Superheroes

I'd love to tell you about this short story, but I'm going to step aside and let it speak for itself. If you have any questions, please comment or email me, and I'll be more than happy to answer them!

They used to call us superheroes.

    I dropped out of my levitation, and then turned in a circle to survey the wreckage of what had once been a downtown city street. If I hadn’t known what it had been two days ago, before my fellow superhumans blew through this place, I probably would have thought somebody had dropped a bomb on it. Two days ago the sidewalks would have been abuzz with human conversation, and the scents of tacos and burgers and coffee wafting out of the nearby shops. Tonight the asphalt was torn into chunks, most of the buildings reduced to piles of concrete and broken glass, and the streetlights bent and mangled like dead weeds.

    Standing in the middle of such vast destruction, it was easy to see why normal humans had demoted us. What kind of a hero left the city they claimed to save in a state like this?

    Once upon a time the fights might have been about some kind of heroism, or a higher calling to protect the general public from superhuman terrorists. But if those motives ever existed, they had long since devolved into a web of bitter, intergenerational vendettas that fueled the mass destruction of today.

    It almost hurt to think about. This wasn’t the first city street I had seen torn to pieces. It wasn’t the first time I had seen thousands of livelihoods destroyed after a two-hour fight. It wasn’t the first time I’d spotted a single scuffed shoe lying on the ground, and wondered if its owner escaped the chaos alive.

    I inhaled, shut my eyes, and lifted my arms above my head. I could sense the loose chunks of concrete and asphalt and metal on the ground. I pictured them rising up, and from the strain on my telekinesis I knew that they were obeying. And then I pictured the city street that had been here two days before. I imagined the pieces of rubble rotating and moving through the air into their original positions. I imagined them fitting together, the seams between each separate chunk disappearing, leaving a whole and complete structure in their place.

    And when I opened my eyes, that was what I saw. Downtown probably had not been this quiet in fifty years, but it was whole again. The streetlights had come back on, lighting my handiwork up in sodium orange. Tall glass-and-concrete buildings lined a uniform sidewalk, and a smooth road ran down the middle. A light breeze picked up, waving the leaves in trees along the sidewalk. Cars sat parked along the edges of the street. The only thing lacking from this block of downtown was its citizens.

    I smiled and turned a slow circle. The rest of the street looked the same: deserted, but intact.

    I had done good work, but I still couldn't give everything back. I couldn't bring back the people who had died in the fight. I couldn't give the public what they think a superhuman should be: a catchy code name, a flashy costume, a personal tagline. If they saw anything of me, it would probably be grainy security footage of an unmasked girl in jeans and a white t-shirt.

    But there is something that I want to give them, someday. I want to bring back the hope that not all superhumans are merely superhuman, and the hope that maybe, just maybe, some of us are superheroes.

Some Clarifications

Hey guys! I've had multiple people actually apologize to me for not reading this blog, and that really surprised me. I'm writing this post to clarify that no apologies are necessary.

I understand that you guys have tests to take, errands to run, and crying babies to care for. I understand that my writing may not be your cup of tea, and you'd rather go for a run, take a nap, or play a video game. I understand that you stare at a computer screen all day at work and once you get home, you can't stand to look at another one.

If you don't want to, or don't have time to read this blog, I understand.

(I guess it's a little ironic that this is a blog post, isn't it?)

Anyway. I created this blog because I had people express their interest in my writing, and I wanted a way to share it with them. That's all this is. If you're interested, my work is here for you to read. If you're not, that's great. This blog is here for your convenience, not mine.

So please, don't apologize to me. Please, if you'd rather be building a birdhouse or playing pool, go enjoy yourself! I won't be offended or hurt if you don't read. But if, on the other hand, you've exhausted all of the other fun things to do on the internet, and you think, "Hmm. I wonder what Natalie has posted on her blog lately," -- then I say go for it.

Thanks guys! Over and out--

Natalie

P.S. I haven't posted on this blog in months. That's mostly because I haven't written anything that I thought would be post-worthy. That's about to change.

Asleep In Eden, Part Five

This is very, very late, and I'm very, very sorry (and a little bit embarrassed) if anyone happened to be following this little story. My apologies. This is the last part, though, so if you like, you can finish the Asleep In Eden tonight! (This is about nine pages long, just as forewarning.) Enjoy!

For some reason, when I told her guard-goons to “Get out of my way,” they obeyed me. Maybe I had finally perfected my imitation of my father’s gruff, no-nonsense voice. He only used it when he was joking, but apparently, it was also effective when applied to disembodied souls. If I survived this encounter, I’d have to keep that in mind.

I walked straight through the door and into the lobby, where Cadence, flanked by a couple of goons, waited. Her hoodie was up, and she smiled when she saw me.

“I had a feeling you would follow your boyfriend here.”

“Wow. You know me so well,” I said. “Look, I need to—”

That was when I noticed the body— Marco’s body. He was lying on the floor, his arms raised above his head, looking peaceful in sleep. I stared at Cadence. What had she done to him?

“Oh, don’t worry,” Cadence said. “I haven’t hurt him. Just removed his soul.”

Yeah, sure, because that doesn’t leave any lasting damage. But it won’t, not if I can help it. I swallowed. As much as I hated what she’d done to Marco, I wasn’t going to solve anything unless I dealt with Cadence.

“I came to talk to you.”

“Did you? How considerate. You know it’s been nearly a century, and we haven’t sat down for coffee once?”

“Yeah, I know. I’d get you a cup of java but I think you’d rather listen to my offer.”

Cadence smiled. She looked amused, amused and curious. Humans probably didn’t make her offers very often.

“Your offer?” She laughed. “You have an offer for me?”

“Yep!” I nodded, trying to ignore my pounding heart. “And I think you’ll like it.”

“You think you have something worth offering me.”

“I said yes, didn’t I?” I grinned. I was talking fast, trying to hide my nervousness. “How long have you been trying to kill me, Cadence? A hundred years?”

Cadence just stared.

“Are you offering me your life?”

“Yes. Well, no. I mean, not for free.” I laughed. My heart was not beating any more. This was more of a flutter. “If you want me to go down without a fight, you’re gonna have to put these good people back in their bodies.”

A lump formed in my throat as my eyes shifted back to Marco’s limp form.

“All of them.”

I looked back at Cadence. She smiled.

“You say you’ll go peacefully?”

“Yes ma’am I will.”

“Well then,” she said. She stepped towards me, her hoodie casting a shadow down to her nose.

“Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “Not yet, Cadence! How am I supposed to know that you put them back if I’m dead? Do that first.”

Cadence paused.

“Do it first or I run, Cadence. And you should know I’m hard to catch.”

She sighed and waved at a couple of her goons.

“Seize her and hold her until I am finished. This is your last order.”

They stepped forward and grabbed my arms.

“Hey, wait. You can’t just— Cadence. You have an end to fulfill, too.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Dear Jane, that’s what I’m doing.”

Cadence lifted her fingers to snap them, and—

My eyes flew wide and I bolted upright in bed. I gasped, blinking. Was I... Was I dead?

I lifted my hand to get a closer look, but when I moved it off the bedspread, the quilt moved with it.

The longer I stared at my hand, the more I felt ready to faint. So not dead, then. No, in fact I was closer to life than I’d been in an entire century. I was back in my own skin.

“Um, Jane? S-Sorry about that.”

I jumped and turned in the direction of the sound. Marco was standing over me, touching his lips. His cheeks were beet red.

I blinked and squinted at him. “Sorry about what?”

His eyes widened. “Oh... Um... Never mind!”

I turned my head to the side and studied him. “What?”

He grinned, but it was pretty clear he was still embarrassed. “Is this your stuff, Jane? I don’t know, it just seemed more... you than the stuff downstairs.”

I looked around and gasped.

The entire room was full of my stuff. There were climbing roses everywhere— those were my mom’s favorite. Back when this was still our house, she had planted them all around and watered them every day.

The chair and desk in the corner, that was the very same one my dad had built for me. My parents must have moved it up here after I fell asleep, to make me more comfortable. And the quilt... the quilt spread over my legs, that was the one my mom had made for me.

I teared up and grabbed fistfuls of the fabric in my hands. I missed them so much...

“JANE CARVER!” came Cadence’s powerful voice from downstairs.

My tears spilled. Of course, of course it had to be after I had regained my own body and relics of my parents that I had to fulfill my promise to Cadence.

“I’m sorry,” I told Marco. I shoved the quilt off my legs, stood up, and walked to the door. “I have to go.”

Before Marco could respond, I turned the handle and walked back downstairs. Cadence was screaming at her captive spirits to find me, but the moment I stepped onto the ground floor everything went silent.

I forced a smile— not that it would do much good. She could see the tears on my cheeks. “Sorry about that, Cadence. Minor interruption, but... I’ll still go through with my end if you’re game.”

Cadence squinted at me like I had come back covered in mud.

“What?”

“Oh,” I said. She probably didn’t understand all of my slang. “I, um—” I tried to blink past my tears. “We can still complete the deal if you want.”

Her smile was wide. She must have seen me trying to swallow the lump in my throat and hide the tears on my cheeks.

“Excellent,” she said, and she sounded like she really meant it.

She snapped her fingers, and immediately all of her captive souls toppled to the ground. It wasn’t easy going back in-body again. Behind her, Marco groaned and slid one of his hands down to his temple.

 We were alone again, and the dusty wooden walls of my house had never seemed so lonely and quiet.

“They’ll wake up in...” she slid the sleeve of her hoodie up and checked her watch. “A few minutes. Now.”

Cadence stepped towards me, and even though I couldn’t see her magic crackling around her form I could feel it. It slid through the air and brushed against the edges of my soul like invisible electricity. More tears slipped down my cheeks. Of all the smug mugs and obnoxiously bright blue hoodies to die staring at, Cadence’s was at the bottom of my list. I gritted my teeth and stared anyway. I had made my choice.

She snapped her fingers, and then there was fire.

I arched my back and screamed.

My soul was ablaze. I could feel the flames licking away at my memories, burning up my emotions and leaving nothing but charred ash in place of my consciousness. I could feel myself burning away.

I was losing every memory I had ever made. They burned brighter just before they died out, lost forever.

I remembered Marco, sticking a bite of spaghetti into his mouth and listening to me tell him about why Cadence was chasing me.

I remembered Cadence, body tense as she realized that I had escaped her yet again.

I remembered my own name, now nothing but fuel for the hungry magical flames.

And then the rocking horse my father had made for me shone onto my vision. Then, flame.

My mother’s climbing roses.

I forced myself to work past the pain and focus on her face.

The quilt she had made me.

I pried my quivering lips apart.

Their gravestones.

“Please... Please,” I said. “Let me die knowing who my parents were.”

She snapped. The flames stopped. I stood there, gasping for breath and sweating hard. Tears ran uncontrollably down my cheeks.

“Surely you know they’re the reason you’re suffering like this, Jane,” Cadence said.

I didn’t bother trying to figure out who Jane was and just nodded. “I know.”

Cadence had taken pains to make sure I knew that everything she put me through since she cursed me at birth was my parents’ fault. She had never told me exactly what they had done, but I didn’t care. They had loved me, and I loved them back.

“And you still care enough to want to remember them? Surely you must hold some resentment, some anger.”

I stared straight into Cadence’s brown eyes and shook my head. “I love them just as much as they loved me.”

“Your parents were bumbling idiots, Jane,” Cadence said. “They forgot about me. Forgot as if I’d never existed.  If they had remembered to invite me, perhaps you would have a sixth and a seventh gift instead of a curse and a weak excuse of a spell to counteract it. This is their fault. Don’t ever forget that.”

She raised her fingers to snap, but I gritted my teeth and told her, “I don’t care.”

Cadence lowered her fingers again. “Do you mean that, Jane?”

“I love them,” I said, forcing the words out through my parched lips.

“And that will never change?”

Tears dripped onto my cheeks and shirt.

“Never.”

“Very well,” Cadence said pleasantly, and snapped her fingers.

The flames returned, and I could feel everything going. My memories, more than I could count or comprehend, burned under her magic. I was rapidly losing the ability to feel anything but pain, rapidly losing my own mind and the ability to think.

When my own life was hanging by a single thin thread, the pain stopped. I dropped to the ground on my hands and knees, breathing hard, barely able to think.

I dragged my head up and saw her, surrounded by a gang of her former underlings. Bonnie had yanked her hood off of her head and now clenched a fistful of Cadence’s white-blonde hair in her fist.

“No further,” Pam said tightly.

Cadence glared at them with a hatred almost as fierce as the one she reserved for me.

“Do you really want to challenge me?”

Most of her goons took a step back at that, and even if they didn’t move, I could feel their hesitation.

“Have you forgotten what I can do?”

“No,” came Amy’s strong, calm voice. “We haven’t. We’re been following you around for ten years, Cadence, and we’ve learned how your magic works. Right now, you’re about out of juice, and you know you can’t take all of us at once. You’re outnumbered and unarmed.”

“And so you choose to protect Jane,” Cadence said. “After what she’s done to you? After all of the times she hit you?”

I swallowed.

“You hit us just as much as Jane did,” said the skinny punk kid. “You never apologized.”

“This is not between us and Jane,” Pam said. “This is between us and you, Cadence.”

Cadence glared at them with enough force to start a fire.

“I’d guess,” said Amy, “That you have enough juice to either undo the damage you’ve done to Jane, or finish the job. You’re going to fix your mistakes. That’s not a request.”

In all the time I’d known her, I had never seen Cadence lose her composure. Today I saw her gulp.

“I have every right to end her,” she said, her hands balled into fists. “She agreed to it.”

“Yes, but then you’ll be completely out of magic, which would leave you vulnerable, wouldn’t it?”

Cadence fixed me with a stare that felt like it was boring holes in my face. She could see their logic. She knew she was outnumbered, but she did not want to let go of her prize.

 “It’s your choice, Cadence,” I said. “I made you a deal, and I’ll accept whatever you decide to do.”

“So, Cadence?” Bonnie said. “What’ll it be? Are you going to be smart or are you going to be stubborn?”

Cadence stared at me for another moment. I expected her to spit at my feet, swear revenge, or slap me. Instead she slid Bonnie’s hand out of her hair, stood up, and approached me.

We stood eye-to-eye, regarding each other. I had never really gotten a good look at her before now. I had always been running too hard, but now I could see that there was a deep, deep pain in her eyes. She had lost something ancient.

Cadence’s hands hung at her sides, but I noticed every one of her movements. My future was completely in her control, and I had no idea what she would do with it.

Cadence sighed, and turned back to her former captives. “If I let her go, none of you will touch me.”

Amy nodded.

I shut my eyes as Cadence faced me, stepped forward, and pressed two fingers to my forehead. I gasped. Everything was back, restored as if the magical flame had never touched my soul at all. Even the pain was gone.

Then she turned and walked away. The door swung shut in the doorframe, and a few minutes later her engine rumbled into the distance.

Marco jumped up and ran over to me.

“Jane!” he yelled. “What were you thin—”

“Hey, just a minute, okay?”

I turned my attention to Cadence’s goons, who were now just normal people.

“Thanks, guys,” I said. I tried to say more, but there was a huge, stupid grin plastered across my face and tears pricking at my eyes. I couldn’t really get the words out.

Amy just laughed. “After you stuck up for us, and the way Cadence treated us, there was no way we were going to let her win. Cadence wasn’t the only one out for revenge.”

“So!” Pam turned to the Cadence’s other, former captives. “Where to from here?”

They congregated into a circle and started making plans, and watching them, I realized that in ten years they had always had something I never had— companionship. While I didn’t envy them, and I felt awful that Cadence had even pulled them into this mess, at least they hadn’t had to go through it alone.

“Jane!” There was a hand on my shoulder. “Jane, what were you thinking?”

I turned to face Marco.

“Can I tell you later?” I asked. “I’m really hungry. Do you want dinner?”

Marco glared at me. “You can tell me in the booth at Sam’s.”

We filed out of the museum, and Cadence’s crew headed their own way. Marco and I headed down to Sam’s as fast as our legs could carry us. I took a deep breath of the nighttime air and pushed the door open myself. Right now, nothing felt better than the feeling of my muscles contracting and relaxing.

The plate of spaghetti the waitress set down in front of me was even better.

“All right,” Marco said, taking a huge bite of his sub. “Talk.”

I pointed to the bulge of noodles in my cheek.

“Hey! I waited long enough for this, Jane. Talk.”

I sighed, swallowed the spaghetti and told him everything: about how Cadence’s captured souls still had lives to live, and my running only wasted their time. They had so much more to live for than I did. They had more than a pair of gravestones waiting for them at home.

By the time I finished, my spaghetti had gotten cold and I had mostly lost my appetite, but I sighed and twirled another bite anyway. Marco had fallen silent.

I studied my plate, and then I looked up at him again.

“Do you know what made me wake up?”

Marco blinked. “Hmm? Oh... um, yeah. That was me.”

I squinted at him. “What?”

He cleared his throat. “After Cadence pulled me out, I figured it would be a good time to, you know, check a few things out and see if I could find you. And it wasn’t hard, you know, since I could get through whatever door I wanted. So once I got in— well.” Marco coughed a couple of times. “Y-You woke up pretty soon after that.”

I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face. “Well, thanks. I really appreciate it, Marco.”

I leaned back against the squeaky red vinyl. In one hundred years, it’s sadly easy to forget how good it feels to be full, but I was glad to say that I had finally remembered.

Everything Cadence had done to me was behind me now, and I could finally move forward.

My semi-normal life was about to begin.

Asleep In Eden, Part Four

     It's been... what, three weeks? I got lazy. I'm sorry. Please accept this offering of prose as my apology. (Word count warning: 1969 words or 6 pages). Have a great night, kids!

     After they left, I could hear more of Cadence’s soul-goons clambering through Marco’s apartment. I swallowed and shrunk further back into the closet, staring at dust bunnies and praying that the souls would not find me. I wanted to leave the place altogether, but I needed information, and if I stayed here and eavesdropped I might get it.

     I could hear them asking each other quiet questions, and sometimes see their shadow cast across the strip of light underneath the closet door. I held my breath and waited, but after an hour or two it became clear that they were not leaving anytime soon. Cadence knew I had to be somewhere in the vicinity. Maybe her underlings had seen me leaving the movie theater. Whatever had happened, I knew that these souls were here looking for me, and if I wanted to get out, I would have to be real, real subtle.

     I slipped through the wall behind me— slowly, carefully. Cadence’s goons might notice sudden movements, even sudden movements from inside the closet. But I had to get out, which meant I just had to hope that his neighbors weren’t home.

      I did not have time to finish praying they were not at home before I noticed the large, balding man in the recliner. He had trouble focusing on me, and it looked like the culprit was lack of rest.

      “Get some sleep,” I told him. “You’re hallucinating.”

      With that, I hurried through the far wall into his neighbor’s apartments. They were not home, so I stopped to catch my breath for a bit.

      I knew I couldn’t stay here long. Cadence’s minions would only stay in Marco’s apartment for so long, and then they’d start looking elsewhere. I needed to get out of the building— and the sooner, the better.

      But I couldn’t just take the stairs or the fire escape down to the first floor. Undoubtedly, Cadence would have goons surrounding the building on the sidewalk. I walked to the window to check, and sure enough, there were plenty of her soul-slaves standing outside the building. I sighed. It was not the first time I wished Cadence was a little bit more careless.

      So I needed a way to get down that did not involve fire escapes or stairs, because otherwise at least one of the souls would see me. I wasn’t sure if I could sink through upstairs floors into lower apartments, but if I could, I had no guarantees that everyone in the apartments would be as dazed as Marco’s next door neighbor. Any screams would definitely bring Cadence’s underlings running.

      I sighed, forcing myself to think. I needed to get out, and I needed to get out now. But what other way was there? There was an elevator at the end of the hall, but it had a very old, yellow “Out of Order” sign posted on the front and I kind of suspected that it had been out of order since the complex opened. The elevator cab was probably stuck at the bottom of the shaft, and would probably never take passengers again.

      But I didn’t need the elevator cab. I was out-of-body. I was just a soul, and the only things that could hurt me were other souls. So the fall down the shaft would be nothing but scary.

      Really scary, now that I thought of it. Willingly stepping into a thirty-foot empty elevator shaft would probably be the scariest thing I had ever done. But I had to do it. How else was I going to get down to the first floor?

      I walked over to the walls and peeked out into the hallway to see if any of Cadence’s goons had been smart enough to check the hallway. Of course, Cadence is more thorough than I could ever imagine, so naturally she had one standing outside of Marco’s door, fortunately turned the other way.

      I slipped back inside of the apartment to give myself time to breathe and think. If I was fast, the soul might not see me. I knew he wouldn’t hear me— disembodied souls don’t make noise.

      That was enough planning for me. I slipped out and dashed towards the elevator. I didn’t give myself time to think. I ran straight through the “Out of Order” sign and the elevator doors, falling straight down to the bottom of the shaft and straight into the elevator cab.

      It didn’t even hurt, but I didn’t give myself time to think about that. I had to get out of here. I checked all of the nearby walls until I found one that led into the parking lot. I was thoroughly disappointed to see it crawling with them.

      I slid into a dumpster and sat down against the floor to hide and wait until Cadence decided that I was not in the building and called her goons off. I really hated how much I had to hide and avoid her, but it was not as if I could do much against a flesh-and-blood fairy. Whenever I peeked through the dumpster to check, her goons were always standing there, watching. It was ten o’clock at night before I realized that Cadence was not going to call them off. If I wanted to get out of this apartment complex, I would have to call off her souls myself.

      I peeked at the souls who were guarding the place. I hated it, but in the ten years I had been running away from Cadence I had gotten to know her minions pretty well— and not in an entirely good way. She has had some of these goons for years, and since I have practically had to beat them off of me the entire time, I know exactly where their weak spots are. So when I saw Keith standing outside one of the back entrances, I almost sighed in relief.

      I will never be sure why she pulled that poor kid out-of-body. Maybe she had thought he had a loud voice, and could warn the other souls when he saw me. Whatever her reasoning was, it was a mistake, and I was glad of it. Keith was a whole lot easier to take out than her other souls.

      I waited until the punk kid who had been standing with him walked around the corner to abate his boredom, and then I slid out of the trash can where I had been hiding and wrapped a hand around Keith’s mouth. He squirmed, but it did not matter. The only way a disembodied soul can make noise is vocally, and I did not need to worry about that.

      After ten years, I had learned exactly how to do a soul in— not that I liked it. A hit or two in the right places, on the exposed nerves, and that would give them enough pain to keep them quiet while I dragged them off somewhere they would not be heard. Not that I enjoy it— I hate dealing a beating like this to another human being, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I have to give them motivation to leave me alone. So those exposed nerves were exactly where I had to hit this poor little boy. I hate these beatings, but they have gotten easier to stomach. That scares me sometimes.

      I dealt him a final punch and released the poor kid. He fell to the ground, and I knelt beside him the way I always did.

      “I’m sorry, Keith,” I promised him. “I really am. I hate this. I’ll do my best to make it better once this is all over.”

      I stood up and tried to forget the sight of his poor bruised face as I walked away. I squared my shoulders and headed downtown, reminding myself that this was for Marco.

      The walk into the downtown historic district was relatively easy. Once I got there, deciding what to do was not. Now, along with my body and Cadence, Marco was here too, and if I knew Cadence he would be guarded by at least four-soul goons. And it was my fault. I tried not to think about that as I slipped between shops, warehouses, and alleys, trying to find Cadence or Marco or someone who might lead me to them.

      I spent the rest of the night searching and the rest of the night avoiding my old house. After yesterday, I did not want to spend any more time looking at the commercial mess this city had made out of my life and my memories. But after another two hours of searching, I could not deny it any more. If I were Cadence, I would definitely make the museum my headquarters. The only way I was going to find Marco was by looking there.

      On the way over to my old house all I could think of was Marco, and the way he had tried to help me even at the cost of getting captured himself. I blinked. I could picture his face, probably horrified, as the soul dragged him away to Cadence. He had risked all of that for me. He had lost all of that for me.

      And Marco was not the only one who had lost himself to me. I hated thinking about it, but Cadence had a way of dragging other people out of their bodies and into our dispute. And I could not pretend that I had not hurt them too. There was the obvious pain— the kind I inflicted to get them to leave me alone or make an escape. But the fact that they had to do this at all... that was my fault, too. If Cadence and I never had this fight, she would have left them to their own lives and I had no doubt they preferred those. I heard them talking about it, sometimes, while they kept an eye out for me outside a building or while I hid from them inside a filing cabinet. And every time I though the pain Cadence and I had caused them, it hurt me too.

      The sooner I ended this, the sooner Cadence’s captive souls, and Marco— and Cadence too, I guess— could go back to our normal lives. That was what had been telling myself for ten years, and now, in less than a week, it would finally be over.

      And I finally knew what I wanted.

       I wanted Marco to be able to go back to Galaxy Comics and his apartment. I wanted Cadence to send her captives back into their bodies and go back to the humanitarian work she had told me she loved to do when she was not busy exacting revenge.

      And me? What did I have to go back to? A house-turned-museum to produce income for the city of Eden? My parents’ silent headstones in the local cemetery? I blinked back tears and kept walking. They all had something to go back to: Marco, Cadence, her captives. But I did not. And I knew what it felt like: losing parents, the only home I had ever known, ninety years of my life. I had nothing to go back to, but I kept running anyway, hoping that I could get away from Cadence alive.

      Meanwhile I had caused them all of this pain. I had never realized how selfish that was. If I succeeded, and Cadence failed, I doubted she would be good enough to waste time and magic sending them back to their bodies. The lives, the homes, the families... they would never see them again.

      I could not do that to them. I stopped in front of my old house determined. I could not help myself. I knew that now. But maybe I could help them.

Asleep In Eden, Part Three

I had not seen my old house in ten years, though my body had been resting inside since Cadence’s curse had been fulfilled. I caught a very brief glance as I was running out, already out-of-body, but I had never seen what the city of Eden had done to my house.

Over the front door, someone had hung a huge sign that read, “Museum of Eden”. I glared at it. Going inside would be harder than I had thought. Cadence’s mercenary souls had never haunted me as badly as my own memories, and when I stepped inside this house I would be confronted by both of them.

“Come on,” Marco said, gesturing me forward. “You said this was it, right?”

I nodded, too overwhelmed to speak, and followed Marco as he jogged up my front steps. When I lived here, when this was my house, my father’s chair had sat right where the museum employees had put their rack of brochures.

Marco pushed my front door open and I followed, sticking close but not too close. It does not turn out well when disembodied souls make contact with normal souls. Air conditioning blasted right through me— that had not been here in 1914— and then I noticed all of the tourists.

I had known there would be a lot. The Museum of Eden was Eden, Texas’ main attraction— not that Eden had many attractions. Still, there were at least ten people standing in my living room, milling around, staring at my mom’s china and my dad’s rifles, looking at my house and my life through glazed eyes. To them, this museum was about dusty old nobodies who lived a hundred years ago, but there was nothing else exciting in Eden, so they came here.

My hands curled into fists. They had no idea what they were looking at. They did not see the chips in my mother’s china that I had put there at five years old, trying to have a tea party. They did not know how she had forgiven me, putting her hand to my cheek and smiling gently as she wiped away my tears.

“So is it this room?” Marco turned around so fast I had to jump back to avoid touching him. He frowned, but kept watching me, still expecting an answer.

“Not so loud,” I whispered, and scanned the room for anyone who had decided to watch us. No one was looking our way. I turned my attention back to Marco.

“No,” I said. “No, it’s not this room. But please, try to be quieter. She’s got people  looking for me.”

“Oh, yeah,” Marco said. He scanned the room, like I had, for any watching eyes. Seeing none, he turned back to me and said, “Come on!” And before I could tell him the room would be on the upper floors, Marco had turned into the next room over and I followed him to bring him back. On stepping through the doorway, I stopped and stared.

I had forgotten. The room to the immediate left was mine— or had been. In the century since I had been asleep, the museum had made plenty of changes. Gone was every touch of me, everything that had ever meant anything to me, everything I had ever loved. The quilt my mother had made for me, agonizing over every stitch while I was still in the womb, had been replaced by one “generously donated by Doris Emmelby.” The plaquard over my bed said it had probably been made around the time I was born, but I could tell from the fabric that it was nowhere near that old.

“Jane Eden Carver,” Marco said. I turned around, wide-eyed, wondering how he had learned my full name. He was looking at another plaquard and a mannequin that was probably supposed to be a fifteen-year-old me. I glared at her. My hair is light brown, thank you very much, not black frizzy plastic, and I would never wear a dress in that shade of green. In fact, no one would wear a dress in that style in 1914.

Marco was still reading the text off the plaquard above the mannequin’s head. “...born in 1899, daughter of Henry and Anna Carver. Jane and her family moved to the Carver estate in 1900, shortly after Jane’s birth. She lived here with her parents until her mysterious disappearance in 1914. Her parents founded and named the town of Eden in her honor.”

Marco read the words off the plaquard like it was a dusty, ragged history textbook and not my life. Then he turned around and whispered, “You fit right in around here, don’t you? You’re dressed right, your name’s right... are you some kind of ‘Jane Eden Carver’ imposter? Is that your disguise to keep her from finding you or something?”

 “Marco,” I said quickly, “We should go. This isn’t the room I’m looking for.”

He turned around, scanning the room with mild interest.

“Sorry. I’ve been here three months and this is still my first visit to the Museum of Eden. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Poor girl,” he said, looking at the mannequin, “I wonder what happened to her.”

She got cursed by a fairy. That is what happened to her.

“How nice. I’m sure she appreciates your sympathy. Now please, can we go? I’d like to find this room before they close the museum.”

“Oh. Sure,” Marco said, running up behind me so quickly that I had to jump forward to avoid colliding with him. If we touched, it would get pretty obvious that I was out-of-body. “You said it was one of the upstairs rooms, right?”

“Should be,” I said, but I really did not remember much. It had been ten years since I had left, and I had forgotten all of the details. My body might not even be resting in my own house.

We headed up the stairs and started looking around in the rooms on the second floor. I was grateful that Marco was so unconcerned about Cadence that he looked like a perfectly natural tourist. Maybe if I stuck close enough to him, the “perfectly natural tourist” look would rub off. I knew I could not emulate it myself. I was far too busy looking under doorways for telltale greenery to be wowed my old house.

We wandered through the upstairs rooms for a while. I let Marco read all of the plaquards while I leaned down to check under the doorways. It was getting late and most of the tourists were leaving, but I was not about to go yet. From the looks of things, Marco was also enjoying the museum a little too much.

I bent down and checked the fifth and final door. Again, no greenery. I sighed and tried the handle. It did not turn. Maybe it was where I had fallen asleep, but the lack of rosebuds poking out from underneath the door made me doubt it.

“Hey Jane? You should come see this picture.”

“Actually, we need to—”

 “Are you kids lost?”

I shut my eyes. I recognized that voice, and it did not belong to a sweet lady who worked in the museums, trying to lock up. No, that was one of Cadence’s goons. Amy.

“Lost?” Marco was saying. “No, we’re not lost. We’re just, um, looking for—”

Amy’s footsteps had been getting much closer. I had tried to pretend to be very, very interested in the display of my old rocking horse, but it had not worked. She was practically breathing down my neck. I didn’t want to hurt her, but she really was not giving me much of a choice.

“Jane,” she said softly. I turned around and faced her. She was incredibly pale and getting lighter by the moment. Nervous? I had thought that Cadence would have beaten that out of them by now, especially Amy. She had been with Cadence the longest, and she was one of her toughest fighters.

 “Look, I’m sorry,” she began, reaching out for me.

‘No, don’t be. It’s quite all right,” I replied, slipping around her reach. I hurried across the room to Marco.

“Really, we should—”

“Jane!” Marco had time to shout my name before something slammed into my backside. Amy. I fell onto Marco, squished between them, and I had to act fast.

My legs twisted hard to the side and Amy fell off me. I was up in seconds, and she tried to stand, but I was too fast for her. One kick, one punch, and she was down again. A few more, and she would be out of commission for a while. I teared up, but I had to keep going. Cadence’s soul-troops did not bother for me a while after they had suffered through one of my beatings, and the less of them I had to deal with at once, the higher my chances of survival.

But seeing what I had to do to Amy to achieve that end brought the tears from my eyes out onto my cheeks. Her body and arms were badly bruised. She was breathing heavily, out of reflex, and clutching her stomach where I had kicked her. When I knelt beside her, she flinched like I was going to hit her again. I felt even worse.

“I’m so sorry, Amy,” I told her, trying to swallow my tears back. “I hate doing this, and if I have it my way it’ll all be over in a couple of days and you can go back to your normal life.” I swallowed again. Amy probably didn’t have a normal life anymore. “I’m so sorry I have to do this. I promise I’ll find a way to make it stop.”

I stood and faced Marco, who was staring at me, wide-eyed. “Let’s just go,” I said.

We went downstairs again and Marco tried to head out the front, but I stopped him. The front of the house would be far too obvious. We slipped out the back instead, and once we had left my house behind us Marco started running. By the time he charged up the stairs of an old apartment building I was sure I’d lost him, but I managed to catch up him in front of his apartment. I fumbled for my breath while he fumbled for his keys. He threw the door open, motioned me inside, and slid the deadbolt shut.

“And NOW you are going to tell me what happened back there.”

I looked at him and breathed, extra hard, hoping he would notice that I was not up to talking yet.

“Jane Carver, you’re gonna tell me right now.”

“Okay... fine,” I said between gasps. There was no more point in hiding the truth from him now that he had touched my soul. He knew my full name, at the very least, and probably several more sensitive details of my life story. I took a few more gulps of air.

“Fairies are real.” If I have to spit out my story, Marco might as well swallow the big chunks first.

“Yeah, and you made one of them pretty mad. So tell me what happened.”

I frowned at him. “How do you—”

“I’ll tell you later, but I can’t help you very well unless you tell me why Cadence is so mad.”

I turned away from him. Yes, this was definitely a story I wanted to revisit. But Marco was right. If he knew, he could help me a whole lot better.

“How do you...” I paused for breath, “know who I am?”

“There was a picture of you with your parents in the museum,” he said. “You were a lot younger, but it was you. So how’d you get to 2014? Time travel?”

I shook my head, still trying to catch my breath.

“So what? Are you 120?”

I shook my head again. “115.”

Marco blinked. “What?”

“It started with my parents,” I said. My breathing had calmed down a lot, so I was actually able to speak. I thought I heard Marco muttering something, but I did not care enough to ask.

“They had wanted a baby for years, so when I was born they invited every fairy in the country to a banquet in my honor, except for one. She had been in the Bahamas for a long time, and they didn’t know she was back.”

Marco whistled and tapped his index finger on the door behind him. “Cadence?”

“Of course. She showed up anyway and said that when I turned fifteen I would die, but there was one last fairy who reversed the curse. I’d just fall asleep for a hundred years, and then somebody’s gonna come rescue me and wake me up. There are more details, but when I asked Bea— the fairy who undid the curse, all I got was a condescending smile.” I laughed, remembering that awful condescending smile. Whatever Beatrice had in store for me, I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Marco stopped tapping and his face lost all color. “Wait. Beatrice?”

“Yep. Beatrice.”

Slowly, he turned red.

“So, um... how long has it been, since you fell asleep?”

“It’ll be a hundred years in just a couple days. I’m not entirely sure.”

“But you’re awake.”

I sighed. “Cadence won’t settle for my being alive, but the only person who can get to me is the person who’s supposed to rescue me. Since she can’t get inside the rooms where my body is, she had to pull me out-of-body to get to me.”

“Out-of-body?” Marco said, taking a step back. “But I can see you.”

I let my annoyance out through a slow, patient sigh.

“Being out-of-body isn’t what you think it is,” I said. “It’s a lot more complicated.”

“Are you a ghost?”

“No, Marco. It’s not that clean-cut.”

“Well, you already agreed to tell me, so you might as well get on with it.”

I sighed, but Marco’s expression did not change.

“The only real difference between a disembodied soul and a normal person is that physical objects are immaterial to me.” I swung my hand through Marco’s couch. “That, and I don’t have to sleep. Or eat. Laws of gravity still apply. I can’t float or sink. Everyone can still see me, and hear me talk.”

“You nearly squished me when that girl bodyslammed you.”

I stepped up to Marco and tapped his chest.

“There is a soul in here,” I said. “Souls aren’t immaterial to me.”

“Okay.” Marco sat down on his misshapen couch cushion and rested a foot on his knee. “So why are you in Eden?”

“I’m trying to find my body and skip town as soon as I can. I don’t think Cadence is going to stop once I’m in my body again.”

“Can’t you just wait for that person Beatrice is supposed to send you?”

“Yeah, I could,” I said, “but I don’t want to wait that long. The sooner I get into my body, the sooner I can skip town and throw Cadence off my track.”

“... How are you going to get back into your body, anyway?”

I had been trying to avoid that question since I got to Eden. By asking it, Marco had poked one more hole in my already thin plan. I was really just trying to get out of Eden alive.

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Beatrice has a stake in this. Maybe she’ll show up and help me out.”

Yes. No one has helped me in the ten years I’ve been out-of-body, and suddenly Beatrice will decide to be merciful.

“Anyway.” The more I talked, the less time I had to think. “The most important thing is that I find my body again.”

Marco’s finger was resting on his lip. He was thinking.

“So what about the girl you attacked the museum?”

“Marco, I did not attack her! She attacked me!”

“Okay, okay! Fine. Why does she hate you?”

I sighed. “She doesn’t hate me. Cadence has been pulling other people out-of-body to track me down. That girl was one of her goons.”

“So why’d you beat her up?”

“I had to put her out of commission for a while,” I said. “If I had all of her goons on my tail at once, I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Marco laughed. “Wow.”

My fingers curled into fists and my fingernails probably cut into my palm.

“Believe me, I don’t want to do it,” I said, “but it’s that or die. They’re all still alive, and so am I. It’s the best option I have.”

“I know. I just... wow.” Marco was still grinning. “Cadence, she’s bad news.”

Why don’t you go ahead and state the obvious, Marco? I really had not noticed before.

“So,” I said. “Still want to help?”

Marco put a finger to his chin and thought at the ceiling.

“Yup,” was his decision.

“Are you insane?”

“No,” Marco said. “Trust me, I know what I’m getting into.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I am. Don’t worry.”

“How do you know about fairies, anyway?”

Marco turned his back to me and walked into another room. He came back with a plastic cup from a barbeque restaurant and took a sip.

“My mom knows a few of them pretty well,” he said. “Now come on. There’s a couch you can sit on in here. We need to talk.”

 “It’s a good idea, you’ve got to admit that,” Marco said. “You put the only girl who saw me ‘out of commission’.”

“I know,” I said, staring out of Marco’s dirty window. “I just don’t want to have to sit here while you do all the work.”

“Didn’t Beatrice say somebody else was supposed to rescue you?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’m helpless,” I said.

“Obviously you aren’t helpless. I saw how you beat that girl up. Where’d you learn to do that, anyway?”

“I watch a lot of action movies,” I told him.

Marco snorted. “Sure. Look, I’ll just scope the place out real nicely after work. If I find anything, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

I stared at his linoleum. I did not like it, but it was a solid plan. None of Cadence’s goons would recognize him. He would not have to pretend to be a tourist. He already was.

“Okay,” I said. “But if anything, ANYTHING, happens, you tell me right away.”

He already had a hand on the doorknob. I got a grin and a salute. “Sure thing, Miss Carver. I’ll be back!”

The door slammed behind him. I sighed and headed down to Eden’s only movie theater to wait.

Marco wanted me to wait in his apartment, but he had been worried about what leaving the TV on all day would do to his electricity bill. I was not about to sit around in a house all day with nothing to do, so I snuck down to the movies. Marco would not be back until after dinner, so I would have plenty of time to get back to his place. Cadence usually kept a soul or two down at the theaters, since she knew they were my favorite hangout, but I had ten years of practice. In a dark movie theater, I was nearly impossible for employees or goons to catch.

By the time Marco got back from dinner, I had watched three movies— a kid’s movie about talking squirrels, some horror flick, and a cheesy romance. I was lounging on his couch, trying to pretend I had been there all day, bored. Since I had managed to avoid Heather and Jim, the goons Cadence had left for me, it was not that hard to fake. I had not exactly had an exciting day.

When I finally heard Marco’s front door opening again I hopped off his couch and sped up to the door like a dog left home all day. Marco’s eyes widened and he grabbed the doorhandle again.

“Well? Did you find anything?”

Marco released the doorhandle.

“Jane! Don’t startle me like that!”

“Sorry. Did you find anything?”

Marco shooed me back and walked over to his kitchen sink. He turned the tap on and splashed some water on his face. When he finished toweling off I finally got a response.

“No,” he said. “No, I didn’t.”

Now I really wanted to tear my hair out.

“Well, that’s peachy.”

Marco shrugged. “Got a plan B?”

“Plan A was your thing, mastermind.”

Marco frowned at me. “I’ll check the place out tomorrow and see if I can find your greenery.”

“Okay. Hey, do you know if—”

“JANE!”

He was staring wide-eyed at something behind me. I skittered to the right as a soul— Pam— ran past me, through Marco’s wall.

Marco and I stared at each other.

“How did she find us?”

“I don’t know. Must have followed me. Jane— We’ve gotta go.”

I ran for the back, the way the soul had come. The faster I could get away, the better. If I had come to injure one more soul again, I was not going to be happy about it. I made it to Marco’s back wall and skidded to a stop. I needed to disappear, but I could not go out back. The soul had probably been hiding on the fire escape or something. It might have backup. Instead I slid sideways into a closet. It was dark, and while I caught my breath I could hear Marco struggling with the soul.

“Let me go!”

“Tell me where she went!” Pam shouted.

“How’d you even find me, you freak?”

“Please, I have to find her,” said Pam. I winced. She really is not a bad person, but Cadence has made all of them so desperate.

“Do I look like I know?” Marco asked. “She’s out-of-body! She could be anywhere. And if you want to find her, you should probably let go of me, ‘cause you won’t catch her if you’re hanging on to me.”

“Where is she?”

“Okay, okay!” Marco said. “I can’t help you find her unless you let me go.”

There were some stumbling sounds. I shut my eyes. He was not really going to lead her to me.

“Okay,” Marco said. “Let’s check the kitchen. Jane! Hey! You in the kitchen?”

I opened my eyes again. He was throwing her off my track— again. My lips lifted in a smile. If Marco was good at anything, he was really good at confusing Cadence and her goons.

“Jane! You using the restroom or something?”

I heard him open and close a few doors. Then there was more scuffling.

“If you’re just going to stall,” she said, “you might as well come with me.”

I heard Marco try to yell, but something muffled the noise. My feet itched to leave the closet and help, but I forced myself to stay put. I was not going to do myself or Marco any good if I revealed myself now. If there was anything I had learned in ten years of being out-of-body, it was that I had limited advantages, and I had to exploit them to their full extent.

I squeezed my eyes shut, listening hard. I heard forced footsteps and stumbling. I slipped out of the closet and made it to the front door just as the soul was pushing Marco out.

I swallowed. This was my fault, mine alone, and I swore to myself that I would fix it.

The Inspiration behind Asleep In Eden

At first, I wasn't going to give any background info on why I wrote Asleep In Eden, but it's been a week since then and I decided some sort of introduction would be good. (Even if I've already posted the first part of the story.) (Oops/Sorry.)

I really love it when writers take old fairy tales and rework them into something that is new and fresh. That was my goal with Asleep In Eden. It's based on the fairy tale I could never bring myself to like, Sleeping Beauty.

In case you're wondering what in the world I was thinking when I picked my least favorite fairy tale to rewrite, I'll tell you. I dislike Sleeping Beauty for many of the reasons that also made me think it would be the most challenging story to rewrite. And I love me a good challenge.

When I stared working on it, I had a lots of issues with the story itself. I couldn't understand why the evil fairy would quit harassing Sleeping Beauty if she knew that Sleeping Beauty got a happy ending. I knew wanted Sleeping Beauty (or Jane, in my case) to be the main character, and I wanted to see if I could make her interesting. This presented the hardest part of the story (and one reason I dislike the fairy tale): My main character was literally going to be sleeping through most of her own story. (Talk about lazy, seriously. Shame on you.) I didn't want to go against anything that the original story had explicitly said. But I knew that if I wanted let Jane catnap and take also an active part in the story, she would to have to be two places at once.

So finally, I let her do just that. Asleep In Eden is the story of Jane Carver (aka Sleeping Beauty) and her final days in a very long out-of-body experience.

That is my premise for Asleep In Eden, and how I arrived at it. The actual text is about 30 pages long and divided up into five parts. I will be posting the entire story over five weeks total. (In other words, the story will be finished three weeks from now, by which time I hope to have written something else worth posting.)

All of that being said, I'm due to post Part Two this weekend.. If you feel like reading it, I leave this link at your disposal.

Asleep In Eden, Part Two

Asleep in Eden, Part Two

As a fair warning, this section is a little over five pages. If that seems too long to you, breathe calmly and back away slowly.

I stared longingly at the strands of spaghetti Marco twirled around his fork. It’s been forever since I’ve eaten, or needed to eat. I can’t remember what spaghetti tastes like, or if I’ve even had it before, but right now, I really want some. Isn’t food supposed to make people feel better?

Dishes clattered behind me, from the direction of the kitchen. I jumped and sighed slowly. Being this close to Cadence and my own body, I get squirrely.

Marco glanced up at me as he pulled his fork from between his lips and chewed slowly.

“You all right?”

“I don’t understand why we had to do this in a restaurant.” Anyone in here could be one of Cadence’s goons— the exhausted waitress, the starry-eyed couple in the corner, the drunk guy sitting alone at the bar. I shivered and focused on Marco’s plate. The less I looked at them, the less likely they were to notice me, even in my old-fashioned dress.

“I’ve gotta eat, you know,” he said, slurping on his soda. “Some people have actual appetites.”

I shrugged. There was a waitress beside us, setting up a tray to serve an older couple. She was making me incredibly nervous.

“So how’d you make her so mad, anyway?” Marco asked, setting aside his soda and twirling another bite of spaghetti.

“Told you,” I said. “Wasn’t me.”

Marco huffed. “I just want the story.”

I shrugged. “Sorry. That’s not a story I tell people.”

“I’m trying to help you,” Marco said, leaning over his plate for another bite. “I don’t want all of the juicy details, Jane. I just want to know what we’re up against, and if we can do anything to calm that crazy lady down.”

“We can’t.”

“So we’re gonna have to stop her some other way. That’s great. But I could help you a whole lot easier if I knew why she’s mad in the first place.”

I sighed, crossed my arms and leaned back into the red vinyl seat. “Why are you invested in this, Marco? I appreciate your help, but I don’t see why you care.”

He shrugged and bit off a hunk of breadstick. “Crazy lady trashed the store on my shift. I can’t tolerate that kind of blatant disrespect for comics. She won’t get away with that.”

I sighed. I needed help— not much, just with physical objects and to distract Cadence— but I really wished I’d gotten an offer from someone who knew a little bit more useful information.

“And I’ll get better revenge once you tell me why she’s mad enough to rampage through the shop, so... Please? I don’t want to invade your privacy, but I don’t know how else I could help.”

I sighed. He was right. A Galaxy Comics cashier would not be the most helpful person in my feud with Cadence, but no one else was offering, and I liked Marco so far. I leaned my chin on my hand to think of a good response, and it was a while before I spoke again. Dishes clattered in the kitchen. Marco sipped the last of his soda out of his glass.

“She and I are both looking for the same thing, in the historical district downtown. We have about a week to find it, or... neither of us gets what we want.”

“And...” Marco shoved his glass towards the center of the table and folded his hands. “What exactly are you looking for?” He grinned suddenly, as if an idea had just occurred to him. “I know! You’re really into vintage clothes and you’re after one of her favorite dresses?”

I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t exactly my choice that I was still wearing a dress straight out of 1914. I’m a spirit. I can’t exactly change clothes. But finding my body would be nice, because then I could ditch this dress and stop looking like someone’s grandma.

Telling the truth would definitely go over well.

“I’m not entirely sure, but I know it’s in the historic district.”

Marco gave a snort of laughter. “In the historic district? You know that’s gonna be hard to find. This entire town is a historic district, and you don’t even know what you’re looking for.”

 “I know,” I said. “But I need to find it. It’s important.”

The waitress strode up and handed Marco’s bill to him. I held my breath until she shuffled away and I was relatively sure she was not one of Cadence’s pawns.

Marco stuffed a twenty into the pocked and flipped the folder shut.

“What exactly happens when you find it?”

I sighed. Exactly the kind of question I had been trying to avoid. Sometimes I wonder why I am even running from Cadence. Even if I succeed, she won’t stop chasing me just because I’m in-body again.

“I buy myself some time,” I told him.

“And if she finds it?”

I bit my lip. “Then I’m probably done for.”

Marco’s eyes widened. “What?”

I shrugged and stared at the speckled tabletop. Marco tried to sip his soda. When he finally realized that he didn’t have any left, he stood up for a refill, and it was a while before he sat down again.

“So... um... have you tried looking downtown any?” Marco asked.

“I’ve tried, but she usually has someone down there keeping an eye out for me. I’ve had to be really careful.”

Marco’s eyebrows shot upwards. “She’s got other people helping her?”

I nodded and leaned out of the way for the waitress to pick up Marco’s bill. Please please please don’t work for Cadence. Please.

Marco whistled. “She’s serious about this.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “Anyway, I need to get downtown, skirt around her goons and find that... room. Fast.”

Marco emptied the change from his meal into his wallet and stood up.

“So,” he said, “How can I help?”

Maybe I liked this Marco kid more than I thought. Even if he did just want revenge, at least he was going about it in a straightforward way.

“I just need to find the room where my— this thing is.” I said. “If you could help me look, that would be great.”

“So... what exactly am I looking for? There are a lot of rooms downtown.”

I sighed. I could not tell Marco where my body was resting. I had not been there since 1914, before it was the historic district. When I was there, I hadn’t been conscious long enough to get a good look at my surroundings.

“It’ll be a pretty normal room, on one of the upper floors,” I said. “It might look like a storeroom or something. You won’t be able to get in— not that that’s unusual. There might be leaves or greenery poking out from under the door.”

“Leaves or greenery?” Marco smirked. “How’s leaves or greenery going to grow in a locked room?”

Fairy magic, that’s how. I wondered briefly what Marco would do if I answered these questions honestly. Probably back away slowly.

“I don’t know,” I said, “but I’m sure glad it does. If you look for anything, look for that. No other rooms will have gardens growing out of them.”

“Great,” said Marco. We stood up and headed out of the restaurant. I was immensely relieved when he held the door for me. Explaining how I managed to walk through it would have been tough.

Marco walked west, towards the historic district, with a spring in his step. He almost looked excited.

“So!” he said, walking backwards to face me, “Are we gonna start looking now?”

“Absolutely not.”

The smile fell off Marco’s face.

“Look,” I said, and caught up with him so I could whisper, “We can’t go into the historic district now. Cad— This lady has pawns down there, and there’s no way of telling them apart from the tourists. Sorry, but I’m just not going to risk it.”

“So when are you going to look?” Marco asked.

“Tonight,” I said. “We’re looking tonight.”

Marco’s eyes got so wide I thought they were going to pop out of his head.

“You want me to break into the historic museums in the middle of the night?” he yelled. Across the street, a woman glanced our way and pulled her children closer, hurrying them towards her car.

“No,” I said, just as loudly as Marco had. I forced a smile. “No, Marco. I DON’T want you to break into the museums.”

He frowned. “Really?”

I sighed and headed over to one of the benches lining the sidewalk. The streetlight above it was on and I had no idea why, at five o’clock in the afternoon. Marco followed me.

“Just don’t talk so loud, all right?” I said. “Not everyone needs to know that we’re breaking into the museums.”

“Oh,” Marco said. “Well, we aren’t breaking into the museums. If you want my help, either we’re going when the museum’s open or we’re not going at all.”

I sighed. “Look, I know it’s counter-intuitive, but it’ll be a lot safer to go when it’s not open. The tourists will have gone home, and we’ll know exactly who her pawns are.”

“Nope,” Marco shook his head. “I’d love to help, but I’m not breaking the law for you. If you want to go after dark, you’re going alone.”

Annoyed, I turned my face away from him. As much as I hated it, I needed Marco’s help. Even out-of-body, I couldn’t sneak through the walls of my room and get to my body. Beatrice had said that only one person could get inside, and that one person was not me. I am not usually one to dispute with fairy magic, but maybe Beatrice had overlooked the option of busting through the walls with a sledgehammer. I would need Marco’s help with that.

“All right.” I sighed. “Fine. We’ll go now.”

“Good,” Marco said, and stood up again. “We better hurry. Most of these places close at six.”

He was already halfway down the street. I hurried to catch up with him, dreading our search. This was not going to turn out well.