Receding, receding- and curious onlookers gathered around as the waves washing over the fine, pale sands of the beach continued to do just that. Aquatic animals writhed outside of their preferred habitat, seaweed lay like dejected lumps of abandoned autumn leaves, only to be overtaken and examined by the gathering crowds.

"I've never seen it do that," One authoritative older man in a tank top and swim trunks proclaimed loudly. "It's the weather these days, acting all odd. It's so hot the water just vanishes."

"Maybe a hole opened up somewhere and the water is draining to an underground cavern," Offered a younger woman with very large and expensive Oakley frames of pearl white.

Others nearby agreed with one or the other, or speculated amongst themselves while children played in the still-damp sand. Anxious mothers left off their conversing to call various warnings- orders like 'Don't touch that jellyfish!' and 'Sharks have sharp teeth, leave it alone!' rang out between the general hum of growing concern mingled with baffled amusement. There were no authorities in sight, no choppers overhead to call warnings or blow sand into the still-arranged picnics, no army marching down in a long line or strange and hideous beasts rising from the depths- and the people were complacent, concerned only with the dissatisfaction of a vacation gone awry.

Ten minutes, twenty, then thirty- and the overheated and irritated people simply watched the water line far in the distance, where it pulsed against the horizon, slathering on another layer of sunscreen and sipping their bottles of purified drinking water while the scent of salty sand drifted in the breeze. Now not even the most stern and argumentative mothers could keep their offspring from picking up bits of plants, or tossing frightened and skittering crabs at one another. Impatience ruled, and no one could find surcease from it. No one played Frisbee or volleyball, or even flirted with the prettiest of the girls on their stretch of sand; they all sat, dimly thoughtless and wondering why such a thing had to happen to them on that particular day. Surely this was karma for some small, forgotten thing and the only reason it dragged on was because, like a watched pot, it wouldn't come to fruition with so many eyes in its direction. Still, instinctively, they all fidgeted and blustered in fear.

One ordinary moment later, a strange sensation of change came into the air, along with the sound of a deep, thrumming roar. Those who still had the motivation stood and looked across the water, puzzled- at this distance, it only seemed the tide was coming back in. Mile by mile it approached, gathering speed- and only about five miles from the shoreline could the most astute and with the greatest perception of depth notice what was terribly wrong. High tide- perhaps in one sense, but at least a hundred feet tall. A few, sparse screams carried over the beach for a bare moment, even fewer even managed to turn as though to flee in terror- but the volumes of water were simply too quick. Those five miles it crossed in a matter of a few seconds, dropping on the bare sands even more debris and living tissue before it with the force of its flowing, then swallowing them again as it crossed paths with the so recently liberated bits of itself.

"Tsun-" One person managed to cry before, in a hair's width of time, the children closest to the killer wave and those on the beach proper were swept away completely, the instances so close as to be indistinguishable by the naked eye. There was no chance to hold one's breath, the strength of the water was so fantastic- the liquid was simply driven into lungs and death was nearly instant. Unfeeling, unthinking, the bodies rushed further onto the shoreline, bumping recklessly along the same expanses they'd been strolling on before.

The beach itself was covered in a new layer of fine, silty grit, as though a new coat of paint. Dead animals and plants, garbage and half-eaten slices of watermelon were all taken back to their native homes further toward the centers of humanity, washing through the coastal city nearby. The world was dark, the shoreline dank and dreary as opposed to hot and bright as the waters finally began to calmly recede again, this time back to the habitat they'd known before. In time, people began to return to the shore, cautious and wary, reporting on the disaster and glancing at the ground with a newfound fear, as though any moment they'd trip over some appendage of a formerly living comrade. No one stayed long, and the sands were again peaceful, nonplussed by the lack of disturbance.

He slowly opened the hollow pine back door.  Never had any door been so heavy. He walked past the endless empty rows of lined pews, which seemed to be the only order in all of the chaos.  Next were the two steps – which felt like mountains – that led to the deep red curtain.  Once the bewildered young man reached the curtain, he stood there for a moment knowing his father was just on the other side.  He took a deep breath and struggled to find the slit in the curtain.  Once he did, he pulled it aside – eyes closed – and stepped through.

He opened one eye at a time, slowly.  He saw a little boy – his younger brother, Colin – standing by his father.  The little boy's hazel eyes appeared hollower than the back door as he gazed through his fallen role model.  The older brother looked at his dad's eerily beautiful eternal bed – pine, like the back door – with heavy eyes as if there were nothing else in the room.

It was only him, his little brother, and the body of his father.  He was in awe, and couldn't decide if this was truly occurring.  He wished to pinch himself to wake from the nightmare that consumed him.

The father looked just as he did when he would fall asleep on the couch watching football.  Except, this time, there was no couch.  This time, he was not snoring.  This time, he would not wake up.

The younger brother hesitantly asked, "Is he still there?"  The older brother, Junior stood there and pondered the question as he was not quite sure.  He looked at his deceased father deeply – deeper than he ever had before, deeper than the soon to be grave, deeper than the red of the curtain – and saw nothing but an unfamiliar face.

"No," he slowly replied to his brother who didn't even understand the implications of what he had just been told.

"Then where is he, Junior?" the younger one asked as the two brothers looked at their dad.  Junior thought for a moment, again, as he knew this was probably the most important question he would ever have to answer.

"You know the clouds in the sky?" he said.

"Yeah."

"Well, on top of those clouds there is the most beautiful place you could ever think of.  There are gardens as far as the horizon blooming gigantic white flowers every single day.  Everyone always has a smile on their face – no exceptions.  It's a place where nobody gets mad, nobody gets hurt, and nobody ever has a reason to cry.  And when you go there you can do anything you desire."

"Oh," Colin reluctantly responded, as he looked up and to the right.

"And that is where he will be forever.

And another thing," added the older brother. "I don't want you to call me Junior anymore.  Call me Michael – my real name."
The younger brother appeared confused, but seemed to shrug off the comment.

"I remember, me and Dad were playing catch with the baseball, and he told me how good I was getting," interjected Colin.

Michael just stood there - his mind as empty as the rows of pews - as he could not retrieve a single memory to share with his little brother.

Again, there was a pause in which the two brothers were looking at each other as if they were communicating through only their eyes.

The younger one asked, "When can I see him again?"

He was immediately hugged by his upset brother, who said, "I'm sorry …we won't, but I'll be here for you for anything you'll ever need, just like he would've been."

Just as these words passed his quivering lips, a memory – a conversation between his father and him about a girl – suddenly materialized within the walls of his consciousness.  And not long after, another emerged.  And another.

While this was occurring, back in the other room – which felt like a different world entirely - the mourners entered the pews just as rain drops into a reservoir.

In the solemn, dark room, Colin timidly questioned, "What if people don't remember him?"

A tear rolled down his cheek, as Michael whispered proudly, "For as long as their hearts beat, they will remember."

The older one grabbed his brother's hand and they took one last look at their father.  They walked back through the curtain to find the once empty rows filled with a congregation of watery-eyed men and women – tissues in hand.  They both stood there for a moment shocked at the vastness of the crowd.  Colin looked up at his new role model; and Michael back at him.

They proceeded to their awaiting seats – front row, center.  They looked at each other - then at the curtain.  It opened.

"Ladies and gentleman, we are now beginning our final descent," the stewardess is telling us, her friendly mid-Western drawl sounding over-rehearsed and a little clipped. She goes on, no doubt sharing valuable reminders about tray tables, upright seat positions, and connecting flights, but I'm already back to staring out the window.

It's a red-eye flight, and morning is reluctantly beginning to seep through the clouds, flushing the sky a dull bluish-gray, occasionally illuminated by a hot white flash from one airplane light or another. I swig back the last few acidic dregs of coffee from my Styrofoam cup and watch, mesmerized, as the plane dips and wobbles. The lights below resolve themselves from hazy constellations into the neat, twinkling outlines of a city planner's map, then into highways and houses as we draw closer still, and finally, into the icy industrial lights of the landing strip as we jolt onto the ground.

All at once, the inside lights hum on, and the airplane cabin awakes from hibernation as passengers whip out cell phones, struggle with overhead duffel bags, calm nervous toddlers. I wait with genuine patience, wiping pretzel crumbs from my faux leather chair, and idly kicking the seat in front of me - then finally, spotting an aperture in the lines of departing fliers, I shrug my backpack onto my shoulders and shuffle out, waving to the stewardess. As I step over the tiny gap from the plane into the terminal, I can feel a gust of air from the tarmac below. When I was much younger, traveling with my parents, this used to terrify me. Now, flying solo - well, it still does, a little, but I'd never admit it.

Even at 6:49 a.m. (four minutes behind schedule), the terminal is alive, and I take a moment to marvel at the synchronous serendipity of so many people traveling the same routes at the same time. I love flying, love airports, even - love them with the passion that only a sheltered suburban child of the middle class can feel at the mere idea of getting out.

I don't know which I prefer, though - leaving, or coming home. Returning offers the promise of a familiar skyline, the end of a journey, a tidy resolution of turns into my freeway, my exit, my neighborhood, my house. But leaving means new climates, new streets, the thrill of rental cars and hotel rooms, and the pure exhilarating terror of being alone a few thousand miles from home.

I drag my suitcase from the clutches of baggage claim and step briskly down innumerable sets of escalators and pairs of automatic doors, until I'm finally outside. I stop and bask in the sheer alienness of the air, which is cool and more humid than I'm used to. I should put on a jacket, but I don't - instead, I catch a taxi, knowing that it will be the one constant of American travel, cracked black seats smelling vaguely of smoke and cologne and recycled air, with a driver who probably landed five minutes before I did.

The road signs are different here, though - subtly so, but they're different colors, with different fonts, spelling names appropriated from different Native American tribes, and I forget my dignity and press my nose to the dingy window to stare unabashed, thinking that there are roads like this all over the country, and noticing that the trees are different too...

The driver lets me off, and I breathe in deeply the new air, reveling in feeling far from home.

Instantly she was plunged into total darkness. With a soft woosh of air, the door shut behind her and Shanna regained her footing just as she heard the large metal door lock with a click of metal hitting metal.

She pulled the blindfold off of her head and stood perfectly still, listening, trying to figure out where she was while her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She spit out a tooth and mouthful of blood from being beaten. She could smell the acrid stench of old urine and decay. The odor burned her nose and she had to fight the urge to vomit.

Arms outstretched, she slid her feet along the floor and slowly made her way back in the direction she was sure the stairs had been. Groping at the air like a child playing Marco-Polo, the darkness seemed to squeeze in even tighter. The air was becoming harder to breathe and she started to choke.

Gasping for breath, Shanna collapsed to the ground. She ran her hand along the ground in front of her, hoping to find some hope of escape. Her fingers touched something cold. She moved her hand closer to the object and it disappeared from her reach. She reached slightly further forward and put her hand on something hard.

She felt the item, sliding her fingers all over it. Hopeful excitement set over her as she realized it was a lighter. She fumbled with the small piece of plastic trying to get the correct alignment in her hand to light it. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she found the correct placement of her thumb and gave the lighter a quick light. On the first try, the spark ignited the gas. A true sense of elation came over her as her surroundings were illuminated by the meager light.

Sweeping the lighter left and right, she could see that the stairs were not in front of her like she had thought. She began to crawl to the right of where she was, again hoping to find the exit and clean air. Out of the darkness a shape began to appear. She felt a deep sense of fear well inside her as she scurried closer to it, hoping it was not what it appeared to be.

Shanna screamed for the first time as she realized what she was looking at.

“Matt? Oh, God. Matt, no! Please, no! Stupid old car. I knew we should have taken my car.“

She reached out and touched the dead mans face. She could feel the heat of his life slipping away as his skin cooled beneath her hand. She held the lighter to his face and his eyes were wide with fear. His curly, reddish-blond hair was plastered to the side of his head. There was a streak of blood running from the corner of his mouth, and from his eyes. Staring into the blank eyes of her husband, Shanna quickly remembered all of the good times that they had shared while they were together. Tears began to run down her cheeks as she finally realized the true gravity of the situation that she was in. She now knew that she had little time to escape or she would face the same fate as the man on the floor.

Summoning all of the strength that she had, Shanna removed one of the shoes from the body lying next to her on the floor. She apologized to him under her breath as she removed his sock from his cold foot. She rose to her feet again and used the lighter to ignite one end of the sock to use as a torch. The cotton caught on fire quickly and burned bright enough for her to see most of the room that she was trapped in.

The white brick walls and stone floor were covered with red stains throughout the entire room. Bodies had been lined up around the edge of the room like a child’s toys, all in various sates of decay. Some, like Matt, looked a few hours old. On some, the skin had pulled back from their teeth, and others, just piles of clothes on top of old bones. A scream escaped from Shanna’s lips, reminiscent of Janet Leigh in Psycho. A soft click echoed off of the walls around her and she looked toward the door. The sound of the foul air escaping the room reached her just before the sound of heavy boots on the stairs. She heard a stair creak, and then silence. She closed her eyes and waited for the end that she knew would come all too soon. She felt hot breath on her face, and hands around her throat.

With a final shuddering breath, she plunged into total darkness forever.

When it’s five A.M. on a gray Los Angeles morning, you can almost pretend that the sooty horizon of smog is really just a fog layer on the brink of being pushed away to reveal a radiant sunrise. Streetlights cast dim globes of illumination, spotlighting the various attractions of an inner-city street corner. Dully metallic trash cans line the road like sentinels in front of the drab, locked storefronts of convenience stores and fast food places. The only color comes from the illegible graffiti that mars nearly every wall in streaks of blue, red, black. It’s chilly, too – not actually cold, in deference to the fact that in California, it never really is – but the time of day magnifies the discomfort of the weather. The police and paramedics are consigned to their usual uniforms, but the reporters are all bundled up in overpriced, puffy jackets, each pair of gloved hands clutching a cup of steaming coffee. The camera guys, hands full, look on enviously.
The men lying on the street don’t have jackets either, but this doesn’t really occur to anyone, because surrounded by dusty yellow tape, they’re not people anymore, just bodies. In the dark, to the onlookers, they’re hardly that, even – through the eyes of a lens, they are flaccid, curved smudges, like a baffling exhibit of modern sculptures. A man is brought to the ambulance on a stretcher. Somehow, in the half-light, the scene is peaceful. He is carried gently, wrapped in a white blanket; if it wasn’t for his mangled torso he would look for all the world like a child being put to bed. He doesn’t know how many network news cameras are trained on him, beaming his unmoving figure to a thousand incurious black boxes in Sherman Oaks, in Studio City, in North Hollywood. Maybe, if he knew, he would appreciate it. He always wanted to be on TV.
At least he’s still alive. Those corpses lying on the street – they won’t come back. That’s what the survivor says. Sobbing, sobbing, tears running down his flushed face to mix with the grime on his torn gray suit, he is passed from interview to interview like a rag doll. He speaks in breathless, disjointed sentences, changing his story as he struggles to pull his mind into consciousness. He’s very tired. It’s his best suit – he was coming back from a wedding. He’d been traveling all night. It tore when he was trying to get out of the car, after they shot at it - he just wants his wife and his children, if they’re watching, to know that he’s okay…
The skinny guy with the camera for Channel 7 lowers his arm and massages it a little, rubs his bleary eyes. After this is over, he wants to go home and eat some breakfast, and then he wants to go back to sleep. It’s good, he decides, that he can bring this man’s family some comfort. He tries to think of the horror of what has just happened – the blood, the pain, the death. He thinks of the cadavers on the pavement, the man in the ambulance, the man from the wedding. But from behind the camera, it all seems like a scene from a movie. The blandness of the landscape emphasizes the frailty of human life. The sweeping cinematography shows a stark image of violence, yet without glorifying it. This scene could win an Oscar.
His mind recoils because he is seeing witnessing this not as humanity, but as art – and it is beautiful.

It’s hot for June – the kind of heat that saps the will to move or to speak. The whole earth seems to slow its pace, from the flushed green of the shade trees to the cool, mud brown flow of the creeks. There can be no thought of haste. It is the best time for books, for tales, for all the things not meant to be rushed.

Now that school is out, she reads most of the time. She sits out front on the porch swing, her bare legs tucked up on the seat and a book in her hands. Most days, she stays there till night comes and it’s too dark to see the words on the page.

When she was young, she would wait all year for the months free of school – the best days of her life. There were no rules. With four or five friends at hand, she would roam her small town. They would buy sweets, take off their shoes to wade in the brook, or climb the low limbs of trees so they could peer out from the thick leaves to watch their realm, like kings. They got in a lot of scrapes, not just the ones on arms and knees, but real ones, or at least ones that seemed big at the time. They were jeered, sworn at, chased, and warned to keep out, but they all still made it back for lunch each day. She ran and skipped a lot, then; she moved fast to take in all that she could. The world was so big.

Those months seemed short, then, but now, they seem to have no end – with less than a week gone by, she longs for the loud, cold rooms of her school; or, at least, for things to do. Most of her friends have gone off to camp, or things like that, and the ones who are left are more grown up now, and choose boys and jobs and test prep over board games and long treks through the woods. As for her…well, books are nice, but they get old fast, and she thinks that if she spends one more day in her house, she might scream. The whole town, once so huge, has shrunk on her like an old blouse in the wash.

She flings her book to the hot ground, where it tips the glass of Coke she has left there. She dips a thumb in the spilled drink, and licks a sweet sip from her hand. The thrown book soaks up the rest, and she watches the pages meld with some guilt; but the air will dry them out, and so she does not pick up it, but rolls on her back and stares up at the sky from the cracks in her porch roof.

She wants to see the world that she had heard so much of. From her small town in the south of the South, her mind drifts to lands half real, half dreamed. She likes to think of cold – ice, and hail, and snow, in some place far north where she could freeze to death. Or she dreams of the coasts – L.A., or New York – places where she could get lost, where each face she saw would be strange. One day, she will get out.

As she lies there, her skin soaked with sweat and her bones lax with heat, with her straight brown hair damp on her face and her eyes closed from the sun, she does not think that she will leave soon – that one day, trapped at work from nine a.m. until six at night, it will be these long days that she yearns for, that will stick in her heart.

It was too big for me to think of it as a sign, but wasn’t quite big enough for me to consider it a billboard. The slogan across the top read “Dieke Park, coming soon!” The rest of it was covered with an artist’s rendition of what Dieke Park would look like. I looked past the sign/billboard at the open park.

It was mostly grassy fields with curving walkways meandering between them. To my left, there was a stand of trees blocking where the map said a lake would be. To my right, giant metal poles jutted from the ground where the map said a jungle gym would be. An absolutely massive jungle gym, from the looks of it. The highest poles had to be at least thirty feet tall, and the thing probably covered more land than your standard mansion. Just in front of me, to the immediate left of the map, I saw the main entranceway: a pavilion of metal supports with a wood-plank roof that curved upward like a giant feather that some god had decided to place there.

I took in the picture in front of me and imagined what it would be like in six months. I could see families laying on the grass or walking around the walkways. I could hear the kids on the climbing equipment. It was a nice little utopia.

There were no gates up, so I figured the unfinished park was already open to the public and tentatively stepped around the pieces of discarded irrigation piping that formed the only resistance to entry. The park was empty. I had it all to myself.

The lake seemed about the most interesting place to start, but when it came into view I was a bit disappointed. It was barely a pond, really. I sat on a concrete ledge that hung over the shallow, peanut-shaped body of water, and contemplated taking off my sandals and dipping my feet in. The water was crystal clear and extremely inviting, but some tug of anxiety pulled at the back of my head, like it would somehow be against the rules.

I sat there for a while, just looking across the water until I noticed that the sun was setting. There were some buildings behind the park that were about to cover the sun, so I headed over to the hill that separated the pond from the play equipment. Since it was beyond the buildings, and the highest point in the park, I figured I’d get a nice view of the sunset. But I’d have to hurry.

Just at the foot of the hill, there was stretch of exposed dirt a couple yards wide where they hadn’t put sod down yet. Since it was a low point it was a bit flooded, but the puddle was on the near edge and not very wide and I figured if I jumped over it I’d be okay. So I jumped. I even cleared the puddle. But when my left foot came down it got sucked into the wet, cold, and apparently unstable ground. As my right foot instinctively landed ahead of my left, keeping me balanced, the thought flashed through my head: I’m effectively standing in quicksand. I was lucky the quicksand was only ankle-deep.

With a nice little sucking sound, I pulled my left foot out of the hole it created and placed it as gingerly as possible ahead of my right. I repeated the process with my right foot, this time faster, and worked my way across the mud as quickly as possible without getting too dirty.

I undid the Velcro of my sandals and cursed. They were completely caked. I sighed, hooked my fingers through the ankle straps, and held them a little ways out from my side as I climbed up the hill. The sunset wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it was going to be. I looked down at my mud-covered feet, and Nelly Furtado’s voice popped into my head, albeit singing slightly new words:

I’m like a birch
I’m rooted in the clay
I don’t know where my soil is
I don’t know where my loam is

I hate Nelly Furtado. I scowled and looked around to both sides of the hill. Deciding against going down through the mud again, I made my way down the jungle gym side instead. And then I was walking barefoot through a construction site. My mother would kill me if she knew.

I made my way back to the pond using the walkways and shoved my feet in, ignoring that anxiety in my head. As the last of daylight disappeared, I started rubbing the stubborn mud off of my feet, clouding the once clear water.

The German shepherd sniffs furiously at the lockers, while Mrs. Miller, the new vice principal, stands motionless at the intersection. This is her first lockdown and most of the students and staff in the school have never been through one. And judging by the dog’s excitement, locker 162 is harbouring more than books. At the policewoman’s nod, Mrs. Miller identifies to whom the locker is assigned and opens it with the master key. The dog isn’t needed here any more as the smell of a recent smoker is released. A fellow officer slips on gloves, kneels on the terrazzo, and starts the third of such searches today, previous ones having yielded evidence.

Sunlight sneaks into the hallway as a classroom door opens. “I’m letting Patrick go to the washroom,” challenges a teacher, head poked halfway through the opening. “I can’t keep them in here forever, you know! They’re practically grown men!”

Mrs. Miller sighs and retorts calmly: “It’s a lockdown. No one is to leave their room.” She barely hears the slamming door as fluorescents light her way towards a commotion. She senses anxious and curious eyes following her movement from the narrow windows.

A policeman greets her, pointing to an overgrown sixteen year old. “He walked in the door and we found these in his shoes.” A dozen or more individually sized sachets dangle in the officer’s clear evidence bag. “We’ll put charges on this one,” he informs as Mrs. Miller watches the student stand taller as if in a dare. The pale tremor of his lip reminds her that he is still a child.

She leans back momentarily against a dented locker. Of course she has known that drugs were in the school. But nothing had prepared her for the widespread findings. These kids were barely trying to hide it! Where and when would it stop?

“We’re ready for the change rooms,” an officer’s voice snaps her back to reality.

“This way,” directs Mrs. Miller. “The students are out in the field with their gym teacher.” This time, a beagle will do the work. A cocktail of odours greets them: mustiness mixed with active teenagers’ gear and an undertone of fashionable body spray. The animal quickly sits and wags its tail with pride.

“Good dog! This guy must have taken Home Ec.!” claims the young officer, pointing to the tiny bags slipped in lined belt loops. “And his fake ID isn’t bad either!”

Mrs. Miller absently smiles at him, her mind racing forward to the day’s schedule that will now be replaced with police reports, student and parent interviews, suspensions, discussions with the superintendent and tactics to avoid the press. She anticipates phone calls from the teachers’ union and the cafeteria’s concession as lunch is being delayed with this lockdown. This will be a long day.

“Not the fire alarm,” she mutters as the high pitch ring invades the building. Students, staff, police, and dogs seek close exits. Mrs. Miller’s adrenaline is just about to overflow by the time she consults the fire alarm panel. As she reaches the area where the alarm was triggered, a teacher intercepts her.

“It was Sandra,” he shouts over the noise. “She lit a paper with her lighter under the smoke detector! I figured it out too late,” the teacher adds as he leaves her with this information.

As Mrs. Miller runs to the basement, she fumbles with her keys for the one that will turn off the alarm. Finally, silence. Towards the main entrance, she recognizes the fire chief’s silhouette.

“False alarm with identification,” she explains, “during a lockdown,” she adds.

He sighs. “I’ll have an officer put charges,” as he heads outside where a number of them stand.

The vice principal signals to the on looking teachers whose green cards indicate that all can reenter the building. A stampede of students tramples towards the lockers or the cafeteria, as if lured by grease and plastic utensils.

Mrs. Miller invites the assigned policewoman to her office. She slumps down on her chair as if in the safety of a bunker. They exchange impressions of the morning’s activity, and anticipate next steps.

“Two arrests, one to come, four other identified users and garbage containers full of goods,” concludes the officer. “You should have seen the kids emptying their pockets on the way out when the alarm was pulled. Not bad for your first lockdown!”

Later that evening, while recording the school’s events in her log, Mrs. Miller finds herself pondering about the experience. How long would it take for the stocks to be replenished? Would the staff appreciate this effort to clean up the school? And more importantly, where was the principal today? She smiles, naively hoping that today’s interventions will be compensated by a few quiet days where she can concentrate on important stuff, like student learning.

Disrepute followed the interweaving of the dark gray and brown threads in the shabby rug with one idle finger. Dignity completely forgotten in her boredom, she was stretched out on her belly on the floor, nose inches from the dusty floorboards. A flaccid ring of tassels made for some pathetic attempt at decoration on the otherwise unremarkable rug. One tassel dissipated into so many threads as she tugged it apart with restless fingers.

Sighing loudly she rolled over onto her back, carelessly grinding the dirt farther into her robe. She laced her fingers behind her head, making the slightest concession to keeping her hair off the floor as she glared up at the ceiling. Her eyes unfocused slightly as they began tracing the vanes of a spider web. Her glare evaporated, even irritation was too much effort to keep up in the face of this crushing monotony.

The sound of laughter reached her, muffled through the door. Instead of sparking her interest her face grew even more vacant. The only hint that she had heard anything at all was a slight quiver of her shoulders. The movement slowly grew into a quaking, though her face betrayed no awareness.

“Soon,” she thought, as the laughter turned into a shriek of startled pain, followed closely by a deep, pleased, male chuckle. “Soon I will be able to sneak invisible down the hall and away.” She held her thoughts there, crystalline, frozen; not allowing them to progress to the day she could simply murmur the spell that would allow her to remove herself from this place completely, out from under her mother’s watchful eye.

Farther yet did Disrepute’s mind sink; a trick she had learned long ago, as night after night she repeated the same trapped existence. Finally, she slept. Yet, her shoulders still shook now and again as the mixed laugher and screams of the nightly business of The Maiden’s Treasure seeped through her carefully bolted door.

Disrepute woke to the sound of the bolt being drawn back. Scrambling up off the floor, she futilely tried to brush the dust off of her robe. She soon realized it was a worthless effort, and drug herself up to sit on the edge of the bed, trying to look alert.

A woman entered the room, slipping the key back into a bosom that was barely restrained by a plunging neckline. Disrepute relaxed a fraction when she noticed the woman bore no fresh bruises.

"Well!" The older woman said briskly, "Did you manage to get any of your reading done?"

"Yes, Mother." Disrepute answered meekly, relaxing further as it became apparent that a fight wasn't eminent. "How was your night?"

Her mother twirled around happily, skirts whirling, looking for an instant like Disrepute, young, unused. "Oh! What a wonderful evening!" She prattled on about some noble that had kept her all night, sparing her the usual pawings and fawnings of the commoners. Disrepute only half listened, struggling to restrain her impatience. Eventually her mother would fall asleep and she could leave for the Guild where she had been slowly learning; learning to grow powerful enough to leave this place.

Disrepute jumped back to the present as the door slammed open, bouncing off of the stone wall.

"There you are, my darling!" A handsome, well-dressed noble staggered into the room, sharp cruel features somewhat blurred with drink. "I know it's closing time, but I am not finished with you."

Disrepute tried to make herself as small as possible on the edge of the bed, freezing in an attempt to avoid his gaze. She saw her mother tense, trying not to look at her. How could she have forgotten to lock the door behind her? All the years of hiding down here undone in one careless moment. Her mother moved quickly to stand in front of her.

"Come, my dear," she said too brightly, "let's go back to the common room. I'm sure I can talk the barkeeper into getting you another drink."

"I don't think so." Even through his drink, the noble's speech was still crisp, a voice accustom to getting what it demanded. "I prefer to stay here. I've never seen your room before." He shoved her, following her into the room as she stumbled back.

"And who is this?" He asked quietly as his eyes fell on Disrepute.

She slid quickly off the bed, hoping her downcast eyes would be taken for shyness while her mind whirled rapidly. Her training hadn't gone far enough but she knew the premise...

"Come here, pretty." The nobleman said silkily. "You don't need to be afraid."

Disrepute raised her head to meet his eyes. "No, no I really don't." The words of the gate spell slipped from her lips. The noble lunged for her but she was already gone.

Tall, statuesque, wealthy. Short, not bad on the eyes, middle class. Shabby, needs some loving care. This was the mind game John used when motoring in his vintage Corvette. Imagining what the ladies would look like, compared to the appearance of their homes.

John had wealth, and took many road trips. His fifteen minutes of fame had happened a few years back. He had bought a landscape painting just because he ‘felt’ there was something about it. Sure enough, the landscape had been painted over an original Botticelli, and his fortune was won.

He noticed a barn sale sign posted on a telephone pole. He jotted down the directions, and off he went. There wasn’t much for his normal mind game on the way. Homes were few and far between. The roads were bad, and kudzu was growing over everything. In places it was like driving through caves.

It was a good thing that he was driving so slow. As he rounded a bend, John saw a little girl, sitting in the middle of the road, playing with a kitten. He stopped, and proceeded to explain to the child the dangers associated with that activity. He did this without scolding her, and she thanked him and waved as he pulled away.

He found the barn sale soon after. There were few people looking around, but one boy gave him pause. Why did he look so familiar? Then it hit him. He could have been a twin for the little girl John had found earlier in the road. Maybe this was their home. Before he could think more on that subject, he spotted a painting. It was deja vu. The painting was of a mansion on rolling hills surrounded by forest, but that did not matter. What mattered was that he ‘felt’ there was something about it.

Could this painting be hiding another masterpiece? If it was, he was going to be the one to find out. He saw a woman sitting at a table with a cigar box acting as cash register. He didn’t even try to barter down the price she asked. He put the painting on the passenger seat of his Corvette and took off. He wanted out of there before someone could think that maybe he had cheated them somehow. Checking his rear-view mirror, the last thing John noticed was that little boy. It looked as though the kid was scratching his ear.

After a short time, he once again came upon the little girl. She was not playing. She was leaning on an old mailbox, and appeared to be crying. John stopped and asked what was wrong. Pointing, the little girl told him that her kitten had run into the house there, and that her mother had forbidden her to enter this property.

Looking to where the girl had pointed, John was just able to make out a residence. It was so covered in kudzu, it was barely recognizable as a man-made structure. He told the girl not to worry, that he would go get her kitten.

As he got close, his mind kicked into its home game. It was possible that it was Victorian, but were those gargoyles on the eaves? The image conjured was not a flattering one: ogre, hag, witch!

John climbed onto the porch, and though a door there was cracked open, he knocked. When that got no response he called out, “is anyone here?” After waiting a bit, he moved over to a window and peered in. Either the owner kept spiders as pets or this place had been deserted for quite some time. In what light was available, the only thing he could make out were cobwebs. He went back to the door. After trying again to get someone’s attention without success, he pushed open the door. He could make out kitten tracks in the thick carpet of dust. The only other evidence of footprints was almost non-existent, they were so light. It was probably years since anyone had been in here. Yelling out, “here kitty, kitty,” John entered.

The boy arrived and saw there were still tears on the girl’s cheeks. He was surprised, because he saw the kitten making its way toward them from the house. “Why the tears?” he asked, “You knew the kitten would return.”

“I’m not crying because of that.” Greta said, “I’m crying because that man had been nice to me. How much longer do we have to keep doing this?”

“Until the curse is lifted.” Hans said, “You know that.”

Hans reached down and took the ring of keys, that were hanging from a string around the kitten’s neck, and Greta picked up the cat. Together they moved over to John’s Corvette. “Let’s go home.” said Hans, “It’s almost dinner time.”