Sean Robin Hughes

Milos considered the possibilities.

It could be a fake. It could be a reproduction. It could be an imitation by another artist. Hell, it could be the outcome of a shared spark of inspiration that lead to a similar painting. Or, the scariest possibility was that he was misremembering. That could happen. He knew his memory was not infallible, and with an exceptionally long life behind him, memories were not only malleable, they could be suspect.

But he discarded all of the thoughts tumbling about in his confusion. He knew with certainty that the painting was hers. It was like seeing the curve of her body in the dark and knowing that it was her that laid beside him. His mind was flooded with the sensations of her memory, her smell reminiscent of lavender and cloves, the way her smile crooked up more on the left than the right, but somehow that made her all the more beautiful… the way her hair cascaded in the thick black curls when she bent over to kiss him. But above all those things, she knew.

Areti knew what he was from the start. And had loved him regardless.

How does one reconcile such a thing? He had begged her to join him time and time again, but she had refused each time. Instead, she painted. Areti always painted, from the moment she awoke in the early afternoon until she would fall asleep in his arms in the early morning. She worked with a madness that few could have understood. She would laugh at his disappointment in her refusal, and point to her latest canvas… ‘See this? It is temporary. I am the art, my love. I too am only temporary. If I am not, my art will not matter. And I know that I do. I matter.’

Milos would always agree, because she mattered greatly to him. Every time he would consider for a moment to disregard her feelings and bring her along against her will, but his love for her was greater than his fear to be without her. He watched her, smiled his smile, the one he only used for her, and she would laugh.

Oh gods, her laugh. Bright as the summer sky, brilliant as a sun flecked ocean wave. Milos grinned, again noting how well he remembered the sun. That would never go away. He watched her, year after year, grow old and somehow all the more beautiful. When she died, he had grieved furiously, but he was thankful for the many decades they had together. He had been lost for a long time after her death, but he came back to himself eventually-

“Sir?” A voice pulled at his reverie.

“Ah, yes?” Milos blinked and turned his head to find an elderly museum volunteer smiling graciously. Her name tag declared that her name was Martha and that she loved Van Gogh. “My apologies… Hello Martha.”

“It is closing time, dearie. You must have missed the overhead announcement.” She waved at the painting. “It is beautiful though, isn’t it? The legends about her work aside, she had a natural talent for capturing light, didn’t she?”

“Indeed. Those waves are nearly real, the energy of them as if they are about to crash on the shore.”

Martha nodded as if she understood and moved on to the next patron, directing the visitors towards the museum’s exit through the gift shop.

The painting hung on the museum wall had unraveled him. How long had he stood there, just blankly staring at her work, connecting them again across the centuries? How long had it taken him to realize that his memories of the sun, the waves, the summer sky were not his own, but his memory of her paintings? The grief he felt on the day she died manifested out of nothing, wrenching his heart in its grasp, the long span of time giving no comfort or lessening the passion of it.

Tears tracked down his face as he walked to the exit. The first tears he had cried since the late fifties… when Gertrude and Max had decided to take the flame. Their kind was going extinct, and not for any of the reasons that made sense. Maybe they were dying out because the world no longer needed them, their kind, the proverbial monsters in the dark.

Gertrude had said that humanity was beautiful and terrible and horrific. All the things they themselves had been labeled since time had begun. The world did not need monsters in the dark when the prey were nearly monsters themselves. The distance had shortened between them, and that was terrifying for the ones whom still remembered their own humanity. It was an unraveling of self, a threat of self-reflection that was too much to bear. Humanity had always been animals, red in tooth and claw, surviving and striving against whatever they perceived as a threat. Identifying the prey was not a simple calculation any longer.

Maybe it was the A-bomb. Maybe it was the war after war after war and all the atrocities that man wrought had on their perceived enemies. Maybe it was witnessing the modern world spring up so fast, contrary to all of human history where progress was slow and methodical and… adaptable. Gertrude and Max probably would have laughed watching Milos continuously learn to adapt to the latter decades of the twentieth century, and the advent of computers, cameras, the internet, and all the things that accelerated humanity ever faster into the twenty first century.

Maybe Gertrude and Max had seen it coming. They saw the ‘Modern World’ and had refused it outright. Better to choose oblivion than what was coming. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps not. Seeing Areti’s work on the wall had shifted something in Milos. A change that was building within him, energy coalescing and amplifying itself with ferocity.

Milos came to the decision before he knew he had even made one. As he walked out of the museum’s expansive exit, via the similarly expansive gift shop, and turned down the Fifth avenue, he found himself saying it aloud, giving the thought tangibility and making it real.

“I am going to rob the Met.”

Milos smiled his special smile, the wide one he saved for rare moments, and his overly long eye teeth glimmered in the bright lights of Fifth Avenue. He had taken five full steps before he realized that he was going to need help, and the thought shifted the hunter’s confident countenance to one of furrowed contemplation.

“Shit,” he muttered. “I am going to need help.”

The first time is always a lie.  I was warned by my mentor.  He knew better than to lie to me.

The Dark is not malleable and the Light is not always present.  The ever-glow fades along the splines of the fractal diffusions of beams and the absences alike.  Among the beams, structured like pillars of a god’s imagination, the Light does not shift like the Dark does.  One is trained to remember that darkness is only an absence of light, but that too, is a lie.

It breathes.  It has form, it has function.  It insinuates itself into everything; it slithers.  The Dark has speed.  The Dark has mass.  The Dark exerts its force on all the objects of creation, saying no, you may not exist here, you may not be so close to us.  Your proximity is not possible.

For in all our great competition, the Light binds us.  It pulls us together across those vast distances.  Light is the source of life, of dreams, of all the things that ever have been and ever will be. It is the source of your imagination on your distant planet, as it is for me, undergoing the Trial of the Illumin.

So the first time one tries to manipulate beyond the ever-present glow, the wellspring of Light, the first time one pulls on its threads to form something new, we expect this magical experience to be brought into being.  One moment nothing, the next, your purpose, glorious and unbound. But as a result, you discover what the Dark is.  The Light shutters and splits, your fingers and mind’s eye pulling them apart, watching the fractals twist away from your grasp, like water splashing around the fount of a dam’s release, furious and rushing.  And behind it, the Dark comes.  It slides in behind the power of the Light being wrested through the power of your action, and it fills the gaps.

The absence of Light allows the Other to come.  Every protégé that attempts the forming meets some semblance of the Other.  Some are terrified by the brush of its presence, others are humbled, and others still go mad by the touch and collapse into themselves like dying stars.

I expected the Other to witness my power and allow my forming, but my mentor could not prepare me.  How could he?  Every experience is at once shared among the many of us that succeed, but at the same time, unique for each of us.  You may go mad, but will lose your eyesight? You may be terrified, but will you suffer from sleep terrors for the rest of your life? You may be humbled, but does that mean that your forming is less potent?  I discarded these thoughts and assured myself that I would be different. Because I was better, smarter, more determined than the other acolytes.  

Another lie.

I had finally perfected my presence and control.  So I felt justified in my confidence. Did I consider that I may just be arrogant? Full of bluster that was wholly unwarranted? I did, but only for a moment. I worked hard for this.

I stood upon the central dais, bathed in the light of the morning sun flowing through the east windows. I nodded once at my mentor and his mentor before him and followed the protocols to in acknowledging the committee of Elders and my lackluster peers in turn.  I steadied myself with a deep breath and began to form.  I infused my will into the space before me, bearing the power to exist between my palms, feeling the light suffuse and shift between the creases of my skin.  The light became alive as it was gathered, and I culminated to the forming, where I could impart my will within it, creating nearly anything that I could imagine.  As an Illumin, I knew that I could craft nearly anything at this moment.  It was what came next that all had gathered to witness in the Gathering Ampitheatre.  Each person within would ask themselves, will this Acolyte shatter under the stress of mastering the Art?  Or would something unexpected happen? Something rare?

I took my breath in deeply, steeling myself for what came next.  I knew the lesson.  So many acolytes were told that the Light merely parted and behind it was the veil of the universe, nothing more.  Again, that was a lie.  My master knew what came after.  The pain.  With the pull of the Light, the parting of the curtain, one could observe all of creation and be brought to your lowest form, a basic speck of nothingness against the overwhelming crush of everything.  The masters stood by to save you.  That was their real purpose in being a witness, to pluck the speck from the crush and allow them another day, another try in the future.  

They did not want an Illumin to die.  This was not the old ages, the time before where Illumin were warriors among many tribes, and those that came and tested the Dark were allowed to die if they were not strong enough.  Nor was it a time of war, where so many were lost in the tribulation against the Shallow. Every Illumin mattered, no matter their skill or ability.

I could feel their eyes on me.  

They would be asking themselves, ‘What would happen to Arin?  Arin, who had struggled so much at the beginning, fighting for progress every step of the way, learning every skill with dedication and hard work, but never finding anything easy, and yet still an insufferable ass? Will he succeed when he had struggled so?’

I was not a savant at the craft, and every win was dearly fought for.  But in this, I had excelled.  My peers would stumble or come short, but I would meet each new obstacle as I had met the first, and the challenge would be what it was the first time.  I would scale it, cross it, and then dismiss it behind me.  My mentor had realized early on that I was both the least talented and the hardest working, and that meant I was also the steadiest.  I knew I was and I reminded myself of it again.  This was it.  The moment the Light would part in my greatest act of Forming, and the Other would reveal itself to me. I was the greatest Illumin that had ever been, not because of any latent talent, but because I had tirelessly worked for it.

But I knew who I was.  At least I thought I did.  

I was wrong.

The power was suffused fully within my palms, and I could feel the criticality pulsate in my pores, the reverberation of the light ready to be worked.  I pushed my will between the waves of light, and pulled them apart as if I was pulling curtains asunder, ripping them aside in a foolish rush to witness what was beyond.

The light… one moment… light, the next…

“…Arin.”

The voice was my own.  I could hear it in my own ears. I panicked thinking I had said my own name, and I clamped my mouth shut so that I would not follow a path to madness.

“I am Arin,” the voice repeated.

Again it was my own, but my teeth were sunk into my lips, so I knew I had said nothing.  I wanted to let my eyes dart towards my mentor, but I knew that they would not see me.  I was in the dark.

By the Creator, I was in the Dark!

“…am Arin.”

“I am Arin,” I replied, loosing my lips, feeling the blood rush back to where I had clamped down.

“As am I,” the voice replied.  Still my own, there was no mistaking it for someone else’s.  I knew my own voice as I knew my own face.

“How can you be me?” I tested.

“How can you ask irrelevant questions?” It immediately shot back. There was no malice, no ill intent.  It was a patient voice, one filled with the aspects of waiting to see where this interaction led. The timbre and intonation was my own, as if it was my voice.

I wished I had some perspective.  Where was I?  How long had I been gone?  Had I already failed the Trial?

“What are you?” I tried instead.

“I am you.  I am the you that has been, could have been, that may have occurred, that could possibly still come to be.  What are you?”

“I am an Acolyte, striving to be a Master. I am adept at the presence of…” I answered.

“That is what you do, what you have done.  It is not who you are.”

“I am who I am, but I know that is not an answer in itself.  I know that I am all these things, and they help define who I am, but I am not only a sum of them,” I answered thoughtfully. “I am… I pretend to be who I hope to be someday.”

“That is who you are, indeed.  And now, you wonder what I am.  I will answer one question, as I do not suffer fools.”

“You are the Other.”

“That is not a question. And I would say you are the Other.”

“What is the Other then?” I added.

“I am you.  I am the possibilities of your existence, summed, averaged, and divided across all the potential that could ever be. All across the scale of possible fates and circumstances, a reflection comes to be, a presence that carries thought.  You call it life, and in its potential, fate itself becomes a dark mirror.”

“You are not an absence,” I followed.

“I am the counterpoint that allows you to exist. As you are to me. Without the balance, who would you be?”

“I do not know how to answer,” I tried. I felt like I had given a different answer though, as if something unspoken had occurred, and I wasn’t sure what it was.

The light was immediately back, as if it had never left. But I was not in the hall.  My mentor and the committee did not stand nearby within the Light of the Ampitheatre.  I was on the edge of a great field, the twilight was gentle in its soft glow, alighting off of cloud and mountain, reflected in waters of a lake at my feet.  

I had never seen this place.

“We are at an inflection,” the voice said quietly. “The balance.”

I spun in place, but there was no one behind me or beside me.

“You will understand.  For every Illumin, there is an Absentia.  One creates by destroying, the other destroys by creating, and in this, we are partners. Look down.”

I looked at my feet and saw myself looking back.  But it was not me.  As one looks at a twin, or a reflection in distorted glass, sameness coupled with difference, an abstraction of recognition that failed to take root.  It was the Other.  I raised my hand and pulled the light to the fore, feeling my will come into focus, and a flower came to being within my grasp.

In the reflection, my darker form raised his hand, and where I had light, he had dark, and in it, a flower took shape, and in doing so, my flower faded until it was nothing but a memory.

“Remember this.  For there will be a time when you will be tested and the bridge you stand on now will be needed.”

“How do I find this bridge?”

“Remember who you are,” the voice replied. “The one whom you pretend to be.”

“This is a lie.”

“You know it is not.”

I cringed inwardly as I realized I could feel the Other’s mind, as if it was my own. “I understand now why some go mad. The duplicity of this, but shared. Open to each other so… intimately.”

The Other sighed. “The ones that go mad merely brush the balance of minds. Imagine, coming so close to connect, feeling the promise of it, and then falling away, never to touch the skein between our realities. This is what drives them mad. Not the connection itself. You and I are the first pair to make this contact such as this for nearly a thousand years. You may not know of it, but the last time an Illumin and Absentia connected like this, our worlds were perilously close to collapse.”

My mind raced. I was one of the most well trained, one of the most studied, yet I felt as if I knew little of what the Other spoke of. But I did remember the tale of the Tribulation, an entire generation of Illumin lost, the burning of the Archiva, the terrible force that consumed our kind. It had a name. The Shallow.

The Illumin had barely survived, only the very oldest and the very youngest persevered.

“The Shallow is coming back,” I said.

“Yes,” Arin-that-was-not-Arin nodded emphatically. “It is on its way.”

“It was defeated. Was it not? Strewn to the cosmos?”

“As our bodies hunger over time and weariness calls us to sleep, our realities pull on the Shallow. Our existence compels it to exist. My mentor believes it is a correction that has come about countless times to control self-aware intelligence.”

“How do you know all this? And I do not? Yet I feel you in my mind, as if we are the same skin…” I ran a hand over my forearm and I could the Other’s touch, and yet, I could feel my own touch in the duplicative sense of self within. “Shouldn’t we know the same things?”

“I think we are of the same spirit, side by side, but shaped by different circumstances and realities. We are the same, but we are not? Does that make any sense? I am the Arin that could have been as you are the Arin that could have been, a mirror between us. An equation that is balanced. Perhaps there are other realities, but we are are the only ones, or only the ones that matter. Like twin siblings can come from the same parents, and yet they are not the same.”

“The Shallow burned my world, a curse, a pestilence that can not be forgotten. What proof do I have that it is returning?” I asked. “What can I do or say that will allow my mentor, my teachers, my leaders to know?  What can be done to prepare?”

“Nothing,” the Other shrugged. “Our worlds will burn again.”

My heart dropped into my stomach, I could feel weariness eating at the back of eyes, the thin ribbon of hope fleetingly leaving my fingertips. “Then it is futile.”

“No Arin. We are proof it is not. We are bridging a gap, and this reality here, were we both exist at once… this reality is proof that it is not futile.  For our kinds to survive…”

“We have to bring them all into the folds. Where the Illumin and Absentia are something else,” I replied.

“How?” The Other asked me.

I shrugged with a soft chuckle. “Magic?”

He returned the smile that I was already offering, and he turned away. The whole of the plain, the stars, everything surrounding me, was pulled into a single point stretching into an infinite tunnel.

I sunk to the floor of the dias, all of my senses flooded by the normality of the school around me, the masters whispering furiously nearby, my peers gloating at my apparent failure. They surely thought I had been overwhelmed by the Other. How long had it been? A second? A hundred? A turn of a quarter-glass? I had no idea, and I was furious.

Lies. The history of my world was a lie. Why would the masters forget the Tribulation? Why would they abandon the duality of connecting with the Other? The truth to be discovered within it?

I did not know how to explain it, but I felt the connection still to my Other self, stretching through the layers of reality, an entanglement between two opposites that made us both more than we were before. With it, I felt his voice in my head.

‘Show them,’ the Other whispered deep within.

I stood shakily, and pulled on the Light again, my palms reverberating with the power, the undulating waves of shifting energy shattering and reforming, and I felt the difference. It was effortless… everything that had come before was a mere fraction of how it felt now. I felt a sun within me, and it was because the Other was with me.

The synergies of harmony. I realized this was power. Unbridled, unfettered, and unseen power.

I lowered my palms realizing I no longer needed the focus. I no longer needed the tricks, the ceremony, the blind movement of a long scripted theater act.  The gallery fell silent on the master’s side, and the other students started to whisper, than chortle, then outright laugh. Glee was being had at the apparent failure of one of their own.

I wanted to shout, ‘why do we tear each other down? The Shallow returns. Our world will burn!’

Instead of shouting, instead of defending myself, I knew the power had to speak for me. I closed my eyes and formed a small flower in front of me. It was not the forming that I had learned, it was the forming that was expected. No different than standing at the edge of the lake with my Other, feeling the forming blossom through me.

The hall fell silent as what they expected happened. There was probably some confusion on how I was forming with my hands at my sides. Parlor tricks and theater… no longer needed.

I imagined that single flower turning into a circle of flowers floating around me.

The hall started to murmur.

I imagined that circle of flowers duplicating rapidly into a sphere, completely surrounding me.

There were shouts of fear and surprise, the murmurs were shifting towards muffled arguments.

I imagined the sphere of flowers, each flower coalescing into a small sun, each with the fury of flares and magnetic maelstroms.

The hall fell to silence again. That alone was unprecedented. They were used to the aforementioned parlor tricks and slight of hand. A single flower was impressive, a true display of talent. A ring of flowers was strange. A sphere, not just strange, but wildly different. The shift from flowers to miniature suns transforming in real time, that was an event nearly immeasurable, perhaps lost to history if anything like it had been formed before.

I imagined a representation of myself, formed of the suns, each expanding and coalescing into an image of who I thought I was, and imagined that version of myself putting their hand out in a mimicry of the forming, and produce their own flower. I felt my Other laugh deep within, then whispering, “Ah, the one who you pretended to be. Clever.”

I let the light fade and opened my eyes.

Every set of eyes was locked on me. Every mouth was agape. Some masters looked happy. Others appeared to be inexplicably angry. Most seemed curious. Across my peers, it was nothing but absolute shock. This was a display of forming that they had never been exposed to, taught about, or imagined. They had witnessed true magic.

The first clap was tenuous at best, but it ramped quickly to thunderous applause. I had their attention at least.

The Shallow was coming. What could I say? What could I do? The world is going to end?

By the Gods, the world is going to end. I had to lead this moment with brave words. A compelling call to action!

Instead, I fainted.

Jimmy was about to have the opportunity to become the best thief in the world. Although, to be fair, no one in the world would know about it.

Most people in the world who knew of such less reputable things, such as who was in the running for the title of ‘best thief in the world‘, actually knew that it was Jimmy’s father that held that title, and those less reputable folks only considered Jimmy a cast-off scion from one of his father’s many trysts, if they considered Jimmy at all.

Jimmy’s father had another name, The Raven. And that name… whew. Everyone knew who the fuck The Raven was. The vast majority of the world would never know his real name, because again, that knowledge was reserved for those of a less reputable sort and their number was few. It was a venn diagram of sorts, people that knew of The Raven and then the complimentary circle was made of people that knew Karl Haraldsonn personally. That small intersection of people that were members of both circles was an awfully small group, but for those that understood the complexities of high competency theft at the most elite levels, The Raven was considered a fucking magician. Not the stage kind, but the wave of a hand and shit changed indescribably kind of magician that only existing in movies.

His thefts were the type of events that broke people’s minds trying to figure out both the logistics and the implications.

The Raven was the guy that broke into the Oval Office, stole a matching set of JFK’s pens right off the top of the Resolute Desk, and left a polite note for the current President requesting a personal endorsement on the upcoming income tax relief bill for the middle class. The Raven wasn’t even an American, but he must have considered it important. Jimmy knew this was a real story, because the pens were currently on his father’s desk.

The Raven was the guy that walked into the Louvre in broad daylight, took two Vermeer’s from the wall without anyone noticing or alarms sounding, and two weeks later, rehung one in the Rijksmuseum in Amesterdam and the other in Mauritshuis in The Hague, again not without a single person or system noticing. Of course, being the cheeky ass he was, The Raven left a note on both frames which read, “You’re welcome.” The guy signed his nomme de plume, and with an absolute flourish of whimsy, released actual fucking Ravens in the museum. Jimmy knew this was also a real story, because both paintings had hung briefly in the sitting room.

The Raven, it was said, could steal a lit cigar from the mouth of a third world dictator, and put into the mouth of any world leader with an ember still burning at its end. Perhaps that one was an urban legend, but for a split second, most normal, reputable, wholesome folks actually believed it. The Raven was the GOAT. The scary part was that Jimmy knew that for every story that was told, there were three more than no one had ever heard of, because his father, The Raven, fully deserved the title Greatest of All Time. Certifiably, without question, the best thief in the world.

Karl Haroldsonn had stolen a fabulous life from the world. A life that should not exist. And he did it apparently without repercussions or consequences.

The Raven was celebrity… but to Jimmy, his father was just his dad, a seemingly simple man that enjoyed his boisterous life of wine, food, and women. Jimmy assumed he probably had a hundred half siblings out there, somewhere. Karl never told Jimmy about any other kids, and it seemed that Jimmy was the only kid that Karl had cared about. Shockingly, it was conceivable that Jimmy was the only offspring. Perhaps, Karl loved Jimmy as his only son because maybe he was his only son. That would explain why Karl had tried his hardest to be the best dad he could be.

Jimmy got the call while he was deep in thought at the heart of his tiny studio apartment, working on his newest piece. He wasn’t sure what the piece wanted to say yet, but in his heart, he felt like it was a nighttime view of a rainy street in New York speaking to the malleability of the city and the people that lived within it. The lights were hazy, the streets awash in color, as dark impressions of people as they fearlessly navigated the wet evening. It was coming together beautifully, and the process was being interrupted by the third annoyingly persistent phone call in a row. Jimmy sighed heavily as he reluctantly answered.

“James?” Mr. Hendricks voice was like featherweight gravel traversing a length of galvanized pipe. Reedy, but whispered of a past with cigarettes. Mr. Hendricks was father’s lawyer, who had been a friend of his dad’s for nearly as long as Jimmy had been alive. Probably one of only a handful of people that knew the truth of Karl’s day job. That made him probably the closest thing to a proper uncle that Jimmy would ever have.

Jimmy cradled his smartphone against his shoulder, and tried wiping his paint covered fingers on a bit of damp cheesecloth. “Oh, Mr. Hendericks. Hello, sir.”

“Please, son. Call me Tom.”

Jimmy could hear the smile through the phone. An old game of theirs. “Of course, Mr. Hendricks. How’s my dad?”

“He passed last night, son.”

Silence. The moment stretched. The colors on his fingers seemed to dull. Was the room shrinking?

A harrumph on the other end, Mr. Hendricks continued, “I heard that he went out living as he did. Happily aroused.”

The monaural slap that Jimmy needed. “Gross, Mr. Hendricks. I do not need to hear further details surrounding the circumstances of his death.”

A chuckle from the far end. “His heart went unexpectedly. We will need you to come home. Deal with the affairs. His funeral. Probably pay off the, uh, lady involved. The rigamarole standard clean-up of a man’s life… except your father was… your father.”

“I am in the middle of a piece.” Jimmy didn’t want to sound petulant, but his initial reaction was a retreat to the familiar. “And it is going so well…”

“Ah, you are working! Very good. I figured as much, as I hired some men to help. They will be there first thing in the morning, which is about six hours away for you? You should get to bed, young man! They will get your shoebox of an apartment packed, and you can pick up your work where you left off here in the studio your father built for you in the east wing. I must say, it has the best light.”

That was a bit of a shock. “He built me a studio?”

“Ah, yes. A surprise for your 25th, I believe. And perhaps a bribe to get you to spend some time at home. I have also sent Ms. Katherine along to gather you. She should be arriving after the movers, but before the existential panic attack sets in.”

“Funny,” Jimmy grimaced, pretending it was a smile. The defiance attempted to well up. “I am coming back to New York.”

“Ah, yes, of course, of course. Settle the affairs at Hornwhell, see to the accounts, and we’ll get you back after Christmas.”

“It is August, Mr. Hendricks.”

“Fully aware, son. Your father’s estate needs seeing to, and unfortunately, even though I am here… I am not family. As I said, he left some work for you. Not intentionally, but I can only do so much. Legally speaking, of course.”

“Christ on a cracker.”

“Indeed.” Mr. Hendricks voice went up a measure. “You should enjoy your time here. Your father collected a number of works you should appreciate. Perhaps some study time would be good for your soul.”

“Holy shit, Mr. Hendricks. Do I have to address stolen goods?”

“Ah, apologies, James. Poor choice of words. He has a number of works he bought and paid for at auction that you will appreciate.”

“Thank god.”

“Ms. Katherine should be there about 10am. Dress sharp. After all, she is a Lady.”

Jim nodded knowing the conversation was over. “Mr. Hendricks.”

“James.”

The phone went silent, and Jimmy was left with his thoughts, a painting convulsing during its frustrating birth, paused now and staring at him with expectations, while the night of New York City outside his window assuring him life was continuing on whether he was here or not.

Jimmy did not understand how such a fit and healthy man could just up and die, while having sex with a beautiful woman that probably was closer to Jimmy’s age than his own, but sometimes, the luck runs out. Jimmy knew his dad was the luckiest guy in the world, so a heart attack? Unexpected? Yes. Tragic? No.

He tried to think about it logically, but instead he just cried.

---

At 6am sharp, the movers rang up, and Jimmy blearily buzzed them in. He watched as they systematically and thoroughly packaged his entire life up in a matter of minutes. His paints and supplies went into reinforced totes, and his paintings, both finished and unfinished, were crated like actual works of art. Double wrapped and sealed, as if they were worth millions and not the work of a struggling artist with a trust fund. So not starving, per se. But hungry for validation? Yes, that fit, Jimmy realized.

Ms. Katherine arrived to find Jimmy, alone, sitting on a single stool in his small studio apartment, flipping through his phone.

“Melancholy as ever,” Ms. Katherine smiled gently. “But at least now you have good reason?”

“Hello, Ms. Katherine.”

Ms. Katherine was in her early thirties, and the niece of Mr. Hendricks. Her dark brunette hair wavered on the lighter side of black, and her green eyes were as sultry as ever. She was very attractive, but Jim knew that she was unmarried not because she had not found the right man, but because her partner, Thomas, had yet to propose. She was a fox, and Jimmy was always a bit jealous of the guy that was lucky enough to have snatched her up.

“Hello, Mr. Haraldsonn. Grown up a bit since I last saw you… you are a spitting image of your father. He would approve.”

“He was vain.”

“He was, but he had good reason. A handsome gent. He took care of himself, and it appears that you have as well.”

“Well hopefully my heart comes from my mother,” Jim attempted humor.

Ms. Katherine laid her hand on his shoulder and pulled him upright. She embraced him lightly. “I am sorry for your loss, James.”

Damn it, he thought miserably. He had started crying again without even realizing it.

---

The flight from New York to London was uneventful, and in First Class, Jimmy spent most of it sleeping. He had not realized how exhausting the grieving was. It wrung you out.

Thankfully, the tears had abated since his apartment, and Ms. Katherine did not have to hand him any more tissues along the way. He washed his face in the bathroom sink, combing through his shaggy brown hair with his fingers as an afterthought. He needed a shave, but it could wait until he was settled. In the mirror he saw a glimmer of his father looking back at him, as Ms. Katherine had noted. It must have been his high cheek bones and square jaw. His eyes were definitely the dark blue of his mother, as were his fuller lips.

It had been dark humor before joking about his father’s heart, but inwardly, he hoped it was true. Fifty! He shook his head, glanced over his face one more time, and straightened his collar. His mother had died when he was very young, barely enough to remember her properly. Most of his memories were from the pictures that his father had, and stories others he had told him. His mother was a memory. An image on a glossy picture, whereas his father had seemed… unassailable? Invincible? Timeless?

The fact that such a man was gone simultaneously put Jimmy’s teeth on edge and a lump in his throat, but thankfully the tears stayed away and his aching throat was given a reprieve. He took his seat, smiled halfheartedly at Ms. Katherine, and watched the night lights of London grow closer as the plane approached the airport.

The silver Rolls was waiting on the tarmac as the plane taxied to the terminal, and Jimmy was shunted from the jetway down a handful of stairs and into the cool early morning London air, that at the moment, pungent with smell of jet fuel. Ms. Katherine nodded at the driver as he opened the doors to the Rolls for both of them. Jimmy felt bad for not knowing his name and strangely felt even worse that the silver Rolls was his car now.

All the cars were his now.

“Straight to Hornwhell, if you will, Jenkins.”

“Of course, Ms. Katherine.”

Ah, Jenkins. Of course the driver was Jenkins, Jimmy groused.

The drive to the Estate was as if Jimmy was coming back for a standard holiday during his dual degree program at NYU. The same beats, the same patterns, the same traffic, the same passage of time as they weaved through the modernity of London, out of the city, and into the rolling, twisting lanes to the realm of the gentry of old. Jimmy was silent the entire drive, watching the familiar, yet strangely unfamiliar scene unroll on the other side of the window, knowing that deep within he had something to get out. There was a scream idling in his gut, a rage against the all of it, something he would only be able to express on canvas. He lightly tapped his knee not thinking anything through, just circling the anger, like a big cat stalking it’s prey.

He was not ready. For any of this.

As Jenkins drove the silver beast up the crunching gravel lane towards the estate house, beneath the wide trees on either side slowly devolving from long green lawns to the edges of wood, the sun peaked gently over the horizon. The light glimmered on hazy clouds far above, and Hornwhell appeared in the dawn like the long desire of a fever dream.

Mr. Hendricks, of course, was standing out front with the staff on either side. Jimmy was getting a full welcome. He felt guilty once again that he, of all people, had staff now. Oh shit. He had the title now. He had a blimey fucking peerage. For fucks sake… no respected artist could also be a viscount.

Bougie as fuck.

The car came to a stop and butler silently opened the car door.

“Welcome home, sir.” Mr. Hendricks nodded kindly stepping into the gap, going for a formal handshake with Jimmy.

Jimmy bypassed any propriety and pulled the old man into a firm hug. The lawyer seemed to have shrunk in recent years, or Jimmy remembered him as a larger man.

“Ah, yes. Quite right.” Mr. Hendricks harrumphed as he gently thumped Jimmy’s back. “Glad to see you too, son. Come along, get a spot of breakfast in you, and then we can start. I should give you tour of things, as it is. Ms. Katherine, you are welcome to join us?”

“I will have Jenkins give me a lift home, sir. If you don’t mind.” She smiled tiredly from the backseat of the Rolls.

Mr. Hendricks waved her along and put his arm around Jimmy’s shoulders as they walked into the house. The help on either side quickly moved off after they passed.

“Breakfast should be ready in the drawing room. I think you have grown a bit, James. I don’t remember my arm having to go quite this high.”

Jimmy chuckled. “Or you have just shrunk, Mr. Hendricks.”

“Indeed! I am getting on, I suppose. But my father lived past his centennial, and my grandfather as well, so I see no reason to stop either.” Mr. Hendricks smiled widely. “They both received their cards from the Queen, ironically, God rest her. Now we have the chump with the ears. I should consider kicking off before then. I don’t need that twat to send me anything.”

“Don’t kick off like my father though, Mr. Hendricks.”

“My wife would not stand for that, James.” Mr. Hendricks laughed heartily. “She would beat my corpse back to life.”

They walked in through the main hall into the drawing room. It appeared to be the same as it always had. A copy of a Degas hung on the center wall, away from the sun… hold on… Jimmy realized that it probably was not a copy with a deep sinking impression in his gut… shit. It was probably a real Degas. His father had installed a UV filter panel over the canvas.

Jimmy pointed at the Degas with his mouth open, and Mr. Hendricks shook his head. “Not now.”

They gathered some bites and sat at the breakfast table. Mrs. Cown winked at Jimmy as she poured his coffee. “Good to see you, sir.”

“Mrs. Cown. Pleasure to see you as well.” Jimmy returned her smile as best he could.

“I figured I would come up and serve you myself. After all, it has been, what, two years since we saw you last for holiday?”

“Indeed. Graduated school and I kept on in New York. Trying my best out from underneath his shadow and all.” Jimmy waved at the large palatial surroundings as emphasis.

“Well, let me know if you have any special requests. Always glad to have you here at home, sir.”

“Of course,” Jimmy nodded pleasantly and took a sip of the coffee. It was fresh, smooth, and delicious. His father always knew good coffee. Jimmy noted that the room had emptied of any staff… the customs in his father’s house had continued on without him. “This is… pleasant.”

“It is indeed. It is the recent roast from St. Domingo. Ah, your St. Domingo.” Mr. Hendricks nodded to emphasize the word your.

Jimmy felt his face heat up. “I own a coffee plantation now, don’t I?”

“You do. Your father insisted buying on a few years back. He, uh, acquired some legendary Kona strains.”

“Of course he did.” Jimmy took another sip, it was really quite good. “Of course, my father would try to break into a global market. Is there anything he didn’t break into?”

Mr. Hendricks shrugged nonchalantly. “Whatever took his fancy, I suppose. His will is immensely clear about what to do with all of it. On your first day on the Estate, upon the conditions that you had graduated college…”

“Which I have two of, Bachelors of Fine Arts and in Business as he required. Not that either piece of paper has done me much good as of yet.”

“And that you had passed your twenty fourth birthday…”

“Two months ago. Check.”

“You are to be given the proverbial keys to Karl’s kingdom along with the kingdom itself so-to-speak, all of which starts with the contents of the safe in your father’s office.”

“He has a safe!?” Jimmy nearly spit out his food.

“It appears so.” Mr. Hendricks was grinning. The irony was not lost on the man. “It would seem odd to outsiders that a man such as your father would utilize one himself, but he, ah, had his reasons.”

“I am taking this coffee with me. I need to see this.” Jimmy took a few rushed bites off his plate and rose from the table.

Mr. Hendricks did the same and stood. “No time like the present, as they say.”

They made their way through the foyer, up the grand stair, and took a left towards the galleries and his father’s office. The office was wrought in fine paneling and leather arm chairs, and even though his father did not smoke, a faint hint of old pipe smoke lingered on the nose upon entering.

There was no obvious safe.

“So where is this mystery safe, Mr. Hendricks? Behind a painting? Underneath a statue? Deeply recessed in a marble block of a pillar? A secret wood panel, perhaps?”

“None of the above,” Mr. Hendricks pointed at the side table. “There.”

“No. This table has been here since I was born. There is no safe. I would have found it.”

Hendricks crossed the distance from the door, over the plush oriental rugs, and approached the side table between two leather armchairs. “I did not realize how much of a treat it will be to show someone else. Sit in that chair, I will sit in this one.”

Jimmy sat in the plump overstuffed leather armchair. It was the same he had sat in a hundred times before. “And?”

“Use your left hand and push on the center nub at the front. We have to do it at the same time. Three, two, one, push.”

Jimmy and Mr. Hendricks depressed the mandrels at the same moment, there was a click and whir deep in the table. The surface opened upwards, and a square box rose silently from the hidden compartment. It did not appear to be made of metal, but a white ceramic or glazed glass. Jimmy ran his hand along the side and noted it felt like baked porcelain.

“I could just hit it with something,” Jimmy mused. “This is not a safe.”

Mr. Hendricks laughed, “I don’t know what it is made of, but that safe can only be opened by a single person. That only person was your father. He told me once that a everything known to man would break before that thing would.”

“Nonsense. This is fragile as glass!” Jimmy reached out to take the square box from the pedestal, but he couldn’t lift it. It must have been connected to the table somehow. He looked over the five sides he could see and did not see a keyhole, a tumbler, or even a door to open.

“That box, son, is something else entirely.”

Jimmy shook his head. He looked over the box at length, running his hands along the seemingly fragile surface. Something sharp poked his hand, and he instinctively pulled away. His fingertip was bleeding, like a fast blood draw at the doctor’s office.

The top of the box irised open, even though there were no visible parts to mechanically move. One moment the top was solid as a plinth, the next, the material slid away from the center as actuated by unseen louvers, with the contents within exposed. The interior walls of the safe were like leather, but they pulsed gently, slowly, like the box was… breathing.

The safe was a living thing. Jimmy was at once both repulsed and enraptured. This was a work of art, but in a way his evolved monkey mind could not fully comprehend. He whispered, “What the ever-living fuck?”

“That is something, isn’t it?” Mr. Hendricks concurred. He did not sound as surprised as Jimmy felt.

Jimmy precariously reached into the box, and retrieved a set of keys and a rolled letter tied with ribbon. As soon as the items cleared the top, it irised closed again, the box once again whole, complete, and inert. The surface was an unblemished white glaze, reflecting the sunlight from the windows mutely. With a hiss, the box sank back into the pedestal, and table lid hinged down as if nothing had happened.

Jimmy looked at his hands, the items within them, and up to Mr. Hendricks. The old solicitor smiled kindly.

“This part is all yours. I will leave you be. When you are ready, I can guide you through the next steps.”

“You don’t want to stay for this?” Jimmy tried.

“Oh, I think not, James. This is unfinished business between a father and a son. I will be outside the door when you need me.” Mr. Hendricks patted Jimmy twice on the shoulder and headed towards the door, closing it slowly behind him.

Jimmy looked over the keys first. The keyring was a black aluminum or some other metal, not reflective but not dull either. It was luminous in its own way, as if the metal was resonating with the light in the room. Each key was a different metal with unique hues and shapes. None of them were distinctive or labeled. He set them down on the desk, pulled the ribbon, and unrolled the papers. The lump in his throat was getting worse by the moment. The ache reasserted itself.

‘Dear James,

‘I was told recently that I needed to prepare for the worst. Trust me, I wanted to be the one to tell you. Countless times. But the Objects have Rules, and the Rules must be followed, because the Rules are Absolute. The first rule is that an Object has to choose you. I left The Safe as the first Object, so you will have a chance to understand. The Safe is easy, as it merely asks for a sacrifice and a link to its past. Your blood will be the sacrifice, and I am your link, so it will carry on undisturbed. The second Object you will encounter are The Keys, enclosed alongside this letter. The Keys chose me when I was a but a lad. If they chose you, then they will stay. If they don’t, you will forget about them. They will be gone, and the memory of them will go with them. If they stay, then this letter will make sense. If they don’t, then this letter will read as lunacy. Either way, a part of me will live on in these pages. And I will die a happy man, because I will make the most of my short time left, and I have you as my son.

‘The second rule is that the Objects congregate. You have to assist occasionally. You must bend to their will. I do not know if they are intelligent, but they have a logic all their own. A thing that you may come to understand in your own way. You are the real artist in the family, the first I think we have ever had, and your brilliance may intuit and decipher the Objects in a way that I never have. Objects seek other Objects, they push and pull, they have strange alliances and enemies. Some are hostile to human life. Some are ambivalent. Some are kind. Some will allow the world to be seen in new ways, and others will bind your eyes in darkness. I know it sounds strange. Because it is. The Objects are Strange.

‘The third rule is that Others are bound to Objects. There are always Others. And like the Objects, they can be hostile, or ambivalent, or kind. Your mother and I met because of them. We fell in love. We had you. Your mother was taken by stupid circumstances unrelated to anything important, but I am thankful we had our time together, and at least I was here to watch you grow up and become the amazing man you are. Some say children always need their parents, but I think since you were born a true artist, you carry your mother and your father in your mind and your heart with you, and didn’t need us as much as other kids need their parents. You are a lucky one, James. Do not mourn either of us for too long, because indeed, we are with you.

‘Those are the basics. If you look up from this letter and the keys are hovering near your hip, you have been chosen…’

Jimmy immediately glanced at the surface of the desk where he had set the keys, feeling his eyes welling with tears. He blinked them out of the way in a panic, and he realized The Keys were gone. He stood and surveyed the room quickly, looking for where they could have made off to. He turned quickly, surveying the room to discover they were nowhere to be found. He clutched the letter in a panic and with the queerness of discovering a ghost in the room, glanced slowly at his right hip. The Keys hung there, as if they were clipped on an unseen belt. He took a step to the left and they remained attached. He lifted the letter and kept reading.

‘…you have been chosen. Which I dearly hope for. The Keys are a powerful Object. I think they are the Keys to the Universe. They open anything and everything, across time and space. I have only used them for what I have desired, and they have used me to do their bidding, which for their part has been ambivalent. When they need to follow the second rule, they will. Otherwise, they are open to experiment with. I am not an artist, so I was limited in my thinking. I tried to do one crazy thing once, after your mother passed, and it worked. The experience was traumatic, I have not set out to do anything else that is not within my immediate power to understand or control. I would encourage you not to make that mistake. Leave the Doors to the Afterlife closed. There is a reason we don’t know about it. Use your judgement, as the obvious doors that should stay shut, need to be left shut, no matter what you may feel at the time. That experience is why I don’t fear my death, and the reason you shouldn’t mourn too long either. Enough said.

‘Know that I love you. Your mother loves you. And there is a place in this world for everyone. You just have to… unlock it. Ha!

‘All the best my brilliant boy, your loving father,

‘Viscount Karl Haraldsonn, Steward to The Keys, The Safe, and The Pressed Eye.”

Jimmy paused and nearly screamed, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THE PRESSED EYE!?”

The keys at his waist rattled lightly. Dead silence in the office making him think he imagined it. But then they lightly rattled again.

Jimmy hesitantly grabbed the key ring, and the keys came away from his waist as if they were a normal set of keys and not something perverse and strange. The ring vibrated in his hand as he held the keys. He looked over the room and as his eyes left the ring, the vibrating grew stronger, until his arm was nearly shaken off. He turned his eyes back to the keyring, and the vibration grew still. He moved his eyes the other direction and the experience repeated. He held the keys at arms length and regarded them studiously. Then he noticed.

The center of the key ring was not the room he was standing in. There were no wood panels to be seen through the center of the ring. It looked like it was outside. Somewhere dark. Jimmy held the keyring up to his eye, and it felt like peering through a keyhole of a door. It was a glade, surrounded by dark woods. There was a mountain range in the distance backlit by a rising moon, glimmering of lightning bugs sparkled amongst the trees. Jimmy turned in a slow circle knowing he was standing in his office, but with the vertigo of watching another place. He stopped.

There was a centaur.

Just like the fables. The torso of a man, with long muscled arms, and a mane of hair starting at his scalp, running down his back and seamlessly connecting to the dark back of black horse. The Centaur carried a spear in one hand, and a torch in the other. He slowly marched past, and a small herd(?) of centaurs followed. Men, women, and children. (Or was it Studs, Mares, and Foals?) They had satchels on their backs, both human and horse, carrying their lives with them like a band of First Nation people would have in the Americas. Jimmy could not hear anything from the other side, which made it all the more surreal, like it was an extremely detailed virtual reality simulation. He lowered the ring.

“The Pressed Eye. I get it. There should be a better name.” Jimmy muttered under his breath, feeling foolish.

Jimmy noticed the keys were different too. The shapes and the colors had shifted. Like the keys were dropping some kinds and gathering new ones without him noticing. Nothing changed as he regarded them, so it must only be when he wasn’t watching? He stepped back to the desk and set the keys down.

They were not on the desk.

He spun in a circle again, and then remembered to look at his waist. Sure as shit, they were at his hip. “This is odd.”

Mr. Hendricks stepped back into the room. “No, they are Strange. Capital S, over emphasized second syllable.”

“You know about this?” Jimmy waved at his hip.

“About what?” Mr. Hendricks smiled kindly. “I see nothing at your side.”

“THIS!” Jimmy turned his hip towards the solicitor and waved theatrically, emphasizing the obvious key ring hanging at his waist like he was a goddamned janitor at University.

“I can’t see them. The Keys. No one can, only you. And even if I could see them for a moment, I would forget that they are there. Like I did when you must have pulled them from The Safe along with the letter that I most definitively witnessed. The Keys themselves are only an idea to me. Something to be forgotten. I know they exist, but when they choose for me to forget, they are forgotten. Each Object has Rules. You should tell me what they are… because… you must know them.”

“Um. Yes. Rules. The first is that Objects have to pick you?”

“Correct. And how they do that is often unique to the Object.” Mr. Hendricks waved for him to continue.

Jimmy felt incredulous. “Are you serious?”

“Immensely. This is important. What is the second Rule?”

“The Objects have to get together-” Jimmy tried, but Mr. Hendricks interrupted.

“Congregate. And the last?”

“People are bound to the objects?”

“Yes. Very good. Not people per se, Others. Now the big question of the day, James. I know of The Keys, The Safe, and The Pressed Eye. How would I know about them?”

“My father told you… you are his solicitor…” Jimmy trailed off.

“Or?” Mr. Hendricks smiled his kind smile again, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

Jimmy felt it click. “You are one of the Others.”

“Very good, son. I am a Steward just like yourself. Glad it worked out as your father hoped. To be honest, I have been absolutely sick with worry.”

“What is it? Your thing.”

“It is called an Object. Mine is The Assistant.”

“Come again?” Jimmy tilted his head.

“You know of her as Ms. Katherine.”

“Bullshit. She is not an object, she is a real person.” Jimmy tried. “She has a boyfriend-slash-fiancé, a house, she has told me all sort of things. I mean she is a barely older than me, but she…”

Mr. Hendricks wandered past Jimmy, and poured himself a drink from a small crystal decanter of brandy at the side table. Out of all the weirdness, having a drink at ten in the morning suddenly did not seem out of line. “Would you like one?”

“Yes.” Jimmy nodded fervently. “I think I need one.”

“When you were a lad, how old was Ms. Katherine then?”

Jimmy stopped dead as he reached for the offered drink. “She… oh my god. She was the same. Like just a moment ago, I was certain that she was a little older than me. But when I was a kid, she was an adult. I mean she looked the same. She looks the same!?”

“Ms. Katherine is a Rolodex.”

“Bullshit!” James felt light-headed.

“I write what I want or need, file it into the Rolodex at my desk, and Ms. Katherine shows up. She does exactly as I have written, to the letter, without any intervention or help from me, and she gets everything done exactly as I specify. If she needs money, it appears. If she needs a plane ticket, it appears. If she needs to give comfort to a grieving boy in my stead overseas, then she does. If I write for her to bed this old bag of bones, she would. But in the end, she is just a Rolodex. No emotions, no feeling. Just a stereotype given specific instructions.”

“Why does she look like that?”

“Ah, that is my wife looked like when I married her. I filed that away in the Rolodex decades ago, and it stuck. I assume when the Object picks it’s next Steward, all that will dissolve away into the ether. It will be their Object and shift to their whims, I suppose.” Mr. Hendricks took a slow sip of his brandy. “I will be honest, I do enjoy seeing my beautiful wife in her prime now and again, but then I am reminded that my wife sees me as I have aged, and I love her all the more. Ms. Katherine is a dream that can interact with the real world. A very valuable assistant. The Assistant.”

Mr. Hendricks paused as Jimmy digested the story. Then he continued on, warming his brandy between both hands.

“It is how I met your father of course. The second Rule. Objects seek to Congregate. My Rolodex, very early on, was performing its instructions to the letter. Ms. Katherine had fetched me the secreted files that I had requested for a case, and she did not walk back out of my office and disappear like she does. She just stood there. It was unnerving. Ten years of using the Rolodex, and Ms. Katherine had never just stood there. Staring at me, her eyes like doll eyes, dark and glassy. She laid another file on the desk in front of me and waited until I had read it. Staring.”

“That sounds terrifying.”

Another signature chuckle. “It was. It reminded me of my wife when she was cross. And that is why the Rolodex did what it did, I suppose. It is an Object, with its own desires and whims that I cannot understand. It makes choices that are not what I would expect, but I trust it, because the jobs get done. And that folder contained an address and a name.”

“Hornwhell House.”

“Got it one, lad,” Mr. Hendricks said. “Your father knew an Other was coming of course. He didn’t know who or what. But his Objects had done the same for him. Gave him an idea that something was needed.”

“How?”

“I have no idea. Something for you to discover in your own time as a Steward,” Mr. Hendricks smiled at his memory. “He opened the door, and shook my hand, and I knew he was a good one. I carried my Rolodex upstairs, set it in The Safe, and let the Objects do whatever they do when they get together. And I met you, and your mother, and I just knew we were stuck together. Humans are not so different than the Objects in some ways. We need relationships. We need to connect with each other, we need community. And sometimes we just know that we are connected to some others… for life.”

“You’re going to make me well up again, Mr. Hendricks, and frankly I am sick of crying.”

“America has made you a bit soft, eh? You are British. Stiff upper lip and all that, young man,” Mr. Hendricks looked over his spectacles at Jimmy with a sad smile on his face. “But it is far better to mourn those we loved and shed the tears when they are due. Don’t be afraid of handling when it is needed to be handled. Bottling it up and shoving it down will only make it worse.”

“Since I am here until Christmas, I guess I have time.”

“Oh, lad. That part was a bit of a ruse, my sincere apologies. The Safe is, uh, particular. It, uh, has chosen to be here. Exactly here. Unfortunately, means that you are also… here. You can, of course, go visit other places. You can travel and have time away. But The Safe will call you home, and, as the Steward, you have to come home. Each Object has its Rules. And they are, as one would say, Absolute. The Safe is a gentle Object, friendly even, but it can be harsh when the time is warranted. The only things certain in this life are Death, Taxes, and the Will of an Object.”

“I don’t have a choice in this?” Jimmy tried to feel out the truth of it, as if he wanted to put up some sort of fight. He felt like a teenager again, feeling the desire to rebel against something, even if he didn’t understand what he was rebelling against.

“As a Steward, you have to accept the burdens with the benefits, I’m afraid. The Rules are what they are. But that is no different than the rest of life, isn’t that right? Life is what life is. You have to accept it. The Stewards of Objects are accepting life on a wildly different tangent. Our lives are perpendicular to the rest of the world. Your father used The Keys to become a myth. He used The Keys to explore the secret places, the places of power, in the world. He used The Keys to amass wealth, but not power of his own. He was eerily intelligent, and I think he did nearly all of it for you, James. Objects pick their Stewards. The Keys picked your father for their own reasons, and those reasons may be different for you. The Safe picked you because it knew something of The Keys perhaps, or The Pressed Eye. Who knows? They might have intra-dimensional chat sessions while we are not paying attention. The Keys and The Pressed Eye are essentially married Objects, as they never part, ah ha!”

“Well.” Jimmy sat down heavily in one of the arm chairs. The keys did not bunch at his waist or jingle loudly. If he didn’t look down, he wouldn’t even know they were there. If did look down, they would be floating like a ghost, silent and unmoving.

“So how do I learn the finer points of all this?”

“You figure it out. Sometimes it is through experimentation. Sometimes it is through the Object doing something. Your father and I would go round and round on if the Objects are intelligent or not. Sometimes it appears they are. Sometimes, they are not. Aloof? Is that a good word? I like to pretend they are living their own lives, hidden and secret from our own, and they pay attention to us like we pay attention to our own breathing. Sometimes we are very much aware of our breathing, right? But most of the time, we are not. I think they just do whatever they do, and we, the Stewards are along for the ride. But the Rules are Absolute. You can’t break them, you can’t fight them, you can’t do anything but accept them. The alternate choice is death or madness. Objects will not tolerate any sort of disobedience to the Rules.”

“Can you share the Rules that you know for The Safe? Or The Keys? Or The Pressed Eye?”

“Indirectly, I suppose, but they will be incomplete. Each relationship is unique between the Steward and the Object. How I interpret the Rules are unique to my experience with the Object. The rules may not be Absolute for the next Steward. But they are Absolute for me. The only common thing they all share are the Three Rules. The Objects choose their Stewards. The Objects choose to Congregate. The Objects always have Stewards, Others to you and I. Beyond that, its up to the Objects, as you put it, to share on the finer points.”

“Tell me what you can, please.”

“Hmmm… let me think.” Mr. Hendricks put the glass to his lips and appeared to be lost in thought. “The Keys and The Pressed Eye can only be seen, used, and operated by their Steward. If anyone sees you using them, they will forget. How do you think your father was so good at what he did? A thief that can steal what he wants in broad daylight? Everyone forgets that they saw it? He mentioned once that the Keys and the Eye were symbiotic, but I don’t know what he meant, and he never bothered to explain. It sounded like they needed each other for some reason, but he never shared what that was. He also mentioned once that the keys spoke to him. But how or what that meant, I don’t know either… I am not worried. You will figure it out, lad.”

“And The Safe?”

“That one is easy. There are some Objects that act as a focal point. You may encounter others. They are Affixed Objects. More self contained, if you will. They pull other Objects to them. Think of them of suns in the world of Objects, of which, other Objects orbit them. Your father kept a journal. It is in the top drawer of the desk. Of course, you will need a special key to get into it.”

“Of course. Who needs conventional locks when you have every key?”

Mr. Hendricks touched the side of his nose. “Exactly. When would you like to go over the rest?”

“The rest?”

“The will, the transfer of all of it… the accounts, the estate, the title, the properties, etc? And the Lady friend. She will need to be handled in some way, of course.”

“You mean the boring shit.”

“With the exception of the Lady… Indeed, the boring shit, as you say.”

“Isn’t that why we have you, Solicitor?” Jimmy laughed. “I think today is enough for me.”

“As you wish. Send a car or give me a call when you want to reconnect. I will have some paperwork I will need to be signed prior or day of the Funeral itself. I can’t help the law. I will send Ms. Hendricks around if I need you in the meantime.”

“You could just text me. It could be easier.”

“It could be. But I won’t. Texting is for a younger generation.” Mr. Hendricks shrugged innocently.

Jimmy held out his hand. “Thank you Mr. Hendricks.”

“You can call me Tom now, James.” He said, putting his hand firmly into Jimmy’s.

“Of course, Mr. Hendricks.”

After Mr. Hendricks left, Jimmy threw up into the nearby trash can. Fortunately it was stainless steel, but unfortunately, it did not contain a liner.