(not so) secretly a total geek

Jungle Jim's International Market profiled in regional press, late October 2025

So there's this grocery store in Fairfield, Ohio, Jungle Jim's, six and a half acres under one roof, animatronic Elvis at the entrance, fake monorail that doesn't go anywhere, the whole bit, and every couple years it gets rediscovered by someone who treats it as a piece of pure American kitsch, the kind of thing you can write 800 words about without ever mentioning that the actual store is one of the largest international grocery operations in the United States and exists for reasons that go well beyond the Disneyland-on-acid frontage.

Jim Bonaminio opened the original stand in 1971, produce, that's it, the way every one of these places started, and the move from roadside fruit stand to international superstore happened because Cincinnati in the 70s and 80s was absorbing exactly the kind of population that the conventional supermarket supply chain wasn't set up to feed. Appalachian whites coming up the Hillbilly Highway, sure, but also (and this is the part nobody writes about) a substantial Indian population tied to P&G's R&D operation, a Chinese and Vietnamese wave post-1975, an Eastern European bump after the Wall came down, the Bhutanese-Nepali resettlement in the 2000s, Cincinnati for whatever reason became one of the major secondary destinations for refugee placement in the Midwest, which is its own whole infrastructure story (the role of Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services as de facto State Department contractors in the resettlement system being one of those things that nobody talks about because the people doing the talking would rather pretend the demographics happened spontaneously), and these populations all needed food, specifically food that Kroger was not stocking in 1985, and Bonaminio figured out before basically anyone in regional grocery that the play, instead of competing with Kroger on price, was to occupy the niche Kroger wouldn't touch because it required actually knowing things, like, ordering "Asian groceries" from Sysco doesn't cut it; somebody on staff has to know the difference between Thai and Vietnamese fish sauce, has to know that different South Asian communities want different specific varieties of rice and won't substitute, has to maintain relationships with importers who themselves maintain relationships with people in Guangzhou and Mumbai and Tirana, and the labor costs of knowing things are the actual moat.

The animatronic Elvis is functioning as camouflage.

And I mean it, the kitsch is camouflage that pays the rent, because the kitsch is what allows the place to be marketable to the white suburban Cincinnatians who come in to buy weird beer and Instagram the Campbell's Soup display, which generates the foot traffic that subsidizes the eight-thousand-SKU international operation that the actual immigrant communities depend on, and without the suburban tourist trade the international section would have to be priced like a specialty store rather than a grocery store, which would price out the populations it was built to serve, so the Elvis is the thing the rest of the store is hanging off of, it's the same trick as a Cracker Barrel where the front-of-house "country store" is subsidizing the restaurant by getting the bus tour to drop another forty bucks on candle holders, in inverted form: at Jungle Jim's the front-of-house tourism is subsidizing the back-of-house grocery operation that is the operative business.

And the regional press cannot see this, will not see this, every single profile of the place is "wow, what a wacky destination, look at the giant fiberglass animals, the founder rides a Harley, the bathrooms look like Porta-Potties as a joke", they cannot write the story where the joke bathrooms exist because they pull the Yelp review traffic that pays for the labor costs of stocking eleven varieties of Filipino vinegar, because to write that story you'd have to write about who actually shops there on a weekday afternoon, a demographic that sits outside the one the regional press writes for or about.

The Fairfield location, incidentally, sits not far from the old Fisher Body Fairfield plant, which closed in the early 90s, same era the international operation was scaling, so you've got the Rust Belt deindustrialization story and the immigration absorption story and the experiential-retail story all colliding in one parking lot, and the way the place gets covered is "haha, monorail."

You find the advert face down on the table. You’re picking up after your grandma. She insists her mind is sharp as a tack but her empty tea cups and loose handkerchiefs and day-old newspapers litter every surface. You scan the paper, and a part of you is sure there aren’t any more jobs like this.

The paper is yesterday’s paper and the various jobs match LinkedIn: nannying and dog walker and kitchen staff. The advert, the one, is stark against the others. You read the tiny printed words over and over, always getting stuck on the word WANTED.

Your friends told you not to go: what kind of job asks you to meet in the middle of the woods? What kind of jobs has no website or contact info? What kind of jobs were advertised in the goddamn paper? You friends wouldn’t get it.

Anastasia, your best friend since third class, tells you to keep your “Find My Phone” on and call when you get there. She really wouldn’t get it. Your grandma tells you that this is the world, the other version of it, and you are her granddaughter. So go.

You walk the three and a half miles in high heels. This job probably wouldn’t even expect high heels, but old habits die hard. You were once convinced in college your girlfriend cast a curse on you, the sleepless nights and a relentless rash proved it. Now that you’re an adult, an adult-adult, you don't think so anymore. If anything was a witch’s spell, it was LinkedIn. Hours and hours of youth wasted on the same go-around.

5 years of experience and 3 different references and no street parking but the bus is only a block away. You can walk, right? Unpaid overtime and shaving your legs to go sit for an hour in an uncomfortable plastic chair. That’s an unusual last name, is it a family one? Ah. I see.

You can walk for a long while. Your heels slup, slup, slup in the soupy ground and it takes you longer than you’d like to look around. The street lights dwindle. The trees gather. The path disappears. The woods are thick and unfamiliar and an iron fence rises in the distance. Despite the late summer heat, the air smells of frost. Maybe Anastasia was right–whether you are your grandmother’s descendent or not.

She comes out of the woods on rail-thin chicken legs. Her skirt is short, cut at a horizontal angle, and she looks like where the punk scene from the 80s went to die. She has a studded leather jacket and bleach-blonde asymmetrical hair. You shove your hands in your stupid suit jacket and check the skies. Half-moon, just risen, you’re right on time.

“You here for the advert?”

“It’s half-moon, isn’t it?” you say back and flash her a tight smile. You had had a sudden sinking feeling about her ability to write you a paycheck. 

She looks you up and down. “Spirit?”

“Ghoul.” You shrug. “Yaga?” She sticks out one of her stalky chicken legs. “Servant of one. Two gens back. On my father’s side.” Your strained smile gentles. “I’m Katie.” Her smile sharpens in response. “Stephanie. Come on, let’s take a walk.” “Was that a real advert, Stephanie?” You saddle up beside her despite yourself. “Cause if you’re just here to pull my leg, know that I'm pretty hard to put down.” She lets out a harsh laugh that sounds like it hurts. “I’m counting on it.” She winks. “Now, not sure I know your line so well, what’s the difference between a ghoul and a spirit?” What is a spirit or ghoul? What was a gig worker or a salaried one? Perhaps a whole length away. Stephanie pushes a bush aside to reveal a hole in the iron fence and leads you through. The grass turns from wild heather to manicured green and you emerge into a field of rolling hills. Your skin prickles. You might be hard to kill, but not to capture. You stay low to the ground.

“Can I be paid upfront?” Her breath smells of winter frost and fresh-turned soil. “You down that bad?”

You survey the trimmed grasses and gentle slopes, the unnatural prickle spreads through your skin to your bone. A house rises in the far-distance, and you swallow thickly. “Is this some Scooby Doo shit?”

“Come on.” She pushes your shoulder. “I’ll pay upfront. The only real question is if you’ve got a pair of lungs on you.” You toss your ponytail back. “For as long as you like. But, I gotta ask, are there really not any free banshees right now?” Stephanie’s smile falters for the first time. “Old world is dying,” she snorts. “Or just buried deep enough to feel that way.” “We’re still here.” “Still here.” She slips you two hundred and takes you to the side of a small lake. The water is murky and the edges form an unnatural drop. She hands you a lightweight dress, gauzy and impossibly white, and you wrinkle your nose. You looked back and forth between the far-distant house and the lake.

It took you the whole walk to place the gate and the house and the land: The Turnpikes. Built almost seven generations back and larger than ever. You couldn’t imagine. The old world was dying, but you supposed it was also just right there. You put the dress on and kick your heels off. Gathering your stuff, Stephanie gives you a big thumbs up and backs away. You take a deep breath, you don't need many, but you had a feeling it would count.

A light in the far-distant window turns on. You see your grandma in your mind’s eye, her tangled green hair and wicked little smiles. All this for two hundred? But a ghoul isn't a banshee. You jump in feet first.

The wet and the cold and the dank water with no memory swallows you. You submerge in the tiny manmade lake, and when you come out, you come out screaming.

The fear of ghouls is an ancient one–something hard to kill. That can walk forever, fight forever, go Without forever. And you think, as you toss your head back, drip water, and let your lungs rattle in your chest, that you might scream forever too.

For two hundred bucks, a ghoul can be a banshee and a world can be made old and new and when you scream, you can scream until you’re made real again.

------------

A month later, an advert appears in the paper. You wouldn’t normally answer, the odds of getting caught would go up every time you do stupid shit, but your bike spoke broke. DoorDash had been suiting you just fine–you really could bike forever. But the spoke on your bike split like someone snapping their fingers and your heart sank. You used to love biking.

Plus, the advert felt targeted. Near the back of the paper, you’d been checking them every day now, and it was barely a paragraph. WANTED: Spirit or Ghoul with high endurance. Strong preference for ghoul. Flexible hours and attire. Temporary position, paid upfront. Meet at crossroads at twilight.

It was dated for that day. How presumptuous, you think, and you fold the newspaper in half and then in half again like you’re storing good wedding linen.

“I’m going out, grandma!” you call toward the drawing room.

Your grandma mutters to herself, she was a muttery person, before yelling back: “bah! No need to always tell me, you’re an adult, kitty Kate.” The statement was a little at odds with your childhood nickname, but grandma was always insisting you fly to Paris on your own or adopt a hellhound or buy a house. Well, you’d like those things too.

You're out the door in late afternoon. No heels this time, and your pantsuit had gotten a small grass stain last time so leave that too. You walk because of the bike situation, and you walk even more quickly when you’re out of your neighborhood. There were several devil’s crossroads throughout the city, most were tourist traps, but everyone agreed Old Town really did host an intersection of the otherworld. It was also a tourist trap, naturally.

You leave the sidewalk and walk up and then down several stone streets that become stonier with every block. Old Town is lousy with crowds and you suddenly wish you’d worn your pantsuit and heels. A ghoul that looks like she has a business degree might turn out better in their photos, you think.

Head down, eyes on your feet, you almost run headlong into her. She has a the same crooked smile that matches her crooked nose.

“You made it.” Stephanie is wearing a studied leather belt and a pair of black skinny jeans. You pang with jealousy–it must be easy for her to throw on pants or a long skirt and blend right in. “You’re early.”

You muster a smile and check the skyline. “Too early?”

She shrugs. “Depends on if you want the job. Come on, this way.”

Glancing around, you slide a face mask on. No way are you going to be identifiable near Stephanie and her gigs. You walk in step toward the back alleys, thick with shadows and crisscrossing side streets.

“I like the new hair,” Stephanie says as you walk.

You touch the ends of your shortened hairdo. “Thanks.” You muster a better smile. “I was going for morning weather lady.”

“Want to be on the news?” She snorts, and you don’t mention you interviewed at a local radio station. You didn’t make it to the second round. Stephanie points at her own head. “I was mainly talking about the color.”

You feel a blush creep down your neck, and you’re even more glad you put on the face mask on. Had you meant to bleach your hair the same white as hers? God, you’re embarrassing.

“It’ll fade soon.” You sigh, tosling your Weather Lady locks.

“Green?”

“How did you know?” you say dryly. “I used to tell the kids in class that it was part of a curse on my bloodline. Haunted by the ghost of grass or limes, I suppose.”

“I take it spirits aren't the source?” You kind of like that you have her attention, this stranger out of time.

“Nah.” You smile behind your mask and lower your voice, “my family’s favorite symbiote. Can’t get enough of us.” You refrain from saying the word “fungus” since no one wants to hear their companion has a mossy covering from her hair to her teeth. You’d tried dying your hair a hundred different colors as a teen and the fungus always repopulated from the scalp outward.

She laughs, dusty and a little grating. “Is that the difference between a ghoul and a spirit, then? One has phantom green and the other makes their own.”

“Something like that . . .” You are distracted by the empty street ahead. Old Town takes a drastic turn into a residential district, pock-marked by dank puddles and frayed laundry lines. The doors are firmly shut on either side of you, and Stephanie leads around the corner to a layer of bright yellow tape.

“Here we are.” She grins at the crime scene tape.

You set your jaw. “Paid upfront.”

—------------------ The alleyway has a neglected feel, straddling the line between the tourist district and the one for everyone else. An ATM sits at the corner, a soda machine, another machine just for bottled waters, and a third one, near the back, surrounded by a web of police tape.

Stephanie has you hang back until the sun splinters across the horizon and turns the sky a quilted purple. She nods, pulled her hood up, and has you duck your heads under the tape.

You follow as low to the ground as you can, eyeing the mouth of the alleyway. “Where are the cops again?”

“Getting special forces.” Stephanie rolls her eyes. “A priest. Come on.”

Crossing the yellow tape in a few bobbing steps, you see why they’re getting a priest. The vending machine is gently glowing. You cup your eyes, and press your face to the glass, glancing between the licorice packs and rolls of powdered donuts. “Jesus Christ,” you say when you see it, which is appropriate.

A fingerbone slots at the very front of the candy bar wrung, caught in the spring like a gruesome snack. The bone is sun-dipped yellow and cracking in places. You jerk back when you blink and the fingerbone reappears among the cracker packets a second later. You feel slightly ill.

Stephanie clicks her tongue. “Saints’ bone.”

“What is it doing in there?” you ask without taking your eyes off it.

Stephanie gets to her knees in a creaky, pained movement. “Some kids used it to pay.” Your mouth falls open and Stephanie cuts in, “Saints bones can be used to pay for anything.”

“Yeah--and for miracles,” you say pointedly. Like the miracle of getting stuck in a vending machine, you guess.

“Kids.” Stephanie says and makes a ‘what can ya do’ gesture. She adds more quietly, “hungry ones. And when the cops go looking for them maybe there is nothing in the machine after all. Maybe their eyes were no good and there is no illegal owning of bones or holy objects used as currency.”

You suck on your bottom lip and follow Stephanie down to your knees, hoping the kids at least got one of every kind. “Why can’t it get out?” You never see the finger move, but every time you blinked, it changed positions.

Stephanie propped open the mouth of the vending machine, wrapping her knuckles against the glass with her other hand. “Bit like a casket . . . Bones don’t leave the casket.”

You groan and peer through the vending machine slot, flexing your right hand and eyeing the finger bone. “Two hundred,” you grunt, “now.”

You get $250 for your troubles, inflation and all that. You jam your entire arm in and reach. Your eyes burn from holding them open, locking the bone in place with your gaze, and shoving half your shoulder into new, fascinating positions. The pad of your finger grazes the bottom of the bone.

“Ow!” You realize why no one else has yanked it out yet. “It bit me.” Jerking your hand back, pinpricks of sluggish black blood dribble out of the tip of your finger. Technically, the bone didn’t really bite, but it had become sharp enough to cut.

Stephanie let out a long breath. “I was hoping it wouldn’t register you . . .”

You growl, “ghouls aren’t undead-undead. It wouldn’t recognize me as one of its own.” Stephanie rubs the back of her neck and you let out another groan. “Whatever. Stand back. Give me some room.”

You blink several times until the bone reappears close to the bottom of the case and you jam your whole arm in all at once. You growl, knowing what to expect now. You tell your body to forget your hand. When you yank the damn thing out, black blood sluggishly weeps down your wrist.

“Fuck you too.” You throw the bone to the ground and shake your hand out.

“Hey! Careful.” Stephanie dives on the finger bone, slamming what looked like a shoebox down on it. The lid seals and begins glowing faintly. Stephanie glances up from the ground. “You okay?”

You cover your hand with a handkerchief before she can see. “I will be.” One of your fingers may have been dangling off but your grandma had remedies for that. The moss was useful for more things than just dye.

Stephanie frowns in a way that suggests birthday party cancelations or a rash you can’t reach. She slides you another fifty. “Hazard pay.”

You plan to stay and clean up any trace of blood or fingerprints, but Stephanie grips the box in both hands and turns. “Come on. The witch said we only had until the sun sets.”

“But . . .” You look between the back of Stephanie and the machine.

She waves a hand in the air. “We’re professionals!”

Who is “we”? you wonder. But the less you know probably the better. You check that the gore is contained to her hand all the same and run after her a second later. “Are,” you swallow, panting and looking at the shoebox. “Keeping that?”

“The kid swiped it from the family’s heirlooms, I suppose.”

You grip your pulsing right hand and lower your voice further, “should they be getting it back?”

Saints’ Bones were almost always stolen, claimed by raiding soldiers generations ago or crooked thieves, and kept apart from their holy bodies. Stephanie looks both ways before crossing the street, and then turns on you. “Should, should, should. Shouldn’t you be in the military? Ghouls get paid like CEOs there.”

You study your feet, sun disappearing behind you and leaving you both in the dark. Stephanie steps in close and hands you a brick-like cellphone. “Well, if you’re interested in more gigs in the future. . . I won’t have to pay any more newspaper fees.”

A part of you considers smashing the phone to the ground, but you take it in your good hand.

“So I can get mangled again?” you say this to your shoes, still gripping the phone.

She waves, weakly, and presents a meager smile when you look up. “Well, I mean, you’re good at it.” She shakes her head. "I am sorry about that . . . not an easy job. But. Still."

"Still. . ." You turn away, trying to hide the sudden warmth in your chest and temptation to buy a leather belt. She doesn’t let you watch her leave and you decide to bus home for once.

--------------------

There are no good interviews just like there are no good wars. Just the humiliation of putting on your best underwear and your best mascara and walking home with your heels in hand like returning from a one night stand. Well, one where they don’t want you. The first time the cell phone rings, you bury your head under the pillow.

You’re still recovering from the last good war and it’s hot. Hot like hard-boiling your brain hot. You’re not good in the heat since you have less sweat glands than people, less water, less everything. The fan chugs along and the cell phone rings and you jam your face into your mattress. You want to throw two and a half tantrums and declare yourself legally dead.

You don’t. You pick up the phone on the last ring. Your bike still needs a new chain for your stupid transport and stupid well-being.

“Hello?” A mechanical voice tells you an address and hangs up. The bitterness feels like a physical weight on your tongue. You keep your best underwear and smeared mascara on and change into your gym shoes. 

Your grandma is just getting in while you’re going out.

“Gotta a date?” she says in that crooked way that conveys a whole story: young people don’t date enough these days, young people don’t know how to live, etc.

“Another gig,” you say and maybe she can read the look on your face. How many interviews can one possibly go on? Two? Three a week for the rest of your life, maybe.

Your grandma grabs your shoulder. “Moneys not everything, lovie.” You want to grumble that that’s easy for her to say. “I’m not enlisting.” “Bah, and I didn’t raise you too! Just stop wallowing. You’re too pretty to wallow,” she began one of her tirades and hobbled to the next room. You roll your eyes and grab a small backpack.

“I’m going out, grandma!” You smile as that sets off her next tirade and you’re out the door. In the streets, it’s the kind of day that has forgotten how to end–a kind of eternal twilight of summer. Following the address, you pass kids jumping through sprinklers and families spraying each other with the hose and teens hold dripping popsicles as they loiter in front of convenience stores.

You fan yourself and fight off a nostalgia potent enough to drop you like a stone. You make your way through winding suburban neighborhoods into an oasis of shops. 

You recognize most of these little bodegas: a sandwich place, a tiny grocery store, a Chinese restaurant. “For Sale” signs dot the street just as often. The flower shop and the bookstore went under ages ago–who can keep an indie flower shop open nowadays? You would have liked to work there, college degree and all, you think. 

You come to a back alley and your spine prickles from one to the other. Despite the heat, you tug on a jacket and pull up the hood. You’re local here. You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing here.

Before you can smash the cell phone and run, a shadow on chicken legs appears. “You made it!” She grins. “Home turf too, eh? Perfect job for you.”

You crouch. “I still shop at that grocery store,” you hiss. Or at least, maybe you will shop there again soon.

“Sure you do.” 

You cut your gaze up at the other woman. “What do you want?”

She puts her hands on her hips. “What I always want,” she winks, “a ghoul or a banshee or just some sonofabitch to finish this.” You run a hand through your hair. “Alright, but I’m getting double hazard pay if I lose another finger . . .” Her eyes go wide. “Did you–” “It’s fine. All still here.” You wiggle your right hand in midair and feel a little peevish that there’s not even a scar left. The fungus was cruel like that. 

“Well, I’ll give you a hand with this one as best I can.” You scowl, mouth twisting into a squiggle on your face. “I guess I don’t pay to laugh at my jokes, come on, come on.”

She herds you into a deep pocket of shadows and you hear it before you see it: a low, crooning, howl. The alleyway is more of a ditch, stones fitting together like uneven teeth and a low wall of dirt makes up the back. The howl, barely audible, carries on the breeze. To your surprise, a tiny figure is huddling on the ground next to the mouth of the alley.

You falter. “A kid?” Stephanie slaps you on the back and the kid turns around, face blotchy and eyes a hot red.

Stephanie clicks her tongue. “He won’t say anything, will you kid?” The kid sniffles and he looks back to the alleyway, gaze fixed ahead. You join him, holding yourself back. You swallow whatever gasp or whine is trapped in your throat. Between two empty businesses, the thing rises with the fading light of day: a shifting, gooping mass, more outline than substance. Eyes flash among strings of pearly outlines, yellow eyes and teeth and wet snouts.

“Dogs don’t like me,” you say automatically and the hot eyes of the kid flash in your direction, so red it startles you.

“What about a grim then?” Stephanie takes out a cigarette. 

You give the alley another look and among the rising tide of spirits, a larger, darker dog looms. The dog lets out a low, mournful howl.

“It’s my fault,” the kid quivers, “I couldn’t–”

“Hush, kid, that’s part of the deal of you being here.” Stephanie puts a finger to your lips and purses them.

You put out a hand and she slips four hundred in it. Your eyes go wide. “What? That’s too much. What do you want me to do?” “This one is, uh, more of a personal favor. Personal favor, personal money.” Your mouth is hanging open. “I dunno.” You look between the money in your hand and the sheer weight of living ghosts in the alleyway. “That’s a lot of spirits for the suburbs.”

“I didn’t mean to!” the kid wails and tears at his hair. 

Stephanie shakes her head. “You try to bring one back, sometimes you bring a lot more.”

It clicked into place in your head all at once. You want to shake your fist and kick something. Instead, you shove the money in your pocket and put your hands on your hips. Stephanie laughs and blows out a stream of smoke from her cigarette. It smells like cloves.

“That’s what I like about you, soldier. Can do attitude.”

“Write that on my next letter of rec,” you grumble but you’re already at the mouth of the alley. Stephanie hands you a little box and you shove that in your pocket. “Dogs really don’t like me,” you remind her.

“Why do you think I called you? It’s not very far. We’ll use the whistle if I have to.” Stephanie did not disappear into the shadows like the first time and you realize you have an audience. You shove off your hoodie at the last minute and start walking. 

Approaching the mass of spirits is like entering a cool bath. The sounds of crickets dampens and the last rays of sun take on a blue hue. The chill is refreshing against the summer heat and the strings of pearly white part before you. 

Spirit or not, the dogs shy away from your quick movements and most-likely-strange smell. They nip and growl and you keep eyes fixed on the dark, bulky outline. The grim in the center is an enormous hound dog, a dog’s dog, and spittle drips from its maw. You take a steadying breath and the spirit is at an arm's-length when a sharp sound punctures the air and you look back to see the kid blowing on a whistle.

Car lights flash in the distance and the kid blows on his whistle twice. “The cops?” you mouth the words.

“Animal control,” Stephanie mouths back and stomps out her cigarette. Her blaise attitude has never annoyed you more. You pour on speed and lunge for the dog. The grim flattens to the ground and lets out a long howl.

“Goddammit.” You lunge for the grim over and over and the other spirits nip and bite at your heels. “Goddammit!” The problem of being a gig worker is the problem of most workers: you’re not really trained for most auxiliary tasks.

“The box!” Stephanie calls out. “The box.”

You take the box out of your pocket and whip out a length of leather. “Here boy.” The grim bundles itself into an impossible ball in the corner of the alley and then goes for your face.

“Bad dog!” You yell and dodge to the side, nearly avoiding losing your nose to a spirit. The grim turns to bolt the other directions.

“Please, Lil Bits, please!” The child calls and that is enough for the grim to falter. You whip the collar around the spirit's neck. For a moment, you think the dog won’t be material enough and the leather will fall to the ground. The grim whines in the back of its throat and you figure this is as good a time as any, you pick up what’s left of the animal in your arms and run.

You’re lucky, so damn lucky, and all three of you are across the street just as an enormous truck pulls up. 

“Holy hell,” the officer says, “that’s a lot of grims. Who did this?” The goopy mass of spirits is already fading into the ground and sky, but you’re not about to point that out.

Stephanie pushes you both through a door and you nearly choke on your own spit. The door leads to another door which leads to a field. There aren’t any fields in the city. You’re only stopped by the fact you notice a mound and fence nearby and realize it’s a baseball field.

Stephanie is whispering, “Come on, kid, this is it. . .”

You place the snarling mass of animal down and the collar still hangs around the grim’s neck, but just barely. The kid snuffles pathetically. You want to look away. You want to go home and bury your face in your mattress. Who needs this, right?

Instead, you watch the kid form a silvery mass in his hands and it looks like a baseball, a glowing baseball, in his tiny grip. Tears are pouring down his face and Stephanie steps back next to you.

“You know, you could have let animal control handle that one,” you complain, though your heart isn’t in it. You came back with all your fingers this time after all. 

“Yeah, but then they wouldn’t be able to say goodbye.”

The collar drops to the ground with a hard thunk and the kid winds up, ball glowing a silver halo. 

“As high as you can now!” Stephanie yells and the kid ignores her. He lets the ball go straight up into the air. The dog leaps. Its shadowy limbs stretch into an arch, all muscle and sinew, and it chases the ball into the sky.

“Go get it! Good girl, you’ve got it.” You watch the dog chase the moon until it is nothing but smoke and stars and wipe your damn eyes.

“I’m not sure I can do this again,” you say because you have enough to fix your bike now, probably.

“Sure,” Stephanie says. Neither of you know you’ll be the one calling her next time.

The day you call Stephanie is the day the weather decides to go bad. It sometimes happens—rolling in like a storm front on a random afternoon. They reported them on the weather channel and if it was really bad, sirens would go off. There weren’t any sirens that day.

You rest your head against the bus window. Another day, another part-time-nothing. This one was normal: an afternoon job in landscaping that your grandma recommended. You just needed to get to Davenport just 30 minutes away. An arrangement that turned out to be your grandmother’s second best friend needed help gardening. You know it was getting bad when your grandma was setting up pity-gigs for you.

You didn’t mind gardening though, liked it, really—you liked most things that kept your hands busy and mind snapped into focus. Hell, you even enjoyed Miss Patty and her endless stream of chatter. Like many only-children raised by a grandparent, you tend to get along better with older people more than your own generation.

The commute though, the commute was going to suck the soul of your toes. The drive to Davenport was thirty minutes, but the bus ride? The bus ride was your whole life. Bumpy hours spent in a sardine box of strange smells. There were good buses, great buses, in your city, but this one wasn’t one of them. A gunked-up metal tin box on wheels with no AC.

The bus is half-full that day and you’re still covered in a thin layer of sweat and soil. You surreptitiously pick dirt out from under your fingernails. Every time you wore gardening gloves they felt so in-the-way that you opted to plunge your hands into the ground instead. A 20-something young woman in a college jersey throws repeated looks your way. Ugh.

It’s noisy. There are two separate mothers at the front of the bus hushing their kids. One has a burbling fresh-looking baby with a pink bow attached to her wisps of hair. The other one wrangled two toddlers situated around her in different wiggling formations. One toddler kept moving to the window and the other was trying to grab a fly out of the air with his chubby fists. A day laborer still in a bright yellow vest sat behind them. Another young man, a college student you think, murmurs to himself a row back. The young woman with mousy hair and the jersey sat across from you—probably also a uni student. Finally, an entire group of chattering teens sat in the very back. You are ignoring their loud game called “WOULD” that apparently involved shouting out the word “WOULD” while giggling at someone’s phone repeatedly.

Your head plunks against the glass and knew it was going to be a long hour. The road from Davenport was mostly country and you pass through every version of weather. Bits of stray rain and wind, sheets of sunshine, and even a quick stint of hail that clattered against the metal roof. The inside of the bus remained a clammy muggy box where you sweat and sighed and waited.

The city appeared in the far distance right as a dense fog rolled in. You were technically only thirty minutes from the ocean so this sometimes happened. The older window-toddler draws doodles in the condensation.

The baby begins to cry. You keep eyes to the wisps of misty countryside. A sharp sniffle comes from your right, and you glance over. The girl across from you is crying. You frown at her, and she frowns even harder at you. Big fat tears roll down her cheeks. 

“What in the hell?” someone mutters to themselves before the bus goes over a large bump and everyone jostles. 

A teardrop hits the knees of your pants. You touch your face, and you’re crying too, large fistfuls of tears. You jerk to your feet. The faces of the passengers are wet. The sunshine outside appears to flicker and the fog has gathered into something physical, immense, shifting. A chill hits you over the head like a hammer and you sit back down in your seat. 

The bus driver gets a single sentence out, “we’ve seemed to have hit a spectral migration . . . stay seated.”

Dead quiet seeps through the space in response and then, after a long moment, a wave of muttering. A chorus of voices rises.

The girl across from you seems to speak to herself, “What do you mean, it’s only September, the migration isn’t for months. . .” “Don’t tell me we’re going to be late.” The day laborer gives a resigned groan. “I don’t see anything outside,” one of the teens says. “There can’t be anything.”

A singular voice rises above the rest: “HUSH!”

The young man you had mistaken for a college student rises and you recognize a priest's gold insignia around his throat—from one of the harvest gods, you think. The young priest puts a finger to his lips. A hush descends and you look outside. The fog is dense, lightless, a monotonous wall of grey. You cock your head to the side. There are no faces or shimmering bodies outside. It doesn’t seem like a ghost migration to you, but you watch all the same.

Ghosts can’t normally hear you, but the bus remains quiet all the same. You want to sneak to the front of the bus and ask the driver if she’s driven through anything like this before, but a stillness overtakes you. Condensation drips down the sides of the windows. A few droplets begin to drag in circles—like someone is pressing from the other side.

You reach, slowly, into your pocket and take out a boxy cellphone. You’d been keeping it on you as of late, but it had remained quiet since the Grim incident. Keeping it palmed in your hand, you inch to your feet toward the front. Most everyone has their noses pressed to the glass, but one of the mothers grabs your elbow as you pass. She has a hard grip and very motherly aura as she looks you over—it’s almost flattering. Your grandmother is good to you, but not maternal.

You look back at her and she points back to your seat. You slowly shake your head and then make the signifier for just one moment. She lets you go, but mostly because her very fresh, doughy baby was whimpering again. The bow was about to fall off.

You clear your throat so the driver knows you’re there and doesn’t scream when she glances back. Surprisingly, the driver has an almost bored expression—she might not be the type to scream when she sees a ghoul. You hide your dirt-encrusted hands behind your back and lean over to whisper.

“I’m not sure this is a spectral migration, ma’am,” you say under your breath as quietly as possible. “I haven’t seen a single ghost.” You aren’t going to mention the moving droplets just yet.

As if on cue, the outline of a hand presses against the corner of the window. You jump and the driver, once more impressively, doesn’t so much as flinch. You notice, though, a single teardrop making its way down her face.

“I might agree with you,” she practically mouths the words, barely a whisper, and you both look outside to what you can only describe as a structure. The structure, a pointed black house, moves on legs of spindly poles as if striding through water.

Ah. Yes. You think. This isn’t the road. This isn’t the outskirts of Devonshire or the countryside. This isn’t the ghosts moving with the seasons. A door has opened, usually always by accident, and you’ve driven as easily as you please into the Otherlands.

You hunch over on the steps of the bus and make a phone call.

-----------------

The news that you’ve left your own plane of existence spreads through the bus in a trickle. No ghosts. No home. Just the Others. Everyone continues to whisper in the aftermath.

“None of you,” the priest has a thick accent so it sounds like “noon of yoo.” He gestures. “Are leaving this bus.”

The day laborer grumbles, hands shoved deep into his pockets, “fairy country. Had to be fairy country.”

You pressed the cellphone harder to your ear, it had rung-out twice already and you’re bouncing your leg.

“Someone is out there,” the oldest toddler’s high-pitched voice rises over the others. “Do you see it, mama?” “Yes, yes, darling.” The other, frazzled mother covered the older toddlers eyes with one hand. “They won’t hurt us. We just can’t let them in.” The little girl turned away from the window, which was at least something. “Why not?”

The priest shot a finger in the air. “They’re demons.” “They’re fae.” You roll your eyes and squeeze your phone. Pick-up, pick-up, pick-up, you think as the call rings. How many other people could be calling her right now? Though, you suppose you don’t know your handler that well.

“We need to get out.” One of the teens is breathing hard, chest rising and falling in hummingbird-fast puffs. “We came from back there.” He points behind them. “We need to go back there.”

The adults in the room exchange a look. “Otherlands don’t necessarily work like that, hun,” the mother with the infant says. 

“How are we going to get out then?”

The arguing begins. Offerings. Negotiations. Driving as fast and hard as you can. The college student’s eyes sweep the entire room.

“We should start asking ourselves why this happened. Fae don’t mess with you unless you’ve messed with them first.” The space seems to hold its breath at that.

The laborer throws his hands up. “I don’t mess with the fae.”

“Well, me neither!” the college student adds.

“If anyone did invoke them,” the mother pointedly was not looking at the group of four teens, “such as for fun or on a dare . . . we might be able to help if they told us how they did it.” “We didn’t do it! What about her?” One of the terrible teens pointed at me and this day could only get worse.

“Just because she’s a ghoul?” one of the other, maybe less-terrible, teens broke in. 

You want to crawl under something and instead call Stephanie for the fourth time, turning your back to the group in turn. She picks up on the second ring.

“What is it?” she grouches, and maybe she’d been asleep. 

“Hurry,” I say in a rush, “we’ve driven into an Underhill.”

“Who?”

“What? Me,” you recognize the whine in your voice a second too late. “I mean, a bus full of people on the way from a place called Devonshire. Bus 301, like only a little ways from the city and now there are Others out there.” And they were drawing pictures in the condensation. Stephanie allows for a listening kind of silence. 

“Hmm,” she says, and you want to throttle her just enough to get the throttling out.

“Hmm?” “On it,” she says, and then hangs up. 

“What?” you say, but again, she’d already hung up. “How?” A barn owl lands on the hood of the bus, jostling the entire vehicle. The people on the bus turn to look at the hood of the roof as one.

You swallow thickly. “Ma’am?” you say to the bus driver like she’s your elementary teacher and maybe she could do something. The owl is man-sized and, upon further inspection, is not an owl at all. You swallow against a growl building in the back of your throat. A ghoul’s natural fight response is sometimes called the Feral Response instead, but you don’t have time for words.

The owl’s eyes blink sideways and two skinny arms stick out from under the wings.

“Oh, that’s all?” the oldest toddler says aloud, her sweet high voice seeming to echo. “Well, I don’t like mine very much. I’d rather be Delilah or a Penelope, not—” her mother slaps a hand over the little girl’s mouth and thank the Harvest Lord or whoever that the little girl hadn’t gotten to the point.

You back away from the front window. “Ma’am?” you say again, just for good measure. Maybe you can’t drive out of the Otherlands altogether, but maybe you could drive away from the man-sized fae creature. The driver’s mouth hangs open and her eyes are half lidded, empty. She doesn’t say anything in return and you take another step back.

“AREN’T YOU A PRIEST?” the college student wails. “DO SOMETHING.”

The priest falls to his knees and begins a prayer of protection. Both wheat and barley are invoked. You tune it out, instead whispering to the nearest person, the day laborer. 

“We just need to stay calm. I’ve called someone to come get us,” I say, mostly for the need to tell someone.

“You called someone?” He says loudly, then, his eyes narrow. “There isn’t any single under a fucking fairy hill.”

“Unless, unless,” one of the teens, the very stretched out tall one that you begin to refer to as Evil Teen, begins. “No single unless you are one.”

“My fucking lord,” you say back.

“We saw you, we saw you make a call and then that thing shows up.” The college student gestures to the bird eyeing you from outside. “Sure,” you say with false bravado. “Fucking sure, I’ve got fairy satelights or owl wifi or something out here.” Though, it was a good question. How did Stephanie have a phone that could reach Outerlands? It was also a question you couldn’t answer reasonably without a very tedious story about your work history. One of the mothers, the one you have dubbed “frazzled mother,” puckers her mouth. “Who did you call for help?” She glances at the window. “How soon will they be here?”

The priest lifts his face, coming out of his prayer to wheat and so forth. “Perhaps we should back away. Make a plan for our lord’s intervention.”

Finally, a reasonable statement.

The Evil Teens eyes narrow. “Not with her.”

“Look, you can see my phone if you like for like, any fairy shit. It’s not even mine just an . . . an heirloom?”

A handprint presses to the window behind her and I swallow against a rumbling growl in my throat. The college student stands. “What was that? The noise you just made.”

“Uh.” The infant lets out a baleful cry and the toddler jumps to her feet at the same moment.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” the toddler says.

It was only by the grace of the day laborers' reflexes that the little girl didn’t bolt out the bus door. He catches her around the middle and pulls her off her feet. “Oh, no you don’t. None of us are going out there.”

The infant lets out a second piercing shriek and her bow falls to the floor. The frazzled mother lets out a cry. “Cyrus! No.” Both children wiggle like they are possessed by caught fish, but the younger toddler seems to contort himself nearly in half and makes a break for the door. The dimpling of his chubby knees are the last thing you see in a flash of white.

“Shit!” you say, look to the others, and then repeat yourself. “Shit.”

You are, you already know, faster than all of them, and you are out the door before one of the people can accuse you of witchcraft next. As your feet leave the bus, a shard of light opens at the same time. You don’t have time to be saved though, you have a child trying to become a changeling on your hands. The air is nightmare-wet outside, like a soggy hand to the face, and smells of salt and roses. 

Cyrus, the toddler, makes it only a few steps before you swing him off his tiny feet. “How are you so dang fast?” you cry, and Cyrus wiggles like he’s possessed by that fish again. And maybe he is. A pair of enormous wings block out the light behind you and you feel the whisper of cool breath.

“Give him to me.” You hear the words inside of yourself while your ears, your actual ears, pick up an inhumane screech. Tears stream down your face and these can’t be regular fae. You grip the child like your life depends on it. “Or I’ll take him.” You tuck Cyrus into you and roll to the side, you roll and let out the growing snarl from the back of your throat. The owl’s beak jabs forward and takes off a chunk of your shoulder. You hear the ripping sound more than you feel it, purposefully on your part, and dive under the long twiggy legs of the owl that are far, far too many. Dodging between the forest of legs, you run headlong into the bus.

The Frazzled mother stands in the bus’s doorway, arms open wide and cheeks flushed a reddish hue that looks nearly neon. “Cyrus, Cyrus, honey.” She leaps forward, looking ready to fight.

“Stop saying his name!” You fling the child into the mother’s arms all the same and crawl up the steps of the bus. A whoosh of air hits your back and you practically do a somersault away from the jab of the beak. You almost lost whatever ass you had and let out a low whoop. “HA!”

“Don’t play games.” The owl looms closer, delicately placing one of its many, many spindly black legs onto the bus as if testing it. “You are my guest here and my guests must be considerate.”

“Wrong.” You have never been more relieved to hear a singular voice in your life. You turn in place, mangled arm flopping at your side, and the shard of light you had seen before was a full blown blare of color—a tear to the other side. Stephanie stands holding what appears to be a shot gun, an actual shot gun in her arms.

You begin to laugh, which is the wrong move. The owl flaps its enormous wings. “The child,” it says. “Will be happy.”

“Wrong again.” Stephanie cocks the gun. Many of the other passengers appear to have fled through the portal and the frazzled mother shoots away from you both. Good. Only the bus driver and the priest are left.

The priest cocks his head to the side, face wet with tears. “He’s here.” You crawl toward Stephanie’s dark leather boots. “We need to get the fuck out of here, I only have so much flesh to lose.”

“That’s not a normal fae,” Stephanie says conversationally, still pointing the gun. She addresses the creature, “where is the autumn lord? Why isn’t he stopping this?” If an owl-thing could smile, it would be doing so now. “The autumn lord is no more and summer bleeds forever. Only,” he flaps his wings. “Our manners are left.” Stephanie fires the shotgun and you grab the bus driver bodily with your good arm and heave her out of her seat. The second she leaves her spot, the driver begins to babble. “No, no, I don’t, I can’t, we haven’t got the time. We mustn’t.” “Uh-oh.”

“Get her out of here.” Stephanie begins reloading her shotgun with what looks like purple powder that smells like curry.

You hustle the bus driver down the way and it’s only by an inch you miss the priest. He has stopped his prayers and cocked his head to the side.

“MY LORD,” the priest screams at the top of his lungs and throws himself forward. You aren’t fast enough.

“Stop!” You grab for him with my good arm but it’s too late. He flings himself past the mass of feathers that is the fae creature and out into the lightlight grey mist. The priest is gone before you begin crying again. The owl, again, begins to smile.

Stephanie steps between you and the smiling thing. “We’re getting out of here.”

“But—” I say, already forming a plan to pass the babbling bus driver over to her and go after him. Stephanie stomps near your good hand.

“Not the time.” “Take her. I won’t even be a minute,” you say, knowing you’re probably lying. You push the woman over to Stephanie like she’s a sack of potatoes and try for a smile. “Don’t worry, I can survive things most people can’t dream of.”

“We don’t have time for your dreams and I can’t begin to explain what this means. You're not going anywhere.” She thrusts downward and unceremoniously crushes your toe with the butt of her gun.

“Ah!” You let out a feral snarl just in time for her to shove the bus driver through the portal and drag you from behind. You are still snarling at her, eyes fixed on the place where the priest disappeared, when the air pops. You blink. A number of people who used to be one a bus are milling about in the middle of a dusty country road. Your toe hurts. Your shoulder hurts. It’s sunny out.

You don’t know what to do with yourself after the kidnapping. Technically, there is nothing to do. The emergency workers hand you a pamphlet for a Fae Kidnapping Support Group. You’d like to say you are the type to sit in circles and Open Up and Work Through Things. But you are your grandmother’s kid. Besides, that doesn’t feel like doing anything either.

You tell the emergency workers about the young priest. The college kid, nearly foaming at the mouth you think, also tells them about the young priest. One of the mothers confirms how he ran off into the mists. You turn then, still pumped full of heat and noise, and look for Stephanie. She would tell them about the young priest in her calm, unflappable way she had.

Stephanie is nowhere to be seen. You glare into the sun. Your toe throbs. There is nothing to be done. 

Of course, Stephanie is not there. And, besides, finding the young priest is not up to you. They have task forces for this kind of thing, contingency plans, missing persons boards of the magically induced variety. Your job, you remind yourself here in the daylight, is to find a job. God, you hate having a job.

#

Two Weeks Later

Jill sits across from you at the brunch cafe and you study her face: her long aquiline nose and knobby chin. She has sharp eyes, like a fox, and she outlines them in black eyeliner to accentuate the effect. She’s stirring a yogurt and granola parfait with a studious, wartime effort and watching you right back.

“So, come on, how was your last date?”

“Oh. It was fine,” you say and push your hair back. “Not really my type, too chatty, and he didn’t pass the two-four requirements so I don’t think there will be a second one, but," you punctuate the air, "he did tell me a very funny story about his mother which I don’t really think he meant to tell so much about? She was like, naked for half of it.”

“His naked mother? Really?”

“I think he was nervous.” 

“Understandable.”

“He was telling me about how his parents got divorced—”

“All saints, no. On the first date?” “But it was a good story. His mother was in the tub when the mail came in . . .” A smile spreads on your face and you lean forward. Jill takes a break from her soldierly consumption of yogurt to join you, gaze lighting up. You love telling Jill stories, she’s a perfect audience, laughing and nodding in all the right places. It's an underrated talent in all regards.

Honestly, you suspect you go on as many first dates as you do to have stories to bring back to her. Not a great reason to date, but not the worst one.

“Was he cute though? Did you like him?” “Two-Four, Jill.” The two-four requirement was a rule you made up with your friends: did the other person at least ask you two questions for every four you asked them? Steven didn’t even ask you one question about yourself during the entire date, not even about what it was like to be a ghoul (dumb but common). Plus, you had a feeling you made him nervous.

“Alright,” Jill put her hand out, “show me your phone, I’ll pick the next one for you. I’ll make sure this one looks like the curious type.”

You sit back and grip your phone harder. “Maybe I’ll take a break? I can barely afford coffee right now, much less a full dinner date.”

“Oh, Katie, no.” She grins. “I’ll pick out a rich one.”

You groan. “If it’s a girl, make sure she doesn’t look too progressive. Like they want to go splits-y.”

“I’ll get you a rich bitch.” You hand Jill your phone in the same moment your second phone goes off. You had gotten into the habit of carrying it with you after the Fae disaster. Jill meets your eye, scrupulous, and you fumble with the other phone.

She grins, raising her eyebrows. “A different suitor?”

“One moment." It’s not even afternoon yet, you think and jam the phone to your ear, turning away so Jill can't read your lips. “Not exactly normal business hours,” you say in lieu of a greeting. “Meet me at the Charning bridge crossroads.” Stephanie sounds like she’s panting. “Now.”

#

You make your excuses. Jill looks crestfallen and you feel the same way. You only ever get to go out once a week, if that, with Jill’s new job eating her life and her Sundays belonging to John. As childhood friends and then roommates, your days of spending every free hour together were over and it was like an empty tooth socket in your mouth.

“Next Saturday?” You say, beseeching, already on your feet. 

“No, next Sats not good,” she said, huffing. “We’re visiting John’s mom.”

“Right.”

“But maybe after work on the 4th—drat, never mind, I have a work party.”

“No, it’s fine.” You pick up the coffee and begin to chug. It was five dollars. Planning the next get-together is always the most embarrassing part of your outings with Jill anyway. You rarely have the same amount of stuff going on.

“What about, oh, um, 7:30 tomorrow morning?” You make a face at Jill and she sticks out her bottom lip. “Work is so boring. I need to live vicariously through you. The dating apps are still good at 7am.”

Your phone, the black boxy one, vibrates against your breastbone. “Maybe, sure, gotta go.” Stephanie’s gig work was a hole in your sock, tripping you up at every turn, but the idea of failing at your made-up not-job was worse. “Raincheck on our raincheck?” You say and wave. 

“Fine, fine. Love you, bye!” She kisses the air in a theatrical “muah, muah” motion.

“Love you,” you rush through your ritual of kissing the air you had since you were kids, “bye!”

You don't look back. According to maps, Charning Bridge was two blocks away and there were no major streets in the way. You take the alleyways at a slow jaunt and then brake into a run on the next corner. Stephanie had never called you for anything urgent before. You didn’t even know she did things urgently—other than clobbering you in the toe.

You are in city central, a heartland of sorts, made up of towering businesses and high rise apartments. The river Cairn that the original city had been built around ran straight through it. The clean, wide sidewalks spit you out beside the Cairn and you check your phone, smiling. You made good time. Though, when you look up, it doesn't feel that way. 

The Charning bridge was an ornate pedestrian crossing bridge that led to an elaborate-looking park. A woman with bleach-blind fringe stood in the center of the bridge, looking down. She was breathing fast and her dark bilious eyes catch on you.

On the other side, a group of park-goers gathered. One of those carnival carriages that tourists pay to drive them around the park lay on its side and you had a bad feeling about this. You pick up the pace and Stephanie matches you, not quite a jog, but a businessman’s hurry. Her gaze is even darker up close.

“What’s going on?” you ask, feeling your blood cool.

Stephanie drags you to the water's edge. This part of the riverbank is manmade, all concrete and then a straight drop. “You can hold your breath, right?”

“Sure,” you say slowly. “What are we doing?” You frown, remembering. “My rates double since this is so last minute.” “And what about me saving your ass last time?” You open and close your mouth in return. She grouses. “I don’t have my wallet. We’ll square up afterwards. I don’t know how long she has left.”

You lean over, searching the dark waters. The current is a sluggish, barely a trickle, but the water itself appears like flawless black glass. And who knows how much city trash and gunk is in it.

Stephanie swallows, throat bobbing. “Listen, I was supposed to meet a colleague here. She was at the bridge when I arrived but a carriage got loose. I don’t know what she was thinking.”

“Okay? I guess I’ll, what, fish her out?”

“No, I mean, I don’t know what she was thinking about getting close to it.”

“Close to what? What is it you want me to do?”

Stephanie takes you by the collar and points. “The carriage wasn’t pulled by a horse. It must have gotten spooked or someone might've . . . Anyway, the second it saw the river, the driver says it ran for the water. She went to calm it down and it didn’t go well. The kelpie dragged her into the river.” “Why is a kelpie loose in the city?” Your clamp your teeth down hard. “I can’t fight a kelpie.”

“You won’t need to. The driver gave me this.” Stephanie hands you a bridle and the leather is thicker than each one of your fingers. 

You roll the material back and forth in your hands, jangling the metal bits. “I don’t know about this.” Stephanie’s eyes scrunch up into dots on her face. “I don’t think this is a coincidence. I don’t think,” she draws a deep breath in through her nose. “What do you want for this, part timer? I’ll see about getting you whatever I can. Anything.”

Oh? You think. Who is this to Stephanie? Bubbles arise in the dark waters and you shift from side to side.

“Who are you people?” you ask, softly, searching her face.

“If that’s what you want,” Stephanie whispers back, “fine. I’ll give you that or whatever else, but,” she chews her bottom lip. “Go!”

A larger crowd had gathered on the opposite bank, tourists and joggers, and one very nervous-looking man in a feathered red top hat. He must be the driver. You step over the railing and wave awkwardly at the crowd, holding up the bridle.

“Figgy is a good boy!” the driver cries and there are real tears in his eyes. “He’s never done this before.”

Right. You skid down the concrete river bank, feeling the heat of other people’s eyes. You make it a few steps down until the bank falls away entirely and you jump feet-first into the mirror-dark waters.

Without Stephanie's hard look shoved up into your face, you regret the action immediately. Water surges over your head, folding in over you, and you are reminded you could be sipping coffees with Jill right then. Foulness lodges in your nose and the water is just as sluggishly black from the inside as you looks from the outside and you sink through layers of grime.

The river is deeper than expected and a faint blue glow comes from down below. You squint, kicking downwards, and make out a slim, squirming figure. She has one hand clasped over her mouth and a phone in the other one, emitting that eerie blue light. You're impressed by how alert she looks, gaze darting back and forth, and legs bicycling in place to keep her buoyant.

Sinking closer, you make out a shimmer around her throat and eyes alongside tattoos twining down her forearms in arcane circles. A witch.

You try not to let any bias show on your face. But couldn’t a witch save her own damn self? She notices you a second after you notice her and she presses a finger to her lips in a shushing motion. You hesitate, considering, and kick—albeit more softly—in her direction.

She shushes you harder just as a looming black shadow shoots from behind her. The hooves appear like they are beating against asphalt, the creature shooting through the water, its mane coarse and writhing like a living black flame.

You tumble ass over end, missing the kelpie by inches, and push down to the silt black bottom of the river. Ghouls aren’t known for our speed, but other creatures don't account for your sheer density, you think. You fiddle with the bridle in hand, turning it right side up, and then down, and realize a little too late that you have no idea how a bridle works. Part of it went in the horse's mouth, right?

The sheen of the phone light appears closer and you turn toward the witch. Her eyes dart back and forth and she loses a few bubbles. Whatever spell she was using to hold her breath probably wouldn’t last forever.

You feel the thunder of hooves before you see them. Your gut surges and the symbiote reacts before you can, pushing heat and speed into our veins, you fall flat onto your stomach in seconds. The kelpie streaks overhead and a few bubbles escape your mouth too. You army-crawl, coating yourself in grime, and make it underneath the floating witch, who you assume had already tried to swim for the surface on her own.

She looks grey in the face, pinched, and points at the bridle in your hands. You nod slowly in return like this accounted for some kind of plan between you. She points harder and you motion to throw the bridle at her. She shakes her head furiously and paddles down doggy-style.

The water shivers and you feel the thunder again.

You jump, scissoring your legs hard and fast against your own density, and the witch reaches back. The kelpie surges between you, clipping your outstretched hands, and sending the witch’s phone flying into the briny depths—a star blinking out. You manage to hold onto the bridle, but just barely, and a shallow gash opened along your thumb oozing sluggish green blood. You briefly wonder what it would mean to swim back empty-handed.

Wait, alright. A plan. A scheme, that's all it'd take. You’d become a damn cowgirl. You are saved from becoming the cowgirl, however, as a hand grabs you from the dark. The witch—you decide to believe it is the witch–drags you toward her. You get a second or two to clutch at one another, bumping hands and elbows, and she grabs a part of the bridle.

You let go, only for the witch to push the bridle back into your hand. Your gut, in turn, surges. The thundering of hooves comes from behind, and you have to force yourself not to dive for the ground. You close your eyes, not that it made much of a difference, and a pulse of electricity burns through you fingertips. You whine in the back of your throat. Magic didn’t mix well with the symbiote.

“Dar won go!” the witch cries, releasing a stream of bubbles, and what might have been the last of her air.

You don’t yell back. The kelpie charges, sending black waves in all directions, and another pulse of magic surges through the bridle and your fingertips. The kelpie is a wall of damp fury breaking against the stones and you plant your feet and tuck your head down. The bridle catches. You yelp, releasing the last of your own air, and your shoulder is nearly yanked out of its socket.

You are dragged along like a ragdoll, flopping against the beast's back, and slicing through the water. You can feel your symbiote stiffening your joints, fogging over your thoughts, preparing to shut us both down.

You break against the surface, barreling into the light of day, and you hear the witch draw a wretched, coughing breath in the same moment you do. You slam against the horse's slimy flank a second time and then let go. You expect to skid across the concrete until you are a smoosh of ghoul instead of a person-shaped one, but am caught in midair, bouncing against an emergency blanket and falling to the side.

The symbiote steals a few seconds then. Your fingertips sizzle at the ends and you settle against the hard ground. You open your eyes and find yourself looking at the sky.

A second later, I am upright, and the witch is crying, hugging her sides, talking to someone holding a pen and paper.

“I know Figgy. He would never do this on his own. I've taken rides with him since I was first coming to the park.”

I blink, sleepily, enjoying a lingering warmth in your chest. I shouldn’t be warm, you think. Then, you look over and Stephanie is beside you, mouth a hard line and a hat tugged low over her face. You realize, belatedly, the symbiote has maybe stolen more than a few seconds.

“How long have I been out?” you ask and Stephanie grips your shoulder.

“Kate! I thought the horse had stolen your damn tongue too.”

My eyes widen and I can feel the creeping, kindly warmth spreading in my chest. I look down at my fingertips and they are blackened, charred, and naked as the day I was born. I swallow, trying to keep myself still, to not upset it anymore than I already have. It. Us, I mean.

“Stephanie,” I say slowly. “You need to take me to my grandmother.”

“What?”

“You need, take me,” I articulate in a slow drawl. I swallow again and your fingertips burn like they are on fire. Magic and ghouls don’t mix. “Grandma,” I repeat, and the warmth overtakes my thoughts, dipping me into calm featureless oblivion.

You wake up with the sudden, terrible knowledge that you are alone. The sky outside is a dusky pink color and for a moment, you don’t recognize the curtains on your bedroom windows. Your chest only stops heaving when you look at your hand. Your fingertips are the same blackened, withered texture, but the tops of your hands are a healthy green. Not abandoned yet, you think, but you are cold and the covers do nothing to stop the shivering. Downstairs, you hear people murmuring amongst themselves and you have an urge to climb out the window. Out the window and down the drainpipe and into the nearest cave.

You throw an arm over your face. You’d been warned about this. The symbiote will want you to be alone and in the dark. Safe. Your mother— you cut that next thought off with the sharp end of your mind and throw your legs over the side of the bed. You go dizzy for a full minute and lay back down.

Before you can lizard your way down the drainpipe or crawl under your bed, the door to your bedroom opens. You are mortified. Stephanie is still here and she is staring at you. You stare back, shoving your naked hands into your armpits.

Down the downpipe, into the sewers. You shake the thought loose.

“Your grandma says you’ll need a moment.” Stephanie grunts and it’s a strangely graceful grunt, kindly even.

“I’ll need to go to the mountain.” You close your eyes. You don’t want to go to the damn mountain—especially when there is a perfectly suitable sewer to scuttle into.

Stephanie grunts again. “I’m sorry,” she says and that’s somehow worse. She stares at the floor. “I didn’t know.” “You aren’t supposed to know. It’s a nee—”

She puts her hands up. “You’re grandmother already read me the riot act. I’m sworn to secrecy.” The words settle between you and she glances toward the pink skies. “I’m good at that, promise.” You have a feeling she didn’t just mean your proprietary ghoul knowledge, which is a secret but not one people are usually particularly interested in.

“Help me up,” you say because it was better to start now rather than later, better to throw herself into it before you're thrown out of yourself.

“Are you sure?” Stephanie looked you up and down. “I am sorry. Again. I didn’t clear this with anyone. I don’t know how we’ll, I’ll, know how to compensate.”

“Help me up and consider it worker’s.” She hesitates, hands out but not stepping any closer, and you roll eyes. “I won’t get any better waiting around. It, it won’t want me to go.” You heave yourself onto your elbows and dizziness blots out your vision for a moment and you want to curse out the little bugger. “But that’s because it’s stupid and doesn’t know what’s good for it.”

Stephanie must sense this was above her little mortal pay grade and shoves her hands under you and scoops you onto your feet like food onto a plate. You teeter back and forth before snapping upright. “That’s better.” You take a first step and a second stumbling one across the room, dragging one foot behind you, swaying, hands limp at your sides. You know it looks . . . well it looks like a ghoul, but there is no helping that. You’ll need to build up momentum.

“Save a job for me,” you say, “I might need to be gone for a little while. But save me one.” Stephanie clears her throat. “Is that all?” “I don’t want to come home to no prospects and an even bigger gap in my resume.” You wave a finger in the air. “So it’ll be important.”

Stephanie watches you feel your way out of the room like a sightless man and your skin crawls, raw and unsteady. You don’t look back. You can’t.

“I’m going, grandma!” you call because it is late and you don’t have any choice but to keep going, dragging one foot behind you and stumbling as if you are on the deck of a ship. This was going to be humiliating.

Your grandma is by the door and holding a large canister of what you assume is sweet water. Her small dark eyes are damp. You watch your feet, not wanting to read what’s there—the fear hanging over your family line. Of wherever your own mother is, hiding from the light until she is well again.

You take the canister, kiss your grandmother on her withered cheek, still not looking, and begin out the door before you lose all reason to do so. You’ve read that ghouls know where their personal North is in the way that birds do, migrating home. You hope that’s not true. You hope whatever drives you toward the setting sun is tucked away in your mind somewhere, racing through your thoughts, and not just the thing crawling against your nerves.

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The mountain is the mountain. Moss and stone and the weak light of glow bugs gathered around the pools, covered in their own layer of green growth. You’ve always liked the glow bugs, reminding you aren’t the only thing that lived to live like this. 

The caretakers aren’t happy to see you, a city ghoul in all her disappointing glory, but treat you just as well. You spend days lying prone, soaking in the springs, taking deep inhales of steam, and forcing yourself into meditation poses and sucking down sweet water and sponge cakes and enough sugared cubes to make you sick of sweats. A week passes, then another, and your symbiote falls off in clumps.

Your naked withered skin hugs your bones and you extend your hours in the hotsprings into both day and night. The water is thick with swaying green tendrils and you murmur to it, about your life and your dreams of mostly getting a job or going on a single good date. When your hair starts falling out, you are assigned another caretaker. 

“It doesn’t want to share,” the veiled caretakers let you know.

You sniff. “Anything to do about it?”

She hands you a moldering sweet tea and you dunk your head under the hotsprings and stay there for as long as your lungs will hold—which is a long time. By the end of the second week, a new, mossy pink companion appears around your cuticles. You kind of hate it.

“Pink?” you mutter and it’s not all pink, but orangy and bright at the ends. The oldest of the caretakers, a nun you could imagine ambling around since medieval times, swats you.

“Be grateful you’ve been chosen. Many cannot tolerate each other and yours especially . . .” You make a face. You know the terrible little growths were busy while you did nothing, waging tiny war for hours on end around and in you, but they wish they would keep that to themselves. The pink grows, filling your elbows and the soft of your knees, and you realize how foggy your thoughts had been, how scattered. Your hair grows back in pink and the texture of cactus barbs. And you wanted to look more punk, you grouse to yourself and keep it short. 

After you can do arithmetic in your head again, you ask how long you’d been there. The caretakers say a month and the jolt sends you cold. There are no clocks in the mountain, time being more of mortal invention, but you had been sure it was less. You pack your things that night: mostly packs and packs of plum sponge cakes for your grandmother.

The walk back is much longer than the walk to the mountain, feeling the minutes prick along and people’s gaze lingers more than they did before. Or you're just noticing again.

But your legs are strong and your mind sharp and you can’t help but notice that the colors of the world seem deeper, heavier, more dynamic. By the second evening you realize that it’s now easier for you to see at night than in the day. You wonder, you suspect at least, that your eyes will glow in the headlights of any car.

--------------

The final stretch of city is a slog and you swear to never amble off in a near comatose state without your headphones again. Your grandmother isn’t waiting for you which you tell yourself you're not upset about. She has the best social life of anyone you know and you can’t fault her for that. 

The house has gone to shit with you gone. Your grandma hates organizing and the teacups have formed their own nation across the counters and tabletops. You begin picking up, and unearth a neat stack of letters with your name on them, waiting for you on the dining room table.

Your heart sinks in your chest. Jill left you notes. Handwritten notes, and they all appeared to be well soon cards. You don’t sniff or get a tissue because the new symbiote wouldn’t like a weak host (this is not true. You do have to get a tissue). The final notice however is a print out of a job posting. It’s straight from LinkedIn and you wrinkle your nose. This can’t be your grandma—she hates the computer.

You turn the page over and Stephanie’s handwriting is tiny and cramped and your head aches with the memory. That was your last wish? To get another job? Jesus, if you aren’t already brainwashed by a moss, you’re surely brainwashed by the rest of it.

Holding this for you, Stephanie writes on the back for what appears to be an executive assistant position. Will debrief in person. You need to sleep. And take another bath. You’re so sick of baths, but at least this one won’t sway around you.

You scan the job description of this new gig: A young, hungry start-up, it says, developing the most exciting app you’ve never heard of. You blink a couple times, registering the promoter: Turnpikes and Co. The family you once screamed at for a few hours. Well, at least they were very unlikely to recognize you now.

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statement statement

No shirt, no bra, completely bare torso, just like cis men are allowed to

It's about desexualizing breasts and "female presenting nipples" and not being criminalized for our bodies if we want to go topless because it's a million damn degrees out. This was a popular growing movement that was still widely known a decade ago!