SEAN ROBIN HUGHES

The Underfell Wizardking does not deal with us. His Supreme Majesty has so many other things to deal with. Like Heroes and Chosen Ones and little Timmy from a slave colony now on a hero’s journey to vanquish the grand evilness of the Underking.

So that means that generally… typically… most often-ish… the Master of the Underfell does not care what we do. As long as our jobs get done.

But that doesn’t mean that our boss, Fat Tits, extends to us the same level of disdain. Oh no, unfortunately, his unctuous ugliness, the grandiose Fattest of the Tits, makes it his life mission to ensure that us goblins stay under his thumb. Supposedly, if he does a good job, he will get a bonus.

Do we get a bonus?

What do you think? My boss’s nickname is Fat Tits! Of course we don’t get bonuses. We get kicked. And hit. And whipped.

“GET OFF YOUR ASSES, BREAK TIME IS OVER, YOU SUBPAR TINY PEEN JACK OFFS!”

That was our Orc boss, Fat Tits. Yelling (normal). Slobbering while yelling (also normal). And his big bouncy oversized orc-boobs were bright red (not normal).

Omish elbowed me lightly in the ribs, an impish grin on his wide face, “Look at Fat Tits. He must be in trouble.”

“I hope so. I hate that guy…” I replied. I pushed the last of my simple Moo sandwich into my cheek, chewing the last of the spicy preserved meat delectable sandwich thoughtfully.

Grunk smirked, “Who doesn’t?”

“Whoever butters his tits,” I joked, still mid-chew.

“GET OFF YER ASSES AND GET OUT TO LEVEL TWO, WITCHES ARE CONJURING AT BAY ORANGE.” Fat Tits continued to loudly slobber (again normal).

How that fat bastard managed to even talk around those massive lower incisors of his, I will never understand.

I hastily dropped my canvas lunch sack back into my small locker, grabbed my tool belt and my Enchanted Power Gauntlet Mark 4 (the best) and heaved a huge sigh at Omish, since he was still fiddling with his salad (gross) and not getting his shit together (dumb).

“Bay orange, Omish, come on!” I rolled my eyes at him as I buckled my tool belt across my chest. “Fat Tits is going to beat you.”

“Fat Tits won’t notice me. He is stalking down Team Snake.” Omish waved me off. “I will catch up.”

I glanced in the general direction Fat Tits was headed, and sure enough, he was chasing down Team Snake. Fuckers. They were our biggest competition. I mean Team Ratking was close too, but Snake really rubbed me the wrong way. Their lead, Dizzi, was hot as hell, but a total see-you-next-tuesday. Power hungry and just… plain mean.

“Forget your salad, Om. We gotta roll to stay on top of Snake. They are having themselves a slowdown.”

“Fine.” Om shook his head and gathered his things. “Maybe we can take the leaderboard today.”

As if on cue, Grunk shouted from the break room doorway, “You dumbshits coming?”

I pushed my right hand into my oversized EPGmark4 (again, the absolute best), and I felt the hum as its hex cores spun up and tickled my fingertips. My gauntlet was nearly an antique, but it had been made by a master hexsmith, the greatest of my grandfather’s generation, Mickroof the Resolute. There was a rumor he created a Mark 5 EPG before his death, but I think that was wishful thinking for those diehard Mickroof fan boys. Sure I was one of those too, but I was at least realistic that what I had was the absolute best.

“YOU GOBLIN FUCKS NEED TO MOVE OUT!” Fat Tits yelled from the other side of the break room.

Omish tapped my shoulder, and we jogged to catch up to Grunk. Grunk grinned at two of us like a loon and we headed to the demarcation room (what we all called the Demark).

“Think we should add a fourth?” Om asked again. “We are the only Gob team without one.”

“There is no replacing Dink, Om.” Grunk shook his head, his pitbull like jowls shaking in emphasis. “We do just fine as a three Gob team.”

“But we are the only three Gob team… how can we expect to keep our lead?” Om complained.

I held up my gauntlet, its knuckles glowing blue. “We beat the shit out of them.”

“I don’t think we can beat up our competition, Teller.”

I laughed. “We could…”

Grunk turned into the cavernous Demark and beelined toward the massive bowl of the orange bay. Omish and I followed closely behind. The entire area was a hum of activity. Other Goblin teams filed through the space, either heading towards their work assignments or coming back to have their break. The conjuring bays were arrayed around the circular cavern hall evenly, each bay was like a carved out vertical bowl in the wall, each wall painted its designated color. A team of witches stood at each one, their projection crystals between them, sometimes lashed to wood trusses, sometimes nestled into a stone base, it depended on the witch team leader’s preference. Bay Orange was manned by Clementine, a human witch with a mostly Elvish coven. The three elves were named after flowers, but I could never keep them straight. Something like Rose, Orchid, and Tulip? No, that wasn’t it. Daisy, Poppy, and Lily? Fuck. It didn’t matter.

“Hey Ms. Clementine,” I yelled.

The tall human witch turned, and like most witches, she was a knockout. Even my Goblin boy parts felt a tingle looking at her. I knew it was the enchantment she held, but still. So hot. The tight clothing helped too. Goblins and humans are not so different. Outside of the skin color. And the height. And the weight. And the facial features. And the smell… ok, just about everything was different. But woof. Like all the witches manning the bays, Clementine and her elves were sex on a stick.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite Gobs. How is Team Kelpie this fine morning?”

Omish grinned like a schoolboy. “Good ma’am.”

Grunk just made a noise that sounded like he either was about to orgasm or take a dump in his leather shorts. Either way, he turned away embarrassed.

“Ready to go, Ms. Clementine.” I said. “Send us on our way.”

There was a loud boom from the Blue Bay, and we collectively turned to see a team of Goblins pour out of the shimmering portal, with smoke billowing inwards behind them. A couple were limping, and another was missing an arm. The fourth was cursing up a storm, punching the ground. He was pissed.

“Damn it, third team today. Word is that there is a party of adventurers wrecking havoc on level one. Some hotshot mage is in the party. Apparently, he really likes using fire magic.”

“We are headed to two, right?” Om said, his nerves showing. His father had died in a confrontation with an adventurer.

“Yes, yes, you will be safe my little Gob.” Clementine winked, and I almost lost my composure. Omish definitely lost his, and he turned away, following Grunk’s earlier example.

Clementine giggled, and started her incantation. Her elvish cronies joined in on the chant, the air wavered, the rocks vibrated under our feet, and then their crystal flashed brilliantly as the cusp of the portal flared to life. It was taller than a troll’s height, easily fifteen feet tall as it was wide, and it took on a mirror-like sheen.

“Good luck, boys.” Clementine crooned.

We stepped through to find…

Chaos.

Two walls had caved inwards, and a wide blue shimmering pool between them had an entire colony of Kappa arguing loudly between. The ceiling did not show any damage, so all in all, it appeared to be highly salvageable. I couldn’t make out what the group of Kappas were gesticulating at each over, but it sounded like they were debating on how to save their families from an imminent collapse.

“Oy!” I shouted raising both of my hands into the air. “We are here to salvage the situation. Who is in charge?”

An elder Kappa limped towards us with a cane in one hand and carrot in the other. He took an absentminded bite of his cane before he realized the carrot was in the other hand. He spit out the splinters.

“Oh thank the Underking. You are the damage control I requested?” The old Kappa asked aloud, having to shout over the arguing that had continued even with three goblins stepping out of nothing into their midst.

“We are Dungeon Management Team Kelpie. We prefer the term Dungeon Management.” I said.

“Oh sure, put on airs,” the Elder Kappa grumpily turned his lip. “Can you fix the walls?”

“Yes.” I replied.

“Is the wall damaged?” He asked.

“Yessss?” I trailed off.

“And you will control it?” He added.

This old fuck can get bent. “Yes,” I sighed.

“Then damage control it is.”

“Thanks. Can you get your people out of the way?” I asked with a sneer.

The elder Kappa turned and whistled loudly, and the entire cohort dove into the pool, heading for the deeps. He waved his carrot at me like it was his dick and jumped in last, quickly disappearing from view.

“What an asshole,” I grumbled. “Oy, Omish. Lights?”

Omish pulled his Lighttosser from his back holster and cranked it back. He gently placed a triad flare into the slot and fired it towards the ceiling. The flare spread widely, and each dart hit a different part of the ceiling, throwing off a bright yellow light.

The space was wide, the bright blue pool was lit from within, even though the depths were just a black as any pool of deep water. The walls that had caved inwards were encroaching the edges, the light of the water illuminating the lower half of the walls, while the flares cast their yellow light in a diffused way, only being noticeable once the blue light faded to nothing.

Omish made a face, “Wonder what caused them to cave inwards like that?”

“Pressure,” Grunk nodded knowingly.

“Pressure?” Omish was younger, so he hadn’t seen as much as Grunk had. Grunk was nearly twenty, which was ancient in Goblin years. Omish was only nine. I was between them, at fourteen years old, so a full adult. Om had a year or so before he would be considered an adult himself, stature and thin black hair on his upper lip aside.

“Think of the room like a box. If you squish the top, the pressure has to go somewhere. The ceiling transferred the load to the walls and the weakest walls caved first. The other two held… we need to check them out but see how the ceiling is braced? Those stanchions and arches? Then look over here,” Grunk pointed. “These arches were put in to be wider, fewer stanchions, right?”

“I see it.” Omish nodded.

“Those were designed to fail first. Warning the inhabitants to get out. Dwarves know what they are doing. Great engineers.”

“You ever met one?” I asked.

“A dwarf? No.”

“You wish you could be an engineer, Grunk?” Omish followed.

“Ha. No. I fix things. Over time, you learn to appreciate good design. Because when we have to fix bad design, our jobs are much, much, worse,” Grunk grinned his trademark veteran smile.

“I will clear the rubble,” I said. Not like Grunk or Omish had anything to say, as we each had our role to play. I was the earth mover, hence my EPGmark4. Grunk was the builder, and Om was the apprentice, which meant he held shit, levered shit, and shot shit when we told him to. He had nothing enchanted on his person, except maybe a talisman or two under his clothes, but we all wore those. Basic safety in these parts.

I ran my left hand over my oversized gauntlet on my right hand and flicked my fingers deftly over the nubs and runes that told the limited intelligence of the hex engine designed in the metal on what I needed it to do. In this case, I selected two hexes, Earth Melt and Shift To. Earth Melt would take the rubble, and aggregate it into super heated floating balls of molten earth. Then Shift To would push them into block shapes, set to a standard size that Grunk preferred. Then Grunk would use his enchanted hammer and chisel to carve and place the bricks in quick successive series to rebuild the wall while I braced it where needed. We would iterate this way multiple times until the walls were back to what they had looked like before. No one would have ever known they had collapsed.

I sighed. I guess we were damage control after all. Dumb Kappa with his stupid carrot got in my head.

“But where did the pressure come from?” Omish shook his head. “I mean, something had to create that pressure, right?”

“What’s above us, Grunk?” I asked, using my fingers inside the gauntlet to select which piles of rubble to start with. The first chunks started to accumulate a few feet above their resting place, and the heat increased. Heat waves rose from the mass as it took on its round orb shape. The first blocks emerged from the side and landed near Grunk.

“Probably that fire mage Ms. Clementine mentioned, if I were to make a guess. Probably a big explosion. Air expands rapidly, all that force has to go somewhere. Up and out. And in this case, down.”

“If I was a fire mage, I would just melt my way to the bottom of the Underfell,” Omish joked.

Grunk pulled his hammer from his belt and tapped his chisel against its wide side, inscribing what he wanted. He swung at the top block, and it flew upwards to where the stanchion columns had failed, pushing their way in and re-adhering in place as if they had their own self contained mortar, which they kind of did, since they were still so hot.

I grunted as my hand became exceptionally heavy, which meant there was something stuck in the pile of rubble. “Om, take your crowbar, and push it under that column section, eh?” I pointed at the stuck piece.

Om nodded, and Grunk continued. “You wouldn’t be able to melt your way down. The walls, the floors, the ceilings, all of it was crafted to prevent that from happening. And to blast your way through with explosions would fail quickly. You would end up either blowing yourself up, or exposing something that kills you just as quick. Imagine opening up a floor to find a deep well underneath you? Or a sleeping monster? Or the Underfell Wizardking himself? No… adventurers know that if they want the loot and the want to live to enjoy the loot, they will need to play by the rules.”

“What if they aren’t in it for the loot?” Omish pressed as he tried to find a place to place his crowbar.

“Like if they are after the Underking?”

“Yeah.”

“They die. There is a reason the Underking has been the Underking for three hundred years…”

“Ha, true!” Omish laughed as he pushed down on his bar. The column shifted upwards, and I felt my gauntlet lighten.

There was a huge crack, and the column split at the top. Omish scrambled backwards afraid he was about to be crushed, and I waved my gauntlet forwards to ensure I pushed any remnants away from him. Our fourth, Dink had died in a collapse. And it was too soon to lose another team member of Team Kelpie.

“Om? You ok?” Grunk called.

The dust settled, and Omish was sitting on his butt staring at the column. It had been hollow.

“What the hell?” I said. “Who in their right mind builds a hollow column?”

Grunk put his hammer back into his belt and helped pick Omish off the ground.

Omish smiled sheepishly, “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

I lowered my gauntlet after the last rubble chunk shifted to a white hot brick and floated to its waiting spot among the others. I stepped up behind Grunk and Omish and looked on. In the hollow of the column, there was a small white chest. It looked like it was crafted from wood, but the surface nearly glowed it was so white.

“Its hailstone.” Grunk breathed heavily, his voice full of wonder.

“No.” I said. It couldn’t be hailstone. That was rare. Rarer than rare. That was like Wizardking bedroom chambers kind of rare. “Surely, its just a trick of the light.”

Grunk stepped cautiously over the rubble, doing his best to make sure it didn’t shift. He laid his hands on the chest and lifted it from its hollow.

“What if it had vaporized you?” I asked.

“Then you would know not to touch it, eh?” Grunk said flatly. “This is hailstone. Look at the etching. Its old. Ancient.”

My gauntlet seemed to vibrate as I drew closer, like I had an angry bee in my palm.

Omish stood and looked on in awe. He had been raised on stories of the magic of the Underking, the power that he had wrought in the Underfell. Hailstone, the living rock of the dwarves, said to have built the very foundations of the Earth. What was a chest made of hailstone doing on level two of all places!? It would be like going to the surface and finding a chunk of moon rock just sitting in your garden. Not impossible, but highly improbable.

“Should we open it?” I asked Grunk. “What if your face melts?”

“Then don’t put your face over it,” Grunk replied in his flat monotone.

“Gee thanks, Grunk.” I laid it out as sarcastically as I could.

Without recognizing my tone, Grunk flipped the clasp and pushed the lid open slowly.

Inside there was a jewel about the size of a hex core sitting on a small wire enclosure affixed to the bottom of the box. The stone glowed with a purplish light, not the customary bluish light that I was familiar with from my own EPGmark4.

“What is it?” Omish whispered.

My gauntlet felt like it was about to vibrate off my hand. I ran my fingers over the controls worryingly, instinctively turned everything off.

“I have no idea.” Grunk picked it from its wire cage and turned it between his fingers. “It looks like a core?”

“Uh…” I muttered. My gauntlet was vibrating even more violently. I had turned it off, but it was not off. It was violently asserting to me that it was still on. Omish and Grunk where staring at the core between Grunk’s fingers, and not paying attention to me at all. “Guys?”

“Teller…” Grunk turned in time to see my eyes go wide as my right hand, wearing my EPGmark4 literally lifted me off the ground. “Let go!” Grunk yelled.

“I CAN’T!” I yelled at no one in particular. I tried to yank my hand free, but it was like my fingertips were glued to the inside surfaces of the gauntlet, the knuckles were glowing so bright, I had never seen my EPGmark4 do anything like this before. I yanked and yanked, but it ended up with me jiggling about like a marionette, bouncing around on invisible strings, the tips of my large goblin toes inches from the ground. I felt panic. Goblin level panic.

Let’s pause here and explain something critical to understand.

See… most folks have all sorts of emotions. Intelligent beings feel things. Shocker, right? Even Goblins. But some intelligent beings feel things much more distinctively than others. Elves are really good at disassociating, and with long lives, they feel the same feelings over much longer time spans. So they may have mind blowing sex, but it also takes days, so its really spread out. Not worth the time, if you ask me.

A goblin’s life is a fraction of a humans. And we are small, so we die easy. So when we feel things, it tends to be explosive in nature, and very much in the moment. A human feels panic, they figure they either have to fight or run away. When a Goblin feels panic, we figure we either take some motherfucker out with us or we die screaming so at least our killer is deaf for their rest of their life.

I felt Goblin level panic. And the only choice I had was to start screaming.

Omish started screaming.

Grunk started screaming.

GOBLIN PANIC FOR EVERYONE!

And like reality was unrolling in slow motion, I witnessed everything with perfect clarity as it unfolded before my horrified point of hanging-in-the-air observation. All at once, Grunk’s hand inadvertently tossed the purple core upwards in his panic as if the core was a stick of lit dynamite. Omish dove for a pile of nearby rubble, pulling Grunk along behind him as if the old Gob was a bag of oats. An elderly dick-waving Kappa head emerged from the blue pool, his eyes growing wide as the same scene unfolded. And I, my legs dangling like an aforementioned dick, was launched through the intervening space, being pulled by my EPGmark4 (scary as fuck right now), as if I was a smoke trail of a projectile (and that projectile being my aforementioned SCARY AS FUCK EPGmark4).

My gauntlet encased hand flew in front of me, the fingers closed of their own accord around the purple core, and there was a blast of purple light without sound. I landed on the ground roughly, feeling my ribs get bruised against some rubble. Serves me right, right?

It was absolutely quiet, except for the sound of sizzling. I cautiously opened my eyes and noted that all the piles of rubble were smoking, the surface of the pool was steaming, and a headless Kappa elder floated at the surface. There was no blood. His neck had been cauterized shut. Ew. Gross.

“Om? Grunk?” I mumbled, pushing myself upright. My right hand was still folded over into a fist. My EPGmark4 looked the same as it did when it was off, just an inert hunk of armor.

“We are here,” Om called out. “We are ok. You ok, Grunk?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Grunk mumbled. “My ass feels flash fried.”

“Not as bad as the sunburn the Kappa has,” I snickered. It was terrible. But it was also hilarious? I was so confused.

There was an ominous crack from above. The kind of sound you don’t really hear, you mostly felt. That was the sound of bad shit about to happen.

“The ceiling!” Grunk shouted.

I spun my chin from shoulder to shoulder and quickly noted that the other two wall’s arches and stanchions were not only cracked, but crumbling like old paste. This room was about to cave.

“FUCK!” I screamed.

“What? You hurt?” Om yelled back.

“No! There goes our fucking lead!” I shouted.

“Run to the doorway!” Grunk picked Om up and they started to run towards the dark entry way closest to us.

With dawning horror, I realized the entry was was going inwards. Regulation said we should never leave our assigned work area. BUT… our assigned work area was about to cave in. Regulation said we should never head inward, as that is how traps get set off. BUT… were not only heading inward, but running as fast as goblin’s legs could carry them. Double side of holy hell with the fuck sandwich.

I managed to catch up to Grunk and Omish, and the three of us cleared the entryway as the ceiling gave way behind us. We collapsed in the hallway (thank god, its a hallway, traps are usually halfway down), and the reverberations were intense as everything behind us was swallowed by the earth. And we sat, exhaling heavily in our desperate panting as if we had just outran Death himself, and somehow had managed to escape the guy, while he stood there with his hand in his underpants.

“Well not only did we lose our lead,” Grunk sighed. “I think I shit myself.”

I let my head rest against the cool stone. Goblin level panic and all took its toll. I sighed, “That’s fun too.”

This follows Branson Gulch Blues, Part V, Part IV, Part III, Part II, and Part I…

---

Grandpa’s body had already been reduced to ash by the time Rory and his parents arrived to Branson Gulch three days later. What was left of him now sat in a decorative vase, surrounded by pictures of his life, artifacts of his career, and flowers that Rory thought looked both expensive and exotic.

He kept his head bowed in the chapel, unsure of where to look. The soft crying among the crowd was uncomfortable, because it made him feel like he was uncertain of how he should feel. He loved Grandpa. So much. Grandpa was awesome. So… why wasn’t Rory crying himself?

What was wrong with him? He shook his head lightly and kept his eyes downward, hearing the soft sobs of his mom to his right.  His dad was next to her, his arm draped over her shoulders like a shawl, squeezing her occasionally. He glanced to his left at Nana, and she was sitting stoically, her face was like an imitation of her real face. She was a marble bust dressed in black, staring miles into the distance, perhaps over an entire lifetime, through the wood and stone of the chapel, perhaps the very earth beyond. And yet, she was beautiful in her profound sadness, as if it could not touch her. Not the way that it touched Rory’s mom, or the others arranged haphazardly in the pews behind.

Rory reached over and put his hand on Nana’s folded hands, she did not move her face or her eyes, but her hand shifted over to squeeze his own.

Pastor Clemens waited for the music to stop, a Simon and Garfunkel song that Grandpa had loved but Rory did not know the name of. He knew who it was, but that was about it. The last note trailed away amongst the soft murmuration of the crowd.

“How can one measure grief? The progress of it? The movement and shift and sway of it?” Pastor Clemens said, folding his bible closed, and touching the podium thoughtfully. “The way that grief overwhelms in a single breath when it had been on lock down just moments before… there was that sense of assurance it was so far away, like knowing that rain is somewhere out in the world, but you needn’t see it or acknowledge it to know that it existed. Then, as if by invocation, it rains! Torrential, end times sort of downpour that breaks the levees, drowns the weak and infirm, and sends wildlife scurrying for parts unknown. That grief that threatens to overwhelm, the real shock of it is the terror that accompanies it… will I feel this forever? Will I ever be free? Will the sorrow eat at me until I am nothing?”

Pastor Clemens took a step back from the podium and shook his head. “Time heals all wounds. But we should never consider ourselves free of it. Grief is part of us, and we have to make it our own… internalize it and take solace in the knowledge that grief is just proof of how much we loved him. He was a good father, a loving husband, a reliable friend, and a great ecologist. At this time, if anyone would like to come up to the microphone and say a few words, you are more than welcome.”

He sat down in the front pew, among the people, and the chapel was silent but for the rustling of clothing, an occasional cough, and the sniffles as people dabbed at their leaking eyes and noses.

An older gentleman limped up to the lecturn, swinging behind the wood podium carefully as if he was about to topple over. Rory realized the man was probably drunk, his nose was the color of dozen roses, and his cheeks matched, but above them, his eyes were sunken and surrounded by dark pits where his bright blue eyes sat, red and watering. His face was heavily lined, his hair was long but kempt, brushed and slicked back. A few silver streaks started at his temples and wove their way backward. He appeared to be barely keeping it together.

“Morning all. My name is Hugh Tobias. I knew Robert there as Bobby and he called me Toby. And Bobby was a spitfire the moment he blew into my life at Evarist Academy. He had that nickname ready to go in his back pocket, not even two seconds into the introduction. It was a declaration that my identity was wrong, and he was correcting it. When I met him, I was all of eighteen? And I thought I knew so much about the world, the way things were, and the way things should be. I was so certain! And Bobby… it was his nature to set things as he saw them, eh? He set my life on fire. Both figuratively and literally. Bobby was my roommate, and a bit of a wild one, wasn’t he?” Tobias laughed lightly, and a few in the crowd joined in. “My favorite memory of Bobby was when we were on assignment, field work for Botany. Many of you know how hard Dr. Tell was.”

Another smattering of laughter.

“So Bobby grabs me in the middle of the night and informs me that he found some Leckerweed. Now most people would know that young people do stupid things when they smoke the Leck, and I assure you that is what I would have done. But not Bobby! No. No. No. Bobby thought it would be a great time to light up that Leckerweed and pump it into Dr. Tell’s tent instead.”

“No…” Someone exhaled loudly from rear of the chapel.

“Oh, sorry Dr. Tell, I didn’t know you were here.” Tobias squinted out into the crowd. “Man… you were sooooooo high. Dr. Tell is a great sport, but I have never seen such a hard-assed straight laced professor that… uh wild, man. He woke everyone in the camp up, dancing around a fire he had turned into a bonfire claiming he was communing with his ancestors through the flames. Half naked too.”

“I knew it was him!” Dr. Tell shouted defensively. “I knew it!”

Rory glanced back at the a withered old man in a simple green flatcap, round spectacles on his large hawkish nose. He appeared to be smiling widely at the recollection.

Dr. Tell added proudly, “One of the best nights of my life! The hangover on the other hand… and I was so hungry after.”

A few more laughs ran through the crowd.

Tobias nodded with a smirk. He continued, “He was the life of the party, wasn’t he? One of those people that just make the best of those around him? He made me so uncertain about the world. He made me ask different questions, look at things in a new way. He helped me see possibilities where I did not see them before. He helped me find my partner, Charles. Bobby was my best man at our wedding. And he always found the fun in things, even when he struggled. He was a good friend and I will miss him terribly.”

Tobias wiped at his nose with the back of his hand and walked back to his seat, shuffling his leg as if it didn’t quite work the way it should. What was it with Grandpa and his friends? That they all seemed to have injuries even though they looked not much older than his own dad? Rory wondered about it. Even Nana did not seem as old as she actually was. Rory appraised her profile again, and then to his own mom. They could have been close sisters if Rory did not know any better.

A middle aged woman with bright red hair draped over angry looking burn marks on her neck nimbly strode up to the lectern and blew a kiss at the oversized portrait of Grandpa. She moved like a dancer, nimble and fast.

“Hello. My name is Glory McMahon, and I had the privilege to work with Robert for thirty years?” She looked over at Nana, and Nana shrugged and nodded at the same time, in some form of hesitant affirmation. “Thanks Vera. Yes, about thirty years! Wow. Time flies. As you know our job is not the easiest or safest occupation. Being an ecologist takes bravery and strength, both of which Robert had in spades. I don’t have a single story, I have hundreds. I can’t share any of them up here because not a single one would do on its own. Just know that Robert was one of our best. I don’t know if we will be the same without him. I… uh…” Glory McMahon looked up at the ceiling of the chapel, blinking furiously. “Grief, huh? Just like the good father was talking about. I… guess I do have a story. But it is not about Robert. It is about the Clochan Green we have up at the Howards Conservatory? She is a beauty named Miss Fleck, and Robert is the one that saved her. They had a bond… as happens sometimes.”

Glory paused heavily, swallowing to regain her composure.

“Miss Fleck knew. I don’t know how she knew, but we found her sullen that morning. Like she was grieving a sibling or mate’s death.” She paused again, her eyes shifting downward as she reflected on some truth. “With all of our knowledge and all of our history… and we still don’t know these fundamental truths of the universe beyond the recognition that they exist. And above all that, the universe knew that Robert Ryanson Blue had left our world, and that Clochan Green? Well, our Miss Fleck grieved. That is something profound, isn’t it?”

She stepped down and hugged Nana in her seat before making her way back to her own. An ancient looking man got up and very slowly made his way to the front, using a long cane with a practiced ease. His foot came up with a shuffling step, then his cane, then his other foot would nearly make the same distance with a little stomp. It was a percussive beat as he made his way to the podium, shuffle-tap-stomp, shuffle-tap-stomp.

“Hello Vera,” the old man addressed Nana from the lectern, pulling the microphone closer to his gnarled face. The man looked older than time itself. “Hello all, I think I know most of you, but some of you may not know me. I was one of the teachers that falsely assumed that we had tamed Robert, but to my utter delight, I discovered that I did not tame him at all, I merely redirected his wildness to the wide world where it belonged. As many of you know, my own last name means ‘of the wild’, and to think that Robert deserved that name more than I did was a revelation of its own sort.”

Rory marveled at the man’s accent. It was either Irish or Scottish, but it was fierce, like it had to be its own thing, and neither of the two. You would think it would be hard to understand, but it wasn’t. It was clear and vibrant, completely mismatching his old, twisted form. There were thousand year old trees out in the world that looked younger.

“I met Robert when he was only an ornery toddler. His mother, another prior student of mine, had visited for tea, and she brought this absolute terror of a child along with her. I believe her thinking at the time was that a rabid boy like that needed to meet someone that could eventually temper him into a strong young man that he could become. Here was a promise of a man that he could be… if you will, but I assure all of you right now with God as my witness, that he accomplished all of that by himself and through his own choices. He was a force of nature, much like his wife, Vera here, and all I did was proudly marvel that the world continues to bear these young folks of such talent. In short, he was brilliant. I shall miss him as well. We thank you, Robert. For the good you did, at the time you did, acting for all of us when we couldn’t.”

Rory marveled that a man that old sounded as young as he did. It was if the voice and the temper did not match the frame it was contained within. He leaned over to Nana and whispered, “Who was that?”

“That is Professor Myrddin. My boss. And he taught your grandfather and I, years ago. Saying he was a brilliant man does not even begin to cover it.”

A familiar face took the podium next, and Rory could not place where he had seen her before. She was an older woman, stooped with age, but she had a caring face. A face… the recognition made him feel like his head rang like a bell. It was Mrs. Givins. How did he forget Mrs. Givins? She was here when he was a little kid. His bike… the… path?

Rory shook his head confusedly. He caught Nana looking at him strangely, and he tried a weak smile.

“Robert! I can speak volumes. He worked for my father you know… conservationist to his absolute core. An ecologist like none other! And, if I may say so, a wickedly talented dowser. I watched him scrub lines and create lines like they were putty in his hands. Sure, many of us can do it… sure, many of us are good at it even. But Robert? Every single one of you know that his talent was beyond compare! Robert was able to shift lines like he was out for a stroll? Any of you remember when the Department had to redirect the ley fault in Wyoming? The entire fault! A hundred years ago, that would have been a team of talented folks, and Robert flew in, made the changes like he was turning a knob and flew out the VERY next day! My father knew he was a talent. Absolute talent…” Mrs. Givins blotted at her eyes with a tissue. “I… uh… I wish that we… uh…. had the courage… the..”

Mrs. Givins stopped dead after trailing off, her eyes locked on the back of the chapel. Her face went through a wave of emotions, and Rory didn’t understand what he was witnessing. A pulse of something like fatigue washed over him for a split second, but then it was gone. It was like a suggestion of tiredness, but he knew he wasn’t actually tired, so he ignored it.

“You don’t belong here!” Mrs. Givins shouted, raising an incriminating finger at whomever just entered through the doors.

There was a slight commotion at the back of the room, and rough murmurs and isolated muttering emanating outwards like ripples in a pond. Rory went to lift himself out of his seat to look, but Nana pushed his leg down with a firm hand and shook her head warningly.

“Eyes front.” Nana whispered insistently. “Do not look.”

A genteel honeyed voice rose from the back of the room, “I came… to pay… my respects.”

It sounded like a man’s voice, deep and resonant, but the tone was strangely feminine, soft at the edges, with a lilt in intonation that did not feel natural.

Mrs. Givins face was turning red. “You turn around right now, Lumen. This very moment. Or so help me God, I will call on every power of earth and heaven to turn you into a pillar of salt where you stand.”

“So informal. In a chapel, Merry!? Holy ground!? Aren’t we all the same in His eyes?” The voice called out. His voice sounded reasonable… as if it made all the sense in the world. “You won’t. Coward. You are all cowards.”

Rory really wanted to turn his head to look at the source of the voice, but Nana’s eyes were locked on his profile. She was staring at him like her life depended on it, and for some reason he felt as if he didn’t dare move. His joints were like ice, his muscles had become steel.

Mrs. Givins made a face. Disgust. “Lumen, if you are a child of God, then you have, uh, pardon my French everyone… you have absolutely fucked it sideways. It is said not to judge others, but you are remiss to believe that you are beyond our collective judgement. You are quite literally the antithesis to everything that Robert stood for. And you… dare… to come here?”

There was a shuffling of noise behind and another familiar voice spoke with authority. Rory knew it was the older gentleman Nana had named Myrddin.

“Mr. Lumen, say what you need to say and then leave.”

“Ah. Myrddin! You deigned to show up here? For this sap? All the way from your foggy highlands? How absolutely wonderful. It is like a family reunion…” The honeyed voice dripped with sarcasm, and something underneath. It felt malicious. “Is that Robert in that jar over there? Excuse me, sir.”

The ‘sir‘ was said as an epithet. The insult was dripping with disgust.

The man’s feet could be heard on the carpet runner as he approached the front of the chapel. Each step was soft, but there was a weight of reverberation that could be felt through the floorboards. It was if he weighed a thousand pounds and every movement was a warning to world around him. It said, flee.

Rory felt as if he shouldn’t attract the man’s attention. He ventured a glance to his right and with a shock realized both of his parents were asleep. Dad’s head was straight back so he was looking upwards, snoring gently, and Mom had her head on Dad’s shoulder, a bit of drool at her bottom lip. Rory felt his eyes go wide and he turned to look at Nana, but her hand was still on his knee, and she squeezed firmly as if warning him.

Rory didn’t know what to do. The man in the aisle finally strolled past laconically, and the scent of vanilla and mesquite wafted over Rory. The man was very tall, towering at what had to have been seven feet tall, and was lithe as a kickboxer. His skin was as white as snow, with a long silver ponytail bound at the back of his head. The man approached the table, and raised a hand as if trying to get Grandpa’s attention. He had rings on many of his fingers, and number of woven bracelets around his wrist at the cuff of his silk jacket.

“Robert? I have come to pay my respects. And to gloat, of course. I am allowed, right? When one wins, they should be allowed to celebrate their hard earned victory?” There was more rustling and murmurs in the pews behind. “You were a worthy opponent. I still to this day am not sure how you managed that whole thing on Hokkaido? That was deft! Brilliant even. I cannot deny brilliance, even when it is not solely my own. And… I shall miss our little talks. The ones that measured each of us, although, in our last meeting, you were found wanting, eh? Never recovered? Such a shame. I know you are not here, Robert. I know that this jar is not you. I know that your pattern has retreated back to the waves above and below. But still, if a glimmer of your pattern remains, know this… you are a fucking loser.”

The man turned and faced the now absolutely silent audience. A dog barked outside lonely and stark, while somewhere in the distance a car horn sounded. Rory noted the man’s eyes were so dark brown they almost appeared to be black from iris to pupil. It was a stark contrast to the porcelain white skin and tightly bound silver hair. He was strikingly handsome, with a cut chin, sharp cheekbones, and a high brow. He looked like a royal elf from the Lord of the Rings movies, if an elf wore silk suits that David Bowie would have envied. And his smile was like an imitation of a smile. He didn’t look human. He looked like something that ate humans. What was that called? The uncanny valley? Not quite human enough to trick his animal mind in accepting that he was one. This was a monster. A real monster.

Rory felt a shudder run through him.

The man’s eyes wandered the audience, as if taking it all in for a delicious memory. He took a deep satisified breath and headed the way he came, and the chapel door slammed lightly as the piston closed it at his passing with a wheezy relieved cough. A couple human coughs followed, also in relief.

A monster, like a dragon. Dragon? Memories came roaring back, a flood of impressions were unlocked simultaneously. Rory sifted through his memories of what had actually happened with Mrs. Givins. The memories of his visit all those years ago had popped into his head as if they had been wrapped up and hidden away. The more he thought on it, the more things unvieled themselves. How did he forget? How could he forget? Wella! He had seen a dragon. A goddamned cockatrice! He had seen a dragon and her eggs. He had looked her right in the eye!

Nana shifted in her seat and leaned over hurriedly to whisper in Rory’s ear. “You are rippling, Rory. Calm down… I will explain later. Deep breaths! Now!”

Rory felt a whip of reluctance and then a quick glimmer of rebellion, but Nana’s firm hand was still on his leg, and her stare was made of fire. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, holding it, and then exhaling slowly. After a few rounds of breathing, Nana finally lifted her hand from his leg.

“Good. Now, act attentive. Your parents are waking up.” Nana observed.

“Oh god, did I fall asleep?” Mom said aghast, wiping at her mouth. “Mom, I am so sorry.”

“Hit your husband, dear, he is snoring.” Nana replied, facing front.

There was a light smack and the snoring cut off abruptly. A grunt of something, it could have been an apology, it may have been a protest.

It didn’t seem to matter. Rory could only focus inwardly. Her eye. In the clearing of the trees… Wella had looked at him and had known.

The dragon knew.

This follows Branson Gulch Blues, Part IV, Part III, Part II, and Part I…

---

Rory woke up in a panic, strangling in his own sheets, mired in the octopus-like constriction of untucked sheets, blankets, somehow coupled to his own clothing. He angrily pulled the wrapped corner of his sheets from around his neck. It flickered away like a dismayed python.

Sweat beaded at this forehead and the back of his neck, and his heart rate was running a mile a minute.

The nightmares had gotten worse. He would wake up and then couldn’t remember what they were about. Just flashes of impressions that provided nothing more than a fleeting glimpse of something… wrong. Something that he could not fix no matter how hard he tried. He squeezed his eyes shut, fiercely attempting to pry something loose from his mind, some clue as to why he was on his second straight week of shit sleep.

He had his last final tomorrow. It did not matter nearly as much as his SAT had, but they were still important to close out the senior year of high school. Not getting the rest he needed was going to take its toll. Rory sat up, freeing more of his body from the wrath of the unintentional slumber knot that used to be his bed. He pulled his leg free and a sock stayed locked up in the sheets.

“Fuck it,” Rory mumbled, yanking the matching still attached sock off his other foot. He stood, lengthening his frame upwards, feeling the muscles stretch and hit their limit, their release flooding his nerves with some form of remotely felt satisfaction of their own. His heart finally had slowed, and the sweat was evaporating quickly. His well-tuned runner’s constitution at least made recovery fast.

The clock on his phone attested it was 2:17am on Thursday, May 14th, and Spotify had a new release from one his followed artists.

“Great. Thanks Spotify,” he mumbled.

There was a missed phone call too. His grandmother. Fifteen minutes ago?

Rory felt his stomach drop. He hadn’t been able to get his Mom or Dad to spring for a visit to see Nana and Grandpa. There was always an excuse. Some reason they couldn’t visit. Some other trip or vacation always took precedence. As a result, it had been literally years since he had seen his Nana and Grandpa. But Rory had made a habit to call them every week. Every Sunday, after dinner, religiously.

Grandpa had some sort of injury at work a couple years back and had been forced to retire. He had been sick the last few weeks? Right? Not the flu. Not covid. Something else? Nana had been dismissive two weeks ago, and they had not answered their phone this past Sunday. Rory had thought it odd, but sometimes they missed each other. It happened. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Rory rubbed his eyes, cracked the door to his room to look for signs of activity in the house. Something that would assuage his gut feel or at least confirm it? Something? Anything? But the house was silent as a crypt. His parents were not pacing the house, Mom was not calling anyone, and Dad wasn’t sitting at his customary position at the end of the kitchen island furiously tapping on his laptop.

It was eerie, actually. Like time had stopped. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound. Not even the typical house noises of a fan running or the furnace cycling could be heard. Rory shook his head, attributing the weirdness to the nightmare. He closed his door slowly, letting the latch catch its home silently and then he paced back to his phone, unplugging it from its charger.

He flipped to Nana’s contact and hit dial. It did not even ring once.

“Rory? Is everything alright?” Her voice was far away. Tinny. Like she was in a tunnel of aluminum foil.

“I’m fine, Nana. It’s two in the morning? You called me.”

A sigh at the other end. A heavy sigh. Then silence.

“Nana?” Rory tried.

“Your, uh, Rory, your grandfather passed.” Her voice was solemn, but not a sound of emotion. Her voice was carved from granite.

Rory realized what that meant. Nana had cried every tear she could harbor at the moment. She was exhausted. This was the sound of his strong, powerful Nana exhausted. Something he had never heard or seen before.

“Did you call Mom?”

“I…” Silence again, like Nana was trying to think of how to say something that she knew had to be said. “Your mom. Yes. I will call her later.”

“You called me first?” Rory felt his heart pick up its pace again.

“I had to know. I mean, uh, I have to know. Did you… did you feel it? The tear?” Nana’s voice was low, like it was secret that would be made real if spoken to loudly. “The last two weeks?”

“What are you talking about?” Rory said. “Tear?”

Nana ignored his question. “Have you felt… off? Sick? Bad dreams?”

Rory felt a chill climb his arms and turn into a shiver that made him want to curl into a ball under his messy covers. “I… yes… I have been having nightmares. Bad ones. For about two weeks. I thought it was end of year crap. How did you know?”

“You have your finals tomorrow, right?” She asked tentatively, uncertain with her own words.

“Yes. Nana, are you ok?”

“Rory, dear. I have lost the love of my life and the father of my only child, so no, I am not ok.”

“Nana, you know what I mean.” Rory smiled over the phone as best he could.

“Yes, I am ok. There is just so much to do. I thought I would have him longer. …That we would have him longer. I needed him, I needed your Grandpa, Rory.” Still no tears. No hitch in her voice.

“How?” Rory asked the dreaded question. “I know he has been sick… but he sounded good a few weeks ago.”

“That is why I need you to come stay with me after your finals are done. I… uh… I will think of something to tell your Mom. When are your parents dropping you off at Drummond?”

Nana was asking about drop off at his chosen college in the Fall. “Mid-August, sometime?”

“And your heart is… nevermind. We can talk about that later. When you get here. Love you, Rory. I am going to call your mom tomorrow. Later in the morning. Try to sleep. Good luck on your finals, dear.”

“I will try.” Rory did not sound confident.

A pause, no goodbye. “Take a deep breath,” Nana said instead.

“What?”

“Take a deep breath. Hold it. Do it. Now.”

Rory inhaled loudly and held it.

“Close your eyes. Imagine the dark around you is holding its breath too. Every corner of your room is collectively holding it, waiting for you to breathe. You are going to release your breath, slowly, counting to five. When you release it, imagine your breath filling the room and the ripples returning to you, reinforcing you.” Nana paused. “Now breathe out.”

Rory exhaled slowly, again loudly so Nana would hear it.

“Good. Now. When you lay down in bed, I want you to repeat that, think of nothing else. Understood?”

“Yes, Nana.”

“Promise.” She ordered.

“I promise.”

“Sleep fast, dear.”

“‘Night.” The call ended with a click in his hand. It was strange that his Nana did not have a smart phone. She had an old land line, and it clicked so loudly when she hung up. It always sounded so final.

He tried to not think about Grandpa. The final click had happened two weeks ago and Rory hadn’t known it at the time. He fixed his sheets and his blankets, tucking them at the corners like his Grandpa had shown him when he helped with chores all those years ago. He folded them tight, making sure the crease followed the angle it should. He could almost see Grandpa smiling in the dark.

Rory laid down, breathed in slowly, imagined what he was told to imagine, paused and exhaled slowly. He did this a few times and awoke suddenly to his alarm going off, its cascading volume getting louder with each pulsing tone.

He got up, got dressed, skipped his customary breakfast, instead grabbing some bars from the pantry, and immediately headed to school before his mom got the phone call that he knew was coming. He did not want to be in the house when that phone call came. His mom was an ugly crier. It was uncomfortable. His dad made it worse. He just hovered around mom like an uncertain pet, not knowing whether to run in for comfort or flee in terror.

As instructed, Rory left his phone in his locker with the ringer off and tried his hardest to focus on the last few official steps of high school. He went through it in a daze, as if he was on autopilot. He did what he was supposed to, took his final, then sat down with his counselor, signed off his paperwork, was made promises about transcripts and the graduation ceremony… and he knew he didn’t care. He knew that he wasn’t going to graduation, but he signed all the forms anyway.

Mr. Nunez shook his hand and made a comment. Rory smiled and replied, knowing that the real trial was about to start and not entirely sure his response matched what Mr. Nunez had said. It didn’t matter. His phone was sitting in his locker, waiting for him. The future was sitting in his locker, resting calmly on a shelf of bent metal, painted gray, with the small carved figures of someone’s initials nearby. Walking down the hallway towards his locker happened in slow motion, even his on-again, off-again ex-girlfriend Casey, in her short cheerleader shorts and her tight ribbed tank top, did not distract him. She probably didn’t even notice his lack of usual attention… hence the reason they weren’t together anymore. She was a bit of a bitch. Unintentionally, it was just who she was. Rory thought there was a chance she would grow out of it.

Rory’s fingers alighted on the dial to his locker. He turned it once, twice, then reversed it, and reversed that until the combo was in. He lifted the latch and paused.

This was the end of his high school life. This moment. It wasn’t walking out the doors. It wasn’t saying goodbye to friends or making empty promises to meet up at some point over the summer. It wasn’t getting in his car and driving off the senior lot for the last time. It was right here. When he pulled this door open, and picked up his phone, the next step would arrive like a specter on the wind. Blown in furiously into his life, ready to pick him up and carry him back to Branson Gulch. Back to the Blue’s house at the end of Fairview Lane, where Mr. Robert Ryanson Blue had lived, slept, had a happy marriage, raised a daughter together, and had passed away last night.

Rory knew him as just Grandpa. He felt the heat on his cheeks, the flush, the brimming of unbidden tears at the edges of his eyelids. He tilted his head down and let the silent drips fall. He pulled the latch, swung the door open, and grabbed his things for the last time.

He flipped his phone over and the screen had a myriad of notifications, but only one mattered.

It was from his mom. ‘Nana told me you know. Hope your test went well. Packing now. Love you.’

He typed a response, ‘omw home.’ Hit send, and the little icon for being unread stayed there, forlorn. She was busy as usual.

Rory turned on his heel, dumped the last of his papers in the trashcan and headed to his car.

High school was over.

This follows Branson Gulch Blues, Part III, Part II, and Part I…

---

There came well known sounds that required no investigation. The garage opening. A truck pulling in slowly, a rough idle turning to silence. The muffled whump of a door closing. The garage closing, its terminus leaning into a resounding echoey thump.

Grandpa walked in from the garage looking exhausted. He glanced at Nana, then to the table set for dinner, and sighed contentedly. Yet, he shook his head sadly, patted Rory on the head, and headed upstairs without saying a word. His boots lightly thumped up the stairs, and each foot fall sounded like he carried a weight that he wanted to put down, but simply couldn’t.

“What’s wrong with Grandpa?” Rory asked.

Nana looked concerned for a fleeting moment, but smiled brightly in spite of whatever she was thinking about. “He had a long day… I am sure he just needs to shower and have a nice long sleep and he will be his normal self in the morning. And tomorrow is Thanksgiving! Aren’t you excited to see your parents?”

Rory fiddled with his napkin.

“Rory?” Nana pressed. “Aren’t you excited to see your Mom? Your Dad?”

Rory came to a sudden conclusion as if his mind was being driven by someone else. “No.”

“No?” Nana grinned as she put the finishing touches on the salad at the kitchen counter. “Why do you say that?”

“I can’t leave. I don’t want to leave? I…” Rory furrowed his brow, and his napkin tore. “I am confused. Mad. Thats it. I’m mad.”

Nana put the salad on the table, next to the bread, and squatted next to Rory. She pulled him into a hug. Rory hadn’t realized he was crying, feeling the wet tracks smear against his cheek was a surprise.

“Hey, hey, hey, no crying in Nana’s house,” Nana whispered and held him tightly. “You have to go home with your parents, love. It is ok to miss Grandpa and I. We will see each other again.”

“But what about the… the…” Rory waved his hands around.

“Oh is that what you are worried about? The Touch? Think of it as a present, Rory. You are at the start of an amazing journey… but, for right now, you are only a kiddo. Enjoy it. Be a kid! We can worry about the other stuff down the road.” Nana pulled away but kept her hands on him. She looked in him over carefully. “In a few days, it won’t feel as strange. And in a few months you will barely remember why it felt weird in the first place.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Nana patted his head. “Let’s eat! Then maybe play… a game?”

Rory’s eyes lit up. “Sorry?”

“Sure. We can play Sorry. I am just glad you didn’t pick Monopoly.”

“Monopoly?” Rory amended with a grin, wiping at his eyes absentmindedly.

“Hey mister. You said Sorry first. Sorry it is.” Nana teased.

After a light dinner and a game (Rory won, of course), Rory got ready for bed. He said his good nights, falling asleep quickly. And like magic, he rolled over and discovered it was four in the morning. He laid in bed, unable to find the blanket of drowsiness again after waking up to a very early morning yet to find the sun. The wind outside was insistent upon itself, informing the neighborhood that a front was moving in. The uncharacteristically warm weather was about to turn and the chilly nights were only going to get colder.

It was not the wind that kept Rory up. It wasn’t the creaking of the house, nor the scrape of the tree branches, nor the shifting call of the wind blowing through the eaves, measured from a fierce howl to a muted muttering.  It was the unseen Cockatrice deep in her fortress of tree stands.

Rory felt it through and through. He had to see the cockatrice. He felt it deep in his bones as if it was calling to him. Her. Wella. Wella had to be calling to him on the wind. Rory thought it over. Turning it over and over in his mind. If he was super slow, super sneaky, and stayed upwind… he would be safe. Mrs. Givins had mentioned that Wella was lethargic. But once the weather changed, that would opportunity would be gone. Because she would have to warm up to keep her eggs protected.

First thing in the morning, he could sneak into the stand of trees. He could make sure everything that had happened in the last few days was… real. It didn’t feel real. It felt strange, like he was having a fever and just hadn’t woken up yet. Rory wasn’t sure, but that sinking feeling that it was all his overactive imagination made his stomach flip over. He wanted it so badly to be real. Any of it. All of it.

Rory slunk out of bed and changed his clothes in the dark. He had to take his pants off and put them back on when he realized the pockets were on his butt. His jacket was in the mud room, and then he could sneak his bike out of the side garage door. The door was quiet enough. He tied his sneakers and tip toed towards the kitchen, the mud room, and the promise of escape through the mud room door.

He slid down the hallway, and the shadows were familiar, safe. The walls held their secrets and the pictures hung kept their vigilance in the early morning silence. Only the roof made any protest, and it was a complaint to the winds of the sky, not the house beneath. Rory turned into the kitchen to find Nana sitting in a chair in the dark, dressed and ready to go outside.

“About time,” Nana whispered. “Did you put your pants on backwards the first time?”

He had, but he didn’t want to admit it. All he said instead was, “Nana?”

“If you want to see Wella, you must listen to me. And you obey me. If I tell you to stand still, you stand absolutely still. If I tell you to run in front of me, you run in front of me. If I tell you to fall to the ground and play dead, you play dead. Understood?”

“Really?” Rory whispered.

“Yes. Really. Promise me.”

“I promise.” Rory nodded once as if he was signing in blood.

“Good. Grab your coat. Here are some of Grandpa’s old gloves and hat. Bundle up.”

Rory did as he was told and Nana pulled the weird twisted walking stick from the hall closet.

“Out the side door,” Nana waved him forward. “Let’s try not to disturb your grandfather.”

They walked out the gate and towards the sidewalk. Nana laid a hand on his shoulder.

“What?”

“Grab here,” Nana lifted his hand to grip the walking stick.

“Uh, ok?” Rory clutched the walking stick below his Nana’s hand. He wasn’t sure why or even how two people could operate a walking stick at the same time.

“Alright. When I tell you step forward, step in time with me. I will count. Three, two, one… step.”

Rory lifted his foot and when he put it down he stumbled forward as if he had been pushed. He was dizzy.

“Take a deep breath. Let me know when you are caught up.” Nana laughed lightly.

Rory looked around and realized they were not one step down the sidewalk, but at the end of the street. “What? How?”

“Turn toward the Gulch. This way. Ready? Three, two, one… step.”

Rory lifted his foot forward and stumbled again, trying not to let go of the stick and instead using it to balance. Now they were no longer at the end of Nana’s street but a mile and half down the path to where it branched towards the Gulch.

“Better. See? You are a natural,” Nana winked proudly.

“How?” Rory reiterated.

“Energy is prevalent. It abounds. We can harness energy to do all sorts of neat things. Like farwalking.”

“But its not speeding us up?”

“More like tricking the world that this step and our next are in the same stride. Like folding a piece of paper, we fold the way forward. It snaps back and we alight over the hump.”

“That is why it feels like I am falling in the direction we are facing.” Rory thought it made sense. It was consistent to how it felt, the stumble as his foot touched the ground, like running too fast down a hill.

“Good observation. Let’s see here,” Nana licked her finger and lifted it into the air. “Breeze is coming in front the north today. The prevailing is typically west-by-northeast. So we will need to go into the stand from that side of the Gulch. Ready? Three, two, one… step.”

Rory stumbled forward, but was able to maintain his balance better than before. “You far can you walk like that?”

“The longest step is about five kilometers. Past that will lead to… injuries.”

“Five kilometers?” Rory raised an eyebrow.

“About 3 miles.” Nana continued. “You could walk a very long way in a single day, but most of the time, taking a plane or a car is easier. Now. Stay close, stay quiet. Try to step where I step.”

“Ok.” Rory nodded once again, but this time if felt as if he was about to march into battle.

The sun was an hour or two from cresting the horizon, but the moon was full and reflecting its light brightly through the trees.

Nana stepped down into the gulch, the wet dead leaves allowed her to gracefully slide down the side of the hill in relative silence. Rory copied her and discovered that is was easier than he had thought. As he slid, the smell of old leaves and rotting wood assaulted his nose heavily as if it was mist sulking against the ground, upset it had been launched towards the open sky. A pressure slid over his ears and he felt a faint ringing as if he had heard a firework go off days ago.

“Nana?” Rory whispered and pointed to his ears with confusion on his face.

“I will explain later. Keep moving. Stay close.” Nana started creeping between the trees, waving her hand near her knees.

Rory realized she must have had her cadaceus, doing something to the ground at her feet. From here, it looked like she was waving off invisible mosquitos from attacking her kneecaps. Rory stayed a step behind, putting his feet in her wet footprints. The ground was not frozen, but it could have been in places, the leaves were firm underfoot as if they were carved from wood.

Nana walked for what felt like fifteen minutes, pausing occassionally, holding an open palm out towards Rory’s chest as if she was preventing his movements. He realized that he only thought that he was stopping of his own accord, he tried to lift his hand, but it was like it was tied at his side. Nana side-eyed him as she shook her head and he did not dare to try again.

He heard Wella before he saw her. It was like a humming noise, deep and resonant amongst the trees. He could almost feel it more than he could hear it, as if a part of him was also her, vibrating in time. Nana knelt at a tree and slowly Rory crept up next to her to look.

There was a nest. It was set into the ground as if it had been dug out, and the edges of the nest were formed by woven branches and sticks. Each looked like it had been sharpened to points, but Rory realized they had been chewed, like how a beaver takes down a tree. Each stick had been carved away from the tree it belonged to. In the nest, curled in a tight circle, a feathered form laid in a tight circle, a brightly plumed head tucked under one wing. The plumage was brown and white, with streaks of red feathers forming a pattern of lines radiating from her shoulders.

“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” Nana whispered lightly at Rory’s ear.

Rory nodded and realized his mouth was hanging open. He closed it slowly, and a branch moved along the edge of the nest, and a clump of feathers followed. It was her tail. It settled around her in the nest, like a soft sigh. The skin was not the snake skin he had imagined. It was supple and brown, more like the skin of a cow, with small bristles… but Rory noticed they were larger at the clump. They were feathers. Tiny little feathers. Her breathing was so slow, and that was what the vibration in the air was. She was purring like a kitten. He grinned.

Nana smiled and leaned over again. “She hasn’t thermoregulated yet. She is going to be very sleepy… nestled in like that. I think we are can get a little closer. You want to take a peek at her clutch?”

“Is it safe?”

“No.” Nana shook her head solemnly, but her eyes were bright and shining in the early morning twilight. The sky above was shifting to a dark blue, and somewhere to the east, a glimmer of sun was near cresting. “But you will never get a chance like this again.”

Rory thought it over but found himself nodded enthusiastically regardless of what his brain concluded. He discarded it before a decision even formed.

Nana stood cautiously, and waved her hand at her knees again. She stepped very carefully, but her steps were completely silent. Not even her clothes made noise. Rory stepped were she stepped and they crept up nearer to the nest.

Wella was not some small snake crossed with a chicken. She was much larger than she had appeared from the trees behind them. Her side went up slowly, and Rory realized it was like a car door raising into the air and then falling back down for a long stretched pause before rising again. Wella was larger than any dog he had ever seen. Her legs looked powerful, and the end of her foot, a long bone white dagger from the middle toe, cocked upward. From here it looked like it could slice through anything. Her wings were draped around her like a cloak, hiding most of her form, but with each step he realized that anything that Wella wanted to eat probably did not stand a chance.

His gut dropped. He had been crazy to think he could do this on his own. He would never stray off the path ever. Never. Ever.

Nana pointed excitedly. At the edge of Wella’s neck, just under the wing, Rory could make out two oblong shapes. They were a dull red color, speckled with white dots. He glanced at the eggs, then up to Wella’s face, most of which was still buried under her wing.

The eye facing him was open. And staring right at him. It did not blink. It did not move. The eye looked like it was made of crystal, bright red of a stop sign, with a corona of blue at the edges. The colors were in a spoke pattern in her eye, each radiated outwards from the black iris. And it beheld Rory with careful scrutiny.

Rory snatched Nana’s hand and dared not to breathe.

Nana made eye contact with Wella, and squeezed Rory’s hand lightly. “Bow slowly. Look at the ground. Now.”

Rory immediately bowed, ducking his head slowly and holding his glance at the edge of his boots.

Nana squeezed his hand again. “You can look up but keep your face pointed down.”

Rory raised his eyes to come face to face with Wella. Her head was only feet away from his own. Her beak was the length of his arm, its edges scalloped like a carving knife. Wella’s head swung back and forth between the two of them, and Rory could feel her exhales over his neck. Wella was sniffing them. He was being measured and weighed by a dragon.

Finally, Wells made a soft chirp as if deciding something and put her head back under wing. She did not close her eye.

“Back up, slowly. Once we get to the trees we can turn and walk the way we came. No running.”

Nana pulled him along gently, and sequestered him behind the nearest tree. The cockatrice did not move.

“This way, Rory.” Nana walked slowly, retracing her steps. Rory did exactly what he had been told. He glanced back occasionally, but there was no movement from the nest hidden there.

The sunlight above finally shifted the sky to a purple and a flutter of pink upon some far off clouds. Rory’s heart felt like it had been going a million miles an hour, and yet his feet felt like he was walking on air.

Nana took his hand and put it on her gnarled, knuckled length of walking stick. “Three, two, one… step.”

Rory stumbled forward and found himself on the gravel path at the top of the embankment. Rory felt like he had just stepped off a roller coaster. “Nana?”

“Yes, dear?” Nana’s face was bright, and her eyes reflected the dawn.

Rory exhaled heavily. “Best. Thanksgiving. Ever.”

Nana laughed brightly as the birds in the trees seemingly agreed.