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The verdict was in and it was small and quick: cancer. 

It was also metastasized, which was longer and more dreadful, and incurable which was clipped and harsh, and terminal, which was final. 

Her doctor was careful and kind and professional and sincere and sympathetic but not pitying and it was a tremendous waste of some really carefully-calibrated effort because all Martha wanted to do was go home and get her bucket.

***

The bucket was generic.  No label graced its side.  It was made from plastic and was red in the exhausted sort of way that something overused gets.  The handle was metal and sturdy. 

Martha picked up her keys in one hand and her bucket in the other and juggled her phone with her chin. 

“Hello?” inquired her boyfriend. 

“I have terminal cancer and I just wanted to let you know that I always thought you were a creepy little fuck,” said Martha. 

Then she hung up and put the phone and keys in her bucket and left the apartment forever without even turning out the lights. 

***

First on her list was to buy herself a pair of diamond-studded brass knuckles.  Finding the proper boutique was tricky, haggling them was trickier, and getting them to fit her hand was trickiest, but Martha had a retirement fund and the willingness to spend it so things more or less muddled through.  Soon she had an incredibly expensive left hook. 

“Wonderful,” she said.  “Great.  Superb.  Leaving now.”

And she dropped it into her bucket.  It rattled against her phone and keys. 

***

There was some change left in her chequing account after shopping, so Martha went to the most expensive restaurant in the city. 

“No,” she said, on looking at their menu.

“Pardon?” inquired the waiter. 

“Never mind.  Not expensive enough.”
So she went to the most expensive recipe in the capitol. 

“Damnit,” she said.  “Not enough.  Who charges only four hundred for a plate of appetizers?  Get me someone serious or get out.”

Martha flew halfway around the world and paid sixteen thousand dollars for a single delicately curled and crisped sliver of a potato, topped with a crumb of the tenderest portion of the world’s most lovingly-raised calf.  The sauce was applied with an eye dropper and hazmat gloves. 

“Beautiful,” she said.

Then she stuffed the plate into her bucket and tipped the waiter 40%. 

***

At the airport, Martha remembered something she’d forgotten and rented a private plane.

“Paint it pink,” she said.  “I like pink.”
She paid for them to paint it pink, then had it flown to the home of cartoonist Gary Larson, where she bribed the pilot to land it on the road.

Ringing the bell was unsuccessful, possibly because the jet backwash had deafened everyone within a few miles, so Martha simply pushed the door open and wandered in. 

“I’m a big fan of your work and always wanted to meet you,” she told Gary. 

Then she stuffed him into her bucket and got back on the plane.

***

Beyond people, Martha wanted to see places.  The Eiffel Tower.  The Empire State Building.  The Pyramids.  One after another they slid down the bucket.

By the time she was headed to the Great Barrier Reef the world was starting to catch on.  Anti-aircraft fire tracked her from the shores; warnings were shouted at her through the radio, and she’d had to bribe her pilots five times over again. 

“Just give me a parachute,” she said, and as the tracers buzzed past her feet and the water rose up to meet her she pulled out her bucket and bailed the entirety of the largest living organism on the planet into it with one big scoop. 

There was a brief period of eternal confusion, and when it was over Martha was missing and  so was an aircraft carrier. 

She’d always wanted to drive one. 

***

The entirety of the USS Something-Or-Other was meant to be run by a crew of some size larger than one and more trained than not.  Martha, having bucketed the staff of the ship, was at a distinct disadvantage.  She settled for figuring out how to make the carrier go in a straight line – and when that proved impossible, to do donuts. 

Assault boats boarded.  Marines waved guns.  Martha waved her bucket. 

Helicopters sparkled overhead like big freaky bugs and she looked up and said “never ridden in one of those before!”

They were much easier to steer than an aircraft carrier.

***

The planes were back again, and the bloodflow pumping from the hole in her left arm was growing worrying weak.  The sunlight was fading away, and Martha realized she’d never quite had a chance to see one from this high up. 

“Wow,” she said.  “I made it out pretty good.  Only half the list, but pretty good.”

She squinted at the sunset again. 

“Real nice.  Glad I saw it.”

And then she bucketed it.

All of it. 

***

Outside the bucket, things were in a pretty bad way.  Inside the bucket, atop the Pyramids, Gary Larson argued with several thousand members of the United States Navy over how to split a single sixteen-thousand-dollar meal, as the world’s most beautiful sunset dawned over the rainbow corals of the Great Barrier Reef.  

It was a funny old world, and it looked to be a funny  new one too. 

Awake, awake, hearken and holler!  Up and at ‘em!  The day has come, and it’s come in the night with a sneaky footstep, thief-soft!  To the plows, to the plows!

By god, there’s inches of that horrible white stuff out there, and there’ll be feet by sunrise.  Grab a shovel, grab your belt, grit your teeth.

The white stuff is persistent.  Don’t let your guard down, don’t let your gaze waver.  It can swallow a shoveller whole in a blink’s breath.  I’ve seen it happen.  One moment there’s a healthy determined living breathing pissing moaning quailing specimen of human spirit and power and flaws there and then BAM.  Nothing but a drift.

It will also eat your cat.  Because it can.  Never, ever, ever forget that.  If you see a cat frolicking through the white stuff, look again: that thing’s high-tailing it for its fuckin’ life.

It’s changing tactics now, so don’t be fooled if the white stuff comes to your door hat in hand, smile on face.  It will present itself as an old friend or long-lost relative.  It will bring ingratiating handshakes for you and your spouse and disturbing ideas to your children.  You shouldn’t believe its lies for an instant.  Honeyed words and bloodied hands are all it brings, and every gift is poisoned.  Turn away, turn aside, turn your back to it and curl your lip and shut the door.  Then get your shovel.

We have new tools this year at all the latest hardware stores for the latest doom.  Your shovel can be xtra-large xtra-spiky or xtra-vagant.  For an additional thirty-three percent surcharge it can be self-heating for a smoother, sliceyer scoop.  Slip the cashier a little something and they’ll sell you one of the register fools to come home and shovel for you.  Rebuild your strength as your serf toils against the white stuff, plan your strategies, discipline your mind.  Think on all you love and hold dear and its imminent destruction.  That helps. 

***

Alright, we’ve had a few setbacks.  That’s to be expected, no two seasons are really the same.  The white stuff is cunning.  This time it snuck in and let all the gas out of our plows and the air out of our tires and splintered the hafts of our shovels and spat in our hot chocolate and bribed our employees to look the other way.  It also peed in our thermometers, which explains how it got so close before we saw it coming.

But you know what?  That doesn’t mean anything.  We can win this because we’re in this to win this and we aren’t allowed to ever lose.  And that means something.  It means a lot to us.  To me.  To you.  To us.  You get me?

Yes. 

We have to.  We’re all we’ve got, because our spouses are weak and our children are stupid and everyone else is feeble and stupid and soft sheep ripe to be drowned in the tidal slurry of the white stuff.  And sheep are soft and fluffy and white.  They’re practically the enemy already.

Barricade yourselves in while you work this out.  Repair your shovels, refuel your vehicles.  Recite the twenty-seven psalms and ninety mantras and forty-three paeans to destruction and the eternal burning pits where the white stuff is destined to dwell.  Don’t be afraid to scream and shout as the hate flows around your neck and up into your jaw.  That’s where it’s most powerful, and where you can keep it ready and waiting. 

Make sure the hate is in your lower jaw.  Not your upper.  That would be very, very, very, very, very bad.  So don’t let it get there.  We have enough problems with the damned white stuff. 

No time for more words.  Here comes the second wave.

***

The problem’s over, friends.  We found our traitor.  We found the despicable, foul-mouthed, filthy-brained, sewer-tongued cur-bait that sold us all out to the white stuff, sold us all up the creek and down the river and through satan’s chambers. 

It was THAT ONE.  You know the one I mean.  And you know what I mean when I say you know the one I mean.

Now you all sort this out.  I’ll be back in a minute.

***

Those of you who still remain after the purge, good job.  You’re loyal.  We know that traitors are weak and feeble due to the white stuff in their coward-veins, so if you lived you’re not one.  Cogniteo irpso sum.  Pick up the shovels of the fallen, you can use one in each hand one in your mouth and hold extras between each toe so that’s eleven shovels each and there’s plenty enough.

Of course you aren’t shovelling with the toe shovels.  Those are to replace the other three when they burn in your hands from the fury of your blows and the passion of your power.  So don’t worry about it, okay? 

The plows were just holding us back.  The true power was inside you all along.  Howl when it comes out, so it hurts the white stuff harder and its gales flinch back from your teeth.  Let them fall out and your bite will grow sharper, your eyes harder, your bones stronger, even as all of them turn black and blue and fall off and burn away in the endless tides of hell that rain from the clouds. 

Dare to dream, folks.  Dare to dream.  It’s what will win us this war.

***

So winning is more complicated than you’d think.  You may have seen too many sports films, or perhaps been to a casino.  You think that winning means ‘not losing,’ and that’s why you seem to be under the impression that we cannot win against the white stuff.  You are all giant huge enormous idiots. 

No, winning isn’t not losing.  Winning is making the other guy lose HARDER, and HARDER YET, until all that’s left isn’t even worth calling by name.  Winning is erasing your opponent from history and tearing out the page and eating it and shitting it out and building a rocket and firing that shit into the sun. 

Anyways, yes, we can’t win.  The white stuff is simply too powerful.  It can’t be shovelled, it can’t be plowed, it can’t be melted, it can’t be salted, it can’t be sanded, it can’t be stopped.  Which is why we are going to strategically deploy our secret weapon and destroy the entire atmosphere. 

See, the white stuff falls out of the clouds, right?  And the clouds need an atmosphere, right?  No more atmosphere, no more clouds.

Or we could use this other secret weapon, which will vaporize all water molecules it comes into contact with.  But it’s a bit tough to spread.  We’ll have to go door to door and make folks drink it. 

How about we do half each?  Half each.

***

The white stuff has covered the graves of our comrades, their ditch-sepulchres and their ruin-tombs, their field-graves and charnel-holes.  They died bravely and nobly and without giving an inch and they were utter failures for it and now it dances its joyous dance on their empty meaningless forgotten graves.  They deserve it. 

If only they’d all tried harder.  If only they’d all shovelled faster.  If only they’d switched to winter tires like they’d been told to, none of this would’ve happened. 

It’s someone’s fault.  And since it’s just me and you left, I think you know who I mean when I say I know who I mean is the person who I know is someone whose fault it is.

Don’t play dumb. 

I am forgiving and loving and merciful, which is why I will let you have a final cigarette before you march into the white stuff and become one with your traitorous masters. 

You don’t smoke?  Oh fuck off then.  Out you go!  OUT!  GET OUT OF MY SIGHT.

***

The white stuff has deployed its most cunning stratagem at last: on the precipice of my victory, I have slipped and fallen and slipped a disc and now I can’t get up. 

If only my troops hadn’t deserted me, this would all be fixed now. 

Darn.

I’ll just lie here for a bit, appreciate the scenery.  Say what you will about that white stuff, but it sure looks nice when it falls from the sky like that. 

It sure looks nice. 

It wasn’t his stomach rumbling.

That was the last straw.  The lion had felt the dull little vibration tingle in his whiskers; buzz through his teeth, and now curdle his morning meal, and it didn’t have the dignity to be his own repast.  He got to his feet and shook his big, curly, floofy mane. 

“WHAT,” he yelled at one of his wives, “IS THAT?”
“I’ll have a look ‘round,” she said calmly, and stood up and padded off out of the comfortable shade of the tree they were dozing on. 

“GOOD,” he said, and flung himself back into a nap to sulk. 

Some time later a gentle cough awoke him. 

“WHAT,” he yelled at the wife, “WAS THAT?”
“A king,” she said. 

“WHAT,” the lion repeated, “IS THAT?”
“A sort of odd human person.  He sits upon a palanquin and is carried around by other humans and wherever he goes they bow to him and give him gifts and do as he says, because he is the king and they are peasants.  And he wears a little decoration on his head.”
The lion considered this information.  Then he shook out his big, curly, floofy mane. 
“I,” he decided, “AM A KING.”
“Alright,” said his wife.
“I AM KING,” he shouted at his other wives where they dozed.

“Okay,” said one.

“Yeah,” seconded another. 

“Sure.”
“Whatever.”
“Got it.”
“Yup.”
“Uh-huh.”
The lion leapt up on top of a rock, and then on top of another rock, and then on top of another rock.
“THIS IS MY PALANQUIN,” he announced.

“Be careful,” said his first wife.
“WHAT?”
“Bees.”
“BEES CAREFUL OF WHAT?”
An intense and violent humming eased its way gently into the lion’s ears.  It wasn’t his stomach again, either.  It was a small and violent insect, flitting its way around his head most obnoxiously.

“I AM KING,” he told it. 

It buzzed furiously, so he squashed it.

“I AM KING,” he told its corpse.  But the buzzing didn’t go away, and when he looked up he saw a hive in a crevice in the rock and in the hive in the crevice in the rock were bees and those bees came out to see him.

“I AM KING,” he told them.  “AAAARGH.  I AM KINOUCH.  OH NO.  AIEEE.  OW OW OW OW OW OW OW KING OW OW OW OW OW”

***

“All better?” asked one of his wives, gently licking his nose again.

“YOUR KING FEELS BETTER AND ACTUALLY WAS NEVER HURT IN THE FIRST PLACE,” said the lion, swatting at her magnanimously.  “I AM GOING TO GET LUNCH.”
“Well, it’ll have to wait for sundown,” said his first wife.  “It’s too early and hot to get food now.”
“NONSENSE,” said the lion.  “I AM KING.  IT WILL COME TO ME.”
“Well have fun,” said his wives.

“SILENCE, PEASANTS,” he told them.  And they did, and he left. 

It was an awfully hot day, just as his wife had told him, but the lion paid it no mind.  He need not hide or skulk or ambush; that was what his wives were for.  Now he was king, and needed not put up with the tomfoolery any longer.  Now he could simply assert himself. 
“I AM KING,” he announced to some nearby zebras. 

They looked at him.

“I AM KING, AND YOU ARE PEASANTS,” he explained to them.

They looked at each other.

“I DEMAND YOU FEED YOURSELVES TO ME AT THIS INSTANT,” he ordered.

The zebras burst into hysterical horse-y laughter fit to bust a gut. 

“SILENCE, PEASANTS,” the lion told them.  And they didn’t, and when he walked over to swat them – his big, curly, floofy mane stiff with disapproval – they trotted away.  And they were still laughing.

“I AM KING,” he told a nearby Thomson’s gazelle.  “FEED ME.”

It ran away and it was so fast he didn’t even try to chase it.  Instead he got angry.
“I AM KING,” he roared at the world, “AND I DEMAND ONE OF YOU PEASANTS FEED YOURSELVES TO ME AT THIS VERY MOMENT OR I WILL KILL YOU STONE DEAD.”
An elephant approached him, stepping quietly on its feet as elephants do.  Its gaze was steady and firm. 

“ABOUT TIME,” said the lion.  “NOW STEP INTO MY MOUTH.”

The elephant approached him. 

“RIGHT HERE.”
The elephant approached him.
“GOOD.  YOU HAVE SERVED YOUR KING WELL.”
The elephant approached him.

“NOW STAND STI-”

The elephant kept on walking.

***

Luckily the water hole wasn’t far away.  This suited the lion sorely in the most literal sense of the world, as he bathed his tender, trampled body in soothing mud and splashed cool water onto his dust-stomped mane, which was still big but was substantially less curly and floofy. 

“Tough day?” asked the water hole.  It had a muddy, thick sort of voice, which made sense because the lion was probably sitting on its throat.

“YOU WILL ADDRESS ME AS YOUR HIGHNESS,” the lion told it.   

“Apologies, sire.”
“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?”
“’Your highness.’”
“GOOD,” said the lion.  “YOU ARE AN OBEDIENT SUBJECT.”
“Well, I try.  What sort of problems have you had lately, sire?”
“I HAVE BEEN BESET BY INGRATITUDE FROM THE PEASANTS.  I AM THEIR KING AND THEY OUGHT TO OBEY ME.  INSTEAD THEY STING ME AND LAUGH AT ME AND IGNORE ME AND TRAMPLE ME.  BUT ONLY BECAUSE I WANT THEM TO.”
“By what right is your kingship?” inquired the water hole.  Oddly enough, its voice was different now: it was thinner and reedier, though water still splashed in its vocal chords.

“BECAUSE I AM KING,” explained the lion.

“Yes, yes, of course.  But by this I mean: why are you king?  By might?  By right?”
“BECAUSE I AM,” said the lion.

“You am what?” inquired the water hole in yet another voice – this one deep as a canyon, cold as a night-time wind. 

“I AM THAT I AM, AND THAT IS THE MIGHTIEST AND GREATEST AND MOST SPECIAL OF ALL.”
“By both might and divine right you are king,” mused the reedier of the water hole’s voices.

“Impressive,” said the first, muddy voice.

“Indeed,” said the cold deep voice.  “Come a little closer, sire, that we might honour you properly.”

“ABOUT TIME,” said the lion, wading farther into the water hole.  It dropped off rather suddenly, and he splashed in past his shoulders. 

A thought struck him.  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY ‘WE’?”
“Well, we’re more Jacobins than monarchists,” said the first voice.  “But that’s politics.  Personally, we’re crocodilians.”

Then something bit the lion’s nose and something else bit his foot and something ELSE bit his tail and all three of them spun and spun and spun until all his problems went away.

***

The lion’s wives were neither surprised nor particularly heartbroken when he didn’t come back in time for nightfall. 

And they didn’t tell their children about kings.  Just in case. 

She sat at her desk. 

Her desk sat back at her. 

Well well well.  Another impasse.

Her phone rang, hidden somewhere behind a forest of bottles.  She ignored it.  Again. 

“Maybe not the mayonnaise,” she said.  “I know it’s the foundation of the sauce, but like…fuck it.  Vinegar instead.  Go for a drizzled dressing.”  She felt sharp today, not rich – and in more than one way. 

Her phone rang again and her reflexes encroached on the turf of her best senses and answered it. 

“’lo.”

“Finally!  What the HELL have you been doing?!”
“Writing.”
“News to me!  Your first draft is overdue by three fucking weeks!  I can’t contact you, I can’t contact your agent – hell, I can’t even contact your husband!  This is the first chance I’ve had to even proximally reach you in almost two months!”

“Uh-huh,” she said, muffled a bit by the cork between her teeth.  She spat it out and took a belt.  “Who are you again?”
The room filled with thick, clammy silence. 

“’lo?”
“It’s Marge.  Your editor.  Who you’ve worked with for twenty-six years.”
“Huh?”
“I made your career out of floss and hope you goddamned washed-up half-assed paint-stripper-drinking canape-baking cabana-chef-ass piece of UNGRATEFUL-“

“Listen,” she said, “it’s been a long day and I’m really struggling with this page.  Tell me about crabs.”

“About WHAT?”
“Crabs.  I’m working on crab cakes.  With crabs.  The cakes are set but I can’t decide if I should switch from a mayonnaise sauce to a vinaigrette.”
“Christie.  This is a cocktail book.”

“What?  No it isn’t.  Talk to me.  Talk to me about crabs.”
*click*

“’lo?  Hello?” 

She put down the phone, took another three quick swigs, then used the vinaigrette.  A choice made without thinking was always the best one. 

***

It was a bright and stormy morning.  Sunlight sparkled on the ocean at the horizon as surely as the rain punched into the windowpanes.  She looked at the curdling clouds, then looked at her curdling stewpot, then looked at the clouds, then looked at the stewpot, then upended an entire carton of cream into it. 

The phone rang.  Her hand slapped it to the floor. 

“Hello?  Hello?  Hello?”

“Wrong number.”
“Is that you, Christine?  Hello?”
“Who?”
“That IS you.  What in the blazes do you think you’re playing at?”

“Emulsification.”

“Excuse me?”
“I’m trying to get this stupid chowder to thicken.”
“Christine Julianne Aquifer Sanderson, this is your father speaking to you: why in god’s name have you dropped off the face of the earth?!  Your mother’s been worried sick, your aunt’s got an ulcer, your sister won’t return my calls, and your editor has been at me for weeks and weeks and weeks.  Don’t you care about other people?”

“Yes.”  She sniffed the pot gently, then tasted it.  “Ugh.  Tell me, do you think chives would help?”
“EXCUSE me?”

“Chives.  With the chowder.”
“Are you cooking right now while I’m talking to you?”
“Yes.  I’m making a crab chowder.  With crabs.”
“Christine you turn off that damned stove  and pay attention to me this second young lady I knew encouraging you to do these damn foolhardy things would cause no end of grief no wonder it took you so long to find a husband why if your grandmother were alive she’d die of shame and another-”

The phone’s battery died. 

“Chives?” she asked.  She nodded.  “Chives.”

***

The doorbell went off. 

This was a problem she solved by ignoring it.

The smoke alarm went off. 

This was a problem she solved by laboriously dragging a chair underneath it and then smashing it with a hammer.  

“Let me help you with that.”
“No thanks I’ve got it it’s fine.”  She blinked.  “Who are you?”
“Constable Thomas,” said the stranger, who was tall dark and geekish. 
“Oh.  That explains the uniform.”  She rubbed the smoke from her eyes.  “Well, can you help me with some firewood?  The smoking is going a bit harder than I thought it’d be.”
“You’re cooking?”
“Smoking.  A crabsmoke.  For crabs.”

“Working on a new cookbook?”
“Sort of.”  She lugged the chair back into position with a grunt. 

“So you’re Christine Sanderson?”
“Sort of.”
“Your family have filed a notice with us about your mental state.”
“Sort of.”

“Pardon me?”
“Yeah, I think they might have done that.”  She rummaged through the drawers of her kitchen.  “Listen, can you give me a hand here?  Just pass me that seasoning jar on your left.”

Constable Thomas looked to his left, looked back, and caught a fork to the jaw and through important bits of his neck.

“Thanks,” she said. 

***

It was a cool, moonlight night, but the firepit was warm and the crabsmoke was ready. 
“Come on and get it,” she said, as the first guests arrived, skittering low and fast over the sands.  “I think it’s a real winner.  Got some new meat in.  Nice and lean.”
Just in time too.  She’d never have been able to finish the book in time on just Joshua and her agent.

“I think we might be in for trouble soon,” she confided as the meal was consumed.  “Going to have to leave the country, I reckon.”
The thoughtful click-click-clack and snickety-snip of thousands of tiny claws answered her. 

“Yeah, it’s a land thing.  Stupid, I know.”  She sighed and kicked back in her chair, looking up without noticing the stars.  “Just drop me off somewhere with a word processor and I’ll keep up the work, yeah?”

An agreeable click, and then the swarm rolled over her and around her and off to sea and over it, all the long, rattling, carapaced way. 

It was an awfully uncomfortable way to travel, but that was the sort of thing you had to learn to put up with, when you were cooking with crabs.   

Bukel and Haxi and Sons and Daughters were an old shipwright’s firm, the oldest in the city.  They had respect, and they had recognition, and they had historical weight.

They also had no money, so when a strange little wet bag made entirely (if crudely) of woven kelp was pushed onto their dock in the dead of night one moonless, starless eve, they were willing to listen.

And that was why Jenma Haxi (of the Daughters) was out at the witching hour sitting in a dinghy in the shallow waters off Deadreef’s Point, under the shadow of half a lighthouse and over the rubble of the other half of the lighthouse.  The Point was a mite unstable, and it tended to shrug every so often.  Because the shipwrights needed money, but they needed their reputation too, and there was no point making the head of the firm look like an idiot when you could foist it off on someone younger and suspiciously keen.

Jenma was less keen than usual, even under her best sou’wester and three blankets and the hardiest longjohns her brother Bucal could sew. 

“Fuck,” she muttered, and not for the first time.  Something unseen bumped the boat lightly in agreement, and not for the first time.  “Fuck,” she repeated.  “Aw fuckity fuck fuck.”  Just what she needed: to be overturned and eaten by the first big shark to come in closer than the Deadreef in two generations.  “Fuckleberries with fucked cream.”  Typical, just typical. 

“Fu-”

A highly technical and directed stream of water hit her directly in the face, turning the next thirty seconds of swears into sputters.  Jenma spat and sneezed and coughed and hacked and heaved and by the time she knew which end was up she was headfirst over the gunwales and eye-to-eye with the least friendly-looking dolphin she’d ever met.  Despite its (somewhat scarred) permanent smile, it seemed to be giving her the stinkeye. 

“Hello,” she croaked.  “Fuck.  Ow.”
The dolphin spat in her face again.  This time she wasn’t inhaling, but that was about as big an improvement as she got. 

“Excuse me,” she managed. 

The dolphin clicked at her and bumped the boat with a floating piece of wood.  And not for the first time.

Oh.  Not a shark after all. 

“Got yourself a toy there?  Nice.  Please stop spitting at me.”

The dolphin bumped the boat.  Then spat at her.

When Jenma’s vision cleared up again, the driftwood was in the boat with her and the dolphin was gone. 

That suited her fine.  It had left her a lot of reading to do. 

***

One month later, Jenma rowed out past Deadreef’s Point again.  That had covered three weeks of explaining, pleading, wheedling, threatening, blackmailing, stonewalling, extorting, and demanding; one week of making very discreet enquiries to very very well-paid experts about very very VERY complicated arrangements; and a few days of screaming nameless dread and horror and frustration into her pillow.

Her brother Bucal had sewn that pillow for her as a child.  It was a tattered sack of sailcloth stuffed with rags that wasn’t fit to even be called an apprentice-piece, and she loved it more than gold. 

Which was why it was buried underneath the multiple complicated chests, packs, and sealed print-cases.  She needed a little bit of that love out here with her while she did this. 

Bump bump bump on the hull.  And this wasn’t the first time, so she peered over the side promptly.  She’d had enough water squirted in her face. 

“Hey.”
Two cold, icy little eyes glared back at her from above a big happy grin. 

“I’ve got the plans.  I can go over this step-by-step if you want.”

The sea moved, and underneath Jenma’s dinghy it was moved aside.  A great grey barnacled back beached her high and dry; a valve twisted and huge lungs breathed deep and slow. 

“Right then.”

So she went over it step by step.  There would be three, and each would take a long time. 

“Is this acceptable?”
Her client’s interpreter squeaked and clicked in the affirmative. 

“Good.  This is an off-the-books job, so there’ll be no master-marks on anything.  If word gets out the other shipwrights’ll tear me apart in town square, and I can’t say the rest of my family wouldn’t join them.”

A raspberry, long and extra watery. 

“Yes, yes, yes.  Just explaining the circumstances.”
Click click clickclickCLICK.

“We can start soon.  Meet up at Bluehollow Bay in three days, after nightfall.  And be prepared to pay for each step in advance.  And be prepared for it to hurt.  A lot.”
Her client spoke aloud for the first time, but it was very, very, very loud.  A dismissive snort is quite something when it’s forced through a blowhole. 

Jenma spent an hour scrubbing herself down when she got home.  The prospect of money helped keep her mind off what was coming out of her hair.  

***

Bluehollow Bay was beautiful in the moonlight.  Few waves, no wind, the perfect place to swim if you were from out of town and didn’t know about the massive drop that led into deep water, covering rip currents that could suck you out past the reach of everything but gulls. 

This, said the interpreter of Jenma’s client, would not be a concern.  She had arranged for protection.  And so there was, in the water around the huge floating mass of flesh – a circling squadron of fins that she had to explain to the barber-surgeons were NOT sharks about one hundred times.  Even then, some of them didn’t believe her until the interpreter poked his head up from the water to swear virulently at them.  Some tones transcend languages and species. 

So they stepped atop their patient, and they prepared their knives, and their saws, and their scoops, and their cauldrons and cauldrons of boiled antiseptics and soothing paste.

And they began to cut, and the bay ran red. 

The client made no complaints.  She held her breath as if she were on a deep dive, and every hour on the hour, as steady as a watch, she would exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, and hold again.

She did this ten times, and as the sun began to rise it was done. 

“Don’t dive,” Jenma told the interpreter.  “Not until the paste has dried away.  It’ll start to itch then, and it should be fine.  Give it a week and a day, and then we’ll bring in the smiths.

***

The smiths were less skittish than the doctors, although they were even more uncomfortable aboard a boat.  They’d all shoed horses, and although this was very different in the details the shape and the mass and the form of the thing was graspable in a manner that felt familiar and proper and right. 

So they stoked their little portable foundry on the shore, and they hammered and grunted and bent and poured and now and then explained to the interpreter what they were doing, because that sort of intense anger is something that demands answering for even if you aren’t sure how to do it. 

When each piece was ready – still glow-hot – it was whisked, tongs and all, into Jenma’s dinghy, and from there to the client, and from there into the client, and from there it was bolted, and nailed, and hammered, and sealed into place against rib and joint and blubber and hide.  The smell of cooked meat filled the air until it was enough to drive a lion to veganism, and everyone present took a small break for a vomit before lunch. 

The installation took all night and a bit of the day besides, but it was done. 

“Overtime pay,” Jenma said.  “I can’t skimp on silence from these people.”

The interpreter spat in her face again, but he begrudgingly hauled up yet another (smaller) little kelp-string-bag to her hands, brimming with pearls.

“Wait a month for the weight to settle,” said Jenma.  “And then we’ll do the tricky part.”

***

The tricky part wasn’t finding a power source – there was an infinite supply of seawater for boiling at hand, and a truly astonishingly potent heat-source – but tapping it without compromising the client. 

This was done with cogs and rods and wheels and gears and teeth and boilers and plungers and piping and waterproofing and they even managed to find a way to repurpose the body’s own oils as oils, more’s the wonder. 

Ammunition would be simple.  Hell’s grapeshot, loaded with whatever could be crammed in.  The expulsion method involved a lot of violence and steam, but well, again, water was easy. 

Jenma wished the designer was at hand, but Grand High Artificer and Lord Engineer Lop Pon-Deapwit was an ill little thing and she refused to be moved from her bedside until she was finished dying.  Ten months on and so far no luck, but one grew bored while dying and she’d been quite happy to distract herself with the worst technical problems she’d ever imagined.  Hadn’t even demanded a fee for the work, let alone her silence. 

The client settled low in the water when her project had been installed.  Heavy with iron, and with lead, and with something hotter and more hateful. 

“The job is done,” said Jenma, alone in her dinghy again as the last of the pale-faced clockmakers, cannoneers, and foundry-workers vanished over the road, over the horizon.  “And it all should work.  Do you want to field-test here, or-”

The client breathed out, then in, then dove.  She left so fast the water in Bluehollow Bay nearly came with her. 

Jenma sat back up and waited for the horizon to stop spinning.  “I think,” she said to the interpreter, “I had which one of you was the angry one all wrong, didn’t I?”

He cackled at Jenma, then squirted her in the face. 

***

“THAR SHE BLOWS!”

Ninety days out of port and not a sight but shattered jetsam, and at last the call, the blessed call to blood and sweat and money came down from the Brigmun’s mainmast.  The lookout sang loud and strong, lungs as good as a trumpet, from the peak all the way into the hull. 

“THAR SHE BLOWS!”

The men scrambled, the boats were hoisted, the harpoons were seized.  Ahead it hove into sight, a lone cow, somnolent at the surface, heavy and low in the water with child (a bit wasteful, but best to take what you could get after this long a drought) and dreaming of happier things. 

 “THAR SHE BLOWS!”

Wait, what was that glint? 
“THAR SHE BLOWS!”
It sparkled in the bright morning light, most unlike light on water.

“THAR SHE BLOWS!”

Wait, was that a CANNON?

“THAR SHE-”

…broadsides. 

***

For some years thereafter, whaling took a sharp and inexplicably lethal downturn.  At first the shipwrights did roaring trade replacing vessels, but only so much good money is willing to throw itself after bad, and soon the local harbours saw few vessels launched save for the little boats used by local fishermen.  The shipyards closed, their wrights moved away or retired. 

Except, that is, for Bukel and Haxi and Sons and Daughters.  Inexplicably, they did quite well for themselves. 

The hallway door creaked.  It wanted to fit in with the mansion’s walls, ceiling, floor, joints, attic, roof, cellar, and foundation. 

Through its portal came two figures: one tall and thin, one tall and thin and incredibly, exhaustively, exhaustingly old.

“Pay attention, Edith.  This is your heritage you’ll be looking at here.”
Edith shrugged underneath her jacket.  “Sure.”
“One day I’ll be gone, and all these heirlooms will be yours.”
“Yuh-huh.”
“Now gaze upon my trophies!”

“’Kay.”
Lord High Conjurer Sir Archibald Quislip Stepford-Heimst blended a tsk into a sigh (an old trick he’d learned from his favourite nanny as a child).  “Edith, you’re looking at your phone-machine again, aren’t you.”
“Yeah.”
“Youth!  It is wasted upon the youthful, my granddaughter!  Wasted!”
“Sure.”
“But there is always more to be wasted, until there isn’t.  Take this manticore, for instance!  Stuffed the thing myself when I was your age, my first solo taxidermy job.  Isn’t he a beaut?”
Edith glanced up at the lion-bodied, scorpion-tailed, man-skulled, many-toothed creature.  “Cool.”
“Indeed!  Fun trick about manticores: they love easy targets.  I simply paid a local peasant girl to stand out in the open for thirty minutes and I got a clear shot across the bastard’s haunches with my cursebow.  She got away with but a few scratches to the vertebrae, little ungrateful minx.”

Edith took a picture.

“I hope you aren’t going to show your friends that.  This is a private family pride.”
“Just recording.  Hey, this thing’s teeth are broken.”
“Indeed!  It was quite old and feeble.  First and best lesson in the ways of the world, m’girl – a fair fight is for fools.  Think smart: cheat.”

“How’d you cheat this one?” asked Edith, pointing upwards. 

“Hmm?”
“That one.  The one that’s the entire ceiling.”
“Oh, the dragon!  I forget it’s there sometimes; old Esteban plotted the ribs into the rococo so nicely.  Funny thing about dragons: they burn so hot they can scorch rocks but because of that they need more water than a locomotive.  So I poisoned all the water holes in a ten-mile radius of its lair and left the country.  They tend to die slow, you see, and vengeful.  Came back for the corpse when the rampage ended.”  Stepford-Heimst chuckled fondly.  “Oh, it was a feisty bugger.  Took out six villages and two good-sized towns before its guts died out on it.  It  was still glaring at me when I cut its throat, bless its scaly heart.”
“Cool,” said Edith. 

“Oh indubitably.  And the fangs, of course, went into my cursebow.  Which you won’t be inheriting.  Ol’ Duchess is getting buried with me, you see.  I shan’t dare part with her.”

“Did you use her on this?” inquired Edith, taking a picture of a single-orbited skull the size of a car.   A spectacularly huge shattermark filled its forehead.

“Oh goodness me no.  A cursebow against a cyclops would be like a spitball against a teacher: just makes ‘em crabby and liable to smack you.  No, I made his acquaintance formally under guest-right, exchanged gifts, the whole nine yards.  I believe his name was Xenos.”
“Did he like…give you his skull?”
“No, he gave me Duchess!  He forged it himself as a skill-testing exercise; far too small for him to use, like a man making sculpture on a needlepoint just to prove he could.  A master smith, but not surprising – cyclops-make has been the best you can find in the Mediterranean for the past two millennia.”

“What’d you give him?”
“A monocle!  He was quite nearsighted in his old age.  He thanked me with tears of joy, then tripped over a rock and smashed his forehead in immediately.”  Stepford-Heimst winked and laid a finer aside his nose.  “Just a little flaw in the glass.  Worked wonders since he had no depth perception to begin with.”
“Sick.”
“Oh?”
“Cool.”
“I see.”
Edith poked her phone again. 

“Anyways!” said Stepford-Heimst after about forty seconds.  “This is one of my favourites.  Care to lift the lid on this case?”
“You do it,” said Edith with the flat and blunt awareness of one who had learned all about the sense of humour shared by elderly relatives.

“Oh come now.  One little peek?”

“You first.”
“Spoilsport.”  The lid raised, and even looking away, Edith squinted at the glare.

“Ohohoho!  The look on your face!  My word!  A fine knee-slapper, eh?”
“Ow.”
“This, m’girl, is a phoenix egg!  You have any idea how rare those are?”

“Very?”
“Quite so!  I befriended it in its dotage, tended it with care, and then –”

“-attacked it in its sleep?”
“No, no, goodness no!  Phoenixes don’t sleep.  No, I waited until it died of old age, then stabbed it to death in its own shell before it could finish reincarnating.  Used lead needles.  Fun little fact: a phoenix’s rebirth relies upon a very limited and delicate form of nuclear reaction.  Probably why your mother doesn’t have any more siblings eh?   Eh?  Eh?”
Edith’s face contorted in the agony of one forced to imagine a relative having sex. 

“Ohohohohohohohohohohoho!”

“Please, stop.”

“Of course!  And now, no doubt, you’ll see how important it is to grow up to carry on the family tradition!”

Edith scratched her nose.  “Sort of,” she muttered.

“Excuse me?”
“Sort of.  I mean, I want to be a wildlife biologist.”
Stepford-Heimst laughed indulgently.  “Oh you clever little thing!  And that will help you become a wonderful hunter, no doubt, as long as you don’t waste too much time at school.”
“Yeah.”
“’Yes.’”

“Sure.  I mean, it helped me know how much basilisk venom to squeeze into your tea earlier, to provide a fatal dose without the taste alerting you.”
“Ah!”
“It was the dried stuff you keep in that big glass jar in the parlour, so figuring out how degraded the potency was got a bit complex.  And I had to guess at your body weight.”
“Oh!”
“Think I got it right though.  You’ve got those little red dots appearing on your hands exactly thirty minutes after ingestion.”

Stepford-Heimst did not reply.  Edith gently pushed at his side.

He fell over for good. 

He didn’t stop smiling. 

***

Edith buried most of the remains, and sold the mansion for funds to build an occultlife sanctuary.  But she had Stepford-Heimst stuffed, because he would’ve wanted it that way. 

I’ve got to admit: I was surprised when Josh walked into the breakroom, and I was surprised that I was surprised. I’ve never been one for trends, not me, but he’d been a peacock for all of the three years I’d known him and I’d been sure that I’d seen every possible permutation and mutation of style and coif that the human mind could inflict adorning his lanky frame.

This was a little different though. 

“Good morning,” I said, not wanting to cave that easily. 

“Hell yes,” said Josh earnestly, demolishing the hell out of his bagel. He never believed in chewing slowly, Josh. “Got a good day coming up.”
“Plans or gut?”
“Gut. Just feeling good, y’know?”
“Right. Right. Right.”
I sat there. He sat there.

I gave up. “Your… teeth look good.”
“Yeah?” he said, grinning happily enough that I had to turn my eyes away from the two extra sabre-like canines that dangled from his upper jaw. “Thanks!”
“Caught me by surprise a bit. What’s going on there?”
“Just trying something new, you know?”

No. “Yeah.”
“Well, gotta run! Have a good day, eh?”

“Sure.”

He left, and I could stop pretending I was still hungry. It was hard to keep your appetite in the face of that much tooth.

***

Next morning was communal oatmeal, a bonding exercise and torture all in one. I’d just finished ladling out my bowl when Josh came down the stairs, whistling something and also something else. 

“What’s that?” I asked. 

“WAP,” he said cheerfully, pouring out twice what I’d taken and scraping the pot clean.
“No, not that.”
“Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”
“No, not that. How are you doing that?”

He frowned, and there was something entirely wrong about the set of his mouth. “Doing what?”
“Both of them at the same time.”
“Oh,” he said, suddenly sunny again, and he smiled properly and his lips peeled back.

“See?” he said brightly.

“Teeth,” I said.

“Right, right. And see behind them?”
Oh.  “… more teeth.”
“Right! Two rows, just like sharks used to make.”
“Why?”
“Just playing around a little, you know?”
I didn’t. “Sure.”
“Well, gotta run! See you later!”
I was still only two spoons into my oatmeal as he scooted out the door. 

***

In retrospect, the Friday morning meeting was when things began to slide out of control.

“…and in conclusion,” said Mr. Matheson, “miserable job by you all, just awful. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Except for Joshua, who has spent less than half the time of any of you on lunch breaks. Now THERE’S a productive man.”
“Gosh, thanks” said Josh happily, as all of us committed double homicide in our minds. “But I can’t take all the credit, sir. It’s my teeth.”

“Your teeth?”
“Yeah, I’ve got three rows of them right now.”
Mr. Matheson nodded in approval. “Great idea. I like it. It’s dynamic, it’s novel, it’s competitive.  I’ve got to try that.”
“Yeah! Yeah.Yeah!”
And by Monday Mr. Matheson had four rows of teeth and Josh had five and two other up-and-comers had three each. 

Lunches WERE faster, on average, but there were a godawful lot of crumbs. And from what I heard around the watercooler the local pharmacies were starting to raise their toothpaste prices. 

***

“Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.”
“Hello, Josh.” 

“You check out the shareholder’s meeting yet?”
“No, Josh.”
“Check it out, check the video. There’s video.”
“No, Josh.”
“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease,” he said, and I had to give in because there was something about hearing a whine strained through that much dentition that made me cringe in my soul. 

It looked boring, which was normal. It sounded boring, which was normal. And then the CEO opened his mouth and.

“Is that…?”
“Yeah. Yeah! YEAH!”
“Where’s his TONGUE?”
“It’s there! See? It’s still there! He just, y’know, augmented it.”
“It’s covered in teeth!”
“Yeah! He took my idea!” Josh sounded happier than any plagiarism victim I’d ever seen. “He took my idea and ran with it! God I’m proud. I’m onto something, you know. I’m onto something BIG. Gonna push the envelope. Gonna set the trends. Watch this space, man! Watch it!”
He beamed happily and walked away and it wasn’t until he’d left my office that I realized he’d replaced everything between his chin and his cheekbones with additional molars.

***

Next Friday meeting was surreal. Mr. Matheson’s crinkled watery blue eyes stared at me above a mouth that could’ve come from a sand tiger shark; my coworkers were nests of snaggle-tooth nightmares – clearly they hadn’t gotten the hang of it yet – and Josh… Well.

Well.

Josh was ahead of the curve. 

“And you’ve all done awfully, just awfully, terrible this month. Total wreckage, waste and ruin,” said Mr. Matheson, shaking his head. “But we’re making up the time in lunch breaks which is nice. Very nice. Good job with that. A round of applause for efficient mastication! Oh and Mr. Grellis is on TIME magazine’s cover, so that’s nice. Buy a copy to show him you care.”
I didn’t buy a copy, but I did check the website. Sure enough, there was our CEO, wearing the most expensive and boring suit possible, straightening his tie and looking at the camera and just a pair of serious brown eyes buried in a face that had become nothing more than a field of enamel and dentine. 

THE FACE OF BUSINESS, it proclaimed earnestly.

“Hey!”

I looked up. “Hey, Josh.”
“You see that?”
“Yes, Josh.”
“I’m catching on!”
“Yeah, Josh.”
“I mean, they’re giving all the credit to Mr. Grellis. But as long as I know and you know who’s the cause, that’s enough right? It’s enough, right? Right? Right? Right?”
“Sure, Josh.”
“Well, gotta run! To lunch! And then run back from it! Lunch!”

He ran. To lunch. And I was grateful for it, because it’s hard to make eye contact with someone when they’ve swapped their entire skull and all its contents with teeth. 

***

By the end of the month it was on the streets. By the end of the year it was everywhere. By the end of the holidays it was step six on the VORACIOUS guidance plan to corporate efficiency and we’d just failed our audit for it. 

That Friday meeting was the worst yet. 

“Oh it’s all garbage, total ruination and disaster, nothing but awful, awful, awful,” said Mr. Matheson, shuffling some papers between his hands and masticating them into pieces. “Except for lunch breaks, where we are still absolutely killing it, just cleaning house. Except for you,” he added, pointing at me. “You’re holding us back, just strangling us. Shape up or ship out.”
“I’m shipping out,” I said. 
“Wonderful, just amazing, astounding, great,” he said wetly, saliva glistening from the serrated edges of his forehead down to the grinding surface of his chest. “You won’t be missed. Okay!  Good meeting everyone. See you after the weekend.”

“Gosh I’m sorry,” said Josh, as I cleared my desk.

“You’ve said that eleven times, Josh,” I said, pocketing my mouse. 

“Yeah but I meant it every time. It was never my intention, you know that, right?”
“Yep.”
He seemed the closest I’d ever seen him to anxious, although it was a little hard to tell since his entire body was now grinding cutting or piercing surfaces. The posture seemed right, though.  “Gosh I’m sorry.” 
“Twelve times, Josh.”
“Really? Gosh I’m sorry.”
I waited, fistful of expensive pens in hand. 

“Gosh I’m sorry. Gosh I’m sorry. Gosh I’m gosh I gosh gosh gosgogogogogggg-”

I slapped Josh on the back, carefully. Most of it was now cutting surfaces. 

“Hurk! Thanks, buddy.”
“No problem at all, Josh.”
“I don’t know what this place’ll do without you.”
“Have faster lunches, apparently.”
“True, true. The world runs on its stomach, hahahaha.”
“Ha ha.”
“Where’re you going?” he asked as I walked down the hall, box in hands. “What’re you going to do?”
“Oh, I’ve got some ideas,” I said.
“Really?”
“Really. See you.”
“What ki-”

“See you,” I said, and I closed the elevator doors on his tie.

***

If the truth be told, I was applying to dental school. I’ve never been one for following trends, not me, but I recognize opportunity when I see it. 

I was asleep in my armchair counting dreams of productive sheep when my phone rang.  It was constable Hibblet on the other end, more’s the pity.

“Get a load of this, sir!” he said in that gormlessly enthusiastic voice of his.  “There’s been a murder!”
“Gosh,” I said.

“And it’s been done with TEETH.  Isn’t that CRAZY, sir?”
“I’ll say.  It’s almost as if the homicide department gets to see this kind of thing.  Well, call Dr.  Crobmonch immediately; if it’s been in a jaw and inside someone else’s business he’ll know it.”
“That’s the funny part, sir!”
“What is?”

***

Dr.  Paulmonius Crobmonch had been seventy-six.  He would not grow older.

This would’ve vexed him greatly had he been alive; he spent his days in careful regimens of diet and exercise, watching his vitals like a breeder with his prize pigeons.  He was all too intimately familiar with what happened when they went wrong.

Really, not having to put up with his prissy little comments on my coffee ever again was worth the murder case.  Provided we could solve it.

“Cause of death was uhhh…” I muttered, staring blankly at the shriveled old coot and wishing dearly for black coffee. 

“Bite on the throat, sir! You can tell ‘cause it’s missing.”
“Thank you, constable Hibblet.  Why don’t you go get me a coffee?”
“Oh yes sir sir sir!”

I had three minutes to think.  This would take all my concentration.  I narrowed my eyes, squinted down my nose, tightened my belt and loosened my gizzard.  When I was done with all of that I had thirty seconds left so I had to think quickly.

“Cause of death was bite on the throat,” I said crossly.  “Fine.  Whatever.”
“Oooooh does this mean we get to check dental records, sir?” asked constable Hibblet, ahead of schedule and vibrating intensely at my elbow.

“You are perfectly half-right, constable,” I said, taking my coffee from him.  “How many do we have again?”
“Oh gosh thousands sir!”
“Well, you’d better get started then.  I’ll go interview the suspects.”

***

This didn’t take long.  Dr.  Paulmonius Crobmonch had been retired for years, with no contact with former students nor coworkers.  He’d never married, never been close to the rest of his family, and saved little of his meager pension. 

The only stuff he had of any value at all was upstairs: a single room, quietly kept and well-tended, stuffed to the absolute brim with jaws, beaks, mandibles, maxilla, and teeth of every colour of the rainbow.  Fossil teeth fresh teeth big teeth little teeth miscellaneous teeth well-ordered teeth, teeth from afar and teeth from near and teeth from wherever they were.  It was impressive in a sick sort of way.  How Crobmonch had managed to sleep in the same building as the evidence of his dedication to his profession was beyond me. 

None of them were missing.  And so another potential motive was sunk beneath the waves.  I kicked back at my desk and closed my eyes and thought about teeth, sharp and jagged and

(bicuspid, the nasally voice of Dr.  Crobmonch supplied peevishly in my hindbrain)

bicuspid and all too bloody. 

Someone had bitten out this boring, tepid, solitary academic’s throat.  Awfully personal for someone with no enemies and no wealth worth speaking of. 

I poured myself a big glass of illicit.  I deserved it.

“Here’s to wherever the hell you’ve gone,” I toasted the room.  “And stay there.”
It burned going down, but sweetly.

***

“Sir! Sir! Sir oh sirry sir sir!”

I woke to constable Hibblet as no woman should: three inches away and vibrating. 

“Wussafuggoffff.”
“Sir! I have made a bold deduction and a breakthrough and MORE in our case!”

I blinked unspeakable and unidentifiable things from my eyes.  “Hmmmurrr?”
“Sir, I was thinking sir, of how the doctor, sir, of how he was our tooth expert, sir, and it occurred to me, sir, what if, sir….  what if the teeth he was bitten with WEREN’T THE MURDERER’S OWN!”
“Fwee?” I inquired.  

“Oh sir there was an entire roomful of murder implements upstairs! I’m shocked you didn’t mention it to me, sir! I brought the whole bunch downstairs and had them checked from prints and DNA and RNA and FBI profiles and anything and everything! Took all night, sir!”

I blinked.  “Wow.  That’s initiative.  You’ve done initiative, constable.  Give me the reports before you tell anyone, so that – “

“Have no fear, sir! I ran into Inspector Grablort on my way in and she was so excited when she heard that she read them all on the spot AND she wanted to come in and tell you too!”
I stared at constable Hibblet’s purely and utterly earnest face and I wondered if it was worth it.

“Sir!”

“Go away, Hibblet.  Have lunch.”
Hibblet would never, ever be worth it.  Besides, in his current state he might choke to death on his meal without outside assistance.

Inspector Grablort entered the room as he left.  She was holding handcuffs, a sidearm, and a grim expression.

I raised my eyebrow.  It didn’t happen on purpose, just went ahead and did it on its own.  Like a mallet on the kneecap. 

I’d been in awkward silences before, but this was a winner.  The seconds stretched out, each an entire meal with the in-laws. 

Grablort broke first.  “Are you going to come quietly?” she asked. 

I closed my eyes.  “Now that I never have to hear someone explain the difference between a molar and a premolar? Yes.  Very yes.  Very yes forever.”
And it wasn’t, but it was thirty years, which was close enough.  But at least nobody in the entire prison tried to talk to me about teeth. 

The alarm clock rang three times.  On the first it sang, on the second it fell over, and on the third it exploded and sent little gears every which way.

One of the which ways was Thudmaker’s nose.  A soft sigh and a shake of the head and the gear was out and Thudmaker was awake and on time, throwing off the rough sheets made from an old circus tent, putting on overalls that could hold two score and twenty men, scratching at an old scar left by a rogue bulldozer herd.

The little Thudmakers were well hard at work already, except for the littlest one, who was still in

bed, waiting for the flu medication to come, for the money for the flu medication to come.  The biggest ones had made food for the littlest ones, and the littlest ones had gone exploring in the garden-heap and found a lump of granite: a glacial erratic dropped by a careless sea of ice some millennia ago. 

It weighed one ton and it fit into Thudmaker’s beaten old lunchbox like a glove.  Thudmaker packed it, and the little Thudmakers latched it, and they swarmed around with goodbyes and kisses and a single piece of mail in their parent’s hand.  It was a postcard from the sea, who loved Thudmaker and was loved by Thudmaker but who was very busy and couldn’t stay often.  It apologized for its absence, and praised Thudmaker’s patience, and asked after the little Thudmakers and the state of the roof (if it was still missing.  It was.), and it made Thudmaker’s chest hurt a little to look at it. 

The sun was nearly up.  The day was almost begun.  Thudmaker stood up to full height, full weight, full breadth, full self, and took three steps.

The first took Thudmaker out of the house.  The second took Thudmaker out of the garden.

The third took Thudmaker into the hole. 

And Thudmaker fell.

***

Thudmaker was big, and the hole was beyond that.  There was no light to see by; there was no wind to rush through hair and teeth and eyelid; there were no walls to grip.  There was nothing but Thudmaker and the fall and the fall couldn’t end and wouldn’t end.  It hadn’t even begun, it didn’t have a middle how could it end? Past and present and future all gone in the world.

Just Thudmaker.  And the fall. 

So Thudmaker did the one thing that could be done, and took a deep, heavy breath and let it out slow, vast enough to push a tall ship, steady as a drumbeat.  It went out, and out was the wind.

Then Thudmaker did the second thing that could be done, and felt the thud, thud, thud of blood moving through arteries that submarines could rove through.  They pushed and pulled against time and tide, and time and tide was the sky. 

And Thudmaker did the third thing that could be done, and looked, really looked, really looked at all that there was that wasn’t Thudmaker and would never be Thudmaker but might someday change its mind.  And the world was there, and the hole had walls, and Thudmaker reached out an arm, strong and scaly, and caught hold and stopped the fall. 

***

The hole was still too wide to see across.  The hole was still deeper than imagining.  The hole’s walls were clammy and rough and crumbly underneath Thudmaker’s titanium nails. 

But they were there, and that was an improvement until Thudmaker looked up and saw what they were made of. 

Oh.  Oh no, Thudmaker, oh. 

The missing roof swung out from the walls in an ugly overhang, letting in wind and rain to where the little Thudmakers should feel peace and serenity.  Beside it the empty void where the sea should swim crawled against vision like a blind spot from the sun.  The missing flu medication sparkled menacingly onwards for miles, each potential grip made of razor-bladed spun-sugar frailty. 

Thudmaker’s arms were strong, and scaly, and could lift anything.  But that sight, oh the sight of that wall.  It shook and sapped muscles to gelatin; it could burn a mind down to embers with a glance.  It couldn’t be seen, and it couldn’t be ignored, and with every breath it got higher and with every thought it grew crueller and it made you want to lie down and let go and just fall. 

Thudmaker let go with one hand and reached with the other hand and felt around a bit under there was a ledge underfoot, then underbutt.  Legs dangling, back hunching, Thudmaker rooted around in one pocket, then the other pocket. 

Oh, there it was.

And Thudmaker had lunch, slowly, carefully.  One bite at a time, chewing as much as could be managed before swallowing.  Granite is hell on your digestion if you rush it, but there’s nothing like it for fuel, real fuel.  There’s age and time on every tidbit on your tongue, and ore fit to make your blood sing, and on the cusp, on the very tip of each mouthful Thudmaker took there was a little frosted sliver of time that was the effort the littlest Thudmakers had gone to, to find that lunch. 

Thudmaker finished lunch.  And then, with every eye level, with every grip carefully placed, with nothing but the present, present, Thudmaker climbed.

And climbed. 

Upwards, inevitably.  Upwards, unstoppably. 

Thudmaker climbed. 

***

Thudmaker reached the top of the hole and couldn’t climb anymore.  Thudmaker reached the top of the hole and couldn’t see anymore. 

Thudmaker reached the top of the hole and couldn’t leave because the hole was being held down by a solid mass without mass or solidity; a stone that wasn’t; a thought that couldn’t; a hole within a hole without a matrix. 

It was Thudmaker.  It was nothing, and it weighed nothing, and it was immovable.

The hole yawned and widened just a little, gloating under Thudmaker’s feet. 

So Thudmaker reached in the other pocket. 

Nope.   That was where lunch had been.

So Thudmaker reached in one pocket, and ah, there.  There it was.

The postcard of the sea.  It was a little bent on one edge where the little Thudmakers had gotten enthusiastic. 

Thudmaker placed the postcard edge-on against the weight of nothing, and reached very carefully inside Thudmaker’s head, and pulled out a wisp of a sound: little voices, saying goodbye, saying they cared, saying they loved.

And Thudmaker tapped the little Thudmakers’ goodbyes against the sea’s postcard against the weight of nothing, and it was never there at all.

And Thudmaker pulled up, and up. 

Out of the hole. 

***

The sun was still barely rising, which made sense since the whole took place outside of time.  That was good, because there was an important thing to be done.

Thudmaker knelt down in the gravel at the road’s edge and took hold of one side of the hole with one hand, and the other side of the hole with the other hand, and brought the hands together with a firm smack. 

It was gone, and the way was safe.

Thudmaker stood up and shook a head that outweighed a streetcar and whistled through teeth that could crush cratons and started the walk into town, looking for jobs, looking for money, looking for medicine.

The hole would be there tomorrow.

But so would Thudmaker.  And it hadn’t won yet.   

The first breakfast took place in the Halls of Gibbon.  Sunlight peered through the gaps in the leaves, desperately straining to reach the endless dark of the castle’s floors where ferns and moss roiled and gnawed in the deep.  Above them squatted the scrubbers and dusters, above THEM scurried the toilers and makers, and above THEM sat the High Table of the High Court, and above all of them forever and ever sat the great pendulous bulk of the Lord Highest Brachiator, the Primate Primate, the Gibbon Supreme, Great Gibbous. 

It was a complex breakfast, but then again she was a complex being. 

First came the little leaves filled with cups of morning dew flavoured with plum juice, then a bowl filled with water from the least river, for cleaning.  A toast was offered to the High Table of the High Court, and then came the main course of small and tender skinless animals impaled on long sticks, followed by bowls of water from the lesser river, for cleaning.  Then came the eggs of birds of many sizes, followed by bowls of water from the greater river, for cleaning.  Finally a woven basket of butterflies was presented to the Gibbon Supreme, who would devour it whole before rinsing her hands in a bowl of water from the greatest river, for cleaning.

Each bowl of cleaning water was poured down into the Halls of Gibbon, where it splashed past the toilers and makers and over the scrubbers and dusters and flowed down to feed the dank and sporous depths.  They grew very well from it. 

***

The second breakfast took place some few leagues away, in the trembling earthen burrows of things that were small and squeaky.  They shuddered in their burrows at the distant hooting raucousness of the first breakfast, and many mothers counted their children carefully and cried a bit when the numbers came up short.  They fed their remainders on milk and pets and murmurs into their soft downy fur. 

The children whose mothers hadn’t come home were quiet, to save energy.  They had no breakfast.  They would never have another breakfast.  They did not know this and that was what would comfort and cradle them. 

It was not a long breakfast, but it gave you a particularly kind of slow time to think, in between pulses and throbbing at the veins, tugging on instincts found in even the mildest and shyest of creatures.  So when one mother who had only one child remaining came to her feet early and set out into the burning sunlight, others followed in their hundreds because they felt it too. 

***

The third breakfast was old ground oats turned into new soft porridge and a fresh fruit from the flowery tree that grew outside the charcoal-burner’s front door.  She took her time with it, slow and steady.  A charcoal-burner knew not to try and rush things.  That was how you got bad charcoal and worse burns. 

In the distance the throaty song of the first breakfast was reaching a crescendo.  The charcoal-burner shivered and took an extra-big bite of the fruit, to stop the thoughts, and chewed her loudest so her teeth could drown out the singing.

Because of that, she couldn’t hear the tiny noises of sharp teeth cutting into her charcoal pile. 

***

The fourth breakfast was consumed by the scrubbers and the dusters of the Halls of Gibbon, halfway from the canopy and halfway to the floor.  They were too small or too timid or too loud or too ugly or too quiet or the wrong shape, so they were kept out of sight of the noble first breakfast to scrub and dust and flinch as the bowls of cleaning water from the rivers least to greatest poured over them mingled with the red juices of the meal.

When the waters ceased, they scrubbed away the effluent.  And when the effluent ceased, they swung away in their ones and twos to the big knotted hull of a dead tree whose branches had once scraped the edge of the sky. 

Now it was mostly a trunk, and mostly a missing trunk, so it was Half-Trunk.  But it held ledges and grips and crouching-spots and its hull was filled with the spoiled fruit that was difficult to eat but easy to find that kept the bellies of the scrubbers and dusters moving for just a few days longer.  You ate what you could and you shared what you couldn’t and when the fruit had to come out you swung outside first. 

The first to swing outside first came nose to snout with the lead member of the second breakfast, who was clinging quietly to the dead branches.  The scrubber (fourth class of the major underchambres) yorped and yodled and almost fell as he came to realize the hate in her eyes and her fur and her claws and her mouth and clutched in the fiery bright coals held in her scorched feet, but he was too frightened to run and too downtrodden to fight and that helped him, because she didn’t fight him at all but bared her sharp teeth and chittered her sharp words and all around the dead broken thing of Half-Trunk came the grind and cackle of a thousand tiny fangs holding a thousand tiny sparks asking the same question a thousand times so that all the takers of the meager fourth breakfast could hear them:

Are you in?

***

There was a fifth breakfast.

It was a surprise, but received by those who could not be surprised so maybe it wasn’t.  Their heads were fiddleheads and their tails were horsetails and their mats were thick sweet moss. 

They swayed and sang down there, and as they spun in soft circles water came from above, water well after the cleaning of the first breakfast.  It was redder and thicker and stronger than anything they’d ever known, choked with ash and soot, and they drank it with a thirst to stiffen root, stalk, stem, and soul. 

On a meal like that, you could topple trees.  But they were in no rush.  There would be time. 

A slow, strong morning.  They grew exceedingly well from it.