Clay Tuesday: Bad Standard

Bad Standard (The Case of the Death Chair)

A Clay Tuesday Short

            And so the story went, continuing on to the next resident of the creepy little house: Adam. Adam Moomaw rarely took on cases by himself. In fact, he rather hated leaving the house altogether but once in a while he was forced to inspect something due to Rachel’s absence and Kristjan’s working on something else. This was one such occasion.

            The legend of the death chair was one of those stories well known in only one area, though it had plenty of evidence to back up its reality, and thus remained an obscure tale. The real tales of its horrors from ‘back in the day’ had been told so many times through unintentional games of telephone that the actual facts had become so muddled and altered that all believability soon became lost. The chair, originating from the late 19^th century, now resided in a museum as part of a set piece for something or other. Adam had quit paying attention by that point when researching the chair before coming. That was about as far as Sebastian Doegh got as well.

            Sebastian worked for what would be considered one of those ridiculous supernatural magazines, though how ridiculous it truly was, was debatable. Often times Sebastian had witnessed and written about supernatural events and ghostly encounters, and his experiences had made him into a believer.

They, they being The Horrorscope, the magazine that employed Sebastian, assigned him to travel around the eastern coast of the States and report on local legends. He had first covered the Jersey Devil, blue hole, Mothman, and finally he came to the death chair, the least exciting, he thought, of them all. He wasn’t particularly thrilled, hating all of the travel. Money was money, though, and so he dealt with it.

            Brushing his shaggy black hair out of his way, Sebastian stared unenthusiastically at the chair wondering whether or not he should snap a picture of it with the Polaroid camera that dangled around his neck (he had learned using Polaroid snapshots made the photos look that much scarier for the articles). Next to him stood Adam, who was slightly shorter than the slightly taller than average Sebastian. Adam had no need to brush his close cropped dirty blond hair out of his face nor was he curious if he should snap a photo to see if he could catch a ghost in the shot or not, something his sister Rachel and their father had been known to do. He was actually very hungry and wondered what kind of groceries he should pick up for the next few days to feed Kristjan and himself while Rachel was off giving lectures. Kristjan was a surprisingly picky eater with refined, code for expensive, tastes. Adam was convinced Kristjan didn’t even need to eat but he had to put up with it anyway, because he always got stuck with cleaning the house and preparing the meals. Aside from thoughts of groceries, Adam did wonder if he should touch the chair or not- if the chair really was haunted, it would be the quickest way to end the case.

            “Have you heard the story of the chair right there?” Sebastian inquired of Adam, trying to make polite conversation. Adam responded with a ‘huh.’ Sebastian was starved enough for attention that he ignored Adam’s ‘I don’t care’ remark and continued anyway. “Apparently whoever sits on that chair dies within a few days. I personally don’t believe it, but I get paid to write about crap like this.”

            There was the briefest moment of silence before Adam responded with the gem “Are you hitting on me?”

            “What?”

            “Not interested.”

            Sebastian, for the first time since the tenth grade when his then girlfriend had broken up with him, was at a loss for words. He resorted to taking action, snapping a quick picture of the chair, shoving his camera into Adam’s chest, and crossing the rope to sit in the chair. “Take my picture.”

            “What? You idiot, why would you- if you’ve heard the legends, then- are you- did you get a lobotomy?” Adam’s southern accent, something he tried very desperately to hide, slipped out with his shock and anger. He ran towards the chair but froze with his hand inches from Sebastian’s. His eyes were frozen, blue eyes dilated. His gaze was caught above the chair.

            “Just take the picture before a worker comes back. What’re you even staring at?”

A dingy skeleton floated above Sebastian like an aged buzzard draped in ragged clothing, looming, its hands reaching for the reporter’s head. Adam yanked Sebastian out of the chair then grabbed it with both hands. The skeleton vanished. Adam would have smiled had he not discovered that his touch had no effect on the chair. Nothing was growing on it; the skeleton had no reason to vanish. So why had it, if Adam didn’t cause it to? “What was that?”

            Adam looked back at the bewildered Sebastian, a Sebastian that looked like he was about to be sick all over the floor. Adam responded, “The reason you shouldn’t have sat in the chair. Now shut up.”

After checking the chair for magical symbols, Adam found one. This was satisfactory enough as it gave him something to work with, but disappointing because Sebastian wanted to know everything about it and Adam, forcing an introduction out of him. For the first time in ten years Adam spoke with his natural accent for more than three sentences.

“I’ll buy you chocolate or whatever if you’ll be quiet and leave me alone.” Adam walked out of the museum, Sebastian tailing closely behind.

“Why would I want chocolate?” Sebastian followed Adam through quick turns; he was obviously bad at losing people in crowds. So instead Adam decided to stop at a shop and finish some errands praying that this would bore Sebastian so badly he would leave of his own free will.

“I don’t freaking know, just take it.” Adam thoughtlessly thanked the thinning cashier, a charming old woman, for her compliment of his southern drawl. She called it adorable and Adam blushed, taking the items he purchased and tossing two of them, a catholic medallion and a chocolate bar, at Sebastian. “Put on the medallion.”

“Um, thanks. Now explain to me what’s going on.”

“You’re cursed and I need to break it before you die.”

“Thank you?” Sebastian tried asking more questions. Adam tried ignoring him. Neither plan worked very well. Both were a little miserable and Sebastian only spoke again when they started ascending a creepy little hill towards a creepy little house. In front of that creepy little house was a creepy little tree with a creaky little swing. “How long has this place been here?”

“Two days.” Adam opened the front door, entering with Sebastian.

Multiple aged books lay open on the floor in front of Adam as his research for the magical circle he found on the chair. Sebastian was having a hay-day examining all the old texts that covered the house.

“You have… thirty three grimoires at least, and I haven’t even heard of half of them. Like this one, the Lunar Grimoire. How did you find these things?”

“Stop touching them, that’s not polite. Especially the lunar one, Wellington might need that one again.” Adam was referring to a young man and his friends Adam and the other house residents had helped half a year prior when the house had taken them elsewhere in the country. Adam ground his teeth while flipping through pages, about the only two things he was good at doing at the same time. “They belong to my sister, Rachel.”

Sebastian made the connection in his head. Rachel. Rachel Moomaw, Ph.D, had degrees in folklore studies, ancient mythology and the like, and was often a guest speaker or teacher at universities. Other reporters from the website had interviewed and consulted her for stories as well. Before Sebastian could ask yet another question, Adam spoke in his sweet southern tongue.

“The magic circle bound the maker’s soul to the chair. The reason me touching the chair didn’t do anything is because when somebody sits in the chair the soul attaches itself to the person and haunts them until they die. Show me your chest, I’ll prove it.”

“Excuse you?” Sebastian was taken aback. Adam got up and forcefully lifted up Sebastian’s shirt. A magic circle was burned into his chest.

“Yeah, cursed.”

Sebastian could only make strange noises in response, freaking out even more when Adam touched the burn. Small blossoms started popping up, covering the mark then dying and falling off just as quickly as they had appeared. The mark was still there. Sebastian managed to mutter a “What?”

“Green thumb. The magic circle on your chest’s a curse. It transferred the ghost from the chair to you. It’s too powerful for me to get rid of myself.”

“So what you’re telling me is I’m haunted.”

Adam answered quickly and sharply, “Yes, I already said that!”

“How haunted?” Sebastian was starting to feel a little awkward.

“More haunted than an abandoned mansion and less haunted than the state of Florida.”

“Oh, you don’t say? Now would you mind letting go of my shirt?” Sebastian gave Adam a tight lipped smile. Adam, shrugging, let go. “What’s the next step?”

“Wait for it to try and kill you.” There was silence, then Sebastian let Adam know he was not okay with the plan. Adam heaved a sigh, slipping once again into his southern accent. “Listen, it’s a basic ghost- okay, maybe more of a poltergeist since it’ll probably move things to try and kill you- but it’s still simple enough. I either need to touch it or bind it with some sutras.”

“Sutras?” Sebastian was massaging his temples out of frustration. Adam was doing the same.

“Chants. They’re ancient… and stuff. My sister says they’re words that hold things together like the world. Words are important, you know. That’s why you should never tell somebody your full name. It gives them power over you.” Sebastian then pointed out he knew Adam’s full name because of the forced introduction earlier. Adam waved him away with his hand. “That’s not the point, you were being flippant. Hush and follow me.” Sebastian, before leaving, grabbed one of the books Adam had been looking at and brought it along.

Not so far and away, down in a perky playground Sebastian sat somewhat frightened on top of a jungle gym, playing with his dark skinny tie. Adam was hiding inside of a slide. Sebastian decided right then and there during his moping that if he died he would haunt Adam.

The plan was to wait for the ghost to find the perfect opportunity to kill Sebastian. Sebastian had no idea why Adam chose a playground for this to happen, but it was. At first, nothing happened, and Sebastian began getting annoyed. He glanced up, seeing the raggedy clothed, dingy skeleton. It reached out a thin, darkened hand, a gust of wind pushing Sebastian off the jungle gym and the hand caught him mid-air by his tie, choking Sebastian to death.

From the slide emerged one Adam Moomaw, leaping up to the rescue. In a booming voice he began chanting. Glowing Sanskrit letters faded into existence around the ghastly apparition, binding it in place. Its hold on Sebastian was broken, and he crashed to the ground, getting the wind knocked out of him. He hacked and coughed, trying to get back his breath and reaching for the book that had fallen out of his hands when the ghost appeared. Adam’s focused gaze did not break. The ghost could only move its jaw. A smog oozed out of the skeleton’s open mouth, dripping down its chin. It coughed like Sebastian, then gurgled, trying to make a noise. The sounds at first were incomprehensible, but quickly they began making sense. “A… dam…,” it started, “Adam… James… Moomaw.”

Adam’s name was followed by a long slur of unintelligible words, a spell. As long as the skeleton ghost had been around it must have picked up something or created its own sort of magical spell because the letters floating around the skeleton shattered in a magnificent burst of fluorescent, breaking the spell simply by the call of Adam’s true name. He was now for a short time unable to use any magic spell, his energy being repressed by the skeleton.

The specter descended to Sebastian’s level, reaching out its dusty hand. Sebastian, who had regained some breath, held open the book and shouted a phrase. A Sanskrit letter blocked the ghost’s hand but the ghost pushed through the floating symbol, shattering it like the other ones, and for the first time directly touched Sebastian. It would be the first thing the ghost would regret touching. A crackling energy surged through the spirit, pushing it back into the second thing it would regret touching- Adam’s hands. Vines grew across the ghost’s body and those vines grew silky, scarlet spider lilies. Once those lilies bloomed, other flowers emerged, engulfing the ghost skeleton. This was Adam’s natural ability, not a spell; it was the one thing that could not be broken by reciting his name with a spell.

 Energy wafted up like steam and vanished seconds later. The flowers fell down, shriveled and dead, the ghost having fed them until it vanished and they could feed no more. What looked like a few fireflies flew away.

Sebastian took out the still glowing medallion from underneath his shirt and watched it twirl round and round on its chain, mesmerized by the effect it had had on the cursed spirit that haunted him. The glow grew softer and softer before fading altogether.

“Francis de Sales, patron saint of Journalists. Now lift up your shirt.” Adam tried forcing up Sebastian’s shirt but he smacked away Adam’s hand, lifting up his shirt himself. The curse mark was gone. “Good, let’s keep it that way.”

“What were those things that showed up a second ago?” Sebastian asked, letting the medallion plop softly against the cloth of his tie.

“Those firefly things guide lost souls to the afterlife once they let go of this world, either willingly for forcefully.”

“Forcefully?”

“There’re other spirits that come and take demonized human souls like that one to the afterlife sometimes.” Adam plopped down on the cool grains of sand, sifting his hand through them. He held his breath and drank in the moment; the setting sun, the finished case and someone new sitting beside him. Pins and needles went down his spine and involuntarily he shivered. He hadn’t felt this good since the case with Wallace Moorcroft and P. Darwin Yeates two years earlier. Who knew, he thought. Maybe one day he would get used to Sebastian like he had Kristjan and even consider him a friend.

Sebastian walked Adam to the front steps of the creepy little house. He glanced down at the dying grass, browning like the death chair, a half smile crawling across his face. “We should do this again sometime.” Sebastian said, handing the book back to Adam. Adam received the book, his handsome face as dull, drowsy and dreary as always. Adam shrugged, knowing the house probably wouldn’t be there in the morning. “Just stop trying to undress me, alright?”

“Cool.” Adam, unsure of what to do, nodded, glanced around and did a half turn. Sebastian did something similar and held out his hand. Neither one could agree on a handshake, fist bump or man hug so Adam ended the awkwardness by walking into the house and shutting the door on the journalist. Sebastian laughed and descended the creepy little hill, passing by the creepy tree and creaky old swing while on the other side of the door Adam allowed himself to smile.

Clay Tuesday: I Believe

The Case of the Doppelganger


Everyone at school knew that if you saw the glowing green-eyed doppelganger in the old mirror it meant you would die. The other self would crawl out of the mirror like in horror movies and eat your eyes, then toy with you, leaving you unsure of when or if it would finally kill you. This raced through Jack’s mind as he nervously ruffled his rust-colored hair and checked out his face in the mirror.

Maybe it was the idea of death that had drawn Jack to the old mirror hung and hidden in the woods behind the school, or maybe it was the constant dare from teammates that brought him there. Jack scanned his features in the mirror; square jaw, lean body, easy on the eyes. Basically a good looking guy who was a little bit of a prick but okay with it. What spirit wouldn’t want to take his shape, he thought.

Jack gazed at his hazel eyes in the mirror. There was no green-eyed doppelganger. Disappointed, he scoffed and shook his head at the thought of anyone believing the old tale. Of course nothing had happened. Green eyes would have clashed with his hair anyway, that’s what Jack’s gay older brother George had said once before their parents had kicked him out. At this thought Jack started grinding his teeth. He thought about how his parents so easily saw fit to discard their own son. He looked back up at the mirror. A blond-haired man was behind him.

“The hell?” Jack spun on his foot to face the man. “Who are you and why are you creeping on me?”

“Kristjan. Oh, don’t run- I’m going to need you to stay and help me for a second. I can’t do this on my own.” Kristjan’s words ran from his thin lips so effortlessly as he walked closer to Jack, passing him. Kristjan stopped in front of the mirror and gazed at it from a plethora of odd angles. His index finger gently grazed the dusty glance; he was entranced by something he saw in it.

Jack gave the back of Kristjan’s head the most confused look he could muster which involved, but was not limited to, furrowed brows, a slightly open mouth and a tilt of his head. The man was obviously messing with him. Or one of those crazies from the mental ward. “Yeah, tall gangly guy, not gonna happen. I’m just going to-”

“I’m not gangly, I’m lean. Just because I’m over six foot people assume I’m all skin and bone this and skin and bone that. I eat! I exercise! Genetics plays a huge part in this too, even though my aunt Cecilia on my mother’s side- not my father’s, she lives in Winnipeg and nobody talks to her- always told me to eat more and called me a scarecrow. But the point of the story is that I’m not gangly. And now I’ve lost my concentration.” Kristjan drew back his finger from the glass, grimacing at the dust on his finger. “Look in the mirror again, you… what’s your name?”

“Jack.”

“Right. Look in the mirror, would you, Jack? You’ll understand the world differently once you do. It’s exciting. Kids your age love exciting.” Kristjan stepped away from the mirror so Jack could see what he came to see, and indeed he did see it. He brought his hazel speckled eyes up to meet his reflection’s in the mirror, but instead saw a vicious, vain, vile and unhealthy glooming green gaze coming from a face exactly like his own. Fight or flight kicked in, and his body, to protect itself, moved back and away from the reflection. The reflection matched his movement and went forward.

“Legends, folktales and myths like this are very often grounded in fact, not fiction. They, like you or me, are a type of reality that exists in this world either created alongside us, from us or by us spreading tales. Our repeating of a story gives it life.” To Jack, Kristjan’s monologue was surreal, a serenade accompanying a seemingly fictitious supernatural encounter. The doppelganger’s hand reached through the mirror, fingers slowly cringing and twitching like a man struck with palsy. Kristjan continued. “The thrill of wanting to encounter the supernatural vanishes once the meeting takes place, when the entity feeds on your fear. You look for a cheap scare and find something very real. Something just as alive as you.”

Jack’s gaze lingered in the green depths of his doppelganger’s eyes, freezing him in place. Piece by piece, little by little, the copy of Jack slinked forward out of the old mirror. Jack could feel the fingers emanating sharpness like a knife, coming closer to his enlarged pupils. He was grotesquely fascinated by the idea of a true urban legend, of meeting, most importantly-

“Death.”

The word sifted out of Jack’s parted lips and covered the area like thick smog.

“Death is an entryway to a new life, Jackson Douglas Rae.”

A white crow landed on the doppelganger’s out-stretched arm. With a haunting caw it flapped its wings causing the doppelganger to explode into a mass of feathers. Jack snapped back into his senses, sweat pouring down his frame. Kristjan shoved Jack to the side. “Move!” he shouted, the false Jack re-appearing and jabbing a fist where the real Jack was moments earlier. Dust and grass soared through air, and with a swift kick Kristjan forced the doppelganger backwards. The crow flapped furiously, turning the double back into feathers.

“Jack, come here!” Kristjan pulled Jack over into the edge of a magic circle. The fake Jack appeared once more, lunging forward with sharp fingers, fingers which stopped inches short of Jack’s face. The magic circle was glowing a furious yellow and preventing the fake to move at all. The doppelganger was trapped, and the white crow landed on Kristjan’s shoulder, sinking into the black fabric of his sweater and vanishing as mysteriously as it had appeared.

Jack was unsure of what to say, but that didn’t stop him from speaking. “That- What –Me- Who are you?”

“That’s not important. You were fantastic bait by the way,” Kristjan said cooly, bringing out a small notebook from his pocket. He started chanting in a language largely unknown to Jack- French- and little by little, as Kristjan read, pieces of the doppelganger shone brightly then cracked like glass. Pieces fell off and hit the ground, shattering and vanishing. When Kristjan finished and closed the notebook, the monster had ceased to exist.

“What the hell did you say to in French that you couldn’t say in English to kill it?” Jack said, breaking the silence left by the monster. Kristjan’s response was a smile. “Why couldn’t you just let it take your shape?”

“I read a passage from a grimoire.” Kristjan stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged. Jack waited for more of an answer. “Oh, the French. English is a horrible language to do spells in, there’s borrowed words from other languages everywhere in it. French is purer, more concrete and precise.”

“Okay, still not sure what a grimoire is.” Jack stopped and realized something else important. “And how did you know my full name?”

“It’s a spell book. Different spell books for different occasions, different cultures dealt with these things differently. And I took your wallet while you weren’t looking and saw your license,” Kristjan tossed the increasingly confused Jack his wallet.

“Why didn’t it look like you?”

“Because I’m already a doppelganger of myself,” Kristjan began to walk off after his answer, despite protests from a very confused and unsatisfied Jack.

“That doesn’t make sense!” He shouted after Kristjan’s fading figure.

“It doesn’t make sense to me either. Go home and do your homework or something.”

“Just like that?” Frustrated, Jack tried chasing after Kristjan, who looked as though he were doing more fading away than walking.

“People experience the otherworldly every day. Accept it and move on.” Kristjan was gone before Jack could catch up. He took some deep breaths, trying to remember what Kristjan even looked like. Kristjan’s image hurriedly faded from Jack’s mind, no matter how hard he tried to conjure it up. Ultimately, he took the blond man’s advice. He accepted what had happened to him and more importantly to his brother, and moved on.

Clay Tuesday Part 3

Act III: White Crow

The facts were these: The boys, now with the inclusion of the sole female, were back to where they had been the Wednesday a few days prior. They waited behind The Flaming Pickle, the boys impatiently and Rachel rather calmly. Within moments Wallace was to walk briskly into the alley to meet them; the trio may have caught him in his lie, but they morally could not let Yeates have his way with the murderous Wallace. They planned on dealing with him after Yeates. When Wallace did arrive, he was in a full sprint with Yeates in pursuit

Yeates, his face half-melted off, his clothes torn to rags, hunched slightly over and with claws in place of fingers hopped like a frog from building to building chasing after Wallace. Demonic seagull-like wings sprouted from the phantom’s back. His jaw unhinged, his mouth grew larger, and the teeth became hair-raisingly visible. Both eyes were melted over; his face looked like pale wax.

Wallace spun around, his hammer appearing in hand, and aimed for the demonic phantom but got knocked into the wall when the phantom’s gigantic claw met his body leaving rips along his clothes and scratched that bled profusely.

Adam and Kristjan held open their tiny notebooks, each pressing a hand against a wall. Magical circles in a pastel glow cropped up near their hands like graffiti, sprouting forth wires that sought to entangle to demonic Yeates, but his teeth and claws severed the bindings with little effort. A heavy energy shot through the alleyway, the source of which came from Yeates’ negativity, making it hard for the living to breathe. Yeates focused that force in his wings, creating a whirlwind that thrust Adam and Kristjan into the side of the building.

Rachel gazed at the phantom, standing un-phased in the midst of action. Her sweet smile held something deadly behind it, an untold story waiting to be heard. Her eyes shifted to the three large flowers growing on the demon’s arms.

“Let me tell you a little something about why you should be careful,” she started, taking carefully calculated steps towards Yeates. Yeates, having lost sense of being human, charged at her, a gut wrenching inhuman roar echoing from his mouth. “First, I’m poisonous to ghosts. Second, you hurt my brother. Never hurt my brother.”

Little cerulean lights flickered into existence around Rachel; it was her most basic ability, like Adam’s flowers, or Kristjan’s crows. Dozens of little fireflies surrounded Yeates, stopping and burning him. Smoke rose from his body, searing him and forcing more growls and roars to erupt from him. The phantom’s struggle weakened him, keeping him from fighting off the effects of the flowers, which began to grow and connect to each other. In seconds more spider lilies sprouted from vines that encased the entire upper left side of Yeates.

The phantom was unable to smack the fireflies away. In retaliation he shot pressure at Rachel, knocking her down but Kristjan was there to take her place. Or more precisely, his white crows which emerged from his body were.

“You asked about these back at the hospital. If you had dug deeper into my mind, you would know that even before I became a victim of happenstance my family called me Kristjan the Scarecrow.” The abnormally large birds flapped their wings, and Yeates burst into feathers. The phantom, disoriented, reformed seconds later in a different location only to be consumed by more of the fireflies he so agonizingly tried to swat away. “Phillip Darwin Yeates, go to hell.”

Yeates froze in a striking position, mouth wide open ready to eat any of the fireflies or even bite off his covered arm. A large magic circle that looked vaguely like a clock formed in a soft blue light, ticking down the time until Yeates would be free again. Yet before the flowers could finish devouring him, before the fireflies could singe him, or even before the crows could peck away at him until he was nothing, Wallace had found his own way to the side of the white clad menace. Standing by the phantom, Wallace’s fingers stroked what little hair was left on his victim’s head, his lips drawing near to Yeates’ ear. Mockingly, he whispered “You’ll be useful after all, mon cher. I’ve always wanted Psychic powers.”

Wallace had activated a spell, dark symbols crawling across his skin. Not so delicately, and ever so un-gently, Wallace brought his mouth to the neck of his victim. The flowers wilted away. Yeates morphed back to his original form then vanished all together into Wallace’s open mouth. The magic circle broke. The symbols left Wallace’s skin, and he stood victorious for all to see. With a crazed smile he lifted his hand and gave a simple wave. Then he vanished.

 Kristjan sat discontent on the creepy swing in front of the house. It had only been a day, but already the house was somewhere new and far away from Strawberry Fields. Back and forth the man from the in-between swung until Rachel’s hand fell on his shoulder and Kristjan came to a stop. He looked over his shoulder at the woman and at Adam who stood sheepishly with his arms folded across his chest. Kristjan gave a gentle, unpracticed smile.

“It’s okay, Kristjan. Sometimes we fall down.” Rachel said softly, rubbing his back. Kristjan let those words sink in; the words were, after all, important. There was an unspoken bond that had grown between the three inhabitants of the house due to the events of their last case. They had experienced failure together, and forged something strong through the trial.

Kristjan allowed himself to believe what Rachel had said.  He responded, “I know,” then slid off the swing, allowing her to get on. He pushed her while Adam sat against the tree reading one of the old grimoires from the study, looking up every so often to fend off Kristjan and Rachel’s teasing.

When it got dark the fireflies danced to their words underneath the waning moon and the trio laughed together, and together they lived and worked case after case, continuing their adventures in the ebb and flow of the ever-evolving world of the stunningly strange and supernatural. There was still so much more for them to do.

Clay Tuesday Part 2

Act II: Failures Anonymous

            Rachel softly closed the door of the creepy little house behind her, returning from a Kobudo class she had taken in town. She noticed how shiny and polished everything looked, and knew instantly that Adam was home. He often voluntarily did most of the chores around the house which suited Rachel just fine since her brother didn’t do much of anything most days other than watch sports on TV.

She walked over to Kristjan’s desk, noting that he had taken the sunflowers she had picked up for him earlier in the day. Smiling brightly, Rachel walked over to one of the book cases to grab a grimoire so she could further prepare for her lecture tomorrow (she had gotten the days wrong as she often did, thinking the lecture was that night when in reality it was the next day), but stopped at a framed photo of her and her father when she was twelve, a little after Adam was born. She was short and scrawny compared to the large figure of her father holding a rifle, the same he had used to teach her how to hunt. She touched the glass of the frame, her bright smile gradually growing more sullen.

There was a loud clattering that snapped Rachel out of her reminiscing. She set the photo back down, making her way to the source of the sound, in the kitchen. Once there she saw Adam standing by the sink, tossing pots and pans in the foamy water. Rachel let out the little bit of breath she had been holding in. Adam was fine.

“I take it you took care of Yeates behind the gay bar?” As she spoke to him she grabbed a blackberry from a little bowl on the counter and popped it in her mouth.

Adam looked as angry as a malnourished bear woken early from his hibernation in a cramped cave he shared with three others (a creature she didn’t believe existed as she had never seen one in all of the hunting expeditions she had been on). “No, he got away. How did you know it was a gay bar?”

“It’s called The Flaming Pickle, Adam. How could it not be a gay bar? How did you two not get that?” Rachel popped another berry in her mouth. “Are you cooking something French again? Adam, we’re in America. Cook American food.”

Her little brother glared at her unappreciatively.

“So how’d you lose Yeates?” Rachel smiled wickedly, changing the subject back to the case. “Don’t tell me it was Wallace’s fault. I want more detail than that, like how it was his fault.”

“We didn’t know what the ‘P’ in his name stood for,” Adam muttered under his breath. He didn’t make eye contact with his sister. “Still don’t.”

“And?”

“Yeates is a psychic. He knows our names.”

Stopping mid-chew, Rachel held up her index finger, signaling for her brother to wait a minute. She left the room briefly and when she returned she held a marker.

“No, Rachel…” Adam’s accent started to slip out.

“C’mon Adam, just let me write a sutra on you so Yeates won’t be able to see you. You need to be prepared when you see him again.” Rachel drew closer to her brother but he pushed her arm away.

“Who says I’m going out again? I didn’t want to take the stupid case in the first place.” Adam shoved Rachel’s arm away from him again. “Stop it!”

“Adam, darlin’, I just want to make sure you don’t get hurt.” Rachel shoved the cap back on the pen, getting frustrated with her brother.

“You’re too over-protective. You’re not dad, you’re not in charge of me. I’m an adult. Now leave me alone!”

“I am head of this household Adam James Moomaw, and if you’re going to work this case then you need to—”

“I don’t want to work this case,” Adam countered, raising his voice. “You know what? I can hardly wait until I’m out of here and in college so I can prove to you that I can handle myself!”

Rachel watched as her brother stormed out of the kitchen. She tried swallowing the lump she felt in her throat, but it only got larger.

“Dad,” she said solemnly, “how do I deal with him?”

The calculatedly cold corridors of the hospital left much to be desired in the way of appearance, and even more so in the general atmosphere. Kristjan walked down the long stretches of hallway without so much as a visitor’s pass, but no one stopped him; no on dared interrupt him. Or rather, no one could. That was the problem Kristjan had to deal with, for which he considered himself a victim of happenstance. No one could see him. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. A consequence of his being neither dead nor alive was that people couldn’t focus on him. If he was in a crowd, he would go unnoticed and if he had met someone briefly face to face, they would quickly forget what he looked like. Only people who could use any form of magic and spent considerable time around him were able to see through this, like Adam and Rachel. This limitation, however, left him free to roam and gave him an easier time doing discreet research for cases. This also meant he usually received terrible customer service.

Kristjan pressed forward through the corridors, holding on to a bouquet of sunflowers Rachel had purchased for him.

“They changed my room, didn’t they?” Kristjan said this loudly, but he doubted anyone could hear him, nobody was near him. It was more to himself than anything; he was trying to calm his nerves. He hadn’t expected the house to take them to the town where his body lay. Within minutes, like always, Kristjan found his room right where it had been since the accident— hospital room forty and four. He walked in.

There on the bed was Kristjan’s body.

Eight months, three weeks, two days and twelve hours earlier Kristjan was involved in a car crash while driving out of Strawberry Fields, Canada, to visit his family at their estate. The crash had left his body comatose, but somehow his spirit, soul, or consciousness— whatever you wanted to call it— had been projected, pulled, outside of his body. Kristjan at first thought he was dead. But his body continued to breathe. He was stuck in the in-between, yet still able to make a physical impact on the world. So there the chunk of flesh Kristjan once claimed as his own laid withering wastefully away while his family, being one of the wealthiest in the province, kept his body alive with some glimmer of hope that Kristjan would wake up. But he never did. Not once, no matter how hard Kristjan or the doctors tried. The one thing he could remember from the accident was the vivid image of a man in brown who made Kristjan feel calm, and a shadowy woman. Then there was something he thought he heard one of them whisper: The L Noise. But he had no clue as to what it meant.

In mourning for himself, Kristjan always wore black, and now was no exception. He brushed his hands against his black slacks, made sure his black dress shirt was tucked in and straightened his black coat. He left the top button undone on his shirt, and did not wear a tie as he had always hated them. Growing up there were occasions where his older cousins would rough house and one almost choked him with his tie once. Since then he considered them a liability.

Gently, Kristjan set down the flowers on the nightstand next to the bed, said goodbye to his body, and left the same way he came in: confused, and frustrated.

Once out of the hospital, the last thing Kristjan expected, wanted even, was a second encounter with Yeates. But it happened anyway. Whimsically the phantom phased into existence from a haze, and flamboyantly hopped behind Kristjan.

“Found you,” Yeates whispered in Kristjan’s ear. Kristjan snapped around to hit Yeates but the phantom had already leapt back, wagging a finger. The red flowers were still on him and looked to be roughly twice the size they had been before. “Imagine my surprise when I found out you weren’t alive. How thrilling! How unique!”

“Stop being so nosy, it’s annoying. You’re like my cousin Maurice, always going behind people to learn their secrets.” Kristjan’s eyes went from the flowers to the phantom’s face which looked like it had started to melt off. Kristjan inhaled sharply out of shock.

“You should really re-consider helping Wallace, you know. Just let me kill him.” Yeates’s charm, his perkiness, had left him. The phantom emitted anger, discontent and hate. “He’s the reason I’m like this, a gorgeous man losing all his beauty. All I want is to get my body back, but that isn’t going to happen. That’s a fact you know about as well as I do. Killing Wallace is the next best thing, cheri.” The white figure of Yeates invaded Kristjan’s personal space, one thing the phantom was exceptionally good, at by travelling through his haze. “An eye for an eye, right? He killed me with that hammer of his, and now he gets the just desserts.”

In the seconds that passed, Kristjan’s face scrunched together in the realization of what the real situation was. Suddenly what Yeates said in the alley before made sense. Wallace had murdered Yeates for whatever reason, and was now using the trio to get out of the consequences of his actions.

Kristjan didn’t have the time to worry; he could see the pointed teeth lining the phantom’s wide smiling mouth, like a Cheshire cat turned feral. Kristjan snapped his middle finger and thumb. Yeates’ face was met with the talons of two white crows.

“What?” The phantom shrunk back, beating away the abnormally large birds with his flailing arms. He looked more confused than hurt. “When did you use a charm?”

“Sorry guy, I didn’t.” Kristjan, pushing back his fear, began slowly stepping away. “As much as I enjoy your Old Testament appreciation, I had to get you to stop rambling. Nobody likes a rambler, you know. It’s very pas bon.”

Yeates let out a distorted growl of pain, leaping away from the birds and snarling, bearing his hideous bear trap teeth. He vanished in a hazy mist, leaving Kristjan and his crows alone in front of the dimly lit hospital.

Everyone was back inside of the creepy little house early the next day for a meeting on what to do with Yeates. Kristjan sat where he had the last time they were all gathered, looking perturbed with Wallace, who sat fidgeting with his hands in the same chair.

“Wallace, darling, could you explain to us one little thing?” Rachel brushed some of her yellow hair away from her face and looked kindly at the thinning man. Sweetly, her voice carried on the rest of what she had to say. “What the hell did Yeates mean when he told Kristjan that you killed him? I’m not trying to sound dense. I’d just like to assume you didn’t come to us as a way to avoid your consequences.”

Only Rachel had the ability to say hell and still sound adorable. Wallace looked uncomfortably at the trio of ghost hunters.

“It was for the black market. To pay for school. Some scientist wanted to study a documented psychic, and was willing to pay good money. He only paid half price, though. Something about damaging his brain when I smashed his skull.” Wallace sounded relatively guiltless now, staring at each of the house’s inhabitants coldly, no longer fidgeting with his hands. Adam was ready to punch him in the jugular.

“How did you track him down?” Rachel started nonchalantly toying with a large switchblade, keeping her eyes focused on the unwavering Wallace.

“I’ve known the prat for years. We met on a ghost tour. I couldn’t stand him. He was a pompous party playboy who was wasting his life away using his psychic powers to perform cheap parlor tricks for rich snobs. He was barely using his brain, so I thought maybe I could benefit from it instead. He didn’t deserve to live.” Wallace scrunched his nose, disgusted merely at the thought of the phantom.

“Neither do you.” Kristjan shook his head slowly, his voice surging through the air like electricity. A dark feeling began emitting from Kristjan’s words.

Ignoring Kristjan, Wallace continued, “I lured him to The Flaming Pickle, seduced him, then with the hammer…”

Rachel threw her knife at Wallace’s head. He tried catching it, but the knife travelled faster than he had anticipated and he ended up getting cut instead. The knife stuck to the wall by Wallace’s face.

“P. Darwin Yeates is a nuisance,” Kristjan started, “and I really hate how he called us mon cher. Was anyone else bothered by that? I’ve got French-Canadian relatives and they don’t even say that to me.”

“We need a plan.” Adam sighed.

“That’s easy. All we have to do is wait a day or two and use Wallace as bait.” Everyone with a Y chromosome shifted focus to Rachel, who obviously knew what she was saying. She batted her large azure eyes, and with a sly smile explained herself. “Kristjan said his face was melting off. When a ghost’s face is melting off like that it means they’re turning into a demon due to personal vendettas carried over from life. The process is sped up when the person who died has some kind of psychic ability, because their soul’s more sensitive. Once he’s fully transformed, he might not be able to say our names so all we’ll have to do is find out what the P stands for, which should be easy now that we also know he was a performing psychic. I’ll just call up some contacts.”

Everyone was needlessly surprised with the knowledge the one person with two X chromosomes had. She did, after all, have multiple degrees and had been doing this the longest out of anyone else in the room.

“We can think of some ways to get Wallace to stick around,” Adam said coyly, reaching up for a grimoire he knew contained binding spells.

“I’ll stay willingly. No matter where I go Yeates will find me eventually.”

Clay Tuesday Part 1

Act I: A Victim of Happenstance

Once upon on a time on a creepy little hill there sat a creepy little house with a creepy little tree that had an old, creaky swing hanging from it. Inside of that house lived three individuals; Rachel, an intelligent blonde-haired woman in her later twenties, was the first of them and the legal owner of the house. She had a doctorate in folklore and a best-selling book on the supernatural and due to her notoriety in her field often guest lectured at universities. Her younger brother Adam, a silent young man, was the second resident. He kept his hair closely cropped to his head, much preferred sports over the paranormal, and was known to have a quick and bitter tongue, something he had developed after the death of his and Rachel’s father five years prior when he was thirteen. Finally, there was the third resident— Kristjan. Kristjan was a man in his late-twenties who always wore black as if in mourning, and who was neither dead nor alive— he was somewhere in-between. As Kristjan enjoyed saying whenever the subject was brought up in conversation, he was merely a “victim of happenstance,” and left it at that.

            It was a dark and dingy Tuesday that looked as though it should have been made out of clay, and said day was greeted by the eerie opening of the creaky front door. Apprehensively a rather tall man stepped through the entryway into the lives of Kristjan, Rachel and Adam. The almost sickly thin man ran his hand through his thinning black hair; in his faux sickness was the fading appearance of youth and innocence. Kristjan sat at a wooden desk covered in books and papers near the front door. Kristjan’s crisp cerulean eyes met the man’s dull gray ones.

            “How can we help you?” Kristjan asked, his voice solemnly smooth and his speech direct. Rachel wandered in from the other room carrying an old leather grimoire. Kristjan kept his watchful gaze on the tall, sickly man.

            “My name is Wallace Moorcroft. I, uh, well, from what I’ve heard, this is the house, correct? You three are… I mean to say, the house wasn’t here the other day so it must be.” Wallace glanced nervously down at the ground. A pristine and well-practiced smile crossed Kristjan’s face. He was in terribly amused. Rachel directed Wallace to a chair so he could sit.

            “You’ve heard correctly. We deal with everything supernatural.” Kristjan set his hands down on the desk in front of him, clearing away some of the clutter.

            “Good, good.” Wallace fidgeted, playing with his charcoal colored coat. He had a hard time finding the right words to say.

            “Don’t fret. Take your time.” Rachel said with the slightest hint of a southern accent, setting down the book she had been holding onto the desk. She turned her head, her tawny mane of hair flowing untamed. She shouted out, “Adam! Adam, come in here. We have a client!”

            “So?” Came the grouchy reply from another room.

            Rachel shut her eyes tight and nibbled on her upper lip, revealing her lack of patience for her brother’s attitude. “Adam, if you don’t get out here I’ll cancel all the sports channels!”

            “You—why— why would you do that?” Adam’s voice lacked the southern twang of Rachel’s, but did have a little bit of resentment drizzled on top. “I don’t care if nobody else watches them I earn those channels doing the housework!”

            “Actually, I watch curling sometimes.” Kristjan piped in. Wallace looked a lot more uncomfortable than he had moments earlier.

            “Not a real sport, Kristjan!” Adam yelled out.

            Rachel brushed a hand through her hair, and had Wallace been looking up he probably would have thought it looked like her hair was eating her hand it was so thick. “Adam, remember when you were in the fifth grade and—”

            “Stop it, I’m coming!” Adam’s response this time came in a southern accent. This, of course, left Rachel with a large smile on her face and Kristjan with a thinning one. Kristjan brought out his wallet and withdrew a few bills, handing the money to Rachel who snatched them from his hand and shoved them in her pocket.

It was a little game of theirs, seeing who could get Adam riled up enough to slip into the southern drawl he tried desperately to cover up with a neutral, dreary tone.

Adam, wearing a plain white tee and some jeans but no shoes drudged himself into the living room where the others sat, rubbing his hand over his head. “I hate you.”

            Rachel smiled sweetly. “Was that really so bad?” She turned to give Wallace a proper once-over. “We’ll do our best with whatever it is you need from us. Now what’s the problem?”

            “I’m being haunted by a phantom. I’d like you to, you know, get rid of him for me.” Wallace’s head did not move from its uncomfortable downward slant but his eyes did shift to stare at Kristjan, who gracefully tilted his head down.

            “Phantoms don’t haunt humans, they haunt places. What did you do to piss him off?” Rachel inquired, intrigued. She placed a hand on her brother’s shoulder trying to get him to loosen up, but Wallace was the one who was truly tense.

            “It already sounds like too much trouble. Just let the thing kill him.” A sulking Adam was never good company, but a non-sulking Adam was hardly much better. Adam, who was more of a ‘sensitive’ than Kristjan or Rachel, was picking up peculiar signs from Wallace. Rachel’s grip became a steel claw, digging into Adam’s shoulder. He held back a cough of shock.

            “How long has it been hanging around you?” Kristjan’s head perked up, and with a swift motion he ran his fingers through his soft blonde hair.

“A few days, maybe.” Wallace chewed on his lip and changed his answer. “Closer to a week.”

“A week? How’ve you kept it away?” Adam looked a little skeptical; in his opinion, if Wallace had lasted that long then he probably didn’t need their help.

“I’ve been using salt at the entrance of my apartment to keep him out at night.” Wallace slunk back in his chair, finally moving his neck back and stretching it. He continued on with a sigh, opening up the collar of his neck to reveal Chinese characters drawn on his skin with marker. “I wrote some sutras on my body that hides me from the spirit, but it only fools him for so long. I’m not an expert, this isn’t something I dedicate my life to. I’m in med school, I only dabble in these things, the supernatural.”

“That’s the heart sutra. There’s a story about a monk who painted the sutra all over his body to hide himself from a spirit but forgot to cover his ears, so the spirit took them. Ridiculous mistake on his part, honestly. It looks like you’ve got the first few characters a little messed up.” Rachel let go of Adam’s shoulder to move closer and get a better look at the characters.

            “Do you have his name?” Kristjan asked. His voice had gone dark, and soft.

“Whose name?”

“The phantom’s name.” Every word escaping from Kristjan’s pale lips left an empty void in the air. Wallace looked at Kristjan, sighing again, heavily this time. “It’s very important that you tell us.”

            “P. Darwin Yeates. Why?”

            “It’s easier to exorcise ghosts if we have their name.” Adam had broken his silence, looking more perturbed with Wallace every second.

            “I’m still not sure why…” Wallace was starting to break free of the dark charm of Kristjan’s spoken words, annoyed that he had to reveal the phantom’s name. He clutched the fabric of his pleated pants.

            “I’m getting to that. One must always be patient; otherwise you end up like my great aunt Chestina.” Kristjan didn’t bother elaborating. “Names are the most important words of all, more important than the words in your fancy sutras or our fancy grimoires. They’re bound to us even in death. If we know a ghost’s name, we can use it in a spell. Doing that binds the ghost completely allowing us to perform a quick, painless exorcism without being interrupted.”

            “I see. Thanks for the explanation.” Wallace frowned. He looked like a very confused old man.

            “You look like some students I’ve had. What didn’t you get?” Rachel touched her elongated fingers to her hair, trying in vain to push it behind her ears. She arched her delicate eyebrows.

            “Doesn’t matter, it won’t do him any good to know.” Adam took some pleasure in Wallace’s confusion; this was all relatively simple to him, and for once he wasn’t the person who knew the least about the supernatural in the room.

            “Ignore Adam.” Kristjan smiled, even laughed a little. “We’ll help you. Is there anywhere specific you’d like us to meet so we can deal with the phantom?”

            Wallace finally looked a little happier. “I have an exam in the morning that I need to focus on right now. Meet me tomorrow night in the alleyway behind The Flaming Pickle, the bar in mid-town Strawberry Fields.” He got up and headed for the door.

            “We’ll meet you there at sundown. Don’t die.” Adam said snippily. Wallace walked out of the creepy little house.

In the dark and dingy alley Adam waited with Kristjan, sitting with his back against the brick wall of the pub called The Flaming Pickle. He didn’t understand why it was named that, and he didn’t care. He found the people who visited the place to be rather annoying with their boisterous banters that they shouted with their drinks in hand. He had too much to baggage, old and new, to deal with to worry about anyone else and their stories that he never once found interesting. Adam looked over at Kristjan who was standing beside him in the chilly air with his black sport coat buttoned all the way up. Rachel had run out of the house wearing her pencil skirt and a red blouse presumably on her way to a late lecture at Strawberry Fields University, hence her absence. As she left she assured the two boys that they would be able to handle the job themselves, which was true, but Adam did not appreciate it; Kristjan made him uncomfortable whenever they were on a case. It was one part the grimy gray nature of his words when he would talk business and one part Adam himself, and his natural born ability outside of casting magic.

Any supernatural entity that Adam touched with his bare hands would grow flowers. The flower would slowly drain away the energy that kept the ghost in the living world, and once the energy was fully drained the ghost was exorcised and sent to the Afterlife. The flowers would often times multiply on their own, turning into a stunning rouge bouquet of spider lilies, each flower or group of flowers connected by thin vines and roots. There was, as far as Adam and Rachel knew, no way to remove the flowers once they had grown. Adam wasn’t sure if touching Kristjan would cause a flower to grow on him or not, and he was unwilling to find out for as much as Kristjan could bother him, he was growing on Adam. He wanted Kristjan to stay— Adam was tired of people coming and going from his life. Though he planned on leaving this life behind soon to go to college, he wanted Kristjan to be there to keep his sister company even if she was often busy researching and teaching. He wanted more of a family to come home to on vacations. He wanted someone to take the place of his father.

“Adam, if you keep your head in the clouds you’ll miss everything that’s about to happen, and you’ll regret it. Regrets turn us into what we fight.” Adam’s foggy eyes cleared up from his train of thought and for a fleeting moment he thought about how Kristjan’s words sounded thoughtful, genuine. It was like Adam’s father, and Adam wished Kristjan sounded like that more often.

Adam began to focus on the mission at hand. They were there to exorcise the phantom P. Darwin Yeates from Wallace Moorcroft. Yeates. Darwin.

P!

Adam realized too late that they lacked information they had neglected to get the day before; the meaning of the P. in the phantom’s name. Adam opened his mouth to tell Kristjan, but before so much as a sneaky little sound could creep out of his mouth, Kristjan spoke up.

“Here comes the client and bait, rolled into one.” Kristjan pushed himself from off the wall. Wallace came into the alley in a half run, breathing hard, and sweat forming on his brow. A haze followed the med school student, and from that haze the shape of a platinum blond man in a white tux formed.

“It’s a fox face.” Adam made note of the phantom’s squinty eyes and narrow face, but he didn’t expect the phantom to hear the comment, let alone respond to it.

“My my, how rude!” The white phantom Yeates appeared in a haze next to Adam, whispering coyly in his ear. Adam’s eyes grew wide in shock and Yeates hit him with a blast of pressure that sent him flying into a pile of garbage. “Words are very important, mon cher, be careful you don’t use them to make hurtful remarks.”

“Adam, try to bind him with a sutra!” Kristjan reached into his coat pockets and brought out three paper charms, each one had the kanji for shikigami, paper guardian, written on them. The charms floated in the air for a simple moment, releasing ripples in the air and glowing a serene blue before morphing into three paper crows that were like an unsettling, lifelike origami. What made it even more unsettling were the three, very organic eyes each crow possessed. The three crows shot swiftly like arrows through the air at Yeates who leapt up and above the flailing Kristjan. Yeates stood in the sky, wagging a finger.

“I’ve got no problem with you two. I’m after the doctor.” Yeates smiled, letting out a soft tsk tsk. As Adam pulled himself from out of the trash, shivers shot down his spine. The crows followed Yeates and dive bombed him, but the phantom kicked his leg, the gust of energy emitting from it knocking the birds away in a plumage of paper feathers. Yeates spotted Wallace helping Adam out of the trash and shot towards him. A split second before the phantom got face-to-face with Wallace a silver hammer with the name MAXWELL engraved on it formed from a brilliant light in Wallace’s hand. Wallace swung with surprising force and his silver hammer met with the phantom’s face, knocking Yeates backwards into the sky. Yeates used his hand to claw at the air like a solid object and slowed himself down, stopping above the group of men.

“Wallace, Wallace, Wallace! You’re even stronger than I remember. You should have used that strength the first time you hit me with your hammer. I get it, though; it was your first time so you were nervous.”

Wallace clutched the hammer tightly in his hand, breathing harshly through his mouth. He gave a primitive war cry, preparing himself to attack the floating phantom. Yeates brought his arm forward, sending out a blast of pressure that forced Wallace back into the brick wall of The Flaming Pickle. While Yeates had been distracted, both Adam and Kristjan had begun chanting a spell in Latin, reading from little black notebooks. Wiry threads sprung from the notebooks, wrapping around the phantom’s form, bringing him back down to ground level. The serious looks on Kristjan and Adam’s faces were the perfect counter to Yeates’ perky outward appearance.

“Mon petit fantome, it’s been a pleasure but you’ve outstayed your welcome. I’m sure you understand, being the dashingly dressed gentleman you are.” Kristjan motioned with his head for the crows to attack. They shot at Yeates, tearing a chunk out of his right arm. “P. Darwin Yeates, you’re…”

Kristjan trailed off. He realized what Adam had realized earlier- they didn’t know what the P stood for.

“Sorry, Kristjan Rupert Callier, Adam James Moomaw and Wallace Policky Moorcroft. I’ll never tell what the P stands for!” Yeates began stringing together French words in a spell. The wires surrounding Yeates, and the birds too left the plane of existence, shattering into paper bits and a fantastic pastel glow that looked like stardust. In what took half a blink, the phantom’s face was in front of Kristjan’s, taunting him, pushing closer.

“How did you get our names?” Kristjan spat at the phantom dressed in blinding white, the contra to his black clothing.

“I was an up-and-coming psychic before death. Lucky me, my powers carried over! Isn’t that just convenient? I can read your minds! Mon cher, your thoughts were so very useful. There was so much I didn’t know about this world.”

Kristjan pushed the phantom’s face away. Yeates stood smugly, mocking the man in black with his fox face. His arm was raised, ready for attack once more when a large crimson flower popped up on his damaged shoulder. Confused, Yeates looked behind himself and came eye to eye with the stony faced Adam. Yeates, shocked, couldn’t prevent Adam from planting two more flowers on his arm before he finally realized what was happening, flying back through the air.

“Oh my, I should take my leave.” Yeates smiled broadly and saluted the group with his flower-covered arm. “Ta ta!”

The phantom vanished in a haze. Wallace sank to the ground, exhausted. Adam looked at Kristjan, frustrated, and Kristjan clenched his fists, angered. They were up against a psychic. That would have been some nice information to have known beforehand.

“There’s no point even trying to use any spells on him now. Way to screw it up, Wallace,” Adam grumbled through gritted teeth, kicking the side of The Flaming Pickle. A jolt of pain shot through his foot. “Now what?”

A back door opened up and out came a muscular man in a shirt slightly too small for him, swaggering just a hair. He looked Kristjan and Adam over and whistled. “Well howdy,” he said with slurred speech that was difficult to understand. “Would you fellas like to come in? The alley isn’t the best place to hang around.”

“The hell?” Adam looked to Kristjan for an answer, but he just shrugged. They looked back at Wallace, who was trying to hide his face from the drunken man.

“Wally? That you?” The drunken man tried, not very hard, to look past Adam and Kristjan. He gave up and started receding back through the door with a groggy shrug. “Whatever, man. I’ll catch you later.”

Things suddenly made a little more sense to Adam and Kristjan.

The Philosophy of the Soul Mate

A Prologue to the Philosophy of the Soul Mate (32 Blaring Trumpets Greet the God of the Brash Rising Sun)

Once upon a time there was a young man named Jeremiah and a young woman named Elsabeth. Though they had never met, they were bound by fate to be each other’s one and only, for time and eternity. In a pre-existent state these two had been one; they had shared a body with four arms, four legs, and two faces, like every other pair of soul mates that had come before, and like every other pair that would come after. But upon coming into the world they were split, then tasked with finding one another. One could not exist without the other, their lives tied together. So what would happen if one died?

First Part: The Girl (Sugar, Spice & Nothing Nice)

            On this particular day Elsabeth woke up and decided “Today I’ll lose a leg!” and went about her way. While not many people would wake up and decide something horrible would happen to them, Elsabeth did only because she was convinced that if she kept on thinking about horrible things happening, they never would. She assumed it was much like the old saying a watched pot never boils. As with most days lately she was particularly bitter for no apparent reason and thought the only way to solve this was by doing something rash.

Among the foolhardy things Elsabeth had done in her life, the list most recently included her dyeing her silky blond hair a cobalt blue then insisting on chopping it off without giving it so much as a second thought. Continuing on, in the past few months she had changed her style of clothes from perky pinks to baggy jeans and polos, from all black to army pants and tank tops, and then to baseball tees and capris. She finally settled on plaid skirts over jeans and ironic t-shirts that basically said “I’m cool but I don’t care.” She got new piercings, then removed them; she’d gotten a tattoo of the symbol for infinity on her shoulder, and thereafter wished it wasn’t permanent; and then decided to start taking golf lessons because she was going through a plaid phase. Today’s adventure, she was determined, would involve driving a golf cart through one of the outdoor malls. How she would get a golf cart she wasn’t sure, but it would happen.

            Dear baby-faced Elsabeth, precisely cute as a button in lieu of the plaid, stopped at the crosswalk on the corner of Monroe Way and Hepburn Road on the east end of River City. She waited impatiently for the light at the walk to change so she could cross and even thought about jay walking once or twice, but she stayed put. She was restless. She spotted a dog rounding the corner. The thought crossed her mind that her patient impatience had been rewarded with a disgustingly adorable distraction. This delighted her. However, as the dog drew nearer, something didn’t sit quite right with her.

            The deceitfully dandy dog, a lean Dalmatian, staggered with each step it took. Through weighted breathing it picked up the girl’s scent, lifting its head and staring right at Elsabeth with deranged red eyes. The dandy dog picked up its pace and ran at her. Her body released a smell of fear now and the dandy dog picked up on it, allowing it to fuel him, motivate him. Before she could fully turn to run the dog had clawed at her leg, nails gouging her pale skin. Tiny Elsabeth produced a scream bigger than seemed possible. She swatted the dog with an arm decorated in bracelets that covered scars, and she wondered how bad of a mark the dog’s scratch would leave if she got away.

            Into the street she stumbled. She heard a horn. She saw the car. She saw her life. Then, she saw nothing.

Second Part: The Boy (Hairs, Snails & Tall Tales)

            “You are all forgiven!”

            Those words rang loudly through Jeremiah’s head. Honestly, he had no idea he had even done anything wrong. Granted, as a twenty-something young man he was in fact the most likely candidate to do something that needed forgiving, on average and statistically speaking of course. He was in fact painfully average; short brown hair he didn’t do a thing with, an average frame that he tried horribly hard to build muscle on, and a slightly less than average but typical biblical American name. Boring was the best way to describe his life. Mediocrely boring. He woke up, went to classes, work, and then home. On Tuesdays he hung out with the guys, every other Thursday was karaoke night at the bar, and twice a month on a Saturday he would sit in his boxers and watch cartoons all day. Sure, sometimes he’d stay up late to watch infomercials or poorly dubbed foreign movies during the week, but did that really put any excitement in his life? Not really, no. The most exciting thing that had ever happened to him was that golfing cart accident he had when he was sixteen, the effects of which caused him to forget how to tie his shoes and the purpose of q-tips. Overnight Velcro had become his new best friend.

Today especially all of this information really hit him hard. He needed someone to stir spontaneity into the mundane soup of his life.

            Something felt off-balance in his universe. There was a shift, like something important had been lost. His entire being was affected, as if a part of him was suddenly killed off and left a gaping hole in its place. Jeremiah stared at the man on the box preaching to all the people who were getting off of the trains and buses. How was he any more special than any of the people here? He wondered what they had all done that needed forgiving, and if any of them took the man on the box seriously. These thoughts gave the young man a strange connection to those around him, a unique sense of bonding to the complete strangers. They had all screwed up, apparently. They all needed forgiving. And he appreciated that brief sensation of xeno.

It was not the sensation he was looking for, unfortunately. It did not fill his void. The sensation he wanted was for someone to complete him, the hopeless romantic that he was.  Jeremiah couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand feeling so dreadfully bland, like he was lacking any significant achievement to make him special.

As if it were an answer to his unspoken prayer, or by some cosmic force, he saw a sight he could not un-see; a man stealing a woman’s purse. This wasn’t boring. This was excitement. The chance he had been waiting for, an opportunity for achievement. He could be a hero. He saw it on the news all the time, normal people taking opportunity by the hand and doing something brave for the sake of helping out a fellow human. He could help himself by helping a fellow human.

            The purse snatcher ran from the woman and right towards where Jeremiah stood waiting, further proving that opportunity was presenting itself to him. Jeremiah shouted “Stop!” and tried to block the purse snatcher, who brushed past Jeremiah, escaping his grasp. Jeremiah gave chase. The thief turned around. He brandished a gun. He pulled the trigger. With one shot Jeremiah’s mediocre life began fading away.

His body lay in a crumpled heap on the pavement in the west end of River City. He could see the preacher from the box standing over him, probably saying the same thing—You are all forgiven! Was the shooter even forgiven? The man who had taken Jeremiah’s short-lived existence without much thought, all for the little money he could gather from a stolen purse, could he even be forgiven? Yes or no it didn’t matter. What mattered was the serenity and completion he felt in the image of a girl in plaid that kept flashing before his eyes.

An Epilogue to the Philosophy of the Soul Mate (32 Whimpering Trumpets Greet the God of the Eternally Waning Moon)

            Two who used to be one cannot, shall not, live without the other. Bound by something great in a world filled things shiny and new, yet terrible too, they will always arrive at their final destination: Each other. And though happenstance prevented them from meeting in this life, both died because of their bond. They were united once again as they had been before their separation. The down to Earth man and the girl with her head in the clouds were two pieces of one whole, and together were perfect. Everybody has somebody, and why should one live without the other?

The Windmill

The foundation shook, and cracked. The world crumbled underneath Nicholson’s swift feet, feet that carried him with little effort as though he was Hermes dancing on the wind. The concave city ate itself without any care for the trouble, chaos and anarchy it was causing. The spell cast only hours ago on the city to make it prosperous once more had gone horrible awry, leaving the population to grasp out desperately for refuge. Only those who thought as quickly as Nicholson ran could conjure up a way to escape and fewer were kind enough to share their knowledge. But not Nicholson Schiaf. Nicholson shared his escape with the red head he was so painfully infatuated with, Rennet de la Fraisier. She was waiting for him patiently by the old city windmill, clutching her art supplies with one hand and keeping her straw hat on with the other.

“Nicholson, I’m ready!” Her voice sounded strained as she shouted, her high voice fighting with the sounds of their dying home, Lé Plumfields. Nicholson might not have known this, but her affection for him was grander than the destruction that followed the young man on his path to her.

“I shan’t be but a minute, Rennet!” And indeed he wasn’t. He met Rennet with a kiss and handed her the leather-bound magic book he was carrying. She opened up to the dog-eared page, and began painting the symbol she saw in the text in a light pastel blue on the windmill; the colour having to do as much with the symbol and spell as the actual shape. It was a simple enough sign, and once finished it shone magnificently like the light from a lighthouse leading a ship to safety. The patch of land with the windmill rose from the ground, and hovered.

“Magnificent, Rennet!” Nicholson gasped in awe, marveling at the girl’s work with the magic spell. He fastened on his padded goggles over his teal eyes and tightened the soft white scarf around his neck.

“It was simple, really.” Rennet warmly responded. With little effort the floating windmill island took to the azure skies, and flew along the azure sea and azure flames that engulfed the crumbling, tumbling buildings. Nicholson and Rennet flew forever free.

“Where is our next stop, Rennet?” An excited Nicholson asked, awed by the sight of destruction below.

“Adventure, Nicholson. Adventure is our next stop.”