CALLIOPE
The only thing I hate more than a mandatory staff meeting is a mandatory staff meeting held at two a.m. during an ongoing supernatural crisis.
You’d think the biggest perk of working at Ghoulish Grinds, an occult-adjacent coffeehouse, is that the coffee part outweighs the occult.
Wrong. In the days since Erebus’s grand romantic gesture—which is what Mrs. Garcia now calls The Situation—Blackthorn Bay’s entire infrastructure has slipped like noodles through a colander.
We—the baristas, the volunteer latte-art demonstrators, the sandwich-generation witches pulling double espresso shots for their caffeine-overdosed interns—are left to mop up the unending spill.
No one’s sleeping right. You’d think perpetual night would thrill insomniacs, but even the vampires clocking in for overnight shifts look nervous.
Our circadian rhythms are not adaptable; we’ve all started resembling the fish at Big Willie’s Sushi, which rumor says come from the storm drains.
Glazed eyes, slow blinks, occasional unprompted violence.
Tonight’s meeting features full-blast Daylight bulbs dangling over the service counter and Donut Messiah’s finest—a dozen donuts that taste like they could kill a god.
Their logo is a cherubic infant impaled on a cruller.
I try not to take symbolism too seriously, but this seems like a neon sign from the universe.
Petra perches on the espresso machine’s edge, hunched over a mug of yerba mate and a half-stitched voodoo doll.
“He’s blocked my number,” she moans, not for the first time.
“I don’t think you can guilt-trip primordial darkness,” I say, though secretly I admire the effort. “He’s not your ex, Pet.”
“He’s all our ex now.” She glowers at the mug, then at me. “We’ve all been dumped, Calliope.”
My own phone sits on the condiment bar, screen off, battery dead. There are texts from Erebus I’m pretending not to read, their little blue dots of unreadness pulsing like guilt.
I miss him.
That is the most infuriating part.
I can be angry at him and still remember the way he looks at me like I’m the first interesting thing to happen since the formation of the universe. I can know he is wrong and still want to find him sitting at his usual table when I turn around.
Apparently love does not have the decency to become inconvenient only when you stop feeling it.
Mrs. Garcia presides from a circle of folding chairs set up by the pickup window. Her knit beanie reads HOT YOGA INSTRUCTOR, which is only partially a lie.
“The real issue is the goats,” she announces. “They’re overstimulated. Yesterday, Bean and Chorizo took down the crosswalk sign in the parking lot. Had to herd them back with a stun gun.”
Petra leans forward.
“Are you saying the lack of dawn is making the goats feral?”
“They’re daytime creatures. Their internal clocks are shot.”
“What about ours?”
Mrs. Garcia gestures broadly at the room.
“Look around.”
Fair.
“The longer this goes on, the sooner we go full Lord of the Flies.”
“With goats?” Petra asks.
“With everybody.”
Petra takes a long drink of yerba mate.
Then something changes in her expression.
I know that expression.
“No,” I say.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“Whatever you’re about to say, no.”
“What this town needs is normalcy.”
“What this town needs is the sun.”
“Well, until your boyfriend pulls his head out of his celestial ass, we have to improvise.”
“He’s not my—”
Petra gives me a look.
I sigh. “Fine.”
She slaps both hands onto her knees.
“Moonlight Yoga by the Bay.”
The room goes quiet.
Mrs. Garcia nods slowly.
“The goats would like that.”
“The goats don’t get a vote.”
“They’ve had a difficult week.”
“So have I.”
Within twenty minutes, Petra has appointed herself event coordinator, Mrs. Garcia has volunteered the goats for emotional support, and somebody has agreed to print flyers.
Blackthorn has responded to the breakdown of the natural world exactly as Blackthorn responds to everything else.
We’re making it a community event.
Moonlight Yoga by the Bay is advertised with the casual cultishness of a suburban wine tasting.
Petra’s flyers appear everywhere: Ghoulish Grinds, City Hall, the grocery store, even the ancient maple tree in the town square. Each is pinned up with tiny golden-goat pushpins Mrs. Garcia apparently ordered in bulk.
The turnout is better than I expect.
Nearly a hundred people gather along the grassy stretch above the marina in pajamas, yoga pants, sweatshirts and last-ditch athleisure. Somebody has strung battery-powered lanterns along the boat ramp, and the moon hangs above the bay like an enormous spotlight.
Mrs. Garcia arrives with four pygmy goats on leashes.
Bean and Chorizo are among them.
Their horns have been wrapped in neon hair bands, making them look faintly radioactive.
“Why?” I ask.
“Visibility.”
I decide that's reasonable under the circumstances.
Petra takes her place at the top of the boat ramp wearing her old competition leotard over black leggings and the cosmic fury of a woman deprived of REM sleep. She raises a borrowed karaoke microphone.
“We’re here to remind the universe we’re not afraid of the dark!”
A cheer goes up.
“That we can stretch and breathe and be alive! This is our town, and apparently this is our night, so we’re taking it back!”
More cheers.
I smile despite myself.
Petra lowers the microphone and catches my eye.
“Justice,” she mouths.
I shake my head.
The opening pose is Moon Salutation, which Petra’s pamphlet insists is a real tradition.
Whether that is true or something she found on Pinterest at four in the morning, the effect is surprisingly beautiful.
Nearly a hundred people move together beneath the stars, breathing in and out while the bay murmurs below us.
The goats settle onto the grass and chew.
Mrs. Garcia closes her eyes.
For the first time in days, Blackthorn Bay feels peaceful.
I look toward the edge of the crowd.
Erebus isn’t there.
I didn’t expect him to be.
Still, I feel him.
The temperature dips slightly, the wind settles, and something about the darkness becomes softer.
He’s watching.
I let myself take comfort in that.
Petra moves us into Warrior Two.
Then Triangle.
Then something she calls Revolved Half Moon, which looks less like yoga and more like an elaborate method of falling down.
Forty minutes pass.
Nothing goes wrong.
People begin laughing.
Somebody turns on music. One of the goats wanders between the mats and receives approximately thirty-seven scratches behind the ears.
Maybe this is what adaptation looks like.
Maybe we really can—
“Um...Petra?”
The voice comes from the front row.
Petra holds her pose.
“What?”
A woman points toward the boat ramp.
“The water.”
I look.
The tide has reached the bottom of the ramp.
That shouldn’t be remarkable.
Except five minutes ago it was twenty feet away.
Petra slowly lowers her arms.
“Is it supposed to be doing that?”
Mrs. Garcia looks toward the bay.
“No.”
Water crawls another foot up the ramp.
Then another.
People begin stepping backward.
I feel something cold move through my stomach.
“Everybody get away from the water.”
Petra reaches for the microphone.
“Okay! Minor adjustment! Let’s move our mats uphill in a calm and orderly—”
A wave slams over the boat ramp.
The first row disappears.
People scream.
Yoga mats shoot across the grass. Water bottles tumble end over end, and the karaoke speaker gives one heroic burst of static before dying with a pop.
“The goats!” Mrs. Garcia shrieks.
Bean bolts uphill.
Two others follow.
Chorizo does not.
Chorizo, displaying exactly the kind of decision-making I have come to expect from this town, runs toward the water.
“CHORIZO!”
Mrs. Garcia lunges for his leash.
Another wave hits.
She goes down.
Petra charges past me.
“PETRA, WAIT!”
She barrels into the water after Mrs. Garcia.
Then stops.
Her eyes widen.
“Oh, shit.”
Water climbs past her knees.
Then her thighs.
“Petra!”
“I AM MADE OF ROCK, CALLIOPE!”
“I KNOW!”
“THIS WAS POORLY CONSIDERED!”
Another wave breaks around her waist.
Petra sinks another six inches.
I run.
Someone grabs Mrs. Garcia beneath the arms while I catch the back of Petra’s leotard. Two other people join me, pulling while Petra attempts to walk backward against several hundred pounds of herself.
“GET THE GOAT!” Mrs. Garcia screams.
“I’M TRYING NOT TO LOSE PETRA!”
“THE GOAT CAN’T SWIM!”
“NEITHER CAN PETRA!”
“I CAN HEAR YOU!”
Chorizo bleats from the shallows.
Everything becomes water and shouting.
Then the bay stops.
Not freezes.
Stops.
The next wave rises several yards offshore and seems to lose its intention. The surface shudders, then settles enough for someone to wade in and grab Chorizo’s leash.
I know before I look.
Erebus stands at the edge of the grass.
He isn’t watching me.
He’s watching the water.
His face is stricken.
“MOVE!” Petra bellows.
That breaks the spell.
We haul her backward until her feet find the ramp again. Mrs. Garcia crawls onto the grass clutching Chorizo to her chest, both of them coughing and furious.
Around us, Moonlight Yoga has become a disaster zone.
People are soaked. Mats float in the marina. Someone is crying. Somebody else is laughing hysterically, which seems equally reasonable.
Petra sits on the boat ramp covered in seaweed while three people wrap beach towels around her shoulders.
One leg makes an ominous grinding sound when she moves it.
She looks at me.
“I hate this book.”
I start laughing.
I can’t help it.
Petra laughs too, although hers ends in a groan when she tries to stand.
Mrs. Garcia points at the bay.
“Chorizo almost died.”
The laughter leaves me.
I look at Erebus.
So does everyone else.
He stands beyond the scattered yoga mats, staring at what his night has become.
I find Erebus farther down the waterfront after everyone is safe.
He stands at the railing with his back to me.
For once, I don’t have to wonder what to say.
“You saw that.”
“Yes.”
“Petra could’ve drowned.”
“She cannot drown.”
I stare at him.
He closes his eyes.
“That was not helpful.”
“No.”
I move beside him.
My jeans are soaked to the knees, my hair is plastered to my face, and I smell like salt water and goat.
“I know you didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“That does not appear to matter.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
He looks toward the bay.
“I thought I could contain the consequences.”
“You can’t.”
“I know that now.”
There is no defensiveness in him tonight.
That frightens me more than the arguments did.
“You wanted one night with me so badly that you stopped thinking about what Night means to everyone else.”
His jaw tightens.
“I wanted something that was mine.”
“I know.”
“I have never had that before.”
“I know that, too.”
He finally turns to me.
Moonlight catches his eyes, but for once, they don’t look endless.
They look tired.
“I did not know wanting could make me cruel.”
My heart breaks a little.
I reach for his hand.
“You’re not cruel.”
“I endangered them.”
“You made a selfish choice. There’s a difference.”
His fingers close around mine.
“I do not know how to undo what I have become.”
“Yes, you do.”
He looks at me.
“You’ve known since the beginning.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
Behind us, Petra is loudly accusing someone of stealing her left shoe, even though I’m almost certain she arrived barefoot.
I squeeze Erebus’s hand once.
“Figure out what you’re going to do about it.”
Then I let go.
This time, when I walk away, he doesn’t call after me.
By the time I reach the parking lot, something shifts overhead.
Not light.
Not Dawn.
Not yet.
But the darkness loosens.
And for the first time in days, I think morning might still remember the way home.