“Dammit!” Donner shouted as they found themselves in the room between life and death.

“Hopefully it’s this one hunter by himself,” she said as she looked around. There was no sign of Father Time. “That’ll be easy to fix. I feel kind of bad though, he’s traumatized right now. Since time doesn't pass here, or not much, it should be fine,” but there was someone else walking along the bridge now. A man dressed for hunting. “Uh-oh.”

She dashed for the exit and woke to find him lying beside her, his brains splattered on the ground and a hole in his head.

“I’m bringing him back.”

“No you’re not.”

“I am and you can’t stop me.”

But it didn’t work the way she wanted it to because to bring him back meant something else had to die, which was her, and then he died again and it was going to be a vicious cycle so she had to give up on him and let him go.

“I told you there’s a cost,” Donner said as they left the dead man. “When you brought your uncle back you used the killer. There’s no one else around for you to use and I doubt you would even if there was.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Unless I knew they were evil. Well, for all I know he was a bad person, but I kind of doubt it. Killing a kid made him kill himself. That’s sad.”

“It is. But there’s nothing to be done about it. People die all the time.”

She turned to survey the trail, looked into the brush. “Should I find out who he was? I could find his family.”

“And do what? Deliver the news?”

“I mean, maybe. It depends.”

She was doing it. Definitely now because a dog had shown up and was crying it’s poor puppy heart out over it’s lost person and that was way too sad for her to deal with forever.

On his person, she did find identification and upon making use of Ant’s phone for a satellite picture of the listed address, during which time she found out that her mind manipulation worked perfectly, she disappeared directly, after returning for the dog and taking him with her. Inside was a young lady, his wife, and though she was initially shocked she was soon unconscious along with the dog.

“Are you planning to kill them?” Donner asked, aghast.

“I don’t know yet,” she told him. “I think that would be the kindest. Then they don’t have to live without him. I wanted to change their memories so they wouldn’t miss him, but I bet he has more family, too.”

“So do they,” he said. “You want them to have two funerals and a dead dog on their hands?”

She rubbed her arm. “No, but I don’t know what else to do. I wish I could bring him back.” An idea. She'd recently heard about a murderer awaiting his sentence. “I can!” she shouted, leaning down to pat the sleeping dog. “Don’t worry buddy, your human will be back soon!”

The woman had a cell phone, too, and using her forefinger it was unlocked and available to find news about people on death row.

All she had to do was find a real degenerate and trade his life for the hunter.

“I suppose that’s one way of doing things," Donner said drily. “But he’s been dead for a while now. Do you not think it might be too late at this point?”

She shook her head as she scrolled the articles. “Nah, I can bring him back. It might affect him somehow, but that’s a long walk.” She found one. “Oh geez, this guy’s the worst! Well,” she put the phone down, “time to die, child rapist.”

She returned to the dead man and pulled the force of evil from its jail cell. They would never know how he escaped, but his body would eventually be found by a hiker she thought. Very decomposed as it would lay mostly undisturbed until the spring of next year at the earliest.

As for the hunter, she wiped his memories of her death but did tell him to be extra careful in the future because she wasn’t doing all this for nothing. Luckily, she thought the chances of that scenario occurring again were miniscule and she sent him on his way.

Only to hear another two shots shortly afterward.

“Are you kidding me?” she yelled. “How in the world?"

Another child. And the man was dead again.

“Not today, fate,” she grumbled. Two more death row inmates were sacrificed.

And then again.

And again.

And it was getting late.

And there were ten dead inmates and now it was dark so it couldn’t possibly happen again, right?

“What the fuck!”

“Clearly,” Donner said drily, “fate has other plans.”

“Is this what I’ve spent my lifeness doing? Fighting fate? No wonder I wanted to forget this shit! I don’t want that dog to be sad! What’s so wrong about that? I would make him and the wife forget if I could, but then I’d have to make everyone who ever knew him forget, and if I miss someone who knows what will happen! And,” the thought process continued, “I would have to erase his pictures and him in videos and his work files and his hunting license and I can’t do all that!”

“But I can.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

That quiet voice of doom.

“Ink Pen, I don’t want to deal with you right now, I’m having a crisis.”

“I can erase him.”

She looked up. He loomed over her creepily. She didn’t think he knew how to be anything but a freak of nature. “What do you mean?”

“Remove him from history.”

“Can you explain yourself because I’ve been going through a lot and I don’t want to ask a million questions!”

“When I devour, I remove. I will eat him and solve your problem. His body, his mind, his presence in the world. There will be no record or memory because he will have never existed.”

The wind rushed through the leaves and Luna could see her breath. In a break above, where branches were bare, the stars winked and the sky was navy.

“How do you know? Have you done that before? Have you been doing that to people this whole time?” She gasped. “Is that what you meant? When you asked if I miss it? Did you eat someone? Whose room was that!?”

“It hardly matters because they are gone and they never were.”

Her head fell forward as she rubbed her eyes. “Oh my god, you can’t do that, but,” she hesitated, “I’m tired and this isn’t working and, I guess,” she hated to give him permission, “Fine. Do it. Eat this guy and let’s all move on with our lives. And the kid. Sorry, kid.” She suspected that death was also written in stone.

They were gone.

Clothes, boomstick, blood. Blank staring eyes. Skin and bones.

“So the dog will be okay, right?”

“The animal will be fine.” He didn’t care, she could tell. Though he spoke in monotone, she felt she could hear annoyance. Ink Pen didn’t like animals.

“I bet it’s cuz you can’t eat them.”

To which he had no reply.

“So,” she looked to the ground where no trace of the tragedy remained, “I’ll be the one who carries their memories forward. No dogs, wives, mothers, or fathers will remember them, but I will. Though the world hasn’t changed at all without their presence, it’s still… I mean…” she was too tired to make a whole speech for them. “Whatever. I’m going to bed. Don’t eat anyone or anything else, got it?”

“Somehow,” Donner said, “I doubt you can stop him and if you aren’t there to witness it you won’t even know it happened.”

“Yeah, that’s upsetting.”

It was long past dinner when she finally made it back to the farmhouse and Georgia was already in bed.

“Luna!” Ant was surprised to see her. “What are you doing out of bed? Do you feel sick, honey?”

“Uh,” she hadn’t thought about this happening. “No?” She wasn’t sure what she should say. “I’m hungry.” The truth would have to do.

“That’s true,” Ant nodded as she stood from her laptop. “You ate hardly anything at dinner. Let’s get you something to eat.”

So, that was good. The mind supplied what made sense to it. Her absence wasn’t noticed.

“Ew,” she thought as she ate chicken nuggets with BBQ sauce. Homemade, both of them. “That’s like what Ink Pen does. When I’m not here, it’s like I was never here to begin with.”

“Convenient,” Donner agreed, “but unsettling.”

In bed late, after brushing her teeth and being dressed in a nightgown found at the estate sale of a dead, rich old lady who held onto everything that got passed down to her from the generations before, Luna moved into dreams and planning for the trip to Easter Island began in earnest.

She didn't want to think about Ink Pen and all the things that happened that day and neither did Donner.

“I’m gonna need to look up pictures of it. It’ll be good if I can find a live webcam of it.”

“No, it won’t be good, because then there’s a chance you may be seen on it.”

“Oh right. That would be hard to explain.”

“It is inhabited by Spanish-speaking people, a few thousand I believe. Easy enough to avoid detection. If we arrive at night and head straight underground, there should be no issue.”

“Next question,” she put a marker on the whiteboard, “is about what to bring. I’mma need food and water. And should I bring toilet paper? Or, should I plan to come back and use the bathroom?”

“Space travel isn’t exactly comfortable, is it? The fewer trips the better.”

“It’s not as bad as time travel.” That was the worst. “But, you’re right. It’s not fun. I’ll take some toilet paper then and I’ll wear pants. I can take them all the way off and a dress can get in the way.” Like in the Chinese buffet restroom.

He ignored those musings. “We’re looking for anything old and manmade. They won’t much care what it is, though I will say a toothpick isn’t going to command respect nor would it be capable of holding much power. The larger the item the better, but I doubt we’ll find anything significant on this first expedition.”

She was alright with that. She wasn’t holding high hopes for this trip, either. It was a preliminary investigation and if they got lucky they’d find a few things she could use to break into the market.

“I haven’t done any research,” she complained. “I don’t know where to sell or who I should be trying to advertise to.”

“There will be no advertising,” Donner told her. “It won’t be necessary. I know where to go so we don’t need to focus on that. Customers will be coming to us, we won’t need to go to them.”

“I want a storefront. I want to decorate like Ant.”

“That is not in the cards, not a storefront at least. I’m not saying you won’t ever have a space of your own, but this is not legal.”

“What will we do then? How will people know to buy if I can’t tell them I’m selling?”

“There’s something of a pawn shop in Dark Alley. They sell ill-gotten gains and cursed items. If you bring the wares to them, they will already have customers looking for your type of objects. You won’t be commanding a premium price initially, but that will change. It will also bring a measure of danger, which will have to be discussed. No work on this side of Society is without risk of harm. For you, it is minimal. Your aunt and Georgia, however, may be in some danger.”

So that sucked, but she was reasonably confident that she could keep them out of it.

“Don’t be so sure of that,” Donner made use of a projector and screen. “Tracking spells exist, though they are extreme in their difficulty. They work in a way similar to what you described when you went looking for a magical school. I’ve never used one myself, preferring to gain the trust of victims, but in Dark Alley,” a still image of a gray cobblestoned row of red brick buildings, “they will not take that time. The place you will have to do business is called Halstone. It’s a generational store. There are others, come and gone monthly, but Halstone remains because of their practices.”

A man, frail and backbent, behind a counter. All around him were shelves teeming with seemingly everyday objects. A few stood out to her for their strangeness, as they appeared more in line with a mad scientist's laboratory than a magic shop.

“You’re thinking of card tricks and hats with removable tops. This is real, true magic, and those who shop Dark Alley are not adverse to the practices of the old ways. I’ve yet to see anyone go to the extent that I went, but they do not shy away from blood rituals and the use of dead animals. Some go as far as to procure cadavers.”

“So if I got a mummy out of Egypt, would that be worth a lot?”

“Yes. That would cover your time at Arcane and put you in a private room. However, we need to think beyond that immediate goal with a long-term plan for financial security.”

“Sure, sure, but I’m saying. I bet I can get a body no problem.” Her eyes lit up. “In fact, I’ve got a bunch of them in the woods!” Because though Ink Pen ate the hunter and the child, the convicted criminals were left behind. “Can I sell them?”

He considered it for a minute before answering, “Technically yes, and the price wouldn’t be bad, but they are without any magical background.”

“Okay, that's fine,” she slapped her hands together. “That settles it. The very next order of business is to sell those bad boys on the black market and get a bank account going!”