little lost person,” said a nearby berry-bush. “Why not come live as a berry-bush with me?”
“Oh, could I?” sighed Maria. “What do you do?”
“Yes indeed!” said the berry-bush. “It’s as simple as can be. Just plant yourself right there, in the dirt.”
So Maria did that.
“Now you just wait there until something nibbles on you,” said the berry-bush.
“Then what?” asked Maria.
“Why, it’ll run away with your seeds, of course!” said the berry-bush. “The more the better. Look! Here comes one now!”
Sure enough, there came a little frightened skittering thing, made of fluff and bone –a squirrel. It sat in its tree with frightened eyes, checking every which way for danger sixteen times over. Then it leapt to the ground, where it froze and crouched and looked even behind its own shadow. Then finally it plucked up its courage, made a mad dash, and ran straight into Maria’s mouth where she swallowed it.
“Did I do it right?” she asked.
“Maybe try again,” said the berry-bush. “Carefully.”
Some months later Maria had grown another few feet and the berry-bush’s crop had entered the final stages of rot-on-the-vine.
“I think,” said the berry-bush, hoarsely, “that you’d better leave. I think.”
“Why?” whispered Maria, a tear crawling down her scaly cheekless cheeks.
“It’s just… I don’t think you’re going to get it. It’s not quite your proper place. You just don’t fit in.”
“Oh,” said Maria. And she walked off sobbing, crawling over the berry-bush in her grief and accidentally mashing it straight into the forest floor with her low-hanging belly.

Weeks later and Maria roamed the grasslands, lost again and more alone than ever, and ferociously hungry.
“All by myself again, with nowhere to go, with nothing to be,” she complained at the top of her lungs. “What am I? Who knows? Not me.”
“Oh you poor litt – really quite big thing,” sighed a passing doe. “You remind me so much of my own children, all grown up and eaten by wolves now, bless their hearts. I’ll look after you. You can be a deer.”
“Please, please, please tell me how,” pleaded Maria. “What do you do?”
“Stand around and be frightened,” advised the doe. “If you hear anything, flip your tail at it and run away as fast as you possibly can. If you have time, try to nibble on some grass or something like that.”
“All right,” said Maria. “I’ll try.”
So they stood there, the two of them, the doe and Maria, both staring without blinking. Then there was a snap of a twig and fwip-bounce-bounce the doe was bounding away into the bushes, leaving Maria standing there.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Me,” replied a voice.
“Me,” added another.
“And me too!” hurried in a third.
“Huh,” said Maria. She still couldn’t see anything, but then again she was only a foot or so off the ground. “What are you?”
“Wolves.”
“Ah,” said Maria very wisely. “Of course. Wolves. I see.”
“Say, did you see which way that deer went?” asked the first voice.
“No,” said Maria. “I didn’t see the doe I was talking to run away in any direction at all.”
“Hmm. Which way did she not run?”
“She PARTICULARLY did not run that way,” said Maria craftily.
“Ah. I see,” said the voice. “Very good. Carry on with…whatever you’re doing.”
Maria waited there for a while.
And a while.

And another while.

“Oh right,” she said. “Run away as fast as you possibly can! Whoops.”
So she picked herself up and trundled carefully away into the forest as fast as her stubby little legs and sluggishness out of the sunshine could take her, and in no time at all she stumbled across the doe, who was lying on one side on the ground and missing the other side entirely.
“Oh deer,” said Maria. “What’s happened to you?”
“wolves.” wheezed the doe. “ate me.”
“Oops,” said Maria. “I’m sorry, I forgot to run.” Then she remembered. “Oh! And I forgot to flip my tail! I forgot everything! I didn’t even nibble any grass!” She began to cry again. “I’m not even frightened right now!”
“maybe. you shouldn’t. don’t. fit in.” managed the doe.
“Oh no, oh no,” wept Maria. And she ate the doe because the wolves had left so much of her behind and she was still very hungry and the grass didn’t look tasty to her.

A month and more came and went and found Maria wandering the rough hills by the rivers, tripping on rocks and chewing on the odd gopher – not nearly enough for her, now that she’d grown bigger yet. “This is lonely and I am still not doing anything properly,” she complained to everyone near. “Can someone please help? Can someone tell me what do? Can someone tell me who to be?”
“I’ll do it!” said a man digging a deep pit. “That said, stop walking. You’re going to land on my head in a minute.”
“Sorry,” said Maria. “What are you and what do you do?”
“I’m a potter,” said the potter. “I happen to be needing an apprentice. You’ll be digging pits and hauling firewood and stoking kilns and shoving carts. It’s hard work, but it’s good for you. You don’t eat too much, do you?”
“I only eat one meal a week or less,” said Maria.
“Sounds good,” said the potter. “Now come along and pull me out of here. I’m stuck up to my crotch.”
And it did sound good. But as it turned out, Maria’s one meal was the size of about twenty potter’s meals, and she didn’t move much until the sun was high in the sky, and after that she could only work for a few hours until she needed to go and cool herself off. Come spring and the grass she sprung, the fresh air and new life found the potter destitute, emaciated, despondent, and pissed off. Maria was doing nicely, though.
“You’re a good-for-nothing freeloader and a load and a cheat and a waste of space and I wish I’d never met you,” he explained to her. “Also, you’re shit at making anything but pinch-pots. And to be honest, I wouldn’t put anything liquid in those.”
“Sorry,” said Maria.
The potter rubbed his head with his hands, removing sick or seven buboes as he did so. “Look, this isn’t working at all. You just don’t fit in at all.”
“But where will I go?” sobbed Maria. “Everyone says that to me all the time and they never tell me what to do and I STILL don’t know what I am!”
“Go jump in a lake,” said the potter.
“Oh!” said Maria. “Oh! Thank you very much! Thank you so very much!” She would’ve thanked the potter more, but after that her mouth was full of him and it was difficult to speak.

It wasn’t a long trip to the lake. The potter had lived just a short walk north of it, though he preferred to take his drinking water from the little shallow creek that ran along the side of his house, barely deep enough to wet the bottom of Maria’s belly.
Water that was deep enough to swim in was new to her. She flopped in and paddled along, and was most disconcerted to find herself unable to tell herself apart from the floating logs surrounding her.
“Oh no!” said Maria. “Not again! I’m lost AGAIN, and this time I can’t even find myself! Can somebody please, please, PLEASE tell me what I’m meant to be doing here? Can someone tell me what I am?”
“You’re doing it right now,” said a large log just upstream.
“Oh!” said Maria. “What are you?”
“A crocodile,” said the log. “Same as you.”
“Then please, please, please tell me what we do, because I’ve tried asking everyone else and nobody ever helped me much at all,” said Maria.
The crocodile grinned at her. Its teeth were even bigger than her own. “It’s pretty simple. You want to know?”
“Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please,” repeated Maria. “Lots.”
“We eat anything and everything.”
“We eat anything?” asked Maria.
“We eat anything,” said the crocodile. His tail twitched in the current, propelling him forwards at a lazy ant’s-pace.
“We eat everything?” asked Maria.
“We eat everything,” confirmed the crocodile, drifting nearer.
“I think that I am a proper crocodile,” said Maria. “May I stay here?”
“Yes indeed, little one,” boomed the crocodile, now snout-to-snout with her. “You’ll fit right in.” And with a lunge-chomp-chomp, Maria found that she did exactly that.

The old, old storyteller would have explained the moral, but he’d died nearly a year before. Salmonella.