Who is Really Saving Us, or False Centering of Individuals

Posted on March 2, 2026 by Eric_Tolladay

Imagine a scenario where a careless driver hits a young man riding a bicycle, causing him life-threatening injuries. A nearby witness quickly calls 911, a pair of paramedics arrive to stabilize the man, then immediately rush him to a hospital, where a talented doctor expertly repairs the damage, and starts him on the road to recovery.

My question to you is, who saved the young man? Was it the witness who called 911, the paramedics who got him safely to the hospital, or was it the surgeon? All of these people might have a claim to being a hero, but did any of them individually save him?

I would claim that the one who saved the young man was not an individual, but the society in which he lived. After all it was the society that created the 911 call system (plus wireless telephony for the call to be made). This same society also trained and paid for paramedics, evolving their job over the years into a highly effective medical intervention. The society is also responsible for having trained doctors at the hospital (for which it paid) not to mention staffing that hospital with all kinds of workers and specialists, who collectively developed a complex series of medical procedures, all to create an environment in which a terribly injured young man might be quickly and effectively healed.

This may be the most logical answer to the question of who saved the young man, but it is admittedly a very awkward one. Humans do not tell stories like this. We like to center individuals in our stories, even if that centering is entirely without logic or reason. We like to say things like, “the President is responsible for the economy,” which is absolutely untrue, because it makes for a quick and dirty logical argument. Even then, if centering an individual into a place that they absolutely do not belong is somehow too unrealistic (a very high bar) then we will happily substitute that individual with a group of people. But then will conveniently speak of that group as if they were working in lock-step, exactly like an individual, even though we know this to also be impossible (that darn Congress better act soon). Hell, I can’t hardly get two friends to pick a time and date to watch a movie, and yet someone thinks that every Congressman (or every Jew, or every Conservative, or every Black person, etc) will somehow all magically work perfectly together? Have you been around people before?

The worst part of all of this “false centering” of individuals—sticking a person into the middle of a story where they really do not belong—is that it allows us to completely ignore all the social underpinnings that witnesses, paramedics, or even talented doctors rely upon to function. That is, it covers the truth. After all, none of these people (witnesses, paramedics, doctors, cops, etc.) are going to do anything heroic if the power is out, or if they are at the point of starvation, or cannot get to work because the roads need repair. In a complex society like ours, we constantly rely upon others to do our work, regardless of how heroic it might seem. Crazy as it sounds, doctors cannot do their work without real estate developers and plumbers. None of us can.

So why do we do this? Why do we make heroes out of ordinary people? Why are some people given the assumption of being heroic, and others not? It’s pretty weird when you think about it. Why do we center individuals in this way?

And why do we so happily ignore all the trappings of the larger society that supports us?

In reality, the only individual in the above scenario whose direct actions actually “caused” the young man to be saved is the careless driver. They are the only ones who had both the agency, and effect, that didn’t require support from others. But centering the potential villain in the story as a hero is just plain silly. Of course the driver is not the cause of the young man’s healing, but this does a good job of illustrating our rather insane need to order the events in our lives into some kind of narrative.

Our culture is full of weirdness.

We Don’t Do Reality Very Well

Posted on February 26, 2026 by Eric_Tolladay

As I type this there is an ongoing search for an 84 year old woman named Nancy Guthrie, who was kidnapped from her home on the morning of February 1st. Today (Feb. 22) marks the beginning of the fourth week that she has been missing. The story has captured a lot of media attention, and millions are praying for her swift discovery. Local law enforcement agencies, and the FBI, have gone to heroic efforts to retrieve her, so far to no success. If you talk to people on the street about this it seems like everyone had a theory. Almost all of them believe that Nancy Guthrie is still alive, and will remain so as long as someone acts swiftly enough, though who that “someone” is might vary from person to person.

Everyone seems to have this aching sense that we just need to find one more thing, one more clue, and Nancy will be home safe. We also understand that there is a ticking clock to this story. She is 84, and was taken without her medication. If she is not found soon there is a good chance she will perish from lack of medical care.

What I don’t understand is why this story is so important? Why do we care? Why does everyone seem to have a theory about where Nancy is? We don’t know her, and almost none of us have any connection to her. Not that I wish ill on Mrs. Guthrie, or her family, but 84 year old women die every day in America, most without comment or concern. Why is this particular old woman important, and the others not?

The answer I keep coming back to is that we have a head full of stories, and feel a strong urge to see them concluded, in the right way.

Good must overcome evil. The innocent must be saved, the guilty must be vanquished. That’s how this works. We all have a sense that this is the proper order of things. We all understand that an old and frail woman deserves to be found and returned safely. We all know that the people who kidnapped her deserve to be caught and punished. That is how all good stories are supposed to end.

When stories do not end properly, like when an old woman is kidnapped and not swiftly returned, it makes us feel uncomfortable. This is not a small thing either. It feels as if something is wrong with our world. Her loss is somehow existential to us. Millions will pray for her recovery, so they can feel better about the world.

And that’s kind of weird to me. Not that I don’t feel these same things (because I do), but that I feel this way about someone I have no connection to. It’s as if the story has co-opted a small part of my brain and won’t let it go.

And I don’t understand why.

***

Stories, it turns out, are deeply important to humans. They exist in every person and in every culture. It doesn’t matter where you are from or what language you speak; the first thing you will learn, and likely the last thing you will speak of, are stories.

Nowhere is the primacy of stories more evident than in our libraries. Libraries in America are divided into two sections: Fiction and Nonfiction. I find it telling that in the English language we don’t have a word for stories that are true. Instead we stuck with this weird compound word that means “things that aren’t stories.” It is as if all of human knowledge can be measured by whether it is a story, or not a story. Truth and fact, play a distant second.

When I was in university in the mid 80s, I took a few Greek classes. There I learned that the Greek word for story is istoria (Ιστορία), pronounced ee-sto-REE-ah. Like a lot of words that start with a vowel, in Greek it is common to speak the word by aspirating before the vowel (adding a soft “h” sound, like the beginning of the word heel). Thus istoria when spoken becomes historia. That word should look really familiar since this is the word we use for history. History is supposed to signify “true events”, but I think it’s important to remember that at its root, history is stories. Nothing more and nothing less.

Not only are stories important to our culture, we use them personally all the time. Ask a friend how their day was, and they will likely tell you a story. Ask a co-worker about their meeting, or their commute, or their lunch, and you will likely get another story.

We don’t just get in a car and drive to work. We face adversity: “A truck pulled out in front of me, and when I honked my horn the driver gave me the finger!”

We don’t just have meetings, we have political battles: “Bill from Marketing grabbed my team’s artwork, and then presented our project as if it was his own!”

We don’t just eat lunch, we have gastronomical adventures: “I was just biting into my sandwich when I noticed it had avocado. And this after I specifically told the guy at the counter that I was allergic to avocado! Can you believe it?”

***

Stories are so ingrained to us as humans that they are the primary way in which we understand the world. Things do not make sense to us if they do not have a built in understanding of protagonism and antagonism; that is, if there are no heroes and villains. The heroes aren’t always swash-bucking handsome men, and the villains do not always wear black and have sweeping plans to take over the universe, but both sides need to exist, even if only as placeholders, for our understanding of the world to make sense.

This is how they work: If a friend tells you that someone in a truck pulled out in front of them, your brain will automatically cast your friend as the hero and the truck driver as the villain. It doesn’t matter what really happened—your friend could have been speeding or run a red light, and the truck driver could have been directed by a cop to pull out—once the facts are laid out, then the roles will be set, and everything will be in order.

These roles don’t even have to make sense. How many times have you cursed at your phone for being stupid, especially when you’re in a hurry? Your phone is neither stupid nor smart, it just is, but as soon as you have an urgent demand, and the phone is not processing something fast enough, then it suddenly has become the villain in your story. If we stub a toe on a box, then we react as if the box had agency and purposely moved to be in front of our foot, rather than admit that we were not paying attention.

In most stories the hero is the one telling the story. In the writing world, we call them the protagonist. We understand that protagonists are important because we get the story from their point of view. They are not just the hero, they are the primary way the reader can access the story. We see it through their eyes. But it should be obvious that protagonists from novels didn’t start this idea. No, the idea that the hero is the one telling the story starts with us. It comes from the everyday stories that we tell each other.

Opposite of the protagonist is the antagonist. The Antagonist is the one who is trying to thwart our hero. Often they are called the villain, though they don’t necessarily have to be evil for the story to make sense. They just need to be in the way. The antagonist doesn’t even need to be a person. Humans are so flexible with our stories that we will happily substitute a box or a smart phone for our villain. I believe it was Robert McKee who came up with the term “forces of antagonism,” meaning anything that is between the protagonist and their goal. We don’t really need a person to act as the villain (though we are happy when someone steps into the role) for the story to be complete. We just need something, literally anything, that is stopping our hero from reaching their goal, and we are happy.

The beauty of such a story telling system is that it is wonderfully flexible. Someone is attempting to do an action, and someone or something is in their way. And just like that, a story is invented. The particulars do not really matter. As we’ve seen you don’t really have to have a villain—a cardboard box will suffice. All you need is someone with a point of view, attempting to do an action, and someone or something stopping them.

***

There are some limitations to this system. For instance, we can use forces of antagonism rather than an actual antagonist for small stories, but the longer the story gets, then the more this starts to sound like an excuse on the part of the teller, rather than an actual difficulty. “I was trying to get to the kitchen and the cat stepped in front of me,” is a perfectly fine story for explaining to my wife why I didn’t turn off the annoying buzzer on the microwave right away, but it wouldn’t make sense if I tried to use it as an excuse for why a client’s artwork wasn’t completed on time. The way I see it, the forces of protagonism and the forces of antagonism need to be in balance for the story to work. If too much strength, ability, or power goes to one side or the other, then suddenly the story falls apart. That is, unless the point of the story was to be funny.

Superman versus Ultraman might make sense to us, but Superman versus a mouse can only be viewed as humor.

But this balance is not just about size, it’s also about attachment. In the case about Nancy Guthrie, we’re all hearing a story of an elderly woman who was violently kidnapped from her home. The more details we get about the victim, the more one-sided it sounds. She was frail and in poor health. She was able to live alone, but just barely. Whereas the antagonist (in this case an actual villain) was strong and capable. That alone is already an unequal matchup, which makes us uncomfortable. The good and the bad sides of the story are not in balance. But I think the far larger problem with the story (and why it has grabbed so much attention) is the connection we have gained to the protagonist. Every day the news is carries stories about Nancy Guthrie. We get to see videos of her with family before she was taken. We get to watch her family make tearful pleas to the kidnappers, we get to see law enforcement leaders holding press conferences about her case, and everywhere we go in public we bump into strangers who are talking about the case. All of these things act as forces of protagonism, supporting Nancy’s story. There is so much protagonism that we have developed an attachment to this woman, even though she is a stranger to us. If not to her, then at least to her story.

Perversely, we know almost nothing about the other side. We don’t know who the antagonist is. We only have a single video of them covering up a ring camera. We have no sense of him (if they are a him) as a person. We don’t know anything. For the story to feel balanced, we need to have an equal amount of information about the villain as we do the hero, but that information is not forthcoming. Obviously this is not a story that can devolve into humor, and yet the lack of information on one side leaves the story so terribly imbalanced that it makes us all uncomfortable.

***

The weird thing is none of this is real. These are stories that for the most part have nothing to do with ourselves, and yet we are captured by their telling, held captive by our collective discomfort.

I’ve always read a lot of fiction, so I am a bit of an outlier, but all of us are familiar with some pretty crazy stories. Children’s stories often feature animals that can talk and have agency, exactly like humans, but no one stands up in a kindergarten class and says, “Cats can’t talk. This story is crazy pants.” As we get older we discover all manner of monsters, from vampires and werewolves, to ghosts and ghouls. There’s even a monster that makes a living person out of the parts of dead bodies, and then abandons them. Now that is a monster.

We each have a sense that none of these monsters are real, but when it gets late at night we still can get scared. We ask each other if we believe in ghosts, or aliens from outer space, but we never ask if we believe in stories. As soon as someone strings a story together then its true, at least to our brains. All you have to do is wait until midnight and that big, bright line between fiction and nonfiction suddenly stretches pretty darn thin.

The weird thing isn’t that we are affected by unbelievable stories, the weird thing is we need to pretend that some of them are real. They are all real, in some way or another. All of them. They may not exist in the flesh and blood, but they are very much alive in our culture, and more importantly, in our heads. And no matter how hard you try, you can’t quite turn this part of your brain completely off. If it’s a story, then it’s real.

***

Since I first heard about it, the Nancy Guthrie story has reminded me of another famous kidnapping, that of Charles Lindbergh, the baby of the famous aviator, who was kidnapped from his home in 1932. That case was huge in the media of the day (it was called the crime of the century), and ended on a very sad note.

I’ve known about the Lindbergh kidnapping from my time studying history at University, but I didn’t understand why my mind kept trying to connect the two until now. Both stories started imbalanced. Charles Lindbergh was a 20 month old child, while Nancy Guthrie is an 84 year old woman. Already we understand that neither is in a fair fight with their kidnappers. In both cases, the ever increasing publicity about the crime lead to more and more information about the victim, while almost nothing was known about the assailant. That is, the public developed strong ties to one side of the story, but not the other, which lead to an ever growing sense of discomfort throughout the nation.

The more the Guthrie story plays on the news, the more that regular people talk about it, the greater our discomfort will grow. This discomfort isn’t fatal, but it does draw our attention in the same way that a car crash on the side of the road, or a violent act playing out in front of us, captures our attention. We are stuck, fixated on the account until the story is brought into balance.

The way I see it, balance for this story can come in one of two ways. The first (and preferred) outcome is that Nancy is found safe, meaning she somehow overcame the forces of antagonism. This is preferred not only because an elderly woman is returned to her family, but also because it is a story where the hero has vanquished their villain. The other way for this story to achieve balance would be when her assailant is captured and brought to trial. In this case, the forces of protagonism would still succeed, just not with the hero present. Until either of these two happen, expect to remain uncomfortable.

I know—it’s just a story, and yet it’s so much more.

What Are We Escaping From?

Posted on February 19, 2026 by Eric_Tolladay

A long time ago I had this crazy idea that pretty much everything was culturally relevant. From religious rituals going back thousands of years to the most recent trends on tiktok, all of them are expressions of a society trying to figure out the future, and what it means to be human. I even have a fairly highbrow post about it here.

My favorite bits of our culture happen to be speculative fiction (SF). I love it all, from hard science fiction to the softest of fantasy. I even read the occasional romance for the sake of variety. All of it to me is good clean fun. I love nothing more than cracking open a good book (either paper or electronic, I’m non-denominational about format) and losing myself in another world. If you’re into audible books, or tv series, or movies, instead of novels, I think those are just as valid in terms of escaping. It’s all falling into a story.

And that’s the point, right? To escape to another world. It doesn’t matter if that world is in the exact same city you live but with werewolves; or a forested glen from a mythical past; or a strange and beguiling alien civilization on the other side of the galaxy. They all exist as places for us to escape to.

It doesn’t help that one of the more popular ways to put down “genre fiction” is to call it escapism. Far from being insulted, I think consumers of SF like myself should consider this a compliment. Yes we are escaping. Sure there are other benefits as well, like learning to be more empathetic, or understanding what a more technologically advanced society might look like, but at the end of the day it is still an escape. When you have depression like I do, then escape is not only entertaining, it is also a requirement for continued mental health.

Take two novels and call me in the morning.

So why? Why then do we need to escape? What are we running from?

There’s a part of me that would love to say we are escaping from the merciless and grinding wheels of capitalism. After all, once you reach a certain age in this world you are expected to find a way to make money, and then keep making money, until you either grow a large enough pile that you can stop, or you get crushed under its gears. It is a hamster wheel of death, and there are no other options. I don’t care who you are, that’s pretty damn daunting. Spend some time around the homeless and you’ll see what its like to be voted off the economic island. Certainly, this is terrifying enough that anyone reasonably sane would want to take an occasional vacation from that constant pressure.

But then I realized that escapist stories have existed long before the first grinding gears of factories were ever built; before that Karl guy wrote his book on Capital; and even before the existence of capital as an economic engine. Stories pre-date all of these. Keep in mind that the biggest escape story of all time is well over 2500 years old, and was so wildly successful that we still refer to any long escape story as an odyssey, named after its protagonist. Clearly, this cannot be the only ancient escapism story. At one point there had to be millions of stories like the Odyssey. Most of them did not make the long race—first to paper, and then through many translations until they exist in our present day—but you know they had to be there. Humans being what we are, we get bored easily. Somebody’s aunt or uncle had to say something to the children of our long distant forebears to keep them from squirming around the fire. We know these stories existed and someone told them, because people tell stories. It’s what humans do.

So if I can’t blame capitalism for our collective need to escape, what can I blame? Is it our human condition? Is just the process of existing so daunting that we need to put it aside every once in a while?

What makes us want to step out of ourselves?

It’s not escapism, it’s a dictionary

First I want to go back to an important point, perhaps the most important: Humans are a social species. We didn’t just evolve from apes, we evolved together as a group. Humans are never alone. We come in clumps, and those clumps of people are so important that we have names for how they are connected to each other: Husband, Father, Aunt, Cousin, Sister, Daughter, etc.

One of the key aspects of humans is that if they are isolated enough from the company of others they are considered damaged. In fact, one of the main punishments humans have adopted over the years is to socially shun those who do not obey the rules. Disconnection in this context is destruction.

So we are not only a social species, but we have to remain together with others of our kind in order to remain healthy and/or sane.

But that is not an easy task. We are all so different, with different ideas, and different needs, and different ways of looking at the world. Anyone who has tried to arrange a date with three or more busy adults for something like a D&D campaign, or even for something as short as seeing a movie, can tell you how hard it can be just to get four adults in the same space at the same time. And that is just to be entertained. Imagine if you had to gather together daily so you could eat.

Humans need a way to have their thoughts and ideas be close enough to each other that they can work together. We need a common set of thoughts or viewpoints so that when someone says bird, we all have a pretty good idea what “bird” means. That way, we can all agree on things that are important.

You might say, “Isn’t that the point of language, to give us common definitions?”

It’s at this point that I would laugh and then ask, “Have you never been involved in an argument on the web before?” Five minutes of exposure to the internet should make it obvious that humans are very talented at misunderstanding even clearly defined words. It’s one of our special skills.

Besides, communication existed long before language. There are other channels of communication that we still use, and which have nothing to do with the encoding of words into sound bites. We make noises, we use facial expression and body posture, we change our hair or our clothing, we even communicate with each other by how we walk.

All that to say that while language is indeed important for communication, we also require other kinds of nonverbal signals to make sure what we’re communicating is understood.

And even with all that, there is no guarantee that when I say the word “cat” that you understand it to mean a four-legged mammal with pointy ears and a tail. Humans not only need common definitions for words, but we need a common context for them so the words convey the proper meaning.

If the word “cat” to you means a domestic house cat, but “cat” to me means a wild mountain lion, then we’re going to have a strange conversation when you try to explain to me how to give a cat a pill.

And this is the one of the primary purposes of culture, to give the proper context to each word or idea. We use not only words, but stories so we both understand which kind of “cat” you place on your lap, and which kind of “cat” you don’t let into your home.

Obviously culture is concerned with other things besides cats. Mostly it’s about how to properly behave with others, so we can remain cohesive and work together. It gives us a sense of social hierarchy so we know who we need to be extra nice to, and who we can sometimes ignore. Culture also does a pretty good job of defining those people who are close enough to be considered part of “our” tribe, and those people who are far enough from us that we can safely ignore or even harm.

Culture fills all of those roles and more. And the primary way it does this is via story. Story is the medium by which the message of culture is conveyed. If culture were the internet, then story would be the router you use to connect to it.

But making culture sound like a dictionary sort of misses the point. Yes, it works to define important stuff, but that isn’t why we escape into it. Perhaps rather than referring to culture as a dictionary, we should think of it as a candy bar.

See, the way that stories work, the reason why culture is a thing we evolved with (and continue to evolve with) is because of a hack in our wiring. When one person expresses an emotion or feeling, then the humans around them will mimic that same emotion or feeling. Those facial expressions we constantly make towards each other not only convey what we are feeling (like some weird kind of semaphore), but by watching them our bodies will produce those same emotions in ourselves.

If you tell a friend a sad story and they reply that they, “feel your heartache,” they are not just being metaphorical. They are in fact feeling your emotions. It’s not just verbal stories either. We’ve all had the experience of listening to a song and suddenly feeling its emotion. There are songs of heartbreak, songs of joy, songs of love, even songs of angst. The singer sings a few words, and it feels like the words are echoing in our souls. That is the power of emotional mimicry.

If you think about it, this is a pretty cool hack. It’s one thing to tell you I am sad, but it’s a whole other thing if I can get you to feel my sadness. Then you’ll have a much deeper understanding of my experience. And when two or more people have to be around each other for any length of time, being able to understand each other’s experience makes it a lot easier to live with them.

Curiously, this hack of emotional mimicry can be turned off. If a person emotes to us from an outside group we will either limit our emotional response, or suppress it altogether so we don’t have one at all. Among other things, this means that in a heightened state of political alignment we do not feel as much the other side’s experiences. We are less essentially emotionally connected, which means we cannot communicate as well.

The thing is, we like those emotional connections, or perhaps I should say we evolved to like them. Regardless of how we got here, such emotional connections are like candy to us. Even the bitter ones are tasty and sweet.

So now we know stories are a way to define the human experience, and are good at expressing emotions, but what does that have to do with escapism?

Stories are a way to string together our common emotions and wrap them around a chunk of data so we will remember it. Because we mimic the emotions projected at us, we will then feel whatever emotion the story is trying to convey. In short, stories are a lesson wrapped with an emotional punch, a bit like having your vitamins stuffed inside a tasty chocolate coating.

For example, say you want to train your citizens so they will stand for their country if it is invaded. This is a tricky lesson to learn. Most humans, when facing soldiers with weapons in their neighborhood, would (wisely) run in the opposite direction. So how do you get the people to stay?

The first thing you do is to tell a story that would mimic the emotional experience of staying to protect their neighborhood. The trick is, you need to give the “hero” of that story something respectable to do. So you make up a story about a boy who stays behind to protect his people. You use a boy because he is small and innocent. Someone easily over-looked. Every human can relate to that feeling. The thing you don’t do is make your story about invading armies, because that would be too scary for a boy to face, so you pick a problem that is more his size: Water. Not only water, but water with a boy-sized solution. A small hole in a dike.

Now that we have our story, we need to attach all the emotional parts to it to make it memorable. We also need to give it a resolution, so the listener knows what kind of reward they will receive if they mimic the boy’s behavior. Thus the story becomes:

There was a boy who saw a small hole in a dike. The hole was in a remote area, far from anyone around. The boy knew that by the time he ran home and warned everyone, the hole would expand and the dike would fail, flooding everyone. So instead he ran to the dike and put his finger in the hole. He remained steadfast for hours, alone and getting cold, but keeping his unsuspecting neighbors safe. Eventually someone saw him and warned the village. The dike was repaired and everyone was saved.

Emotionally, this story is about someone very small and easily overlooked, seeing a coming disaster and acting quickly. They are all alone, afraid, and face terrible hardship, but because they remain steadfast they eventually become a hero.

If you think about it, this is exactly the emotional experience of someone who stays behind to fight off an invading army. By making the boy a hero it gives the listener a reason to remain steadfast when they are feeling afraid and alone. They know that they are heroes, even if no one is around to acknowledge their heroism, because they faced danger and did not run.

The fact that this story is implausible (you cannot plug a hole in a dike with a finger), and the original version of this story (the Little Dutch Boy) came from a novel in America, does not really matter. The story was popular anyway, though it was invented for entirely different reasons than fending off a looming military invasion. The emotional experience that the story expressed was considered valuable in many English speaking nations. So powerful is this story that the Dutch government set up a statue to the Little Dutch Boy, even though such a boy never existed.

So that is a reason why cultures might use a story, but it still doesn’t explain the escapism part.

Yeah okay. Fair enough. I wanted to give you an idea of the power of stories and why they might be culturally useful. But that is not the same as personally useful. Why do we consume stories? Again, what are we escaping from?

As we discussed above, when we read a story we will have the exact same emotional experience as the hero of that story. Plus we get to learn any cultural lessons that come wrapped up in those tasty emotions. It’s a bit like taking a mini college course on the topic, only one that ends with a tasty dessert.

Usually, the educational aspects of escapism are viewed as secondary to the emotional voyeurism we get from the story*. That is, we forget stories are learning tools, and think of them more as just another tasty treat, or perhaps an intellectual dopamine hit. And that’s fine because we all understand that being a human is hard. Being a successful human is even harder. The difficulties we face in our lives don’t come from the work that we do, as most of it is not particularly difficult. The difficulties we face come from the fact that we have to do our work with other humans.

Consider the average teen. They are placed into a school where they are expected to learn with others, but easily more than half of the things they will learn have nothing to do with what is taught in the classroom. What class teaches them how to apologize to a friend, or how to know when they “like” someone, or when to intervene when they see a friend is struggling, or how to make a stranger in their homeroom feel welcome, or how to say no when their peer group wants to drink or do drugs?

If this same teen does well in school it usually means they are expected to run the same gauntlet but at the collegiate level. Much of the same issues they had from high school will apply, only now they will be run in adult mode, which means things like sex and drinking are not only allowed, but expected.

Regardless of whether they do college or not, most teens eventually find themselves in the job market. Now they have tasks to do, but with coworkers and bosses, some of which can make their lives better, and some of which can crush their efforts before they even start their profession. Often it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. On top of that, they have to learn how to live alone, or with others who aren’t family, manage their income so they don’t run out of money, date and enter relationships, cook and learn to shop for groceries, clean themselves and everything in their home, and somehow create a balanced life.

All of these situations are social ones, and every single one of them will leave a MASSIVE impact on their future. The social connections they make will be far more important than any job on the CV. As I often say, choosing to marry – choosing WHO to marry – is the single largest financial decision you will ever make in your life. And the friends you make (and keep) will likely be even more impactful.

So where do you go to learn how to manage all that? What class is going to teach you Humanity 101?

As I said way back near the beginning, the single most important part of being humans is that we are a social species. Every single thing we do of importance involves working with others. Human relationships are the glue that keeps the whole ball of wax moving.

And yet there are no classes for how to manage and learn about human relationships. We’re talking about the single most impactful thing in your life, and yet there is no formal way to learn how to do it well.

So what can you do? Is there a short cut? How does one learn to human better?

The way most of us do this is by a process that engineers call T & E, or trial and error. That is we bump into each other, crash about, make a lot of mistakes, and when the smoke clears we try to make sense of it all. Mind you, this works, after a fashion, but it’s not ever directed. It helps that we are all mostly amateurs, and there are a lot of social cues (aka culture) to keep us from making the most egregious mistakes, but the process is prone to error, and some of those errors are fatal.

So if this is the case, how can we improve our game? Where are the cheat codes to be better at human relationships?

And now we come back to that thing I was saying that stories are an educational experience wrapped up in an emotionally tasty package. This is not an accident. Stories are the primary way we learn how to be human, and how to manage relationships. They are chocked full of all kinds of clues about how to human better. They are a deep and vastly informal instructional manual. That friend of yours that is reading a novel; that co-worker who in binging a show; the guy you met on the bus that is listening to books on the way to his office; all of them are riding an emotional rollercoaster, getting all the thrills and chills that anyone could ask for, yet they are also learning how to have better human relationships.

How do I know this? Because at the heart of every story is a human relationship. Stories are always about humans interacting with other humans. It doesn’t matter media it is, be it a novel, the theater, a painting, a tv show, or a movie; it doesn’t matter what the genre it says on the outside of the tin, from Romance to Science Fiction, Fantasy to Literature; at their core they’re all Human Relationships 101.

And that is why we escape. We are all busy learning how to be better humans, and along the way are being vastly entertained.

Before I leave, there is one caveat I should explain. The educational aspects of stories, while important, are not always curated. You should not plow in with the assumption that the lesson buried within the story is one worthy of learning. In fact, some stories have lessons so poor that they work as an anti-lesson, a good instruction on what NOT to do. As a consumer of culture, you are expected to both learn, and also manage your experience. One of the nicer aspects of popularity in our culture is that it tends to elevate those stories that also teach healthy relationships. This is not always true, for we humans do love our revenge, even though it often is destructive. As the saying goes, resentment is like drinking poison thinking it will harm your enemies. All that to say, make sure the lesson being taught is one you want to learn. Or as they say in societies that run the capitalism add on: Caveat emptor.

*That is unless the story crosses into the ground that’s been set aside for a culture war, then this relationship will invert: The inherent lesson will become primary, and the emotional parts of the story are viewed as secondary. One person’s escape story is another person’s propaganda. As of this writing, stories about trans of gay people are often flipped this way. There’s not a lot of rhyme or reason for this, it’s just different aspects of our larger culture battling for a common space.

2023

Posted on January 1, 2023 by Eric_Tolladay

Well I guess we’re at the start of a new year. If I sound uncertain it’s because picking a random day to be the start/end point of a year seems highly suspicious to me. I mean why December 31st and January 1st? It would make more sense to start the year on an actual astronomical marker like the winter solstice (or the summer one for that matter). I would even settle on something like either equinox. It’s not like people haven’t known how to find these particular days, regardless of how their calendar is constructed. It’s pretty obvious once you start looking, and our distant ancestors had nothing to do but look around.

I generally don’t do new years resolutions, figuring that if something is important enough to make a promise to yourself, then start that shit right away. No need to wait for a special day. Want to be kinder to animals, or tell your significant other they are important to you in a meaningful way? Then for Bog’s sake don’t fuck around about it. Do it now. All that to say don’t expect wisdom from me, except to point out the excellent resolution from a colleague of mine who every year resolved, “if someone offers me a donut, I will take it.” That still strikes me as good advice.

On a different note, I’ve been working on a novel titled “Mind the Slice” for a few years now. The darn thing should have been finished long ago. I would write and write, but for some reason I could not hit the dismount. In truth, the story would get bogged down on some minor point, and then I’d lose my nerve. To compensate, I would then spend days and days researching ways to plot a novel. Believe me, there is a lot of “helpful,” and not so helpful advice out there on the internet. All of which is fun to follow if one is feeling lost, but its not necessarily useful in terms of finishing a story.

For me, short stories are much easier to write because they are much easier to plot. You have clear beginning, middle, and end points, and I can hold all the salient parts in my head as I go. But once a story gets to a certain length then I lose that ability to keep it all up in my mind at once. Then I keep having to go back and look, writing myself little notes, like, “Kill the boy after she kisses him, not before.” That kind of thing. And all of that made me feel uncomfortable, like I am missing something, and once that kind of doubt creeps into your head, it’s hard to finish.

Because of this I have like four different starts to the novel, and a whole host of middle passages, much of which I need to prune. That shit is also hard. Some of the plot points that will not make the final cut are still glorious in their own way. They exist as a reminder that yes I can write, and no, not everything I write fits the goal.

Anyway, at some point near the end of last year I had a kind of epiphany, and figured out a passage through the muck. Since then I have been stitching my Frankenstein of a book together chapter by chapter. I am at the halfway point in terms of chapters and such, and much of the second half is already written. I just need to put it all together, and smooth out the transitions. That is the good news. There’s a good chance I will have something in a useful form by the end of this month, ready to send out to beta readers. The bad news is it looks to one longish, like 200k words or 400 pages.

I am so excited. I cannot wait to share this novel. Lilah Al-Marwin is a marvel of a young girl. She is so bad ass it makes me cry. She is smart, and laser focused, but also carries several dark secrets, including her other half. There’s the tall and handsome second son of an Earl named Aberdeen (who has his own secret). There’s Randal, the only child of a billionaire computer maker, who also has his own secrets. And finally there’s Wyoming Johnston, the child of the Senate Majority leader, who also happens to be politically ambitious, while somehow remaining both kind and human (and no secrets). All of them are delightful in their own way, and maybe a few of them get kissed, before they get killed. There is for sure more than one death.

Did I mention there’s a school taught by aliens from outer space? How about an overweight dolphin that teaches alien empathy, or the strange two-part creature that teaches programming and informs the students, “We are not an I, we are a we.” There’s even a mysterious captain, an Electronic Intelligence (who runs most of the show), and an alien who is both covered in strips of plastic, and yet is amazingly sexy. Each of them have their own secrets.

But that not all. The Earth has its own secrets, and those secrets might cause the planet to break into millions of pieces, which would be bad for everyone.

There’s love, and death, and destruction, and earthquakes. Computer get hacked, the planet gets cut in two, and teens get kissed. There’s amazing new alien tech, an end to our climate crises, and maybe even someone saves the planet. That is before they get blamed for everything that goes wrong, because you gotta know, things go wrong in this novel.

It starts with an explosion and ends with a scream. What more do you need?

From the Writer’s desk

Posted on October 27, 2019 by Eric_Tolladay

I was 12 when I first laid eyes on a locomotive, and I will remember that moment to the end of my days. Those crazy unbelievers up in Sisko had invented a new engine that was supposed to be faster and more efficient. All the newspapers from up north talked about the new-coming passenger service which promised travel to any place in the Empire within a single day. This was easily twice the speed of the ancient 2 + 2s they ran before with their open tops and their rickety carriages. But where we lived no one paid much mind to that, as no one we knew had money for the fare. What got all of the farmers tongues to waggling was the freight version of that engine, which was even larger and promised to take produce from our fields to the ever hungry tables in the capital in 24 hours or less. So my dad hitched our two ancient mares to our old buckboard, and took me on the six mile journey to the closest passage of the tracks that we might see for ourselves what all the fuss was about.

We stopped some hundred paces from the tracks, and waited, not sure how close we could get. Later we would learn the engine had been held up in Delano, so that it reached us some three hours behind schedule. For some reason in my childish mind I equated tardiness of the train with a lessor size, assuming, like many of those around us, that the “monster engine” as they called it was just another product of the capital’s hyperbole. So as we waited my fear of the impending engine grew less and less, until by the time it finally arrived I was standing just at the bottom of the rocky ballast, close enough that if I were to lay out on the uneven rocks, with my feet in place, I could have touched the closest rail with the tips of my fingers.

Our first hint of engine was a tiny white plume on the horizon, with a darker smudge underneath it, the darkly stained oil-smoke defining the edges of the white steam. As it slowly increased in size, faint trace of its passage were carried to us. The first hint I had of something larger than I imagined came when the rails near my feet started to vibrate like plucked stings on some massive fiddle. They sang and sizzled with impeding energy.

Then suddenly the engine was upon us, so loud and so encompassing that I could not hear my fathers shouted warnings to step away from the tracks. The sound was not just loud, but penetrating, you felt it more in your chest than in your ears. It was as if it was too big for your ears alone, but required the entirety of you body to hear.

As it zoomed by, piercing whistle blowing, a massive steel edifice towering some 15 feet over my head, and passing me at a pace faster than even birds could fly, I felt something in my head fall away. My earlier fears were overcome by the size of that great mechanical beast, leaving me fearless in excitement and wonder. I reached out my hands to the newly painted freight cars as they passed, not so much as to grab ahold of one, though I desperately wanted to, but just to feel the air of its passage. In my fevered excitement, that was enough for me.

There is a story in the Holy Bible that speaks of crippled beggars in Jerusalem so desperate to be healed that they stretched out their arms that they might touch the hem of the passing Jesus. Up until that moment the meaning of that verse had eluded my 12 year old mind, but by the time that train had finished passing I knew exactly what those poor souls were feeling. The smoke, the steam, the speed, and most of all the noise, had baptized me. I was forever changed. I knew then that I wanted more than anything else in the world to work on an engine like that. It didn’t matter to me if I shined shoes, or was the chief engineer, I just wanted to step onto that massive beast of a train, and take it anywhere it wanted to go.

Five years later I did exactly that.

Hands

Posted on December 18, 2016 by Eric_Tolladay

A new story. A fun one, me thinks. Short and sweet.
* * * * * * * * *

Gustavo worked the press on the 20th floor. Cold light slanted into the room from the overhead windows mixing with the dust and the smell of machine oil, and the sound of cars passing on the snow outside. The other machines lay still, the operators home with their families celebrating with lighted trees and fancy dinners.

Gustavo didn’t mind. Without the distractions of their constant chatter he could loose himself in the work. Press here, fold there, cut here, stitch there. It was the mindlessness of it, the way his hands took over and did all the thinking. It was deeply relaxing for him. His hands flew across the machine, pushing and pulling the fabric, sometimes surprising him by their deftness, and surety. Never in a million years could he do this work, his mind was too busy, too unsure, too afraid, but his hands, his hands had no problem. It was one of the things Gustavo liked most about working here, letting his hands go, watching them work the heavy machine creating something out of nothing. It was always a surprise to him., like looking into raw space and suddenly seeing a planet coalesce around a cloud of dust. Pants, shirts, coats, they formed themselves out of flat cloth, and thin thread, changing from raw materials into the something marvelous to wear. To him it was a miracle, every time.

Gustavo’s hands finished up a jacket, and pulled his eyes to the list, forcing him to see what was next on the special holiday rush. A part of his mind was wondering how much his boss made from such an order. Probably thousands of dollars, none of which would come to Gustavo. He didn’t mind though, he had his hands, and a small studio apartment two blocks away. Sure he lived alone, but really what more did he need? He had food, he had a place to sleep, and he had his work. Let the others be distracted by their families and their friends. His was enough.

Then he heard the sound of the workshop door opening, and without turning around knew it was Clarissa who had entered. Clarissa with her long dark hair, and her critical eye, and her stupid little gloves. She was the only one in the shop who did not like his work, the only one who was always critical of him, who could never be satisfied. He had been enjoying himself so much working by himself, but the thought of being trapped all day in the workshop with her made his shoulders slump. They slumped only a little, so little that no one would have noticed. No one, that is, except Clarissa.

“It’s good to see you too, Gustavo,” she said to his back, her biting sarcasm making him slump even more.

He heard the machine behind him start up, the computer opening and closing the valves, letting the steam work it’s way though the system, checking all the tolerances. Clarissa spent the time looking at the order and humming in her off key way. He could hear the sound of her gloves on the keys, the little rasping sound they made with each contact was like a knife to his back.

Gustavo looked to his own sheet, and went to the rack to pull more fabric. The order called for damask so he went through the storage room, his hands gliding over the row after row of draped fabric, sensing their warp and their wave with his finger tips, letting his hands chose the right cloth. They halted on bolt or damask that was light brown in color, and beautiful to the eye. A subtile but lovely pattern worked it’s way thought the weave that was faint to the eye. You had to look hard to see it, but it was there. This particular bolt held very little fabric. Gustavo knew without looking it was expensive. But his hands were insistent, so he pulled it out and carried it to his machine.

Just as he started entering the fabric into the back of his press he heard Clarissa’s voice. “You’re going to use that?”

Without turning, Gustavo shrugged his shoulders. This wasn’t enough of a reply for Clarissa. She stepped around her machine and walked right up to his order, reading the words out loud as if speaking them gave a different meaning. As she read she pointed at the words with her little gloves. The tip of her finger harsh and accusing.

Gustavo continued loading. Truth be told, he didn’t remember what kind of fabric was on the order. He had read it, and his hands had chosen. It was enough for him.

“That stuff is $50 a yard. Are you sure you want to use it?”

Gustavo turned, looking at Clarissa for the first time. She stared at him imperiously, her lips always ready to frown. Gustavo opened his mouth to say yes, his hands had chosen, but caught in her glare his resolve wilted. Wordlessly he waked over to the the front of his machine and read the order for a second time. All it said was damask slacks, with the measurements. Dully he looked at the matching coat he had already created, trying to capture the thoughts that had lead his hands to reach for exactly this type of damask, but under the sharp eye of Clarissa he felt his thoughts fall to pieces, like trying to put on a coat held loosely together with pins but no thread.

Slowly he walked to the back of his machine, and reversed the cloth out of the loading chute. As he carried it back to the storage room he could feel her cold smile. He hated working with Clarissa.

All morning and into the afternoon they worked together. Gustavo sewed, and Clarissa complained. “Are you sure you want to cut it that way?” she said. “Don’t you want a darker thread for that?” she said. “That’s not a good fabric choice,” she said. Nothing his hands did that day pleased her. Every complaint she spoke made his hands a little harder to hear, until finally at 4:00, the order almost complete, his hands gave out. Gustavo found himself standing before his great machine, completely still. He had no idea how long he had been standing there. All he knew is he couldn’t hear his hands. They were mute, they could not speak.

Clarissa came up behind him. He knew because he could hear her soft tread. “If you’re on the clock you need to work,” she said bitterly. Gustavo felt the words sting. There had never been a day where he didn’t work hard for the boss. He loved to work. He loved his hands. No one ever said different.

Then Clarissa placed a hand on his machine, right on top of the fabric he was supposed to be sewing. Gustavo felt the violation to his core. No one put their hands on another’s machine, especially when it was active. A machine could cut a hand to pieces, crush it until it was flat, and sew it into the fabric. All of these things and more. It was a dangerous place for anyone’s hands, even the operator’s. It simply was not done. Gustavo could not have felt more uncomfortable if she had pulled down his pants on a busy street corner, and shouted out loud.

He felt the anger and frustration boil up inside, rising up like the steam in his machine, but just as he was about to speak his eyes looked down. There was something about her hands that drew his eye. Always Clarissa wore her gloves. Always. It was a thing with her. She never touched anything with her hands, claiming they were too delicate. This time, however, he saw her hand was bare, and seeing her bare hand somehow stopped his rising anger like a hammer.

One glance and he could see the problem. Her hands were locked up, controlled, unhappy. No one spoke to them, they weren’t allowed to sing. Her hands were so unhappy they chapped, they bleed.

Without thinking Gustavo let his hands move. They reached out and landed like birds, gently onto the back of her hand. He heard Clarissa let out a gasp at the touch. He heard her inhale preparing to complain, but before she could say the words his fingers moved, they touched, they stroked. They said words to her hand in the unspoken language of caress, they spoke to her hand in the lost language of stroke, they flattered, they teased, they smiled, they loved.

Behind him Gustavo heard Clarissa make a sound. It was a sigh. Not a word, not a comment, just a sigh. It was the nicest thing she had ever said to him.

Then before he could think he had turned and she was in his arms, and his hands were doing things, and her hands were doing things, and he realized she had the most marvelous hands in the world.

After a moment their hands forced them apart. They stood there looking at each other in shock. Gustavo had never known how much his lips were like his hands. He felt a great desire to use them again, on her. To cover her face with his kisses–her face, and everything else.

But his hands, no their hands, were insistent. There was work to do and they were on the clock. They turned to their machines, and worked–she without her gloves, and he without a care. The fabric flew through their machines, the coats and pants came out the other side, perfect and without blemish, their hands doing all the work, their minds completely at ease. Until in very little time the special holiday rush was done and hanging on the rack ready to go out the next morning.

Then with nothing else to do they clocked out. Suddenly they found themselves standing next to each other at the back door, unsure what to do or what to say. Fortunately Gustavo’s hands knew what to do. They always did. Reaching out, they took Clarissa’s poor hands, still naked and uncovered, and guided her to his apartment. There his hands made her a simple dinner, and after both their stomachs were full, they let his lips take over. His lips and her lips. His hands and her hands. And when they were done, when the sun had come up the next morning, his hands fashioned for her hands a set of rings out of thread, one for each finger.

She cried, then he cried, then they went to work. Never again did she wear her gloves, and never again did he live alone. And always, through work, and tears, children, and sickness, their hands were happy.

The Clever Girl

Posted on January 16, 2016 by Eric_Tolladay

I started this story last year in August. It’s about a girl trapped in her small town; trapped in ways that get deeper and darker as the story progresses. Since it’s a horror story my goal was to finish it in time for Halloween. I finished the story in September, but I wasn’t happy with it. It just didn’t click. My writing partner, Amy, made some very good suggestions, so I went back and rewrote it from scratch, changing the voice from third person to first (because Clara likes to talk), and in the process lengthening it from 8k words to 18.5k.

The second version is better in practically every way, but I’m still not sure about it. Amy thinks I should open it uneven more and involve more characters; stretch it out to the size of a movie or even a novel. I’m not so sure. I wanted this to be short and sweet, or more like short and dark, but the story didn’t lend itself to that size a telling.

Give it a read and tell me what you think.

For those that are family, you might recognize the town where Clara lives. Buzzard’s Roost was the town where George Tolladay was born. The town is long since gone, but the setting was perfect for my needs; what better place is there for a horror story than a ghost town?

The Clever Girl

I had gone with some friends to see Pink. Somehow we’d scored tickets right up front, and we were having the best time, laughing and singing along. Then out of the blue she called me up on stage to sing a duet with her, which is weird because everyone knows I can’t sing a note. She didn’t have an extra microphone so she gave me an axe, which was also weird. The axe worked but was kind of awkward because it had this heavy cord attached at the bottom of the handle. I had to hold it with both hands because the cord weighed so much. Every time I took a step I had to drag this cord after me, like I was dragging a heavy chain. We were singing was Just Give Me a Reason. At big part in the end we were standing in the middle of the stage with our backs turned away from the audience. She spun around to sing her part without a problem. When it was my turn I wasn’t so lucky. Somehow the microphone cord from the axe had crossed over my shoulder, so when I turned around the cord cut across my neck. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I opened my mouth, but no air would come out. I tried to pull the cord away but the other end was stuck under a huge speaker. It was so embarrassing. The music kept playing, everyone was looking at me, expecting me to sing, and I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t talk, couldn’t do anything.

That’s when I woke up. Sure enough, pulled tight across my throat was the Beast.

I should probably explain that the Beast is the name I use for my hair. I call it the Beast because it is long; long as in long enough to sit on. But the Beast is thick; thick like a wild thorn bush, thick like string, no thick like spaghetti. We’re talking thick thick. Sometimes I swear it’s so thick that there’s bird’s nests up there, or a bee hive, or something. People call me treetop because I’m tall and skinny, but mostly because I have hair that is closer to foliage than fur. Its like it’s a tree up there or something. It’s weird. Definitely weird.

Anyway Momma is always braiding the Beast. It’s the one thing I can do with it that doesn’t make it worse. It’s so thick that if I leave it unbraided for more than five minutes it will tangle. And the tangles the Beast makes are legendary. They get so large people would pay money to see them, at least that what my big brother Will says. Imagine the Gordian knot–you know that famous knot that Alexander The Great cut instead of untying like he was supposed to–only make the knot red and attach it to the head of a skinny girl. That’s how crazy they get.

I keep asking Momma if I can cut the Beast but she always says the same thing. “But honey, your daddy likes your hair long.” And that’s the end of the argument. Anything Poppa likes, goes. My friends think Momma is that way because Poppa is in a wheelchair, like she’s all guilty or something. But I know Momma. She’s not guilty. She just loves Poppa. Really loves him. Like maybe loves him too much, loves him. My friends all think it’s sweet, but when you see it all the time it starts to look kind of creepy.

So every night before I go to bed, and every morning after I wake up, Momma has to brush out the Beast. When she’s done she carefully braids it until I have two thick hunks of hair hanging from my head. She ties each braid down with three rubber bands–we’re talking the thick rubber bands they put around Sunday newspapers–and two long ribbons. Even then the Beast manages to escape, which is how I wake up every morning. Some strands will pull lose and the next thing I know they’re wrapped around my ear, or my elbow, or sometimes even my throat. Everyone in my family says the Beast has a life of its own. You better believe it.

So my last normal day started out like it always does; Momma called me down after my shower so she can do my hair. “Girl I swear,” she said to me while she’s pulling out a minor tangle. “You better marry a man who’s strong as an ox. No one else will have the strength to pull a brush through this hair.”

Only today was slightly different. “Make sure to eat your breakfast early sweetie,” she said to me while she was tying the last braid. “Your Poppa has a doctor’s appointment in Red Bluff this morning, so I need you to walk your brother to school.”

“But Momma,” I said because no sophomore at Buzzards Roost High wants to walk their kid brother to the Junior High school. “Can’t Charles walk on his own?”

Charles is my little brother. He’s nice and all, and whip smart, but he always has his nose in a comic book and when he walks he gets all turned around. Poppa says, “Charles couldn’t find his way out of wet paper bag,” and he probably right.

Momma looked at me. “You do what I say. I got to take your daddy to the doctor, and sick people have priority around here.”

“Yes, Momma.”

“Now give your daddy a kiss and run along,” she said, handing me my brush.

Poppa was already in his outdoor chair, and he was showered and changed, that meant Momma must have got up extra early to clean him before the rest of us got up. I gave him a kiss on the cheek and he said, “How’s my favorite girl,” which is his favorite joke. “Poppa, I’m your only girl,” I said, and of course he laughed.

This morning he smelled of soap and sweat, but not too badly. At least he had’t started drinking, yet.

He gave me a hug and I went into the kitchen to pour a bowl of cereal. Charles was already sitting at the table eating his sugar cereal and reading Captain Avenger or something. I said, “Hello,” when I came in the door but he didn’t look up.

When we were done eating my older brother Will came down stairs with his hair looking like a short blonde version of mine, only his was splayed out every which way, like he had slept with his head in a blender. He was so groggy he walked right past us to the coffee pot before he thought to say good morning.

Will was like that in the morning. He sometimes wears a shirt that said, “Instant human. Just add coffee.” For him it’s true.

So while Will was still taking his first sip I called out, “Momma, can Will take Charles instead?”

“Take him where,” Will said just loud enough that Momma couldn’t hear.

“Guess?” I said quietly back.

His eyes glazed over for a moment, then he said, “No way. I have to pick up Eveline.”

Mom called out from the front room where she was putting our backpacks together. “I’m afraid he can’t dear. He has to pick up Eveline this morning.”

“See?” Will whispered.

“But Momma,” I said. “Eveline lives right next to the middle school. Will could drop of Charles super easy.”

“It’s not up for discussion,” Momma called from the other room, which meant your father has decided.

“Okay,” I said starting to feel the old anger rise. It was always like this. Once Poppa has decided something, that was it. Case closed. There was no discussion. Unlike, say, a democracy where the people actually have a voice, we live in a dictatorship. I knew if I focused on it would only make me more angry, so instead I decided to do something positive.

I ran up to my room to drop off my brush. My room is a typical teenager room. I have an old four-post bed, a dresser for my clothes, and a small desk (which Momma calls a secretary) to do my school work. I’m a huge fan of Pink, so my desk is surrounded by photos of her. Above my desk running along the wall at eye level is a whole series Shaker pegs, each one about a foot apart from the next. Hanging on these pegs is my ribbon collection. It started with a pair for every day of the week, but grew larger when Momma discovered you could have custom ribbons made that said things like “State Champion: Spelling”. I had two pair of those, plus about a dozen more pair for winning the County and Northern State Regionals. Momma had them made every time I won. Blue for first, gold for second, red for third. There used to be a lot more red and gold ones, but I had to put them in a drawer to make enough room. Now there’s nothing up there but blue ribbons, except for the pair Momma got me when I won the state championship for a second time; that pair is purple. Ribbons aren’t as nice as the trophies they give, but I can’t bring trophies home. Poppa wont allow them in the house. Even when Will set the state record for total passing yards last year Poppa made him leave his trophy at the school. Poppa’s weird that way.

I took a moment to touch my favorite photo of Pink. It was taken at a concert in Frisco when she first started out, and no one knew her from Adam. Whenever I’m angry at Poppa I like to look at it. It reminds me that everyone starts small and has to grow into their greatness. I may just be another girl from a small town, but someday I’m going to be much, much bigger. I also like to rub the photo for luck. So far it’s worked.

I took a few seconds to look at all my ribbons, picking out my favorites, remembering the words I spelled to win them. L-O-G-O-R-R-H-E-A or A-U-T-O-C-H-T-H-O-N-O-U-S. More than anything this helps me calm down. All that victory, all in one place, and all of it earned by me. No one can take that away from me. No matter what. Not even Poppa. It made me happy again to see them. Like walking onto a room full of friends.

I took a deep breath to center myself, like they taught us in gym class, then I picked up my backpack and ran down the stairs. I hustled up my brother Charles, grabbed his things, and we headed out the door. It was a half mile from our front door to the highway, and then another quarter mile beyond it to the school. If we didn’t get moving we’d both be late. When we left Will was still staring stupidly over a mug of coffee and Momma was fussing over Poppa’s hair.

Not much else happened on my last normal day. The only thing that really stood out was after school. I was going though my locker picking out the books for homework when suddenly I noticed Eveline looking over the top of the door.

I looked up and said, “Hey Eve.”

“Hey Clara,” she said.

I waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t. She didn’t walk away either. She just stood there with her arms across her chest looking really uncomfortable. That’s when I figured something was up.

See Eveline was my brother Will’s girlfriend. They’d been going out since last Easter. She was tall and pretty, and had beautiful short blonde hair. It was all straight without the least trace of a curl, which she often complained to me about when my bother wasn’t around. “I’m so tired of my hair,” she would say. “Its got no body like yours.” I would have traded the Beast with her hair in a heartbeat.

I saw Eveline often as she was always at our home. Poppa liked her, which wasn’t much of a surprise, even grown men like pretty girls. But Momma liked her too, which is more rare. She tended to sniff at Will’s girlfriends like she was looking for rotten meat in the trash. Even Charles liked her, and he hardly talked to anyone. But I liked Eveline because she was from out of town. She grew up in a little town north of Frisco, and went to The City often when she was young. Just hearing her stories let me know there was life outside of Buzzard’s Roost, which had to be the smallest town in the entire planet.

But there was a problem. See she was a Senior and I was a Sophomore, and she was also dating the school’s quarterback, who was practically the most popular guy in town. So while at home we often talked or did our homework together, at school she barely noticed me. Not that I’m complaining, I’m just trying to make things clear. She was used to the rarified air reserved for the pretty and the popular. Girls like that don’t hang out with geeks like me.

So seeing her stand over my open locker with her arms crossed and not saying anything, well it didn’t take a genius to realize something bad had happened on Mt. Olympus.

I closed my locker and stood up with my books. Stepping closer I saw she looked like she was on the verge of tears.

“C’mon,” I said pulling her hand, taking her out of the corridor and back behind C building where nobody could see you. When we got out of sight she started to cry. I made encouraging words and patted her back until she eventuality stopped.

When she was done I handed her a tissue, which I keep in my backpack along with everything else I might need. She blew her nose in a way that was truly outstanding, and then wadded up the tissue in her hand. I handed her another one so she could dab her eyes. Crying raises hell on eye make-up unless you buy the good stuff.

When she was done I asked, “Do you want to tell me, or are you good?”

To her credit she took me seriously, and gave the question some thought.

“I think I need to talk about it. Do you mind?”

I shook my head, but the hesitation must have shown on my face.

“Look if you’re too busy,”

“It’s not that Eve. Its just I wanted to get a start on homework, and if you’re going to cheer practice…”

“I think,” she said. “I think I’m done with practice for the day, maybe forever. I don’t know.”

“Wow. Really?” I said. Eveline wasn’t one to be so dramatic. If she said she was done with something she usually was.

“Do you mind if I walk you home?” she asked.

“Not at all. C’mon.”

So that was how I learned she had broken up with Will. Now not all of it was a surprise. I mean Eveline was a pretty girl and she got along with the other gods of high school, but underneath all that she was also really smart. I know because she helped me with my homework about as much as I helped her with hers. So while she was pretty sharp my brother just isn’t that way. I mean Will’s nice and all, it’s just he doesn’t go for all that intellectual stuff. Playing football and cutting down trees, these are the things he like to think about, and not much else. I figured Eveline would eventually grow tired of him, and I wasn’t disappointed. But what surprised me is what she told me next.

“I’m thinking of moving to Frisco,” she said.

“What!”

It turns out Eveline had an older cousin who lived in a rent controlled apartment walking distance from San Francisco City College. The cousin was loosing a roommate so she was looking for someone else to move in. Over the last weekend Eveline had gone down to see the place and had fallen in love with it. She’d come home convinced it was her big chance. “You have to see it, Clara. It’s so pretty, and the school is so close.” It was the most enthusiastic I had ever seen of her. Her eyes glowed as if was suddenly alive. She was electric.

I was so full of excitement for her I almost missed what she said next. “There’s another room.”

“Uh huh,” I said nodding my head.

“No, Clara, there’s another room.”

“Huh? Wait, what?”

She smiled. “There’s another room that’s going to be open, next fall.”

“And?”

“Well, are you interested? I mean you’re always talking about wanting to move out.”

I stopped. I mean I literally stopped walking. I’m not sure, but I think my head might have exploded for a moment. Maybe it was only a little explosion, but I felt something.

“Are you asking me?” I said in total disbelief.

She smiled like she had just won the lottery. “Uh huh.”

“Are you positive?”

“Uh huh.”

“Oh Christ,” I said. “I mean I can, but I can’t. I mean I don’t know. I mean what am I going to tell my mom?”

“Whoa,” she said putting up her hands. “I know it’s a lot to take in, and you’ll have to get your GED and such. And you’ll have to convince your parents. But we don’t have to solve all that today. The important question right now is just this: Are you interested?”

“Yes!” I said jumping up and down. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

The rest of that day was a bit of a blur. Eveline and I agreed we’d keep our idea secret for now. I tried hard not to let my excitement show, but it’s hard to fool your parents. “Is something up?” Momma asked at the dinner table. Will sat staring into his plate and not talking. He’d been real quiet since he came home from practice. I was sitting across from him trying to keep my legs from shaking.

“No Momma,” I said. “Why?”

“Well, you seem awful pleased with yourself this evening.”

I thought for a moment then gave her an excuse. “Oh, we had a pop quiz in history today. All about politics in the Roman Empire.”

“And did you do well?”

“One hundred and ten percent,” I said.

“So you got the extra credit too.”

“Yes,” I said giving her a big smile to make it look like I was excited about my history grade.

“Did you hear that dear,” Momma said to Poppa. “Our girl just hit one out of the park in her history class.”

“That’s nice,” Poppa said, not looking up from his TV program in the other room.

“Oh, you and your TV,” she said shaking a finger at him like she was angry. It was a scene that they played out at the dinner table almost every night.

She turned to me. “Never mind what your Poppa has to say. That’s great, sweetie.”

Later that night after Momma and I finished up dishes I saw Will trudge up the stairs as if the whole world was resting on his shoulders. He was taking this break-up pretty hard. A part of me felt sorry for him, but the other part was secretly thrilled. All I could think about was that apartment in Frisco and the whole wide world around it. Imagine an entire city of people who had never heard of Buzzard’s Roost!

Little did I know that it would be the last time I’d see my brother walk up the stairs.

***

I was woken up the next morning by the Beast. This time it was a clump of hair that had crossed my face and wrapped around my opposite ear. Every time I moved it pulled tight across my eye like a cobweb. Yuck. Then I remembered my conversation the day before with Eveline, and the apartment waiting for me in Frisco, and suddenly the Beast wasn’t so bad.

While Momma was braiding my hair that morning I couldn’t help myself. No one else was around so I said, “Can I ask you something Momma?”

“What dear?” she said as she pulled a clump of Beast into a tight wrap.

“Would you be upset if I was to move out of town?”

She stopped and leaned back a little as if to get a better look at my face. “What makes you say that dear?”

“Nothing,” I said trying to sound casual. “I’m just, you know, wondering. I figure eventually to go to college or something. After I graduate,”

“Well, we’d have to see what your dad says.”

I put my hand on her arm. “Just you, Momma, what do you think?”

A flush came over her face. “Well, I…” She looked around the room as if there was an answer there for her. “I… guess I’d have to think on it some.”

“Thank you Momma,” I said patting her arm. “You just take your time.”

She looked away for a second, and then real quiet she asked me, “Is there something I should know? A problem with a boy or something?”

I felt a flush come over my face. “Nothing like that Momma,” I said sounding more shocked than I wanted to. How could she think that about me!

Then I saw the relief on her face. “As long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure, Momma. About that I mean. Definitely sure.”

“Okay.”

She finished up the last braid and handed me my brush. “Now go on up and get yourself ready,” she said. “And wake your brother again for me. I swear that boy is gonna sleep through his own funeral.”

“Okay Momma,” I said. “And thanks.”

“Thanks? What for?”

“For listening.”

“But you didn’t say anything,” she said with an exasperated smile.

“Yeah, well, thanks anyway.”

She reached up and rubbed my shoulder like she did when I used to cry. Then she gave me a pat and I went upstairs.

Will’s bedroom is right next to mine, so after I put my brush away I went into his room. He’s decorated it in American Teenaged Male Disaster, which is my term for tossing everything in the room like it was the inside of a clothes dryer. “Hey,” I said giving his arm a shake. “Momma says it’s time to get up.”

He opened his eyes like two slit and looked around the room. “Wh-what?”

“Rise and shine, brother mine. You know. School.”

“Oh,” he said covered his face with a hand. “God, I don’t know if I can get up.”

He sounded genuinely tired, like he had been up all night partying with his friends again. This was something I had no sympathy for. Self-induced pain is the stupidest kind, and you can quote me on that.

“Suit yourself,” I said as I went back to my room.

The last thing I remember from that morning was Momma calling up to him. “You’re going to be late for school William Frederick Barton, if you don’t get your butt down here right now.”

Momma was mad, I could tell, but we were going to be late if we didn’t leave soon. Charles and I grabbed our backpacks and got in the car. Momma yelled up at Will one last time, and then she drove us to school.

I was in math class when I found out something was wrong. Mrs Rolff had been putting some problems on the board when suddenly there was a strange noise in the room, a ringing. Everyone looked up. I don’t think any of us had heard it before. “What is that?” people were asking. Mrs. Rolff started digging under a pile of old papers. After a moment she pulled up an old style phone. I didn’t know the classrooms even had them.

“Room 7, Mrs Rolff,” she said with a smile when she put the phone to her ear. Then her smile dropped to a frown. “Uh huh. Yes, okay,” she said. “I’ll send her right away.” Then she hung up.

Everyone was looking at her when she turned around. “Clara,” she said. “They need you in the office.”

I started to get up and head for the door.

“Uh, you might want to take your things,” she added.

When I was finished loading my backpack she said, “Don’t worry about homework for tonight, Clara. It’s not that important.” Everyone in the room laughed. I lead the room in completed homework assignments.

It was a Friday afternoon and school was about to let out. There was an excitement in the air, even in the empty halls. You could tell. The game that night was against Whiskey Town, and everyone was gearing up for it.

I walked into the office and there was all this bustle and energy. Everyone was moving and excited, everyone except Mrs. Tomkins, the school secretary. Her face was pale like she had seen a ghost. “Oh you poor thing,” she said by way of a greeting, getting up from her desk and giving me a hug. In my mind I was thinking What in the hell!!! Then she said, “Your momma called. Your brother’s turned sick.” She gave a pause before continuing. “She needs you to pick up Charles on your way home.”

I nodded wondering what all the fuss was about. I didn’t understand what was making Mrs. Tomkins act so funny. Then as I was making my way out the door I overheard Mrs. Tomkins whisper to Mr. Shane, “…that’s the second time, in the same family,” and suddenly it all clicked.

They called Roost Specific Polio, or RSP for short. Some folks said it was caused by a virus, others said it came from a bacteria. When I read that trees communicated to each other via spores in their roots, I thought it might be caused by a fungus. There was even a psychologist in Red Bluff who claimed it was mass hysteria. Doctors were baffled. Specialists searched and searched. The disease seemed to leave no damage to the nerves or to the muscles, but once you caught it you never walked again. Never.

By the time I picked up Charles at the Junior High, everyone in town knew. Sheriff Johnston gave us a ride up the hill, and when we made our way to the top of the bumpy road I saw that our parking area was already full of cars. The grieving had begun.

The next few days went by in a blur for me. Practically everyone in town came by and dropped something off; a few meals here, firewood there, that kind of thing. All of it was very helpful I suppose, but also it wasn’t helpful. I mean all that food wasn’t going to make my brother walk again, and more wood meant more work for me, since I was the one who had to do the splitting. It was all very nice, and very kind, and it just about drove me crazy.

The worst ones were the folks who tried to cheer me up. They’d say the most inane things like, “You know RSP isn’t a death sentence,” or “Your brother will be getting around just like his old self soon enough.” But none of them ever had to live with RSP in their family. They didn’t know the dark side. The times that Poppa was mean to Momma, especially when he started drinking. They way she sucked up to him no matter what he said or how mean he was. All the doctor’s visits and the crying, all the meals you have to cook and the washing. Having someone with RSP in your family was a lot like a having a two year-old. Only one that didn’t grow up.

The other families with RSP were almost as bad. They’d come over all cheery, but pretty soon they’d be comparing notes, almost like they were bragging about who did the most extra work. And there was a whispering among those women, an expectation. Every time a girl would come over to the house their heads would turn, like they were waiting for something to happen. It was like they expected a third arm to grow out of her body. It was weird and also kind of creepy. But the weirdest part was when they talked about Eveline.

I hadn’t seen Eveline since the day before this all happened. Her absence in our house was almost as bad as the well-wishers. Everyone kept asking me about her, wondering when she was going to come by. They’d look at me as I was supposed to know. I guess I could have called her, but I don’t know what I would say. I mean she broke up with my brother. There was no going back on that. What did they expect of her? To come over and visit anyway? Wouldn’t that be a little weird?

And then there was the whole Frisco thing. I kept thinking about that apartment, about getting away. Every time I had to cook another meal or go and split some more wood I fantasied about what it would be like to live in a house where nobody expected me to work for them, and I could cut my hair any length I wanted. I had already looked up on the internet what I needed to get my GED. I met all the other requirements for the College. I might have to get a note from my parents because of my age, but I was pretty sure I could get Momma to sign one. I’d just have to wait for a day when Poppa was at his therapy or something.

But also I was afraid that if I talked to her, if I tried to tell her about what was going on with Will, that it would somehow burst the bubble, and she wouldn’t want me to go with her to Frisco anymore. I just couldn’t face that. So while I didn’t go out of my to avoid Eveline, I also didn’t go looking for her either.

So days went by and she didn’t show up, then weeks. Finally one Saturday morning after about three weeks there was a quite knock on the door. I opened it to find Eveline standing there. She looked terrible, like she hadn’t slept in weeks. She was thin, her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, and she had dark spots under her eyes.

“Hey, uh, Eveline,” I said in surprise.

When she saw me her face did this strange dance of emotions; surprise, worry, a twisted smile of guilt, and then a wince of apology. All of this while the rest of her stood frozen to the spot. I understood in that moment all she had been going through. I put my arms around her in a hug, almost crushing the casserole she was holding in her hands, and then led her inside saying, “Hey everyone, look who showed up.”

Momma got up and gave Eveline a big hug while I took her casserole to the deep freeze in the garage. I came back to find her sitting in the living room. My parents were talking softly with her, the television muted in the background. They were trying to sound casual, but I could tell they were tense.

Poppa was saying, “Well, are you going to go up and see him?”

Eveline gave the barest of head shakes, like she couldn’t trust her voice to say no.

“That’s okay, dear,” Momma said, patting Eveline on the shoulder. “It’s probably for the best.”

“Nonsense,” Poppa said. “The girl came all this way, and it would mean so much to Will.”

“But look at her,” Momma said to him. “The poor thing is obviously upset.” Then she turned to Eveline. “Maybe if you come back at a better time.”

“This is a perfect time,” Poppa insisted.

“But…” Momma started,

Poppa interrupted her with his Do What I Say tone, “I think it’s best if she went up to see him.”

Momma stopped, her mouth still open, then she kind of fell in on herself. “Its probably best if you went up to see him now,” she said. Momma had turned to face Eveline, but her eyes stared down at her hands.

I’d seen Momma switch sides like this hundreds of times, but for some reason this time it seemed especially cruel. I wanted to intervene, but I didn’t know to say. Eveline was obviously in a fragile state, anyone could see that. But I was afraid anything I said would harm my chances for that apartment in Frisco, so I stayed silent. Under the pressure the poor girl finally relented. When she walked up the stairs she looked terrified, like she was going to her own hanging. I wanted to run up to her and tell her she didn’t have to go, but I was too chicken. Then she knocked on his door, and entered, closing the door behind her.

There was a hush in the house, as if everyone was holding their breath, which made me feel sick. After a while I couldn’t stand it, so I went out to split some wood.

After a long time Eveline came back out, only this time she was a different person. Oh she looked the same. Actually she looked better. She was smiling, and happy. But there was something wrong about her too, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

She joined us over supper, just like old times. Momma had baked Will’s favorite casserole, and helped me carry him downstairs so we could all sit around the table. Everyone was acting as if Eveline was now a part of the family. Like she and Will had never broken up. It was weird. Like she had gone up into that room a single girl and come back down Will’s girlfriend.

Near the end of dinner Momma had asked Eveline if she wanted seconds on the casserole. Momma was just being polite, everyone knew Eveline didn’t like the dish. She’d replied “No,” but then a strange look came over Will.

“Of course you want some more,” he told her, using the exact same tone of voice Poppa used with Momma. “It’s my favorite.”

“I do?” Eveline said sounding confused. Then she looked over at Will like she had no control over her face. Like she was a robot or something.

Momma was saying, “It’s okay honey, I was just kidding,” but Will interrupted her with a “No, Momma. You worked hard over this casserole. Eveline needs to appreciate it.”

Then Eveline suddenly was all smiles again. “I’d love some more casserole,” she said sounding cheery and holding up her plate. “After all, it is Will’s favorite.”

At that moment I think my blood turned to ice.

Over dessert Eveline mentioned renting a house nearby and getting a job. Suddenly it dawned on me what she was saying.

“Wait a minute. You’re staying in Buzzard’s Roost?” I blurted out before I could think to stop myself.

“Well, sure,” she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I wanted to scream, “But what about Frisco and the apartment?” but everything seemed too fragile then, like anything I said would shatter things further.

Around 11:00 it was time for Eveline to go home. Momma was tired and Will wasn’t ever going to drive again, so I volunteered to walk her home. It was cool night, the air brisk, but not too cold. The roots that covered our driveway and pretty much every other place on that mountain, looked like writhing fingers on the road in the light of the bobbing flashlights. Eveline was full of excitement and energy, but also something else. Something I couldn’t understand, so finally at some point I plucked up the courage ask about her cousin’s apartment and ours plans for Frisco.

“Well, obviously we’re going to have to give those up,” she said sounding very much like a teacher giving a lecture at school.

“Give them up?” I asked, my heart skipping a beat.

“Well, yeah. I mean they’re nice dreams and all, but it’s time we lived in the real world, and not some fantasy.”

“So everything you talked about, everything you said, sharing an apartment in Frisco, that was fantasy?” I was pretty upset. I wouldn’t be surprised if I squeaked.

We were now stopped outside of her house. The lights were off so we were trying to keep our voices down. The moon was mostly full and it gave everything around us a hazy glow.

“Look,” she said with a little bit of sympathy to her voice. “Your brother needs me. You understand that don’t you? I can’t go on like it was before. I have to make new plans. I have to plan with him now.”

“What is wrong with you?” I said, “Ever since you came over this morning you’ve been acting weird.”

“I had to grow up, Clara. That’s what’s wrong. Maybe you ought to do the same.”

I left her there on her porch, not even waiting to make sure she made it inside. Momma would be mad if she found out, but I didn’t care. Had the whole town gone crazy? I didn’t know what to think.

I remember the walk back home because it seemed like those damn roots were trying to trip me at every step. God I hated Buzzard’s Roost right then. My one good chance of leaving this town had been spoiled by my brother and his stupid disease. I was so angry I think I stomped on every root in the road. I wanted an axe right then so I could chop down every damn tree I could find.

By the time I got home, the anger had burnt itself out of my system. Walking up the drive I was surprised to see the kitchen light was on. Momma likes to turn in early, even on the weekends, so it was a shock to see her sitting up at the kitchen table. She had a cup of tea in front of her, and she had draped an old blanket around her shoulders for warmth, though it wasn’t very cold in the house. She was staring out the window, sitting perfectly still, which isn’t like her. Momma is always up and doing things. Seeing her not moving felt strange, wrong, like she had become a statue or something. I noticed the tea in front of her had grown cold.

I said something to her, but she didn’t respond, so I walked up behind her to see what she was staring at. Looking out I noticed there was nothing to see. The light in the kitchen turned everything outside the window to black. All you could see in the glass was Momma’s reflection.

Gazing at her reflection I noticed for the first time that Momma looked old. It was like the Momma I knew, the one I’d always thought of as young and pretty, had been taken away, only to be replaced by a much older woman; a woman with wrinkles and dark lines under her eyes. Here I had been all worried about myself and my future, and I had totally forgotten how hard these past few weeks must have been on her. To have her husband and then her son become disabled before her eyes, and she the only one doing the work of nursing them.

I laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, soft as a sparrow landing on a branch. “Are you okay Momma?”

She gave a slight start, like I had interrupted her thinking. Slowly she looked up at my reflection in the glass and gave a weak smile. “It’s okay, pumpkin. Just tired, is all. Your father had a hard time going down tonight, carrying on like he does.” Which is what she said every time Poppa drank too much. Then she snuck one of her hands out from under the blanket to pat mine which was resting on her shoulder. “But thank you for thinking of me,” she said before she adjusted the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

“Momma, I think you need some time away from here. Don’t you? Get out, get vacation time on your own. You’re always waiting on Poppa hand and foot, and now you’re helping Will. Why don’t you go off with Carol and take that cruise like she’s always talking about? Charles and I can take care of Poppa while your gone. I’m sure we can get Aunt May to help, and Eveline will pitch in.”

Momma shook her head, “You know I can’t do that, Pumpkin. I can’t leave your Poppa with someone else. He’d only carry on worse than he does.”

“Yes, Momma, but what about you? What about your needs? You need to carry on to, don’t you think?”

Momma smiled at that. “Thank you, pumpkin, but don’t you worry. I’ll get my time, soon.”

I knew what she was saying was a lie. I could feel it. But it was strange because I could also feel the uselessness of trying to convince her differently. Uncle Bob used to always say, “Things are the way they are.” I never really knew what he meant until just then.

So I bent down and gave Momma a hug because I knew there was nothing else I could do for her. I held her tight and rubbed her back, like she used to do for me when I was small. It felt funny and good at the same time. Like I was trying to squeeze the love I felt for her, and all of my concern, trying to push all the good things into her and maybe drive out the bad. She rested her head on my shoulder, just for a second, and for that tiny moment I felt like I had given her a vacation. It made me wish I could do it all day.

I started to let go of her, slowly like, when suddenly she clamped her hand onto my arm. I was so surprised I automatically tried to jerk back, but she held onto me with an iron grip. All the cleaning, all the times she helped Poppa out of bed, or out of his chair, or even all the times she helped him over the toilet; all of that had made her hands real strong. When she held onto you, she held.

I’d been kneeling over her so we were close already. I looked into her face and all I saw there was a fierceness. It was strange, like Momma had become a wild beast. “Promise me,” she hissed her face all intense, “you’ll leave this town. Leave it and never come back.”

“Huh?” I said surprised.

“Promise me!” she demanded, tugging on my arm with each word.

“Uh, okay Momma,” I said, shocked at her sudden change. I almost never saw Momma mad, let alone angry like this. I didn’t know what had come over her, but it was scary. I was afraid if I didn’t say the right thing she might bite me. “I promise,” I managed to add.

Then just like that she let go. It was like my words had flipped a switch. Suddenly she was back to her same old self. I backed away slowly, not sure what else to expect. She turned to look out the window, staring into the dark as if nothing had happened.

“Goodnight pumpkin,” she said sweetly. “Be sure to turn the light off on your way out.”

I turned off the light, leaving her sitting in the dark, and made my way quietly upstairs, making sure to miss the two steps that creaked. Then I climbed into bed and curled into a ball until the sheets got warm. By that point I was so freaked out, after a day full of things to freak out about, that I really didn’t know what to feel. I fell asleep almost instantly, but I did not dream.

***

I got up early the next morning. For once the Beast didn’t wake me, my own worries did. I dressed quietly and put an old scarf around my head. Outside it was so cool you could feel the kiss of the coming winter. The air was crisp, and the ever present roots on the ground were starting to get stiff like they were preparing for the coming blanket of snow.

The Jenkins’ had been kind enough to drop off a cord of wood, when they found out about Will. They’d dumped it up behind the old barn near where the splitting log was. Will used to be our log splitter–Momma not having the time and Poppa not being able to stand–but now that he was sick someone else had to do the work. I’d always liked the feel of swinging an axe. Don’t ask me why. There’s something about the smashing of big logs into fireplace-sized pieces that is deeply satisfying. I know everybody else thinks it’s not a girl thing, but who do you think splits the wood for window Johnston and Martha Fields? As Momma would say, “That wood ain’t gonna split itself.”

Plus splitting wood is a good place to think.

A lot had happened in the past few weeks that I didn’t understand. What had happened to Will? Why had Eveline changed her mind? Why did Momma freak out like she did last night? I felt like I was about to take a midterm test for a class I’d never signed up for, and had never learned its name. I didn’t even know what I was supposed to study. So I put on some gloves, picked up the heavy splitting axe, and started working on the pile.

Momma came and got me around 8:00. That’s when we had our breakfast. I’d made the start on a pretty good pile by then. When we finished eating I did the dishes, and showered off the sweat I’d just earned. Then I started in on my homework. English was boring so I finished it first–some essay on a book we’d just read–but my math homework was giving me fits. The book was looking like it was written in Egyptian or something. The formulas were just not making sense at first. I was used to that. Usually I found if I just kept plugging away at a problem eventually I’d find a way to understand it. That, or I’d look online. Unfortunately our internet connection was buggy that morning, the videos kept taking hours to download.

I was about to go see if Charles was hogging up our connection–he liked to read online comics and that meant huge downloads–when I heard a car drive up. I looked out my window to see two of Will’s friends, Jack and Dan, get out.

Jack was the funny one, always telling jokes and goofing off. In looks he was the exact opposite of Will. He was dark and lean compared to my brother’s fair and thick. He was always ready with a story or another tall tale, and his eyes always shined in the telling. He played wide receiver with the same carefree grace that he told stories, slipping and sliding between defenders effortlessly staying one step ahead.

Will’s other friend, Dan was everything Jack was not. He was short, broad, and fair. If Jack was like a dancer skipping around the tackles, Dan was like a bulldozer crashing through the middle. He was less fast than fearless, and tended to solve problems by plowing into them head first. Will used to say that on running plays he would hand Dan the ball, and hope the other team was smart enough not to get in his way.

Sunday was the only day the team didn’t practice. It was their one day to sit back, relax, and not have to worry about football. So what did they do? They came over to our house to talk about football, because apparently if you can’t do football at least you can talk about it. Boy logic, go figure. The three of them had been doing this little ritual since about forever, sitting in Will’s room watching the Niners on Will’s little TV, and basically talking crap. You know, like boys do.

At least they didn’t let Will’s RSP keep them from a perfectly good male bonding ritual. That was something to appreciate. Jack and Dan may act like hicks, pretty much like everybody else in town, but they were good friends to Will, and I appreciated that.

The sound of their voices rushed into the house long before they did, and it proceeded them up the stairs and past my open door into the mess that Will called his room. Momma had taken Poppa to a new church over in Redding, and Charles was in the living room quietly reading his comics. The house had felt wonderfully alone and peaceful until the boys had come. Now with all their noise and energy it felt both annoying and exciting at the same time.

I set a piece of scratch paper in my math book to mark my place and closed it with a slap of frustration. Outside my window the color of the sky looked cool and tired, like someone had bled all the summer out of the sun, and it needed a vacation in Florida to recover.

It was Will’s voice that I heard first. “Someone at lunch said you were going to The House.” He didn’t have to explain what The House was. Only the old witch house was called The House.

“Maybe,” Jack said, “maybe not.”

“So you’re not going?” That was from Dan, who tended to view everything in black and white terms.

“What I’m doing,” Jack said testily, “is asking around. Getting to know my options.”

“Options?” Will said.

“Sure. Look we’ve all heard stories about the place. Every Halloween we used to dare each other to run up and knock on its door. Do you remember that?”

“Did you ever do that?” Will interrupted.

“What?”

“Knock on the door.”

“I did,” Dan said as if it was an everyday occurrence.

“No!” the other boys hooted in reaction. “No way!”

There was quiet for a bit. I could tell Dan was shrugging his shoulders, using his silence to dare you to challenge him.

Will broke the quite first. “Was it scary?” he asked sounding much younger than his 17 years.

There was more silence, then Dan said something just loud enough that I had to strain to hear him, “Maybe.”

“Really?” Jack said. I could hear the respect in his tone. “You went up and knocked on the door? What’d you do after? Run right back?”

“Maybe,” Dan allowed.

All three of them laughed. Then the room went quiet again. Normally I don’t like to pry, but for some reason I found myself leaning against the wall so I could hear them better.

Again it was Will that broke the silence. “So why are you going?”

“I’ve got my reasons,” Jack said.

There were more hoots from the boys then Dan said, “Dude, just ask her out.”

“Yeah, well the problem is, she’s got this older brother, see, who guards her like a bank vault.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, he’s not the kind of guy one can just run around, or like Dan here, run right though.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Punt,” Jack said.

“Punt?” Will asked. “Going to The House sounds more like a Hail Mary.”

They all laughed at that. But it was a nervous laugh.

“But here’s the funny thing, there are all kinds of stories about the old witch house, I know cause I started asking around, but they all have these a few things in common. In every story the man has to come at midnight, but only on a night with a new moon, which is kind of weird.”

“Its darkest,” Will said.

“What?”

“A new moon means there’s pretty much no moon, so less light.”

“What are you, an astrologer?” Dan asked.

“Its astronomer, you idiot, and to answer your question, maybe.”

They all laughed at that, and then the room fell silent again. The boys voices had been bright and loud when they had come in the house, but now they were low and private. I had to lean forward to hear better.

“So what else?” Dan asked.

“Well, if you want your wish granted you have to give her something like a gift.”

“A gift?”

“Yeah, but it’s a special kind of gift. Every story I’ve heard says the same thing. The gift has got to be rare, it has to be important, and it has to be something you’ve earned.”

“What?” Dan said. “Like a car or something?”

“That’s stupid,” Jack said. “How would you get it into her room?”

“Her?”

“The old witch, dummy.”

“Oh,” Dan said. “How about your grandpa’s watch?”

“It has to be valuable.”

“Oh, how about a ring?”

“I thought of that. The problem is I don’t have one.”

“Hum,” Dan said. Then after a moment added, “So what are you gonna take?”

“Dunno.”

“A trophy,” Will said softly.

“What?” Dan asked.

“Nothing,” Will said as if he suddenly wished he hadn’t spoken.

“What?” Dan said again, but Jack reacted differently. “Oh,” he said in a knowing way.

“What?” Dan asked again, this time sounding exasperated. He uses that word a lot, I thought.

“Nothing,” Jack said.

“Oh c’mon guys,” Dan pleaded, but neither Will nor Jack said anything.

I heard a large huff of exasperation, and after that uncomfortable silence. Then outside there came the sound of a truck coming up the drive. It was Momma and Poppa back from church. Apparently the boys heard them too. I heard Dan and Jack start to stir. There was talk about lunch and needing to go home. I could hear them pacing by the creak of the floorboards. By the time they were coming down the hall, I sitting back in my seat and had my math book open again.

I heard Jack and Dan start down the stairs, but something about the sound of their feet tugged at me. When I looked out my door I saw the reason. Dan had gone down the stairs, but Jack was standing in my doorway leaning against the frame.

“Hey,” he said when he saw me notice him. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” I said guardedly, not quite sure what he was doing. I was used to being treated like a little sister, especially by one of Will’s friends. I didn’t know what to say when one of them treated me like a regular human being. It was awkward.

“Working on our Algebra homework?” he asked nodding towards the book.

“Yes,” I said lifting up the corner so he could see the cover.

“Is it hard for you?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Kind of.”

Jack looked down the stairs. We could hear Dan stomping around down below. He must be in a dark mood. “You coming?” Dan called up.

“Just a sec,” Jack yelled, then he turned back to the room.

“Well, I gotta go,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, thinking that was the most obvious thing Jack Parker had ever said. The silence stretched on for a moment and it occurred to me that he might be expecting me to say something else, but I couldn’t figure out what.

“I’ll see you at school then?” He said it like it was a question.

I bit down my first thought which was not kind, and chose instead to answer “Yes.”

Dan yelled from the outside, “I’m starting the truck.”

Jack glanced down the stairs and then back up again. “Bye,” he said and gave a little wave like kids do.

I found myself waving back, although I couldn’t say why, then Jack bounded down the stairs fast and light, like he was running an open field under a flying ball. He was out the door and in the truck before the screen door had closed.

I sat looking at the empty doorway and wondered, What the hell was that all about?

I got up and walked to my window. From there I can see…. Well, practically everything.

If you think of Buzzard’s Roost as a giant bowl, then our house sits up on the rim. We’re on the West shoulder of Speckerman Mountain, which is one of three mountains that overlooks the town. Down to the center of the bowl you can see where there used to be a mill pond. South of the pond, where the supermarket sits now, used to be the main building where they rough-cut the logs before shipping them by wagon down to the valley. The pond got smaller and smaller until 10 years ago they finally filled it with dirt for a development. I remember skating there in the winter, back when I was small. Now there’s a few new houses, and a bunch of unfinished concrete slabs to mark the spot. Progress.

The only better view of the town is a little further up Speckerman Mountain on its eastern slope. There’s a pocket up there on a ridge that is protected from the weather yet has a spectacular view on all sides. It was on this site, back when Buzzard’s Roost was just a spot to gather lumber, that the company’s foreman, Christopher Evans, decided to build his home. Unfortunately for him, his fortune was tied to that of the lumber company. When the company went out of business during the great depression Christopher Evans lost it all. He packed up everything he owned, or so rumor goes, and headed south for Sacramento, leaving behind the one thing he could not move, his grand two-story Victorian home. Today we call it the old witch house.

The only other thing of note in our little town is a strange grove of trees endemic to this area. They’re called Squaw pine, or the Squaw-Hair pine, so named because their dark roots–which grow everywhere and are constantly underfoot–were thought to resemble the hair of the Native Americans women. At least that’s what the early lumberjacks liked to think. This particular type of pine tree grows only around this town and nowhere else, which has made for some pretty big fights. The environmentalists want to use the Squaw Pine to declare our little bowl a National park, and the loggers want to continue to pull out as much timber out if it as they can, for as long as possible.

Naturally these things make their way into our culture by the stories we tell. A tree with unusual roots becomes part of an “indian curse,” complete with stories of and ancient indian burial ground and promises of vengeful spirits from the dead. An abandoned house becomes the lair of a witch, who not only has magical powers, but is also acts as a quest for local men to test their bravery. All you need is a sword stuck in a stone or a magical armoire to complete the picture.

Why we humans need to turn ordinary things into fantastical ones I’ll never know. I remember my dad saying he used to be able to see the old witch house from here, back when he was a boy. When I look that direction now all I see are trees and sky. Yet growing up there was always stories about the place. The witch would come down, they’d say, to take away children who are bad. Why do adults make up stories like that? When I was a little girl I was sure the old witch was gonna get me in my sleep. It used to scare me so much that I would go to sleep with a double blanket over my bed, and had Momma tuck it in super tight. I couldn’t sleep if even one part of it was pulled out. Like a tight blanket was going to keep me from her claws. One time when I woke up with the Beast wrapped around my neck, I thought the witch had a hold of me. I screamed so loud Momma said I woke up the neighbors half a mile away. She was so furious I thought for sure she was going to cut my hair after that. But Poppa said no, and that was that.

So when I hear stories like this I just want to scream, “C’mon people! It’s the twenty-first century for god’s sake! We don’t have to believe in children’s stories any more!!!”

But I don’t ever say anything like that. For one thing, no one would listen; I’m just another teenaged girl living in the sticks. But also I have a problem in that I’m way too shy. Momma says I need to work on that, the shyness that is. “How are going to find a nice man if you can’t speak your mind?” she says.

How do you respond to that?

I want to say, “How about if I don’t want a nice man, Momma? What do you think about that? What I want is to get as far away from here as possible. Far, far away. I can find me a nice man, after I go to college.”

Of course I don’t tell her that. I’m far too chicken. But one of these days I’m gonna. I swear. If I ever get out of here, that is.

It was a week later when Jack came by after school. I was sitting at my desk writing a paper for English when I heard him step inside the front door and call out, “Hello Mrs. Barton. How are you?” A few minutes later I heard his footsteps as he ran up the stairs. He stopped outside my door as if he was about to say something. I could see the tips of his cowboy boots out of the corner of my eye, but I forced myself to not look up. Since Will had become sick, Jack’s attempts at conversation with me at school kept starting up and dying like a fire that wouldn’t light. Rather than be bothered by it I started to feel sorry for the boy. Here he was, fearless on the football field, but still couldn’t figure out how to talk to a girl. Ignoring him was easier than showing pity, at least that’s what I told myself. After a brief wordless moment, Jack quietly slipped down the hall to Will’s room where he was finally able to loosen his tongue.

I was so focused on my paper that I lost track of how long the two boys chatted. Finally, when I was sure I had an essay good enough to turn in, I set my pen down and listened. Jack had started by pacing the room, telling football stories no doubt, loud enough for the neighbors to hear. Now though he must be perched on the side of Will’s bed. The bed kept creaking every time he shifted his weight. It was a sound I had grown up with as my brother had always been a restless sleeper. Now I sometimes woke up because he didn’t make any noise, if that makes any sense.

I heard a creak and then Jack said softly with a voice used to calling across an open football field, “So you did it, didn’t you? You dog.”

Will said something in reply, but I couldn’t hear it.

Jack spoke again. “Yeah I saw her at school yesterday, all happy and shit.”

Then I realized they were talking Eveline. She had taken to coming over at the house most afternoons. As Jack had said, she was indeed all happy and shit, trading in her talk of tattoos and college for marriage and kids. Everyone in town marveled at her transformation except for me. I liked the other Eveline better; the one who smoked cigarettes and listened to punk rock, the one I was going to share an apartment with in Frisco. The new Eveline bothered me. She didn’t seem real. I think I was the only one in town who missed the old Eveline.

Will mumbled something too soft for me to hear, but I did hear Jack’s reply.

“The girl? Well, lets just say the older brother is no longer a threat.”

Faintly I heard Will say, “You gonna finally ask her out? You’ve been talking about her for weeks.”

“Naw,” Jack said, “that part hasn’t been going to well, so I’m switching to plan B.”

Will said something, but it was too soft for me to hear. Jack replied, “Well let’s just say it involves a dark night, the old witch house, and a foolish boy.”

“You gonna do it?” Will said, both surprised and maybe a little happy.

“I’m fixin’ to. Next Friday is the new moon. I figure it’s my best chance.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Why not? It worked for you. It worked for Mr. Hatchins. It worked for them others. Hell, it even worked for your daddy.”

“But Eveline and I, we was already together. This girl doesn’t even know you exist.”

“Oh she knows me, alright.”

“She does?” Will said. Even through the walls I could hear his disbelief. “You gonna finally tell me who she is?”

“Well…“ Jack said, then there was a long pause as if he was picking his words carefully. ”Lets just say come next week there’s a good chance you and I are going to be brothers.”

“Brothers?”

“Well, more like brothers in law.”

Will was silent as he tried to work out Jack’s meaning, but I knew exactly what he meant. The words hit me like an icicle hammered into my heart. Suddenly the small hairs on the back of my neck started to rise, and I could hear the pounding of my heart in my ears.

I heard Jack get up. “Well, I gotta go. The game tomorrow is going to be tough.”

“How’s Pete doing?” Will asked. Peter Jennings, a sophomore, was the new quarterback.

“Oh Pete’s okay. Not too bad. Not as good as you, though. I have to run a bit more to get under the ball. But otherwise he’s a good, you know, for the team and all.”

Jack opened the door. “Anyway, I’ll talk to you later.”

The rattling of Will’s doorknob sort of clicked in me. It was like I’d been trapped by the horror of what Jack had said, and then suddenly I was free.

Will said goodbye, and Jack started down the hall. Quickly I pulled my chair away from the wall and set it in front of my desk. Then I sat in it leaning over my text book as if I was engrossed in my homework. I heard Jack walk up to my door and stop. I thought he was going to say something but I couldn’t hear too well over the pounding of my heart. I tried very hard not to move. I wanted to scream and then run away so badly. It was hard to sit still. Jack stayed for only a second or two, though it seemed like forever, before he headed down the stairs.

Once he was out the door I started to shake. After a minute I forced myself to get up and see if he had really left or not. From the faint light of the porch I watched him walk down the root covered driveway until he faded into the darkness. Only then did I feel myself start to calm. After a while my heart went back to something like a normal, and my breathing relaxed. Then I sat back down in my chair to think. What was it Jack had said to my brother? “Why not? It worked for you.”

I’d never much given thought to the stories about the old witch house. Small towns carried stories like dogs had fleas. But I was starting to see a pattern, a pattern that wasn’t just a story, but was part of something more.

What if they were true?

Will was easy enough to work out. He’d gone to see the witch for the purpose of keeping Eveline. Judging by her sudden change of behavior I’d say it worked.

Poppa was something else. I knew my parents dated in High School. Over the mantel, centered in the mirror, was a photo of them back when they were the homecoming King and Queen. Momma looked so young and pretty in her cheerleader outfit. Poppa was tall and handsome in the old football gear. I remember my Uncle Ray once saying something about them breaking up. This was back when they were first married, well before Will was born. I don’t know what they had fought about, but I do know Momma had gotten mad enough to move back in with Grandma and Grandpa, and there was talk of a divorce. Obviously something had happened to make her change her mind. I didn’t know what it was, but I was pretty sure it happened right around the same time that Poppa got sick. Coincidence?

Lew Hatchins was another matter. He owned the hardware store downtown. I’d been in his store countless times. It was one of the few stores still open on main street. It seemed like no matter how bad the economy got, people needed things from Hatchins Hardware. Lew’s son, Harvey, did most of the work now but you still saw Lew there in his wheelchair chatting with the customers. I knew Lew had RSP, like Poppa, but I had never connected them or the other victims of RSP together. Had they all gone to the witch house at midnight on the night of a new moon? The idea seemed ridiculous, and yet I remember rumors that Hatchins Hardware was about to close, and that was right before he got sick.

But…what Jack said about being Will’s brother-in-law, well that gave me the chills. I mean I didn’t mind Jack Parker. He’s reasonably good looking, and he is smart, at least smart for a small town. But he was also very much a small town boy, and I wanted more than that, so much more. Did he really think he could get me to change my mind by going to see the witch?

Why not? I thought. It worked for Eveline.

I could feel the chills go down my spine. Was I really going to be trapped here my whole life, forced to love a man I didn’t even like? God! That thought gave me the shakes. Best not to dwell on it.

Instead I looked out through the darkness for the old witch house. Was that a light I saw? No, it was just a distant leaf reflecting our porch light. It was quiet out in the woods. When I stared at the place I swear I could hear a sound, like someone faintly whispering in my ear. It creeped me out, so I got up and closed the window.

Then downstairs I heard Momma called up, “Super’s on the table.” I came down the stairs and took my normal seat. Eveline was finishing up a plate to take up to Will’s room. I hadn’t heard her come up the drive, so she must have been down in the kitchen helping Momma while Jack was here. Sitting with my family, eating chicken straight from the oven, it was easy to forget all about the whispering. I could tell myself I was just being silly. But was I?

After the dishes were done, and everything was put away, I took a quick shower and then lay down on my bed to relax. The photos of Pink I had taped to the ceiling stared back at me. Pink who lives in a distant town with short hair and doesn’t have to worry a crazy witch (which may or may not exist), or a boy who is trying to make her stay in her home town. Looking up I realized Pink was as far from me as Dorothy was from Kansas. I had opened my window again and the cold air on my legs and arms made me shiver. Then as I started drifting off to sleep I heard a faint sound. It was the whispering coming from the woods. I got up and closed the window, but in the dark I could hear the witch speaking and it scared me into stillness.

***

I guess it’s fitting that I woke up the next day with the Beast tangled around my neck. Momma had to spend an extra 10 minutes getting out the knots so she could braid it. I gritted me teeth as she pulled and cursed, pulled and cursed. While she worked I closed my eyes and imagined her like a lion tamer stuck in a room full of lions with only a chair and a whip. “Crack. Get back you Beast or I’ll give you one on the snout. Crack.”

“What in earth are you smiling at,” Momma said in real life. She did not sound happy at all.

“Nothing, Momma.”

“Well, it better not be nothing. Your hair is not a laughing matter.”

“Yes, Momma.”

I managed to keep a straight face while she finished the second braid, then head still smarting from all the tugging, not to mention the constant weight of two 10 ton cables hanging from my head, I made my way down the driveway stomping on every stupid root that tried to trip me.

The only good part of the day so far was my ribbons. Momma had picked my purple ones, the ones I got for winning the state spelling bee last year. Normally having them in my hair was enough to make me feel better, but not today. I don’t know if anything could make me feel better after what I heard last night.

Since I hadn’t got much sleep last night, I was having a hard time staying focused in class. Twice I had teachers call on me and I didn’t know answer. That has never happened to me before. One time I didn’t even know what the teacher was talking about. It was like everyone had switched to speaking French in my world history class. In English, my teacher Mrs Franklin asked if I was okay. I could only duck my head and apologize.

Fortunately it was a Friday and a game day, so the last third of school would be taken up with pep rallies and such so we could all show our school spirit. It was while I was waiting in line to go into the gym that it happened.

Carl, Martha, Big Mattie, and a couple of others were standing around. We were waiting for the crowds to go in because we like to be the last ones in the gym. Don’t ask me why, its just kind of a thing we do. We’re like the unofficial geek squad, and besides eating lunch together its about the only thing we do together. Mattie was going on and on about me falling asleep in class today, but I was listening with half an ear, because, hello, I’d fallen asleep in class today. So while everyone else was laughing I was zoning out.

See right next to our gym is the trophy case. It’s full of all kinds of trophies. Big ones from winning state championships, and little ones for individual effort. It’s a familiar place for my family. The Barton name appears often inside. Its nice to look out and read your name, knowing your bother, your Poppa, or a distant cousin had done something extra special. So while they were joking around I stopped to look for the familiar trophies.

That was when I noticed that Will’s trophy was missing. He got it last year. I remember when he won it because it had been such a big deal. It was for the most number of Passing Yards in a single season, or something like that. I remember it was a state record. Now the trophy was missing. I could tell because you could see the little clean square in the middle of the dust from were it used to sit.

Right next to it was a matching trophy for the most number of Received Yards in a single season. That was Jack Parker’s trophy, my brother’s best friend and his favorite receiver. The two were such a matched set, or so the joke went, that they even made their trophies the same. Only Jack’s trophy was missing too.

Way back when Will had first gotten sick I remember him talking with Jack and Dan about the witch. Jack had mentioned that you had to bring something to the witch to get your wish; something valuable, something rare, and something earned. My brother had suggested, “A trophy.”

Now that I was looking at the space where the trophy had been, correction, where both trophies had been, I felt goosebumps go down my back, and the hair on my neck started to rise.

There was a part of me that wanted to go into full on panic mode and start yelling out loud, “I know how they did it! I know how RSP works!!!”

But I didn’t. Instead something weird happened to me. It was like all the stupid petty things of the town, all the dumb things they said to us girls, all the small ways they tried to make you stay; it was like all of that stuff had built up and built up until it was a big ball of disappointment, and frustration, and anger. Most of all anger. All that stuff had built up into this huge ball. So when I noticed the missing trophies, and I knew what they meant–knew that my brother Will had hijacked Eveline’s life for his own selfish ends; knew that my father had done the same to my mother; knew that Jack Parker intended to do the same thing to me–when I understood all of those things, it was like that huge bubble had burst inside of me. And when it burst it left my mind perfectly clean and sharp, like a thousand pieces of glass.

It was weird. I mean I’m the kind of girl that has a hard time speaking up for herself, and it takes me forever to order food at a restaurant, but at that moment I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

And I did it, which was even more surprising.

“Hey Carl,” I called out, not even bothering to look around. Carl was one of my geek friends. He was smart, and thin, and most importantly of all, carried with him this huge pocket knife which he kept incredibly sharp. At school everybody knew he had the knife, but no one said anything because they also knew he would never use it. Carl was also a pacifist.

“Yeah,” he called back from the line.

“You still got that knife?”

He looked around like he was worried we might be overheard. Even though everybody knew he had the knife, he still liked to pretend it was a secret. “Uh, yeah,” he said softly. “Why?”

“Can I barrow it for a second?” I asked.

“Sure. What for?”

“To stop an ancient indian curse.”

“Awesome,” Martha Jones said, but the rest of the geeks went silent. Carl looked at me to see if I was kidding. My face was perfectly calm. I know because at that moment I felt absolutely nothing. “Okay,” he said, and he handed me his knife.

As soon as I had the knife in my hand I turned and started walking away.

“Hey where are you going?” he asked.

I turned my body around but kept my feet moving, so I was walking backwards when I spoke. “To bargain with the old witch.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. I’ll tell you when I get back.”

And that was the last I ever saw of them, at least face to face.

On the way into school that morning I had been working out my odds of leaving this town. The math was starting to look grim. Real grim. Seeing Jack’s missing trophy, knowing that night there was going to be a new moon, and knowing first hand what the old witch was capable of doing, I figured if I didn’t do something for myself then, as in right now, than this time next week I’d be washing the butt crack of a paraplegic boy and mooning over how pretty he was like a lovesick cow. And I would never, never, get out of Buzzard’s Roost.

It was that last part that was totally unacceptable.

So I figured the only way I could save myself was to head the enemy off at the pass. That is to go see the old witch myself, before Jack Parker did. I mean why should the guys get all the fun? Besides I figured if Poppa and Will could ask for unending love, and if Lew Hatchins could keep the customers always coming to his store, then it should be a synch for a witch that powerful to give me a one-way ticket out of this town.

All this I had worked out in my head, but truth me told I was too scared to do anything about it. I’m not one of those girls known for acting out. But seeing the missing trophy did something to me. I don’t know what. Made me angry I think. But it also made everything crystal clear.

Since it was a game day it meant everyone in school was at the rally. I had the halls to myself. Once I passed the corner of the gym the sounds of the band and the cheering started to fade until the loudest thing I heard was the sound of my own shoes echoing down the empty halls.

Just as I was about to leave the school I noticed a huge paper banner put up along the corridor by the pep squad. Our football team, the Buzzards Roost Lumberjacks, were playing the Burney High Tigers that night, so the banners said things like “Cut Down the Tigers,” and “Timber!” But the reason I stopped at this banner was because it had an axe in it. Someone had cleverly attached a full sized axe to the wall in the middle of the banner. I looked around to be sure the hall was empty, and then walked up to it to take a look. Sure enough it was held on with a couple of long wire ties. A few quick twists and it came free in my hands. On the backside was a Hatchins Hardware price tag. Well, it looks like I now owed the school $16.99.

I smiled as I put the axe over my shoulder. I gave it a pat and said, “You my friend are my insurance policy.” I figured I could always bring it back when I was done. I was even hoping I wouldn’t need it, but in the mean time I have to say it felt good to have it in my hands just then, familiar.

The trail up to the top of Speckerman Mountain runs near the school. Before long I left the sounds of the rally and the town behind as I made my way deeper into the woods. I noticed the trail was in fairly decent shape. I could see lots of signs of human life. An old beer bottle here, and broken branch there. There were plenty of foot prints still visible in the dirt. The trail up the hill was a popular place for kids to go when they wanted to drink and get a little bit rowdy. As I climbed higher the trail narrowed and there was less trash and foot prints, until by the time I was near the top it looked almost like a game trail. Then it made a tight turn through some thick brush and emptied into a clearing. I’d never been up here before in broad daylight, so the first thing I noticed was the lawn. At night the clearing had looked like a meadow, but in the day light I noticed there wasn’t any tall weeds, like a typical meadow, nor did I see any sign of a stream or a pond. It was all short grass. Exactly like a lawn. Across from me, right in the middle of the grass, stood a large two-story house.

I looked around. Except for a few scrub jays, which you could hear everywhere in these hills, I was alone.

From a distance the house looked tall and impressive, but as I got closer I began to notice all the details. At one point it must have been surrounded by bushes or small trees. Over the years these trees, most of them Squaw Pines, had grown until they surrounded the house. Perhaps surrounded isn’t the right word. It was more like they invaded the house, and in many areas replaced it. Standing in front you didn’t see most of this as the porch was largely untouched by the trees. Out there all you saw was wood so dark and crusty with age that there was very little sign it had once been painted. But once you stepped through the opening for the front door the trees began to take over.

Creeping past the door, I stepped into darkness. I thought at first the windows were covered by thick shades, until my eyes adjusted and I saw the windows had long ago been smashed. Branches from the trees outside had grown in through the broken glass working their way into the room blocking every window and covering the ceiling above in a fine mesh of branches. On the floor roots had grown in until they covered the old planks in a thick and twisty carpet. It felt weird stepping on the roots. They could support my weight easily enough, but walking on them felt like I was walking on someones fingers.

Outside the woods had been full of noise–the swishing or the wind as it worked its way thought the branches, the harsh call of a scrub jay, or the dry crunching of pine needles underfoot. But inside the house the sound seemed to stop, like the forest was holding its breath. Then softly I heard a noise. It sounded like someone breathing, only it sounded wrong; like rush of a thousand insects inhaling and exhaling, or the sound of a strong wind blowing through a distant pine forest. I couldn’t quite tell, but one thing was for sure: There was nothing about that sound that was the least bit human.

I looked around the room and almost immediately noticed the pattern. There simply was no other way to describe how the roots and branches grew. If you looked up close they twisted around the floor and ceiling in a seemingly random way, but when you stepped back it was obvious they were all growing towards something. It was a simply a matter of seeing where they went. Following this pattern of roots and branches I moved slowly towards the center of the house. There the pattern lead upwards to an opening on the second floor. After a moments hesitation I started up the stairs, marveling at the branch covered photos I passed on the walls. Peering between the wicker lines I saw a photo of the house and how it must have looked 100 years ago. A family was standing in front. There were 7 or 8 people but age and the darkness of the hallway made them almost illegible. I could make out a single child who must have been a girl based upon the two thick braids that came out of her head, but that was about all I could see in the dim light.

At the top of the stairs the house opened to a hall fronted by several rooms. A strange light filtered into the hall from a hole in the roof above. Down the hall I spied the outline of an ancient toilet with roots growing out of the bowl. Good thing I don’t have to pee, I thought to myself as I looked around. Only one of the rooms lay open. The others were covered by a thick pattern of tree limbs and roots. “Well, that makes it easy,” I said as I stepped towards the only open door. “I’ll take what’s behind door number one.” It came out more like a squeak, but at least I was speaking. Just before I entered the room I set the axe down, leaning it up against the wall. I figured there was no sense in trying to bargain with a witch if I was going to start the conversation with a threat.

As I stepped through the door I could tell there was something different about the room. Unlike the rest of the house, there were several pieces of furniture in here. As my eyes adjusted I started to make out details. To my right was a dresser that looked to be hand carved out of pine. To my left was a grand canopy bed, like the kind I always wanted. Thick drapes hung down from the canopy and were decorated with an intricate pattern. They surrounded all of the bed except where they were drawn back for a single opening in its center. The window was full of thin branches that swirled and twisted around each other as if they were fighting to get in. Only tiny cracks of light made it past them, but it was enough to see that the window still had all of its glass. The window was slightly open at both the top and the bottom. This offered just enough room for the slenderest of branches. Even than the branches entered the room in droves as they flowed up the ceiling or down to the floor, merging with the branches that came out of the hall, circling the room in a crazy quilt of wicker. Strangely, in here the branches stayed small and light, keeping themselves right next to the surface. There were no stray branches hanging down, or roots rising up that they might trip an unsuspecting walker. In this room at least they remained in check.

I heard a rustling sound from within the bed’s canopy so I stepped closer for a look. As I approached the bed I noticed the pattern on the thick drapes wasn’t an ancient tapestry of some sort, but the tiny inter-twinings of thousands upon thousands of small branches, all twisted and whirling together until they grew into a pattern that was beautiful and yet decidedly un-human. Tiny flowers of a color that looked to be cornflower blue grew here and there, and were so expertly woven into the fabric of the twigs that you almost couldn’t see them. On the bed I could make out what I had thought to be a rich blanket. It turned out to be woven out of the same tiny branches as the drapes. If I looked closely I could see where the branches for the blanket and the drapes curved up from the twigs on the floor, and down from those on the ceiling.

I heard more rustling from within the bed, when I saw movement I stepped back, suddenly afraid. I had come here expecting to find an ancient woman, but whatever was in that bed wasn’t human.

Then I heard a voice like the rustling of a thousand tree branches rubbing against each other. “Who’s there?” it called from the gloom in a voice that could never come from the throat of a human.

I was at that moment entirely and completely terrified. The rage I had felt that morning seemed a distant memory, and suddenly I was too afraid to move. I’m quite sure I would have stood there mutely forever if it hadn’t been for my mother. She had relentlessly drilled politeness into us kids, and even in my terrified state I found myself automatically saying, “Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but I was hoping to…hoping to….”

And that’s when my brain kicked in. How exactly does one approach a witch when they want to make a deal? It’s not the kind of question one sees in books on manners.

“You came here to bargain?” the voice whispered in a thousand tiny swishes.

“Ye, yes, ma’am.”

The bed creaked. A shape moved out of the darkness and into the opening of the drapes.

She was a woman, or she looked like one. That much I could make out in the gloom. Her face wasn’t just old, it was ancient. There wasn’t a square inch of her skin on it that wasn’t cracked with age. She was so wrinkled even the creases had creases. She wore what looked like a dress, but could easily have been more of the twig fabric that covered the canopy and the bed. It also was covered in tiny blue flowers. I couldn’t see much of her hands. The sleeves of her dress came down so low, but what I did glimpse looked more like twisted roots instead of fingers. Her eyes shown brightly, but were set so deep into her face that I couldn’t follow their movement. They could have been two colored marbles for all I could tell. But it was her hair that surprised me the most.

Coming from her head where these strange twisted clumps of hair. I’d only seen them on TV, but I knew what they were. They were dreadlocks. Each lock of hair was as thick as a man’s thumb and twisted in dark and light grey threads of hair, except when I looked closely they didn’t appear to he clumps of hair at all, but looked exactly like roots you see from the ever present Squaw Pine. The dreads grew up or down and eventually were lost to me to the dark of the back of the bed. I got the feeling they didn’t just hang there, but were attached to the twig fabric, or maybe I should say the twig fabric was attached to them. Tiny blue flowers were braided into her hair much in the same way Momma braided ribbons into mine.

The old woman leaned forward and looked at me as I was looking at her. “Ah,” she said in that rustling voice, “it’s the clever girl.” It sounded not as much as a surprise, but as an affirmation. I noticed her mouth didn’t open when she spoke. The sound seemed to come from deeper in her chest.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, not feeling all that cleaver at the moment.

“Why did you wake me in the middle of the day, child? What is it that a clever girl wants?”

“To leave,” I said.

The old woman smiled with a thousand creases. “You can leave any time you want. There’s nothing keeping you in my home.”

“Not from here. From the town. From this whole area.” I made a big sweeping gesture with my arms. “I want to leave Buzzard’s Roost, and not have to come back. Not for any reason. Do you understand?”

The skin around her eyes squeezed in as if in thought. “Hum,” she rustled to the sound of branches slithering and sliding, caught up by the meaning of my words. “An unusual request, but this can be done. What have you brought me as payment?”

“This,” I said as I pulled out Carl’s knife.

The old witch’s reaction was telling. She didn’t move, nor did her face change expression, but I could hear the branches on the bed behind her move and shift, and I could feel a vibration in the air as if all of the branches in the house, which is to say all of the house, was vibrating.

I pulled outwards on one of my braids with one hand, while bringing the knife up under it with the other, laying the blade close to my head with the sharp edge facing up. Slowly I applied upwards pressure into the hair with the knife, being careful not to cut my ear. The blade was so close to my ear that the knife made a crunching sound as it cut through the hair. Almost as if The Beast was speaking to me like the witch. When the knife cleared the braid, I quickly switched to the other side. Another smooth pull and I soon had both braids in my hands. They were still largely held together by the purple ribbons. They may not be trophies, but they were the next best thing. Will wasn’t the only one in the family who was a state champion.

“Here,” I sad tossing them on her lap. “Something rare, something valuable, and something earned.”

I had been so focused on cutting off their braids that I hadn’t paid attention to the old woman. I looked up to see her mouth twisted into an “O” of surprise. Then she let out a keening wail that shook the entire house. “Noooo!”

Only then did I realize that a witch who’s hair grew to cover an entire house might not exactly be a fan of haircuts.

In a flash a thin branch came out from the drapes and slapped my hand holding the Carl’s knife. I heard it clutter to the floor in a dark corner. As I watched, the thin branches of the carpet surrounded the knife and pulled it under. I felt a tickling on my feet and looked down to see tiny tendrils reaching up and wrapping around my shoes. I tried to lift a foot, but it was literally rooted in place. I tried my other foot and almost fell over. The carpet of twigs on the floor was alive now with waiving tendrils. If I fell down I was pretty sure I would never get back up.

The front door slammed closed. I felt the vibrations carry through the twigs as much as I heard it. That crazy breathing sound I heard when I first came in the house became louder now and faster. The old woman looked at me, her eyes glowing with hatred. She appeared like she was about to tell me something, pronounce some grand fate. Somehow in my terror managed to find the strength to tear my feet up from the living carpet, and scramble out of the room, lifting my feet high over the grasping tendrils like I was running on hot coals.

I stopped as soon as I entered the hall. The stairway which had been a large tube surrounded by thick branches was now closed off into a giant tangle of vines. Like they had dropped down from the ceiling into some crazy kind of security system. The hallway on either side of me was the same tangle.

The breathing sound was louder out here. I stood there stunned, too afraid to move, and watched the branches slowly crept towards me from all sides.

I looked back to the room I had come from. The carpet inside was alive with waiving tendrils. I looked down and noticed they stopped right at the doorway. Then I noticed the thin vines holding the tendrils in the bedroom lead out to thicker vines in the hall. The axe still rested where I had leaned it against the wall, so I picked it up and took a hard swing at one of the thicker vines on the floor. When the axe bit into the root the old woman let out a scream.

I quickly cut the remaining vines on the floor, noting that the tendrils in the room they supported drooped and fell soon afterwords. Looking up I saw a couple of similar vines feeding up through the top of the door to the ceiling. I stepped into the room just enough, and by flipping the edge of the axe around was able to awkwardly chop the upper vines. Only then did I fully step into the room.

A few tendrils tried to trip my feet, but now that I knew what to look for I quickly followed up any movement with a quick cut to their roots. Before long the room had become still, and so had the house.

In the quiet I noticed the old witch. She laid on her back on the bed, which now looked like a like a pile of dead vines and not the fancy bed I had first seen. I could hear her labored breathing as she lay there. Her lungs sounded dry and old, like an old leather bellows that leaked with every push and pull. She was breathing so hard her toothless gums, now black with age, had pulled back into a twisted grin revealing the world’s largest overbite. Her chest heaved up and down struggling with the effort, but was obviously not up to the task. I could see the color leaving her face. Her hands lay at her side clenched into fists.

“You,” she hissed between gasps. “You!” If she had more to say I never heard it. She looked so pitiful that I was tempted to use the axe to put her out of her misery, but when I raised it up all the small flowers on the bed shot out a jet of pollen that instantly caused me to go into a fit of sneezing.

I left the room again barely able to see between the sneezing and my watery eyes. The hallway had opened some, and I could tell the roots or vines or whatever were no longer under her control. Still clutching my axe I crawled and sneezed my way down the stairs, dripping snot as I moved. I made my way across the living floor room and out the front door, which was now open again if only a crack.

The light outside was blinding when I stepped onto the porch. I almost collapsed right then and there. The adrenaline from my fight with the witch had left my system and I felt tired and listless. Instead I forced myself down the steps, blocking the sun with my free hand, and quickly headed across the meadow towards the relative dark of the woods.

I stopped only after I reached the far end of the clearing, past the meadow that was cut short like a lawn. There at the edge of the woods I took stock. I was covered in tiny branches and pieces of bark, my knees and elbows were scraped and scratched, snot still dripped down my nose from whatever it was the flowers had shot at me, and I was dirty from head to toe. Still I had faced the old witch in her lair, and I had lived to tell about it.

I looked back at the house, which no longer looked menacing, just old and disheveled, and I let out a whoop that echoed through the trees. It felt really good so I let out another, then another. Then I opened my throat and yelled. “Take that you damn witch! You’re not keeping me in this town!”

I gave one last whoop of joy, wondering if this is what my brother felt when he threw a touchdown. I felt like I had just scored a hundred touchdowns, a thousand! This was so much better than winning spelling bees. It made me wonder if I should try out for the football team next year.

Looking away from the house I could just make out the town below laid out before me in its large bowl. I instantly understood why Christopher Evans built his house here. It was a lot like the view from my window. Not quite as nice but pretty darn close. The sun was just starting to drop over the shoulder of Speckerman Mountain and the light from it gave everything a rosy tint. Down below lights were just starting to come on in the town even though up here it was still bathed in light. Silly as this might sound, it was beautiful.

As I started down the trail I kept catching glimpses of Buzzard’s Roost through the trees. At one point I stopped at a stream to wash the worst of the dirt off my face and hands. By then my nose had stopped running and I was feeling pretty good, although very tired.

All down the trail to the town seemed to reveal itself like a child playing peak-a-boo. I’d go through a stretch of woods, round a corner, and there it would lay in all its splendor. Every step that brought me closer made me feel like I was one step closer to home. It was the town I always wanted, the place I always needed. By the time I reached the high school it was fully dark and I couldn’t think of a single reason why I should ever leave Buzzard’s Roost.

It was my home.

The dark got deeper as I slowly climbed the long road to our house. As the light faded so did my energy. Each step away from my town was harder than the last, every time I turned away I felt like I was leaving behind my best friend. The last stretch of our driveway felt torturous. I was leaving my love of my life. I was never going to see it again. I was doomed to be torn away from it, forever alone.

How I finally reached the house I’ll never know. The porch light was on and everyone inside was all excited. Will was on his feet, and everyone was helping Poppa take his first steps in 18 years. It was like the best party ever, only I couldn’t bare to look at them. The love of my life was right behind me and I was walking away from it. All I could do was trudge to the top of the stairs and enter my room. I immediately crossed to the window and threw it open, letting in the cool air. I gazed down upon my love, my life, and felt a deep, deep contentment.

I heard someone enter the room behind me. It was Momma. “Honey, are you okay? Your Poppa is standing!”

“Yes, Momma.” I said. I could hear the concern in her voice, it was just, I couldn’t look away.

“But….” She took a step closer. “What happened to your hair?”

“I cut it Momma.”

“But why!”

Finally I turned to look at her. “I beat the witch Momma. I killed her. I think. But I definitely beat her.”

“The witch?”

“The old witch, at the Evens place.”

“But that’s just a story, pumpkin, and besides look at your clothes. Your arms and legs are all scratched. You look like you crawled through a bramble patch.”

I had to smile at Momma’s description. It was a good metaphor for what I had done. “Bramble patch,” I said, “something like that.”

Momma looked back at me with confusion and worry so plain on her face it was as if she had written the words there. I wanted to explain to her about metaphor, but a strange fatigue came over me. A tiredness like I’ve never felt before. It was like all of my bones had suddenly decided they were going to turn to jello.

“Are you sure you’re okay, honey? You look pale.”

“Just tired,” I said, although it came out sounding like a slur. “Is…all.”

I made my way to my bed, moving backwards because I found I couldn’t bare to look away again from my lovely home town. Momma took my arm and helped me lay down.

“Need to sleep,” I slurred as I slowly fell backwards. “Need to….” I was out before my head hit the pillow.

Two thing happened after that: I slept and my hair grew.

The sleeping was caused by “the waisting disease” which is the name they used for whatever it was I got. I spent most of my time in bed, eating just enough to stay alive, but not one bite more. I grew thiner and thiner, while The Beast grew longer and longer. At first Momma tried to brush the Beast and braid it like she used to do, but eventually it got so long and so difficult that even she had to give up. While I was sleeping the only thing that would wake me for sure was to block my view of the town out my window, or to attempt to cut my hair. Even entering the room with a pair of scissors would set me off.

The Beast grew in piles and then in drifts like snow, until it fell off the bed, gathered on the floor, and then slipped through the floorboards into the house itself. While this happened, the house grew darker and darker. It had never been in great shape, and now with only casual care, it fell into disrepair. Our garden became a jungle, the forest reclaimed the barn and then most of the house.

In the beginning I woke up maybe once a day, but after a while the intervals between waking grew longer and longer. Each time I opened my eyes more and more time would have passed. I slept for weeks at a time, then months, and finally even years. I slept though the school year, slept through Eveline moving to her cousin’s apartment in Frisco, I slept through my parent’s divorce and Momma moving out, slept through the worst of my dad’s drinking, and even slept through his funeral. I slept through the day Will moved out, and the day Charles finished high school. I slept through the day he left town to work for a gaming company in Sacramento. I slept though the countless nurses that came and went. Every time I woke it seemed a new one would be there. I got to the point where I could no longer remember their names. When I was awake I learned to quit asking what had happened outside while I slept. Each time I asked the outside world seemed more and more unreal, while my dreams became more and more real.

Eventually the money ran out for the nurses. By then I wasn’t eating at all, and yet continued to go on dreaming.

Through all of this it was my dreams that kept me going. In my dreams I grew until I surrounded the lives of the people of my beloved town. I could see into their houses, look into their rooms. At first it was just a few homes, but slowly, inch by inch, the dream expanded until finally there wasn’t a house in the whole valley I didn’t know. Their worries were my worries. Their joys were my joys. I saw their lives, felt their pain, thrilled when they found new love, cried when someone died. My love became my life, my dreams became filled with their dreams, until there was no point that they and I were not linked.

Then one night, on the night of a new moon, I dreamed of a desperate young man. A girl he loved had left him and he was frantic to get her back. At the darkest part of the night, while everyone else in my town was asleep, I felt him climb my hill, stepping on my many roots, until he entered my house. Then he climbed my stairs, and walked into my room.

Then I woke up.

END

A snippet of an idea

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Eric_Tolladay

He died before he could defuse the bomb of his passing.

I woke up this morning with this snippet of an idea in my head. Its not meant to be directed at any one person or thing, just a piece of language looking for a story to attach itself to. Its birth can probably be traced to the shot of whiskey and the late night conversation I had by chance with a neighbor last night who is a 23 year-old horror movie director.

The problem with the neighbor

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Eric_Tolladay

Lets say you and your family move to a new town. Its a small town, and prosperous, with a tight community and good schools. The kind of place most parents would like to raise their children.

The house you buy is a nice one. Its on a good street, with lots of other homes of similar value. Most of the neighbors have kids in the same schools your kids will be going to, and they all share similar values, attend the same churches, are at the same socio-economic level, etc. Though you come from a different state your neighbors do a good job of making you feel welcome and at ease. Everyone in your family agrees, they feel like they belong there.

Right next door to your new house is a prosperous family with deep connections to the community. The owner of this home, your neighbor, is the owner of a factory that employs about 20% of the community. He is well liked by everyone you meet. His factory sponsors many of the local sports teams for children, baseball, soccer, football, etc, and he himself often coaches these teams, although he is happy to step-aside if someone else would like to coach instead. His wife keeps a good house and is socially active in the community (she’s on the PTA, is a board member of the church, raises funds for the volunteer fire department, etc.). Their children are polite and well behaved, which you notice every time they visit to play with your kids, or when your kids go to their house to play. Moreover the children are always supervised well, so much so that you always feel your children are safe when around them.

Then one day one of their kids come over to your house and you notice some bruises on his arm. There are four of them, a series of circles going up his arm in a line about a half inch apart, each one the size of an adult’s fingertip. Since you came from a rough part of town, you have a good idea of the cause, this is the classic indication of a grab mark. You ask to see the inside of the child’s arm, and there you find a fifth circular bruise that perfectly matches the placement of a thumb.

About a week later, another one of their children is over playing at your house and you notice a similar pattern of bruising. You don’t want to alarm the child so you don’t point it out, but later that night you talk to your spouse about it. You both agree this might be a worrying trend, but you’d rather be sure before you say anything. After all kids often play rough, and can sometimes bruise themselves like this.

A few weeks later your spouse tells you that your neighbor’s wife showed up at a PTA meeting with a black eye. She’d covered the bruise up with make-up, as good as she could, but it made people uncomfortable in the room. Everyone pretended as if it wasn’t there.

That’s when you start to cautiously talk to your other neighbors about the bruises. At first most people are reticent to talk to you, after all you are an outsider in their community, but after a while they start to open up. You hear stories about when your neighbor was a boy and in high school that are worrying. They seem to indicate a pattern of violence. There are rumors that he was arrested several time for assault, but then let go because his father was the mayor.

Some of the stories you hear are so outlandish that you’re pretty sure they are fiction. They’re the kind of stories that are spread by people who are jealous of another’s power or position. But some of the stories you hear are disturbing in their detail. They sound to your ear much more factual. To make matters more difficult the town is divided about the issue. Some people you talk to readily believe your neighbor is a monster, while others are equally sure the man is innocent and is being framed by outsiders for nefarious purposes. Though you try to remain as neutral and as objective as possible you discover that just bringing up the topic is enough to place you in one camp or the other. Worse still, you hear rumors that the local police, the local schools, and members of your church, have actively harassed the families of anyone who asks too much. So just trying to gather reliable data is enough to see you and your family hounded out of the community.

Meanwhile, your children continue to play with your neighbor’s kids, your spouse continues to work in the community, and you still have a job to do and the ever present need to pay the mortgage. Your family is entrenched in the community, is prospering by all accounts, and has never been harmed by your neighbor. The victims of his actions have never come forward and claimed to be injured. No one you know, including yourself, have witnessed your neighbor committing a violent act since he became an adult, but at the same time you’ve gathered enough evidence to be sure there could be no other source. The bruises not only line up exactly with his hands, they also sometimes show ring marks that are consistent with only him. If you were a prosecutor you would have sufficient evidence to prove a case against your neighbor to the standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt,” yet if your also equally aware that if you tried the man in this small tight-nit community you could never find a jury that would convict him.

So what do you do? At what point is the evidence sufficient for you to say something? If you do nothing, people will be harmed. If you do something, you and your family will probably be harmed. What do you do?

Story: In The Root

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Eric_Tolladay

A little something for your weekend.

I wrote In The Root way back in 2010, did some work on it in 2011, and again in 2012. Then it sat on my computer. At 18k words its pretty long, as in novella length. Too long to even bother trying to sell to a paper magazine.

I read a lot of action adventure stuff, mostly military sci-fi, and this is all that. The basic premise came from a friendship that started on an old forum I used to frequent: A liberal who became good friends with a conservative over their common interest in RC airplanes. But that was just about the relationship between the two main male characters. The idea of growing giant tunnels (as opposed to making them), came from an Alan Dean Foster novel I read many years ago called Sentenced To Prism. Everything else comes from places as obscure as the Aeneid (the protagonist’s name is no accident), to as prosaic as Robert Heinlein’s The Roads Must Roll. So I guess that means this story’s pedigree is 100% mutt.

The story is pure action adventure with ex-military construction workers caught in the middle of a looming war while being shafted by their idiotic company. It features an ignorant war-seeking President, gratuitous sex, and a reasonably high body count. Basically, if you’ve got a political axe to grind, whether liberal or conservative, I put a target in there for you to root against.

Quite a few of my friends ended up making a cameo in this story, unbeknownst to them. If you see your name in here, all I can say is “surprise.”

Plan on taking 25-40 minutes to read it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The dream came back to Virgil seven days into his vacation. The very night he got the urgent email from the company, demanding his return.

The dream always started the same. He was working the line with the crew. Forester was in the lead, Whitby behind him. The crack in the wall was long, maybe 20 meters, and wide enough to stick his fist in. The wall around it looked wrong, diseased. The edges crumbling to the touch, the wood discolored for several meters.

Foundme plants, named for their exceptional ability to find the least bit of sea water, had colonized the crack. Their thick leather like leaves designed for an arid desert were bloated from excess water. Their fat roots wedged themselves into the crack, forcing it wider. A chemist on loan from Harrison was supposed to come by, but his jeep broke down near nodule 5.2. They were on their own.

Virgil grabbed the beat-up ultra sound machine, and ran an image of the wall, while Forester ripped the foundme plants out of the crack with his spike. The depth kept coming up short by about 10 meters, the image murky by the inclusion of seawater in the wall itself. The wall, the living breathing plant that made up the tunnel, and the only thing protecting them from the several thousand tons of ice cold sea water around them, was falling apart. Not good. Not good at all.

Then he heard the sound.

The plants around him were swaying their leaves, like a slow motion video of a man flailing their arms. The more mobile plants were actually moving from the crack; picking up their roots, and undulating away. The combined motion was enough make its own sound, a shooshing and a swhishing sound, not unlike a strong wind in a pine forest. Only there was never wind in the tunnel, save the day long slow inhale and exhale of the Root.

“Hey,” he yelled to his crew. “Everybody stop what you’re doing. I need it quiet here.”

The crew stopped moving, and turned to him, wordlessly. Forester was leaning on his spike, panting. His overalls grimy, his hard hat scratched, and gouged like his boots. Whitby sat behind him, his grey hair dirty as he quietly rechecked the readouts on the ultra-sound. The rest were scattered about, mostly standing. Silent.

“Can you hear that,” Virgil asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

The crew looked around, noticing the jungle’s odd behavior. They were all seasoned veterans. Many had taught him how to read the jungle; to pay attention to the plants around them. “The Root knows,” they would say, though often to make fun of their new boss. From the looks on their faces, he could tell they were worried too. This crack was bad. The jungle knew it. They knew it.

“I think its time,” he said over the noise of the plants, “that we got the hell out of here. Like NOW!”

Standard procedure for an imminent breech called for radio warning first, followed by an immediate evacuation. Virgil picked up his radio. “Whisky, whisky two niner. We have a bad situation here. The wall depth is less than 15 meters, and falling. The jungle is acting… its going crazy.” He paused, realizing he sounded panicked. He took a calming breath, and continued, “I believe a breech is imminent. I repeat, I believe a breech is imminent.”

The ground below them shook. The crew looked at each other, dropped their tools, and starting running for the van.

He had just reached the vehicle himself when the wall broke; the crack imploding violently. Water, plants, and pieces of Root — some of them the size of tree trunks — came flying towards the men like an avalanche turned on its side. Forester was swept up from behind, his hard hat flying ahead of him. Whitby came next, his mouth open, his face a mask or terror.

Virgil had just enough time to grab his resuscitator, and put it in his mouth when the wave engulfed him. In an instant he was under; one second breathing air, the next 20 meters underwater, and all of it ice cold. Dark shapes loomed and swooped around him, tossing him about like the inside of the world’s largest clothes washing machine.

The violent wave front swept passed, suspending them, leaving them floating in a green-grey watery world, like the inside of a snow-globe after it had been violently shaken and then set down. Plants, and broken Root pieces floated by as he slowly drifted with them down to the bottom. He saw the flash of something metal in the murky water — one of his crew, tossed around like a rag doll, his now useless resuscitator still stuck in his back pocket. The larger pieces of Root started to fall, their massive weight made evident only if they settled on you. The snowstorm of jungle and Root, flung about by the breech, was dropping all around him. Burying him in its ceaseless embrace.

The last thing Virgil saw floating in the water was his father. The old admiral’s iconoclastic long grey hair swirling around him; his eyes piercing. He was trying to talk, trying to tell Virgil something. Something urgent. Then a plant covered Virgil’s face, and the old man was lost from his view.

The resuscitator, activated by the pressure of the water, started to squirm and wiggle. Virgil could feel its threads slowly wrap around the back of his neck, covering his face, and squirming their way down his body. Its back end was waving around, seeking one of the EHPS roots which had popped up off the floor like eels on the ocean bottom. The resuscitator slowly forced open his mouth, like a lover spreading his teeth with her tongue. The weight of the detritus pinned him to the floor on his back, one arm stuck uncomfortably under his right hip, the biting cold making him numb; listless. His brain was telling at him to move, to scream, but he was pinned down to the ground, and the relentless cold was sucking his energy. His vision started to grey, turning black at the edges.

He could feel something move in his mouth, something soft, something wet. It was a vine coming from the resuscitator. Just as he was drifting off, he could feel the wet vine drop down into his throat, and start to enter his lungs.

He woke up screaming.

Jessie was there already, her warm arms around him, whispering into his ear. As usual the nightmare had left him dripping in sweat, clammy, and shaking. His legs were tied up in the sheets, his hands touching his face, making sure nothing was blocking mouth. He took in several deep breaths, and started to relax. The panic ebbing with each easy breath. In his ear he could here Jessie whisper over and over, “You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay.” She must have been saying this for the last minute, but it was only now that he could hear her.

Jessie smoothed his forehead with her hand, pushing back the longer threads of thinning hair now lightly peppered with grey. She leaned over and kissed him on his brow, her naked breast pressed up against his arm.

“Bad this time?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I saw dad. In the water. He was trying to tell me something. Something important. Only…” he shrugged his shoulders.

Jessie made a hum of sympathy, and kissed him gently again. Patient as always. “It’s been a while since the last one,” she said.

“Six months,” he said. “Maybe longer.”

“Do you think,” she asked, “if it has something to do with the funeral?”

He shrugged his shoulders. They had buried the admiral yesterday. Practically the whole base, and half of D.C. had come out to pay their last respects. The funeral was typical of his father; plenty of pomp and show, and almost no time for the family. Even in his coffin, the old man seemed to scowl.

“Do you really have to go back already? Back in there?” she asked, hugging him to take any sting out of her words.

On the very first day of his much needed vacation, the day he had come out of the root, they had received the call from the hospital. By the time they arrived there was nothing anyone could do except hold the old man’s hand, and hope for a response. The next morning he was gone. Typical of the company, it offered Virgil bereavement days, but only if they didn’t coincide with vacation days. Five days later, on the day of his father’s funeral, they sent him an urgent email demanding his return.

Unbidden a scrap of a poem he had memorized in High School came to him:

Trojan, Anchises’ son, the descent of Avernus is easy.
All night long, all day, the doors of Hades stand open.
But to retrace the path, to come up to the sweet air of heaven,
That is labour indeed.

“What did you say?” Jessie asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “just a random thought.” He sat up in bed, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I have to go back. You know I do. I can’t think of why. The damn thing’s so close to done that it might as well be, but you never can tell when the company is involved. They seem to be especially talented at out-fooling anything that is foolproof.”

She snuggled up under his arm. “I know,” she said, “Its just…”

“I know,” he said. “I wish it was over too.”

Jessie was used to being a Navy widow, and prided herself on raising their kids on “spirit and spit,” as she liked to say. But what she did not say in public, or even around close family, was that she needed a break from being the sole parent as much as he needed one from his work. It was only when they were alone, the kids asleep in the other room, that she would say anything. And every time it broke his heart, although they both knew there was nothing either one could do.

“Soon” he said.

“Yes,” she replied with a sigh. “Very soon.”

Then she smiled, and lazily traced a line with a finger from his lips down the skin of his chest, and further – her hand coming to a stop on his inner thigh. “In the mean time,” she said. “Captain Virgil Davis Hammond, is hereby sentenced to comfort his poor wife for waking her up in the middle of the night, like some lowly middy.”

“This sounds serious,” he said as he leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. “I take it, not just any comfort will do.”

“Oh no,” she said as she leaned into his embrace. “I have a very specific comfort in mind.”

“Are you sure?” he said teasingly, “I can call one of my middies if you like.”

“Oh no,” she whispered in his ear. “This comfort is reserved only for officers.”

“Officer? But madam. I appear to be out of my proper uniform.”

“For what I have in mind,” she whispered in his ear, “out of uniform is the proper uniform.”

The next morning Virgil found himself on a crowded train platform hurriedly trying to say goodbye to his family. The kids were already bored, and Jessie was tired from the night before. In the mad rush of the morning packing, nobody noticed his hands starting to shake. He made his goodbyes quickly, and got on the 10:30 train. 30 minutes later, hands digging into the arms on his seat and wishing he could have a drink, he watched the dark blur; the smooth bark of the airless high-speed tunnel zoom past his window at 640 kilometers per hour.

The tunnel, or the “Root” as it was called by the men who worked in it, was the longest construction project ever made by man. It stretched from the tip of New York’s Long Island, all the way to Plymouth in the U.K.. Counting the 34 floating seedpods, themselves the size of a small town, the Root spread some 5500 kilometers; the vast majority of which was built well below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

Only not one centimeter of it was built. It was all grown.

The inside of the Root was huge, large enough for several rail lines (including the airless high-speed tunnel Virgil was riding in). It held bike trails, footpaths, campsites, roads, hotels, and even a few massive casinos in three of the pods. The entire length was supposed to be opened to the public next month. By then, it was said, a man could hike or bike in comfort, all the way from the U.S. to England. That is, Virgil thought bitterly, if there was anyone left in the current political situation who wanted to.

What the company brochures rarely mentioned was that the inside of the Root, throughout its entire length, with exception of the inside of the high-speed tunnel, was completely carpeted, from one end to the other, in a lush semi-tropical jungle. All of the plants in the Root, including the Root wall itself, were genetically modified to act as one giant ever adapting highly complex ecosystem. So complex in fact, that no one exactly knew what it was doing at any one time or place. Plants could combine, their DNA replicating, in all kinds of surprising ways, and they often did. It was both a living eden, and a mad hatter’s dream. And the amazing thing was, this is precisely how it was intended to work.

After slightly more than 4 hours, the high speed train dropped Virgil off at Pod 16, which was the last completed stretch of the airless track on the American side of the Root. He dropped down to the next level, and caught the cargo train out to Pod 17. The Root connected to the English side of the tunnel was already complete. The last bits of the interior system of tracks and roads on the American side were being installed, the difficult airless high-speed rail being the last. The English had stopped their end at nodule 17.1, just shy of Pod 17, the middle most Seedpod. Ostensibly so the American’s could claim they grew the larger share of the tunnel, even though every one knew Harrison industries was an English company, and the majority of the technology to make the Root systems, including all of the genetically modified plants, were under English copyright law.

When Virgil arrived at the village commissary, he was tired, hungry, and in a foul mood. No one had greeted him at the Pod 17 station, and the light duty electric vehicles were all taken. He had been forced to slog his heavy bag through two miles of mud to the temporary camp where the workers slept and ate. The cool dry air inside the commissary felt great on his skin after his humid hike. By chance he had stepped into the diner line right behind Sibyl, the main secretary for the project. He reached up and gently tapped her on the shoulder. She quickly turned around, her face flashing from neutral to surprise as she recognized his him.

“Hey, Virge,” she said with a smile. “What’s ya doing here?”

Virgil set his bag down with a thump. “Dunno,” he said. “I got an urgent email telling me to catch the next fast train, so I did. I just walked in from the station. Didn’t anyone tell you I’d be coming?”

“Nope,” she said with a frown. “If I’d known I would have sent someone to fetch you. I’m sorry you had to walk, but it sure is nice to have you back.” The last part she said with a smile.

“Thanks,” he said. “I would say its nice to be back…”

“But you’d hate to lie,” Sibyl finished for him. “Yes, we know. How are the kids? Jessica?”

“Good and good.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your father,” she added, putting a hand on his shoulder in support. “That must have been rough.”

“Thanks, Sibyl,” he said gruffly. “It was, but its over now, and I think I have work to do. Do you happen to know where my crew is?”

“Sure,” she said pulling out at her ever present tablet, and manipulating the screen. “It looks like they just finished up the e-hap vine at 17.1, up next to the nodule wall. Right in front of the Brits, or so it looks,” she said as she zoomed in on an image. “Spitting on the enemy do you suppose?”

“Ha. More like swapping out some of that mule piss of ours for some real beer. Besides, you don’t believe all that ‘enemy’ talk to you?”

“Enemy? Hardly,” she said. “You know I did marry me a Brit once.”

“And…”

“And, he’s the best ex husband I ever had.”

They both laughed at this. Sibyl was tough as nails, and sharp as a tack. If half of what she said were true, she also had more ex-husbands than Virgil had dates.

He slung his drop bag over his shoulder and grabbed a food tray. They both loaded up their plates, careful to not slow down the line. They were just getting their drinks from the large refrigerated area further down, when Virgil remember something. “Almost forgot,” he said. “Something’s up with the company network. That, or my tablet. Do you know what that’s about? I can find outside sites no problem, but my tablet won’t pick up anything local.”

“Oh,” she said with a frown. Her first impulse was to reach for her tablet, but between her tray and her drink, her hands were full. “The company redid all the local network passwords yesterday,” she said looking for a place to conveniently set down her tray. “They were all hush-hush about it too. Um, let me see if I can send you yours.”

“That’s okay,” he said. He had just seen Rick Martinez, the man who ran his crew whenever he wasn’t around. “I think I can get it from Rick.”

“Are you sure?” she asked to be polite. She had stopped looking for a place to set down her tray down, and was heading towards her favorite table on the other side of the tent.

“Positive,” he said, walking behind her for a moment. “Hey, how come the password changes? Did they get another hack?”

“Nope,” she said over her shoulder, slowing down as they walked between tables. “There was some big to-do when Rogers showed up. Lots of suits and stuff. Making scary noises after security arrived and looked at our press area.”

“What’d Larry think of that?” he asked. Larry Simmons was their local communications/network expert.

“I don’t know,” Sibyl said. “He’s not here.”

“How about Johnston?” Charlie Johnston was Virgil’s nominal boss, although he tended to leave the captain and his crew to their own devices.

“He’s still on vacation as well,” she said.

“Victor?” Virgil asked, working his way up the company ladder.

“Nope.”

“Cummings?”

“Nope.”

“How about Lakey? He’s always here.”

“Nope. He’s not here either.”

“You mean to tell me, everyone in management is gone?” They had paused in the middle of an intersection of tables, disbelief in his voice. “Who’s in charge then?”

“Me,” she said brightly while stopping to look at him.

“Oh, I knew that,” he said with a smile. “I meant who’s pretending to work while you handle everything.”

She looked around to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard, then stepped closer, lowering her voice. “That would be Rogers. Him and whoever else he brought in from the blue world. Believe it or not, it was Lakey’s idea. He wanted to get the bosses rested up for the ceremony next month, so he put all of you on vacation at the same time. This place runs itself at this point, and he figured it would better for you guys to get your vacation pay before anything happened.”

“Anything?” He asked in a quite voice. “Why do I not like the sound of that?”

“You know a war with England is possible, right?”

He nodded his head.

She continued, “I would even go so far as to say it is likely, if the President has his way.”

“Please,” Virgil said. “Don’t remind me. I got to hear his saber rattling all last week. Funny how 2500 kilometers of tunnel tends to separate one from all that noise.”

“Don’t care for the 24 hour news cycle?” she asked.

“Not when I’m working with the guys the President wants to fight,” he said. “Harrison Industries may be only marginally more efficient then our government, and the limeys do take some time to get used to, but still they’re usually more helpful than our own company when it comes to getting things done. Look how much sooner they finished their end of the tunnel.”

This was a sore spot within the company, and the U.S. government. Harrison Industries had started later, and yet finished months sooner then their American counterpart. The press tried to play up the fact that the American side was longer, and thus took more time, but the crew who actually worked in the Root knew this to be bullshit.

“Now you’re starting to sound like one of those angry Anglophiles,” she teased, as she turned her body.

“Me?” said Virgil. “Not hardly. I just happen to think they brew a better beer. That’s hardly an Anglo trait. In fact I think it’s an Irish one.”

She laughed over her shoulder as she walked away. Virgil turned and headed for Rick, knowing if they weren’t already there, the rest of the crew would soon be.

Virgil was just setting his tray down when Rick looked up. “As I live and breathe,” Rick said. “Look what the cat drug in boys.”

There was a chorus of greetings from the crew as Virgil unslung his heavy drop bag, and set it on the empty table.

Hedrick was in the middle of another story, so Virgil ate his diner quietly, enjoying the moment. Dove, Jenkins and the rest of the crew sat in rapt attention, their heads all bent toward Hedrick, their mouths chewing almost in unison. When he finished, they all laughed, and slapped in him the back. Then Jenkins said aloud what most of them were thinking. “So when are you going to share your stories with more then just e-hap?” He asked.

Hedrick suddenly hunkered down, looking more embarrassed than happy.

“I’m serious,” Jenkins continued.

There were several murmurs of assent, then silence. As the quiet grew, the men turned their eyes towards Rick. He in turn looked towards Virgil and raised an eyebrow; clearly an unspoken question. Curious at how Rick would respond, Virgin nodded his head slightly towards Hedrick, as if to say, “go ahead.”

“I think,” said Rick, “that Hedrick will share his stories with the rest of the world, when he is damn good and ready to. And not a moment before.”

Hedrick looked relieved, and the tension at the table died immediately.

Virgil slid his tray aside, and pulled out his tablet. “So,” he said to no one in particular, “How’s the vine going?”

There was an instant chorus of groans and cat-calls. Virgil waited. Jenkins again, was the first to speak what they were all thinking.

“It’s a right dog’s breakfast, that one is,” said the rough spoken Aussie. Several members of the crew nodded their heads.

“So, not the just regular snafu?” Virgil asked.

Jenkins shook his head. “Not by half sir. They got us pulling out the vine, sir. Right after we put the damn thing into the wall.”

Virgil’s eyes must have gone wide as Rick spoke in Jenkin’s defense. “It’s true, Skipper” he said. “They told us to pull out the vine, just after we had finished linking it up. Damnedest thing I ever seen. I double-checked twice, just to be sure it wasn’t some kind of prank. The orders were legit.”

Rick’s voice had been calm, but there was a hint of anger underneath. Something else too, but Virgil couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Rick was usually defensive about their work, and was known to be a real fire-breather when provoked, but right now he seemed calm, almost relaxed. As he was thinking, Virgil noticed the rest of the table was silent; the crew looking at him; expecting. Then it hit him.

“You’re up to something,” he said quietly, pride mingling with fear in his chest. “Aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

The men at the table waited, tense. Rick looked down, and brought his hand to his mouth to cough.

“Uh, well, sir. I figured Brock and Daniels might have themselves a midnight walk tonight,” Rick spoke to the table, not making eye contact with his boss. “It being such a perfect night for a stroll and all.”

Brock was the fastest fitter on the crew. Everyone knew this. He had a casual way with the jungle that the rest of the crew envied. Sending him out made perfect sense. But Daniels, that was an interesting choice. Virgil had always suspected the quiet and dark man had once done field work for some kind of agency, and not the “nice” kind of field work either. He had very careful hands, and eyes that seemed to hold secrets; dark secrets.

Virgil smiled, “Yes,” he said. “I can see that. The perfect night for it in fact.”

He waited a moment, and then continued in a more serious tone, “Did anyone think to inform Dude? We might not want to surprise our friends on the other side of the nodule.”

The looming war had made regular communications between the English and American sides of the Root all but impossible. Like hundreds of men before them, the e-hap crew had created a way around the blockage. Dude was the nickname the crew used for the e-hap specialist on the English side of the Root. They didn’t know his real name, and it was never offered. Dude liked to effect a Californian delivery whenever he talked with the Americans, and liberally peppered his sentences with “dude”, as if this would cover his rather prominent east-end accent. Virgil could care less how the man spoke, as long as the e-hap system was up and running. The thought of so many people working on the Root without an emergency protection system made him shudder in horror. If he had to break a few rules to ensure the safety of those around him, he would do so. Without a qualm.

Dove, the normally quiet communications specialist spoke up. “Um, it’s all taken care of, sir.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow. “Should I ask?”

Dove looked thoughtful for a moment. “Probably not sir,” he said quietly.

Virgil glanced at Rick. His crew chief gave him a nod. That was all he needed. Some things were better for the boss to not know.

That reminded him of something else. Virgil slid his tablet next to his beer. “I have a problem, Dove,” he said to the networking specialist, “I’m hoping you can solve. Ever since I got back, I can’t get into the company network.”

“Ah,” Dove said. “The new security protocol.”

“Good, then you know,” Virgil said. “Can you fix it?”

Dove shrugged. “We all got new passwords yesterday, but you didn’t get one, right?”

Virgil nodded.

“Well, when they arrived, I thought something about mine looked familiar,” he said with growing animation. “So I ran a few tests on it. Turns out the password was just a simple variation on my login name, after turning it into hex, of course, and rounding up the odd integers to the next highest prime.”

“Uh,” Virgil said. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that again. This time in English?”

Dove gave him the same look he gave to all lesser mortals when talking about the more esoteric aspect of his job. “Let me see if I can say this in a way you’ll understand,” he said without any obvious condescension. The rest of the guys at the table rolled their eyes. It was a common phrase. “The company needed to redo their security, only for some reason they needed to do it quickly, globally, and for everybody. With me so far?”

Virgil nodded.

“So rather than replacing each and every password, they made up a simple fix instead. They remade everybody’s password, based on their login name, and – get this – using the same algorithm, every time.”

“So…” said Virgil, not getting Dove’s meaning.

“So,” said Dove. “This is amateur hour 101. A fix like this leaves a pretty obvious trail. Anyone with half a brain could find the pattern, turn it around, and hack our network. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet.” He sat back, managing to look both shocked and smug.

“So,” said Virgil carefully. “Does that mean you can help me to login?”

“Oh, that,” said Dove. “I think so, but I don’t know for sure. Here,” he said doing something on his tablet. A new file appeared on Virgil’s tablet named Charon. “Run that. It should generate a password for you. Just copy it to your net. prefs., and hit return.”

Virgil started the file. “Charon?” he asked, thinking all the while that what Dove had just done, transferring a file to an authorized tablet, was technically not possible.

“Don’t ask,” Dove said. He had a habit of giving his files the most obscure of names.

Virgil ran the app, and entered his name. It returned a long string of random looking number and letters. He pasted them into his network preferences, and suddenly he was in.

“Hot damn,” he said. “Looks like it works. Thanks, Dove. You’re a genius.”

“Just doing my job,” Dove replied with a shy smile. “Just doing my job.”

That night, the nightmare came to Virgil again, only this time more real, more vivid. Like the night before, he saw his father drift by in the murky water. The old Admiral had the same urgent look on his face, the same long grey hair swirling around him. This time, by carefully reading his lips, Virgil could just make out his father’s words, “the top branch. Take the top branch,” before the swirl of plants and debris obscured him.

Virgil woke up alone in his tent, throat raw from screaming and drenched in sweat. Why the admiral, he wondered? Why now? It just didn’t make any sense. And what in the world did “take the top branch” mean? He supposed it would be nice if he could step down into the dark pit of hell where they kept the old bastard, and ask the man himself. The problem was, even if he could go down that path Virgil wasn’t sure he would know what to say when he got there.

He could feel the dark walls of the Root calling him. The old fear always came back with the dark. He swallowed hard, and looked around his tent for something, anything. Then he laughed at himself and rolled out of bed, knowing sleep was no longer an option, at least for that night. On a hunch he checked Rick’s connection. Sure enough he saw a message sent from Daniels with a 3:30 time-stamp. It contained a single word. “Done”.

At least that went well, he thought. Then pulling out his tablet, he began to look though the network, trying to discover what else had been changed in his absence.

“Morning, Rick,” Virgil said as he handed the man a cup of coffee. Rick’s eyes were just slits, his hair tousled. The younger man had just managed to get his legs over the side of the bed, when Virgil entered his tent.

“Hey boss,” Rick squeezed out as his stretch turned into a yawn. “What’s up?”

Virgil hand him his tablet. It showed a map for the area around Pod 17. “Do you know anything about this,” he asked, his hand pointing to a flashing part on the tablet?

Rick took a sip of hot coffee, and winced at the strength. “Hum,” he said, holding up the tablet. “That doesn’t look right.” He was looking at a grid of all the various communications lines running through the Root.

Because the Root was grown, and not made, a certain amount of redundancy was built into its systems. This included the hardwiring of the communications. Everything from the internet to telephony were passed through any number of various cables that had been grown into the Root. This insured that communication could continue in the event of an unlikely emergency, or that they would continue after an evolutionary change in a local habitat, which was much more likely. Because the e-hap line had its own specific cable, the crew didn’t usually worry about the rest of communications. The e-hap system was designed to protect humans in the case of an emergency. It happened to tie into the regular communications systems, but only at every Pod. This was considered enough redundancy. Virgil had suggested they tie the e-hap cable into the rest of the communications system at every nodule, but the company had refused his request sighting the extra cost. Theoretically, either system could work on any cable, but that was logistically too difficult to implement in practice.

On Virgil’s map, Rick could trace the whole array of cables, both for communications and for e-hap. Most of the them – maybe 50 or 60 it was hard to count with blurry eyes – were colored red, indicating they were not in use. Only a single cable in Pod 17 was glowing the blue of “in use.” Rick absently scrolled the map, tracing the blue line as he sipped his coffee.

The entire Root was divided into 34 floating seedpods, each about 100 kilometers apart. The sections of the Root between each seedpod were again divided into 19 nodules, each approximately 5 kilometers apart. These nodule breaks acted as a protective barrier, a sort of airlock. They were primarily used during the construction of the Root as a safe wall for the workers to sleep behind while the Root was grown. When the Root was completed up to the next nodule, then the crew would grow new dwellings into the wall, and then move all their belongings forward from the last nodule. Thus the Root was completed 5 kilometers at a time. These nodule breaks not only provided a protective barrier, they also were used as storehouses for the various chemicals and nutrients needed to help the Root grow. Since the company never liked to invest in anything without a return, the left over crew housing at each nodule were later converted into hotels, emergency dwellings, or storage.

As Rick scrolled along the map, he could see that 20 or more blue cables were in use from the Long Island terminus all the way up to nodule 16.19, which was the last nodule before Pod 17. After nodule 16.19 there was just a single blue line running from nodule 16.19 through Pod 17, and up to nodule 17.1. More importantly, the e-hap cable, the very system that provided emergency protection to the hundreds of humans living in Pod 17, also was red after 16.19. Someone or some thing had cut it. Perhaps it was intentional.

Rick handed back the tablet. “I don’t know, skipper,” he said. “I’ve never seen that display before, the communications one.”

“Does your tablet have access to the communications cable array,” Virgil asked?

“Not that I know of. I only see the e-hap array.”

“Hum,” said Virgil. “Maybe it’s only available to directors or higher.” Virgil then pointed to the red e-hap cable running through Pod 17. “Do you suppose this has anything to do with Dove’s little fix?”

Rick shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno. I’d have to ask…”

“Ask who,” a woman’s voice interrupted?

Virgil spun around to see who had interrupted. Rick shot up so fast he spilled hot coffee on his chest.

A woman was standing in the tent entrance. She had long dark hair, a pretty smile, and dressed as if she was going on a safari. A safari with stylish high-heels. She was young, but the way she rested her hands on her hips suggested a confidence rare for her age. Her comfortable stare revealed a shrewd intelligence behind sharp eyes. This was a woman used to getting her way.

“What the…” Rick yelled, ineffectively brushing burning coffee off his bare chest.

“Who in the hell…” Virgil said, taking a second to get over his surprise, “are you?”

“Amanda,” the woman said, holding out her hand. “Amanda Waters. Reuters.”

“Oh” said Rick, as if that explained her presence.

Virgil leaned over and took her hand. “Virgil Hammond,” he said. “A bit early for reporters, isn’t it?”

“Late actually,” she said. “I took the last train out.

Virgil looked at her for a moment thinking. There was something about her accent that bothered him. “Pardon me for asking,” he said, “but why the hell are you here?”

“I’ve been asking that myself,” she said. “Ever since I got to the station, and found no car waiting for me.” She pulled out her notebook. The back and sides were covered with stickers, layer upon layer. Many worn down from use.

“I received this,” she said, turning her notebook around to show Virgil an email, “yesterday. Under the circumstances, I thought it was, uh, interesting. When I got to the camp, the main office was closed, so I went looking for your tent. Since you weren’t there either, someone kindly suggested I check here. So here I am.”

Virgil looked at the email. It was an invitation for one Amanda Waters, of Reuters News Agency, to come to Pod 17 and see the work of the e-hap crew. It mentioned Virgil’s name specifically. To his untrained eye, the email looked legitimate. He just wish he knew who had sent it, because it sure as hell didn’t come from him.

He smiled and held up Amanda’s tablet. ”Do you mind if I have a copy of this,” he asked?

“Go right ahead,” Amanda replied. “First time you’ve seen it then?”

“Something like that,” he said as he sent the email to his own tablet. “I believe,” he continued, handing back her tablet, “there’s been some kind of mistake.”

“I usually get that when I arrive,” Amanda said casually as she put her notebook away.

“You do,” said Rick after tugging on a shirt? “That’s a rather curious response.”

She gazed at both of the men levelly. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

Virgil glanced at Rick, who shrugged his shoulders in response. “Should we,” he asked?

“I’m an investigative reporter,” she said. “A good one. I have a reputation for uncovering things. Big things. Remember the little dust up with the P.M. last year. The one with the girl in the pink dress?”

“Oh, I remember that,” said Rick. “Didn’t he lose his job or something.”

“Or something,” she said, the irony obvious in her tone. The scandal had cost the Prime Minister his job, and had broken his coalition. Even in America it had been big news.

“That was your story,” Risk asked in awe?

“It was,” she said.

Rick let out a low whistle. “Wow,” he said!

“But this,” said Virgil indicating her invitation, “looks more like a fluffy PR piece. That doesn’t make sense. Isn’t that a bit low for you?”

She gave him the half smile she normally reserved for idiots, and newspaper editors. “Put it this way,” she said in a conspiratorial tone. “Even reporters need a holiday every once in a while.”

Something about her fierce gaze made Virgil think this was not just a holiday for her. Then it hit him: Her accent. She spoke with a sort of European flair; a flat toned English with a lot of Americanisms thrown on top. But when she said the word “holiday” he realized she was actually English, as in born in England. He looked at her sharply, wondering how much he could trust her. She must be a shark, he thought. But how much of one? Out loud he asked, “You had breakfast yet, Ms. Waters? Or is it Amanda?”

“Amanda is fine,” she said. “And if that’s an invitation, then no I have not broken my fast.”

“Good,” Virgil said, “because we have a long day ahead of us, and I’m starving. Shall we go?”

They stepped outside, waiting long enough for Rick to put on a company issue coverall. Then they walked to the commissary in silence.

After breakfast, Virgil slipped to Dove the anonymous email that had been sent to Amanda. He asked the networking specialist of he could check out the email, and see if he could discover its origin. On a hunch, he also sent Dove the urgent email that had cut short his vacation.

When the rest of the e-hap business had been concluded, Virgil turned to Rick and asked, “Can you please take our guest up to the uniform tent, and get her some clothes?”

Rick nodded his head, but Amanda had a different reaction. “What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed,” she asked?

“Nothing,” he said, “if you’re safe and in the middle of a city. This place isn’t a city, and it sure as hell isn’t safe.”

“Excuse me,” she said in an acid tone, “but I’ve covered stories in a war zone with machine guns going right over my head, and in the arctic during a blizzard where the snow fall was measured in feet-per-hour, not inches. So I find myself wondering what can be so dangerous about working on the inside of a tunnel that also happens to be the world’s longest park? Are you one of those idiots who thinks I can’t take care of myself because I’m a woman, or do I need to worry about roving hoards of knife-wielding bambis?”

She stared at Virgil without moving, a faint blush on her cheeks. Virgil stared back calmly. After a moment he said, “I’m a bit busy this morning, Ms. Waters, so I don’t have the time to explain to you the depths of your ignorance. If you are going to work with my crew, you will dress like them. Period. You will especially wear any and all safety equipment that I deem necessary. There are no exceptions.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he stopped her with a hand.

“And while you are considering these conditions, did it occur to you that you might be more successful in your investigation if you are dressed like the rest of the us? That is, if you don’t stick out like an idiot from the blue?”

Before she could answer he turned to Rick and said, “Get the crew looking over the network, as we planed. When you’re done with her, both of you can join me at the stage. I have a feeling that Rogers is there already. Maybe we can get some answers on what the hell is going on around here.”

“Aye, aye, skipper,” Rick said. “We’ll get right on it.”

With that, Virgil put his tray away, and headed out into the pod looking for whoever was supposed to be in charge.

“Is he always like that,” Amanda asked?

“Like what,” said Rick? The two of them were walking up hill towards the back of the haphazard chaos of the tent city, searching for the one that held uniforms and safety equipment. The uniform tent had been moved twice. Each time someone had failed to update its location on the network. Hence the search.

“You know, like a total dictator.” She dropped her tone an octave and grunted an impersonation of Virgil, “You will dress how I say. There are no exceptions.”

Rick laughed at her impression, then his face sobered. “I know he seems like a total dick at times, but the man does have his reasons.”

“Like what,” she said, her voice serious? “Why do I need to dress like one of the crew? I don’t understand. And what can possibly be so damned dangerous inside a stupid tunnel?”

“Really,” said Rick? “Do you want to know, or are you being sarcastic?” They had climbed up high enough along the circular walls of the pod that they now had a nice view of the tent city below, and rest of the pod beyond.

“Really,” she said, making it sound like a challenge. “Educate me.”

“Okay. Lets see here,” he said. “First off, its not a tunnel. Its a root. The Root. Only those living under the blue call it a tunnel.”

“Under the blue,” she asked?

“Ha,” he said with a laugh. “Its a pejorative term. It means someone who lives outside, under the blue sky.”

“As opposed to…”

“Rooties. Those of us who live in the Root. And its in the Root, not on it. Got it?”

“Sure,” she said. “But why the distinction? Why do you care if its called a tunnel or a root?”

“Because a tunnel is made. A root is grown. If you assume that this place was made; manufactured, then you’ll start to get comfortable; complacent.

“For instance,” he continued bending over and grabbing a plant with distinctive long green stalks. “Do you see this plant?”

She nodded her head.

“Do know what kind of plant it is?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t either,” he said inspecting the plant more carefully. “In fact I’ve never seen one like it before.” The Rick grabbed the plant by the base, and in an easy motion, pulled it, roots and all, out of the ground.

Immediately the plant started writhing, its long green stalks swaying back and forth as if caught in a windstorm that no one else could feel. The base of the stalks turned darker in color, and then transformed again to a bright red while leaving the tips still the same distinctive green. Amanda was surprised at it’s reaction. She’d never seen a plant move on its own before.

Rick was still holding the plant up, but was now looking around them. “Take a look at the plants around us. Notice the ones like this one?”

Amanda saw that scattered around them were several plants similar to the one Rick held. “What about them,” she asked?

“Did you notice that they’re getting closer?”

“Huh,” she said. Looking around a second time she suddenly noticed that all the plants with long green stalks were getting closer. “What in the world,” she said as she took an unconscious step nearer to Rick? “They are getting closer.”

Rick tossed the plant in a slow curve that took it to a open spot some 10 feet away. It landed on it’s root, and immediately stopped gyrating. Within a minute its stalks were back to their original green, and the plants around them were moving back to their previous locations.

“Okay,” Amanda said. “That was creepy. Did you know they would do that?”

“Not really,” he said. “We’ve seen plants that look similar. We called them zombie plants. But I haven’t seen one since before Pod 10.”

“Zombie plants? Why do I not like the sound of that?”

“Oh, its nothing like that,” Rick said. “They’ll surround you, but they usually don’t attack anything bigger than a rabbit.”

“Attack,” she asked, surprise in her voice?

“Sure. Its a food source. Plants that move fast need protein. Some more than others. The zombie plant hunts in groups, surrounding their prey and strangling them, but I don’t know what these plants do.”

Amanda could feel a rising tide of horror. She noticed Rick was smiling when he said this, watching the plants with obvious interest. “You like them, don’t you?” It more accusation then question. “Are you a botanist or something?”

“Me,” Rick said? “A botanist? Negative. I’m a sailor. Submarines, or boats as we called them. Nuclear powered. I was a commander hoping to make captain, when they scrapped half the fleet. I had worked under Virgil in the fleet, so when the Navy turned me out, I hooked up with him here.

“You’re a submariner? Why in the world would they hire you in a place like this?”

Rick turned to her, no longer watching the plants. “When they started this damn thing, the suits living under the blue thought us submariners, as you call them, would benefit the project from our years of living in and around high pressure containers.”

“Were they right?”

He shrugged his shoulders “Hard to say. This place is one mother of a pressure container, but that’s just one its many dangers. The company may hire you for your expertise, but then happily ignore that expertise when it suits them.”

“Have they done that before,” she asked?

“Once. Before my time.”

“What happened?”

“A lot of people died, is what happened. We lost a whole section of the Root. Wiped out an entire crew. Set us back three months or more. These walls,” he said stamping his foot for emphasis, “are the only thing between us and several thousand tons per square inch of ice cold sea water. Just like a submarine working at this depth, any flaw in the pressure vessel and Boom, we’re screwed.”

“Oh.”

“Yea, oh”

“So is that why your boss is so uptight about safety.”

“Virgil? I guess you could say that. He lost a lot of friends that day. An accident like that tends to make a man pretty cautious. That or pretty dead. Say what you want, but Virgil’s still not dead. That’s good enough for me.”

Amanda was looking at Rick with new found respect. “Okay,” she said. “I think I see what Virgil meant about the ‘depths of my ignorance’. I take it there’s more that can kill me than a hole in the tunnel, oops root, or a group of predatory plants.”

Rick nodded his head, and then stopped. “I’ll be damned,“ he said, looking off in the distance.

“What?”

“The uniform tent. It’s right over there. Come on.”

Rick started down the hill in the direction he was pointing. Amanda followed, her head still full of questions. “So,” she said. “Why the suit?”

“Oh that’s easy,” he said over his shoulder. “The suit has a special layer that protects you from certain chemicals. It blocks most of the amino acids and such that we use to make the Root grow or change. Some of these things are pretty nasty. Spill them on an unprotected arm, and you’ll have yourself a nice little burn. Or worse.”

“So it’s like a chemical warfare suit?”

“Similar. Not as heavy, because we’re not trying to stop radiation, just carbon compounds.”

“Any thing else?”

“Well it protects you from the jungle, but it also protects the jungle from you.”

“Jungle?”

“That’s what we call the green stuff everywhere in the Root. In the wilds.”

“Okay,” she said. “Jungle. Why does it need protecting from us.”

“You know this whole Root was grown from one plant, right?” He used a hand to indicate the entire Pod and Root.

“Sure.”

“Okay. Well the Root needs to be able to grow without much supervision, otherwise it would be too costly to make. Make sense? But the Root also needs to be easy to modify; to edit if you will. Otherwise we couldn’t add anything to it. With me so far?”

“Sure,” said Amanda. “Grows on it’s own, but also easy to change.”

“Great,” he said as they came up to the uniform tent. He walked inside, grabbed a set of boots, gloves, a coverall in her size, and then added a e-hap stump to the stack. He handed her the stack, and pointed to the changing area. When she had stepped behind the curtain, he asked, “Can you hear me in there?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Okay,” he continued. “So the Root was designed to be sensitive to certain compounds, mostly amino acids, which we use to manipulate it. This sensitivity has a few consequences; uh side effects. For instance, I noticed you’re wearing perfume, right?”

“Well, yes,” Amanda said from behind the curtain as she struggled into her coverall.

“We found out that some perfumes will also effect the Root. Causing it to grow in different ways. Sometimes bad ways. Not just perfumes either. Many antiperspirants and deodorants effect it too.”

“Great,” she said. “So I get to wear an ugly orange outfit, and stink.”

“Well we do have deodorants which don’t effect the Root, so it’s not that bad.”

“I was being sarcastic Rick. I’ve lived with my own stick before. Please ignore me and continue.”

“Um, okay,” he said. “The point is certain chemicals, especially petroleum compounds for some reason, really mess with the Roots structure.”

“Is that why there’s only electric cars around here,” she asked as she came out from behind the curtain? “I thought that was some stupid green thing, or something.”

“Nope,” he said. “Its not about being green, its much more pragmatic than that. Need help with your boots?”

She was lacing up her boots, and was having trouble understanding how they fit with her coverall. He showed her how to lace the boots, and then slip the coverall down over the top of the boots. Two strips of velcro gave the suit a strong seal.

“So,” she said, “the suit protects us from the Root, and the Root from us. Gas and oil makes the walls go wobbly, and half the jungle can eat us if we’re too slow. Did I miss anything?”

“Just this,” Rick said holding up an e-hap stump.

“What’s that do,” she asked?

“If you’re lucky,” he said. “Nothing. If not, then it saves your life.”

She looked at the stump. It looked like a dried out root on a string, somewhat like a small brown carrot with a lot of fringe hanging from the point on it’s bottom. On top of the carrot was a small knob that looked like a brown radish with a tuft of very short hair spiking out the top. “What do I do with it?”

“Simple,” he said. “One, wear it around your neck at all times.” As he said this, he put the string over her head. “And I mean at all times. Two, in case of a breach – if you see a wall of water coming for you – put this knob in your mouth, and keep it there.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” he replied.

“So it’s helps you breathe. Like some kind of respirator?”

“Something like that.”

“Something like that,” she said as she held her up to look at it. “It’s pretty disgusting looking isn’t it? You said wear it at all times. Will it go off in the shower?”

“Good question. No. It requires something more than water to activate. Pressure too, I think. I’m not sure. You could take it swimming with you, and nothing would happen, except it’d get wet.”

“Hum,” she said letting it drop. “How’s it work, anyway?”

He looked at her with a level gaze. “You don’t want to know.”

“I don’t?”

“No.”

“Is it that bad,” she asked?

“Worse.”

“Has it ever been tested?”

“In the field? Once.”

“Once. Did the guy using it survive?”

“Something like that,” he said. “You can ask him yourself if you like, but I doubt he’ll tell you more than he told me.”

“So you know this guy,” she asked?

“Sure. It’s Virgil. My boss.”

Rick and Amanda caught up with Virgil at the site for the stage; an area which had been set aside to host the opening ceremonies celebration in a few months. The stage itself was a simple platform, with a semi-circle of bleachers surrounding it. The entire complex as built into a natural amphitheater slightly upslope on the pod wall. Some of the company staff had erected a large white backdrop behind the stage, and projected old movies on it on the weekends. Otherwise the place was usually deserted; not run-down as much as unfinished.

Rick was just explaining this to Amanda when they rounded a slight hill, and the stage came into view. The area below it was littered with electric cars parked every which way, and on the rim of the amphitheater could be seen dozens of workmen. As they approached they saw a steady stream of workers enter in and out of the complex, many carrying lights and other stage equipment. Amanda pointed out several rack mounted electronic devices that were used for online video editing, and broadcasting. The speed at which the men were working made it clear they expected to finish soon.

At the entrance to the bleachers they found Virgil deep in a conversation with two men in suits. One of the men held a phone to his ear, and looked on distractedly, while Virgil spoke to the other. Amanda noticed that neither man was wearing one of the brown, ugly e-hap stumps. Nor were any of the other workers. She pointed this out to Rick as they approached the group wearily.

“What I’m trying to understand,” said Virgil in a calm voice, “is what you are doing here?”

“I already told you,” said the man in the exasperated tone like the one adults use when speaking to slow children, “we’re finishing up the stage for the opening ceremonies.” The man’s face was round, his tone pale. Pink dots of frustration were starting to show on his cheeks.

“I can see that,” Virgil said calmly, “but what I don’t see is a reason to do this now. Or a reason to use outside people for a job the company can handle. Or a reason why none of the workers seems to be wearing a single piece of safety gear.”

“We’ve already been over this,” said the pale man, “We examined all the relevant safety data, and felt the risk was acceptable.”

“Who examined the data,” said Virgil? “How did they come to these conclusions?”

“The company safety experts, that’s who,” said the pale man.

The other man hung up his phone, and turned to the pale man. “Who is this man, Rogers? And why is he here harassing us? We’ve got work to do.”

The pale man, Rogers, turned to the man with the phone. “He’s Hammond. An on-site director. In charge of a small part of the networking structure; the emergency human protection system.”

The man looked at Virgil as if he were an insect. “So what’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know,” said Rogers. “He was supposed to be on vacation, like the others.”

“So get rid of him,” said the man with the phone. “We’re already behind schedule. We don’t have time to do deal with union crap.”

“Its not union crap, sir,” said Virgil showing anger for the first time. “Company employees are explicitly exempted from union rule. It is safety crap. Crap that directly effects all of our safety.”

As he spoke, some workmen passed pushing with a dolly stacked high with 20 liter drums. One of the men asked Rogers were he wanted the load.

“Take it to the back of the stage,” Rogers said impatiently, pointing towards the entrance under the bleachers. “Leave it there.”

Moving casually, so as to not attract attention, Amanda pulled out her camera, and took a photo of the dolly. The other were to busy to notice the labels on the drums. They read: Enamel Paint: White.

Virgil continued, “I’m afraid you gentlemen have left me no other choice. I’m going to have to shut this site down until it meets the minimal safety standards.”

“You can’t do that,” said the man with the phone. “You’re just a director.”

Rogers interrupted, “Actually he can. Sr. Directors on safety systems do have job oversight authority.”

Virgil crossed his arms and smiled. Rogers looks worried.

“But,” Rogers continued, “he needs to have another Senior Director or higher back him up. On his own, he can’t stop us.”

Virgil’s face turned dark. He was hoping Rogers wouldn’t know that last bit.

The other man picked up his phone. “I think I know how to fix this,” he said as he started to dial. “Get me Samuels, in the Company,” he said into his phone. “And hurry.”

The man with the phone separated from the others, and spoke animatedly. Rick approached Virgil, and asked quietly, “who is that joker?”

Virgil shrugged his shoulders. “Some government bureaucrat,” he said. “I don’t know from where.”

Rogers hissed, “He’s not just any bureaucrat, you idiot. Don’t you know who that is?”

Before Virgil could answer Amanda passed her tablet in front of him. He looked down on the screen and saw a photo of the man with the phone. Under the photo was the caption, “Wallace Oscar. Chief of Staff, President Flintridge.”

“Holy shit, skipper,” Rick whispered. “I think you just pissed off the wrong guy.”

Virgil smiled. “Well, its not the first time,” he said in a whisper. “Probably not the last either.”

One hour later the three met up at the bottom of the ersatz parking lot. Virgil had stayed beside Rogers pestering the man while Rick had taken Amanda around the back and looked into things.

“Well,” Virgil asked?

“They’re definitely ramping up for a show,” Rick said. “Amanda thinks the stage might be ready as soon as tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” said Virgil? “Hum. Why the rush?”

“Amanda’s got a theory,” Rick said, “but I’m not convinced.”

Virgil turned to Amanda giving her a look more fitting for the Captain on the bridge of a fast attack nuclear sub, than a Director on a construction project. “Well,” he said?

“Its the govcam network,” she said. “A wireless camera array the government uses for all press conferences. The networks like it because no one has to lug their own camera equipment, and the government likes it because they can control the camera angles. You just tap into the network with your press credentials password, and take the shot directly from their feed.”

“Go on,” said Virgil.

“Well, I saw one of the White House staffers setting up the govcam gear, so I went over for a chat. He was very careful not tell me anything, but while I was talking to him I noticed the input on his tablet was cycling through all the different camera locations. All the cameras were hooked up, as near as I can tell. Baring any lighting snafus, and sound, the system is ready to go.”

“So the camera network is almost up, you say. Is this the normal lead time for a press conference? Say in,” Virgil glanced at his tablet for the time, “14 hours?”

“Oh they could have it up sooner than that sir. The govcam system it largely automatic. I’ve seen them set the full array up for a campaign stop in less than two hours. 14 hours is more than enough time.”

“Hum,” said Rick, stroking his chin. “So we have a working camera network. What are they using it for?”

“Well I noticed something else while I was poking around back there,” Amanda continued. “Several of the workers looked familiar, so I ran an image match. They’re secret service. I’m sure of it.”

Virgil looked at Amanda, then at Rick. “Well,” he said, “that explains Flintridge’s Chief of Staff, doesn’t it. So the old man is going to come here for a press conference, eh? I guess that explains all the machinations by the company.”

“You really think he’s coming,” asked Rick?

“Well it does add up. Except that technically he’ll be broadcasting only six kilometers away from what he considers enemy soil.”

Rick let out a low whistle. “That sounds like a security nightmare, for whoever is in charge,” he said. “I’d hate to have that job right now.”

“That reminds me,” said Virgil. “When I first got back, Sibyl mentioned a security guy who came by last week, looked at out setup, and had kittens. Now we know why.”

“Do you think that’s why they’ve been ripping out the cables at 17.1,” Rick asked?

“That makes a certain kind of sense,” Virgil said.

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Amanda. “They’re ripping out cables?”

“Yes,” said Rick. “Up at nodule 17.1; where the American side of the Root ends…”

“…and the English side begins,” Amanda continued. “I’m aware of the place. What’s this about the cables?”

“Well,” said Rick, “last week we finished laying all but the very end of the e-hap cable; you know, the vine that these things,” he held up hie e-hap root, “connect to. Then the day before Virgil shows up, we get an order telling us to rip our connection out of the ground. To physically disconnect it.”

Virgil pulled out his tablet while Rick was speaking. He handed it to Amanda. “Last night,” he said. “I was up late doing some checking, and ran across this.”

She looked at the map, figuring the connections out right away. “Well, this looks pretty crazy, but it does make some kind of sense. If I was going to park the President here, then I’d probably want to cut off all communication ties with the English as well.”

Amanda studied the map some more. “But there something I don’t get? Why sever e-hap? I can see why the regular network cables might be cut, but why disconnect your safety net?”

Rick and Virgil’s eyes met. “Because the company is cheap,” said Rick.

“Cheap,” Amanda asked?

Virgil rolled his eyes. “The communications cables, really they’re vines, were supposed to be a completely separate system from the e-hap vine. But some idiot under the sky came up with the brilliant idea of using the same protocol on both. It was one of those ideas that looks good on paper, but fails terribly in practice. We had the hardest time keep the signals independent from each other. It didn’t help that the Root itself tended to mix the vines up at every opportunity.”

Rick sighed, “It was a wonderful cluster-fuck,” he said. “Worst still, we got the blame whenever our vines “commingled” with communications. Anyway, we eventually found a work around, but by then it was too late to go back as re-lay the entire vine, which is what we should have done.”

“What this means,” Virgil added, “is that the e-hap system had to be made flexible enough so that it could use any vine it could find.”

“And the communications system,” said Rick, “can do the same.”

“So,” said Amanda, “the e-hap network will work over the communications vine?”

“And vice-versa,” said Rick.

“Oh,” said Amanda. “That’s why they cut the e-hap vine. It wasn’t secure.”

“Exactly,” said Virgil. “They have sacrificed our safety for their security. Well said.”

“So,” Amanda said. “What do we do now?”

“Good question,” said Virgil. “I know what Rick was going to do, and know what I am going to do, but the big question is, what do you want to do Ms. Waters? I thought you were on vacation.”

“Vacation! Don’t be silly. There’s a story here, I can feel it.”

“This just in,” Rick interrupted. “Private company cuts own network to provide security for head of state. Film at 11:00.”

They all shared a laugh.

“Okay,” she admitted, “So it doesn’t look like much of a story. Sometimes that happens.”

“Well you can always do a piece on a mid level manager loosing his job,” said Virgil.

“Naw,” Amanda said. “That’s all too common. Now if you were to loose your job for uncovering some grand conspiracy… now that would be interesting.”

“Great,” Virgil said. “I’ll start looking for a big fat juicy grand conspiracy, just as soon as I get a spare moment. In the mean time,” he continued, “I think it’s time we did a little divide-and-conquer. What do you think Rick? Are you up for a little travel?”

“Sure thing, skipper,” Rick said. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well,” Virgil said, gathering the two around him, “I think we should…”

An hour later Virgil and Amanda were traveling down a winding service road between Pod 17 and nodule 16.19. The brush and grasses all brilliant colored under the harsh artificial sunlight from the center of the Root. Rick was pointing out various plants over the steering wheel, when suddenly he stopped the truck. “What in the world is that,” he said, pointing to a spiky plant near the side of the road?

“Is something wrong,” Amanda asked?

Virgil got out and walked over for a closer look, leaving the truck door open.

The plant looked a bit like a cactus, its narrow leaves long and straight, coming out of the central root like spikes on a porcupine. Near the base, the leaves were a deep green, but that color slowly faded until it became a silvery grey near the tips. The longer leaves near the top were easily a meter and a half, or longer. “That color,” Virgil said.

“What about it,” Amanda asked, automatically taking pictures?

“It doesn’t look right. The tips look more like metal than cellulose. It doesn’t make any sense.”

She brought the view-finder tablet to bare on one of the leaves. Under its magnification it looked a lot like raw iron. The very tips already showing a faint microscopic dusting of a golden red. Was that rust?

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing about it,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“It gives you great wireless reception.”

“Why do you say that,” Virgil asked?

Amanda held up her tablet. “The border,” she said. “Around the screen. See how green it is?”

“Sure.”

“There’s an app I run for plotting wireless reception. Its handy for when I need to find a better signal, but don’t want to look away from what I’m doing.”

“That’s useful?” he asked, sounding unconvinced.

“Sure. When people are shooting at you, and you want to call for help.”

Virgil smiled. “Okay. I can see that. Go on.”

“So watch this,” she said. Holding her notebook so Virgil could see the screen she slowly moved it towards the plant. From a distance, the edge of the screen stayed grey, but as it got close to the plant, it turned green.

“Hum,” he said. “Do you suppose it’s acting like some sort of antenna?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

Virgil took a knife from his pocket, and cleanly cut off one of the long thin leaves near its base. It was stiff, and almost perfectly straight along its length. He gave the leaf a shake and watched it vibrate. “Try it now,” he said planting the soft end in the ground, “on just this leaf.”

Amanda held up her tablet to the leaf, but the signal didn’t change. Virgil tried placing the end of the leaf up in the air, and back near the base of the plant, but it still did not improve the reception.

“Well, I don’t know what it is, but its not an antenna,” he said sliding the leaf into the back of the truck, “I guess that’s one more thing to ask the Chemist about.”

“The what,” Amanda asked as she slid onto the seat on the passenger side?

“The Chemist,” Virgil said.

“Who’s that?”

“Someone. Don’t worry. You’ll like him,” he said. “He’s English.”

“What’s that,” Amanda asked?

“What’s what,” said Virgil?

“That thing. That wall in front of us?”

For the past 10 minutes they had been driving slowly, focusing on the “antenna plants” as they called them. Virgil had noticed their spacing seemed weird; they were never next to each other, and somehow always about the same distance apart. The rest of the journey had been spent testing his hypothesis.

“Oh,” said Virgil noticing the wall in front of them that completely blocked the entire Root. “That’s nodule 16.19. Our destination.”

From a distance the nodule wall looked smooth and brown, but when they got closer Amanda could see it was rough like a giant tree trunk. There was a narrow tunnel cut through the nodule wall right at the service road. They traveled through it in the dark a good 10 meters before emerging on the other side.

Like the tents in the Pod 17 village, small houses mushroomed from the Root wall at nodule 16.19 in a haphazard fashion. When Amanda asked Virgil why there were no straight streets, or houses in a clean rows, he told her that the little nodule villages were actually designed to offer the maximum view to each dwelling while keeping a a high level of privacy. “Each one is different too,” he told her. “Some are mountainous with little streams running through them, and some are more flat and spare, like a desert.”

“They put that much effort into employee housing,” she asked?

“No. Oh nooo,” he said with some exaggeration. “This is the company we’re talking about,” he continued. “The nice ones were designed to be motels. That they doubled as employee housing was just a lucky perk.”

Near the back of the village they found a beat-up work truck parked to one side of the road. Virgil pulled up beside the old truck. As the two got out they could hear the sounds of cursing and yelling. They searched around until they found the source of the noise on the other side of the old truck. Standing hip deep in a freshly dug hole was a short dark man who was grabbing at the base of a plant, and pulling on it for all of his life. That the plant didn’t budge only made the man more angry. Not hearing the two over the constant stream of his own curses, Virgil and Amanda approached until they were right behind him. The plant he was pulling finally let go with a resounding pop, sending the him sprawling. That was when Amanda noticed several more of the same plant were pilled up beside the hole.

“Having fun, Ahmed,” Virgil asked?

The man spun around, surprised, then gave a loud cheer when he recognized Virgil. “Well if it ain’t the old sea dog himself,” he said. “How fairs it Captain?”

Virgil reached down and clasped his hand. “About as good as usual you damn limey.”

Both men smiled and slapped each others shoulders.

“I take it you know each other,” Amanda said with a smile.

“Ahmed,” Virgil said. “Allow me to introduce you to my conscious. This is Ms. Amanda Waters, of Reuters News.”

Ahmed lifted his hand, and then hesitated when he noticed how dirty it was. Amanda took his hand in hers, and shook it anyway.

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Waters. Its good to see Virgil keeping better company.”

“Thank you, ah Ahmed. And its Amanda. Ms. Waters is my mother’s name.”

“I see,” said Ahmed. “So what brings you to the middle of nowhere, if I may ask, Amanda?”

“Well when I got an invitation I thought at first this would be a nice little working vacation, but the more I hear, the more its sounds like a story is about to break.”

“Really,” said Ahmed, looking towards Virgil with a raised eyebrow?

“We’ve got a bit of a problem with the company at the amphitheater,” Virgil said. “Come on up out of that hole, and I’ll tell you about it.”

Virgil reached down and helped pull Ahmed out of the pit. Seeing him next to Virgil made Ahmed look even shorter and darker. Amanda could see bit of gray in his otherwise jet black hair, and then saw a twinkle in his eyes like a look of mischief. His skin was too dark to be black Irish, so she guessed he was Pakistani, but his accent made him as English as the King. Maybe even more so.

Then she noticed the pile of plants over his shoulder, the ones he had been pulling out of the ground. “Say, aren’t those the same antenna plants we saw before,” she asked?

“What,” said Ahmed? “Antenna plants?”

Virgil walked over to them and examined them more carefully. “They sure look the same,” he said.

“Those things,” Ahmed said? “I found them all over the access box here for the communications cables. I noticed the network was down past this point, so I pulled them out figuring they were some sort of parasite like the green meanies we found at 10.12.”

“You said you found them all together,” Virgil asked?

“Yep. In one big clump. They had roots going down right into the cable node.”

“That’s weird. On our drive over we saw many of these, but they were always individual plants, never in groups, and their spacing was pretty unusual.”

“Unusual,” said Ahmed? “In what way?”

Amanda held up her notebook, and looked for the data table. “They were always 78 meters apart,” she said manipulating the table. “Plus or minus about a meter. Yep. No variation over or under 67 centimeters.”

Ahmed looked over to her. “You’re sure about that?”

“Positive,” Virgil answered for her. “We line-of-sight measured a couple, extrapolated some, and then did random checks. Everything we found was remarkably consistent. I’ll bet if we GPS’d them, we’d find they’re all within 20 centimeters, more or less, of exactly 78 meters.”

“Well that is unusual,” said Ahmed. “But I don’t know if that means anything.”

Just then, Amanda interrupted them. “That’s weird,” she said.

Both men turned to look at her. “The network,” she continued, “the wireless is down.”

“Huh,” said Ahmed? “It was up when I got here.”

Virgil pulled out his own notebook and checked. “Yep. It’s down.” He turned to Ahmed pointing at the hole. “You said that is the node for the communications cables,” he asked?

“Yes, somewhere under there. Why?”

He picked up the last plant Ahmed had pulled. Its root waving weekly in the air. Dropping down into the hole, Virgil dug out a spot until he could see the cables in the bare dirt. He then placed the roots of the antenna plant on top of the cables, and gently cover them all with lose soil. Guessing what he was up to, Amanda held her notebook near the tips of the plant, and watched the border of her screen.

“Grey,” she said. “Grey. Oops, light green. Greener. Green. Looks like we have wireless again.”

Virgil took out his own notebook, and laid it on the edge of the pit. Ahmed look confused. “Can someone tell me what is going on,” he asked?

“When we were driving out,” Virgil said while checking the signal on his own notebook. “Amanda noticed that the antenna plants, as we called them, seemed to increase wireless reception. We thought the plants might act as some kind of antenna, hence the name, but when I cut off an individual leaf, it didn’t work like one; it didn’t help reception at all.”

“So you think this plant acts as a booster or something? Amplifying the signal?”

“Something like that,” said Virgil. “It certainly looks like its working as a wireless router for the cable. Perhaps its also passing the wireless signal from plant to plant as well.”

“Are you suggesting this plant is something like a wireless router, and a network booster,” Ahmed asked? “That is… well that is most unusual. Even for this place.”

Virgil looked down at his notebook. “Agreed,” he said. “Say guys you want to check on the network now? I’m getting stuff from the outside, but I’m not getting any signal from the Pod 17 or beyond.”

Ahmed pulled out his notebook, and pulled up a screen. “I’m getting a signal from outside,” he said, “but nothing past here.”

“Can you pull up the cable diagram,” Virgil asked? “The one that shows which one is in use?”

“Like this?” Ahmed dropped down to one knee so Virgil could see his tablet. The screen showed several lines in blue coming up to the node they were over, but none going past.

“Yep,” Virgil said. “How about you Amanda? Getting anything from the inside?”

Amanda shook her head. “Not a thing passed that wall.”

“Hum, Virgil said looking down at his tablet. “Somehow I got dropped from the network. Let me try logging in again to see if that helps.” After a moment he said, “That’s funny. I can’t log in.”

Virgil tossed his notebook aside, and pulled himself out of the hole. “I think I know what the problem is; the nodule wall must be too thick for reception. That was why there were several plants here, instead of just one. They needed more than one plant to boost the signal. But I think I have a better idea. Why don’t we plant one on either side of the nodule tunnel? Set them up line of sight, and see what that does?”

“Brilliant,” said Ahmed. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’re a chemist,” Amanda suggested?

Ahmed looked to Virgil then back at Amanda. Then both men started laughing.

“Did I say something funny,” she asked feeling a little hurt.

“No, no,” said Virgil. “Its just… I told you Ahmed is called the Chemist, so you made a good guess. Only..”

“Only…” completed Ahmed, “I’m not actually a chemist. That’s just what they call me.”

“Then what do you do here,” Amanda asked, “if you’re not a chemist.”

“I’m a botanist. Actually the botanist, for this pile of dirt.”

Amanda looked confused.

Seeing her look, Virgil filled in, “What he means is Ahmed is the VP of Botany for the Root. For all of the Root.”

“He’s a VP, huh,” Amanda asked? “Does that make him higher than a Senior Director?”

“You bet your ass it does,” said Virgil.

“Oh, so that’s why you came here,” she said. “You needed Ahmed’s help to shut down the dog-and-pony show over at the amphitheater.”

“Exactly,” Virgil said.

“What,” Ahmed asked? “Dog-and-pony show?”

“Later, Limey. Lets get some plants in the ground. Then I’ll tell you all about it. Or maybe she will. She took the pictures.”

“Pictures? Pictures of what,” said Ahmed?

“You saw that,” Amanda asked? “I thought I was being sly.”

“Later. Lets get our network up first,” Virgil said. “And yes, you were being sly.”

Half an hour later three more of the antenna plants had been transplanted. One near the cable node as a backup, one on the near side of the tunnel entrance, and the last one on the other side of the tunnel. Within seconds of the last one being put in the ground Amanda was reporting a weak by viable signal. Ahmed pulled a few spray bottles out of the vast collection in his truck, and gave each of the plants a quick spritz. The signal grew even stronger after that. Ahmed’s notebook was able to get a signal from Pod 17, but the company network did not show a blue line for the new connection. Amanda was playing around, seeing what she could find off the local network, while Virgil cursed his notebook again and again.

“Still not getting in,” Ahmad asked with some sympathy?

“The damn thing won’t take my password, and I can’t log in to ask Dove for help. Stupid thing.”

“You’re sure you’ve got the new password,” Ahmed asked?

“Sure, I’m sure. I was up this morning. I don’t see why it’s not working now. The damn thing doesn’t even recognize my user name anymore.”

“Well something is different.” Ahmed said. “Networks don’t just drop you because they don’t like you.”

“Yes,” Virgil said looking at him with sudden comprehension, “Networks don’t, but companies do.”

“Companies? Do you think the company purposefully dropped you?”

“After what I did this morning,” said Virgil, “it’s entirely possible.”

Ahmed looked shocked, but before he could respond, Amanda interrupted.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something Ahmed. Instead of pulling those plants out of the ground, why didn’t you use a weed killer or something?”

Both men turned around. “What did you say,” Ahmed said in a tone that was suddenly very cold?

“Use weed killer,” Amanda said. “After all, you must have 20 things that will work in your truck.”

Ahmed’s eyes got large, but before he could speak, Virgil held up his hand to silence him. “Suppose he had,” Virgil said in a calm voice? “What do you suppose it would have done to the communications cables? After all, they’re a plant too.”

“Hum,” said Amanda. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“And what about the Root wall below the cables,” Virgil continued? “What do you suppose weed killer would have done to it? After all, its a living breathing plant as well.”

Amanda’s eye’s got big. “Oh wow. I guess I just assumed that that stuff just went away. I didn’t realize…”

“You didn’t realize?“ Ahmed said? “You didn’t realize! We’re not under the sky here. Everything we do – everything – has an effect on everything else.”

“Wow!” Amanda said. I just was wondering. I mean if its that bad, why are these guys using it?”

“What!” said Ahmed. “What guys?”

“These guys,” Amanda said turning her tablet around.

On the screen they could see a group of men working behind the amphitheater stage. Some were using sprayers on the plants, others were spraying white paint on the Root wall. Still more were on a scaffold above, smoothing something into the cracks that were forming on the wall. It looked like plaster, but they couldn’t be sure.

Ahmed was so shocked, it took him a full minute to grasp what he was seeing.

“What is this?” he asked. “Where are these images coming from?”

“The amphitheater,” Amanda said. “From behind the stage. I thought I might check to see if the govcam network is up and running. Apparently it is. I didn’t realize I could access it from the wireless plant network. Looks like I can.”

“This is going on now!” Ahmed was shouting. “Here! At the amphitheater in Pod 17?”

Amanda nodded her head, shocked by his reaction.

“Virgil!” Ahmed shouted. “Are you seeing this?”

Virgil nodded, not looking up from his tablet. “What,” he asked?

“The amphitheater? Did you see what they are doing? They’re spraying weed killer on the Wall. Weed killer. Of all the bloody stupid Yank things to do? Weed Killer!”

“Uh, yes,” said Virgil softly. His eyes still on his tablet.

“Are you listening to me, you stupid git? They’re poisoning the wall. You can even see the salt water starting to leak.”

“Uh yes,” said Virgil. “I heard, its just… I think we have even bigger problems than that.”

“The walls of Pod 17 are about to breach, because of a bunch of stupid Yanks, we’re about to piss away six months of work, and you think we have bigger problems than that?” Ahmed was yelling at the top of his voice.

“Yes,” said Virgil quietly, “I do.”

“What? What can be worse?”

“The President. Of the US. The first lady. Flintridge’s entire cabinet. All of them. They’re on their way. In fact there almost here.”

Ahmed’s face turned white.

“Here?” said Amanda looking around panicky.

“No,” said Virgil quietly. “Almost to Pod 17.”

“Cor love a duck,” Ahmed went off. “If that doesn’t take the biscuit, I don’t know what does. Of all the god damned stupid idiot things to do, that wart on the bottom of my bullocks had to come here? After practically ensuring a breach? I swear, that stupid pile of shit is as thick as manure, but only half as useful.”

Virgil raised his eyes. “My thoughts exactly,” he said dryly.

“So what do we do,” Amanda asked eagerly?

“We?” Virgil said, moving quickly to the passenger seat of the nearest truck. “Nothing. Ahmed and I will get there as quick as we can. You however, can stay here.”

Ahmed moved hastily to the driver’s seat, and closed the door. Amanda looked furious.

“Stay!” she said. “For a story like this? Are you out of your mind?”

“Possibly,” Virgil said. “Look, it’s a great story, but someone has to be alive to tell it. Dead people being notorious, and all, for not writing. When the Root breaches, this tunnel here is going to pucker up faster then an a frog’s asshole in a rain storm. Everything on this side should remain high and dry. Everything on the other, well it’ll get pretty wet. Now you have all the info. You have the story. And as a plus, if you stay here, you’ll probably live long enough to see it published – which is a hell of a lot better odds than what we face.”

Amanda looked in Virgil’s eye for a split second before moving. “Fuck that shit,” she said! “Move over!”

Virgil slid over to the middle of the seat, as Amanda jumped in. “Hit it!” she yelled, slamming the door. Ahmed had already punched the gas pedal before her door closed. The truck shot off.

“What are you smiling about,” Amanda yelled? It was hard to hear over the road noise as the truck screeched around the first turn, but somehow she had noticed the grin on Virgil’s face.

“Nothing,” Virgil yelled back. “It’s just my wife. She uses that term every time I try to do something macho. Makes me laugh every time.”

“Makes you laugh. She must be special.”

“You have no idea,” he said. “If we ever get out of this mess I’ll introduce you to her. You two’d get a long like two peas in a pod.”

“You mean when we get out of this mess, not if. And she has the balls to curse like a sailor, and to back it up, then hell yes, I’d love to meet her.”

The truck hurtled down the road as fast as the the little electric motor could go, which was considerably faster that Amanda thought was safe. After a short while, Amanda was struck by a thought. “Wait a minute,” she asked? “I thought you were locked out of the network. How’d you get back in?”

“Oh that,” Virgil said. “One of my guys gave me a program that figured out a password based on the log-in name. So when my name didn’t work, I figured I would try it on another name. So I punched in William R. Patterson, just for the heck of it.”

“You mean the President of Harrison Industries,” she asked?

“Ah-hem,” Ahmed said as they rounded a turn. “President of the U.S. affiliate.”

“Quite right old chap,” Virgil said in a fake English accent. “Begging your pardon, old chum. Yes, President of the American affiliate. Everyone knows Archibald Butler is the real CEO of Harrison Industries.”

“Bloody Yank,” Ahmed mumbled.

“So you have his access to account on the network,” Amanda asked?

“Oh yes,” He said. “In fact, I think I’m going to have him send a company wide memo to all the employees working in the Root.”

“Something like, ‘Run away. Run away’?”

“Oh no,” he said. “I have a much better idea.”

The next 20 minutes were a bit hectic for the three. Amanda kept track via the video feed of the leak on the wall, while Virgil fired of memo after memo, and Ahmed drove like the proverbial bat out of hell. By the time they arrived at the amphitheater, a crowd had formed to either side of the entrance, and every employee was dressed in their company work suits. More importantly, each employee had their e-hap stump in plain sight around their necks. Someone had found a box full of miniature American flags, and the crowd were practicing waiving them when Ahmed stopped the truck.

Just as they got out, Virgil got an urgent email from the e-hap team near nodule 17.1. “Yes,” it told him, “he could expect 20 cables hard-wired to the English side of 17.1 in 20 minutes.” Virgil wondered what Rick would make of that order, or if he would even guess of it’s true origin, especially as it was supposedly sent by the American CEO. Since Rick had Dove with him, the odds were better than even that he knew exactly what was going on. Virgil wanted to send him a personal note to warn him to get the crew out, but that ship had sailed. It was time now to deal with a larger problem.

The three ran up past the crowd to the entrance. Ahmed was surprised to see all the workers. “What are they doing here,” he hissed? “Don’t they know?”

Virgil looked at Ahmed as they ran. “I knew if I tried to shut things down, it wouldn’t have worked. There wasn’t enough time,” he said as they reached the entrance. There, right next to a smiling Sybil, they found a large box full of extra e-hap stumps.

“So you brought them all here instead,” Amanda asked, clearly puzzled?

Virgil looked at her levelly. “I brought them all here. Along with their stumps. If I told everyone to put theirs on, I know only a handful would comply. But if I told them it was part of a plan to greet the President of the United States, I knew they would follow the order without question.”

Amanda still looked puzzled.

“Bear in mind,” he said. “I’ve been down this road before.” His tone carried the dark knowledge of his past. Amanda could feel a lump of fear in the pit of her stomach. She tried to swallow, but her throat felt constricted.

“Trust me. It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Just pick up your camera, and start to film when the President gets here. If he thinks the whole press core is here, he’ll be less inclined to do something stupid.”

She looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Okay. Anything more stupid,” he said.

Turning to Sybil he asked, “Did you get stumps for the whole crew,” he asked indicating the people behind the stage?

Sybil smiled. “You know better than to ask.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I do. Was there any trouble?”

“Oh a couple of the guys, especially the secret service ones. They tried to macho their way out if it.”

Virgil was curious. “So how’d you solve that particular problem?”

“Oh it was easy. I had a couple of the girls from accounting – you know the Davis twins?”

“You mean the ones that are, uh well endowed,” he asked delicately?

“Yep. The very ones. I had them show the boys how to properly wear a e-hap stump. It’s amazing what a man will do to get a closer look at a big pair of tits,” she said with a satisfied smile.

“Sybil, you’re a genius,” he said.

“I know,” she replied.

Just then they heard a sound. The President’s motorcade was pulling into view on the road from the train station. Virgil passed out extra stumps, put an extra two in his pockets, and made his way down to the VIP parking.

He turned to Amanda just as the cars came to a stop. “Remember. Make sure they can see you. You need to be the whole press corps today, or they’re not going to play.”

“No problem skipper,” she said firmly as she held up her tablet as a camera.

A door opened up, a leg stuck out, and flashes started going off from all over the crowd. Virgil hadn’t thought of that, but he was pretty sure Sybil had.

A secret service man (wearing a stump Virgil noted) opened the door, and the first lady stepped out. Rushing to greet her, but careful not to get in the way of Amanda and her camera, Virgil stepped around the door, and bowed before the first lady. She smiled, and stopped. Virgil could sense her surprise. She was probably told there would not be a crowd here to great her. She measured the crowd with a practiced eye, and put on her best smile.

“Greetings Mrs. Flintridge,” Virgil spoke loudly to be heard over the crowd. “Welcome to the Root. We have a ceremony we like to perform with every visitor. Those of us who work here, us Rooties, wear these garlands,” he indicated the stump around his neck, “as a symbol of those who have worked so hard under the ocean. I ask that you wear this one,” he held up one of his spares, “and consider yourself an honorary Rooty. Would you do us this honor?”

The first lady stopped and locked eyes with Virgil. He could feel a sense of hatred just below the surface of her smile. Virgil knew from his father that people in power did not like surprises. Well, he thought, you can roast me tomorrow, if you live that long. He could sense she was about to back off when suddenly he heard Amanda say, “Can you look this way, Mrs. Flintridge, while he puts it on?”

The first lady gave the slightest of slumps in her shoulders. It was about as much of an agreement as Virgil expected to get. Before she could change her mind, Virgil slipped the stump over her head, and bowed as the cameras flashed. The First Lady slipped back into her best smile, and strutted up to the entrance on the arm of one of her secret service details.

After that, the crowd rushed in, and soon everyone in the President’s motorcade was wearing an official Rooty stump. He saw Flintridge himself try to ward off a stump until one of the Davis twins worked her magic. After that, he was lead past Virgil with a bemused smile on his face. Virgil wasn’t a fan of the President, but he had to admit the man handled a strange and new situation with more aplomb than most.

It was after the last of the VIPs passed, Virgil noticed Rogers leading some secret service agents. None of them, he noticed, were wearing a stump. As they drew closer, Rogers noticed Virgil, and pointed at him. “That’s the man.” he said to the agents. “He’s the one.”

The two agents sped over to Virgil, and clamped their arms around his, keeping him from moving. “I don’t know what you think you were doing back there,” one of them said between his teeth, “but I promise you, you are going to regret it.”

Virgil smiled, his work was done.

Amanda stepped in front of them and raised her tablet as a camera.

“Give me that,” one of the agents yelled.

Amanda stepped back a few feet looking defiant.

“Go,” Virgil yelled. “Get out of here. Take the truck. Head for 16.19.”

She nodded her head, turned, and sprinted through the crowd.

One of the agents put his wrist to his mouth, and spoke into the hidden microphone. Virgil hoped Amanda had enough time to get away.

The first agent began speaking in his ear. “Okay, funny man. We’re going to move along quietly. You’re going to stay with us. No funny business. Do you understand?”

Virgil could feel the sharp point of a gun muzzle in his ribs. He nodded his head, and let the agents move him into the amphitheater. They seated him off to one side near the front, careful to have an agent on either side of him.

From his vantage point Virgil saw the crowd forming along the first few rows. The President and his party were already in their seats upon the stage. A large podium stood at center stage, the Presidential Seal glowing on its front. The wall behind the President had been painted white. Large cracks, some of them unsuccessfully filled by plaster were starting to weep from the moisture. Virgil could see the cracks slowly expand even as he watched the small stream of water at the base increase in size. The white paint could not quite hide the bruised and purple color of the wall behind.

He felt his hands digging into the arm rests as he watched the wall start to fail.

Someone, Rogers he thought, approached the podium. The crowd dutifully went silent as he waited. A low humming sound, too soft to be heard over the crowd, was now prominent in the relative silence. Rogers tapped the microphone, and got the ever present feedback squeal. “Thank you, everyone,” he said when it died down. The hum suddenly grew louder. “Before we begin…” Rogers started, but was stopped by an increase in humming. Virgil looked to the hills about the amphitheater seats. The plants were swaying and whirling. Those with mobile roots were trying to get away. It was a scene all to familiar to him. One he saw every time he had his nightmare.

The humming grew louder still. Something fell off the stage with a crash. There was a scream. People started to look around in panic. The wall on one side gave a loud pop. Pieces of wood, splinters – some of them large enough to be telephone poles – flew across the crowd. Virgil felt the agent on his right get slammed into his seat, and then slump down. Warm liquid splashed his face. Virgil reached up and felt blood. He looked over, the agent appeared to be fine, just knocked unconscious. Without thinking, Virgil grabbed one of his extra stumps, and shoved the plug end in the sleeping man’s mouth.

“What are you doing,” the other agent said? He was holding a gun, waiving it at Virgil.

Virgil looked at him and said slowly, careful not to let the adrenaline speed up his voice, “Watch carefully. You push this end into the mouth like this,” he said as he shoved the stump into his mouth again, “and you activate it like this,” he said as he pulled out, and then twisted hard the emergency tab. The stump immediately went rigid, the fringe on the bottom swaying as if underwater.

Virgil handed the agent his last stump. “Get him out of here,” he yelled over the increasing noise, desperately trying to be heard!

“What?”

“The President. Get him the hell out of here. The whole place is going to collapse.”

The agent raised his gun. At first Virgil thought he was going to shoot him, but then the agent turned his wrist, and spoke into his microphone.

Men on the stage jumped up, as if shocked, and before anyone could react, grabbed the President and the first lady, and carried them up the aisles at a dead run. They had just reached the entrance when the wall burst.

Like a cannon, the wall collapsed. Millions and millions of liters of frigid salt water rushed in like a hammer. The huge artificial sun overhead gave a loud fizzle, and exploded. The people ran, some of them screaming at the top of their lungs. Virgil slumped down to the ground, and waited. He knew he didn’t have long to wait.

He was right.

His first thought was it was too bright. He tried opening his eyes, but they hurt too much to open. He heard muddled murky sounds, the buzzing of voices. Then he felt a warm hand in his own. Even with his eyes closed he knew that hand.

“Jessie,” he croaked out. He felt her squeeze his hand. A tear leaked down from his eye.

He tried to get up, leaning on one arm, but was too exhausted to stay, so he fell back.

“How bad,” he croaked, squinting into the light. He could hear the nurse try to calm him, but he ignored her noise, concentrating instead on Jessie’s hand. He forced himself to open just one eye, squinting into the light. He could just make out the shape of Jessie, a dark lump against the white light. “How bad,” he croaked again? “How many did we lose?”

He felt her squeeze his hand then relax. “Twenty,” she said almost in a whisper, “maybe thirty. No one’s sure.”

“The President,” he asked?

“Alive. One of the first recovered.”

“Rick? The crew,” he asked?

“They stayed on the US side to help, but never even got wet. Or so he says.” She gave his hand another squeeze.

“The reporter,” he asked? “Waters?”

A voice from the other side of his bed shot out, “You think I’d let a little thing like a million tons of ice cold sea water stop me, Skipper,” she said?

Rick gave a weak chuckle that turned into a painful cough. He waited to speak until he was sure he wouldn’t cough again. “I see,” he said, and the swallowed hard. “…you two have met.”

“You were right,” the reporter said. “Like peas in a pod.”

Virgil saw Jessie smile, and then the tears started falling. She held his hand and silently cried. No one said a word. When she was done, he gave her hand a slight squeeze. By then he could open both eyes, although the room still seemed painfully bright.

“You’re a hero you know,” Jessie said, wiping her eyes with a tissue.

“I am? What for this time?”

“Well at first everyone thought it was an attack by the English. Everyone in America that is. We all presumed you were dead. The military was on high alert, and crowds were gathering, begging Congress to declare war. But Amanda here got through to an American publisher she knew, and somehow got her story out.”

“I had to twist a few arms,” Amanda said. “But I got the job done.”

Jessie continued, “At first no one believed her, but then the flowers started blooming.”

“The e-hap system,” Virgil asked?

“Yep. And blooming on the English side. The American side was…“

“Damaged,” he said. “I know.”

“While we here in America were clamoring for war,” Jessie continued, “the English were gathering all of their rescue gear, and starting to dig. They found the President the first week. After that, well everybody was so busy falling over themselves in the rescue effort that they kind of forgot about the war.

“Dang,” he said. “Just when I thought I might have a Navy career again, peace broke out.”

Jessie gave him a playful slap on the shoulder. “I think you’re done with the sea for a bit. At least I’m done with you drowning in it.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, then Amanda spoke again. “I hate to interrupt, but the President’s right outside the door. Like everyone else in America, he wants to meet the hero of Pod 17. Think you’re up to it?”

“The hero of Pod 17?”

“Corny,” Amanda said. “I know. It was the best I could do on short notice. I kind of had my hands full writing while Ahmed was driving.”

“So the old limey made it?”

“Barely, but he’ll survive.”

Jessie let out a laugh, “If he can survive being married to the biggest reporter in the business.”

This caught Virgil completely by surprise. “Married! That old bachelor? Who in the world would be stupid enough to… Ouch,” he said as Jessie slugged him. Then he realized what they were saying. “Oh good god. He married you Amanda? Dang. That’s the smartest thing that man has even done.”

They all laughed at this.

“Does that mean you’re ready to face the President,” Amanda asked?

“Well, I guess. If he can stand me, I can stand him.”

Everyone laughed again.

Backwater

A writer, looking for readers. The blog of Eric Tolladay.

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