New New


I couldn’t argue with that, so I didn’t try. I usually don’t argue with the women in my house. All of them are smarter than me.

Plus, even I knew she was right.

Electra loves Magic, but she really does consider me to be private territory. Fair enough, really, I feel the same about her.

For now, though, I had a beautiful woman cuddling close to me, nice weather, and a deadly fall just a few feet to my side…

Well, a few inches, really. Arm’s length, anyway.

I wited patiently for the dream to end. I closed my eyes and paid attention to the scents on the air. It’s kind of amazing, really, what the sylphs experience.

“What’s up?” A man’s voice. Close. As in, on this branch. I opened my eyes. A male sylph stood where I’d been. He was naked like the two of us.

I heard a sharp intake of breath from Magic. Oh. Well, sometimes things are so obvious even I can follow them. “You must be Marcus.”

“And you’re the guy that saved my little Magic,” he said.

“You followed that?” I asked. Odd to think that the dead caught the evening news. Of course, it should hve been odder to think that a dead man told me that.

Magic gave a little whimper.

I stood up, slowly, back tight against the tree. “I’d shake your hand, but you’re about a million miles away from me on this branch.”

“Understood,” he said, stepping forward. He turned to my sylph. “Magic?”

“I missed you!” she cried, standing and walking towards him. They started running towards each other, arms spread.

Just before they reached each other, I was suddenly back in my bed.

Electra squirmed against my throat, her foot pressing my Adams apple. I rolled over, gently easing her down onto the pillow. She moaned slightly. Very slowly, I moved her into the spot where my head had been. She purred and nuzzled the body-warm pillowcase.

I eased off of the bed, tucked the sheets over her, and tip-toed to the stairs.

Downstairs, I moved a chair over to the corner where Magic’s bedroom tank was mounted. I climbed up and looked inside.

Magic was just visible on her bed, still asleep.

But she had a very wide smile on her face.

I eased down to sit on the chair. I wanted to be close when she woke up. But I didn’t want to wake her up in the middle of her reunion.

At a thought, I hopened my laptop and looked up ‘sylph dreams.’

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I sat at the kitchen table, drinks poured for both of us. I sipped slowly. Magic sat in my hand, ignored her Coke, and gushed about Marcus. “He knew I was arrested! He knew about the jail and the prison-coveralls! He knew I kept the name he gave me! He wanted to thank you for that. Hey, why did you leave?”

“Electra snores,” I said. She laughed. “So, why was Marcus there? I looked up these dreams involving sylphs and their owners. None of the stories include ghosts.”

“He said he took advantage of a rare opportunity,” she said. “He wanted me to know that HE knows that I’m…” She leaned over to kiss one of my knuckles. “That I’m in good hands.” She laughed, I laughed with her. I put my drink down to cup my other hand around her. She looked confused.

“Good hands, you said. I’d better use both of them, then.” We laughed again. Then she sobered a bit.

“I hope Electra forgives me,” she said.

“I hope you’ll shut up about this,” I said. She looked surprised. “Not that this happened, that’s not a secret. But don’t think that Electra will be jealous. She won’t.”

“But she was talking about these dreams,” she said. She leaned forward, looking urgent. “It’s all about making a better bond between someone and their sylph!”

“I looked them up last night, during your visit,” I told her. “Just about every time these happen, it’s someone who owns ONE sylph. Usually, someone who doesn’t quite appreciate their sylph. Who NEEDS to improve their relationship.” I paused to sip a bit of my drink.

“So what are you saying?” she asked.

“Well, first off, I don’t think I’m being a braggart to say that my and Electra’s relationship doesn’t need that much improvement.

“And second, I think the guy running the quirky shop is a big pooty head. We TOLD him that we were friends, that we had a good relationship, he assumed we didn’t know what we were talking about.

“I think the dream was gratuitous.”

“You know what gratuitous means?” she laughed.

“I HAVE explained a number of jokes to my sylphs when they didn’t laugh,” I said. “Even I can learn a four-syllable word when Electra uses it often enough.”

Cher padded into the room, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “How about breakfast? How many times do I need to use the word before you understand what’s required of you?”

“It’s four in the morning, Cher,” I said. “I’ll give you a cookie and some of my Coke, but the grill’s dead for a few more hours.”

I reached a hand down and lifted him to the table. He yawned and stretched, then said, “I love you too much to haggle.”

Ten minutes later, I was lowering him to Delli’s arms, then climbing up to put Magic away.

Electra was where I’d left her as I crawled into bed for a few more hours of snuggle.

-----

When I woke, I was alone. I got up out of bed, glancing at Electra’s bed, which was empty.

Showered and dressed, I made it downstairs. My friends were on the middle cushion of the sofa. Electra was excitedly asking Magic about the dream.

“Wait, you guys never left the branch? Why not?”

“Have you ever tried to get Conrad to go up a ladder?” Delli asked. “I’m surprised we even have a two-story home!”

“We don’t,” I said as I went by. “But I found a very cunning interior decorator.” I turned on the toaster oven and looked in the freezer for breakfast.

“I think the sausage burrito is ripe,” Cher said helpfully. I looked down to my ankle.

“I hate sausage,” I said

“I won’t make you eat any of it,” he said generously. He turned to the doorway. Delli had Magic on her hip, Electra standing at her knee. “Um, none of us will.”

I don’t know why I even have sausage in the house,” I muttered. …While taking the box out.

Over their burrito, and my frozen bagel, Electra enthused about the turn of events. “Now I can interview Magic on the show!”

“She agreed to it?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Magic shrugged. “I still don’t wanna talk about… About Marcus’ death. But I’ll talk about seeing him!”

“I could…” Electra said slowly. She turned a smile up to me. “I could even interview YOU on the show!”

-----

Electra opened up the new direction in the new set. She was black of hair and clothes, sitting in a huge overstuffed armchair in a parlor. We were heavily inspired by (or stole from) the Addams Family for the parlor.

“Hey!” she said. “Welcome back!” She looked around the room. “There’s been… Some changes.” Back to the camera. “Okay, so, the best explanation I’ve ever heard for why there are sylphs is a supernatural event. I’d say magic, but one of my roommates might think I was blaming her.

“I’ve heard a lot of other explanations, but no one’s come up with any evidence for the more rational ones, and no one’s disproven magic. I mean, the supernatural!” she flustered.

She’d spent days wandering the house, muttering ‘Magic is my friend, the supernatural is the cause,’ trying to avoid just that mistake.

“So, when a magic ritual produced undines, that seemed to fit. And when fear and vengeance produced gnomes, that fit, too.

“Now, we’re starting to hear stories about people having weird dreams. Freaky weird, not in the content, but in how similar the experience is.

“Someone takes their sylph into a quaint little store, meets the wrinkled old proprietor, buys something without money, then has a dream where they turn into a sylph.”

She tapped the arm of the chair for a second. “I’ve been wanting to look into these dreams for a while. Or at least the stories of the dreams. But I wasn’t sure where to start, you know?”

She stood and started walking. At the back of the parlor was the grand staircause up to the second floor. There were six sylph-sized bedrooms up there, for my sylphs and guests.

Delli’s place was behind the stairs. Makeup and costume traveled in a second case, now.

She got to the stairs and started to climb.

“But then, two of the people I trust the most in the ENTIRE WORLD shared one of these dreams!”

I nudged Magic, just a bit. I know she’d had a heart-to-heart with Electra. And I know there had been no accusations or hurt from Magic being the one I dreamed with. But it didn’t hurt to reinforce that, I thought.

“So, for, what? I dunno, twenty some years, I’ve been mentioning, and rarely showing, my owner, producer, and friend, Conrad.” She paused at the appropriate step and reached down. A handle in the riser allowed her to unfold a hidden seat from the stairway.

The camera panned back to show me sitting next to the stairs. We’re removed the floor there so I could fit inside the new set.

The seat on the stairs put Electra on a comfortable level with me, or at least with my face, and with Magic who sat on my shoulder. Other seats were embedded at levels for gnomes, undines and sylphs.

That would be for groups of sylphs, of course. Singles would sit by the fireplace.

Where the hostess was dressed in black, dark to fit into the décor of the home, we were in lighter colors. Off-white and pastels, reflecting as much light as possible.

“Hi, Conrad! And, FINALLY, welcome to the show!”

“Thanks,” I said. I reached over to wrap fingers around her, the traditional welcome hug for a guest. I picked her up to lift her to my shoulder for a second.

“And Magic! I’ve always wanted to interview you, but not about…”

“About that summer,” Magic suggested. Electra nodded. They embraced, then I put her back on the stairs. She sat down.

“So,” Electra said. “Conrad’s dad calls this sort of thing ‘freaky ass shit.’ What would you call it?”

“A learning experience,” I said. I looked at Magic.

“Closure,” she said softly. She started to cry. I gave her a little finger hug. Somewhere, I think I heard Cher moan about her makeup. Delli, working the camera, smiled.

“Okay,” I said, drawing attention away while she was disposed. “Maybe a freaky ass learning experience? With a side of closure?” We laughed.

“Well, tell us about the shop, I guess,” Electra asked.

“It all began,” I said pompously, “back in the dark ages of recorded history, back before I learned the meaning of the word, Lederhosen.”

“A month ago last Friday?” she laughed.

“About that,” I said.

Electra and I discussed the elements of our story that our research department (the fancy term for Glenda’s kids and the internet) had found to be common to all the accounts.

Little old man, weird store, no money changing hands, a marked interest in the sylph’s opinion of his or her owner.

No one else ever got the Moose to talk, though. There were no other reports of a dream in Idaho. And the Lilliputian Body Puppets were unique. We had to hold a couple up for the camera. I wiggled the unicorn ribbon gymnast on one finger, Magic kind of half-donned the transvestite warthog and kicked the fishnet leggings.

That led to a discussion of the night we first played with them, the puppet game, and the party and all that.

Then I talked about seeing Maagic in the dream. I didn’t mention the nudity. I didn’t lie about clothes, but I didn’t mention naked.

I did talk about my realizations. About her and Nature, her need for the wild. About my need to get a boxy SUV, for me and the family, for more time outside.

Then I mentioned seeing Marcus.

The required a brief smmary of Marcus and Magic’s last trip to the Sawtooth mountains. Death, survival, discovery, return.

And her termination order, the arrest, the sale, all covered quickly. Lightly, so as to spare Magic.

But then Magic got to talk about Marcus. Living Marcus. Or ghost Marcus. And seeing Marcus.

Her eyes lit up. Her smile shone. It made me smile all over again, watching how much fun she had just at the memory of the visit.

That led to discussing the report of a ghostly visit when the Undine was on the show. No names were mentioned. And no ages, since we don’t hang out with that many children.

“So, real or con?” Electra asked.

“Real,” I said, and explained. “Mia did a SPOT ON imitation of the deceased, who she’d never met. Including his voice, accent, impression of me as a heathen.”

Magic had been so happy to see Marcus that she hadn’t wanted to question it. She hadn’t tried to find proof, for or against. Electra accepted that at face value.

At the end, she requested anyone who wanted to share their story to contact our studio. “And, new policy, WE’LL come to you for the interviews!”

“We will?” I asked.

“We discussed this!” Electra told me, then repeated that to the camera. “We did!”

“Okay,” I agreed.

Once the camera was off, I eased Magic to the floor, then slid down out of my chair. I replaced the parlor floor where I’d been poking through, then retracted the legs, lowering the set to the floor.

Everyone filed out the front door and looked up to me.

“So, how do we celebrate the first night of a new season, new direction, new topic?” I asked.

“We DISCUSSED THIS!” Delli shouted. She turned to the others. “We did!”

“He knows,” Electra told her.

I gathered up the sylphs and the gnome (which is NOT as stupid as it sounds. They’re the only undersized big enough to take on a Garden Gnome… But I’ll probably go to my grave without buying Delli a pointy red hat…).

The puppets were on the table. I picked up the 20-sider.



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Index

27. Echo Echo

29. Blank