Keep Calm and Soldier On!

Will someone save me,
I’m about to lose myself,
You know I’m hauling, hauling,
Hollering out for help.
I can’t hardly stand,
Inside of my own shoes,
So hold me hold me,
Hold me up while I hold you.

‘Cause when I call you in and I’m not myself,
You’re on leave from heaven and I’m stuck in hell,
You use me until your time is up,
And you say that you’ll help me.

Have mercy, baby, you’re
Asking more than I promised,
And now you got me movin’ mountains
Hitched to a harness.
I’m pullin’ for you,
Way harder than I should,
And if I lose me again,
Then I might get lost for good.

‘Cause when I call you in and I’m not myself,
You’re on leave from heaven and I’m stuck in hell,
You use me until your time is up,
And you say that you’ll help me.

Hurry, baby, think
I could be losin’ my mind,
And my back is breaking,
Aching all of the time.
Now you’ve pushed me
Farther than I thought you could
And if I lose me again,
Then I might get lost for good.

‘Cause when I call you in and I’m not myself,
You’re on leave from heaven and I’m stuck in hell,
You use me until your time is up,
And you say that you’ll help me.

‘Cause when I call you in and I’m not myself,
You’re on leave from heaven and I’m stuck in hell,
You use me until your time is up,
And you say that you’ll help me.

Say that you’ll help me,
Say that you’ll help me,
Say that you’ll help me.

Callin' callin' callin',
Callin' callin' callin',
Callin' callin' callin',
Callin' callin' callin'.

Janka Doubek worked under a bower of toilet water.

It was oddly peaceful, most days, provided she didn’t look up and notice the colour — or the occasional chunks. The Hotel Vesely’s lobby sounded like it had a lovely fountain tucked away somewhere, just out of sight. In a manner of speaking, it did, but the grey water arced upwards and sideways, guided by jury-rigged magic from one rusty pipe to another on the way to the sewer.

Sometimes it leaked, discreet little grey spots on the guest register and visitors’ book. She would kneel inconspicuously and say a prayer to Anton the Broken before calling maintenance, every time. Sometimes the leaks stopped on their own, though she couldn’t say if Anton had anything to do with it. He didn’t seem inclined to fix broken things, he just liked them.

But he must love the Vesely, in that case.

Once, according to a legend reverently perpetuated by the management, the Vesely had rivalled the Grand Cimbria for class and clientele. The Czar himself had favoured the penthouse for its quiet, understated charm and sea view — or so they said.

Now, not to put too fine a point on it, the place was a dump. But there were rather a lot of people living in it who paid a fixed monthly rate — these people could not be evicted, as long as they paid on time, and the rent could not be raised, by law. With no hope of turning a profit, the Vesely would be allowed to decay, as gently as possible, until the last of its residents moved out or died. Then, and only then, would the management begin to fix it up nicely again — or at least sell it to some sucker who thought it could be fixed up nicely again.

There were still over fifty residents left, and one or two new ones moved in every year, replacing the few who lost patience, improved their situations, or died. Janka expected to quit or retire before the Vesely got the remodel the management felt it so richly deserved.

She felt sorry for the place, and for the people living there — so much so that she rarely had any sorriness left for herself. She got to go home to a dim studio apartment with a single window and a complete set of pipes, after all. With the help of a heating pad and a grow light, she had almost managed an herb garden in her little kitchen.

She’d buy more seeds in the spring and give it another try. Basil, perhaps. Basil had to be good for something, she’d look up a recipe…

The sad, silly foreign man had just stumbled out of the elevator, dragging a grocery cart like an old babushka. She smiled at him and spoke in careful Anglais, “Good morning, Vanya.”

He had signed the guest register with an unpronounceable exotic name that ended in V-A-N-I. She laughed and asked if she could just call him “Vanya.” He’d nodded, wide-eyed and inexplicably terrified of a small, middle-aged woman wearing a blazer and a gold name tag.

She understood the fear a little better now. He was in trouble, that one, and he seemed unable to find a way out of it. He was scared of everything.

It wasn’t his fault. That degenerate creature had some kind of hold on him. It was undoubtedly staying at the Grand Cimbria, while the Vesely was good enough for its prey.

From its dress and behaviour, she suspected it might be some kind of half-human monstrosity, concealing its nature behind a literal mask — she had heard about things like that. She was always on the lookout for any indication of horns, gills, or a double row of teeth, but it never held still long enough for her to see.

It spoke suspiciously perfect Prokovian, with no trace of an accent, but it was clearly a foreigner too. All the remaining locals with such dangerous inclinations had accepted nice, safe, government jobs, certifications, and housing. The rest had gone off with their inhuman friends, and good riddance to them. 

That thing was just visiting, spreading its money and its poison around, indulging its perversions, taking advantage of that unfortunate boy.

She had detected Marselline accents when poor Vanya and his “friend” spoke to each other, so she suspected Vanya was some kind of kept person. Like, a call-girl, or boy. They did things like that in Marsellia. Perverted things. Prostitution was legal over there. Maybe Vanya had been kidnapped and sold at an auction, like that movie she saw. Maybe he was being trafficked!

Maybe she could save him!

But he didn’t seem to want saving, or much of anything.

Except liquor, he did seem to want liquor. He drank the entire contents of the minibar on his first night there, then apologized for the noise the very next morning, and settled the cost with a huge tip — all in cash. She’d also caught him trying to buy a whole bottle of chocolate liqueur from the bar. She apologized for him that time, and directed him to the nearest liquor store. She assumed he was headed back in that direction, with his subtle, opaque cloth shopping cart.

He offered her a wan smile and a nod, in passing.

“Wait!” She scrambled out of the toilet water bower and came around to the public side of the front desk. “It is snowing, Vanya.” She offered her umbrella, a green one with yellow daisies. “Compliments of the hotel!”

He staggered a step backward, shaking his head. He tried to smile at her again, but managed only a wince. “No, Miss Doubek. Thank you, but I’ll only lose it.”

“Please!”

“No, no. It’s not far. I’m sorry, I don’t have time to talk.”

“Marsellia is Prokovia now!” she called after him in desperation. “You can have asylum! It’s just a few papers, I can help you fill them out!”

He shook his head without looking back, one hand already on the push door beside the revolving one — the revolving one hadn’t worked properly in years.

“I’ll pray for you!” she cried.

Now he turned to look at her, if only for a moment, pained. “I wish you wouldn’t, Miss Doubek. I have enough to deal with.”

He pushed open the door and jogged into the street, pulling the folded cart after him, head down and eyes narrowed against the cold.

Janka bowed her head as well, and clasped an oak-leaf-shaped pendant in both hands. Mother Earth, Father Oak, and Anton the Broken, please bless poor Vanya and keep him safe — and keep that evil man far away from him!

She gave a hopeful sigh, and tucked the necklace back under her blouse, returning to her toilet water bower, and her dreams of basil.

◆◇◆

“Snow,” he said, without knowing quite why. The word fell out and vanished like the substance itself, unheeded.

He glanced at a folded black umbrella resting in a bucket near the door. He thought of grabbing the damp fabric with one hand, opening the door with the other, and saying something. Hey, you forgot your umbrella! Something like that. Loud, and fast.

It was a thought without sense or meaning. He couldn’t open a door and yell. Why would he even want to? That was…

Huh.

Wait. Damn it. He’d lost his place again.

There was a moment of panic, like a vision of falling that jerked consciousness back from the edge of sleep. He steadied himself against the scratched yellow kitchenette countertop.

The hand on the countertop was willow green. That did not seem to be out of the ordinary. The nails were filed short. On the back, in gold printing, it said: Tartar emetic will kill me. Beneath that, also gold, was an anchor wrapped in the tentacles of a friendly-looking octopus.

He rubbed a finger over the apparent paint. It didn’t budge. It felt warm and soft, just like skin.

“Weird birthmark, maybe it’s a prophecy,” he muttered.

He looked up, searching for some context to cling to. He saw a card table with two folding chairs, one big window with a silver spoon resting on the sill, two doors, two faded plaid armchairs, and a desk with a desk chair and a kitty. None of that made any sense to him.

On the wall beside one of the doors, he found a framed painting of two mallard ducks soaring across an autumn sky.

“My ducks!” he cried.

He laughed and clapped his hands. “Okay! Yes!” He was safe to proceed with figuring out what was real and what the heck he was doing.

“I am in a kitchen and I appear to be a human being with a body and agency,” he said. “Let’s see…”

If he looked out the window, he’d know for sure, but that was only a last resort.

He glanced around, touching and identifying the objects within reach.

“All right, we got a plastic bowl, a spoon, a box of…”

The box had a set of smiling, cartoon children, a boy and a girl, pale pink and blond, in peasant garb. The writing was strange, squarish and indecipherable.

He read the back of his hand again: Tartar emetic will kill me, in legible human letters. They didn’t scramble, change, or reverse. “Not dreaming…”

He shook the box over the plastic bowl. Round, multicoloured puffs spilled out with a clatter. He put one near his mouth, sniffed first, and then crunched it up.

“Cereal! A box of cereal, and a little sink…”

He turned on the tap. Water ran out, surprising him.

“Ooh, fancy. And a hotplate with two burners — very fancy — and…” He turned the appliance around, as if he already knew. “No cord! Yes! I am not allowed electricity. I’ve had incidents — I can feel it! I got desperate and tried to set something on fire on more than one occasion, right, Potato?”

He frowned.

“Gods, no. I don’t have a pet potato. I’m not that screwed up, am I? Oh.”

A tabby cat with a white bib and paws was observing him from the desk. He wandered over to the desk and touched the cat. It began a purr and rubbed against his hand.

He heard a tinkle of metal and found a collar with a tag and a bell under the long fur.

“‘My Name is Mashed Potatoes,’” he read. “‘Room 1409, Hotel Vesely. Do Not Let Me Out.’”

The other side of the tag — he flipped it as if he knew — had more weird, square letters he couldn’t read. He flipped it back and read the front again.

He sighed and touched a hand to his head. “I named the cat Mashed Potatoes. That is a cruel prank to play on someone with brain damage, Past Me. What the hell were you thinking?”

He thought, vaguely, that he had a couple reasons. Like, maybe he’d grown up with a dotty old neighbor or relative who occasionally visited with her pet potato. A real potato. In a birdcage.

Also, and this was much clearer, he’d once woken someone up at three o’clock in the morning by trying to make mashed potatoes.

Wait, what?

He examined what he thought he remembered and pushed it away.

No.

He sat down in the desk chair and cradled his head in his hands. There were images and feelings drifting in and out of a fog, and he couldn’t touch them to make sure they were real.

He remembered a thing that made no sense: He had checked to make sure that someone… some person was in bed asleep. Then he thought, I will make myself something to eat.

Only, he didn’t think that. He thought it and didn’t think it at the same time. He wasn’t even hungry.

He went to the kitchen — maybe this kitchen, maybe a different one — and he found a box of instant potatoes. He thought two things at once again. He thought: These look easy to make. And he thought: These look plausible.

He put the box on the counter and hit it with a heavy iron frying pan, again and again. It was really loud. He knew he shouldn’t be making noise like that and yet he was kinda glad it was so loud. Someone might hear it!

Someone did hear it, and they were screaming at him, “What are you doing? Stop!”

And he smiled, totally innocent, and said, “You want some mashed potatoes?”

Anyway, it didn’t work. Obviously.

Obviously, he was still…

Obviously that was no way for a sane person to make instant potatoes, what the hell was the matter with him?

“Lots of things,” he sighed. “Maybe it didn’t even happen. Maybe I dreamed it. I don’t know. Poor Potato. I’m not supposed to be in charge of you, am I? Was I trying to feed you cereal? Do you have kitty food?”

He wandered back to the kitchenette and began searching through the drawers and cupboards. There weren’t that many, but he kept losing track of which ones he’d already seen.

There was a tiny refrigerator with a bright floral sticker next to the handle. He opened it.

A large piece of hotel stationary had been taped so it blocked off the inside of the fridge. It said, NO, ERIK. YOU CAN HAVE THE STUFF IN THE DOOR. THE TINY CANDY AND LIQUOR IS EXPENSIVE. I BOUGHT YOU REGULAR-SIZED CANDY. IT’S IN A BOWL ON THE COUNTER. LOOK UP.

A helpful arrow pointed upwards for him.

In the door sat a small carton of milk, a bottle of water, and a bottle of grape soda.

“Oh, here we go!” He removed the milk. “Here, kitty-ki…”

There was another piece of paper taped to the milk.

DO NOT GIVE POTATO ANY MORE MILK. IT’S BAD FOR HER STOMACH. IF YOU HURT THAT CAT, A MAN WHO CAN BANISH PEOPLE TO THE NORTH POLE WILL BE VERY ANGRY AT BOTH OF US. PLEASE DON’T, ERIK!

Erik addressed the refrigerator with a pointed finger, “Listen, Tiny Fridge, I know you think you’re very smart, but I have a kitty to feed and I don’t think I’m in any shape to go to the store! Do you?”

The plastic bowl already had cereal in it. He dumped it on the counter and put half an inch of milk in its place.

“Okay, Taters. If you like it and you don’t puke, you can have more! Where do you like to eat? At the table…?”

There was stuff on the table, but it looked much too complicated for him to be worried about, so he ignored it. Likewise, he ignored the creepy black bag on the windowsill. He was too old to be scared of shadows.

The table was under the window. He did not want to look out the window. He was pretty sure he didn’t have a cat in his other room, but avoiding the windows was a hard habit to break. Maybe a dangerous habit to break. If he wasn’t where he thought he was, he might see something he didn’t like.

He turned on one toe like a dancer and shuffled gracefully backwards to the table area, followed by a meowing cat.

“Woo!” Erik said. “These moves are not my own, but I ain’t too proud to beg! Here we are…”

There were two dishes on a rubber placemat, already under the table. The shallower one had another note taped to it.

I ALREADY GAVE POTATO BREAKFAST! SHE ISN’T HUNGRY, SHE JUST WANTS ATTENTION! GIVE HER A PIPE CLEANER, THEY’RE IN THE DESK DRAWER!

“Man, that fridge gets around,” Erik muttered.

He sighed. “It’s not like I know what day it is, Little Note, or if I’ve read you before. You could be from weeks ago. I am not a well person. I need minding. I’m very lucky Juh…”

He glanced around. He’d been about to say a name, he thought, but he lost it the same instant he realized it. Julia? Jessie? Jack? Jeremiah the Bullfrog?

He opened the smaller of the two doors and checked inside for anyone who might be there to help him. Even a frog. If he was very lucky…

He sighed again, shaking his head. The bathroom was empty, nothing but a toilet, a tub, and a fair-haired man with ripped jeans, a tassled vest, and a tie-dye shirt with Starchild written across it in uneven fabric paint. He stood facing the toilet, with one shoulder hitched a few inches higher than the other and his neck twisted at an unnatural angle.

Erik gave a subtle bow, as if he’d startled a family member making grilled cheese after midnight in the kitchen. “Hey, Anthony. Something broken?”

Oh, lots of things! the man replied happily. This is such a nice hotel. Do you like how the toilet tank trickles a little bit all night long? Like a fountain!

Erik nodded patiently, as if hearing faint, familiar music, but then he shook his head. “My dude, I have no idea what I like. I…” He narrowed his gaze, and there was a soft whirring sound in his head, but that didn’t seem any odder than the gold ink on his green hand. “Um. I’m pretty sure you’re not paying attention and you can’t help me, but could you tell me what’s going on or… or at least how I know you?”

Lame Anthony considered that, frowning. He lifted a finger and smiled, as if pointing to the light bulb of an idea. I can’t remember which one of you is Vanya!

Erik nodded and kept nodding. “Yep. That’s about what I expected.” He threw up both hands. “I don’t think I’m Vanya, I don’t think I even know a Vanya, but really I have no idea. You know?”

So broken, Anthony said gently. He mimed patting Erik on the shoulder — he couldn’t really do it, his hand went right through. How nice. Bless you and stay evil, don’t be safe, drink your drugs, don’t do school, stay in milk, and I have to go to the store before I forget! He made a V-sign with one hand, gave a cheerful wave with the other, and blew out like a candle flame.

Erik crept forward on tiptoe, and swiped a cautious hand back and forth through the place where the man had been. When there was no protest, he did it again, then up and down, then in a circle. “Alone again,” he assured himself. “Preternaturally.”

Absently reciting some Gilbert O’Sulivan lyrics to himself, he ambled over to the sink, and regarded his reflection in the mirror.

He saw a lanky green kid, surely not yet twenty, with a silver patch in his face that circled his whole eye socket and disappeared beneath his unkempt white hair. The eye in the socket was made of gold metal, with a little glass lens. It whirred and clicked, but he hardly noticed it anymore.

“So,” he said. “I remember the Invisible man who likes broken things and can’t help me, and I know I traded my real eye for some freaky shit a long time ago, but I don’t know anything about my friend with the J-name and the notes. What the heck is goin’ on here?”

He picked up his bangs with one hand and traced the subtle blue lines where the metal had been merged to his flesh. Just like magic.

Exactly like magic, actually.

“It’s not that.” He rubbed the metal patch with a hand; it felt warm, but not as soft as skin. Nearer to his mechanical eye, it was as hard as the shattered bone it had replaced.

“I’m so over that,” he told himself. “I’m all grown up with coping strategies. Listen to me talking! I’m not losing my words or slowing down even a little. My poor, weird brain is compensating. Head trauma is a thing of the past, kiddo. We’re onto bigger and better things.”

We? he thought suspiciously. Me and my weird brain, or…?

He frowned at his reflection. Mirror images were difficult, despite a lot of growing up and coping strategies. He knew a functional mirror ought to be showing him his metal eye on the left, but he couldn’t tell from looking. That could’ve been his reflection in a bathroom mirror, or another version of himself watching him through a glass portal.

“So what is it, huh?” he asked the silent figure in the glass. “We’re in this together, so if you’ve got a clue, cough it up. My head doesn’t seem any more broken than usual, so what the heck is wrong with me? Us. You know this is not how I am. And where’s my violin?”

He turned and looked at the wall behind him, he thought he’d left the case leaning there.

No violin, but he supposed it could be hiding somewhere.

“I’m not worried about that,” he told himself, in the mirror. “No big deal. I don’t have to worry. This is just for right now. I get to go home after we’re done saving the world, and everything will be fine. We will have cake, for my birthday. That’s a promise.”

He narrowed his eyes — the metal one whirred and adjusted — and leaned in closer, one hand on the glass. “What the actual hell are you talking about?”

The image behind the glass stared silently, with its metal eye racked to a pinpoint focus.

He felt an icy certainty that it really was a glass portal with another version of him. That other Erik had his shit together and was mocking him.

He opened the medicine cabinet, just to make sure. There were a few bottles, some tiny soaps, and another big note with tape holding it in place.

NO, ERIK. IF YOU DON’T FEEL WELL, I’LL BE RIGHT BACK TO HELP YOU. IT’S OKAY. YOU ALREADY BRUSHED YOUR TEETH.

He addressed the note with a pointed finger, “Listen, ‘Jolene,’ I know you’re just trying to help out, but I am beginning to think I don’t actually like you all that much! You obviously know I can’t remember a damn thing, and you’re worried about me brushing my teeth? You could’ve run out to buy cigarettes and died, and I’d still be stuck here, just going through the motions! Did you ever think of that?”

He banged the mirrored door shut and refocused on the image in the glass, scowling.

The green kid was wearing a white T-shirt, a custom job with silk-screening. VACANCY, in fake painted fey lights, like he was a cheap hotel.

He pulled at the fabric and read it upside-down. It never failed to make him smile, not the least because that was his very own shirt. People could, and did, steal a lot of things from him, but not his tacky taste or his sense of humour. This shirt was him all over.

Calliope knew that, and she managed to say it in one glowing word.

He remembered unwrapping the present — folded and swathed in green tissue paper, tucked into a brown paper bag. The handles had been tied together with twine. He pulled out the bow and found a funny T-shirt that said he was home alone with the light on for guests. He laughed and fell in love with it.

He didn’t know how long ago that had been.

“Not true,” he told his reflection. “Less than a year, because otherwise we would’ve gone home for my birthday, and I’d have a new favourite present from Calliope. So there!”

He beamed and signed himself two thumbs up. “I think I’m getting better! I do logic and everything! I have my shirt, so this is me, and I’m cool to look out the windows!”

He took a peek out the bathroom window. That maybe wasn’t the best choice. The glass was frosted. He could see the shadow of snow piled up at the edges, and that was all.

That was enough. It was a real-life window, and he was safe.

“I’m having a nice day!” he decided.

He noted a silver fork on the windowsill. He frowned at it, then laughed.

“Come on. Seriously. If we’re gonna leave silverware around the house, the spoon should be on the bathroom window. That’s the lyric!”

He wandered back into the living area, humming the Beatles, and looked out the big window.

In the near distance, there were a lot of funky old brick buildings that Calliope and Milo would’ve adored, in shades of pink and white with red tile roofs and tall grid windows. In a few places, these looked like new construction, the bricks were undressed grey cement, with gaping dark plate glass. Those ugly things were just begging for a coat of paint, and his whole family would’ve obliged — just like they painted the house together, years ago.

The street below was cobbled, with bundled, umbrellaed people walking past, and scant cars. They all looked like toys from this height! Especially the cars, which could’ve fit two thin people at most. They looked like they needed to be wound up with big keys!

Far away, he saw fairylike dark spires belonging to gothic churches or temples.

And, falling in big damp flakes, gathering in the gutters, and sliding off the umbrellas, there was…

“Snow!” Erik cried. He jumped and applauded — softly. “Yes! It only snows in winter! We’re going home soon, Sweet Potato-Pie. You are gonna love it. We got mice galore! Just don’t let Auntie Hyacinth see you eating them, okay?”

“Mew,” Mashed Potatoes replied. She leapt up on the card table and bonked her head against his hip.

“Aw.” He stroked her and scratched under her chin. “You do want attention. I’ll get you a pipe cleaner, but then I want some cereal. I think that’s what I must’ve been doing when I got lost, yeah? I’m gonna be okay, Tater-Po, don’t you worry!”

He twisted a white pipe cleaner into a ball shape for the cat, and he remembered to fix himself some cereal right afterwards. He didn’t get lost even a little.

He wasn’t totally sure why the cereal was in a pile on the counter and there was already milk in the bowl, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t worry about stuff like that. No big deal. He didn’t have to get better all at once. He was doing really well!

He sang to the cat, not minding the words, while he teased her with the pipe cleaner.

“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me. I wonder what day it is? Who’s a super cute kitty…?”

◆◇◆

John Green-Tara — whose father had long ago come so heartbreakingly close to coming up with a nice normal-sounding name for the Marselline immigration office — knocked on the door of his own hotel room and waited a moment, wincing.

He seemed to do a lot of wincing these days. His reflection, glimpsed in the dark windows or the medicine cabinet mirror, reminded him of the arthritic old babas who played chess in the park. You’d offer to pull out a chair and they’d cringe as they bowed and sat, too proud to make noises of pain.

It wasn’t that Erik would answer a knock and offer to help with the groceries — he couldn’t. But it did give him a moment to corral whatever disaster was in progress, or at least stop making it worse.

I never should’ve got involved in politics, John thought to himself, as he took a breath and turned the key in the lock.

All he’d wanted was for people like him and his friends to get terrorized a little less, and maybe have someone to pick them up if they got into trouble. He’d been handing out cards with a list of names, addresses and phone numbers, and then stickers and flags and pins with a cute little rainbow logo.

Then they decided — ha, ha, why not? — to reinstate earring and pocket handkerchief code. From the goddamn molly rights movement before he was even born. It was quaint, they thought. Cute, they thought. They even developed a unisex version with safety pins and beads!

Erik’s uncle had grabbed him aside, surely not more than three years ago, and said, “I am teasing you, but I am also being absolutely serious. Don’t mistake me. You technically have uniforms and a flag now, do you understand? So be extremely fucking careful with this, okay?”

Mordecai had gotten sucked into a revolution once too. He would’ve needed an ability far beyond Erik’s to see this insanity coming, but he’d seen something coming.

So now John was, like, a terrorist? He guessed? At the very least a kidnapper/hostage-taker.

An unwilling one! It wasn’t like he put up his hand and volunteered…

He knew Erik, he’d blabbed about what Erik could do, and that was volunteering enough. He was a volunteer of circumstances. If he tried to un-volunteer, there would be consequences.

A lot of people were depending on him and his ‘napped kid.

Including his little sister, who had been spirited away to an unknown location, in an unknown amount of danger. Talk about emotional blackmail!

Oh, gods, he could not juggle all of these objects. He had already dropped several.

He took another deep breath, shut his eyes and told himself, Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, don’t freak out.

He had burned a lot of bridges — ha, ha, oh, gods! — but this was still, conceivably, not irreparable. The bad people would have bad ends and the good people would get to go home and be safe. He believed that. He had to believe that, or else he’d start screaming, blow the whole thing and wind up dead in a gulag.

…with Erik, who was definitely one of the good people.

Erik will freak out if you freak out, so DO NOT freak out, he thought firmly. This is normal. This is temporary. This is FINE.

He pasted on a smile and pushed open the door, nudging the silver knife aside with a practiced sweep of his shoe. “Hi-yee. Just me. I live here too. No big deal! I have groceries! How’re we doin’?”

“Awesomesauce,” Erik replied smugly. “I had cereal!”

He had also, John saw, decided to play with the cat. Hopefully instead of feeding her a bowl of milk.

It wasn’t an unconditional victory, he had decided to play with the cat on or near the card table. Metal parts had been knocked all the hell over the floor, but that was easily fixed. It might not even have been on purpose.

Nothing was on fire, there was no police presence, and the people at the front desk had nothing to say about any weird noises or smells that might’ve occurred recently. Truly, this had been a superlative grocery-shopping experience. Minimal damage!

“Did you have cereal or did Violet have cereal for you, hon?” John asked, just being careful. “Were you watching cereal like a movie, or could you move around? Do you remember?”

Erik paused, frowning. Potato took this opportunity to drag down his hand with both paws and gnaw furiously on the pipe cleaner.

“I,” Erik began, uncertainly. “Um…”

The snow on the windowsill accumulated a scant inch higher.

“Cereal occurred,” Erik decided. “Successfully!”

“Mm-hm,” John said, nodding.

He’d already pulled the timer out of his shirt and wound the dial back another ten minutes, just being careful. It went up to six hours. Erik frequently needed to rest for days or even weeks, so John kept a felt-tip marker in his pocket. He’d take notes and leave tally marks on his arm — ten for a moderate inconvenience, like David, and up to sixty for someone really difficult who stayed a long time, like Auntie Enora.

Sixty was just the amount of tally marks he could legibly fit on his forearm. This was not an exact science. He was almost totally incompetent. It was really bad and dangerous and scary all the time, but he had to do something to keep Erik safe.

Cousin Violet was hardly worth noting, just a little slip of a thing, and not very dangerous. John was grateful to have her around, despite her unsettling pranks. She made separations of all kinds a bit safer. If Erik was hungry, she’d offer to feed him some cereal, and not make too much mischief while she was at it. It seemed she wanted to help, for whatever ominous reason a causality super-fan like her might have.

Absently, he removed the hotplate cord from his pocket as he unpacked the rest of their supplies in the kitchenette. “We’ve got…” He waited with his hand hovering over the paper bag, as if preparing to yank a rabbit out of a hat at a children’s party. “Chiiips!”

Erik appreciatively applauded the existence of potato chips with salt and vinegar flavouring, almost like home. Potato, the cat, seemed indifferent.

“Aaand… Spaghetti!” Boxed, dried pasta and sauce in cans. “And… Kitty food!”

Potato was indifferent to spaghetti and even kitty food — unless it was being rattled in the box, opened with the can opener, or served. She didn’t care much for dish soap, toothpaste, batteries, laundry detergent, eggs, milk, bread, chocolate liqueur, calendars, coffee or sodas either. Cats were a terrible audience, really.

“And lastly!” John declared, with a hand hovering above a hidden container of chocolate chip ice cream he hoped his prisoner would enjoy.

“A birthday present!” Erik cried.

John crumpled the bag without removing the ice cream, precariously close to crumpling the ice cream as well. “Huh?”

Erik snickered and shooed a hand at him. “Sorry, sorry. I don’t care if you have one. If you do, don’t tell me. I like surprises, when I can get ‘em.”

“Erik, it’s nowhere near your birthday,” John said. “I’m sorry. If you want something, maybe I can…”

“Soon,” Erik said, with terrifying certainty. “Because I worked out this is real life and it’s safe to look out the windows and there’s snow out there. It only snows near my birthday.”

The logic involved here was also terrifying.

John came nearer and put both hands on Erik’s shoulders. “No. Hey. I’m sorry. This isn’t San Rosille, remember? We’re a long way from home. It snows super early here. Your birthday isn’t for months, okay?”

Technically correct. Erik’s birthday had come and gone in December. It was February. It snowed in Cyre for much of the year. It would continue snowing and, if Erik was in any shape to notice, he’d be expecting his birthday until April.

If this nightmare wasn’t over, one way or another, by April. But he’d been hoping it might be over before last April too.

“You’re not teasing me?” Erik said weakly.

“No, I promise,” John said, mentally crossing fingers for luck. “Believe me?”

If Erik didn’t believe him…

John’s eyes drifted to the black bag on the windowsill.

Oh, gods, no, he didn’t want to do that again. Not today. Not so soon.

Erik needed to be safe and be okay and go home and live the rest of his life like a normal, good person because this wasn’t his fault, and he didn’t ask for this to happen. He didn’t ask to be a… a pushpaka vimana for a bunch of gods who didn’t care if they crashed him. It wasn’t even his stupid mistake that got him into this mess. He didn’t deserve to be hurt. He only… He only had a bad, stupid friend who never should’ve been his friend in the first place.

A bad friend who was drowning and couldn’t help but drag him to the bottom of the pool too.

He tried, he tried so hard, to hold Erik up so he could get a breath every once in a while and not die. But he had to grab the kid by the hair and hold him under again before he got enough air to scream for help.

Or — since he couldn’t scream — to make noise, chaos, and difficulty any way he could.

Erik didn’t understand there wasn’t any help. That was a pain he could be spared, but, selfishly, also one he had to be spared. Lest he apply his unimpaired intellect to helping himself.

John was trapped in a battle of wits with a person who was much smarter than him, and this person wanted to go home.

He had been cheating. He knew how to cheat, and by this point he was very good at it, but…There was only so much damage he could do to his opponent and still keep telling himself this was normal, temporary and fine.

Please don’t be this clever this soon, John thought, keeping his expression carefully neutral. Come on. Settle down. This is just a weird dream. Go back to sleep.

Erik nodded and ducked his head down and away. “I’m sorry, John. I get mixed up.”

“No,” John said. “I know you do, but it’s okay. Don’t push so hard. You don’t have to get better all at once. I’m here to take care of you.”

“Except when we need shopping,” Erik replied with a smile.

“Yeah,” John said, thinking, Please stop being clever, please go back to sleep…

“Those notes are a big help, but I forgot you wrote them,” Erik said. He frowned. “And I thought you could’ve died and maybe I’d been reading them over and over again for I dunno how long.” He pointed and nodded. “You should sign them and date them! And get one of those calendars that’s just one big red number, like the cartoons, and have it up on the wall so I know what day it is. Then I won’t mess it up looking at the pictures for sure!”

“Yeah, that’s a super great idea,” John said hopelessly. “This calendar has funny pictures of frogs. I just got it. Would you like to look at the frog calendar?”

“Oh, sweet! Frogs!” Erik dropped the pipe cleaner, accepted the calendar, and sat at the desk to examine the funny frogs. “Aw! They have little houses and furniture!”

“Yep.” John drifted towards the kitchen, intending to make peanut butter sandwiches as a further distraction. “I’m not sure if they’re married or roomies.”

“Like us!” Erik said — presumably meaning “roomies,” not “married.” John was being excruciatingly careful that Erik didn’t get mixed up about that.

John was midway through unscrewing the peanut butter lid when Erik asked, “What’re they saying to each other?”

John winced. He’s noticing words and trying to read… and succeeding, if it’s Anglais. Oh, damn it, I left him a bunch of notes and taught him to do that and he REMEMBERS.  “I have no idea,” he said carefully. “Maybe you could make something up.”

“Can I borrow that pen off you?” Erik said.

John dropped the knife, the jar, and the slice of bread on the floor. He remembers I have a pen and he wants to WRITE SOMETHING DOWN! “Um,” he said. “There are pencils in the desk drawer — the one with the sticker. I need the pen.”

“Cool.” Erik investigated the pencils, but showed no interest in John’s obvious distress. That was good. He still wasn’t firing on all cylinders. He didn’t notice everything.

Shakily, John finished making sandwiches, cut off the crusts, rescued the ice cream just before it melted irreparably, and remembered to put the stupid knife back in front of the door to close the circle. He went back to the kitchen and mopped up the few messes he could.

He felt a little better. A little less incompetent.

Erik was at the desk, loosely holding the pencil so Potato could play with it. The frog calendar had been pushed to one side, with no attempt at dialogue written on the cartoon image.

“Check it out!” Erik informed John. “A kitty! Can we keep it?”

“Sure,” said John. “Know any good cat names?” He had his fingers crossed for something other than a sly reminder that Erik was never going to stop trying to find a way out of the box John had put him in. He’d go out and buy a tag with that on it right away.

“Heck,” Erik said. “Kitty? It’s a kitty.” He set the pencil back on the desk and allowed it to roll away, much to Potato’s delight. “Hey. Frogs.” Erik picked up the calendar again. “Cool.”

“Yeah. They have little houses and furniture.”

“Huh,” Erik said, blinking. “Yeah.” He let go of the calendar. “Can I have a sandwich?”

“Yep, that’s what they’re for.”

“Sweet.” Erik selected a sandwich, took two bites, and then wandered off and started leafing through the calendars again. When the sandwich filtered its way back into his attention, he regarded it for a moment and asked John, “You gonna eat that?”

“No, you are,” John said, relieved. “You just got lost for a second. It’s yours.”

“Man, I can’t even get through a whole sandwich,” Erik muttered, and took a bite.

“Don’t even worry about it,” John said. “I’m here to help. You don’t have to get better all at once.”

“I guess.” Erik ate slowly, and soon the frustrated frown slid back into neutral disinterest. “Hey, John?”

“Yeah?”

“I found something you might like.” He picked up another calendar. This one was called Inspirational Lighthouses and happened to be in passable Anglais. Cyre was cosmopolitan and touristy enough that Anglais popped up everywhere, and was often comprehensible.

Erik folded back a few pages and showed John an image of a distant, cyclopean light piercing the darkness, with white cursive letters written beneath.

We aren’t that we Want. We are that we Act. Brave Being. Ee Cumins.

For an instant, just for an instant, John was positive Erik remembered everything, knew exactly what he was doing, and was only playing up the clueless act to buy time while he worked on his escape. Perhaps he was digging his way out of the bathroom with a spoon. Or braiding a rope out of cloth napkins. Or just waiting for his family of mad geniuses to inevitably find him and spring him.

“You like cumin, right?” Erik said with a smile.

And then John wasn’t sure anymore at all. “I… Yes, I suppose, but I don’t think it ever said this. I think they mean ‘cummings’ but I’m not sure if he did either. It kinda looks like beat poetry…”

“Huh,” said Erik. “I thought it was a lighthouse.” He let the calendar drop back on the table with the others. “Didn’t I have a sandwich two seconds ago?”

“You ate it,” John said. He stood. “I can make another. Are you still hungry?”

“Not totally sure… Oh, hey.” Erik smiled. “Look! A kitty!”