In the morning, Benno brushed his teeth for the first time in weeks, showered for the first time in months, and then shaved for the first time in years.

Looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, he was astonished by just how preserved he appeared. He had memories of shaving as a younger man, taking off stubble after a few weeks or short beards after a few months, and every time being faced by some indication of his advancing age: A new wrinkle around the edge of the mouth, or a more pronounced drooping of flesh beneath the chin. But now, despite so many years having passed, his face was utterly unchanged from the last time he’d seen it. He of course knew this was going to happen. He had prepared himself for it. And yet it saddened and rattled him. It was an even crueler reminder of his condition than the endless barrage of bullets to his temple. It was a reminder that it wasn’t just his body that trapped him, but some aspect of time itself. A dead tree in a world without rot.

“Well look at you, creep,” said a voice behind him.

Benno turned. The man stood at the foot of his bed, partially concealed from Benno’s view by the bathroom’s doorframe. His face was a mess of blood and protruding bone, his red hands clenched into fists, his boots flecked with dirty ice. A wet wheezing emanated from one of the macerated holes in his face.

“All cleaned up with nowhere to go.” The man’s swollen tongue garbled his words. “Must be nice to have a face. We’re not all so lucky, you know.”

Benno turned back to the mirror. He wiped a glob of shaving cream off the glass with his thumb, leaving a smudge with the distinct impression of his fingerprint. When he turned back toward the doorway the man was gone.

He dressed in a new set of clothes and then sat at the foot of the bed.

“I want to get rid of this carpet,” he said into the Gemstoke.

PROCESSING…

He lifted his feet as the coarse, salmon-colored carpet faded out of existence, revealing dark, sooty concrete identical to that of the room in which Edda kept the Haruspex.

“How about some hardwood?”

The sooty floor was replaced by laminated wood flooring, which refracted the faint, yellowish light that trickled in from around the curtains—curtains Benno made a point to keep drawn so as to avoid having to look at the Coil, beating in the sky.

“Instead of wallpaper,” he said. “How about just some plain white paint… No, that’s not right… And this hardwood floor isn’t right either…” Benno fiddled with the Gemstoke, chewing his lip. He knew he didn’t want the salmon-colored carpet and lime green wallpaper. He knew he didn’t want the bed stands and the bed sheets folded into hospital corners, the beige chair and table. He knew he didn’t want this motel room. But he didn’t know what he did want. It had been seven years since he’d lived in a proper house, and back then his wife had taken charge of all the interior decoration. He didn’t know what kind of place would make him comfortable—if comfort was even something he could attain. He didn’t know where he wanted to be…

“Gemma,” he said, standing. “Can you make it look like my trailer?”

The whirring sound started up, and the room began to waver, not unlike hot air over pavement. Benno blinked once, twice, and then the room was different. The bed was gone. The beige table and chair were gone. The walls were now bare linoleum, the floor the same. There was the old folding table, cluttered with empty bottles, the bed—a narrow cot—unmade against the wall, the oily sheets bunched atop it. There were dirty clothes piled in the corners, crumpled plastic bags strewn about—even the smell, of stale alcohol and unwashed clothes. The only thing that distinguished it from his actual trailer was the single window over the bed—much wider than the tailer’s little peepholes—concealed behind the same pink curtains.

Benno drew the curtains aside and peeked out, half expecting to see the snowy woods, a blue sky, perhaps a snarl of police cars blocking the dirt road. But instead, the grassy yellow hills sprawled beneath a featureless white sky, and the Coil thudded overhead, raining its endless torrent of dark blood.

He let the curtains fall closed and stood by the table.

“This place is a fucking sty,” said the man with the macerated face, now standing in a corner beside a pile of dirty clothes. “I thought the outside was bad, but this… I used to drive Asher down the road once in a while so he could see how you lived. And I warned him, Boy, you keep your act together or else you could end up like this.” He laughed, a croaking, windy sound from the open channels in his face.

Benno sat at the table.

The man’s laughter waned into a scabby wheeze. “You know I always figured you were hunting or something. All those gunshots, all the time. Either that or you were some kind of nut-job terrorist hatching a plot. You definitely gave that vibe.”

A cockroach scuttled from beneath the pile of clothes, up the man’s icy boot, and into the leg of his pants.

“What do you want?” Benno asked.

“What do you want?” The man’s ruined face seemed to twist into a grin. “We didn’t ask to be here.”

“We?”

But the man was gone.

Benno fingered the cool, smooth surface of the Gemstoke, his hands shaking faintly, and looked around the trailer. “Gemma,” he said. “What do you suggest for… I don’t know, if I wanted to add a little… something.”

…ERROR. INTERFERENCE NUMB…

“A plant,” Benno said. “I want a plant. Something small, in a pot. Here on the table.”

A shape swam into fruition and hardened there in the table’s middle: A little plant with wide, oval-shaped leaves and dainty stems in a clay pot. It looked healthy.

Benno went to the bathroom—a grimy, closet sized room and the only other room in the trailer—and filled an old, stained coffee mug with water. He returned with it and poured it slowly into the pot. His wife had always been the one who took care of the plants. Benno honestly wasn’t sure he’d ever watered a plant in his life. He chuckled, startled by how good it felt to perform this simple, kind act.

“This is your cup now,” he said, setting the mug gently on the table beside the plant. Then he sat down, placed his hand softly against the pot, and didn’t move for hours.

#

Hermann and Isaac fetched him from his room that afternoon.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Why, you’re just a baby,” Hermann said with genuine surprise, struck by Benno’s beardless face for a moment before his eyes wandered past him and into the messy trailer, at which point his brow furrowed with confusion.

Benno stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him.

Hermann cleared his throat. “We’re needed in the hangar,” he said.

“More pillaging and plundering?”

Hermann chuckled as if Benno had made a joke. “How are you feeling today?” he asked. “I for one woke up with a bit of a hangover. But nothing a warm bath and some hair of the dog couldn’t fix.”

“I don’t get hungover,” Benno said as they started down the hallway.

“Oh, of course.” Hermann cleared his throat again. “Our boy Isaac had a rough morning, too. Didn’t you, young man?”

“I threw up a buh-buh-bunch.”

“That he did.”

“So where are we headed today?” Benno attempted again.

“We are going to see some friends.”

Benno raised an eyebrow. “We have friends?”

“Of course.”

They turned down another hallway.

“So Edda…” Benno started, glancing first at Isaac and then at Hermann to gauge their willingness to discuss possibly delicate matters with him. “What’s her story?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Benno chewed his lip for a moment. “She’s already lied to me a few times, and I’ve only been here for a day.” He hesitated, debating whether or not to ask the final question—then went for it. “Can we trust her?”

Hermann looked straight ahead, betraying no reaction. “Mistrust begets mistrust,” he said, and then said nothing else.

Benno drummed his fingers on his thigh as they turned down another hall. “And how about the Gardens,” he tried. “Is it real?”

“As real as anything,” Hermann said.

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been a member of Edda’s crew for a long time. I was here when it was located.”

“So you’ve seen it.”

“Well, as you know, very few have seen it. But I’ve studied Gemma’s readouts.”

“Gemma isn’t always right.”

“She’s right about quantitative things like that.”

“She got my age wrong,” Benno said, remembering. “She was off by seven years.”

Hermann frowned. “Curious,” he said as they arrived at the door of the stairwell to the hangar. “Isaac, my boy. Would you be so kind as to carry me up?”

#

Edda stood at the Shenandoah checking a series of readings on a panel exposed by an open rectangular hatch in the hull. Dante and Helen stood together at the other end of the vessel. Dante wore sunglasses and sipped miserably from a bottle of water. Helen drank coffee from a paper cup, her eyes bloodshot and her skin a queasy greenish hue. Rose sat on the hangar’s concrete floor nearby, listening to music through a pair of enormous headphones. D’doak was absent.

“We’re here,” Hermann said as he, Isaac and Benno approached.

Edda waved her hand across the hatch, drawing it silently closed, then turned to face her crew. “I hope you all managed to get some rest,” she said, six faces reflected in her carapace. “We have a long day ahead of us.” She focused on Rose, who nodded along with her music, gazing off across the empty hangar. “Rose… Rose!”

Rose looked up and removed her headphones. “Yeah?”

“Please. I am explaining how important it is that you are all on your best behavior today. The Family is offering us a bounty. As you all know, they pay a great deal for this kind of work, and as you also know, it is never a simple task. Each of us will earn our keep today.”

“The Family?” Benno whispered to Hermann.

“The Everson Family,” Hermann said, then returned his attention to Edda as if the answer was sufficient.

“So I ask that any malaise or other illness be dealt with promptly,” Edda continued, glancing at Dante. “And I especially insist that any interpersonal conflicts are left here.” She looked at Helen, then at Rose. “We cannot afford infighting, not in front of important clients. Is this clear?”

“Yes, Edda,” said Helen, her voice scratchy.

Edda lifted a blue eyebrow at Rose.

“We’re all good, boss.” Rose gave a peace sign. “Water under the bridge.”

A chuckle passed through the crew.

“We’ll see…” Edda sneered, then nodded briskly. “Let’s go.” She lifted a palm, opening the Shenandoah’s door.

“Where’s D’doak?” Benno asked as the crew began to board.

“They will not be joining us today,” Edda said, something like distraction or annoyance laced in her words. “Now please.” She gestured for Benno to board.

Benno lingered, fixing Edda with a look that she calmly and stoically returned.

“I preferred the beard,” she said finally.

Benno touched his smooth chin, then went ahead and boarded.

#

The Shenandoah darkened and whirred, and then golden light exploded into the bridge.

Benno looked down through the transparent floor at a canopy of red, yellow and rust-colored forest sprawling below. Birds fluttered in the low light of a setting sun, which rested, a ball of fiery red, just against the crests of the autumnal trees. To the north—or what Benno assumed was north given the position of the sun—was a ridge of giant, snow-capped mountains cast in a wash of late light.

There was a lake directly ahead of the Shenandoah, its perfectly still water reflecting the orange wisps of the sky, and, wrapped along the lake’s shore, an enormous mansion.

It reminded Benno of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining: four stories tall, painted an ominous dark gray, with dozens of dark windows, a grandiose entrance, and a wide staircase that opened onto a great, leaf-speckled lawn on the side opposite the water. Its most prominent feature was the big pink neon sign suspended over the entrance, which flashed like a marquee along the Vegas Strip:

THE EVERSON FAMILY MOTOR COMPANY

The building reminded him of the Overlook, but the whole place—the woods and lake and mountains—also reminded him of something else. Something he couldn’t place but which stirred in him a deep, brief, and inexplicable sadness.

The Shenandoah’s dragonfly wings guided it over the middle of the lawn and lowered it silently onto the grass, kicking up a whorl of dead leaves.

Edda swiped at the console, dimming the purple lights on the screen, and turned to face her crew. “Remember,” she said, her normal bravado subdued. “I have longstanding, personal dealings with the Family. We are not to discuss any details pertaining to our work with or around them. So if you are not sure what to say, say nothing. Understood?”

“Yes, Edda,” the crew said in unison, Benno—to his own surprise—included.

Edda lifted a hand, opening the doorway in the side of the Shenandoah, and led her crew—all except Hermann, who remained by the console—single-file onto the lawn.

#

Benno craned his neck back to get a look at the mansion’s numerous windows—not dozens but hundreds, he decided—and crenelated roof as they approached. Insects or birdsong sounded from the surrounding forest, but it was not like any Benno was familiar with: too-melodic trills, crisp, rapid clicks, machine-like buzzing, and the occasional deep, harmonious hum. A part of him—the same that had marveled at the awesome majesty of Forror—wished to dart away and explore this alien place. What kinds of creatures made these strange sounds? What sorts of creatures lurked in these autumnal woods? In a past life—not as a science teacher doling out worksheets and reading rote from textbooks, but as a little boy—Benno would have giddily scampered forth into the woods, to the edge of the lake, to make sense of the leaves and the water and, if he was lucky, an insect or bird. If I was still myself, I’d want to understand, he thought. But that life was over. That boy was gone. Now, he was number four in a line of six inter-Realm miscreants, headed by a nine foot tall pirate queen, on their way to take up a bounty.

Up ahead, a group of people—five that Benno counted—emerged from the mansion’s entrance, too far away to make out their features. Edda’s blue hair appeared dark purple in the low light as she led her crew forward, and her armor was a conglomeration of ochre and umber foliage, dark green grass, a pale, reddish sky, and the stark, pink flickering of the neon sign.

“These folks are freaky,” Dante whispered to Benno. “This is my third time here and it never gets easier.”

“Freaky how?” Benno whispered back. “It seems quite beautiful here.”

Dante huffed. “Not for long.” The five people from the mansion arranged themselves at the bottom of the staircase. When Edda was thirty feet away she stopped, and her crew stopped behind her.

“Sad longs, Mother,” Edda projected, bowing her head. “We are here to help.”

One of the people stepped forward. A woman, easily as tall as Edda and appearing even taller with the black miter she wore, which tapered into a point with a small, red ball on its end. She wore black robes—inlaid with red patterns like a Rorschach—that trailed behind her on the steps. Her face was deathly pale and her eyes were either smeared with black makeup or the skin around her eyes was naturally stained black. Her mouth was a thin, sunken line, her cheeks gaunt, her neck long and taut against the sinews of her throat.

She’s a walking corpse, Benno thought, and then his teeth clenched at the sight of her long, gnarled black fingernails as she lifted a hand from the depths of her robe.

“Sad longs, Thirty-third Daughter of the Scattered King.” The woman’s voice was dry and raspy like stone scraping glass. “You and your crew have a labor ahead.”