A Mischief in the Woodwork - By Harper Alexander Page 0,26

its wings manifested in the pages of a diary, and as the pages turned it was granted flight. A draft hatched into the room, a puff as each page fell. It huffed and puffed a moment, trying to catch on; like trying to pump flickering coals into flame. Then the pages began to turn faster, and the consistency of the draft increased. The metaphoric flames caught. The curtain rippled as if someone had passed. The ashes in the fireplace stirred up from their deathbed. Up the chimney they were snuffed, where they intercepted an unsuspecting bird in flight. Its wings engaged resistance – and at that point, the current was harnessed, given birth, and propelled into the aftermath of the foreseeable future.

None would think to make the connection that, as the pages of one Winifred Sebastian's diary were turned, great patches of rubble in the city were overturning in conjunction.

The Great Butterfly was in motion. Like a hamster wheel, this omnipotent creature had taken to its gears.

Gears that could turn the earth on its axis. Gears that churned beneath the ocean, and rationed the tides. Gears that turned compass points to the great margin that was the North.

A flurry of pages.

A shuffle in the city.

I did not know it, but by the end of that diary, I had built a fortress somewhere in the city.

T e n –

Negotiations, Armored and Otherwise

I kept an eye on Tanen as I read from the diary. The others were about their business as I tended the morning fire. As far as Tanen knew, sitting across the room from me, I was simply passing the time waiting until the fire needed to be fed. He could not know I was not planning on sacrificing the volume in question when the time came.

I was all set to send him off with the rising of the sun, but Letta was not so quick to shoo him off without breakfast. Hence, the sun had crested the peak of its great cradle, and Tanen was still here with us.

With me.

He sat there innocently enough, but I could not tame my guard. My eyes kept straying to him over the top of Lady Sebastian's diary. For awhile, he did little things like whittle away at some little trinket from one of his coat pockets. I watched him roll his nice white sleeves up, wondering how he had kept the garment so nice, figuring he must have commenced with a good many more layers and been stripped of the other garments as they wore out along the way. A pair of lovely strong wrists were bared from beneath his sleeves, and then I lost interest in the rhythmic task that followed and immersed myself back in my book.

After a time, he put the trinket and his knife away in the pocket of his coat where it was slung across the back of his chair, then pulled the coat around to serve as a blanket and settled in to take a bit of a cat nap before his day's journey.

I considered him, wondering if the nap served to conquer boredom or if he was earnestly in need of sleep. I considered the shadows where his thick lashes fell against his cheekbones, then took in the lines of the rest of his nonchalant face. He looked agreeable enough in his sleep.

My eyes traveled down, considering his coat. I pondered the scratches and from whence they came, and then I pondered the pockets. What else did he have in them? I had the strange sudden urge to snoop, to creep into his pockets while he was asleep and see what kind of man this was, as if I could judge that from what trinkets were found in a man's pockets. They wouldn't be just trinkets. They would be symbols.

The bottom edge of the coat fell against his knees, and I followed the muscle of his calf as it plunged into his boot. His boots were worn, light gray in color, with scars of white criss-crossing like lashes on a slave's back.

My eyes trailed back up to his face, considering still, and then a certain sense of horror clenched me; his eyes were open. He was looking back at me – blank-faced, but he had caught me in the act.

My cheeks bloomed hot with roses, but the diary hid them from his witness sight, and then defiance came along to thrash aside the ridiculous idea of being ashamed in his presence. I wouldn't be caught