An hour after the final bell rang Meg shuffled her paperwork into a neat pile and wrapped it with an orange rubber band and stuffed it gently into her old leather messenger bag.

She pushed back her chair and stood up and worked the stiffness out of her legs. Then she pushed her chair in and looked out over her classroom. The children's desks were arranged in three neat rows with enough space between them to prevent unwanted kicking or hair pulling from the person behind them. The left half of the room was dominated by a large colorful rug designed to look like a puzzle and there were several small bean bag chairs for the children to use during storytime and other long lessons.

At the end of the rug, up against the wall, was a plum colored high back chair with thick cushions where she sat and read to the children. Next to it was a low bookshelf crammed tightly with all manner of age appropriate books. On the other side of the chair was an easel with a huge ream of paper attached to it.

Beyond the desks, near the door was another shelf with built-in cubby holes for the kid's book bags, coats, rain boots, and painting shirts. The walls were a soft pink, the floors a hard blue tile that had once reminded her of the ocean. The ceiling had once been white but after getting permission from the principal she had teamed up with the fifth grade science teacher to paint it black and turn it into a model of the solar system. The kids loved it and so did she.

She smiled at every inch of it. This was her home away from home. Almost as good as the game. Her students, no matter how rambunctious, were easy to deal with. Much easier than dealing with her adult co workers and their incessant need to make small talk.

Meg looked over her desk to make sure she had everything, then put her long hair up in a ponytail and walked over to the coat rack by her desk. Outside the skies were dark and wet and the rain thumped against the thick safety glass. She took her windbreaker off the hook and put it on then grabbed her bright yellow raincoat and put it on over the windbreaker. She zipped the windbreaker up then buttoned the raincoat and squeaked all the way back to her seat.

She sat down, wondering why she hadn't done this part first, then removed her shoes. She curled her toes and enjoyed the fresh air as it wafted over her sweaty feet. "Ah," she sighed.

When the feeling of refreshment faded she grabbed her rain boots from under her desk and slid her feet into them. She put her regular sneakers into a large ziploc bag she had brought from home then stuffed them into her messenger bag.

She slung the bag over her head and fussed with it until it was comfortable on her hip then turned off her desk lamp and left the classroom. In the hall she shut the door behind her and locked it with a small brass key with her name written on it in permanent marker.

"Hey Megan!"

Meg curled her toes in her boots and let the annoyance of her full name float away. It was only five letters. No big deal. It wasn't like she had insisted on everyone calling her Meg since she'd started teaching at the school.

She made sure there was a smile on her face and turned around. Down the hall from her classroom she saw the latest addition to the first grade staff and struggled to remember her name. Miss Dawson? Miss Hendrix?

Oh right, Miss Steiner, she thought.

"Hello," she said.

Miss Steiner's thin lips peeled back in a toothy white grin and she bounded down the hall towards Meg. She was two years older than Meg. Slim and blonde with big doe eyes and a mouth to match she reminded Meg of a cartoon princess from one of the old 90's cartoons. In the few interactions they'd had so far Meg had found her too bubbly and personal to be around for long.

"I was just talking to Miss Perkins about you," Miss Steiner said.

"Okay," Meg replied. She already didn't like where this was headed. When people talked about her behind her back it was usually about something mean or worse about an invitation.

"We're going out for drinks," Miss Steiner said. "I was hoping you would join us. My boyfriend is a HUGE fan of your dad's. He has all of his books, even the ones he wrote during his pink period."

Meg stifled a sigh. She didn't understand why people couldn't just say her father had written a series of erotic novels featuring elves and minotaurs and one very flexible spider woman. They always called it his pink period or his bankruptcy phase if they were trying to put him down. And nobody seemed to care or know that he had written them to pay off her mom's medical bills after her fight with cancer.

"Sorry," Meg said. "I've got other plans."

"Can you reschedule them?" Steiner said. "I told him you'd come and I don't want to upset him. He's like a big puppy dog. You'll love him."

Meg held onto the strap of her messenger bag with both hands and squeezed. She wrestled between her desire to be blunt and her need to appear normal. Blunt won.

"No I can't," Meg said. "I have no interest in meeting your boyfriend and talking about my dad. I have to go."

"But."

Meg stepped around her and rushed down the hall. She turned a sharp left at the stairs and took them two at a time. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Her face was red and warm as she scurried towards the door. Nobody followed her. She felt stupid for thinking someone might.

She reached the front doors of the school and burst through them and came to an abrupt halt in the rain. Meg tilted her head back and groaned. She had forgotten her umbrella upstairs. If she didn't go back and get it, her bag and everything in it would get soaked. She stepped back under the awning and checked her watch. If she waited much longer she would miss the train.

Meg turned on her heel and grabbed the handle of the door. Counted to three and pulled it open. She took a step inside, listened for footsteps, then made a dash for the stairs. She ran with her head down and right hand on the rail. She tried counting the steps as she went but it did little to relieve the churning tension in her chest.

As she rounded the corner she heard Miss Steiner and Miss Perkins talking and saw their feet. She crossed to the other side of the hall and hurried past them with her eyes scrunched tight.

Please don't talk to me, please don't talk to me, she thought.

Meg opened her eyes when she was sure she was in the clear and dug out her room key. Her hands trembled and she had to stop twice and try again before she got the key in the lock. She turned the key, opened the door, and slipped inside. She shut the door behind her and stepped to her left and put her back against the wall.

She checked her watch. She didn't have time to panic. She breathed in and out and slid her hands over the shiny rubber of her raincoat and relaxed. Her umbrella was in its stand by the coat rack and she grabbed it and went back to the door.

Her co-worker's voices were muffled through the door but didn't seem like they were going anywhere. Probably talking about how weird I am, Meg thought. She chewed on her lip and remembered her train.

With every ounce of fleeting courage she had, Meg raised her chin high, draped the umbrella over her shoulder like a rifle then yanked the door open and strode out into the hall. She made it past them and all the way to the lobby before she realized she hadn't relocked the door.

Meg stepped outside and popped open her umbrella. There was no way in hell she was going back up there again. She fussed with her umbrella until the grip felt right in her hand then took off at a fast walk across the school courtyard.

She turned right out of the front gate and joined the other wet pedestrians walking along the sidewalk. She walked for two short blocks, made another right and cut across a pedestrian overpass to avoid the military checkpoints, and made it to the train station with six minutes to spare.

She waited on the platform apart from the other travelers and hoped no one would recognize her. To pass the time she played with the buttons on her coat. The train came and she jogged over to the doors and found the first seat she could.

The other people on the platform wandered in after her. They looked bored and tired and perfectly at ease with themselves and the world. Meg knew that wasn't the case. Even normal people were a bundle of nerves and confusion. But it was hard to tell at first glance and she longed to be like them.

The conductor's voice echoed through the train. Meg hugged her hood tight around her ears to block out the scratchy whine of his voice and breathed a sigh of relief when it ended. The doors shut and the train pulled away from the platform.

The only trains Meg liked were model ones and rather than deal with the reality of being packed into a metal tube going two hundred miles per hour she chose to read a book. The half hour trip went by in a blur of elves and goblins as they searched for the heart of the last dragon and when the train finally stopped she wished it would keep going. Then she remembered why she had gotten aboard in the first place and couldn't wait to get off.

As she exited the train station a deep gravelly voice boomed ahead of her and called out her name. She looked up with a big grin on her face and waved at Byron.

He was a tall lean black man, with a well groomed goatee and thick framed glasses over his warm brown eyes. He wore an all black suit with a white oxford shirt and dark penny loafers and matching tie. He looked young and clean, untouched by the weight of life's many torments. But he was fifty five now and she had known him long enough to know his life had been one struggle after the other and marrying into her father's money hadn't changed that.

"Hey Byron," she said.

"It's a good thing I showed up," he said. "otherwise you would have had to walk a country mile in this rain."

"How did you know I was even coming?" She said.

"I didn't," he said. "your father woke me up from my nap and told me you were going to stop by."

"How did he know?" She said. "I wanted to surprise you guys."

"I'm sorry butterfly," Byron said. "the man has a sixth sense when it comes to you."

Normally Meg hated nicknames but when Byron called her butterfly she didn't mind. She knew there was nothing but love behind it. She knew he had no intention of reducing her to an archetype. Byron was the only person either of her parents had loved who had taken her as she was. He never tried to change her or straighten her out. She loved him for it. She would even hug him sometimes when she was in a good enough mood.

"One day I'll stay off his radar," she said.

"You wanna drive?" Byron said.

Meg's heart clenched in her chest and she chewed on her lip. She had a license. She had a car. But that didn't mean it was easy on her.

"It's been a long day," she said. "do you mind if I just ride?"

"You can hold the pizza then," Byron said.

Meg smiled. "We're having pizza?" She said.

Byron nodded. "Your father is making a short claymation film so our oven is currently a kiln."

"That's so cool!" She said.

"Not when you get stoned and wanna make chicken fingers at three in the morning."

"Microwave them," she said. "They taste better that way."

Byron laughed and opened the car door for her. "Agree to disagree," he said.

Meg climbed into Byron's sedan and when all her limbs and body parts were safely inside he shut the door. The car was older than Byron but Meg loved it. It was big and wide and heavy with red leather upholstery and a black dash. She felt like an astronaut sitting in the massive passenger seat, staring at knobs and dials and the antique tape deck.

Byron walked around the front of the car and climbed behind the wheel. They put their seatbelts on at the same time and had a laugh about it. "Music?" Byron said.

Meg tilted her head back to see him beneath the rim of her hood and nodded her head. "Let's rock," she said.

Byron chuckled and turned on the tape deck and adjusted the volume until they could both hear it. "This was my father's favorite," he said. "it's called Atlantic City, by Bruce Springsteen."

"Oooh the boss," she said, tapping her feet on the floor.

"That's right," he said.

Byron put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb. Meg kept her hood up because she liked the way it hugged her ears and listened to the joyful melancholy of Springsteen's voice as they drove.

There were only two pizza shops in town and Byron had chosen the one closest to the train station. They went through the drive-thru, told the clerk whose name it was under and then Byron handed it off to her. She set both boxes on her lap and waited for her legs to adjust to the heat. Springsteen kept wailing about winners and losers and the ebb and flow of a failing romance. Meg had heard his music before and liked it.

He had a way of getting to the heart of things. Baring his own pain while helping you to navigate your own. She picked up the tune real fast and was eager to hear the next one.

"I think your visit will do your father some good," Byron said.

"Is he stuck?" She said.

Byron was quiet for a moment, one hand on the wheel, eyes watching the road in front of him. The windshield wipers ran back and forth across the glass. The rain kept coming like hammer blows.

"He hasn't written a word in six months," Byron said.

"That's impossible," she said. "Dad writes every day."

Byron nodded and made a right hand turn at an intersection. "He started writing a book eight months ago," Byron said. "one morning I wake up and he's in bed with me. Looked like he'd been there all night. Every morning for the past six months he's been there."

Meg looked down at her rain boots and frowned. Her shoulders slouched and she pulled her hands into her big sleeves. Her father had a very strict routine when he was working on a book. Every day he woke up at four o'clock in the afternoon and wrote until noon the next day. He stopped for meals but often went without eating for days at a time.

He produced twenty thousand words a day, sometimes more. He could write a novel in ten days and often wrote series because he hated having to cram all his ideas into a single package.

When he wasn't writing he kept normal nine to five hours and produced five hundred words of an outline for future projects. But he always wrote. Not even a natural disaster could stop him.

"This is bad," she said. "will he be okay?"

"I didn't mean to upset you," Byron said. "your father is getting older. And he doesn't have much to prove anymore when it comes to writing. He may just be ready to move onto other things."

Meg shook her head. "He hasn't finished the Savage Bastard series, or the Moon Killer Chronicles, and his last Ogre Prince novel ended on a cliffhanger! Dad wouldn't quit without finishing his work."

"I wouldn't worry," he said. "I'm sure seeing you will light his fire again. It always does."

"But what if it doesn't?" She said.

Byron reached over with his free hand and squeezed her hand. Her skin shivered but she squeezed his hand back. He had spent his youth hammering nails and carrying shingles and she could feel the power in his grip. It was comforting. Almost like she was a child again, walking along the beach with her dad and listening to his theories on Tolkien and the state of modern fantasy.

"We'll look after him butterfly," Byron said. "we always do."

"Have you tried seduction?" Meg blurted out.

Byron chuckled and shook his head. "I won't wow you with the details," he said.

"Thank you," she said. "I don't even know why I said that."

"How's school going?" Byron said.

Meg didn't want to change the conversation but she didn't know what else to say on the subject. And she didn't want to make Byron upset by ignoring him while she fixated on her father's sudden change.

"It's going well," she said. "my kids are great."

"What about the other teachers?" He said.

Meg grunted. "I prefer the children," she said.

"I worry about you," Byron said. "the city isn't getting any safer. And it's so damn noisey."

Meg agreed with both of his points. She didn't like the city much either but it was where her job was, and her home, and most importantly her freedom.

"I get worried too," Meg said. "but my neighborhood is pretty safe. And it's only a twenty minute walk to school."

Byron raised his hand in the air. "You don't have to convince me," he said. "If you say your good I'll trust you. But you know if you ever need anything we're here for you."

That was part of the problem. Byron and her dad had always been there for her. Being with them was safe and easy. She never had to worry about anything. They took care of her. Because they loved her but sometimes it felt like they did it because she was delicate and broken.

If she moved back with them she would slip right into her old ways and never grow into an actual person. And then one day they would die and she wouldn't have anyone to take care of her and she wouldn't know what to do.

She didn't want that. It wasn't fair to her and it wasn't fair to them either. She had to make it on her own. As scary as it was at times being on her own was too exhilarating to give up.

"I had one of my biggest streams ever last night," Meg said.

"Congratulations," Byron said. "I think your father watched some of it. I of course couldn't stay up past eight."

"That's okay," Meg said. "you get up early."

"I wish I didn't," he said. "you're supposed to relax when you retire. I don't know why my brain thinks two in the morning is get out of bed time."

"I don't have that problem," she said. "I can sleep all day and night and all day again."

"Depression is a helluva drug," he said.

Meg laughed. "My bed is just comfy I guess," she said.

Byron followed mainstreet out of town and drove along the narrow two lane blacktop for thirty whole minutes without saying a word. Springsteen sang and they listened. Meg stared out the window at the rain slick trees and thought about her childhood and the summers she spent exploring around her father's home.

She remembered them as happy chunks, disconnected from the rest of her life. She wasn't sure how old she was in the memories and it didn't matter. All she cared about was the feeling of adventure and the quiet serenity of being alone in nature.

In the trees around her father's home she wasn't a confused and terrified child. She was a member of the fellowship, a hero of the lance, an explorer charting out the wilderness. She was free.

It was a feeling she would have loved to recreate but as an adult it felt impossible. The vast wilderness she had charted wasn't that big and the world had burrowed deep in her bones making it impossible for her to ever truly forget it.

At least in the game she could get close to it. But even then the experience lacked something that she could not quite put her finger on. She felt if she could figure it out her life would change dramatically for the better. How many people have felt the same way? She thought.

As the tape came to an end Byron slowed the car to a crawl and swung into the end of her father's gravel driveway. The car bounced as they drove, sinking and rising as he tried to avoid the unruly potholes.

"One day I'm going to pave this whole damn driveway," Byron said.

"You've been saying that since you moved in," she said.

Bryon smirked. "I might've gotten distracted by other projects."

"Is that why you never painted my ceiling," Meg said.

"I didn't paint it because you asked for it to look like the Sistine Chapel," he said. "and I have trouble coloring in the lines, let alone recreating an artistic masterpiece."

"I'm sure you'll get around to it after you pave the driveway," Meg said.

"Now you're getting it," he said.

After his divorce Meg's father had envisioned a place where he could dedicate himself to the art of writing. A quiet serene place where the only distractions were rolling hills, boundless trees and the soft babbling of a creek.

For the most part he had gotten it too. His house was a three story Victorian manor nestled in the hills and trees of the countryside with a lazy stream on its eastern border and the neighbor's farm to the west. To the north were the remnants of an old railroad and another farm. To the south was thirty minutes of trees, hills, dirt roads and house trailers and then the town.

Byron parked in the shade of an ancient oak tree and turned off the engine. He got out and hustled over to her door and took the pizza from her. She undid her seatbelt and popped open her umbrella and the two of them huddled beneath it on their way to the house.

Through the rain and damp earth smell that permeated the property she smelled fresh pipe tobacco burning and scanned the house for a glimpse of her father. She found him at the far end of the veranda, lounging on the porch swing and staring up at the roof above him.

He didn't seem to notice their arrival though she knew he had. Her father saw and heard everything around him. If she asked he could have told her how many nails were in the roof of the veranda or links in the chain of the swing. He would know what kind of pizzas they had brought. How many buttons were on her coat. How much her bag weighed.

Meg didn't ask him about any of those things. She knew most of the world was trivial to him and to force him to talk about it would be like her coworker's trying to force her into small talk. Instead she climbed up the steps beside Byron and went inside without saying hello.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Byron led her down the familiar hallway to the dining room at the back of the house. She set both pizzas on the table and wiped her hands off on her raincoat.

"I'll grab some plates from the warzone," Byron said.

Meg watched him go and said "Don't forget a knife and fork for me!"

"I never do," he said, disappearing down the hall.

Alone Meg pushed off her hood and began the process of removing her raincoat and windbreaker. She took off her boots too and slung her messenger bag over the back of a chair.

The dining room hadn't changed since her youth. It had the same brown oppressive wallpaper and scuffed hardwood floor that creaked every time she moved. As a child she had been afraid the boards would snap and she would fall through the floor, never to be seen again. And then her dad had given her a flashlight and helped her crawl under the house.

Knowing that there was solid ground under the house and not an endless black hole to nowhere didn't help her get over her fear though. It merely replaced it with a fear of the dark, wet, cobweb ridden crawl space they had explored together. She shuddered and went to stand in the doorway where there was no risk of falling to the hell that lay below.

Byron returned soon after with a small stack of plates and napkins and a knife and fork for her. She let him pass and remained in the doorway.

"Do you want to eat somewhere else?" Byron said.

She shook her head no. "I'm standing here for old times sake," she said.

"How about you tell your father dinner is ready and I'll get something cold for us to drink."

Meg turned without saying a word and marched back down the hallway, more than a little relieved to be away from the old floor. She eased the screen door open and stepped out onto the veranda. Her feet shuddered in her socks at the texture of the floorboards but she dealt with it.

Her father was still smoking on the porch swing. He had always been a small man but now he seemed smaller. Diminished in some capacity though she was unsure if it was because of age or his sudden disinterest in writing.

"Dinner is ready," she said.

Her father took a puff on his pipe and blew out a ring of smoke. It drifted lazily on the wind and broke apart as it touched the ceiling.

"What do you think they're eating in the halls of Skotadi?" Her father said.

Meg's ears burned. Her father hadn't asked about Skotadi in years. She had assumed he'd forgotten it. "I don't know," she said.

Another smoke ring billowed out of his mouth and he sent a smaller one chasing it. "I've been thinking a lot about Skotadi and the seven devil princes," he said. "What were their names again?"

Meg shifted her weight from foot to foot and stared at the ground. What was he after? Her father was a man of angles, like a lawyer or a wizard. He was always trying to achieve something, for in his opinion that was the purpose of words. She felt like a fish on the hook but she hadn't even seen any bait.

"Atrum, Batrum, Caltrum, Daltrum, Eltrum, Faustrum, Gaistrum." The names came easily to her though she had not thought about them in years.

"Ah yes. The seven princes of the dark court. Rebels, thieves, and reavers. Blood thirsty and mean, bastards without parallel. I always loved that part. Your mother was less fond of it."

"Why are you thinking about them?" Meg asked.

Her father took his pipe from his mouth and sighed. Somewhere in the trees a bird called to its lover. A squirrel darted across the lawn. Neither of them looked at each other.

"I never stopped thinking about them," He said.

"Why?" She said.

"Because you were seven," he said. "and you shook my faith to its core."

"I did?" She said.

"You never asked me about writing. How to do it or why I did it. All you ever did was ask when I could come play. And I always told you, a few minutes more."

She did not have to work hard to dredge up the memories of the summers she had spent with her father and Byron. They were a pillar of her youth, a ritual so common she never questioned it. At least not anymore.

But she could remember days and nights when she had. Quiet questions and accusations. Always kept to herself, never shared with anyone. Not even Byron.

Am I not good enough, she would think. Do I bore him. Aren't fathers supposed to love their daughters? Have I displeased him?

"You were working," Meg said. "I understand."

"I don't," her father said. "I could have put you on my lap and taught you everything from word one to the end. Who better to learn from than a master?"

Meg shifted her lip to the right and looked out over the property. The damp earth smell was stronger now. Like rot seeping into her bones. It haunted her like the long dead memories he was inadvertently bringing to the surface. Was that his motive? If so then why?

"I had Byron to play with," she said.

Something in her voice quivered and she was a child again. Sitting in Byron's lap and plunking away at the piano keys as he explained the history of the blues to her. His voice was smooth and true but she couldn't hear him. She was too busy thinking about the man in the other room. Head down, hand scribbling, glasses slipping down his nose. How much time had she wasted counting down the time. How many times had her heartbroken when he told her just a little while longer for the third time in a row.

"I remember the day your mother told me about Skotadi," he said. "she came all this way to show me your notes. I was furious. She couldn't understand why even though I told her how much it hurt to have your work ripped away from you."

"I don't remember that," Meg said.

"Byron took you to catch salamanders," her father said.

She remembered doing that a lot. They rarely caught any but being with Byron in the woods was even better than being there alone. He had a way of making the adventure real. And he knew a lot about nature.

She had pretended he was a wizard training her for a great purpose. One day she would have all his knowledge and together they would lead a brave band of adventurers into the abyss and save the land.

"After we stopped screaming I sat down and read through your notes. Seven hundred pages written in crayons and colored pencils. You had histories and characters and plot points. Sequel ideas. You even had a family tree. And the comedy, god it was funny."

Her lungs tensed and the sense of weight crept into her chest as if he were sitting on her. She stared at the ground and touched the railing. The smooth wood was sticky in the heat. She thought about running into the woods and getting away from him. But she wasn't sure why she wanted that in the first place.

He would have known. Her perfect father with his intuition and theories. The Sherlock Holmes of her youth. Bastards Unparalleled. She shuddered.

"But it was sad too," he said. "your mother couldn't see past the violence and swearing. She blamed me for putting it in your head. As if I could write something so genius."

Meg's head jerked up and she stared at her father. His head turned slowly and their eyes met. She suddenly couldn't remember ever looking him in the eyes before. It felt wrong. Like she had opened the door and caught God wiping the divine shit off his ass.

She averted her gaze but felt him staring at her. Studying her and she wondered if he was seeing her for the first time as well.

"You thought it was genius?" She said. "I was just a kid."

"I write by the seat of my pants Meg," he said. "None of it makes sense until the very end and even then it's half a trainwreck and the other half isn't much better. But Skotadi and the princes were beautiful. I couldn't understand where it had come from. How could a happy little girl come up with the prince of skin and his grand dragon Bark?"

Meg rolled her lips together and shifted her shoulders. Sweat collected in the pits of her arms. She could feel the heat creeping up her sundress and the fabric felt too snug around her throat. She had never told anyone why she had created Skotadi and talking about it felt like cracking open her chest and tearing out her insides.

"I was never brave enough to ask," he said. "but whenever I'm stuck I open my safe and take out your notes and I read them. I'll let you in on a little secret. You know how I always seem to know what you'll say or do?"

"Or when I'll surprise you with a visit?" Meg said.

He nodded. "Every writer puts themselves into their work. Some writers put all of themselves on display. Others only a sprinkle of their inner workings. Reading about Skotadi told me more about you than any therapist could ever could."

"I don't understand," Meg said. She wasn't even sure she wanted to.

"I think you were scared and confused. I think you were lonely and while the dark might have scared you it was nothing compared to the horrors in your own head. Humor an old man, tell me when you decided to create Skotadi."

Meg's hands shook and she stuffed them into the pockets of her dress. Quiet tears spilled down her face but she didn't sob or whine. She stared straight ahead at the trees and yearned to run all the way back to the train station. Byron would only catch her though and he'd convince her to talk, the same way he had done when she was a child. What was the point in running if the end results were the same.

Meg swallowed and rubbed a hand across her face. The tears smeared across her reddish brown skin. She reminded herself to breathe but it was a while before she could remember how words worked.

"I was really scared," she said. "I kept thinking I'd fall through the dining room floor into an abyss. And then you took me under the house to show me there wasn't anything to be afraid of but that didn't help. One night I got scared in my blanket fort and I thought that if I could make friends who were scarier than the abyss they would protect me. So I made up the princes and they lived beneath the house."

"Of course," he said. "They are seven and they live in the great below where it's wet and cold and the bones grow. And Skotadi, whatever made you think of that?"

"I thought if I named my fear it wouldn't be scary anymore and your worlds always had exotic names. I used your Greek dictionary and looked for the word dark."

Meg's father sat up slowly and placed his pipe on the railing. He was short and dark with a head of unruly black hair and thick eyebrows. His button up shirt was tucked into his khaki capris and he was barefoot. He always joked that he was the only Hobbit from Thailand. She always laughed.

"I owe you an immense apology," he said. "I never should have kept your notes. I should have encouraged you to write. I should have told you how proud I was of you. I am proud of you. I have been a fool your entire life and I am sorry."

"I don't know what to say," she said. "this is hard."

"Did Byron tell you I stopped writing?" He said.

Meg nodded but on the inside her guts twisted and writhed. Was his slip in routine her fault? It didn't make sense to her. How could her childhood dreamworld make him stop writing?

"Why did you stop writing?" She said.

He smiled at her and for the first time she noticed the lines and wrinkles that had crept into his face. And when she stole a glance into his dark brown eyes she was surprised to find them wet with emotion. She had never seen her father cry. She didn't want to now.

She gnawed on the corner of her lip. Her surprise visit had gone horribly off the rails. The pizza was getting cold. What if Byron intruded on them now? It would completely ruin the moment. Whatever this moment was. She didn't want it to end. She felt as if they were on the precipice of something great. Something terrifying. Something all consuming.

Her father climbed off the swing and tapped the tobacco out of his pipe on the railing and motioned for Meg to stand beside him. They stood and looked out at the property. At the edge of it against the trees was an old red barn that Byron had turned into a workshop. It was another thing to distract him from paving the driveway.

"All my life I wanted to be a writer," he said. "I knew in my heart that if I couldn't do that I would die. I didn't want to be a poor farmer's son for the rest of my life and raise more poor farmer's sons to follow in my footsteps. I chased writing harder than anything and it's taken me there and back again. I've outsold my contemporaries, outdistanced the past, and have become a modern pillar of fantasy according to the critics. But it's all ash in my mouth."

Meg listened and tried not to get distracted by the squirrel who was searching the yard. She knew full well how dedicated her father was to writing. She had seen him pouring over the books of his rivals and the authors who had inspired him. He would break down every sentence, paragraph, and chapter. He made notes about their strengths and weaknesses, their tricks and failures. And then he would sit down with a notebook and write something better. There were at least twelve authors who no longer wrote because of how massively his work had crushed theirs.

"Six months ago I was working on a new series and I needed a monster," he said. "something horrific and otherworldly. I wasted four hours trying to create it and then I remembered the third prince of Skotadi. Black as night, eyes as yellow as the wolf's, his teeth sharp like razors, he has a secret you can have if it's something you can keep. Do you remember that?"

She did. The third prince of Skotadi had been her favorite because he scared her the most. And for good reason.

"A short fathomless creature " she said. "his limbs gnarled and thick like roots. He smelled like the earth and the dead things that lived there. He never smiled, never laughed but when he shared his secret he was quite pleased."

"Yes! You do remember. I shouldn't be surprised. I remember everything about my first character. You never did write what his secret was though. It drove me mad trying to figure it out."

"I did but I was afraid mom would be mad so I took it out and buried the pages in the garden."

Her father sighed and shook his head. "A writer must always tell his truth. You can't sugarcoat things for fear some cretin won't like it."

"Mom isn't a cretin," she said.

"I'm sorry," he said. "you're right. That was a poor choice of words. You would think I'd know better. But of course I'm not a writer anymore so I don't have to worry about it as much."

"I still don't understand," Meg said. "why did Caltrum make you stop writing?"

"When I remembered him I took out your notes and read through them. It had been ages since my last read through. I thought I had learned everything I could from them but I was wrong. Halfway through your notes I forgot all about my monster and the book. I didn't even bother looking for clues to Caltrum's secret. I sat there and cried like a baby."

"Why?" She said.

"I started to think about the king and queen of Skotadi. She was radiant and warm yet they could not reach her light and her hugs did not warm their icy black hearts. He was a king and kings were busy and their strength alone was not enough to break him free from the prison of his own making. But you rarely see them in your notes. I realized the princes were trapped in the hall and they wanted to get out so badly."

"But the wards kept them inside," Meg said. "I never figured out why or what they were. I had a feeling, it was big and heavy. If they got out the world would have come to an end."

"Think about it with your situation in mind," he said. "a little girl whose parents divorced. A mother who loves her but can't begin to understand the way her mind works, a mother who's always chasing the next dose of happiness. Her father loves her too but he is never around and she can't get him to sit down and play ponies with her."

A smile teased the corners of her mouth. "I almost forgot about ponies," she said.

"You loved horses," he said. "you would talk about riding across the country like the old cowboys did. You didn't speak to Byron for a week when he told you how impossible that was."

"Do you think the wards could have been my representation of family bonds?" She said.

"More than likely yes" he said. "Like me yearning to leave my father's farm you wanted to escape the anxiety of being caught between your mother and I. And yet if you left you thought you would never get the love and attention you craved."

Meg hugged herself and shut her eyes. "I don't like to think about that stuff," she said. "I think I make myself forget everything but the happy stuff. When I can't do that I shave off the ugly and hold onto the gold."

"That's why I put down my pen," he said.

"Because of me?" She said. "I don't want to be the reason you stop doing what you love."

"You aren't," he said. "you were merely the one to put my life into perspective for me. Meg I'm almost sixty years old. It would take a computer to out produce me. I have cast a continent sized shadow across the fantasy genre, across writing itself. But I'm not whole. I spent my entire life pursuing the idea of being a writer. And if I had to do it all over again I would have stayed on that farm."

"But why?" She said, trying to read between his lines. To think like him.

"I loved your mother," he said. "but I was never there for her. I would listen to her talk about her hopes and dreams and think I should be writing. I would look into your big brown eyes as you begged me to come play and tell you no because I had writing to do. I have been married to Byron for two decades and the time we've spent together is drastically outweighed by the time I've spent with my desk. Reading your notes, feeling your pain from all those years ago I realized I had achieved my goal long ago. But I was so afraid of being that boring old farmer I drove my wife away and ignored the best two things to ever happen to me. I'd trade every page I've ever written for all the time we didn't spend together."

The floor in the hallway creaked and the screen door swung open. She sensed Byron behind them in the doorway. Felt his size and presence and understood that he had known about this conversation since he'd picked her up from the train. She had an image of her father writing out the scene, making it as dramatic as possible. A soul crushing realization followed swiftly by a breath of relief.

Then what? She wondered.

"Pizza is getting cold," Byron said.

"Byron I owe you an apology too," her father said.

"No you don't," Byron said. "but if you need to talk I'll listen."

Her father touched her shoulder for the briefest of seconds and pulled his hand back.

"I was just explaining to Meg why I quit writing. I would have told you sooner but until I watched Meg's stream last night I wasn't sure how to put it into words."

Byron came out further onto the porch and leaned against one of the support columns by the steps. He and Meg were silent, straining their ears, waiting for him to continue.

"I have lived a thousand lives through my writing but none of them satisfied me," he said. "there was always another world to explore. One more character to chart, one more series to write. One more page to fill. And while I was trying to fill the void in me I let the only life that really mattered go to rot."

"That's a little dramatic," Byron said. "Meg is doing alright. We're okay. Nobody is perfect."

Meg chewed on her lip. Her insides trembled and twisted and she wanted to pull her hair out. Byron was right. But so was her father. Wrongs had been committed and love had suffered. People had turned to wreckage in the wake of his career. And it hurt.

For the first time in a long time she could see that. She could admit that she had been neglected and ignored at a time when she had needed him the most. Her grief burned into anger then simmered and cooled like the pizza she had left on the dining room table.

"We can't change the past," Meg said. "all we can do is work on the future."

"And maybe after that we can pave the driveway." Byron said.

Her father scoffed and rolled his eyes. "You know how much I hate breaking the emotion with jokes."

"Can we eat now?" She said. "My head feels full."

The three of them went inside and shuffled into the dining room. Byron and her father sat across from her and they all filled their plates with pizza. Meg picked up her knife and fork and sawed her slice into sections.

She didn't have much of an appetite. She felt like she had taken an uppercut from a frost giant. At least she understood that. She could rally and fight back. This was years of trauma and memories buried deep within her psyche. The kind of things her child psychiatrists had attempted to get her to deal with.

She had resisted them. Fought so hard that her mother had given up and taken her out of therapy. Something was different now. She wasn't sure what but she knew she couldn't shut it down.

Streaming is gonna be hard tonight, she thought.

Meg forced herself to eat. The greasy cheese and thin cut pepperoni were better than dwelling on conundrums she couldn’t solve. But they weren’t enough to keep her mind fully occupied. Little intrusive thoughts sprang up from her subconscious and she wrestled with them throughout dinner. Unpacking and dissecting and repacking them all over again in a cycle of frustrated misery.

“Could I ask a favor of you?” Her father said.

Meg looked up at him with a mouthful of stuffed crust and stared quietly at him. She realized he was waiting for a response and nodded. “Could you tell me what Caltrum’s secret is?” He said.

Meg chewed as slowly as she could and wiped her lips on a napkin. She made the bread and cheese into tiny pulverized molecules then swallowed. “It isn’t appropriate for dinner,” she said.

“I’m hardly squeamish,” He said. “And Byron was a combat medic. I doubt there is anything that could unsettle his stomach.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to tell you,” Byron said.

“Is that true?” Her father said.

Meg leaned back in her seat and looked at a glob of molten cheese that had slid off her pizza and onto her plate. She slid her fork under it like a snow shovel and raised it up in front of her mouth. Steam wiggled off of it and she pursed her lips and blew until it was cool enough to eat. She had kept Caltrum’s secret for a long time. Now that she was an adult it wasn’t as horrible as she had thought. Yet old habits died hard and it was not her instinct to tell him.

“I don’t know.” Meg shoved the cheese into her mouth and winced. She opened her mouth and sucked in cool air and swallowed the cheese as fast as possible. It burned like fire all the way down to her stomach.

“Can I make a guess?” Her father said. Meg shrugged and her father took that as permission to go ahead. “I think Caltrum stole the light from the world.”

Meg shook her head. “No, that was the High King. Their grandfather.”

Her father’s eye twitched then went still. With great effort he swallowed and nodded more to himself than anyone else. “At the risk of projecting I would say you were aware of my disdain for my father and his life.”

Meg set her fork down and took a drink of water. They hadn’t discussed storytelling much but she had listened to him rant about it for years and she had sat in front of the computer with Byron and watched every interview he had given. Occasionally she dreamt of being in his place, interviewed by well dressed people and sassy podcasters. She dreamt of having people theory craft and complain about her own works of art. Now that she was in the hot seat she realized it was a terrible position to be in. Lonely and uncomfortable.

How had they both been so blind to each other’s pain? Meg placed her water to the left of her plate and fidgeted with a fresh napkin. “I don’t want to be mean but...a farmer’s son can’t become king unless he marries into the royal family. The Low King is an honorary title, like Grand Regent in your Ogre Prince books. The High King was mom’s biological father.”

“Damn,” Her father said. “I thought I had that one pegged.”

“The High King was a cruel tyrant. Cold and distant and he stank of ash and brimstone. The Queen of Embers was his daughter. But before she was the Queen of Embers she was the Bright Princess. And the High King hated her because she stole the love and attention of the High Queen. He did whatever he could to crush that light and he was successful to an extent.”

Her father picked his plate up and set it away from him. He leaned forward and stared intently into her eyes and she looked away. She felt his unrelenting gaze pour over her and pictured a thousand ugly black tentacles prodding at her nose and ears and eyes. Desperate to get inside and consume all the secrets she had locked away in her mind.

“Fascinating,” he said. “Seven years old and your work was so layered.”

“She came up with this when she was seven?” Bryon said. “I’m not surprised. She’s the smartest butterfly I’ve ever met.”

Meg blushed and shifted in her seat. Tendrils of joy spread down her spine and popped like fireworks in the night. “She became the Queen of Embers because he couldn’t put out her light entirely. Every morning she still burned. And for a while the Low King made sure to fan her flames.”

“Until the great rift,” Her father said. “It's only mentioned once in your notes but it doesn’t take a genius to know what it represents.”

Meg started to retreat and stopped herself. What did she have to be afraid of? This was her family. Her home. If she had to hide here then what was the point of even being alive? She pulled herself upright in her seat and forced herself to smile at them. Her father continued his unblinking stare. Bryon smiled back and began folding a napkin into a paper swan.

“The Low King wanted to conquer the Far Lands and prove himself worthy of the crown. The Queen of Embers wanted his constant devotion and like her father sought to break him. Neither were successful.”

“Does this story have a happy ending?” Byron said.

“Don’t look at me,” Her father said. “You’ll have to ask Meg.”

“The rift becomes a war. The princes commit terrible crimes and the High King forces them into the hall. I never really fleshed it out. I wrote it all from my feelings and I’m afraid I’ve lost some of it.”

“And what about Caltrum’s secret?” Her father said.

“I tore the pages out so that mom wouldn’t freak out if she read them,” Meg said. “But Caltrum used a trick to break out of the hall. Before the gargoyle knights can slay him he kills The Queen of Embers and the Low King and eats them.”

Byron looked at the cheese dripping off his pizza and shook his head. “I can see why your mother might get a little concerned.”

“It was seventeen pages long and very fixated on their skin and bones and eyes,” Meg said looking down at her lap.

Her father laughed. “Now that’s an ending,” He said, slapping the table. “Why do you think he ate them?”

“Because they were consuming him,” She said. “Caltrum was very sick and confused and even before the rift his cries went unheard. I don’t think he wanted to eat them but they wouldn’t love him so he had no choice. I think a part of me knew it was an unwinnable situation.”

“I can’t apologize enough,” Her father said. “For putting you in that position. For making you feel like there was no hope.”

Meg’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “I’m not Caltrum,” She said.

“Of course not,” He said. “But there is a little bit of the author in every character. Even the villains.”

Meg shook her head furiously and felt a wave of dizziness rush over her. “At the end of the pages I tore out I wrote about the commander of the Gargoyle knights.”

“Lysandra,” He said. “Small and dark, hands like claws, heart like fire. I remember.”

“She catches Caltrum after he eats his parents and she arrests him. She can’t kill him because he’s a prince. That was me. I had to keep them in the dark or bad things would happen.”

“I hate being wrong,” Her father said. “But it makes sense. If we view the princes as your emotions or your young subconscious then Lysandra is your conscious. Keeper of secrets. Protector of Princes.”

“I might be just an old combat medic but maybe you’ve got this all wrong,” Byron said.

“How do you figure?” Her father said.

Byron finished his paper swan and smirked. He leaned back in his seat like an old time gambler and laid it out for them. “A little girl in the middle of the divorce, on the spectrum, getting in trouble at school for having outbursts. Two parents who weren’t doing their best for her. No way she would have felt comfortable expressing herself. The princes are her natural reactions. This gargoyle knight was her trying to keep everything together. Keep up the illusion of being a normal girl. No offense butterfly.”

“None taken,” Meg said with a deep sigh. “I guess I never thought about it like that but you could be right. I might have been trying to make sense of things I didn’t understand yet. It was another four years before I was diagnosed. Heck I don’t understand myself half the time and I’ve been dealing with this since I was a baby.”

“I married a genius,” Her father said.

Byron grinned and put his hands behind his head and stretched out at the table. “I’m handsome too,” He said.

Her father leaned over and planted a quick kiss on Byron’s cheek. “I’m glad we had this talk,” He said.

“I think we’re going to have a lot more in the future,” Meg whispered.

Her father’s head tilted slightly and a warm smile filled his face. “I look forward to every one of them,” He said. “I know you stream a lot but perhaps Byron and I can come visit you for dinner. I’ve never been to your apartment. You have a cat don’t you? Byron, we should get a cat.”

“I don’t stream on Sundays,” Meg said. “I have some model train kits we could build!”

Her father and Byron looked at each other and laughed. “The more things change the more they stay the same,” Byron said.

With their laughter the tension in the room melted and Meg relaxed. She had three more slices of pizza before her stomach demanded she stopped. When they had eaten their fill she helped Byron clean up. Her father stood by and watched, still not used to not running back to his latest manuscript.

It was uplifting to her. If such an accomplished man still struggled at his age then maybe she wasn't the broken freak she thought she was.

After they cleaned up her father led them out to the veranda and lit his pipe. It was fine Belgium tobacco and burned with a pleasant stench that reminded her of mornings spent quietly coloring on the floor of her father's office.

A warm rain fell on the land around them and her father tucked the pipe into the corner of his mouth. "We should go for a walk," he said.

"You don't have any shoes on," Byron said, pointing at his feet.

"So what?" Her father said. "I used to walk five miles to town when I was a kid. I didn't have shoes then."

"If you step on a rock I'm not carrying you," Byron said.

"What do you think, Meg?" Her father said. "fancy a walk?"

Meg looked at the rain and the grass and shivered at the idea of the wet mud clinging to her naked feet.

"I have to get my boots first," Meg said. "and my coats."

"We'll wait for you," Byron said.

Meg went back into the house and skipped down the hall to the dining room. She jammed her feet into her boots and wrestled with her windbreaker and then slid into her raincoat. She zipped and buttoned her coats then pulled her hood up and skipped back to the porch.

"I'm ready!" She said.

Meg rushed between them and jumped off the veranda. She landed with a splash and a thud then laughed and spun around. She was relieved to see them smiling. There were few things more precious in life than being able to be yourself when others were watching and she knew that at least for the moment she didn't have to worry about being told to grow up.

They made a wide loop around the house then moved into the woods along a path made by the local deer. Her father knew the names of every tree and most of the plants. He pointed out squirrels and chipmunks and bird nests and almost stepped into a thicket of poison ivy. He laughed about it and led them down to the gurgling stream where Meg had searched for crawfish as a kid.

An hour of quiet chatter and heavy breathing passed and then they worked their way back to the house. It was still light out when they returned and Byron went inside to change his clothes before taking her to the train.

"Would you like your notes back?" Her father asked suddenly.

"You keep them," she said.

"But they belong to you," he said. "they're your creations."

"After mom found my notes and showed you I kind of shut that part of me down," she said. "When I think of them now it's like another person wrote that stuff. I'm sorry."

"You never have to apologize to me," he said. "But perhaps you should open that part of your life back up. You may have outgrown Skotadi but writing can be an incredible journey of self discovery. I never would have fallen in love with Byron if I hadn't first explored my proclivities through my writing."

"I don't know," she said. "I wouldn't know where to start."

Her father grinned and patted his chest. "Start with your heart," he said. "And whatever you decide I'll support."

"Thank you," she said.

The door swung open and Byron came out in a plain white t-shirt and blue jeans and an old pair of sneakers. "Ready to go?" He said.

"No, but I have to get back to stream," she said.

"I think I'll drive you," her father said.

He held his hand out for the keys and Byron frowned. "Last time you got a ticket for blowing through a stop sign."

"I thought stop signs were more of a suggestion than a rule," her father said.

"You know damn well."

"I'll drive," Meg chirped up.

Her father smiled and pointed at her. "She'll drive," he said.

Byron nodded and dug the keys out of his pocket and dumped them into the palm of her hand.

"Shotgun!" Her father said.

"Wipe your leathery feet off before you get in my car," Byron said.

They walked across the driveway to where Byron had parked the car and Meg used the key fob to unlock it. While her father wiped the mud and dirt from his feet she climbed behind the wheel and adjusted her seat then her mirrors. She strapped herself in with the seatbelt and turned the key in the ignition. The Detroit engine rumbled to life and settled into a low purr that vibrated through the frame and into her body.

Byron slid into the center of the backseat and leaned forward. "Don't be nervous," he said. "don't worry about what your dad says, he's critical of everything except his own driving. And most importantly."

"Don't hold my breath when I get nervous," she said.

He smiled and laughed. "You got it," he said.

Her father opened the passenger side door and Byron made him lift his feet up for inspection before he could enter. He plopped down in the seat and shut the door. Meg stared at him until he put his seatbelt on. She shifted her eyes to the rearview mirror and stared at Byron. He buckled the lap belt around his waist and she put the car into reverse.

She eased the car backwards and swung the car around then settled into a slow bumpy jaunt down the driveway.The country roads were empty and quiet, far easier to drive on than the loud cluttered roads of the city, and she made good time on the return trip.

At the train station she found an empty parking spot and turned the car off. She got out with Byron and her father and they walked over to the ticket booth. She flashed the attendant her train pass and he printed out a ticket for her and told her the train was due in ten minutes.

The three of them milled around the platform and talked about their evening walk. Meg tuned most of it out, listening enough to nod and smile when appropriate. Her mind was reaching towards the future. To the stream she had to run tonight and how she would handle Bruce when she logged back in.

She held onto her messenger bag and tried not to smile or bounce. If she kept quiet she wouldn't have to explain herself or put up with any comments about how she was too excited about a silly video game. Neither of them had ever criticized her for playing games but others had and now that she was going back into the chaos of civilization that was enough to put her on guard.

The world was dangerous and terrifying. If she opened herself up too much it would rush inside and leave her swollen and gutted. At least that was the fear that lingered at the back of her mind. A whisper that if she lost control even for a second everything she was would be pulverized to dust and then swept away by the wind.

The train whined as it came around the bend. The air brakes whistled and hissed and inch by inch the train slowed to a crawl then stopped altogether. The door hissed open and Meg started for them.

"Wait a minute," her father said.

Meg stopped and wheeled around to face them. "I don't want to be late," she said.

"A little goodbye would be nice," her father said.

He spread his arms out wide and she stared at him. "You know she doesn't like hugs," Byron said.

"I don't like them either," her father said. "but I feel like we had a breakthrough and that calls for a hug right?"

Meg couldn't argue with his logic. Normal people would have been hugging and crying. There would have been snot coming out of noses and shrieking. But she wasn't normal. Whatever normal meant. She looked at her father and the hope in his eyes.

She rushed forward and wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. His arms encircled her and she closed her eyes and smiled. Her skin crawled and tingled. It felt like her skeleton was shifting inside her, pressing up against her skin, desperate to claw it's way out.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. She reached her limit and pulled back. Her father let her go and wiped at his eyes.

"Are you okay?" She said.

"Happy tears," he said.

"I've never seen you cry before," Meg said.

"Neither have I," Byron said.

Her father took a deep breath and exhaled. "It's something new I'm trying," he said. "don't judge me."

Byron put his arm around him and pulled him close. "No judgement here," he said. "isn't that right butterfly?"

Meg nodded and glanced at the train. The doors were open and the few people on the platform were filing in. Her father saw the look and nodded.

"Go ahead," he said. "have a good stream,"

"Goodbye," she said.

Meg waved to them and hurried to the train. The car was almost empty. The few passengers heading back into the city were spread out and already engrossed in their phones. Meg found a seat by the door and took her book out of her bag. She thumbed it open and tossed herself back into the story.

The train whined and hissed and began its trip back to the city. She had a lot to do before the night was through. But for the time being she was content with reading about the goblins and elves fighting for the last dragon's heart.

I wonder how much Bruce could sell that heart for, she wondered. She turned the page and smiled.

"I'm going to kiss the crap out of him," she whispered.