Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The bright purple liquid—water?—flowed down the gentle incline between a series of shallow pools that had been paid into the landscape with close-fitted stones and a patina of moss and lichen that suggested a wholly ancient origin. The water(?) purred softly as it flowed, a gentle noise that would have been soothing if not for its utterly alien hue and unknown composition. The spring at its head gave no indication, other than a light indigo staining of the surrounding rocks, where the fluid was seeping from.

This, certainly, was the source of all the mysterious blue, indigo, and violet flora and fauna that had been reported in the area. But as for the origin of the purring purple fountain, the land offered no clue. The opening was tiny and the pressure such that even a branch would struggle to be thrust down against the current.

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“I am but a humble stair, upon which you may climb to reach the next level of consciousness,” the toad whispered. “My kind have for ages untold held this secret close, brewed it within our skins, sharing it freely with those who ask.”

“And I suppose you’ll tell us next that it is not a poison,” Codswallop said. “It certainly won’t paralyze us so that you can devour us at your leisure.”

“I certainly would never make such a claim, for to give such an absurdity voice is to plant it in the mind as a suggestion,” the toad hissed. “But if you wish to ascend, you must tred upon the stair. There is no other way.”

“And if we choose not to tred upon it? What then, O whispering stairtoad?”

“Then you die,” the toad said, in a tone of voice that suggested it was a matter of indifference. “So if my goal is to eat you, it really makes no difference one way or the other, does it?”

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The garden sprite, Enon, knew it could not approach the house closely enough to reach the kitchen without being found by the cat again. So it decided to take up the head of a dandelion that had fallen to the ground and wear it as a hat and as a disguise. In this way, more of the delectable sweets could be had without the risk to life and limb.

The first part of Enon the sprite’s plan worked brilliantly, for it blended in to the yard spectacularly well. Not only the cat, but all other creatures, seelie and unseelie, failed to detect it. However, the one thing that Enon failed to take into consideration was that a dandelion disguise, no matter how perfect, stood out rather strongly in a kitchen.

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The last of the Prungha, a people who lived on Murkatoiak Island for millennia before they were wiped out by Europeans and disease, sat down with a journalist during her final illness and recounted the stories and language of her people. The first and most important myth was that of the moose in the moon, with the Prungha holding that the creator of the world had ascended there to build anew, having painstakingly created the earth from a similarly lambent and desolate state.

When the journalist asked if this deity—whose name was taboo to utter unless a shaman was present—could be found on the moon if someone were to travel there, the last Prungha laughed and told another story.

A young Prungha man, she said, had once decided to ask the great creator-moose a question, and to that end had managed to sail to the moon to seek its counsel. When he arrived, though, he found that there was no way to return, no food for him to eat, and no water for him to drink. His earlier question forgotten, the young man instead asked asked only how to get home.

Suspicious, the journalist asked whether this was a true tale that the Prungha had told, or if the woman had made it up on the spot. Laughing, the woman asked who there was left to say otherwise. She died of her illness not long after, leaving the question wholly unanswered.

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The marigolds had been thoroughly undone by the drought, barely growing at all and producing so few flowers on top of that that the annual Marigold Festival held in downtown Jubilation had to stoop to purchasing flowers from Chile. Live marigolds had traditionally been used to adorn decorations all over downtown, but with so few flowers available it was decided to use plastic flowers for everything guests wouldn’t see close up. So every lamppost along the Marigold Mile was decorated in plastic, as were the floats, the reviewing stands, and most of the buildings. Only the bouquets available for purchase or given as prizes had real flowers, and most of those were Chilean besides.

But the October timing for the Marigold Festival proved misleading. Jubilation broke all temperature records that weekend, with the mercury hovering around 95˚ in the shade. The cheap plastic marigolds began to melt in the intense heat, softening and sagging and in some cases literally dripping and running like tallow. Jubilation’s city council had hoped that the plastic stopgaps would go unnoticed, but once they began oozing, it was all anyone could see.

Eventually, the melting marigolds caused much of the planned festivities to be canceled, with the usual economic boost to the town offset by the costs of cleanup and ordering the faux flowers in the first place. A few vendors nevertheless wound up collecting the plastid runoff and re-pressing it into souvenirs, the first-ever Jubliation Marigold Money.

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The clouds were frightfully low now, the wind whipping at the tablecloth and upsetting the tea setting. A bright flash of lightning arced down, followed moments later by thunder, as a violent storm made itself known. Or worse; looking up, Codswallop noted the ominous low-hanging clouds and rotation that portended a cyclone.

“Does madam think that, perhaps, it might be time to move the tea indoors?” he cried, doing his best to shield Rags from the wind and the first light sprinklings of hail.

“Oh, far from it!” Lady Vanessa cried. “I told you that my dear Jonathan had ascended from his earthly body to become a thunder spirit, and now he has finally accepted my invitation to tea! I mustn’t disappoint him.”

Codswallop looked up, looked back at Lady Vanessa seated calmly as the green fell apart around her, and nodded curtly. “If you’ll excuse us a moment, my lady,” he said. “My compatriot and I are off in search of a dry crumpet.” He took Rags by the hand and led them both, forcefully, back to the manor house.

“Don’t be long!” Vanessa cried behind them. “Oh, Jonathan, it’s been so long! I have so much to tell you now that we’re reunited!”

Rags did not protest or struggle, but instead looked back at the unfolding scene. As Codswallop led them back to the manor and calmly smashed out one of its cellar windows, the low clouds dart earthward in the form of a twister, kicking up dust and debris as it traveled.

“Come, Rags,” said Codswallop. “We should get away from the windows, lest they become fancy shrapnel.”

Rags, though, snuck one last look, and saw the twister hungrily devouring the long table and tea settings, with the Lady Vanessa lifted bodily up, a smile on her face and petticoats flapping, until she vanished in the funnel.

“Come now,” Codswallop said again, leading Rags deeper into the shelter of the cellar. “Lady Vanessa has gotten what she wanted, but I don’t think you or I would care for the same gift.”

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Caius leaned against a column, looking into the showroom of CALIGVLES ARE VS even as the bouncer kept a wary eye on him. The new sandals for 120CE were in, and most prominent among them were the feathered footwear of the Quicksilver line, endorsed by the god Mercury himself.

But just as prominent was the price tag of 100 secteres, more than Caius could hope to make in a year. He was sure that with sandals like that he could unlock his true potential and become a professional athlete, sweeping the Olympic games and perhaps even meeting Mercury in person.

But those dreams would have to wait. Caius could spare perhaps two secteres, and that was if he regarded food as optional for the next two weeks. That wasn’t enough for the Herakles Hobnails, even though everyone knew that brand had gone downhill since Hercules had ascended to godhood. It would only buy one-half of the cheapest sandals the place had, the Caligula Specials.

Caius had begin making desperate plans to steal the Quicksilvers when the guard finally grew impatient with his gawking and drove him off.

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Eggnog on elm trees
Holly boughs in the field
The season comes to be
Though it doesn’t seem real
Tinsel in hedgerows
And garlands on eves
With youth wonder grows
But with age it recedes

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Reportedly, the Murphys had first put Betty behind the wheel when they realized that the cops were less likely to hassle a woman driver—at least over what was in her cargo area, anyway. But once they realized just how good she was, Betty became their go-to getaway driver, easily supplanting her cousins due to a record of avoiding the cops and making moonshine runs on the quickfast.

But when the illicit moonshine races began to take a turn toward respectability and the track, Betty saw herself shut out. Boss Halloran, who ran the track, wouldn’t accept a woman as a competitor, and nor would most of his racers. Betty raced a few times in disguise as her cousin Billy, but each time the charade was found out and a hurious Halloran had the race re-run without her.

Incensed, Betty decided to pool her money for an all-female race, the very first Lace Lightning. In the retelling, years later, and in the slick made-for-TV movie a network slapped together, the first Lace Lightning was a roaring success and ended sexism in the county for good.

Reality was not quite so kind. Though it was well-attended and popular, the first Lace Lightning did not make back its money, and the prize pot bankrupted Betty Murphy. It wasn’t until 1972 that the Lace Lightning race became a truly annual tradition, and although Betty Murphy served as honorary grand marshal until her death in 1995, she did so from poverty—the organizers of the event named in her honor couldn’t afford to do anything but comp her gas and meals.

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Nana had always been very clear: if there was an oddity in the house, it was because Grandpapa (God rest his weary soul) had built it that way. Sam had never known Grandpapa—he had died during the Reagan administration—but he had also built Nana’s house with his own two hands, when he wasn’t busy rebuilding carburetors (also with his own bare hands). A mechanic by trade, he’d lived in a loft above his garage before building the house as a wedding present for Nana during their engagement.

Sam couldn’t help but think that Grandpapa (God rest his tired old bones) had been a better mechanic than a carpenter, because Nana’s house had all sorts of oddities. The bathroom was a mere closet, barely enough for Nana’s toilet and shower, but it also included the stairs to the attic. The root cellar, directly beneath Nana’s kitchen, was dug out of the dirt with nothing but floorboards over it, so the kitchen sagged under the weight of Nana’s oven and visibly flexed as she walked. The furnace was out in the living room, out in the open, as if Grandpapa (God rest his tired head) had gotten fed up when carrying it in and just installed it where it had been delivered.

But then there was the doorknob, the one attached to a seemingly solid beam inside the master closet. Nana said that it was there to bridge a gap, that it was a load-bearing knob and not to be touched, even though it led nowhere and did nothing.

But Sam had always wanted to try it. And so one day, when Nana was asleep on her favorite couch, with her favorite soap, Sam had snuck into the closet and grasped the knob. Shockingly, it turned. Even more shockingly, it opened with the sound of a latch popping.

“Who’s there?” a voice cried from below. “That you, Agnes?”

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