Ken's Blog

Long bony fingers gradually arranged the letters into words, and the words into columns. Of the three boxes, the third had been the most difficult to open, and then it had taken seemingly forever to sort the cutout letters into their proper words, using the small irregularities in the scissor cuts as a guide. Yesterday one of his men had dared to interrupt just as he was edging the last of the letters into place, and he had come close to shooting the man dead then and there. With commendable self-control he had held his temper in check. Cleaning up the mess afterward would have been an unnecessary distraction, and he needed to focus all of his concentration on the task at hand, without the tedious annoyance of a bloody corpse. In the end he had merely shot off the man’s ear.

He had briefly considered shooting off the other ear as well, but he had decided that such a course of action would have been a trifle excessive, and he was nothing if not prudent by nature. Besides, a complete absence of auric appendia would have significantly reduced the man’s continued usefulness. The point had been made. Since then his men had been even more careful than usual not to violate his inner sanctum unannounced. The peace and quiet had been most welcome.

Assured now that he would remain undisturbed, he stared intently at the odd assortment of raggedly assembled words spread upon the table before him, searching for some overarching meaning. It was clear that they were all nouns. Perhaps, he surmised, this box had contained the nouns, and the other boxes all the remaining words of the message. He shrugged. For the moment such theories were little more than idle speculation.

There was something else here – something that connected these words, a unifying concept just out of his grasp. Arrayed now in alphabetical order, the words seemed to taunt him. Perhaps if he focused only upon some small group, rather than the entire assemblage, the larger pattern would emerge. He focused his mind just upon those words beginning with the letter ‘b’:

      ball
      bark
      bat
      bill
      bluff
      bore
      boom
      bow

Dimly he recalled having seen these very same words before, in some other setting. The thought stirred memories, and with these memories came an indefinable emotion. For a moment he felt faint, as though his very consciousness itself had become unfamiliar. Fighting a sense of panic, the analytic part of his mind attempted to understand this feeling. It was as though the emotions that had washed over him were not his at all, but rather those of another. He shook his head to clear it – how could such a thing be?

He examined the words one at a time. Individually each one was common enough, the very opposite of exotic. Yet he was certain there was a trick here somewhere, some logographic enigma, a tantalizing suggestion of pattern. If only he could see this pattern…

He remembered the sandbox. He couldn’t have been more than six years old on that particular day. He had just carefully lifted up the plastic bucket from around a large perfectly tapered cylinder of sand. It had taken him ages to carefully lift the bucket, not moving it left or right, but straight up, so that the shape of the sand tower would be revealed with no blemishes. He already had a twig set aside, he’d picked it out before, knowing it was exactly the right shape for the flag. He was holding the twig in one hand, just about to begin the delicate process of pushing it into the top of his perfectly constructed little fortress, when out of nowhere an elbow crashing down and wrecking everything.

Clay was about to complain, but then he saw it wasn’t George’s fault – Eric had shoved George. That didn’t make it any better, but once he realized what had happened, he kept his mouth shut. He remembered hoping he wouldn’t cry. It’s not like he had a choice – crying either happened or didn’t happen, but when it did things got bad. There were stronger kids and weaker kids, and he was always somewhere in the middle. Eric was the absolute ruler, and there was no getting around that. George mostly just did what Eric said. Clay wasn’t up there with George, but at least he was better off than Eliot. Nobody wanted to talk to Eliot, or play with him, mostly because you didn’t want Eric to notice. You didn’t want trouble from Eric.

He was still holding the twig in his hand when the three ladies came by. It was a hot summer day and the sun was behind them – he couldn’t really see their faces. But he distinctly heard one of the women say to the other two “Oh look, they’re so cute!”

He’d thought about that moment for years to come. Being six years old didn’t feel cute. It wasn’t until years later that he learned about the word “feral”, but right away he’d thought about that day in the sandbox. They were feral, these little boys with their plastic pails and shovels and their hierarchy of fear. Those women didn’t know anything. Maybe it would have been different if he or George or Eric or Eliot or any of the others had had a mom or a dad, but that’s how it was in the orphanage.

***

“Terransky.” he heard, and looked up.

“What?”

“Terransky. What’s that? A Polish name?”

He shook his head slowly, “you know, it’s funny. I don’t really know. They had a whole process about that at the orphanage.”

“The orphanage?!” she looked at him agape. “You never said you were an orphan. It doesn’t show up in your records, or at least the ones we found.”

“Why, is that a big deal?” he asked, somewhat taken aback by the sudden look of intensity in her eyes.

She stared at him for a few more moments, and then she laughed. “A big deal? Yeah, kind of. No, I’d say calling it a big deal would be an understatement.”

Umbry searched desperately through the boxes in the corner of her office, rifling through unimportant documents and old cases. There was something she was looking for – she couldn’t really pinpoint it right now – but she knew she had to find it. As she sat on the floor, the messy piles of folders surrounding her gradually rose into a fortress of paper, and her legs started to fall asleep under her. Still she looked, meticulously searching every page for the word that she couldn’t recall.

There was a knock on the door and Clay came in, scowling at the wall of folders that surrounded her. From where he stood only her head was visible. Right now she was looking through a document of one of their older cases, from when they were still big shots in the business. “Hello, Clay,” she said plainly, not even glancing up from the document. She flipped through the pages and finally placed it down on top of one of the many piles.

“You’re a fast reader,” he remarked, watching as her eyes quickly scanned through another collection of documents as if she were flipping photos. She nodded, putting the papers back in their folder, set it down next to her, and picked up yet another folder. He took a seat on the computer chair and watched her for a while.

“I’m getting closer, so I won’t be long,” she said quietly, putting another folder down on the top of the collection. “What do you need?”

“Francesca and I will be going to visit Lindsay soon. I was wondering if you wanted to come.”

“And Julia?”

He smiled. “Sleeping like a baby.”

Umbry sighed. “What a strange girl. She always hated sleeping for some reason, but she could never escape it. Anyway…”

“Why did she hate it?”

“How should I know?” She took a large folder full of papers and began scanning through the pictures and words – crime scene photos, descriptions of the murder and witness testimonies. “I don’t know anything close to everything about her. That’s why we can be partners, Clay.”

“Well if you’ve always known each other, I’d expect you to at least know why she hates sleeping…”

“She used to have nightmares about something. I don’t know what, but it seems like she forces herself not to sleep just to escape those.”

Clay looked down at one of the photos. “I know the feeling,” he muttered.

“What did you say?” She looked up at him, setting down the papers to take a break.

“Nothing.”

She sighed.

“Clay,” she began, unsure of exactly the tone she would use, “I don’t think Julia and I are the only ones involved in… whatever this is. I mean, as far as I know Francesca isn’t involved, but you have a box.” She paused. “The earth box.”

Something bubbled up in her head just then, as if there was a shift deep inside her mind. “Julia and I are the sun and the moon, respectively. And you, your last name is Terransky. Terra means Earth. To say nothing of your first name. And Frederick White sent you that box, right? Maybe he gave that box to us because he knew it was like us. Did he… know us? And not just because he was a suspect in a case? I can’t recall exactly… augh!” The fort of folders around her collapsed as she fell on her side. Clay caught her and she gripped onto his chest. “Umbry, are you okay?”

There was a pause, and then she relaxed. “I don’t know. I just… I can’t think right now. I need to take a break.” She rubbed her temples and there was a long silence. Clay didn’t let go of her.

“Umbry, that eye of yours. That one that no one sees.” He looked at her.

“What about it?” She asked, touching the long strands of hair that covered it.

“What does it look like?” They looked at each other, their faces extremely close. “Maybe if you let someone see, you’d be able to remember those secrets… and I am the Earth, aren’t I?”

Umbry’s heart beat like a hummingbird’s wings, and her hands shook. Finally, she pushed herself away before anything could happen. “Clay, I can’t.” She stood up, a little dizzy from the headache. “I have to go.”

“I’m sorry.”

She didn’t reply.

“Umbry, I’m–”

“You can’t do it either, can you?” She looked back at him from the light of the door. “Whatever things Julia and I can’t remember, we’re not the only ones. There’s something you’re holding back, too.”

“…How did you know?”

“I looked up your record, Clay. I know about her.”

Neither of them said anything after that.

Umbry took a breath in and tried to say something, but she found herself at a loss for words, so she simply left the room and closed the door, and Clay could hear her footsteps as she walked up the stairs to their apartment and climbed into her bed. His fists were clenched, and he was biting his lip so much that it bled a little into his mouth. He swallowed the blood and stood up, straightening his jacket, and looked down once more at the piles of folders strewn about the floor. The case she had been looking at – the thickest folder – was the case in which Frederick had been a suspect. One of the photos showed Julia and Umbry themselves, younger back then – perhaps 14 or 15 – but still with hair covering one eye each. They were watching as Frederick was being arrested. They looked panicked and defiant, and perhaps a little sad.

Clay took the picture and placed it in his pocket.

Shady figures stared on from the abyss of the chesterfield, unrelenting, unblinking except in the shuddering light blocked by the fan. They were loud and made a tingling noise, like when someone traces their fingers over your side right where all the nerves are.

Those smiles. They were familiar somehow, but the faces were gone, so she couldn’t particularly tell. And there was someone missing from that pivotal picture, as if they were cut out with jaggedy scissor strokes and replaced with cutouts from other pictures so that the others would look natural instead of like a hole was cut into them. Was that what she was? A cutout? And where was that original ‘her’, the one that had been cut out? Did she feel out of place at all, or was she surrounded by cutouts of her own, so that she herself would feel natural instead of jaggedy and misplaced? She wondered if there was anyone like her, any other cutout girl or boy, and she wondered whether their cutouts were jaggedy or carefully cut, and if maybe all the cutouts came together and glued themselves to each other. Would they even notice a change? Would she? And when that glue started to fade away with time, would she drift back to those shady figures on the chesterfield, the ones who still smiled fakely for her beneath the shivering of the fan? She had so many questions, but things were too slippery to hold onto right now, when her cutout world was occupied by bronze boxes and forgotten songs and Earths and Moons. Earths… that’s right, she was on Earth right now, wasn’t she? And there was something that needed doing…

“Julia, are you quite alright? You seem somewhat off-kilter.”

She looked up and smiled at Francesca. “I was just daydreaming, Francesca.”

“Hmm.”

She looked down and found that she’d been doodling a portrait of a family, with a large chunk cut out of it. She stared at it in confusion, not really remembering having drawn it.

“Well, darling, perhaps you should get some real dreaming done. You may do well from it.”

“I like daydreaming better,” Julia said, smiling as she lay down her pencil. “It’s easier to control.” Looking down one last time at her picture, she turned it over so that the blank side was facing up. With some degree of hesitation, she finally added, “I think.”

Delicately, Francesca pulled the hair out of Julia’s free eye, careful not to disturb the other side. “Dearest Julia, you really must rest sometimes. Your Umbry can take care of you, can she not?”

“Umbry’s the one who needs taking care of. If I’m the Sun, then that’s what I’m supposed to do, right?”

“Why do you use that analogy?” Francesca looked at the face-down drawing that sat alone at Julia’s desk, trying to look through the one side to the other.

Julia rested her head on her hand. “It just comes naturally, I guess,” she finally said.

“Is that really the truth?”

She paused, and finally sighed in defeat. “The truth is, I can’t really recall right now why we had that name. It was probably some stupid whim, I guess, but it stuck, so here we are.”

“And yet you seem to take it so seriously.”

“Well, it’s fitting, isn’t it?” Julia leaned back to look at Francesca and simultaneously rest against the older woman’s waist. “Maybe it was someone else who gave it to us, but it’s always just been us, y’know? I was the sun, and she was the moon, and we had those music boxes and… augh…” Suddenly, she was holding her head and biting her lip and squeezing her eyes shut.

“What is it, dear?” Francesca leaned over her, putting a hand to her forehead. Her fingers were refreshingly cool, but not at all cold.

Finally, Julia opened her eyes, seemingly a little relieved. “…It’s nothing. I guess I’ve just been pushing myself.” She stood up, and had to lean on Francesca a bit, but finally got back up on her feet. Walking in a slightly wobbly line, she headed for the stairs. “Bedroom … upstairs … I think I’ll take a nap, Francesca.” She paused, leaning on the door frame. “…And thank you. I feel better for some reason.” The door closed behind her and Francesca kept listening until she heard Julia climb to the top of the stairs and into her bed. Then, she returned to her desk and flipped over the picture.

It was exactly as she had suspected – memories that Julia was supressing, or possibly was being forced to supress by some external force.

And there was something else.

Julia had mentioned another box.

Now all she needed to put this puzzle together were the boxes, which meant that whoever was currently in possession of them would need to be found. Preferably quickly, before this mystery deepened any further.

***

Bony fingers played with the two boxes as though they were a Rubik’s cube. He turned them over softly in his lap and trying to find an opening. He attempted to fit them together in every way possible, and he was sure he could – it would just take time. If Francesca could do it, and if Frederick could do it, then surely he could as well. But he’d been doing this for hours, and his fingers were beginning to hurt. He stretched them and then balled them into fists, and they cracked with a satisfying sound as they recoiled into their position beneath his sleeves. Feeling much better, he turned one box around a little bit, and something finally caught. There was a click, and the two boxes opened – and they were empty. All except for a push-button at the bottom of one of them.

It figured that those two wouldn’t let go of the message they’d been given, especially at the gunpoint of such an idiot. But this secret was something they couldn’t possibly have seen in the short time before the boxes were taken from them, and he took solace in that.

He still possessed a part of their secret. And so he pushed the button, preparing to destroy the box as soon as he’d finished. The noise came softly at first, but then every other soft noise was drowned out, as his ears tuned into the thing he remembered more vividly than anything else.

The thing that they would remember – something that would click with all four of them.

He felt something strange against his cheeks – tears, he presumed, or perhaps blood, from a popped blood vessel? He didn’t know, but the sounds were too beautiful now for him to stop listening. So he closed his eyes.

It was time to meet with the others, he realized, and show them this. Until then, he lamented, he would wait to hear the end of the song. He pressed the button again, and the room was filled by the vacuum of silence.

Vacuums. Nothingness. Was that what he was now? Nothingness? Or a cutout?

Cutouts… where did he get that from? It seemed memorable, but he couldn’t quite place it. He would have to figure it out another time. Softly he placed the two boxes on the table and clicked them closed, and left them for better, more productive thoughts than cutouts and nothingness.

He didn’t know how long he could keep this up. The faster he ran, the louder the footsteps seemed to get. He wondered what would happen if he were to just stop, let it catch up to him. A quick end might be easier than this eternal hellish flight.

The beast had changed. All the times before it had made itself known by its low menacing growl, the sound of something brutish and unnameable. But this time it had laughed. “How can a beast laugh?” he wondered. Maybe it had its own feral version of a sense of humour. He had a crazy thought that if he could just turn around and tell it a joke, get the punchline out of his throat before said throat was ripped from his body, then it might spare him.

He started wracking his brains, trying to think of a short joke. He had heard so many, many jokes in his life. All he needed now was one, and he would not end up as beast-meat.

He realized to his horror that he couldn’t think of a single joke.

The laugh came again, closer this time, and he realized that it was more of a murmur. A distinctly unbestial high pitched murmur. This was new. It almost sounded as though it were calling to him, saying his name. Then at last he felt the dreaded touch upon his ankle, and girded himself to scream at the grip of the fatal claw.

But it was not a claw. Impossibly, it felt like fingers – long fingers. A beast with fingers – calling to him!

“Clayton,” it said, rather distinctly, and the sheer surprise of this shocked him awake.

***

Francesca looked down upon her friend. It had taken quite some time to shake him awake. “You poor dear, you must have been so exhausted.

Clay blinked, for a moment seemingly unaware of his surroundings. She waited until the could see his eyes focus on her face, until he was fully in the here and now. “Hello Francesca.”

She smiled. “Good morning, my dear. I am happy that you have partaken of the restful and restorative powers of sleep.” She didn’t notice his wry half smile in response.

“I have, as they say, the news that is good and the news that is bad,” she continued. “I have pieced together all of the letters. The good news is that there is indeed a message here.”

“Fantastic! What’s the bad news?” Clay asked, picking himself up out of the chair.

“The message is still incomplete.”

“Incomplete!” he said, followed by a word he rarely found himself using in the company of ladies. “Sorry Francesca,” he said.

“My dear, I have heard far worse. The inventiveness of the descriptive phrases employed by some of my comrades in the Movement would have embarrassed even you, my friend. To say nothing of their sheer anatomical implausiility.

“But to continue. The message is incomplete because it contains only a subset of the needed words. Everything is in place, yet remains tantalizingly out of reach. It seems that we have in our possession the verbs, the adjectives, adverbs and participles, but are missing all of the nouns.

“You mean…” he started, already seeing where she was going.

“Yes Clayton. It would appear there is a third box.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. Um … I mean darned. No, damn it, I mean I’ll be damned.”

“I certainly hope not, my dear. But it looks as though we will need to have a rather frank conversation with a certain convalescing patient.”

Clay nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”

Umbry emerged from the dark room some time later, closing it tightly behind her, her body still shaking only slightly. Francesca had returned to the puzzle. Perched on her seat, sipping an espresso in complete concentration, she looked like someone straight out of an old 1940s French poster (or perhaps Italian… it was a toss-up). Clay looked up when he heard Umbry approach and smiled warmly. “Hey. You okay?”

She scowled and took a quick glance at Julia, who was looking right her – they both turned away, Julia back to her espresso and Umbry to Clay. “What do you mean? I’m fine.” She shrugged, in an attempt at nonchalance. “I’m just… a little tired, is all.”

“Feel like grabbing some fresh air?” Clay put a comforting arm around Umbry, who avoided his gaze and instead looked down at the ground. “Okay,” she finally said, nodding, still avoiding eye contact. He led her out, and Umbry leaned toward him a little, careful to avoid the gaze from Julia that was so obviously burning a hole in the back of her head.

The fresh air did make her feel better, especially when they’d walked a little bit down the street and she knew her partner wasn’t watching anymore. Hesitating for a second, Clay took his arm away and tucked his hand in his coat pocket.

“Hey, um,” Clay began, but he wasn’t sure how he would say it. “Umbry, when did you and Julia meet? Do you remember?”

“We’ve always known each other,” She replied, the words coming automatically. “Why would you ask that kind of question?”

“Actually, I was wondering,” Clay began again, “Do you actually like her at all? You two don’t ever really talk to each other, and–”

Umbry stopped.

Clay cringed at his mistake. “Sorry I even brought it up.”

“No, Clay.”

“What, you mean you–”

“Clay. Behind you.”

It was at this moment that he noticed that Umbry was very pale – it was also the moment when he noticed the red liquid seeping around his shoes. Gasping, he turned around.

He covered his mouth and his face contracted into a sort of shocked horror that even he couldn’t particularly describe. Still, it took only a second to cover it up again, and he was only slightly pale and a little sweaty when he turned back to Umbry. “Go tell the others. Call an ambulance,” he said slowly, emphasizing every word as if trying to keep himself in control. Umbry looked hesitant, glancing back at the sight, but Clay was adamant. “Go,” he urged. “It’s all you can do.”

She nodded and took one last look at him. “Lindsay,” she managed to breathe, trying to think of something encouraging to say.

She couldn’t, and so she took off down the street, trying desperately not to look back at her bloodied colleague.

***

“See, Lindsay, this is why I said I was rooting for our team,” Julia said reassuringly, brushing his hair out of his face. Lindsay tried to grumble something in response, but was halted by the pain, and instead it came out as a disgruntled wince. Umbry watched him.

“You really should tell us who did this to you,” she finally said, staring him down. He looked up at the white ceiling of the hospital, and they all listened to the beeping of the heart monitor. Despite being a little bit annoyed, Lindsay seemed level-headed from his heartbeat, Umbry noticed. But still, it seemed like he was trying to make an important decision. Julia must have been thinking of the same thing, she realized. Behind the patronizing look she was giving Lindsay, it was clear her partner was worried…

“You won’t be able… to do anything,” Lindsay finally said, his voice slow and almost slurred. It seemed like the painkillers were finally kicking in. Julia and Umbry exchanged an anxious glance, and both knew that their time with a sane Lindsay was short.

“What?” Julia asked, trying as hard as she could to sound soft. “What can’t we do anything about?”

“…His plan.” He looked up at them for the first time, through the numbing pain.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he continued, trying his hardest to speak clearly, “I’ve seen what you two can do. Back in your day you might have been the best gumshoes anyone could hire… but you can’t compare to him, not as you are right now. Everyone in the world has to endure obstacles to get what they want, but he just rams through them without a care in the world… whether it’s laws or human lives, he won’t… he won’t stop…”

“And what does he want?” Umbry asked.

“He… he wants… music? I don’t remember…” Lindsay’s voice trailed off as his eyelids started drooping.

Julia ruffled his hair. “We’ll have to wait until he wakes up.”

Umbry nodded. “Lindsay, we might have to do some councilling or run lie detector tests or something so you don’t try to shoot us again, but you can come back to your job if you still want it.” She paused to stand up. “Part-time. And on lower pay. But still.” She smiled a little at his sleeping figure. Julia fixed the flowers on his side-table and protruded from her bag a small stuffed white cat. “You can have this until you see ours again. It misses you. And it told me to tell you: meow.” Scowling, she and Umbry nodded to each other in sync and then made their exit from the room.

Lindsay’s heartbeat remained stable – slow, but still stable. And the cat toy stared up at the rhythmic spiking on the screen.

“There’s something odd going on with Julia and Umbry,” Clay said. He had known for a while that he and Francesca would need to have this conversation, although he hadn’t been quite sure what he would say. Now that the words were finally coming out, it was easier.

“Yes, so I have noticed,” she replied, and then paused to think, moving her chair back a bit and taking her eyes off the puzzle in front of her. “There is trauma there — or rather, there has been. Certain aspects of their situation have not added up in my mind to a consistent whole. I believe, Clayton, that there is evidence we may be dealing with matters of the unconscious mind.”

Clay nodded. “Glad I’m not the only one to notice it. I was starting to think it was me. I’ve mostly been getting a general feeling, a sense of something lying just below the surface. It’s been very hard to pin down, exactly. I suspect that they themselves may not even be aware of it. Francesca, have you spotted any specific anomaly, something we could work with to try to understand better what they are going through?”

Francesca nodded slowly, the logical part of her mind approaching this puzzle much as she would approach any other. “You mentioned Frederick to them during your very first encounter, is this not correct?”

“Yes,” nodded Clay, “to Julia.”

“And what was her response?”

Clay thought back. “Yes … right. I showed her some photos, and asked her whether Freddie looked familiar. I believe her exact response was ‘He rings a bell, but I can’t say.’”

“You see, my dear Clayton,” Francesca exclaimed, “There it is. Frederick spoke often of his two saviors, those intrepid young detectives. Against the views of entire legal establishment and received opinion of the constablry, they insisted that he was innocent of any crime. Correctly as it turned out. It was quite the impressive feat of sleuthing to achieve any age, and I believe they were still in their teenage years at the time.”

“So how is it possible,” Clay mused aloud, “that Julia would have difficulty recognizing him?”

“Clearly it is not possible, my dear. Their paths would certainly have crossed on multiple occasions. That is why I suspect a repression of memory. There has clearly been some occurrence so overwhelming or abhorrent in its effect upon their psyches that the entire memory has simply been placed safely out of reach by the minds of these two young women.”

Clay nodded. “I don’t need convincing. The problem now is how to pull them out of it, to bring them back to their full abilities, before the enemy makes his move.”

Francesca smiled. “Why Clayton, you of all individuals should know something of the path one must walk in such situations. Take your own sad case as an example. I remember the first time, I believe it was in Cagne-sur-Mer, when you first introduced me to…”

“We don’t need to speak of her,” Clay cut her off, with a savage curtness that surprised even himself.

“No, my dear, we do not,” Francesca replied gently. “I am sorry if I have spoken out of turn. Besides, we have, as you would say, other fish to fly.”

There was a pause. “Fry,” said Clay.

“Fry?” Francesca looked confused. “Fry what?”

“Other fish to fry. That’s how we say it. Although I like your version better.” He smiled apologetically, and she returned his smile. They were still standing there, simply looking at one another, when Julia came in, her eyes bloodshot.

“My dear,” Francesca exclaimed, “Have you been crying?”

“No, don’t be silly,” Julia lied. “Everything is fine.”

“I am so glad to hear it,” Francesca said quickly. “Silly me. Would you be a dear and prepare one of those delightful espressos for me?”

Julia beamed at her two friends, her usual sunny expression somewhat restored. “Yes, that’d be great. I might even make two.”

Umbry closed the door behind her and held the doorknob, silently locking it.

“Don’t turn on the light,” came a small voice from the other end of the room.

“I won’t.” Umbry’s response was soft and reassuring. She slid down the door until she was sitting against it.

They sat like that for a long time while Umbry’s eyes adjusted to the light, which was practically nil. The only window was tiny and had a thick black curtain covering it, so it was almost impossible to see. After a few minutes of sitting in the dark, she could just barely make out the shape of her partner across the room. Julia was sitting against the opposite wall, holding her knees to her chest. Umbry couldn’t even really see her face – in the dark of the room it looked more like a mask. Julia’s expression was usually easy to read, almost transparent for Umbry – but under this mask of darkness, it was like trying to read a book written in a dead language. Umbry picked herself up and crawled, slowly, across the room, waving one hand in front of her so as to avoid any obstacles. She crawled under the desk and didn’t stop until she was next to Julia, and then she collapsed into her arms. Julia rested her head on Umbry’s shoulder and they sat together in the dark for another long time.

“You know, Umbry,” Julia whispered, “we’re not twelve anymore. I’m not afraid of the dark.”

“I know, Julia,” Umbry whispered back. “But did you ever think that maybe I–”

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of it now.”

“…Yeah.” Umbry looked a bit sheepish, glad in a way that they couldn’t see each other. She leaned back and started running her hands through Julia’s hair, careful to avoid the eye covered by her partner’s beautiful locks. “It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.”

“Let’s not talk about our past, okay?” Julia said, pressing a warm hand against Umbry’s cheek. Softly, she lifted the long black hair and kissed it, careful not to let the darkness touch that precious covered eye. “We have Francesca now, and Clay too,” she whispered, running her fingers through Umbry’s straight black hair.

Francesca. The reaction that name induced in her was… confusing. Still, she nodded to Julia and their visible eyes met, and Julia smiled at her the way she smiled to brighten things up when there was a bad mood going around. Umbry knew that smile well, and it had been used on her effectively countless times in the past, but just this once it didn’t stop her heart from sinking. So she rested her head on Julia’s shoulder and closed her eyes, and in the mask of darkness even her beloved partner couldn’t deduce her feelings.

***

“Look, if you’re not happy with those boxes, you should have done it yourself. I spent three months doing the most boring desk job ever and I am not going back there.”

Lindsay leaned against the edge of the sofa, slightly out of breath from all the travelling he’d just done. He figured he sounded pretty badass just then, but he still kept his line of sight strictly on the ground, not even casting a glance upwards at his boss. In fact, he realized as he heard the squeaking of a computer chair that his hands were shaking, just slightly.

There was a long, drawn out sigh, and then, finally, words.

“They’re empty.”

“What?” Lindsay thought back, and realized what must have happened. He punched the arm of the sofa in frustration. “That bitch! I knew it was too easy…”

“Well, I forgive you. You’ll get their contents back. I sure of it.”

“And how do you expect me to do that?” Even then, he couldn’t look up, even when he felt a searing pain. Curiousity killed the cat, some people like to say. But maybe now curiousity would have saved it.

Lindsay looked down and felt warm blood on his stomach. He held his hands to the wound and collapsed on the floor in shock.

A crowd of men flooded into the room, hearing the thud, but saw only a figure as it sat at the computer chair.
“What do you want us to do, sir?”

“Take him out. I want to see what they do when they find him like this.” A smirk.

They obeyed without question, like the good men they were…

The two little bronze boxes sat, closed, on the table. Their engraved symbols glittered in the harsh light of the computer screen. Long fingers reached out and placed a third box next to them, and together the three boxes sat, once again after too many years. The insignia on the third box didn’t glitter in the light, but seemed to absorb it – a perfect spiral, culminating in one dark spot in the very middle.

A black hole. Fingertips just grazed the edge of the boxes one by one, and came to rest on this dark spot, lingering there for a sweet second before returning to their home on their owner’s lap.

“It’s been a long time, girls, but don’t you worry. I’ll be seeing you soon.”

Francesca was quite aware on some level that there were others in the room, but that part of her mind was no longer engaged. When she was working, the entire universe consisted of the problem before her – in this case a deceptively simple set of letters, printed on black and white paper.

At first it had seemed hopeless – how does one assemble meaning from disconnected letters? But at some point she noticed telltale patterns in the way the pieces were cut. She now knew that the original message had been entirely contained on two sheets of paper – one white printed on black, the other black printed on white. The same scissors had been used to cut each of these two messages into its component letters. Slight irregularities in the angles of the cuts had already told her something of which letters went alongside which others.

She could also tell from the frequency of occurrence of the letters that each of the two original messages was incomplete – solving its meaning would require assembling its sister message. For example, the white on black message did not contain a single occurrence of the letter ‘e’ – a statistical near impossibility. The other message contained no occurrences of the letter ‘t’, which was equally unlikely.

Cryptological analysis was second nature to Francesca – a subject second nature to her since she had been a girl growing up in the Lombardia countryside. She could recite the descending sequence of letter frequency in many languages with greater facility than the alphabet itself. For English, this sequence was, more or less:

e t a o n r i s h d l f c m u g y p w b v k x j q z

with ‘e’ being the most commonly occurring letter in the written language, and ‘z’ being the rarest. Depending upon which book one analyzed there were slight variations in this order. For example Mickey Spillane would not produce exactly the same ordering as, say, Jane Austin – although they would be close.

She had already deduced that the creator of this puzzle had a particular order in mind, and had separated out the even and odd letters – placing only the one set on the message from the sun and moon box, and the complementary set in the message from the earth box. The two messages, if separately assembled, would each remain fairly incomprehensible. But when properly interwoven those two messages would reveal their secrets.

She was still engaged in the first phase of the process – the arduous task of physically matching the scissor cuts to find the adjoining fragments of each message. Slowly but surely the two sheets of paper were each becoming whole again. Now it was only a matter of time.

She took a moment to look up at Clay, and they shared a worried glance. They both realized full well that their opponent would soon discover how to open the boxes now in his possession, and would then find that they were empty. Once that happened, the lives of everyone in this room would be in danger. It was essential that the puzzle be solved before then…

“You know, he might be an idiot, Julia, but in some ways he’s a really smart idiot.”

Umbry sighed. She had tried every trick she knew to get through Lindsay’s added security locks, but it was no use. The computer was shut tight, with all their files inside. The only thing that would display on the monitor was an endless slideshow of cats – cute cats, cats doing stupid tricks, cats in funny costumes, fluffy cats, furless cats, cats with big eyes and small eyes. After staring at the screen for 15 minutes, Umbry swore she’d vomit if she saw another cuddly cat scene. The worst of it was, some of the pictures were starting to look familiar. Maybe it was a big loop and she was seeing the same slide show over and over. By this point, her eyeballs were too numb to be able to tell.

She heard a soft purring noise and looked up to see that the cat had nestled up next to the monitor and was beginning to fall asleep. Ordinarily she would have found this cute, but right now petting a cat was the last thing she wanted to do.

Julia emerged from her office. “The computers in our offices aren’t working either,” she said to no one in particular, stretching out. She shuddered away from the cat, who looked longingly after her, and instead decided to look over what Francesca was doing.

“Want another espresso?”

“I am quite fine. Thank you, dear. The five espressos you’ve already provided were absolutely delicious, and now I am feeling very, ah, energized.”

If there was a note of irony in this response, Julia didn’t notice, as she was already absorbed in looking over the contents of the envelopes, now strewn across the table in no particular order. Each piece of thin paper had a letter on it, and there were a great many of them. The pieces from the sun-and-moon box were white on black paper, while the pieces from the earth box were black on white paper, but they were the same font and the same size. Occasionally Francesca would carefully reach out, delicately pick a letter up with her fingertips and place it next to another. In her eyes was a look of intense concentration.

Julia was never one for anagram puzzles, so she relaxed and settled for watching Francesca working.

Clay also looked on. He too had been working on the puzzle for the last few hours, and now his head hurt. He glanced at the cat, who looked slightly dejected, but before the feline could entice him to come over and pet it a disheveled Umbry emerged from behind the computer screen. She was leaning against the desk, looking completely exhausted and somewhat pale, and Clay went to say something encouraging. But when he’d arrived at her side, she had already straightened herself up. “Are you okay?” He asked, although the answer seemed obvious.

“I’m fine,” she said, sounding very unconvincing. “Just too many darned cats.”

“Wait here.” Clay ran to the kitchen and poured a glass of cold water from the fridge, and thankfully Umbry was still there when he returned with it. An entire glass in three gulps later, the colour returned to her face.

“You’re a brave young woman,” Clay said, “Being able to look at all those cat pictures in one sitting.”

Umbry chuckled. “It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.” She took a pause to attempt – futilely – to get a last drop of water out of her glass. “Actually,” she continued, “I didn’t think Lindsay would have it in him to actually betray us. From his actions it was obvious he wanted to, but Lindsay was never good with following through on things…”

“Well, people will always surprise you. Just look at the people in this room.”

Umbry looked at each of them in turn, and ended up pointing at Clay himself, a look of amusement on her face. “You sir, look like an intelligent, well-kempt and organized man, and as far as I know that’s what you are.” He blushed and looked away, trying to find a graceful way to shift the conversation. In the nick of time Julia arrived and did it for him.

“Clay, don’t you think it impolite to have fetched only one glass of water? Francesca is hard at work over there. Do you want her to dehydrate before she has a chance to solve the puzzle?” Before Clay could even begin to respond, she was already pulling him toward the kitchen. “Come on, you big lug, let’s do it properly. One tray, four glasses, a pitcher with ice. Be a dear and help me.”

“Umbry,” she said while heading for the kitchen, “maybe you should help Francesca out with the puzzles. I’m not that good, and I think the computer is a lost cause for now.” With a bemused Clay in tow, she headed toward the kitchen. She avoided the cat on her way out.

Umbry, happy to be away from computers with virtual cats, took a seat next to Francesca, who had completely switched around the order of the letters – they still didn’t form anything coherent, but it seemed like she was getting somewhere.

“They’re just a barrel of laughs, aren’t they?” She said as she adjusted herself, glancing at the older woman next to her.

“Hm.” That was the only answer she’d get. Umbry looked away, sorry she’d opened her mouth, and instead turned to the puzzle in front of them. She took a deep breath and let everything fall away, and suddenly the room went quiet as the both of them became completely absorbed in rearranging the little pieces of paper.

Julia and Clay worked silently for a while, gathering all the components of a proper tray of ice water. Clay had amassed a list of questions in his head about the two young detectives, and he decided this was a good moment to ask some of them.

“You two are very, uh, close, aren’t you? You and Umbry, I mean.”

She turned towards him. “It’s difficult for you to talk about these things, isn’t it, Clay?” She smiled. “Yes, we’re close.”

“How long have you known each other?”

She stared at him, confused. “What are you talking about? We’ve always known each other.”

“Oh.” He scowled, trying to imagine it, but couldn’t. “You… aren’t related, are you?”

Julia giggled. “Of course not!” She thought for a moment.

“Everyone asks that,” she continued. “but personally I can’t really see it. We’re so different, down to the way we walk and write, and in our tastes for food, and…” Clay tried to recall their handwriting, and found that he couldn’t really differentiate one from the other in the few documents he’d seen lying around. Going on to thinking about how they walked, he could maybe see a bit of a difference, but it was hardly significant, and they made their coffee the exact same way…

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Julia said, “I do go on about her, don’t I?” She turned away, embarrassed. Clay realized she’d been talking this whole time. He tried to think of something to say, but found himself unable to interrupt the mysterious look she had at the moment. They finished preparing the tray in silence.

By the time they got back to the office the atmosphere between them had become so peculiar that it seemed to jolt even the cat as they entered. Francesca was completely absorbed in her puzzle solving, but Umbry, seeing Julia’s expression, gave her a quizzical look. Julia mumbled something incoherent about the water, and then lay the tray down on the table. She barely looked at Umbry as she swept into her office, and Umbry watched after her as she walked in, not bothering to turn on the light, and closed the door behind her.