Seaview Historical Society

A House by the Ocean

When Ramona had been picking her wedding dresses, her mother, a loving but practical woman, had tried to steer her to something sleek and modern. But Ramona had dreamed of her fairy tale wedding her entire life. She hadn’t wanted a wedding dress, she had wanted a wedding gown. Something white and made of lace and taffeta, with lots of layer and a big hoop skirt. She had wanted Lloyd to dress as her prince charming, her bridesmaid to be her ladies in waiting, and to walk down the aisle to a string quartet playing “So This is Love.” She had gotten it, and she had never regretted it.

Until this very second, driving into charming and historic Seaview, with Loretta sitting in the passenger seat of her crossover, practically drowning in waves upon waves of white fabric. Even without the hoop skirt – which had been lost in one move or another, and thank salty Jesus for that – the bottom half of the gown completely filled the foot well. She looked like she was sitting in a jar of marshmallow fluff. No, she looked like she was on her way to get married. But there was no wedding. So she just looked crazy. Ramona hadn’t even offered her the veil.

“We are going quite fast, aren’t we?” Loretta asked, her voice wavering.

“Not really,” Angie said from the back. “It’s only thirty-five. Wait until you see how fast we go on highways.”

Ramona looked at her through the rearview. “She’s not going to see that, because we’re going to get her home. Today.”

Noah was in the middle seat, phone in his face, as per usual. He sat forward, tugging on his seatbelt.

“It says here they didn’t have Coke or cheeseburgers in the 1860s,” Noah said.

“We are not getting McDonalds,” Ramona said. “Think about all the preservatives in that, her stomach couldn’t handle it.” She was never going to wear it again, but she still didn’t want anyone blowing chunks all over her nice dress.

Noah sat back in his seat, still searching through his phone. Any excuse to not have to eat his mother’s cooking, apparently.

Downtown Seaview was like every other ‘historic’ downtown in America. Small, quaint, full of bullshit stores that sold small, quaint bullshit and anything they could slap an American flag on. It was high tourist season, and to find parking Ramona had to pull onto a side street and squeeze in between two identical silver Toyota Camrys with Massachusetts plates.

“Angie and Noah, help Loretta out of the car while I get Winnie. And try not to rip anything!”

They met on the thin sidewalk. Loretta was pressed up against the bricks, and some little part of Ramona’s brain was chanting the bricks the bricks the lace the lace the bricks the lace the bricks the lace but there were too many other things to care about so she pushed the chant down. Out of habit she pressed the button on the fob to lock the car, and the tiny little beep that came from somewhere under the door made Loretta jump.

“There’s so many people here,” she said, wonder lifting her voice. “I haven’t seen this many people in the same place since I left Boston.”

Angie rolled her eyes. “Please, like Boston is big or something.”

“I want to hold Loretta’s hand!”

“It says here the Civil War ended in 1865. Does that mean your husband was a soldier?”

Ramona pinched the bridge of her nose. “Angie, don’t be mean! Winnie, I honestly don’t know if you can reach her hand over her skirts. Noah…don’t ask questions like that in front of other people but I like that you’re looking up history. Come on.”

The five of them walked down Main Street in the direction Ramona was eighty percent was correct. She led the group, partly because she (sort of) knew where she was going, and partly to avoid the embarrassment. The few times she looked back she found Loretta walking down the center of the sidewalk, surrounded by fluffy white skirts that took over nearly all the space from the curb to the wall, all while her smallest child clung to Loretta’s  hand and suffered skirts in her face to do it. Tourists passing had to press up against the buildings or step off into the parking lane between cars to avoid her. Of course, Loretta didn’t notice any of this, her face awestruck as she tried to see everything on Main Street at the same time. When she finally saw what they were looking for, Ramona practically stepped on a four year old to lunge for it.

The Seaview Historical Society was tucked between Hattie’s General Store and Just Maine Things, both of which seemed to be displaying the exact same collection of moose and lobster themed t-shirts in their windows. The windows of the Historical Society were mostly bare in comparison, with just a few fliers for tours and events.

Inside was a mostly empty space with a few desks scattered here and there. Large maps and old paintings of Seaview adorned the walls. A single woman was sitting at the desk furthest to the back. She was maybe Ramona’s mother’s age, white hair pulled loosely at her neck. She was bent over something as they came in, her head jerking up when she heard the bells of the door. The woman stood up, putting her smart phone on her desk, and watching as they filed in.

The woman frowned. “Do you need directions?”

“No.” Ramona shook her head. “We-”

“Oh, well, we don’t have a public bathroom, if that’s what you’re after. You’ll have to go to the pizza place on the corner.”

Ignoring the way her son’s face lit up, Ramona pressed on.

“No, actually…this is the Historical Society, right?”

A shocked smile crossed the woman, making her look ten years younger.

“You actually want to be here,” she muttered to herself. She fumbled with her phone and a lanyard, putting one in her pocket and trying to hang the other around her neck until she realized she had swapped them. Carrying her phone, she came around the desk. “I’m Mrs. Reed. Did you want a tour?”

“Not a tour, but we do have questions,” Loretta said. Winnie was still pressed up against the skirts, determined to hold her hand even as the fabric folded around her face. Mrs. Reed looked at the two like a grandmother.

“Playing dress up with the youngest, isn’t that cute? I would do that when my grandkids came up to visit.”

“Yes! Dress up!” Damn it, why didn’t I think of that? “We moved into the McEnnis House, over on Highland Road, and-”

“Oh, such a lovely place. A bit of a fixer upper, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, you could say. So we were wondering-”

“My dear, I forgot! We have something very special for the kids who are interested in history!”

Mrs. Reed was already scurrying back to her desk, otherwise she might have caught Ramona gritting her teeth. The kids didn’t notice, either. Even Angie perked up – who wouldn’t at the scent of something free – and had started following Mrs. Reed. Winnie didn’t want to let go of Loretta’s hand and tried to drag her with her, Loretta managing a look of sympathy before attentively following the six year old.

“I know they’re in this drawer…I think I have some left…we just don’t get as many kids as we used to…where…ah!”

Mrs. Reed stood back from her desk, shoulders high, and held out three plastic cards, the size of a library card. Each of her kids took one, and Ramona peered over Angie’s shoulder.

“Member of the Seaview Junior Historical Society,” it said in bright blue letters. Next to it was a mess of pixels that was probably the town crest but could have been a smudged bird.

“Are there…dues, or something?” Ramona asked. Angie and Noah were staring at each other with that unfriendly look they had gotten very good at, while Winnie had handed hers to Loretta.

Mrs. Reed shook her head so hard her hair became unclipped. “No, not for the children! All they need is an inquisitive mind. Well, go on, look on the other side!”

Noah flipped his over and his eyes went wide. He scurried over to Ramona, holding the card out to her. On the back was a list of eight places in town.

“‘Elroy’s Pizza, free cheese slice,’” Noah read out. “‘Scoops, free waffle cone!’”

“They’re good all year!” Mrs. Reed said, beaming. “And if someone doesn’t want to honor that, you come right here and tell me, I’ll set them straight. I was saving those three for my grandkids, but then my daughter decided they just ‘didn’t want to come’ this year, and it’s not like I’ve got the money lying around to get out to Texas, so…”

Mrs. Reed laughed as she rubbed her hands together, perhaps realizing she had said too much. Ramona instructed her kids to say thanks, trying to move the conversation forward. She very much wanted to get some answers and get out of there.

“What are your grandkids’ names?” Loretta asked.

Murder is fun.

While Mrs. Reed and Loretta chatted about her grandkids and how big they were getting and whether or not they would like to play with Ramona’s kids, Ramona tried very hard not to chew her nails. She compensated by shifting from foot to foot. Until she noticed Angie doing the same thing.

You’re supposed to get my good habits, not my bad ones.

“Anyway,” Mrs. Reed said, pulling a tear from her laughter away from her face. “What was it that brought you all in today?”

“We moved into the McEnnis House, and we were curious about the young wife that went missing?” Ramona said it all as fast as she could, for fear of being interrupted again.

Mrs. Reed tutted. “Yes, very sad. Her husband was lost at sea in the spring of 1868. There are accounts of her after in some of the locals’ journals. A Mrs. Johnson seemed deadset on getting her to marry her son.”

“I knew it,” Loretta said.

“Well, I, uh,” Mrs. Reed sputtered. “Besides that we don’t know much. Late that summer her house staff came in one morning and she was just gone.”

“And there’s no record of m- of her after?” Loretta asked.

“Not here in town. The house stood empty for a few months, in case she or her husband turned up. Eventually they found the wreck of her husband’s ship, but never her.”

“Maybe she went somewhere else? Started a new life?” Ramona asked.

“I guess maybe, but I wouldn’t know,” Mrs. Reed said, shrugging. “I’m the Seaview Historical Society.”

Loretta hid a sniffle and stood up straight. “Thank you, Mrs. Reed, you’ve been very helpful. I hope you get to see your grandkids at Christmas.”

“Come visit, anytime! We do all sorts of events!” Mrs. Reed called after them.

Back outside, filling the sidewalk, and no closer to an answer. She gave Loretta the side eye.

“Did you have to ask her about her grandkids?”

Loretta looked at her with confusion. “She seemed very much to want to talk about them. That her daughter didn’t bring them this year has obviously made her sad. She didn’t seem to get many visitors, so I thought maybe just talking for a few minutes would brighten her day.”

Ramona crossed her arms in front of her, stepping back and forth, trying to come up with an argument that didn’t make her sound like a monster.

“Can we get pizza?” Noah suddenly asked, shoving his head between them.

“It’s not even ten o’clock,” Ramona said. “And we’ve got one more store to find.”

Previous Next

Hot Take: Movies Are Pretty Good, Actually

Fuck, I miss the movies.

There seems to be this idea, among people who consider themselves casual movie watchers, that if someone says they are really into movies they must mean they watch sophisticated movies. Oscar nominations. Film festival indies. Black and white classics. Silent films. Like there’s an entire mahogany shelf in the middle of my living room with nothing but The Godfather on Blu-Ray in the middle of it, a tasteful spotlight pointing directly at the case. Like, not only do I watch these “higher-class” movies, it’s all I watch, and if you tried to get me into a Batman movie at gunpoint I’d instead bite on my cyanide-filled fake molar.

This is only coming from personal experience, and maybe I’m reading too much into it. I feel like I’ve had some iteration of this conversation with every new coworker I have ever met.

New Coworker: So, what do you like to do for fun?

Me: Oh, my husband and I see a lot of movies, we try to go once a week!

New Coworker: Oh, so did you see Highfalutin Oscar Nom Movie That Came Out Last Week?

Me: No, last week we saw Marvel’s Newest Seizure.

New Coworker: …because Oscar Nom was sold out?

Me: No, we just wanted to see the Marvel movie more.

New Coworker: So you’ll see it next week?

Me: I mean, maybe? But we’ll probably see Remake of Nineties Sitcom Into an Action Movie, that one’s getting some good press.

New Coworker, now crying: O…kay.

What I’m saying is, there’s this expectation with some people that if you go out of your way to specify that you like watching movies, then you must mean something “better” than the stuff they’re watching. And I can’t speak for everyone, but that’s not what I mean at all.

Is There a ‘Gastropub’ Equivalent for Movie Theaters?

As with all things, I blame foodies. Or, rather, this concept of ‘foodies’ that I don’t think exists as broadly as magazine editors want us to think. You know, the stately, refined, sort of high-pitched and prissy type, definitely holier-than-thou, stalking city streets in search of the most exquisite foods to sate his delicate palate, in his waistcoat and expensive Italian shoes. This ‘foodie’ or ‘gastronome’ as he most certainly prefers to be called will only eat at restaurants that are a) reserved out for months, b) owned by certain household-name chefs, and c) only take the Amex Black card. He holds his breath when he drives past a McDonalds and he doesn’t tip.

I’m sure there are some people out there like this. Remember kids, if you can dream up an asshole, that asshole is out there somewhere, waiting to cut you off in traffic. But, really, a foodie is just someone who likes to eat for the sake of trying new things. I don’t think there’s anything in the Foodie Oath that says it is has to be expensive food, or hard to find food, or fucking deconstructed. Anybody who has eaten at every fast food joint and has Opinions on who has the better burger/fries combo could be a foodie.

You know who’s a foodie? Guy Fucking Fieri.

The Fierissance

If you hadn’t heard, we’re all on board with Guy Fieri now, and the fact that we weren’t sooner is a moral failing on all of our parts. Just because he looks like ska music was personified and then immediately electrocuted we all decided he was stupid and ignorable, and then he had the audacity to make a television show specifically about the fattiest, greasiest food across the country, just because that’s the kind of food he’s passionate about, so we just threw him in the trash and mocked him relentlessly, like we’re all above eating barbeque brisket or a double bacon cheeseburger every once in a while. I don’t know him, and I can’t find much about his personal life to tell me what kind of dude he is in real life, but basically we all judged a book by its donkey sauce and we should be ashamed of ourselves.

My Point is That I’m Into Movies the Same Way Guy Fieri is a Foodie.

Have you ever actually seen an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives? That man loses his got-danged mind over a meat-lover’s pizza with the exact same breathless enthusiasm any of those other Food Network stars get excited about a mother sauce. He fawns over these cooks and chefs the same way that kid down the hall in your college dorm who always dressed in black and listened to nothing but classical piano would fawn over Rachmaninov. Guy Fieri is out there right this second, standing over the shoulder of a dude who owns a restaurant in a strip mall, drooling on his shirt, waiting for this absolute master of his craft to be done with a motherfucking biscuits and gravy burrito so he can deep throat it and scream in ecstasy about mouth feel the same way the douche your roommate is dating screams for complete silence every time he decides he needs to watch Citizen Kane again.

Guy Fieri is a man who appreciates the passion and the artistry that go into the foods your everyday John and Jane Schlub are enjoying. That’s how I am with movies.

For the record, I do see Oscar nominated movies and indie darlings. I paid money to see The Lighthouse, and the last movie Peter and I got to see in an actual movie theater before the pandemic shut all joy down was Portrait of a Lady on Fire and we loved it. It’s just that I’ve also seen all the Marvel movies in theaters. And the Mission Impossible’s. And every Fast and Furious movie. I love horror movies like It Follows and Midsommar. I also love slasher movies and Insidious or whatever Blumhouse is putting out these days. My favorite movies are Jojo Rabbit, Goon, and Into the Spider-Verse. I love camp. I love schlock. I’ve seen Twister and Con Air more times than I can count because in the ‘90’s and ‘00’s they were my ‘if I find this on cable somewhere I’m watching it now, no questions asked’ movies.

I’m not putting forth some opinion like ‘the movies for the everyman are better than the movies for the elite.’ I’m not trying to put forth any general opinions on movies whatsoever. I’m trying to say:

When I Say I Love Movies, I Mean I Love All Movies

I love going to the theater and getting snacks and sitting in my seat and getting that excited, goosy feeling when the lights go down.

I love the trailers, and getting to view the challenge of being able to condense a movie down to two and a half minutes and have it be inviting and mysterious at the same time.

I don’t like when people talk in a movie because they’re distracted but I fucking love when people audibly react to the movie: gasps, cheers, screams, that one time in Chronicle when the teenager two rows in front of me went, “I know they did not just kill the black guy first.”

I love getting so into a movie I completely dissociate from reality and walk back to my car in a daze.

I love seeing movies alone, sitting in an insulated bubble, knowing I’m the only whose joy from this movie I’m in charge of, and no one will distract me.

I love seeing a movie with my husband, and then going to a restaurant or bar and dissecting the movie for nuance or hidden features, and if this one sounds elitist please note the movie that had us talking for the longest was X-Men: Apocalypse.

I love watching terrible movies at home, having fun with how ridiculous they are.

Movies are a passion of mine, something I don’t think I would ever want to write for but also something I’m never going to get tired of watching. The next time I tell someone I like movies, I need to find a way to convey what I mean: not like some slim critic in a weird looking hat and smoking four cigarettes at the same time creaming himself over the latest inscrutable black and white feature from someone we’re all pretty sure is a space alien anyway, but like Guy Fieri, standing mercilessly behind whatever director Disney managed to snag for their next Star Wars movie and salivating behind their backs until I can watch all the pretty nonsense and scream about the meaning of the lightsaber’s color.

A Pleasant Day Spent Searching

Gerald cut through the forest like the yellow tang in the fish tank in his dentist’s waiting room. Quick. Silent. Every step carefully calculated. Slipping around bushes and under tree branches. Avoiding fallen twigs, rocks, even leaves. What if he supposed a leaf to be soft and then he stepped on it and it made an unholy crunch that bounced about the forest like a pinball in one of the pinball machines in the basement of Paddy’s? No good, no good. Gerald needed utmost silence. Even his breathing he kept soft and shallow.

It was here, in these woods. Had it been anyone else, he would have thought them a braggart and a liar. Who would believe it? Such a thing so far east? But he had followed tips from SassyBird on the forums twice before, and both times he had found what he was looking for. The others in the chat seemed to ignore or sometimes even mock SassyBird. Lord knows he had rolled his eyes when their first tip had come through. But there had been nothing going on for Gerald that weekend – Reese was gone for a work trip and his bowling league had been cancelled due to a catastrophic failure of the pinsetter whipping pins down the lanes and taking out a ten year old’s birthday party – so he had come out to the forest. It had taken a few hours, but by God he had found it.

Gerald came across a creek and sat down on a nice, flat stone. It was a hot day, the sun strong even through the trees, but the creek was mostly snowmelt and the temperature around it was refreshingly cool. Gerald could feel the sweat at the back of his neck icing up. With easy movements he put his backpack at his feet and took from it his battered book. His camera was already strung around his neck. He’d already botched one picture opportunity, snapping away without realizing the cap was still on, so today he was taking a chance and leaving it off. Another great reason to walk carefully. If he tripped and broke it Reese would have his head.

For now, he left the camera around his neck. His binoculars had been in hand the whole time, and he brought them up and swept across the forest and the creek lazily. A part of him had been feeling guilty about SassyBird as of late. Despite finding exactly what SassyBird said he would, he’d never responded on the forums to tell everyone they had been right. He almost had. He’d written it all out, and his finger had hovered above his mouse as his pointer hovered over the SEND button. At the last minute he gave up and just closed the whole page. Not out of shyness, no, he was very active on the forums. It was, unfortunately, something more craven. Selfishness. If he confirmed SassyBird’s stories, who else would be out here right now, traipsing through the woods, making a scene, ruining everything? Who else would get to the prize first? Probably BigBlueFoot, the piping hot jerk. He had money and no job, and was always quick to brag about it. That and everything else.

BigBlueFoot was an obvious jerk, but Gerald had become afraid that he had made Gerald into one, too. That was why he was going to get a picture today. He was going to post it in the forum, and show everyone SassyBird knew what they were talking about. They would be a Cassandra no more.

Something moving caught Gerald’s eye as he scanned the other side of the creek. He snapped the binoculars back and then froze. If this was it, he didn’t want to scare it off. Whatever it was moved closer and closer to the creek, finally stepping out of the thick brush. Gerald slowly lowered the binoculars, his grip loosening so he almost dropped them.

The man on the other side of the creek wasn’t quite a man. He was too tall, arms too gangly and feet and hands too big. He was naked and humming to himself, something Gerald thought he recognized. And he was covered head to toe in light brown fur and hair.

“Hamburgers!” Gerald muttered under his breath.

The fuzzy man on the other side of the creek noticed Gerald for the first time and did a double take. He stepped backward and nearly fell, catching himself on a sapling. Gerald sat on his stone, transfixed, until the fuzzy man was upright and composed and glaring at Gerald.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you,” Gerald said. “I’ve been extra quiet today, although truth be told, I didn’t think I’d be quiet enough to sneak up on you. Can I hazard a guess that you are Bigfoot?”

The fuzzy man scowled and made a phlegmy sound in the back of his throat.

Gerald held up his hands. “Excuse me, how rude. Sasquatch, then?”

Sasquatch’s face smoothed over – as much as it could with all that hair – and Gerald would later swear to everyone in his knitting circle that Sasquatch nodded.

“My name is Gerald. I live in Gun Oil, down the mountain. Do you know it?”

Sasquatch again nodded before his mood turned as sour as one of the candies Mina Callaway sold in her general store. He pointed at Gerald…no, not at Gerald. At the camera.

“Oh, that’s not for you,” Gerald said, waving a hand. “I could never be so rude as to walk into a man’s home and just start snapping pictures of him. Oh, this is your home isn’t it? And you know it very well? Perhaps you could help me.”

Gerald picked up his book and crossed the creek, looking for stones to hop from to keep his boots from getting wet. Sasquatch stood in his place, watching with a combination of confusion and amusement. Gerald reached the smell before he reached Sasquatch and forced his face to remain neutral. He had real help, here, and he didn’t want to insult him. He held the book out and pointed to the page.

“Do you see that one there? That is called a garden plover. They are very rare around here, usually found further west, but I have it on very good authority that there’s one in these woods as we speak. Have you seen such a bird?”

Gerald had heard tales of Sasquatch, of course. Hadn’t everybody? Only, the stories were never consistent. He looked differently in each one, acted differently, and his intelligence varied from superhuman to nonexistent. Gerald watched as Sasquatch looked at the book page. It was impossible to read his face. Was he studying the bird? Or trying to decide if he could eat the book?

After what felt like hours but was probably only seven and a half seconds, Sasquatch turned around and began to walk away. Gerald’s shoulders drooped, and with a sigh he closed the book. He really thought he had something. He’d have to find the bird on his own then.

A grunt made him look up. Sasquatch was standing at the tree line, staring at him with a face and a particular way of holding his shoulders and arm that only meant one thing no matter who it was.

Well?

Gerald followed quickly, and kept close to Sasquatch as he led him through the forest. The grace and fluidity with which he moved through the trees was mesmerizing. As quiet as Gerald had been, Sasquatch was completely silent, his large feet not making a single noise as they padded softly through the underbrush. Gerald tried to mimic his steps and found that, compared to Sasquatch, he was as loud as that time the volunteer firefighters accidentally ingested those magic mushrooms at last year’s Fourth of July party and started spraying the cars parked downtown with the firehose. Sasquatch led him away from the creek long enough that he began to wonder if he was being lured to his death. But that didn’t make any sense, as Gerald was quite sure he had heard Sasquatch was vegetarian.

Sasquatch stopped abruptly and Gerald skidded in the mud to keep from walking into the tall man’s back. He put a finger up to his lips, and then pointed out in front.

At first, Gerald saw nothing, and waited for Sasquatch to hit him from behind.

There!

Sitting on a branch, preening its green and gold feathers. The garden plover! Holding his breath, Gerald pulled up his camera and, once the bird was in his sights again, snapped picture after picture, using up the whole roll of film.

“Wonderful,” he muttered. “Beautiful. Stunning. They will never believe it on the forums.”

Sasquatch snorted, and Gerald patted his arm.

“I won’t mention you, my good man,” Gerald said. “Not a word, you’ve got my promise. Even if I did – which I won’t! – there wouldn’t be much interest in you on a birding forum. I’d have to go over to the forum for you and those people…”

He made the screw loose gesture next to his head, and Sasquatch laughed. Laughed!

“I’ll tell my husband, of course,” Gerald said as they walked back to the creek. “I tell him everything, but he knows snitches get stitches. Oh, and the knitting circle. They’ll think I’m just blowing air again. This bird, though…SassyBird is finally going to get their due.”

The After-Party: A Body of Thieves

A Body of Thieves

The quiet, and the dark. It was what he needed. He felt his way up the stairs of the abandoned factory, back into the room where he had met everyone only hours ago. Leaving the light off, he made his way to the table using only the lights coming in through the dirty window. He sank into his chair, his head still swimming and his feet like lead. The watch on his wrist said it was ten thirty, and he stared at it trying to figure out how a wrist watch was lying to him.

Vinnie sat alone in the dark room just long enough to wonder if he had made his way back to the factory too quickly. Then there were quick, heavy steps on the stairs outside the door. Before he could even sit up the door had flown open and Joey had entered, looking winded. He smiled big when he saw Vinnie, showing off his back molars.

“There’s the star of the show,” he crowed. “What are you doing sitting in the dark?”

“Reading-” Vinnie cut off as the lights above came on, stabbing the back of his eyes. He squinted and held a hand up. “Reading that many people takes it out of me.”

“Oh, sure, sure, of course,” Joey said. He left the lights on, and clapped Vinnie heavily on the back. “This calls for drinks. I’m sure I’ve got a bottle around here somewhere.”

Vinnie turned in the chair, watching as Joey opened and closed the cabinets on the far side of the room.

“Does this mean I have the job?”

“We’ll ask the others when they get here, but,” Joey pulled his arm out of a cabinet holding a bottle of something brown and flashed Vinnie another crocodile smile. “I think you’re our new Face.”

Dizzying relief pushed him back into the chair. He kicked his legs out and ran both hands through his hair. It wasn’t the sort of job he was looking for. It wasn’t even the sort of job he figured would be on the market. But it was a job.

“Are we going to tell them?”

“Tell them what?” Joey asked, not looking up from the red plastic cups he had found. He was setting them up on the table, one after the other, nudging them into a straight line.

“You know…about how I can do what I can do.”

Joey froze. It was only for a second, maybe not even. If Vinnie hadn’t been looking at him he might not have noticed. But for almost a second he froze in place, bottle mid air, eyes staring at the middle of the table as though he had only just now noticed that there was a tarantula sitting there, playing a squeeze box.

Then he was the same Joey, grinning and moving like a theme park animatronic.

“I think we should hold off on telling them. Let them get a better feel for how you work.”

Vinnie spun the chair around to face Joey, and leaned his elbows against his knees.

“When I first met you, you said you knew people like me. That you could get me a job with people like me.”

Joey held his meaty hands out wide. “I meant actors. Creative people. People who took their talents and used it for…well, whatever the hell they wanted.”

Vinnie sighed. He pulled at the tie around his neck, feeling like it was strangling him. The whole suit felt wrong now. Scratchy. Suffocating. As Joey poured the drinks, Vinnie found his feet.

“Thanks for the opportunity, then. But I don’t think this job’s for me.”

“What? Kid, come on.”

“I was looking for people like me. I thought I’d get to be myself, and if I can’t, I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Kid. Vinnie. Of course you can. You’re a natural, even without that little gift of yours. I mean, it helps, but-”

“Thanks, Mr. White.”

Vinnie got halfway to the door before he heard from behind him, “Fine, it’s fine, you can go. You’ve got, what, a week, week and a half until rent is due? They can try to evict you, but that’ll take months. Of course, shitty little apartment like that, they’ll probably just muscle you out.”

Joey wasn’t animated anymore, or smiling. He was still a crocodile, just one getting ready to strike. His hands were in his pockets, the brim of his hat casting a shadow over his eyes so Vinnie couldn’t really see them.

“And all that debt you got?” Joey made a low whistle. “Close to fifty g’s, isn’t it? Think the banks are going to play nice about that?”

Vinnie only stared at him. It’s not like it was lies. He had thirty five dollars in checking and another six dollars and a subway token in his wallet. And it was more like sixty thousand dollars.

Joey read his face and shrugged. “I’m all you’ve got, kid. Stick with me for a while, stick with us. We’ll fix your money troubles. You can worry about the other thing later.”

They were still staring at each other across the room when the door behind Vinnie blew open.

“There he is! My man,” Fist said. His hands were on both of Vinnie’s shoulders, squeezing and shaking. “Can’t believe you pulled it off that fast. Joey, where did you find this guy?”

Joey grinned. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

Smile and Eyes came in next, hanging off each other like they had been drinking. For the first time Smile was actually smiling at him, the two of them swaying and laughing. All three of them were around him, talking over each other as they had earlier that day. This time, though, there was a difference in tone.

“…great job…”

“…how did you know who to talk…”

“…It’s not even eleven, they never knew what hit…”

It was getting to him. He was trying not to let it. What he had told Joey was the truth, he could only stomach this job if it meant meeting people like him. These people around him were not like him. Maybe there wasn’t anybody like him.

But Joey had been right. He needed money. Like, now. And being surrounded by people who thought you did a good job and were thrilled about it was turning out to be rather intoxicating.

The door swung open for the last time. Spirit walked through and casually tossed the bag onto the table. Everyone cheered, and Joey handed out the red plastic cups, forcing it into Vinnie’s hand.

“So!” Joey called over the din, getting everyone to shut up. “What’s it going to be? In or out?”

“In!” the others called to him.

Joey turned to Vinnie. “Well, kid? Want to tell us your name?”

Or do you still want to leave?

Vinnie swished his drink around. He really didn’t have anywhere else to go.

“Vinnie. Glazer.”

“Duane,” Fist said, before pointing to Eyes, “And this is Hannah.”

“Verna,” Face said.

They all turned to Spirit, who shrugged.

“You can just keep calling me Spirit.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Maggie, don’t be a bitch.”

They toasted, and then Joey was pouring more in their cups. Vinnie hadn’t really drank before, and had no idea what they were having. It was harsh, and burned, but it wasn’t terrible.

“I’ll bring this to Poppy. He’s our fence. He’ll turn our ill-gotten gains into sweet-gotten riches by…oh, say Tuesday.”

Joey smiled at him over the others, and tipped his cup to him. After a pause, Vinnie tipped his glass, too, and they both drank.

It wasn’t what he had wanted. But right now, it was all he had.

Previous Next

Didi

October

It was a heatherheart funeral, except instead of a bar they were at Ralph and Didi’s house. Just Didi’s house now. Not our house, she thought. My house. She was standing in the kitchen, staring at all the food. Tradition said it should have been casseroles and cobblers, but heatherhearts can’t cook worth a damn so she was staring at a sea of packaged food. Most of it would go bad before she could get to it, but it was the thought. At least she didn’t have to figure out who owned which casserole dish.

Didi flinched as pain wracked her right wrist. Funny, considering everything from the elbow down had been bitten off. Lost her husband and her arm to the same damnable thing. Hilarious.

If she looked behind her, at the breakfast nook, she could see Ralph sitting there. Smoking his pipe, reading the newspaper or some heavy leather book about some kind of magic. If she looked at the stove top, she could see Ralph standing there. Smoking and making grits, or gravy, or that gumbo recipe she never did get him to tell her. Lost, now. Like her arm. If she looked at the wall with the phone, she could see Ralph pacing there. Getting details on a job or just chatting, he’d always be pacing, going in one direction far enough to stretch out the cord before coming back the other way.

Ralph was everywhere. And this was just the kitchen. She stared at the bowl of mashed potatoes she knew had come from the market down the way, listened to the others in the house mourning and laughing, and only had one thought.

As soon as my arm is healed I’m going back out there.

December

“Didi, get down!”

She was still fumbling with her dagger, trying to get it right in her left hand, when she felt the bolt whizz inches above her head. It struck the gangly vampire that had been rushing her right between the ribs. He was dust and bones before he could fall to the ground.

Panting, Didi let herself fall the rest of the way. The dagger clattered next to her. She was right handed. She had known some things were going to take a while to get used to. She hadn’t thought that everything would take a while to get used to. Even just pulling a dagger from a leg sheath and settling it right in her hand was work.

Kokoro knelt down next to her, laying the crossbow gently onto the pavement. They were in the middle of a small parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Whatever the lot was supposed to be for had never been built. Lit only by the headlights of her car across the lot, Didi could still see the look on Kokoro’s face.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Let me help you up.”

“I can do it.”

She didn’t mean to snap. Emotions were still high from the fight. She got herself to her feet and then bent to pick up the dagger. The new end of her right arm ached.

“Guess I need more practice,” Didi said. “Why are you limping?”

Kokoro’s smile was forced. “One of them got a hit in, right here. It’s nothing to worry about.”

But it was. Kokoro knew it. Didi knew it. Three vampires and Kokoro had killed all three. Had to. Because Didi couldn’t get it together.

I can get it together, she thought as they made their paces to the car. I just need more practice. That’s all. More practice.

February.

She’d stopped practicing a couple of weeks earlier. What was the point when no one wanted to work with you, anyway? Couldn’t work by herself. Without her right arm she couldn’t even drive. That time out with Kokoro had been the last. No one had called her for help. The case she had found, she had called Bobbie about, thinking they’d work it together. By the end of the call Bobbie was on the job and Didi was staying home.

Ralph was everywhere. Not as a ghost, thank the merciful gods, but just as memories. She was practically living in the den. It was the one room he was almost never in, because it had been her room. Sewing and knitting. She just couldn’t look at the door, or she’d see him leaning up against the frame ready to ask what she wanted for dinner.

Dinner was soup from a can. She’d gotten one of those electric can openers. She was thinking about killing herself that weekend.

Halfway through the soup the phone started ringing, and Didi was relieved to be able to walk away from it.

“Didi? It’s Tony? You doing okay?”

“I’m doing fine,” Didi lied.  “You calling just to check up on me?”

“Actually, no. I’m in the middle of this case-”

Didi’s irritation turned to excitement. “You need me somewhere?”

“No, not here. I’m all the way out in Lincoln, anyway. But I’m stuck. It’s a cryptid, for sure, but I can’t tell quite what I’m dealing with. And I remembered Ralph had that book, on the Pacific Northwest? I was hoping you could look into for me, hopefully tell me what the hell I’m chasing here before I catch up to it.”

Didi knew what book he was talking about. It was up in Ralph’s library, along with a couple more that might have helped. She told him to hold on while she put the phone down, and she raced to get paper and pen from one of the kitchen drawers. There was no speaker-phone feature, so she put the receiver on its back on the counter and bent down to hear, writing notes in large, scrawling handwriting.

When she went upstairs to get the books, it didn’t even register it was her first time going in that room except for the vague notion she needed to dust.

May

“Really sorry for the imposition,” Karl said as he walked past Didi into the house. German was leaning on him, hopping on his good foot and wincing.

“Ain’t no imposition and you know it,” Didi said. She shut the door and followed them into the kitchen. “Sit him right there. Just push those books out of the way, Bobbie’s down in Florida dealing with God knows what. I’ve got a couple of rooms upstairs set up for you two. You’re welcome to stay until that ankle heals up right. If it ever does.”

“Oh, don’t say that, Miss Didi,” German moaned, leaning back in his chair. She pulled another chair out and helped Karl get his busted ankle up on it, smiling to herself. Miss Didi, huh?

“That’s what the new ones are calling you,” Karl said later, as the two of them sat on the porch. Spring was turning into an early summer, and the heat was lingering already even after the sun had dipped behind the trees. German was inside, soaking in a bath. He was twenty-one, and he looked like a baby. When had twenty year olds turned into babies?

“German is, anyway. And Esther. I hear Jimmy’s got a new partner, don’t know what they’re calling you.”

Didi grunted. “If they even know about me.”

“They all know about you,” Karl said, looking out toward the driveway. “We didn’t just forget about you. It was just…hard, is all. We live in our grief every day, but I think we forget how to manage someone else’s.”

She sipped on her lemonade. “It wasn’t losing Ralph. We all lose partners here and there. It was losing my arm. No one knew what to do with me because of that. But it’s okay,” she said, seeing the panic in his eyes. She patted his leg. “I didn’t know what to do with myself either.”

July

There hadn’t been this many people at her house since October. More tonight, even. She gave everyone plenty of notice. Her old farmhouse was just about bursting at the seams, their cars parked along the long dirt driveway, everyone doubling up on rooms, taking couches in the living room and the basement.

The music was loud. The smells of the grills going in the back wafted all around the house and through it. The books had all been put away, back in the library, so no one would drunkenly spill a bottle over one. No one needed any help that weekend, anyway. They were all there.

This was the first Fourth of July the heatherhearts would spend at Miss Didi’s house, but not the last.

Wanda’s AU Fanfic

Spoilers for the first four episodes of WandaVision. Proceed past the Spoiler Chocobo at your own risk.

Kweh

Listen, I have had a first class ticket to the MCU hype train since The Avengers. The only one of these things I haven’t seen in theaters is Iron Man 2, and I guess that Hulk movie from the 2000s that some people like to pretend is a part of this web just because of that one general guy. I don’t know, I wasn’t sold on the Hulk as a character until The Avengers so I really wasn’t paying attention. It always seemed like that male fantasy of, if you get me angry I’ll be so unstoppable and it totally won’t be my fault, it’s YOUR fault I turned into a giant rage monster, you guys! Just very uncomfortable abuser undertones for me. I get that the character is supposed to be from the Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde mold but…same problem. The rollercoaster at Universal Studios Orlando is fucking great, except for the line. I don’t get it. Universal Studios is, like, God-tier when it comes to designing lines and this was the best they could do? Flashing green lights and industrial techno?

Oh, shit, I’m not here to talk about the Hulk or about ambient space design at theme parks. Guess those will have to be other articles (pick a ride at either Universal park and I could write an entire article about the line alone). My point initially was that I’ve been riding this train from the beginning, so of course I was going to watch WandaVision. I’ve been paying for a Disney+ subscription for a year now, and besides The Mandalorian, the way I’ve been making it pay for itself is rewatching Marvel movies while I cook or crochet. Based off the premise, I knew I was going to like it…I just couldn’t predict the intensity.

I have not been this engrossed in a television show in years. Every week I am actively counting down the days until Friday. I am looking up theories on tumblr and Reddit. I saw the trailer when it came out and almost wished I hadn’t because going into this show completely blind would be a trip, but on the other hand knowing the little bits I do know about where this is going hasn’t ruined a single second of my enjoyment. It’s just so cute! But also really scary. And there’s a lot of little callbacks and clues, and Elizabeth Olsen! And Paul Bettany!

Here, let’s have some organization before I devolve into high pitched dolphin noises.

The MCUiest Show of All the MCU Shows

This is not Agents of Shield or one of the Netflix Defenders shows, where references are made to the movies but otherwise don’t have much to do with them. Nick Fury shows up as a cameo in Agents of Shield and that’s it. Meanwhile, WandaVision stars two actual Avengers. If someone watched WandaVision first without having seen any of the movies, it’s not just that there would be so much they didn’t understand (like, potentially all of it), it’s that they would be depriving themselves of fully enjoying it.

The first three episodes all recreate sitcoms from different eras, and they go hard with it. The first episode, “Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience” is fully an episode of television from the time of The Dick Van Dyke Show, done without a single wink at the camera. The jokes, the special effects, the acting, the grainy black and white, the camera angles…it’s all done perfectly. Perfectly. There is about a minute and a half at the end of the episode pointing to something being wrong. Otherwise, it’s just a sitcom.

They continue with this until they break the fourth wall in the fourth episode. That’s three episodes of a weekly-released television show hinging on a gag. The thing is, though, if you’ve seen the movies, it’s not really a gag. You know instantly that something is wrong. In the MCU, it isn’t the fifties. Things aren’t in black and white. Wanda isn’t a housewife and Vision is dead. The show isn’t a good entry point into the MCU, and that’s on purpose. The show expects you to know these basic facts to make the first three episodes work as well as they do. And when it works, it works. I spent the first two episodes watching an average sitcom with every muscle in my body clenched tight waiting for something to go wrong. It’s great.

I Didn’t Realize How Much I Missed Weekly Theorizing

The last time I was this invested in the mystery of a show was Lost. Which, yeah, sounds super concerning given how that turned out. As I wrote in my thing about remaking Lost, though, one of the biggest changes they’d have to make is map out the whole thing from the beginning, and given that this is an eight episode miniseries that’s supposed to tie directly into a future movie instead of a one hundred episode multi-season show that didn’t know where it was going in the beginning and never figured it out as it went along, I have a lot more faith that the creators have a solid ending and thus will have a doomsday-event implosion if they don’t.

As soon as we finish an episode, I’m on Reddit and tumblr, looking for clues other people picked up that we missed. During the week I’ll check back in here and there to see if anyone has any good theories on what the fried fish sandwich is even going on here. It’s not quite as pure as it could be. The creators are still working off the comics, so some of the ‘speculation’ isn’t really speculation so much as  just pointing to what happened in the comics. But this is not just a faithful remake of any comic, so there’s still plenty of room for guessing, and I fucking love every second of it.

My husband and I stopped binging shows around this time last year when we realized we couldn’t remember anything that happened. While watching, say, The Umbrella Academy one episode a week turned out to be a better way to stay invested, it was missing that piece of community created when everyone has to wait a week for the next episode. I’m so glad more streaming services are going back to the weekly model solely so I can go on the internet and freak out with everybody about the one episode before we get the next. The mystery at the center of WandaVision is made for this kind of viewing.

And The Show Knows It

The fourth episode, “We Interrupt This Program,” breaks the sitcom gag and shows what’s going on outside this reality bubble Wanda and Vision are stuck(?) in. SWORD is just on the outskirts of town, trying to figure out what the hell is going on just as hard as we, the viewers, are. They have their big white boards with all their clues written up and it’s all the same questions we’re asking, and then Darcy is cooing over the show because she’s gotten too drawn in, and the whole thing feels like a love letter to the chaos it’s created.

All excellent questions, Woo.

Darcy! Agent Woo! Monica Rambeau!

This is one of the little things I love about having all of these connected movies and series. Three minor characters from three different Avengers movies, brought together for this show. Darcy and Woo have a very cute working chemistry and I can’t wait to see Monica work with them now that she’s out of the reality bubble. If any of these people have a heel-turn I’m going to light myself on fire.

The First Few Minutes of Episode Four

I don’t blame Spider-Man: Far From Home for showing half the population coming back at the same time in a humorous way, because that wasn’t the point of the story and those movies have a lighter tone. That said, I really appreciated “We Interrupt This Program” showing how terrifying the ‘blip,’ as it’s called in the universe, could have been. The nurse desperately yelling, ‘we don’t have the capacity for this!’ really hit a sore spot, especially given the current situation. The two minute scene also highlights how selfish and shitty Tony Stark’s decision was. Totally in character. Very interesting from a story-telling perspective. But in-universe? Demand that everyone be brought back instead of resetting to before the snap just because you don’t want to lose one person your wife was probably pregnant with before any of this started anyway? Fantastically shitty, and the chaos of the opening minutes of episode four prove it. Monica lost two years she could have had with her mom because despite all of the selflessness he’s learned, sometimes Tony Stark still comes first.

I don’t want to end what was supposed to be a celebration of a show I’m excited about with a bitchfest about Iron Man, so here’s some other, smaller things I really like about WandaVision:

  • Elizabeth Olsen is really nailing the way people acted in these sitcoms. Her mannerisms are completely different from the ‘real’ Wanda
  • Paul Bettany is sort of channeling his Chaucer from A Knight’s Tale and I’m here for it
  • Kathryn Hahn has slowly become one of my favorite comedic actresses over the years and she is just face-punchingly delightful as Agnes
  • The crappy, era-correct special effects for Wanda’s abilities in the first three episodes, followed by the scene at the end of episode four where she uses her real abilities with the glowing red and the waving hands. She only uses her abilities the correct way when the ‘show’ isn’t being broadcast and when she’s fixing her reality
  • “My husband and his indestructible head.”
  • In episode three Vision is repeatedly shown using super speed. But Vision doesn’t have super speed. Wanda’s brother, Pietro, did.
  • Wanda’s accent slipping back in when she talks about Pietro
  • Whatever is going on, Vision is in no way in charge, and he’s getting suspicious (I’m not acknowledging what happened at the end of episode four because I don’t want to)
  • The energy field around Westview looks like TV static
  • Agent Woo learned how to do the card trick and Darcy got her PhD! Besides being subtle nods to the previous movies, these tidbits also tell the viewer that neither of these people were snapped.
  • Agent Woo is incredibly kind and supportive of Darcy when everyone else there is treating her like a dumb kid and it’s soft and amazing and if either of these people turn out to be evil or a skrull I will rampage.
  • “Listen, I know it’s been a crazy few years on this planet, but he’s dead, right? Not blipped, dead?”
  • If you tell me ‘It’s all Wanda’ halfway through the show, I am forced to believe that it’s not all Wanda.

The Stonekey Attic: A Biddies and Broken Hearts Story

The Biddies and Broken Hearts

There were three ways to survive the Blues, and they were not equal. The worst was also the rarest.

Myra Samson woke to the sound of the big box truck chugging up the street. She had watched it leave earlier that day, not knowing why. No one told her anything. Now it was back. It was getting dark. The sun was already behind the mountain. She had slept all day again.

They had put her in the attic of the Stonekey Biddy because it was the nicest one. The walls up here were insulated and there was enough room to stand. There was an antique wood stove in the corner. Shivering, she wrestled a log in and stoked the flames a bit before settling into her rocking chair next to the big picture window.

The box truck had just finished backing into the Rockby. A supply run, then. The truck gasped and wheezed as it settled and then the engine was off. Of the six people who climbed out either the cab or the back, she only knew the names of three. Nico, Mike, and Birdie were all here in the beginning. The others had shown up after she had locked herself away, the skinny redheaded feller only showing up a few weeks ago. Followed Birdie around like a puppy, that one, with a look on his face like he’d just ran into a wall.

He wasn’t looking at Birdie now. He was looking up at her. Myra leaned back, suddenly wracked with a coughing fit. Her handkerchief was over by the bed, damn it. She rode it out, shaking and feeling flushed, until finally the coughing had turned to nothing more than hiccups. She leaned back into the window and saw the skinny puppy was still looking up at her. She looked back. All Myra had was watching, and she wasn’t going to lose it because someone wanted to watch her.

There was something different about him. Mostly, that he had noticed her at all. The few weeks he’d been here he hadn’t seemed to really be here. He’d follow after Birdie, tripping over every rock and root in front of him. Barely missing bigger things like stairs and trees. Despite not even knowing his name, Myra had begun to feel a sort of bond with him. He was as trapped as she was.

Myra held up a hand and waved. He didn’t wave back. But he didn’t look away. A sneezing fit took her, and she was sure he’d be gone. Still there, still staring.

Birdie stalked past him, looking agitated, and that was curious enough for Myra to open the casement. That woman was usually a stone.

“…some bullshit, Nico.”

“I know, okay? I get it. But what the hell are we supposed to do about it?”

Myra couldn’t hear Birdie sputtering, but she could see it in the way her hands and arms waved around. She had a book in one hand.

“Doc!” Birdie started across the grass for the Doblin.

“Birdie, we have to empty the truck…Birdie!”

But Birdie was on a mission. The skinny man stood in the driveway for a few seconds longer, still looking at Myra. He eventually realized Birdie was leaving and followed, his eyes cutting away from her like she was a channel that had gotten boring.

There was a knock on the door, and then Frannie’s heavy voice.

“Myra, you up? I got some dinner here for you.”

Myra stood up out of her chair and walked a few feet, stopping halfway across the room.

“Thanks, Fran. Did Nico and Birdie and all them go down to Denver?”

“No, not Denver. Some mall Nico remembered a few towns over.”

Myra wheezed a sigh of relief, nearly collapsing in the middle of the room.

“Maybe they found me some books,” Myra said, trying to sound light.

“I think they did. Birdie’s losing her shit over a book down there, anyway. Hey, you running low on anything?”

Myra named off a few things and Frannie said she’d bring them in the morning. Myra stayed in the middle of the room, listening to Frannie’s footfalls down the stairs. She would still wait until she went to get her food.

It all reminded her of before the Blues. Her little house had been at the back of a town further up the mountain. She worked from home and had most everything she needed or wanted delivered. She knew the UPS man, the FedEx man, and the mailman all by name, although those names were dust to her now. It wasn’t quite the same, of course. She had friends, then. Online, in chat rooms and over video calls, but they were as real to her as a person standing in front of her.

As the news of the Blues had begun to dominate the television, she started hearing less and less from her friends. No calls, then no posts, and then no one was responding to her messages. The news was splitting its time between death tolls and vaccine information. The usual flu vaccine wouldn’t work, of course, this was a whole new strain. But the CDC was confident a new vaccine could be made, and fast.

It hadn’t been fast enough.

She had had enough in her house to stay there for weeks. It wasn’t until the major networks finally went down that she left the house, searching for something, someone, careful. So careful. She wasn’t going to get the Blues, that she was sure of.

Myra sat down on the edge of the bed. She was still wheezing. Slow, deep breaths. That was all she needed. Spring was here, and her allergies and asthma were working their way up from ‘manageable’ to ‘bad.’ She never thought she’d actually miss her inhalers.

It was only a few weeks after she’d found the Biddies that Keith showed up, and with him a terrible story. He’d come from Denver. There were people there, joining together from all the suburbs, trying to form some sort of town, and they had been doing well until the Blues had shown up.

“What do you mean, shown up?” John had asked. “Had the city somehow avoided it?”

But Keith had shook his head. “No, they got it. Someone came in just two weeks ago, they thought from the Springs, and they had it. And the people who got it the first time around were fine.”

“But the people who had avoided it?” Myra had asked with a watery voice.

Keith had just shook his head.

She had successfully avoided getting the Blues, and that was supposed to be a good thing. Myra had thought it was all over, but it wasn’t. Most everything was but the damned thing that had finished it all.

The Blues was still out there, and Myra could still get it.

After ten minutes, Myra finally opened the door and brought in the tray of food. She was glad that the strange man was looking a little less trapped. For herself, she was fairly certain she’d die in this room.

Previous Next

The Horizon Zero Dawn Blanket: Nora Survivor

The HZD Blanket

On the one hand this took longer than I thought it would. On the other hand I knew this would happen. We took two weeks off for Christmas and New Years, which I had hoped would translate into doing one to two squares a day, but when it turned into totally ignoring the yarn while I fell asleep on the couch watching National Geographic documentaries on Disney+ I wasn’t, you know, surprised or anything. And then the first two weeks of January were a bit of a slowdown, too, as I don’t know if you’ve heard but white supremacist yahoos attempted an insurrection and tried to install minority rule and it’s still an ongoing shit show so really I’m amazed I’m getting anything done besides doomscrolling on Twitter with one hand and shoving Amy’s frozen burritos in my mouth with the other.

Let’s Look at Something Happier – the Post-Apocalypse

Spoiler Warning – As I have in the past couple articles, I will be getting into the people and setting of Horizon Zero Dawn. I will not be discussing the main plot or going into any real details of the mysteries the player is supposed to uncover. Honestly, though, if you still want to play without spoilers what’s stopping you at this point? The game is four years old and the new one is coming out this year. Stop replaying that one game you keep wishing was better because it’s never going to be and try something new. Or don’t. I’m not your supervisor, I’m barely keeping it together myself.

The Nora are the first people you’re introduced to in the game by virtue of Aloy sort-of being one (we’ll get to that). They’re a matriarchal society run by three High Matriarchs. ‘Isn’t that a lot of matriarchs for one sentence? Shouldn’t you edit that or something?’ No, because this is the Nora we’re talking about, so if anything there weren’t enough instances of the word ‘matriarch.’ Everything is mothers with the Nora. They live in Mother’s Embrace. Their settlements are called Mother’s Heart, Mother’s Watch, Mother’s Rise, Mother’s Crown, Mother’s Squeeze Box, Mother’s Fashionable Pearls, etc. Their goddess is All-Mother, their temple is All-Mother Mountain. You get the picture. Who runs the world?

MOMS

They live off the land and there’s a lot of white people with dreads and they generally keep to themselves. You sort of get a Portland-style hippy feel from them, so you’d think they’d be chill.

They are very much Not Chill.

Why? Because the national sport of the Nora is outcasting people.

Here’s a list of reasons Nora have been outcast from their tribe:

  • Murder
  • Manslaughter
  • Self-defense
  • Petty theft
  • Going into the ruins of the Metal World
  • Just being generally weird
  • Leaving the Sacred Land (according to the Nora you can’t come back)
  • Gum chewing
  • Music too loud
  • Being born under mysterious circumstances and no one know where you came from and you might be from the devil so, like, fuck it, I guess, toss the baby into the woods

Okay, that last one is pretty specific to Aloy, but it still fucking stands. Basically any crime and they’ll toss you out on your ass. No one in the tribe is allowed to talk to you. Strictly speaking, outcasts aren’t even allowed to talk to each other. They can stay in the Sacred Lands while everyone still part of the tribe sticks their fingers in their ears. And if they leave, to try to find sanity in another tribe? They can never come back. And the Nora who aren’t outcast treat the outcasts like utter dogshit.

None of this is healthy.

There are signs that a bunch of the outcasts have a very healthy ‘fuck this shit’ mentality and band together on the outskirts of Nora lands, but other outcasts – such as Rost, the only parental figure Aloy has ever known – are too busy butt-chugging the Flavor-Aid to wonder if maybe these laws are a just a little bit…much. When they’re not being unjustifiably dickish to Aloy, most of the Nora are just kind of sad and boring and the cool ones with personality die really fast, so the Nora are my least favorite tribe.

Luckily, they’re also Aloy’s least favorite, too!

But What About Their Fashion Sense?

Good for hunting, bad for stunting (I’m sorry).

As I said, the Nora are primarily granola-crunching Earth-mother types, so their clothes are very sensible. Mostly they’re made out of animal hides, and they’re meant to afford some camouflage in the forest, so there are a lot of browns and greens. The white flat parts are pieces of machine, because while the Nora consider the ruins taboo they will fuck up a Grazer’s day if given half the chance. The big chunky jewelry…no idea. Pinecones?

Survivor

SMIZE, ALOY, SMIZE

The Survivor outfit is your cover-the-bases protection outfit, offering guards against fire, freeze, shock, and corruption. It’s also one of my two least-favorite outfits based on appearances. In the beginning of the game it’s a solid outfit for the protection it affords, but you’ll soon get better modifications, and eventually the ability to swap those mods out, so you can protect yourself while wearing whatever you want.

A note on all the outfits: There’s three to four versions of each outfit, from a cheap version with only a few protections to one with the best protections that either costs a lot or can only be unlocked by completely certain missions. These squares are all based on the best version found in the game.

The Squares

The patterns I picked for the Nora are all horizontal squares done from top to bottom. I wanted patterns that were a little complex and had a woven look, to mimic their outfits and the kind of homespun vibe you’re supposed to get from these emotionally-suppressed weirdos and jerks. Obviously I kept with the mostly green and brown motif, with pops of other color depending on the outfit. The Survivor outfit is evenly split between a dark brown, a light brown, and the Nora blue. I’m using Knitpicks Wool of the Andes, and I went with Merlot Heather, Almond, and Solstice. I’m not usually a fan of browns but I love this Merlot heather because it has strands of green in it, and the Solstice has strands of bright blue that make it shimmer a little in the light. The Almond is fine. It’s necessary, but it’s not a star.

For the Nora Survivor, I picked this pattern:

These patterns all come from the Big Book of Granny Squares. Okay, quick aside about this book:

I Do Not Recommend This Book

I don’t know what the hell happened here. No, wait, I do: Nobody proofread this fucking thing, or even tried to make the squares based off the directions written. Nearly every square I’ve tried has some glaring mistake. And thank God they’re glaring because, as previously mentioned, I don’t know what I’m doing. I just have enough reading comprehension to look at the instructions, and look at the picture, and think, “That’s not gonna make the picture.” There are so, so many mistakes in the directions! From little things, like telling you to repeat the wrong line and just generally lacking clarity, to bigger things, like the shape of this fucking square.

Excuse me, ‘square.’

See, when I started making this blanket, I actually started making Banuk squares because I was just going down my list in alphabetical order. Then I decided to write about it and thought I should follow the order you meet the different tribes in, so I began work on this square. I also plan on filling in the blank spaces of the map with a simple granny square in black and have made a few of those. So, I already had two squares that came out to roughly the same size and shape.

And then I made this fucking thing.

Yeah. Not square. (Looking at the two pictures I can see where I did make a mistake – the brown rows between the almonds should be bigger. But I don’t see how I could have made it big enough to make a square, and then even if I did the square would still be too wide.)

I’m sticking with this book because I’ve already picked all my patterns and I’ve already paid for it (thankfully just the e-book version), but there’s now an additional layer to my project of fixing the damn patterns. For this one, I ended up shortening the width of the square by three stitches and adding in another row of almonds and another row of the Merlot Heather on either end, and got something much better:

So, after all this, I finally have eighteen of these squares. Each square took me about two hours, and I went through about eight and a half skeins of yarn. Next up, I will be doing the Nora Protector, my other least-favorite outfit. Join me in about a month (fingers fucking crossed) to see how that square comes out (spoiler alert: I had to fix it).

Previous Next

Cemetery

Let’s cut through the cemetery, Paul said. It’ll be fine, he said.

Well, apparently the Applewood Cemetery was way bigger than either of them thought. If they had just walked around they would have gotten to the party by now. Instead it was full dark and they were still somewhere in the middle of a field of dead people.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Nicole asked. Again.

“Of course, babe, calm down,” Paul said. He certainly was walking like he knew where he was going, a few steps in front of her and practically dragging her along by the hand. Nicole thought, this is all upside down. I’m supposed to be leading him. And it’s supposed to be daytime. And a beach. Not a frigging cemetery. Maybe I’ll put this on Instagram anyway.

Nicole worked her phone out of her back jean pocket. Just as she had it in hand she stumbled over a rock, and the phone dropped and bounced away.

“Hold on, I need…hold on, I dropped my phone.”

Nicole had to yank her hand back from Paul, who turned back to look at her in disgust.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“I just dropped my phone. Frig, I can’t find it in the dark. Can you turn on the flashlight of your phone?”

“Babe, we’re going to be late.”

She stood up to make a face at him. Cutting through the cemetery was his stupid idea and it was his fault this was taking so long.

“I don’t understand why we’re not there by now. It would have been fifteen minutes if we had walked around. How many dead people can one little town produce?”

Paul didn’t answer, only sighed and tapped his foot. Nicole ignored him. He’d been testy for weeks, and Nicole was honestly getting tired of it. When they had started dating it had seemed logical – television had taught her that quarterback + cheerleader = common sense. But besides sports, it was becoming clearer and clearer they didn’t have anything in common. Like, the dumb jock thing had kind of been a turn on at first, but if she had to answer one more question about what was happening in a show they were both watching for the first time she was going to lose it. And now this. Lost in a cemetery.

“There it is,” she said to herself, catching a faint reflection of starlight off the screen.

Something crackled in front of her.

Nicole straightened up.

Something rushed around her in the trees.

She fumbled with her phone, finally getting the flashlight on, and pointed it ahead of her.

Trees. Shrubs. Leaves twisting in the wind. The gravestones.

Nothing else.

With a deep breath, she followed after Paul.

“We need to get out of here, I’m starting to scare myself.”

Paul looked back at her with that smile he thought was mischievous but was, in fact, an ugly smirk. “Are you…afraid?” He growled the last word, and Nicole pushed him.

“Stop that.”

“There’s no need to be afraid, little girl,” he said in the same ugly growl.

“Seriously, stop that.”

“I’ll protect you.”

“No, no!”

Paul scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder. It pulled a laugh out of Nicole, a high-pitched thing that was stretched into a screech. She threw her hands over her mouth, hating that she sent that sound over the quiet and dark cemetery.

Something scuttled between graves behind them.

“Paul.”

Something pale under the moon, and shaped like a person. Vaguely.

“Paul, something’s following us. Paul!”

Paul dropped her onto her feet in front of him. She craned her neck around him. Nothing. Nothing moved. Nothing pale but the headstones. Nicole forced herself to take another deep breath. She was just freaking herself out. They must be at the end of the cemetery. She would go to the party, find the keg, and-

They were not at the end of the cemetery. Still surrounded by trees and graves in every direction, Paul had brought her to a little grassy area. There was a campfire built, already burning. A cooler. And a sleeping bag.

“What is all this?”

Paul wrapped his arms around her and started kissing her neck. “It’s our three month anniversary.”

“O…kay,” Nicole said. “Wait, did you walk us all around the cemetery for this? Paul…Paul, get off…”

She had to use all her strength to push him away. She may not have been as strong as him, but she was a cheerleader, damn it. If she could hold Bebe Richards over her head she could get away from her stupid boyfriend.

“It’s a surprise, babe!” Paul said, rubbing the ribs she had elbowed. “We’ve been together for three months.”

Nicole looked at him. “You already said that.”

“So, I thought,” Paul said, rolling his eyes, “That it was time.”

“Time?”

“Yeah. Time.”

There was another sound behind her, something crawling…wait, time?

“Hold up. You brought me out into the middle of a cemetery for sex?”

“It’s romantic!”

“It’s creepy! We’re surrounded by dead bodies, Paul! What part of this screams ‘romance’ to you?”

Paul didn’t look ashamed. Or concerned. He looked…he looked mad.

“It’s been three months, Nicole, and you still haven’t put out.”

“And I’m not now, idiot. We’re done.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Paul said.

Nicole was already walking away, in the direction she thought Amber’s house might have been. She didn’t expecte Paul to grab her by her hand, and jerk back toward him. Bones crackled in her wrist and she almost fell down.

“Get off…get off…”

“This is supposed to happen.”

“No, get off…Paul…get off…”

“Excuse me.”

Nicole and Paul froze. Standing on the other side of the fire was a pale-skinned…corpse. Yes, corpse. She was going to say man but this man was clearly dead. Fish white skin, red rimmed eyes, pieces of him missing.  It didn’t have a nose, but it did have a very concerned look.

“Is everything okay here?” he asked.

Paul’s grip on her wrists got stronger, almost making her scream. “This is a private area. You need to leave.”

He wasn’t looking at the corpse, he was looking at Nicole.

The corpse took a couple steps forward. “I wasn’t asking you. Miss, is everything okay?”

“Look, asshole, I told you-”

Now Paul was looking. Blood drained from his face until he was nearly as pale as the thing talking to him. His grip on Nicole loosened, and she pulled herself free and stumbled away from him. Toward the corpse.

The corpse looked at her, and then at Paul. “Well, if she’s running away from you to me, that’s all I need to know. You need to get out of here.”

To Nicole’s dim surprise, Paul’s shock turned back to anger. “I don’t know who you are-”

“Me? I’m the ghoul that was planning on terrorizing you two once you got started. Make you scream. Maybe kill one or both, I don’t know, I hadn’t planned that far. But it’s not fun like this.”

Paul opened his mouth to say something. He never got the chance. The ghoul went from one side of the fire to directly in front of Paul in a second. Nicole couldn’t see his face. She could only see Paul’s. The anger was finally gone, replaced with something far more pure and naked: fear.

Paul was screaming. He was running through the cemetery, back the way they had come.

Then the corpse was back next to Nicole. He didn’t look scary. Just worried.

“Seriously, are you okay?”

Nicole nodded, surprised to find she was shaking. “Yeah. I guess. Thanks. And thanks for not killing him.”

The ghoul shrugged. “I didn’t. I can’t guarantee his safety out there, though. I’m not the only one here. You going somewhere?”

Nicole nodded again.

“Exit’s over there. Maybe you should get where you’re going, quick. You know. For an alibi.”

Nicole stumbled out of the cemetery a few minutes later. She was rubbing her wrists. Bruises were starting to form there. At least she recognized where she was. She could even see the party, up ahead. She would arrive. People would ask, where’s Paul?

And she would say, I lost him in the cemetery.

Supply Lines

With equal amounts of relief and leg cramps, Roll and Jack waded across the ill-named Lazy River. The icy water rushed by up to their knees, trying to knock them over and carry them away. A couple of times Jack almost let it. It might have been easier to just let the river drag him away from the raiders; he’d just have to push himself toward the eastern shore. The pack on his back kept him upright. It was heavy. It was unwieldy. It was his duty.

Finally they found the thin muddy shore on the eastern side. Their boots squicked and squawked as they took a few steps into the tall yellow grass, and as if on cue they stopped together, turning around. Even with a day’s walk ahead of them they were already in Colton territory. Kill a man in the no man’s territory west of the Lazy River, well, that’s just business, son. Kill a man in Colton territory and the Coltons WILL come for you.

“They’ve stopped,” Jack said, bending over his knees.

“Let’s keep walking,” Roll said. “If we sit to fix ourselves here they’re liable to come get us and drag our bodies back into the no man’s.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “They’ll do that? I thought the treaties were absolute?”

“They’re raiders, what do they care for treaties? I’ve seen it happen with these two eyes, son. We don’t have to run. We just have to not stop.”

With a final glance back at the line of raiders watching, Jack reluctantly stood up and began the process of forcing one leg in front of the other. Roll had been a liner for nearly thirty years, working the supply lines since the war, almost. Jack had been desperate to train with him, and that desperation would mean nothing if he didn’t listen to everything Roll had to say. Roll kept them on a slow, but steady, pace, until they crossed the rest of the field the river cut through and entered into the forest. Before the trees swallowed the view, Jack could see the raiders were gone.

“Right here, these rocks. Oofta, I’m getting too old for this.”

Jack smirked as he sat. “What are you talking about? You’re fitter’n me.”

“Physically? You bet. I could kick your ass from here, son. Mentally? I might just be getting tired of dragging bags of supplies back and forth while dodging thieving slapnuts. Ahh, shit.”

Jack didn’t need to ask what happened. Roll sat down on a large rock a few feet away from him and tried to sling his bag around him as he talked. A raider’s arrow must have gone through the bag, just near the strap. Not enough to break it then. Enough to break it now. A tearing sound ripped through the clearing and the contents of Roll’s bag was spilled onto the soft dirt and leaves between them.

Roll stared at the mess, the supplies strewn across the forest. The supplies that still needed to be brought to the Coltons, only now the bag was a useless pile of canvas. Roll screwed up his face, his cheeks turning a dangerous red color and his hands grasping for something to scream into it. After a few seconds he relaxed, blowing out a long breath of air and using his hands to smooth out the lines between his eyes and massage his jaw.

“Dogshit,” he said. “I guess I’m teaching you how to mend a bag today. Get that stuff out of the dirt, for now. Put it up here.”

Jack carefully took his own pack off and put it on the ground with a gentle touch before going for the supplies. The last thing they needed was two broken bags. He’d have to inspect before they began again. In a way, though, he was glad Roll’s bad had broken. He’d never been good at stitching, and he was sure the old man-

All thoughts in Jack’s head came to a deafening halt the second he realized he had picked up a magazine with naked women on it. The magazine was older and battered. The woman on the front was blowing the camera a kiss.

Jack looked down. Magazines, everywhere. All with a naked woman in a sassy pose. Oh, no, there’s some naked men. It wasn’t all magazines, though. There were a few boxes that had been sitting at the bottom of Roll’s pack. It took Jack a few minutes to know what they were, because while he had heard of dildos before, he hadn’t actually seen one.

“What’s the matter, kid? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. You know anyone in those? Ha!”

“We have been walking for days. Crossed the mountains. Skirted around Cadillac City, knowing if anyone of them heard us we’d be on a spit over a fire before we could ever scream. And then just spent the last three hours running from raiders…for porn? All of this…was for porn?”

“Keep your voice down!” Roll hissed. He looked back toward the river. “If those raiders are still hanging around and they hear you, they will definitely come for us.”

“I thought we were transporting important things! Vital things! Things people need to survive! You know…supplies.”

“Jack, sit down. No, I mean it, sit down. There’s no talking to someone when they’re this riled up. Sit.”

With a huff, Jack sat down. He realized he was clutching the magazines and tossed them down with disgust.

“Now, you’re only partially right here, kid. We are transporting important, vital things. Yes, supplies. But not just for people to survive. We’re well past that. We’re transporting things so people can live. Of course, we also carry food, fresh water, seeds, tools. Necessities. But we’ll also transport games. Not just jeans and flannels, but dresses and suits. Music. You know I once went all the way from Bosshead to Dawn’s Break carrying nothing more than a violin? And yes, sometimes we will transport porn. People need to live, Jack. They need to have a little fun every now and then. So maybe all of these things are necessities, too, in their own way. Does that make sense to you, kid?”

Jack sniffed. “I guess.”

“I mean, after that little dust up, wouldn’t you like to just relax? Sit for a spell, maybe read a book?”

“Yes,” Jack admitted. If they could somehow sit here for the next hour or so, Roll playing his harmonica while Jack massaged the ache out of his feet, he would. “Not with porn.”

Roll swatted the air at him. “I don’t want you to do that, either. But somebody back in Colton does. And don’t they deserve a break, too? Don’t they have the God-given right to relax while looking at some long-dead woman’s breasts?”

“Well, now I’m sad for an entirely different reason,” Jack said, looking down at one of the magazines. “I guess your point stands. People need porn.”

“People need porn!” Roll said. “Now get out your stitching kit, we’re going to have some fun.”