by J. M. Frey
Almost.
He takes the long route home, looking back over his shoulder—for what, he isn’t sure. He adds a bunch of extra turns before coming in through his back gate and into the kitchen from the garden. He feels so damn foolish for doing it, but it makes something in him feel safer, more relaxed . . . more . . . yeah, okay, crazy is what it actually is. Totally bonkers. Mental. Insane.
A strange man in black with women’s boots and a waitress whose eyes are maybe supposed to be blue. An assistant who thinks he’s been doing drugs. A fear of his own damn job. A worry that his own cleverness is starting to bite him in the ass. And a fictional character he calls his cousin, but thinks of as a son.
His life is mad.
Or he is.
“Forsyth,” he says aloud. “I gotta talk to Forsyth.” He sheds his outerwear and checks on Linux, who’s napping peacefully in front of the cold fireplace in his living room. Elgar gets out his phone, turns on the fire, and settles on the sofa. He rubs his stomach to get rid of the cramps as the phone rings, and then Linux’s back when the cat crawls onto his lap and stretches his head up to tuck it against the side of Elgar’s beard.
The soft rumble of the cat’s purrs is soothing. It helps to ground him.
“Hello?” Forsyth says on the other end of the line. “Well, this is a surprise. You don’t usually call so early. To what do we owe the honor?”
Elgar looks at the clock on the mantel. It reads five after eleven. That is early for him. Usually, he’s just making his first pot of coffee at this time. He’s a night-writer, so he generally doesn’t go to sleep until the wee smalls, or wake until ten in the morning at the earliest.
“I . . . I don’t know. A friendly voice?” Elgar says, feeling small and slightly silly when he realizes he has no way of explaining what, exactly, it is that’s unnerving him. He doesn’t want to admit that it might just be his own imagination working against him.
“No,” Forsyth says kindly. Right. Elgar had written Forsyth Turn to be a regular Sherlock Holmes of the fantasy realm. “Elgar. The truth, please.”
“Were you the only ones who came through?” Elgar blurts.
“I beg pardon, I don’t . . . ah,” Forsyth says, after figuring out which track Elgar’s train of thought is traveling. “I see. Something has happened that makes you question if we were lying to you when we said it was just the three of us.”
“Not lying,” Elgar says hastily. “Just . . . I don’t know. There’s been some freaky stuff happening, and I can’t explain it. There’s the typewriter—”
“Yes.”
“And there was . . . god, now that I’m saying it out loud, it sounds stupid.”
“Tell me, anyway.”
Elgar regales him with the horror of the salad, Linux’s strange reaction to it, the man in black, and the odd behavior of Maddie. He tries not to embellish too much, the way his writerly brain likes; he struggles to just stick to the facts, the way Forsyth prefers.
“Hmm,” Forsyth replies when Elgar has reached the end of the tale. Silence filters down from Canada for a moment, pregnant with thought. Elgar imagines Forsyth with his index finger on his chin, nail pressed into his bottom lip, the way he holds himself when he’s thinking hard. He doesn’t seem to realize it’s a habit, either, and is always confused when Lucy mimics his thinking pose to tease.
“So, am I crazy?”
“I hesitate to say yes . . .” Forsyth says slowly. “But you must understand that we left those who would wish to do you harm powerless, and back in my realm. If there is a plot here, it is an entirely mundane one. And since what you have described to me seems to include the hallmarks of magic—”
“You think it’s all in my head.” Elgar deflates, rubbing down Linux’s back, dejected.
“I did not say that.”
“But you implied it heavily.”
“Elgar—”
“Okay, maybe I am stressed out. And maybe I’m paranoid about my missing typewriter. I’m paranoid that somebody is going to try leaking the scripts, and Shuttleborn is out in like six months. And the marketing is just starting to go into drive, and I’m already bonkers, and I don’t know how I did this when I was younger, except clearly, I was younger, and maybe I’m not sleeping as much as I should be?”
“Perhaps.”
Elgar sighs. “Okay. Thanks for listening, anyway.”
“Both my duty, and my pleasure,” Forsyth says, and then, “Hmm? What’s that sweeting? Hold on a moment, let your da . . . Alis!”
There’s a bit of a thump and shuffle, which sounds like a phone being dropped, and then a sweet, high voice says, “Gar?”
“Hello, darling,” Elgar says, trying to infuse his voice with warmth, disguise his fatigue and worry with false smiles. “How are you today, Alis?”
“Gar Gar, hi-hi!” Alis babbles, sounding natural and bright. She had five teeth when Elgar saw her last, and he can imagine how they look as she grins at the phone. “Frog ’issess ’ook Bev ’ook Dah Bev!”
“Is that so?” Elgar replies.
There’s a click, and her voice goes hollow in the way that means Forsyth turned on the speakerphone. “Yah, yah, yah!”
“Yes, sweeting,” Elgar hears Forsyth correct her. “We absolutely did watch The Princess and the Frog yesterday, but against your firm insistence, your Uncle Bevel did not, in fact, write every story that you enjoy.”
“Yah!” Alis says back, stubborn in her refusal to change the way she says the first word Bevel taught her.
“Oh dear,” Forsyth says with a theatrical sigh. “Such a battle.”
Elgar laughs at his dramatic despair, and it feels good. The laughter dissolves some of the worry, makes him feel lighter, more alert. Linux grumbles and butts Elgar’s chin with his head, disapproving of the way his chuckles bounce the generous stomach on which he’s perched.
“Sounds like she’s getting to be more of a handful.”
“And I am delighted daily,” Forsyth says over more of Alis’s thoughtful, introspective babble.
“Frog ’isses! Rib, rib, iiiib!” Alis calls from beside the phone, and there is a smooching sound. “You, you!” she says next, which is followed by a bigger smooching sound.
“What was that?”
“Apparently, we were both frogs that needed kissing to turn us into princes.”
Elgar snorts, and more of the frustration and fear floats away in the wake of the warmth the sweet, domestic image paints for him. “I can’t imagine you as a prince.”
“Absolutely not,” Forsyth agrees. “I haven’t the ego for it, nor the legs for the stockings. And I am terrible at flattering the stupid.”
“And you’d never—” Elgar begins, but cuts himself off.
“I never?”
Even after a year, Elgar’s reflex is still to say something disparaging about Forsyth not being charming or handsome enough. He snaps his teeth down on the insult just in time. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that Forsyth is real, and not the man he could make cutting remarks about with Kintyre and Bevel for fun. Elgar has gotten a lot of comic relief at Forsyth’s expense over the last three decades, which leaves him feeling faintly ashamed when he banters with the man now. And he certainly isn’t going to be cruel to his face.
“I was going to say you’d nail the politics, but you’d be too honest with the ambassadors,” Elgar lies. And Forsyth laughs like he knows, anyway, that that wasn’t what Elgar was going to say, which makes Elgar feel about six inches high. “Sorry.”
Elgar can practically hear Forsyth rolling his eyes. It’s a very young gesture for a new father and a Shadow Hand, Elgar thinks. But he’d written the character to be bratty and insolent when he was first introduced, and it seems some of those character traits had held on as he matured.
“Be nice, or I’ll make the elite status of your travel points mysteriously disappear,” Forsyth warns, but there’s a glimmer of humor in his tone. “Really beleaguer me, and I’ll put you on the no-fly list for the
summer.”
“You wouldn’t!” Elgar gasps. “I have four cons! There’s no way I’m doing that by train!”
Forsyth chuckles darkly, and it’s a surprisingly evil laugh for such a good man.
“So, um . . . frog princes?” Elgar says lamely, when the silence between them has gotten a little too telling. Alis has moved on to banging something soft against the floor, punctuated by a plastic click. It must be Library, being used like a drumstick, the plushie’s eyes snapping on the floor.
“Ah, we are at the ‘pretending’ stage of development, my app tells me,” Forsyth says. “Alis is remarkably advanced when it comes to her language skills, but she has just now begun the important task of equating objects with their uses and playing make-believe. Ladyling Alis styled her mama’s hair yesterday with the soft paddle brush. Didn’t she? Yes, she did.”
“Ma!” Alis says, imperious.
“Mama is at work, sweeting,” Forsyth replies. “It’s Da and Alis time right now.”
“Gar Gar!”
“Yes, and Elgar as well. I suppose we’re going to have to pick an honorific for you soon. Uncle?”
Elgar chuckles. “As long as Gar Gar doesn’t become Jar Jar, I’m cool,” he says. Secretly, he’s hoping for “Grandpa.” He tries to coach Alis into it whenever her parents leave them alone together, but that isn’t often. And so far, Alis has gotten stalled on the G of the word, because it sounds like the second syllable of his name. But, as Forsyth said, Alis is terribly clever when it comes to speech. Elgar’s sure she’ll get it soon.
“We’ll work on it the next time you are able to—sweeting!” Forsyth calls, his voice suddenly across the room. “Please do not attempt to scale the stove. Writer, my heart.” Elgar’s own heart skips a beat, the way it does every time Forsyth utters that particular oath. Footsteps come closer to the phone. “I’m afraid this small monkey and I must bid you adieu, Elgar. Time for the park, I think, my dearest, where there are things to climb safely. She grows more like her Uncle Kintyre every day. I am certain I will expire of a stroke before her second birthday.”
“Please don’t,” Elgar says, trying for lightness, but the desperate fear he feels at the thought of a world without Forsyth in it creeps into his tone. He gulps hard, swallowing back the honesty of the knee-jerk reaction a second time.
“Oh. Elgar. Please. Have no fear. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You better not,” Elgar grumbles, aiming for theatrical and perhaps coming across as more pouty than he wants. “If you go back into the books again, I’m going with you. You can’t leave me here alone.”
A soft gasp on the other side of the line makes it clear that he’s hit maybe too close to the center of both of their secret fears.
“It is a promise,” Forsyth says softly.
“Okay.”
“Okay. Ah, wiggly glow-worm, hold still. Da will put you in your boots, and we shall go look for frogs before your birthday party. What do you say?”
“’Isses ’isses!” Alis demands.
“Perhaps not these particular frogs, sweeting,” Forsyth cajoles.
“Birthday party?” Elgar asks, trying not to be hurt when he realizes that he hasn’t been invited.
“It’s all Pip’s family and her parents’ friends,” Forsyth says. “Something big and Chinese. I’m not entirely certain. Ah. No worries. We have plans for cake and whatnot the next time you are up. We will not be excluding you from the celebrations.”
“No, no. I know that,” Elgar says, maybe more to remind himself than to reassure Forsyth.
“Wai po has some very specific ideas of how today is meant to go,” Forsyth huffs, and it’s the first time Elgar’s ever heard him even hint at being impatient with the cross-cultural strain in their family. “But when you are next here, we will be celebrating Ladyling Alis’s first birthday in true Hainish fashion.”
“Oh!” Elgar says, suddenly delighted by the thought. “The stars thing?”
“The stars thing,” Forsyth agrees smugly.
Elgar takes a deep breath and lets the excitement of that promised day overwrite his anxiety. “All right, I’ll let you go. Thanks for, uh, you know . . . talking me down,” Elgar says. “For being there, you know?”
“Any time,” Forsyth says, and it’s clear he’s distracted by boots and a baby.
“Right, bye. Bye, Alis!”
“Bye, bye, bye!” Alis shouts back, and then Elgar ends the call.
“Well,” Elgar says, setting down his phone, and stretching out along the sofa. Linux digs his claws in lightly as his pillow readjusts, then curls into a kitty-spiral on Elgar’s chest. “Maybe everyone’s right, and all I need is some sleep. What do you say, bud? Nap time, Linux?”
Linux purrs his agreement.
Forsyth
Standing in the park later, hands in my pockets and face turned up to the watery sun, I sigh and rub my forehead. I can hear my own mother’s voice in my memories, telling me not to wrinkle my face so, for it may remain that way should the wind change direction.
I cannot help the chuckle that escapes at the memory. Alis splashes gamely in a small mud puddle formed in the divot under the teeter-totter, utterly unconcerned with her da’s clear distress.
“Liar,” I call myself. “Nothing to worry about, indeed.”
While Alis busies herself with toddling in circles around the play sets, I poke at my phone, and take a moment to update Finnar with expanded parameters: Magically spoiled salads. Men in black. Diner waitresses with the wrong color eyes.
CHAPTER 4
ELGAR
The rest of the day is dedicated firmly to the sin of sloth. Elgar naps, orders in Chinese, marathons a few episodes of a sci-fi show he’s been neglecting, gets caught up on his geek news, and plays with Linux. That evening, he even lets Juan badger him into letting him make Elgar some kind of super healthy stew with kale in it, while his assistant narrates the Tale of the Interrupted Date and the Man Who Didn’t Like Books.
Elgar sits on a kitchen stool as Juan moves deftly around him. He takes a moment to reflect on how his life has gotten to the surreal point where his assistant knows his kitchen better than he does.
“So, you did go back to the bar after?” Elgar asks as Juan chops almonds (almonds?) for the stew.
“I did. It would have been totes rude to do a runner, boss. Ghosting is tres passe.”
“O-kay,” Elgar says, not certain he knows what “ghosting” is outside of what he does to dead characters who still need to communicate vital information to his leads.
“And I’m glad I did,” Juan continues, tilting his head just so, a sort of self-conscious little smirk rising against the corners of his lips, and . . . oh, he’s smitten. Elgar thinks it’s adorable, though he has no idea if that’s the sort of thing he’s allowed to say to a gay guy. “He told me later that he didn’t realize I was way into reading, and he hadn’t wanted to admit that he was a big fantasy nerd and put me off, and bam! There we go. Dream Man city. Of course, I didn’t tell him who my boss was—NDA, natch—but he’s super into the fact that I know a real live writer in the flesh.”
Elgar chuckles. “Well, that’s not creepy.”
Juan laughs. “I’ll keep home and work separated. No worries.”
“Thanks.” Elgar yawns and paws at his eyes. Naps always make him groggier. He doesn’t know why he bothers with them. “I’m making coffee.”
“Boss . . .”
Elgar levers himself off the stool and lumbers toward the pantry. “I know. It’s after four. But I’m gonna fall asleep in your stew otherwise. And then how will we review the merchandising contracts after?”
“Fine,” Juan grumbles. “But no sugar.”
“Fine,” Elgar says back. He pulls open the pantry door.
Something wet and warm plops onto his foot, and he jerks back, startled. For a second, he assumes it’s cat vomit, but it’s too red, and Linux had grown out of puking in fun places for Elgar to find a few years ago. “Eugh!�
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He shakes the slimy glob off his toes, and it splatters against the open door.
“What’s wrong—oh god!” Juan yelps.
Juan seizes his shoulders, and hauls Elgar backward. Elgar is too shocked to do anything but let him. Not that he wanted to stay next to . . . to . . . whatever that is in front of him.
The pantry, the whole inside of the pantry, is absolutely dripping with wet, red globs of flesh. Whip-thin, humid green vines weave between the slats of the shelves, the brown and green branches twisted around the wire as if the plant has grown there. There’s too much foliage near the floor for Elgar to catch a glimpse of whether or not it had—which, of course, it can’t have done, because there’s no way any vine could have grown this big, this fast, without water and sunlight, in the five or six hours it’s been since he’d last gone into his pantry for a package of microwave popcorn.
And that doesn’t explain the . . . the . . . reek.
The whole kitchen stinks like a slaughterhouse, offal and blood mixed in a barnyard odor that clings like oil to the back of his throat. He coughs, trying to dislodge it, and covers his mouth and nose with the cuff of his cardigan.
The meat hangs from the branches in glistening strips, like rotten, hellish fruit. The flesh is red, globbed with the whitish-yellow honeycomb of fat and organs, and the skin on the underside is pale, and nearly hairless.
It looks . . . human. Panic squeezes Elgar’s lungs, and for some absurd reason, all he can think of is Maddie—the waitress with the eyes that shouldn’t be green; Lucy Piper, filleted by Bootknife; a world that he had created, whose magic systems are too perfect, and a villain who wanted his Author dead. The world around Elgar’s head spins sharply and dips to the left, and he stumbles back, grips the counter hard. He can’t breathe.
