#UranusinCapricorn | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

josiebelladonna · 8 years ago

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Amongst the Waves (Uranus in Capricorn - part 1 of 6)

Ivan groaned inside of his throat. He could at least breathe again but his belly continued to ache from Victor’s dastardly punch and from the lack of food that morning. Desdemona crouched down next to him and hung next to his head. He rolled his head to the right. A smile twisted onto his face at the sight of her.

She glanced down at his hands, which rested on his stomach. A small part of her wanted to comfort him more, to massage his body and put him at ease.

Behind her, Neptune sank down in the chair next to Pluto, who kept one eye on Ivan and Desdemona, and the other eye on her two brothers, both of whom huddled together in front of the door. They kept their backs turned to the rest of the room as they discussed how to return to Titania.

Downstairs, Archer Wilson and Zelda cautiously descended the mirrored stairs to the lower level, careful so as not to slip on the smooth glass. To Zelda, it felt like the two times she drove on ice: one move out of place and she knew there will be horrid consequences. Zelda lead the way to a landing continuing the mirrored floor but breaking the continuity of the walls along the stairs with plain beige walls. On the wall in front of them, she noticed two doors: the one to the left was a heavy darkly tinted mirrored door. To the the right stood pair of silvery doors barely cracked open at the middle. Zelda spotted a yellow sign which read COBALT CAFE with a left pointing black arrow.

She strode to the tinted door and then shot out her arm to push it open. Wilson followed her into a large brightly lit cafeteria. The linoleum floor had just been polished to near perfection. Small round slate gray tables dotted the bright white floor.

“Finally, a room that isn’t mirrored—” Wilson was cut off short by two approaching Positrons. Their soulless blue eyes had bled away into a fiery orange that burned into the fabric of Wilson and Zelda’s beings. The bots reached out with their exorbitantly long arms and fingers for their necks. Thinking quickly, Zelda picked up a chair and hurled it at the bot stomping towards her. Amazingly, the chair sailed past the Positron.

Wilson ducked down and somersaulted towards the robot approaching him. He slid between the Positron’s legs and sat upright facing the back of the bot. He reached forward so as to touch his toes. Wilson gripped onto the Positron’s ankles and pulled back. The Positron fell face first onto the linoleum: its upper body split apart into a thorax, a single head, and shards of arms and hands. The other Positron gripped onto Zelda’s wrists and lunged closer to her. She tried to fight back but it was futile.

“Arthur!” she exclaimed.

Wilson scrambled to his feet to save his sister. He cartwheeled over the shattered Positron. He landed on his feet and bent down to pick up the bot’s head. Using his precise skill from archery, he hurled the head at the other Positron’s head to knock off the head. Taking advantage of the headless bot, Zelda shoved the Positron into the table behind her. The edge of the table bifurcated the body.

Wilson hurried towards his sister. He set his hands on her shoulders and whirled her around to face him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his gray eyes riddled with concern. She quickly nodded. He flung his arms around her upper body and held her close. He jerked back to face her.

“Let’s get something to eat,” he advised.

They continued towards the vast kitchen window and metal countertop on the side of the room on the left from the door. Wilson noticed a door on the far side of the counter. There was an oblong crack between the door and the threshold, otherwise the door would have blended into the bright white wall. He set a hand on the door where the knob should be and tried to push it open. The door would not budge despite his strength.

“A door that doesn’t open?” he wondered aloud.

Zelda approached the matte gray metallic countertop and then hoisted herself up. She climbed over, only to come face to face with a kitchen with a black tile floor. In front of her was a dividing wall; behind that the kitchen itself. To her right, a bright white plain refrigerator and another door which blended into the wall.

“How are you supposed to get in besides climbing over the countertop?” Zelda asked, dumbfounded.

“How are you supposed to get out besides climbing over the countertop?” Wilson echoed as he raised an eyebrow. He followed suit over the metallic counter. He noticed the refrigerator and hesitated as he strove to formulate a plan right on the spot.

“I’ll look in the back, you look in there,” he suggested. “If you see any more Positrons coming our way, holler.” Zelda nodded and lunged for the refrigerator. Wilson slipped into the cramped kitchen.

Zelda opened the door and peered inside. The refrigerator had three shelves. On top, Zelda spotted a large red can of Violet Rose Coffee. She picked the red can off the shelf and examined the deep violet and indigo rosebushes adorning the sides of the can. She thought of brewing some coffee for Ivan and Desdemona, and Neptune, Pluto, Hamilton, and Siegfried if they all wanted a cup. She tucked the can under her arm and continued to search the refrigerator. On the top shelf were two jade colored bottles of Mrs. Bumbleshoot’s Silver Creamer, a red three bubbled bottle of Scarlet Spiral Whiskey, and four tin cans of Scarlet Spiral Fruit Cocktail. On the next shelf down, four packages of Petra’s Pita Paper, two jugs of soy milk, and—tortillas! She crouched down to see the bottom shelf, which had Greta’s Gouda and Edam and two other cheeses, three cans of refried beans, and Hernandez Horchata Sugar Plums.

Dad loves those, she thought to herself as she picked the pack of snowy white glittering sugar plums off the bottom shelf. She tucked the pack under her arm with the can of coffee before reaching for the beans, cheese, and tortillas.

There’s no chorizo, she thought glumly, I could have taken that whiskey and cooked it into the chorizo and give it a nice flavor and then make breakfast enchiladas for everyone. No eggs, either. What kind of a kitchen is this?

“This place makes no sense!” Wilson called out from the kitchen reading Zelda’s mind. She glanced to her left to see her younger brother emerging from the kitchen.

“This refrigerator here has a sparing amount of food, but there is food,” she explained as she returned to an upright position and closed the door.

“There’s a fridge in here that has another fridge inside of it,” he pointed out, “no food, just another fridge.” Zelda raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Yeah, I know,” Wilson agreed. “On top of that, half of this room is stove tops. There’s an island right here—” He gestured behind him “—that’s full of drawers. There’s nothing in them. It’s just a bunch of drawers.”

“Is there at least a coffee maker?” Zelda questioned. Wilson glanced to his left and pointed in the far corner.

“Yeah, there’s one over there.”

“Okay, so it’s obvious that we’re going to have to return to Titania,” Hamilton announced to Pluto.

“But we can’t take the rocket, though,” Siegfried added. Pluto frowned.

“Why is that?” she asked quizzically.

“Because of the typhoon,” Hamilton explained as he placed his hands on his slender hips. Siegfried unsheathed the lightning rod from the inner lining of his space suit. The tip of the lightning rod flickered on occasion. “He showed that to me when our backs were turned. That thing is sparking on and off even down here. Neptune caused a big enough of a storm outside to generate more hexagonal distractions than the Bermuda Triangle. So we’re going to have to go back via teleportation. I contacted Meredith—apparently Belinda slaughtered Deidre, too. She threw a knife at her. Meredith is setting up the coordinates as we speak.”

“What about me, though?” Neptune demanded, concerned. Hamilton rubbed his narrow chin.

“We haven't done on Earth teleportation,” he admitted softly. He turned his head to face Siegfried. “Got any ideas?”

“Let’s see,” Siegfried began as he eyed Neptune, “you’ve got control over the ocean and the weather. Could you make a reverse tidal wave of sorts?”

“What’s a tidal wave got to do with this?” Desdemona asked her eldest nephew quizzically.

“Aunt Desi, hang on—” Siegfried stopped her as his brown eyes gleamed. “—if you can make a tidal wave going in reverse, a rogue wave, rather—that is, away from the mainland—”

“A rogue wave is not possible, Siegfried,” Desdemona interrupted.

“Let me finish,” he continued politely. “If you can control the ocean, then you can control where the waves go. A rogue wave may not be possible in reality, but with him it is possible. The storm is already raging outside so the ocean is volatile. Perfect for stirring up a rogue wave, and if it’s large enough, it can take you back to Bikini Atoll.”

“It’s gotta be pretty big, though, I’d think,” Ivan choked out as he proceeded to massage his aching belly.

“Well, of course,” Siegfried continued, “you can’t get very far on a simple storm surge. It needs to be big and going in the opposite direction. And with Neptune’s trident, he has the power and the potential to go six thousand miles across water.” He faced the big merman, who wore nothing but a pair of filmy black trousers and held his trident in one hand, sitting next to Pluto. His soft brown eyes locked onto Neptune’s subdued violet ones.

“I believe in you, Neptune,” Siegfried admitted.

“I do, too,” Pluto chimed in. She rested a hand on his left forearm. Hamilton, who had difficulty initially trusting or liking Neptune, reluctantly nodded his head.

“I do, too,” he blurted out. Pluto and Siegfried turned their attention to their brother, who felt a slight elation in what he just said, a small catharsis, as if giving Neptune the benefit of a doubt opened something inside of him. He gazed on at Pluto, who flashed him a warm smile.

Hamilton finally came to his senses, she said to herself.

“Can we at least have something to eat before we go, though?” Neptune inquired.

“Of course,” Siegfried replied kindly. “I've never liked the idea of travelling on an empty stomach.”

“Granted Wilson and Zelda found something downstairs,” Hamilton pointed out.

“I’m sure they did,” Pluto assured him.

“I did find a spoon, Arthur.” Zelda stirred a pot of refried beans on one of the many stove tops. There was one pot in the refrigerator in the kitchen: it was tucked behind the miniature refrigerator inside. She had fried up the tortillas in a dollop of butter she found in the miniature refrigerator, and then placed them inside of one of the ovens to maintain the heat. Wilson had hoisted himself onto the surface of the island next to the pack of sugar plums with a can of pears he found hidden behind the cans of fruit cocktail in the refrigerator in the front of the kitchen. Luckily, all of the cans he found had soda pop tops: Zelda had yet to find a can opener in this stark kitchen.

“Where was it?” he asked as he reached into the can for a third pear.

“It was in the pot here,” she replied. She continued to stir the beans until wisps of steam evanesced off into the air. Zelda opened the oven door and reached for the eight warm tortillas resting on the insulated rack. She turned to see her brother eating pears out of a can using his fingers.

“I would offer you the spoon but—”

“You’re dealing with hot beans,” he finished as he swallowed down the pear half. “It’s alright, though. I remember Mom and I often had canned pears after supper. During one summer—I think I was about six or seven—we sat outside on the back porch with bowls of pears and watch the Perseids. We thought we wouldn't be able to because of the fog coming in from the ocean. But luckily, Mom had faith that we would see the meteor shower, and sure enough, we did.”

“Rowena seemed like such an extraordinary lady,” Zelda commented as she spread a dollop of beans on one tortilla. “Dad talks about her sometimes, how she and him were best friends and they met in high school and reunited after he came back from Mexico.”

“She was extraordinary,” Wilson replied as he reached for another pear. “She always taught me to follow my passion and to embrace my gifts. So that taken into account, I find it weird to think of her as an artist, albeit so good of one to have one of her paintings a hot topic in national news. I always knew her as a nurse.”

“You know, my mother was an artist.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. She was a sketch artist. After my grandmother died, I found one of my mother’s sketchbooks hidden under my grandmother’s mattress and I brought it with me to the United States. I will have to show it to you when we return to the house.”

She reached to her right for the grated gouda, edam, cheddar, and baby Swiss cheese she found in the refrigerator outside. Zelda sprinkled the cheese over the tortillas and then began to wrap them up in little rolls.

“What kind of an idiotic kitchen is this that does not have chorizo?” she wondered aloud. “Or sour cream? Or avocados? Or onions? Or garlic? Or corn? Also where are the oven mitts in this place? It's a good thing the oven is extra insulated because I can't make everything too hot!” Wilson chuckled with a mouthful of pear. He had a feeling he and Zelda were going to get along just fine. The coffee maker let out a little ding! like that of a kitchen timer.

“Coffee’s ready!” Wilson exclaimed.

“But wait a minute,” Zelda stopped. Her brother raised his eyebrows.

“Did you see any mugs anywhere?”

Wilson paused as he tried to remember if and where he spotted some coffee mugs and some paper plates.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” he answered. “There really is something in this confibrulous confabulation of a kitchen. Hold these, please—”

Zelda took the nearly empty can of pears to allow him to slide off the island. Wilson strode around the other side of the island to the back of the kitchen and a narrow off white wooden door which may or may not have been the pantry. He set a hand on the white knob and pulled open the door to reveal five shelves. The bottom shelf had a large stack of paper plates. The other four were stuffed full of plain white bone china coffee mugs stacked on top of each other. Some were stacked at such an angle that they looked as though they were about to tumble out from the shelves. Wilson turned to face his sister on the other side of the island.

“Hey, Zelda,” he called with a sarcastic tone underlying his voice. She whirled around to see him standing next to the shelves. Her eyes widened in surprise. “You want a mug?”

“Yes, but are there plates?” she retorted.

“Down here,” he replied softly. He gestured to the bottom shelf. He crouched down for eight paper plates, and then returned to his older sister, who had eight bean and cheese flautas waiting. Wilson reached for the package of sugar plums and stuffed them into the inside pocket of his coat. Zelda swiftly placed the hot flautas on the plates, and then stacked four plates on top of each other. He followed her lead carrying four more plates stacked upon each other. They both picked up two cans of fruit cocktail and tucked them underneath their arms.

“We’ll make another trip down for the coffee,” Zelda assured him. Wilson nodded his head. The two of them headed towards the doorway to the front of the kitchen to see a tall ash blond fellow with a narrow face and a slender body leaning over the countertop—

“Hamilton!” Wilson exclaimed. A dimpled grin crept across his handsome face.

“We were wondering about the two of you,” he explained. “I walked out of the room upstairs and smelled coffee. I came down and saw two doors. I figured this was where the aroma was coming from because the other door is an out of order elevator. What you got there?”

“Zelda made flautas for everyone. They’re beans and different cheeses, though. We couldn’t really find anything else and this is literally the weirdest kitchen I’ve ever been in. We also found some fruit cocktail, canned pears, and sugar plums, and made a full pot of coffee.”

“Hamilton, we are going to need your help,” Zelda informed him as she set her four plates down on the counter. He raised his pale eyebrows at her questioningly.

“There does not seem to be a way out of this kitchen other than over the counter,” she explained, “so could you please do us a favor and help us take these up to the room?”

Hamilton blinked at her and then smiled.

“That I can do, Miss,” he replied with that sweet charm everyone on Titania adored. He picked up Zelda’s stack of four plates, and then Wilson’s stack. He turned to his sister.

“What you say Hamilton and I go upstairs and hand out the food and we’ll come back for you and the coffee?” he suggested.

“I could do that,” she agreed, “how do you like your coffee?”

“Blond like me,” he replied with a little smirk. Wilson leapt over the countertop and landed on the linoleum on the other side. He took the four cans of Scarlet Spiral Fruit Cocktail, and tucked two of them underneath each arm. Wilson stepped in front of Hamilton to push open the door. The two of them strode into the landing, and the door closed behind them.

“Oh, by the way,” Hamilton started as they began ascending the stairs, hundreds of reflections of themselves going on for eternity following them all the way back up.

“Did you and Zelda find any Positrons down here?”

“As a matter of fact, we did,” Wilson replied.

“Were they scared of you like what Siegfried suggested?”

Wilson bit his lower lip as they reached the top of the stairs and the floor with Victor’s office. Hamilton stared at him, completely silent. The only noise in the hallway emanated from the rain falling on the roof and the windows, and Pluto’s voice floating down the hall.

“Were they scared of you?” Hamilton repeated, his voice a touch lower. Wilson shook his head.

“No, they were…” he began. “…they were angry. They were angry and they reached out for our throats, like they were about to strangle us.”

Hamilton’s mouth dropped open.

They proceeded to the slightly ajar office door in silence. Wilson pushed open the door and they entered the room. Ivan had hoisted himself into an upright position and leaned against the wall behind him. His face was pale with hunger, but lit up when his son and Hamilton walked in with paper plates and cans of fruit cocktail.

“Oh thank heaven!” Desdemona declared, who had knelt down to ease the pressure on her knees. She had climbed to her feet and stood between Ivan and Pluto.

“Zelda made flautas for everyone,” Wilson explained as Hamilton set the plates down on the desk. “We found cans of fruit cocktail and I’ve got some sugar plums in my pocket. She's getting mugs of coffee for everyone.”

“Here, Ivan—” Hamilton handed him a plate and Ivan could not keep the smile from stretching across his face. He thanked Hamilton and happily took the plate.

“I'’ll go help Zelda,” Siegfried offered, and darted out the door to the cafeteria downstairs. Hamilton gave a plate to Desdemona and then Pluto.

“Do you mind beans and cheese?” Hamilton asked Neptune politely. Neptune, being the merman, was strictly vegan; but he could not refuse free food.

“I'll take it, thank you, very much” he replied kindly, and took the plate.

“Arthur,” Ivan piped up, his voice breaking. Wilson turned to face his father.

“You found sugar plums?”

He opened his coat for the small plastic pack of snowy white glittering sugar plums in the liner pocket. He took out the sugar plums and underhand tossed the pack to Ivan, who caught the pack with a delirious smile. Examining the pack, he could not keep his heart from skipping a beat. He held onto a corner of the pack and pulled back: a sweet, milky aroma kissed his nose as he reached for one sugar plum. Ivan examined the perfectly round plum the size of a dime between his index finger and his thumb.

“I gained ten pounds because of these,” he confessed. “I don’t mind, though. They make me feel good.” He inserted the sugar plum into his mouth. The sweet rice flavor combined with creaminess and sweetness poured over the inside of his mouth and down his throat. Zelda and Siegfried entered the room, both had two coffee mugs in each hand.

“Who wants coffee?” Siegfried announced. Ivan shot up his hand.

“Ivan and I do!” Desdemona exclaimed. Zelda reached out to her right for Ivan to take the mug closest to him.

“Here, Daddy—”

“Thank you, my darling.” Ivan set the pack of sugar plums on the cushion next to him so he could take the mug with his free hand. He swallowed down a sip of hot coffee. It was like someone set a hot water bottle onto his pained stomach.

Everyone dug into their flautas. Zelda apologized for not having chorizo to go with them but the seven of them assured her not to worry. Wilson passed around the cans of pears and fruit cocktail, both of which Neptune loved: he apologized for not caring for the cheese in the flautas that much and Ivan offered to take his plate. Hamilton offered to take everyone’s plates to a trash can in the hallway. Why Victor’s office had no can was something neither of them could understand.

Hamilton strode down the hallway towards the staircase. A dark figure the size of both of his hands put together on the top step brought him to a halt. He saw what appeared to be a raised up tail with the tip curled towards him. The tip of tail glowed a bright blue-white akin the ball lightning back on Titania. Hamilton knitted his eyebrows together as he gingerly crept towards the figure. He made out eight spindly metallic legs with darkened joints and flat feet. On either side of the front of the figure was an immense cast iron cone shaped lobster claw that even from a distant, he could tell were razor sharp. The inside of the claws were lined with what appeared to be brass. His eyes widened at the sight of the pointed black beak jutting out the front of its matte charcoal gray body.

Hamilton froze. He recalled reading one of Pluto’s books about the wildlife down on Earth, and the first time he had read about scorpions and how one sting of the tail could kill everyone in the room behind him, himself included. But this one looked mechanical, like this was an unknown project from Victor's reign of robotics.

The scorpion began to creep towards him, the joints of the eight legs squeaking like oiled pulleys and the feet tick tick tick ticking across the mirrors on the floor.

Hamilton raised an eyebrow at the approaching arachnid. He dropped the dirty paper plates which scattered about the floor. He took a step back. The scorpion picked up speed, its brightly lit stinger glaring so much he started to see spots. He backed up even more and the scorpion started to run towards him. Hamilton reached for the ray gun on his belt and pointed it at the creature. He pulled the trigger. The beam stopped the scorpion in place. The near black body changed from gray to red to orange to yellow before breaking apart into separate pieces on the floor in front of him.

Hamilton breathed a sigh of relief. Not caring about the plates on the floor, he returned to the room, his ray gun still in hand.

“How’s your tummy?” Zelda asked her father sweetly.

“Feels so much better,” Ivan replied as he massaged his full belly. Zelda nestled next to him. He put his arm around her to bring her closer. Wilson leaned against Victor's desk across from them, and his face fell. Ivan frowned.

“Come here, Arthur,” he coaxed his son. “Come here and sit with us. You’re family, remember?”

Wilson sighed through his nose and reluctantly stood upright. He took a step towards Ivan and Zelda. He turned around so he faced Pluto, Siegfried, Desdemona, and Neptune as he sank down on the couch next to Ivan, who then put his other arm around his son’s shoulders.

Siegfried curiously searched the top drawer of the desk.

“What you looking for?” Pluto asked curiously.

“I just had an idea,” he answered, “like maybe there’s something here that can tell us about the robots. Or maybe Hamilton found something—”

Hamilton entered the room, his face white with horror.

“There you are! I was just talking about you and—my God, are you okay?”

“I just saw,” he gasped, “the biggest scorpion out there just now. It was literally coming at me!”

Pluto gaped at him. Desdemona clasped her hands to her mouth.

“What’d you do?” Wilson asked him, frightened.

“I shot it with my ray gun. But it was weird, though: it wasn’t a real scorpion, it was mechanical. Like maybe Victor not only made the Positrons but a scorpion. But knowing him, though—scorpions.”

Siegfried proceeded to search through the drawer, frantically shuffling through papers and pencils until he stumbled upon an olive green folder at the bottom of the drawer. Imprinted on the folder in big black letters read VICTORIOUS ROBOTICS, TOP SECRET. Siegfried picked up the folder, set it on the desk, and flung it open.

The first page was a model for the Positrons, with fact bubbles and notes scribbled on all sides of the page. His eyes scanned to the top of the page and a passage written in near perfect neat penmanship.

“The Positrons are all named Bart,” he announced, “they were made to frighten off human beings and take their place in society.”

Ivan glanced at his two children and pulled them closer to him. He thought about the bots swarming over Nevada, California, and parts of Oregon. He pictured them taking over the entire Earth and making it their home.

“Take their place? Why would their mission be to take their place?” Desdemona inquired.

“It doesn’t say,” Siegfried admitted. “They’re so fragile that all you have to do is knock off their heads to break the communication between the power cells within their bodies and the circuitry inside their heads. Another option is short circuiting their heart lights, which are connected to their power cells. That's what Neptune did earlier. The third option is throw water onto them.”

“Is there anything about mechanical scorpions, though?” Hamilton demanded, his voice trembling.

“Hang on, let me see—” Siegfried set the first page aside to find another page, this time with a model of a scorpion, perhaps the same one Hamilton saw out in the hallway. He read the caption aloud.

“'Neutrino driven Animatronic Scorpions, Too Iniquitous for Everyone’s Safety, or Nasties, all named Bob.’ It says here that in case Victor dies, they will be activated and take his place. The stingers on their tails are illuminated with a light emitting diode so bright to bedazzle and confuse anyone or anything that comes in their way. Their claws are sharp enough to cut through the hardest of steel. They sever toes but their mission is to break through major arteries, which causes the victim to hemorrhage out. 'Highly aggressive, and should only be used as a last resort.' It also says here that they’re powered by internal combustion, and the only way to kill them is to either physically crush them or shoot them in the face.”

Everyone in the room fell completely silent. The eight of them were stuck in a building with a gaping hole in the roof and an unknown number of Nasties and Positrons roaming about, both of whom wanted their blood to spill. Siegfried closed the folder and tucked it under his arm.

“Which means we need to get out of here and fast,” Ivan concluded.

“But what about the typhoon, though?” Wilson wondered aloud.

“If I made a rogue wave out of here,” Neptune spoked suddenly, “I’ll take the typhoon with me. I have control over the sea and the weather. I'll take it with me. And then Desdemona and you three can airship out of here, and the three of you can teleport out.”

He flashed a glance at the blond archer. “Trust me on this.”

Wilson had to trust Neptune. They were friends after all, and he had to trust his merman friend. He swallowed and nodded slowly.

“Okay. How’re you going to get downstairs, though? We saw an elevator but Hamilton said it looked out of order, though. Like maybe that's one in this whole building that doesn't work.”

“Ah, but that's the beauty of a rogue wave, though,” Neptune replied. “Let’s just say—” He climbed to his feet, his trident loomed strong and high next to him. The pale orange tines of the trident pointed to the ceiling and ultimately the stormy sky. “—the seas outside are about to get higher.”

Neptune closed his eyes and fetched up a heavy sigh. He focused on the raging typhoon outside. His fingers caressed the smooth whale bone, like handling the smooth stones at the bottom of the sea. His breath deepened into the lowest part of his belly. He pictured the water flooding onto the mainland and piling onto itself: a tsunami forming in reverse.

Neptune opened his eyes and strode towards the door, his mind only focusing on the typhoon. He gestured for the other seven people to follow him into the hallway.

He strode briskly down the hall towards the stairs, his trident never flinched out of its upright position for a second. He spotted the remnanats of the scorpion Hamilton encountered and stepped over them. Neptune descended the stairs.

He noticed the door to the cafeteria and the Cobalt Cafe, but directed his attention to his right to the slightly cracked open elevator doors. Neptune strode towards the latter. After setting his trident against the wall, he inserted his fingers into the crack and pulled away from the middle, exactly how he parted the sea back home in Bikini. He exerted all of his strength against the heavy doors until they separated. Before him stood the elevator shaft: two black cables jutted out from pitch darkness beneath him and reached into pitch darkness over his head. He glanced down and despite the vast darkness, his head twirled.

The other seven people entered the landing to find Neptune in front of the elevator shaft. He turned around to see Desdemona and Wilson worriedly eyeing at the gaping hole in front of him.

“Get back upstairs,” he informed them. “I know what to do.”

Wilson knitted his eyebrows together.

“Get back upstairs,” Neptune repeated. Desdemona turned to face the three siblings and the Wilson family.

“Go back! Go back! Go back!” she commanded. The seven of them returned to the above level as Neptune gripped onto his trident once again. He stuck the trident out in front of him, inside the elevator shaft. He examined the dull tipped arrowheaded tines. He continued to think of the ocean, those choppy, raging waters, that fragile yet volatile immense reserve of salt water. With every inhale, his large round belly expanded and swelled to as far as he could possibly go, and then caved in slightly with every exhale. He pictured the water rushing onto the mainland: a vast flood flowing back onto itself just prior to a tidal wave flowing in reverse.

Meanwhile, the remaining seven returned to the door of Victor’s office and hesitated. Pluto, Hamilton, and Siegfried congregated next to each other. Ivan set his arms around his two children. Desdemona huddled next to Archer Wilson.

“Good thing we parked the rocket far enough away from the sea because I just know this is going to be massive,” Pluto pointed out.

“That thing's got auto control on it anyways,” Siegfried reassured her. “Our friends put enough autopilot elements on it so it just needs Meredith's activation to fly by itself back to Titania. It's just we have to get back there immediately and going by way of rocket will not suffice. That being said—” He turned to his younger brother, who had bowed his head.

Hamilton closed his eyes and focused on Meredith. Her face popped into his mind. He recalled her voice and then mentally spoke to her.

Meredith, beam us and the rocket up, please.

Right, Hamilton! she returned the thought. He opened his eyes to the Wilson family and Desdemona in front of him. The hallway was dead silent. The rain had stopped. There was only thing coming next.

“You guys should get upstairs,” Hamilton coaxed them. He put his arms around Siegfried, who kept the folder pressed tight under his arm, and Pluto, who nestled against her brother’s slender body.

A low rumble growled from the ground floor. Neptune stared down into the pitch black abyss in front of him. He thought about his parents, his sister, and the rest of Bikini Atoll. He wondered how Xerces took his clothing, his journal, and his pen back to his parents' house, like maybe she caught Cronus' attention and informed him Neptune had run off but was hopeful of his return. A cacophonous crash at the bottom of the shaft caught his attention. He glanced down to see a wave had burst through the elevator doors on the lobby floor. The shaft quickly began to fill with sea water.

“The wave's coming!” he called out to the others. His voice bounced off the mirrors in the staircase.

“The wave's coming!” Siegfried echoed.

“You guys should get upstairs!” Hamilton exclaimed. Desdemona and the Wilsons sprinted up the stairs to the top floor just as the three siblings disappeared into teleportation, which signaled a return to Titania. Ivan led the way, his son and daughter behind him, and Desdemona following in close pursuit.

Ivan entered the vast room where the battle from before took place. Dead Positrons covered the soaked floor and the furniture, ruined from the rain. The airship was still tipped on its side but he knew it still worked as it only crashed into glass.

He hurried towards the cabin of the airship, which remained at an angle, but not at too much of an angle that no one could climb in. He deliberately kept his eyes fixated on the airship, away from Victor's fried corpse, as he gestured for his party of three to climb into the cabin.

Zelda reached out and held onto the edge of the doorway. Ivan set his hands on her hips to help her in. He did the same with Wilson. Desdemona, who had longer legs, climbed in with ease. Ivan then scrambled into the damp pilot’s seat and closed the door. He reached down onto the floor for his goggles and, after he wiped the rainwater off of the lenses with his coat sleeve, put them on over his head. He flicked the three switches on and the propellor roared to life.

He gripped onto the control levers and pulled up. The airship lifted up off the wet floor. They could feel the ship rising back into an upright position. Ivan turned his head to his children and Desdemona, beaming.

“Let’s go home,” he announced grandly. He pulled up on the levers and the ship rose through the remainder of the glass pyramid atop the building, which shattered the rest of the glass. He peered out the front window to see Siegfried and Hamilton's rocket rising above the earth by itself. He glanced down to see the shoreline of San Jose flooded with high seas, and rising further.

Meanwhile, Neptune watched the seawater rise to where he could dip his feet into the surface. The chilled Pacific water pierced through the soft skin on his legs, his hips, his belly, and then his chest. He took in one last breath of air before submerging into the water. His lungs closed off and his gills fluttered open. His electric indigo tail had appeared over his legs. Holding his trident close, he glanced down to the pitch black elevator shaft.

“Take me home!” he shouted. His voice bounced off the walls of the shaft. He darted down into the darkness towards the light at the bottom floor. He speared out of the elevator shaft into the lobby. The front doors had broken open by the flood. He slithered past the floating lifeless Positrons and made his way out into the high flood waters over San Jose. He swam upwards to the surface of the water, and Ivan's airship and Siegfried and Hamilton's rocket both came into view. The former hung over the building, the latter began to float away from the swirling, waiting waters and towards space. He emerged from the water and stared up at Ivan's airship.

“There he is!” Zelda exclaimed. Ivan glanced down to see Neptune's green haired head and snowy white shoulders poking out of the water. Neptune raised his trident over his head and waved to his right. The water began to rush back into the ocean.

Ivan pulled on the levers again and the airship floated out from the building. He tugged the levers to his left. The ship pirouetted to the left. They quickly sailed around the building. Neptune kept his upper body above the water as he scrambled out of the line of sight of the building into the Bay. He ducked his head as he heard a loud crunching noise behind him. He dove down into the waters just in time as the building collapsed in his direction. He watched ships and boats pulse upward, high above the harbor as the rogue wave began to form.

He could feel the water rise into an elongated mound. Ferociously flapping his tail, he reached the top of the mound, which rose higher and higher and crested at its peak. He climbed out of the water and leaned against the crest. He curled his tail in the direction he was going like that of a scorpion. He clung onto his trident for dear life. The ocean whizzed past him as he body surfed away from the United States and left the Bay Area wondering what on Earth just happened.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the mysterious blue bird that lead him to the United States mainland. He turned his head to see the bird soaring. It flapped its wings on occasion. Neptune bowed his head and pointed his trident forward just a hair so the wave picked up speed.

The Hawaiian Islands, where Mauna Kea and Kilauwea continued to erupt, whirred past him in a colorful blur.

The clouds soon fizzled out and he was bathed in foggy twilight. It was still early in the morning in the middle of the Pacific Ocean: the clouds had fallen to the waters and swirled about in a dimly lit purple tinted gray soup.

The wave barreled towards the southern Pacific and the Marshall Islands, but as far as the trade winds went, he figured he was in the horse latitudes. He knew the fog barely moved even if he sped along on this wave. He glanced to his left again. The bird had vanished as quickly as it appeared. He returned to his gaze to the ocean in front of him.

The pointed bow of a ship caught his attention. Through the fog, he counted five masts and big undecoarted pitch black sails. The ship itself was a washed out charcoal with gray trimming. Shivers pulsed through his body at the sight of the ship. On the port of the ship, painted in large black letters read KOBENHAVN.

Something else caught his eye. He glanced to his right at another ship with an off white boat with light gray trimming and three masts emerged from the fog. On the side of this ship read THE FLYING DUTCHMAN.

The ships sailed on past him without taking into regard of the massive wave breaking the rules of the horse latitudes or the horse latitudes themselves: Neptune raised an eyebrow at the billowing sails on both vessels.

There are no trades, though… he pointed out inside his mind. A wave of cold washed over him. Both ships seemed to glow akin to the bioluminescence back home at Bikini. He closed his eyes as he surfed over the equatorial waters towards the familiar territory he knew as the Marshall Islands. He opened his eyes again and the two ships had vanished. The distant rising sun shone faint pale purple light on the Marshalls. In the distance ahead through the dim light, he spotted a row of low dark mounds hanging above the ocean. Beneath the mounds, splotches of neon blue and green lined the ocean water. Bikini Atoll!

I’d better slow this down, he said to himself. He lowered his trident and the wave began to subside. He relaxed his body. The crest sank back into the ocean. He let out a long low sigh as the wave troughed down into the ocean and surged forward, which gave him one last push before disappearing into simple ocean waters.

Neptune sank into the water on his back and opened his eyes. His tail hung over his head. He hung nearly upside down as his entire body relaxed. He slowed down his heart and let every muscle in his body go limp. The warm water surrounded him in a comforting welcome home. He swirled back upright and continued his way back to Bikini Atoll. He could feel his mother’s touch against his soft body once again. He could not wait to be Emperor once and for true this time. The bioluminescent plankton clustered all around him in a medley of bright blue and green as he neared the northeastern side of the Atoll.

The rays of the rising sun bode the Atoll a good morning kiss as Neptune recognized the black and white sands and the pink and white corals. He glanced up to see the glimmering rainbow along the sandbar. The fairies were up rather early, unlike them to be up this early in the morning.

Neptune slipped through a hole in the coral and he entered the vast royal blue lagoon. He glanced ahead to see the low coral houses and buildings of the colony he had missed so much. He darted ahead, eager to return to his mother's arms.

Something felt off.

Usually whenever he wandered outside the Atoll with his old school chums and returned home for dinner, he sensed the warm welcome just outside the colony, not just from the naturally warm equatorial waters but from the presence of a community. He itched for this feeling the closer he swam towards the colony. The warmth had fallen away. No lights emerged from any of the houses. This was unlike the merpeople to all stay asleep at the same time at the same time of day: at least someone would be out and about.

A tingling sensation gnawed its way into the pit of Neptune’s stomach as he slithered towards the edge of the colony. Every house was pitch black.

“Hello?” he called out. His voice echoed throughout the passage ways and the houses. He gripped onto his trident as the echo faded away. He swallowed down his uneasiness and bravely continued down the main pathway towards the old coral house he lived in. At this time of morning, his father Cronus would be awake and trimming down the sea grass in the front yard with his sickle before breakfast. But this time the front yard lay uncannily vacant. The house itself was still dark. No signs of life emerged from any of the dark windows. Not a plankton swam about.

“Mom?” he shouted. No response.

“Dad?” Nothing. The house remained dark and empty.

“Juno?” The sound of his voice would have woken up his sister. He eased his grip on his trident. This made no sense.

“Neptune?” A faint voice above his head caught his attention. He glanced up to see a ball of rainbow glitter hovering above the surface of the water. Without even thinking, he shot up to the surface of the water. He emerged to the warm morning and the fairy who travelled out to Pluto-Charon with him.

“Xerces!”

Another fairy, a plump little man with a grass skirt, and held a staff with a cross jutting out from a circle capped with a half moon shape, accompanied her above the water.

“And Hermes!”

“I bet your wondering where all the merpeople went,” Hermes said gravely.

“Yeah,” Neptune replied as he rubbed the water from his eyes, “where is everybody?”

“That’s the thing,” Xerces admitted, her voice trembling, “we don’t know.”

“I was about to go bed last night when I noticed something was wrong,” Hermes explained. “I noticed we hadn’t seen any merpeople in a couple of days. I pointed it out to Xerces, and then she pointed it out to Phoebe and Diana, then Hercules and Pandora, and then the next thing we know the whole fairy colony is hustling and bustling late at night.”

“It's starting to spook us, too,” Xerces added.

“I don’t doubt you,” Neptune assured her. “It's scaring me, too. I was expecting to come home to see my dad out in the yard but no. The whole place is as quiet as a graveyard.”

“Well, come onto the sandbar,” Xerces advised. “Are you hungry? We’ll get you something to eat.”

Neptune nodded in affirmation and followed Xerces and Hermes back to the sandbar where the fairies of Bikini Atoll resided. He set his trident onto the sand before hoisting himself up to join them all. He shook his tail away so he could crawl on the sand towards a large rock. He leaned back against the rock and stretched out his legs.

Hermes fluttered towards him and gazed on at his large full body.

“I just realized I hadn’t seen you in a while,” he admitted. “You look fantastic with some weight. I always thought you were too skinny.”

Neptune flashed a shy smile. He set his hands atop his round belly which shamelessly poked out over the waistband of his filmy black trousers.

“Thank you,” he replied kindly. He thought about Pluto, and how much she loved his body and found him beautiful. He recalled how much he and Archer Wilson resonated with one another within seconds of meeting each other. The image of him laying on the floor of his bedroom and wanting to sleep for an eternity felt like a distant memory now. “To be honest, I actually feel pretty good with all of this—this—” He gently rubbed his soft belly.

“—this right here.”

Hermes winked at him. Xerces emerged from behind the rock.

“Neptune, your clothes are back here behind this rock along with your journal and your pen,” she explained. “We made sure nothing bad happened to them.”

Neptune blinked. For some reason, the thought of Triton left him amiss. He no longer felt an attachment to his journal. There were some poems in there, one of which he shared with Pluto, but for the most part, those old thoughts had joined the archives of dusty old books one finds in the back of the Library of Congress, the old books no one seems to bother with anymore.

“Why’d you keep my journal? You should bury it in the sand somewhere.”

Xerces blinked at him, dumbfounded.

“Neptune, those are your thoughts and your feelings,” she told him in a low voice. “To bury those would be like burying them within the deepest and most obscured parts of you. They're a part of you. I couldn't bring myself to do such a thing. If you ask me, if you don't feel an attachment to them anymore, you can always publish them. I’m sure people would love to read your internal story. I'm sure Hermes wouldn't mind doing the job of publishing. Now, let's get some food in that big lovely belly: you look like you could use something to eat.”

#uranus in capricorn #uranusincapricorn #my writing #writers on tumblr #text #nanowrimo

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josiebelladonna · 8 years ago

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Limo Wreck (Uranus in Capricorn - part 2 of 6)

“It’s supposed to snow tonight, Lewis,” Gayle called into the back seat from the driver’s side. Taylor turned the heater dial on the dashboard down a notch as the blast of air proved too much to bear at this time.

Lewis peered out the window to the apricot colored clouds hanging over Lehigh Valley. He pictured himself waking up the next morning to a thick white blanket covering the neighborhood like last week.

He hoped for a day off from school as he sensed his mentality lagging behind everyone else. It was normal for him to experience taxing energy in the first few weeks of school, but school had been in session since the last week of August. Here they were in the middle of October and from his perspective, everyone had shifted away from him as well as September Son. He had significantly less subscribers than the prior school year, and while his returning subscribers loved his column about Archer Wilson, they were less than enthusiastic about the column on Queen Mars. No one had even heard of her, not even the history teachers at his school. One person casually proposed chucking a Middle Eastern history book his way to polish up on his royal figures.

Word of mouth spread to the older classes that the September Son had supposedly seen a ghost. A formulated rumor leaked throughout his school that Lewis was spending too much time in his room and he had developed this strange belief about the spirit of a royal Phoenician figure no one had ever heard of. Within days, he was met with rude stares, the whispering into others’ ears, and the snickering that followed. He kept his books to him, and even stopped asking for help from his fellow classmates. With each lunch period and each break within classes, he found himself sinking back into the corner of the room with his nose in the book. Just today, he ate lunch alone because no one would sit with him. Lewis began to question the legitimacy of publishing and sharing his column with everyone.

His teachers pointed out he seemed a lot more distracted and spooked than normal. Today, he had to stand in front of his English and history classes and offer halfhearted apologies to his classmates. More teachers held him accountable for sparking such an absurd debate about someone who was not even in history books, and creating a hysteria over a potential wild goose chase.

Taylor and Gayle were the only ones who believed him. At the same time they tried to help him as much as they possibly could themselves. The three of them knew they were the only ones amidst a wave of disbelief the spread beyond the school. On this particular night, they were summoned to an emergency parent teacher association meeting.

Gayle switched on the windshield wipers. Lewis continued to stare out the window to see enormous snowflakes smacking against the glass. He could not keep the smile from creeping across his face. She peered into the rearviewmirror to see her son leaning against the backseat in relaxation. Taylor glanced over his shoulder at Lewis.

“He needs a break,” he admitted as he clasped his cold hand onto Gayle’s hand, which rested on the center console. Lewis smiled at the sight of his father’s white hand holding onto his mother’s black hand. “The two of us could use one, too.”

The snow hammered onto the windows and began to pile onto the hood and the roof of the Explorer. Lewis glanced down to the road. The pitch-black pavement gradually lightened into a pure white with snow, ice, and frost. He thought about Madame Pluto and her brothers and their homestead up in space. He had never seen or been on Titania or Pluto Charon but he pictured the vegatation up there, shrouded with hoar frost and yet still mysteriously thriving despite the cold, austere environment of trans Martian space.

On the other side of the four lane parkway, a car passed another one over the painted on center divider. Gayle noticed the car approaching them at rapid pace. She knew there was not enough time for the car to return to its lane. She eased on the brakes and steered the car towards the storm drain on the side of the road. She never saw the black ice on the pavement.

The tires of their Explorer slipped at the first contact of the ice. Gayle had no control of their car whatsoever. Lewis leaned forward to peer out the windshield. The headlights washed over a looming dark figure ahead of them in the road. The figure stood tall, dressed in black, and beared no face to the Allisons. A blur of royal blue swept over the figure’s shoulders.

A cold sinking feeling gnawed its way into Lewis’ stomach. Chilled shivers pulsated up his spine and washed down his arms and over his head like a subzero hooded sweater. The car had lost all warmth, succumbed to frigid stillness.

Lewis noticed two bony hands outstretched towards them. Two pitch-black slits emerged from the figure’s face.

Gayle turned the steering wheel to the left. The car skidded around into reverse. The black ice only spiraled the car into a full circle. She slammed on the brakes as they returned to the reverse position, albeit at an angle. She felt the car tip over on the passenger side. Lewis anticipated the tipping from the back seat. He clung onto his seatbelt for dear life and bowed his head and closed his eyes.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion from the flying glass to the rush of cold air whirring into Lewis’ ears to Gayle shouting the Lord’s Prayer. He felt the world turn upside down onto his head; he lost count after one time. The noise deafened Lewis to the point in which he wondered if this was all just a dream and he was about to wake up in his own warm bed. But his ears continued to ring as he felt the car sail in a massive whirlwind on its side. The sound of crushing metal rang out from underneath a sheet of roaring quietude inside Lewis’ mind.

He thought about the amazing people he had met last week. His newspaper entered his mind. He remembered the few school friends he had left and his parents’ friends. The thoughts swirled his head as the spinning stopped and the wintry air settled onto Lewis' skin and bones.

He opened his eyes to see a huge black object in front of his face. His chest heaved up and down. His hearing had ceased to exist. Everything whirred past him in an amniotic deaf blanket. Gayle sounded so far away. Taylor was completely silent. A light brighter than the sun careened over Lewis’ face. He could feel his eyes closing. In no time he drifted into a pool of blank darkness.

Lewis awoke to blurry vision and a strange man in a white coat standing to his right.

“Lewis—” the man sounded as though he was a mile above water. Lewis rolled his head to the left. A dull fullness weighed down on the right side of his forehead, like a rock lodged itself into his skull. Where the hell am I?

“Lewis—” The man’s voice echoed through the chambers of his ears, which slowly opened up like adjusting to lower barometric pressure. Lewis’ right ankle ached. His back cringed with pain. He blinked several times as his vision refocused. He returned his attention to the man next to him.

“Lewis, can you hear me?” the man asked him gently in a broken voice. A heart monitor blinked off next to Lewis’ head. He could not move his legs. He gazed at the man right in the eye.

“Lewis, can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” he breathed.

“Good, I was worried,” the man told him, “you were unresponsive for a long time.”

Lewis lay in a large, lumpy bed with two seafoam blankets covered up his body to his chest. He slowly glanced around the room he resided in: the soft powder blue walls surrounding him and the sterile white ceiling overhead. Next to him was a pair of dark blue chairs. In front of him past the foot of the bed stood a white table with a vase of sunflowers. He glanced up at the man, who resembled almost exactly to Siegfried with the exception of the eyes: this man had fresh green eyes as opposed to Siegfried’s liquid brown ones. His body bore a far slimmer build than Siegfried.

“Where are my parents? Where am I?” Lewis’ throat scratched from keeping his mouth closed for some time.

“You’re in the hospital in downtown Bethlehem,” the man explained to him. “My name is Yuri and I came in here when the nurses said you looked like you were about to wake up. You were in a bad rollover accident. You have a gash on your forehead, a cut on the back of your right hand, a shattered right patella, and a sprained ankle on the same side—”

Lewis winced as the muscles in his back cringed. A whirlwind formed inside his brain. His head felt as though it weighed less than a feather.

“—and by looking at the expression on your face, a sore back. We put you on some medicine to numb the pain, otherwise you would probably be in tears. Are you feeling okay otherwise?”

“I’m a little dizzy,” Lewis replied, as he brought a hand to his right temple. He felt a bandage on his forehead. He glanced down at his right hand and the two wraps of gauze surrounding his hand.

“Where are my parents?” he repeated.

“Your mother is in the room next door,” Yuri continued. “She sustained a concussion, a dislocated shoulder, and a sprained wrist. She told me your name; she was rather hysterical when the paramedics brought you both in, and we had to put her out to get the gauze on. It was also to alleviate her pain. She’s still unconscious but she’ll be okay, though. Time heals all wounds. Your father, on the other hand—” Lewis watched Yuri’s expression turn grave. A nagging sensation tugged at the pit of his stomach. He did not say a word however Lewis knew Yuri did not want to inform him.

“—we’re still waiting to hear back from the coroner’s office.”

“The-The coroner?” Lewis stammered, his eyes widening. He flashed back on his parents holding hands in the car. The memory felt so distant and so cold now. His heart sank down to the pit of his nauseated stomach. His eyes burned.

Yuri swallowed as this young man’s eyes filled with tears. He slowly nodded.

“Yes,” he replied softly, “I’m so sorry, Lewis.”

#uranus in capricorn #uranusincapricorn #my writing #writers on tumblr #text #nanowrimo

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josiebelladonna · 8 years ago

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Blood on the Valley Floor (Uranus in Capricorn - part 3 of 6)

Hamilton opened his eyes to face the cold dark floor of the lobby of the Hotel. He lifted his head just as Ione, Calista, and Meredith were approaching the three siblings with grave expressions engraved on their faces. Ione carried the apple core slicer in her left hand. Calista kept her hands clasped together in front of her waist: she had a pair of scratches on her left cheek. Meredith had pushed her hair back and taken off her glasses.

“Deidre's gone, too,” Meredith informed them. Siegfried's heart sank. He did not care for Deidre but this was too much to bear.

Calista gestured for them to come forth into the lobby. The rainstorm aroma from the teleporter subsided, and a hanging odor of barbecued meat usurped its place. Pluto coughed. She brought her hands to her nose. Hamilton wrinkled his nose. Siegfried fanned the air with his hand.

“God, what is that smell?” Pluto complained.

“It’s what used to be Belinda,” Ione explained grimly. “We had to open all of the windows and the doors otherwise we would all be in respirators right now.”

“Well,” Siegfried started, his throat closing, “let's also be thankful that this place is primarily stone and not something that absorbs—wow, that is rank—”

“So what happened?” Hamilton asked inquiringly. The three women glanced at one another as they strode into the kitchen. They trekked down the hallway, where the smell grew slightly stronger and more pungent. Hamilton and Siegfried cupped their hands to their noses just as Ione turned her head to face them. She flashed them a glance of apology.

“It used to be way worse before you guys showed up,” she pointed out. “The first thing Calista did was run out and open the back door—” She nodded to the wide open back door at the end of the hallway to the dark Uranian night. A cool breeze flooded in; Pluto shivered through her space suit at the sudden drop in temperature. They turned the corner into the kitchen. The shelves, the stove, and the refrigerator were covered in sheets of ice crystals. Head maid Ariel and her team had mopped the floor and wiped down the counters. A padlock rested against the door of the kiln on the other side of the room.

“Truth is I really don't know what happened,” Ione shook her head. “She and I were making pies and then she sent out two slices to two of the guests. The next thing I know, I hear them choking and a couple of people began yelling. And then Vincent, the alchemist, shouted something. I went to go check it out, and I saw two people passed out on the floor, and Vincent had gone. I heard Gwendolyn shouting for me to get into the kitchen. I came running in just as Belinda slit her throat. I watched Gwendolyn fall to the floor, and then she sees me and chucks the knife at me. I ducked but Deidre, who was behind me, was hit with the knife instead. I grabbed my apple slicer and started to fight her. She grabbed another knife and began to fight back. We had a knife fight for not even a minute before Calista runs in and gets in between us. She got cut, too—” Calista fingered the scratches on her cheek. Hamilton examined closer at a small slit on the back of her hand. “—Calista grabbed her wrists and shoved her into the stove. Belinda was strong, though: she pushed Calista back and then I lunged for her with the slicer. The two of us overpowered her and then pushed her into the kiln. Gwendolyn had lit it up because while making pies, we got slammed with orders.”

“But we watched her burn, though,” Calista added gravely. “I closed the door because it was gruesome to watch.” She set her hand down and then embraced Ione.

Hamilton swallowed down his nausea. His stomach turned at the thought of Belinda burning alive. His heart sank as he remembered their dates and how much she appeared to enjoy his company. But he remembered that she was divided on spending time with him, and she left him reeling in confusion. For all he knew after their break up she may have crossed an event horizon and threw all her cares away as a part of her probably said no, he adored her. Case in point, she may have realized what she did. But Belinda was gone and her thoughts were now buried in a three hundred pound pile of ash.

“What happened to Vincent?” Pluto asked, her voice muffled by her hands.

“Vincent was rocketed to Pluto-Charon,” Calista replied promptly.

“Yeah, he kept yelling out ‘Fall of Saturn! Fall of Saturn! Belinda got her hands on Fall of Saturn!'” Ione continued. “The medics Adrienne and Esmeralda put him on a stretcher and then in the rocket ambulance, because I guess there's someone on Pluto-Charon that can treat that. The two guests, Gwendolyn, and Deidre had to be taken to the mortuary on Saturn’s moon Titan—”

“—which means we'll play it by ear as to when their funerals are going to be,” Siegfried finished. His stomach quietly rumbled. The flautas Zelda whipped up earlier went right through him and left him wanting more. Ione partially smiled at his setting his hand on his stomach.

“Siegfried, I'm disheartened to say that no one's going to be eating pies from this kitchen for some time,” she said glumly. She glanced at his younger sister, who had dropped her hands down and revealed her lovely face. “Unless Pluto would like to make one for you as soon as the janitorial staff finishes up. They're taking a break right now.” Pluto's face lit up and she eagerly nodded in agreement.

It would be some time before Ariel and the rest of the janitorial staff switched themselves back in gear, but the good news for Pluto was it gave her time to unwind and adjust to her more comfortable change of pace.

After changing out of her space suit and back into her pajamas after a warm shower, Pluto sat down at one of the tables outside on the front porch. The ball lightning shimmered over her damp lilac head. The violet light bathed the porch in a delicate, intimate pale purple glow. She rested her head on her hands and gazed out into the blackness of space. Uranus loomed behind Titania, which in turn gave her view out to the rest of the solar system.

Off in the distance, and courtesy of the faint light from the distant sun, she spotted the massive blue crescent that was Neptune looming not too far from the Uranian system. She watched three dots float next to the equator and sighed. She knew one of those dots had to be Triton.

Neptune entered her mind. She remembered his journal which he had christened Triton, and also his Scorpion Pen. In turn, he loved what was in her sketchbook. She found it rather coincidental that he would be named after something that was further away than Uranus and Titania, and that he would name something close to him after one of its moons. She wondered if he finally made it back home to Bikini Atoll and wove his way into his mother’s arms. She wondered if she would ever get to meet his parents.

But she remembered that they were merpeople, creatures from the sea that primarily lived underwater. At the same time, she remembered that the merpeople of Bikini Atoll were amphibians, and they interestingly removed their own tails in order to walk on land as well as thrive in the sea. They respirated by way of a set of lungs as well as a set of gills on the sides of their necks.

Pluto gazed past Neptune to see Saturn hanging off in the distance. Her brown eyes wandered to massive pitch dark sphere off in the distance that was Jupiter. Siegfried entered her mind. She continued to applaud him for his thinking quickly on his feet as they sailed past Jupiter.

Her mother Angelica popped into her mind, and then Siegfried’s mantra of not telling her of their journey. Knowing Vincent had to be sent off to Pluto-Charon to be treated and hopefully cured, she could only hope Vincent was honest because Angelica was a chemist herself. Whatever made him sick she could figure out and then pinpoint it. She knew for a fact that Angelica wanted to know what her children were doing in order for that poor man to fall so ill. The more the thought of facing Angelica recurred through the deepest recesses of Pluto’s mind, the more she recoiled with dread. The more she realized they had to answer the dreaded question but simultaneously she also embraced it. She knew her mother needed a case to bring her knowledge and skills into play. In the wake of a less than decent home life and one that crashed down because of Pluto herself, she could only hope Angelica would go easy on them.

Dishes clashing together in the kitchen broke her train of thought. She turned her head to see the younger of her two brothers striding past one of the front windows and then whirl around at the sound of the crash.

“Careful, now!” Hamilton called out. He turned back around and resumed towards the front door. The smoked glass French door on the right opened. His ash blond hair shimmered under the light purple ball lightning. He smiled at the sight of his sister.

“There you are! Siegfried and I were wondering where you went.”

With the exception of the cap with William Herschel's monogram embroidered on the front, he had changed back into his royal purple coat, his black and white striped trousers, and his black leather gloves.

“They’re nearly done in the kitchen so you can work your magic in a bit,” he informed her. She nodded her head and then returned to her view of the solar system. He questioningly tilted his head to the side.

“Penny for your thoughts?” He sidled behind her chair and then sank down in the chair next to her. Pluto glanced to her right. She may not face the music so much herself, but he and Siegfried would have to deal with Angelica’s questions.

“Remember when,” she began as Hamilton’s brilliant blue eyes bore into her deep brown ones, “Siegfried said not to tell mom?”

He glanced off to his right. Siegfried’s words rang through his mind.

“Yes.”

“Well, you know we're going to have to because of Vincent.”

“Yeah, he and I pretty much conceded on that. But you seem troubled, though, like there’s something else that’s bothering you.”

Pluto shifted her weight in her seat.

“Mom’s a chemist.”

“So?”

“Because of me, she specialized in it before—you know—”

“So?”

“There’s no one on Pluto-Charon who has a good grasp on chemistry like her.”

“So?”

“What are the odds she took him in?”

“So—” Hamilton froze in place. His stomach sank back against the middle of his spine as the reality washed over him. He vigorously shook his head. He turned around and covered his face with his hands.

“Oh, no. No. No. No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO.”

“I know.”

“NO!” He dropped his hands onto the surface of the table.

“Yes.”

“I—”

“This sucks.”

“You’re telling me!”

They fell into silence once again. Hamilton buried his face in his hands a second time. Pluto reached around his narrow back and embraced him. He jerked away even though he kept his face obscured from view. She pulled her arm back and sighed through her nose.

“Do you think maybe—” she began gingerly, as his temper had a way of sneaking up on her. “—Belinda breaking up with you had something to do with it?”

His hands left his face and rested in front of him on the table a second time. A smear of light pink crossed the upper half of his face.

“Her flying off the handle, you mean?” he asked flatly. Pluto tried to swallow down her dread but it was useless.

“Yes.”

“Like maybe she blamed herself for it?”

“Seems likely.”

Hamilton turned his head and glared at her. Pluto shook her head.

“Don't give me that look. Hamilton, I know you're angry but don't get angry at me. Please don't be mad at me.”

“I'm not mad at you, —” He bit his lip the second he said her real name. “If anything, I'm angry at myself.”

Pluto opened her mouth to reply, but the big window to their left sliding open cut her off. Siegfried poked his brunet head out the window: he, too, had changed back into his uniform.

“A couple of things,” he started as he gazed on at his younger siblings. Pluto and Hamilton turned their heads to face him holding the window pane up.

“The first thing is the kitchen's about there: they just need to mop the floor a second time. The second thing is—you guys are not going to believe this.”

They glanced at each other and then back at him.

“What's that?” Hamilton inquired hesitantly.

“I just got word from some people on Titan—you know, Saturn's moon—that some Positrons hijacked our rocket before it left Earth and are now headed our way. They said they looked angry and also shattered: I guess flying past Jupiter did a number on their power cells. So they're—the ones that survived the flyby, anyways—are angry and also brainless.”

Pluto’s mouth dropped open. Chills ran up Hamilton’s spine.

“Isn't there a way to stop the rocket?” Pluto demanded.

“Yeah. The self destruct button on the autopilot controls, which, being the cantankerous hardware that they are, the Positrons disabled,” Siegfried answered dryly, “and I'm not pressing that button up here because that poses another problem: we lose our rocket.”

“What can we do?”

“I guess we're going to have wait until they get here and then we'll fight them off. They're lacking juice in their cells so they can't operate like they used to. In other wods, it's going to be a while before they get here.”

Hamilton could not believe what he was hearing. He turned his head the other way. He may as well have just tumbled down the jagged cliffs of the Shadow Ravine. He shook his head.

“Oh, balderdash,” he muttered under his breath.

Pluto had just baked three pies in the newly cleaned up kitchen. Her brothers and half of the staff were outside awaiting the arrival of the Positrons on the potentially runaway rocket.

As she wiped down the countertop with a cloth, a yawn sneaked up on her. She set the cloth in a basket in corner of the room before heading out into the hallway. Pluto strode past Midday, where Marianne checked in for the evening shift. She ascended the stairs to the room she stayed in. All of the remaining guests had either left the Hotel or buttoned up for the night.

Since she was already in her pajamas, all Pluto had to do was close the door and then tuck herself into bed. She reached up to the black lamp with a white shade on the bedside table and switched off the light above: in turn, the room engulfed in darkness. A faint blue green glow from Uranus dimly radiated outside behind the filmy curtains. But otherwise the room was pitch black.

She closed her eyes. She fell asleep within seconds.

Pluto gazed on at a brightly lit room with a large bay window open wide to let in a cool, crisp breeze. Everything seemed so clear and so sharp, like a photograph that had been cleaned up to perfection. In front of her stood a small wooden desk without a chair to accompany it. A big black book lay sprawled open on the top of the desk. The pages fluttered from the end of the book to the beginning. Pluto approached the book to see random swirling scribbles in black ink on each page. She could not understand it but she could not turn away if it saved her from trying to understand it.

Her eyes shot open. Pluto peered into the darkness surrounding her. Nothing. Just an ambiguous dream. She sighed and closed her eyes a second time. She fell asleep even quicker this time.

She opened her eyes only to find herself running. She glanced straight ahead to Hamilton and Siegfried standing thirty feet away from her. Hamilton waved his arms about. Siegfried had his mouth open but no sound came out. Pluto pumped her legs as she tried to run closer to them, but she may as well have been running on a treadmill. She watched her big brothers slide further and further away from her.

Hamilton waved his arms more and more. Siegfried looked as though he shouted at the top of his lungs. Pluto ran as fast as she could but her brothers only slid further away from her. She watched her brothers drop into a supermassive black hole: their bodies stretched and warped like rubber bands as they crossed the event horizon. They both closed their eyes as the black hole pulled them apart like silly putty.

Pluto opened her eyes again. She let out a long low sigh. Her heart hammered inside her chest. Her legs tingled and felt stiff at the knee. It took her a moment to realize she had squeezed her legs together at her knees. She reached up and rubbed her eyes.

Maybe I'm not breathing so well, she thought. She rolled onto her back, which allowed her to breathe better. She closed her eyes again, and fell asleep.

She stood in front of a massive crowd of people on Pluto-Charon. All eyes were glued onto her. No one moved or blinked.

She then glanced down to see her naked body, completely still. She was unable to cover her bare breasts or her crotch to keep the people in the front of the crowd from staring at her. Two people in the front gazed at her belly button and the soft skin directly underneath. Pluto felt someone grip onto the zipper on the back of her neck and pull down. The zipper opened and blue apple pie filling flooded out. She watched her breasts wither and shrivel like a wilted plant, her belly cave in, and her hips collapse into themselves. Her knees folded. She fell to the ground into a pile of skin. Everyone watched her and no one helped her.

Pluto woke up a third time with a slight yelp. She glanced down and ran her hands down her torso. Her breasts were still in place, healthy as always. Her belly kept its round shape. Her hips were still big and full. She shuffled her legs about to see if they still worked. She sighed again.

She rolled back onto her side. She nestled her head down into her pillow and tried to calm her heart. She wondered what she was going to dream next and this returned to sleep.

Sullivan stood in front of her, naked and gruesomely scarred from the Fall of Mars. She watched him pick up a black L-shaped object. She realized she could not move. Pluto glanced down to see her legs spread wide open and a series of red scratches on her belly. She tried to move her legs, but found her ankles were bound to the legs of the chair. He had tied her arms together at the wrists behind the back of the chair. She could not scream: he had tied a cloth around her head at the mouth to keep her silent.

Pluto watched Sullivan approach her. The L-shaped object was a pistol. She had no escape. She watched him cock the pistol and switch off the safety. He pointed the pistol at her forehead and pulled the trigger.

Pluto opened her eyes again just as the shot went off. She sat upright in bed. She rubbed her eyes and then bowed her head.

What’s wrong with me? Why am I dreaming like this?

Hamilton's voice emerged from outside. Siegfried followed. The Positrons must have arrived.

Pluto scratched her nose and then sank back down onto her back. She fell asleep just as her head hit the pillow.

A floating disembodied head of a Positron glared back at her from a wall of black. Two circles of deep blood orange burned into her very being. She could see the dents and holes all over the head. The neck had been shriveled and twisted around like a roll of taffy, as if someone or something tore off the Positron’s head at the shoulders. The head tilted slightly to her left.

She glanced more closely at the skeleton hand holding the head from the jaw. Pluto followed the hand, which led to a skeleton arm, and then the body of Queen Mars. Her eyes were replaced with two big black holes. Her hair streamed off of her head in a full bouquet of wispy swirling strands. Pluto spotted the knots at the ends of the strands of hair. For a second, she believed Mars had snakes on her head.

Pluto stepped back to see Queen Mars radiating against a swirling white and gray background, as if she had just returned to Earth from her subterranean labyrinth.

“I will come for you next,” Mars whispered, her voice cut through Pluto like a machete. She watched the ghost queen drift towards her. Mars pulled the head closer to her body. Her eyes never moved off of Pluto as she moved closer and closer. She didn't move or breathe.

Pluto shot her eyes open a fifth time and groaned.

“This needs to stop,” she muttered. She tried to reach up to rub her eyes. Her arms felt like piles of lead, unable to move. Her legs had lost all feeling. She continued to feel her body, but it refused to budge.

In the darkness, she glanced down to see her body become a pile of bones and dust resting atop the sheets. She directed her eyes down to see her severed head resting on the pillow. The feeling of her body remained in her mind but her body ceased to exist. She had no lungs anymore to breathe to allow her to scream. But she screamed anyway.

She woke up again and screamed at the top of her lungs. She pulled herself upright and covered her face with her hands. Her screams flooded out of the room, through the door, and into the rest of the Hotel. Pluto had never been more terrified of her own mind in her life. She brought her hands to her mouth and began to weep.

“Pluto!” Siegfried and Hamilton rushed up the stairs and down the hallway. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a thin line of bright light between the floor and the door. The door handle jiggled. Locked.

“Pluto, the door's locked!” Hamilton shouted, his voice muffled by the door.

“Do you have the key?” Siegfried demanded.

“I thought you had the keys.”

“No.”

“Dammit, Siegfried!”

“Well, don't blame me! You're the one who's always telling me to keep them in the desk downstairs!”

“AH! Curse the day I was born!”

“Wait, isn't this the one door where the lock is really weird?”

“Is it?”

“I dunno. That's why I’m asking.”

Pluto pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her face in her heads and wept.

“Is she crying?” Siegfried asked dumbly.

“Yes! I think so, anyways.”

“If this is that door, hang on—”

A moment of silence. Then—THUD.

“OW!”

“What in the sam hill d'you do that for, Siegfried?!”

“I was hoping to punch a hole through the door and then reach through the hole and unlock the door but that was a major miscalculation. Bloody Mary, that hurt!”

“Ah, hell's bells, I'll get the keys myself.”

“Could you get me ice pack, too, please?”

“Get your own bloody ice pack! I'm busy!”

Pluto could hear a shuffling outside of her door. At the crack between the door and the floor, a big dark shadow blocked out the light.

“Are you okay, Pluto?” Siegfried sat down on the floor and leaned against the door. Pluto sniffled loudly. Her eyes continued to singe with hot tears of fear.

“Could you be a dear and please let me in?”

Reluctantly, Pluto climbed out of bed and strode towards the door. She turned the dead bolt, which scraped against the inside of the threshold of the door. She reached down and pulled open the door, and Siegfried fell backwards onto the floor beneath her so that his head landed in front of her bare feet. He held his gloved right hand close to his chest. She crouched down to his face.

“Are you okay?” she asked him in a broken voice.

“Yeah, I—” he winced from the pain in his hand as he rolled onto his side. He pulled himself into an upright position, still holding onto his hand. He noticed the redness in her eyes and the tear stains on her round cheeks. Siegfried scrambled to his feet and flung his arms around her.

“It's okay,” he whispered in her ear. “It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. I'm here. Big brother's here.” He pulled back to peer into her tearful eyes.

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked her gently.

“I had nightmares,” she sniffled. He embraced her again.

“It's okay. It's over. It's all over. They're not going to get you. I won't let them get you.”

Pluto buried her face in his chest. Siegfried pressed a hand on the back of her head. He craned his neck down and rested his chin on the crown of her head. A clinking, clanking jingling of keys echoed down the hallway and into the room.

“Oh, good, Pluto opened the door,” Hamilton said aloud. He entered the room to see his siblings embracing each other.

“What happened?” he asked, worried. He strode towards the bedside table and switched on the lamp. Bright white light flooded the room. Siegfried let Pluto go as he guided her towards the bed.

“What happened?” Hamilton repeated.

“She had some nightmares,” Siegfried explained promptly. Hamilton gasped. His siblings seated themselves on the edge of the bed. Siegfried set his arm around Pluto’s shoulders. Hamilton patted down his pockets for a handkerchief.

“Do you have your hankie handy?”

“No. I got my neckerchief and that's kind of a hankie.”

“No,” Pluto resisted.

“You sure?” Siegfried gazed at her, concerned. He then brought her closer to him. “Okay.”

“How'd it go with the robots?” she inquired as she brushed away a tear from her right eye.

“They're just as fragile as usual,” Hamilton replied with a shrug, “the two of us and some of the girls got them good with the ball lightning. I tried to get one with my ray gun but THIS ONE RIGHT HERE—” He gestured to Siegfried, who flashed a wide eyed glance at his brother “—pointed out that I was going to take an eye out with it. I'm telling you, Siegfried, I had that one.”

“Hey, you were going to hit Artemia in the face with that thing,” Siegfried insisted. “It's one thing when you shot Peuget in the head with it. It's another thing altogether when you’re shooting at one of those ultra slender ones with it.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes.

“Whatever,” he muttered. “It's neither here nor there at this point.”

He showed Pluto a comforting dimpled smile.

“Would you like some tea?” he asked her kindly. She nodded.

“Yes, please.”

“Okay. I'll ask Bronwen downstairs to put on a pot of tea, and then I have to my ray gun away so it'll recharge. You guys stay here and I'll be back in a bit.”

Hamilton wheeled around and headed out the widely ajar door. The second he stepped into the hallway, Ione hurried towards him in a white bathrobe.

“What happened? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Pluto had some pretty horrific nightmares. She's okay, though. Siegfried's with her and I'm going to ask Bronwen to make some tea. You had a pretty long day today, so—go back to bed.”

Ione nodded before wheeling around to descend back down the stairs into the lobby. She slipped out the front doors and headed back to her apartment as Hamilton ambled towards Midday. The night watchwoman Bronwen, a white haired elderly woman with thick glasses with tie-dye horn rimmed frames, typed away on a typewriter.

“Excuse me, Bronwen,” he commanded. She glanced up at smiled at his dimples.

“When you get the chance, could you put on a pot of Hydra grass tea please? Pluto had some bad dreams and it'll help her sleep.”

“Absolutely!” she replied grandly with a nod.

“Good! Thank you.”

Hamilton wheeled back around and headed back up the stairs to the empty room where Archer Wilson stayed before. Little did anyone know, this was the only room in the Hotel that had a crawl space large enough beneath the floorboards. The crawl space was the safe place for Hamilton's ray gun as well as Wilson's copy of Poems by Emily Dickinson as well as the fire- and electricity-proof safe where the brothers kept their savings and most precious belongings. He flashed on the book and the pendant that fell out of the dust jacket as he unlocked the door to the room with one of the keys. He closed the door partial way and clicked on the overhead light.

Quietly so as not to bring attention to himself, Hamilton crept around the foot of the bed to the bare narrow strip of floor between the window and the bed. He knelt down on the stone as if about to give a prayer. He reached into his right pocket for the skeleton key: he had one and Siegfried had one, the iron key with a perfectly round bow with a crescent moon shaped shoulder beneath and a cross in lieu of traditional teeth. Hamilton leaned forward and felt around for the one conspicuous crack in the stone floorboards: he always forgot the location of the crack in the floor. His gloved fingers glided across the clean stone, until he felt a slight give in the floor just beneath the bed frame.

There it is.

He took the key and inserted the cross into the crack. He turned the key to the right: one of their friends who helped build the Hotel accidentally installed the lock upside down. A soft click emanated from the floor. He pulled the key up and the loose stone floorboards lifted with the key. He set his fingers on the edge of the boards as he took the key out from the lock. Hamilton opened the patch of floor to see the foot deep crawl space. Ariel kept her word and left Wilson's book untouched. Next to the book was the black cube of the fireproof safe with a combination lock and white piece of paper on top.

Hamilton drew a blank on the piece of paper. He picked it up and turned it over.

“In case of something horrid happening, it’s our birthdays combined,” it read in Siegfried’s chicken scratch.

“Oh, yeah,” Hamilton muttered aloud. He set the paper back down on top of the safe and then reached for the big black case next to the safe. He set the case down on the floor to his left. Tilting the case on its side, he strove to recall the combination as he dialed the numbers back to zero. So much has happened as of late that the three numbers momentarily slipped from memory.

“Oh, yeah, it's the day we came here.”

He dialed the first number to three, the second to one, and the final number to seven. A soft click made him smile. He lifted open the case to see the purple velvet lining the interior, the two extra attachments for his ray gun, one for silencing his shot, the other for increasing the speed of the shot; a small phial of extra red stardust just in case he ran out of ammo, and the big empty space for his gun. Hamilton unsheathed his ray gun from the holster inside of his coat and set it down in the holding space. He then reached into his coat, took out the holster, and neatly folded it up.

Hamilton quietly closed the case and whizzed the numbers away from the combination. He leaned forward to set the case back down in the crawl space when he lost his balance. He nearly face planted into the crawl space but the case broke his fall. His left hand caught his balance. His right hand rested on the book of poetry: as a result, he nearly slipped again. Hamilton jerked back and stumbled out of the hole. He lifted his hand off the book just as a handful of stationary slid out from the back of the dust jacket.

He then reached down for the book and the pieces of stationary. Despite his black leather gloves, he could feel the heaviness of the dark yellow cardstock. He examined the dull black fancy frippery embroidering along the edges. In the top middle of each leaf of stationary written in bold black letters read CALIFORNIA STATE TELEGRAPH CO.

He examined closer to the one on top, which bore the words TO: ROWENA WILSON FROM: VINCENT ST. VITUS.

Hamilton's eyes widened. He shuffled the first one to the one beneath it. TO: ROWENA WILSON FROM: SULLIVAN ZHENONENAVASTIK.

His mouth dropped open. He shuffled to the next one. TO: PATRICK SILVERSMITH FROM: ROWENA WILSON.

And then the fourth one. TO: SULLIVAN ZHENONENAVASTIK FROM: ROWENA WILSON.

Does Wilson know about these? They were tucked away in the dust jacket, how could he have missed them? He set the stationaries down on the floor to his left and spread them out. He initially had counted eight before a knock on the door broke his attention.

“Hamilton? Are you in there?” Siegfried called.

“Yeah,” he replied and closed his eyes in exasperation.

“Can I please come in?”

“Yeah, go ahead.” The door opened and he strode into the room.

“Pluto calmed down and I told her I was just going to check to see what you were doing, and—” Siegfried noticed the pieces of stationary on the floor as he approached his brother.

“Whats this?”

“These fell out of Wilson’s poetry book,” Hamilton explained softly.

Siegfried raised an eyebrow.

“How'd they fall out of his book?”

“I was putting the ray gun case away, and I clumsily lost my balance and caught myself on the book,” he replied in one breath. “I pulled my hand back and they slid out. I doubt if he's seen them, though, but that doesn't really make sense because they were tucked into the dust jacket. If he found that pendant, which was tucked in the jacket, too, then he would have seen these. I don't know, it just doesn't make sense.” Siegfried crouched down next to him to examine the stationaries for himself. His brown eyes scanned the printing and the labels.

“Telegrams—” he muttered.

“Between Wilson's mother, Vincent, Sullivan, and Patrick Silversmith,” Hamilton finished. The room fell silent. Neither brother knew what to think or believe. Hamilton's stomach turned. He felt as though he just stumbled upon something private, something that they need not know. The Wilson family was completely separate from them, an unknown that they only knew of about. But this fascinated them in a strange manner.

“I suggest,” Siegfried started, “the next time we see him, we'll show him these.”

“Why?” Hamilton asked curiously.

“Because… reading some of these… these could probably help console him, like maybe they can give him some insight into his mother.”

Hamilton sighed through his nose. Siegfried had a point, even if he felt as though they were invading Rowena's privacy.

“I'm sure Desi would want to know, too,” Siegfried continued, “her being close to Wilson and all.”

“And she was married to Sully,” Hamilton added hesitantly, “and this would give some insight into Vincent, too. He told me a little about himself but I wonder about him…” His voice trailed off.

“Let's take these, and close the door here—” Siegfried climbed to his feet and stepped towards the lifted up floorboards. He removed Hamilton's key before closing the floorboards all the way. Hamilton gathered up the telegrams into a single pile in his hand before he climbed to his feet. Siegfried handed him his key.

“Oh, by the way,” he started. Hamilton raised his eyebrows in inquiry.

“Mom psychocommunicated with me before I came in, too. She wants us to come over some time in the next couple of days. She didn't explain why, but you know—I just know for a fact we're going to have to tell her what happened.”

#uranus in capricorn #uranusincapricorn #my writing #writers on tumblr #text #nanowrimo

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josiebelladonna · 8 years ago

Text

Grievance (Uranus in Capricorn - part 4 of 6)

Lewis blankly stared up at the ceiling, his head reclined back on the pillow. The heaviness sank into his chest. His heart monitor beeped with each beat. The monotone melted into a numbing drone which he had blocked out as his mind wandered away from the world around him.

His father was gone. His first teacher, his first best friend, his assistant, his secretary, his role model, and his hero. Gone forever. He and his mother not only carried the weight of answering too many questions to ask on behalf of everyone in their congregation, but having to face even more turning away from Lewis' classmates. He knew for a fact everyone labeled him the boy who cried ghost, what made him think they would comfort him? Yuri the doctor returned to the room, his hands tucked into his coat pockets. Lewis never saw him as he was too fixated on the ceiling tiles.

“Lewis, it's Yuri. I came to tell you a couple of things. The first is the coroners determined your father suffered blunt force trauma to the head.”

Yuri's words echoed through the empty chambers inside of Lewis' psyche. His voice felt so sympathetic and yet so in vain at the same time. Yuri knew he had to be the bearer of bad news but his words felt so hollow. The room fell uncannily silent except for Lewis' heart monitor and the sounds out in the hallway and the rest of the hospital.

“The second thing I want to tell you is your mother is waking up.”

Lewis directed his gaze down from the ceiling towards Yuri, who stood at the foot of his bed with a grave expression on his face. The gash on his forehead pressed down on his head and his neck like a dead weight. “She is?”

“Yeah. She's delirious, but she is indeed waking up.”

He wanted to reunite with Gayle so much and grieve over Taylor together. He knew it was just him and his mother now, but Lewis had no idea what overcame him. The painful fullness on his head faded away.

“I want to see my mother,” he blurted out. Yuri was taken aback.

“Lewis, you're immobile. You can't go see her right now.”

Yuri noticed the frustrated expression on his handsome face. He knew Lewis was the only who could protect his mother now that his father had gone. But Lewis had to heal and take care of himself first.

“Look, son. I know it hurts, and you want to see her. But you have to rest. You need to heal because you're unable to move right now. You need at least one surgery to fix your knee.”

“I want to see my mother!” he repeated. He pushed blankets off of his body to see the gauze wrapped several times around his right knee and the plain white cast on his right ankle. He felt apathetic towards his injuries. If push came to shove, he would crawl down the hallway to his mother's room. Yuri lunged towards him with his arms outstretched. He gently pushed Lewis back onto the pillow. The gash on his head throbbed from his racing heart.

“Nurse!” he yelled out behind him. The nurse from earlier before hurried into the room.

“I want to see my mother!” Lewis insisted as he tried to break free from Yuri's grip.

“Give him one hundred c.c.s,” he ordered the nurse.

“But don't you think that's a lot?”

“Give him one hundred c.c.s!”

Lewis never saw the nurse take out the needle from her pocket. Yuri bled out into a blur and the sounds of the hospital faded out to a deep dark pool. He closed his eyes. His head fell back onto the pillow, unconscious.

The airship hovered over the large hunter green square behind Ivan and Zelda's house. Ivan tugged down on the control levers for the ship to descend onto the wet grass. Three little dark brown house finches darted out from beneath them. The airship gently landed on the grass. Ivan flipped the three switches to their original positions. The propellor sputtered into stasis and shuttered before dying.

He peeled off his goggles which liberated his smooth skin. Running a hand through his dark hair, he turned to his left and shoved open the door of the cabin. Ivan slid out of the pilot's seat: his large boots squelched onto the wet dark green grass. He wheeled around to see Zelda climbing over the seat, gingerly trying to exit the cabin. He reached out his hand to help her onto the grass.

“That's my girl,” he said grandly as she landed in front of him. Wilson followed her out of the cabin. Ivan reached out his hand to help him out into the yard.

“That's my boy,” he variated with a smile. Desdemona, who had the longest legs out of the three passengers, gingerly climbed out from the cabin but regardless Ivan outstretched his hand for her. She took his hand as she slid out into the misty morning. His soft stonelike gray eyes hypnotically locked onto her brilliant sky blues. Ivan smirked.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied quickly. She flashed a glance down to his large belly gently poking out from beneath two buttons in the middle of his coat. She flashed him a small smile. “Yeah, of course.”

He continued to smirk at her. His dimples sweetly returned to his chubby face. Desdemona's heart skipped a beat as he lead the three of them back into the house. Ivan opened his coat and reached into the inner lining for the back door key. Desdemona had a sudden urge to wrap her arms around his waist. For some reason, she felt Ivan's body gave off vibes of desiring to be held and loved by a woman, especially since he lost both of his women.

Ivan unlocked the back door and the four of them entered the laundry room. Desdemona noticed a glass lamp hurricane lantern with a button on the side of the base perched on a shelf above the washing machine and a pair of black sticks next to the dryer as she strode into the room. Diamond, the Siamese cat, greeted Zelda by rubbing against her legs. She reached down and picked up the cat.

“Hi, mi amor,” she cooed, “we are home. We are officially home now.”

Ivan strode down through the laundry room towards his bedroom to remove his coat and his boots, and change his shirt. Wilson headed all the way down to the living room to remove his boots. Desdemona and Zelda followed him.

Wilson leapt forward with an extra spring in his step. He rushed down the hallway into the living room. A shelf high up against the wall caught his eye as he dove onto the couch. As he reached down to unbuckle his boots, Zelda set the cat down on the floor before she planted herself on one of the chairs at the bar to Wilson's right. Desdemona brought up the rear. She unfastened her coat and hung it up on the coat hook next to the front door before continuing onto the cozy kitchen.

“I am really thirsty right now,” she announced. She strode into the kitchen, a wide strip of checkerboard tiles just large enough for two people and two hanging rows of mahogany cabinets, a big steely gray refrigerator tucked in the corner closest to the opening of the kitchen, and in front of the bar lay a creamy white porcelain sink next to a small silvery dishwasher.

“The cups and glasses are in that cupboard right there,” Zelda pointed to the higher cabinet next to the refrigerator. Desdemona opened the cabinet for a small bubbly light blue glass. “—and there's filtered water in the fridge.”

Ivan entered the living room still in his pinstriped trousers but in a snug heather gray V-neck shirt. He passed by his son on the couch into the kitchen. He noticed Desdemona pouring herself a glass of water and his smile returned to his face. He brushed past her towards a bowl of fruit on the counter beneath the hanging cabinets.

“Those flautas were delicious but they just made me hungry again,” Ivan admitted. He reached for a big red Gala apple, and washed it off in the silver faucet before sinking his teeth into the luscious red skin. Desdemona watched him stride past a Belgian waffle iron on the counter.

“I could make some waffles if you like,” she offered. His eyes lit up.

“Oh! Yes please! I'm sure the kids would like some.”

“Maybe later,” Zelda confessed.

“I'll have one and see where it goes from there,” Wilson replied slowly.

“I'll have three,” Ivan offered. Desdemona's eyes widened.

“Three? Ivan, one is filling enough!”

“Daddy likes his tummy to be as big and full as the moon,” Zelda explained warmly. “My mother liked him like that, too. Because of that, she always referred to him as big and beautiful.”

Diamond leapt onto the couch next to Wilson. Her blue eyes fixated him, her pupils dilated. He held out two fingers for her. She examined his finger tips just as a purr erupted from her throat. Wilson scratched the spot behind her left ear. She closed her eyes. Diamond slinked onto his lap, her purr loud and guttoral. She rested one large white paw on his soft belly, and then the other paw. He continued to pet her until she nestled down on his lower belly and his thighs. She tightly coiled her tail around her rear right leg as she cuddled down into his warm body.

Ivan returned to the living room. He sank down into the big recliner next to the couch, his mouth full of apple. He noticed Diamond on his son's lap, swallowed down the bite, and flashed him a sweet smile.

“You know she likes you when that happens,” he pointed out thoughtfully. Zelda spun the chair around right as her mouth dropped open.

“She barely sits like that with anyone!” she exclaimed. She smiled as she returned to the bar.

A faint tingling emanated in the pit of Wilson's stomach. The sensation spread to his spine, then into his chest, down his arms to his fingertips. A slate gray cloud flooded his conscious mind like the morning fog back in Pacific Coast. Hamilton's face poked through the gray cloud. For a moment, Wilson assumed the Hotel caught on fire and Hamilton ventured through the cloud of smoke. His voice echoed through the channels and hallways of Wilson's mind. The entire house fell away as he concentrated on Hamilton alone. He closed his eyes and bowed his head to better decipher his voice.

Siegfried and I found something that you should know about.

He pictured Hamilton and Siegfried conversing about the book of poetry he had brought with him in his mother's wake. Hamilton pointed to a stack of stationaries he had stumbled upon while putting his ray gun away in its safe place. Wilson knew he had to give details of the whole scene and of this conversation to Desdemona when they sat down at the table.

“Waffles are ready, boys,” she announced. To Wilson, her voice echoed through his mind as it would in twilight sleep. He continued to picture the two brothers until a gentle patting on the right side of his face interrupted his train of thought. He opened his eyes to see Ivan stooped down in front of his face.

“Waffles are ready,” he echoed Desdemona. Wilson nodded. Ivan strode into the kitchen.

He glanced down to see Diamond sound asleep on his lap, her eyes pinched shut and her paws tucked under her soft, furry chest. He cautiously slid his hands underneath Diamond's belly and chest to lift her up. He held her close to his chest as he stood to his feet. She never flinched for a second as he wheeled around to set her down on the couch cushion. He bent over, and gingerly placed her on the cushion. She never struggled once.

Wilson walked into the kitchen for his plate of the one large golden brown Belgian waffle topped with a dollop of butter and dusted with a light sprinkling of powdered sugar. The four of them trekked through the living room and turned right into the dining room, a cozy little room with a mahogany table just large enough for the four of them and four spindly mahogany chairs. Ivan seated himself on the right side of the table in front of a window with a white tile sill, Desdemona next to him, and Zelda across from him, next to another window with a white sill. Wilson sat down across from Desdemona. As they sank into their Belgian waffles, Wilson remembered what he received from Hamilton. He wanted to share this with his best friend.

“So you remember that book of Emily Dickinson poetry I had?” Wilson asked her after swallowing a bite of crispy waffle. Desdemona paused and then nodded. “I left it up at the Hotel for safekeeping. I psychocommunicated with Hamilton a bit ago: he and Siegfried found a stack of telegrams between my mother, Sullivan, Vincent, and Silversmith that fell out of the dust jacket that I think we should know about.” She raised an eyebrow as she cut a piece off of her waffle.

“How'd they find them?” Desdemona demanded.

“Hamilton was putting his ray gun away and he lost his balance and fell on top of the book and they fell out. The bizarre thing about it is I didn't even know they were there.”

Desdemona flashed a glance at the flabbergasted expression on Ivan's round face.

“Did you know about those?”

He shook his head as he swallowed down the large bite of waffle. “I didn't even know Rowena had access to a telegraph,” he confessed. “The last time I saw one of those I was in the Middle East. I hadn't even met Zayra yet.”

A sharp pang pierced through Wilson's temple. Hamilton's voice echoed through his mind a second time. The image of him and Siegfried sitting across from each other at a table on the front porch of the Hotel and examining a row of heavy stationary returned to him again. Wilson watched Hamilton count out the stationaries, who then turned his attention to Siegfried, who watched his brother psychocommunicate with Wilson.

“Hang on—Hamilton's relaying them back to me.” Wilson blinked as the other three people watched him gingerly reiterate what Hamilton was telling him.

“They counted out eleven telegrams total and put them all in order according to date. The first two are between Vincent and Mom, and they're talking a 'quartet of pendants.' I don't get it, either, Hamilton. One of them has Vincent asking how she's doing—I'm guessing this is some time between the time after Dad left for Seattle and before I was born because he's very kind as he asks her 'how many more weeks until your little boy is born' and if she's 'okay with living alone.' The next one is between her and Sully. He asks her the same things and then he asks her very politely for the pendants because I guess they're worth a lot of money. He promised to give her some of the money to help raise her child. Mom replies that the pendants are not for sale and that she'd rather keep them. Silversmith sends one which basically asks her the same thing. She continues to refuse. Vincent then telegraphs her saying that Sully and Silversmith are getting angry and rather frustrated with her, and he also tells her he's going to disappear for a while because they're spooking him. Silversmith contacts her and he threatens to break into her house and steal them, and also kill her child.”

“You!” Ivan and Desdemona yelped simultaneously.

“Sully vowed to track down her husband and kill him, and instead of killing me he would kidnap me if she still didn't comply he would throw me into Monterey Bay and drown me. They also both threatened to steal all of her artwork and sell it for profit and take all of the money. So she would have no money, and no family or friends to turn to. And she wouldn't able to find a job to refinance herself because they would sell the artwork under the false name Rowan Whitesmith and when the authorities asked about it, they would accuse her of using a fake name and frame her. All of this would've happened if she didn't give them the pendants. To which my mother replied to Sully, because he still referred to her as his wife—”

Wilson watched Siegfried join Hamilton in reading aloud Rowena's response to Sullivan to which he proudly reiterated:

“'You will pry those pendants from my cold, dead hands. My artwork doesn't mean so much to me as the ones I love do. I divorced you because you weren't nearly willing to be a good husband to me, and I doubt you'd be willing to be a half decent father to my children. You have a lot of nerve threatening to kill a child. I don't know if you know this, Sullivan, but Arthur is MY son, and Ivan is MY husband and MY best friend, and I'd rather die knowing my babies and the loves of my life were healthy and alive than be alive knowing you killed them. Don't ever telegraph me again, you vile bastard.'”

Ivan's mouth dropped open. He began to miss her again, especially since she called him her baby.

“Wow! I wish I knew her!” Desdemona exclaimed. “And if by 'pendants', they all mean the pendant Zelda has and the one that fell out of your book.”

“Makes sense. Those are the only pendants I know of that were hers,” Ivan pointed out.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I remember I gave the one that Zelda has as a gift to her and then she told me she had one just like it. For a bit, I thought for sure Sully gave it to her, but it sounds like Vincent was the one who did it.”

“Maybe they were really precious,” Wilson suggested. “The telegrams did say they were worth a lot of money, and Sully being the piece of work he was, he lost focus on my mom and went for the jewelry instead.”

“But something doesn't make sense, though,” Ivan pointed out as he cut into his third waffle. He thoughtfully scanned his son. “Why would Sully want you?”

“I remember correctly that he wanted children,” Desdemona recalled. “When he and I were married, and I got pregnant by him twice, he was wholeheartedly looking forward to being a father. He took it out on me when my son was stillborn and I miscarried my daughter.”

Ivan mopped the piece of waffle in powdered sugar and butter before taking a bite.

“So logic tells me when he found out Rowena was about to have a child herself, he got on it, but she thought ahead. He threatened to obliterate Rowena's reputation so she hid all of her artworks and renounced the fact she was an artist.”

“That explains why I grew up oblivious to her being an artist,” Wilson wondered aloud as he set his fork down on the table. Ivan took another large bite.

“She said 'I don't need you in my life anymore' and they quit talking to one another because he realized she was serious about you and me so he fell out of the picture,” Ivan suggested, “at least temporarily anyways. I remember Rowena was quite the forgiving person, so he probably contacted her again to make amends with her. This is just a guess but knowing her and him, it makes sense to me.”

“And then he killed her,” Wilson said glumly.

“And then he killed her,” Desdemona echoed.

“And then he killed her,” Ivan continued the echo, “which, if my instinct is right and I'm holding Desdemona's word true here, once she was gone, he came after you, Arthur.”

“But why would he wait that long to kill her and then come after Arthur?” Zelda asked quizzically.

“Because I was a young child when all of this happened. I'm thinking he probably waited until I was of a certain age. But much to his chagrin, when Mom died, and I was still eleven, I went next door to live with our neighbor and then when I was fourteen, I ran off to the Circus—”

“—which means if he came for you, he came to an empty house and probably assumed you went to go live with me. Problem is she and I fell out of contact some time after you were born. She told me everything was fine and that I can just relax up in Seattle. She probably told me that because she knew Sully and Silversmith resented me and wanted me dead. She knew for a fact they were coming after me.”

“In other words, she lied to protect both of you,” Desdemona concluded in a soft voice. Ivan's face fell. He glanced down at the last three bites of waffle on his plate and sighed.

“She lied alright.”

“To protect you,” Desdemona corrected.

“But she lied, though. A lie is a lie no matter how you look at it. It destroys the trust someone has in someone else. Rowena lied and as a result, I have a dead wife and Arthur has a dead mother.”

Using the side of his fork, he cut into the last bit of waffle into three and choked them down. Aside from feeling quite full, the thought of Rowena sacrificing herself for him made his stomach cringe.

“But another thing I don't understand is if that was the case, then how did Sully know you and Rowena were separated?” Desdemona piped up.

Zelda and Wilson stared at their father as he swallowed down the last bite of Belgian waffle. He set his fork down and then glanced back at the two of them. He then turned to Desdemona, his gray eyes no longer that cool wispy softness reminiscent of misty clouds on a rainy day, now were hard and cold like the metal on the side of a cannon. He shifted his weight in his chair as his military knowledge came into play.

“Because if it exists, and it's anything that involves communication, it can very easily be perturbed and eavesdropped upon. Telegraphs, telephones, letters, you name it. If it exists, you can get your hands on it. This psychocommunication whatever it is that Arthur's doing with those two boys up there sounds incredible, though. Are you communicating with your minds?”

“Sort of,” Wilson explained. “It's like using the middle ground between telepathy and concrete thought. At least, I think that's what it is. I think of it as meditation and projecting a thought at the same time.”

“So it's using both your present state and that one part of your mental state that never gets used, that's amazing. In fact, come to think of it, that leads me to my next point—”

Ivan leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. He had eaten enough for one morning. His round belly protruded with the soft warm full feeling within him. To him, it felt like both Rowena and Zayra kissing him on either side of the face. His tall, chubby body relaxed in the chair as he closed his eyes. Desdemona admired the genuine love he had for himself. She began to soak up his warmth and his comfort. Wilson wished he had the same love with himself. Ivan opened his eyes to see Zelda gazing back at him from across the table, her chin resting on her hand.

“Aw, you love your body, don't you?” Desdemona smiled at him.

“Always have. Well, ever since I developed a love for art. Even before that, so I was right the first time. I love the human body. I love everything about it. It's soft, it's delicate, and it's undeniably beautiful, especially my body and also a woman's body. When you slow down and feel its softness, you'll learn to love and appreciate it. It houses your heart, all of your appetites, your soul, and especially, your mind.” He hoisted himself into an upright position. He then leaned forward and folded his arms on the table.

“Now, your body is your most precious gift, but your mind is first and foremost your most valuable asset,” he pointed at his temple. “Sully and Silversmith wanted things that were precious—jewelry, the attention of a woman, children—and understand this is just an assumption but I think that would include the body and the mind. If Sully wanted children, but he hated women, that tells me he just wanted to use women for their biological purpose. That's like growing apples and then discarding the whole apple tree.”

Ivan gazed up at the ceiling. His gray eyes caressed the soft white tiles.

“And since his brother Victor manufactured machines, machines that are supposedly 'intelligent'—and they go as far back as when I was stationed in South Korea, about the time Pinkie Borland initially entered in office, because Peuget was a Positron himself. They started making more as time went on. He probably wanted to raise children for the sake of creating brilliant minds because those two were incredibly intelligent. They could raise incredible children. The link between children and the robots is throwing me, but it's safe to say Sully would help Victor transmit the children's minds into the bots. Being the biochemisty major and the alchemist, he could figure out how to do that. Problem is you can't raise a child efficiently when you're a jerk like that. The children they'd raise would struggle with the way in which they looked at their bodies and at themselves as Sully had difficulty with that himself. So he'd end up shooting himself in the foot and the whole operation would fail. But because Sully and Victor were so intelligent, they more than likely noticed that and figured a way to work around it. Either that or they noticed you—” He pointed at Archer Wilson. “—were gone and hit the abort button. I say this because the Positrons all function the same and all think the same. If Sully and Victor couldn't have children to harvest from, then that just tells me they got desparate and—you all see where I'm going with this?”

Desdemona's mouth dropped open. Wilson's eyes fell to the floor and a deep sinking feeling emerged inside his stomach. Zelda gasped.

“They're based off of Sully!” Desdemona exclaimed. Ivan nodded his head.

“Well, that's just my assumption anyways,” he confessed. “Siegfried took that file out of Victor's desk, so he could see it for himself and then relay it back to us if it's true that Sully sacrificed a piece of his mind to the Positron database. That sort of explains his murderous intentions, although… no, it doesn't. I can't put my finger on that one.”

Wilson immediately thought of Queen Mars, how she trickled into people's minds and wreaked havoc on their psyches. The memory of her sparing him, Lewis, Desdemona, Neptune, Pluto, Hamilton, and Siegfried after she vaporized Sullivan into a puddle of little black diamonds remained fresh inside his mind. Could she have possibly funneled her way in and had an adverse effect on the hole inside of his broken mind? If that happened, that would explain why she spared the seven of them. He wondered if Victor was affected by Mars, too. She leaked into his mind and drove him to frame Ivan and Zelda. With Ivan's last statement, he knew his father knew nothing about the spirit of the Phoenician queen.

Wilson closed his eyes to contact Hamilton again.

Did you get all of that, Hamilton? He and Siegfried entered his mind once again.

As a matter of fact, I did. So did Siegfried. He's going to his room to get that folder he nicked from Victor's desk right as we speak.

Wilson opened his eyes and returned to his father.

“Dad, are you familiar with an entity named Queen Mars?”

Meanwhile, Siegfried lumbered into his room. He shot out his hand to flick on the light. He spotted the dark folder on the foot of his bed. He flipped the folder open in search for anything that said Sullivan and Victor planned on harvesting the minds of children on behalf of the Positrons. Siegfried sat down on the edge of the bed to better scan the pages.

He set aside the first two pages he examined back down on Earth next to him on the bed. Shuffling through the papers and reading every piece of handwriting he could find, nowhere could he find anything about children or taking possession of their minds. Siegfried shuffled down to the bottom of the stack of papers to see a handwritten letter. He examined the uncannily neat penmanship. At the bottom of the page read Sullivan and Victor's names. His mouth dropped open as he read the letter from the two brothers to Pinkie Borland.

He had to get on the psychocommunication line with Wilson.

“Wow, I've never even heard of her,” Ivan declared.

“I didn't either,” Wilson replied with a shrug. “But she's a real entity, though. Lewis thinks she's one of those spirits that comes back to take revenge on those who have wronged her by getting into their minds and causing them to lose it.”

“But why Sully, though? I still find that confusing,” Desdemona added.

“Who knows. I've been asking that question since she vaporized him. I think Hamilton and Siegfried have, too.”

Silence fell over them. Wilson thought about the two brothers and doubted if they knew Queen Mars' true intentions.

“How are you doing that?” Zelda spoke up suddenly.

“Doing what?” Wilson asked.

“The psychocommunication thing you're doing with them.”

“Oh! You just picture and focus on them, and they'll respond using their own sense of concentration.” Zelda squinted her gray eyes as she strove to recall the two brothers up on Titania.

“Hamilton is the tall, towheaded good looking kid with the steely blue eyes,” Ivan recalled, “and Siegfried is the Bob Dylan haired kid with the big puppy dog eyes. Right?”

“Right. And Hamilton's the skinny one,” Wilson added. “Siegfried's built more like Dad.”

“I cannot do it.”

“Well, part of it is just letting it come to you. That's the intuitive and 'taking' side of it.”

“Oh, wait! I'm seeing one of them.”

“Which one?”

“He's the dark haired one.”

“That's Siegfried! What's he saying?”

Wilson, you gotta see this!

Zelda raised an eyebrow.

Huh? Siegfried, this is Zelda.

Oh, hi, Zelda! You remember that folder I found in Victor's desk? I just found a handwritten letter from him and Sullivan to Pinkie Borland in the back of it. Could you ask your brother to join in, please?

She turned her head to face Archer Wilson.

“He wants you to join in,” she said promptly.

“Join in?” Wilson raised an eyebrow himself. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. He pictured Siegfried's round face and big brown eyes. His voice channeled through his mind, and Wilson knew he was talking to his sister.

Siegfried! What'd you find?

I found a letter between Sullivan and Victor and Pinkie Borland. Ivan was right in that they're harvesting the children's minds.

What does it say? Zelda chimed in.

Here, I'll read it aloud for you guys…

Wilson lifted his head to face Ivan and Desdemona, both of whom awaited a response from him and Zelda.

“Siegfried found a letter from Sullivan and Victor addressed to Pinkie Borland,” he announced. “He says Dad's right about them harvesting children's minds and implanting them into the databases of the Positrons.”

“He's reading it aloud—” Zelda began.

“'Dear Madam President, this is Victor Zhe—yeah, the name gets tiresome after a while, Siegfried, I agree—the founder and CEO of Victorious Industries. My brother Sullivan and I were curious as to whether or not funding is still in place to raising scores of children for our line of Positron robots.'”

“'We want you to know that we have received a verbal cease and desist by a woman by the name of Rowena Manzarek, and then shortly afterwards her child disappeared, so utilizing children as our specimens has been pulled from the table,'” Zelda echoed Siegfried's words.

“Manzarek,” Ivan echoed.

“Manzarek,” Zelda said absently.

Rowena Manzarek, Siegfried continued the echo.

It's my mother's maiden name, Wilson replied. They probably assumed she and my dad were divorced.

“Oh my God!” Siegfried shouted back up on Titania.

Keep going, Siegfried, Zelda coaxed him. He continued to read the letter.

“'However, we found a loophole in her order,” Wilson followed along, “instead of using children, we are using ourselves, our own psyches, a piece of ourselves combined together to implant into the Positrons. My brother and I were curious as to whether or not you would like to join us. You enjoy our prototype christened Barnabas Peuget, and we look to expanding and using your backing of our business.”

“'Another loophole is Miss Manzarek (“Idiots…” Ivan grumbled under his breath) said not to use children, but she never pointed out exposing children to the Positrons. That's why we would like to ask if you would be so honored to let our robots join you in leading the country and the future of the country, and ultimately the future of the world.'”

“'You may take as much time as you would like to reply as we know how different you are compared to past presidents (Desdemona widened her eyes at that) and we are busy trying to stock up on inventory. Much love, Victor and Sullivan.'”

“'Much love, Victor and Sullivan,'” Wilson echoed. Thank you, Siegfried.

Any time, Zelda and Archer Wilson. I know Hamilton and Pluto are going to want to know about this now, too.

The room fell into silence once again. Wilson slumped back in his chair. The thought of his mother sacrificing herself to him and Ivan unsettled him but also opened his heart back up. His mother no longer felt like the hidden mysterious entity he had assumed before. Another door had been opened for him. But the idea of him making a narrow, unintentional escape from Sullivan swept over him, and then he and Victor had the audacity to cover up the slaughter of his mother.

“I can only wonder what Lewis would think of all of this,” Desdemona wondered aloud.

“Oh, yeah, he would definitely have something to say about all of this,” Wilson agreed with her.

#uranus in capricorn #uranusincapricorn #my writing #writers on tumblr #text #nanowrimo

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josiebelladonna · 8 years ago

Text

The Day I Tried to Live (Uranus in Capricorn - part 5 of 6)

Neptune awoke to the late afternoon sun hanging over his head and shimmering through the palm fronds. His stomach poked out some from that late morning breakfast: he knew he overdid it some. He glanced down at his round belly, which had grown slightly larger in the last fortnight: he could just make out the very tips of his toes at this point. Two weeks had passed since he officially made his return to Bikini Atoll. The fairies maintained their company with him as the merpeople colony down below remained vacant. No one still had any idea where everyone swam off to. The fairies had been taking good care of him as his mother had disappeared.

He rolled onto his back. The old compression wound from three years before still ached him to an extent. He flinched at the tight, sore sensation at the base of his spine.

To make everything even more bizarre, a week from before, Hermes had discovered a pendant in the sand. The pendant looked like an aquamarine marble with veins of scarlet and violet hanging off of a fine silver chain with tiny links the size of droplets of mist, and baffled the entire fairy colony. Neptune was drawn to the pendant so much that he wanted to give it to Pluto the next time they saw each other. Hermes kindly gave him the pendant as a result.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the pendant laying in the sand next to his head. Neptune gazed straight up into the darkest, bluest part of the sky and thought about Pluto. He wondered if she was in a good place, and also if she missed him. How he longed to feel her touch again, her arms around his full waist and her head against his chest. He imagined her nestled down next to him in her black lace camisole and her hand on his chest. He closed his eyes and dozed off.

The two weeks before, Pluto awoke to the distant sun filtering through her hotel room window. The cup of Hydra grass tea from the night before warded off her nightmares. She just awoken from a dreamless slumber to the sound of Hamilton and Siegfried shouting outside. She decided it would be best if she got dressed and made her way outside to see.

She slid out of bed, her feet thudded onto the floor. She reached down to her waist and stripped off her black camisole, which in turn exposed her bare breasts and belly to the slight chill of her room. She strode into the black and white tiled bathroom to clean herself off before going into the closet to fetch her white and gray striped sweatshirt and black trousers. The ruckus outside continued as she put on her clothes. She laced up her boots when she heard Siegfried shout, “Hamilton! Shut up!”

That's out of the ordinary. Siegfried never yells at Hamilton like that.

Pluto then reached for her hairbrush on the bedside table. She ran the Neptunian pegasus hair brush through her violet hair before tying it up in her trademark messy bun behind her head. She inserted her meteorite bobby pins on the sides of her head to keep her hair in place. She picked up the small vial of beach glass Neptune gave her for her birthday and stuffed it into her trouser pocket. Pluto reached for her black top hat with a violet ribbon around the base when she heard a knock on the door.

“Pluto? Are you up?” Siegfried called through the door.

“Yeah.”

“Let's go downstairs. We're going to Mom's.”

She lunged for the door and unlocked the difficult dead bolt. She opened the door to see her eldest brother with his dark brown ringlets washed, and his skin as clear as freezing rain. He wore a long black velvet coat and matching trousers, a snugly fit untucked white button down shirt, and his other trademark aside from his neckerchief: a snowy white bowtie adorned with purple polka dots. He smelled faintly of rose water.

“Where's your space suit?” Pluto asked him quizzically.

“We're not taking the rocket,” Siegfried replied briskly. “The Positrons tore up some of the electronics in the cabin. Hamilton was trying to fix them, but I kept telling him no, they're beyond repair, they need replacing. I eventually told him to shut up because it's not worth it at this point.”

“Yeah, I heard you shout that. So we're taking the teleporter?”

“Yeah. I psychocommunicated with Mom and she's setting up the teleporter there on Pluto-Charon as we speak.”

Siegfried had a disheartened expression on his face. Pluto knitted her eyebrows together. She reached up and slithered her fingers underneath his shirt to feel his bare skin. She gently massaged the muscles at the base of his neck.

“It's okay, we'll get it fixed,” she assured him. “It'll be back online in no time. I promise. I promise. C'mon. Let's go downstairs.”

She closed her door behind her and she and Siegfried descended the stairs to the lobby, where Hamilton awaited them at Midday. He had on a black shirt decorated with glittery charcoal gray paisley and black trousers held up with his purple suspenders. The three emblems of Mercury's caduceus, William Herschel's monogram, and the alchemical Pluto symbol on the left suspender entered Pluto and Siegfried's view.

“You guys ready to go?” he asked them. Pluto nodded her head. Siegfried sighed through his nose. Hamilton stepped in between the two of them. He set his right hand on Siegfried's left shoulder; his left hand on Pluto's right shoulder. The three of them trekked towards Meredith and the teleporter on the other side of the room. They lined up beneath the ball lightning, before bowing their heads and closed their eyes. Cold air roared past their ears as they teleported back to Pluto-Charon.

Their feet slammed onto the permafrost. Hamilton opened his eyes first. He glanced around at the teleporter which had been redone from the last time they had used it. The teleporter resembled an early telephone booth with three semi transparent frozen nitrogen walls to protect them from the cold wind. In front of them, a gaping opening to the immense sheet of frozen nitrogen that was Heart Flat. Over their heads, a small orb of light purple ball lightning suspended from a ten foot tall metallic pole. A little red button had been installed on the edge of the teleporter.

Pluto opened her eyes to see Heart Flat and the faint luminous splotch of a sun painted against the black of space. She, too, noticed the button and figured it was for emergencies. Siegfried sighed through his nose. He continued to miss his rocket.

“There are my babies!”

They glanced to their right to see a plump middle statured woman with swept back electric cobalt hair reaching her shoulders and soft brown eyes approaching them on her tiptoes. She wore a long sleeved bright blue top snugly fitted to her body and matching trousers, and knee high blue boots with three inch stiletto heels.

“Mom!” Hamilton yelped.

“Mama!” Pluto cried out. Careful so as not to slip on the ice, she dodged out of the teleporter and flung her arms around Angelica's round waist.

“My little girl,” she did the same with Pluto. Angelica rested her head on Pluto's shoulder and held her close.

“Happy belated birthday, my darling,” she whispered into her ear.

“Thank you, Mama,” Pluto replied in an equal tone of voice. Angelica pulled back and smiled at her daughter, her dimples deeply embedded in her full cheeks. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Hamilton and Siegfried approaching them.

“My sweet boys,” Angelica sputtered. She let go of Pluto and lunged for her youngest son. She wrapped her arms around Hamilton's slender chest. He returned the favor. She gazed up at him and stood on her toes to give him a little pat on the face.

“My little boy, getting so big—” Hamilton flashed her a shy smile. Two rosy splotches welled up beneath his eyes.

“Nah, he's the one who's getting big, not me,” he gestured to Siegfried right next to him. Angelica glanced to her right to see her eldest son with his hands stuffed in his coat pockets. She gingerly approached him, her brown eyes fixated on his belly, so much bigger from the last time she saw him. She lightly touched the roundest, fullest part of his body.

“My oldest baby's getting so big and round…” Angelica glanced up at him and brought a hand to the side of his face. “…and so handsome.” She raised herself up on her toes and gave him a light pat on the cheek. Siegfried's milky skin flushed a bright red. She gestured to Hamilton and Pluto to come closer. The four of them huddled next to each other in front of the teleporter.

“Let's go back to the house. Are you three hungry? I'll get you three something to eat.”

“We didn't have breakfast before we left,” Pluto declared, “so, yes please.”

They trekked across the pivoted lumpy frozen nitrogen back towards the iron-rich soil and Angelica's partially subterranean home. Careful so as not to slip and fall, Angelica descended the carved out stairs in the permafrost. She relaxed once her stilettos hit the soil. She wheeled around with an outstretched hand for Pluto, who had two inch heels, to help onto the plain ground. They waited for Hamilton and Siegfried respectively before continuing onto the front door of the house.

The front door consisted of a right triangular wooden shack angling down into the soil. A violet rosebush with velvety green leaves and a tall red leaved blue apple tree stood on either side of the shack. Pluto noticed the apples on the trees.

“The apples look gorgeous, Mom,” she pointed out as she eyed two large, plump royal blue apples bigger than both of her hands put together hanging from the closest tree branch. Angelica smiled as she reached for her house key.

“Don't thank me. Thank the neons you brought home, honey.”

Pluto glanced past the apples to see four neon blue and green honey bees buzzing about in the smaller branches. She smiled at their bright, phosphorescent coats and wings as they wove in and out of the red leaves.

“I might remind you three that there's a gentleman downstairs who's recoiling from something he calls 'Fall of Saturn',” Angelica pointed out as they entered the dark wooden shack. In the dim light, Siegfried and Hamilton flashed a nervous glance at each other. The former swallowed down his apprehension. The latter sighed heavily through his nose. The door closed behind Siegfried which engulfed the shack in pitch black darkness.

Angelica clapped her hands together. A single line of miniature ball lightning flared up on the wall to her left. The lightning spiraled down into the darkness three levels and reflected off of the smooth black stone steps in pale lavender light. Gripping onto the frozen nitrogen banister, the foursome cautiously descended the stairs so as not to slip. They followed the stairs three turns down towards the slab of stone, the heavy wooden door, and the block of darkness prior to opening the door. The light was so dim, Angelica groped around for the doorknob.

She found the cold stone knob and turned to the right. She opened the door to reveal a vast warmly lit living room with light blue silk tapestry hanging down from the ceiling, dark blue soft carpet, and a rich dark red recliner tucked in the furthest corner across from a matching couch and loveseat, both of which formed a right angle pointing at the front door. Siegfried and Hamilton missed their mother's living room, the cozy warm haven once home to memories they'd rather forget and a dewdropper's quilt, now opened up, aired out, and made lovely for their single mother.

“I will never understand how and why we have such good décor underneath Pluto-Charon's surface,” Hamilton confessed.

“So where's that man you were talking about?” Pluto asked Angelica as soon as the door closed behind Siegfried. Angelica hesitated. Then she remembered.

“Oh! He's resting in the back room. You know, next door to the kitchen. I had to look up the 'Fall of Saturn' in an old alchemical book because I had never heard of it. It's lead and iron mixed in with some poison herbs.”

Hamilton's heart sank. Lead and iron mixed with poison herbs. How and why would Belinda get her hands on such a concoction? What could he have done to have prevented this?

More questions returned to him as he and his siblings made their way to the cozy alcove in the far corner. Pluto sank down in the recliner. Siegfried crashed on the close side of the loveseat and rested his left leg on the cushions. Hamilton sank down on the couch, his back pressed against the cushion and his knees nearly level with the armrest.

“Make yourselves comfortable, I have some gifts for the each of you,” Angelica announced.

“And something to eat, too?” Siegfried called out.

“And something to eat, too!” she added with a slight chuckle. She exited the room down the hallway to her bedroom. Hamilton glanced around the room and the blue tapestry on the ceiling. He thought about Vincent, if he truly was recovering and not clinging to life by his fingernails. A wave of uneasiness swept over him as the worst case scenario came to mind. If Vincent died from this, he wondered about the future of the Hotel, and his and Siegfried's future. He redirected his gaze to his brother, who lounged on the loveseat with his hands folded on top of his stomach. Siegfried continued to remember what he said even though it lost all meaning at this point.

Angelica's footsteps down the hall caught their attention.

Pluto removed her top hat and set it on the square coffee table in front of her. She could only wonder what their mother had store for them should she ever ask them what happened. Angelica returned with a paper bag in her right hand.

“I put some tea on, and before you three came, I put some scones in the oven, so those are coming. But meanwhile—”

She reached into the bag and took out three rings. She turned to Pluto and handed her a silver ring upholding an oval milky white bead, a thick white ring with a horizontal black stripe running in the middle, and a slender peacock blue ring. She wheeled around to face Hamilton and handed him the same black and white striped ring and the same peacock blue ring, but included a heavy black and white spiral ring. The spiral was about half the size of the pit of a pomegranate. Last but not least, she turned to Siegfried and gave him a black ring with a white stripe and the same peacock blue ring as his siblings, but a bright white ring with a large black circular bead.

“The blue ones go on your pinkies,” Angelica explained. “Those are our familial rings. I got one, too!” She held up her left hand to show her own peacock blue ring. Siegfried examined the flat narrow blue ring prior to putting it on. He noticed a faint swirling lighter blue ribbon on the interior of the ring. Within that ribbon, a small cursive script bore his name, then Hamilton, then Pluto's real name, then Angelica, and finally Desdemona.

“What about these other two?” Hamilton asked. The spiral ring felt a touch too heavy to put on his ring finger.

“I would put that on your index because it's pretty heavy and I'm not sure if it'll fit your middle finger,” Angelica replied promptly. “Pluto has a white moonstone ring, Siegfried has a black onyx ring. The black and white duality of the spiral symbolizes your being in the middle.”

Pluto easily slid the moonstone ring on her left middle finger. After the onyx ring refused to fit each of his fingers, Siegfried resorted to his left thumb. Hamilton took his mother's word for it and put the spiral ring on his left index finger.

“And then the black and white striped ones, you can put wherever. Just don't put them on your left ring fingers because that's reserved for your wedding bands for when you three get married some day.”

Siegfried frowned as he slid the black and white striped ring on his left middle finger. After Persephone abandoned him, he was unsure if the possibility of marriage was there for him. Hamilton fetched up a sigh as he slid his ring onto his left thumb. Belinda left him exhausted. Pluto bit her lower lip as she slid her ring onto her left middle finger. She had no idea if she would even see Neptune ever again.

“Thank you, Mama,” Pluto said to her mother.

“Yeah, thank you for these, Mom,” Siegfried chimed in.

“Yeah, thank you, Mom,” Hamilton echoed.

“For my babies, anything,” Angelica replied with a smile. She planted herself on the loveseat to the right of Siegfried and gently patted his thigh. She sighed through her nose.

“So what's been going on here while I was away, Mom?” Pluto inquired.

“Oh, been doing housework and studying the chemical properties of our surroundings. You know, usual business. Oh! I did attend a date with Cressida to the Tourmaline Ball the other night after you and Hamilton freed those prisoners.”

Pluto blinked in surprise.

“Cressida? Next door, Cressida?”

“Oh, yes! She and I both loved it. We both wore matching beautiful indigo dresses with little garnets along the waistlines. We entered a contest to see who was bestly dressed. We got second place, but we both came to a consensus that we should've taken first.”

“Oh, how lovely!”

“And then tomorrow night, I have a date with a gentleman named Prometheus. Not sure what we're going to do, though.”

A low whistle emerged from the kitchen. Angelica hurried into the other room. Within the seconds, the whistling subsided. Pluto, Hamilton, and Siegfried heard her open and close a cupboard door and four mugs clink onto the counter.

“Oh, dear,” she said aloud. She stood in the doorway of the kitchen. “Could one of you do me a favor and go next door to ask Cressida for some neon honey? I used what was left in the kitchen to treat the man in the other room.”

“I'll do it!” Hamilton offered. He shot up to his feet and strode briskly towards the front door.

“Thank you, baby,” Angelica replied sweetly and Hamilton's face turned pink once again. Before he stepped out into the dimly lit stairwell, he blew his mother a kiss, of which she caught in her hand.

He ascended the spiral staircase to the front door. He stepped outside into the chilled mid morning on Pluto-Charon. The inky black sky underlined by a glittery, will o' the wisp glow from the distant sun and moons Charon and Kerberos setting behind the mountains to the north of Angelica's neighborhood. For a brief moment, Hamilton forgot which way to turn to go to Cressida's house. He then remembered and trekked towards the low roofed subterranean dome to the right of Angelica's house. His boots crunched over the crystalline permafrost on the ground. A slight chill pulsed up his spine.

He had forgotten Pluto-Charon's subzero environment. Titania was primarily cold from the winds billowing off Uranus. Pluto-Charon loomed so far away from the sun that nitrogen froze solid which formed the vast sheet of ice christened Heart Flat. A narrow ground window came into view as he approached the dome house.

Hamilton dropped to one knee in front of the window. He reached out with his left; the massive spiral ring on his index finger tapped on the frozen nitrogen pane of glass.

“Cressida, it's Hamilton,” he called out. No response.

“Cressida? Are you home?”

“Hello, Hamilton,” a high pitched squeaky voice in front of him greeted with an air of disdain.

He glanced up to see a short sturdy man standing in front of him. He had thin orange-yellow hair sitting flat atop his square head and the skin of an orange flavored popsicle. The man had piercing, bilious blue eyes which he partially squinted despite the wispy powder blue radiance surrounding them.

“Oh. Hello, McDonald,” Hamilton grumbled. He towered over McDonald's block shaped head. This man was one of the many people who criticized Pluto for supposedly bringing the imperialists to Pluto-Charon. Hamilton and Siegfried both grew a deep dislike for McDonald. He, like Sullivan and Victor, had a paradoxical relationship women and made no secret about it, especially Pluto and their mother.

“What are you doing here on Pluto-Charon?” he sneered. “Titania didn't work out for you?”

“Who wants to know?” Hamilton retorted as he placed his hands to his hips, which in turn jutted out his slender chest. He knew the annoyance was coming. McDonald noticed the rings on Hamilton's fingers.

“I wonder if those rings you have are worth anything, like your career as a hotelier,” he sneered.

“They're worth more than you as a whole,” Hamilton scoffed bitterly, “what'd you do with Cressida?”

“She's out, like your brother and his tacky fashion sense. Taking a page out of your book, who wants to know?”

“Because my mother is out of neon honey,” he replied darkly.

“That's not what your father said,” McDonald taunted. Hamilton bit his lower lip. A spark of anger glimmered in the back of his mind. He sensed a wave of regret in speaking out against this old bully, but simultaneously, a regret in not speaking out. McDonald picked up on Hamilton's dark mood but proceeded anyways.

“Apparently that's not what your sister said, either.”

Hamilton, who, despite his volatile temperament, was a nonviolent person, felt something inside of him snap. He reached for McDonald's throat and body slammed him to the frozen ground. Using his left but nondominant hand, he punched McDonald across the face with the big heavy spiral ring. Hamilton kept his body pinned to the permafrost with his right knee as he began to shove the side of McDonald's head into the ground. He saw so much red in front of him, he never noticed Angelica stepping outside to see what took him so long.

“Hamilton? Hamilton! What are you doing!”

Angelica sprinted towards her son pummeling the man on the ground. She gripped onto his shoulders and yanked him off of McDonald, who laid on the ground on his back. A large dark spot formed around his left eye and a line of blood trickling from his nose.

“DON'T YOU EVER INSULT MY KID SISTER EVER AGAIN! YOU HEAR ME? I WILL PERSONALLY END YOU!” Hamilton shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Alright, that's enough!” Angelica cried as she tugged her seething son away from the man on the ground, who sat upright and rubbed his eyes. She pulled Hamilton towards the front door. She tore open the door and escorted him inside.

“Stay in here and calm down,” she commanded. “I'm going to go check on him.”

She shut the door behind her, which in turn engulfed Hamilton in a box of darkness. Fuming, his heart hammered inside of his chest. His body quivered as a result. He had never been so enraged in his life.

On one hand, he felt justified, in that McDonald had what was coming to him for treating Pluto like nothing more than a pariah. He never liked Hamilton or Siegfried either, the latter of which he seemed to dislike for no reason in particular. He threw himself against the wooden wall to ease his heart rate. As the adrenaline faded from view, a thin thread of regret wove its way into Hamilton's mind. He wondered if punching McDonald in the face was too much and if it was worth sinking to his cowardice. He massaged his temples as he heard Angelica speaking to the man down outside. His heart continued to flutter and pulsate like a moonquake.

It was as if his lungs could not maintain the demands of his throbbing heart. Belinda returned to him, so did the disbelief. He knew Vincent was healing but Angelica spoke of now word as to whether or not he would reach full recovery. He found it bizarre that she never questioned them once about it. Hamilton shook his head. He refused to believe that nothing was his fault. Everything was his fault. Every last little thing that happened as of late was his fault.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness of the stairwell. Gingerly, he took two steps towards the top stair. He stuck out his quaking right hand and slowly planted himself onto the top step, careful not to slip and tumble down the stairs. He folded his arms on top of his narrow knees. He tried to manually calm down his heart but it was futile. He knew he would have to face the music of telling his mother why he flew into a rage back there. The dread combined with his anger, his worry, and his regret, and all reached a point to which it was nearly too much to bear for his slim body.

The front door opened and the pale blue light flooded into the shack and the top of the dark spiral staircase. He never turned around but he knew Angelica returned for an explanation. He closed his eyes as the door shut and sealed the darkness within.

Angelica clapped her hands and the staircase once again flooded with pale purple light. She hung over her youngest son.

“Hamilton,” she began. He closed his eyes. Angelica squat down next to him. She set a hand on his left shoulder.

“Hamilton, look at me.”

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes but he never turned his head to face her.

“Hamilton, listen. McDonald is okay, he went home to lick his wounds. But walking back here, I did a little thinking. I always knew you had a temper, especially after what happened before Pluto was humiliated. But—listen to me, baby—”

Hamilton flashed a dark glare at his mother. She had a grave expression plastered on her face. Her very presence alone calmed down his heart. She gestured for him to turn towards her. He set his hands down and shifted his body in her direction. Angelica pressed her hands on his narrow cheeks. His skin felt so soft but so undernourished and tired. His violent pulse penetrated his skin. A film of glass coated over his bright blue eyes: the irises began to wane in their vitality.

“—you need to take control of it. I can tell you right now, it's beginning to take its toll on you, honey. I can feel it in your skin. I can see it in your eyes. Stand up—” Biting his lip, Hamilton reluctantly climbed to his feet and loomed over his mother. She followed him: the top of her head reached his collar bone. She slithered her fingers underneath the collar of his shirt. She gently rubbed the muscles at the base of his neck, and then moved onto his shoulder blades.

“My goodness,” she declared, “you're so tense!”

She glanced down at his willowy body.

“I vowed to myself that all three of my children would be happy and healthy, even if it means that they need a little extra on their bodies. Pluto is curvaceous, Siegfried has gotten so big and so beautiful… but why is my little boy, my darling, so unhealthy and so skin and bones? Why is he so angry? When did the single flame in his belly explode into a firestorm?”

She brought her hands to his narrow chest to feel his decelerating heart beat.

“I have to be honest with you, Hamilton. I worry about you sometimes. I worry about your temper spiralling so out of control that you can't contain it, much less control it. And that's what happened back there: your temper got the best of you. It doesn't matter if he insulted you and made you feel less than or not. Your anger got the best of you. And I worry it will progress to the point in which it will overwhelm your beautiful body, or until something horrid happens to you. And I don't want either of those things to happen to you.”

Hamilton's face fell. Angelica was absolutely right. He had to roll his temper back otherwise his fate was sealed. He never liked admitting to a mistake, and he especially never liked stating a reason for his temperament. If one felt a certain way, that was the sacred truth, never to be questioned or struck down. But he dealt with too much temperament, too much fire power, too much anger roiling inside of him only to have it roar out in a flood of inflammatory comments and thrown punches. What would Pluto think of this, too? He needed to rectify this and soon. He let out a brave sigh.

“I don't want that to happen, either,” he said finally. Angelica reached up and caressed the right side of his face. She glanced off to the right. She searched her memory for any tips to help him.

“There is a place that can help you with that,” she explained. “It's on Titan, Saturn's biggest moon. They can walk you through it, help calm you down, and they can also help you keep your head in check, and—” She swallowed nervously. “—they can also help you alleviate your temper to where it will not be as destructive.”

She stood on her tiptoes and ever so lightly pressed her lips to his left cheek.

“I love you, darling,” she whispered in his ear. “You are the love of my life.”

“How am I supposed to get there, though?” he asked softly. Angelica lovingly gazed into his eyes as she pressed her hands to the sides of his face.

“Well…” she began. “…remember I have a rocket myself.” She dropped her hands to his narrow shoulders.

“What? No, Mom, I don't want to take your rocket!”

“Now, honey, it's for your own good. I barely use it, so I'm imploring you to take it from me. Take it for a fortnight and go to Titan. Please, Hamilton. Take the rocket. I'll go and fetch the key and while I do that, you tell your brother and sister that you're doing this.”

Hamilton frowned. He had to do what he had to do, and if that meant taking his mother's rocket to Titan, then so be it the case with him. He sighed again and nodded his head.

“Okay,” he replied softly. “I'll do it.”

Angelica lovingly patted his slender chest. She let him go which allowed him to descend the smooth stone stairs to the door at the landing. He pushed open the door to see his brother and sister lounging on the loveseat and the recliner in the cozy alcove. Hamilton ambled across the floor and halted between the couch and the loveseat. He noticed three little black plates on the coffee table in front of them. Each plate held a large triangular scone adorned with little near black splotches.

“There you are! I was wondering what was taking you,” Siegfried confessed, his mouth full of scone.

“Pluto, Siegfried, I have to go to Titan.”

“What for?” Pluto asked quizzically.

“I have an emotional problem.”

Siegfried blinked as he tilted his head to the side.

“I knew that forever, little brother,” he confessed softly.

“I did, too,” Pluto added. She took notice of his eyes, big and round as if he had just seen a ghost or another scorpion.

“Did something happen?” she questioned, lowering her voice.

“I did a number on old man McDonald outside.”

Siegfried's mouth dropped open. “He's still alive?”

“Yeah. To be fair, though, he was getting on my nerves. But I went pretty overboard and I shouldn't've done that. But then again I wouldn't've decided on making things right on my behalf. Anyways—Mom's getting the key to her rocket so I can fly to Titan.”

Pluto scrambled to her feet. She stood in front of her brother.

“How long's it going to be?”

“Mom said it's going to be about a fortnight,” Hamilton explained. He gazed into her eyes to watch tears brim on her eyelids.

“It's okay, Pluto. It's not like I'm dying,” he opened his arms and she lunged for his slender body. She buried her face in his chest. The soft, clean aroma of her hair further put him at ease. She clung to him as if she was about to lose him. His heartbeat never sounded so soothing to her. Pluto gazed up at him. She craned her neck to plant a little kiss on his jawline. His eyes widened even more. She never kisses him!

Pluto stepped back to show a bewildered Siegfried standing front of the couch with Hamilton's plate in hand.

“I sincerely hope you're taking this with you,” he said glumly.

“Well, of course!” Hamilton proclaimed. Siegfried examined the doughy triangle on the matte black plate.

“It's tasty, all warm in my stomach, it's got chocolate in it, and it's nice and warm—” He brought his gaze to Hamilton. “—like how you are. Hang onto this for a second, please, Pluto—” He handed the plate to Pluto, who gladly took it as she brushed a tear away from her left eye. Siegfried tugged Hamilton close to his body, and embraced him to where Hamilton's spine cracked in three places.

“Oh, that felt good,” he blurted out.

“I felt that,” Siegfried admitted. He kept his hands on Hamilton's upper back as he pressed the left side of his face against the side of his brother's neck. Hamilton closed his eyes and pulled Siegfried in as close as he could bring him: Siegfried's plump belly kept him from pulling him in closer. The extra emphasis somewhat stifled Hamilton's breathing.

“Okay, Siegfried. I—I need to breathe now,” he stammered. Siegfried stepped back to let him properly inhale. He kept his hands on Hamilton's shoulders. He noticed Siegfried, too, had tears in his eyes.

The front door opened. Angelica poked her head into the room.

“Hamilton?” she called. Hamilton sighed once again.

“Okay,” he concluded. Pluto presented him the plate of scone. Hamilton gently took the plate with a dimpled smile and then turned to amble towards his mother. She held a black iron key shaped like the skeleton keys Hamilton and Siegfried have to their Hotel. Angelica smiled warmly. She set a hand on his shoulder as he approached her.

“Come with me, sweetheart,” she coaxed him in a soft voice.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Pluto flung herself into Siegfried's torso, bawling. Siegfried, taken aback, slowly embraced her and began to weep himself.

Not much exciting happened in the near two Uranian weeks spanning Hamilton's absence. Pluto stayed with Angelica for a few days to oversee Vincent's recovery. Surprisingly, Angelica never asked her or Siegfried about him. He finally regained his strength with the help of the thawing of frozen nitrogen and oxygen, and the bright pink honey from the relocated neon bees from Mimas. The stinging pain in his belly subsided with each dose of nitrogen and oxygen, and his strength reacquired with each helping of neon honey. Pluto finally entered his room when he laid on his side with his stomach full of food. He had been deathly pale before: now a light rose brushed up his face and his eyes significantly cleared up. The foot of his bed was pointed towards the door so Pluto could see his face, his black hair an intangible mess: before he had a raging fever which matted his hair to his forehead.

“Vincent, hi,” she greeted him gently from the door. Aside from the cold temperature inside the room, Angelica advised her to not enter the room in order to keep the stream of oxygen and nitrogen filtering off the clumps of ice taken from outside. “It's Pluto. How are you feeling?”

Vincent opened his eyes. He glanced down at her and smiled.

“Hey, Pluto,” he sputtered. His speech significantly cleared up: before his progression, his speech slurred into an incomprehensible slush. With every breath of air, he hesitated, relishing every molecule of oxygen and nitrogen feeding into the interior of his lungs.

“I'm… feeling better. My stomach doesn't hurt nearly as much. I can…” he deeply inhaled “…breathe again. I can think… again. And I can… eat again. Your mother… gave me so much food… I'm so full right now, and I'm just going to… keep laying here and… resting. It's all I can… do.”

Pluto smiled, relieved that Vincent survived the Fall of Saturn with the help of nothing more than thawed out elements and hot pink honey.

Siegfried promoted Ione to general manager of the Hotel. Despite Hamilton's absence, he figured she had come a long enough way to receive a promotion. The poisoned utensils had been thrown out and replaced with brand new utensils crafted from crashed out meteorites. Gwendolyn, Deidre, and the two guests had a proper burial within the few days of Siegfried and Pluto's return to Titania. The morticians on Titan wrapped their bodies in sheets and then helped bury them at the base of Shadow Ravine.

Pluto continued to wear the silvery moonstone ring on her left middle finger, the black and white ring on her left index finger, and the bright blue familial ring on her left pinky. Siegfried kept his rings on his hand. Neither sibling picked up a trace of psychocommunication from their brother. Angelica assured them that was part of the deal: one goes to Titan for a recovery of anything, and they're in communication blackout in every way, shape, or form.

At one point, Pluto psychocommunicated with Neptune. He told her about the unexplained disappearance of the colony of merpeople down on Bikini Atoll and he had to climb up onto the sandbars to be around the company of the fairies otherwise he would be all alone at the bottom of the lagoon. She relayed it to Siegfried, who was in shock of the news.

“How does a whole colony of people fall off the face of the Earth?” he demanded. Pluto shrugged.

“Oh, and you're not going to believe this,” Siegfried informed her. “Remember Lewis? The Pennsylvania kid who helped us find you? He and his parents were in a bad car accident right after the time we came back here after Victor's defeat. His mom was driving, his dad was right next to her, and Lewis himself was in the back seat. His dad was killed. I guess he hit his head on the pavement and—” Siegfried winced. Pluto brought her hands to her mouth to keep her from yelling out.

“How'd you find that out?” she asked him.

“He communicated with me, too. I guess he tried to get in touch with Hamilton but because he's absent, Lewis bypassed him and went straight to me. And Wilson and Desi left Carson City to join in attendance of the funeral.”

Pluto rubbed her eyes in disbelief. She wanted to comfort Lewis right then and there. She only knew of him and never truly got to know him as a person, but she wanted to show him some condolences. Pluto only hoped Lewis would be on the path to a full recovery himself, which in turn lead her to thinking about Hamilton.

“It's been a fortnight, hasn't it?” Siegfried hesitated. He counted on his fingers the days since Hamilton rocketed off to Titan.

“I think it has,” he remarked, “if so, then Hamilton's supposed to return home—” He glanced out the door and blinked, his brown eyes wide with excitement. “—any time now!”

Pluto shut her mouth. Siegfried was about to say something, but she stopped him in his place. An ultralow rumbling noise emerged from outside. She held perfectly still to where she could only hear her own pulse and this rumble, which hung below the threshold of hearing.

“Do you hear that?” her voice cut through the silence like a knife. Siegfried nodded his nappy head. They hurried out of his room and into the hallway. The rumbling grew slightly louder. Pluto's heart skipped a beat as she knew Hamilton was making his return home. Siegfried could not stop the smile from spreading across his face.

He pushed open the glass door and they hurried down the Sunset hallway. Their boots padded against the floor tiles. They darted past a dumbfounded Artemia who was in the midst of guiding a new staff member named Rosalind. Pluto reached the front door first. She pushed open the door. Siegfried followed her out onto the porch. The sun hung over the horizon in a bright yellow-orange sphere reflecting off the inexplicably colored Cerulean Cliffs and the iron-rich soil on Titania. A small dark spot appeared against the sun. With every second, the spot increased in size.

Pluto and Siegfried sprinted down the steps onto the soil and across the Hydra grass. Pluto hung behind the trunk of the apple tree where she and Neptune spent the night. Siegfried cautiously loomed behind her. They peeked out from behind the tree.

Angelica's short plum colored lemon shaped rocket with three bright lights lined up on one side entered view. The bright purple wings and rudder fins took better shape. Siegfried recognized the bright lights as the ball lightning. The rocket sank level to the surface of Titania.

Pluto's heart pounded as she watched the rocket slow down and dive towards the runway. She glanced across the runway to the Apartments. Three people peered out their windows to see what was coming. The plum colored rocket decelerated as soon as the front wheel touched down on the rock hard runway and squeaked to a stop prior to reaching the black barn.

Pluto and Siegfried lunged out from behind the trunk of the tree towards the far edge of the Hotel. She halted next to the rosebushes just as the door of the rocket opened. Siegfried pressed his hand on her shoulder. The butterflies whirred around in the pit of her stomach. A chilled breeze from Uranus flooded over the runway. Normally the Uranian winds sent shivers up Pluto's spine, but she seemed immune to the cold because her brother had returned home.

Hamilton descended the steps. His knee high boots thudded onto the ground. He recognized his siblings and strode towards them with his hands in his pockets.

Siegfried smiled from ear to ear. Pluto brought her hands to her mouth as he approached them.

His slender face had filled out to as full as one of the moons overhead. The blood of life plumped up cheeks and granted him a warm rosy glow. His narrow chin rounded out and coupled with a slight double underneath, and his neck filled out. His slender, svelte body had succumbed to broad, thick shoulders, a deep chest, a slight belly, full hips, and thick, stalwart thighs. He had on his old black trousers which were once too large for him now perfectly fit his hips, and a black V-neck underneath a fitted olive green button down shirt with Jupiter's lightning bolt and Mercury's caduceus embroidered over his heart and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Pluto rushed towards her brother and wrapped her arms around his new body. She placed her hands on his upper back out of habit, but his long time slender body had checked out to a much more comforting disposition. He radiated more warmth than ever. She gazed into his blue eyes, so bright and clear. She failed to recall the last time his eyes were that clear.

“Are you happy now?” Hamilton asked her playfully. “Are you happy now that I'm a true teddy bear?”

“Very much so,” Pluto replied sweetly. She tucked her head back into his chest.

Siegfried hung behind Pluto as she planted a sweet little kiss on the bottom of Hamilton's right cheek. She took a step back to allow her other brother embrace him.

“See? You look great with some extra!” Siegfried proclaimed as he wrapped his arms around Hamilton's upper body. Pluto noticed the rings still on Hamilton's left hand and smiled with tears of joy in her eye.

“Come on in! I'm sure the girls are going to want to see you again,” Siegfried invited as he pulled back to gaze at Hamilton in the eye.

“I'd love to! But I have to take this thing back to Mom.”

“Well, let's come with,” Pluto suggested, “I want to hear what happened to you.”

“Well, I can't give away much because we have to maintain anonymity,” Hamilton pointed out, “but I can tell you how it went, though. So come on, let's get moving.”

The three of them trekked towards the rocket and filed up the column of ten steps to the cockpit: a small slate gray cabin large enough for Hamilton to pilot. Behind the pilot's seat were four plush black theater seats. Hamilton sank down in the pilot's seat, Pluto and Siegfried seated themselves behind him. They fastened their single cross over seat belts as Hamilton reached up to press a small white button. The stairs pulled up and the door closed. He pressed another button. The rocket hummed back to life. Gently tugging back on the steering wheel in front of him, the rocket shifted and glided down the runway. The rocket lifted off and sailed towards the space past Uranus.

Hamilton spoke of the first day he was on Titan and the friendly golden haired people there who remembered him from their mission to Mimas to save the neons. He gave up the key to the rocket and lived in isolation for a fortnight. They told him that the best way to rid himself of his hidden emotions was to cry. He cried every night when the sun disappeared from view, just lay on his side on the bed he rented out and wept into his pillow. After each cry, he had a large dinner, and then go to bed. All the while, he noticed he was rather ravenous during the rest of the day. He ended up constantly eating: the last week there, he had something in his mouth every hour. As a result, he packed on twenty eight pounds and filled out all of his clothes.

During the day, he interchanged between helping out the colony on Titan by planting seeds and harvesting roses and apples from the bushes and the trees. Gardening prevented him from gaining too much weight to his middle. But one thing he kept his word on doing was jotting down his thoughts and feelings in a journal. A volunteer from Saturn's other moon Enceladus named Hera gave him a journal with a dark green cover. In the last week, he grew shockingly prolific: the first day, he could scarcely write out a paragraph. Just yesterday, he filled out six pages front and back. He took the journal with him and tucked it underneath his seat.

They arrived at Pluto-Charon just as Hamilton fell into silence. He dropped the rocket down to the runway and simultaneously hit the brakes. The gravitational forces gently pressed back on their bodies as he touched down, and eventually slowed to a complete stop. They unfastened their seatbelts and then ducked out of the cabin.

Hamilton led the way down the stairs onto the soil. He stood strong and tall with his hands pressed on his hips as Pluto and Siegfried joined him at the base of the stairs. Two passersby, a little girl and her mother dodged away from them: the mother glared at them before turning the girl away from their view.

Hamilton turned and pressed the small white button on the rail of the stairs. The column inserted back into the side of the rocket. He strode to the side of the rocket with the key in hand to lock the compartment door. Siegfried, who watched his younger brother and had his back turned, felt something hit him in the back of the head.

“Ow!” He whirled around to see the little girl had thrown a small rock at him.

“Wow, that was rude,” Pluto said loudly.

“Speak for yourself,” the mother retorted as she and the girl hurried away. Hamilton returned to them with one eyebrow raised.

“What was that all about?” he wondered aloud.

“Who knows,” Siegfried replied. Hamilton clenched the key in his hand as they strode across the soil towards the dirt road which snaked past Angelica's front door.

Something caught Pluto's eye. She turned her head to see a man sharpening the blade of a hatchet on a spinning rock wheel. He glanced at her with a malicious glare in his eye. The entire neighborhood fell silent as they trekked down the dirt road. The only sound came from the slight breeze whistling off of the north pole. A handful of people lined the side of the path and glared at the three siblings. Pluto sank back between Siegfried and Hamilton, but it proved useless because these people glared at her brothers, too, not just her.

Siegfried set his arm around her shoulders and held her close. Hamilton folded his hands over his little belly. Butterflies gnawed away at the pit of his stomach as they neared Angelica's front door. The people's eyes drilled into the backs of their heads as they strolled down the pathway. Hamilton lifted his left hand and knocked on the door with the heavy spiral ring on his index finger. Siegfried and Pluto huddled close behind him.

The heavy door opened. Angelica stepped out of a pitch black box. The warm welcoming expression on her face vanished. She now stared at them with empty hollow eyes. She never greeted them: just blankly stared at them. Hamilton tried to lighten the mood with his little dimpled chubby cheeked smile.

“Hi, Mom,” he greeted her sweetly. He held out the key for her to take. She continued the blank stare as she snatched the key from his open hand.

“Thank you, Hamilton.” Angelica stared at the three children with a cold expression in her eye. Hamilton's smile disappeared.

“Mom, I came back,” Hamilton insisted. He held out his arms. “I've healed. Look at me. Don't you want to hug me?”

Angelica blinked. Pluto examined her left hand: she had taken off her bright blue familial pinky ring.

“Are you okay?” Siegfried asked her nervously. Angelica blinked again. She never appeared like this before. The entire neighborhood remained disturbingly quiet. A feeling of uncertainty washed over Pluto. She knew something had gone terribly wrong here, and she was afraid to ask. Angelica stared long, hard, and deep into her daughter's eyes, as if grinding into the deepest recesses of her mind.

“Kids, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

Pluto's mouth dropped open. She never referred to them as “kids” before.

“What for?” Pluto demanded without thinking. Angelica, who seemed unphased by her daughter's feeling of dread, blinked at her.

“There's no explanation. The three of you need to leave.” Angelica reached into her pocket for something. She revealed a pomegranate seed and inserted it into her mouth. Siegfried's brown eyes widened. He set his hands on his siblings' shoulders and coaxed them away from the front door.

“Siegfried!” Pluto exclaimed. Siegfried dodged back across the dirt road. Confused, Pluto and Hamilton followed him. Three people congregated in front of the line of people on the side of the road. They all carried sticks and Pluto rocks: the man with the hatchet had stepped forward. One person had a sword. Another person had a hammer.

“There they are!” one woman in the middle of the road shouted.

“Let's turn them into meat pies!” the man with the sword followed.

The three siblings scrambled across the iron soil to the other side of the road, towards Heart Flat and the teleporter. Siegfried glanced behind him to see the small group of people attracted two more with sticks and rocks, then three more, then five more, then he lost count of how many followed them back towards the massive sheet of ice. He barreled up the carved out stairs and tumbled onto his knees as soon as he reached the top. Hamilton, whose center of gravity changed, slipped on the steps until Pluto picked him up and helped him up the stairs.

One person behind them groped for Pluto's messy bun and yanked on her hair. Her bun unraveled and her violet hair partially fell onto her shoulders but her meteorite bobby pins kept a lot of her hair held up. Her hair also meant nothing at this point.

Siegfried rolled onto his feet and decided it'd be best if he slid on the ice towards the teleporter. Running would only mean slipping.

Pluto and Hamilton scrambled up the stairs and skated across the ice with Siegfried. As the teleporter entered their view, Siegfried lost his balance a second time. Fell onto his back. Hamilton slipped again and collapsed next to his brother. They clung to each other as they slid along the ice towards the teleporter. Pluto held onto her top hat as she slipped and fell onto her knees. She slid on her hip towards the booth.

Hamilton gripped onto the edge of the teleporter. Siegfried set his feet on the far wall. Hamilton reached out for his sister and held onto her for dear life. She then reached up and slammed her hand onto the little red button on the edge of the booth. They closed their eyes as the ball lightning activated into overdrive. Cold air roared past their ears as they teleported back to Titania, and narrowly escaped an unexplained angry mob.

#uranus in capricorn #uranusincapricorn #my writing #writers on tumblr #text #nanowrimo

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josiebelladonna · 8 years ago

Text

Nothing As it Seems (Uranus in Capricorn - part 6 of 6)

As Desdemona put the skillet she used earlier for dinner in the drainer, Wilson volunteered to sleep on the couch a second night and let her sleep in the guest room. She suggested they sleep head to toe in the memory foam mattress, but he insisted he felt comfortable on the plush couch cushions. As she put the dried dishes away, she strode into the dining room and spotted a wine glass Ivan had left on the windowsill on the other side of the room. At that point, however, she decided to wash the glass in the morning and instead, called it a night.

Desdemona strode down the dimly lit hallway to the guest room just as Wilson wrapped himself up in the sheet and the soft blanket and closed his eyes. She switched off the hall light, and the room washed with darkness. He heard Pearl Jam softly playing on Zelda's little radio in the other room. Ivan cleared his throat, the sound of which carried down the hall.

Wilson sighed through his nose. Something leapt onto the couch at his feet. He shot open his eyes just in time to see a skulking dark figure down at his feet. The figure hesitated and then set its paws on his knee and then his thigh. A low purring emanated from the figure's throat. Two shiny blue eyes stared back at him through the darkness.

“Oh, hi, Diamond,” he greeted the cat. He slid his arm out from underneath the covers to pet her head. Diamond purred even louder as he massaged her behind her ears. She placed her paws on the blanket in front of him and pressed down, alternating between paws. Wilson watched her in the dim light as she eventually felt comfortable and sank down onto the blanket. She nestled down in front of his belly and his thighs. Her throat continued to rumble with the loudest, most comforted purr he had ever heard.

Her warmth relaxed him even more. He fell asleep in what felt like seconds. It would feel like he just fell asleep when Wilson emerged in twilight sleep to a low growl right next to him.

I can't be hungry now, was the first thought to cross his mind. I just fell asleep!

He took a moment to notice the growl was not coming from him. A low, raspy hiss verified his realization. He grew more alert, he heard the guttoral growl again.

“What's the matter, Diamond?” his voice cracked. Diamond hissed again.

Wilson opened his eyes to see what was the matter despite the lack of light. A single bright light hanging just above the coffee table caught his attention. In the dim light, he could see Diamond with her folded back ears and dilated pupils. She hissed a third time. Another light emerged from behind the coffee table. Followed by another, and another, and another, and another. Apparently Wilson wasn't the only one seeing these bright lights, either.

“Oh, my God!” Desdemona shouted from the guest room.

“Egad!” Ivan exclaimed. Zelda unleashed a blood curdling scream. Wilson froze in place as the hair on his arms stood on end.

“Okay, everybody tuck your pants into your socks,” Ivan advised. “These things want to slash us!” Wilson heard his father hurrying down the hallway. The hall light flooded the living room with blinding light. Wilson shielded his eyes. It took him a moment to realize the light flooded out from Ivan's hurricane lantern. He entered the room in a black pajama bottoms, no shirt, and messy hair.

“JESUS, PETER, PAUL, MARY, AND JOSEPH!” Ivan yelped, his voice breaking. Wilson uncovered his eyes to see about a dozen Nasties on the floor in front of him. Their tails raised high and illuminated with the bedazzling light emitting diodes atop their stingers. He shivered at their razor sharp scorpion claws pointed at him, prepared to tear into his soft flesh. Diamond sank back against his body before she decided to leap up onto the couch and scurry away to someplace higher up, like the high shelf.

“Daddy! They're all over my room!” Zelda cried.

“Run, Zelda!” Desdemona shouted as she barreled down the hall. Wilson shot upright just as a thirteenth Nastie entered the living room. He shoved the covers off of his body and swung his legs around. He leapt over the congregation of internal combustion powered scorpions. He lunged towards Ivan. Desdemona entered the room in her lilac satin pajamas, her blue green hair still neatly brushed, and a puzzled expression on her face.

“In here!” Ivan gestured. Desdemona and Wilson followed him into the dark dining room. Ivan slammed his hand onto the light switch. No light flickered on.

Wilson climbed up onto the table using the light from Ivan's lantern. Desdemona climbed onto a chair next to the window and stood on the seat. Ivan followed her suit on another chair. Zelda rushed into the room with Desdemona's flashlight in hand. She scrambled onto the table next to her brother. Wilson flung his arms around her and held her close.

Two Nasties entered the room, their tails pointed at Wilson and Zelda.

“Don't look into their lights!” Wilson exclaimed.

“That's right! They try to hypnotize with their lights!” Ivan remembered.

“What do we do, Ivan?” Desdemona demanded. Ivan lifted the lantern to see Wilson and Zelda both in their socks, and Desdemona barefoot. He glanced down at his own sock feet and frowned.

“Well, we can't step on them,” he began, “it's not a good idea to crush regular scorpions in unprotected feet anyways.”

“Siegfried did say they can be destroyed by crushing them, though,” Wilson recalled. Diamond squawked from the living room.

“Diamond's scared,” Ivan pointed out. He turned to the other three people. “All right, let's start using any object we can find to break these things apart. Don't flip out if something breaks. Always remember that things can be replaced. People and animals can't.”

“What if one of us gets cut?” Desdemona asked.

“Holler,” Ivan replied. With that, he exerted his weight on the back of the chair and pushed. The chair tipped over and landed on the incoming Nasties. The scorpions shattered into several pieces.

Zelda scrambled off the table. She gripped onto the first vacant chair. She tucked the flashlight under her armpit so she could pick up the chair. She followed her father back into the living room where the thirteen Nasties that woke up Archer Wilson scattered about the floor.

“Hold my flashlight, please, Dad,” she advised. Ivan slipped the flashlight out from under her arm as she lifted the chair over her head. She slammed the body of the chair down on the scorpions. All thirteen Nasties split apart, their bodies broke apart into pieces of miniature engines, their tails broke off into separate pieces, and the lights on their stingers fizzled out and went out.

Three more Nasties scurried towards them from the kitchen. Zelda swung the chair again which destroyed them as well.

Meanwhile, Wilson spotted a small horde of Nasties entering the dining room from what he thought was out of nowhere. Their stingers nearly blinded him. The claws raised up at him. Their eight legs pattered on the floor in a creeping monotone. In the dim light, he glanced at Desdemona, who remained up on the seat of the chair. He returned his glance back to the incoming scorpions.

Wilson slid off the table on the other side from the Nasties. He set his hands on the underside of the table and lifted the what he soon discovered to be heavy wooden table off the floor. He flipped the table over onto the wave of Nasties, which squashed them flat in a loud wood on metal crash on the floor.

Desdemona yelped. Wilson whirled around to see a scorpion crawling up her leg. He spotted the wine glass in the windowsill and lunged towards the glass. Careful so as not to hit her in the knee with the glass, he jerked his hand back and knocked the scorpion off of her with a backhand slap. The Nastie fell onto the floor onto its back.

Desdemona cautiously stepped off the chair. She then stooped over to lift it up and moved it over the Nastie's belly. She dropped the leg of the chair onto the scorpion. She lifted her leg and set her foot on the seat of the chair. She exerted her weight onto the scorpion. In the dim light, she watched its claws and eight legs jut out. The tail flailed about. Desdemona kept pressing down until the leg of the chair penetrated its metallic exoskeleton. The light at the tip of its stinger faded and extinguished.

Zelda swung the chair a third time and crushed five more Nasties which bustled out of her and Desdemona's rooms. Three more came from Ivan's room.

“Voy a llevarte a tus pequeños hijos de puta al infierno conmiga!” Zelda shouted as she picked up the chair and destroyed the Nasties with all her might. The chair splintered apart with the scorpions. Zelda held the broken legs of the chair and yelled a loud cry of relief.

“That's my girl!” Ivan cheered. He spotted one Nastie scurrying towards his daughter from behind. He reached down and smashed the scorpion with the head of the flashlight. The light flickered but never went out.

“I'm going to see if there's any more,” he suggested as he hurried into the kitchen. Using the two lights, he turned the corner just in time to find a larger scorpion, slightly larger than the others, on the floor next to the sink. Ivan chucked the flashlight at the Nastie's face. The light bounced off the scorpion, which leapt back towards the oven. The flashlight clanked onto the linoleum and flickered a second time. The light rolled towards Ivan's feet. He set the hurricane lantern on the floor next to him. He picked up the flashlight.

Ivan stepped towards the skillet in the drainer. The scorpion's claws pointed at his ankles just as he gripped onto the handle. He lifted the skillet up and slammed the base onto the scorpion's head. The Nastie shuddered with the impact. Its tail shook about but never went out. He swung his left arm around and hit the scorpion in the head again with the flashlight: this time the light extinguished.

The Nastie feebly lifted its claw to Ivan's bare belly. He pictured Victor and Sullivan and their malicious grins on the inside of the pinchers. He bit his lower lip. They bullied him, they harangued his wife and then killed her, they plotted to take over the world, and now they were infesting his house from beyond the grave all for the most petty reason imaginable.

“Get out of my house,” he snarled. He swung his right arm down and slammed the bottom of the pan onto the Nastie's head with all of his strength. The Nastie split apart into a slough of metallic splinters on the linoleum. The claws fell onto the floor, completely disabled. The tail fell onto the floor, fractured into several pieces. The light on the stinger darkened like the night outside.

Ivan let out a sigh of relief. His heart thundered inside of his chest as he climbed to his feet and returned to the living room. He noticed Zelda taking advantage of the distant angled light from the hurricane lantern on the floor to coax Diamond down from a high shelf on the wall.

“Dad!” Wilson hollered from across the room.

Ivan glanced down to see a Nastie scurrying towards his daughter's sock feet. He reached over for the big heavy lamp on the side table. He yanked the lamp out of its electrical socket and then lunged for the scorpion. Ivan came down with the side of the heavy lamp and the scorpion splintered into several pieces. The shade kinked on one side, the lightbulb shattered into a pile of little shards of glass, and the side of the lamp dented with the impact, but the last Nastie was dead.

Ivan breathed out another sigh of relief. He collapsed onto his knees and placed his hands in his lap.

“Should I get a broom?” Desdemona wondered aloud as she returned to the living room.

“Make that a couple of brooms,” Zelda corrected. Diamond had gingerly leapt down from the shelf into Zelda's arms. She held her close while she scratched the side of her cat's head. “I broke a chair in the hallway and Dad broke a lightbulb. The brooms are in the laundry room in the back, behind the dryer.”

Desdemona nodded and trekked down the dark hall to fetch the two brooms with accompanying dust pans. She groped around the dark room and remembered the second hurricane lantern on the shelf above the washing machine. She gripped onto the handle and picked the lantern off the shelf. Desdemona felt around for a button or a switch. A soft click emerged from one side of the lantern and the laundry room flooded with blue-white light. She glanced to her right at the dryer, and two black sticks right next to the dryer.

Ivan rubbed his eyes as the adrenaline wore off. He gingerly climbed to his feet with one hand on the base of the heavy lamp. The only part that could truly be replaced was the shade. Otherwise a large dent on the side of the lamp glared back at him and the lightbulb needed to be replaced.

Wilson agreed to help the two girls sweep up the metallic bits and pieces of the Nasties in the living room, the dining room, the hallway, and the big one in the kitchen. Desdemona set the hurricane lantern down on the floor so she and Wilson could see what they were doing and Zelda could have a clue herself. Wilson placed one dust pan on the carpet as Desdemona swept the pieces in the hall towards him.

Zelda tackled the dining room. She pushed the table off the shards of metal on the floor and swept up what she could in the dim light.

“Why is there no light?” she called out.

“Who knows,” Desdemona confessed as she swept the pieces of metal into a pile. “Earlier when the whole thing started, I went to switch on the little light in the bedroom and it wouldn't. It all happened so quickly—I couldn't even remember where I put the flashlight at.” She handed the broom to Wilson, who swept up the pile into the dust pan.

“I wonder why these things flooded the house the way they did—” he began. He headed into the kitchen to the trash bin.

Desdemona set her hands on her hips and her gaze followed Wilson into the kitchen until he disappeared behind the corner. She then directed her attention to Ivan, who stood in the middle of the room examining the lamp below his waist by the light of the his own hurricane lantern. The pale light softened his body even more: she examined his pajama bottoms, which hugged his hips and thighs and flared out from his knees. The elastic band sank below the soft round curve benneath his navel. Her eyes wandered over the full curvature of his middle and his back. His chest stood deep and broad like the thick, heavy trunk of an apple tree looming alone. His shoulders were sturdy but elegant. The light accentuated the full shape of his body.

She wanted to forget everything she knew from the man she knew before. She wanted to move away from the cold hard iciness that was Sully and the gentle softness that was Ivan.

Zelda entered the room with a dust pan full of metal shards.

“I suggest we take these out to the recycling bin outside, Arthur,” she called.

“Good idea,” Wilson replied, who swept up the pieces on the kitchen floor into a single pile. The second the words left his mouth, Ivan's spine perfectly aligned. His gray eyes shot open. The hair on the back of his neck rose upright. His gaze wandered about as if he had just been spinning around in circles for the last several minutes.

“What's wrong, Ivan?” Desdemona asked. He turned his head and gazed gravely into her eyes. In the less than perfect light, Wilson examined more closely to see the hair on Ivan's arms standing on end and goose pimples covering his bare belly.

“Something just walked over my grave,” he confessed.

“Something walked over your grave?” Desdemona echoed.

“Yeah.” Ivan paused. A dead weight attached itself to the pit of his stomach. His heart sank as he figured the worst.

“Something happened.”

Lewis climbed out of the back seat of Gayle's friend Eugene's big black sedan. The frigid gray sky loomed low and heavy, accompanied with a chilled breeze. The clouds darkened with the setting sun tucking behind the western side of Bethlehem. He closed his long black peacoat and fastened the large matted buttons. His right leg below the thigh began to ache from contact with the cold. He reached into the back seat for the long knobbly cane Yuri the doctor gave him on Wednesday. He walked on crutches for a week and a half, until Yuri gave him the green light to walk with a cane. He had two reconstructive surgeries on his knee to repair his knee cap, the top edges of his fibula and tibia, and the ligaments that held it all together.

Lewis set the smooth silver tip of the ebony cane on the frigid pavement. He gripped onto the looped silver handle with his left hand. Reaching out with his right hand, he helped Gayle slide out of the passenger front seat. She bore a cast on her right shoulder. A white sling held her arm in place to alleviate the pain. It would be a while before she could reattain full movement of her arm.

“You got it?” Eugene asked from behind her.

“Yeah,” she replied flatly as her black high heels clonked onto the pavement. “Thank you, Eugene.”

“Yeah, thank you!” Lewis echoed. Gayle closed the door behind her. They walked down the cement pathway to the low pyramid shaped beige roofed church ahead. Lewis gazed up at the high white Latin cross topping the roof. In the past couple of days, he began to ponder if it was all even worth it coming to this place of worship. Sure, he lost his father, and he needed a voice of guidance alongside him. But he wondered if keeping the faith would remain relevant after the concession. He just wanted himself and Gayle to let Taylor rest and be done with it. The memories and books Taylor left behind were all the only meaningful relics now.

A gentleman in a black suit opened one of the double glass front doors for them.

Gayle thanked him as they entered the front lobby of the church. Everyone awaited them in the rec room down the hall. He gestured for his mother to follow him down the hallway. The hall grew increasingly louder with funeral attendees chatting in the room about nothing in particular.

Lewis entered the doorway to see a large room with several round gray tables scattered about the green carpeted floor. Behind each of the tables were brick red plastic chairs upheld with narrow metallic legs. Next to the closest table, Archer Wilson leaned against the edge closest to the door with his hands tucked in his pockets. He had on a thin black sweatshirt which snugly fit to his full body, and black trousers with crimson red and black pinstriped suspenders. His blond hair had been neatly combed and pushed back out of his face: two cowlicks which resembled goat horns rested on either side of his head. Lewis noticed the thin black capital spiralled “S” on his right thumb. He flashed Lewis and Gayle a small but sad smile.

“Hey, Lewis,” Wilson greeted him solemnly.

“Hey, man,” Lewis returned the greeting with an awkward embrace around his upper body because of his cane. He rested his chin on Wilson's shoulder while keeping the weight off of his knee.

“Thank you for coming,” he whispered into his ear. He stepped back to examine the ring on his thumb.

“Where'd you get that?” he inquired.

“Zelda gave it to me before I left,” Wilson replied promptly. “She gave ones to Dad and Laurie, too. She called them 'familial rings' but they're sturdy enough that it can help protect my thumb when I'm firing off my arrows.”

Gayle strode up from behind her son. Her eyes lit up upon seeing him.

“Archer Wilson!” Gayle proclaimed.

“Hi, Mrs Allison,” he greeted her sweetly. He spotted the sling upholding her arm and frowned. “I'm so sorry.”

“Thank you for coming, dear,” she whispered. He wrapped his arms around her. She returned the favor with her free arm and held him close. Gayle stepped back with one hand pressed on his back. She examined the soft roll of fat around his waist and then glanced up at his full, handsome face. His soft gray eyes had grown even softer and clearer, like the misty daybreak after a rainstorm.

“My goodness, you look so healthy,” she commented warmly. Two splotches of pink radiated beneath his gray eyes.

“I do what I can,” he replied with a modest shrug. She glanced behind him.

“Are you here by yourself?” she asked, her voice lowered.

“Nah, Laurie's with me. She had to run off to the ladies' room.”

Gayle's mouth dropped open. Her heart raced as she jumped to the logical conclusion. “Who's Laurie?”

“Desdemona, I mean,” he clarified. “Ringmaster General. When she and I first met at the Circus when I was fourteen, she introduced herself as Laurie and I've just called her that since.”

“Oh, I see,” she corrected herself. She nodded in affirmation. “For a second, I thought you met a girl.”

He sighed through his nose. The image of a young woman loving him felt so out of reach. Everything inside of him felt too heavy and too much for another person to bear. He cringed at the thought of someone kissing the cracks on his heart. Ivan never asked him that dreaded question, and Wilson felt he had dodged a bullet there, but he knew not everyone would follow his father's suit. A small hidden part of him sensed disappointment on his ancestors' behalf.

“To be honest, I can't really picture myself with someone else.”

“Really? I can't picture you without someone else. I always wondered why you don't have girls hanging off of your arms!”

Wilson swallowed down his nervousness. The only other person he spoke about this to was Desdemona.

“I just can't see myself in that position,” he confessed. He glanced around to see if anyone else was eavesdropping. Lewis had ambled across the room towards Desdemona, who was dressed in a big black overcoat and a matching ankle length skirt, black high heeled boots, and a blood red frilled blouse, and her blue green hair neatly swept back from her face, to greet her. The rest of the concession remained concentrated upon itself.

“Truth be known,” he continued in a low voice, “I can't see myself with someone because—” He hesitated as he searched for the right words. “—I have yet to meet someone who wasn't into my diametric opposite. I have yet to come across a girl who truly wanted a decent man in her life. I just get the feeling that every girl and every woman I ever see refuses my company because I'm not good-looking enough and I'm not a dirty scoundrel.”

Gayle blinked. She glanced down to the chairs in front of them. She tugged out one chair and sank down into the brick red cushion. She motioned for him to sit down next to her. Wilson reluctantly planted himself in the chair next to her. He leaned against the back of the chair. Gayle smiled at his tall thickset sensual body.

“I can tell you this right now,” she began, “there is no girl on this Earth who wouldn't want you. And just because you're not some dirty rotten scoundrel doesn't mean there isn't a girl out there who would miss the opportunity to love you. In fact, truth be known, if I was your age, I would not even question it. I would so open my heart to you. You're sweet, you're headstrong, you're loyal to a fault… you're very masculine, very handsome… I don't see how having a few extra pounds makes you less of a man. Truth be known, I always tried to get Taylor heavier but he had too fast of a metabolism, though: it was impossible. But that just tells me you love to eat and you're more than willing to take care of yourself. And I felt you just now. You're very soft, and very warm. What girl wouldn't want a boy who's soft and warm? On top of everything else, you absolutely love your mother. To me, that's the big one. That is key. If a boy loves his mother, he's suddenly more handsome. I say this because Taylor loved his mother with every ounce of his being. He was the love of my life as a result. But the fact remains: there is no girl on this Earth who wouldn't want to relish the chance to get to know you on a lower level, get close to you, and love you with her whole heart for everything that you are.”

She glanced up to see Lewis standing at an angle next to Desdemona and talking to three members of the congregation.

“If you don't believe me,” she continued, “I thought the same thing, too, when I was younger.”

Wilson tilted his head to the side. “Really?”

“Oh, yes! Oh, yes. I thought for sure no one wanted me. I thought for sure no man alive would want to hold me and love me. But at the time, I was what I called a 'doubting atheist', or an atheist who wanted to believe but couldn't. And then, by some stroke of brilliance, by some blundering accident on my part, I stumbled upon a church group. My eyes were opened. One thing I learned that has stuck with me to this day is that God is always in control. He has a plan for me—He has a plan for all of us, really, even non believers—and slowly but surely I learned to trust him. I opened myself to love. As a result, God blessed me with that sweet intelligent blond headed boy from Canada. But that's just my story and my experience, though. Your story and your experience will be entirely different from mine.”

Lewis then keeled around and guided Desdemona to the table. She seated herself next to Wilson; Lewis eased down next to his mother. He leaned his cane against the edge of the table. He gently massaged the bandage above his right eyebrow. Gayle shook her head and mouthed “leave it alone”.

“So did the two of you have to boogie back from Nevada?” Lewis asked inquiringly.

“We've actually been home about a week and a half,” Desdemona explained. “We stayed with Ivan and Zelda for a couple more days and then we came home. We came home and he—” she pointed at Wilson “—pretty much pigged out.”

“Hey, I was hungry,” he replied defensively, “and we both know, most of the food on the airlines are absolutely terrible.”

“Well, I know that,” Desdemona taunted. “You don't think I was there with you? It's starting to show on you a little bit, Arthur. You're getting cute—” Wilson raised a playful eyebrow as she gently patted his lower belly with a smirk. Lewis smiled, fully smiled, for the first time since before the accident.

“There's food coming, by the way,” Gayle pointed out.

“And I hope soon, too,” Lewis chimed in, “I'm hungry.”

Two attendees strode past the table. Both men were dressed in all black. One asked the other about Taylor and what happened to him, to which the other person replied gravely, “It was God's will.”

Desdemona's mouth fell agape and Wilson's eyes shot open just as quickly as someone stoked the embers within Gayle's heart.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” she cried out. The two men halted in place. The entire concession fell silent. Wilson turned around in his seat and glared at the one man.

“Did you seriously just say it was God's will Taylor died or did I have a stroke?” he demanded as he scrunched his eyebrows together.

“It was God's will to take away a husband, a father, and an art teacher?!” Gayle screeched.

“If anything, it was God's will Mom and I survived!” Lewis declared. The wound beneath the bandage slightly pulsated. The two men frowned and briskly headed out of the concession into the hallway outside. Everyone stared at Gayle and Lewis, the latter of whom truly began to question the welcome nature of their church group.

“I think we should leave,” Lewis suggested in a loud voice. Even thought that was one person, what made him think that they rest of the congregation would think differently? Apparently his mother felt this way, too.

“Yeah, let's get something eat elsewhere,” Gayle agreed. She glanced at a baffled Wilson and a dumbfounded Desdemona. “You two can come with us if you'd like.”

“Sure, we can come with. We don't really know anyone here,” Desdemona said suddenly. Wilson nodded and the four of them climbed to their feet. They bustled out the door into the hallway. Lewis hobbled across the floor to the glass doors. Despite the ache pulsating from his knee, he continued into the frigid afternoon. He glanced up at the sky, blanketed by thick gray and white clouds heavy with snow.

Wilson followed him, Desdemona and Gayle brought up the rear. Lewis halted at the edge of the sidewalk to wait for his friends and his mother.

“I'm so sorry, Lewis,” Wilson repeated. He shivered at the cold wind—he knew he shouldn't have left his coat in the car. Lewis wheeled around to face him.

“Don't be,” he replied softly. “Really, it's not your fault. You called that guy's bluff, and that's all you did.”

“No,” Wilson persisted. “I mean—” He closed his eyes. He remembered the mother shaped hole inside of his heart.

“—I know you're hurting. I just know you are. But you can't keep it under wraps, though.”

Lewis opened his mouth to say something but Desdemona, who had her arm around Gayle's shoulders, finally caught up with the two boys. Something caught Desdemona's eye. She glanced to her right to see a royal blue, indigo, and violet bird with a shock of violet on top of its head, an elongated tail adorned with blue and violet chevrons, and small black eyes flashing a blank glance back at her. She dropped her arms to her sides as she stared back at the bird. Wilson followed her gaze towards the bird himself.

“What the hell even is that?” Wilson shouted; the word “hell” echoed rather loudly across the emptying parking lot. Two people flashed sidelong scornful glances at him. Lewis turned his head and spotted the bird in question perched on the branch. He frowned. Gayle followed Desdemona's gaze at the uncannily blue bird in the tree.

“What is that?” Lewis echoed the question. Desdemona swallowed. She knew she had to give a reply to those who asked at some point or another.

“It's a pheasant,” she answered. “Please don't call me crazy, Lewis, but—that thing's been following me relentlessly. I don't know what it wants from me.”

“Wait, it's a pheasant?” Gayle questioned. She chuckled for the first time in two weeks. “Last time I checked, pheasants, let alone pheasants of that shade of blue didn't exist in Pennsylvania.”

“It's a pheasant, though,” Desdemona insisted. “It landed on me when I initially joined the Circus and I became Ringmaster as a result. When I returned to the Circus, it landed on me again and I became Ringmaster General. The old psychic who's no longer with us called it the Pleasant Pheasant. It's been following me since Sullivan and I divorced, too. I keep thinking maybe it wants something from me, but I don't know, though. It's only been as of late that I feel as though the bird is surveilling me. It flutters its way into a nearby tree and then stares at me for almost no reason.”

“Strange,” Lewis muttered aloud.

“Let's talk more over dinner, shall we?” Gayle suggested. “I feel like poor Archer Wilson's going to get too cold for his own good if we stay out here!”

“Should we go to your house or out to eat?” Desdemona asked inquiringly.

“Well, we don't really have a lot of food in the house,” Gayle began. She let her go in order to nestle up next to Lewis.

“There is a place called the Hiemal Cafe about a couple of blocks from here,” Lewis pointed out. “Lots of warm food perfect for a blustery day like this. We don't have a car anymore so we can hitch a ride with you guys.”

“At this rate, I'll take a warm hug,” Wilson shivered. Desdemona opened her black overcoat to let him in towards her body. She held him all the way back to her big blue Ford. He flung open the door and darted onto the chilled seat. Closing the door behind him, the wind began to pick up. He rubbed his upper arms before grabbing his big black coat off the seat next to him. Since slipping on his coat in the car deemed impossible, he draped the coat over his shoulders and closed the edges of the coat around his upper body.

Gayle slipped into the seat behind the driver's seat. Lewis collapsed into the seat next to her. He rested his cane against the edge of the seat as he closed the door behind him. Desdemona slid into the driver's seat with the car keys in hand.

The engine roared to life and a blast of warm air bombarded them in the face. Just as Desdemona backed out of the parking space, heavy white snowflakes as big around as English cucumbers splattered against the windshield. She flipped on the windshield wipers which pushed the gathering snow out of her line of sight. Desdemona turned the steering wheel around and then reached down to shift the car into drive. The back wheels whirred around on the pavement before the car jolted forward.

Wilson's shivering subsided as they approached the pitch-black glossy driveway. Desdemona eased on the brakes and then halted at the dip in the pavement. She peered through the moistening windshield to see if other cars whirred past.

“Which way is it, Lewis?”

“You turn right and it'll be on the right side, I think? It's a little blue building about the size of our house.”

Desdemona flipped on the right turn signal. After no other cars appeared on the road, she cautiously rotated the wheel to the right while she eased on the accelerator. Wilson and Desdemona both sensed the slickness of the road. The tires felt as though they glided along the pavement on razor thin edges like that of bicycle wheels. Wilson nestled down in the seat, wary of the chilled surroundings. The Pennsylvania climate shocked his California coast acquainted body: driving upon frozen pavement felt so alien to him.

Desdemona peered out the windshield at any signs of an upcoming blue building while keeping the car steady on the increasing amount of black ice on the pavement.

“I have to ask, dear, have you driven in snow before?” Gayle inquired from the back seat.

“Yeah, several times,” Desdemona confessed. “The last winter when I first decided on living here plus once or twice when I lived in Grant's Pass. Oh, here we are—”

She eased on the brake pedal. She prepared to turn into the driveway of the low building. All friction fell away into oblivion. No matter how hard she stepped on the brakes, the car would not slow down. Wilson's heart began to race. The worst case scenario popped into his mind. Lewis already lost Taylor to black ice: the last thing he needed was another repetitive accident.

The car jerked to a stop. Desdemona glanced down at her booted feet to see she had lifted her foot halfway off the pedal as part of pulsing the brakes. But something had stopped them in their tracks.

“Lord have mercy!” Gayle exclaimed. Desdemona glanced up to see a pallid figure rising from in front of hood of the car. She saw a pair of arms and a narrow white head with shoulder length silvery flyaway hair, a white cloak covered in frost, and long bony fingers tipped with ice. She examined closer to see hoarfrost lined the figure's hair.

Despite the heat inside the car, a deep chill settled over the four of them. Lewis' skin grew cold as if a sheet of ice welled up from the inside of his shirt and coated his entire upper body. Wilson covered his face with his fingers which felt like icicles. Desdemona's face turned pale at the sight of the spirit rising in front of them. Gayle performed the sign of the cross.

The ghost lifted its head to reveal shallow white eyes with hollow pupils. It stared at Lewis in the eye, who felt a second chill wash over him. It then directed its icy gaze to Gayle, who clasped her hands to her mouth. The ghost hung in place for only a few seconds before it dipped back behind the front end of the car and slithered out across the road. Desdemona watched the spirit twist into a white spiralled singularity before it vanished into nothing.

Wilson peeked out from behind his hands. His heart hammered inside of his chest. He remembered they were stopped in place in front of the driveway to the cafe. Desdemona paid no attention to the road whatsoever.

“Laurie,” he spoke suddenly.

“Huh?” she broke out of her trance. He gestured to the driveway to give her a clue. Desdemona's train of thought returned and she continued into the parking lot of the cafe. She inserted the car into the closest parking space. She pulled the parking brake on and turned the ignition key. She rested her forehead on the steering wheel.

“What is happening,” she muttered aloud.

“The rising of spirits is a sign that a huge change is at hand,” Gayle explained. “The first sign of the end of the world is the dead will rise.”

It's a sign of something, Lewis said to himself. He loved his mother and knew she meant well, but he wondered if her faithful words meant anything to him. He found himself internally saying the words stop with that Revelations nonsense already, Mom more and more, especially after what happened earlier.

As the four of them bustled into the warm red and violet cafe, Lewis thought of all the times he and his parents attended church. He reflected on all the times he was reluctant upon going because he needed a change of pace. He started to ponder: if God really loved him, then why was God exposing him to such horrid events? He knew this was not God's will but even that began to feel questionable.

Lewis set his chin on his hand as he blankly stared at the menu in front of him. His stomach gently gnawed away at him from hunger, but also guilt. A part of him rejected his thoughts. He must not feel this way about his mother or his faith. But then again, Taylor would have wanted him to ask questions, to wonder about everything he already knew before him. That was one of the big lessons Taylor left behind. He encouraged his son to ask questions, but ask them in a way that does not spark a violent conflict within. But then again, he wondered if his father would accept Lewis' deep questions.

He tried that once already. When he was about eight years old, he asked why he should go to church because the day was cold and blustery much like today, and all Lewis wanted was to stay in bed with a bowl of hot soup and watch cartoons. Taylor and Gayle both promptly replied attending would bestow happiness upon himself as well as his parents and the man upstairs. As an eight year old child, Lewis swallowed the pill. He never questioned it again after that. He vowed to never bring it up again because his response was almost always met with surprise.

Lewis seemed as though he was on auto pilot the rest of the evening. Halfway through the meal, it dawned on him that there had to be a better explanation for these ghosts. There also had to be something beyond what he knew already, and there had to be more to the world than blindly accepting a faith that may not even be the truth in the first place. What his parents said before mattered then, back when he was eight years old, but now here he was a teenager. He wondered if what his parents wanted for him really were meant for him. When Desdemona took them home, he had to began the search for his own truth.

Gayle and Lewis need not throw away Taylor's textbooks as they were dripping with knowledge. Wilson applauded them for not doing such a painful, soul sucking behavior.

Lewis flipped on the light in his father's personal library. Pale yellow light washed over the desk and the bookshelves. He fetched up a sigh as he sat down in the office chair that Taylor used to sit in. Lewis sank back in the dense cushion behind him. He relaxed his arms, sore legs, and stiff back. Despite having a full belly in a warm house, he did not relax to his enjoyment. The heavy wet snow pummeled against the roof of the house in a low monotonous pounding. His knee continued to ache and throb from the cold air mass over Pennsylvania.

The image of the pheasant burst into his mind. Lewis lunged forward and shoved the mouse to the side, which brought the desktop computer out of its slumber. He opened the browser and selected “images”. He typed in “blue pheasants”.

Just your generic pheasants in matte blue. He typed in “Pleasant Pheasant”. Still just pheasants.

He scrolled down to the bottom of the results page to the article about Queen Mars he had visited before. The words “Pleasant Pheasant” were highlighted. Curious, Lewis clicked on the page to reread the article. He scrolled down to the last half of the page, the part he missed, which gave just a taste into the Pleasant Pheasant. He clicked on the highlighted link on the bird's name. The page loaded and he thus proceeded to read the article that delved into this strange bird.

At one point, he gasped.

“Jesus, Peter, Paul, Mary, and Joseph,” Lewis blurted out.

#uranus in capricorn #uranusincapricorn #my writing #writers on tumblr #text #nanowrimo

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josiebelladonna · 8 years ago

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The Day I Tried to Live (Uranus in Capricorn, part 5 - rough draft)

Okay, question time: which is worse, coming home to find everyone you know is gone, disappeared without a trace, or coming home to find everyone you know has turned against you for seemingly no reason (that is, until you’re given a clue and you start pondering about it)?

Neptune awoke to the late afternoon sun hanging over his head and shimmering through the palm fronds. His stomach still felt quite full from that late morning breakfast: he knew he overdid it some. He rolled onto his back. The old compression wound from three years before still ached him somewhat: he flinched at the tight, sore sensation at the base of his spine.

Two weeks had passed since he officially made his return to Bikini Atoll. The fairies maintained their company with him as the merpeople colony down below remained vacant. No one still had any idea where everyone swam off to.

He glanced down at his round belly, which had grown slightly larger in the last fortnight: he could just make out the very tips of his toes at this point. The fairies had been taking good care of him as his mother was no longer around.

Neptune gazed straight up into the darkest, bluest part of the sky and thought about Pluto. He wondered if she was in a good place, and also if she missed him. How he longed to feel her touch again, her arms around his full waist and her head against his chest. He imagined her laying next to him, wearing her black lace camisole and her hand on his chest. He closed his eyes: he wanted to feel her again and to be close to her again.

The two weeks before, Pluto awoke to the distant sun filtering through her hotel room window. She had a cup of tea the night before to keep her nightmares at bay: she just awoken from a dreamless slumber to the sound of Hamilton and Siegfried shouting outside. She decided it would be best if she got dressed and made her way out to see what her brothers were doing.

She slid out of bed and stripped off her black camisole, which exposed her bare breasts and belly to the slight chill of her room. She strode towards the bathroom to clean herself off and then onto the closet to fetch her white and gray striped sweatshirt and black trousers.

The ruckus outside continued as she put on her clothes. She laced up her boots when she heard Siegfried shout, “Hamilton! Shut up!”

That's out of the ordinary. Siegfried never yells at Hamilton like that.

Pluto climbed to her feet and reached for her hairbrush. She ran the Neptunian pegasus hair brush through her violet hair before tying it up in a messy bun behind her head. She picked up the small vial of beach glass Neptune gave her for her birthday and stuffed it into her trouser pocket. Pluto reached for her top hat when she heard a knock on the door.

“Pluto? Are you up?” Siegfried called through the door.

“Yeah.”

“Let's go downstairs. We're going to Mom's.”

She lunged for the door and flung it open to see her eldest brother with his dark brown ringlets washed and neatly combed, and his skin clear as freezing rain. He wore a long black velvet coat and matching trousers, a snugly fit untucked white button down shirt, and his other trademark aside from his neckerchief: a snowy white bowtie adorned with purple polka dots. He smelled faintly of rose water.

“Where's your space suit?” Pluto asked him quizzically.

“Yeah, I heard you shout that. So we're taking the teleporter?”

“Yeah. I psychocommunicated with Mom and she's setting up the teleporter there on Pluto Charon as we speak.”

Siegfried had a disheartened expression enamored on his face. Pluto knitted her eyebrows together. She reached up and slithered her fingers underneath his shirt to feel his bare skin. She gently massaged the muscles at the base of his neck.

“It's okay, we'll get it fixed,” she assured him. “It'll be back online in no time. I promise. I promise. Let's go downstairs.”

She closed her door behind her and she and Siegfried descended the stairs to the lobby, where Hamilton awaited them at Midday. He had on a black shirt decorated with matte charcoal gray paisley and black trousers held up with his purple suspenders. The three emblems of Mercury's caduceus, William Herschel's monogram, and the alchemical Pluto symbol on the left suspender entered view as his siblings approached him.

“You guys ready to go?” he asked them. Pluto nodded her head. Siegfried sighed through his nose. Hamilton stepped in between the two of them. He set his right hand on Siegfried's left shoulder; his left hand on Pluto's right shoulder. The three of them trekked towards Meredith and the teleporter. They stood beneath the ball lightning, and then bowed their heads and closed their eyes. Cold air roared past their ears as they teleported back to Pluto Charon.

Their feet slammed onto the permafrost. Hamilton glanced around to see the teleporter had been redone: the teleporter resembled an early telephone booth with three semi transparent frozen nitrogen walls to protect them from the cold wind which left an opening for them to step out of and a small orb of light purple ball lightning suspended overhead from a ten foot tall pole. A little red button had been installed on the edge of the teleporter. Pluto opened her eyes to see Heart Flat and the faint luminous splotch against the black of space that was the sun. She, too, noticed the button and figured it was for emergencies. Siegfried sighed through his nose.

“There are my babies!”

They glanced to their right to see a plump, full figured woman of about middle height with electric cobalt hair reaching her shoulders and soft brown eyes approaching them on her tiptoes. She wore a long sleeved bright blue stretch top and matching trousers, and knee high blue boots with three inch stiletto heels.

“Mom!” Hamilton yelped.

“Mama!” Pluto cried out. Careful so as not to slip on the ice, she dodged out of the teleporter and flung her arms around Angelica's round waist.

“My little girl,” she did the same with Pluto. Angelica rested her head on Pluto's shoulder and held her close.

“Happy belated birthday, my darling,” she whispered into her ear.

“Thank you, Mama,” Pluto replied. Angelica pulled back and smiled at her daughter, her dimples deeply embedded in her full cheeks. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Hamilton and Siegfried approaching them.

“My sweet boys,” Angelica sputtered. She let go of Pluto and flung her arms around Hamilton's slender chest. He returned the favor. She gazed up at him and stood on her toes to give him a little pat on the face.

“My little boy, getting so big—” Hamilton flashed her a shy smile. Two rosy splotches welled up beneath his eyes.

“My oldest baby's getting so big and round…” Angelica glanced up at him and brought a hand to the side of his face. “…and so handsome.” She raised herself up on her toes and gave him a light pat on the cheek. Siegfried's milky skin flushed with a bright red. She gestured to Hamilton and Pluto to come closer. The four of them huddled next to each other in front of the teleporter.

“Let's go back to the house. Are you three hungry? I'll get you three something to eat.”

“We didn't have breakfast before we left,” Pluto declared, “so, yes please.”

They trekked across the frozen nitrogen back towards the iron soil and the partially subterranean home Angelica resided in. Careful so as not to slip, Angelica descended the carved out stairs in the permafrost and proceeded to walk normally once her stilettos hit the soil. She wheeled around with an outstretched hand for Pluto, who had two inch heels, and helped her descend onto the plain ground. They waited for Hamilton and Siegfried respectively before continuing the walk to the front door of the house.

The front door consisted of a right triangular wooden shack descending down into the soil. On either side of the shack was a violet rosebush with velvety green leaves and a tall red leaved blue apple tree. As the door came into view, so did the apples on the trees.

“The apples look gorgeous, Mom,” Pluto pointed out. She eyed two large, plump royal blue apples bigger than both of her hands put together hanging from the closest tree branch. Angelica smiled as she reached for her house key.

“Don't thank me. Thank the bees you brought home, honey.”

Pluto glanced past the apples to see four neon blue and green honey bees fluttering about in the smaller branches.

“I might remind you three that there's a gentleman downstairs who's recoiling from something he calls 'Fall of Saturn',” Angelica pointed out as they entered the dark wooden shack. Siegfried and Hamilton flashed a nervous glance at each other. The former swallowed down his apprehension. The latter sighed heavily through his nose. The door closed behind Siegfried and engulfed the shack in pitch black darkness.

Angelica clapped her hands together and a narrow line of miniature ball lightning flared up on the wall to her left. The lightning spiraled down into the darkness, illuminating the smooth black stone steps. Gripping onto the frozen nitrogen banister, the foursome descended the stairs to the slab of stone and the heavy wooden door. Angelica groped around for the doorknob. She placed her hand on the cold stone and turned the knob to the right. She opened the door to reveal a vast cozily lit living room with light blue silk tapestry hanging from the ceiling, dark blue soft carpet, and a rich dark red recliner tucked in the furthest corner across from a matching couch and loveseat. Siegfried and Hamilton missed their mother's living room, the cozy warm haven once home to a dewdropper's quilt now opened up and made elegant for their single mother.

“I will never understand how and why we have such good décor underneath Pluto Charon's surface,” Hamilton confessed.

“So where's that man you were talking about?” Pluto asked Angelica as soon as the door closed behind Siegfried. Angelica hesitated. Then she remembered.

Hamilton's heart sank. Lead and iron mixed with poison herbs. How and why would Belinda get her hands on such a concoction? What could he have done to have prevented this? He and his siblings made their way to the cozy alcove in the far corner.

Pluto sank down in the recliner; Siegfried crashed on the couch and rested his left leg on the cushions; Hamilton sank down on the couch, his back pressed against the cushion and his knees nearly level with the arm of the couch.

“Make yourselves comfortable, I have some gifts for the each of you,” Angelica announced.

“And something to eat, too?” Siegfried called out.

“And something to eat, too!” she added. She left the room and strode down the hallway to her bedroom. Hamilton glanced around the room and the blue tapestry on the ceiling. He thought about Vincent and if he truly was recovering and not clinging to life by his fingernails. A wave of uneasiness swept over him as he began to think of the worst case scenario. If Vincent died from this, he wondered about the future of the Hotel, and the future of himself and Siegfried. He redirected his gaze to his brother, who lounged on the love seat with his hands folded on top of his stomach.

Siegfried continued to remember what he said even though it lost all meaning at this point. Angelica's footsteps down the hall caught their attention.

Pluto removed her top hat and set it on the square coffee table in front of her. She could only wonder what their mother had store for them should she ever ask them what happened.

Angelica returned with a paper bag in her right hand.

“I put some tea on, and before you three came, I put some scones in the oven. So those are coming. But meanwhile—”

She reached into the bag and took out three rings. She turned to Pluto and handed her a silver ring upholding an oval milky white bead, a thick white ring with a black stripe running parallel with the edges of the ring, and a narrow peacock blue ring. She wheeled around to face Hamilton and handed him the same black and white striped ring and the same peacock blue ring, but included a heavy black and white spiral ring. Last but not least, she turned to Siegfried and gave him a black ring with a white stripe and the same peacock blue ring as his siblings, but a bright white ring with a large black circular bead.

“The blue ones go on your pinkies,” Angelica explained, “those are our familial rings. I got one, too!” She held up her left hand to show her own peacock blue ring. Siegfried examined the flat narrow blue ring prior to putting it on. He noticed a faint swirling lighter blue ribbon within the base. The interior of the ring bore faint cursive script which read his name, then Hamilton, then Pluto's real name, then Angelica, and finally Desdemona.

“What about these other two?” Hamilton asked. The spiral ring felt a touch too heavy to put on his ring finger. Angelica hesitated.

“I would put that on your index because it's pretty heavy and I'm not sure if it'll fit your middle finger. Pluto has a white moonstone ring, Siegfried has a black onyx ring. The black and white duality symbolizes your being in the middle.”

Pluto slid the moonstone ring on her left middle finger. After seeing the onyx ring refused to fit each of his fingers, Siegfried resorted to his left thumb. Hamilton took his mother's word for it and slid the spiral ring on his left index.

“Thank you, Mama,” Pluto said to her mother.

“Yeah, thank you for these, Mom,” Siegfried chimed in.

“Yeah, thank you, Mom,” Hamilton echoed.

“For my babies, anything,” Angelica replied with a smile. She planted herself on the couch to the right of Siegfried and gently patted his thigh. She sighed through her nose.

“So what's been going on here while I was away, Mom?” Pluto inquired.

Pluto blinked in surprise.

“Cressida? Next door, Cressida?”

“Oh, yes! She and I both loved it. We both wore matching beautiful indigo dresses with little garnets along the waistlines. We entered a contest to see who was bestly dressed: we got second place, but we both came to a consensus that we should've taken first.”

“Oh, how lovely!”

“And then tomorrow night, I have a date with a gentleman named Prometheus. Not sure what we're going to do, though.”

A low whistle emanated from the kitchen. Angelica climbed to her feet and hurried into the room over. The whistling subsided. They heard her open and close a cupboard door and take out four mugs.

“Oh, dear,” she said aloud. She stood in the doorway of the kitchen. “Could one of you go next door to ask Cressida for some neon honey? I used what was left in the kitchen to treat the man in the other room.”

“I'll do it!” Hamilton offered. He climbed to his feet and strode towards the front door.

“Thank you, baby,” Angelica replied sweetly and Hamilton's face turned pink once again. Before he stepped out into the dimly lit stairwell, he blew his mother a kiss.

He ascended the spiral staircase to the front door. He stepped outside into the chilled mid morning on Pluto Charon, the inky black sky lightened by a glittery, will o' the wisp glow from the far away sun and Charon setting behind the mountains to the north of the neighborhood. For a brief moment, Hamilton forgot which way to turn to go to Cressida's house. He turned to his right and continued towards the low roofed subterranean dome house. His boots crunched over the crystalline permafrost on the ground. A slight chill pulsed up his spine: he had forgotten Pluto Charon's subzero environment. Titania was only cold from the winds coming off Uranus: Pluto Charon loomed so far away from the sun that nitrogen froze into the vast sheet of ice that was Heart Flat. A narrow ground window came into view as he approached the house.

Hamilton continued across the flat frozen ground until he dropped to one knee. He reached out with his left and knocked on the chilled frozen pane of nitrogen glass with the massive spiral ring on his index finger.

“Cressida, it's Hamilton,” he called out. No response.

“Cressida? Are you home?”

“Hello, Hamilton,” a high pitched squeaky voice in front of him greeted with an air of disdain.

He glanced up to see a short sturdy man standing in front of him. He had thin orange yellow hair sitting flat atop his square head and the skin of an orange creamsicle. The man had piercing, bilious blue eyes which he partially squinted despite the wispy powder blue radiance around them from the distant sun and from Charon.

“Oh. Hello, McDonald,” Hamilton grumbled. He stood to his feet and towered over McDonald's block shaped head. He remembered this man from after Pluto's humiliation: he was one of the people who criticized her for supposedly bringing the imperialists to Pluto Charon. Hamilton and Siegfried both grew a deep dislike for McDonald: he, like Sullivan and Victor, had a paradoxical relationship women and made no secret about it. He made no secret about his dislike of Pluto, either.

“What are you doing here on Pluto Charon? Titania didn't work out for you?”

“Who wants to know?” Hamilton retorted and he placed his hands to his hips, which jutted out his slender chest. He knew the annoyance was coming. McDonald noticed the rings on Hamilton's fingers.

“I wonder if those rings you have are worth anything, like your career as a hotelier,” he sneered.

“They're worth more than you as a whole,” Hamilton scoffed bitterly, “what'd you do with Cressida?”

“She's out, like your brother and his tacky fashion sense. Who wants to know?”

“Because my mother is out of neon honey,” he continued darkly.

“That's not what your father said,” McDonald taunted. Hamilton bit his lower lip. A spark of anger glimmered in the back of his mind. He would regret speaking out against this old bully, but he would regret not speaking out. McDonald picked up on Hamilton's dark mood but proceeded anyways.

“Apparently that's not what your sister said, either.”

“Hamilton? Hamilton! What are you doing!”

Angelica sprinted towards her son pinning down and pummeling the man on the ground. She gripped onto his shoulders and yanked him off of McDonald, who laid on the ground on his back with a large dark spot forming around his left eye and a line of blood trickling from his nose.

“DON'T YOU EVER INSULT MY KID SISTER EVER AGAIN! YOU HEAR ME? I WILL PERSONALLY END YOU!” Hamilton shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Stay here and calm down,” she commanded. “I'm going to go check on him.”

She shut the door behind her, which in turn engulfed Hamilton in a box of darkness. Fuming, his heart hammered inside of his chest. His body trembled and quivered from the rage pulsated through his veins. He had never been so enraged in his life.

On one hand, he felt justified, in that McDonald had what was coming to him for treating Pluto like nothing more than a pariah. He never liked Hamilton or Siegfried either, the latter of which he seemed to dislike for no reason in particular. But as the adrenaline faded from view, Hamilton sensed a tiny ray of regret, as if punching McDonald in the face was too much. He massaged his temples as he heard Angelica speaking to the man down outside. His heart continued to flutter and pulsate like a moonquake. His body violently quivered as a result.

It was as if his lungs could not maintain the demands of his throbbing heart. Belinda burst into his mind. The disbelief returned to him once again. He knew Vincent was in the process of healing but there was no official word as to whether or not he would reach full recovery.

Hamilton shook his head. He refused to believe that nothing was his fault. Everything was his fault. Every last little thing that happened lately was his fault.

His adjusted to the darkness of the stairwell. He stuck out his quaking right hand and gingerly planted himself onto the top step, careful not to slip and tumble down the stairs. He folded his arms on top of his narrow knees. He tried to manually calm down his heart but it was futile. He knew he would have to face the music of telling his mother why he plunged into a rage back there. The dread combined with his anger, his worry, and his regret, and all reached a point to which it was nearly too much to bear for his slim disposition.

The front door opened and the pale blue light flooded into the triangular shack and the top of the dark spiral staircase. He never turned around but he knew Angelica needed an explanation. He closed his eyes as the door shut and sealed the darkness within.

Angelica clapped her hands and the staircase flooded with pale purple light. She strode towards her youngest son and hung over him.

“Hamilton,” she began. He bowed his head. Angelica squat down next to him. She set a hand on his left shoulder.

“Hamilton, look at me.”

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes but he never turned his head to face her.

“—you need to take control of it. I can tell you right now, it's beginning to take its toll on you, honey. I can feel it in your skin. I can see it in your eyes. Stand up—” Biting his lip, Hamilton reluctantly climbed to his feet and loomed in front of his mother. She mirrored him: the top of her head reached his collar bone. She reached up and slithered her fingers underneath the collar of his shirt. She gently rubbed the muscles at the base of his neck, and then moved onto his shoulder blades.

“My goodness,” she declared, “you're so tense!”

She glanced down at his body, so slender and willowy.

She brought her hands to his narrow chest to feel his decelerating heart beat.

“I have to be honest with you, Hamilton: I worry about you sometimes. I worry about your temper spiralling so out of control that you can't contain it, much less control it. And that's what happened back there: your temper got the best of you. It doesn't matter if he insulted you and made you feel less than or not: your anger got the best of you. And I worry it will progress to the point in which it will overwhelm your body, or until something horrid happens to you. And I don't want either of those things to happen to you.”

Hamilton's face fell. Angelica was absolutely right. He had to roll his temper back otherwise his fate would be sealed. He never liked admitting to a mistake, and he especially never liked finding a reason for his temperament. If one felt a certain way, that was the sacred truth, never to be questioned or struck down. But he dealt with too much temperament, too much fire power, too much anger roiling inside of him only to have it roar out in a flood of inflammatory comments and thrown punches. What would Pluto think of this, too? He needed to rectify this and soon. He let out a brave sigh.

“I don't want that to happen, either,” he said finally. Angelica reached up and caressed the right side of his face. She glanced off to the right: she searched her memory for any tips to help him.

“There's a place that can help you with that,” she explained. “It's on Titan, Saturn's biggest moon. They can walk you through it, they can help calm you down, and they can also help you keep your head in check, and—” She swallowed nervously.

“—they can also help you alleviate your temper to where it will not be as destructive.”

She stood on her tiptoes and reached up for his face. Angelica ever so lightly pressed her lips to his left cheek.

“I love you, darling,” she whispered in his ear. “You are the love of my life.”

“How am I supposed to get there, though?” he asked softly. Angelica lovingly gazed into his eyes as she pressed her hands to the sides of his face.

“Well…” she began. “…remember I have a rocket myself.” She dropped her hands to his narrow shoulders.

“What? No, Mom, I don't want to take your rocket!”

“Now, honey, it's for your own good. I barely use it, so I'm imploring you to take it from me. Take it for a fortnight and go to Titan. Please, Hamilton, take the rocket. I'll go and fetch the key and while I do that, you tell your brother and sister that you're doing this.”

Hamilton frowned. He had to do what he had to do, and if that meant taking his mother's rocket to Titan, then so be it the case with him. He sighed and nodded his head.

“Okay,” he replied softly. “I'll do it.”

Angelica lovingly patted his slender chest. She let him go which allowed him to wheel around and descend the smooth stone stairs to the door at the landing. He pushed open the door to see his brother and sister lounging on the couch and the recliner in the cozy alcove. He sighed as he knew he had to tell them.

Hamilton ambled across the floor and halted between the couch and the recliner. He noticed three little black plates on the coffee table in front of them: each plate had a large triangular scone adorned with little near black splotches.

“There you are! I was wondering what was taking you,” Siegfried confessed, his mouth full of scone.

“Pluto, Siegfried, I have to go to Titan.”

“What for?” Pluto asked quizzically. She turned her head to face him.

“I have an emotional problem.”

Siegfried blinked and tilted his head to the side.

“I knew that forever, little brother,” he confessed softly.

“I did, too,” Pluto added. She took notice of his eyes, big and round as if he had just seen a ghost.

“Did something happen?” she questioned, lowering her voice.

“I did a number on old man McDonald outside.”

Siegfried's mouth dropped open.

“He's still alive?”

“Yeah. To be fair, though, he was getting on my nerves. But I shouldn't have done that. But then again I wouldn't have decided on making things right. Anyways—Mom's getting the key to her rocket so I can fly there.”

Pluto climbed to her feet and stood in front of her brother.

“How long's it going to be?”

“Mom said it's about a fortnight,” Hamilton explained. He gazed into her eyes to see tears brimming on her eyelids.

“It's okay, Pluto. It's not like I'm dying,” he opened his arms and she lunged for his slender body. She buried her face in his chest. The soft, clean aroma of her hair further put him at ease. She clung to him as if she was about to lose him. His heartbeat never sounded so soothing to her. Pluto lifted her head to gaze up at him. She craned her neck to plant a little kiss on his jawline.

His eyes widened even more. She never kissed him before.

Pluto stepped back to show her bewildered brother Siegfried standing next to the recliner with Hamilton's plate in hand.

“I sincerely hope you're taking this with you,” he said glumly.

“Well, of course!” Hamilton proclaimed. Siegfried examined the doughy triangle on the matte black plate.

“It's tasty, all warm in my stomach, it's got chocolate in it, and it's nice and warm—” He brought his gaze to Hamilton. “—like how you are. Hang onto this for a second, please, Pluto—” He handed the plate to Pluto, who gladly took it and brushed a tear away from her left eye. Siegfried tugged Hamilton close to his body, and embraced him to where Hamilton's spine cracked in three places.

“Oh, that felt good,” he blurted out.

“Okay, I—I need to breathe now,” he stammered. Siegfried stepped back to let him properly inhale. He kept his hands on Hamilton's shoulders. He noticed Siegfried, too, had tears in his eyes.

The front door opened and Angelica entered the room.

“Hamilton?” she called. Hamilton sighed once again.

“Okay,” he concluded. Pluto presented him the plate of scone. Hamilton gently took the plate with a dimpled smile and then turned to amble towards his mother, who held a black iron key shaped like the skeleton keys Hamilton and Siegfried have to their Hotel. Angelica smiled warmly. She set a hand on his shoulder as he approached her.

“Come with me, honey,” she coaxed him in a soft voice.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Pluto flung herself into Siegfried's torso and began bawling. Siegfried, who was taken aback, slowly embraced her.

Not much happened in the near two Uranian weeks during Hamilton's absence. Pluto stayed with Angelica for a few days to oversee Vincent's recovery. Surprisingly, Angelica never asked her or Siegfried about him. He finally regained his strength with the help of the thawing of frozen nitrogen and oxygen, and the bright pink honey from the neon bees from Mimas. The stinging pain in his belly subsided with each dose of nitrogen and oxygen, and his strength reacquired with each helping of neon honey. Pluto finally entered his room when he laid on his side with his stomach full of food.

“Vincent, hi,” she greeted him gently from the door, “it's Pluto. How are you feeling?”

Vincent opened his eyes and glanced over at her and smiled.

“Hey, Pluto,” he sputtered. His speech before had slurred about like slush, but he had recovered enough to return to proper articulation. With every breath of air, he hesitated, relishing every molecule of oxygen and nitrogen caressing the interior of his lungs.

“I'm… feeling better. My stomach doesn't hurt nearly as much. I can…” he deeply inhaled “…breathe again. I can think again. And I can eat again. Your mother… gave me so much food. I'm so full right now, and I'm just going to… keep recovering.”

Pluto smiled, relieved that Vincent survived the Fall of Saturn with nothing more than thawed out elements and hot pink honey.

Siegfried promoted Ione to general manager of the Hotel: he figured she had come a long enough way to receive a promotion. The poisoned utensils had been thrown out and replaced with brand new utensils crafted from crashed out meteorites. Gwendolyn, Deidre, and the two guests had a proper burial within the few days after Siegfried and Pluto returned to Titania: their bodies were wrapped in plastic and then buried at the base of Shadow Ravine.

Pluto continued to wear the silvery moonstone ring on her left middle finger, the black and white ring on her left index finger, and the bright blue familial ring on her left pinky. Siegfried kept his rings on his hand. Neither sibling picked up a trace of psychocommunication from their brother. Angelica assured them that was part of the deal: one goes to Titan for a recovery of anything, and they're not allowed to communicate in any way, shape, or form.

At one point, Pluto psychocommunicated with Neptune. He told her about the unexplained disappearance of the colony of merpeople down on Bikini Atoll and he had to climb up onto the sandbars to be around the company of the fairies otherwise he would be all alone. She relayed it to Siegfried, and it left him in shock.

“How does a whole colony of people fall off the face of the Earth?” he demanded. Pluto shrugged.

“Oh, and you're not going to believe this,” Siegfried informed her. “Remember Lewis? The kid who helped us find you? He and his parents were in a bad car accident right around the time we came back here after we defeated Victor. His mom was driving, his dad was right next to her, and Lewis himself was in the back seat. His dad was killed. I guess he hit his head on the pavement and—” Siegfried winced. Pluto brought her hands to her mouth to keep her from yelling out.

“How'd you find that out?” she asked him.

“He communicated with me, too. I guess he tried to get in touch with Hamilton but because he's absent, Lewis bypassed him and went straight to me. Wilson and Desi left Carson City to join in attendance of his father's funeral.”

Pluto rubbed her eyes in disbelief. She wanted to comfort Lewis right then and there. She only knew of him and never truly got to know him as a person, but she wanted to show him some condolence. Pluto hoped Lewis would be on the path to a full recovery himself. She then remembered Hamilton.

“It's been a fortnight, hasn't it?”

Siegfried hesitated as he strove to recall the elapsed time. He counted on his fingers the days since Hamilton rocketed off to Titan.

“I think it has,” he remarked, “if so, then Hamilton's supposed to return home—any time now!”

Pluto shut her mouth. Siegfried was about to say something, but she stopped him in his place. She paid close attention to a low rumbling noise. She held perfectly still to where she could only hear her own pulse and this rumble, which hung below the threshold of hearing.

“Do you hear that?” her voice cut through the silence like a knife. Siegfried nodded his nappy head.

They hurried out of Siegfried's room and into the hallway. The rumbling grew slightly louder. Pluto's heart skipped a beat as she knew Hamilton was making his return home. Siegfried could not stop the smile from spreading across his face.

He pushed open the glass door and they hurried down the Sunset hallway: their boots padded against the floor tiles. They darted past a dumbfounded Artemia. Pluto reached the front door first. She flung the door open and Siegfried followed her out onto the porch. The sun hung over the horizon in a massive yellow-orange sphere reflecting off the Cerulean Cliffs and the iron-rich soil. A small dark spot appeared against the sun and grew increasingly larger.

Angelica's short plum colored lime shaped rocket with three bright lights lined up on one side entered view. The bright purple wings and rudder fins took their shape. Siegfried recognized the bright lights as the ball lightning. The rocket sank level to the surface of Titania.

Pluto's heart pounded as she watched the rocket slow down and dive towards the runway. She glanced across the runway to the Apartments. Three people peered out their windows to see what was coming.

The plum colored rocket decelerated as soon as it touched down on the rock hard runway and came to a stop prior to reaching the black barn next to the little bistro.

Pluto and Siegfried lunged out from behind the trunk of the tree towards the far edge of the Hotel. She halted next to the rosebushes just as the door of the rocket opened. Siegfried set his hand on her shoulder. The butterflies whirred around in the pit of her stomach. A chilled breeze from Uranus flooded over the runway: normally the Uranian winds sent shivers up Pluto's spine, but she seemed immune to the cold because her brother had returned home.

Hamilton descended the steps, and then his knee high boots thudded onto the ground. He glanced at his siblings and strode towards them with his hands in his pockets.

Siegfried smiled from ear to ear. Pluto brought her hands to her mouth as he approached them.

His slender face had filled out to as full as one of the moons overhead. The blood of life plumped up cheeks and brought unto him a warm rosy beautiful glow. His narrow chin rounded out and coupled with a slight double underneath, and his neck filled out. His slender, svelte body had succumbed to broad, thick shoulders, a deep chest, a slight belly, full hips, and thick, stalwart thighs. He had on his old black trousers which were too large for him for too long now perfectly fit his hips, a black V-neck underneath a fitted olive green button down shirt with Jupiter's lightning bolt and Mercury's caduceus embroidered over his heart and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“Are you happy now?” Hamilton asked her playfully. “Are you happy now that I'm a true teddy bear now?”

“Very much so,” Pluto replied sweetly. She tucked her head back into his chest.

Siegfried hung behind Pluto as she planted a sweet little kiss on the bottom of Hamilton's right cheek. She took a step back to allow her other brother embrace him.

“Come on in! I'm sure the girls are going to want to see you again,” Siegfried invited as he pulled back to gaze at Hamilton in the eye.

“Later. I have to take this thing back to Mom.”

“Well, let's come with,” Pluto suggested, “I want to hear what happened to you.”

“Well, I can't give away much because we have to maintain anonymity,” Hamilton pointed out, “but I can tell you how it went, though. So come on, let's get moving.”

The three of them trekked towards the rocket and filed up the column of ten steps to the cockpit: a small slate gray cabin large enough for Hamilton to pilot. Behind the pilot's seat were four plush black theater seats. Hamilton sank down in the pilot's seat, Pluto and Siegfried seated themselves behind him. They fastened their single cross over seat belts as Hamilton reached up to press a small white button. The stairs pulled up and the door closed. He pressed another button and the rocket hummed back to life. Gently tugging back on the steering wheel in front of him, the rocket shifted and rolled down the runway. The rocket lifted off and sailed towards the space past Uranus.

Hamilton spoke of the first day he was on Titan and the friendly golden haired people there who remembered him from their mission to Mimas to save the neon bees. He gave up the key to the rocket and lived in isolation for a fortnight. They told him that the best way to rid himself of his hidden emotions was to cry. He would cry every night when the sun disappeared from view, just lay on the bed he rented out and weep into his pillow. After each cry, he would go and have a large dinner, and then go to bed. All the while, he found himself to be ravenous during the rest of the day, so he would constantly eat: the last week there, he had something in his mouth every hour. As a result, he plumped up twenty eight pounds and filled out all of his clothes. During the day, he interchanged between helping out the colony by planting seeds and harvesting roses and apples from the bushes and the trees, which in turn prevented him from gaining too much weight to his middle, and jotting down his thoughts and feelings in a journal given to him by a volunteer from Saturn's other moon Enceladus named Hera. In the last week, he grew shockingly prolific: the first day, he could scarcely write out a paragraph; just yesterday, he filled out six pages front and back. He took the journal with him and tucked it underneath his seat.

They arrived at Pluto Charon just as Hamilton fell into silence. He dropped the rocket down to the runway and hit the brakes. The gravitational forces gently pressed back on their bodies as he touched down and slowed to a complete stop.

They unfastened their seatbelts and ducked out of the cabin. Hamilton led the way down the stairs onto the soil.

He stood strong and tall with his hands pressed on his hips as Pluto and Siegfried joined him at the base of the stairs. Two passersby glared at the three of them. A little girl and her mother dodged away from them: the mother turned the girl away from view of the three siblings.

Hamilton turned and pressed the small white button on the rail of the stairs, and the column inserted back into the side of the rocket. He took the key out of his pocket and strode to the side of the rocket to lock the compartment door. Siegfried, who had his back turned, felt something hit him in the back of the head.

“Ow!” He whirled around to see the little girl had thrown a rock at him.

“Wow, that was rude,” Pluto said loudly.

“Speak for yourself,” the mother retorted as she hurried away with the girl. Hamilton returned to them with one eyebrow raised.

“What was that all about?” he wondered aloud.

“Who knows,” Siegfried replied. Hamilton clenched the key in his hand as they strode across the soil towards the dirt road which snaked past Angelica's front door. Something caught Pluto's eye.

She turned her head to see a man sharpening the blade of a hatchet on a spinning rock wheel. He glanced at her, a malicious glare in his eye. The entire neighborhood was silent. The only sound came from the slight breeze whistling off of the north pole. A handful of people lined the side of the path and glared at the three siblings. Pluto sank back between Siegfried and Hamilton. She realized the people stared at all three of them.

Siegfried set his arm around her shoulders and held her close. Hamilton folded his hands over his little belly. An uneasy gnawing sensation emanated in the pit of his stomach as they neared Angelica's front door.

The people's eyes drilled into the backs of their heads as they strode down the pathway. Hamilton lifted his left hand and knocked on the door with the heavy spiral ring on his index finger. Siegfried and Pluto huddled close behind him.

The heavy door opened and Angelica stepped out of a pitch black box. The warm welcoming expression on her face vanished. She now stared at them with empty hollow eyes. She never greeted them: just blankly stared at them.

Hamilton tried to lighten the mood with his little dimpled chubby cheeked smile.

“Hi, Mom,” he greeted her sweetly. He held out the key for her to take. She continued the blank stare as she snatched the key from his open hand.

“Thank you, Hamilton.” Angelica stared at the three children with a cold expression in her eye. Hamilton's smile disappeared.

“Mom, I came back,” Hamilton insisted. He held out his arms. “I've healed. Don't you want to hug me?”

Angelica blinked. Pluto examined her left hand: she had taken off her bright blue familial pinky ring.

“Are you okay?” Siegfried asked her nervously. Angelica blinked again. She never appeared like this before. The entire neighborhood fell disturbingly quiet. A feeling of uncertainty washed over Pluto. She knew there was something terribly wrong here, and she was afraid to ask. Angelica stared long, hard, and deep into her daughter's eyes, as if grinding into the deepest recesses of her mind.

“Kids, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

Pluto's mouth dropped open. She had never referred to them as “kids” before.

“What for?” Pluto demanded suddenly. Angelica, who seemed unphased by her daughter's feeling of dread, blinked at her.

“Siegfried!” Pluto exclaimed. Siegfried dodged back across the dirt road. Confused, Pluto and Hamilton followed him. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted three people congregated in front of the line of people on the side of the road. They all carried sticks and Pluto rocks. One person had a sword.

“There they are!” one woman in the middle of the road shouted.

“Let's turn them into meat pies!” the man with the sword followed.

One person behind them groped for Pluto's messy bun and yanked on her hair. Her bun unraveled and her violet hair fell onto her shoulders but it meant nothing at this point. She and Hamilton scrambled up the stairs and skated across the ice with Siegfried. As the teleporter entered their view, Siegfried lost his balance and fell onto his back. Hamilton slipped again and collapsed next to his brother. They clung to each other as they slid along the ice towards the teleporter. Pluto held onto her top hat as she slipped and fell onto her knees. She slid on her hip towards the telephone booth.

#uranus in capricorn #uranusincapricorn #rough draft #my writing #writers on tumblr #text

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josiebelladonna · 8 years ago

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Grievance (Uranus in Capricorn, part 4 - rough draft)

Because what’s an insane election without an insane plot embedded in the probably the most insane thing I’ve ever set out to do--insanely!

Lewis blankly stared up at the ceiling, his head reclined back on the pillow. The heaviness sank into his chest. His heart monitor beeped with each beat and melted into a continual drone which he eventually blocked out. His father was gone. His first teacher, his first best friend, his assistant, his secretary, his role model, and his hero. Gone forever.

Yuri the doctor returned to the room, hands tucked into his coat pockets. Lewis never saw him as he was too fixated on the ceiling tiles.

“Lewis, it's Yuri. I came to tell you a couple of things. The first is the coroners determined your father suffered blunt force trauma to the head.”

Yuri's words echoed through the empty chambers inside of Lewis' psyche. His voice felt so sympathetic and yet so in vain at the same time, like he knew he had to be the bearer of bad news but his words felt so hollow. The room fell uncannily silent except for Lewis' heart monitor and the sounds out in the hallway and the rest of the hospital.

“The second thing I want to tell you is your mother is waking up.”

Lewis directed his gaze towards Yuri, who stood at the foot of his bed with a grave expression on his face.

“She is?”

“Yeah, she's delirious, but she is indeed waking up.”

Lewis had no idea what overcame him. He wanted to reunite with Gayle so much and grieve over Taylor together.

“I want to see my mother,” he blurted out.

Yuri was taken aback.

“Lewis, you're immobile. You can't go see her right now.”

He could see the frustrated expression on Lewis' handsome face.

“Look, son. I know. It hurts, and you want to see her. But you have to rest. You need to heal because you're unable to move right now.”

“I want to see my mother!” he repeated. He pushed blankets off of his body. He spotted the gauze wrapped several times around his right knee and the cast on his right ankle. He could care less about his injuries: he would crawl down the hallway to his mother's room if he had to. Yuri lunged towards him and gently pushed him back onto the pillow.

“Nurse!” he yelled out behind him. The nurse from before hurried into the room.

“I want to see my mother!” Lewis insisted as he tried to break free from Yuri's grip.

“Give him one hundred c.c.s!” he ordered the nurse.

“But don't you think that's a lot?”

“Give him one hundred c.c.s!”

Lewis never saw the nurse take out the needle from her pocket, but he watched Yuri blur out and the sounds of the hospital fade away into a growing dark shadow of slumber. His head fell back onto the pillow and he closed his eyes, unconscious.

The airship hovered over the large deep green square that was Ivan and Zelda's backyard. Ivan pulled down on the control levers and the ship descended onto the wet grass. Three little dark brown house finches darted out from beneath them. The airship gently landed on the grass and Ivan flipped the three switches to their original positions. The propellor sputtered and died.

He peeled off his goggles which liberated his smooth skin. Running a hand through his dark hair, he turned to his left and shoved open the door of the cabin.

Ivan slid out of the pilot's seat: his large boots squelched onto the wet dark green grass. He wheeled around to see Zelda climbing over the seat and carefully trying to exit the cabin. He reached out his hand to help her onto the grass.

“That's my girl,” he said grandly as she landed in front of him. Wilson followed her out of the cabin. Ivan reached out his hand to help him out.

“That's my boy,” he variated with a smile. Desdemona, who had the longest legs out of the three passengers, gingerly climbed out from the cabin but Ivan outstretched his hand for her. She took his hand and slid out into the misty morning. His soft spacey gray eyes locked onto her brilliant blues, and seemed to hypnotize her. Ivan smirked.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied quickly. She flashed a glance down to his large belly gently poking out from beneath two buttons in the middle of his coat. She showed him a small smile. “Yeah, of course.”

He continued to smirk at her. His dimples made a sweet little return on his chubby face. Desdemona's heart skipped a beat as he lead the three of them back into the house. Ivan opened his coat and reached into the inner lining for the back door key. Desdemona had a sudden urge to wrap her arms around his waist: just asking to be held and loved by a woman, since he lost both of his women.

Ivan unlocked the back door and the four of them entered the laundry room. Diamond, the Siamese cat, greeted Zelda by rubbing against her legs. She reached down and picked up the cat.

“Hi, mi amor,” she cooed, “we are home. We are officially home now.”

The back door closed as if it had a mind of its own, which stunned Wilson. He leapt forward, his heart racing as if he had just seen a ghost. He rushed down the hallway into the living room and threw himself onto the couch. As he reached down to unbuckle his boots, Zelda set the cat down on the floor before seating herself at the bar to the right of her brother. Desdemona brought up the rear, unfastening her coat and hanging it up on the coat hook next to the front door.

“I am really thirsty right now,” she announced. She continued on into the cozy kitchen, the strip of checkerboard tiles wide enough for two people beneath two rows of mahogany cabinets, a big steely gray refrigerator tucked in the nearest corner, a creamy white porcelain sink beneath the bar, next to a small silvery dishwasher.

“The cups and glasses are in that cupboard right there,” Zelda gestured to the higher cabinet next to the refrigerator. Desdemona turned and reached for a small bubbly light blue glass.

“—and there's filtered water in the fridge.”

Ivan entered the living room still in his pinstriped trousers but in a snug heather gray V-neck shirt. He passed his son on the couch and continued into the kitchen. He noticed Desdemona pouring herself a glass of water and his smile returned to his face. He brushed past her towards a bowl of fruit on the counter beneath the higher cabinets.

“Those flautas were delicious but they just made me hungry again,” Ivan admitted. He reached for a big red Gala apple, and washed it off before sinking his teeth into the luscious red skin. Desdemona watched him stride past a Belgian waffle iron on the counter.

“I could make some waffles if you like,” she offered. His eyes lit up.

“Oh! Yes please! I'm sure the kids would like some.”

“Maybe later,” Zelda confessed.

“I'll have one and see where it goes from there,” Wilson replied slowly.

“I'll have three,” Ivan offered. Desdemona's eyes widened.

“Three? Ivan, one is filling enough!”

“Daddy likes his tummy to be as full and warm as the moon,” Zelda explained, “my mother liked him like that, too. She would always refer to him as big and beautiful.”

Diamond leapt onto the couch next to Wilson. Her blue eyes closely examined him. He held out two fingers for her. She softly sniffed his finger tips and began to purr. Wilson reached behind her ears to pet her: she closed her eyes in enjoyment. Diamond shot up to her feet and slinked onto his lap: her purr loud and guttoral. She rested one big white paw on his soft belly, and then the other paw. He continued to pet her until she lay down on his lower belly and his thighs. She tightly coiled her tail around her rear right leg and nestled down into his body.

Ivan sank down into the big recliner next to the couch, his mouth full of apple. He noticed Diamond on his son's lap, swallowed down the bite, and smiled.

“You know Diamond likes you when that happens,” he said thoughtfully. Zelda glanced behind her and her mouth dropped open.

“She barely sits like that with anyone!” she exclaimed. She smiled as she returned to the bar.

A faint tingling emanated in the pit of Wilson's stomach. The sensation spread to his spine and then into his chest. Hamilton's face poked through a slate gray cloud as if the Hotel caught on fire and he peered through the cloud of smoke. His voice echoed through the channels and hallways of Wilson's mind. The entire house fell away as he concentrated on Hamilton alone. He closed his eyes and bowed his head to better decipher his voice.

Siegfried and I found something that you should know about.

He pictured Hamilton and Siegfried conversing about the book of poetry he had brought with him in the wake of the death of his mother. Hamilton pointed to a stack of stationaries he had stumbled upon while putting his ray gun away in its safe place. Wilson knew he had to give details of the whole scene and of this conversation to Desdemona when they sat down at the table.

“Waffles are ready, boys,” she announced; to Wilson, her voice echoed as it would through twilight sleep. He continued to picture the two brothers until he felt a gentle patting on the right side of his face. He broke the stream of thought and opened his eyes to see Ivan stooped down in front of him.

“Waffles are ready,” he echoed Desdemona. Wilson nodded.

He glanced down to see Diamond sound asleep on his lap, her eyes pinched shut and her paws tucked under her soft, furry chest. Ivan continued onto the kitchen. He cautiously slid his hands underneath Diamond's belly and chest and lifted her up. He held her close to his chest as he stood to his feet. She never flinched for a second as he wheeled around to set her down on the couch cushion. He bent over and gingerly placed her on the cushion. She never struggled once.

Wilson walked into the kitchen for his plate of the one large golden brown Belgian waffle with a dollop of butter and a light sprinkling of powdered sugar. The four of them strode into the dining room, a cozy little room with a mahogany table just large enough for the four of them and four spindly mahogany chairs. Ivan seated himself on the right side of the table, Desdemona next to him, and Zelda across from him. Wilson seated himself across from Desdemona. As they sank into their Belgian waffles, Wilson remembered what he needed to tell his best friend.

“So you remember that book of Emily Dickinson poetry I had?” Wilson asked her after swallowing a bite of crispy waffle. “I left it up at the Hotel for safekeeping. I psychocommunicated with Hamilton a bit ago: he and Siegfried found a stack of telegrams between my mother, Sullivan, Vincent, and Silversmith that fell out of the dust jacket that I think we should know about.”

“How'd they find them?” Desdemona asked, her eyebrow raised as she cut a piece off of her waffle.

“Hamilton was putting his ray gun away and he lost his balance and fell on top of the book and they fell out. The bizarre thing about it is I didn't even know they were there.”

Desdemona flashed a glance at Ivan, the flabbergasted expression on his round face, and his full mouth.

“Did you know about those?”

He swallowed down the large bite of waffle. “I didn't even know Rowena had access to a telegraph,” he confessed. “The last time I saw one of those I was in the Middle East. I hadn't even met Zayra yet.”

A sharp pang pierced through Wilson's temple. Hamilton's voice echoed through his mind. He pictured him and Siegfried sitting across from each other at a table on the front porch of the Hotel and examining a row of heavy stationary. He watched Hamilton count out the stationaries, and then turned his attention to Siegfried, who watched his brother psychocommunicate with Wilson.

“Hang on—Hamilton's relaying them back to me.” Wilson blinked as the other three people watched him gingerly reiterate what Hamilton was telling him.

“They counted out eleven telegrams total and put them all in order according to date. The first two are between Vincent and Rowena, and they're talking a 'quartet of pendants.' I don't get it, either, Hamilton. One of them has Vincent asking how she's doing—I'm guessing this is some time between the time after Dad left for Seattle and before I was born because he asks her 'how many more months until your son is born' and if 'she's okay with living alone.' Sully comes in and asks her the same things and then he asks her very politely for the pendants because I guess they're worth a lot of money. He promised to give her some of the money to help raise her child. Rowena replies that the pendants are not for sale and that she'd rather keep them. Silversmith comes in and asks her the same thing. She continues to refuse. Vincent then telegraphs her saying that Sully and Silversmith are getting angry and rather frustrated with her, and he also tells her he's going to disappear for a while because they're spooking him. Silversmith contacts her and he threatens to break into her house and steal them, and also kill her child.”

“You!” Ivan and Desdemona yelped simultaneously. Wilson nodded his head.

“Sully vowed to track down her husband and kill him, and instead of killing me he would kidnap me if she still didn't comply he would throw me into the bay and drown me. They also both threaten to steal all of her artwork and sell it for profit and take all of the money. So she would have no money, and no family or friends to turn to. And she wouldn't able to find a job to refinance herself because they would sell the artwork under the false name Rowan Whitesmith and when the authorities asked about it, they would accuse her of using a fake name and frame her. All of this would happen if she didn't give them the pendants. To which my mother replied to Sully, because he still referred to her as his wife—”

Wilson watched Siegfried join Hamilton in reading aloud Rowena's response to Sullivan to which he proudly reiterated:

“'You will pry those pendants from my cold, dead hands. My artwork doesn't mean so much to me as the ones I love do. I divorced you because you weren't willing to be a good husband to me, and I doubt you'd be willing to be a half decent father to my children. You have a lot of nerve threatening to kill a child. I don't know if you know this but Arthur is MY son, and Ivan is MY husband and MY best friend, and I'd rather die knowing my babies and the loves of my life were healthy and alive than be alive knowing you killed them. Don't ever telegraph me again, you vile bastard.'”

Ivan's mouth dropped open. He began to miss her again.

“Wow! I wish I knew her!” Desdemona exclaimed. “And if by 'pendants', they all mean the pendant Zelda has and the one that fell out of your book.”

“Makes sense. Those are the only pendants I know of that were hers,” Ivan pointed out.

“Really?”

“Maybe they were really precious,” Wilson suggested. “The telegrams did say they were worth a lot of money, and Sully being the piece of work he was, he lost focus of my mom and went for the jewelry instead.”

“But something doesn't make sense, though,” Ivan pointed out as he cut into his third waffle. “Why would Sully want you?”

“I remember correctly that he wanted children. When he and I were married, and I got pregnant by him twice, he was looking forward to being a father. He took it out on me when my son was stillborn and I miscarried my daughter.”

Ivan took a bite and thought about it. “So when he found out Rowena was about to have a child, he got on it, but she thought ahead. He threatened to obliterate Rowena's reputation so she hid all of her artworks and renounced the fact she was an artist.”

“That explains why I grew up oblivious to her being an artist,” Wilson wondered aloud as he set his fork down on the table. Ivan took another large bite.

“She said 'I don't need you in my life anymore' and they quit talking to one another because he realized she was serious so he fell out of the picture,” Ivan suggested. “Although I remember Rowena was really forgiving, so he probably contacted her again to make amends with her. This is just a guess but knowing her and him, it makes sense to me.”

“And then he killed her,” Wilson said glumly.

“And then he killed her,” Desdemona echoed.

“And then he killed her,” Ivan continued the echo, “which, if my instinct is right and I'm holding Desdemona's word true here, once she was gone, he came after you, Arthur.”

“But why would he wait that long to kill her and then come after Arthur?” Zelda asked quizzically.

“—which means if he came for you, he came to an empty house and probably assumed you went to go live with me. Problem is she and I fell out of contact some time after you were born. She told me everything was fine and that I can just relax up in Seattle. She probably told me that because she knew Sully and Silversmith weren't going to follow through. It's like she knew for a fact they were coming after me.”

“In other words, she lied to protect both of you,” Desdemona concluded in a soft voice.

Ivan's face fell. He glanced down at the last three bites of waffle on his plate and sighed.

“She lied alright.”

“To protect you,” Desdemona corrected.

“But she lied, though. A lie is a lie no matter how you look at it. It destroys the trust someone has in someone else. Rowena lied and as a result, I have a dead wife.”

“But another thing I don't understand is how did Sully know you and Rowena were separated?” Desdemona piped up.

“Sort of,” Wilson explained. “It's like using the middle ground between telepathy and concrete thought. At least, I think that's what it is. It's like meditation and projecting a thought at the same time.”

“So it's using that one part of your mental state that never gets used, that's amazing. In fact, come to think of it, that leads me to my next point—”

Ivan leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh. He had eaten enough for one morning: his round belly protruded with the soft warm full feeling within him. To him, it felt like getting a kiss from both Rowena and Zayra. His tall, chubby body relaxed in the chair as he closed his eyes. Desdemona admired the genuine love he had for himself. She began to soak up his warmth and his comfort. Wilson wished he had the same love with himself. Ivan opened his eyes to see Zelda gazing back at him from across the table, her chin resting on her hand.

“Aw, you love your body, don't you?” Desdemona wanted to touch his body so much.

“Always have. Well, ever since I developed a love for art. Even before that, so I was right the first time. I love the human body. I love everything about it. It's soft, it's delicate, and it's undeniably beautiful, especially my body and that of a woman's body. When you slow down and feel its softness, you'll learn to love and appreciate it. It houses your heart, your appetites, your soul, and especially, your mind.” He hoisted himself into an upright position, and then leaned forward and folded his arms on the table.

Ivan gazed up at the ceiling. His gray eyes caressed the soft white tiles.

“And since his brother Victor manufactured machines, machines that are supposedly 'intelligent'—and they go as far back as when I was in South Korea which was when Pinkie Borland was first put in office, because Peuget was a Positron himself—and then started making more as time went on. He probably wanted to raise children for the sake of creating brilliant minds because those two were incredibly intelligent. They could raise incredible children. The link between children and the robots is I feel that Sully would help Victor transmit the children's minds into the bots: being the biochemisty major and the alchemist, he could figure out how to do that. Problem is you can't raise a child efficiently when you're a jerk like that. The children they'd raise would struggle with the way in which they looked at their bodies and at themselves as Sully had difficulty with that himself. So he'd end up shooting himself in the foot and the whole operation would fail. But because Sully and Victor were so intelligent, it sounds to me like they noticed that and worked around it. Either that or they noticed you—” He gestured towards Archer Wilson. “—were gone and hit the abort button. I say this because the Positrons all function the same and all think the same. If Sully and Victor couldn't have children to harvest from, then that just tells me they got desparate and—you all see where I'm going with this?”

Desdemona's mouth dropped open. Wilson's eyes fell to the floor and a deep sinking feeling emerged inside his stomach. Zelda gasped.

“They're based off of Sully!” Desdemona exclaimed.

Ivan nodded his head.

Wilson immediately thought of Queen Mars, how she trickled into people's minds and wreaked havoc on their psyches. He remembered how she spared him, Lewis, Desdemona, Neptune, Pluto, Hamilton, and Siegfried after she vaporized Sullivan into a puddle of little black diamonds. Could she have possibly funneled her way in and had an adverse effect on the hole inside of his broken mind? If that happened, that would explain why she spared the seven of them. He wondered if Victor was affected by Mars, too: that would explain his mania and his drive to frame Ivan and Zelda. With Ivan's last statement, he knew his father knew nothing about the spirit of the Phoenician queen.

Wilson closed his eyes to contact Hamilton again.

Did you get all of that, Hamilton?

He and Siegfried entered his mind once again.

As a matter of fact, I did. So did Siegfried. He's going to his room to get that folder he nicked from Victor's desk right as we speak.

Wilson opened his eyes and returned to his father.

“Dad, are you familiar with an entity named Queen Mars?”

Meanwhile, Siegfried lumbered into his room and flicked on the light. He spotted the dark folder on the foot of his bed. He reached for it and opened it, and searched for anything that said Sullivan and Victor planned on harvesting the minds of children for the benefit of the Positrons. Siegfried sat down on the edge of the bed and flipped through the pages.

Siegfried shuffled down to the bottom of the stack of papers to see a handwritten letter. He examined the chicken scratch penmanship. At the bottom of the page read Sullivan and Victor's names. His mouth dropped open as he read the letter from the two brothers to Pinkie Borland.

He had to get on the psychocommunication line with Wilson.

“Wow, I've never even heard of her,” Ivan declared.

“I didn't either,” Wilson replied with a shrug. “But she's a real thing, though. Lewis thinks she's one of those spirits that comes back to take revenge on those who have wronged her by getting into their minds and causing them to lose it.”

“But why Sully, though? I still find that confusing,” Desdemona added.

“Who knows. I've been asking that question since she vaporized him. I think Hamilton and Siegfried have, too.”

Silence fell over them. Wilson thought about the two brothers and doubted if they knew Queen Mars' true intentions.

“How are you doing that?” Zelda spoke up suddenly.

“Doing what?” Wilson asked.

“The psychocommunication thing you're doing with them.”

“Oh! You just picture them and focus on them, and they'll respond using their own sense of concentration.” Zelda squinted her gray eyes as she tried to recall the two brothers up on Titania.

“Hamilton is the tall, towheaded good looking kid with the steely blue eyes,” Ivan recalled, “and Siegfried is the Bob Dylan haired kid with the big puppy dog eyes.”

“Hamilton's the skinny one,” Wilson added. “Siegfried's built more like Dad.”

“I cannot do it.”

“Well, part of it is just letting it come to you. That's the intuitive and 'taking' side of it.”

“Oh, wait! I'm seeing one of them.”

“Which one?”

“He's the dark haired one.”

“That's Siegfried! What's he saying?”

Wilson, you gotta see this!

Zelda raised an eyebrow.

Huh? Siegfried, this is Zelda.

She turned her head to face Archer Wilson.

“He wants you to join in,” she said promptly.

“Join in?” Wilson raised an eyebrow himself. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. He pictured Siegfried. He focused on his round face and his big brown eyes. His voice channeled through his mind, and Wilson knew he was talking to his sister.

Siegfried! What'd you find?

I found a letter between Sullivan and Victor and Pinkie Borland. Ivan was right in that they're harvesting the children's minds.

What does it say? Zelda chimed in.

Here, I'll read it aloud for you guys…

Wilson lifted his head to face Ivan and Desdemona, who awaited a response from him and Zelda.

“He's reading it aloud—” Zelda began.

“'Dear Madam President, this is Victor Zhe—yeah, it gets tiresome after a while, Siegfried, I agree—the founder and CEO of Victory Industries. My brother Sullivan and I were curious as to whether or not funding is still in place to raising scores of children for our line of Positron robots.'”

“'We want you to know that we have received a verbal cease and desist by a woman by the name of Rowena Manzarek, and then her child disappeared, so utilizing children as our specimens has been pulled from the table,'” Zelda echoed Siegfried's words.

“Manzarek,” Ivan echoed.

“Manzarek,” Zelda said absently.

Rowena Manzarek, Siegfried continued the echo.

It's my mother's maiden name, Wilson replied. They probably assumed she and my dad were divorced.

“Oh my God!” Siegfried shouted back up on Titania.

Keep going, Siegfried, Zelda coaxed him. He continued to read the letter.

“'However, we found a loophole in her order,” Wilson followed along, “instead of using children, we are using ourselves, our own psyches, a piece of ourselves to put into the Positrons. My brother and I were curious as to whether or not you would like to join us. You enjoy our prototype christened Barnabas Peuget, and we look to expanding and using your backing of our business.”

“'Much love, Victor and Sullivan,'” Wilson echoed. Thank you, Siegfried.

Any time, Zelda and Archer Wilson. I know Hamilton and Pluto are going to want to know about this now, too.

The room fell into silence once again. Wilson slumped back in his chair. The thought of his mother sacrificing herself to him and Ivan unsettled him but also opened his heart back up. His mother no longer felt like the hidden mysterious entity he had assumed before. The idea of him making a narrow, unintentional escape from Sullivan swept over him, and then he and Victor had the audacity to cover up the murdering of his mother.

“I can only wonder what Lewis would think of all of this,” Desdemona wondered aloud.

“Oh, yeah, he would definitely have something to say about all of this,” Wilson agreed with her.

#uranus in capricorn #uranusincapricorn #rough draft #my writing #writers on tumblr #text

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josiebelladonna · 8 years ago

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Blood on the Valley Floor (Uranus in Capricorn, part 3 - rough draft)

Hamilton opened his eyes to see the cold dark floor of the lobby of the Hotel. He lifted his head just as Ione, Calista, and Meredith were approaching the three siblings with grave expressions engraved on their faces. Ione carried the apple slicer in her left hand. Calista kept her hands clasped together in front of her waist: she had a pair of scratches on her left cheek. Meredith had pushed her hair back and taken off her glasses.

“Deidre's gone, too,” Meredith informed them. Siegfried's mouth dropped open. He did not care for Deidre but this was too much to bear.

Calista gestured for them to come forth into the lobby. The rainstorm aroma from the teleporter subsided, and a hanging odor of barbecued meat took its place. Pluto coughed. She brought her hands to her nose. Hamilton wrinkled his nose. Siegfried fanned the air with his hand.

“God, what is that smell?” Pluto complained.

“It's what used to be Belinda,” Ione explained grimly. “We had to open all of the windows and the doors otherwise we would all be in gas masks right now.”

“Well,” Siegfried started, his throat closing, “let's also be thankful that this place is primarily stone and not something that absorbs—wow, that is rank—”

“So what happened?” Hamilton asked inquiringly. The three women glanced at one another before Meredith gestured for them to follow them into the kitchen. They trekked down the hallway, where the smell grew slightly stronger and more pungent. Hamilton and Siegfried cupped their hands to their noses. Ione took notice.

“It used to be way worse before you guys showed up,” she pointed out. “The first thing Calista did was run out and open the back door—” She nodded to the wide open back door at the end of the hallway to the dark Uranian night. A cool breeze flooded in; Pluto shivered at the sudden drop in temperature. They turned the corner into the kitchen: the shelves, the stove, and the refrigerator were covered in sheets of ice crystals. The head maid Ariel had mopped the floor and wiped down the counters. The kiln on the other side of the room had been closed off with a padlock.

“I don't know what happened,” Ione shook her head, “she and I were making pies and then she sent out two slices to two of the guests. The next thing I know, I hear them choking and some people were freaking out. And then Vincent, the alchemist, shouted something. I went to go check it out, and I saw two people passed out on the floor, and Vincent had gone. I heard Gwendolyn yelling for me to get into the kitchen. I came running in and Belinda was slitting her throat. I watched Gwendolyn fall to the floor, and then she sees me and chucks the knife at me. I ducked but Deidre, who was behind me, was hit with the knife. I grabbed my apple slicer and started to fight her. She grabbed another knife and began to fight back. We had a knife fight for not even a minute before Calista runs in and gets in between us. She got cut, too—” Calista fingered the scratches on her cheek. Hamilton examined closer at a small slit on the back of her hand. “—Calista grabbed her wrists and shoved her into the stove. Belinda was strong, though: she pushed Calista back and then I lunged for her with the slicer. The two of us overpowered her and then pushed her into the kiln. Gwendolyn had lit it up because while making pies, we got slammed with orders.”

“But we watched her burn, though,” Calista added gravely. “I closed the door because it was gruesome to watch.” She set her hand down and then embraced Ione.

Hamilton swallowed down his nausea. His stomach turned at the thought of Belinda burning alive. His heart sank as he remembered their dates and how much she appeared to enjoy his company. But he remembered that she was divided on spending time with him, and she left him in confusion. For all he knew she may have crossed an event horizon and threw all her cares away as he adored her, and it was possible she may have realized what she would have done. But Belinda was gone and her thoughts were now buried in a three hundred pound pile of ash.

“What happened to Vincent?” Pluto asked, her voice muffled by her hands.

“Vincent was rocketed to Pluto-Charon,” Calista replied.

“Yeah, he kept yelling out 'Fall of Saturn! Fall of Saturn! Belinda got her hands on Fall of Saturn!'” Ione continued. “The medics Adrienne and Esmeralda put him on a stretcher and then in the rocket ambulance, because I guess there's someone on Pluto-Charon that can treat that. The two guests, Gwendolyn, and Deidre had to be taken to the mortuary on Saturn's moon Titan—”

It would be some time before Ariel and the rest of the janitorial staff switched themselves back in gear.

After changing out of her space suit and back into her pajamas after a warm shower, Pluto sat down at one of the tables outside on the front porch. The ball lightning shimmered over her head and bathed the porch in a delicate, intimate light purple glow. She rested her head on her hands and gazed out into the blackness of space: Uranus loomed behind Titania, which in turn gave her view out to the rest of the solar system.

Off in the distance, and courtesy of the faint light from the distant sun, she spotted the massive blue crescent that was Neptune. She watched three dots float next to the equator and sighed. She knew one of those dots had to be Triton.

Neptune burst into her mind. She remembered his journal which he had christened Triton and his Scorpion Pen. In turn, he loved what was in her sketchbook. She found it coincidental that he would be named after something that was further away than Uranus and Titania, and that he would name something close to him after one of its moons. She wondered if he finally made it back home to Bikini Atoll and his mother's arms. She wondered if she would ever get to meet his parents.

But she remembered that they were merfolk, and they lived underwater. But she remembered that the merpeople of Bikini Atoll were amphibians, and they interestingly removed their own tails in order to walk on land as well as thrive in the sea; they breathed through a set of lungs as well as a set of gills on the sides of their necks.

Pluto gazed past Neptune to see Saturn hanging off in the distance. Her brown eyes wandered to Jupiter. Siegfried entered her mind the second she spotted Jupiter. She flashed back to his bravery and his making up for his lack of attention as they sailed past Jupiter.

She then remembered her mother Angelica, and then Siegfried's mantra of not telling her of their journey. Knowing Vincent had to be sent off to Pluto-Charon to be treated and hopefully cured, she could only hope Vincent was honest because Angelica was a chemist herself. Whatever made him sick she could figure out and then pinpoint it. She knew for a fact that Angelica wanted to know what her children were doing in order for that poor man to fall so ill. The more the thought of facing Angelica recurred through the deepest recesses of Pluto's mind, the more she recoiled at the fact of answering the dreaded question but at the same time she also embraced it. She knew her mother needed a case to bring her knowledge and skills into play. In the wake of a less than decent home life and one that more or less crashed down because of Pluto herself, she could only hope Angelica would go easy on them.

Dishes clashing together in the kitchen broke her train of thought. She turned her head to see the younger of her two brothers walking past one of the front windows and then whirl around at the sound of the crash.

“Careful, now!” Hamilton called out. He turned back around and resumed towards the front door. The smoked glass French door on the right opened and he stepped out into the night. He smiled at the sight of his sister.

“There you are! Siegfried and I were wondering where you went.”

He had changed back into his royal purple coat, his black and white striped trousers, and his black leather gloves. Pluto noticed his not wearing his trademark cap: his ash blond hair shone in the warm purple light.

“They're nearly done in the kitchen so you can work your magic in a bit,” he informed her. She nodded her head. He tilted his head to the side at the sight of her pensive expression.

“Penny for your thoughts?” He stepped behind her chair and then sank down in the chair next to her. Pluto glanced to her right. She may not face the music so much herself, but he and Siegfried would have to deal with Angelica's questions.

“Remember when,” she started; Hamilton's brilliant blue eyes bore into her deep brown ones, “Siegfried said not to tell mom?”

He glanced off to his right. Siegfried's words rang through his mind.

“Yes.”

“Well, you know we're going to have to because of Vincent.”

“Yeah, he and I pretty much conceded on that. But you seem troubled, though, like there's something else that's bothering you.”

Pluto shifted her weight.

“Mom's a chemist.”

“So?”

“Because of me, she specialized in it before—you know—”

“So?”

“There's no one on Pluto-Charon who has a good grasp on chemistry like her.”

“So?”

“What are the odds she took him in?”

“So—” Hamilton froze in place. His stomach sank back against the middle of his spine. He vigorously shook his head. He turned around and covered his face with his hands.

“Oh, no. No. No. No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO.”

“I know.”

“NO!”

“Yes.”

“I—”

“This sucks.”

“You're telling me!”

They fell into silence once again. Hamilton buried his face in his hands. Pluto reached around his narrow back and embraced him. He jerked away. She pulled her arm back and sighed through her nose.

“Do you think maybe—” she began gingerly, as his temper had a way of sneaking up on her. “—Belinda breaking up with you had something to do with it?”

His hands left his face and rested in front of him on the table. A smear of light pink crossed the upper half of his face.

“Her flying off the handle, you mean?” he asked flatly. Pluto tried to swallow down her dread.

“Yes.”

“Like maybe she blamed herself for it?”

“Seems likely.”

Hamilton turned his head and glared at her. Pluto shook her head.

“Don't give me that look. Hamilton, I know you're angry but don't get angry at me. Please don't be mad at me.”

“I'm not mad at you, —” He bit his lip the second he said her real name. “If anything, I'm angry at myself.”

Pluto opened her mouth to reply, but Siegfried opening the big window to their left cut her off.

“A couple of things,” he started as he gazed on at his younger siblings. Pluto and Hamilton turned their heads to face him holding the window pane up.

“The first thing is the kitchen's about there: they just need to mop the floor. The second thing is—you guys are not going to believe this.”

They glanced at each other and then back at him.

“What's that?” Hamilton asked.

“I just got word from some people on Titan—you know, Saturn's moon—that some Positrons hijacked our rocket and are now headed our way. They said they looked angry and also shattered: I guess flying past Jupiter did a number on their power cells. So they're—the ones that survived the flyby, anyways—are angry and brainless.”

Pluto's mouth dropped open. Chills ran up Hamilton's spine.

“Isn't there a way to stop the rocket?” Pluto demanded.

“Yeah, the self destruct button on the autopilot controls, which, being the cantankerous hardware that they are, the Positrons disabled,” Siegfried answered dryly, “and I'm not pressing that because otherwise we lose our rocket.”

“What can we do?”

“I guess we're going to have wait until they get here and then we'll fight them off. They're lacking juice in their cells so it's going to be a while before they get here.”

Hamilton could not believe what he was hearing. He turned his head the other way. He may as well have just tumbled down the jagged cliffs of the Shadow Ravine. He shook his head.

“Oh, balderdash,” he muttered under his breath.

Pluto had just baked three pies in the newly cleaned up kitchen. Her brothers and half of the staff were outside awaiting the arrival of the Positrons on the potentially runaway rocket.

As she wiped down the countertop with a cloth, a yawn sneaked up on her. She set the cloth in a basket in corner of the room before heading out into the hallway. Pluto strode past Midday and then ascended the stairs to the room she stayed in. All of the remaining guests had either left the Hotel or buttoned up for the night.

Since she was already in her pajamas, all Pluto had to do was close the door and tuck herself into bed. She reached up to the black lamp with a white shade on the bedside table to switch off the light. The room engulfed in darkness. A faint blue green glow from Uranus dimly hung outside behind the filmy curtains. But the room was pitch black.

She closed her eyes. She fell asleep within seconds.

Pluto gazed on at a brightly lit room with a large bay window open wide to let in a cool, crisp breeze. Everything seemed so clear and so sharp, as if a photograph had been cleaned up to perfection. In front of her was a small wooden desk without a chair to accompany it. A big black book lay sprawled open on the top of the desk. The pages fluttered from the end of the book to the beginning. Pluto approached the book to see random swirling scribbles in black ink on each page. She could not understand it but she could not turn away if it saved her from trying to understand it.

Her eyes shot open.

Pluto peered into the darkness surrounding her. Nothing. Just a dream. She sighed and closed her eyes a second time. She fell asleep even quicker this time.

She opened her eyes only to find herself running. She stared straight ahead to Hamilton and Siegfried standing thirty feet away from her. Hamilton waved his arms about. Siegfried had his mouth open but no sound came out. Pluto pumped her legs as she tried to run closer to them, but she may as well have been running on a treadmill. She watched her big brothers slide further and further away from her.

Hamilton waved his arms more and more. Siegfried looked as though he shouted at the top of his lungs. Pluto ran as fast as she could but it was useless. She watched her brothers drop into a supermassive black hole: their bodies stretched and warped like rubber bands as they crossed the event horizon. They both closed their eyes as the black hole pulled them apart.

Maybe I'm not breathing so well, she thought. She rolled onto her back, which allowed her to breathe better. She closed her eyes again, and fell asleep.

She stood in front of a massive crowd of people on Pluto-Charon. All eyes were glued onto her. No one moved or blinked.

She then glanced down to see her naked body. She stood frozen, unable to cover her bare breasts or her crotch. She glanced down at the people in the front of the crowd staring at her belly button and the soft skin directly underneath. Pluto felt someone grip onto the zipper on the back of her neck and pull down. The zipper opened and blue apple pie filling flooded out. She watched her breasts wither and shrivel like a wilted plant, her belly cave in, and her hips collapse. Her knees folded. She fell to the ground into a pile of skin. Everyone watched her and no one helped her.

Pluto rolled back onto her side. She nestled her head down into her pillow and tried to calm her heart. She wondered what she was going to dream next and this brought her back to sleep.

Sullivan stood in front of her, naked and gruesomely scarred from the Fall of Mars. She watched him pick up a black L-shaped object. She realized she could not move. Pluto glanced down to see her legs spread wide open and a series of red scratches on her belly. She tried to move her legs, but her ankles were bound to the legs of the chair. He had pulled her arms behind the back of the chair and tied them together at the wrists. She could not scream: he had tied a cloth around her head at the mouth to keep her silent.

Pluto opened her eyes again just as the shot went off. She sat upright in bed. She rubbed her eyes and then bowed her head.

What's wrong with me? Why am I dreaming like this?

Hamilton's voice emerged from outside. Siegfried followed. The Positrons must have arrived.

Pluto scratched her nose and then sank back down onto her back. She fell asleep just as her head hit the pillow.

A floating disembodied head of a Positron glared back at her from a wall of black. Two circles of deep blood orange burned into her very being. She could see the dents and holes all over the head. The neck had been shriveled and twisted around like a roll of taffy, as if someone or something tore off the Positron's head at the shoulders. The head tilted slightly to her left.

Pluto stepped back to see Queen Mars radiating against a swirling white and gray background, as if she had just returned to Earth from her subterranean labyrinth.

Pluto shot her eyes open a fifth time and groaned.

She woke up again, screaming at the top of her lungs. She pulled herself upright and covered her face with her hands. Her screams flooded out of the room, through the door, and into the rest of the Hotel. Pluto had never been more terrified of her own mind in her life.

She brought her hands to her mouth and began to weep.

“Pluto, the door's locked!” Hamilton shouted, his voice muffled by the door.

“Do you have the key?” Siegfried demanded.

“I thought you had the keys.”

“No.”

“Dammit, Siegfried!”

“Well, don't blame me! You're the one who's always telling me to keep them in the desk downstairs!”

“AH! Curse the day I was born!”

“Wait, isn't this the one door where the lock is really weird?”

“Is it?”

“I dunno, that's why I'm asking.”

Pluto pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her face in her heads and wept.

“Is she crying?” Siegfried asked.

“Yes! I think so, anyways.”

“If this is that door, hang on—”

A moment of silence. Then—THUD.

“OW!”

“What in the sam hill d'you do that for, Siegfried?!”

“I was hoping to punch a hole through the door and then reach through the hole and unlock the door but that was a major miscalculation. Bloody Mary, that hurt!”

“Ah, hell's bells, I'll get the keys myself.”

“Could you get me ice pack, too, please?”

“Get your own bloody ice pack! I'm busy!”

Pluto could hear a shuffling outside of her door. At the crack between the door and the floor, a big dark shadow blocked out the light.

“Are you okay, Pluto?” Siegfried sat down on the floor and leaned against the door. Pluto sniffled loudly. Her eyes continued to singe with hot tears of fear.

“Could you be a dear and please let me in?”

“Are you okay?” she asked him in a broken voice.

“It's okay,” he whispered in her ear. “It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. I'm here. Big brother's here.” He pulled back to peer into her tearful eyes.

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked her gently.

“I had nightmares,” she sniffled. He embraced her again.

“It's okay. It's over. It's all over. They're not going to get you. I won't let them get you.”

“Oh, good, Pluto opened the door,” Hamilton said aloud. He entered the room to see his siblings embracing each other.

“What happened?” he asked, worried. He strode towards the bedside table and switched on the lamp. Bright white light flooded the room. Siegfried let Pluto go and guided her towards the bed.

“What happened?” Hamilton repeated.

“She had some nightmares,” Siegfried explained. Hamilton gasped. His siblings seated themselves on the edge of the bed. Siegfried set his arm around Pluto's shoulders. Hamilton patted down his pockets for a handkerchief.

“Do you have your hankie handy?”

“No. I got my neckerchief and that's kind of a hankie.”

“No,” Pluto resisted.

“You sure? Okay.”

“How'd it go with the robots?” she inquired, brushing away a tear from her right eye.

“Hey, you were going to hit Artemia in the face with that thing,” Siegfried insisted. “It's one thing when you shot Peuget in the head with it. It's another thing altogether when you're shooting at one of those ultra slender ones with it.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes.

“Whatever,” he muttered. “It's neither here nor there at this point.”

He showed Pluto a comforting dimpled smile.

“Would you like some tea?” he asked her kindly. She nodded.

“Yes, please.”

“Okay. I'll ask Bronwen to put on a pot of tea, and then I have to my ray gun away. You guys stay here and I'll be back in a bit.”

Hamilton wheeled around and headed out the widely ajar door. The second he stepped into the hallway, Ione came rushing towards him in a white bathrobe.

“What happened? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, Pluto had some pretty horrific nightmares. She's okay, though. Siegfried's with her and I'm going to ask Bronwen to make some tea. You had a pretty long day today, so go back to bed.”

Ione nodded and headed back down the stairs into the lobby. She slipped out the front doors and back to her apartment as Hamilton strode towards the front desk at Midday. The night watchwoman Bronwen, a white haired elderly woman with thick glasses with tie-dye horn rimmed frames, typed away on a typewriter.

“Excuse me, Bronwen,” he commanded. She glanced up at smiled at his dimples.

“When you get the chance, could you put on a pot of Hydra grass tea please? Pluto had some pretty bad nightmares and it'll help her sleep.”

“Absolutely!” she replied grandly with a nod.

“Good! Thank you.”

Hamilton turned back around and headed back up the stairs to the empty room where Archer Wilson stayed, the only room in the Hotel that had a crawl space large enough beneath the floorboards. The crawl space was the safe place for Hamilton's ray gun as well as Wilson's copy of Poems by Emily Dickinson as well as the fire- and electricity-proof safe where they kept their savings and most precious belongings. He had remembered the book and the pendant that fell out of the dust jacket as he unlocked the door with one of the keys. He closed the door partial way and clicked on the overhead light.

Quietly so as not to bring attention to himself, Hamilton crept around the foot of the bed to the strip of floor between the window and the bed. He knelt down as if about to give a prayer. He reached into his right pocket for the skeleton key: he had one and Siegfried had one. The iron key with a perfectly round bow with a crescent moon shaped shoulder beneath and a cross in lieu of traditional teeth.

Hamilton leaned forward and felt around for the one conspicuous crack in the floorboards: he could never remember where the crack was located. His gloved fingers glided across the clean floor, until he felt a slight give in the floor just beneath the bed frame.

There it is.

He took the key and inserted the cross into the crack. He turned the key to the right: one of their friends who helped build the Hotel accidentally installed the lock upside down. A soft click emanated from the floor. He pulled the key up and the loose floorboards lifted with the key. He set his fingers on the edge of the boards as he took the key out from the lock. Hamilton opened the floorboards to see the foot deep crawl space. Ariel kept her word and left Wilson's book untouched. Next to the book was the black cube of the fireproof safe with a combination lock and white piece of paper on top.

Hamilton drew a blank on the piece of paper. He picked it up and turned it over.

“In case of something really bad happening, it's our birthdays combined,” it read in Siegfried's chicken scratch.

“Oh, yeah,” Hamilton muttered aloud. He set the paper back down on top of the safe and then reached for the big black holster case next to the safe. He unsheathed the case from its hiding place and set it down on the floor to his left. Tilting the case on its side, he strove to recall the combination as he dialed the numbers back to zero. So much has happened that the three numbers slipped from memory.

“Oh, yeah, it's the day we came here.”

He dialed the first number to three, the second to one, and the final number to seven. He clicked open the case to see the purple velvet lining the interior, the two extra attachments for his ray gun, one for silencing his shot, the other for increasing the speed of the shot, a small phial of extra red stardust just in case he ran out of ammo, and the big empty space where his gun would reside. Hamilton unsheathed his ray gun from the holster inside of his coat and set it down in the holding space. He then reached into his coat, took out the holster, and neatly folded it up.

Hamilton quietly closed the case and dialed the numbers away from the combination. He leaned forward to set the case back down in the crawl space when he lost his balance. He nearly face planted into the crawl space but the case broke his fall. He pushed himself back up and proceeded to crawl backwards out of the hole. His right hand set on the book of poetry: he nearly slipped again. Hamilton jerked back and lifted himself out of the hole, but a handful of stationary had slid out from the back of the book.

He then reached down for the book and the pieces of stationary. Hamilton sternly frowned. Despite his black leather gloves, he could feel the heaviness of the dark yellow cardstock. He examined the matte charcoal black frippery embroidering along the edges. In the top middle of each leaf of stationary written in bold black letters read CALIFORNIA STATE TELEGRAPH CO.

He examined closer to the one on top, which bore the words TO: ROWENA WILSON FROM: VINCENT ST. VITUS.

Hamilton's eyes widened. He shuffled the first one to the one beneath it. TO: ROWENA WILSON FROM: SULLIVAN ZHENONENAVASTIK.

His mouth dropped open. He shuffled to the next one. TO: PATRICK SILVERSMITH FROM: ROWENA WILSON.

And then the fourth one. TO: SULLIVAN ZHENONENAVASTIK FROM: ROWENA WILSON.

Does Wilson know about these? They were tucked away in the dust jacket, how could he have missed them? He set the stationaries down on the floor to his left and spread them out. He had counted eight before a knock on the door broke his attention.

“Hamilton? Are you in there?” It was Siegfried.

“Yeah,” he replied and closed his eyes in exasperation.

“Can I please come in?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

The door opened and he strode into the room.

“Pluto calmed down and I told her I was just going to check to see what you were doing, and—” Siegfried noticed the pieces of stationary on the floor as he approached his brother.

“What's this?”

“These fell out of Wilson's poetry book,” Hamilton explained softly.

Siegfried raised an eyebrow.

“How'd they fall out of his book?”

“I was putting the ray gun case away and lost my balance and caught myself on the book,” he replied in one breath. “I pulled my hand back and they slid out. I doubt if he's seen them, though, but that doesn't really make sense because they were tucked into the dust jacket. If he found that pendant, which was tucked in the jacket, too, then he would have seen these. I don't know, it just doesn't make sense.” Siegfried crouched down next to him and examined the stationaries for himself. His brown eyes scanned the printing and the labels.

“Telegrams—” he muttered.

“Between Wilson's mother, Vincent, Sullivan, and Patrick Silversmith,” Hamilton finished. The room fell silent. Neither brother knew what to think or believe. Hamilton's stomach turned. He felt as though he just stumbled upon something private, something that they did not need to know. The Wilson family was completely separate from them, an unknown that they only knew of about. But this was strangely fascinating.

“I suggest,” Siegfried started, “the next time we see him, we'll show him these.”

“Why?” Hamilton asked curiously.

“Because… reading some of these… these could probably help console him, and they could give him some insight to who his mother was.”

Hamilton sighed through his nose. Siegfried had a point, even if he felt as though they were invading Rowena's privacy.

“I'm sure Desi would want to know, too,” Siegfried continued, “her being close to Wilson and all.”

“And she was married to Sully,” Hamilton added hesitantly, “and this would give some insight into Vincent, too. He told me a little about himself but I wonder about him.”

“Let's take these, and close the door here—” Siegfried climbed to his feet and stepped towards the lifted up floorboards. He removed Hamilton's key before closing the floorboards all the way. Hamilton gathered up the telegrams and held the pile in his hand as he climbed to his feet. Siegfried handed him his key.

“Oh, by the way,” he started. Hamilton raised his eyebrows in inquiry.

“Mom psychocommunicated with me before I came in, too: she wants us to come some time in the next couple of days. She didn't explain, but you know—I just know for a fact we're going to have to tell her what happened.”

#uranusincapricorn #uranus in capricorn #rough draft #my writing #writers on tumblr #text

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josiebelladonna · 8 years ago

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Amongst the Waves (Uranus in Capricorn, part 2 - rough draft)

To fill in:

Victor punched Ivan in the (hungry) belly and it hurts like hell so much that he has to lay down

Belinda went postal and killed three people with poisoned pie and Vincent is really, really, really sick

Ione and Calista fought her and shoved her into a burning kiln a la Hansel and Gretel

Needless to say Pluto, Hamilton, and Siegfried have to go back to Titania and face the music

Oh! and Neptune has to go home, too

A.I. is a crapshoot, I repeat. A.I. is a crapshoot

Oh! and I’d like to officially introduce a new OTP: Divan, or Ivesdemona (Desdemona x Ivan)

Ivan groaned inside of his throat. He could at least breathe again but his belly continued to ache from Victor's unnecessary punch and from the lack of food that morning. Desdemona crouched down next to him and hung next to his head. Ivan rolled his head to the right. A smile twisted onto his face at the sight of her.

She glanced down at his hands, which rested on his stomach. She wanted to comfort him more.

Behind her, Neptune sank down in the chair next to Pluto, who kept one eye on Ivan and Desdemona, and the other eye on her two brothers, who were huddled together in front of the door and discussed how to return to Titania and their Hotel in peril.

Downstairs, Archer Wilson and Zelda descended the mirrored stairs to the lower level. Zelda lead the way to a landing with a mirrored floor and plain beige walls. On the wall in front of them, she spotted a yellow sign which read COBALT CAFE with a left pointing black arrow printed above the words. To the left of the sign was a heavy tinted mirrored door; the right a pair of mirrored doors barely cracked open at the middle.

“Finally, a room that isn't mirrored—” Wilson was cut off short by two approaching Positrons. Their soulless blue eyes had changed to a fiery orange which burned into the fabric of Wilson and Zelda's beings. The bots reached out for the two young people's necks. Zelda picked up a chair and hurled it at the bot stomping towards her. Amazingly, the chair sailed past the Positron.

Wilson ducked down and somersaulted towards the bot approaching him. He slid between the Positron's legs and sat upright behind the bot. He reached forward so as to touch his toes. Wilson gripped onto the Positron's ankles and pulled back. The bot fell face first onto the linoleum: its upper body smashing into a thousand pieces.

The other Positron gripped onto Zelda's wrists and lunged closer to her. She tried to fight back but it was futile.

“Arthur!” she exclaimed.

Wilson scrambled to his feet and cartwheeled over the shattered Positron. He landed on his feet and bent down to pick up the bot's head. He hurled the head at the other Positron's head, and knocked off the head. Zelda shoved the bot into the table behind her; the edge of the table bifurcated the body.

Wilson hurried towards his sister. He set his hands on her shoulders and whirled her around to face him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his gray eyes ridden with concern. She quickly nodded. He flung his arms around her upper body and held her close. He jerked back to face her.

“Let's get something to eat,” he advised.

They continued towards the vast kitchen window and metal countertop on the closest side of the room. Wilson noticed the door on the far side of the counter: he noticed the cracks between the door and the threshold, otherwise the door would have blended into the bright white wall. He set a hand on the door and tried to push it open.

“A door that doesn't open?” he wondered aloud.

Zelda turned to the window and the counter. She approached the matte gray metal and then hoisted herself onto the countertop. She climbed over, and found herself in a kitchen with a black tile floor. Behind her was a dividing wall; behind that the kitchen itself. To her left, a bright white plain refrigerator and another door which blended into the wall.

“How are you supposed to get in besides climbing over the countertop?” Zelda asked, dumbfounded.

“How are you supposed to get out besides climbing over the countertop?” Wilson added, raising an eyebrow. He followed suit over the metallic counter. He spotted the refrigerator.

“I'll look in the back, you look in there,” he suggested. “If you see any more Positrons coming our way, holler.” Zelda nodded and lunged for the refrigerator. Wilson slipped into the cramped kitchen.

Zelda opened the door and peered inside. The refrigerator had three shelves. On top, Zelda spotted a large red can of Violet Rose Coffee, two jade colored bottles of Mrs. Bumbleshoot's Silver Creamer, a red bulbous bottle of Scarlet Spiral Whiskey, and four tin cans of Scarlet Spiral Fruit Cocktail. On the next shelf down, four packages of Petra's Pita Paper, two jugs of soy milk, and—tortillas! She crouched down to see the bottom shelf, which had Great's Gouda and Edam and other cheeses, three cans of refried beans, and Hernandez Horchata Sugar Plums.

Dad loves those, she thought to herself as she picked the pack of snowy white glittering sugar plums off the bottom shelf. She suggested brewing some coffee for Ivan and Desdemona, Neptune, Pluto, Hamilton, and Siegfried if they all wanted a cup, and bringing back some fruit cocktail.

There's no chorizo, she thought glumly as she pulled the beans and cheese off the shelves, I could have taken that whiskey and cooked it into the chorizo and give it a nice flavor and then make breakfast enchiladas for everyone. No eggs, either. What kind of a kitchen is this?

“This place makes no sense!” Wilson called out from the kitchen, reading Zelda's mind. She glanced to her left to see her younger brother emerging from the kitchen.

“This refrigerator has a sparing amount of food, but there is food,” she explained as she returned to an upright position.

“There's a fridge in here that has another fridge inside of it,” he pointed out, “no food, just another fridge.” Zelda raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Yeah, I know,” Wilson agreed. “On top of that, half of this room is stove tops. There's an island right here—” He gestured behind him “—that's full of drawers. There's nothing in them; it's just a bunch of drawers.”

“Is there at least a coffee maker?” Zelda questioned. Wilson glanced to his left and pointed in the far corner.

“Yeah, there's one over there.”

“Okay, it's obvious that we're going to have to return to Titania,” Hamilton announced to Pluto.

“But we can't take the rocket, though,” Siegfried added. Pluto frowned.

“Why is that?” she asked quizzically.

“Because of the typhoon,” Hamilton explained as he placed his hands on his slender hips. Siegfried unsheathed the lightning rod from the inner lining of his space suit. The tip of the lightning rod flickered on occasion. “His lightning rod has been sparking on and off even down here. Neptune caused a big enough of a storm outside to generate more distractions than the Bermuda Triangle. So we're going to have to go back via teleportation. I contacted Meredith—apparently Belinda slaughtered Deidre, too, threw a knife at her—and she's setting up the coordinates as we speak.”

“What about me, though?” Neptune demanded. Hamilton rubbed his narrow chin.

“I don't think we've done on Earth teleportation,” he admitted softly. He turned his head to face Siegfried. “Got any ideas?”

“Let's see,” Siegfried began as he eyed Neptune, “you've got control over the ocean and the weather. Could you make a reverse tidal wave of sorts?”

“What's a tidal wave got to do with this?” Desdemona asked her eldest nephew quizzically.

“Aunt Desi, hang on—” Siegfried stopped her as his brown eyes gleamed. “—if you can make a tidal wave going in reverse—that is, away from the mainland—”

“A rogue wave is not possible, Siegfried,” Desdemona interrupted.

“Let me finish,” he continued politely. “If you can control the ocean, you can control where the waves go. A rogue wave may not be possible in reality, but with him it is possible. The storm is already raging outside so the ocean is volatile: perfect for stirring up a rogue wave, and if it's large enough, it can take you back to Bikini Atoll.”

“It's gotta be pretty big, though, I'd think,” Ivan choked out as he proceeded to massage his aching belly.

“Well, of course,” Siegfried continued, “you can't get very far on a simple storm surge. It needs to be big and going in the opposite direction. And with Neptune's trident, he has the power and the potential to go six thousand miles across water.” He faced the big merman, who wore nothing but a pair of filmy black trousers and held his trident in one hand, sitting next to Pluto. His soft brown eyes locked onto Neptune's subdued violet ones.

“I believe in you, Neptune,” Siegfried admitted.

“I do, too,” Pluto chimed in. She rested a hand on his left forearm. Hamilton, who had difficulty initially trusting or liking Neptune, reluctantly nodded his head.

“I do, too,” he blurted out. Pluto and Siegfried turned their attention to their brother, who felt a slight elation in what he just said, a slight catharsis, as if giving Neptune the benefit of a doubt opened something inside of him. He gazed on at Pluto, who flashed him a warm smile.

Hamilton finally came to his senses, she said to herself.

“Can we at least have something to eat before we go, though?” Neptune inquired.

“Of course,” Siegfried replied. “I don't like the idea of travelling on an empty stomach.”

“Granted Wilson and Zelda found something downstairs,” Hamilton pointed out.

“I'm sure they did,” Pluto shrugged.

“I did find a spoon, Arthur.” Zelda stirred a pot of refried beans on one of the many stove tops. There was one pot in the refrigerator in the kitchen: it was tucked behind the miniature refrigerator inside. She had fried up the tortillas in a dollop of butter she found in the miniature refrigerator, and then kept them inside of an oven to maintain the heat. Wilson had hoisted himself onto the surface of the island with a can of pears he found hidden behind the cans of fruit cocktail in the refrigerator in the front of the kitchen. Luckily, all of the cans he found had soda pop tops; otherwise, Zelda had yet to find a can opener.

“Where was it?” he asked as he reached into the can for a third pear.

“It was in the pot here,” she replied. She continued to stir the beans until wisps of steam evanesced off into the air. Zelda opened the oven door and reached for the eight tortillas resting on the rack. She turned to see her brother eating pears out of a can using his fingers.

“I would offer you the spoon but—”

“You're dealing with hot beans,” he finished. “It's alright, though. I remember Mom and I often had canned pears after supper. During one summer—I think I was about six or seven—we'd sit outside on the back porch with bowls of pears and watch the Perseids.”

“She was extraordinary,” Wilson replied as he reached for another pear. “She always taught me to follow my passion and to embrace my gift. It's weird to think of her as an artist, albeit so good of one to have one of her paintings a hot topic in national news: I always knew her as a nurse.”

“My mother was an artist.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. She was a sketch artist. After my grandmother died, I found one of my mother's sketchbooks hidden under my grandmother's mattress and I brought it with me to the United States. I will have to show it to you when we return to the house.”

She reached to her right for some grated cheddar and baby Swiss cheese. Zelda sprinkled the cheese over the tortillas and then began to wrap them up in little rolls.

“What kind of an idiotic kitchen is this that does not have chorizo?” she wondered aloud. “Or sour cream? Or avocados? Or onions? Or garlic? Or corn? Where is the corn in this place?!” Wilson chuckled with a mouthful of pear. He had a feeling he and Zelda were going to get along just fine.

The coffee maker let out a little ding! like that of a kitchen timer.

“Coffee's ready!” Wilson exclaimed.

“But wait a minute,” Zelda stopped. Her brother raised his eyebrows.

“Did you see any mugs anywhere?”

Wilson paused, trying to remember if and where he spotted some coffee mugs and some paper plates.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” he answered. “There really is something in this confibrulous confabulation of a kitchen. Hold these, please—”

Zelda took the half empty can of pears from him to allow him to slide off the island. Wilson strode around the other side of the island to the back of the kitchen and a closet door which may or may not have been the pantry. He set a hand on the white knob and pulled open the door to reveal five shelves: the bottom shelf had a large stack of paper plates; the other four were stuffed full of plain white bone china coffee mugs. Wilson turned to face his sister on the other side of the island.

“Hey, Zelda,” he called. She whirled around to see him standing next to the shelves. Her eyes widened in surprise.

“You want a mug?”

“Yes, but are there plates?” she retorted.

“Down here,” he replied softly, as he gestured to the bottom shelf. He crouched down for eight paper plates, and then returned to his older sister, who had eight bean and cheese flautas waiting. Wilson stuck the package of sugar plums in the inside pocket of his coat. Zelda placed the hot flautas on the plates, and then stacked four plates on top of each other; he followed her lead. They both picked up two cans of fruit cocktail and tucked them underneath their arms.

“We'll make another trip down for the coffee,” Zelda assured him. Wilson nodded his head. The two of them headed towards the doorway to the front of the kitchen to see leaning over the countertop—

“Hamilton!” Wilson exclaimed. A dimpled grin crept across his handsome face.

“We were wondering about the two of you,” he admitted. “I walked out of the room and smelled coffee. What you got there?”

“Zelda made flautas for everyone. They're just beans and cheese, though, we couldn't find anything else and this is literally the weirdest kitchen I've ever been in. We also found some fruit cocktail and some sugar plums, and made a full pot of coffee.”

“Hamilton, we are going to need your help,” Zelda informed him as she set her four plates down on the counter. He raised his pale eyebrows at her questioningly.

“There does not seem to be a way out of this kitchen other than over the counter,” she explained, “so could you please do us a favor and help us take these up to the room?”

Hamilton blinked at her and then smiled.

“That I can do, Miss,” he replied with that sweetness everyone on Titania adored. He picked up Zelda's stack of four plates, and then Wilson's stack. Wilson turned to his sister.

“What you say Hamilton and I go upstairs and hand out the food and we'll come back for you and the coffee?” he suggested.

“I could do that,” she agreed, “how do you like your coffee?”

“Blond like me,” he replied with a little smirk. Wilson climbed over the countertop and landed on the linoleum on the other side. He took the four cans of Scarlet Spiral Fruit Cocktail, and tucked two of them underneath his arms. Wilson stepped in front of Hamilton to push open the door.

“Oh, by the way,” Hamilton started as they headed back into the mirrored landing. The door closed behind them, and they found themselves surrounded by hundreds of reflections of themselves going on forever.

“Did you and Zelda find any Positrons down here?”

“As a matter of fact, we did,” Wilson replied as they ascended the stairs.

“Were they scared of you like what Siegfried suggested?”

Wilson bit his lower lip as they reached the top of the stairs and the floor with Victor's office. Hamilton stared at him, completely silent. The only noise emanated from the rain falling on the roof and the windows, and Pluto's voice carrying from down the hall.

“Were they scared of you?” Hamilton repeated, his voice a touch lower.

Wilson shook his head.

“No, they were…” he began. “They were angry. They were angry and they looked as though they were about to strangle us.”

Hamilton's mouth dropped open.

They proceeded to the slightly ajar office door in silence. Wilson pushed open the door and they entered the room. Ivan had hoisted himself into an upright position. His face was pale with hunger, but lit up when his son and Hamilton walked in with paper plates and cans of fruit cocktail.

“Oh thank heaven!” Desdemona declared; she had climbed to her feet and stood between Ivan and Pluto.

“Zelda made flautas for everyone,” Wilson explained as Hamilton set the plates down on the desk. “We found cans of fruit cocktail and I've got some sugar plums in my pocket. She's making up coffee for everyone.”

“Here, Ivan—” Hamilton handed him a plate and Ivan could not keep the smile from stretching across his face.

“I'll go help Zelda,” Siegfried offered, and darted out the door to the cafeteria downstairs. Hamilton gave a plate to Desdemona and then Pluto.

“Do you mind beans and cheese?” Hamilton asked Neptune politely. Neptune, being the merman, was strictly vegan; but he could not refuse free food.

“I'll take it,” he replied kindly, and took the plate.

“Arthur,” Ivan piped up, his voice breaking. Wilson turned to face his father.

“You found sugar plums?”

He opened his coat for the small plastic pack of snowy white glittering sugar plums in the liner pocket. He took out the sugar plums and tossed the pack to Ivan, who caught the pack with a delirious smile. Examining the pack, he could not keep his heart from skipping a beat when he read the label. He held onto a corner of the pack and pulled back: a sweet, milky aroma kissed his nose as he reached for one sugar plum. Ivan examined the perfectly round plum the size of a dime.

“I gained ten pounds because of these,” he confessed. “I don't mind, though. They fill me full.” He inserted the sugar plum into his mouth. The sweet rice flavor combined with creaminess and sweetness poured over the inside of his mouth and down his throat.

Zelda and Siegfried entered the room, both had two coffee mugs in each hand.

“Who wants coffee?” Siegfried announced. Ivan shot up his hand.

“Ivan and I do!” Desdemona exclaimed. Zelda reached out to her right for Ivan to take the mug closest to him.

“Here, Daddy—”

“Thank you, my darling.” Ivan took a sip of hot coffee. It was like someone set a hot water bottle onto his stomach.

Everyone dug into their flautas. Zelda apologized for not having chorizo to go with them but the seven of them assured her not to worry. Wilson passed around the cans of pears and fruit cocktail, both of which Neptune loved: he apologized for not caring for the cheese in the flautas that much and Ivan offered to take his plate. Hamilton offered to take everyone's plates to a trash can in the hallway. Why Victor's office had no can was something no one could understand.

As Hamilton strode down the hallway to the staircase which led to the lower level, he spotted a dark figure the size of both of his hands put together on the top step. He froze in place as he saw what appeared to be a raised up curled inward tail. The tip of tail glowed a bright off white like the ball lightning. Hamilton knitted his eyebrows together as he gingerly crept towards the figure. As he neared the figure, he made out eight spindly metallic legs with greased up joints and flat feet. It had immense cast iron cone shaped lobster claws that he knew were razor sharp able to tear through his flesh. His eyes widened at the sight of the pointed black beak pointing the front of its matte gray body.

Hamilton froze at the sight of the scorpion. He had never seen anything like it before. He remembered reading one of Pluto's books about the wildlife down on Earth, and the first time he had read about scorpions and how one sting of the tail could kill everyone in the room behind him. But this one seemed mechanical, like this was a leftover project on Victor's behalf.

The scorpion began to crawl towards him.

Hamilton raised an eyebrow at the approaching arachnid. He dropped the dirty paper plates and took a step back. The scorpion picked up speed, its brightly lit tail glaring at him so much that he started to see spots. He backed up even more and the scorpion started to run towards him. Hamilton reached for his ray gun and pointed it at the creature. He pulled the trigger. The beam stopped the scorpion in place. Its body changed from gray to red to orange to yellow before breaking apart into separate pieces on the floor in front of him.

Hamilton breathed a sigh of relief. Not caring about the plates on the floor, he returned to the room, his ray gun still in hand.

“How's your tummy?” Zelda asked her father sweetly.

“Feels so much better,” Ivan replied as he massaged his full belly. Zelda nestled next to him. He put his arm around her to bring her closer. Wilson sat across from them and his face fell at the sight of them. Ivan frowned.

“Come here, Arthur,” he coaxed his son. “Come here and sit with us. You're family, remember?”

Wilson sighed through his nose and reluctantly climbed to his feet. He took a step towards Ivan and Zelda. He turned around so he faced Pluto, Siegfried, Desdemona, and Neptune. He sank down on the couch next to Ivan, who then put his other arm around his son's shoulders.

Siegfried curiously searched the top drawer of the desk.

“What you looking for?” Pluto asked.

“I just had an idea,” he answered, “like maybe there's something here that can tell us about the robots. Or maybe Hamilton found something—”

Hamilton entered the room, his face white with horror.

“There you are! I was just talking about you and—my God, are you okay?”

“I just saw,” he gasped, “the biggest scorpion out there just now. It was literally coming at me!”

Pluto gaped at him. Desdemona clasped her hands to her mouth.

“What'd you do?” Wilson asked him.

“I shot it with my ray gun. But it was weird, though: it wasn't a real scorpion, it was mechanical. Like maybe Victor not only made the Positrons but a scorpion.”

Siegfried proceeded to search through the drawer, shuffling through papers and pencils until he stumbled upon a manilla folder at the bottom of the drawer. Imprinted on the folder in big black letters read VICTORIOUS ROBOTICS, TOP SECRET. Siegfried picked up the folder, set it on the desk, and flung it open.

The first page was a model for the Positrons, with fact bubbles and notes scribbled on all sides of the page. He spotted the mission of the bots at the top of the page, written in near perfect neat penmanship.

“The Positrons are all named Bart,” he announced, “they were made to frighten off human beings and take their place in society.”

“Take their place? Why would their mission be to take their place?” Desdemona inquired.

“It doesn't say,” Siegfried admitted. “They're so fragile that all you have to do is knock off their heads to break the communication between the power cells inside their bodies and the circuitry inside their heads. Another option is short circuiting their heart lights, which are connected to their power cells like what Neptune did. The third option is throw water onto them.”

“Is there anything about mechanical scorpions, though?” Hamilton asked, his voice trembling.

“Hang on, let me see—” Siegfried set the first page aside to find another page, this time with a model of the scorpion Hamilton saw out in the hallway. He read the caption aloud.

“'Neutrino driven Animatronic Scorpions, Too Iniquitous for Everyone's Safety, or Nasties, all named Bob.' It says here that in case Victor dies, they will be activated and take his place. Their tails are illuminated with a light emitting diode so bright to bedazzle and confuse anyone or anything that comes in their way. Their claws are sharp enough to cut through the hardest of steel. They sever toes but their mission is to break through major arteries, which causes the victim to bleed out. 'Highly aggressive, and should only be used as a last resort.' It also says here that they're powered by internal combustion, and the only way to kill them is to either physically crush them or shoot them in the face.”

Everyone in the room was completely silent. The eight of them were stuck in a building with a gaping hole in the roof and who knows how many Nasties or Positrons roaming about, wanting their blood. Siegfried closed the folder and tucked it under his arm.

“Which means we need to get out of here and fast,” Ivan concluded.

“But what about the typhoon, though?” Wilson wondered aloud.

“If I made a rogue wave out of here,” Neptune spoked suddenly, “I'll take the typhoon with me. I have control over the sea and the weather. I'll take it with me. And then Desdemona and you three can airship out of here, and the three of you can teleport out.”

He flashed a glance at the blond archer.

“Trust me on this.”

Wilson had to trust Neptune. They were friends after all.

He swallowed and nodded slowly.

“Okay. How're you going to get downstairs, though? We saw an elevator but it didn't look like it was operational, though. Like maybe that's one that doesn't work.”

“Ah, but that's the beauty of a rogue wave, though,” Neptune replied. “Let's just say—” He climbed to his feet, his trident standing strong and high next to him. “—the seas outside are about to get higher.”

He closed his eyes and fetched up a heavy sigh. He focused on the raging typhoon outside. His fingers caressed the smooth whale bone, like handling the smooth stones at the bottom of the sea. He pictured the water flooding onto the mainland and piling onto itself, like a tsunami forming in reverse.

Neptune opened his eyes and strode towards the door. He gestured for the other seven people to follow him into the hallway.

He walked briskly down the hall towards the stairs, his trident never flinching for a second. He spotted the remnanats of the scorpion Hamilton encountered and stepped over them. Neptune proceeded down the stairs to the lower level.

He noticed the door to the cafeteria and the Cobalt Cafe. He directed his attention to his right to the cracked open elevator doors. Neptune strode towards the latter. Setting his trident against the wall, he inserted his fingers into the crack and pulled away. He exerted all of his strength against the heavy doors until they separated. Before him stood the elevator shaft: two black cables jutted out from pitch darkness beneath him and reached into pitch darkness over his head. He glanced down and his head began to twirl on his neck.

The seven of them entered the landing and a Neptune standing in front of the elevator shaft. He turned around to see Desdemona and Wilson gazing on at the gaping hole in front of him.

“Get back upstairs,” he informed them. “I know what to do.”

Desdemona turned to face the three siblings and the Wilson family.

“Go back! Go back! Go back!” she commanded. The seven of them returned to the above level as Neptune gripped onto his trident once again. He stuck the trident out in front of him, inside the elevator shaft. He examined the arrowheaded tines of the trident as he thought about the ocean, those choppy, raging waters, that fragile yet volatile reserve of salt water. With every inhale, his large belly expanded and swelled to as far as it would go, and then caved in slightly with every exhale. He pictured the water rushing onto the mainland like how it floods back into itself just prior to a tidal wave.

Meanwhile, the remaining seven returned to the door of Victor's office and hesitated. Pluto, Hamilton, and Siegfried congregated next to each other. Ivan set his arms around his two children. Desdemona huddled next to Archer Wilson.

“Good thing we parked the rocket far enough away from the sea because I just know this is about to get scary,” Pluto pointed out.

“That thing's got auto control on it anyways,” Siegfried reassured her. “Our friends put enough autopilot elements on it so it just needs an activation from Meredith to fly by itself back to Titania. It's just we have to rush back there and going the way of the rocket will not suffice. That being said—”

Hamilton closed his eyes and focused on Meredith. Her face popped into his mind. He thought about her voice and then mentally spoke to her.

Meredith, beam us and the rocket up, please.

Right, Hamilton! she returned the thought. He opened his eyes to the Wilson family and Desdemona in front of him. The hallway was dead silent. The rain had stopped. There was only thing coming next.

“You guys should get upstairs,” Hamilton coaxed them. He put his arms around Siegfried, who kept the manilla folder pressed tight under his arm, and Pluto, who pressed herself against her brother's slender body.

A low rumbling noise emanated from the ground floor.

Neptune stared down into the pitch black abyss in front of him. He thought about his parents and his sister and the rest of Bikini Atoll. He wondered if Xerces took his clothing, his journal, and his pen back to his parents' house. He watched a massive river crash through the door at the ground floor and into the bottom of the shaft. The shaft quickly began to fill with sea water.

“The wave's coming!” he called out to the others.

“The wave's coming!” Siegfried echoed.

“We should get upstairs!” Wilson exclaimed. The four of them sprinted up the stairs to the top floor just as the three siblings disappeared into teleportation, which signaled a return to Titania. Ivan led the way, his son and daughter behind him, and Desdemona following in close pursuit.

Ivan entered the vast room where the battle took place. Dead Positrons covered the soaked floor and the ruined furniture. The airship was still tipped on its side but he knew it still worked as it only crashed into glass.

He hurried to the cabin of the airship, which remained at an angle, but not at too much of an angle that no one could climb in. He deliberately kept his eyes fixated on the airship, away from Victor's fried corpse. Zelda held onto the edge of the doorway. Ivan set his hands on her hips and helped her in. He did the same with Wilson. Desdemona, who had longer legs, climbed in with ease. Ivan then scrambled into the damp pilot's seat. He reached down onto the floor for his goggles and, after wiping some of the rainwater off of the lenses, put them on. He flicked the three switches on and the propellor roared to life.

He gripped onto the control levers and pulled up. The dirigible of the airship lifted up. They could feel the ship rising back into an upright position.

Ivan turned his head to his children and Desdemona, beaming.

“Let's go home,” he announced grandly. He pulled up on the levers and the ship rose through the remainder of the glass pyramid atop the building, shattering the rest of the glass in the process. He peered out the front window to see Siegfried and Hamilton's rocket rising above the earth by itself. He glanced down to see the shoreline of San Jose deeply flooded with sea water, and rising more and more.

Meanwhile, Neptune watched the seawater rise to where he could dip his body in. The chilled Pacific water pierced through the soft skin on his legs, his hips, his belly, and then his chest. He took in one last breath of air before submerging into the water. His gills fluttered open. His electric indigo tail had appeared over his legs. Holding his trident close, he glanced down to the pitch black elevator shaft.

“Take me home,” he shouted, his voice bouncing off the walls of the shaft. He darted down into the darkness towards the light signaling the bottom floor. He speared out of the elevator shaft into the lobby. The front doors had been busted open by the flood. He slithered past the floating lifeless Positrons and made his way out into the deep flood waters over San Jose. He swam upwards to the surface of the water, and Ivan's airship and Siegfried and Hamilton's rocket both came into view: the former hung over the building, the latter began to hovering away from the swirling, waiting waters. He emerged from the water and stared up at Ivan's airship.

“There he is!” Zelda exclaimed. Ivan glanced down to see Neptune's head and shoulders poking out of the water. Neptune raised his trident over his head and waved to his right. The water began to rush back into the ocean.

Ivan pulled on the levers again and the airship floated out from the building. He turned them to his left. The ship pirouetted and sailed around the building. Neptune kept his upper body above the water as he rushed out into the Bay. He, the four people in the airship, and the rocket rushed out just in time as the building collapsed into the flood waters. He watched ships and boats sink down to the floor of the harbor as the rogue wave began to form.

He could feel the water rise into an elongated mound. He rose to the top of the mound, which rose higher and higher and began to crest. He curled his tail in the direction he was going like a scorpion and hung onto his trident for dear life. He body surfed away from the United States.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the mysterious blue bird that lead him to the United States mainland. He turned his head to see the bird soaring, flapping its wings on occasion. Neptune bowed his head and the wave picked up speed.

He rushed past the Hawaiian Islands, where Mauna Kea and Kilauwea were still erupting.

The wave continued towards the southern Pacific and the Marshall Islands, but as far as the trade winds went, he figured he was in the horse latitudes: the fog barely moved even if he was speeding along on his wave.

He glanced to his left again. The bird had vanished as quickly as it appeared.

He returned to his gaze to the ocean in front of him.

The pointed bow a ship caught his attention. Through the fog, he conted five masts and big plain pitch black sails. The ship itself was a washed out charcoal with gray trimming.

He shivered at the sight of the ship. On the back of the ship, painted in large black letters read KOBENHAVN.

To his right, another ship with an off white boat with light gray trimming and three masts emerged from the fog. On the side of this ship read THE FLYING DUTCHMAN.

The ships sailed on past him without taking into regard of the big wave of who knows how long breaking the rules of the horse latitudes or the horse latitudes themselves. Neptune raised an eyebrow at the billowing sails on both vessels.

There are no trades, though… he thought. A wave of cold washed over him. Both ships seemed to glow akin to the bioluminescence back home at Bikini. He closed his eyes as he surfed over the equatorial waters into the familiar territory he knew as the Marshall Islands. He opened his eyes again and the two ships had vanished. The rising sun shone some light on the Marshalls. In the distance, he spotted Bikini Atoll.

I'd better slow this down, he said to himself. He lowered his trident and the wave began to subside. He relaxed his body. The crest fell back into the ocean. He let out a long low sigh as the wave troughed down into the ocean and surged forward, giving him one last push before disappearing into simple ocean waters.

He swirled back upright and continued his way back to Bikini Atoll. He could feel his mother's touch against his soft body once again. He could not wait to be Emperor once and for true this time. The bioluminescent plankton clustered all around him in a medley of bright blue and green as he neared the northern side of the Atoll and then eventually the lagoon and the colony of merpeople.

The rays of the rising sun bode the Atoll a good morning kiss as Neptune drew closer to the black and white sands and the pink and white corals. He glanced up to see the glimmering rainbow along the sandbar. The fairies were up rather early. It was unlike them to be up this early.

Something felt off.

Usually whenever he wandered outside the Atoll with his old school chums and returned home for dinner, he sensed the warm welcome just outside the colony. He itched for this feeling the closer he swam towards the colony. The warmth had fallen away. No lights emerged from any of the houses. It just seemed unlike the merpeople to all stay asleep at the same time at the same time of day: at least someone would be out and about. The fairies were awake much earlier than usual.

A tingling sensation gnawed its way into the pit of Neptune's stomach as he slithered towards the edge of the colony. Every house was pitch black.

“Hello?” he called out. His voice echoed throughout the passage ways and the houses. He gripped onto his trident as the echo faded away.

He swallowed down his uneasiness and continued down the main pathway towards the old coral house he lived in. At this time of morning, his father Cronus would be awake and trimming down the sea grass in the front yard with his sickle before breakfast was ready. But this time the front yard was uncannily vacant. The house itself was still dark. No signs of life emerged from any of the dark windows. Not a plankton swam about.

“Mom?” he shouted. No response.

“Dad?” Nothing. The house remained dark and empty.

“Juno?” The sound of his voice would have woken up his sister. He eased his grip on his trident. This made no sense.

“Neptune?” A voice above him caught his attention. He glanced up to see a ball of rainbow glitter hovering above the surface of the water. He shot up to the surface of the water. He emerged to see—

“Xerces!”

Another fairy, a fat little man with a little belly, a grass skirt, and a staff with a cross jutting out from a circle capped with a half moon shape, accompanied her above the water.

“And Hermes!”

“I bet your wondering where all the merpeople went,” Hermes said gravely.

“Yeah,” Neptune replied as he rubbed the water from his eyes, “where is everybody?”

“That's the thing,” Xerces admitted, her voice trembling, “we don't know.”

“I was about to go bed last night when I noticed something was wrong,” Hermes explained. “I noticed we hadn't seen any merpeople in a couple of days. I pointed it out to Xerces, and then she pointed it out to Phoebe and Diana, then Hercules and Pandora, and then the next thing we know the whole fairy colony is hustling and bustling late at night.”

“It's starting to spook us, too,” Xerces added.

“I don't doubt you. It's scaring me, too. I was expecting to come home to see my dad out in the yard but no. The whole place is as quiet as a graveyard.”

“Well, come onto the sandbar,” Xerces advised. “Are you hungry? We'll get you something to eat.”

Neptune nodded and followed Xerces and Hermes back to the sandbar where the fairies of Bikini Atoll resided. He set his trident onto the sand before hoisting himself up to join them all. He shook his tail away so he could crawl backwards and lean against a large rock.

Hermes fluttered towards him and gazed on at his large full body.

“I just realized I hadn't seen you in a while,” he admitted. “You look fantastic with some weight. I always thought you were too skinny.”

Neptune flashed a shy smile. He set his hands atop his round belly which shamelessly poked out over the waistband of his filmy black trousers.

“Thank you,” he replied. He thought about Pluto and how much she loved his body and found him beautiful. He recalled how much he and Archer Wilson resonated with one another. The image of him laying on the floor of his bedroom and wanting to sleep for an eternity felt like a distant memory now. “To be honest, I actually feel pretty good with all of this—this—”

He gently rubbed his soft belly.

“—this right here.”

Hermes winked at him. Xerces emerged from behind the rock Neptune leaned against.

“Neptune, your clothes are back here behind this rock along with your journal and your pen,” she explained. “We made sure nothing bad happened to them.”

Neptune blinked. For the first time he no longer felt an attachment to his journal Triton. There were some poems in there, one of which he shared with Pluto, but for the most part, those old thoughts had joined the archives of dusty old books one finds in the back of the Library of Congress, the old books no one really pays attention to anymore.

“Why'd you keep my journal? You should bury it in the sand somewhere.”

Xerces blinked at him, dumbfounded.

“Neptune, those are your thoughts and your feelings,” she told him in a low voice. “To bury those would be like burying them within the deepest and most obscured parts of you. They're within you, a part of you. I couldn't bring myself to do such a thing. If you ask me, if you don't feel an attachment to them anymore, you can always publish them. I'm sure Hermes wouldn't mind doing that. Now, let's get some food in that big lovely belly: you look like you could use something to eat.”

#uranus in capricorn #uranusincapricorn #rough draft #my writing #writers on tumblr #text

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