4

Not to break tradition with how Marith spend her Saturday mornings in the Netherlands she had opened a book in an attempt to enlighten herself. The cool autumn air coming in through the open doors tried to tell her that winter was coming, but Marith’s mind was far away in a world of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the workings of benzodiazepine and the effects of alcohol withdrawal on the central nervous system.

On the other side of the mansion Nick sprung up from his desk chair to open the door for someone neither of them were expecting. When he did two sub-zero shockers awaited him.

“What a surprise. If it isn’t Vanessa, Sweet Lake’s favourite homewrecker,” he scorned, while an icy breeze made him shiver.

“Nick, fancy seeing you here.” She clicked her tongue teasingly as she eyed him tip to toe.

“I live here.”

Vanessa ignored that truthful remark.

“I see that your guilt trip has financed a rehab facility at Sweet Lake’s medical centre,” she said instead, cocking her head.

“Yes, a new wing,” Nick answered curtly.

“Looks neat.”

“What are you really here for?” He asked, suppressing a sigh, having run through his patience.

“Ahw,” Vanessa pouted her lips, “still mad I didn’t go for you?”

“I get it. You like ‘em old. Could we fast forward this, please?”

Vanessa rolled her eyes.

“I am here for Gene’s daughter. I promised him I would look after her.”

Nick needed to hear no more and sped to the living area, that connected the hallway to the kitchen, where his house guest was reading on one of the couches in an uncomfortable position.

“Look Nick! I am using the books.” Marith lifted the heaviest one up in the air to ensure him he hadn’t lugged them across the airport for no reason.

“Merry Christmas to you. Ready to go?”

“Go where? To do what?”

She straightened her back and arched her shoulders, stiff from sitting hunched while studying.

“Beats me. Just take that witch woman away from here.”

“Who? What?”

Nick didn’t answer and marched back to the hallway. Marith brushed some loose papers and notes of her lap, tossed her books aside and followed him confused.

“Why?” She added as she was receiving no response whatsoever. Another question would surely clarify things.

“Who are you?” Marith wondered as Nick disappeared into his study, completely ignoring the tall, dark haired amazon in the doorway.

“Vanessa.”

She stretched out her arm and they shook hands.

“Oh,” Marith said. “I’m Marith. You can call me something else, if Marith is too much of an inconvenience.”

Although Americans often had trouble with her name Marith wasn’t sure as to why she was so nervous all of a sudden.

“I think I’ll manage.” Vanessa smiled.

“I live in the Bellevue apartment building with your father. Well, not with your father. I have my own apartment,” she quickly clarified, with big eyes.

“Okay,” Marith frowned. Where was this going?

“I promised him I would take you out, since we are about the same age and all.”

“Great!” Marith exclaimed, more shocked than excited. She hoped Vanessa hadn’t heard.

“I thought that maybe we could go for a hike, have a bite and something to drink in town.”

“Sure, let me collect some stuff.”

Sports, and especially team sports had never been a domain of expertise for Marith, but she could tolerate hiking. It turned out that reading about depression was almost more depressing than depression itself and Marith could use a break, even though she had to spend that break in the presence of a complete stranger, having to pretend she was normal.

Marith was painfully aware that she had developed the social skills of a doorknob. Apparently that is what living on your own and suffering regular bouts of madness and anxiety could do to a person.

“So, how do you like being back?” Vanessa inquired as they left Nick’s property and walked downhill towards the town’s centre.

“Great!” Marith exclaimed for the second time that morning, without giving it any thought. It was a lie. Her return had mostly been confusing.

“Sweet Lake is my phone’s screensaver. I love it here,” she tried to repack herself. That had not been a complete lie. Walking through the forest, surrounded by giant boulders, ancient trees and snow covered mountain peaks, Marith always got an overwhelming sense of belonging.

“No, I do get it,” Vanessa said, as they carefully watched the forest floor during their walk, as not to trip. “I must say I got used to it being so isolated. This place has its charm, but I would love to be able to visit a city every once in a while… like Amsterdam.”

Marith chuckled softly. “I’ve lived 15 minutes away from Amsterdam for a large portion of my life, but I’ve only been there a handful of times per year, to be honest.”

“What do you do in the Netherlands?”

“I… eh… go to university… on and off. To make ends meet I teach.”

“Really? What do you teach?”

“Cello lessons.”

“Do you enjoy that?”

“Actually, I do,” Marith answered, flinching at the thought of her beloved instrument getting shattered to pieces in Holland.

“I understand it must be hard, having to live through that train accident and then returning to this mess.” It was as if Vanessa had read her mind. She figured her father had told Vanessa about it.

“Ja, it’s been a lot.” Marith sniffed and nodded. The recent events in Sweet Lake had actually steered her thoughts away from the accident, until it was mentioned. To Marith it felt as if those mysterious events had happened in another life and now she just had to focus on the present.

“I did try, you know.”

Marith looked at her, questioningly.

“With your father,” she clarified. “I know him rather well and I knew he was slipping away, but…”

“No, I get it. We all should have been more aware, I guess.”

Marith blamed herself too. Occasionally spiralling in her own depressions she knew she could be pretty self-absorbed at times. The pit in her stomach she had felt since yesterday had been there because of her father’s condition.

The forest floor was soft, covered in needles and decomposing leaves. Their footsteps sounded hollow. The mountain air smelled fresher and cleaner than any air Marith had ever inhaled in Europe. The temperature was chilly, but not too cold, nothing a nice coat and some gloves couldn’t fight. If only she had brought a pair.

“I actually need some stuff in town,” Marith noted.

“Sure. Like what?”

“Toiletries, a power converter for my phone, gloves.”

She took her numb and red hands from her pockets and showed them to Vanessa.

“I know just the store for you, but first we need something to warm up.”

The heart of the village came in sight and with that the freshness and peacefulness of the forest were about to be abruptly disturbed.

“Who are these people?” Marith asked shocked, taking in the war zone in front of her.

She could make out they were at the town’s square by the gazebo in the middle of a square lawn, rimmed by flower beds, and the buildings she recognized, but she couldn’t remember ever seeing such chaos and such hopelessness. At least, not in in the first world. She had seen similar pictures on the news, but that news had been about natural disasters, developing nations and war torn countries.

Marith had been looking forward to seeing new things. New trees, new buildings, new people. To get lost in new treasures Sweet Lake would have to offer, since she had been away for quite some time. This was not what she had in mind.

“Junks, squatters, homeless people. I am sure you must have seen it before in Amsterdam?”

“I am not actually from Amsterdam,” she repeated tersely. “And yes, I have seen it, but not like this, not in Sweet Lake. How did this happen?”

Vanessa shrugged. “It has been happening for quite some time now. First slowly and then more abruptly. Life is not as simple as it used to be anymore, of course.”

Marith could not believe the tragic mess unfolding before her eyes as they continued their way.

“Most of them are harmless,” Vanessa assured her.

“Most of them are young,” Marith remarked, as she took in random, unwashed faces.

“I know, it’s awful. The uncertainties of the time we are living in hit them harder, I guess. The perils of being young,” she decided, since she couldn’t possibly give a better, deeper analysis right then.

Marith didn’t know where to start. She had so many questions and was simultaneously too flabbergasted to come up with one that mattered, gazing upon such desperation.

“If these people are all homeless are there not a lot of empty houses they could be squatting?”

Vanessa frowned.

“I am not saying it is legal or ethical, but it's better than being on the streets day and night,” Marith added hastily.

“No, I get what you’re saying, but not all of them came from this village. Also, most of them didn’t have a place of their own before they became homeless.”

“Then where did they came from?”

“No clue. For all I know they crawled out of that wretched lake. Ah, there it is.” Vanessa pointed at a restaurant further along the street.

“What is?” Marith inquired while staring at a tramp, barely existing on the sidewalk.

A little while later they stepped over a sleeping guy in the portal to enter what was supposed to be the most hot and happening tearoom of Sweet Lake.

“We do have a homeless shelter,” Vanessa attempted to comfort Marith as they hung up their coats. Marith nodded dejected, before stepping into the restaurant.

Sweet did not do The Sweet Tooth justice. The place looked like a French patisserie, filled with doyley’s, English tea sets and showcases with a diverse arrange of pastries. They were pelted with artificial colouring agents and could soon taste the airborne sugar on their tongues. They walked towards a table with trendy and purposely mismatched chairs.

In Amsterdam one could get ignored for up to four days in an establishment like that, but before Marith could bat an eye there was a rather overly ambitious teenager standing next to their table with a small tablet and some menu’s. She had thick, crummy layers of mascara on her lashes, in addition the remnants of some minor acne were visible, but Marith saw mostly a very pretty face.

“Hi, Vanessa!” the blonde girl with bangs exclaimed. “Who’s this?”

She was the kind of person that would measure the decibel level of the room and then went straight over it. That, or she was hearing impaired, but Marith couldn’t quite make that out yet.

“This, Amber, is Marith.”

“Oh, from the Netherlands? I know about you! I am so sorry about your dad… and the train-thing… and everything.” Her voice trailed off as she became aware she was being insensitive.

Marith looked at Vanessa with alarmed eyes. Vanessa managed to ignore this as well.

Amber left them with the menu’s and darted back into the kitchen.

“How does she know?” Marith almost hissed over the table, as soon as she thought Amber was out of earshot.

Vanessa shrugged. “Small town. I sure didn’t tell her.”

Marith figured that was an acceptable explanation and stared at the sacchariferous options on the pink carte.

“Does this come with a dental cleaning?” She muttered.

Vanessa grinned. “I could recommend the éclairs. Or no! the mille-feuilles!” she almost exclaimed.

“I think I just keep it at a drink,” Marith hesitated.

“No! Why?”

“Okay, you are way too excited about eating refined sugar and besides… the contrast is just too stark.” She glanced outside.

Vanessa understood that it was a lot for Marith to take in. After all, she was born and partially brought up in Sweet Lake. What they had just witnessed was a big slap in the face after being used to the cute, innocent community they were familiar with. Marith’s childhood memories were too strong. Vanessa wished she could explain it all to her, but it was too soon.

Marith went with a dark hot chocolate, sweetened with maple syrup, joined by a macaron, and Vanessa went all in with a mille-feuille – which turned out to be something Marith knew as a tompouce – and a milky hot chocolate topped off by whipped cream and chocolate sauce.

“Are you seeing anyone?” Vanessa asked after they had ordered.

Mariths stomach turned. In the rare occasion she had left the apartment in the Netherlands out of free will, her lack of confidence had made that she would never ask someone out or start a flirt. If she was spoken to or flirted with, she had many ways of messing it up eventually. Because of this deficit she always ended up with the most overly confident, smug, arrogant examples of human beings, like she had to compensate for that missing part of her.

She had made a habit of dating only self-absorbed men, who didn’t care much for her, but liked the convenience of having her around. That, and the fact she’d had her own apartment, a unique situation where she lived. She was the kind of partner that had put more love into her relationships than she had ever gotten out of it and that had broken her every single time.

Marith hadn’t been able to break this cycle, which had frustrated and saddened her more than once. This knowledge paralyzed her at times and she was often pained by happy couples. Not because she was jealous. She wished them the best. She just wished she had it too.

In addition she had declared herself too romantic for dating apps and matchmaking websites. Her encounters with the other sex may have ended in bitter disappointments without exception, but they had been limited.

“No,” Marith answered with a wry smile.

“Well, I guess that makes matters slightly less complicated.”

“I guess. Every negative has it’s positive. Right?”

Marith wasn’t aware she saved Vanessa an embarrassing and possibly complicated moment by not asking about her love life.

“What are you going to do, now that you’re back? Any plans?”

“Well, I actually just came back to recover, but now I feel like I am going to be here a while longer.”

Vanessa nodded understandingly.

“Maybe I’ll get a job somewhere.” She shrugged as she said it.

Judging by the teenagers and fellow twenty-somethings outside on the sidewalk she highly doubted there where much opportunities in Sweet Lake or in the nearby towns.

“What do you do?” She asked Vanessa out of interest and for inspiration.

“I teach at Sweet Lake primary school,” Vanessa answered as she went into battle against the structure of her mille-feuille that had just been brought to their table by another waitress.

“Oh,” Marith answered, “how is that?”

“I love it.”

“Sounds like rewarding work,” Marith tried. She actually had zero experience with kids, apart from having been one herself, over a decade ago.

“It sure is, but we are merging with the school in Sound Lake, because the classes are getting smaller and smaller. So, it’s been stressful.”

Marith nodded as she saw her table partner getting covered further in the cream that squeezed out of the pastry.

“Maybe you should just split it horizontal,” Marith suggested with a giggle.

Vanessa laughed as she licked her fingers and cleaned them with a napkin. Something in her bag had caught her attention. It had been hanging over the back of her chair. She opened the leather satchel slightly and peeked inside.

“Do you mind making another stop, before we run your errands?”

“Not at all,” Marith answered, assuming Vanessa had gotten a text message.

Not much later Marith was looking at yet another strange person in an unlikely place. Kyle looked much too cool to work in an antique clock store.

With unrivalled skill Vanessa had downed her chocolate milk and had shoved the remainder of the pastry down her throat. Sprinting to the bar to pay Amber had already been waiting there with the pin device.

Marith hadn’t really understood what the hurry had been about, but she was too occupied with the uniqueness of the store, a couple of buildings down the street, to even bother being surprised.

The place was glistening with brass and gold and silver plating. It was called a clock store by the locals, but it was much more than that. Housing theodolites, sextants, spy glasses, microscopes, telescopes, orreries and clocks of every shape and size it was like diving into another world for Marith.

Some of the antique gadgets were stored behind the tall glass doors of ceiling high wall cabinets, others stood displayed in the middle of the store, so their complexity and ingenuity could be admired from every angle.

Both Amber and Kyle were too young to be subtle and, just like Amber, Kyle had not been able to hide he already knew who Marith was.

“I’ve seen you!” Kyle had burst out, as Marith’s attention was taken by a magnificent planetarium, placed on a gold plated pedestal, with a built-in timepiece.

“A-around…” He had corrected himself after he was met with two pairs of frowning eyebrows.

“Again, I didn’t tell him,” Vanessa had assured her.

Marith had never been the type to enjoy shopping. The process of looking for stuff to wear and having to try it on, attempting not to be dispirited by the horrible lighting in the fitting room or the price of clothing she didn’t even like that much to begin with, was just too tiresome for her. Gazing upon the contrivance of her ancestors however was something she couldn’t get enough of. It allowed her mind to travel and expand beyond the humdrum of her life. She could only imagine what it was like for the brilliant minds who had invented it all.

“I have got something up my sleeve for you,” Kyle whispered to Vanessa, as Marith wandered off to examine more treasures the place was keeping.

“I know.” Vanessa looked over her shoulder to make sure Marith was occupying herself. Apart from the three of them the store was as empty as usual.

Vanessa bared her right underarm and put it on the cold glass showcase that was built into the pay desk, displaying the more expensive pocket watches, portable orreries and astronomical compendia. Kyle placed his fingers on the invisible pressure points. When they both felt it was right their eyes locked.

Clear and disturbing visions entered Vanessa’s mind as Kyle’s eyes disappeared in a blurry haze. She had already suspected the events Kyle was showing her, but the place and time had been a mystery, up until that point.

Marith circled a grand orrery, with actual moving planets that seemed to be made out of gemstones, in amazement when Vanessa and Kyle caught her eye. Just as she glanced in their direction Kyle let go off his Mage’s wrist and sheepishly smiled at her.

“Is he your boyfriend?” Marith asked with some hesitation, when they stood outside again, breathing clouds of mist.

“No,” Vanessa chuckled, “that wouldn’t even be legal.”

“He seems to have the hots for you.”

“Don’t get me started.” Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Come, I think I know a place where you can find most of the items on your list.”

Before Marith could ask what the visit to the clock store had been about in the first place they were trotting to their next destination.

The convenience store that Jonathan’s parents owned stood outside the town’s centre, in the direction of the gas station and the Bellevue complex. With the appearance of a thrift shop and the deserted location in mind Marith did not have high hopes to find what she was looking for.

However, Vanessa’s determination didn’t make it seem like she had much of a choice, but to join her guide for the day. So much had changed in Sweet Lake in only a matter of years. If Marith recalled correctly there had been a bookstore in that building.

“You can’t find anything here that they don’t have,” Vanessa shared cryptically as she pushed open one of the glass doors.

Soon after entering the store Marith’s prejudices were confirmed. The establishment was rather shabby inside as well. Nonetheless, she walked up to the counter, while Vanessa darted off into the shop.

“Excuse me?” She muttered.

A handsome young man looked up from a pile of paperwork.

“Do you have a power converter for…”

“Whooh, fancy looking and a cute accent. Who may this be?”

“Marith.”

“March?” He repeated questioningly.

Marith was relieved to learn that not every soul in Sweet Lake knew about her.

“Like some kind of Duchess…” he mused.

“No, no, definitely not royal.” Marith snickered.

“I’m Jonathan.”

“Nice to meet you.”

He turned around and started to rumble through a bin full of heavy plastic wrappings containing cords, cables and power plugs.

“So, where do you come from?”

“The Netherlands,” Marith answered, half amused, already knowing the response that would elicit.

She was met with silence. She could see he was wrecking his mind, trying not to insult her.

“The capital city is Amsterdam,” she hinted.

“Amsterdam! Yeah, that’s more like it!” He almost yelled over his shoulder.

Vanessa seemed to have found what she needed and sauntered back to the front of the shop, checking out more shelves.

“What did you need again?”

“A power converter. I can’t even charge my phone here.” Luckily she hadn’t needed it much.

“Now, that is a problem,” he said, as he rumbled some more. “I can’t find it here, Duchess. Maybe in the back.”

Vanessa and Marith watched Jonathan walk away from them with mouths slightly ajar. As soon as the door closed behind him, they looked at each other and giggled.

“Are you starting to see the upsides of Sweet Lake?” Vanessa asked with a smile and a wink.

“I sure do,” Marith responded amused.

They waited for a little while, silently staring at the abundance of knick knacks and trumpery on display before them.

The problem with little stores that sell practically everything is that they are full of stuff you couldn’t be sure about whether or not you had it at home already, but once you saw it on a shelf you knew you had to buy it, just to be certain. You instantly knew you couldn’t take the risk of coming home to a house without a pasta machine in the attic, so you bought it.

“What do you need an … axe … for?” Marith wondered out of the blue.

“For school…”

Marith hadn’t known Vanessa for very long at that time, but she could hear that was a lie.

“You’re going to tear it down by yourself?” Marith joked.

“No,” Vanessa smiled faintly. “Didn’t you need some gloves as well?”

“Yes!” Marith remembered.

“I think I saw some back there…” Vanessa pointed to the back of the store, where the lights were flickering.

Marith roamed the aisles in utter surprise. She couldn’t remember ever encountering such a versatility of products, so randomly tossed together. Passing Barbie’s and crossbows, dental floss and Scottish shortbread and finally cans of bear spray next to a stack of adult diapers her astonishment grew with every step.

Finally, she came across some garden tools. Doubtful she took some handy gloves of a hook and inspected them. Surely, these were not the ones Vanessa mentioned.

She continued her quest for decent mitts, designed to stand the winter in the mountains, when the electricity decided the junk in the back of the store wasn’t worth shedding any light on anymore.

She faintly recalled strolling by some flashlights before, tossed in a bin with with a bunch of calculators, and turned around to feel her way back through the half-dark when she heard something behind her.

Apparently, just like family deaths, disasters tend to happen in threefold. Before her five senses could perceive the actual attack her sixth sense warned her about the surge of violence that was about to hit them.

The same wave of peril and distress that had come to her on the train, assailed her in the back of that store. Overtaken by goose bumps, sweaty palms and a racing mind Marith knew they couldn’t stay there.

“Vanessa!” She exclaimed, charging forward.

A heavily perfumed and inhumanly strong arm stopped her dead in her tracks and in the process knocked the wind out of her lungs.

“Shhhj shhhj,” someone whispered in her ear as she was manhandled back into the dark.

Marith tried to wrestle her way out the grasp, ignoring her bruised ribs, but ended up in a headlock behind a rack cabinet. As her right cheek was pressed against the cold, grimy floor she had a clear visual to the shop front.

Hands held tight behind her back, heart racing and out of breath she saw several pairs of black boots emerge on the sidewalk.

“No,” she gasped.

“Shhhj,” was hissed into her ear again, a little more irritated this time.

She slightly shifted her mangled face over the smudgy surface to peek under the cabinets and spot what had to be Vanessa’s boots. Her manhandler warningly bore a knee in her lower back to keep her pinned to the floor.

The events that were about to unfolded before them seemed to happen with the speed of light after that.

The door through which Jonathan had disappeared swayed open and just as he started talking to Vanessa the glass windows shattered after a loud bang.

More deafening bangs followed. Glass cascaded through the store, past the register and over the floors. The black boots entered the Parker family’s establishment.

“Wrong place, buddy!” Jonathan’s voice shared determined. He sounded more aggressive and combat ready than Marith would have anticipated.

She saw his sneakers race forward, instead of back through the doorway they had just appeared from. Vanessa surprisingly seemed to stay put.

They were met with militant screams and more gunshots. Marith’s ears filled with a painful beep and her eyes with rinsing water. Her companion – definitely a woman, she noticed unwittingly - now laid spread eagle on top off her.

Pressed against the unforgiving, cold, hard floor she saw her inconceivably mediocre and short life flash before her eyes. With every bullet sleeve that clattered on the linoleum an old and questionable decision fouled her mind.

Magazines were emptied, blood calls were exchanged and sounds of items clanking off shelves followed. Surrounded by catastrophe and mayhem Marith couldn’t determine whether she had been screaming, wetting her pants, got shot or none of the above.

Just as sudden as the place had been filled with sounds of terror their surroundings fell silent. Marith was still crying and, afraid to what she would open her eyes to, she decided to simply keep them shut.

“Come.” The woman pushed herself up and scrambled to her feet.

“No.” Marith was relieved to finally be able to fill her chest with air again, but she also knew she couldn’t handle whatever she was about to find out.

“Is it bad?” She wailed.

“W-what…?” It sounded like Jonathan’s voice, except more humble and hesitant this time.

Surprised to hear from him Marith rolled on her side, touching her ribs, wondering if they were actually broken now, as she pushed herself up as well.

“Where did they go?!” He demanded, baffled.

The flickering lights jumped on again. Marith sat up straight with a painful grimace and registered Vanessa and Jonathan, still standing. How was that possible?

Her companion helped her to her feet. Hit by a dizzy spell she was practically dragged to the others. Marith noticed wobbly that the woman seemed to possess exceptional strength.

“Juliette, reporting for duty,” she said, quite frivolous, as they joined Vanessa and Jonathan.

“Thank you,” Vanessa replied, taking in Marith’s appearance.

Jonathan’s face was distorted in a frustrated frown. Marith followed his gaze. The axe that had previously been in Vanessa’s hands protruded from the grey linoleum floor.

They all turned their heads as police sirens became audible from the distance.

“Brad, I hope,” Juliette said.

“I’ll handle this,” Vanessa answered. Without bothering to open the door, she stepped through the destroyed front of the shop.

Once again time seemed to be sped up by the large amount of things erratically happening around Marith. She stood nailed to the floor, feeling useless.

“We need to destroy the footage.” Juliette marched determined to the register, where she had noticed some screens and other electronics.

Marith noticed how she looked extremely athletic and not dressed for the current weather conditions. Juliette brushed the broken glass off the cash register, the counter and the screens with a sleeve of her track suit.

“Wait,” Jonathan retorted, “won’t I need that for the insurance company?”

“I will delete the part where it gets shady, okay? We can’t have any news channel running amok with this.”

Jonathan quickly recalled the fact he had been swinging an axe, ready to kill. It didn’t seem like such an issue to remove that part of the footage.

“Help me. Will you?” Juliette urged, as the sound of the sirens sounded closer and closer. “I think we can keep the recordings from outside, but the ones taken inside will have to go.”

“I want to see what happened first,” Jonathan demanded.

Marith averted her eyes from the streets and joined Juliette and Jonathan. Since she had been forced to witness the entire happening from a dark corner, pinned to the floor, her curiosity won from her apathetic state.

Vanessa was relieved to learn it had in fact been Brad speeding towards them in a nebulous haze of lights flashing blue and red. She realized Amber and Juliette had done their part of the job meticulously. A great sense of pride and relief befell her. Their system worked and it was all coming together.

“The Kid is getting stronger,” Vanessa shared hastily, after Brad had heroically brought the squad car to a halt by making half a donut in front of the shop.

“Tell me about it,” he said with a deep sigh and his hands placed on his waist, as he took in the ravage.

“This town is balancing on a fracture line between civilization and barbarism. If we don’t stop it, it will soon spread.”

“How about that Jonathan?” Brad inquired.

“He just needs a little Push.” Vanessa smiled an evil smile at him, which Brad answered with a conspirational flick of his eyebrows. “How will you handle this case?”

“They didn’t take anything, I reckon?”

“No, they clearly came for Jonathan.”

“This will go into the books as an attempted robbery then.”

After barricade tape was put in place Vanessa stomped into the store again with the police officer in her wake.

“This is Brad,” Vanessa introduced him to Jonathan and Marith. “He usually handles these cases.”

“Hi,” Brad introduced himself, shining in striking Americanness.

“Were these the homeless from town… that we saw earlier?” Marith asked with big eyes after having viewed the footage.

“No, absolutely not,” Vanessa answered firmly. “These people are driven by evil… Pure evil,” she finally repeated, intensely eyeing their surroundings. Her fire suddenly looked powerful to Marith.

“The wanderers in this town are just… aimless, at a loose end. Life has knocked them down one too many times. The final time they just couldn’t get up.” Juliette shook her head while she said it. “I know it wasn’t them.”

“Blocked from a normal life by student loans and an insane cost of living, before getting crushed by a tax system that only benefits the wealthiest generation ever. We all know what it’s like,” Jonathan sighed. He had clearly given the matter more thought in the past.

“Not many species eat their own young, but our society doesn’t seem to have a problem with it,” Juliette agreed, nodding sadly.

Just like the others in that store she was a member of the generation that was desperate to grow up, but found itself stuck in financial adolescence. Living was indeed hard to move on with the weight of the previous generations lying on top of you, dragging you down every step of the way.

“Then who were they?” Marith insisted.

“Good question!” Jonathan burst out. “I’ve got an even better question,” he continued. “HOW did they disappear and WHERE did they disappear to?!”

“Okay,” Vanessa knew telling people to calm down had never calmed anyone down in the whole history of calming people down, so she decided to start with a soothing hand gesture that landed on Jonathans arm. It seemed to do the trick.

“They are reflections.”

“Off what?”

“The mind.”

“Are you telling us they weren’t real?” Marith inquired, with a frown.

“They sure seemed real TO ME,” Jonathan sounded agitated again.

“Listen, okay? They did real damage, they absolutely did.”

All five of them simultaneously took in the ruination around them.

“But the reason they disappeared is that… well… eh… Brad?” Vanessa shot him a weary look.

“You are doing great,” he encouraged her, as he wandered off to examine any damage done to the building.

“They came from nowhere and they returned to nowhere. These people are produced by brainpower…” Juliette tried to help Vanessa.

“Whose brainpower?”

Marith’s mind wandered off to the headmaster in the yellow coat she had encountered in the train. His intentions seemed to be the opposite of the aim of this riffraff and yet he had appeared to be a mere reflection as well.

“Why did this just happen?” Marith felt like falling apart, but contained herself. Amidst the holy mess her life had become this seemed to be the key question. Why had violence and chaos decided to follow her around?

“Same reason you were attacked in that train.” Brad was the one who had let those words slip.

“What? I wasn’t attacked… Jonathan just was.” She gestured at the store.

Nervous glances were exchanged between Vanessa, Brad and Juliette.

“I am afraid you were.”

“No!” Marith exclaimed incredulous.

“You were specifically targeted. Both off you.”

“Why?”

“And by whom?”

“I think it is best not to discuss that right now.”

They glanced around. Some people from the town’s centre were nearing to see what all the commotion was about.

“Listen, why don’t we discuss this later in more detail? I am off early on Wednesdays.”

“Sure, it’s not like I have a store to run,” Jonathan said.

“I have nothing in my agenda either.” Marith sighed and was trying to remember if she had even brought her agenda to Sweet Lake.

“It’s a date,” Vanessa affirmed. “It is getting dark soon and we need something to lock this place up with, so you won’t get robbed for real.”

“I was thinking about lowering the rolling shutters and call the glaziers first thing in the morning.”

“Shots fired, but no victims or bullet holes,” Brad interrupted them. He was less incredulous than he should have been as he returned to the group.

“Just the glass of the fronts,” Jonathan said, taking a closer look at his parents’ business.

“Strange.” The evil smile played with Vanessa’s lips again.

“What is it?” Juliette frowned.

Both Vanessa’s hands disappeared into her pockets and everybody did a step forward.

“Great work, Vanessa!” Brad jubilated when she pulled her hands out again.

Jonathan stared at the bullets in her palms as if he saw burning water, but Marith was completely and utterly done.

“Sure! Catching bullets! Why not? I guess since you guys found out a way to put melted marshmallows into a jar and call it Fluff, of all possible names, anything is possible! I am out!” She scorned.

“That’s the thing!” Vanessa was oddly excited, completely ignoring the two vivid twenty-somethings before her. “Things you never imagined being possible are possible! I know more people around here that are just like the two of you… I mean… not exactly alike, but you know, there are definitely common areas.”

“Like us?”

“Well, you’re not exactly normal. Are you?” Brad joked.

Marith’s mouth stood slightly ajar by his moxie. She forced the confusion and frustration out of her mind. First things first.

“How about Wednesday?” She asked.

“What about it?”

“That’s three and a half days from now. How will we know we won’t be attacked again before that?”

“We can assure you that the… eh… reflections will be too weak to attack in the near future,” Brad shared.

Vanessa and Juliette both nodded to invigorate that promise.

The group quickly swept the broken glass together to help Jonathan out. Marith cleaned her face with a pack of lotion tissues Jonathan had fished from under a tray of cat food and texted Nick, asking him for the second time in two days to pick her up.

“Let’s keep this away from Nick. Okay?” She asked the group of people she had met that day.

“That dude is though as bricks, but even bricks can be broken,” Brad affirmed.

The rest nodded. Nick’s life was complicated enough.

A while later the three women strolled towards the town’s centre, as Jonathan and Brad closed the shop.

“Where did all the homeless go?”

The square was remarkably desolate, which felt more eerie than peaceful after the afternoon they’ve had.

“To the homeless centre,” Juliette informed. “Speaking of which, I should be going, before I get questions I cannot answer. People are suspicious enough as it is lately,” she added, before darting off into the twilight.

“She isn’t homeless as well, is she?” Marith inquired careful, after assuming Juliette was out of reach.

“She used to be,” Vanessa answered flatly, “now she runs the centre, makes a modest living and rents a room above the Drunken Den.”

“Come again?”

“That would be the local pub.”

“Oh, good for her.”

“It was actually Nick who found her wandering around town in the dark once, after returning from your father’s office. This was at the beginning of the local homeless crisis. Winter was falling and she would very likely not have survived without him taking her in.”

“Nick took Juliette in?” Marith asked surprised.

“Yes, for the winter. She used to work for the lodging business…” Vanessa’s voice trailed off, before she continued, “she was actually one of the first ones to become homeless in this town.”

“Wow, I cannot begin to imagine…” Marith answered breathless.

“I think no one can, unless you’ve lived it.”

“The homeless centre is actually founded and funded by Nick.”

“Wow, again,” was Marith’s response to that.

“Why do you think Nick is building that colossal church on such a ridiculous location? Or paid for the new Psychiatric ward?”

“To impress people? He has an ego to match that church, you know…”

Vanessa chuckled and so did Marith when she found out what she had said was funny.

“Yeah, I know,” answered Vanessa, “but it’s not that. The town has been restless. People are seeking salvation from the poverty and the crime that have been tormenting Sweet Lake.” She sighed. “Nick has changed. You must have noticed that.”

“As a matter of fact, I did.” It was clear to Marith that her host had gotten to know the other side of life a more closely.

“Sadly, he isn’t aware the decline of mental health in the village has little to do with how he runs the lodging business.”

Marith stared at the beaming black bolide coming around the corner with different eyes.

“See you Wednesday then.”

“Stay safe!”

“Trying my best,” Marith muttered to herself, walking up to Nick’s car. The other side of her face was now mangled as well. She could only hope Nick wouldn’t notice her newly acquired bruises.

As she got in the car she glanced over her shoulder to wave at Vanessa who just got into the back seat of Brad’s police car. Jonathan was on the passenger’s seat. Brad would bring them to the Bellevue complex.

Marith sensed she hadn’t just met Jonathan, Vanessa, Juliette or Brad today by something as plain as coincidence.

She looked to her left. Nick hadn’t shaven, since it was a weekend. His face actually looked softer, despite the stubble. His keen blue eyes watched the road, while Marith stared at the foundations of the church on the cliff. Things quietly started to make sense.

“Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for letting me stay with you.”

“Sure, no problem.”

She knew that it meant more to him than he let on. His boisterous personality and his rugged features had gained an unexpected sensitivity.

At night the shocking fragments of her day kept returning to her until she subsided into a restless sleep. The effortless way Vanessa had swung the axe to Jonathan as he charged towards the mob of blood hungry looters without hesitation. The way he had caught the axe mid-air to protect what his parents had built for him and hurled it at the scum with prodigious accuracy. The way they disappeared into thin air the moment the axe was supposed to bore itself into the front man. All that information circled through her consciousness, until she was circling the sky in her unconsciousness again, unaware more heinous images were about to pollute her mind.

The cotton candy sky was deceitfully sweet, before the last rays of sunshine disappeared behind the mountain range, obscuring the impact crater that contained Sweet Lake to exactly the degree of gloominess in which the Birdman thrived.

The massive monstrous, four-armed bat sat perched on the wooden carcass on top of the cliff, eyeing them, mocking them with his haughty presence. Animalistic anger surged through the bird, from her white tail to her yellow Eagle eyes.

She and her partner had been overcome with the growing and gnawing sense of hollowness that Marith had come to know all too well. Emptiness was all around them. Emptiness was expanding. Desperation would continue to spread until the cure would be ready.

He hadn’t returned to simply bedevil the Eagles. He hadn’t returned to feed on them. After his recovery from their last encounter he had decided to revisit for the ultimate revenge, to put a definite end to their feud.

The unsightly intruder spread his wings in a languid way, to show his dexterity. With one stroke he gained more altitude than the Eagles. He opened the spike filled hole in his face wider and wider as he ascended into the dark sky to introduce them to their faith.

Marith and her partner sped towards the greenery below them in unison. With the speed and agility of fighter jets they shot through branches of pines, hemlocks and red firs. It was all they could do to slow the beast down.

The Eagles weren’t searching this time, they were fleeing. The hunters had become prey. The forest held its breath. The Nutcrackers, Chickadee’s and Junco’s fell silent, rooting for their patrons.

Hiding in a specifically imposing spruce they waited for the right moment. As the leathery monster clambered through the foliage, shearing off branches and harming the bark of more than one tree with its claws, they struck.

The Eagles knew they couldn’t keep fighting and evading this anomalous beast together. They knew they couldn’t postpone the inevitable any longer. They also knew the cause was worthy enough.

As they attacked the Birdman the images of his previous prey flooded their little bird brains. They were violently clapping their wings and scratching and grabbing with their talons, but their assaulter had returned with a vengeance that they didn’t have an answer to. The birds of prey were grabbed, torn apart, slammed into trees and finally sucked into oblivion.

Soon their simple, but courageous minds stretched out across a dimension no human had ever entered and time ceased to exist.

A magnificent display of feathery frenzy is what connected Marith’s Saturday to a well-deserved uneventful Sunday.