60 seconds.   That’s all the text message says. I don’t recognize the number. When I reply with a ‘?’, I see Message Failed in tiny red letters. I try again, and the same Message Failed alert appears.   Leaning against the kitchen counter, I debate sending a third time. The message bothers me. 60 seconds? What does that mean? Who is this? Wrong number? Spam? Questions roll through my mind like clothes in a dryer tumbling over each other.   There’s a knock on the door. A voice calls from the other side, “Pizza.”   I didn’t order pizza.   Cold sweat beads on my forehead. My body is suddenly alive with awareness. I note the back door in the kitchen, open slightly to let cool air into the house. The knives in the block on the counter are within arm’s reach; my fingers twitch to grab one. The house is quiet beyond the hum of the refrigerator. The forest, visible through the bank of windows behind the kitchen table, is still and green.   Wait. Something moves along the treeline. Several somethings.   They’re coming.   The thought flashes through my mind not as a voice, but as the image of a text message on my phone. 60 seconds. They’re coming. _ _ I grab a knife from the block and sprint for the back door. I hear shouts from the trees. They’re too far to reach me on foot but I feel rather than see the pressure of gun barrels pointing in my direction, with their black metal mouths yawning in expectant ‘O’s. Behind me, there’s a muffled crash. They’ve broken through the front door.   I run. I zigzag. I ignore the blood pounding in my ears and my muscles screaming with exertion. I have to get away. If they catch me, I’m a dead man.

The silver tea service, polished to a high sheen, glinted in the sunlight streaming through the large bay windows. The value of the teapot alone would have paid our rent for a month. A woman in a simple black uniform leaned over the low mahogany table, pouring amber liquid in a steady unbroken stream into two dainty teacups. She prepared each cup with milk and sugar - though I hadn’t specified how I take my tea - and handed one to me, one to my hostess.

“That will be all, Madeline,” the woman across from me said. She took a sip of her tea, then set the cup and saucer down on the table. I did the same, suppressing a cringe at the rush of sweetness. I didn’t like sugar in my tea.

When I arrived at the manor, a black-suited butler had escorted me to a sitting room at the back of the house looking over the sprawling green grounds. I could see a bulldozer, sitting abandoned and lonely, outside the window.

The job ad was for a Project Manager, the project being the renovation of a large manor house in the countryside. I’d sent in a resume and almost immediately received a phone call. Is this Jessica Hardy? It is. You submitted a resume in response to an ad regarding a Project Manager position? I did. Can you come in for an interview this afternoon? I can.

The conversation started curtly, and I expected the man I was speaking to wanted to end the call as soon as he gave me a time and address. But I had questions. Who would I be working for? What was the scale of the project? Why was this position available?

He’d sighed. The client is Tomasina Fletcher, wife of the late Edward Fletcher. The project is a full scale demolition and rebuild of the west wing. He’d hesitated before answering my third question. In my mind’s eye, I saw him take off his glasses and pinch the bridge of his nose in a gesture so tired and defeated I felt a twinge of sympathy for this imaginary version of him. When he spoke again, his voice had lost the faux-professional abruptness he’d had earlier, as if my vision was less imaginary and more premonition. Look, we’ve been through six Project Managers on this thing. There’s equipment scattered everywhere. Walls half demolished. We haven’t been able to keep a consistent crew since the start. I’m not gonna lie. It’s a mess. I really need someone to come in and take the reins and pull this shit together. On paper you look like you have everything we need - organizational skills, people leadership, budget management. The pay is good. What do you say?

Red flags. So many red flags. Six managers? This project sounded like a nightmare. I’d be putting myself in an impossible situation.

But you’re already in an impossible situation, aren’t you? The voice in my head said. Ten years as a stay at home mom and with one single accident we suddenly had no income, and I needed work. Organizational skills? Budget management? My resume was a novel of clever wordplay. My skills hadn’t been applied in a professional setting for a decade. I’d taken so many artistic liberties with my skillset I felt like a fictional version of myself.

So I’d agreed, and made the hour long drive to the manor, and sat in the plush sitting room on an antique settee across from Mrs. Tomasina Fletcher, with her red-soled stiletto-clad foot dangling from crossed legs, as she eyed me appraisingly.

“So, Mrs. Hardy,” she began, her vaguely transatlantic accent reminding me of old silver screen movie stars, “tell me about yourself.”

In the heart of the city Under neon lights Our paths crossed Igniting endless nights

Summer became winter You sweetly held me tight Day fell to darkness Our passion burned bright

City summers returned The sun a sore sight We said our goodbyes An end to endless nights

David O’Neil sat at his desk at the front of classroom, pretending to read the book in his hand with one eye while keeping the other eye on his students as they finished the chapter he’d asked them to read. It was a few minutes until the lunch bell and he was thinking longingly about the turkey sandwich waiting for him in the teacher’s lounge fridge.

Voices murmured as some students finished the chapter and struck up conversations with their neighbours. He picked up bits and pieces - a homework assignment, a date, a new car, a house party. Then, amidst the din of typical teenage chatter, one conversation caught his attention. He didn’t look up. Didn’t move in any way to indicate that he’d heard. But his hearing reflexively honed in on the conversation, pinpointing the source and blocking out the other noise in the room. It was a skill he’d discovered was common in teachers, refined over generations of educators seeking out the troublemakers in their classrooms like a hawk identifying a mouse from the sky.

Two girls sitting by the windows leaned their heads together conspiratorially. David listened further - and didn’t like what he heard. He groaned internally. The conversation was dangerously close to something he’d have to address with the girls. He hated intervening. He cared for his students, but believed their private lives were their own and usually left it up to them to come to him with anything. This conversation though… It sounded like something that would involve the administration. And parents. He groaned again. He hated parents.

The bell indicating lunchtime rang. The clamour of thirty teenagers packing books into backpacks filled the room. He closed the book he was pretending to read and nodded his goodbyes to the students as they walked past his desk. The two girls walked past his desk with a smile and a nod, nothing to indicate they were worried he’d heard their conversation.

Sighing, he got up from his desk and followed the last students out the classroom door, turning off the lights and shutting the door behind him. His turkey sandwich called to him. What to do about the girls’ conversation? He’d make that decision on a full stomach.

Richard sat across from the young woman at the old farmhouse table he kept in the back room of his shop. He watched intently as she carefully pulled the glass dropper out of one of the bottles in front of her and brought it to her nose. Her nose crinkled slightly and she pulled the dropper away.

“The scent is quite concentrated,” Richard said. “You only need to bring it a few inches from your nose.”

She held the dropper up again, further from her nose this time, and inhaled.

“Pine,” she said quickly.

Richard nodded to the next bottle on the table.

She picked up the dropper and inhaled again. Paused.

“Cinnamon.”

He nodded to the next bottle.

Again, she picked up the dropper and held the delicate glass cylinder near her nose. She inhaled. Her eyes closed as her chest rose and fell. She inhaled again, slower this time. A dreamy smile appeared on her lips. Richard founding himself smiling slightly, wondering what memory was conjured by the scent.

“Lilacs,” she whispered softly, opening her eyes. The smile, still on her lips, widened to a grin as her eyes settled on Richard. “What?”

Richard blinked, and settled his features back to neutral. He cleared his throat.

“Very good. You have an excellent nose.”

The young woman quirked an eyebrow. Warmth spread to Richard’s cheeks.

“It means you have strong olfactory senses,” he said. “It’s a crucial skill my assistant must have.”

Assistant. Richard choked a little on the word. In his ten years as a perfumer, he’d run his shop on his own. Experimenting and creating scents in the back room of his shop while simultaneously running sales in the front. But a single accident stripped him of his sense of smell and threatened to take away his livelihood. Now, the need to hire an assistant, someone who could smell the scents for him, felt like a lead weight in his stomach that he didn’t think would ever go away.

The young woman sat across from him, waiting expectantly.

“You’ll start tomorrow,” he said, rising from his seat. He extended a hand across the table. “We have a lot to go over.”

She clasped his hand.

“I look forward to it.”

continued from Matilda and Hopper Pt. 1

Matilda slept fitfully. Hopper watched from his bed as she shifted on the mattress, her body trying to get comfortable even while her mind was locked in dream. He lay comfortably in his own bed set on top of a tall table directly under the east facing window. While some humans might force their gremlins to sleep in a crate lined with linens like a mere pet, Hopper had a bed similar to one a human might sleep in, just gremlin-sized. Matilda had a local carpenter carve it from a large maple that had fallen on the cottage property. It’s sleigh-style head and footboard were decorated with intricate engravings befitting the bed of a nobleman. No partner of mine is sleeping in a crate like some barn cat, Matilda had said. Hopper remembered his breath catching at the word partner - not foundling or familiar. Partner. The memory made him smile. They were partners, sharing ideas, having debates, supporting each other within a relationship built on mutual respect. He knew this was rare, even among human-human relationships, so he debated with himself extensively before deciding to do what he did next.

Matilda shifted again in her sleep. Her brow furrowed, as if she were trying to put together something that wouldn’t fit. He recognized that look from her many hours spent reading through her case notes when some piece of evidence hadn’t yet revealed itself. Hopper got out of bed, opened the top drawer of his small wooden night table - made of the same maple as his bed - and picked up a small, glass orb. Muttering in Gimlish, an ancient language spoken by gremlins sounding as though a choir were humming in harmony, Hopper rotated the glass orb three times in his hand.

Wisps rose out of Matilda’s head. The blueish vapour swirled above her for a moment before stilling into the distinct shapes of Matilda and Hopper, bent over the prone figure of the satyr - a still-life of the crime scene from earlier that day. Hopper beckoned with a long finger and the image floated towards him. As the first image stopped inches from Hopper’s face, another rose from Matilda’s dream. He beckoned it closer, and another rose.

Hopper stood with four images from Matilda’s dreams hovering in front of him. The first was of the crime scene, perfectly replicated down to the precise location of the glass shards from the broken vial next to the satyr’s body. The second was of the satyr, alive and in some sort of apothecary with jars filling shelves from floor to ceiling. The figure behind the counter was blurred, but the satyr’s body language and facial expression appeared angry. In the third, the satyr was alone. His expression was wide-eyed and fearful. He clutched an intact glass vial to his chest.

He stared at the fourth image for a long time. In it, the satyr knelt in front of a man sitting on a throne. The man was leaning forward, holding the glass vial between his thumb and forefinger. The satyr was reaching for it, a look of relief and gratitude on his face. The man’s face was expressionless - neither menacing nor welcoming. It was utterly blank. An uncomfortable tingling ran down Hopper’s back.

With swift movements, Hopper reordered each scene from Matilda’s dreams. He’d long suspected Matilda had psychic gifts. Judging by the way the scenes jumped in time in her dreams, it wasn’t surprising she hadn’t realized it herself, dismissing these visions as random images generated in her dreams.

He moved the scene of the satyr in the shop to the front. The scene of the man on the throne second. Fear and the glass vial third. And, finally, the crime scene. A timeline of events, albeit an incomplete one, lay in front of him.

With a few more words in Gimlish, the images drifted one by one into the glass orb. When the second image started to drift, Hopper had the sudden urge to throw it out the open window and let it evaporate in the night air. It was the image that bothered him the most, but it was the best place to start their investigation. Though the image of the apothecary would be the logical first step, he did not recognize the shop. He did, unfortunately, recognize the throne and the man who sat upon it. With a sigh, he watched the last image disappear into the glass orb and resigned himself to the task of taking Matilda to the see the man on the throne tomorrow.

On the other side of the room, now freed from dreams of the satyr, Matilda slept peacefully.

Bang the drum Light will flash In woods unseen Rain coats like ash

Bang the drum The ancients cry It rolls and sings Thin skin of sky

“… feeling like this spiritual awakening, you know? Now that I’m not eating any of that processed crap, I really feel like it’s opened up my receptiveness to energy. Like, I’m more in-tune with the universe, right. And that’s what they don’t want, you know. The government. They don’t want us actualizing to our true energetic selves because then we’ll realize that we don’t need them and their bullshit because we don’t actually need anything to survive except the energy of the universe…”

It’s a typical Tuesday morning conversation. We’ve just dropped the kids off at school, and now we’re walking back to our street two blocks away. She’ll do most of the talking. I’ll nod or shrug. Maybe throw in a ‘that’s interesting’ every once in a while. Then we’ll say goodbye, have a good day, and go into our respective houses. We’re neighbours. Our kids are friends. It’s only a five minute walk. It’s a small inconvenience to keep peace in the neighbourhood.

“Are you listening to me?” she suddenly asks.

I look over at her.

“I said are you listening me? God, I feel like I’m talking to myself sometimes with you. You barely say anything and I don’t feel like you hear a word I say. Actual conversations require two people, you know.” She stands there with her arms crossed, waiting for me to answer.

I take a moment and consider what to say.

“Oh, I hear what you have to say. I hear every word and I don’t agree with any of it. But you wouldn’t know that because it’s impossible to get two words in with you. And when I do try to say something, share my opinion, you talk even louder. So loud it drowns out anything I have to say. I’ve never met anyone I so fundamentally disagree with on every level. The government sucks but I don’t believe there’s some vast conspiracy where it’s run by a shadow council of billionaires. Hollywood is not secretly using the blood of innocents to stay young. COVID vaccinations are not secretly sterilizing the population and ivermectin is a horse dewormer NOT a cure. People do not become trans because of the hormones in milk and those spiritual-pseudo-science books you read are written by people who got their “doctorates” by clicking an online ad. You’re entitled to your own opinions but you can’t shove them down other people’s throats. Just because you’re loud, doesn’t mean you’re right.”

I consider it, but I don’t say it. It won’t matter how perfect and logical my argument. I know from the years we’ve lived on the same street, she wears her beliefs like an armour-plated cocoon. Nothing’s getting through.

So, I sigh and shrug. “Haven’t had my coffee yet. Sorry.”

She grunts, but relaxes her arms. “Well, go get caffeinated then. Bye. Have a good day.”

“You too,” I say, and watch as she walks up her front steps and disappears into her house.

I let out a big exhale and walk to my own house, very much looking forward to a big cup of coffee.

I stand in the tall grass of the front yard. It’s high enough to brush my knees, the ends brown and tipped with flowers and seeds. At one time, this was the nicest yard on the block. He would cut it once, sometimes twice, a week and the fine fescue grass never got more than two inches tall. It was a luscious, green carpet. The envy of the neighbourhood. Once I arrived, though, that quickly changed.

I smooth the lapels on my black jacket and adjust the bowler on my head. I have to appear just right, just as I have every day for the last nine months. When those curtains move, I must look like I haven’t moved at all.

The curtains on the large front window are still. Though my face remains expressionless, I feel a twinge of disappointment. Is this it? Is my work here done?

I take in the small home in front of me. It’s been a pleasant nine months, standing in this man’s front yard. I’ve watched with satisfaction as the whitewashed siding on this neat little rancher became dirty and peeling. Enjoyed seeing the mail overflowing from the little box perched by the front door. Felt immense pleasure watching the once picture-perfect front yard devolve into the scraggly, overgrown mess so common to shut-ins.

I sigh, looking over the house one last time, committing it to memory. It’s been a good nine months.

A flutter at the window. I spot the sliver of a pale face peering through the curtains. I smile wide and raise my hand in a wave. The eyes of the pale face widen and the curtains shut quickly. I continue to smile and wave for several seconds, in case he looks again. Once I’m sure he’s not going to look again, I lower my hand, mentally congratulating myself on a job well done and quite happy that my job here is not done. I’m still smiling.

Matilda crouched to get a closer look at the scene in front of her. She was careful not to disturb anything on the dirt floor, hopefully leaving only bootprints. Hopper, her gremlin, climbed out of the leather satchel at her side and perched on her shoulder. He took a deep inhale through his nose.

“Poison,” he murmured in her ear.

She nodded, noticing the sickly sweet scent in the air. Her eyes locked onto a small broken vial next to the body.

“He drink it?” Matilda asked Hopper.

The gremlin took another deep inhale. “No. Too much scent in the air. He breathed it. Fumes atrophied his lungs. Suffocated him.”

Matilda looked to the gremlin on her shoulder, alarmed. Hopper merely shook his head, anticipating her worries as usual.

“Too much time has passed. No danger from fumes now.”

Relieved, Matilda surveyed the scene again. Hopper stayed quiet and waited. After a few moments, Matilda nodded, confirming something to herself, and pulled out a leather bound notebook from her satchel. She opened to a fresh page and gently laid the book open on the dirt floor.

“Agent Matilda, two nights post-full moon,” she said aloud. As she spoke, words appeared on the page as if written by an invisible hand. “Residence in Bairns Hollow. Victim is of satyr blood, male, approximately mid-lifespan. Found deceased on floor. Broken glass vial next to body suggests poison inhalation, damaging the lungs. Healer to confirm.”

She paused for a moment and scanned the scene again.

“End notes,” she said, and the notebook closed on its own. There would be more notes later. Pages and pages of notes as she dove deeper into the satyr’s mysterious death.