by Gabi Moore
“Have you looked at this one?” The manager’s voice grabbed their attention.
Dion and Lilly turned around to see the lady walk up to them with a small-boxed jigsaw puzzle. “It’s our latest and I think you might like it.” She sat it down in front of them and walked away.
Dion picked it up and looked at it. The puzzle showed a large fireplace in a castle with a blazing fire in it on the box. The puzzle was complicated and had close to five hundred pieces. He opened it and saw the freshly printed puzzle pieces inside. This one had never been assembled before.
“Fire,” Dion said and looked at Lilly. “The puzzle depicts a fireplace. How long do you think it would take you to put this one together?”
“Not too long with your help,” she told Dion. “Do you want to go ahead and try?” She gestured to the empty table in front of them.
“I think it’s important we do it,” Dion said as she dumped the pieces out. Lilly began looking at them and piling the various puzzle pieces into different piles.
Dion worked with her as Lilly went into problem solving mode and began to assemble the puzzle. She would pick up a piece and either put it in the puzzle or into one of several piles she had on the table.
Lilly worked quick and soon had an outline of the final picture in front of her. As they were able to compare it to the one on the box, she had an idea of what to do.
Dion knew something was about to be revealed in the puzzle. Why had he chosen to go inside this store? If he’d gone into another one, would the message have been delivered a different way? He decided it was a matter of fate that he’d picked up this puzzle in this store and continued to help Lilly.
Sean and Emily found themselves in Mad Larry’s Great World of Sound in the next store.
Sean enjoyed visiting record stores as they always carried the vinyl albums you never heard on the radio. Sometimes it was a good idea to take the right amount of money if you had a purchase in mind. Some time ago, he’d found a record he wanted to buy for an upcoming concert, The No Band, and was on the point of giving the clerk the money when he remembered he needed to get his hair cut that day. He excused himself and went to the bank to get some more cash. When Sean returned, the album, the only copy they had in the entire store, was gone, sold to the next customer who’d walked into the store.
Emily had her favorites as well. She and Lilly were big fans of a British singer named Stew Rodgers who’d enjoyed some chart success on the AM radio. They’d seen him in concert a few times and looked forward to another tour he was supposed to make in next year. She looked around to see if there was anything that interested her in the cut-out bin.
But, as she looked over the albums, Emily couldn’t find a single one that interested her. She remembered these particular bins tended to stock one-hit wonders and albums by bands that never went anywhere, but you could find some good ones every now and then. She’d even landed a difficult to find record from Seta Penfield last year at a record shop in downtown Scipio. She remembered the clerk at the store grumbling about how he’d had his eye on that one too.
“Have you ever heard of any of these bands?” Sean eventually said to her as they scanned the collection in front of them.
The albums were displayed so they could see them in their twelve-inch glory with the big pictures on the covers. They didn’t appear to be some garbage operation, each one was produced with loving care and the artwork on each album was excellent.
Emily walked over to the wall, withdrew one album, and looked it over. She saw a complete list of credits and musicians on the back. None of whom she recognized.
“Not a one,” she told him. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any of these bands on the radio. Not even the FM stations play them. They don’t look too bad, but how are you supposed to buy a record by someone you’ve never heard before? There used to be listening booths, maybe someday they’ll be back.”
Meanwhile, over at the game store, Lilly was busy finishing the puzzle. Dion had stood next to Lilly and helped her with the final assembly process. To watch Lilly work at putting a puzzle together was miraculous. She would pick up a piece and instinctively know if it was one she wanted right away, or one not to use. Lilly would place the unwanted pieces on the part of the table furthest from her and then return to the main pile. By the end of the half-hour, the huge puzzle had taken shape. People would stop by and watch her at work, but people didn’t comment as they realized she was in some kind of meditative state as she worked.
“It’s because this is a tax loss store,” the manager of Mad Mike’s said to Sean and Emily as they looked at the wall. “You won’t find these bands anywhere but at this store. Some are pretty good. It’s a shame we can’t sell many of them, but no one really cares.”
“I don’t get it,” Emily said to the man. “What is the purpose of a store that sells records that no one wants to buy? Don’t you have many sales?”
“We get them all day,” he explained, “but not too many. People come in here, buy what they think is a popular group, then they bring it back. I have to refund their money all the time. Some of them do stay with the purchase.”
“What’s a tax loss album?” Sean asked the man. This place was too strange, even for this mall.
“The tax laws are funny,” the man began. “They take so much out at one level, that it makes sense for the record companies to dump cash on bands which no one cares about so they don’t end up at the next level. They have to show on the books money was spent on new acts, but no one expects them to make a dime. The public is fickle and no one wants to take a chance on an unknown act, no matter how good they might be. So the record company finds a tape, has it pressed to vinyl, matches it with a snazzy cover and then it ends up here. We always lose money and they are able to show on the books the excess cash was burnt up. The band gets a break, the record company blows some money on a new act, everyone wins but the government and no one cares about them.”
Emily cocked her ear. “But I heard that song on the radio last week. Don’t tell me that band is a tax loss band.”
“Of course not, we have to sell something to stay in business.”
Dion watched as Lilly placed the last piece of the puzzle in place. She stood back and looked at it. Too bad no one else was in the store to see her accomplishment.
They looked down at the image of the fire in the fireplace. It was taken from a painting, not a photograph. The colors were vivid and jumped out at them. Dion looked up to see the manager come over and look at what Lilly had managed to do.
The only thing missing from the scene were the puzzle pieces, which were strategically removed from the puzzle box by someone. They had done this in a very clever fashion so that the missing pieces spelled out a word in the middle of the puzzle.
Looking at them from the center of the fire in the fireplace was the word “Atziluth”. The word was plain to see, although some of the letters were a little bit rough because of the sharpness of the corners.
“Atziluth,” Lilly said. “What does it mean?”
In the record store, Emily and Sean remembered they needed to return to the concourse and wait for Dion and Lilly.
Sean checked his wristwatch and gently tapped Emily on the shoulder. His fiancée was busy talking to the record store manager about the unheard music and bands which would fade into the lost past.
“Someday they will be rediscovered,” the manager told them as they left the store. “Too much good music in here for it all to be lost. I feel it in my soul, but it might be thirty or forty years before anyone rediscovers these bands.”
They came around the corner and encountered Dion with Lilly, who were ready to continue the quest. Lilly had a strange look on her face.
“How was the record store?” Dion asked them. He seemed to be concerned with Lilly’s state of mind.
“It was good,” Emily said. “Good if you like stores which sell records no one wants to buy and is supposed to lose money for the owners. This mall
is filled with stores which can’t exist anywhere else.”
“It’s one of the reasons it’s here,” Dion said.
“So what did you find in your game store?” Sean asked Dion and Emily. The sun was streaming into the large window next to the concourse.
“Nothing much,” Lilly answered for him. “Just a puzzle with a mysterious word which became visible when you put it together.” She stared off into space.
“Word?” Lilly asked. “What word?”
“Atziluth,” Dion said. “It’s the term for the part of the universe the mall represents. It stands for the archetypical word of emanation. The part of the universe where we now stand.”
“So how does it all figure into the work we are trying to accomplish?” Emily asked.
“I’m not sure. I know it has something to do with my quest, but how it all figures into it, I don’t know. I’ve memorized the word and its spelling because we just might need it later. Everybody remember this word in case we need it.”
“Do you think someone sent it to us to help?” Sean asked.
“Not sure about that one either,” Dion said. “It could be, but they would have had to know I was about to go in this store with someone like Lilly who likes to put puzzles together. What if I’d chosen another store? The manager told me the box arrived a few hours ago and was brand new. It’s the only one she got of this particular puzzle and she’s taken it off the shelf until they send her a replacement with all the pieces.”
“This isn’t something I expected would happen,” Dion told his friends. “For all I know, someone could be setting us up for something bad. I need to consult the elementals before we move forward.”
Chapter 7
Dion looked up in the air and saw a few air elemental sylphs floating around the rafters again. As usual, they’d blown into the mall because someone had left a door open. They didn’t want to be in the “fire” section and felt very uncomfortable in this part. Dion understood they could only give him what information they possessed, but perhaps they’d seen something.
While his three friends watched, he brought them down to his level and silently asked them a few questions. The sylphs spun around him invisible to the rest of the mall and told Dion what he needed to know. Once again, he went to the nearest door and opened it to allow them to leave. Next, he walked back over to his companions.
“Did you find anything out?” Emily asked him. All she saw was Dion standing in the middle of the mall while the sylphs were in conversation with him. The air elementals hadn’t wanted to make themselves visible while they conversed with their friend.
“The mall security guards are all gone,” he told them. “They told me the guards were all assembled an hour ago and sent packing. I don’t know how Karanzen plans to maintain security in this place unless my uncle already has a new team handpicked. Guess we’ll find out soon because there is no way he is going to leave this place unprotected from shop lifters and thieves.”
They walked a little bit further and noticed the foot traffic increase inside the mall. As the end of the week loomed, more people arrived to take advantage of the spring sales. Dion and the rest of his friends stopped as the human traffic was difficult to cross.
“I think we need to split up for a bit,” he told them. “Emily, why don’t you and Sean wander around for a while? We can meet up here in a few hours or so. I don’t like the way this place feels and I’m worried my uncle has planned something I can’t anticipate.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Emily agreed and walked off with Sean.
“I’m not sure about this,” Lilly told Dion. “We could find ourselves trapped here or the same could happen to them. Are you trying to separate us to bait your uncle?”
Dion reached out and took her hand. “I don’t know what my uncle is up to right now. I can’t sense him; he’s shielded from me. Even though he lacks the four elemental abilities I am about to master, he still has mastery of the aether and it makes all the difference. So, no, I don’t want to use us as bait, but I have to find out more about what is taking place here before I can obtain the full powers of the fire element.”
Dion and Lilly soon came to a movie theater. “Now that is funny,” Dion said. “There was one of these outside the mall. Why would there be another one here? It would just compete with the business?”
Lilly looked up at the marquee of the cinema. “Solar Theater,” she read. “I’ve never heard of this place. Must have just opened. I wonder what’s playing?” She walked up to a movie poster mounted in a case attached to the wall and noticed it was for an older film.
“The Final Man,” she read aloud to Dion. “It stars Kane Welles and Plasma Players. Now what do you know? I thought we studied Welles in school and I never heard of this movie. Have you?”
“I can’t say it sounds familiar, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I’ll bet this theater wasn’t here yesterday. Oh, look at the sign, it’s closed for repairs.” A large sign blocked the entrance, which was still wide open.
Dion walked into the lobby and looked around. Two boxes of fresh popcorn faced him on the counter of the snack bar, which was a little weird as the concession stand was empty of any product. From inside the movie theater he could hear the sound of music playing. He heard the footsteps of Lilly as she joined him.
“What do we do?” she asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? We supposed to go inside and watch the movie.”
At the same time, Sean had discovered a store that held great interest for him: an electronic appliance store. “Azmuth Electronics” said the name over the door and he could see an entire wall of the latest twenty-five inch televisions as they played a variety of shows broadcast on all three networks. There were even a few which showed public television and the local UHF channels. A few sales clerks floated around and talked to prospective customers, as they did everywhere else in the mall stores.
“Let’s check this place out,” Sean told Emily. “My dad was talking about buying one of those things which can move the antenna for the TV. They might even have one here.”
“What good would that do him? So the TV antenna moves, then what? You get the same channels.”
“You change the orientation of the antenna, you get better reception,” Sean explained. “Doesn’t your dad ever fool with the antenna to get the out-of-town signals in better?”
“No, he usually just swears at it.”
Sean ignored her lack of interest and pulled Emily inside the store. She tried to look curious, but all the electronics appeared stale to her.
On one side of the store were the latest turntables and audio receivers with separate attachments for cassettes. Sean seemed excited, but she wondered what happened to the eight track players. Didn’t her father used to have one in the car? Couldn’t you play them in the house too?
“Cable is coming,” she overheard one man say to another. “It will be the next big thing.”
“How can you be so sure?” the guy with him stated. “How are you going to convince people to pay for something they are used to getting for free?”
“Less commercials for one,” his companion argued. “Better reception for another. Imagine a TV screen free of static and you don’t spend all night trying to get your picture adjusted.”
“It will never fly. The township will flip when they see the cost of putting all those cables underground.”
“They’ll find a way to pass the cost onto the subscribers. You just watch.”
She heard them fade into the distance as they walked to look at another display in front: recordable televisions. She watched Sean drool over the endless possibilities as a person could record their TV show and watch it later. As far as she could see, it was another way to make money off people with too much to spend. Besides, the video recording machine appeared to weigh a ton. Who would want something like that in their house?
“Are you finished?” Emily asked Sean. “Can we go look at something else for a change?”
“Sure, but let’s find out where the antenna turning things are, I want to tell dad how much they cost. You know, there’s a guy who lives down the street from us who actually installs antennas. Might be something for me to think about someday.”
Emily rolled her eyes and continued walking with him. They both crossed the wall of TV’s at the back of the store and halted.
A continuous row of the same elderly actor delivered the same line at the same time. The effect was mesmerizing and they stopped to look at the bank of televisions. But they didn’t notice no one else was in the store. For some reason, the other customers suddenly felt as if they needed to leave at the same time. The electronics store was void of anyone but them.
“I think we are the only people in this theater,” Lilly said to Dion as they seated themselves toward the middle of it. “I don’t see another person in here.”
“The sign did say it was closed for repairs,” Dion reminded her as he handed her a box of popcorn. “Sorry if there’s too much butter on this one, but I can’t stand it on mine.”
The curtains rolled open to reveal the blank white screen. Dion wondered why they still used curtains on movie theaters. The stage in front of it was almost nonexistent, just a few feet in length. There would be no scene changes that the curtains needed to conceal. It was one of those strange and odd things, which people linked to action, such as the teletype sounds on breaking news stories even though the mechanical teletype machines had faded into the past. Would future radio stations insert scratch sounds into audio tape to make it sound “real”?
In the background, he could hear the whirl of a movie projector starting. This meant someone had to be in the theater besides them because a movie projector implied a projectionist. Or did it? Nothing about this mall was as it seemed. He didn’t recall a movie theater listed in the fire element section, but the map was too damaged to check again.
