FicWad

Author’s Note: This is where I have to give kudos to one of my uncles who used to live in the real Greenwich Village during the correct time-period for this story, and who graciously helped me quickly cobble together the historical ‘color’ research for this chapter. You know who you are – thanks ;)

(Tori Amos, Scarlet’s Walk: ‘I Can’t See New York’)

Chapter 7 – Not the Big Apple

There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…

Screaming along through Shadow at breakneck pace on a hoverboard with your eyes closed so you can’t even see where you’re going would be enough to scare the pants off just about anyone.

Sarah Williams knew it was far scarier to do with your eyes open – and it was a heck of a lot more distracting if you were trying to mentally visualize where you were going! It had been a real Hail Mary of a thing to try for, but it felt like a small miracle that she had managed to get this crazy contraption back, or at least an operable analogue of it that would work in this sector of the shadow-spectrum!

And she also knew now – what she should’ve realized from the start – that the only person she could possibly trust to give her reliable advice and not try and double-cross her in a bid for the Dreamstone and its dubious power, was herself… or, rather, a very street-savvy, world-wise, more logical and rational version of herself from just a few shadows away from Shadow Earth, closer to Amber: Shara Wilkins, a girl who had had the gumption to willingly take Sarah’s place for a couple of months when Mandor Sawall recruited her for the last escapade. Which meant that Sarah had to take a small risk in going back to her own apartment to fetch the Ghostwheel’s notes on how to get to Shara’s last known address in New Yark – that’s right, Yark, not York, a shadowworld close enough to her own that even the names of people and places would be somewhat similar after a fashion. If Shara was any indicator, however, that was about the extent of it; the shadow-people who were Earth’s counterparts there (or was it the other way around, given both places nominal proximity to Amber?) were far-removed both in personality and life-circumstances from their cosmic cousins further along the line.

But not so much so that my Earth seemed strange to her, Sarah mused as she quickly soared away from her ensorcelled former tutor and his dangerous retinue, hoping against hope that it would be harder for them to tail her this way, that no one would think she could be so stupid as to revisit the scene of the crime; that made two break-ins now, into her brand-new apartment by nominal agents of Chaos! If she ever survived this debacle, she’d have to ask Merlin about setting up an arcane security system to cut down on this sort of thing happening in the future! But for now…

Sarah repeated the trite phrase so many times that after a while it automatically ran on loop in her head, some part of her mind continuing the mantra as she envisioned her apartment building, the three-flight interior walkup, the exact colors of the bricks and wooden siding, the shape of the ornamental scalloping up by the eaves… the act felt like an odd mixture of self-delusion and blind faith, but following an amount of time that would’ve been patently impossible to calculate, she finally opened her eyes, feeling the confidence of knowing, down to her bones-

Just in time to miss flying into some high-tension power lines! Pulling up hard, she sailed over them by a mere three feet, her heart racing, hearing the roaring hum and faint cracking pass beneath her, scaring a few pigeons in the process! A second later she realized where she’d come into Syracuse, recognizing the highway far down and off to her right, the campus a few blocks away. Sarah’s apartment building was exactly two-and-a-half blocks north and east of the school on Comstock. She had to circle a loop back around in order to be able to land a little more discreetly off the back street where there was less chance of anyone seeing her, practically praying that she hadn’t already been spotted while still airborne! The thought of utilizing the Dreamstone’s invisibility again had been tempting… before her chest gave out a sympathetic ache just from her having it on her person! If only there were a truly safe place to ditch the stupid thing! A few ideas for just this course of action had occurred to her on the way here, however, the simplest of which was to open a new savings account at a different bank than the one she normally used, along with a safety deposit box, leaving it in the vault.

In any event, she needed to go back home to resupply her money, her food and water – heck, maybe she’d even get to take a shower and change her clothes; stranger things had happened! It appeared to be midday here, hopefully mid-work-week from the current emptiness of the streets in the surrounding neighborhoods she was passing over. Sarah had no idea where her fetch was currently, and wasn’t entirely certain whether or not she was really ready to handle fusing with her at present, if it was actually that simple. It’s continued local activity might have even thrown off an Amberite spy or two by now; she couldn’t imagine Mandor Sawall being the only person that particular idea had occurred to! Granted it was risky coming here undisguised like this, and with a hoverboard, no less! Any number of people might see her and wonder. With any luck, she wouldn’t be spotted in two places at once!

The front door to her building was only ever locked for safety after midnight. Thankfully, the stairwell was vacant as well as she lugged all the stuff she was carrying up the three flights to her room, resting the board against the wall momentarily so she could get out her key…

Only to remember that it wasn’t on her person! Aw, man…

Was she really desperate enough to go bug her new landlady? Laverne had obviously put up with enough college kids over the several decades she’d been running this old-nigh-historic complex to let new tenants know that she didn’t care who was footing the bills: she wouldn’t tolerate blatant stupidity of any kind, and that included repeated lockouts. She was here to make sure that the place had working heat, water, and electricity, not to hold your hand. When Sarah first met her, she’d felt certain that Random had specifically chosen this locale to stiffen her backbone a bit after the manner of Amberite child-rearing, and she’d been amused by the lady’s ‘I’ll-leave-you-alone-if-you-leave-me-the-heck-alone’ cantankerous attitude.

Of course she hadn’t been thinking at all of this… and the situation would look strange. Laverne lived right at the end of this hall. She’d likely gotten used to Sarah’s fetch’s quiet demeanor and schedule by now.

She sighed. Desperation time. She knocked on the door once out of curiosity: nothing. Just for fun she went for the doorknob to jiggle it-

And immediately experienced a rather nasty panic-attack, having to fight down a very strong instinctive urge to turn and flee the building!

What the hell?! Forcibly slowing her breathing back down, eyes closed, she rallied against it… and then she recognized on her: it felt like Chaos magick! Her eyes flew open at the thought!

This was a Logrus-based security system, designed not to harm a potential intruder, but rather to merely scare them away! Now that she was paying attention, it did feel sort of threatening just standing this close to it. And it did make sense when she remembered that both Dara and Mandor had been here in her absence, although without her own Logrus-compatible powers it would’ve been impossible for her to detect a signature. Either of them. Both. It didn’t really matter; the result was the same.

No, it does matter, she suddenly thought, it keeps me from getting in. Dara, then.

Which meant that there was no chance of Sarah getting into her apartment even if the door stood wide open: if it was this unpleasant out here, she could well imagine how unlivable it might be inside for someone the ‘Lady’ might not want there!

Which also meant that she couldn’t get at Ghost’s booklet of directions to Shara’s New Yark, either.

Shit. After a single moment’s hesitation, she carefully moved the hoverboard over so that it rested against the door; thankfully nothing obvious occurred. As nice and incredibly easy as this method of transport was in the outer reaches of Shadow, it was far too conspicuous anywhere near home. Her fetch would recognize it for what it was hopefully, and stash it for her. She was dejectedly trudging back down the stairs and out the front door, wishing she could just get off her feet and rest for a while – knowing that it wasn’t safe to do so openly here – when her previous course of action mentally popped up again like a ‘Whack-a-Mole’ game. Maybe it was too hard to shadow-walk to a specific person, but a shadow-object that was within physically close-range…

I wonder. Picking up her pace a little, Sarah exited the parking lot of her building and walked up the street a little ways until she could cut east at the stoplight. And Ghost’s little book should be chucked into that box-hedge right over…

As she approached, she could see a light-blue cover sticking out of the tall shrubbery kitty-corner to where she now stood, its paper looking a bit weathered-

There! She jay-dashed across the empty intersection and reached for it, standing on tiptoe…got it! She almost couldn’t believe her eyes; she wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t just seen it! The cover was bent up a bit, but she was grasping the same bound stack of paper covered on the inside with a clean Thari typeface! Even though it was a little dirty, she hugged it to herself in relief, catching her breath. One out of two purposes accomplished like this wasn’t bad, she reasoned… and quickly started walking again when she saw someone drive by, turning the corner in the other direction – thankfully no one she knew. Or at least she hoped not; the woman had openly stared at her through the driver-side window in passing!

Once she was safely alone again the next short block over, she finished off the water in her canteen, then opened up the outrageously thorough instructional book to the first page…

And remembered that it started at her parents’ house in Nyack! She groaned aloud; unless she was willing to make some hapless person lose their purse or wallet, there was absolutely no way that she could possibly even afford the taxi-fare all the way down to the suburbs of Uptown from here, to say nothing of her next meal at present! It had been years since she’d even looked at this thing, let alone tried to read it, the text written so dryly for the most part that it more resembled the setup instructions that came with a new VCR (or, in truth, a personal computer) than any digestible form of literature. At the next intersection she stopped to speed-read a few pages… and almost laughed at herself: Merlin’s A.I. had started this out with a very safe and law-abiding walk from her old house to the park in her town! She sighed, steeling her nerves. It was only eight more blocks to the city rose garden park, and there was a drinking fountain there if she cared to try it. Maybe she could fake this after all.

Skimming ahead a little as she walked, she couldn’t help but notice certain instances in the text where the Ghostwheel’s turns of phrase sounded oddly childlike; he obviously obtained a rather large degree of pleasure from even simple sensorial surroundings in Shadow. He had to have been programmed to, to be able to enjoy the work he had originally been designed for, cataloging all the worlds.

Sarah reached the garden within fifteen minutes and had to sit on the circular wooden bench in the gazebo for a little while to catch her breath. An old couple were out in the garden enjoying the last few flowers of the season, the greenery beginning to go dormant compared to when she had driven by here last. How much time had gone by on Shadow Earth since she’d left this time, she suddenly wondered? Just the idea of the time-difference between Shadows in practice still felt somewhat alien to her.

“Alright,” she sighed to herself once they had walked away across the street, completely gone from view. Stiffly standing back up, stretching her legs, meandering over to the fountain, she carefully refilled her canteen. There was a secondary reason the book was so thick, she’d realized as she had sat there, casually thumbing through the rest, trying to guesstimate where she would have to change it to get back here: there were separate sections for every season in the old way of calculating them by the solstices, equinoxes and cross-quarter days, as well as every possible weather condition, starting with fair late-summer! Ghost had obviously second-guessed Sarah himself, and rather than ratting her out and following orders he had covered all possible outcomes, absolving himself of the liability in the process. He really was a sweet machine; she almost wished he was here right now.

In a way, he is, she thought, flipping to page 42 – late summer/early autumn, in the ‘park’ section of the directions:

‘Once you have ascertained that no fellow shadow-humans or their domesticated small animals are watching you, proceed seventeen paces to the southeast toward the willow-stand near the pond. Pay special attention to the shades of the grass, the shapes of the trees – are they not asymmetrically pleasing to the eye? In fact, they are so pleasing that you want more of them, and a bit more room between them; they will open up before you as you walk precisely twenty-nine paces – oh, and watch your step, please; a dip in the path approaches. And there is a nice little footpath for you now…’

Sarah had only been peripherally aware of the changes in the scenery going on all around her as she walked, but at this point she stopped, marking the line with her finger. This method of shadow-walking was so strangely easy, like getting lost in a good story…

A quick look around confirmed that the city of Syracuse, New York, had once again been lost to the seas of time, space, and Shadow: she was walking alone through a lush greenway that cut through the aforementioned trees! Heaving a sigh of relief that this was actually working, she read on as she marched to Ghost’s directions: in about ten minutes, the greenway had become a deciduous forest… albeit a very friendly, ‘happy little forest’ ala Bob Ross, replete with cute chipmunks, bright foxes and the like, intricate birdsongs weaving overhead. Heading through a valley, she passed around a field of amethyst points that were just sticking up out of the ground as if they had grown there, and was instructed to collect a few of the darkest, prettiest ones, as many as she could comfortably carry, for she would be able to barter or sell them where she was going.

It isn’t just me – this place is somewhere straight out of a children’s storybook, she thought as she pocketed a particularly striking specimen that was as big as a ruler, adding it to the heft of the others in her pack, dully clinking against each other in there. Cutting behind a picturesque and potable waterfall on suspiciously dry rocks, she came through into a beautiful field of wildflowers, some of which she was also encouraged to pick, but this time for no reason other than humans seemed to enjoy flowering plants! She laughed when she came to the step-by-step instructions for weaving herself a garland of the blooms, yet obeyed it to the letter, putting the finished product on like a crown.

The floral perfume of the field lingered on because of it, into another forest, darker and richer than the other; there were blackberry bushes to raid and food-grade edible mushrooms that were apparently high in complete protein and safe enough that all she had to do was wipe the dirt and filaments off of them. Earthy and sweet, earthy and sweet and juicy…

One-hundred-and-sixty-eight paces to the north later brought her out of the forest and into a much more artificial-seeming, overly bright world: there was silicon tile underfoot!

‘You are currently passing through the technological shadow-world called Sarq as a shortcut. Ignore the whirring, clanking sounds and just keep your eyes on this page, reading; it won’t last long. Five more paces will bring you into a large, high-arched tunnel with light clearly visible upon the other side. Once you reach the end, let me be the first to welcome you to the city of New Yark, approximately one-hundred-and-six Shadows away from Amber by one form of calculation. The world which contains it – Urth – is in many ways nicer than your world, less polluted generally, yet the Barimens prefer a shadow-world further along the spectrum…’

Sarah stuck her finger in the page and jogged the rest of the way down the passage, almost half-expecting what she found there at the other opening: she had just emerged out of nowhere, through a fairly convincing replica of the Washington Arch in a proto-Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village!

Or whatever they call it here, she thought, ignoring the surprised looks she’d garnered from a few startled passersby, she had appeared so abruptly! But Sarah didn’t care: she’d just taken the proverbial Magical Mystery Tour to downtown New Yark! How she loved this city on her home-shadow! Its constant movement, its endless variety, the eternal parade of interesting people from every walk of life and then some, fearlessly being themselves for all the world to see. Sarah had never felt out of place there like she could in Nyack: in New York City, there was room for everyone.

Granted, she knew more of Greenwich Village from her mother, from the wild stories that periodically filtered out of the place, than from immediate experience. The New York she was better acquainted with was Broadway and the Upper West Side where her mother had lived after the divorce: musicals and museums and Central Park, and always accompanied no matter what. As pretty as one’s current surroundings could be, the place definitely had a dark side that lurked along the edges, right under that glossy veneer. There were places one did not go – certainly not alone – and there were sad, dangerous things to look out for littered carelessly on the sidewalks and in the gutters and on the subway, remnants of a tragic way of dreaming your life away that had taken hold of so many in recent years.

There were far superior ways to do that; Linda Williams had been living proof. For as long as she could remember, Sarah had been brought downtown to see her mother on big stages in gigantic auditoriums, with mobs of admirers cheering and clapping and throwing flowers at her at the ends of shows – sometimes whole bouquets – one or two invariably finding their way back to her young daughter later. That was the top, as far as Sarah was concerned; life couldn’t possibly get any better than being loved by seemingly the entire world for outwardly giving magnificent dreams life and action for them all to enjoy.

Shadow-walking, on principle, made quite a counter-argument, however…

Looking about her, Sarah almost felt a twinge of nostalgic familiarity, that she had been ignored again so quickly, just another eclectic artsy type in the Park, hardly newsworthy. There were far more interesting things for people to be watching. A obese, middle-aged Latino man was shamelessly taking a bath right there in the fountain, exposing many tattoos in the process along with his body; there was the eagle of the Mexican flag across his shoulders and down his back. A fairly large gathering of onlookers were watching something off to her right on the green; walking over, Sarah finally managed to push her way through enough of them to spot what was at the center – an old black man in a smartly striped Zoot-suit and fedora was getting beaten at chess by a little Asian girl in a pastel-blue princess play-dress, who couldn’t have been more than five years old! The regular dog walkers were letting their canine buddies run free and play together in the designated quarter; other people were relaxing on the lawn elsewhere, taking in the sunshine in spite of the slight chill breeze, napping, reading, spooning on the lawn; someone was playing acoustic guitar for tips. A Tibetan Buddhist monk was in the process of creating a temporary mandala out of different colored sands on the sidewalk: an intricate and beautiful meditation on the transience of life. A student demonstration for gay rights appeared to be in progress on the far right side of the park near the campus, from what Sarah could hear being shouted over the megaphone, rainbow flags flying and red ribbon placards hoisted high by the colorfully decked-out throng…although the colors in those flags were all mixed up, the ribbons lying on their sides. A news crew from Channel 15 had just arrived…

Sarah discreetly slipped away to a small thicketed area next to some trees and cracked open Ghost’s booklet again: ‘Take the paved footpath to the northwest corner of the park you are currently enjoying, look both ways and carefully cross the street north onto Weavers Place on the left-hand side of the cemented sidewalk. Carefully cross 16th Avenue (remembering to look, please.) There you will find a jewelry shop that specializes in wholesale semi-precious stones as a part of their business. Do not show your merchandise at the counter, but politely ask to be taken to the back office for reasons of personal safety. Once there, show the proprietor your amethyst specimens; he may not pay you what they are actually worth, but accept what he offers you for them anyway, for the amount should be sufficient for a little sight-seeing and modest shopping. Insist to be paid in cash. Once you have the paper bills safely secreted on your person, continue up Weavers past Clay Street, then take the right-hand fork of Weavers and cross Crispin – please keep watching out for the automobiles; the drivers don’t always look. Cross 20th Street in the same fashion-’

“Hey is that a script lady?It looks like a script!What play’s it for?”

Sarah was startled by very fast talking, and automatically looked up – straight into the face of a tall, severely over-makeuped, tan-skinned blonde woman in a red-sequined mini-dress! Or was it a woman? Their dark eyes were wide, wild almost, and they were practically quivering with energy! High on crack, probably, possibly even a little something else in the mix. Sarah had been concentrating so intently they had been able to walk straight up to her without her noticing, peeking over the cover, grabbing the top edge of the book!

“Whoa not a script!What’s that language?Is it Irish?Is it a spellbook?Are you a witch?Are you trying to talk to the ghosts?”

Sarah forced herself to breathe, doing the unthinkable – dog-earing the page before closing it, forcibly pulling it away from their long-nailed grasp.

“It’s just the equivalent of written driving directions,” she peevishly answered the obviously speeding queen in flawless Thari, making them take a wary step back from her, then another, “but when you’re that messed up, everything looks like magic. You wouldn’t recognize the real thing if it was staring you in the face – begone!” she gestured theatrically, watching them turn and book it in those four-inch, high-heeled red vinyl knee-high boots… which was actually fairly impressive; Sarah doubted she could’ve done that in those shoes!

It was definitely time to be moving on.

Following the paved walkway out of the Park, Sarah hiked across the intersection onto Weavers. This was certainly ‘old-town’; the buildings lining the one-way street all had such individual character, each a different mixture of brick and stonework than its neighbors, an aesthetically pleasing variance in earth-tones. A handful on this street housed small businesses on the ground floor; the tempting notes of made-from-scratch marinara wafted out of an Italian restaurant with a group of leaving happy customers and snatches of what sounded like Frank Sinatra. In a primal sort of way, it was genuinely reassuring being surrounded by so many anonymous members of her own species again, and in a familiar culture to boot – a guy riding a vintage motorcycle with a girl in the sidecar zipped past. None of the structures she was currently passing were taller than four floors; they were all likely built before the advent of elevators. There was more decorative cast iron along stairways and in front of garden-level apartments than there were bars over the windows; that was a good sign. Semi-mature elm trees lined the walk; there was one scraggler forcing its way up a space that couldn’t have been two feet wide between two apartment complexes! Larger high-rises loomed on the other side of 16th, bright kiwi-green taxis pulling through the intersection, an equally ubiquitous hot dog vendor nearby… as was the subway, from the smell – yep, right across the street.

The aforementioned jewelers weren’t quite on the corner across the street, but the place was close enough that she spotted the business immediately, right next to a tourist shop. Sarah straightened her shoulders and headed on in, past the ostentatious window display behind steel mesh, necklaces dripping in diamonds.

It took more than a little convincing of the expensively-suited Middle-Eastern owner to allow her into the back, but once there he immediately understood why, taking the unpolished, hefty, deep-violet amethyst points reverently in his cotton-gloved hands as she casually dug them out of her bag one after another after another… When he discovered that she had no normal vendor’s license (in fact, she had no form of identification at all at present) he nearly refused to do business with her, but after further haggling (and a little outright begging) he finally agreed to buy the two best ones, but only paying half the sum in cash now – $350 – assuring her that she could collect the balance on Moonday when he would have a chance to visit his bank before coming to work, and advised her to try a crystal-and-incense shop a few blocks to the west to sell the others, claiming that the owner was more bohemian in business practice, from his experience with the man, who only dealt in cash anyway (some of which, he strongly suspected, was under the table.)

So it’s Saturday, end-of-the-week, whatever, she thought, carefully rebagging her unsold merchandise and the crisp bills, shaking the man’s beringed right hand, letting herself back out. She noted a garnet necklace in passing, the stone big enough to be the Jewel of Judgment in a lighter, more elegant setting, surrounded by swirls of tiny diamonds in a delicate silver filigree instead of the chunky gold…

Old fire-escapes that could have been straight out of West Side Story decorated the lower, flat-faced buildings running to her right – she’d have to remember that diner over there. Kids her age and younger were hanging out together on a handful of the stepped porches in a wide variety of dress; a couple had boom boxes. If she hadn’t already been running and hiking for miles previously, this would’ve been a rather pleasant little walk. Rows of bicycles were parked outside of a building with a coffee shop on the ground floor on Clay…

The fork in the road was clearly marked, a triangular three-story filling it; fancily carved eaves graced another along the even thinner road, barely enough room for parallel parking on one side, the moderate foot traffic forced closer; a few barred windows along this stretch, but only on the first floor – still not bad. Crossing again past what was obviously a seafood restaurant from the strong fish smell, the sidewalk trees created a neat tunnel-effect that lasted for part of the block, ending at the dry cleaners; she had to be getting closer…

Okay, so there’s 20th… now what? Turning away toward an independent bookshop’s filled-to-covered window display, she reopened Ghost’s instructions; she certainly wasn’t alone out here, but there were surprisingly few people out on the streets in this part of town for a Saturday afternoon. Did the world party on, say, Wednesday mornings instead a weekend in New Yark? Of course she still didn’t know the exact date, and she was only guesstimating the time at present.

‘From 20th Street, cross over to the right-hand side of Weavers at the intersection safely, then continue on to Crystal St. Shara Wilkins lives at 204 Weavers Place, apartment number 5D. Enjoy your visit. For instructions detailing your return trip to Shadow Earth in late summer/early autumn in fair weather, turn to page 147.’

Sarah exhaled; almost there, then. Stucco, red-painted brick, more iron bars, an actual bar, the smell of alcohol…

There was a six-story red-brick apartment building with ornamental light stonework, scrolling, and stylized Green Man faces over each window, and a drop-off laundry service on the ground floor: this was the place! Sarah’s heartbeat quickened as she started to smile: wouldn’t Shara be surprised!

The small Ionian-columned entrance was on Crystal, however, along with the sinuously cast fire-escapes. Walking up the front steps, Sarah was a little surprised to find that the door was unlocked; she entered the Art Deco-style main hall (that might’ve not been updated maintenance-wise since then, either, from the looks of things), and climbed all the way up the rickety wooden staircase to the fifth floor without incident, having to stop once at the landing of the third to catch her breath.

5C…5D! She ran a hand through her hair and buzzed the doorbell, ready to greet a girl she wished had been her older sister, with a big hug…

A thin-faced young man with long dark hair and dark eyes, maybe in his late twenties, answered the door wearing a brightly-patterned silk caftan that flowed down to his knees – and apparently nothing else! A lit cigarette was in the fingers of his left hand; the dim apartment behind him smelled of it, too, and possibly even a little pot.

“Can I help you?”

“Oh! I – I’m sorry,” Sarah laughed self-consciously, “is Shara in, by any chance?” She must have a live-in boyfriend; stupid of me to not think of something like that!

He shook his head. “There’s nobody of that name who lives in this building. You sure you got the right address?”

“204 Waverly, 5D. Shara Wilkins? Maybe she moved recently, I don’t know.”

The man sidled past her into the hallway; out on the landing of the third floor was now a middle-aged, mustachioed black man in a green polo shirt and jeans, polishing the wooden floors of the hallways. “Hey, Bill! Cute chick up here asking after a Shara Wilkins! Ring any bells?”

“Aw, yeah, the actress – Lydia Wilkins, her kid! Yeah, I knew her. They were only here for about… four years, was it? I think so. That apartment was vacant for a coupla weeks inbetween; you never met her,” he left his squeegee-mop resting against a wall, climbing on up to join them. “Hey, keep those damn things in your own room, Dante, they stink up the place!” he pointed one arthritic finger at the offending cigarette as soon as he saw it, still mounting the last demi-flight inbetween; it was promptly deposited in an ashtray on a bookshelf just inside the man’s door to smolder, obeying the proverbial letter of the law while protesting its spirit. Upon seeing Sarah, the super seemed to do a double-take… then looked closer. “For a minute there I woulda sworn you were her!” He suddenly smiled. “You ain’t come back to pull ol’ Bill’s chain, have ya, girl?”

Sarah shook her head with a sad smile of her own. “I take it she moved, then. I haven’t seen her in a few years; guess my information was too old. You don’t have any idea where she went, do you?”

“ ’fraid not. You her long-lost sister or what? I’m sorry, but I just can’t shake the resemblance – it’s like the Prince and the Pauper! ‘cept she wouldn’t ever wear anything unless it was ‘on trend’ this month,” he rolled his eyes a little.

“Something like that,” Sarah coolly demurred. “Was she at least doing alright when she left?”

Bill sighed, leaning against the iron guard rail. “You didn’t hear about her mama then, did ya? Real sad,” he looked away, shaking his head, “she didn’t need to go that way: got hit late at night getting out of a taxi on the street-side ‘cause the backseat was crowded. Clipped fast, broke her neck: dead, just like that. Landlord offered to sign the apartment over to Shara under the table, same price and all so she could afford it, but she cleared out instead, didn’t tell nobody where she was goin’. Getting on with her life, I expect. This place had too many memories for her, to say nothing of that odd turn she had ‘bout the time they moved in: disappeared for two whole months, police couldn’t find her, nothin’… then just as sudden she’s back and can’t remember where she’s been, like somethin’ straight out of an alien abduction movie! Went to the doctor and she was fine, but still… can’t exactly blame her for not wanting to stay after her mama went…”

Sarah suddenly felt rather sheepish and somewhat guilty, belatedly remembering what Shara now couldn’t: Merlin had said he was going to memory-wipe her of her time spent on Shadow Earth, of everything that had happened to her from the time of Mandor’s abduction to the time the king of Chaos got her home, as a way of minimizing legal liability with Amber, to say nothing of the possible psychological strain on a normal shadow-human of knowing something of the true nature of reality. For that girl, it was as if none of it had ever happened; likely she just blinked and two months had gone by, both awful and incredible. Sarah admitted she would’ve been pretty freaked out herself if something like that had happened to her! Of course, he hadn’t ameliorated that…

Which meant that Sarah had absolutely no reason to be here; she wasn’t about to weird out her shadow-double any more than she had been already!

“You’re from out-of-town, right?” the super asked her. “I got some phone books you could look through if you wanna try an track her down.”

But Sarah waived off the kind offer. “I’d known about that incident, but I’d forgotten it myself. It’s not that important that I see her; I don’t want to bring up any traumatic memories.”

“Sorry about that. You were plannin’ on stayin’ with her while you were here, weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, wishing again that she could get off her feet, switching her overly-laden leather bag to her other shoulder.

“And here you are,” the slim, Italianate man butted in, “all dressed up for Green Witch and no one to play with. Are you sure I can’t do anything for you?” he insinuated, lounging against his open lintel.

“Hey, cool it, Casanova” the super stood up for her, “the lady ain’t interested in what you’re not quite hidin’ beneath that there fancy bedsheet. Were you plannin’ to take the subway right back out,” he addressed Sarah again, “or were you stayin’ anyway?”

“I had thought of staying at least for tonight; my plans just all went out the window,” she laughed humorlessly, “and I guess I have a little time on my hands. I haven’t gotten to spend much in this part of town.”

“You at least got money for a hotel?”

Sarah nodded.

“Then I’d hurry and get a room, if I were you. In about two hours, I swear every last crazy in New Ængland is gonna descend on us like they do every weekend, partyin’ like they own the place ‘til three or four in the morning – get yourself some earplugs, too; you gonna need ‘em to sleep!”

“At least the ghosts party quietly,” Dante chimed in, “but then again they’re from a better generation that didn’t rob people sleeping openly in Walsingham Square, either.”

Sarah almost couldn’t believe the serious-sounding commentary that had just emerged from this man’s mouth, the wheels in her head starting to turn from that oddly similar comment she’d heard not half-an-hour ago, albeit from a druggie! “…did you just say ghosts? Or is that only a local figure-of-speech, like-”

“I said ghosts and I meant ghosts; you’ll wish you weren’t alone tonight. I’ll leave my door unlocked.”

“Dante,” the super ground out a warning tone.

“Is he telling the truth?” Sarah pressed.

Bill seemed to carefully consider his next words. “There are,” he began slowly, deliberately. “You must not watch any T.V., bless you for the holdout that you are. It’s been on the local news, but the national broadcasts and papers have all been avoiding the story like it’s poison; the Street Speak is coverin’ it, of course. And I think it’s startin’ ta happen elsewhere, too. But they ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of, as far as me and mine can tell. I got an old friend who knows a guy who’s tight with a legit juju-man up in Haarlem – he’s asked him about it, and I guess even the dark Loa don’t put on a free show, ‘specially with no bodies to inhabit. This somethin’ else. These ghosts don’t hurt nobody, now,” he reassured her, “it’s like they can’t even see us. But we’ve been getting apparitions around town for the past three weeks, some of ‘em famous, even: ol’ Rob Duncan’s back in the Park, and so is Albert Ginseng, getting high for all the world ta see. And believe you me, the world’s comin’ ta see it! At least avoid the Park after dark if you’re gonna be out; it’s attracting even more crazies than usual: scam psychics and alien worshippers and people who think they gonna be the Ghostbusters! It’s gotta mean somethin’, but they ain’t dangerous. It’s just like all the old souls are comin’ on back home.”

Dante scoffed, stepping back inside his apartment, picking up the half-burned-down cigarette as he grabbed the door from the inside. “Ask him about Harlan Pickering, if you dare.” He closed it.

Sarah uneasily looked back to the super; the man looked nearly as uncomfortable. He nodded once.

“We’ve had one death in this part of town ‘cause of it so far – one; you’re more likely to get shot in Middlegreen in broad daylight. Some lady saw old Harlan rush straight through her to embrace another ghost-man, and she literally died of fright on the spot: had a heart attack, bam, dead. Hit the floor. That’s one high-strung woman with a heart condition to begin with, and she’d come from Jersin to see ‘em on purpose, too, not even from around here! You scare easy, miss?”

“Not anymore,” Sarah gave him a rueful smirk.

“Well… either stay in when the sun goes down, or stay where there’s a lot of people; that should be easy enough. The drunks are more likely to be trouble than the ghosts. You sure you wanna give up on your sister like that?” his dark eyebrows bunched together. “My flat’s 6A,” he pointed up the last short flight of stairs. “You can come in and have a cup of coffee and use my phone, so long as it’s local.”

“It’s really sweet of you to offer, but… I think I’d better just go,” she awkwardly turned toward the stairs again.

Bill sighed, but he was nodding. “Sometimes it’s best to leave the past where it is,” he commented, walking down with her to the front door. “Just get yourself a nice room: go see if the Walsingham Hotel is all filled up yet. Don’t worry about any of this nonsense. You take care, now.”

In moments Sarah was back out on the street, at loose ends. The feeling would’ve been glorious if the situation hadn’t been so dire: Amber’s problems with Tir-na Nog’th were obviously starting to spill over into Shadow! And at present there was nothing she could do about it! Her fatigue caught up with her all at once… but she couldn’t just keep standing here; people would start giving her change like she was homeless.

Which was actually technically correct at the moment; she couldn’t go home…

“Murderer!”

Some woman in sweats and a ski-mask dashed past her, throwing a handful of ketchup on her sealskin jacket!

“Hey! This thing was so ethically made the animals were probably prayed to!” she screamed back in knee-jerk rage… but it was pointless. “At least I’m already at the cleaners,” she muttered to herself with a sigh, walking over to the corner establishment and dropping off the coat and its associated accoutrements while she was at it, breaking her first hundred-dollar bill to pay for the job.

Trudging back down Weavers, she stopped into the bookshop she had passed before on principle, wandered until she found a cushioned chair, and collapsed into it, heaving a sigh in physical relief.

What in the worlds was she suppose to do?! The unwelcome thought of Mandor suddenly popped into her mind again. Was he free already? Had he had to tell Fiona what he was really up to?

Was he shadow-pulling toward her right this second?!

… no, she couldn’t give into outright panic; that was worse than accomplishing nothing. She dug out her canteen and took a swig; she’d dumped out the municipal tap water at that pristine, sweet-tasting waterfall on that unknown shadow.

“No food or drinks allowed in here,” a female employee promptly scolded her from where she knelt, shelving new acquisitions from a cardboard box. Her hair was very short and cotton-candy pink, and she was wearing a punk-band t-shirt that had been converted into a dress, with black lacy tights and army boots beneath.

“Sorry,” Sarah mumbled, putting it back… and then an idea struck her, likely brought on by the subconscious combination of books and this carryall: a trump. While his side-interest in the problem at hand was entirely self-serving, the former Duke of Sawall had brought up an interesting point concerning the current king of Chaos having a widely-known yet officially unsanctioned communications back-channel directly linked to the king of Amber. If she couldn’t count on Random Barimen for help or clemency, then it made cold, rational sense to try his opposite number, knowing that the Concord still legally bound them both to keep mutual peace as far as it was possible. Sarah hadn’t ever been very good when it came to sketching these, but she was beginning to wonder whether it was just her own self-doubt that was holding her back from making a real one; with other magicks of a similar nature, it was the intent, not the method of execution, that really mattered.

And she was clearly too exhausted to try shadow-walking out of here at present, even with clean instructions, to say nothing of the fact that she would come out over 200 miles south of where she needed to be! And she was starving for a real meal; there had been a diner on the way up here, near the subway station.

It’s not retreat, it’s retrenchment, she thought firmly; that’s what her former tutor would’ve called this – taking the time necessary to care for yourself before continuing on.

“Can I help you find anything?” It was the same girl, obviously not going to put up with a loiterer who wasn’t even making the attempt to read anything.

“Yes, actually: do you carry sketchbooks and artist’s pencils here?”

“Sure, right up front by the desk on the wall display. What size book were you thinking of?”

Sarah slowly got back up – her poor leg muscles protesting the abuse – but she picked out what she wanted, adding a few back-dated newspapers to the tab along with a current one, curious as to what all she had missed in the time she’d been away, grabbing a free copy of the Speak from a dispenser on the street outside. About five minutes later, she was seated in a red-leather booth in the diner, practically inhaling a garden-style burger with everything plus a dill spear on the side, crunchy breaded onion rings with ketchup, and a thick chocolate milkshake while pouring over the news, the papers spread out all over the table. She had initially been stunned to discover that she had been gone from Earth’s neighborhood of shadows for a little over a month; it had been only a few days to her! And she had slept clean through two of them! It was admittedly a bit disorienting reading what was going on here, but she could kind of guess what must be happening on Shadow Earth from the articles. There were new pictures of the giant gas planet Narwhal from the Voyeur space probe (which had also found four new moons and even rings during the flyby!) The government had just had to bail out savings-and-loan banks all over the country; millions of people had lost money. Auto-immune disease was still ravaging the Village regardless of the acronym it went by, according to the Speak. Racial tensions were finally reaching a dangerous crescendo point in Brookton after the shooting of an unarmed 16-year-old black kid by an adult white gang. Perrin Roswald had been banned from Baseball’s Hall of Heroes due to illegal betting, and Jim Colt had died. A fraternity in Veronica was currently going on a strange rampage. The U.S.-backed contras in Nicarao were in trouble again. There had been earthquakes and boat crashes and millions of people in the Eastern Border peacefully protesting the Russian United Socialist Republic in a human chain that was miles long, singing away. And New Yarkers were on the verge of electing their first black mayor by a landslide!

Once she couldn’t justify sitting there anymore, Sarah left a good-sized tip on her table, scraped the milkshake glass one more time with a long spoon, and made her way out and across 16th Avenue, feeling a bit better as she walked back toward the Park – a girl on rollerblades flying past her at one point – but turning in at the hotel, which was a thin, tall building just across the street.

The interior was definitely updated modern/upscale, made to accentuate the original Art Deco décor, and the equally retro-dressed red-headed female clerk behind the counter seemed incredulous that Sarah thought she could just get in without a reservation: they were usually booked up weeks in advance, if not months!

“Look, you can stick me in the broom closet on a pile of clean towels, I don’t care! I just need a place to crash for one measly night! Don’t you have anything? It isn’t like I can’t pay.”

The reservation clerk’s expression was currently drifting somewhere between irritation and pity over the girl’s seeming naïveté and lack of appropriate planning.

“All right,” she sighed, adjusting her glasses up the bridge of her nose, “depending on how brave you are, we might have one; we haven’t been letting it out because the last five people who stayed there all saw this ghost of a lady with bobbed hair in a fringed flapper dress looking out the window all night long down at the street, like she was watching for someone – not very scary compared to some of the other apparitions that have been reported around the Village, but definitely unnerving and not terribly restful, unless you’re cool about hanging out with the dead. At least you’ll have a good story to tell when you get home. But that’s why it’s vacant; the manager doesn’t feel good about openly offering it to the public.” The woman suddenly laughed. “The room with Jean Baer, on the other hand, is fairly popular; we can’t keep people out of that one!”

“But… there’s no poltergeist-type activity that happens with this lady? Lights flickering, furniture moving?”

“She loops back the drape of the window to look out, and stands there right next to the bed until the sun comes up, but nothing beyond that as far as we know. It’s mostly just spooky and annoying with the light coming in-”

“I’ll take it,” Sarah said definitely with a nod. “I’ll just get a sleep mask to go with the earplugs I’ve already been warned I’m going to need.”

“We have those articles on hand. Want me to add them to your bill?”

“Sure. How much?”

A single night at the hotel wound up costing Sarah over half the money she currently had left. There has to be some kind of cosmic rule-of-thumb about that, she thought, going up to the fifth floor in the antique lift – gift of the gods – wandering on down the hall past the painted Art Deco ladies on the wall tiles that indicated the floor, to the right room number, unlocking the door.

Her room was definitely small, just big enough for the full-sized bed and writing desk across from it, an AC unit propped into the tall, thin window, and while the connected white-tile bathroom was similarly city-sized – cramped – a full bathtub had been stuffed in there somehow, underneath the shower!

Oh, yeah… Throwing her heavy bag and woolen cape onto the bed, hanging the flower garland off one of the black-and-white framed photos of old movie stars above the upholstered headboard, she quickly stripped, changing into the provided terrycloth bathrobe, then called room service to request laundry service ASAP, hanging all of her remaining clothing up in the hollowed front door.

She accidentally fell asleep in the tub.

Awakening to her tepid, bubbly surroundings over three hours later, her hands and feet all pruney from soaking too long, she groggily sat up and finished rinsing her hair out, feeling too heavy as she stood back up, pulling the plug. But at least she was finally clean: she would never take this feeling for granted ever again! Wrapping up in towels (not wanting to put the dirtied robe back on again; she now noted the overpowering burned herb smell – no wonder that guy in the apartment building had thought she was a hippie!), she wandered back out into the bedroom, retrieving and unbagging her freshly pressed articles, getting dressed again, this time in the green woolen dress; it was a bit cool in here, and doubtless it would get colder by this evening. Getting the small Moleskin sketchbook and pencils out of her bag, she sat down at the desk… then remembered to get her canteen, too, so she wouldn’t have to get up for any reason again, turning on the small light that was there rather than opening the curtains; if some power had mercy on her and this worked, she wanted there to be absolutely no chance of an accidental audience from the apartment building just across the street! Centering herself, she closed her eyes and brought to mind the still-young-looking countenance of Merlin Barimen, more like his father that not, and yet still very much his own man – Chaos-unique…

She opened her eyes and sketched a quick oval-shape, starting with the hair…

Two-hours-forty-five minutes and six aborted attempts later, she was ready to throw in the towel: intention was not enough in this case. She simply wasn’t a good enough artist to do people – in fact, she was still downright lousy when it came to realism in general. And she wasn’t even sure whether she was going about this right; using the Pattern to execute these was a completely different operation than using the Logrus. The harbinger of Grand Design was supposed to be hidden away beneath the image rather than worked into it…

Crumpling up her latest failure and throwing it in the wastebasket, Sarah buried her face in her hands, resting her elbows on the desk. There was no way around it: she was officially stuck – ‘no one to catch her’, indeed. She blearily looked back at the bed and its contents, then closed her eyes with a sigh.

Alright, what would Mom do?

First of all, Linda Williams wouldn’t give up; at the very least she wouldn’t sit around feeling sorry for herself if she wasn’t happy about something. Sarah got up, crossed over to the bed and sat down, grabbing her issue of the Speak. Her mother used to tell her that when she was first starting out as an actress, whenever she was feeling low about herself, whenever she’d been turned down for a part that she’d really wanted – that she thought she could’ve done well – she went to a play, even if all she could afford at the moment was a one-night-only hole-in-the-wall sort of affair.

“You don’t learn these kinds of skills in a vacuum,” she could hear her saying. “If enough good directors whose opinion you would trust think that what you’re doing is wrong, then try to go watch what they think is right; pay attention to everything, take notes if you have to…”

Sarah found herself flipping through the local theater listings – not because she thought the inspiration to get her out of this jam was going to just drop out of the sky, but because the ritual of the act alone was meaningful to her. There was a kind of power to this, but of a very different sort altogether.

One play title jumped out at her almost immediately: ‘Other People’s Possessions’! She spluttered a laugh and knew what she was doing tonight; it was just too perfect! And the theater wasn’t too far away either, according to the free map of the Village she’d picked up in the diner, only four short blocks southeast on Mimosa Lane; she could walk it.

Drying and braiding her hair back, finishing getting ready, Sarah removed the leftover amethyst points and the Amberite geography book from her carryall, hiding them underneath the mattress; she was getting tired of lugging the heavy things around – they would be safe enough in here for the time being. She had briefly thought of putting the Dreamstone in the hotel safe, but quickly decided against it: somebody was bound to wonder what she was doing toting around such an obviously expensive piece of jewelry in the first place, to say nothing of shapeshifting Chaosians abroad who could likely pass for her if they tried hard enough. For a straight guy, Mandor Sawall had proven to be eerily proficient at portraying believable women! Hiding the remaining hundred-dollar bill (with the an unfamiliar president’s face on it; all the men on the money were different from Shadow Earth America) in her fresh-smelling bra, she pulled her boots back on, making sure that she had everything that she needed one last time, including the key to the room, before heading out again.

Sarah sort of assumed that the super for Shara’s old apartment building had been exaggerating at least a little bit when he was talking about the out-of-town characters who came to troll the West Village on weekends. It turned out he hadn’t been exaggerating in the least: the moment she stepped out onto the street, it was like being in a mashup of Halloween, Mardi Gras, and a highly disorganized Pride Fest! On a whim, she dashed back up to her room and grabbed her flower garland, donning it again, grinning; she looked unusually ‘normal’ in this crowd!

It was a beautiful evening to be out, even if it was a little chilly, with darker cumulous clouds coming in from the east. She followed the press of the crowd down the tree-lined green edge of the Park, southwest along the artistic cobblestone walkway, past a block of less descript apartment buildings (though English ivy was making a half-hearted attempt at scaling one of the brick facades), a few window planters and hanging baskets with hardy trailing ferns breaking up the expanse of stone, cement, glass, and asphalt.

A seemingly endless row of restaurants, taverns and nightclubs (mostly jazz) with outdoor seating abruptly appeared as she crossed West 23rd Street, serving every last foodstuff and alcohol known to man, the tiny tables crowded and noisy, with competing music and even more conversation emanating from within the establishments, the different cuisines and seasonings all warring with each other in the open air outside. The sidewalks were getting even busier, the ubiquitous apartments towering above adding to the human clamor; some had lights on now, even the flicker of a few television screens was visible from down here.

Turning right onto Mimosa Lane, the theater was easy to spot down the block to the right, with the small horde of characters straight out of the Village People standing outside, chatting and laughing, more than a few smoking (not all tobacco), the old-fashioned lightbulb-surrounded marquee lit up with the show title. Once inside, she quickly discovered that the play was more than a little popular; she wound up having to take a seat up in the very back of the orchestra section of the long, rectangular black-painted theater, behind a woman whose hair was teased up so tall that she had to keep craning around her just to see the stage!

Sometimes knowledge of the nature of Shadow could rather understandably color a person’s thinking, especially when it came to all manner of coincidences. Even though the play was about brokering for power in the higher echelons of financial society, Sarah couldn’t help but feel the tug of an all-too-familiar thread: the taking of something from someone who wasn’t utilizing it to its full potential by someone who not only knew how to capitalize on it, but how to actually make it work. To her surprise, there was quite a bit of unexpected humor in the production for such a serious subject matter, but after the first act the plot took such an odd twist, culminating in a jury awarding the naïve ‘little guy’ all of his rich nemesis’ holdings, which he immediately distributed amongst everyone he met, ending in a huge musical chorus number with rather obvious socialist (or even communist) overtones: standard fare for the old Village, really. But Sarah couldn’t brush off the incongruity; the outcome felt too forced. The ‘bad guy’, like the unpopular Merchant of Venice before him in Shakespeare’s day, had actually been in the right, regardless of his reasoning: he left the stage penniless to jeers, karmic justice enacted for his many ‘crimes’ against humanity.

It was still an entertaining two hours, though. Once all the final bows were finished, Sarah worked her way through her garishly-clad fellow theater-goers, many of whom were still nursing what was left of their drinks, lingering by the bar next to the stairwell, obviously in no hurry to leave…but it was more like they were avoiding something outside than enjoying each other’s company, not unlike the way people sometimes wait out a storm together in whatever store they happen to be in at the time. Upon stepping out of the double glass doors and glancing down the block, she immediately spotted why.

There were colorless-translucent phantoms – people garbed in every western fashion from the Colonial Era to 1970s glam rock – appearing and disappearing in erratic patterns on Mimosa Lane, right there in the middle of the street and wandering along the sidewalks! Some of them seemed capable of seeing and interacting with one another and were in the process of doing so in various ways, as if this were just any old day in the neighborhood: laughing and embracing friends in dirty uniforms just off the clock from a steel mill; beatniks deep in existential dialogue and debate; there was a fist-fight in progress over by the far corner, with living onlookers placing bets alongside their ghostly counterparts; a fine lady in a corseted dress with a bustle and a lacy parasol strolled along on the arm of her dandy of a man who was pushing a perambulator; and one pair of ghosts were in the midst of an utterly outrageous mime of a chess match, sitting on thin air, playing with the same! None of them were lasting longer than approximately thirty-to-forty-five seconds apiece, drifting in and out of existence as if some god were playing with a tuner-dial on a cosmic radio! Bill What’s-his-name had been right again: it was certainly unnerving to behold, but moreso out of the inherent strangeness, the novelty of the experience, than anything else. It had obviously drizzled a bit during the course of the play, with the way that the streets and buildings were shining in the reflected light from the near-sepia tinting of the streetlamps, making this section of old town look even older in spite of the clusters of small neon signs in the windows and over the doors of the various establishments – raucous laughter echoed out from a comedy club on the corner of Mimosa and MacDonald, mingling with the conversation and bursts of laughter on the street as Sarah passed it, crossing and turning left, following the thick, mixed crowds of brightly colorful living and uniformly pale dead on her way back to the hotel, thinking of grabbing a big slice or two of the local cheese pizza while she was at it from a dinky hole-in-the-wall pizzeria further up this stretch on this side that only served two kinds (both cheese) from the advertisement painted on the window, and nowhere to sit down.

As bizarre as the general presence of the ghosts was, it was far more interesting watching other people’s reactions to them, which ran the gamut from outright terror, to awe and wonder, to… well… acts of publicly indecent behavior, to put it delicately, likely because the perpetrators couldn’t be seen or heard by those they were mercilessly mocking. It was a microcosm of human psychology on open display in the face of the unknown. There was probably a starving writer sitting at one of these little round café tables along the sidewalk, taking careful notes for the impending Ken Burns-style documentary right now.

Further up MacDonald, past the restaurants but not quite to the Park, the motions of an unusually long, uniformly loping gait of a group of individuals suddenly caught Sarah’s eye, partly because of the conspicuous room fellow foot-traffic were giving them, out of all those on the sidewalks headed down the avenue – moving toward the action – the walkers wearing plain black suits and fedoras, looking not unlike stereotypical ‘mob men’. As they came closer to passing her on the opposite side of the cars, she gradually came to realize what it was that had seemed strange about them: it was their actual locomotion, which was more reminiscent of an equine or even canine saunter at this slow speed, even though they were all walking ‘normally’. Hairless, tightly pulled gray skin and heavily exaggerated thin jaw-lines shone briefly under the next streetlamp…

It couldn’t be… it was! A pair of bloodshot, coldly inhuman eyes picked her face out of the crowd around the same time, accompanied by a quick whisper that revealed needle-sharp barracuda teeth! Five more pairs of eyes followed, in her direction…

They had actually tracked her all the way through Shadow!

Sarah was backing up step for step, her mind flying! These creatures could outdistance her in under a minute flat on foot! If she tried to hide in one of the restaurants or clubs, they could easily stake the place out, trapping her inside! There was no point in calling the police on attempted assailants who could likely walk right out of this world in the blink of an eye – and come back in at even closer range!

There wasn’t any time to think it out: Sarah turned on her heel and openly ran for it back down McDonald Avenue against the dense foot-traffic, dodging tables, shoving between people angrily shouting for her to watch where she was going, narrowly missing cars when she had to take to the gutter for a second or two – lights, sounds, surprised faces – a quick glance behind at the sudden blare of car horns: her pursuers had just crossed the small street against traffic, one of them somersaulting over a hood on one elongated gray hand, the viciously sharp spur on the back of it revealed! A woman screamed.

She could try to shift away, but her chances were better in the city right where she was, with obstructions that might slow them down! Turning off on Blinker, she saw a taxi coming and hailed it… but the driver was another alien! And he was tailing her, holding something odd-looking in his left hand! Sarah didn’t stick around to find out the hard way: she took a dangerous drag off the Dreamstone, feeling her kidneys abruptly on fire, zooming past the restaurants and stunned patrons, the soles of her boots physically hot as she made a hard left again on Sylvester Street in a blur of light, glass, ghosts and cement – knocked-over table! – then a right on 13th Avenue, and another on Tomas!

She stopped on a dime the moment she was around the corner, panting hard, clutching her aching flank, her heart hammering in her ears, hot, certain that none of them had seen where she’d gone… but there wasn’t much time to find a place to hide if they were tracking her by the Stone! A bar, a coffee shop, more restaurants – the crowds wouldn’t save her!

Wait… what in the world?

On the left side of the street, just three small businesses down, two ghosts, a man in a suit and a woman with short-bobbed straight hair, were coming out of an unmarked door in a wall – no outside handle, not even a security peephole – in the front of a closed gift shop: it was one of those old speakeasies someone had turned into a bar or a club! Sarah jay-dashed across the street in front of traffic, just making it in time to grab the edge of the gray-painted door before it closed, all but flying inside!

… into an ugly cement service-style hallway, running nimbly down a long flight of stairs amidst the fire-escape lights, hearing the door far above click closed; the seam had to be nearly invisible unless one knew this was here! Her knees were a bit wobbly by the time she reached the bottom; the smell of alcohol and the sound of old torch-songs from the forties and fifties was steadily emanating down a low-ceilinged, red-carpeted hallway. Sarah briefly reflected that she was likely too young to be legally allowed in this establishment, but at present that was the least of her worries!

Oh, finally! She had just spotted the entrance! A lemon-lime soda sounded really good right about now, even if the place didn’t serve any food. That stunt had to have burned a lot of calories: she was suddenly starving!

Turning in at an open door to the left, she stepped into a cozily warm, opulently black-and-white Art Deco club in low light, antique geometrically-designed lamps along the walls, candles in small glasses on the small, round, covered tables, which were packed with dressed-up clientele: really atmospheric, if close. There was a bar off to the left side, but it was almost invisible in the dark. In fact, the only thing that was clearly lit was the tiny stage in the back of the long, thin house, a man up there in a snazzy old-fashioned suit and fedora crooning away to pre-recorded music… something like a Dean Martin song, maybe?

Sarah carefully made her way over to the bar and ordered her soda, standing there while she waited for the bartender to pull and push the proper levers on the ancient carbonation machine. This place really was pretty cool, after its own fashion.

The song ended; the patrons politely clapped, but somehow to Sarah’s ears the sound was strange, and she couldn’t for the life of her place why.

A table was vacated off to the right by the wall about a third of the way from the stage, its beautifully-dressed occupants leaving: the woman was wearing a full-length evening gown with a mink stole, the man a long black cape and top hat! Sarah took a seat, setting her bag on the floor between her legs-

Her hand distinctly brushed against fur. Had that lady forgotten a hat or a muff or something? It was hard to make out in the dim light, but Sarah couldn’t see anything down there, pushing back the tablecloth… odd. Nevermind.

She went to take a sip of her drink as the next song started, this one a bit more up-tempo; she still didn’t recognize it, but that wasn’t terribly surprising – vintage ballads weren’t her forte unless they had been in a musical.

She quickly realized that she also didn’t recognize this smell: it was no constituent of any lemon-lime soda she had ever imbibed. It wasn’t even alcohol, like what could happen if a bartender got in a hurry and was sloppy with the seltzer hose. It was bitter, but with a tang that could only be described as off, rancid – some kind of herb, maybe?

She was about to casually place the glass back on the table (better safe than sorry) when an unusual sound caught her attention, and she looked over to the table to her left: a man was tapping his fingers against the tabletop in time to the beat – but his fingernails were too short to be making that sound…

His fingers were audibly clicking against the wooden surface.

And each of them had ball-joints, with tiny screws.

It felt surreal, like something out of a dream…

Only she wasn’t dreaming. Her hand was lightly shaking as she put down her untouched soda, the truth quietly sinking in. She discreetly examined his face, that of his pretty companion, of others she could see from here, some behind, suddenly feeling ice-cold in spite of the soothing warmth of the room, her pulse beginning to speed up. Psychologically she felt as if the floor had just dropped out from beneath her…

Every last person at the tables was an elaborate, mannequin-like marionette-style puppet! She was completely surrounded by them: gently smiling faces, blinking doll’s eyes, hinged joints! No visible strings, though! How…

…was that a tail?! She spotted something decidedly non-human shift beneath the floor-length cloth under the table ahead of hers… and stifled a scream in a sudden burst of terror: they were being operated somehow from beneath the tables!

The current song was ending; the singer looked up, grinning straight into her eyes…

Her jaw involuntarily dropped: it was Jareth!

He stepped away from the microphone stand, raising his right arm like a predetermined signal, and most of the human-sized puppets instantly slumped – some falling from their chairs, clattering to the floor – as a horde of goblins rushed her-

She fainted dead away.


Sleepless nights
And sleepfilled days
That run too quickly together
Anymore
In near-eternal light
Save at the new of the moon;
Curtains are doubled to keep it out.

A day flies by
In a few hours
By the clock
And yet time drags
Upon a wearying populace,
Growing strangely jaded
About the ghosts among them,
Complacently accepting
Of the unwanted company
– for Amberites are nothing,
if not open-mindedly resilient.

And yet…

No one noticed the holes at first
Written off as a trick of fatigue
Here and there, like small coins
Fallen from a purse, at night…

At least until a small child
Touched one, curiously
And vanished.

Animals avoid them instinctively…

In fifteen short days
A quarter of the City
Is a Void
Like a bombed area
But without broken rubble or debris
Just huge gashes of black
With more missing people
Each morning.

The darkness lengthens…