The sun hits the wind just right on this fine afternoon in temperate Eferty city. Lounging upon the rolling hills that frame the old Hatton weir, stood lockstep in line across the meadows, are the austere yet bright townhouses of this famously painterly city quarter. Orderly are their vast gardens, almost as tame as the cobble roads of Hatton street on the terrace’s converse. But only almost, as one garden thrives under the watch of a maroon-red house.

A dark haired man stands upright, hands behind his back, on the edge of the house’s veranda that overlooks the stream at the bottom of the garden. He takes a deep breath and the delicate scent of the strawberry plants growing untamed just below fills him. Rose bushes, ferns, and tomato plants grow freely as grapes on the path that twists down to the brook like a wild vine. Caught on the breeze, climbing up the garden, is the faint yet ever present trickling of the brook. For a moment he shuts his eyes, leaning in and letting the wind brace his cheeks, before abruptly snapping back and returning to his more stiff position. His red garrison jacket keeps the crease of this lurch.

To this a woman chuckles, “Mmhm, for a second there I thought you had fallen asleep and would go tumbling down the hill. That I’d have to go chasing after you like when my grandmother would see us running for the stream from the floristry.”

He turns back to the house, now facing a table of white porcelain tiles set within an iron framing. The mosaic pattern reaches out to her. She sits outstretched on a chair hidden in shade beneath a parasol. A delicate white skirt with pink floral patterns floats upwards to her casually loosened blouse as she stretches her arms upwards, pointing to the first story balcony that holds said floristry. In one hand she holds a newspaper, her fingers partially stained by the ink.

“We’re not all lucky enough to have the nights to ourselves, Jen. I have responsibilities. Can’t be partying and then sleeping during the day, even when I have guests waiting.” He replies with a slight grin.

“I apologise, I’ve been working late more often. Recently I’ve been running all over the city with these new deadlines for my book, I’ll have you know. Besides, you’re my brother and you grew up in this house, do as you please if I nod off.” With this her half awake eyes scan the garden as they adjust to the light.

“You say that but that isn’t what I’ve heard.”

“Oh? And what have you heard?”

“People have told me, they say they’ve seen you out late in strange parts...” He meekly looks her in the face, barely maintaining eye contact as a protective urge comes over him. “The city is dangerous, you shouldn’t be galavanting. The book can be written here. All of your new friends at the Herald are working you in all the worst kinds of ways… the wrong ways.” he says with an equal squint, the sun shining brighter now she is awake.

“Oh! The flashy life of a newspaper cartoonist is just too much for one Henry Oliver, future magister of Lockhurst, hopeful chief of the southern garrison, and commodore of the Hatton Brook fleets!” laying on thick layers of sarcasm. “You really do see me as the decadent artist type don’t you? I draw pictures of goblins that bankers toss over to their children in the morning so they can read their whatever nonsense in peace.” She says wiping sleep from her eyes.

“I’m just worried, Jen. I hope your illustrations are the only thing keeping you up all night.”

“Well they are, I don’t know where you’ve got this idea that I’m always off galavanting anyway.” she says, searching around her bag for a silver cigarette box.

“I’ve seen what you write about. You may think I’m dull but the words your goblins say would be right at home in the mouths of those over zealous dock workers or those wacks from the college, I’m smart enough to know that much.”

“The insinuation being I’m spending all night at the dockyard taverns, only to chase it with an intellectual symposium with our old teachers?”

“I wouldn’t know Jen, I unfortunately had to graduate into the real world. Their philosophies, if you can even call them that, were all fun and games when I was younger but now I have to be an adult. The world is more complex than I once thought.”

“More complex by design don’t you think?” she says as she rummages, “Also, are you trying to say that our teachers aren’t smart enough to see these complexities? Conversely, are the workers at the docks too stupid?”

“You’re putting words in my mouth, I simply-” but that’s all of his answer he could muster before being cut off.

“Those words weren’t put there by me Henry.”

Jen looks over mournfully before refocusing on her bag. Henry had caught her look of loss, and with it the wind picked up. Several windchimes are thrown into a full orchestra while Jen’s parasol subtly spins. Feeling this wind Henry pulls out a comb and shields his hair with one hand, brushing it back into place once the breeze calms. Meanwhile, having found her silver case, Jen begins to roll a cigarette and picks up the conversation again.

“You accuse my goblins of a simple mindedness, but I could just as easily accuse you of parroting the Garrison's talking points. The thing is though, you aren’t a goblin so what’s your excuse?”

A bit taken aback Henry takes a sharp breath. He clumsily stashes his comb back into his trouser pocket. The two exchange a brief look.

“It’s a new perspective, Jen. Your grandmother was your grandmother, but with my father often away from the city she was more like a mother to me. She may have been ok with sticking out, with speaking her mind all the time, and treating every encounter as some kind of game to undermine… but it gets a bit tiring. You would come and go, she could flavour your life with intermittent applications of spice, but for me it was more concentrated.”

Henry, suddenly realising how directly he had spoken, leans back on the rail behind him. He runs his hands through his hair, messing up his freshly amended styling, then looks over at Jen. Having finished her project she places a cigarette inside her case only to then start rolling a second.

“I’m sorry,” he says half panicking, “I loved her, I truly did, and I wouldn’t change anything if given the chance. I’m so grateful for everything she did for me, even when it made life harder to accept on its own terms. She gave me an excellent sense of balance.”

He then searches his pockets again, this time pulling out a handkerchief. He starts thoughtfully rubbing the hair wax from his hands one finger at a time. Jen remains hunched at the table rolling her cigarette, not looking towards him.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“You don’t need to apologise, I understand.” she says in contemplation. “I think you're wrong but I sympathise. It’s all part of you growing up.”

With that she closes her case, one cigarette inside, one placed between her lips. A match is stricken against the table frame and the cigarette is lit. Wafting it around in the air to extinguish it, Jen places the match aside on the table. She lightly pushes her paper down the table towards Henry so as to clear space to lean on the table, then carefully places her box on top.

With a pensive look towards Jen, Henry says, “Well as I do, I hope we don’t grow too far apart…” With Jen now meeting his gaze once more he continues, “and don’t forget, although it may be only a matter of months, I am older than you. I’m the wise elder here now.”

“Well the wise elder has made a mess of his hair.”

Henry pulls a chair from under the table and sits beside where the paper had landed. Perfect posture but noticeably looser than when he was standing. He picks up Jen’s box and uses the metallic case as a mirror to fix his hair once more.

“While you’re there, although I assume you already know, there’s been another killing.” Jen says while gesturing towards the paper, blowing smoke to her side away from the pair.

Skimming the front page Henry sees a story: two bodies were found in an alley behind an enamel factory in the Eastern Quarter, an area which the article is adamant to remind the reader is a common site for prostitution and drug dealing.

“Yes, I did. Two victims, an elderly man and a young woman, thought to be a no-good vagabond and a whore. Seems they went and killed each other over a disagreement on rates.” he says bitterly.

“Henry!” Jen reacts, a look of disgust and confusion on her face. With this the wind makes a sudden change, blowing the smog of her cigarette into Henry’s face, the smell purging all strawberry essence from his sinuses.

“I know I shouldn’t put it like that. It’s just frustrating, those types should be handled by US.” emphasising the end of his statement with a thump on the chest so as to point to his garrison badge. “The idea of someone out there doing this of their own volition isn’t right. There is a process, with which I am proficient, that is the way for these people and others like them to be handled.”

“I suppose that's the ‘balance’ you were talking about earlier?”

“Maybe. Regardless, it's a good reason for you not to be out all night. It’s dangerous. You can’t take all these people in and protect them, even if you’ve convinced yourself that they are your friends.”

“I don’t think they are all my friends!” Jen says with a look of bafflement, “I just think that they should be treated with the same respect as anyone else. Neither you nor this killer should be ‘handling’ them, as you say.”

“So the city should just be overrun with crime then? Because it wouldn’t be nice to stop it? Maybe we should even encourage it, that would be justice for you, right?”

“No, evidently not! I just don’t think it's good for people to be killed for small misgivings, because punishment like that is cruel all the time.”

“If everyone thought that we’d be overrun.”

“Why?”

“Some people forfeit being a person. Then they get put down like an angry dog.”

“So do these forfeited people include vagabonds and whores?”

“Maybe.”

“But not their murderer?”

“Well obviously murder is awful.”

“What if their murderer looked less like a grisled factory worker or a town drunk, and more like you?”

“What are you talking about, Jen?”

“This murderer is clearly targeting vulnerable people they consider ‘dirty’ or ‘wrong’, who they believe are failures to society, out of some perverse sense of justice. And because everyone seems to agree with that, that's why they can get away with it. They can get away with it because of people like you Henry.

“I don’t want to talk about this killer, Jen. I know you’ve only brought it up to antagonise me anyway.”

“I’m glad to hear you still think there is a killer at least.”

“Please stop.”

“Too much of the real world for you?” she says with a smirk.

The chair makes a loud scraping sound against the stone tiles as Henry launches himself up, walking back to look over the garden once more. He thinks of his aunt Guinevere, Jen’s grandmother and the woman she is in part named after. She kept the garden wild by design and, regardless of what he may think of her now, especially following such a conversation, Jen has impeccably maintained it in a similar vein.

“Wild by design.” Henry whispers to himself, not realising he had said the thought out loud.

“What was that?” Jen replies anxiously, now leaning slightly out of her chair sensing she may have pushed her brother too far.

“I said… Speaking of the real world, it usually runs on a clock, shouldn’t your friend be here by now? Or perhaps they are taking a quick nap too?” Henry says, attempting to reset to mood as he looks over his shoulder to Jen with moistened eyes.

“He is a traveller, he comes when he pleases.” She answers, reassured Henry wasn’t too deeply wounded.

“Reliable.”

“He more than makes up for his poor timekeeping”

“And this is the man you claimed I was so much alike that we could be twins?”

“Vali Valence will bring you back to how we were when we would climb grandma’s apple trees.” She says, pointing down the garden with a near stump of a cigarette.

“That’s quite the colourful name.” Henry says, looking over to the old and twisted tree.

“He’s quite a colourful man. In fact, sometimes, he’s not even a man at all!”

“Goodness,” Henry whispers, “where do you meet these people?” He inquires, turning back around.

Jen pauses, looking Henry directly in the eye as she takes a final long smoke of her cigarette. A smile curls across her face as she reaches out for her box.

“Well?” Henry persists, to which Jen promptly blows smoke to her side as she giggles with a light coughing.

“Well what?” she says playfully as she catches her breath.

“How do you know a traveller with such a name as Vali Valence, who is as colourful as his name suggests and so thrilling that he can keep you waiting for so long you fall asleep?”

“I met him at a pub in the Eastern Quarter,” Jen answers with a grin stretching from cheek to cheek. Her green eyes sparkling in the sunlight.

The blood leaves Henry’s face, leaving him as pale as a corpse. He turns his back and looks out upon the garden once more, hoping to reacquaint himself with the fresh air. However, this time he leans on the balcony and rolls his head across his shoulders. An intense feeling of sickness washes throughout his body, a feeling that even his grandmother’s garden can’t shake off.

“Earlier… I was only joking. I’m so worried,” Henry says somberly. “I’ve been hearing rumours from colleagues that you’ve been around some unsavoury people. That and the content of your work, the political edge to your goblins, everyone can see it. I’m worried for you. This man better not draw you into more of this shit. And all this after you brought up all the recent violence in town. Come on, Jen!”

“Henry!” Jen says, standing up from her chair in concern, “I’m fine! And, apparently, you’ve been provoking me as much as I have you. Besides, Vali isn’t here for politics, he’s not the sort! I want you both to meet because you share a common interest.”

“And what's that? I don’t foresee us having anything in common, much like every man you've introduced me to under the pretence of our similarity. They are, by a long while, some of the most obnoxious people I have ever met.”

A wind chime sings from the bottom of the garden and a sun ray hits the window behind Jen like a mirror. It beams back out of the house, soaking up all of the sanguine hue from the wallpaper as it bounces back out into the garden, Jen’s attire now as red as Henry’s uniform.

With this she answers, the green light in her eyes shining more intense now with her red sun soaked dress; “The devil.”