“Oh,” says Eddie. “It’s you,” glowering over the taut-stretched security chain.

“Is she within,” says Marfisa.

“The question you should be asking,” he says, “is whether she’s awake. As it turns out – ”

“Eddie,” a sternly quaver somewhere behind him, and he sags against the door. “Well,” he says. “She wasn’t.”

The chain scrapes loose, the door swings wide, he steps back out of her way. A grandly overstuffed loveseat in the middle of the room, piled with pillows and a box or two and more of pads of yellow paper, leaves of them rumpled crimped and pressed by wavering wandering lines of ink that pinch and hump and curl to make the letters that make up words, words, words. Abby Tinker, bundled in a quilted housecoat, pulls herself to her feet at the one end of it, waving away whatever Marfisa isn’t saying, “Don’t mind me,” she rasps. Eddie hustles over to offer an arm she leans on to work her bare brown feet into terrycloth slippers. “I don’t sleep much, but it sure does take an awful long time to do it.” Lifting an admonishing finger. “I’ll be right back. No tomfoolery.” Teetering only a little, she makes her way from the loveseat to the doorway in the corner there, a plank laid above it from one bookshelf to another, bowed beneath the weight of yet more books. Eddie watchfully monitors her progress until she’s passed beneath, then turns balefully to Marfisa, “Why are you here.”

She turns away, wild hair whitely gold, rainshell light and grey. “It does concern you both,” she says, looking over the books close by, the names on the spines of them, Virginia Hamilton, Zenna Henderson, Basma Ghalayini, Eve L. Ewing, Kaiama L. Glover, Sonia Nimr, Grace Lavery, Katherine Kurtz.

“So tell me. I’ll tell her when she’s done. You wouldn’t have to wait.”

“Why are you here?” says Marfisa, looking to him then, his dwindling hair clipped close, his epauletted safari shirt the color of algæ. “You’re not her son. Abby Tinker has no children.”

“Oh, she’s got lots of kids,” he says. “I’m her mule.”

“Mule?”

“I help her with the Forty-Acre Wood,” he says, gesturing at the books, and then, glower resumed, “You people have got to keep it down, over there.”

Marfisa blinks. “That’s none of my concern.”

“I told you, I would call the cops. Whatever it is you’re up to over there, with all those people, it can’t be legal. There’s no way it’s legal.”

“Have you? Called the police?”

“They’re not,” he says, “exactly, rolling up. Are they.”

“That’s not exactly an answer,” she says. A clash of contrary waters from somewhere deeper in the apartment.

“It’s not your concern,” says Eddie. “Why aren’t you concerned.”

“As I said,” says Marfisa. “It concerns you both.”

Eddie steps close, arms up and widening, “That’s not,” he starts to say, but “This smells,” growls Abby Tinker, there beneath the book-freighted board, “distinctly of balderdash.”

Eddie drops his arms, hangs down his head, “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he says. “She can be quite irritating.”

“He told me to go,” says Marfisa.

Abby Tinker shuffles across the room, back toward the loveseat. “I never,” she says, “get tired, of hearing white boys call me ma’am. Bit mannered, maybe, too stiff to fold like money. But it’s sweet in the ear.” Griping the overstuffed arm, lowering herself with a grimace. Peering up through her Coke-bottle lenses, looking for Marfisa. “Now,” she says. “White girls? Are a whole other matter.”

“I have found new rooms,” says Marfisa. “We must determine a time when it is convenient to pack your books and things, and move them.”

“You,” says Eddie, “what?”

“I have found new rooms for you. In a building on Hawthorne, not far away. The views are excellent.”

“You’re kicking us out?”

“I would not kick you anywhere, Edward.”

“You gave this place to us! You said it was ours, to keep!”

“These new rooms are also yours.”

“Bullshit.”

“I can take you there, and show them to you. Now, if you’d like.”

“I knew better than to trust you,” he says.

“What changed,” croaks Abby Tinker. “What happened, that we aren’t safe here anymore. Why do we all of a sudden have to leave.”

“I,” says Marfisa, and suddenly drops to one knee. Eddie takes a single jerk of a step closer. “I must,” says Marfisa.

“Yes?” says Abby Tinker.

“I had thought,” says Marfisa, “all would be well. She would be able, I had thought. She is the Queen.” Shutting her bright blue eyes. “But she will fall. And you did trust me.” Looking up, then, to those light-glazed lenses looking down. “You trusted me, but I did trust, I, I am.” Swallowing a great breath. “I must, apologize,” she says. “My lady, I am so, so very sorry.”

Abby Tinker sits up in her quilted housecoat, hands in her lap, leaning over Marfisa bent before her. “Nobody’s moving,” she says, gently.

“I would do the moving,” says Marfisa. “I would carry it all, from here, to there. You wouldn’t lift a finger, nor Edward neither.”

“You’re gonna move all this,” says Eddie.

“Domestics have packed up a house entire in one brief afternoon,” says Marfisa. “This cannot but be easier.”

“All my books,” says Abby Tinker.

“Are there more within?” says Marfisa, looking to the doorway beneath the plank, and then, as Abby not unkindly laughs, “I will build you shelves! Shelves on every wall, in every room, and set your books upon them in whatever order you wish. And when I’m done, we’ll carry you there, Edward and I, this couch a palanquin, and a wide-brimmed hat to shade your eyes from the sun.”

Abby Tinker takes Marfisa’s hand in her own, there on her lap. “But,” she says, quiet enough the rasp is almost gone from her voice, “there wouldn’t be a lawn.”

“There is!” says Marfisa. “Not so large, but not so starkly new, either. And planting-boxes, for flowers, herbs, or vegetables, as you’d like. Oh, my lady, and a porch, and you might step from it direct onto the cool grass.”

“It sounds lovely,” says Abby Tinker. “But I’m not going anywhere.”

“My lady,” says Marfisa, but Abby Tinker’s let go of her hand, she’s sitting back, resettling the folds of her housecoat. “I’ll stay right here,” she says, and the rasp’s returned, cheerfully rough. “Everything’s fine, and it’ll keep on being fine, until it’s not. Same as it always was.” Marfisa slumps back on her heels. “I am too comfortable,” says Abby Tinker, “and too set in my ways. Which for sure means I’m too old, but there it is.”

“I’ll hold the rooms for you,” says Marfisa, sitting up, hands on her knees. “And prepare them. This,” looking up to Eddie, “I do swear. Stay here, my lady Tinker, but know that should you ever need it, you’ll have another home to come to.”

“That’s, great,” says Eddie. Abby Tinker takes off her glasses, rubs at her eyes, working her fingertips into the corners of them, pressing her thumb to a point just above the bridge of her nose, blinking sightlessly as she returns her glasses to their place. “Girl,” she says, her voice gone quiet again, and gentle. “What you’re trying to give me. It’s, it’s so much. Too much, for me to take.”

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“I would only ever ease your burdens, ma’am,” says Marfisa, a hand on the arm of the loveseat.

“What would I ever do with so, so much,” says Abby Tinker. Eddie scowls.

•

Fluorescents flicker above an oblong table, to starkly light the printed woodgrain peeling at the corners, the shelves stuffed with plastic tubs of abstruse gear, all tangled cords and anonymous shells and casings, black, grey, matte silver plastic, tagged with ragged strips of masking tape, O-DARK 13 and SHADOW UNITS, they say in handwritten scrawls, GIMP and FIDDLE-DEE PARTS, WTF 2ND, DO NOT TOUCH. “This is where we usually do department meetings,” says an unobtrusive man, clutching a tablet computer to his chest, “if it was just one of you, we’d use Geoffrey’s office, but that’s even more crowded,” and a distracted laugh. “Um,” he says, pressed back to allow them room to pass, “I’m sorry,” he says, “I don’t mean to offend, or, but, you’re, which, I mean who, I mean your names, I’m – ”

“Stevie,” says Ettie, dropping into a plastic chair at the far corner.

“Star,” says the Starling, slipping into the chair beside her.

“Tina,” says Chrissie, with a small smile, a little wave.

“Okay,” he says, “so,” tilting the tablet to glance at the screen of it, “maybe,” a shrug, “name-tags? No, wait, I’m sorry, but, I mean, to keep track, maybe we, uh – ”

“There’s only the three of us,” says the Starling. Her tight black T-shirt says Corduroy Queen.

“I think they’ll figure it out,” says Ettie. Hers says Suspiciously Cheap Lasers. Chrissie’s says Bubbles O’Day & the Night. Their hair, the three of them, strictly yellow, rounded in blown-out bobs, their lips the same meticulous shade of dark rich red. “I, ah,” he’s saying, tipping the tablet away again, unfolding the case of it into an angled stand he sets at the one end of the table. “Did you know,” he says, “when they first started shooting here, the, uh,” the tablet falls flat. He sets it up again, muttering, “this might need to be higher,” looking about. “Leverage,” he says, reaching for a couple of thick black binders bursting with typescript, “used these offices,” stacking them on the table, and the tablet on the binders. “The teevee show?” The tablet falls flat again.

“We don’t watch a lot of television,” says Chrissie.

“Well,” he says, re-uprighting the tablet, “I’ll just,” but there are voices in the hall, “a shit about shit at this level,” getting louder, “so get off my dick and go do whatever it is you do about it. Jesus.” A short and thickset man backs into the room, wide head shaved clean, turning about with a click and a switched-on smile. “Ladies!” he booms, and smack of his clapping hands. His violet wide-collared shirt undone a couple-three buttons. “So jazzed you could take this meeting. I was, blown away! By what I saw, a couple days ago at the street fair,” offering one of those hands to Chrissie for a shake, “and I just had,” then the Starling, “to bring your magic,” and Ettie, “to our show. Torni?” The pale and narrow man who’s slipped in after nods, once. “All right!” Slapping both hands on the table. The unassuming man jolts. “All right.” Sits himself across from the Starling, leaving Torni to squeeze between chair-back and shelves so he might work himself into a chair across from Ettie. “We’re doing a couple-three things at once,” the thickset man’s saying, as Torni pulls out a phone to poke and scroll the screen of it. “Because, we’ve got the room on Tuesday?”

“That’s it,” says an older man, grey suit coat, trimly silver beard. “Non-negotiable.”

“So plan on twelve, fifteen hours, call at six. We don’t usually work days that long,” as the older man sits with a shake of his head across from Chrissie, “but, like I say, we’re really excited to bring your magic to our show,” lifting his hands, he takes a breath, and “Hi!” says Ettie in the breach. “My name’s Stevie, my sister there’s Tina, and this is our good friend Star. Hello!”

The thickset man blinks, then laughs, slapping his hands back to the table. “We are going a bit fast! Okay, hi, hello, this is Aamos Torni, who’s directing the episode,” the narrow man nods without looking up from his phone, “directing most of them, this is our first season, and Al Smith here – ”

“Call me Phonse,” says the older man. “I keep the train on the tracks.”

“Everybody calls him Phonse,” says the thickset man. “Yes. And she’ll be here in Stumptown day of, next week, but today she has to come to us from sunny LA, if Bob can ever figure out how to get the tablet to work, that’d be Terry Prudhomme, our intimacy coordinator. And I,” spreading his hands, straining his violet shirt, “am Geoffrey Elliot. I am the showrunner; I run the show.”

“Sorry,” says Ettie, “to interrupt, again, but what is it, you said, the person who’s calling in, does?”

“Intimacy,” Chrissie starts to say, but Ettie holds up a hand. “It’s one of the little things,” says Geoffrey, “we’re getting out of the way, today, just to make sure we’re all on the same page. Setting boundaries. But you ladies are professionals! This won’t be a thing.”

“Professionals?” says Ettie. “Jeff, you saw us sing.”

“Geoffrey,” says Geoffrey. Torni pokes and scrolls. Phonse adjusts the jut of his beard. “Didn’t Reg talk to you?”

“I don’t know, Tina,” says Ettie. “Did Reg talk to us?”

Chrissie sighs. The Starling says, “Her, ah, Ysabel. Told us.”

“Ysabel’s another friend of Reg’s,” says Ettie. “So tell us, Jeff, what – ”

“Geoffrey, please.”

“ – what exactly is this magic you’re hoping we – ”

“Got it!” blurts the unassuming man, stepping back from the tablet, screen of it filled with a woman’s lined, foreshortened face. “Geoffrey?” she’s saying. “You there?”

“Bob,” growls Geoffrey.

“It was,” says the unassuming man, “the wifi back here is – ”

“Bob,” says Geoffrey, “my suggestion to you is to find something far away that keeps you busy long enough I can forget how very much I want to fire you right now. Capisce?”

“You let that boy alone,” says the tablet. Bob, head down, slips out between a burly tattooed man and a guy in an aloha shirt, stood there in the doorway. Geoffrey turns to the tablet, smiling again, “Terry!” he booms. “So glad you could join us.”

“Are they there?” Muffled thumps, swelling in the screen, dropping back, “Fuck’s sake, Geoffrey, can you fix this thing so I can see what’s going on?”

Geoffrey sits there, hands on the table, smile at half-strength. “Hello?” says Terry. “Geoffrey?” The Starling leans over to peer up at the tablet, but Ettie gently pulls her back. The guy in the aloha shirt steps into the room to adjust the tablet, peeking sidelong at the three of them, “Whoops!” says Terry. “There we go. Ladies, good morning, pleased to meet you,” rustle of paper, “I’m Terry Prudhomme, intimacy coordinator for Shadow Unit, and you must be,” peering down, “the Triplets.”

“Triplettes,” says Ettie.

“Got the new pages, Terry?” says Phonse.

“Brady’s flashback?” Another shuffle of paper. “With the tulpas? I don’t see Gus there. Is Gus there?”

“He’s in Toronto,” says Geoffrey, and then, a bit louder, “Gus is in Toronto, Terry.”

“Fuck’s sake! Geoffrey, we cannot possibly work like this.”

“This is not,” he says, as she’s saying “over a goddamn video conference,” and “this is not, you’ll be,” he says, and “with one participant entirely,” and “day of, you’ll be,” and “not even present!”

“Terry!” he shouts, and restores his smile. “Day of, you’ll be hands on. Choreography, rehearsal, the works. Today’s just, dotting tees, crossing eyes for the streamer, the insurance, you know, the stooges in suits.”

“This isn’t busywork, Geoffrey. It’s a process, and must be taken seriously.”

“We understand, and hear, your concern,” says Phonse, looking at his hands.

“We’re going a bit fast, yes,” says Geoffrey, “which we can, because, end of the day? We’re all professionals. Ladies,” turning his smile on the three of them, “what we have in mind is you’d appear in a flashback, and a coda. Agent Brady, one of our ensemble, he’s played by Gus Kenworthy, you’re gonna love him, he’s telling Agent Lau about his first encounter with the anomaly, which is the Big Bad of our show. It’s a one-night stand, with a woman who, played by you, one of you, is anomalous. Her desire generates tulpas. Thoughtforms. Physical manifestations of her mental state. So, we’d have our paramour,” both hands presented toward the Starling, and then the one hand toward Chrissie, “her desire,” and the other toward Ettie, “and her guilt, or reticence, or whatever. Shoulder-angel, shoulder-devil. Like that.”

“But sexy,” says Ettie.

“Think premium cable,” says Phonse. “Hard R. But tasteful.”

“Tastefully intimate.”

“Ettie,” says Chrissie.

“Stevie,” says Ettie with a warning lilt.

“Stef,” says Chrissie, flinching at the look Ettie turns on her, but “This,” she says, “it’s no different, than any other scene or bit or shoot we’ve ever done.”

“It isn’t?” says Ettie extravagantly. “Well, all right! Let’s set those boundaries. So, nudity: frontal, backal, or dorsal or pectoral or whatever, we’re good with that, obviously. It’s what we’re here for. Contact? Well, anything with, whatsisname, Gus, would have to be either me or Star. Not Tina. That’s a bright line. And as for anything between us?” Looking, then, to the Starling, and Chrissie. “Breast-play, sure. Anything genital, oral or digital, that’ll be simulated, but we’ll happily simulate ass or pussy, so you’re good there. Dildos, strap-ons, any kind of toy, that’s also simulated, there’s to be no penetration on the day of, Jeff, there’s another bright line, and if these tulpas get themselves into some kind of bondage scenario – tasteful, of course – there’s some fuzz we’ll need to work out, but we’ll have plenty of time what with all the rehearsal and the choreography, right? But!” Leaning over to address the small crowd in the doorway, “Anybody in the audience, there’s absolutely no touching the girls.” Turning back to Geoffrey. “And if you’re gonna sit in the front row, you’re gonna tip. That’s just common courtesy. Sound about right, sis?”

“Don’t be a bitch, Stephanie,” says Chrissie. Ettie closes up her eyes. The Starling, very still between them.

“Fuck’s sake,” says Terry.

“Well!” says Geoffrey, but Ettie’s chair scrapes back, “oh, now, hold on,” he says, as she gets to her feet, “let’s not do anything rash in the heat of the moment,” but Ettie’s raising her voice over his, “Sorry, Ms. Prudhomme, Phonse,” a brittle little laugh, “Mr. Torni, thanks, Jeff, but no thanks. We’re just not feeling it,” hand on the back of the Starling’s chair, squeezing behind it, “come on.”

“Don’t say no in the room,” says Geoffrey. “Take it home with you. Sleep on it.”

“Come on,” says Ettie, with a quick shove for Chrissie’s chair.

“Geoffrey,” says Terry, “what am I always telling you.” Torni’s tucking his phone away. Phonse has folded his arms. “It may seem chaotic today,” Geoffrey’s saying, and then Chrissie with a jerk seizes Ettie’s hand, “but I assure you,” says Geoffrey, trailing away.

“You want this,” says Ettie, quietly. “This, is what you want.”

Chrissie looks up. The Starling’s hand on Chrissie’s other arm.

Ettie yanks herself free. “Well, Jeff,” she says, “I guess you get to see how much magic you get out of two Triplettes.” Squeezing toward the crowded doorway, she mutters, “Jesus, can’t a girl even leave in a huff anymore?”

“Everybody out!” roars Geoffrey, but she’s shoving her way through them all before anyone can react.