“Basically,” he says, “there are four areas in the one, large room. Each has a fountain in its center and a potted palm in one corner. The gravel paths that separate the four areas into quarters are safe…”

I nod. I remember the fountains, the palms — I really wish I had known the paths were ‘safe’. We hunker together in a dark corner of a narrow corridor, my breath ragged in my throat, my pulse rapid and lungs heaving.

“…you have to collect as many coins and gears from the floor as possible…”

Nodding, listening, I tighten my fist over the few gears and coins I managed to gather, feel the bright, reassuring bite of their edges. My whole body aches from use and the blaze and wash of adrenalin. I roll my shoulders and hope my legs don’t cramp up as I squat beside him.

“The longer you stay in the rooms,” — shadows move over his haggard face as he continues — “the more likely you’ll activate the spheres.”

I expel a short, exasperated breath. That much, I know. When the dragon had unfolded from its metalworks sphere, it had left me momentarily stunned, incredulous. The flash of polished steel, the sections of flexible, pleated brass — all moving with such sudden and incomprehensible speed, propelled forward on fitted oiled joints, thick bolts, and whirring gears… I had barely escaped with my skin.

“There’s a sphere in each room – Dragon, Ninja, Phoenix, and,” he looks at me, holds my gaze, “the Woman.” He leans forward, his eyes widening so gray irises float within their whites. “Beware the Woman,” he says. The urgency in his voice is unnerving. “She’s deadly, and she’s cunning.”

This is all the advice he could grant. I stand, now, on the gravel path. The final test before me. I must face the Woman. Before I enter that area, I search for her. Rapidly, my eyes skim the quadrant – tiled, terra cotta floor; plum-washed walls; large, central cement fountain, gushing water; lovely green palm fronds in a glazed earthen vase. And there –there she is, near the palm. The Woman. Gleaming steel and brass folded into herself in an ovoid sphere. I creep as close as possible, lean over the edge where gravel gives way to tile. Her eyes are closed, her face tilted slightly toward me. Regardless of her metallic nature, she has a ruthless beauty.

The lobe of her gleaming ear is just visible beneath her sheet-metal hair. “Go easy on me,” I whisper.

The Woman emits unexpected noise, startles me when she moves. With a whir and click and rattle, her head swivels on its jointed neck so she faces me. Her eyelids flash open.

“If I go easy on you,” she says in a hollow monotone, “I will not perform my function as required. I will cease to exist.”

I had not expected her to hear me, nor to reply. I had only wished to calm my own nerves. “We must all leave this mortal coil at some point,” I say carefully, “what do you gain by killing me?”

For a long, long while, she stares at me, unblinking. With a whir and click of gears, she smoothly unfolds her arm and reaches out to lay her hand flat on my shoulder. The weight of her metal palm is cold and iron-hard. She blinks once at me. Then, all the internal hum of her systems stops. She retracts slightly into her joints and grows stiffen, her arm outthrust, her metallic eyes stuck open.

With immense relief, I realize the Woman has forfeited. I don’t have to fight her.

 

 

“…the speed of light in a vacuum is a universal physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its exact value is 299,792,458 metres per second…”

Crackling and popping, the disembodied voice on the radio is disrupted. A column of light enters the house. Where the room had seconds earlier been dark, filled with humble night, it is now wide-awake, splashed with brilliance. About the size and shape of an average human, the light is roughly oblong, five and a half feet tall and two feet in diameter. It hovers at the room’s center – a rustic cabin of sorts – shedding itself over a multicolored braided rug in much the way a cat or dog would shed fur. Its presence has alerted the home’s single inhabitant, and, in awe, this young man stretches out his hand, eager to feel his skin bathed in warmth. Immediately, he is struck down…

“…a sudden electrostatic discharge of immense intensity could prove fatal…”

Light laps over the young man’s prone form, floods the lifeless body from the soles of his shoes to his sagging head. Pulsing, perhaps more brightly, the column of light exits the house. It moves slowly and silently, away into the night.

“…extremely dangerous. Several have already fallen victim…”

Down quiet streets, past locked houses and shuttered windows, the light continues its grave passage. It turns off the sidewalk and floats along a brick path, glides up a quaint cottage’s three short steps and makes its way through a cluttered front porch.  Pausing just outside the home’s interior door, it waits, its very self illuminating a clutter of stacked crates and tarp-covered boxes.

“…it has been reported that with each contact and subsequent killing, the Light has stolen some defining detail from its target…”

The radio’s disembodied voice carries from within the cottage as the door opens. Dressed in a dark tuxedo, suede vest, and Stetson, Ronald Reagan stands on the threshold. He smiles at the light, greets it warmly, and remarks on the small specifics it has acquired – faint, gray-blue lines hint at a woman’s blurred facial features; a long, full-skirted gown; sneakers protrude from the dress’ hem. Reagan does not comment on what the light lacks, what it still needs – head, hair, neck. Hands.

“…repeat, stay away from the light, do not engage it, do not attempt to touch it…”

A benign smile on his face, Reagan understands intuitively what the light wants of him – his hands. Raising the index finger of his right hand, he calmly asks the light to wait while he finds it a pair of gloves. The light throbs and pulses as Reagan digs through the crates and boxes. His search uncovers not gloves, but a pair of oiled, dull black six shooters, which he slips into his tuxedo pockets. He straightens, tells the light he has found just the thing it needs and, beaming, pulls the guns from his pockets and takes aim…

…but the column of light has anticipated the deception. Instantly, it transforms. Where it had been a mass of loosely collected photos, it has become a very solid, medium-sized, black-and-brown-and-white long-haired dog. The once-light/now-dog wags its long tail and, tongue lolling, grins up at Reagan in a broad doggy smile. With a grimace, Reagan holds his fire…

Thick mud grabs at the tires, throws the car first left, then right. Curved, earthen walls hurl the engine’s roar echoing back at me. I tighten my grip on the steering wheel, wrestle to keep toward the center of the tunnel.

Wheels spew sheets of mud. The car is a vintage auto, sleek and low, with fat wheels and open cockpit. It resembles a torpedo in every way – shape, sound, speed. Headstrong, it fights me at each touch, each turn. It shrieks and shudders, but conveys me ever forward at breakneck speed.

Once, twice, the car strikes something along the earth – something smooth and hard and evenly spaced. Polished tracks sunken into the tunnel’s floor. After several attempts, I align tires to tracks. Now, the car and I now work as a unit. A smooth ride ensured, I stamp on the accelerator, hard. The car gathers speed and roars forward unimpeded. When we reach the tunnel’s end, we shoot out from its mouth, suspended, for a moment, within the clear, star-spangled sky. The surrounding landscape is lush and green with gently rolling hills. Light as a feather, the car meets the unpaved road, and we race away into the night.

 

“Did you bring your outline?” she asks. She wears black leggings and tank top, and her long dark hair curls, loose and unrestrained, about her shoulders.

No, I think, I don’t have an outline. I didn’t use an outline. The story emerged organically, by surprise, and I translated it from thought and dream to the page as it arrived.

Silently, I shake my head.

“That’s too bad,” she said. She holds a long, metal ruler in one hand. It flashes, sharp-edged with light, as she crosses the room in easy strides. “It’s easier to give input and feedback based on your outline.”

I’m not sure I want input. Or feedback. Of any kind. Good, bad, or otherwise. Why am I even at this workshop? The hotel room feels increasingly constricted, although it is large and airy.

I watch uneasily as she approaches the unmade bed. White sheets and comforter knot and twist and fall to the floor, their folds and creases filled with blue shadow. All but the throw blanket tossed on top – a plush, pink sweep of soft color. Beneath those layers, those folds of white and pink and blue, is my manuscript – just shy of two-hundred pages, clamped tight by a black binder clip, contained in a battered manila folder.

Ruler held loosely in hand, she arrives at the bedside and pushes back the plush pink blanket, peels away white comforter and sheets. My nerves spark and dash. She opens the worn folder, flips past the first dozen pages to lay the ruler vertically along a random sheet.

“You have to watch your margins,” she says. With a blue pencil, she marks the right side of the page, then the left. “If your margins are off, even a little, your book can’t be bound or printed.” She adjusts the ruler to mark horizontal lines along the top and bottom margins. “These look good,” she says, looking up at me. Her dark, neat brows arch with surprised approval. Ruler flashing, she leaves the bed. Sheets and blankets fall back into place like a receding tide.

I smile. Relief floods and soothes. In a single inhalation, I fill my lungs – I didn’t realize I had held my breath. From the corner of my eye, I glance at my manuscript. Thumbed pages in a worn folder, tucked and enfolded in soft pink layers. Unbound. Unread. Safe.

 

The tower rises upward, all but consumes vision. A vertical column of sun-warmed stones, earth’s worn bones, carefully snugged into place one atop another. Old beyond reckoning. Smoothed and shaped by time and wind and weather. Hummocks of turf girdle the tower’s base – grass and weeds and wildflowers woven together in dense matts. On the tower’s North side, a burden of ivy, with stems as thick as a man’s wrist. Vining tendrils curl and clamber, sink fine root hairs into cracks and fissures. Wind moves through the ivy, stirs glossy leaves; they rub their edges together in whispers.

An arched window marks the tower’s East side – single dark, unblinking eye, just beyond the ivy’s reach. On the window’s stone sill rests a shallow bowl. It gleams white against the interior’s dark throat. So near the edge. So high up. A careless breath or nudge could send it tumbling. Out and down. Dashed against the tower’s defenses. Rain of porcelain shards. All splinters and dust…

But no. The bowl rests, unmoving, on its ledge of stone. Ivy stirs and stretches. And the tower lifts itself and yawns against the expansive blue sky.

All in the Queen’s retinue are clad in silks and satins. Gowns shimmer like sunlit water, in every color imaginable. But none shine so brightly as the young Queen herself. Dressed in white satin gown, she is the sun, the source of all colors cascading out from around her. It is the Queen’s Denouement Ball.

Clustered about their Queen, the women dip their heads and whisper to each other behind painted fans. Pearls adorn graceful necks. Feathered plumes bob in complicated headdresses. We stand in an antechamber just outside the grand ballroom. Peering past the Queen and her other women, I see the farther stone wall is covered in large, colorful tapestries. Chandeliers cast welcome candlelight, and music emanates softly. A parquet floor unifies the two rooms.

The Ball is about to begin. The women fuss over the Queen as they prepare to enter, smooth her skirts, her glossy, dark hair. The Queen’s guard stand to either side of her and, to my surprise, these well-muscled and whiskered men are dressed in satin gowns, as well – one in pale blue, the other in pink. Neither seems the least bit distressed or uncomfortable. The Denouement Ball is, after all, a strictly female function, and they must dress the costumed part to fulfill their obligation as protectors to the Queen.

Of all the attendants, I alone am woefully underdressed. Wearing jeans and black t-shirt, I feel coarse, common. I keep to the edges of that brilliant human spectrum, a dull shadow to their light.

 

One…two…three… Step after step. The stairs descend into murky darkness, leave the light behind. Grip the handrail, feel it move against the wall. Seven…eight…nine… Dark and darker. Step more carefully. Twelve…thirteen…fourteen…fifteen… On the landing, pause. Eyes slow to adjust.

The cellar is far larger than expected, stretching beyond the scope of available light into darkness. Note the evenly spaced support beams, erect and dark; stalagmites of steel. Step off the landing into that vast space. Poured concrete underfoot, smooth and unbroken. Navigate around derelict equipment and machinery, past crates and boxes stacked one atop the other, floor to ceiling. Move through the labyrinth. Trail fingers along wood and stone and rusted metal, each a subtle guidepost.

At the far side, another set of stairs. Crudely made. Purely practical. Boards and beams and sheets and scraps of wood hammered together. Climb. Five steps in all. Hands upon the door – push. Hinges creak, and the door swings wide, allows the night to spill in, cool and damp and sweet to breathe. Fill lungs. Shed tension.

Lamplight from without casts a gentle glow, scatters across the cellar’s interior. Prop the door open. Thrust the stepstool’s feet into the turf; wedge its back under the door’s handle. Light chases along the stool’s tubular metal frame and legs, along the yellow plastic seat and seatback.

Now, return. Back down the makeshift stairs and into the cellar. Easier to see now. Easier to retrace those many steps around makeshift rows of storage and antique paraphernalia. Easier, now, to navigate. To get in and get out again.