Black Locust Letters
Nicolette Jinks
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2015 by NICOLETTE JINKS
NICOLETTE JINKS asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
You may contact the author via email: [email protected] or check in at Twitter, Facebook, Google+, GoodReads. To follow the author, her blog is www.nicolettejinks.wordpress.com, where she writes about writing and life.
Independently Published by author
doing business as Standal Publications
393 River Road Bliss, Idaho 83314
Chapter 1
There are many tales of forbidden love, of fantastical places, of mysteries and murder, of knowledge gained and innocence lost, but they tell most of all, of things that Never Were.
And this? This is another such tale, and it all starts with letters made of fluff from cottonwood trees pressed with spider silk, with words written in grasshopper spit and tree sap, and scented with the white flowers of the black locust. They came to a woman—a human—living in Sunny Glenn within the humming barbed wire confines of a city so secret, the only Commander-in-Chief to know of its existence was the one who named it Sanctuary.
At one point, Sanctuary had been known as Area 71, even then a place of beauty upon the razorlike teeth of jagged mountains and glacier lakes, with forests all around and a night sky so pristine it seemed you could pluck the stars out of their velvet cushion and drink the moonbeams and sleep on a cloud of apple blossoms.
At one time, the houses of Sanctuary were made of stone or brick or wood or perhaps concrete, with gray slate roofs and close cut lawns with carefully edged sidewalks and a steel car fresh from the factory parked out front. The streets were paved with asphalt, the dirt roads neatly surfaced with crushed gravel.
They say that all roads lead to Rome, but that was not exactly the case with Headquarters, as Area 71—as it was then known—happened to have been laid out on a grid system despite the less than accommodating terrain. However, in the central building of the central block of all the paved roads of Area 71, stood Headquarters. They say it was a fine building, constructed of concrete with layers of blast doors, no windows, a perfect rectangle situated so all the walls were equidistant to the opening of the Rift the entire base had been built around. They say that Headquarters was the accumulated intellectual wealth of thirty-two geniuses and it cost a quarter of a million to build. They say that its completion was heralded as the means to end every war on earth.
They say a lot of things about Headquarters but we can't confirm a word of it, because on the very same day that work on it was finished, it imploded into the Rift.
And with the loss of thirty-two geniuses and their accumulated wealth of knowledge, the layers of blast doors, cubic miles of concrete, and the quarter of a million dollars, came the gain of all the things that Never Were.
And things have never been the same since.
The inhabitants of Area 71 found themselves that mid-afternoon—and every mid-afternoon, evening, night, morning, and mid-afternoon again—in a city of structured chaos. In the place of every metal post grew an aspen which quaked in the wind. Slate became draping curtains of wild hops, bricks crumbled to ivy, wood turned to woven willows, pipes became hollowed roots, the porcelain throne remained porcelain and the cast iron ranges remained cast iron with enamel freckles. Furnishings kept their forms, as did all personal affects—except soup spoons which became bogies which took up residence in the walls and soured milk if not placated with a small meal laid out for them in the center of the kitchen floor every night.
The inhabitants of what used to be Area 71 also found their number had doubled: One half of them was as always had been and always would be, as square and solid as Headquarters had been; and the other half as playful and terrifying as the world when the sun closed his eyes for the night and the moon squinted at the world below, half-awake and cranky.
Some of the new inhabitants were huge with teeth like the outline of the mountains silhouetted against the sunset, some were small as a mouse and spread luck good or ill, some sang mournfully upon the shores of the glacier lakes, some would tip a hat and say, “Good day, my dear.” But then there were the others, the ones who would seek the price of your soul, and buy it.
At first, the residents of Area 71 tried to subdue the strangers, but it is said that was ineffectual. Likewise ineffective was their attempts to drive the strangers away or confine them by another method. The newcomers had no rulership, no sense of greater being beyond their territories and the pecking order within their own personal boundaries. The strangers had their own tailors and cobblers and bakers and mailmen—they required nothing of humans and humans required nothing of them. Only the bogies, which had once been soup spoons, demanded anything of their humans and they proved useful for those who treated them well and knew how to ask.
So it was that the obvious conclusion came about: The Things that Never Were ignored the humans, and the humans pretended the Never Weres still Never Were.
But as an ecosystem adjusts to new elements, so does society to its members. Lucy graced the rabbit ears of new Technicolor television sets, Donald taught GIs to put rubbers on their gun barrels, and the bald eagle raced nose to nose with the mother bear to kiss astronaut toes upon the surface of the moon. New geniuses learned the power of atoms and tested it, and the aerial drift of toxins from the salty flats miles away brought the divided community of Area 71 together during a slightly radioactive winter.
Aside from the radioactivity, the residents of Area 71 knew none of what was happening outside the humming fence of their community. Tucked away in the jaws of the mountain ridge as they were, they received no televisions—as the first television sets brought on base had immediately changed into poisonous chimeras. And even if they had one which had remained cathode ray tube and glass and wood, it would have been useless because there was, and still is, no television signal.
With a new level of security stemming from the space race, came a new leadership, and Area 71 was re-filed instead as code name Sanctuary, and Sanctuary began to enforce the draft amongst the Never Weres. As many of them possessed inherently violent natures, they did not mind a greater purpose for their primal bloodlust. The Sanctuary units proved impressive and were often employed during times of non-war.
But, on the day we join Miss Betty Cratchet, there was no such employment and no prospect of anything but peace and boredom for the thrill-seeking Never Weres.
The clock in Sunny Glenn market still read 2:45, but it was nearer to 3 o' clock, and so Betty sat upon her favorite willow bench to watch the gremlins scurry up the tower with their wrenches to change the hands for tea time. Betty had boring blue eyes and somewhat dark hair and her father's military jaw. She was not whiskey in a teacup, nor was she bubbly sweet soda, she was more akin to a cup of hot milk or perhaps spiced eggnog on the days she really had her wits about her. In short, she was best had alone, right before bed, in place of any dessert. Long had she accepted her solitary station in life, but that made it no easier to swallow, and it could not make her home any warmer.
Betty settled her wool on the slender leaves forming living armrests, and dug into her bag for a crochet hook. Black locust perfume wafted from the opening. Betty inhaled and lingered there, eyes closed. It was her favorite smell, but the only ones who would know where the trees themselves when she stood beneath them and pried loose a bunch of white flowers.
Her fingers brushed thick paper. An envelope. She took it carefully out of her bag, holding it by her thumb and forefinger as thou
gh it were a bit of rubbish the alley cat had dug out of the garbage chest in front of her house right before the bogeymen came to collect it immediately after dark. Then she flipped over the letter, tied across the middle with red baling twine, and read the fine scrawl addressing the front, the ink glossy in the afternoon sun.
Her Elegance
Residing at the Blue Door
with the Pot of Towering Sunflowers
on the Steps of the Porch with a Red Swing
Amid a pile of bills to “The Current Resident of 246-O Work One Road”, the letter made her smile and added a charmed touch of color to her cheeks. It made her feel so...so...
Special.
Reality slapped her in the face.
It went against everything she'd ever known. She'd been risking it by living on the edge of Sunny Glenn and Brimstone.
She looked in vain for a place to dispose of the letter. The market didn't have trash bins or chests; they were banned on account of inciting too many fights. For an instant she considered just abandoning the letter on the bench. Footsteps pattered on cobblestones while Betty tamed her heart and she dropped her purse over the letter and told herself that no secret policeman would make his rounds in this part of Sanctuary, and even if he did chance to be here, he wouldn't check her belongings for sign of devils.
Curiosity restored, Betty flipped it from one side to the other and considered that the paper devils used, was flesh taken from those who owed them.
Thus preoccupied, she did not notice the market was too empty for 3 o' clock, a time when it should have bustled, should have been filled with the songs of birds, with the fragrance of chicken grease and pine cones; she did not notice that the things that Never Were weren't taunting one another and testing territories for fresh fruit and mates.
Sunny Glen was made of factories and bank buildings long abandoned and overgrown by honeysuckle and old man's beard. Not too long ago, some say, back when weeds could be cut down and automobiles clogged the streets, humans worked there. A very long time ago, there might have been a glen in the forest with a creek cutting through larkspur and mallow.
Now it was habitat for the things that Never Were. And Betty had forgotten this at a most inconvenient time.
She looked around and finally saw the crows gathered in a circle. They surrounded a solitary crow in the center. As she watched, he cocked his head first one way then the next. He bowed to those around him then his black feathers caught tendrils of light cutting through clouds as he puffed up his chest.
He began his soliloquy.
Betty knew a murder when she saw one, but couldn't look away. Couldn't plug her ears. And she certainly couldn't leave, although she should have.
It held her in a trance, that cawing explanation, keeping her hanging on every hop, every nod to the other crows, every cluck and swoop giving weight to his argument; Betty could not step away, from the very beginning to the very last caw. To her credit, it is often impossible to step away from such things. Not only is it in human nature to observe those things which we really ought not, but it is in Never Were nature to further seduce and sway a person from doing as they had originally planned to do. It was why the kelpies regularly drowned drunks despite the public notice sign by the river and the frequent reminder in the newspapers. It was why even now the fairies stole husbands and wives. There was simply nothing that Betty could have done to leave that circle of crows or to have not heard the victim's final appeal.
The crow in the center swayed, his feathers ruffled. His last words had been said, and he, like those all too still trees and shrubs and streets, waited in silence for the verdict.
Those in the circle looked to one another, turned their beaks this way and that, as though they were holding a conversation with no noises. Betty wondered if the crow might go free. She was blind to his alleged crimes, blind to everything beyond being the one against the many, and she bit her lip while his peers made their silent debate. There was some dissension. Then they settled. Decision made.
Wings unfolded as black capes and they leapt from the ground with a single beat of feathers upon moss-laced mosaic, and as one they descended upon the defendant. Screeches and screams rang through hollow streets as a flurry of feathers gave way to all too human cries of pain and fury.
Only then, with the beating of wings upon the ground and the thumps and grunts of murder in her ears, was Betty able to yank herself away and run. Betty ran until her lungs burned and her ankle ached. Still she pressed on. She ran, and she ran, not knowing if she was followed yet presuming that she was and that she ran for her life, until she ran weak-kneed and gasping into a man in a grey-brown suit.
He grunted and caught her by her elbows, which was good; otherwise she would have slid to the ground and soiled her skirt. Betty swiped her eyes with her sleeve and was too breathless to form an apology, too lost in panic to think to check to whom she was speaking.
“Are you well?” The stranger's light city accent broke through Betty's disoriented consciousness, and he looked down a heavy nose into her eyes.
Betty's first thought was to try to run more, but that was impossible. Then she wondered at his concern, wondered why he was not angry. She heard the slowing drone of footsteps, coming to a stop behind her.
No one, not even a Never Were, wanted a witness.
Betty turned to face the young crow who had chased her, an ashen-faced youth with a malicious smile and sprightly swing to his arms. Feathers dangled in his hair when he swept dreadlocks back from his face.
“Murder?” … guessed the man standing beside her.
Betty flinched.
The crow flashed her a grin. Betty's legs turned to gelatin. Then the crow said to the man, “He will not break the code again.”
The man in the grey-brown suit dipped his head, then said, “And your interest in this one?”
“Just a chase; all a bit of fun.”
The man stared at him.
“If you do not mind...?” The crow jerked his head.
Betty wondered if she could use her shoe's heel as a weapon, but then the man pulled her into his chest and made a quick motion.
The crow hesitated, and the man responded with a stare. The crow shrugged and walked back the direction he came.
“Fun, indeed,” said the man and let Betty stand on her own again. She swayed.
It started to rain. He opened up an umbrella, and held out his arm, which Betty took out of habit rather than by conscience choice of will. Just then, she started shivering.
“You must take care. You need a warm drink and a dry roof.” The man looked to the sky as rain started hitting the mossy path they stood on. His eyes gleamed and he tilted his head. “Come, come. There's a diner around the corner. They'll see you're tended-to.”
Betty's legs felt weak from shock and stiff from running, and her teeth chattered. A guilty part of her purred to be given such undivided attention as they hustled down Vandermeer Lane while rain came heavier and heavier.
Chapter 2
None too soon, they squashed together into a section of a rotating glass door and entered Sammy's Diner. They sat in the booth with the furnace blowing hot air out from under the seat, and a teenaged girl with bad cases of freckles and giggles alike came to take their orders then left again. Betty's savior looked less like the dashing heroes in the penny shows and more like a scarecrow, with his gangly long legs and arms and expressive hands. Quick, bright eyes the same copper-flecked hue as the amber stone admired Betty with a message whose meaning she couldn't fathom, just was entranced by.
He wasn't handsome in the classical sense, nor in the artistic-angst-sort of way, not even in the stout, bad-boy Gemmy manner. His chin was too fine, fit for a lady rather than a man, his cheek bones tolerable if little else, his nose an ungainly hook too refined to be Eastern European, and his brow swept back rather than strong. There should have been nothing found desirable and everything to be desired; yet, for some inexplicable reason, the exact opposite was tr
ue.
The waitress brought peach pie a la mode and a hot chocolate, and a crumble coffee cake with blackberry tea. Betty sank her fork through the crisp golden crust and mingled a peach slice with the melted vanilla ice cream. Within three bites, her mood turned jovial and she said with a blush, “Thank you for your kindness.”
The man across from her smiled. “It was my pleasure to meet you. Clarkin Hannah, at your service.”
Betty tried not to cough at the Never Were greeting. What sort of demon had saved her from the crows? She reached for her cocoa, drank too fast, and scorched her tongue. Clarkin didn't notice, he was too busy watching her with that steady gaze. Who else was in the diner? An old woman with her knitting needles and a young couple. No one had noticed her odd companion.
Betty ate her pie; glad that Clarkin's gaze wandered over the red vinyl bar stools and bright chrome rods accenting the lips of tables. Sammy's Diner was new, trending, and a man in striped overalls was in the corner installing a jukebox. Every now and then, music poured across stainless steel tables and black and white floor tiles, and Clarkin would stop eating and listen to it.
“Some people don't like machines playing music,” she said. Demons in particular didn't like machines. Brownies hated anything new, even if it was a blouse. Gremlins itched to grab tools and dig in to dissect and perfect whatever moving parts it could have.
Clarkin smiled. “So long as sweet melodies are made, I cannot help but adore the things which make it.”
Betty didn't know what to make of that response, so she ate the last of her pie.
Clarkin motioned to the door by tipping his head. “Shall we go?”
While Betty stood and pulled on her coat, Clarkin dropped a five on the table and nestled it under a plate. Betty started to object, but reasoned that her smallest bill was a five, as well, and so she dropped a few quarters down as a tip. Clarkin helped her with her scarf, lifting her walnut locks over the silk collar of her coat. At five foot five inches, Betty considered herself neither tall nor short, but as he began to tie her scarf, she realized that he wasn't quite six foot, which surprised her as his proportions implied a tall man. His finger brushed her cheek, on accident or purpose she couldn't tell, and it set her to blushing.
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