Chapter Two The Nova #2
Food was, and would always be, a labor of love.
It was a distillation of a people, of culture, of you.
The things that had sustained life for millennia had not survived by mere accident.
Food was a language, a bond as deep as your ancestral tree.
To share it was personal, intimate. Which was why the Lax Festival was considered a celebration of love.
This weekend it was being hosted in my home borough, Aisl Park. The festival cycled between the four boroughs every weekend for a month, the other three being Alton Heights, Dieton, and Castor.
Colorful carts hissed and thrummed as the small steam motors kept food hot and fragrant. The water for the engines was drawn from the river that ran between boroughs, resulting in a slightly metallic smell pervading the air.
We hadn’t seen a clean river in our lifetime.
It fed directly to the expanse of ocean, which had affected the coastline out east of the city.
Progress was coming; it was just slow. Coal and oil energy had been banned within the bounds of the city, with only steam allowed.
The electricity plant was just outside the bounds above the Aisl Park county line.
Even that wasn’t perfect, polluting the city even if it was technically on the other side of the border.
We still felt it in our lungs, in our water; even the clouds of infinite smog were witness to policy failure.
I raised the camera from my waist, leather bellows extended, lining the smokestack in the distance between the silhouettes of the buildings in the viewfinder. Heads bobbed in the lower third of the viewfinder, the smoke a black specter against the sunset.
Click, the camera shutter snapped.
My morning had been consumed by small errands.
I’d dropped a camera off for bellows repairs, put in orders for the plumbing maintenance of my home, all while finding time to swipe an apple to calm my stomach until later.
In those rare moments in between, I could steal them for my own pleasures with my own little toys.
The banners on the carts depicted a stocky horse with six legs, a cropped tail, and a roached mane. Constellation Dieter was the patron of the season, the harvest time of grains and oats.
“Hot grains for the missus?” The vendor was already scooping the red-powdered granola clumps into bags, the sting of fragrant chili and cayenne clearing my sinuses immediately.
I waved my hand no, but his attention was already turned on three more passersby.
Street company would never be dull. So many personalities, so little time to know them. More interesting than those who dwelled in the light were those who lingered in places unseen.
Squirming shadows lurked under carts, skirting along people’s shoes, tucked among the cobblestones, and slipping in and out of gutters.
The streets were full of shadows not connected to bodies or objects, like our own.
No, the Peculiars. The ones found in the wild, untethered and unbothered by the people they fed upon.
The ones out in the wild were hardly as large as my most beloved companions, Absinthe and Tonic, but they were there nonetheless.
Bigger entities did exist, but there were never any doors from the Otherside large enough for them to slip through, not unless opened by someone who could see them.
Old texts described my ability, but no one could achieve the same powers without the use of the Peculiars.
Somewhere out there, small tears in reality had probably let all these Peculiars through, like the smallest pinpricks in a rubber balloon.
At first, it could be frightening to come across something unfamiliar.
I wouldn’t say they were not of this world; we shared it.
Just like us, they were simply existing.
Any location that evoked strong emotions had the highest concentration of the creatures.
Most were just curious, floating about, exchanging energy with people without us realizing.
Markets were ideal feeding grounds because they were filled with elation from small talk or satisfaction from homey foods, delicious morsels of emotional energy that the shadows could feast upon.
The carts, as well as the people, dwindled the farther I walked.
Soon I could count cobblestones and easily access sidewalks.
The carts disappeared and were replaced by brick and mortar.
One dusty blue sign in particular caught my eye, with sun-bleached type on the awning and door, a sleeping calico in the samples basket in the window, and only a few regulars meandering about.
The brassy ring of the door slapped the air as I entered, my eyes struggling to adjust as I went from the strong light of dusk into the shady shop.
Incense and balms unified the convenience store’s image and aura, the trill of the shop cat alerting the owner to my presence.
“Keep waking the cat and I’ll throw you out!” a full voice boomed from the back room.
First, a thick hand grasped the doorway, then through the curtain appeared a wall of a man with the most impressive waxed mustache within five blocks.
“Throw me out, Samuele—then she will miss my bribes!” I exclaimed with a tease of sarcasm. From within my purse, I produced a braided herb rope.
The cat smacked her forehead on my hand, dragging her cheek along my fingers and then letting the end of the braid bristle against her teeth.
“It’s that fresh, huh?” Samuele sat down behind the counter, wheeling his chair closer so he could rest his arms.
“Straight from the garden. Nepeta is a favorite of my own regulars.” I held the rope firm for the cat as she chewed. “I’m just here for the fertilizer. The lights seemed dimmer, but it could just be them adjusting.”
“I told you all these new lightings are more of a hassle than naught. If you had told me you’d have to feed your lamps when I was a boy, I’d tell you to go take a piss,” he grumbled, yet he rummaged around in some boxes behind the counter for what I needed.
“All light needs to be fed. Oxygen feeds candles, the bulbs need electrification, and the plankton—”
“Yes, yes, food. I still don’t think they’re worth the maintenance. Can’t even light a mousehole with those.” The counter vibrated when he set an amber jug on the table.
Mealies Bio Fertilizer—Eat right to burn bright.
“The gas lamps and bulbs are unsightly—I like the glow.” I placed a couple of coins in his palm, relinquishing the braided treat for the cat in exchange for the heavy jug.
“Maybe you can invent something brighter, maybe something I don’t have to feed,” he joked, dropping the coins in his register with melodic chimes.
“My expertise is imaging, not lighting.”
“You need light for images, I thought?”
“Well . . .” I paused at the door, then finally lifted a shoulder. “Maybe I’ll add it to the list.”
“Tell Dorian to come by with you next time, so I can make sure the poor lad hasn’t ended up an experiment of yours!” he shouted after me.
I was already out the door, shaking my head.
My job was to think. My brain was my most important muscle, connecting synapse after synapse to give birth to new inventions, new ways of thinking and tinkering.
Yet, I’d still forgotten to think ahead and bring a wheeling basket for errands.
Jugs of liquid were heavy, that was no mystery. My forearms were burning from carrying the jug the last seven blocks.
“I’m here for the archivist,” I said, the bottle making a loud thud against the front desk’s wood.
“Ma’am, no outside material—”
I pushed the jug toward the woman. She almost grabbed it in her confusion, but she stopped when she saw my hands.
My throat tightened.
She stared from over the rim of her spectacles, then moved the jug with her fingers to avoid where I had touched it.
“That’s fine, hold it there, will you?” I massaged my arm, rolling my shoulder in its socket as I slipped past the desk.
There was no gold in the Treasury.
It contained something far more valuable.
Just past the lobby was an archway, a peek into the library. A skyway let you witness its awe without risk of damaging the artifacts. It stretched across the cathedral full of books, fifty feet above the ground.
Ceilings as high as any chapel, books tucked tightly into every surface area of the walls, shelves as plentiful as combs within a hive, and workers just as diligent as the bees that tended to them.
Above, a classical scene depicting the animal patrons of the four seasonal constellations.
There were no artificial lights in the original structure, so biolights were the easiest solution, the glowing plankton.
Intense light would age the books faster.
The biolights were far gentler, and a calming blue hue as well.
Occasionally, a flutter across the ceiling. Between the books, behind the shelves, possibly dozens of bats.
Flying foxes of many species were just as important as their other night companions, owls.
While owls were hailed as being the wise ones, ancient beings of knowledge in some tales, the bats were the protectors.
They ate the pests that might want to eat the paper, the bindings.
While some were modern printings of important works, others were so old they were bound from leather and isinglass.
At night, thick leather curtains were pulled across the shelves for an added layer of protection.
The substrate floors were optimal for cleanup, and replacing the volume of sand was inexpensive.
The bats were more of a novelty now, with the modern use of arsenic as pest control. But they had inhabited this library first; it would be cruel to send them off on their own.