Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Louisa, even as one of the town’s most vibrant and beautiful woman, had more than a little of the Anderton eccentricity in her. She often spoke of beings of light and darkness that flitted in and out of the shadows between the lives of men, and the strong red cords, invisible to all but the most strong-willed, that bound together those with a common fate. She also had a preoccupation–one might say an obsession–with Prussian blue. She insisted, upon inheriting control of her parents’ estate, that every window and doorjamb in their house be painted that exact shade of blue, which Louisa saw as a ward against phantasms of darkness and errant strands of fate.

Despite, or perhaps because of, her strange ways she was married to a local merchant a few years after her parents died. Perhaps her husband had hoped to manipulate the family fortune through her, or perhaps it was a genuine love match. They did clash over her strange beliefs, and most frequently over the Prussian blue–a color he found ugly and militaristic. When their first child was born, and Louisa was convalescing, her husband resolved to rid himself of the paint forever. He hired a house painter in secret.

Louisa’s husband–and the neighbors–were awakened the next morning by her screaming. Her husband found her standing by an empty crib; the inquest later decided that the infant had died of natural causes and Louisa had hidden the body; kidnapping was ruled out as there was no sign of forced entry. Louisa Anderton’s marriage collapsed soon after, and she spent her remaining years in a sanatorium while he ex-husband left the property to lie fallow.

As for the painter, he pocketed his full fee, despite having painted over only one of the Prussian blue window frames–that of the baby’s room.

As near as the investigation could reconstruct, Annemarie Schiff had never gotten over her miscarriage which had also left her unable to bear children. Adoption proceedings would always run up against her bipolar disorder and a few youthful possession convictions. So Annemarie was left with training in early childcare and no possibility of ever becoming a mother herself.

It appears that she stopped taking her medication around that time, and started a new job at a very exclusive daycare. Interviews with former coworkers confirmed that Annemarie spoke often of how many families did not pay proper attention to their children, especially one wealthy clan dubbed “the Andersons” during the investigation for reasons of privacy. No one thought to make a connection between Annemarie’s quiet fuming–an opinion many of her co-workers shared–and the later kidnapping of “the Andersons'” child. He was returned unharmed after about a week, after which Annemarie resigned her position claiming she couldn’t handle the stress.

Faced with families who did not appreciate their children, investigators believe, childless Annemarie took it upon herself to see that they changed their ways though a little harmless kidnapping. She apparently fell into a pattern of moving to a new area, securing employment at a childcare center, and then finishing her tenure with a kidnap and return. The full extent may never be known, as several victims were from poor families who never reported the disappearance and reappearance, but authorities believe Annemarie may have repeated the process as many as 20 times.

She might have gotten away with it indefinitely, in fact, had she not decided to keep the last victim.

“Oh, there’s nothing that special about the pendant itself,” Whelk sniffed, glaring at it through his jeweler’s eyepiece. “Your standard dull clay manufacture without a hint of the artifice and passion of fair or the elegant utility of fey construction.”

“You sound just like my great aunt Agnes,” Jennie sniffed. “I half-expect you to ask me to mow your lawn next, with getting yelled at for doing it wrong as the only reward. If it’s such a piece of trash, why did the wax model of Éamon de Valera come to life for the sole purpose of snatching it from me?”

Whelk’s red eyes flashed. “I said the pendant itself was worthless trash, clay,” he hissed. “What it contains is priceless. As I’m sure you don’t know, clay, items of a certain consistency–in this case silver–absorb a bit of their owner’s spark over time. Ordinarily it’s too small to bother with and quickly dissipates on shuffling off or sale, as you vile clay are wont to do.”

“But?”

“But if the object is passed to a close blood relative, the spark will grow. Exponentially. By itself, it can do nothing, but in the hands of one with the power to release that stored spark…it’s a necessary component of the oldest and most powerful magicks.” Whelk tapped the pendant with a twisted claw. “This has been in what passes for a family among you clay for many years?”

“Generations,” said Jennie. “I know my great-great grandmother had it, but it could be even older than that.”

“As I thought. The power in this item–especially if combined with the spark in other, similar items–is extremely rare, extremely valuable.”

“What happens if they release that ‘spark’?” Jennie asked. “What kind of engine does it start?”

“Any number of spells require its presence, and they are always the darkest of rituals–or so say meddlesome twits who make such distinctions,” Whelk said. “Part of the spark’s power is its link to the souls of past owners.” He eyed Jennie. “You are young enough that I expect the release would only devour ten to fifteen years of your candle-brief clay life. The others, though…their souls would be called forth from the Gentle Embrace and consumed.”

“We’re getting out of here,” Jennie cried to the Fáidh, who was examining a rack of shillelaghs. “How much for my pendant back?”

“I’m afraid it’s not for sale,” Whelk cackled. “You only bought an appraisal.”

Ami came back to her townhouse only to drop the keys in shock at the vase and roses on her kitchen island. A few scenes from horror movies flashed in the periphery of her vision, but a moment’s though dispelled them. The small notice from the landlord tucked neatly beneath the vase quickly made it clear that silly romantic old Bethanie had been persuaded to deposit the flowers in her tenant’s kitchen.

There was a card on a plastic stalk jutting out among the fiery red-orange roses; Ami plucked it out.

Forgive me. K.

Two words and one letter struck Ami like a blow. After all he’d done, after all she’d caught him doing, he wanted forgiveness? He thought he could buy it with a dozen roses, a cheap vase, and a romantic spinster confederate?

No.

Ami seized the roses, ignoring the sharp thorns digging at her palm, and marched up to the second floor. She wrenched open the bedroom window and hurled the flowers onto the yard below. A moment later, the vase went into the clear glass recycling bin with a crash.

“Hmph,” Ami murmured, staring at the small spots of blood blossoming on her hands. “Even when he’s not here, he can still hurt me.”

In the cul-de-sac below, a neighbor was walking his dog and came across the fallen roses. “What a waste,” he said. “What kind of person is so rich and shallow that they can afford to dump perfectly good roses on the lawn?”

Vicki had been hired as a secretary, back when that was still a job title that people used openly instead of under their breath. Ambition and sheer force of will had metamorphosed that post into a vague supervisory role over the interns and new hires. A look at the company payroll, though, confirmed that she was still officially an “executive assistant,” albeit one with pay and benefits akin to a middle manager. Only her lack of an MBA kept her from ascending higher.

Being in the business as long as she had–nearly 30 years–Vicki was a bottomless font of knowledge, loopholes, and shortcuts. Rumor had it that more than one rival insurer had been bankrupted by careful application of her knowhow, and she did nothing to dispel it. An intern or new hire hungry for an edge could do a lot worse than to consult the Vickipedia.

In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, Vicki was a terrible enemy when enraged. Failure to show her proper obeisance or any real or imagined insult was enough to permanently set her against a person, which more often than not was a professional death sentence. If the Vickipedia didn’t have an article on how to undermine a career, constant low-key intimidation and harassment would suffice instead.

Seven levels of housing, two levels of recreation, two levels of indoor farming, and nowhere to play hide-and-go-seek.

With 71 people in the shelter personal space was at enough of a premium that no one wanted Sally or Jacques running through their living rooms. Especially those families, like Jacques’, that only had half a level to themselves. They’d saved a few million dollars up front when buying space in the abandoned missile silo turned shelter, but that surely must have seemed scant compensation once it was sealed and the only currencies were barter and chore tokens.

But with the rec facilities hogged by the older children and the adults, hide-and-go-seek was absolutely necessary. The elected Chair was the only one with the key to the storage levels, which would have been perfect, and after the unfortunate drowning of little Maria Gonzalez (#72) the cisterns were locked tight too.

That left only the old missile operators’ living quarters.

The door and passage that connected them to the main Atlas shaft and the shelter were ostensibly locked, but 15 years of rust and neglect had taken their toll and the lock turned easily when Jacques tried it. Better still, the lighting was still connected to the silo’s geothermal grid–it had been meant to survive a direct 50-megaton hit, after all.

It was perfect.

The game went on for nearly an hour, before Jacques found Sally in an alcove behind an old vacuum tube control unit. “How’d you find me?” she fumed; it had been, in her view, a perfect spot and not the kind of place someone would stumble on after one a minute or two.

“You were making a lot of noise!” Jacques replied, miffed. “I could hear you.”

“Was not!” Sally had been quiet as a mouse; she’d even held her breath.

Jacques cocked an ear. “Maybe you’re right. I still hear it!”

Sally, no longer concerned with quietude, listened carefully. “You’re right,” she said. “I think it’s coming from behind the wall…”

Both children pressed their ears to the wall behind the console. The noise, faint but audible in the echo chamber of the old quarters, resolved itself into a recognizable form.

The tapping of pickaxes against stone and soil.

Bethany Rutherford Wynn could trace her maternal ancestors to the Plymouth Bay Colony in 1631 and her paternal line was mentioned in chronicles as far back as 1591. But by the time she was born in 1911, the Hartford Wynns and the Bridgeport Rutherfords were in terminal decline; as the only child of only children, Bethany was quite literally the last gasp of her lineage.

She was raised mostly by her great-aunt, Ada Rutherford, as her parents were largely concerned with running the family’s remaining investments and attending to the proper social functions befitting an old Knickerbocker merchant family. Ada instilled the value of a Wynn pedigree in the young girl along with a puritanical adherence to a code of conduct that was already in decline.

As a result, Bethany never married and broke off an engagement after her suitor had reportedly visited a theatrical performance. Despite a reputation as one of New England’s great beauties stemming from her debut in 1929, she remained alone in the family home with only servants and family members.

In her later years, Bethany became obsessed with securing her family’s legacy and entertained a regular parade of genealogists and researchers she commissioned using her inheritance. Darker rumors spread that she had also hired private detectives to destroy public records that represented blemishes on the benighted history of her clan. Shortly before her death in 1981, she arranged for a monograph on the Wynn family history and genealogy to be privately printed and distributed to those members of the Social Register still residing in Connecticut.

The family home, which fell into disrepair near the end of Bethany’s life, still stands in what is now a rather run-down part of town, but local ordinances forbid its demolition. It is routinely broken into by treasure seekers acting on rumors of hidden millions or dark secrets, the thieves little realizing that nearly every cent the owner had was spent in her quest to catalog the history of her family as it fell down into darkness.

“Well, between the timestamp on the ATM camera and the one on the convenience store, we’ve got a general range, and forensics has been able to help us out a little bit more there.”

“Meaning?”

“Oke was murdered sometime in the window between 18:49 and 18:57.”

“Fine, that’s just what we need.”

“But…well, there is an inconsistency.”

“Inconsistencies lead to ulcers if left untreated. What is it?”

“We’ve got a witness that swears they took a picture of Oke that night, on account of the way he was acting.”

“So?”

“The picture is timestamped 18:52.”

The River Iceman was blamed for the overturned logging rafts, as he was blamed for most misfortunes on the river (and much of the mischief at the Boy Scout camp on the lake). The river pilots took to leaving little offerings at the cairns along the way–whatever they thought would placate such a spirit.

Raw meat was the most popular choice.

The attacks (or accidents) continued, often associated with the proper observances failing to be made. Then, two things happened which led to a complete reappraisal of the situation.

The first was the overturning and death by drowning of Sal Waldow, a noted superstitious pilot who never failed to leave a little cairn jerky for the River Iceman.

The second was the interview that the River Iceman herself granted to the Cascadia Falls Intelligencer-Courier-Tribune.

Hannah was sitting in the local watering hole with Melody and Blanche; they were grazing on a pair of dilettante lattes and a couple of pastries and talking about metaphysics.

One of the other customers, an upperclassman with Greek letters on his jacket, came over to them just as Hannah and Blanche were beginning to get into an argument about dialectical materialism.

He sat down across from Melody. “Excuse me,” he said to her, “I think you owe me a drink.”

“Why?” Blanche asked in the most disgusted tone of voice she could manage.

“Because,” the Greek said, eyes still locked on Melody, “when I saw you from across the room I dropped mine. It was a rum and Coke, and I’m Gabe.”

Melody grinned and blushed; Blanche rolled her eyes. “We were in the middle of a conversation, you know.”

Gabe cast a sidelong look at Melody’s tablemates. “Your ‘friends’ here don’t let you say much, do they? You haven’t gotten a word in edgewise all afternoon, I bet. Want to come with me? I’ll listen to anything you have to say.”

Still smiling, Melody nodded with the giddy energy of a schoolgirl and got up.

“Don’t worry, ladies. I’ll bring her back on one piece,” said Gabe. He held open the door and they walked out together.

“That guy must be a brain surgeon, cuz he’s got a lot of nerve,” said Blanche, looking after them with a sour expression. She turned to Hannah. “How long do you think it will take before he realizes that Melody’s your imaginary friend?”

“Oh, I think he’ll find out soon enough,” Hanna laughed.