Vlad Dracula
Vlad Dracula settles into his looming armchair near the fire and draws the envelope from within his cloak. He inspects the seal—blood red wax, impression of a cat arching its back, no sign of tampering—then cracks it open.
Met the toy maker’s apprentice. He’s right on the edge. Doesn’t like the company his boss is keeping.
There was disagreement about appropriate codes. Finally, they settled for a transparent mishmash that satisfied nobody.
All clear so far. Hope this finds you holly, jolly, et cetera.
The note is signed V. And beneath:
PS, the calendars here are completely fucked.
Polly
Polly pushes her pumpkin off the picker onto the pumpkin pile, pausing to probe her progress and ponder how to proceed. The pumpkin pile persists proudly with a plump posterior portion. That’s why she procured the picker.
Polly purchased the picker to put pumpkins on the peak of the pumpkin pile because the proportions of the pumpkin pile were becoming preposterous. Without the picker poised to place each pumpkin perfectly, the precious pumpkin pile would probably pitch and plummet, putting the populace of Pumpkintown in prodigious peril. Not perfect.
Plus, Polly perceives, Pumpkintown has plenty of preexisting problems at present.
Zulema
Zulema allows a few more moments for the metastructures of probability undergirding the universe to spin, imagining them as a stream of neon purple sparks turning figure eights in the air. Then she makes the call, collapsing all possible futures into a single timeline where effect proceeds from cause and nobody ever flipped anything except heads or tails in the quarter toss racket running out by the dumpsters behind Big Joe’s every weekend.
“The kid’s a freak,” somebody whispers.
“It’s geometry.” Zulema nudges the kitty pile of ones and fives into a tidy stack. “Easy. Now, flip that motherfucker again.”
Telemachus
Sometimes you gotta solve your own problems. Other times, especially when your problems are people who want to murder you and marry your mom, the whole thing gets tattled about to literally every single god on the whole stupid mountain of Olympus.
In that case, specifically, you need actually do very little. Just vibe it out. Total freebie.
“Remind me,” Zeus says. “Why are we still talking about these people? Aren’t there better uses of our time?”
Athena shrugs. “It’s just sort of interesting.”
“Sort of is right. Whatever. Just deal with it. I do not care about this.”
Virgil
Virgil is standing in the hall, shooting the shit with the lawyer and nurse who have to come along on these little errands when he realizes his keys are no longer in his pocket. The special keys only the director gets to carry. The keys which, of course, open every lock in the facility. Every lock.
“Something wrong, chief?”
“No. Absolutely not. Hey, you guys seen this before?” He ducks into the break room.
“The vending machine?”
“Sure.”
“Once or twice.”
“Great,” Virgil says. “That’s really good. Now unplug it and help me get it in front of the door.”
Verona the Witch
Verona takes a seat at the bar counter and orders black coffee and a club sandwich. The cook is humming while he works. There’s a calendar over the register with one date circled in red permanent marker.
“What’s that?” Verona asks, plucking the peppermint stick out of her coffee when the waitress turns to look.
“Beginning of the season. Showtime, you know?”
“Seems sort of early.”
“Only if you’re old-fashioned.”
Verona nudges the fries on her plate, cut to resemble miniature pine trees. “Yes,” she says. “We might be somewhat outside what our forebears conceived of as the traditional sequence.”