Adventures of Elegy Flynn

by Chambers, V. J.

  “Until next time, Elegy.”

  “Yeah. See ya.”

  I heard the television switched off. It was quiet for several minutes. When I heard Gabe say, “What was that all about?” I decided it was safe to come out.

  Elegy was behind the bar, angrily slamming down glasses to mix drinks. She wasn’t answering Gabe’s question, so he turned to me.

  I shrugged. “Trust me. You don’t want to know.” I settled down at the bar stool. I felt like I should say something reassuring to Elegy. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Whatever,” said Elegy. “You want a drink?”

  “Look,” I said, “we should just calm down. Everything worked out this time, anyway. And if they knew anything—”

  “Let’s have a drink.” Elegy was insistent. “A drink makes everything better. Everything.”

  7: By the Time We Got to Woodstock

  Elegy Flynn leaned against the bar glumly. She cupped her chin in her hands and rested her elbows on the bar. “I’m bored.”

  I was lying on the couch, reading a magazine for the eleventh time. I was bored too. There hadn’t been a paradox in quite some time. That was what Elegy and I did. She was a goddess of Fate, and I was sort of her sidekick. We traveled through time fixing time paradoxes. When there were no paradoxes to fix, there was nothing for us to do. I sat up on the couch. “We could create new drinks again. That was fun.”

  Elegy was the bartender in her time-traveling bar, and the last time that she was bored, we had mixed up at least ten new drinks. Most of them had turned out really well. I couldn’t remember the names we’ve made up for them, however, because we’d gotten really, really drunk.

  “Don’t try and cheer me up, Cathy.”

  “Fine.” I went back to my magazine.

  Elegy sighed. “What if there’s never another paradox again? What if all of the time travelers have learned their lesson? What if they don’t try to change history anymore?”

  I peered over the top of the magazine. “Could that happen?”

  Elegy shrugged. “Anything’s possible.”

  “So what would that mean? Would you have to still stay in the bar?” I bit my lip. “What would happen to me?” I was supposed to be dead. Elegy had rescued me. I had to stay in the bar, because it was out of time. If I rejoined the regular time stream, the Fates would see me and make me actually dead.

  Elegy actually looked concerned for a minute. She wasn’t big on empathy. Then she waved it away. “There will be another paradox. Any second now.” She looked up at the ceiling, as if she were expecting one to just fall on her head.

  Instead, there was a crackling noise as the television sets in the bar all came on. Crap! That was how Fate Central communicated with Elegy. They couldn’t know I existed. I rolled off the couch and hid behind it.

  A voice filled the bar, but it wasn’t the booming, authoritarian voice I’d come to associate with Fate Central. It had a faint southern drawl. “Elegy? Did I get the right praxidikai this time?”

  Elegy wandered out from behind the bar. “Who is that?”

  “It’s Harmony, sweetie. Long time.”

  “Harmony?” Elegy said. “I thought they had you stuck in the tenth circle of hell.”

  “Oh, practically. But I figured out how to call out, so at least I can find people to talk to.”

  “So, is this what this is? A social call?” I couldn’t see Elegy, but I could tell she was smiling.

  “Not exactly,” said Harmony. “I’ve got a paradox for you to fix.”

  “What? There haven’t been any paradoxes. I haven’t felt any.”

  “How about The Baby Jimmy Paradox?”

  “Are you kidding? No one can fix that paradox. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Harmony chuckled. “Well, sweetie, I’ve been keeping it contained for several eternities. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. And I think I’ve figured it out.”

  “That’s what they’ve got you doing? Containing The Baby Jimmy Paradox? You poor thing.”

  “Sure ain’t the best job I’ve ever had. Why don’t you come see me, sweetie? I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Elegy hesitated. “Harmony, if I tell you something, can you promise to keep it a secret?”

  “Sure thing,” said Harmony. “But you sound serious. Is this secret a big deal?”

  “Oh you know me. Everything I do is a big deal.” Elegy turned around. “Come on out, Cathy.”

  Slowly, I stood up behind the couch. Now I could see Harmony’s face on the television screen. She had brown hair and twinkling eyes. There was something mischievous about her smile. When she saw me, her eyebrows shot straight up. “You are not alone.”

  Elegy shrugged. “Okay if she comes along too?”

  “The more the merrier, sweetie. But who is she?”

  “She’s Cathy. She’s my sidekick.”

  I sort of hated it when Elegy called me that, but it bothered me less and less these days. After all, I pretty much was.

  Elegy and Harmony said goodbye to each other, and the minute the television winked off, I opened my mouth to ask Elegy what the heck that had all been about.

  She put a finger in my face. “I know you have a zillion questions. But hold on to them. Because I’m going to make us both a drink.”

  That was a good sign. Elegy had been so bored before that she hadn’t even bothered mixing drinks. The fact that she wanted to now meant that her spirits were up.

  Elegy clattered around behind the bar. “I’m fairly sure that it will take exactly that amount of time it takes us to drink these drinks to get to where Harmony is.” She set two glasses up and began filling them with ice.

  I sat down on a barstool. “Can I ask questions now?”

  Elegy poured liquor into our drinks. “You realize that by asking if you can ask a question you are asking a question?”

  I glared at her.

  She sighed. “Go ahead.”

  “Was that Harmony person another Fate? Why did you say she was in the tenth circle of hell? And what is The Baby Jimmy Paradox?”

  Elegy poured both of our drinks into a shaker and shook them. “Yes, she’s another Fate. She was a friend of mine.” Elegy set down the shaker and stared into space, a smile playing on her lips. “We were kind of an odd pair, her and me. She was always a little wild. And, believe it or not, I used to be pretty straight laced.”

  “No, I believe it,” I said. “I met straight-laced you, remember?” A while ago, Elegy had crossed her timeline and developed amnesia.

  Elegy nodded. “That’s right. Well, anyway, I was shocked and horrified when she completely broke all the rules and was punished severely. Although in retrospect, I don’t know why I was so surprised. Harmony was never one to follow the rules. Deep down, I think I admired her even then. Maybe there was always something rebellious inside me. Maybe that’s why we were such good friends.”

  I was intrigued. “What did she do?”

  Elegy laughed. “She had a fling with Julius Caesar. Then, when he broke her heart, she arranged it so Brutus would betray him and have him killed.”

  I leaned back on the barstool. “You mean Julius Caesar wasn’t supposed to die? You mean she changed fate?”

  Elegy nodded, still laughing. “She managed to make it all happen outside of the time stream, so there was no paradox. It was brilliant.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “Fate Central must have been pretty angry with her.”

  Elegy poured our drinks out of the shaker and into glasses. “You have no idea.” She handed me my drink.

  I took a sip. “This is excellent. Thank you very much.”

  “You’re welcome.” Elegy took a drink of hers as well. “For a long time, I had no idea what they’ve done with her, but I knew it must be bad. She’d screwed up so much that even fixing time paradoxes was too good for her. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again.”

  “Well, I guess it’s good that you get to catch up with your friend.”


  “Yep,” said Elegy. “Drink up, incidentally. We’re going to be there soon.”

  I took a big drink. “So, what’s The Baby Jimmy Paradox?”

  Elegy shook her head. “Only the weirdest paradox ever. Sometime in the twenty third century, a baby gets born. And it triggers a paradox.” She spread her hands.

  “Why?”

  “No one knows. It doesn’t make any sense. Paradoxes happen when someone changes the past. A baby being born shouldn’t trigger a paradox. And yet...”

  I gulped at my drink. “So, if no one knows what caused it, how do they fix it?”

  “They don’t. They contained it. It’s a little bubble of a paradox, and the Fates are using a lot of energy to keep it from spreading. They’ve been doing that for a long time. Apparently, that was Harmony’s punishment. Containing this paradox. Pretty horrible job, actually. I bet she’s bored out of her skull.”

  I considered. As far as awful punishments went, I could think of worse. “You can’t die, can you? Fates, I mean. You don’t die.”

  Elegy shook her head. “Haven’t we covered this before?”

  “Can’t you be tortured or anything, though? Are your bodies impervious to pain? It seems to me that if you did something really, really bad, your punishment should... I don’t know, hurt.”

  Elegy rolled her eyes. “Sometimes, you have such barbaric thoughts.” She gestured to my drink. “Finish that. We’re here.”

  * * *

  Harmony had a table waiting for us with three chairs. It was inside what looked like an old train car. Like those old diners that are in big silver train cars. There were wine and cheese and crackers on the table. Outside the windows of the train car, however, things were flying around. Baby rattles, bottles, hospital beds, etc. Some of the things were the wrong color. It would have freaked me out, but I was used to it by now. That was what a time paradox looked like. Everything started floating and changing color.

  The rest of the train car was sparse. In one end, there was a narrow bed. At the other end, there was a small sink and stove. I wondered if Harmony had control over the inside of his train car the same way that Elegy had control over the inside of the bar. It didn’t particularly seem polite to ask, so I didn’t. But it seemed clear that she had some kind of control. Otherwise, how could she summon up the wine and cheese? However, maybe she only had a limited amount of control, since the rest of the place was so bare. Of course, I could have been way off base. Perhaps Harmony just enjoyed a spartan lifestyle.

  After Harmony and Elegy hugged and went through telling each other how good it was to see each other, we all sat down at the table.

  Harmony snagged herself a cracker. “So how did you end up with a sidekick, sweetie?”

  Elegy looked relaxed and happy. I didn’t know if I’d ever seen her quite so relaxed. She grinned. “She’s his sister.”

  Harmony raised her eyebrows. “His as in the mortal that you fell for?”

  Elegy nodded. “She was supposed to be killed by her abusive boyfriend, but...”

  Harmony’s jaw dropped open. “You saved her for him. That’s so romantic, Elegy.”

  Elegy shook her head. “No, it’s not. I mostly did it because I was lonely.” She smiled at me. “Cathy is a good friend. She puts up with all my crap.”

  I was too touched to say anything. Elegy had never referred to me as her friend before. Furthermore, she’d never admitted that she wasn’t always easy to get along with. I ate a cracker so that I didn’t have to look at either of them.

  Harmony sighed. “Boy, do I get the lonely part. I never see anyone. I thought I was going to go absolutely insane at first. Somehow I’ve managed to hold onto my sanity.”

  “And figure out this paradox?” Elegy took a sip of wine. “I have to admit that I could hardly believe that when you said it. People have been trying to figure out this paradox for ages. How did you do it?”

  Harmony smiled. “Well, I’ve had a lot of time, and I’ve used that time to track the threads of everyone involved in baby Jimmy’s birth. I’ve traced his ancestry. And I’ve traced the thread of Jimmy himself.”

  I understood that every person has a thread that Fates wove. And I knew that Harmony, as a Fate, could follow these threads. But there was one thing I didn’t understand. “How does Jimmy have a thread? His birth caused paradox.”

  Elegy rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to excuse Cathy. She asks a lot of questions.”

  Harmony grinned. “Oh, that’s all right. I haven’t had the chance to talk to anyone in so long I welcome questions.” She turned to me. “Jimmy has a thread because no one could’ve predicted that his birth would cause a paradox. And, in fact, it was what Jimmy did that helped me figure it all out.” She turned back to Elegy. “When I analyzed the threads of Jimmy’s ancestors and of Jimmy himself, I found something.” She leaned back, looking extraordinarily proud of herself. “Woodstock.”

  Elegy looked impressed. “Woodstock. That could explain it.”

  I was confused again. “Woodstock? Are you talking about the concert in the 1960s?”

  “Exactly!” Harmony looked excited.

  “But what does it have to do with Jimmy?” Elegy asked.

  “He was a time traveler,” said Harmony. “He went there. And one of his ancestors was also at the concert.”

  Elegy nodded slowly. “That’s got to be it. I can’t believe no one noticed this before.”

  “What’s so important about Woodstock?” I said. I had no idea what was going on. Typical day with Elegy.

  Harmony ate another cracker. “I guess you wouldn’t know, would you?” She furrowed her brow. “How can I explain this in a way you’ll understand?”

  “Now you know how I feel,” said Elegy. “Every day, she’s asking me questions. She’s like a three-year-old.”

  So much for Elegy being my friend. She was back to insulting me again. Typical. “I understand that if Jimmy was a time traveler, then he must have caused paradox when he went back in time. But why didn’t the paradox happen in Woodstock?”

  “Because there aren’t paradoxes in Woodstock,” said Harmony. “The threads of that festival are a big tangled mess. Heck, the threads of the entire 1960s are big tangled mess. But Woodstock is definitely the worst of it.”

  “See,” said Elegy, “the Fates take turns overseeing the weaving of threads. Whoever is doing the overseeing is in charge. The other Fates work on weaving individual threads within the outline that the overseer makes. In the 1960s, the overseer got pretty lazy. There wasn’t much of an overall plan, if you know what I mean. Everything got really topsy-turvy and changed around and confused. And when it came to Woodstock, he didn’t lay down an overall plan at all. So, in a way, it’s sort of impossible for there to be a paradox during Woodstock. Because there’s no real set way things are supposed to happen.”

  I stuffed a few crackers in my mouth.

  “Did that make sense?” Elegy said. “Because that’s the best I can do. If it didn’t make sense, too bad.”

  “No I got it,” I said. “Actually, it explains a lot.”

  “She’s pretty smart for a human,” said Harmony.

  “Sometimes,” said Elegy. “She stayed with that abusive boyfriend for years though.”

  “Hey,” I said. “That was my thread. I didn’t weave it.”

  Harmony cracked up. “She’s got spunk.”

  Elegy allowed this. “That she does.” She tapped her chin with her forefinger. “So how do you figure it happened?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Harmony. “It’s very hard for me to figure out what happened at Woodstock. But he did something while he was there. He did something that changed him. So when he was born, he wasn’t the same.”

  Elegy considered. “That’s not a lot to go on. What am I supposed to say to a volur? Find this guy and don’t let him do anything?”

  “I don’t think you should use a volur,” said Harmony. “Technically, you shouldn’t be fixing the paradox at all.”
>
  “I can’t leave the praxidikai,” said Elegy. “Neither can Cathy. She’s supposed to be dead.”

  “Well, get him into the praxidikai,” said Harmony. “You can make it look like whatever you want. And it’s Woodstock. Even if it looks a little weird, everyone will be too stoned to notice or care.”

  “Good point.” Elegy was thinking about it.

  “When you’re there, I think it will be easier to pick up his thread,” said Harmony. “I would go myself, but this paradox has been contained for so long that if I did, releasing it would be explosive.”

  “Of course,” said Elegy. “I understand. And I want to do it.” She looked at me. “What do you think, Cathy? Do you want to go to Woodstock?”

  “Can we watch Jimi Hendrix?” I said.

  “Probably not,” said Elegy. “But maybe. It depends on how long this whole thing takes.”

  “Sounds groovy,” I said.

  Elegy laughed.

  * * *

  Landing in Woodstock was not the smooth way that the bar generally landed. We kind of crashed into the ground with a jolt. All of the glasses in the bar clattered, but none of them broke. Elegy made a rueful face. “I don’t like it here. Everything’s so... chaotic.” She took a deep breath. “So, what do you think we should make the bar look like?”

  A 1980s sports bar was going to look out of place in Woodstock. But then, pretty much any structure was going to, wasn’t it? “Can we be like a tent that serves beer?”

  Elegy considered. “I guess that would work.” She snapped her fingers. Everything changed.

  The bar became a pavilion with coolers and kegs clustered in one corner. The tent had three sides, and the fourth side was open. I looked out at a sea of tents. Bedraggled hippies moved to and fro in front of the pavilion and between tents. The air was muggy, as if it had just rained. I could smell the faint odor of sweat, mingled with smoke from cook fires and joints. In the distance, the muffled sound of a screaming electric guitar.

  Elegy put a hand on my shoulder, and I realized that our clothes had changed. I was wearing a loose peasant top and a flowing paisley skirt. Elegy had on a halter top and bellbottoms. Trust the Elegy to give herself the sexier outfit. “Don’t go past the edge of the pavilion, okay?” Elegy said.