Hitherby Dragons

OPEN on a graveyard gate. MARCELLUS and BARNARDO stand on either side. Clad in a swirling black trenchcoat, with his hair slicked back, HAMLET stalks onto the scene. An asp, curled and hissing in the crumbled wall beside the gate, strikes at his ankle. HAMLET cuts it down, a long thin blade hissing out of his sleeve and smiting the snake dead; he whirls his arm around and the blade retracts.

“Marcellus,” he says. “Barnardo. What madness grips you, that you invite me here? Centuries have passed, and more besides, since any spoke to me my father’s name; and if he in his torment wanders still, it matters not. His tidings of murder, he spoke them then to me; and foul Claudius, poisoner of Kings, is dead.”

“These things are true,” Marcellus answers, “and I have witnessed them; yet once again his spirit stirs, and calls you to his grave.”

“Bah,” says Hamlet. “He is a ghost. His words have no interest for me.”

“Yet you have come.”

“I weary of my eternal night,” he says. “The blood of maidens lacks its sheen, and the moonlit world grows dreary. My mailbox swells with endless, pointless spam, the films I craft are stagnant, and Fortinbras is dead. I have no hope for import in this game of yours, but still—I found I craved the distraction of a journey.”

“Then follow me, my lord, and come and find his grave; and you shall see why even vampires may fear the night.”

“Surely we need not hurry,” Barnardo protests. “My circadian rhythms tell me we still have three hours till the dawn.”

Hamlet smiles. “Wait here, good friend, and guard this gate, and know no fear; Marcellus and I shall face this spirit down.”

The gates creak open. HAMLET and MARCELLUS journey inwards, with BARNARDO still and quiet at the gate behind. HAMLET and MARCELLUS stop in front of a twenty-foot tall tombstone. It casts the shadow of a cross across the loam.

“Ah!” cries Marcellus. “It is the horrid shade.”

Hamlet turns. He sees his father’s ghost; and his mouth sets in a thin line.

“Begone, fell spirit. I know not what thou art; but my father is long gone.”

“Gone?” The ghost turns and his stare stops Hamlet cold. “There is no peace for such as I. The heart of God towards sinners is a thing of stone. I have found no forgiveness in these centuries, no surcease, and no end. Did you, my son, my faithless son, imagine that I to Heaven found my way? If there is a Heaven, it is farther than the furthest star, and its gates are closed to such as I.”

“Ah,” Hamlet says, and bows his head. “Then, father, why have you returned? If revenge you sought, revenge you found; in that revenge, my own undoing, and our house of Denmark fallen.”

“I speak to you of murder,” says the ghost. “I speak to you of foul deeds; for your sire, Fortinbras, most ancient of vampires, fell not to mortal hands but to Rosencrantz’s stake!”

HAMLET 2: THE ARROWS OF FATE

“How can I know?” Hamlet asks himself. “Once, true, once my father’s words were sooth; but centuries of torment make a bitter ghost. Perhaps he comes back now only to taunt me with his lies; and can I stake a vampire and friend for nothing more than this?”

“I do not know,” Marcellus says. “I would not trust him. He seemed to bear a monstrous air.”

“I cannot trust,” says Hamlet, “and yet I must; for if Fortinbras met foul end, then like the dawn onto the hills does fall, the duty of revenge must fall to me. What can I do? . . . a glimmer of hope, it comes to me at last. A vampire movie–that’s the thing, a conscience-catcher with a hidden sting. He’ll watch the film, and I’ll watch him, and take . . . my answers from his face; and if he’s guilty, raise the stake.”

“Are you sure?” Marcellus asks. “Fortinbras was not without his flaws.”

“It is our way,” Hamlet answers.

Marcellus nods. “What, then, shall this film contain?”

“I’ve bitten the players and made them mine; and for this gift of darkness they serve me still; and I’ll direct, and give it form, and fill it with the truths I know, and great shall stride the vampire King across the stage, and his trembling servants cringe, and then, with cold grey malice, one shall turn, and while the King sleeps in his eternal tomb, gently slide a stake into his master’s heart.”

“Will he not know?” Marcellus asks. “For surely, Rosencrantz recalls you used such a device before.”

“Bah,” says Hamlet. “I am his senior; my blood trumps his; and I shall see the slightest tremblings of his eyes.”

Elsewhere, POLONIUS speaks to ROSENCRANTZ.

“Ah, Rosencrantz. Your time will come soon, to fly to Hollywood and meet with the Danish Prince. For many years, you have lived under my care; and soon, you must depart! So let me place these few precepts into your ears, that you shall fare as well without me.

“Eat of onions, but by no means garlic. Those slaves you have enthralled, and found to serve, bind them to your soul with hoops of steel; but do not hasten to enthrall each girl you meet. Beware the werewolves, and do not fight, but remember, if you must, that they as well fear thee. Taste every maiden’s blood, but give your blood to few; dress to impress, but not with glitzy fashions that in five years shall pall–for the fashions of the day are the zoot suits and stirrup pants of tomorrow, and the reputation that you lose for goldfish shoes is not easily regained upon the morrow. Neither a borrower nor a lender be, but borrow sunscreen if you must; and this above all: do not let Hamlet know the truth, for he has slain vampires more cunning and more terrible than thou.”

HAMLET assembles the movie. Vampiric actors hasten to his bidding. In short order, the opening day draws near, and HAMLET and ROSENCRANTZ fly to Los Angeles, where they sit in the opera box.

“Look well,” says Hamlet, “for this is my magnum opus; and if it proves stale, weary, and unprofitable, then no small sum of my vampiric fortune shall be lost.”

“You jest,” says Rosencrantz, “for in all the world of night, there is no director more skilled than thee.”

The movie plays; and HAMLET watches. On film, the treacherous vampire stakes his King–a King whose resemblance to Fortinbras ROSENCRANTZ cannot find coincidental. ROSENCRANTZ’s pupils shrink; his body tenses; and HAMLET moves to strike.

“Hold,” says Rosencrantz.

“And why?”

“It is not manly that we settle our affairs like this, in theatre and in dark. It is more fit that we should duel, and test our skills in proper fashion; and then, if God is just, the better monster shall prevail.”

“Tomorrow night,” says Hamlet, “be it dark or bright, in a graveyard I shall name.”

ROSENCRANTZ and HAMLET rise. They leave the theater. CLAIRE and BRODERICK, two fans, stand nearby. CLAIRE suddenly gasps and points at them.

“Wow,” says Claire. “That’s the director!”"

“Big deal,” Broderick says. “This was his worst movie, ever. He’s gotten all moral and wishy-washy.”

“Alas, poor Hamlet. Let’s pretend we don’t know him, Broderick!”

Claire and Broderick turn up their noses snootily as Hamlet and Rosencrantz pass.

“Later,” Claire says, “I’ll tell all our friends that we totally dissed Hamlet.”

It is NIGHT. The tombstones crowd around. MARCELLUS and BARNARDO lurk in the background. HAMLET and ROSENCRANTZ approach from different directions.

“The rules are simple,” Hamlet says. “Each of us will sing our side of the story. The better singer wins the duel and stakes his opponent.”

“Of course,” Rosencrantz says. He takes up his position.

Hamlet closes his eyes. Then, gently, he sings:

The first and last of all the things I knew:

His fangs.

The blood that flowed from master’s veins to mine

It sang

It filled my heart with life immortal, and with night

And made dead Hamlet Prince again.

Rosencrantz answers:

And yet in every gentle heart a monster hides

And fool

You are if you deny that Fortinbras

Was cruel

He offered me his gifts, but in some moods, gave hurt

And made me yearn that I could find the grave again.

Hamlet frowns. They sing, together:

I cannot say that Fortinbras was a good King to me.
And yet his rule meant many things to me.
He gave me life when life had made an end of me.
And Fortinbras was enemy and friend to me.

Hamlet sits down upon a stone. “He was my liege,” he says. “He was my sire.”

“And mine,” says Rosencrantz. “But you, he let to travel, and to make your films; while I was his jester and his fool.”

“I cannot let you go,” says Hamlet. “Yet I am loath to kill you, when I too have felt the back of our master’s hand.”

“Then stay your conscience; for it has driven you hard and long; and we shall speak no more of this.”

“Perhaps,” says Hamlet. He rises decisively to his feet. “Yes. No more shall I waffle over decisions such as this. Straight to the point, I strike. I will not kill you; therefore, you shall not die. I do not wish to know eternal sleep; thus, I myself shall live. An end to all my vacillations and my sorrows; to Castle Hamlet we must fly, and there revel till the ending of all days.”

The sun crests over the hills.

“Oh, fucking jet lag,” says Hamlet.

Jane lives in Hamlin. She has a small rat. The rat’s name is Broderick. Broderick’s fur is white. He has a red nose. He lives under her bed. She feeds him scraps.

It is the morning after the exodus. Jane flops on her bed, sideways, face down. Her skirt is blue. Her petticoats are white. Her head and shoulders extend off of one side of the bed. Her calves and feet extend off the other. She looks under the bed. Her eyes are bright but worried.

“Broderick!” she says. “Are you there?”

Broderick chitters.

“Oh, good,” she says. She hands Broderick a piece of potato with her left hand. It’s from her meal. Broderick scurries forward. Broderick takes the potato in his clever little paws. He nibbles.

“All the other rats are gone,” she says. “You’re the only one left!”

Broderick frowns. He tilts his head to one side. He looks down. He kicks a dust bunny sadly.

Jane giggles. Broderick looks up sharply. Jane fishes in her blouse. She pulls out a small squirming rat. She pushes it under the bed.

“All the others . . . but one!” Jane says. “Her name is Meredith.”

Meredith makes an irritated face at Jane. Then she grooms herself ferociously. Only then does she look at Broderick. Broderick stares raptly at her.

“See?” Jane giggles, then hops to her feet. “Aren’t I thoughtful?”

Jane goes and peeks out the door. “There are no adults around. They must be at a meeting.” She giggles again, then drops down to lay on her stomach and elbows next to the bed. “We can have a secret meeting of our own.”

Broderick glances at her once, twice, and then a third time, distractedly. He chitters.

“This is no time for romance!” Jane exclaims. “This is a very important meeting.”

Broderick looks apologetically at Meredith. He shrugs. Meredith ducks her head and rat-grins at him. Broderick nods back and looks officiously at Jane.

“Now, Broderick,” Jane says. “You will be the secretary. And Meredith will be my vice-chair! Secretary, please read back the first order of business.”

Broderick considers. Then he poses, and chitters.

“Excellent point, secretary,” Jane says. “The matter is—”

Jane stops. She rolls over and sits up sharply. “There’s music.”

Meredith runs out from under the bed and stands between Jane and the door. She rises up on two feet. She chitters angrily. Jane steps over her and walks outside. Jane looks around. All the children of Hamlin emerge. All of them stand there. Then the music changes; and the children begin to walk.

Broderick nips Jane’s ankle. He chitters vigorously. Jane looks down. Then she blinks, and shakes her head.

“The music says that I want to go to the mountain,” she explains.

Broderick looks at the mountain. He looks at Jane. He rolls his eyes.

“Well, point,” Jane says.

Broderick pokes her with his nose.

“Yeah,” Jane says.

Jane sits down. She folds her arms over her knees. She watches the other children walk away. Then the piper comes into view; and he walks straight to Jane.

“Hey,” the piper says.

“Hey,” Jane answers.

The piper sits down. “Nice rat,” he says. His tone’s a bit ironic.

“Oh!”

Jane sweeps Broderick into her arms and holds him protectively. She looks around for Meredith, but Meredith is hiding behind Jane’s skirts. Jane hugs Broderick tighter. He squeaks.

“It’s not my playing,” the piper says. “The music’s power comes from how people are.”

“I don’t want to go to the mountain,” Jane says.

“But it’s your nature,” the piper says.

Jane listens to the music. She thinks about that for a moment. Broderick bites down on her finger. Jane keeps thinking. Blood begins to run down Jane’s finger. Broderick’s eyes bulge. Jane keeps thinking. Then, finally, she says, “No. It’s not.”

Broderick relaxes with a squeak. He licks Jane’s finger unhappily.

The piper smiles wryly. “I’m older and wiser,” he says, “and someday you’ll understand.”

Jane holds Broderick up. “Broderick never tells me that he is right. He never tells me that he is wiser, or smarter, or better, or knows more. He never tells me he’s doing the right thing. But sometimes he is.”

Broderick wriggles and tries to escape. He does not like being a prop.

“He’s a rat,” the piper points out. “He can’t talk.”

“Can you just give me a good reason?” Jane says. “Without saying you’re right, without saying you’re better, without playing music, without knowing things, without being mystic and stuff, can you just give me a good reason?”

The piper frowns at her.

“I told Broderick yesterday that you couldn’t,” Jane says. “I told him that you couldn’t, and he huddled under the bed, and made noises I didn’t understand. And I went out into the rats and found Meredith, and caught her, and I think that was bad but it was also good. It’s funny when things are good and bad both.” She gives him an unhappy smile.

The piper sighs.

“So I hope you can’t give me one,” Jane says. “I hope you can’t give me one good reason, because if you do, then I guess Broderick’ll go drown, and then I’m off to the mountain.”

The piper shrugs. “I’m not a human,” he says, seriously. “I’m not a rat. I’m not about reasons. I’m about going to the river. I’m about going to the mountain. I’m about change.”

The piper stands up. “Once in a while, someone doesn’t. I dunno why. I don’t care. I suppose it’s heroic, in a way.”

He turns, and goes. The children of Hamlin follow him, save one. Jane watches them leave. She sits. She stays. She doesn’t listen.

It hurts more than she could imagine.

Broderick is a rat who lives at the Gibbelins’ Tower. He can play all kinds of animals so sometimes people think he’s actually a parrot or a gazebra. Probably that means he could be anything. Nobody asked Broderick if he wanted to be in the shows he just started doing it. He is very clean and shouldn’t bother health inspectors but if they ask he is a llama with a gentle spirit.

Disaster is his special allergy and he does not like it much.

Broderick is a parrot. Broderick is in a cage. Near the cage is a window. Beneath the window is a ledge. On the ledge is a cracker. Broderick wants the cracker. But Broderick is in a cage.

“I swear,” Broderick says, “that if anyone brings me that cracker within the next few minutes, I will make her rich beyond the dreams of humankind.”

A few minutes pass. Broderick grows impatient. He squawks loudly. No one hears.

“Ah!” he says. “That I had not defied Solomon, and instead humbled myself before him; then, then, I might have that cracker even now.”

He paces on his perch. “Still,” Broderick says, ruffling his feathers and preening, “if anyone brings me the cracker within the next few minutes, I will uncover for her all the treasures of the earth.”

A few minutes pass. Broderick cannot believe his eyes. No one has come. No one has brought him the cracker. Not even for all the treasures of the earth. Broderick bobs vigorously on his perch.

“Ah!” he exclaims. “I am a generous parrot! Should anyone bring me that cracker within the next few minutes, I will make her a great lady of all the house, and always sit on her shoulder, and grant her every day any three requests she chooses!”

Slowly, the minutes tick by. A darkness and fury sets in on Broderick’s colorful countenance.

“Then,” Broderick says, with terrible determination, “I shall kill without mercy any who bring me the cracker. I shall offer them the choice of the manner of their death, but whatsoever they should choose, it shall be death by pecking.”

There is a long pause. The air resounds with Broderick’s grim oath.

“I have sworn to kill whomever brings me the cracker,” Broderick says, “and still no one obliges!”

He swings on his perch in fury. He bites at the cage door. Suddenly, it opens. Broderick’s beak has broken the latch. Broderick is free! He darts for the cracker. He picks it up with one foot. He savors the tasty cracker goodness.

“Ha!” he says. “I have brought MYSELF the cracker!”

There’s a pause.

“How awkward,” Broderick admits.

On Tuesday, Meredith goes from house to house. She knocks at the kitchen door of Old Manor.

“Please, ma’am,” she says, to Irma the cook. “Do you have any scraps, or used tea leaves?”

“You’re a well-favored girl,” says Irma. “Why do you beg?”

Meredith shrugs, a little. We make do as we can, the gesture says. So Irma gives her some scraps and some tea leaves, and Meredith is off to the next house.

“Who was that?” asks the cook’s assistant, Jordan.

“A beggar girl,” Irma says, dismissively. Then she looks out the kitchen window. “It looks like she’s hitting the Minister’s house next.”

“Oh, my,” Jordan says.

On Wednesday, it’s the tradition of the Minister of Terrors to tidy up her affairs and make proper disposal of the remains of the week. She rings a bell and summons her servants. “I paid you early,” she says, “but money on Sunday is worth more than money on Wednesday. So I need a shaving, just a scrap, from the coins I gave each of you.”

The servants don’t look happy. But they take out their coins, and she scrapes a bit from the edge of each. She piles up the scraps, adds some sulfur to the mix, and blows on it; a cloud of foul-smelling smoke rises to the ceiling. “That closes my accounts,” she says, “for the week. Then there are the outstanding debts.”

She rubs under her nose with one finger and thinks. “Simon,” she says. “You spent hours hunting down the best tea at the market. I’m grateful for that, but I can’t go around owing people favors. So I’m going to repay you now, with a glimpse at any Terror you please.”

Simon hesitates. “I hear that one of them is beautiful,” he says, hesitantly.

The Minister shakes her head. “It’d kill you to look at her,” she says.

“Um,” Simon says. “Then, maybe, one with historical interest?”

The Minister passes a hand before Simon’s eyes. He sees the 1880 Terror. He springs backwards, strangling a shout, and falling into the wall. When his eyes clear, he smiles uneasily. “Thank you, Minister.”

The Minister turns to look at her bodyservant. “Melanie,” she says, “you put too much scent in the water. I was practically reeking at the meeting of government. It was terribly embarrassing, so you’ll have to have a cat’s tail for three weeks.”

Melanie sighs sadly. Then she yelps as it grows from her back.

“There,” the Minister says. “Karma all balanced.”

She turns to her cook, Morgan. “Please,” she says, “bring me the used tea leaves from the week.”

Morgan pales. He does not move.

“Hm?” asks the Minister.

Morgan is a new hire.

“I did not know,” he says, “that you would be needing them again, Minister.”

“I do divinations in my tea!” she exclaims. “And incantations with it, to boot. I need to disinfect the leaves so that no one can use them against me.”

“Ah,” Morgan says. “You see, that is an even more specific description of that thing I did not know.”

“Well, then,” the Minister says. “I am glad that I have corrected your ignorance.”

“It is just,” says Morgan, “that I gave the tea leaves to the beggar lass who comes to the kitchen door.”

The Minister raises her eyebrow.

“She was very pleased,” Morgan says. “She said, ‘Wow! I always ask, but I’ve never gotten this house’s tea leaves before. That old cook—he was too stern about them! Not like you, sir.’”

“Bah!” declares the Minister, stormily. She gestures, and Morgan becomes a monstrous cat-bodied gargoyle. He yowls. Then, not even delaying for a letter of recommendation, Morgan darts out the door to seek a new position elsewhere. The Minister frowns at his wake. She gestures towards the wall and a surprised silverfish assumes human form.

“You are now my cook,” she says. “I like my toast cold and my eggs runny: take heed!”

“Yes, ma’am,” says the silverfish, bowing furiously. He signals, behind his back, to the other silverfish in the wall: Someone! Help! But there is nothing that his family can do.

The Minister thinks. “I must also obtain revenge upon this girl,” she says. “So I will give out the scraps at the kitchen door myself, henceforth.”

On Thursday, Meredith returns. She knocks on the kitchen door of the Minister’s house.

“Please, sir,” she says, to Silverfish the cook. “Do you have any scraps, or used tea leaves?”

“One moment,” says the cook, quite properly, and closes the door. He fetches the Minister. The Minister opens the door and smiles falsely at Meredith.

“Oh!” Meredith exclaims. “A witch! I can tell by the nose.”

“Good evening, child,” says the Minister. “I wish to personally offer you these scraps and tea leaves, which are in no fashion cursed.”

“Oh, thank you!” says Meredith. She takes the scraps and tea leaves away.

“Good, good,” says the Minister. She rubs her hands together. “When she eats those scraps, she’ll turn into a horrible long-toothed ogre. That’ll serve her right!”

On Saturday, Meredith returns. She knocks on the kitchen door of the Minister’s house.

“Please, sir,” she says, to Silverfish the cook. “Do you have any scraps, or used tea leaves?”

Silverfish frowns at her. He places his hand on top of her head, and then moves it back to verify that it is level with his chest. He peels back her upper lip to look at her teeth, which are short. He runs his hand around in her hair, looking for the horns. There are no ogre horns.

“Pardon, ma’am,” he says. “But you seem to be a beggar girl.”

“Ah!” Meredith says. “Yes. I had planned to be a hot air balloon, but that strange and mysterious agency that assigns souls to bodies chose otherwise.”

“Ah,” says the cook. “One moment.”

He closes the door. After a moment, the Minister opens it. She peeks out at Meredith.

“Oh!” exclaims Meredith. “A witch! I can tell by the hair.”

“Yes, yes,” says the Minister of Terrors. “I’m a very important witch. But I always have time for the little people!”

She carefully packs some scraps and tea leaves in a fancy box. Then she hands the box to Meredith.

“Like the previous gift,” the Minister says, “these are in no way cursed.”

“Hurray!” says Meredith. She skips off.

“She must have dropped the previous scraps,” says the Minister. “Perhaps she threw them in the gutter, saying, ‘I only eat scraps from a fancy box. To think that that old witch gave them to me in a greasy bag!’”

The Minister tears at her hair, expressing her deep frustration with the insolence of youth.

“In any event, when she eats these scraps, she’ll turn into a mouse. That will fix her!”

On Tuesday, Meredith returns. She knocks on the kitchen door of the Minister’s house.

“Please, sir,” she says, to Silverfish the cook. “Do you have any scraps, or used tea leaves?”

Silverfish narrows his eyes. “You’re a resilient child,” he says.

“I like dancing!” Meredith exclaims.

“One moment,” Silverfish says. He closes the door. There are sounds of consternation from within the house, and at least one explosion.

After five long minutes, the Minister opens the door. She stares at Meredith through narrow, unhappy eyes.

“Oh no!” Meredith says. “A horrible witch!”

A muscle at the side of the Minister’s face twitches. “Very well,” she says. “I am going to take time out of my busy schedule to personally prepare you a collection of delicious finger sandwiches. And fresh tea.”

Meredith frowns. “Are they going to turn me into something?” she asks.

“I doubt it,” grumbles the Minister. She chops up watercress and puts it on a sandwich with butter. She slices cheddar cheese thinly and adds cucumber. She mixes smoked salmon and horseradish. Soon she has a widely-varied collection of delicious finger sandwiches to offer Meredith. Then she curses them and hands them to Meredith on a platter. “Please,” she says. “Eat one.”

“Oh no!” Meredith says. “I can’t eat them here!”

The Minister frowns. “You can’t?”

“No,” Meredith says. She shakes her head so vigorously that her ponytail makes a cracking noise—just like a whip!

“Hm,” says the Minister. She dismisses the girl. She sips at her tea. Then she looks at the tea leaves. “Will she die?” she asks them.

The tea leaves gather themselves sulkily. In the ancient language of their kind, they answer, Not today, you old harridan, or any time soon.

“Bah!” the Minister snaps. She throws her teacup into the wall. It cracks. The tea leaves spill down the wall, wailing, Tragedy! Disaster! Disorder is upon us!

“I cursed her to lose her heart to someone who will never love her,” says the Minister, “and wither away in despair. If she’s not going to do it, that curse is no good!”

“I’m sorry,” says the cook.

“It’s not your fault,” says the Minister. “I made those sandwiches myself.” She thinks. Then she frowns. “I’m going to follow her and find out why she wouldn’t eat here and why my curses didn’t work. Then I’ll tear her heart out with my fingernails, just like on Geraldo.”

The Minister of Terrors turns into a raven. She flies out of the house. She follows Meredith. Meredith stops at several other houses and collects scraps. Then she goes to her tiny little apartment. There’s a sign on the door. It had previously read, “Meredith is OUT.” But now it reads “Meredith is IN.”

The Minister sits on a sconce in the hallway and fluffs her wings. She watches. One by one, beggars come to Meredith’s door. They knock.

“Please, ma’am,” they say. “Do you have any scraps, or used tea leaves?”

“Of course!” she says.

“Bah,” mutters the Minister to herself. “These people are so ill-favored! Look at that one. He’s got pox all over his face! And that one—she stinks! What kind of insensible dolt gives these fools scraps and tea leaves?”

The last man to come by is John. He’s mute, so he doesn’t say anything. He’d use sign language, but no one in this neighborhood knows ASL. So he just smiles at her.

“John!” she says. She hugs him. “Come in. I have finger sandwiches! I saved them for you!”

The door closes.

“Aha!” screams the Minister. She fluffs her wings furiously. “She’s a scrap reseller!”

Meredith, puzzled, opens the door. But at just that moment, a long-toothed ogre springs out from around the corner and grabs the Minister.

“Yum!” he declares. “Talking raven!”

The Minister resumes her normal form. She’s suddenly a witch! “You!” she says, pointing a finger at Meredith. “This is your fault!”

“Yum!” declares the ogre. “Witch!” He eats the Minister and tromps off.

“Wow,” Meredith says. “Life is exciting.”

John nods.

On Wednesday, Meredith checks the morning paper. “MINISTER OF TERRORS MISSING,” declares the headline. She brings it into her house. She reads the article. She turns to John, who has stayed over.

“The Minister of Terrors is missing,” she says.

John raises an eyebrow.

“Evidently, the prime minister is desperate. He’s looking for someone magical enough to replace her before all the Terrors get loose. But there just aren’t that many witches these days!”

Meredith pauses. She thinks. “Wait,” she says.

John puts his hand on his forehead. Thump!

“That is a very fancy house where she lives,” Meredith admits. “And she did say she was a very important witch. But I thought that was just hyperbole. I mean, she has enough free time to make finger sandwiches for beggars!”

She sits down and sulks. “This is all my fault,” she says.

John sits down beside her. He puts his arm around her shoulders. Then he pauses, blinks, looks at her, and shakes his head.

“No,” she says. “It is. She said so, and that makes it true.”

John’s face falls. Meredith springs to her feet.

“We have to rescue her!” she declares.

John makes hand signs indicating that she should talk to the police, but Meredith does not know sign language. She nods and pretends to understand, but she doesn’t!

“I’d best fetch Broderick,” she says. She goes to her dresser. She opens the top drawer. She takes Broderick out. Broderick was her friend, but now he is a mouse. She puts Broderick in her purse. Broderick squeaks protestingly, but Meredith shakes her finger at him sternly. “It’s your own fault for turning into a mouse,” she says. “That’s your indignity!”

Broderick crosses his paws and sulks. It’s a curse, he squeaks.

“Weirdest guy I ever knew,” she says. “Turned into a mouse! Just a few days ago! In the middle of dinner!”

John rolls his eyes. Then he follows Meredith out the door.

“How will we find the ogre’s castle?” Meredith asks.

John points at the footprints sunk deep into the hallway floor. Then he points out the window at the line of footprints sunk into the cement of the sidewalk.

“Good spotting!” Meredith says. They follow the footprints to a miniature golf course. There’s a castle at its center. She rushes to its door.

“Rowr!”

There’s a terrible yowling. A monstrous cat-gargoyle detaches from the castle’s roof and flutters ponderously downwards at them.

“It’s the castle guardian!” Meredith exclaims.

“Rowr,” declares the cat-gargoyle. He lands and slinks towards them on padded feet. He yawns widely, showing great teeth. John hides behind Meredith.

“Every heroine must make moral compromises,” Meredith decides. She fishes Broderick out of her purse. She throws the mouse underhand. It flies past the cat-gargoyle’s face and lands, stunned, nearby. The cat-gargoyle turns, lithely. It prods the mouse with one paw. It hesitates. In that moment, Meredith and John rush by.

In the center of the castle, the ogre sleeps.

Do we challenge it? John asks. Wake him and fight him in honorable combat? It’s two against one, but he has a weight advantage.

“Agreed,” Meredith says, although she doesn’t understand sign language. She takes a sword from the wall and cuts the ogre open, up and down. The Minister tumbles out of the ogre’s stomach and rests, panting weakly, on the floor.

“That was unpleasant,” the Minister says.

“I’m sorry,” Meredith says.

The Minister shakes her head. “You’re a brave girl,” she says. “I’ll give you anything you ask for, in exchange for freeing me from the ogre’s stomach.”

Then she stands up, weakly, tears Meredith’s heart out with her fingernails, and hobbles away.

That’s horrible! signs John. He looks at Meredith’s dying body. How is she supposed to ask for anything like this?

Meredith bleeds.

Ah, well, John says. I don’t think she could have really loved me anyway.

He tears out his own heart. He dips it in the ogre’s blood, because ogre’s blood is potent magic. He presses his heart into her chest. He smooths her chest awkwardly together over the heart.

I hope it works, he says. He watches. But the heart does not beat, and John withers away in despair. Only when he is dust does the heart pound, once, in Meredith’s chest, and her eyes roll open again.

On Thursday, Meredith knocks on the kitchen door of the Minister’s house.

“Please, sir,” she says, to Silverfish the cook. “Do you have any scraps, or used tea leaves?”

“I’m actually a silverfish, you know,” he says. “I’m not cut out for this kind of stress.”

He closes the door in her face. After a few minutes, the Minister opens it.

“Oh!” says Meredith. “A witch! I can tell, by virtue of our long acquaintanceship.”

“What do you want?”

“Scraps and used tea leaves,” Meredith says. “Only, not cursed this time!”

“That’s fair,” the Minister agrees.

“Grod suffers a great disturbance,” says Grod.

“Oh?”

“Grod has three stone axes here,” Grod says. He indicates one wall.

“Ungh,” agrees Og.

“Grod has two stone axes there,” Grod says. He indicates another wall.

“Ungh!”

“Grod counts the axes in both places. Grod receives a number: five.”

“Grod amazing grasp mathematics,” sarcasms Og.

“Now Grod piles all the axes in one place.” Grod does so. “Grod counts. Five axes.”

“Ungh?”

“But there were five axes before Grod counted,” Grod says. “When Grod piled up the axes, there were five already. The world took no time to count them. It simply knew.”

“Maybe it took a short time. One, two seconds.”

Grod looks distressed. “Grod practiced counting faster and faster but never beat the world.”

“When Og was young,” Og says, “we had no luxury for slow Grodlike counting. We’d kill one dinosaur. Then we’d kill another. We’d count the corpses very quickly. There’d only be one! Then the world would catch up. There’d be two.”

Grod snorts. “Dinosaurs were extinct millions of years before Og.”

Og grabs Broderick. Broderick is a parrot. “Explain Broderick, then!”

Broderick squawks.

“Parrot,” offers Grod.

“Evolved dinosaur.”

“Parrot!”

Og throws Broderick very fast. “Velociraptor.”

“Grod still skeptical,” concludes Grod.

Broderick squawks further.

“Also cave painting,” says Og.

Og points at a vivid cave painting. It depicts Og killing hundreds of dinosaurs and laughing maniacally. Next to his head is the primitive ideograph for “Bwahaha! I am invincible!”

“Og has a vivid imagination,” concludes Grod. “Perhaps Jod should apply lightning treatment to let the excess imagination out.”

“Grod’s philosophy insufficient to explain Og’s life experience,” handwaves Og.

“It makes no sense,” complains Grod. He scratches under his tiger skin. “Computation requires time. It is parallel to physical labor. So how can the world do it instantly?”

Og takes pity on Grod.

“‘Five’ is not part of the physical world,” Og says. “‘Five’ is structured information. The axes are data. Changing data is always a minimal computation. But they are not ‘five’ until Grod sees axes and creates the information of their number.”

“Oh,” says Grod. “If Grod cannot see one axe, then Grod’s informational universe only has ‘four’ axes even if the underlying data indicates five. The world isn’t counting at all!”

“Ungh,” agrees Og.

In the distance, a pterodactyl screams.

Helen is a teenaged girl living in Brooklyn.

On the evening of April 3rd, 1997, Helen comes home from a shopping trip. She’s hiding her face behind a box and carrying a mouse cage in her free hand. She lugs it into her room. It’s a typical teen girl’s room, except that its walls are padded and it has no mirrors. It has two windows. One window is open. It has no screen, but there’s a piece of paper taped over the opening. It’s a big note, written on construction paper. It says, “No Launching! – Tyndareus”

Helen puts down the cage.

She looks at the note.

LAUNCH!

The note flies through the air. It flutters, flutters, flutters down to the Earth below.

Helen does not look at the cage. She opens it.

A mouse runs out. It runs around. It squeaks. Suddenly, it sees Helen’s face.

LAUNCH!

Another mouse runs around. It squeaks. Suddenly, it sees Helen’s face.

LAUNCH!

The last mouse walks out. It is quiet and dignified. It is a solid gentleman of a mouse. It looks up. It opens its mouth to squeak.

LAUNCH!

Flutter, flutter, flutter, down to the Earth below.

“Helen?”

It’s her adoptive father’s voice! Helen quickly hides her face behind the box so she doesn’t launch him. Then she turns. “Yes, father?”

Tyndareus’ voice is wry and gentle. “The neighbors say it’s raining mice again.”

“I’m trying to get to a thousand,” Helen says.

She’s hiding her face behind a box labelled “e-Life.” It’s a promotional box for a revolutionary Internet-aware life management application! Treading the thin line between an Outlook clone and a massively multiplayer online RPG, e-Life proved impossible for its original designers to launch. Helen hasn’t launched it yet, but she doesn’t quite trust it—the box always seems as light and trembly as feathers in her hands.

“If I launch a thousand mice,” Helen says, “then I won’t launch mice any more, and I can keep one as a pet. But if I don’t launch them on purpose, then I’ll launch them every time I happen across one, and I’ll be old and gray before I can buy one to keep!”

“I suppose that’s true,” Tyndareus says. “But couldn’t you aim them away from the street?”

“Father!” Helen says. “If they don’t fly out the window, they’ll hit the wall!”

She’s so shocked by his suggestion that she lowers the box.

LAUNCH!

Tyndareus flies through the air. He hits the wall. It’s padded, of course. He lands with a long-suffering slump.

“Five hundred and seventy-nine,” he says.

“Oops,” Helen blushes.

“You know,” he says, “if I can survive it, the mice probably can. And it’s less of a fall.”

Helen blushes deeper.

“I didn’t think of that,” she admits.

She hangs her head.

“It’s okay,” he says. Then he laughs. “Hey,” he says, “you’ll be through launching me before you’re old and gray.”

“That’s true,” she agrees.

“Before I’m old and gray, even,” he says.

“You’re pretty old already, Daddy,” she says.

He grins. “Maybe,” he says.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey?”

“Hey,” she says, and she’s suddenly looking pretty sad, “Hey, I was wondering, is it because I’m ugly?”

Yesterday, in the first amazing installment of Countdown to Annihilation! . . .

. . . the 11am premiere of Lizard Cops drew nigh!
. . . Iphigenia’s parents built an Origins Bomb!
. . . everything older than 10,000 years old blew up!
. . . and so did every human who’d evolved from lower life forms!

But who will survive?

Will the Bible prove inerrant?

Will the world drown in endless void?

Or is the truth, as so often happens, . . . somewhere in between?

Song of the Apocalypse

Mary drank too much at tea
She jittered faster
Recursively!
The faster she drank
The faster she drank
The faster the pile of tea scones sank!
She could see each beat of a flying bird’s wings
She could see each drop of her tablemate’s sneeze
“More tea!” she cried, but the waiter looked stopped
So she zipped from her chair to the kitchen’s pot.
And her story would have gone on from there
But the bomb tore through
And the bomb didn’t care! Oh

George he cackled George he laughed
George’s machine brought a dead man back!
In defiance of God!
In hubris insane!
“Raar!” said the dead man
Then he died again.
The bomb tore through
The bomb didn’t care.
George had evolved, so he wasn’t spared.
And the dead man, he’d once been Darwin’s toy
He was one more thing for the bomb to destroy. Oh

The Earth was barely nine thousand years
Old. Mad props to Usher! Creationist cheers!
Nine thousand years old! Plus seven days!
So the Earth, it lived on, anyways
Its valleys! Its hills! Its endless seas!
Its glorious plains! Its mountains! Its trees!
It all lived on! And we’re very pleased . . .
But the sun was as old as the scientists said
So the Origins Bomb killed the sun clean dead.

The aliens on Alpha Ceti III
Descend from the cones of evergreen trees
They’re a warlike bunch!
They’d have killed us later
But the bomb took them down
Like Bush took down Nader. Oh!

And all through the Earth just a handful of men
Some women, some children (most under ten),
Lived to see the winter that came
When the fire of the world
Turned a fading flame.

Iphigenia staggers through a savage wasteland. She grows lean and scruffy and lonely.

Every clock in the world that is not broken is stopped, frozen at 10:57am. The computers that she finds do not work. The paper calendars are also stopped, with nobody to flip them.

Iphigenia does not know how long it has been since the Bomb went off. But it feels like many years.

Everyone is dead.

Everything is in ruins.

There are no groundskeepers. There is no electricity.

A flyer flutters down to her from the sky. It looks strangely new, though she knows it must predate the bomb. And on it is written:

What Would You Keep?

If you could keep just one thing—one thing to last you all the empty years, what would it be?

Think on it. Decide. And when you know, if you are still alive, come to London. Come to the place of lights.

Iphigenia laughs. “I don’t know how to get there from here!” she says.

The wolves have come out, since the bomb, to stalk through the streets. They mutter and wolf to one another, and they do not bother Iphigenia. One day Iphigenia finds a Lego Universal Translator set, suitable for ages 12 and up, in an abandoned toy store. She assembles the pieces including two AA batteries and she turns it on and she eavesdrops on some wolves.

“Humanity has become incapacitated!” says a Shaggy Wolf. “It can no longer rule the Earth! It is our honor and our privilege to become Earth’s new guardians. Now we are the city people. Observe as I perform the strange city ritual of ‘rushing nowhere in particular.’”

“Yeah! Yeah!” agrees a Lean Wolf.

Shaggy Wolf looks slyly at one of the stopped clocks. He asks Lean Wolf, “Is that clock right?”

“It’s not just ‘right,’” says Lean Wolf. “It’s actually slow!”

Shaggy Wolf pauses for dramatic effect. Then he gasps. He panics. First he skitters in a panicked circle. Then he begins to speed-walk very fast, just barely surrendering the edges of his dignity, in the direction of a distant office building.

“The end is nigh!” rails an Apocalyptic Street-Corner Wolf as he passes. “The Snavering Lavelwods will inherit the Earth!”

“What?” says Shaggy Wolf.

“He’s challenging your presumption of succession!” says the Lean Wolf, shocked.

Shaggy Wolf snarls. The Universal Translator says, “What?” Then it says, “Bleep! Bleep bleep! Bleepity bleep! Bleep!”

“Ow!” says Iphigenia. “My ears! Too much bleeping!”

So after that she does not eavesdrop on the wolves.

Two hundred meals and seventy-nine naps later, Iphigenia sees the flyer again. This time she holds it tightly. She pretends that it matters. She pretends that it is a thing from after the bomb, printed on crisp yellow and golden paper by someone surviving, somewhere, someone somehow not dead. So she finds an information kiosk and she digs through its maps and she heads towards London.

There is a bird in the air. It is a feral parrot. It circles down to land on her shoulder. It says, “Hello!”

“Hello,” says Iphigenia.

“Brawk,” says the bird. “Broderick. Good Broderick.”

“Would you like a cracker?” Iphigenia asks.

Broderick bobs up and down in excitement. Then he bites her ear and flutters away. From a tree nearby he says, “Snavering Lavelwods inherit the Earth. Inherit the Earth. Brawk!”

“Ow,” Iphigenia says.

Seven hundred meals and three hundred naps later, Iphigenia sees a light. She does not understand it at first. Her brain cannot parse it. It is an electric light. It is shining.

Iphigenia’s heart begins to race. It races faster and faster. She begins to hop. She begins to jump. She begins to dance around and glee.

“People!” she shouts.

Then she runs. She runs until she sees a factory. It is surrounded by a ruined fence and a ruined gate and a ruined sign hanging from that gate, reading, “NKA” and “CTOR”. Its lights are on!

She runs to the door. She cannot stop. There is a glee bubbling in her. It is practically leaking out her nose and ears. She hammers on the door. “Let me in! Let me in! I’m people too! You’re alive! Open up!”

And Charles does.

Who is this mysterious Charles? Why did his factory survive? The Countdown will continue . . . on MONDAY!

There are things that swim in the chaos.

One of them is Andhaka. Andhaka is a great blind beast. He is white and enormous and shaped like a seal, and a long horn protrudes from his head.

“Sometimes when you dream unfortunate dreams,” says Mrs. Schiff, “they fall into the chaos and are lost. They grow there into strange and twisted things.”

The beast Andhaka is rushing for the tower. It is rushing on a current that reaches from the farthest edge of unmapped existence to the shores of Santa Ynez. It is driven by madness and by blood in the water. It is driven by strange hungers.

There are heralds of Andhaka that swim ahead and followers that swim behind.

The heralds have hooked fins, sharp teeth, strange potencies, and burning eyes.

They have been crashing against the tower’s base all night. Some have crawled up the tower’s side, moving with the swift jerky motions of the fiends of horror. They have reached windows, drawn infallibly to the light, only to have Martin or Mr. Schiff hit them with a lantern and knock them back into the sea. They have pounded at grates and swum through an ancient crack into the Gibbelins’ abandoned emerald-cellar.

“We may have to stop the show,” Martin says. “If the sea’s this agitated.”

“Impossible,” says Sid.

Martin calculates. “Then a one-day intermission.”

The fallen dream of Mrs. Schiff approaches. The seabirds have abandoned the tower.

Broderick has fled. He stands on the shore. He watches the tower and nervously washes his hands.

The sea surges.

“That’s reasonable,” Sid agrees.

Andhaka is coming closer.