(I hate to begin a new story just now, but Rae’s challenge was just too beautiful to pass up.  sighs  She’s going to be the death of me.)

There were certain towns we had to visit in our journey.  We might have visited cities, stayed in the opulent hotels and dined in the five star restaurants, but those times were only… rewards, I suppose, for when we were very good, because it is so nice to pretend to be human again, and to pretend so well that one actually begins to believe it.

But I digress.  There were certain towns we had to visit, to mine what we could from under their depths, and use it to fuel our dreams and our lies.  We never could use anything but towns, because people had to be there, in all their beauty and all their potential for total decadence, but there couldn’t be a great amount of crime, as cities often claim, because too many people who have lived so long in such sin would sour the very earth.  There were fewer and fewer places to go, as time went on.  It wasn’t a reusable resource and, from what I’ve gathered, my companions weren’t quite so stingy in the past.  There are fewer days when we walk in the sunlight and fewer nights where we can act in our sick, marvelous play, and he’s started to become anxious.

He’s afraid that he will lose control as he loses his power, and he’s right to be afraid.  I’ve learned my lesson well and I am very certain that at least a few my companions have, too.  When these chains are loosened, we will tear him apart.

Some of us are no longer frightened of death.  We have nothing for which to stick around.

In This Time of Waking

“Seymour Christopher Selwyn!  Get out of bed this instant!”

With a groan, he rolled out of bed, landing on the hard wooden floor with a muffled thump as he took his blankets with him.  He clawed his way out of the cocoon he’d wrapped himself in and sat up, blinking at the sunshine streaming serenely into his room.

Because sunshine wasn’t supposed to stream in his room; his room had windows facing north.

“Chris!”

And then a small body launched itself at him, very accurately mimicking a missile, he supposed as he fell backwards once again.  Abby looked down at him with wide blue eyes and the biggest grin he’d ever seen.  “The fair!  The fair!  You said you’d take me!”

Chris yawned, waved at his aunt Evvie, who was watching her five year-old daughter with great amusement from the doorway, and said, “I’m up, I’m up, I’m taking you to the fair, and I think I’ve suffered enough without you using my first name, Ev.”

“Hey, I tried to tell your mother,” Evvie said, laughing.  “Go get washed up and ready for the day, then.  Come on, Abby; let’s finish making breakfast.”

“Okay!”  Abby jumped up, planting one foot right into Chris’s stomach before she dashed off.  Evvie smiled sympathetically at Chris, who was wheezing, before following her daughter downstairs.

Chris smiled to himself, getting up and dumping his blankets on the bed.  He was at his aunt’s house, somewhere in the wilds of Wisconsin, helping to watch his cousin Abby while her mother adjusted to being a single parent after a rather nasty divorce.  Remembering his uncle Tom, Chris was very grateful that Evvie had managed to win full custody.  The man was just mean, even when he wasn’t drinking, and Abby was too sweet to be forced to live that.  Come to think of it, so was Evvie.  She was only twenty-six and often seemed much younger.

He was nineteen and heading into his second year of college, just spending the summer with Evvie and Abby.  It was already August, however, and Chris was already wishing that summer would last just a bit longer.  Not only were his relatives wonderful people, but their closest neighbors, the Barnhardts, were just incredible, too.  And Lily Barnhardt, eighteen years old and going to be a freshman at UWM, where Chris went to school, was the best friend that Chris could have ever hoped to have.

He wandered into the adjoining bathroom, grateful again that this big country house had a mother-in-law apartment upstairs, and set about getting ready for the day.  The guy looking back at him in the mirror had an optimistic expression: hopeful brown eyes, a cheerful grin, and messy light brown hair (“It’s honey-colored, Chris,” his mother always said affectionately) that was quickly tamed by the comb.  He pulled a black Summerfest t-shirt onto his skinny, five-nine frame and stepped into a well-worn pair of blue jean cut-offs.

Evvie and Abby both had yellow-blonde hair and big blue eyes, which certainly made him look like an outcast when they went shopping or just walking around in town.  But it didn’t make people any less liable to believe that Chris was Abby’s father, which always led to awkwardness, usually on the part of the person who called her his daughter, though.  Chris and Evvie both had long gotten used to explaining things.

He went back into the room, smiling as he caught sight of one of Abby’s hair ribbons lying on the floor near his bed.  She never could seem to keep them in her hair, but she had to wear the silly things.  Chris made the bed before picking it up, looked around the rest of the room, and was a little put out by the emptiness of it yet again.  The room was fairly large, at least twelve feet square, but all it held was a bed in one corner and a desk in the other.  All his clothes stayed in the closet when they weren’t on the floor.  He hadn’t brought much else.

There wasn’t even a carpet.  The only color in the room was the rich brown of the hardwood floor and the blues and greens of the quilt on the bed.  The desk and walls were off-white and there were no curtains to stop the sun from peeking in every morning.  The tiny kitchenette off to the left, accessible by a large, arched opening, didn’t have anything but a table inside.  The countertop and sink were bare, the cupboards were empty, and the stove and refrigerator had been taken downstairs in the beginning of summer to replace the ones that had broken.

“I really need to get Evvie to paint up here,” he murmured, grabbing his shoes from the closet and then heading downstairs, listening to the door shut softly behind him.  Evvie loved painting all sorts of brightly colored fantasy images, and the bedroom walls downstairs were covered in her art.

The rest of the house was near empty when it came to furniture, though.  Downstairs held the living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom, all with a minimum amount of furnishings.  Chris had had to put together a really crappy stool to sit at the kitchen table with; Evvie only had two chairs.  Of course, she didn’t have a lot of money.  She’d lost all of her savings fighting for custody against Tom, and she didn’t make much as a schoolteacher.  Still, she and Abby were happy, and everyone in the family sent toys and clothes for Abby because she was everyone’s baby.

“We got chocolate poptarts,” Abby announced, holding up hers with a triumphant smirk.  “Now eat up like a good boy and let’s go go go!”

“Abby,” Evvie said reprovingly, but Chris was already laughing and sitting down to eat his breakfast.  Abby watched him like a hawk, tisking whenever she thought he was eating too slowly.

“We can’t go until Lily gets here,” Chris reminded her, standing up to throw his paper plate away.  “Thanks, Evvie.”

“You’d think it was terribly difficult to use a toaster,” his aunt replied, smiling impishly.  “Go on, wait outside on the porch.  I’ve got cleaning to do.”

“Bye, Mommy!” Abby called, already running for the front door.  Chris nodded to her and then followed his cousin, knowing that Evvie might start her ambitious plan of cleaning the house, but would end up getting inspired and start painting the walls with more magical fish or flying horses or dancing plants.

Abby was sitting on the steps, watching the long, gravel driveway with considerable concentration.  “When will Lily-billy be here?”

“Pretty soon, I think,” Chris said, sitting down next to her.  “What time is it?”

Abby grabbed his wrist and turned it so that she could see his watch.  “Um… nine oh ten o’clock!  Right?”

“Exactly,” Chris answered, laughing when Abby jumped up and started dancing, proud of her accomplishment.  He’d been trying to teach her how to tell time on his tiny watch for the past few weeks.

“Is Lily-billy your girlfriend?” Abby asked innocently, making Chris jump in surprise.

“Um, no, baby,” he said, confused.  Where had she come up with that idea?  “Lily’s just a friend.”

“Okay.”  And that was that.  Abby went back to staring at the driveway, singing under her breath and waiting for Lily.  Chris was relieved; he didn’t want to explain to his baby cousin that he wasn’t ever going to have a girlfriend.  Abby would be sure to repeat a lot of the things he said, and although Evvie was completely cool with the fact that he was gay, he knew she wouldn’t like having to explain to Abby’s kindergarten teacher what her daughter meant by saying, “My cousin Chris likes boys.”

“There she is!” Abby suddenly yelled, jumping up with a great deal of excitement showing on her face.  Lily’s old green van was coasting up the driveway, shining brightly in the sunlight that filtered through the trees.

“Hey!” Lily called out, laughing, when she had parked.  Abby was already running to her, laughing even more brightly.  Chris followed more slowly, with a warm smile.

Lily was a few inches shorter than Chris and looked like she must be the one related to Evvie and Abby: she had the same yellow-blonde hair and pale skin, though her eyes were blue-green rather than pure sky-blue.  She even had the same bright personality and artistic nature.

“What’s up?” she asked after greeting Abby with a big hug.  “Are we ready for this fair or what?”

“Yeah!” Abby cheered, making Lily and Chris both laugh.  “I get a big girl seat, right?  Right?”

“With the big girl shoulder strap modifier thingy,” Lily agreed, helping Abby to the side door of the van.  “And don’t mind my purse, Chris, just plop it in back.”

“You mean the sack in which you carry your entire house?” Chris grumbled, opening the passenger door and getting a good look at what Lily was trying to pass off as a purse.  “What else do you have in there, besides a medium-sized city?”

“Shut up and sit down,” Lily ordered, snagging the purse and tossing it in the back seat.  “Let’s get moving, guys!”

It was surprisingly large and full for a three-day country fair, sporting a midway filled with rides, a great many tents housing bars for beer-selling and stages for aspiring musicians, livestock and crop and baking contests, and a daycare for kids set in the old, burnt remains of a barn.  It was being held in someone’s field, out near a ridge of trees that was almost a mile thick and four miles long.  There were people selling all manner of food and drink and useless trinkets and toys, all of which Abby had to have, and there was a huge alley of games set up, too.  Chris won Abby a few stuffed animals, Lily got herself a new hat, and, despite the slight sunburn and headache from the noise of the fair, Chris found himself having a very good time.

After moving through the fair proper for an hour or so, they wandered over the midway and started looking at rides.  However, Abby didn’t like the bumper cars and Lily wouldn’t ride a ferris wheel and Chris wasn’t getting in a Tilt-A-Whirl for any reason.  They kept moving, looking for other rides to try.

“I wanna go in the fun house!” Abby begged, grabbing Chris’s arm and tugging on it with all her might.  “Please please please?”

“Oh, man,” Chris moaned, looking at the spinning tunnel that served as the entrance.  “No way, Abby.  I already have the worst headache-“

Before Abby could start wailing, though, Lily jumped in.  “I’ll take you, kiddo.  Chris can sit back and stare at the ticket guy.”

Said ticket guy was one of the most attractive people Chris had even seen.  Lily had questioned him again and again as to how his tastes ran, so she knew immediately that Chris wouldn’t mind waiting outside for them as long as he could keep darting glances at the tall, dark-haired, brown-eyed young man sitting by the entrance, looking rather bored.  It was a relief to be out, Chris had found soon enough, because it had never bothered Lily when he started staring at guys- quite the reverse, actually.  She thought it was too cute, and it seemed she was feeling the same way, now.

“I like him!  You could be friends with him, Chris!” Abby said suddenly, sounding delighted.  “I bet he’s really nice!  And you could play while we’re in the fun house!”

Lily stifled her laughter and took the little girl’s hand, leading her towards the fun house.  “We’ll be out in five minutes, Chris, so get an eyeful.  C’mon, Abby!  Got your tickets?”

“I do!” Abby cried out, sounding so excited that Chris was half-afraid she’d wet her pants.  But both girls ran up to the fun house, handed in their tickets, and stood framed for a moment against the tumbling tunnel painted around the outside to look like a mouth.  He watched them, feeling his skin crawl, as they climbed inside: two pretty blonde girls, one in pig-tails, a pink t-shirt, and a blue skirt, the other in blue jean shorts and a white tank top.  Then they were gone.

Chris took a step forward, almost calling them back, before he got a hold of himself.  He darted one quick look towards the ticket guy, who was watching him closely.  It was unnerving- usually, Chris would be psyched to find out that someone he wouldn’t mind getting to know was watching him, but the gaze directed his way was strangely dark.  He looked away and then stared up at the windows on the second floor of the funhouse, which were supposed to be eyes, he supposed from the paint around them.  He knew that Abby would find them and have to wave at him.

But she never came to the windows.

After ten minutes that lasted much too long in Chris’s opinion, he was starting to get nervous.  Abby and Lily hadn’t walked out.  Other people had gone in, and they’d been through in five minutes or less, usually laughing and very much enjoying the final slide exit that landed them on the other side of the ticket guy, who had been watching Chris steadily for most of those ten minutes.

He finally decided to just go in and find Lily and Abby, who were probably hiding out inside and laughing at him right now, but in the space of time it took for him to dig his tickets out of his pocket and look back up again, the ticket guy had disappeared.  Chris swore, but he waited.  And waited.

And waited.

Twenty minutes since they had gone in, and Abby and Lily had yet to come out.  Chris threw two tickets down on the little table that the ticket guy had been sitting in and walked up to the mouth of the fun house, took a deep breath, and went in.

(Don’t you just love fun houses?)