Shuteye for the Timebroker

by Paul Di Filippo

  Clayton wondered if there weren’t easier ways to earn a living.

  * * *

  The next few weeks were among the most tiring, irritating, exasperating, and downright crazy Clayton had ever experienced.

  First, there were the continuing depradations of Captain Jill, now transformed from the Hellcat of the East Coast to the Subterranean Scourge of Blackwood Beach.

  The tunnels she inhabited—and which she had apparently learned to navigate in the dark with the utmost ease—penetrated everywhere in the town. Captain Jill made a point of spreading her attentions far and wide along their length and breadth.

  One of the first things she did—as Clayton learned later, while enjoying a beer at Emmett’s Roadhouse—was to plunder Rackstraw’s Market, laying in a hoard of food, which of course her reanimated body now required. Whiskey she had aplenty, Clayton knew.

  Next, she began snatching bodies—the bodies of healthy young men, to be precise. She nabbed Piers Seuss at dusk one day, while he was digging for quahogs with a bullrake by the mouth of one of the tunnels. His wife, Andy, was furious, and uttered various futile curses upon his chagrined return. Other men and boys soon met with similar fates, some willingly, others with the same distaste Clayton had exhibited. At swordpoint, however, distaste becomes eagerness. And of course, there was Captain Jill’s power of benumbing coldness to contend with, too.

  The singing was another sore point. People were losing sleep all over town. Captain Jill’s voice, oiled by liquor, was apparently inexhaustible. And her choice of songs was highly objectionable, consisting of gory ballads and bawdy ditties. Mothers began sending their children to bed with earmuffs on.

  Bad as these town-wide mutual sufferings were, Clayton found a personal burden more irksome. It was Granny’s invisible knitting.

  Clayton had now been living in Blackwood Beach for over a month. During the first week of his transplanted existence, Granny had mimed knitting only once or twice, for short periods, and Clayton had been able to live with it. But ever since the day Captain Jill had appeared, the phantom knitting had been a nerve-wracking constant in his life.

  Granny persisted at it day and night, wordlessly moving her clumsy fingers in the old familiar patterns. Clayton found that when he was in the same room with her—which was often—he could not take his eyes off her, captivated by the senseless motions as a rabbit is hypnotized by a snake. (Desperate to end it, he even tried leaving yarn and needles around in conspicuous places, hoping Granny would pick them up and resume normal knitting. But she never took the bait.) After a while, Clayton felt his mind disappearing into the same elderly abyss Granny seemed to inhabit, for he swore—no, it couldn’t be.

  Was there something invisibly accumulating in Granny’s lap, depressing her gingham dress into a valley across her thin legs?

  Added to the disturbing actions of Captain Jill and Granny was the disgruntlement of Ethel. The Druid, whom Clayton had to deal with daily, was growing more and more crotchety. Even the girlie magazines had produced no more than a temporary respite from his caustic comments and surly behavior. (Clayton had learned to sidestep the picnic basket after developing a permanent bruise in the middle of his back.) Somehow, the Druid hung constantly at the back of his mind, as if there were a tenuous connection between the problem he represented and the dilemma of Captain Jill.

  Finally, something Captain Jill did persuaded Clayton that he had to act to stop her. No one else seemed to be taking the initiative, and he couldn’t stand by and see Jill’s foolish bravado place the whole town in jeopardy.

  Captain Jill had begun to make moves toward her revenge on the puissant Welcome Goodnight. Somehow, she must have gotten into his dark, high house one night. The town awoke to their raging battle. Colored lightning split the blackness, arcing from Goodnight’s house and falling to scorch the town. Cries and bellows shook the winter air, balls of sulfurous gas rolled through the streets, and all of the town’s cats lost their tails. People cowered beneath their beds. The earth shook like a carpet the gods had decided to beat. A rain of golf balls— Titleists—fell and bounced down the hilly streets, as if Mr. Moose had finally decided to kill Captain Kangaroo.

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the battle stopped. All night, though, people huddled in their houses, waiting for it to resume.

  In the morning, the sleepless Clayton was sure Captain Jill had overstepped herself and gone to her long-delayed final rest. Hoping to learn more about the outcome of the battle, he went to Emmett’s Roadhouse for breakfast.

  Walking through town, Clayton marveled at the patches of melted snow where Goodnight’s bolts had landed, churning the frozen earth as if it were chocolate pudding. The tails of cats lay here and there like the popular car-antenna squirrel-tails of Gran’pa Jerothmul’s youth. A smell of sulfur still hung in the frigid air. One house—he wasn’t sure whose—had burned to the ground, the volunteer firemen apparently having been too scared to come out and fight the fire.

  Inside Emmett’s Roadhouse—-with its wooden booths and long counter bearing pie cases, ketchup bottles, and sugar shakers—Clayton found a goodly number of Blackwooders gathered. Most of the town’s inhabitants were not much given to the drinking of alcohol, and especially not this early. But today was different. The whole town had narrowly escaped destruction. Everyone knew that if Goodnight had so wished, he could have leveled the village. So Barry Emmett had opened the bar, and many men and women sat clutching drinks and muttering, their ham and eggs growing cold.

  Clayton sat down with Ed Stout, the friendly if unsmiling handyman, and his perpetually silent son, Jack, who had never in his life uttered a sound, even when the doctor first slapped him.

  The elder Stout nodded and said, “Clay. Have a beer.”

  Not averse to the suggestion, Clayton ordered a ’Gansett. When it came, he sipped thoughtfully, and then asked, “What should we do about Goodnight?”

  Stout looked long and level at Clayton before replying. “Leave him be. That’s what best. He don’t need our help none. After last night, either him or that ornery bitch is done for. Maybe both.”

  Jack inclined his head sagaciously in agreement, making Clayton feel as if he had witnessed Buddha blessing a petitioner. (What went on in that guy’s mind? Clayton wondered. Silence was so suggestive.)

  As Clayton raised his beer mug to his lips, he heard the door open behind him. He turned—

  —and spit out his beer.

  The cadaverous form of Welcome Goodnight filled the doorframe. His normally impeccable, if fusty, black suit hung in sword-slashed tatters on his rachitic frame. From behind his eye patch came an even more malevolent glittering than usual. His lined face wore a look of somber defeat.

  Silence filled the restaurant like clammy Jell-O as Goodnight strode to the bar, behind which bearded Barry Emmett cringed.

  “My brand,” croaked Goodnight.

  Although the wizard seldom deigned to drink with the hoi polloi, a bottle of his private label—Old Newt—was always kept ready for just such rare occasions as this.

  The neck of the bottle clattering against the shot glass, Emmett poured with shaky hands.

  Goodnight grabbed the glass and hoisted it to his dry, withered lips—

  From beneath the roadhouse came a hearty female laugh, followed by the first verses of “Do You Believe in Magic?” by the Lovin’ Spoonful.

  Goodnight roared and hurled his glass at the wall. The spilled liquor sizzled when it hit the wood. Raising his arms, Goodnight began to gesture.

  “Down!” someone shouted.

  The patrons hurled themselves to the floor and covered their heads. An immense explosion rocked the building.

  Clayton was among the first to recover his senses. He stood up shakily and looked around.

  The warlock had vanished. Where he had stood was a ragged hole. Peering within, Clayton saw a corresponding gaping mouth in the floor of the cellar. And in that hole, he caught the fleeting sight of a head full of red c
urls disappearing down the tunnels revealed by the blast.

  Apparently, Jill was immune to Goodnight’s awesome powers, having absorbed three centuries’ worth of the sorcerer’s own mana like a storage battery, via the blue gas.

  Someone had joined Clayton. Looking up, he saw Pug Lasswell, the town’s entire police force.

  “Pug,” said Clayton, “you’ve got to stop this woman, before she gets us all killed. Get down there and arrest her for unprovoked assault and disturbing the peace.”

  Lasswell’s sleepy features registered a slight uneasiness, which, for him, passed for the emotions a man about to be hanged might feel. He removed his badge from his shirt and pinned it on Clayton.

  “I used to get paid every other Tuesday,” said Lasswell. “Next check’ll have your name on it.”

  By the following morning, Clayton had decided what needed to be done. And he knew that only he could carry out the plan. Although he had finally convinced Lasswell to take his badge back, the policeman had made it plain he was going to do nothing to apprehend Captain Jill. So Clayton had spent a second night with little sleep, speculating over various possible ways to trap the captain. At last, one barely feasible solution occurred to him. And, as his subconscious had been trying to tell him, it involved the family Druid.

  In his antiquated truck, Clayton drove the familiar road to the farm, so drowsy he was barely able to keep his eyes open. There, he met Ethel at his root-framed door. The grumpy Druid looked in vain for a picnic basket, then opened his mouth to complain.

  Clayton cut him off, incapable of any niceties today. “Listen, Ethel—how would you like to come home with me for the day? Just a friendly visit.”

  Ethel was dumbstruck. He resumed his surliness with an effort. “Do you have any of those special magazines at your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ones I haven’t seen?”

  Clayton was growing impatient. “Yes, yes. All brand-new girls. Now, are you coming or not?”

  After a few seconds, trying to maintain his normal curtness, Ethel said, “I suppose the grove could survive a few hours without me.”

  In the truck, Ethel exuded a not unpleasant odor of loam and acorns. He stared with wonder at the passing scenery.

  Back at the house, Ethel consumed two apple pies, a steak, three baked potatoes, a quart of ice cream, and a quart of Colt 45, in that order. Then he fell asleep on the couch next to Granny, who was busily knitting nothing into nothing. Clayton used the quiet interval to catch a few winks himself.

  At around 6 p.m., Clayton heard the opening strains of a song from the sub-basement. Arming himself with a flashlight and a can of Mace, he descended to the tunnels.

  He found Captain Jill atop the nearly empty crate of bootlegged whiskey, already well on the road to inebriation.

  She spied him and raised her bottle in salute. “It never fails. In the end, anyone who has tasted my love returns. It was why my crew was so loyal. Ye’ve doubtless heard the phrase ‘iron fist in a velvet glove.’ Well, I ruled with velvet, too, a velvet—”

  “Stop right there!” Clayton said quickly. “I don’t want to hear such talk. I’ve come to ask you to cease and desist this juvenile hell-raising of yours and come to your senses. Despite all the damage you’ve caused, no one’s actually been hurt yet, and Blackwood Beach will gladly accept you as a citizen, if you would only surface and behave civilly.”

  Captain Jill did not deign to answer, save by depositing a loathsome wad of chewing tobacco on the floor at Clayton’s feet.

  Disgusted, Clayton returned upstairs to unleash his secret weapon.

  He roused Ethel from his stuporous sleep on the couch. The Druid stumbled sleepily under Clayton’s direction to the basement trapdoor.

  “Ethelred,” Clayton urged, “there’s a woman down there who’s making an extreme nuisance of herself. Please go subdue her with your Druidical arts.”

  Ethel woozily descended the ladder.

  Clayton waited for the fireworks.

  Minutes passed.

  A sudden torrent of whoops and laughter issued from the tunnel. There were cries and shouts and various banging noises, hoots and hollers and gasps. Clayton waited patiently for Ethel to emerge, dragging the subdued Captain Jill by the hair.

  Several hours later, Ethel alone surfaced. All his hair stood on end, causing him to resemble a human porcupine, and what little skin was visible appeared suffused with healthily renewed circulation.

  Smiling broadly, Ethel said, “I take back every bad word I ever said about you as an employer, Mr. Little. You’re a saint to treat an old fellow to such a night.”

  * * *

  If I don’t get at least one good night’s sleep, Clayton thought, and if I have to watch even one more invisible purl stitch, I’m going to crack up.

  Sitting at the breakfast table, red-eyed and itchy-faced with three days’ stubble, Clayton held his head in his hands. Across the way, he knew, Granny was patiently knitting, a look of blissful happiness and concentration on her seamed face.

  Could he go home to Asheville? No. Who would manage the farm and the household while he beat such an ignominious retreat? What would he tell his parents? “A female pirate and Granny’s eccentricities were driving me out of my mind, so I ran.” That would hardly do. But what good would he be around the place if he lost his mind? A dilemma indeed.

  Sensing somehow that Granny had amazingly ceased her knitting, Clayton looked up.

  Granny was smiling happily. “Do you remember, Clay, that first day of our troubles, when I said we’d have to do something about it?”

  “Yes, Granny,” Clay replied politely. “I do.”

  “I know you’ve been thinking I had gone around the bend, Clay. No, don’t try to deny it. Seeing me sitting day after day, knitting in this newfangled way of mine, which I learned not long ago—why, anyone would suspect I had a few bats in the old belfry. But I had to keep it secret, Clay, for I didn’t want our girl down below to learn of it. But I’m done now with my knitting, and our troubles are at an end. Come around to me here.”

  Wearily, Clayton complied.

  “Take this,” Granny said, scooping an invisible mass out of her lap. “My goodness, you don’t know how hot and weighty this thing is while you’re working on it.”

  Expecting nothing, thinking only to humor his grandmother, Clayton held out his hands. Into it, Granny dropped—

  —a soft, warm garment!

  Clayton almost dumped it on the floor. “What—what is it?” he asked finally.

  “It’s a protective union suit that will cover you from neck to wrists to ankles. I would have been done sooner, but you’re a darned tall drink of water, Clay! When you wear it, that Jill minx won’t be able to paralyze you. You’ll be able to handle her then.”

  Clayton regarded the nothing he held. “What’s it made of?”

  Granny shrugged. “Oh, the usual materials in a case like this. Moonbeams, dream threads, sea spume, bleached milkweed fluff.”

  Clayton considered his choices. Either he had already gone mad—in which case it made no difference if he went along with a charade—or he was still sane—in which case, maybe Granny’s suit would work.

  “I’m going upstairs to change,” he said.

  Granny nodded her approval.

  * * *

  All he had to do was follow the snores.

  He came upon Captain Jill stretched out on a plundered mattress. Stopping a few feet away, he studied her in the flashlight’s beam. She was indisputably beautiful, he had to grant. And he supposed her lack of morals was attributable to the era and circumstances of her upbringing. Were she not so vile, one could almost imagine enjoying her company on a daily basis—

  The light on her face awoke the pirate queen, and she sat up, sleepily rubbing her eyes. When she recognized Clayton, she said, “Zounds and Snails, you lubberly lout, what the hell do you mean by disturbing my sleep like this?”

  Clayton’s soft-heartedness evaporated
instantly, as Captain Jill’s rude manner reminded him of all the grief she had caused him and the rest of the town.

  “Get up,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”

  Captain Jill shot instantly to her feet, drawing her sword. “No one orders Jill Innerarity about like that!”

  Moving quickly, with his long reach, Clayton plucked her sword from her hand.

  Captain Jill smiled ferally. “Been eating your oats, I wot. Well, I admire spunk—to a point. But this will cost you dearly, my lad.”

  Advancing sinuously, Captain Jill grabbed Clayton’s biceps. A long moment passed. Clayton stood there grinning. Captain Jill squeezed harder, to no effect. She stepped back in awe, her jaw dropping.

  Clayton moved to grab her.

  Jill launched a booted kick that landed on Clayton’s stomach and blasted the air out of his lungs. He dropped his flashlight and doubled over.

  When he recovered, Jill was not to be seen, but the sound of her running feet echoed down the tunnel.

  Picking up his light, Clayton jogged off after her.

  Several hundred yards down the dank passage, Clayton came to a branching. He stopped to ponder. Silence filled his ears like cotton. Cautiously he peered down one alley, shining his torch.

  Out of the other branch resounded a piercing battle cry: “Yaaaah!”

  Captain Jill landed like a hod of bricks on Clayton’s back, wrapping her legs around his waist and her hands around his unprotected neck.

  The choking was bad enough, for Jill was frightfully strong. Worse was the cold. Clayton’s invisible suit stopped just above his collarbones. Jill’s enervating chill was seeping in, numbing his muscles and brain.

  Left with no alternatives, Clayton threw his whole weight backward, landing atop Jill. He heard her head smack the hard floor of the passage.

  Her grip relaxed, and Clayton got to his feet.

  Jill’s eyes were still open, although she gasped for breath, evidently fighting unconsciousness. She seemed to be making an effort to get up and fight some more.