“It’s this former pianist. Anya Ladanov is her name, and I suppose she used to be quite a star in the classical world,” Jonathan’s boss had told him. “She can’t perform at all anymore, she’s much too impaired by dementia. But she can still play, and her caretakers say she insists on playing on stage. They said she says her public needs her, that she can’t give up. So the plan is that you’ll be here early every Thursday afternoon and open up the building for her, and you can be her stage manager and her audience.”

His boss had delivered this news with an amused chuckle that only made Jonathan grumble more. Of course, he tried to erase his displeasure from his face every Thursday afternoon when he opened the theater doors and the old woman hobbled in, her caretaker bidding her goodbye with a relieved smile. But he couldn’t keep from wrinkling his nose as soon as he closed the door and the scent of Anya’s generously applied perfume washed over him.

She was a small and stooped woman, with a gentle voice that mumbled on indefinitely, yet she still unnerved Jonathan, with her piercing blue eyes and the questions she repeated anew every time she came as he escorted her up to the stage, where the piano stood waiting.

“What’s your name? Jonathan? Oh, that’s a fine name. I played with a man named Jonathan Lurini once, he was an excellent tenor. You know, this stage is much smaller than what I’m used to but it’ll work well enough. I used to play for audiences of thousands quite regularly, you know, and I realize we’ll have—a few less people than that tonight—” Jonathan reluctantly held on to her arm as they came up the stairs to the stage. “But I’m excited to play for them in any case. Let it never be said that Anya Ladanov left her audience dissatisfied, however small!”

After that, the old woman needed hardly any supervision. Once she sat down at the piano, she was completely absorbed in the music. So although Jonathan knew the retirement home would disapprove, he often slipped out of the building for a smoke, where he could simmer in his own thoughts and daily annoyances. The side door he left propped open, of course, in case Anya called for assistance—he did not enjoy the music that came wafting through, but he practiced tuning it out and thinking only of his own concerns .

So on this particular Thursday afternoon he tried to hide his annoyance, when his solitude was interrupted by the sight of his wife Abigail, coming down the sidewalk with a smile. She came down the alleyway, skipping slightly.

“I got off work early. Just thought I’d come visit you,” said Abby brightly. “How is the esteemed Anya?”

“Well enough. I’ll go back in soon— I only stepped out for just a minute.”

“Oh! Some news—Mother’s not doing well at all, and Sean wonders if she could stay with us for a few weeks, while he’s gone for work—”

Jonathan sighed but nodded his assent, knowing that Abby would not let him say no. He was frustrated, though, at the thought of his mother-in-law’s long rambles, her forgetfulness just as bad as Anya’s, her racking coughs and endless stares. “Well, I guess we’ve got two elderly folks to take care of between the two of us—” he stumbled over his words. An old lady who played piano every week was one thing, a sick mother-in-law was another.

But Abby didn’t seem to mind the equivocation. “I’m sure she’ll be all right, really. She’s my mother, I know how to care for her…” She trailed off and looked at the sky, which was just starting to turn golden with evening above the city. “If I may confess… It’s hard for me to worry much about her on an evening like this. Just feel the breeze!”

Jonathan grunted. “Fine, well—” He glanced at his watch. “Oh, I’d better get inside. Her hour’s up. I’ve got to go get her off the stage and drive her back home.”

“May I come with you? Just to see her?”

“Sure, but she’s probably stopped playing. She gets worn out after just an hour.”

But as they entered the auditorium, they found that Anya had not stopped. She sat upright at the piano, music pouring forth with such force that Abby gasped in delight.

“Well, good grief!” As they ascended the stairs that led to the stage, even Jonathan could not help but feel impressed, but he walked up to the piano with the intention of silencing her. Anya did not notice him—her bright blue eyes stared straight ahead, entirely caught up in the music.

“Wait, no, don’t do anything,” said Abby breathlessly. “Just let her play.”

Jonathan sighed, but he conceded. Whatever the piece was—he would never know the name— it contained many shifts of emotion and pace, many varying landscapes for Anya to explore as her fingers swept over the keys. Jonathan had never realized before how much music without words could feel so familiar and so inscrutable at the same time. It was another language, but with words that had no equivalent in any spoken tongue. And he also realized now that he hated it, how that mysterious beauty dared stir his heart without his consent.

The piece finally rippled softly to an end under her hands. As the music faded, she keeled forward slightly, almost resting her forehead on the piano. Jonathan stooped to look at her face and realized that her eyes were still open, unblinking.

“Good grief…” He looked at his wife. “Abby! Abby, she’s… she’s gone…”

Jonathan realized in consternation that his wife did not seem to be disturbed, as he was, but was rather standing spellbound in wonder. The woman’s entire life and death seemed to be reflected in his wife’s eyes, a woman who never had had much time for music.

“Abby! This is ridiculous, I mean, I died while someone—I mean, someone died while I was in charge—how am I even going to explain this?”

Kneeling there by the piano bench he began to quake. Soon someone would come in and find the three of them, the dead woman and him and his wife who didn’t even work here, all arranged around the piano on the stage like a scene out of some twisted play.

“It’s all right, Jonathan.” His wife helped him get to his feet. “You ought to be thanked. I think she went exactly as she was meant to.”

Cover image is “The Sonata” by Irving Ramsey Wiles, found here

Over the years, their love is tangible. They go to the pet store and buy fish together. They share each other’s gel pens and chapsticks, forgiving each other when they lose them. During the long school days, they sigh and are tired and console each other, sneaking meaningless notes onto each other’s papers. Their love is as predictable and necessary as lunchtime—they always eat at the same bench under the same tree, with a few friends, whoever wants to join, or just themselves.

To be friends is to be a fern growing in the forest or the soil receiving rain.

High school comes, and middle school’s constant insatiable longings lengthen, flatten, pressurize themselves. In both girls there develops the heavy mental weight of one’s own individuality. Kate, who has always been the quieter one, is suddenly doing everything, talking all the time—she tries out debate and excels at it, she gets a solo at every concert, all the teachers love her. (Lucy remembers when she was too shy to step on stage). She invites others over to her house on Friday afternoons, the time when the two of them always hang out. Lucy stands in the corner and paints.

They watch shows together. Lucy squeals over the male leads. They have no drama of their own, but they like to watch everyone else’s, whether on the screen or among the huddles of friends at school. When they want a break from it all they drive to the Chinese restaurant in the next town over and sip soft drinks, groaning over homework. On evenings when they haven’t seen each other, unless one of them is busy, they call and talk about everything until their throats are sore. Kate goes right to sleep afterwards. Lucy can never fall asleep so quickly.

There is a tension between them now as each girl slowly slips toward adulthood… but it’s a tension that holds them together, like the gravitational pull of the Sun and the Earth.

Senior year dawns across the horizon, inevitably, like a newly arrived alien moon, and the days stretch to contain everything allotted to them, and in response months seem to shrink. And when Lucy finds herself alone at lunch for the eleventh time that month she suddenly wonders when something changed and why she didn’t really notice.

And when Kate realizes in the spring that she doesn’t know where Lucy’s going to college, she berates herself for a whole half hour before gathering the courage to text her and ask.

There is no breaking, no great betrayal, only a slow movement away from each other like continents. Neither is lonely. No one was lied to. They go to college in different states and try to remember to text each other memes on the weekends.

Lucy spends her college days drawing and painting. She dyes her hair purple, to everyone’s surprise. She can perfectly imagine Kate’s reaction if she saw— “Hey, where did that come from??”

She isn’t sure what her personal style is at first, but as semesters inch by she realizes that within all her best works lies some kind of unjustified, unexplainable pain. She leans into that, and professors praise her.

College hits Kate hard. For a while she becomes the quiet one again. Far too many hours of freshman year are spent in her bed with only her books and the shadows on the ceiling for company. She doesn’t know where she fits, or what to do with all the noise.

Then the cycle repeats, and her life becomes full again, her voice loud. She sighs away the memory of older days. Her heart is ready for the future.

Even over the summer, they don’t see each other much. The silence has gone on long enough; it would hurt too much. Their friendship is like torn lace that has been set aside, waiting to be mended. It is highly likely it will never be, unless the seamstress, agent of fate, swoops down with her needle in a fit of impulsiveness or compassion. In the meantime, those beautiful patterns lie with jagged edges.

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Hi everyone! Let me know your thoughts on the short story series so far! I appreciate every comment and like :)

You might enjoy the playlist I listened to while working on this story:

Often on these walks, she encountered strange things.

Once, in the heat, in the noon brightness with the land stretching as dry as a sock all around, as always, she found a long green glob of seaweed lying on the tracks.

She thought it was an animal at first. But it was just seaweed, lying there, dark and glistening on the dusty tracks. It smelled as briny as if it had freshly washed up on shore.

She touched it. It did not look particularly interesting. It looked like a tangled bundle of sodden rags that someone had dyed a filthy color.

Once, she found a chalice, carefully set upright on a flat rock near the tracks. It was made of brilliant crystal that gleamed white in the hot sun but, when inspected closer, held blue and deep purple depths. The inside of the cup was lightly stained with red.

Tina picked it up. It was far too cold in her hand. She shivered and put it down, and as she walked onward she could have sworn she heard fairy music on the air, flutes and delicate drums.

Once, she found a gramophone, an artifact right out of the days of Thomas Edison, lying in pieces under a thorny bush. Once, she found a wrapper from an In-N-Out burger. There were no In-N-Outs anywhere in that part of the country.

Once, she decided to go out when it was raining. It was raining hard, slight spray rising from the tracks—she wore a jacket. It was on that day that she discovered the strangest sight of all: under a tree, a giant severed wing.

It had been white once, the feathers now decaying and turning gray. Any blood had washed into the grass. Stopping and staring, unwilling to approach it, Tina calculated that the wing must be longer than she was tall. After that, she turned and went back home. The sense of horror and hauntedness did not leave her for five days.

Even after that feeling had left, she did not want to return to the tracks. Her excuse was that it had kept raining—week after week with hardly any breaks, it had poured forth on the town since that day. The real reason was that she felt afraid. She began to wonder if she had somehow been intruding, trespassing on a foreigner’s land.

After a month, the rain stopped. The air was hot and clear again. Tina hemmed and hawed but eventually realized she had no excuse. So she went out walking again, filled with anticipation.

The water tower winked in the sun, welcoming her back. The world was a little greener than before. But otherwise, it felt the same.

She walked with quickened pace, inspecting every bush and rock crevice. There, there ahead, was something—something flashing brightly in the sun, propped up against a rock! She ran towards it and picked it up.

It was a hand mirror. Tina had one just like it at home—she’d gotten it from the local thrift shop. With a trembling hand, she raised it to her face, inspecting her reflection. She looked the same as ever, completely ordinary, squinting in the sunlight.

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For longer than she could fathom, she had been absent from the world, shut away in a void, a throbbing vortex of dreams which, for her, had been a whole universe, another reality.

Now she awoke. As the dreams slipped away, she was aware of herself screaming relentlessly, begging to stay among all the lovely images. But once she was fully awake, she found the world utterly silent, and her mouth filled with a filmy bad taste as if she had not spoken in months.

She was not sure where she was, except that she seemed to be in a small, dim room with uncomfortable carpet, lying partway under a table. She observed the underside of the table, the worn legs of the chairs surrounding it, the scratches and scuff marks on the beige walls. Her mind took its time fully apprehending these objects, to translate her senses and communicate to her that this was reality.

After a while she began to be aware of her own body. It was oddly specific to her. In her dreams, she had been, well, not formless, but not confined to any one shape either. She had gone through whole series of adventures among many groups of people, always aware of who she was and always the same to everyone else, but she had not always looked the same. Sometimes she had been a cat, sometimes a bird, sometimes a little boy with scruffy hair, sometimes a sort of elf, quite often a middle-aged woman with a pale face and sad brown eyes. But she could not quite remember ever being the self she was now. Her hands were slightly pudgier than she would have thought, and her skin more golden in hue. Her shoes, which she could only just see, had been doodled all over with bright markers, and there were beads and charms threaded into the laces. She seemed to be wearing gray cargo pants and a plain black jacket. She had really never noticed her clothing in any of her dreams.

If she closed one eye she could just see the side of her nose. In her dreams, hadn’t she been able to see anything and everything at all times, switching perspectives constantly?

With this thought, there swelled up inside her a horrible weight of desperation. And with this desperation came a strange image.

It was the face of one she had seen in her dreams—the one around whom everything revolved. It was some kind of horrible “Him”—not horrible because he was a man, or because there was anything really bad about him at all, but because she did not know how to feel about him. She felt too much and too little when it came to him. In her memory there floated the memory of his eyes, dark and deep, slightly out of focus as she remembered them. She remembered that look of absolute calm—calmness without naivete, or any flippancy to it, or any despair. And in her mind there was gold hanging all about him, like sunlight but even more substantial than that.

And there came to her memory, too, the scent of incense and of blood. But before she had any time to think about that, the silence that surrounded her was disrupted. Feet were running down the hallway outside, and a soft worried voice was saying, “She’s just this way—”

The door swung open, and though her vision was mostly blocked by the table, she could just see a pair of high-top shoes, decorated brightly like her own. Within a second the shoes had darted around the table and there was a breathless, wide-eyed girl with cascading yellow-brown curls lifting her upright and putting her arm around her.

“Courtney—oh, you’re awake! Courtney, are you okay? You just fainted and hit your head so I went to get the librarian—”—there was a nervous-looking woman in a green sweater in the doorway— “—and it took forever but—you’re awake? You feel okay?”

Courtney looked at the girl and breathed in the vanilla scent that came from her hair. Memories of the real world were coming back now: poppyseed muffins eaten on the patio outside the cafe, even though it had rained earlier that day and the seats were damp. Long hours in a pink bedroom with dim yellow lighting, slaving over math problems with groans and spurts of hilarity. A plane ride in adjacent seats, watching the same movie at the same time on their separate screens. Strolling the aisles of bookstores, eating their first meal in a college cafeteria, trying not to snap as they argued over dorm room decorations at Target. This was her friend, her best friend, named Tasha, whom she had met at swim lessons when she was nine, whom she was now attending college with, whose face she knew better than she knew her own.

All of this came back in a flash. Courtney wanted to scream again—surely she could not bear these memories, their narrowness and specificity, eternally her past, her, Courtney’s past. Surely she could not bear this life so set in stone, destined to unfold along the same worn mortal path as everyone else, always trapped in space and steady time—in her dreams, hadn’t she been able to go anywhere, be anyone, the only constant that dark watchful gaze?

“How long were you gone?” She tried to smile at Tasha.

“Oh, only—only ten minutes. Are you sure you’re alright?”

So why had it felt like years?

Courtney let Tasha help her to her feet. She smiled apologetically at the librarian, who seemed like she wouldn’t have been much help even if Courtney had still been unconscious. “Hi, thanks for—coming to help. I think I’m alright. I really don’t know what happened.”

“You had the strangest look on your face,” Tasha fussed, brushing dust off of Courtney’s jacket.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” said the librarian very quietly. “Let me know if you ladies need anything more.” She disappeared into the dark hall.

“Well, so much for studying!” Tasha laughed, but there was a tremor to her tone—it was as if Courtney’s disorientedness had leaked out of her and filled the room like a cloud, inflaming Tasha’s characteristic nervousness. “I think we should go back to the room and let you rest. Now drink some water.” Before Courtney could protest, Tasha handed her her blue waterbottle and began packing their backpacks, which were both large and frayed and covered with pins and keychains, with the papers that were strewn all across the table. Courtney drank, wincing at the metallic taste. She was being much quieter than she would have normally. But she hardly knew how to be, after all that had gone on in her head.

As they walked through the library’s deathly silent hallways—Tasha holding Courtney’s backpack in her own arms, as she’d insisted upon—the memory of gold and those solemn dark eyes still hung at the edges of Courtney’s mind, foreign yet deeply familiar. She knew that those images—as well as the sharp stab of yearning for that land of freedom—would be always dogging her footsteps from now on.

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On the table stood a vase of roses, relatively fresh, with an unopened red envelope leaning against it. He ignored this and walked into the kitchen. The ticking of the clock on the windowsill refused to fall in step with the drumming of the rain.

There was a fireplace in the living room, a real one. He always meant to gather wood, build a fire, light it, but after a year in this house, he’d still never gotten around to it.

He imagined now what it would look like, feel like—the husky orange glow breaking forth over the wood with such intensity of purpose, striking his skin uncomfortably with the heat that could not be adjusted with a button or a dial. It would be such a jarring contrast with the empty gray lightness of the house.

He turned to the fridge and the cupboards and made himself cereal, which he brought to the dining room table. He continued to ignore the roses and the card.

The bowl was only half-empty when he finished. He had had to lay down his spoon, for the sound of his own chewing unnerved him.

After he had put the dishes in the sink, he began emptying the pockets of his jacket, which he’d thrown on a chair when he entered the house. There was a train ticket, a few receipts, a scribbled note in his own handwriting—all of these he threw on the table. There was his phone, which he put in his pants pocket. It had been vibrating occasionally ever since he got home, buzzing and chirping like an animal looking for attention, but he continued to ignore it. There was a gum wrapper, a receipt, another note, this time in someone else’s handwriting. It was someone’s phone number. He didn’t know whose.

Once he had finished and thrown the trash away in the bin under the sink, he finally opened the envelope.

The card inside felt too delicate for his heavy hands. From the delicately penned words there rose a faint scent of perfume, unfortunately familiar to him.

He almost threw it all away with the rest, but thought better of it.

Next he turned to the roses. He did not smell them or even really look at them, but took them and the card along the dark hallway to his bedroom.

To his surprise and indignation, the bedroom window was open, a seeming torrent of rain pouring through, as if the clouds had mutually agreed to unleash a flood through this one particular window.

“Good grief!” He leaped forwards, not realizing he had dropped the vase on the floor to shatter. Rain had soaked his pillow and the bookcase by his bed, even the floor in front of the bookcase. The pillow was a sodden mass. The figurines and photos strewn over the top of the bookcase were heavily streaming with water. He bit back a curse and heaved the window shut, hushing the rain’s sharp intruding clatter on his bookcase to a dull, angry drumming on the glass.

In the room lingered that same smell of perfume.

He took a step backward and yelped in pain as his heel fell onto the broken glass shards of the vase. Warm blood began to stream, staining the carpet under the red roses strewn all about.

“What a gift.” He collapsed onto his bed. What a night.

Thunder roared in the falling night outside. There was no lightning, only that same constant gray, forming everything and also filling everything. It was the only true reality and the only imaginable reality, and yet it was as thin and insubstantial as his quickly ebbing memories of the day’s activities as well as the fiber of meaning that ran through all his days and tied them together. He wanted to jump into the gray as into a swimming pool, let it fill his lungs.

Yet there were the roses splashed on the floor, and the blood running from his heel—bitter red reminders that life required some kind of attention from him. And over and through it all lingered that horrible scent of perfume, the scent of betrayal and of desire.

He lay for some time like this, with one arm wrapped around his pillow, until it seemed the blood on his heel had begun to dry, and the room had grown so dark he couldn’t make out the glass shards on the carpet. He hauled himself upright and turned on the bedside lamp. It shone with a blaring yellow that nearly made him gag. With the help of this light, he put on the slides by his bed and carefully made his way out of the room. He avoided treading on the roses.

In the bathroom he did not turn on the main light. The night light by the mirror turned the blue walls gray, a darker, less welcoming gray than that of the rainy evening. The house’s central heating suddenly turned on and began to thrum, as if wearily heralding his arrival.

He observed himself briefly in the mirror. Then he sighed and began washing his foot.

In the rush and splash of the water from the tub’s faucet, in the swirl of blood as it was caught up in the water and descended with it down the drain, he saw his own thoughts, hopes, and certainties, every one of them vanishing as they had in that single moment (which he had now nearly wiped from his own memory) earlier that day. Although, this was nothing unexpected, for the end of these hopes had been fated for so many days now—they had been fading, degrading for perhaps a year. All that was left within him was the empty wound-like hole of desire, or something even deeper than that.

His chest heaved a few times while he sat on the edge of the bathtub, waiting for the rushing water to remove all the blood from his foot. The night light flickered, causing shadows to contract. Hope—of love or certainty or anything—seemed like it must be a star somewhere, very far beyond the clouds with their abundant offering of rain.

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Cover image found on Unsplash, credit goes to @chloekanske on Instagram

Although I don’t want to explain much, I will clarify a few terms. “Jith” is the word for my fantasy world as a whole. “Ethraun” refers to the part of Jith specifically inhabited by humankind. (The meaning of “Ideul” and “Ideuli” will be explained in the footnotes). “Vhaejyn” is, as you can probably deduce, the God of Jith. Nerengas, who is only briefly mentioned, is the Lucifer/Satan figure of Jith, the chief rebel against Vhaejyn. Queen Irys is a Queen of certain lands outside of Ethraun (but still part of Jith), which will remain unnamed for now. The Watchman, who is shown here in correspondence with the Queen, lives on the island of Anala, the geographical center of Ethraun, and with help from Vhaejyn’s servants, monitors the comings and goings of Ethraun and records as many of the important tales of its history as he can. At the time that this letter was sent, the civilizations of Ethraun as well as those where Irys rule are largely in chaos and decay, for the time is coming soon when Nerengas will wage his last battle against Vhaejyn.

To Her Royal Highness Queen Irys.
From the Last Watchman of Anala, Keeper of Ethraun,
In the fifth month of the fifty-first year since his appointment.

Your Highness—

It means much to a weary man past the prime of his life to be able to exchange such letters with an elegant, lively, and wise friend such as yourself. I thank Vhaejyn for allowing this correspondence to be possible.

As you well know, Royal Highness, time is growing short. The end of all things is not far off, and all around us mortal things are swiftly passing away. Yet we are still bound to live in leisure as well as vigilance— the leisure that accompanies learning. For who knows what duties Vhaejyn may have prepared for us even after this odd age ends? And if we are not prepared for these duties with wisdom as well as alertness of spirit, what good is that?

With this in mind, I intend to take advantage of our correspondence and share with you, O Wise Queen, some of the stories that have been taking up so much space in my study, many of them first put to paper centuries ago. For even in the reading of tales, wisdom can be found and virtue formed—and besides, I think it would interest you to hear more of the land of Ethraun, from whence your companions’ ancestors departed so long ago.

So I present here for you a tale of old. It is not the oldest tale that can be told in Ethraun, nor the most striking, nor the longest. But I send it first because I feel it illustrates in miniature many of the schemes and vices that have plagued Ethraun. Thus you might find it useful to more fully understand your distant kinsmen— for kinsmen we are, even separated by centuries and uncrossable seas.

My daughter Aurethea wrote it out, long ago, before she left on her voyage. I wish you knew her— I believe she would remind you of Arachniel. At any rate, she did a good job, for she did not only tell the story in its most broad strokes, but drew upon various firsthand accounts to lend some vivid detail to the piece. The names are translated from these accounts into the language we use in our records. (Even after much research, we have not come to any clear understanding of the language the Wizards used among themselves during this time).

As for the character after whom this narrative is concerned, there will be many more stories of him to come… possibly more than I will have time to send. But for now, Your Highness, content yourself with this strange tale. I call it “The Son of Vhaejyn.”

Long ago in their hidden abode at the top of the world, the Wizards had built a grand cathedral with its spires grazing the clouds. It had hardly been built for two days before Vhaejyn sent a thunderstorm and knocked it down. When Wilmor went down to the Pool of Meetings to ask Vhaejyn why He had done this—with great distaste, for no Wizard enjoyed making even remote contact with Vhaejyn—the messenger only said that “Vhaejyn knows very well that you built that cathedral for your glory and not for His, and when He told you to live in a hidden abode, He meant hidden.” Wilmor was the Chief Architect of that cathedral, and so this incident greatly increased the grudge he already had in his heart toward Vhaejyn. He decided that some great deed of rebellion must be enacted, to show that his soul had not been humbled.

Then the War came—the first war waged between Wizards and humans, though of course not the last—and Wilmor was far too occupied with those matters to think about Vhaejyn. But when after long last the humans were subdued, and the Wizards’ home was peaceful once more, then Wilmor began to pursue his desire.

The Wizards dwelt in a valley surrounded by high mountains and tangled trees, barriers meant to keep Wizards in as much as to keep humans out, for the high elves had set binding spells within all the rocks and trees. This made it much more difficult to leave the Valley, though it was not impossible, merely taxing. Within the Valley, the Wizards had made a fine home for themselves, both above-ground and in the caverns beneath the ground. Above ground, each Wizard had made an immaculate house for his or herself. They were of varying colors, styles, and shapes, and anyone flying above the Valley would have seen them all glittering in the sun like a pocket of jewels.

Most of the houses were perfectly symmetrical, or at least perfectly proportional according to the Wizards’ standards, and there was not crack, nor dent, nor mark, nor stray fingerprint, or any mark of imperfection anywhere on them. Indeed, none of those houses were built by hands. Yet the very few humans who visited that Valley and then returned to their own kind reported strange things about those houses. Walls that did not seem quite straight, when you walked among them—ceilings that felt dangerously low, though a tall man could stand upright beneath them—shadows in odd places, at odd times of day. But the Wizards never deigned to show anything less than satisfaction with their work.

The Wizards did not much care for gardens. The only green growth encouraged was green lawns and perfectly shaped hedges, and of course the vegetables grown for food. Anything else that dared to grow was promptly removed.

Beneath the ground were kept the great works which the Wizards would rather not expose to the light of day.

Everything was kept to the Wizards’ satisfaction, except for one thing, which even with all their power, the wizards could not remove. It was a large stone monument, set up in the very center of the Valley, around which the Wizards’ houses and important buildings were all arranged. It was engraved with a script no human could read, except perhaps the Watchman and his household on their island, far, far away1.

Wilmor stood staring at this monument. It was a blaringly bright day in the Valley, and the sun hurt his eyes, but he had practically memorized the writing on the monument, having read it with distaste in his heart so many times before.

It read:

THUS DECLARES VHAEJYN, THE MAKER OF ALL,
ALL HEAVENS, ALL WATERS, ALL BODIES OF LAND:

YOU EXILED ONES, AS YOU HID IN A VALLEY DURING THE GREAT WAR, SO NOW SHALL YOU BE HIDDEN IN THIS VALLEY. AND SINCE YOU DID NOT SERVE YOUR MASTER, WHO IS GREATER THAN YOU AND WHOSE PRESENCE FILLS YOUR HOMELAND, SO YOU SHALL NOW SERVE THOSE SURROUNDING YOU, WHO ARE WEAKER THAN YOU, THOSE KNOWN AS HUMANKIND, WHOM I CALL WITH GREAT SOLEMNITY MY SONS AND DAUGHTERS. AT THE END OF TIME YOU SHALL BE JUDGED FOR HOW WELL YOU HAVE SERVED THEM. AND WHAT YOU DO TO THEM, YOU DO TO YOURSELF; THIS IS THE CONDITION OF YOUR POWER.

THUS DECLARES VHAEJYN, THE RULER OF ALL,
ALL HEAVENS, ALL WATERS, ALL BODIES OF LAND.

On the other side of the monument was engraved a great hand, the symbol used for Vhaejyn in those regions.

Many a time, the Wizards had draped a great cloth over the monument, for none liked to see it, but the cloth had always turned into a heap of ashes by morning.

As Wilmor stood in front of it in the blazing sun, one phrase particularly rankled in his breast—”those known has humankind, whom I call with great solemnity my sons and daughters.”

It had taken the Wizards some time to figure out the meaning of this phrase. It had many ramifications, more than one might first expect. To Wilmor they were especially hateful.

He turned from the monument and began walking towards the Council-House, where the entrance to the Caverns lay. As he walked, he changed shape from a man, to a leopard, then after a moment’s hesitation to a fluttering bat. In this form he stayed until he reached the door and became man.

This shapeshifting he could do. Pushing down the door handle he could do. But if he tried to make anything with those same hands, like kneading dough or spinning a bowl onto shape on a potter’s wheel, nothing would happen. A Wizard’s power lay entirely in the mind.

The Council-House was shaped like a great dome, colored golden and blue on the inside, and gleaming on bright days like this. There was talk of removing the windows—the light bothered everyone. In the center of the hall, a spiral staircase led down into the caverns below.

Wilmor entered the hall slightly winded from his transformations, but with his mind sharpened—such exertions were a preparatory exercise for what he had to do next. Upon entering, he encountered Harth and Erian. They were talking leisurely, voices echoing through the hall, but stopped to greet Wilmor.

“Halth, Erian, good to see you both! What a blessing it is, the blessing of peace!” They all snickered together. “I have not been able to feel truly at rest until now. I say, Erian, did you prepare what I asked for?”

“Oh, that!” Erian laughed uneasily. “Yes, I—I got it done. I’m quite curious what you’re plotting.”

“Well, you can come and I’ll tell you, if you’ve got a moment. Good day to you, Halth.” Wilmor headed for the staircase, Erian hurrying behind.

“Wilmor— are you sure— are you sure Armon would approve?” Armon was the Senior Wizard, the only Wizard in that valley older or more powerful than Wilmor himself.”

“I hardly think Armon will care. He authorized your project, which arguably has caused more suffering than mine.”

As they entered the Caverns, which were lit all about with bright white lights, Erian’s “project” came into view, at present the chief use of the Caverns. All around the Caverns, humans were toiling, mining precious gems from the stone. The Wizards could mine with their mind-power, but stone was heavy enough to make this exceedingly tiring. When a number of human prisoners were obtained from the War, it was thought they should be put to good use.

As the two Wizards walked along the mining sites, Erian took a whip from within his cloak and cracked it over the humans’ heads; he did not touch anyone, but judging from the marks on their backs, this was not always the case.

A door was in the far wall of the Cavern; Erian unlocked it and the Wizards proceeded into a dark corridor, which slanted downwards into the earth, becoming darker and darker, colder and colder. This was refreshing after the heat and light outdoors.

The corridor ended. After turning a few corners, they entered a large, dim chamber containing a glass tank. Within the tank, the bodies of five human men hung suspended in a sort of green jelly, which filled the chamber with a harsh stink.

Wilmor strode up to the tank to expect the bodies. “Excellent! Just what I needed!”

“I chose some of the very strongest workers, as you requested.” Erian laughed uneasily. “I hope this is all for a… a worthy purpose.”

Wilmor turned to Erian and smiled. “I must admit—it is a very selfish purpose. But! Is that not the Wizards’ way? Don’t look like that, you know it’s true! But all the same, I think it could be called a great and worthy purpose, for it concerns heavenly things. Erian…” Wilmor took a deep breath, seeming almost to enjoy the rancid smell. “You know well that humans can do things we cannot. They can create, they can build with hands— houses, statues, clothing, vases. And what else can they create?”

“Well…they can create…more of themselves,” said Erian with a grimace.

“Indeed! Just as Vhaejyn creates souls, so can they, and that is why He favors them. No Ideuli2 has ever been able to do this, for we were not born of His substance, only of His mind. Thus no Ideuli can be called a son or daughter of Vhaejyn, nor can we ever be parents to anyone else.”

“It is so. That is how Vhaejyn decreed it.” Erian looked at Wilmor blankly.

“What I will do, Erian, is this. I am surprised no Ideuli has thought of it before—well, perhaps Nerengas has.I will create my own son. I cannot create him with my body—but I will do so using my mind. And I will make him out of the materials you have so helpfully provided.” He gestured to the bodies suspended in the tank.

“Wilmor—I—”

“An excellent plan, is it not? I long to show Vhaejyn that even if He is the great Dictator—well—His dictates can be got around, reinterpreted if you will.”

“Well…” Erian struggled to speak. “I—won’t you—how—I know you made the cathedral, Wilmor, but strangely enough, this will be even a harder feat than that! The level of complexity—”

“Ah, Erian! Too many of you younger Wizards are far too lethargic. You do not realize the extent to which I have studied humans. Every opportunity I got during the war, every book from their libraries I could get my hands on, and now these excellent specimens you’ve prepared for me… besides, I have trained myself to learn quickly.

“You may also be wondering, will not the result of my efforts be merely human? And what pride could an Ideuli take in human offspring? But there is another study I have been conducting, since even before humans were ever made. Long ago during the Great War when we hid in the mountains, so many of you made fools of yourselves, spending all your time in listlessness and frivolity. But I was carefully studying my own mind, the Ideuli and how our power proceeds forth. With this knowledge I am confident that I can create in my son the mind of an Idueli. And since he will be made from human substance, life-substance, he will also have the power to build with hands. Thus in him will be united all the powers of creation that a creature can possess!”

Wilmor concluded his speech with a smile of triumphant relish. Erian could see in the older one’s eyes that he would not be deterred; behind his smile lurked grim determination, the determination of a grudge against Vhaejyn himself.

He backed away. “Well, Wilmor, I—I’m sure that will go very—interestingly. I’m glad I could be of help. But I think I’d better leave you to it.”

At Wilmor’s nod, he scurried off, eager to be away from the stench, and missing his work. He preferred the easy responsibility of cruelly ruling humans to the strange, delicate dance with life and death that Wilmor wished to conduct.

Even though it was the height of summer, a dark pall fell over the Valley on the day Wilmor began his work.

It would be tiring and indeed disturbing to describe every detail of Wilmor’s work as he set out to achieve his purpose. Suffice it to say, the work was more difficult than he he expected, and grueling. He took care to select the best features of each of the human bodies presented him, so he could make the most perfect being possible. Forming the mind was most difficult, even though he had studied it longest. He could not build the brain from scratch, so he started with a human brain, and this had to be excruciatingly re-formed so as to allow for the powers of an Ideuli. He soon resigned himself to the fact that whatever powers his offspring possessed, he would possess in limited form.

All of this was of course done not with hands, but by rearranging these materials with his mind-power. Even for such an experienced Wizard, this put a strain on him such that when he was not working all he could do was sleep, after procuring the very hastiest bite of food.

At long last he had exhausted his supplies and put together a complete human form, with an Ideuli’s mind. He was proud of his creation; it was exceedingly handsome, every proportion perfect. He moved it from his workroom to a special bed chamber he had prepared, comfortable and well-decorated, and left it there for the night.

When he returned in the morning, he expected to find life, but the body lay unmoving, indeed already decaying. Meanwhile the find fabrics and carpets of that chamber now reeked of that awful, rancid smell, which Wilmor himself had nearly grown accustomed to.

For all his scheming, Wilmor had forgotten to consider the actual secret of life. Of course, it was in none of the books he had read. But he did not stop to consider that there might be any secret. He simply resolved to apply himself again.

Every Wizard had a special ring; they had made these for each other upon first reaching the Valley. These rings helped them adjust to the climate of Ethraun, so different from their homeland, and could somewhat rejuvenate them when they were weary.

Wilmor went to Erian and requested more “materials,” which Erian begrudgingly granted, and set to work again. He repeated the process, this time taking off his ring and carefully placing it inside the body, alongside the heart.

This attempt went no better than the last. Wilmor returned again to Erian, who only granted his request after much debate.

For the third attempt, Wilmor decided to use the ring of Thereia as well as his own, the one Wizard who had ever left to live outside the Valley—she had left it in his care, claiming no further need of it.

While Wilmor set to work for the third time, working with rougher strokes, for he was impatient and greatly wearied, Erian crept away to voice his complaints to Armon, the Senior Wizard.

Armon resided in a large, gloomy hall carved out of the side of the tallest Mountain around the Valley. He almost never left it, but sat in his throne room, meditating upon his chair, enjoying the darkness. Although he did not partake in the daily life of the Valley, it was he who kept the entire society of Wizards on their course—his mind was constantly moving, pushing against the Elves’ curses, probing all the lands of Ethraun, strengthening the mind of every Wizard at his work—and his counsel guided all, when sought. But it wasn’t sought often, for he did not enjoy interruptions, and most Wizard did not enjoy admitting they needed help.

When Erian arrived at Armon’s throne with his complaints, he was not met cordially.

“If the humans you have left are not strong enough—train them!” Armon waved a dismissive hand from his throne, then sneezed so hard he turned into a snake, by reflex. “Bessssidessssssss…” He changed himself back hastily, with much greater ease than Erian could have. “Besides, the gem project is not of much importance. I really only put it together to keep you out of trouble.”

Erian sputtered. “But I—Well, I—well, it’s preposterous what he’s doing! I mean—what if what he makes really does come alive and it—and it—turns against us all?”

“We have just won a years-long war against creatures Vhaejyn Himself made. I’m not worried about whatever Wilmor is cooking up.”

“Well, to me it all just seems wrong. Unnatural.”

“Erian. You are so scrupulous that sometimes I wonder if you shouldn’t have gone off and joined Thereia in her new home—wherever that is.”

“Armon! Why—” Erian was too indignant to speak.

“It is no condemnation! She went her way, we went ours. The neutrality we pledged ourselves to is not possible for all.”

Erian nearly chuckled at the world “neutrality”—and he suspected he heard humor in the Senior Wizard’s tone as well. But we would not be put off from his purpose. “At least let me take you there and show you, so you can see this—monstrosity he has in progress—”

“I can see it from here,” said Armon wearily. “You forget the extent of my mind-power. But if you really care so much, go get his work in progress and bring it here so I can smell it up close. If I’m disgusted enough, perhaps I’ll direct Wilmor to some other whim. He deserves the leisure time, you know, after all he did for the War.”

Night came. Erian did not know when Wilmor would be asleep, so he waited until the very middle of the night before creeping from his house through the Council-hall to the Caverns.

It took all his resolve to creep through the corridor to Wilmor’s lair, for the stench had only gotten worse, the stench of death and of the eternal life-substance suffering, letting itself be torn apart, polluted under the hand of cold force. But his frustration at having his own project interfered with pushed him on. In the first chamber, the tank held only goo, though discarded limbs lay about the floor. He turned a corner and found another hallway. Through a door on one side he saw Wilmor, face down on the floor by his work table, fast asleep. On the other side of the hallway was a finely decorated bedroom—there lay Wilmor’s first attempt, already crumbling to dust. A second door with a second bedroom contained Wilmor’s second attempt, which he had torn apart in a rage. Erian entered the third bedroom. There lay the body he sought. It was not destroyed yet, for Wilmor expected it to awaken in the morning.

It was rougher in form than the other two, for Wilmor had grown impatient. All the same, if alive it would have been tall and strong., and there was a sharp distinctiveness in the expression of the face that made Erian shudder.

So he wrapped up the body carefully in the bedsheets and made his way quickly up through the Caverns.

He did not hear the thunder or see the lightning until he had mounted the spiral staircase leading up into the Council-hall. But it was all too apparent then, for the flash of lightning filled the hall and practically blinded him. Never had such a storm fallen upon the Wizards’ little Valley, away on the top of the world.

But he proceeded anyway, gasping prayers to Vhaejyn without knowing what he was saying. He made it outside, and found the world a mess of light and rain and thunder that struck his heart with fear. He ran, half-dropping the body as it began to roll out of the sheets he held. Hard rock hit his cheek. He had run up against the Monument.

The whole world seemed to quake. The lightning flashed again, and the sheets Erian held turned to ash. He cried out and fainted from the shock, transforming into a small lizard in his distress.

Wilmor awoke to a dark, naked form looming over him. He pulled back and cried out fear—Wizards did not exactly dream, but he had nevertheless had an unpleasant sleep. He looked up with a sense of intimidation.

The man standing before him was tall, skin a kind of charred gold, eyes deathly dark. All his proportions were strange—his shoulders slightly too narrow, feet slightly too big. A very faint glow seemed to shine out from his chest. Wilmor recognized him, and his fear mostly vanished. He stood up, clenching his fists in glee.

“Why, you are my son! My plan has succeeded—Vhaejyn I have made to look a fool!”

His laughter bubbled out of him, and even the workers in the Cavern above could hear it.

The man in front of him spoke, in a rough, breathless voice.

“I do not know who or what I am…but you are not my father.”

He swiftly turned and left the room. Wilmor cried out and ran after him, but his “son” somehow strode faster than he could in his wearied state. Wilmor turned into a bat and fluttered around the man’s eyes, trying to confuse him, but he was swatted easily away. The two of them entered the Cavern.

“Mine! You are mine!” Wilmor screeched, but no one could have made out the words.

The thunder outside was audible from there, and the very walls of the Cavern were shaking. A small lizard skittered into the cavern. Upon seeing it the newly formed man kicked it and sent it flailing into the gem-pits.

Wilmor’s creation disappeared from the Valley that night, under cover of storm and earthquakes. No one ever found the route he took to escape—even Armon seemed not to know, though he preferred to not discuss the subject.

The next afternoon after the sky cleared, Wilmor flew with a sigh and a groan down to the Pool of Meetings.

He had to sit on the bank for some time before a silvery head broke the surface of the Pool, blinking its blue eyes at him.

“Where is he?” Wilmor began with a screech, then tried to soften his tone. “The one I formed, what have you done with him? He is my son—I must train him in our ways. He is a Wizard, he ought to live in the valley with us, just as we are bound to!”

The Messenger shrugged, insofar as a creature without shoulders could shrug. “The only word from Vhaejyn is this. Your creation’s fate is in his own hands. He is neither fully human nor fully Ideuli. Thus he belongs nowhere and everywhere all at once, and it is up to him to decide how he shall live. Vhaejyn will not even reveal whether or not there is any chance of you seeing him again, before the end of all things. But this I am told to say to you most definitely: do not call this person your son. Although he is not fully human, he retains a special privilege given the circumstances of his creation. For unlike you who formed him, he shall be titled a son of Vhaejyn.”

THE END

And I usually don’t share fiction on this Substack. But this year I want that to change. A week or two ago I came up with a New Year’s goal: write 24 stories in 2026, ideally two each month, and publish them all on Conception. Since 24 for 2026 is rather unsatisfying, and since I happen to have two short stories from 2025 that I haven’t shared on here, I’ll publish those too, so I can say that I published 26 stories in 2026! :) I’m not sure when I’ll fit those in, probably if I ever reach a busy spot this semester where I don’t have the brain power to write original material.

The goal here is not to write stories that are polished or even very good. It is simply to force myself to write more, and to write more consistently. It is also to debut myself as a fiction writer on Substack so to speak since I haven’t really done that yet. In fact you could say the ultimate goal is really to make people interested in my (eventually). upcoming book, The Sun-King, which I also plan to finish this year. I also want to practice consistency and generally take the chance to challenge myself as a writer. So we’ll see what this year holds and whether I’m able to accomplish my goals!

I wrote the following story today, in a few hours, without a real plan beforehand. I didn’t know I would write a short story about music, but it came to mind probably since I had just been listening to some lovely covers by a K-pop vocalist that I really enjoyed. With this story I aimed specifically to create a vignette, which a sketch of a single moment or scene. I probably overstepped those qualifications a bit, but it was nice not feeling the pressure to create a strong plot or even any real narrative. I mainly tried to explore the emotions one might have in Jamie’s situation, and accentuate the mood through my imagery and descriptions.

Jamie’s Silence

A man grasped a mic in an empty recording studio. In this moment, he enjoyed the quiet. A gratuitous sunset was falling over the city, gleaming gold over the dusty speakers and tangled heaps of cords. The sunlight was the only light in the room.

“And I will always love you…” he whispered into the mic, even though it was turned off. He could see his reflection in the glass window that formed the opposing wall. He looked young and fit, and he was, though lately he felt older.

You haven’t got forever, Jamie, he sighed to himself. Now you know.

He continued mouthing lyrics to himself, out of habit deemphasizing his p’s and b’s so they wouldn’t pop uncomfortably in the mic.

Singing, he had always thought, was like drinking clear water, or sweet tea with honey, but in reverse. His throat was filled with something wholesome and fresh, but it left his mouth instead of entering it. Instead of filling himself, he emptied his lungs of oxygen, so that notes could cascade through the air with full force. It was the best pleasure Jamie knew. There were so many aspects of singing to relish—the satisfaction of difficult melodies becoming easy and automatic with practice. The freedom to add a dozen different subtleties, making the song his own. The empty but relieved feeling after the song was over.

He ran his fingertip over the mic’s familiar texture and calmed his thoughts to listen to the traffic in the city below, only a hushed hum from here. The sun continued to set— it had almost disappeared behind the high-rises across the street.

One stray gleam of light winked off the corner of a CD, the topmost of a pile of CDs arranged haphazardly on the corner of Vic’s desk. On that desk sat the computer where the most recent tracks resided, the ones recorded in this studio. There were many more tracks stored on Vic’s battered laptop at home. They had set up the new studio a good seven months ago, but of course Jamie in particular had not set foot in it for quite some time.

Jamie left the mic stand and walked over to the CD pile, picking up the one that the light had drawn to his attention. The front cover was a splash of colors; on the other side, he and Vic were sitting back to back, the tracklist underneath them, a ukulele in Jamie’s hands. This was their first album. “I thought no one listened to CDs anymore!” Mom had said. “Well, they ought to,” Vic said. He was adamant that everything the Parker Brothers released should be available in physical form. “I want our music to last as long as it can, in any way it can.”

So much for that.

Jamie set the CD back on its pile. The peace of the studio had soured for him. He put his hands to his throat, trying to feel the vocal cords under his skin.

The sun set, and as shadows crowded into the room, so did memories. Him and Vic when they were small, enthusiastically yelling the lyrics to the inappropriate pop songs Dad played in the guitar, then years later standing side by side at a mic stand in church, then a few more years and they were on a street corner, a crowded friend’s house, a pub, that amphitheater in the park on that one day it thundered, then a proper stage, small, and then later, larger stages. The memories became even more specific— their stuffy bedroom, where he practiced chord progressions till his fingers ached and Vic fumed over Logic Pro. Sitting in the living room humming melodies the day after a concert, while rain fell softly outside. That time they had Paula join them on stage, with her violin. Meeting fans who were total strangers—that was weird.

They had never been a big thing, never toured out of state. Seven months ago, this had bothered Jamie.

He had worse things to bother him now. Like the pain it took to summon a whisper, or the look in the surgeon’s eyes when he told Jamie that a mistake had been made, that things—most likely—would never be the same again.

The look in Vic’s eyes when he heard the news was even worse.

Jamie suddenly crouched down, willing the shadows to wash over him like water. He sighed, deeply, just to make some sound.

Why must it be so silent? Was there a melody embedded somewhere in this quiet, something to lift him out of this gloom? If the speakers had been on there would have at least have been some kind of warm hum in the room, some kind of companion. But he could hear only his own breath, jagged, disappointing, and the distant rush of traffic, too distant, too hushed to console him.

He strained his ears, but there was no song in the silence. And he could no longer fix that.

He could no longer reach out into the silence like a child reaching for a star and fill the room with light summoned from heaven.

By now it was almost completely dark in the studio. Various song lyrics pranced unbidden through Jamie’s mind.

“April, come she will…”

“I’ve never been in love before…”

“In the morning when I wake and the sun is coming through, you fill my lungs with sweetness, and you fill my head with you…”

“You’d kill yourself for recognition, kill yourself to never ever stop.”

He wanted to swear but couldn’t.

Finally something broke the silence—his phone buzzed. It was Vic.

Jamie rose and made his way to the door, careful not to trip on any cords. Would he ever have reason to come in here again? He could still strum a guitar—but the Parker brothers would never be the same without both voices, rising and falling together, one rough, one sweet. Maybe Vic could get Paula to join for real.

It was quiet in the hallway, and in the elevator too. There was a woman who was also going down. Jamie would have usually said something friendly, but of course there was nothing to say.

The car, smelly as usual, was filled with heat and Vic. He shoved Jamie in the shoulder, masking the gloom.

“You all good? Have a good look? Boy, I haven’t even been in there for ages. I got pizza and some nice drinks for when we get home… you’ll see…”

Vic stopped talking for only a moment, craning his neck as he pulled out into traffic. Jamie smiled and nodded. The radio was too loud, but he didn’t turn it down like he would usually.

“Hey! Things are gonna improve, you know that. P. T. starts tomorrow, right? Oh, and Paula’s got that recital next week, you gonna come? Things are… things are gonna be okay, Jamie. I’m sorry if I ever overreacted… I just know we both care so much about the music.”

From the studio window it seemed the sun had set, but the slightest bit of gold still tinted the dusk, making the cars around them gleam. Jamie nodded again. It was something.

Thank you for reading, everyone! I will remind you again that this story was slightly low-effort, but I welcome any comments.

Ko-fi to support: https://ko-fi.com/annabeth13

Here’s a mood board I made for this story, just for fun. Let me know if I captured the aesthetic well!

And the songs Jamie recalls are:

1. I Will Always Love You

2. April Come She Will

3. I’ve Never Been In Love Before

4. Bloom

5. High and Dry