Ahem.

Ok, so.  It has been a long time since I have been doing any writing with any kind of regularity, and as is often the case the long absence has been gnawing at over this time until nublike I am first to set fingers to keyboard and start pouring out ideas into the silent void of pixelated code, some attempt and literary communication to scratch that itch, that insistent drumbeat telling me to create verbally that for some forsaken reason I always end up deigning to slough off like a weight on my back or walk off like a cramp in my leg.  For some reason the protracted activity of sitting and thinking and typing and writing and putting thoughts into sentences and building them into paragraphs is something that invariably ends up bugging me.  Maybe my chair isn't comfortable enough or maybe I just can't sit still or maybe I am just lazy and undriven.  I can't think of anyway to trick my mind into doing it on a more regular basis.  I seem to be stuck in this cycle of typing typing typing for a week or two and then getting tired of it and going off and doing something like watching television or maybe reading a book, or just fucking around on the internet surfing tumblrs for hours and hours and hours or refreshing the same criticism websites over and over and over hoping that finally this time this one will have some new content for me to lie back and read on my laptop and then I will have that to do instead of writing and yet each and every time all the time that I am doing all of that I am thinking, you should be writing, you should be doing something constructive, this is not constructive, this is not getting you where you want to go in your life.  You don't get points for idling.  Even now a part of me, having written all this in one sitting is want to get, up walk around, pace for pacing's sake, maybe open up the firefox browser in the lower left hand corner and see, in one of those websites, any one of them, has maybe update one little thing, one new photo that they are reblogging from somewhere else on the internet.  A part of me, becoming so aware of this tendency, this seeming procrastination, has given up on ever making any progress on this writing thing, has, in fact, accepted that it is not to be, that writing is not my fate.  And, in fact, this part has been liberating.  A writer writes, after all, and keeps writing and writes every day.  I do not.  I am not a writer.  So if I am not a writer, what am I?  I just freed up the rest of my life!  What do I want to do with it?  Focus on a career?  Well, in truth, I have made some recent headway with that, enough to give me some momentary contentment in my forward momentum through time.  Start a family?  Well, that ties into a host of insecurities and eccentricities that I haven't even begun to grapple with, and in some small way do not want to, though I know my ignoring of them is stunting my development as a fully-fledged, fully-engaged person.  I think somewhat I am waiting to deal with the second thing until I get a little farther ahead in the first thing, build up enough self-confidence to feel I can move ahead with it.  But really, even counting those two things, what do I want to spend time doing?  What do I want to do, right now, that I actually find fulfilling?  And the most obvious direct answer to this, is something artistic.  And I basically have two avenues for accomplishing this, drumming and writing.  Well, three, but the third is drawing and that I find more aggravating and am poorer at than the other two.  I don't have a working situation to play the drums regularly, and don't seem to be working too hard to be find one, and have just been playing hand drums on my legs and desktops all the time.  This is a momentary respite, but is doesn't actually feel like accomplishment, and I think I crave that sense of accomplishment, the production of something.  Unfortunately,  accomplishing something more with drumming would involve forming a band, proactively hunting for one, and that involves a lot of social work and interaction and ringleading that I do note feel up to as someone who is still completely out in lunch on melodic music theory, or I could glom onto a band with a bunch of strangers, and I don't feel like setting up my kit in some stranger's den.   So that leaves writing.  Obviously I am a nascent and a neophyte at that activity, still developing, still unpolished, and unpublished, but I do get a little tinge of satisfaction at each short piece I finish and published on the internet, throwing out into the world like spare change.  And every little piece I do create gets me closer to some goal, makes me teach myself new things and come to innately understand more aspects of narrative structure and dramatic weights and characterization and imbuing theme and utilizing language, and even if I am not destined to be a Writer in the occupation sense, that doesn't mean I can't you know write, and thus be a writer, in the general sense.   It's ok if that is not my identity, and I think in some way holding on to that particular dream is holding me back from actually reaching it, at least, for me, because of the odd backwards-forwards way my mind is wired where my hopes become work becomes stress becomes something to flee from.  It's only when I stop wanting it, when it stops being a goal, that it becomes something that I am comfortable in doing, when I realize that if there some egotistical part of myself that thinks I deserve it, that that part is wrong, for I don't deserve it, there are many many people more deserving of that something, people who actually, you know, write, and enjoy it and do it and keep doing it whether it brings them something or not, and that the fact that I beat myself up over whether a small (and I think it might actually be quite small) part of myself deserves something is a sign of my own further neuroses, after all, some people think they deserve it and use that impetus to work harder until they do really deserve it, it is only when I realize all that they I can nevermind the bollocks and just get down and get back to the fun and the the creativity, the creation, of writing.  Of taking thoughts in my head that are floating around and setting them down in cold concrete prose.  When I can get down to doing that I'll be happy.  

Superheroes and Supervillians and their DnD alignments

Superman: Lawful Good
Batman: Lawful Good
Spiderman: Neutral Good
Captain America: Probably Lawful Good, but maybe Neutral
Punisher: Lawful Neutral
Daredevil: Lawful Good, duh
Wonder Woman: Lawful Good
Wolverine: Chaotic Good (but often pretty close to Neutral)
Professor X: Neutral Good
Cyclops: Lawful Good
The Hulk: Chaotic Neutral

Doctor Doom: Lawful Evil
Joker: oh boy is he ever Chaotic Evil
Green Goblin: Chaotic Evil
Galactus: True Neutral
Thanos: Neutral Evil
Bullseye: Chaotic Evil
Lex Luthor: Lawful Evil
Magneto: Lawful Neutral
Sabretooth: Chaotic Evil
Venom: Chaotic Neutral
Carnage: Chaotic Evil
Doomsday: Neutral Evil
Darkseid: Lawful Evil

Dead Billy (part 4)

‘Guys?  It’s me, Billy.  The door’s locked, guys.  Guys, can you unlock the door? The door’s locked.  We never lock the door.’

Gavin and Sean were looking right at each other.  Neither of them was blinking.  Gavin raised a finger to his lips.  Sean nodded weakly.

‘Hey, guys, you’re there, right?  It’s me, Billy.  I heard you talking.  You’re in the living room, right?  Just unlock the door, guys.’

Slowly, shaking, Gavin turned around and started walking, quietly, not turning back to look at Sean. 

‘Why didn’t you take the knife out, guys?  It hurts so bad.  Please open the door and take it out.’

Gavin walked right past the door and over to the microwave.  He took out his Hot Pocket.  He stood there at the counter, facing the cabinets, eating his Hot Pocket.

‘Guys, please open the door and take out the knife.’

Gavin dropped his Hot Pocket, turned around and ran.  He ran through the kitchen, out the door and down the street.  He didn’t turn around or look back.  He just kept running. 

Dead Billy (part 3)

Gavin found Sean in the kitchen, staring out through blinds held open between two fingers, the room lit only by streetlights.  The cupboards were paint-flecked and scratched, the counters dirty, the sink full of dishes and silverware that were starting to smell rank.  There was a butcher’s block in the middle of the floor a little above belt-height, upon it only a large carving knife.  Gavin closed the basement door behind him and locked it with the old skeleton that was still perched in the lock.  He took the key out and put it on the little nail nearby, then walked over to turn on the lights.  

‘No, don’t!  They’ll know we’re here!’

‘Who’ll know we’re here?’

‘The people outside!’

‘What people?’  Gavin walked over to one of the windows and peered out.  The street was lit by the dim amber of the streetlights and the passing reds and whites of the cars that occasionally drove through the neighborhood.  Most of the other house lights on the street were out, it being long past most normal peoples’ bedtimes, but there was an occasional window light here or there, mostly on the second floors, if the house had a second floor.  Not that there were any silhouettes in them or anything.  Gavin checked the cars that were parked along the street, but they all looked empty, and absolutely none had their lights on.   ‘There are no people.  And even if there are, so what?  We turn the lights on, what’s that matter to them?’

Sean gave Gavin a look like Gavin had just grown an extra head. ‘I told you. They’ll know were here!’

‘Well they won’t need fucking lights to know that, Sean!  We fucking live here!’

‘They’ll know we’re up to something!’

‘Up to something?  In our own place?  Why would they care?  We’re always up to something in our own place.  So are they.  And we’ve never been bothered yet.’

Sean didn’t say anything, just went back to staring out the window.  Gavin sighed.  He took his finger off the light switch, walked over to the stove and used it to light a cigarette.  A real one.  Sean took another hit on his meth pipe.  Gavin took drags in silence, trying not to shake or stare at the basement door.

After a couple more hits, Sean said, ‘We got to get rid of the body.’

A quick sharp drag from Gavin.  ‘How?’

Sean hesitated. ‘I think I saw some show once?  Where they filled this big plastic tub with some chemical, and then put the body in it.  That shit dissolved everything, skin, hair, bone.  Then they just poured it down the toilet. It worked great!’

Gavin grimaced.  He didn’t like the look of their toilet already.  He would never be able to stomach using it if they poured Billy down it. ‘What was the chemical?’

‘Uh, I don’t know.’

‘Well, what was the show?’

‘I can’t remember,’ whispered Sean in defeat.

‘Probably just a television show anyways.’

Sean took another hit.

‘Okay,’ he said, shaking anew, ‘why don’t we chop him up and feed the parts into the furnace?’

Gavin shook his head.  ‘We don’t have that kind of furnace.  There’s no opening for you to shovel things in.’

‘Fuck.’  Sean set down his pipe and picked up the carving knife. Gavin slid over to the far wall. ‘We are going to have to chop him up,’ said Sean, holding out the knife.

‘Well, don’t use that.  Use a meat cleaver, or a saw.  With plastic underneath.’

‘After that, we drag him out to the car, right?  In bags?  Then drive him to the dump and through the parts in there.’

Gavin shook his head again.  ‘We can’t risk anyone finding the parts.  They’ll know we did it. There can’t be a body.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Sean.  He set the knife back down, put his head in his hands and started sobbing. 

Gavin reached over the butcher’s block and scooped up the pipe.  ‘You’ve had enough of this tonight. I’m going to bed.’  He walked out of the kitchen, down the hallway towards his room.

In the morning, Sean woke up to sounds coming from below.  He jumped into his pants and ran down to investigate.  The door was unlocked again.  Downstairs, the television was on.  It was Saturday, and cartoons were playing.  Sean was on the couch, still wrapped in his blanket, eating a bowl of Count Chocula. 

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘He looks better,’ said Sean, motioning towards the body. ‘I mean, he doesn’t look worse.’

Gavin looked at Billy.  His face was white like a silent film star’s.  His eyes were made of glass, and his mouth was tilted open like he was about to start drooling.  He almost seemed like he had been stuffed and posed. The hunting knife was still jutting out of his stomach.  It hadn’t settled or anything. 

‘We should really pull that thing out,’ said Gavin.  He didn’t.

‘He hasn’t even started smelling,’ chipped in Sean.  ‘Maybe he’ll just stay like that.’

‘He just hasn’t started decomposing yet.  Wait a couple days, and everyone on this street will know that something in here is dead.’

‘So we have a couple of days.’

Gavin looked over at the coffee table.  There was a pipe there, loaded with weed.  From the look of his eyes Sean had taken a few tokes.  Gavin walked over, picked it up, and took one himself.  ‘Yeah, we have a couple days.’ He looked around.  ‘C’mon man, we have a TV upstairs.  Let’s get out of here.  This place is giving me bad vibes.’

When they were back upstairs, Gavin locked the door again, and hung the skeleton key back on the nail.  He made himself a bowl of Captain Crunch as Sean watched cartoons.  When, he was finished, he put on his brown bomber jacket and combat boots, filled up his pockets with product, and told Sean he was going out.  He rode the El Train for a couple of hours, just going from one stop to the end, then getting off and taking another line to somewhere else.  Eventually he ended up at the Quad of the campus.  Saturday was college day, at least for him.  He hung out around the periphery, in the shadows, waiting, and when one of the students came up to him, they would shake hands, and Gavin would pass them a small plastic bag, and they would pass him a ten or a twenty.  He was all out, around five o’clock, he took the El back downtown to a bar he liked, had a beer and watched nothing on TV, watched some of the cougars hit on the young professionals.  None came near him though.  He respected that, the sense of a mark they had.  They knew he was the kind of trouble they didn’t want.  Not that he minded.  Gavin’s taste in strange ran a lot younger.  There was this one girl he had been thinking about a lot lately, late at night before bed, this little street urchin girl he had seen in a squatter’s nest near the bombed out industrial district.  Short, pale, skinny, with purple hair and wide eyes.  Didn’t say a word.  She was maybe sixteen, if that. 

Gavin only dealt pot.  He got it from this old hippie, the kind who had gotten into the drug trade long ago and who was lowdown enough and professional enough and dealt with harmless enough product that no one had bothered to get rid of him when the organization above him got shaken up, which was rare as it was.  Pot wasn’t like Coke or Horse or Meth.  No one really got into shooting matches about it.  That’s why Gavin kept to it, and not Meth and Coke like Sean.  Though Sean spent more time using than dealing. 

Billy though.  Billy had been different.  Billy had been hardcore into psychedelics, acid, shrooms, peyote, prescription antipsychotics.  That and the occasional hit of heroin, they were almost like a religion for him.  He was always listening to Timothy Leary tapes, videos of Ram Dass, whoever that was.  Oh, and reading books by Anton LeVey, Alistair Crowley.  Black magic, black metal, and opiate and psychedelic drugs.  That was Billy, in a nutshell.  Intense motherfucker.  He was always staring at you, making eye contact and not blinking, like he could hold that eye contact, he could convince you of anything, because whatever he was talking about was something he had to convince you of.   And now he was just staring at the floor, at nothing at all.  Because he had gotten it into his head to perform an actual black magic ritual and stick a hunting knife in his chest.  ‘Dumb motherfucker,’ Gavin whispered to himself.  ‘Stupid, stupid, needy dumb crazy motherfucker.’ He finished his beer, paid his tab and left. 

He got back to the house a little after sundown.  Sean was still watching television.  What had been cartoons was now an edited-for-television movie.  They used to have cable, but after the three of them kept forgetting to pay the bill it had gotten cut off.  Gavin went to his room, took the wad of twenties and tens out, put them in a rubber band and hid them in his sock drawer, in one of his socks.  He went out to the kitchen, took a Hot Pocket out of the freezer and put it in the microwave. 

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Sean. He was smoking a massive blunt.

‘Yeah?’ said Gavin, leaning against the archway between hallway and living room. ‘What about?’

‘About Billy,’ said Sean, with a look like, ‘what else would I be thinking about?’

‘Yes, but, what about Billy have you been thinking?’

‘So, this magic book, that Billy used?  He got it from Damien, right? In fact, he maybe stole it, right?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, Damien might be angry at Billy.  And we don’t want him angry at us, do we?’

‘No...’ 

‘Right.  So we should give him the book back.  Tell him we had nothing to do with it, honest, it was all Billy.  He’ll be really angry probably, because the book is probably really expensive, right?  So then we tell him that Billy is dead…’

Gavin caught on.  ‘And ask him if he knows anything about what to do with a body like Billy’s…’

‘Yeah.  I mean, either he knows some occult shit for dealing with this kind of thing, or, you know, he deals heroin.  He probably knows people who know how to deal with bodies, make them disappear.’

Gavin ran his fingers down his jaw. ‘It’s risky.  He might decide to blame us anyways. Throw us in with Billy.’

Sean shook his head.  ‘He wouldn’t.  He would have to kill us, yeah? But why would he want to do that?  That’s two more bodies to deal with, which become his deal not ours.  And he needs someone who knows Billy’s clientele.  And that’s us. He helps us with Billy, we can move into Billy’s territory, and Damien will know we’re loyal, because he has dirt on us.’

‘If he had dirt on us, why doesn’t he just go over to the police?’

Sean shook his head again.  ‘Heroin dealers are never gonna mix it up with pigs, especially when a body’s involved.’

Gavin nodded his head.  ‘Yeah, yeah, that might work…’

The basement door shook. 

Gavin looked at the basement door.  Then he looked at Sean.  Sean was looking at him.  The basement door shook again.  The knob was turning back and forth.

Neither of them moved.

‘Guys?’ called out Billy weakly.  ‘Guys?  Are you there?  The door’s locked.  Are you there?  Guys?’

The microwave dinged.  Gavin’s Hot Pocket was done.

The Corner of Your Eye

part 1 here

II.

One Friday, Evelyn came in to work the closing shift at the occult shop. She went over to the check-out counter, off to the left side from the entrance, and smiled in hello to Morganna, who was hunched over the counter, her chin upon her folded hands. Morganna's name was really Mariellen. She had straight black dyed hair, and wore black lipstick and matching corset, skirt, and knee-high leather boots. Evelyn's hair was curly strawberry-blond, as it had always been, and fell halfway down her back. She wore a knee-length skirt covered in several folds of glittered cellophane, hiking boots, and her bomber jacket. She had a carrying case strapped across her chest. Morganna matched the décor of the shop much better than Evelyn did.

“Don't look now,” said Morganna in reply, as Evelyn set the carrying case down upon the counter, “But there is a thin, pale young gentleman in the store.”

“A thin, pale young gentleman?” replied Evelyn, with the proper note of irony.

“Yes, a thin, pale young gentleman.”

“I didn't know they still made gentlemen. Much less young ones.”

“I know. I thought the model was obsolete too. Yet, one stands in this very shop, right this moment, looking at the antique book case.”

“The antique book case?” Evelyn had an airy way of speaking which could make even the most sarcastic of expressions sound wide-eyed with wonder, but this was not a sarcastic statement. The antique books were set in the far back corner, encased in locked glass. They were more for show than for sale. Nobody ever bought any.

But now there was a man at the bookcase. He was tall, as Morganna said, maybe six foot, or an inch or two more. Evelyn couldn't affirm his thinness, as all she could really see over the other bookcase, (the one with all the normal magic books) was the back of his head, but she was confused why Morganna would refer to him as “young.” Every hair on his head was at least as silvery as mercury, and some of it had crossed over into an almost shining white.

Morganna slapped her on the wrist. “Shh! Don't stare! Can't be being rude now, can we?”

“You said he was young.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, he's one of those Steve Martin types.”

“Ohhh, yeaaah. Yeah, I think that Isaac Newton was like that too.”

“What's Newton got to do with anything? Hey, I got to go now, all right? Watch the aristocrat. Don't scare him off. Maybe he will actually buy something from there.”

“Always has to be a first time.” Evelyn slid past Morganna to take her place behind the counter. “Going out tonight?”

“Yep.”

“Say hi to Derek for me.”

“You've never met Derek.”

“Doesn't mean I can't be polite.” Evelyn smiled her smile.

“Toodles, freak,” said Morganna good-naturedly. She had put her coat on and was walking towards the door. Evelyn wiggled her fingers in reply. One thing that Evelyn had found about Goths is that, after a certain age, their personality had absolutely no relation to the character of their dress.

For several minutes after the doorbell dinged Morganna's departure, nothing much happened. Evelyn took her books and notebooks out of her case, set them in a neat pile, selected a particular of each, arrayed the notebook off to one side, leaving only one side facing up, and placed the book before her. She began to read, taking notes casually about details she found particularly interesting.

After a reading only a few paragraphs, Evelyn suddenly felt a gentle, calming presence in the room—a kind of warmth without heat. She looked up.

She noticed, without any surprise, that a faerie had just entered the store, passing through the outer door. It was about a foot and a half tall, at least if it ever stood, and was a bright, orangish pink. It had thin arms and legs and a plump potbelly. Smoky tendrils trailed out of the back of its head as a poor imitation of hair. Its mouth stretched all the way across its head, and its eyes were the size of teacups. It drifted fleetingly through the air, unburdened by any physical law, and when it noticed her noticing it, it made a beeline for her.

Evelyn knew this faerie, as she knew many of the faeries that frequented the occult shop's section of town, and as most faeries did not bother with names, or if they did were too reticent to tell anybody, she had taken to calling this one Minnie. There was no particular reason for this name. Maybe she had been watching cartoons the night before their first meeting, or was thinking of a nickname based on “minute”. As it was, she had long ago exhausted simpler, more descriptive names for such faeries, like Smiler, or Happy, or even more off-the-wall things like Whiz-Bang. Human names always felt wrong, so she was now reduced to naming new friends, as they came along, from cartoon characters and nonsense words: whatever popped into her head.

Minnie was the kind of faerie that Evelyn had taken to calling a Moody. She had found no real precedent for them in mythology or folklore, although sometimes their characteristics were hinted at in the descriptions of other more standard faeries, and they seemed to be described in a variety of ways by different occult authors, although none of these descriptions matched her own experience of such beings. These faeries flew around living things and in some way drew out or emphasized certain emotions lying within them. If you have ever gone from happy to sad or from considerate to carefree without really any reason one way or another, perhaps it was because a passing Moody took an interest on you. If you have ever noticed how small crowds out in the street can begin to take on a singular mood, perhaps becoming self-serious, or suddenly talkative and outgoing, it is likely that a wandering Moody had decided to follow along. Some Moodies would alternate the emotions they pulled out of people, while others would stick to the same one at all times. Some pulled very general emotions, like happiness or sadness; some pulled very specific emotions, like a mild, non-belligerent annoyance, or a bittersweet sense of longing for some long-past memory. Minnie always pulled for a kind of light-hearted giddiness. (Giddy had been taken as a name while Evelyn was still in high school.)

Winnie the Moody flew about Evelyn's head three times, then came to a rest hovering, like a cloud, at her upper left. Hello, thought the Moody at her. There was no real sound to the greeting, nor words, really. But the sentiment was so clearly felt that Evelyn could not help but translate it into words in her own head, the way one might translate a foreign language, except in this case, she was not translating from one language to another, but into language itself. (After having done this for so many years, the college courses she had taken in Latin and Hebrew and Greek had come quite easy. In fact, the book at which she was now reading was a second-hand textbook in Sanskrit. She had an original text copy of the Upanishads at home, waiting to be read, when the time came.)

Hello, thought Evelyn in return, and shoved it out as pure sentiment. She smiled wide and unhinged, as the first wave went over her, like she had taken shot of whiskey a few moments ago. She let out a high-pitched giggle.

The man, who for at least the last quarter-hour had been staring intently through the glass of the antique book section, turned briefly to look in her direction. A clean, pale face, thin and angular, though not severe in any way—and indeed young, somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, though hard to tell which—looked at her, slightly confused, or maybe just interested.

“Sorry, sorry,” said Evelyn, briefly flashing back to her childhood. And her milky-white skin burst out in a rosy blush.

The thin, pale gentleman smiled with a gentle understanding, and turned around.

Careless... taunted the faerie.

Oh, don't be so bright, returned Evelyn. You mess me up.

Oh, I am so truly sorry. Truly.

Insolent. Most of them were insolent, but in a cute way. Yes, well, let that be a lesson to you.

Oh, yes, I have learned. Minnie coasted backwards, like a swimmer doing a scissor kick, but without moving. What is he doing here?

He is a customer, said Evelyn. They look at things.

He is odd, said the Moody.

Odd? How so?

Minne did a loop. I do not know. That is what is odd.

Why don't you go over and try to cheer him up?

I do not want to. Usually, the sentiments Evelyn translated in her head had a bit of tone to them, some sense of meaning beyond just the words, but also a sense of how the words might be said. But there was none that she could find in this sentiment. It was a flat feeling of negative desire, nothing more or less. An oddly blank sentiment, especially for a Moody. Evelyn turned to look at Minnie, to see if there was some expression to add to the phrase.

“Excuse me.”

Evelyn jerked back around. The pale thin gentleman was walking around the rows of bookshelves and comings towards her. Only staring off into space, she thought.

She understood, now, why Morganna had seen fit to describe the customer as a gentleman. Everything about the man looked expensive.

First off, he was carrying a cane, though he seemed to walk without a limp. It was old, yet polished, and made of some kind of wood that was stained almost black. His suit was as black as raven's feathers, just about as shiny, the cut of it quite arresting. Elegant and sleek, yet lacking in the formal, business-like attitude common for modern suits. It was more like a suit from the late nineteenth century, something you might see someone wearing in a portrait painting: a more expensive version of what they wore every day. The suit jacket, for example, was actually a jacket, not some outer formal layer. It was meant to keep him warm, and it was evident why the man had no need to wear an additional coat on top of it.

And indeed, he was tall, and thin, and pale, with silvery hair come much to early. And with those angular yet somewhat softened features, there was something of the elf to him, though more an elf from Tolkien, then one of the things that she was actually familiar with. Something feminine almost as well. He was very beautiful.

“What is your policy in regards to the locked books?” he asked.

“Locked books?” she echoed, momentarily confused. Minnie suddenly darted off to the left, into the center of the store, and with several aerial loops along the way. Evelyn couldn't help but follow the fast movement with her eyes.

The man noticed. “Excuse me, is something wrong?” He looked about, expectantly. “Is there a fly in the room? A bee? I'd hate to be stung.”

“Uh.” Evelyn closed and eyes and forced herself to focus. “Sorry. The books. What about our policy was it you wanted to know?”

“Well, I was wondering to what extent I was able to look at them. Is it possible to take them out and peruse them? May I see more than one at a time? Could I sit down and read one for a bit, or do I have to be supervised very closely? That sort of thing.”

He had gone with the flow of conversation, but she could tell from his eyes that he was still wondering what she had been looking at. Just keep plowing ahead, and eventually he will forget about it.

“Well, uh, the truth is, we don't really have too much of a policy on the locked books.” She smiled. “The truth is, they're mostly just for show. Nobody buys any.”

“Oh,” replied the man, looking crestfallen. “Then they're not for sale?”

“Oh no! They're for sale. It's just that nobody buys them! I mean, they can, but...” and here she leaned forward conspiratorially, “the truth is, we have them mostly so we come off like a real magic shop, like, 'Oh! We have real magic books! We must be a real magic store! Fake magic stores don't have real magic books!' Nobody wants to buy their energy crystals and Gaia figurines at a fake magic store, right?”

“Obviously not,” replied the man with a smirk. “Where's the fun in that?”

“Right, right!” She laughed, not without a little relief. “But yeah, the books are for sale. I mean, if they weren't for sale, what would be the point, right? ...I think there's a binder around here, somewhere, with all the big ticket items listed. Let me check.”

Behind the counter was a small bookshelf stuffed with a variety of old binders and half-filled journals. She began flipping through them, hoping one would catch her eye.

“Hmm, well, while you're doing that,” said the man, “would it be possible for me to take some of the books out of the case? I really would like to examine them closer.”

“Oh, right!” she reached down behind the counter, where a ring of keys hung upon a small, discreet nail. “Follow me!”

They walked over to the case. “So, which books were you interested in looking at?”

The man looked thoughtful, and tapped his chin lightly with a long finger. “I suppose I will start with this one first,” and he pointed to a old, leather-bound volume, thick, about six inches tall, and with the lettering on the binding faded almost to the point of invisibility.

He removed it from its placed with a fanciful tap upon the top of the spine, knocking it out into a waiting palm. The book fell open as it came to settle there, and with his free, tapping hand, he began to skim through it, back and forth, as if the entire contents of the tome could be absorbed by random sampling.

After fifteen or so seconds of this, he seemed to give up and tipped the pages over to arrive at the book's front.

“What an odd little volume,” he said after a moment.

“I'm sorry?”

“It appears to be The Book of Umberto de Fiorenze, an Italian magician of the late fifteenth century. Obscure fellow, not well known. You won't find him with Google. But a prolific note-taker. This edition seemed to have been published in the early 1800s by some anonymous publisher in England. Probably didn't want to admit to publishing such volumes. Probably riddled with errors too.” He snapped the book shut, then placed it sideways upon a low shelf. “Still, better than not having a copy at all.” He bent down and continued looking.

This continued for a good quarter hour, the pale young man taking out a book, paging through it, listing off some obscure details about their relevance, rarity, veracity. Some he put back on the shelf, some he added to his pile. Once he was through, there was a precarious stack of books on the floor about a foot and a half high.

“These I will get, then.”

Evelyn nodded, then shifted the glass and locked the case shut. She picked up the stack of books, which was quite heavy, and carried them over to the counter.

“Just let me look of the prices of these first. Oh, shoot. I forgot to find the binder!”

“That's quite all right. Take your time.” The pale thin gentleman stood calmly at the counter, drumming his fingers lightly along the the glass.

Finally she found the binder with the big ticket items and began looking up all the books in his pile.

“Uh, mister...”

“Frost.”

Evelyn looked up from the ledger. “Really, Frost?”

The pale thin gentleman smiled slightly. “Yes, really. Frost. Jonathan Frost, in fact.”

“Jonathan Frost? Oh, that's so cool! Wow! You must love your name!”

“It is quite evocative, I must admit. And may I ask, what it is you are called by, my dear?”

“Oh, ah. Evelyn. That's not my last name though. It's my first. My last is Sharp. So, uh, Evelyn Sharp!”

“Sharp?” he said, raising his brow. “I don't find you so at all.”

“Oh! Ha ha!”

“Forgive me. You must get that kind of comment all the time.”

“No, no! I mean, people make jokes about my last name all the time, but not that way. It's usually like, 'oh please don't cut me,' or something lame like that.”

“Only playing off of the adjective to go straight to the topic of knives, not referencing the emotional disposition.”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think that's what I mean. I...”

Since she had begun her conversation with the pale thin gentleman, she had not been keeping track of Minnie. In fact, thoughts for Minnie and her whereabouts had completely flown out of her mind. In the back of her mind somewhere, she must have decided that Minnie had gotten bored with the store, deciding its atmosphere wasn't appropriately conducive to light-heartedness or giddiness, and had shot off to find some new people to animate. So Evelyn was taken completely by surprise when Minnie shot out of nowhere and circled three times about Jonathan Frost's head. All Evelyn could do for the moment was stare.

Minnie stopped dead in the air, over Jonathan Frosts left shoulder, grabbed the sides of her non-mouth with both hands and stuck out her non-tongue, making a disgusted masque, her normally pinkish hue turning a sudden bright green. Then she shot out through the front window at Looney Tune speed, leaving a little puff of nonexistent vapor behind her.

Evelyn, stunned by this completely uncharacteristic display from the faery, could not help but follow the course of its flight with her eyes.

“I'm sorry?”

“Huh?”

“Is it something I said?” Jonathan Frost wore an expression of such confusion he almost seemed to be in pain.

“Uh, uh...” She had to do something to recover from this. Think Evelyn, think.

“Well, it's just, uh, these books? They seem to be really expensive? I mean, this first one on top? The Catalaunian Grimoire? It's listed in here as being 456 dollars. Just scanning down the list, the rest of the books aren't that far different. I mean, some or them are even more. Are you sure you want to spend this kind of money?”

The pale thin gentleman Jonathan Frost stared at her calmly, coolly. “I can quite assure you I can pay whatever the price of these books may be. Money is, quite fortunately, not something I need to consider.”

“Oh,” squeaked Evelyn. “Oh.” She nodded, more to herself than to him. “Well, uh, I'll just add all these up then.”

“Do take your time.”

For the next several minutes, Evelyn added up the price of the magic books, punching each one into the cash register. She did not look up, but just as she could see faeries she could feel the pale thin gentleman's eyes staring at her, dark with suspicion. When she added up the final price of the books, it was more money than she made in a year. Evelyn was pretty sure the owner, Miss Faith, had deliberately priced the books out of what other people would be willing to pay for them, so no one would, and she wouldn't have to look for more of them to fill up the case.

But still, they were for sale.

Jonathan Frost paid for his books using a Debit Card from Bank of America. His purchase was approved almost immediately.

“Well, there's your books, and, there's your receipt,” said Alison. She had packed the books all up into two large plastic shopping bags, with the store logo printed on the front in black against an absinthe-green background. She placed the receipt all folded up into one of the bags, turned their handles towards the pale thin gentleman and smiled as warmly as possible.

“Thank you,” he said, his eyes flickering back and forth between her and the bags.

“So, it that all then?” she said, with utmost chipperness.

“Yes,” said Jonathan Frost, his eyes scanning slowly across the store. “I don't think that today I will be requiring any trinkets.”

“Oh. Okay.”

He only stared at her in response. A long, unfathomable stare, betraying hidden depths at work churning and colliding end over end, but on the surface as calm, as inviting as could be. Underneath that stare, Evelyn could only stare back in response, weakly, like an animal at mercy.

“May I ask you a question?” he asked softly. It was almost a whisper.

“Shoot.”

“Just now, before you started talking about book prices, it was as if you...saw something.”

“Yes?”

“What did you see?”

The man standing in front of her, this well-dressed gentleman, had just spent over 20 thousand dollars on books, books that claimed to contain magic. There they were, sitting in front of her, dressed in the colors of the Green Fairy.

“A spirit encircled your head three times and shot out through the window.”

A weight, one that Evelyn had not even been aware off, evaporated off her shoulders and flew up towards the heavens.

The pale thin gentleman rocked back slightly on the balls of his feet, as if taken aback, but possessed of enough will to withhold it. “You can see spirits.” It was almost a whisper.

“Not...the dead,” said Alison, shifting her eyes down towards the counter. “But, spirits of the air, and the earth, of objects and emotions.”

“Faeries.”

“Faeries, yeah.” she looped her hair behind her ear. “That's how I think of them, actually. But it feels strange to say the word out loud, you know?”

“Yes, yes I think I do.” His eyes scanned up towards the ceiling. “Can you always see faeries, or does it come and go?”

“It seems like I always can. I mean, I see them all the time. I even talk to some of them. In my head.”

Jonathan Frost's eyes went a little wide at this. He looked about the shop-room. “Are there, are there any faeries in here now?”

Alison shook her head. “You scared off the only one here. They don't actually come inside buildings all that much. It's why your emotions often seem...brighter somehow, out of doors. Faeries are more likely to be influencing you.”

“That's...that's quite astonishing.”

“Well, yes. Most people are pretty surprised to hear that faeries exist, but...”

“I mean that you can see them.”

At this, Evelyn could not help but look, for a moment, totally lost.

“I do know that they exist,” assured the pale thin gentleman.

“You-you do?”

Jonathan Frost nodded, almost sagely. “I am quite aware of the existence of faeries, it is only that I have never been able to see them. My studies, unfortunately, have not been that advanced.”

“They aren't? ...What studies?”

Jonathan Frost nodded his head forward in a motion of enclosing counsel. “I too, am a magician.”

“You are?” Evelyn almost certainly looked as shocked as she was feeling.

Jonathan Frost motioned towards the books wrapped in absinthe paper. “I do not buy these books for their value as curiosity, Miss Sharp, but for their utility.”

“You can do magic?”

This exhortation must have been slightly louder than was normal for polite conversation, for Jonathan Frost casually reclined his head and cast a careful scanning glance across the length of the shop, searching, one could only surmise for any other residence who may have overheard.

Evelyn felt her face flush.

“Yes,” returned Jonathan Frost calmly, his rounds complete. “I can do magic. Can't you?”

“What? No! I mean, no. Why would I be able to do magic?”

“Why, however else would you be able to see faeries? Such a feat seems, from my reading, at least, to be one of great training.”

“No, I-I didn't train for it at all! It's just, always been there. Since I was a kid. For as long as I can remember.”

A truly inscrutable look passed across Jonathan Frost's face then, a look that seemed to combine awe with disappointment. “So you are an adept.”

“An adept?”

“Yes,” said Jonathan Frost slowly, “it is a term used among those to in the study of magic for those are are naturally, well, adept at some aspect or another of the arts.”

“Oh.”

“...And I take it, from your lack of familiarity with the word, that, despite working within the walls of a magic shop, you are not well-acquainted with the study of magic?”

She had been, of course, in a way. She had studied witchcraft, divination, folklore, ritual magic. She even knew what an adept was supposed to be, when she had time to think about it. But that was all academic study. The way Jonathan Frost used the word study, it meant something much, much more.

“I...no.”

“Despite your tremendous gift?”

Jonathan Frost sounded exceedingly disappointed.

“I...should I have?”

Jonathan Frost shrugged, regaining his composure. “It is not a question for what you should, or shouldn't do, Miss Sharp. You may do as you will. It is just that it seems to be to be such an awful waste, to have such a ability, such adeptness, and to do nothing to build upon it. After all...” The absinthe bags moved. They moved of their own accord, or so it seemed, and slid off the counter. On their downward trajectory the bags uprighted themselves, turning in the air at such an angle that without any annoyance they found their handles within Jonathan Frost's waiting hands. “...the world is so much larger than all this.” The ashplant cane, which had, until moments before, been grasped in Jonathan Frost's hand, hovered momentarily upon the ground, then, as if thrown, rose up into the crook of his arm.

With a slight smile over his shoulder, his cane parallel to the floor, Jonathan Frost walked gracefully out of the shop. Pausing to open, the door, he tipped his head gently, with a wry smile. “Miss Sharp,” he said with courtesy, and was gone.

Later that night, after closing the shop, having had not too many more customers and none as significant, hungry, shivering, lying in bed in her pajamas, staring up at the bar of moonlight falling across her ceiling, occasionally eclipsed by the passing light of a car's headlights, she was still thinking about Jonathan Frost, what he had said and how he made the bags move. They had moved without him touching them. She was as sure of it as she sure of Minnie. All her life surrounded by wonder, she had felt so privileged, so special. But he had made the bags move. She felt lazy, sloppy. She had been wasting her life, spinning her wheels. She could have done something with herself, achieved something, lived a life, out there. But what was she now? No one. What had she done? Nothing. She was a shop girl. An entry-level no one with nothing to show for it. And somewhere out there magic was being done. She had just been sitting here content, with her faeries, her voices in her head. She suddenly felt very alone. Alone and useless in a dark room, with nothing and no one, while there was the whole world out there, lying on the peripheral, out of the corner of her eye. Now it was all she could see.

A small sprite shot in through the window and zipped across the room. A little person with wings. The sprite flew up to hover beside her face, smiling gleefully at her. “Go away,” she croaked, and turned her head. Evelyn could feel the faerie frowning, could feel its confusion, its wounded pride. Nevertheless, it turned around and zipped out the window. It would be several more hours before Evelyn got to sleep.