In the Dark of Night – Part 16

Hi everyone!

HOLY ALL THE EVERYTHING, we made it.

President Joe Biden. Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Man does it feel so freaking good to say those names with those honorifics. I had fears, especially after the January 6th Insurrection, that we were staring down the barrel of Putin’s Russia.

I know that it’s easy to get complacent, but Russia is in a bad place. It is so awful that people protest in -30 degree weather. Yeah, you read that correctly. Mass protests in sub-zero temperatures. It’s that bad.

Everyone who is even moderately pro-Totalitarian has obviously never bothered to do research on what it is actually like to live there.

I wish I could cheer until I was hoarse, hang up my (very minor) political laurels, and sail into the sunset.

I can’t though.

Lost in the political victory is the fact that 4300 souls died from COVID-19 the day President Biden was inaugurated. Senator McConnell is every bit as empty and vindictive as he has ever been. Possibly moreso, now that he’s lost everything and his legacy has proven to be paper thin. He isn’t one to go quietly into the night.

There are still those jobless, hungry, homeless, facing eviction or starvation or both.

Men and women who are black or brown are still targeted unjustly for harassment and denied their due simply because they are different. Women are denied autonomy over their own bodies, over their own futures, over their own identity. The LGBTQ community is still in need of those willing to voice their support and represent them within the stories we weave.

I don’t know that I will ever be able to slink back to my neutrality.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing, either.

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they must fight for the things they believe in. Indeed, failure to fight for those beliefs reveals that they were never really beliefs at all, only convenient catechisms that made us feel good about ourselves.

There is a stark difference between wishing for good things to happen to good people and actually going forth into the world and bearing that wish for all the world to see. I know I say this about everything, but it’s a lot like writing.

I am never going to please everyone, so I’m gonna stop trying.

Instead, I will be myself. Nothing more, and never again anything less.

Onward friends, to adventure!

In the Dark of Night – Part 16

“What the PLUCK, Claire! How am I supposed to ducking fix this pile of shredded spit!”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and focused on my breathing as I sat cross-legged on the dirt beside the road to school. Jake was swearing up a storm as he stomped back and forth on the opposite side of the scraps that lay between us. Scraps that, until a few minutes ago, had been my backpack and all my books. He had dispensed with pretending to be a bird but I kept the filter in place as he pushed human words out his beak.

Anzi was bent double, dark locks nearly touching the ground as she wheezed with laughter at the sheer absurdity of Jake’s display. Jake, having abandoned the pretense precisely because he had an audience, ruffled himself up and produced a stream of edited profanity that would’ve shamed a sailor.

Jake was right, of course. Even if he was being obnoxious about it. I’d need to have every last shred of the backpack and its contents in order for him to repair it. Everything that was missing, well, Jake would have the liberty of filling in the blanks.

“…and I come flying back and see you fighting some clucking demon with a mother-trucking angel sword, you crazy mucking…”

I rubbed my temples as Jake rambled on. No, I had no desire to see what madness he would fill my textbooks with if I gave him the chance. I had been counting on those textbooks, too. Principal Cushinberry had extracted my word to abandon my anonymity and apply myself to the fullest from now on. I had been counting on getting all of my homework finished before school and in between taking notes in class.

I loathed putting things off until the last moment, but it’s not like the last few days had given me time to study.

I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my forehead on them as I mumbled in dismay.

“It would take a freaking miracle to fix this.”

There was a *whoosh* and a gentle thump to my immediate left. I turned my head, confused, and found a disembodied banking tube waiting for me a few meters away. I jolted out of my melancholy, scrabbling across the distance on all fours, and yanked the canister from its perch without ceremony. Clutching it close, I crossed my legs once more and rotated the top open.

As I tipped the contents into my lap, I couldn’t help the breath I sucked in without thinking. It was an achingly beautiful gold and green scroll, exactly like the one Tim had used the previous evening. Fingers trembling, I worked off one ornate end-cap and carefully plucked out the voluminous parchment tucked inside. The writing upon the parchment flowed across it like water as I unrolled the full length of paper. Splashed across the bottom of the scroll were an outrageous signature and an equally bombastic wax seal. I laughed, despite everything that was happening, then read what Heaven had sent me.

“First dearest Claire, please know that we were all rooting for you. I thought Jebediah was going to shout himself silly! Well, silly-er, I suppose.

Second, and I cannot stress this enough, I am sorry that watching is all I am permitted to do. Management frowns on direct interference with mortal affairs, although I would like to point out how fortunate it was that Anizaniza’ish’s weapon was bound and sent along with her for the duration of her pilgrimage.”

I paused there and sent up yet another fervent prayer of thanks for Tim and all he had done for me and mine in the short time I’d known him. Short prayer over, I snapped my eyes open and continued reading.

“I couldn’t help but notice that your quick thinking has left you in a bit of a bind where your promise to your friend and mentor was concerned. I know what it would mean to you if you weren’t able to live up to Mr. Cushinberry’s expectations, especially after you gave him your word. So, as a reward for your actions, I have managed to finagle you a miracle. A minor one, unfortunately, but we must all make the best with what we are given.

Please make sure you follow the instructions of the miracle exactly as they are written. You are a clever girl Miss Miller, I know you’ll be fine.”

For the second time there was a *whoosh-thump* to announce the arrival of a heavenly canister inside the eerily unattached chute to heaven. I sighed. I wanted to keep Tim’s note, but given the circumstances, it would be best to send it back. I shoved it unceremoniously into the canister I had, flipped the top back, and swapped it for the new one.

With a nearly inaudible *fwish*, the replaced canister rocketed into the heavens. Anzi had finally gathered herself enough to see what was going on beyond the tiny hillock of canvas and book-binding fluttering in the gentle morning breeze.

Without ceremony, she scooped up Jake and strode towards me.

As she approached, I opened the new canister and tipped the contents onto my lap. Inside was a tiny pouch and a hastily scrawled note on a slip of plain paper. The packet was no bigger than the dinner mints Hanover House handed out alongside their checks. The note had three sentences of untidy instruction.

“Open the miracle with your face towards the sun. Hold firm in both heart and mind the boon you seek. This miracle will self-destruct in ten seconds.”

Anzi caught sight of the packet as I was reading the note and immediately turned around. Without ceremony, she shoved Jake under her arm like a football and sprinted flat-out up the road towards Mrs. Van Deburg’s hedgerow. She vaulted over it, shoving my squawking familiar under her as she assumed the fetal position over him with her hands slammed across her ears.

I looked at her with growing alarm, then noticed that the packet containing the miracle was bouncing and smoking. Scorch-marks began crawling across the white plastic.

I had just faced down a demon encased in human remains but it wasn’t until this moment that panic made my fingers shake. I grasped the ends of the packet, getting to my feet as quickly as I could. I stumbled, righted myself desperately, and lifted my face and the packet towards the morning sun.

“I don’t want to disappoint anyone anymore!”

I shouted the words with heart and mind and mouth as I tore the packet open.

I had expected the contents to spill to the ground. Instead, a tiny blue blob of some unidentifiable liquid wove drunkenly in the air as though it were suspended in zero gravity. Then it began to glow, the glow becoming angry and red in the space of heartbeats.

I needed no further invitation. I had been back away from the packet the moment I had opened it, but seeing the change in color, I immediately bolted up the gravel path after Anzi. The aches and pains of my battle were forgotten in the pressing need to get the heck away from the miracle Tim was trying to kill me with.

I managed to clear the hedge and assume the spot next to Anzi before the explosion arrived.

Then, arrive it did.

A wave of light and sound slammed into me like a thousand invisible fists. I couldn’t even hear my own screams of terror over the cacophony. After what was either a space of heartbeats or an eternity, the sound and light receded.

I let my screaming trail off weakly as I realized that I had not in fact been destroyed by heavenly sabotage. I immediately crawled over to Anzi, checking on her and a stunned Jake to make sure neither of them had been hurt by the blast.

I peaked over the hedge-row which had been stripped nearly bare. I had expected to see a blazing nightmare, a fiery landscape stripped of all charm and familiarity.

I could never have imagined the jarring image that met my eyes instead.

To be continued…

Explosionfully,

The Unsheathed Quill