Nestor took a deep breath. This was it. He twisted the key in his hand. Gram had entrusted him with some, but not all, of the details he needed in understanding what he was about to see. Still questions, so many questions, left unanswered. When he pressed her, all she had mentioned was that jigsaw puzzles were more than the sum of their pieces, and patience precedes the full picture.
Nestor was more of a checkers kind of guy himself.
He paused just outside the faded door. He wanted to savor those last few moments of ignorance. Whatever lay behind the door, he needed to remember that Gram was a person like everyone else, and like everyone else, was entitled to her share of secrets.
He just hoped he could handle them.
He opened the door.
He surveyed the tiny room. When Gram had talked about dabbling in inventing, she wasn’t kidding. The floor was littered with gears and wires and thingamabobs for which Nestor didn’t know the names. The complicated machinery on the simple wooden desk, however, was neatly arranged, giving wide berth to a single fountain pen.
Nestor sighed in relief. He would marvel at some of the inventions and scrawled blueprints, maybe even be bemused by others, but the instructions were clear—to the trash heap they go. After emptying the cramped workspace, as Gram presumably wanted, and letting the lawyer know he was finished, he could finally return to doing what he did best: drifting through life.
“So you’re Nestor. Edna has told me so much about you! She’s right, you do need a haircut.”
Nestor looked around. “Who said that?” He grabbed the pen from the desk, prepared to use it against the unseen intruder. Of course, he’d probably just toss it as a distraction and run, but the trespasser need not know that.
“Ow, stop squeezing me so tight! I know my daughter has taught you manners, so use them!”
Nestor loosened his grip, allowing the pen to slip out and levitate at eye level. He furrowed his brow. “I’ve heard your voice in home movies. You must be . . . Gramps?”
“Gramps? I like it! Short and snazzy. Say it again!”
“You’re my . . . Gramps? As in, married to Gram?” So this was one of the . . . interesting inventions she warned he might find.
“I didn’t introduce myself, did I? Darn it, I had years to practice this meeting, and I go and botch it. Let’s not tell your grandma, okay?”
Nestor shook his head at the floating pen before him. “I’m sorry, but Gram died recently.”
“I know! Isn’t that great? Now we’ve both passed!”
This conversation was getting too morbid. “This conversation is getting too morbid.”
“No, no, son, you have it all wrong. We’ve both passed . . . into these pens! Sentient little monsters, she calls us.” He chuckled.
Monsters. Everything clicked. Nestor rubbed his temples and plopped in the desk chair. Gramps floated over. “Grams read the abridged version of Frankenstein to me as a kid. A lot. It wasn’t just her favorite story, was it? It was an inspirational bible.”
“What a smart boy! No wonder she entrusted you with this responsibility.” Uh-oh. Nestor fought the urge to run. A simple promise was one thing. A responsibility? Now that was another ballfield. He still preferred checkers.
“I think you need to start from the beginning, Gramps.”
“Gladly. You know, your grandma always told me I was a man of few words. Or was it that she wished I was? Well, I’ll try to be brief.
“Gram had a true gift for inventing, and I mean once-in-a-generation talent. In another time and place, engineering schools would’ve showered her with scholarships and fancy equipment and whatever, but those opportunities weren’t available to her in our day.
“Lack of outside support never stopped her, however. She continued innovating, privately, and I agreed to tell nobody, not even our children. We cleared out the smallest guest bedroom, and renovated it into a mini-laboratory that became her haven for decades.
“We took the secret of this lab’s existence to our graves. Er, pens. I still don’t understand half of her work, but I do know she was always trying to do important things, and made some real progress. Gram, who really was searching for immortality—I wasn’t lying about that—found it. A glitchy form of it.”
“Glitchy?”
“Hey, I like to be hip with the cool kids’ lingo. And I know what a computer is, Gram made sure of that. Couldn’t use the mouse, though, and dang it if those things mocked me until electronic styluses became all the rage. Ha! I can transform into a stylus pen at will. Who’s laughing now, electronic rodents!”
“Gramps? You were talking about immortality?”
“Right. So these matching his-and-hers fountain pens we bought together on our honeymoon had the power to absorb our souls. Deep stuff, right? Gram discovered it after the kids moved out.
“One day I was using the pen I’m in now to do a crossword, and absentmindedly bit of a nice chunk of my candy bar. It lodged in my throat, and my breathing completely stopped. I found myself inside the pen, looking out at my body, yelling for Gram to administer first aid. It worked, and I returned to my fantastic earthly physique for many more years.
“I don’t why or how these pens allow us to live forever. She performed experiments and, using mathematical methods, learned the pens only work on us. I told her it was the power of our everlasting love. She said it was a singularity in the space-time continuum that aligned with the stars, or something like that.
“She did her science-magic-whatever and programmed the pens to receive our minds and souls when we died. We can talk and move around as we wish, but I elected to stay indoors all these years. Your Gram never perfected teleportation, and I don’t think the world is ready for a walking, talking pen yet. There’d be widespread panic. But not with robots. You young people love your robots, those big, boxy clunks over our fancy, fountain sleekness. It’s downright discriminatory, I tell you! Anyhoo, that’s it.”
Nestor still had one question left. “Why couldn’t she tell me all this earlier?”
“She didn’t want to give you the whole story ahead of time, just in case all this didn’t work. That way, you would’ve thought we just moved on, and couldn’t blame yourself for us not ‘making it’ to the pens. She always cared about others’ feelings more than her own, for better or for worse.”
“Sounds like Gram. By the way . . . where is she? I don’t see her pen on the desk.”
“Have you given me great-grandchildren yet? How many kids you got by now? Six? Seven?”
“Gramps, I don’t have even have one! Now where’s Gram? It’s been a long time since I’ve talked to her.” Months, he was ashamed to admit.
“No great-grandchildren!” He scoffed. “Now I don’t have to worry about what they’ll call me. I was partial to Greatest Gramps or Super G . . . ”
“Gramps! I mean no disrespect but. What. Happened. To. Gram.”
Gramps started inching away. “Can’t we talk about this later? I have to use the pens’ room. ‘When the ink doth flow, you’ve got to go,’ as William Shakespen probably said.”
Nestor raised an eyebrow. “Do you really have to go, Gramps, or are you just stalling?”
“Fine.” He paused. “Gram left. We were arguing about who sleeps on which side of the desk. We have our share of tiffs, like all couples do. Like when your Gram decided we needed to eat healthier, and she gave me veggie burgers every day. Boy, was she mad when she discovered I replaced the whole grain buns with sliced doughnuts! That was a bad idea. I should have used glazed, not sprinkles.”
Nestor was growing impatient. “Gramps, I’m serious. Tell me where Gram went, or I will tear this house apart looking for her.”
“There’s no need,” said a voice from the hall. “I’m right here.”
Nestor jumped out of the chair. In the doorway floated a pen identical to the one before him. “Gram? Is that you?”
“Edna! I’m so happy you returned!”
She entered the room with a pre
sence far greater than her size. “I was just downstairs, watching Nestor from afar. As for you, mister—I’ll stay for good, too, as long as you promise to stop being so stubborn and ornery!”
“Never!”
Nestor dropped his face into his open palms.
Gram cackled. “There’s my crabby Quinton! I’ve missed you, too!”
Nestor asked, “Do I want to know what just happened here?”
“Over fifty years of marriage, dear,” said Gram. “And to a lifetime of many more.”
“Enough with the mushiness! Now that Edna’s returned, it’s time to get down to business.” He floated next to his wife. “Nestor, we can’t live here after you sell the house, so we have another favor to ask you.” Gramps took a deep breath. “We need you to bring us someplace we can spend eternity. Somewhere fun.”
“Somewhere practical,” Gram countered. “We’re technologically advanced pens! We can’t just fly around where we want, or we’ll find ourselves captured and dissected node by node in a secret government lab. That’s why we need someone we trust to transport us to our eternal hiding place. Now, if we were robots, they’d accept us everywhere.”
“That’s what I said! So we need somewhere less inhabited. Like a tropical island. Or the bayous of Pen-sacola?” Gramps chuckled.
“Quinton, mind your puns! This is serious. We’re talking about our eternity here. We have to be realistic about Nestor finding us our forever home. We can’t expect him to drop everything and run to Tahiti because you want to swim with dolphins. If he’s going to help us relocate, it’s going to have to be on his terms and with his input.”
Nestor crossed his arms. “Gram? Gramps? This makes no sense. I didn’t want to say anything earlier but—why me? Our family is huge, and full of accomplished people. It’s one thing to clean a house; it’s another to decide where you two are going to live forever.”
“Because, Nestie”—few people could get away with using that nickname, and Gram was at the top of the list—“we can depend on you. I love my kids, but they’re too unimaginative to handle this situation. You might not believe it yet, but you are a good person, and I know you’ll do right by us. I truly believe that. I always have, and I always will.”
That little seed of faith Gram had planted so many years ago had finally blossomed. She had believed in him when his own parents thought he was a failure. She was always the one telling him he could do it, he could commit, he could succeed, whether it was in school or work, regardless of his shoddy track record. Gram had such tremendous confidence in him that he had to reciprocate somehow. The woman had been sacrificing for everyone her whole life—it was her turn to be on the receiving end.
“You know what, Gram? I don’t want the house sold. This is your and Gramps’ home. You should live here.”
“We can’t do that,” Gramps said sadly. “An eternally empty house would look suspicious, and we can’t afford attention. Or the insurance.”
Nestor knew exactly what he was going to do. “Then I’ll live here. We’ll be housemates. We’ll set schedules and divvy up the rooms, so we’ll still have privacy. We’ll work it out.”
“That’s wonderful!” said Gram. Are you sure that’s what you want? It’s okay if you change your mind.”
“I really hope you don’t.”
“Don’t influence him, Quinton! He needs to make the best decision for himself.”
Nestor felt giddy. A home, a place where he belonged, a chance to plant some roots. He couldn’t take off at a moment’s notice, but he didn’t want to anymore. He wanted the obligation of family. He needed it. “I’m as sure as I’ve been of anything in my life.”
“Get me some paper, Nestor.” He obliged. She scribbled a quick will dated after the lawyer’s version. “Take this to the lawyer.”
Nestor grabbed the paper. “Gram, you forged a notary’s signature!”
“Oh, hush. I’m a fabulous, immortal fountain pen and I can do whatever I want! What are they going to do, throw me in the pen-itentiary?”
Gramps roared. “There’s my bride! Come here, my sweet.”
The pens floated closer together. “Last chance to bow out, Nestor. File those papers and the house can’t be sold for a century,” said Gram.
Nestor grinned. “I’m going. Be back later.” For once, responsibility felt good.
“Be a dear and close the door on your way out, Nestie.”
“Yeah, give us some privacy! We’ve got lots of canoodling to catch up on.”
“Ew, Gramps,” he said with a laugh.
“Now go on. Shoo!” said Gram.
As Nestor locked the front door, his cellphone rang. “Hello? I finished cleaning up, Mom. Listen, I need to run to the lawyer. I found some important documents that weren’t filed. Yes, I did clear out Gram’s secret room. The secret? Nothing to write home about, Mom—just some old tools, papers, and a couple of really wonderful fountain pens.”
M. R. DeLuca is a short story writer with over a half-dozen publishing credits to her name. She is from New York and enjoys writing plot twists, humorous dialogue, and a brief author bio.
Write Me a Soul
Jennifer Lee Rossman
Page 1
You should have known better. No, scratch that. You did know better, but you wrote her into existence anyway, and now you have to deal with the consequences.
But how? How do you even begin to “deal with” a mistake of this magnitude?
Mistake. You shake your head. No, she is not a mistake. She is perfection, from her slicked-back hair the color of a black hole to her leather jacket to her pointed nose that’s just a little crooked from where your pen slipped.
Maybe she’s not what most people would think of when they imagine their perfect woman, but she’s your perfect woman, a distillation of all those cartoon villains that gave you confusing feelings back when you were a little baby queer.
And she has fangs, because . . . well, because some part of your subconscious apparently has a thing for fangs.
Hopefully she doesn’t think you created her for any creepy reason. You don’t expect anything from her, except maybe friendship if she’s up for that.
You can’t help but be proud of yourself for describing her so well, though, right down to the way she draws her mouth into a tight line when she’s thinking. Every part of her, every movement is so real, you can hardly tell she’s made of nothing but ink, ideas, and a little bit of magic.
But she can tell. She knows she doesn’t have a soul.
You’ve spent all morning writing in your notebook, filling it with possible ways to help her. And because you’ve been writing with that pen, you can see every scenario unfolding in your mind like a second sight. It honestly makes your stomach queasy, having such power.
So. What do you do?
Break the pen (page 2)
Use the pen to try and help her (page 3)
Page 2
You know it’s a bad idea, but you don’t second-guess yourself. The pen puts up little resistance, snapping in your hand.
You expect ink to spill out, turn your skirt into a Rorschach test. (You would see sea monsters; you always do.) But the pen is magic.
Was magic.
You’ve never refilled it, never had to shake it or breathe on the tip to make it flow. And didn’t it always have exactly the right color, whether you wanted black or blue or rainbow glitter? Maybe it shouldn’t surprise you that the pen simply crumbles into ash and blows away on a breeze that comes from nowhere.
Your hands feel empty as your heart. It’s gone. It’s gone, and with it, all the beautiful mistakes you would have made in the future.
But you could have made good things, too. Wondrous machines to save lives, never-ending supplies of food and clothing.
Your eyes flick to her, and you feel her crushing disappointment. You should’ve tried to help her, not cut your losses and give up.
In the coming days and weeks, you try to make her happy. You play games, make
her breakfast, anything you can think of to make her smile and show off those rows of pointed teeth.
She tells you she’s all right, that she doesn’t need to be happy, and you pretend to believe her because that’s what friends do.
When she cries, her tears are like ink.
END
Page 3
“It’s magic,” you tell her, holding the pen in your hand for dear life.
You could tell her the story of how it came to be in your possession. The group home, the found family, the adopted bloodline and the “you’re a wizard, Harry” jokes. But you think it’s more important to show her.
You ask her what she wants you to write into existence.
“Flowers,” she says after a moment, almost reluctantly. Like she doesn’t want you to know she’s soft inside.
“Flowers.” You smile, grab a scrap of paper, and begin to write.
White anemones with black centers. Graceful white petals curling, cupping a lacy black eye. Bouquet spilling over a bride’s hands, tied up with ribbons. Modern. Bold. Romance.
You’ve hardly finished your thought, and you already smell them. A second later, they appear next to you on the desk, the weight of all the flower heads slightly crushing the petals at the bottom.
With a soft gasp, she picks them up, marvels at them and buries her face in their aroma.
She has just one question. “Can you write me a soul?”
Confidently say yes (turn to page 4)
Say yes, uncertainly (turn to page 5)
Page 4
You open a new notebook. One of many blank notebooks you bought but never dared to use because it was just too pretty. Not worthy of whatever drivel you would put in it.
This, though. This is worthy. Hell, the notebook might not even be good enough. You’re putting a soul inside of it; no notebook could be good enough, but this one will have to do.
On the first, crisp white page, you put the tip of the pen to paper.
Soul. Spirit. That indefinable spark of life. The fire burning in your heart. The 3-D glasses on your heart that makes the world real.
Community of Magic Pens Page 24