Chapter 4: Waited Long Enough

The Sea of Glass withstood the weight of Lacy’s wrath as she bounded across it. She attuned to the absence of sound all around her, and it pleased her. She could bring this with her, and shut out all the noise forever. Create a world in which she was not always drowning in the endless abyss of cacophony.

She came to the edge of the dam that held back the sea. The wall of clear, pristine glass that extended upwards and downwards into infinity, wrapping around her universe in its entirety. She placed a hand on it, and she raged and struck and kicked and clawed.

It would not budge.

She retrieved her Star from the obsidian depths of her twisted heart, and she tried again with similar results.

She screamed, and the glass shook.

She smiled, and she screamed as loud and high as she could. With one hand she gripped the sound and increased the volume measure by measure, while the other spun to increase the pitch more and more until obliteration. She became the Storm, and the Storm became her, sound and fury, signifying the end of all things.

She launched herself upon the world, and Earth’s cities fell to her screams and her fists, to the oceans she raised and set forth upon the coasts, to the lightning she called down.

Her family came with her, crossing the Sea of Glass on their mounts, riding forth into the world to help her raze it and conquer it. They rounded up the leaders and cut their throats, fertilized the soil of their new land with the crimson blood of the guilty and the damned.

She wore a Crown of Ice and Starlight, and her cold kingdom spread its tendrils across the land and choked all who disobeyed. She crossed the seas and carried glaciers with her, launched them across the sky and into the settlements of her inevitable subjects. She settled into her castle in the Atlantic, a floating ice fortress upon which she ruled and could traverse the world, to maintain order, to keep everything finally, blissfully, utterly, silent.

***

Lacy woke up at 10 AM the next day, shocked at having not sweated through her sheets in spite of the nightmare. She patted all around her, just to make sure that it was real. It was. She was here, and this was her.

She showered, shaved, and ate breakfast before leaving, and she arrived at Gwen’s cabin at noon. Having to haul herself from bed before eleven had been an ordeal, but Lacy forced herself through it. She wore sweatpants rather than her usual pajama pants, along with a sleeping t-shirt a size too big for her. She knocked on the door, and Gwen answered after five minutes. The blonde-haired mage wore a navy blue flannel bathrobe, no makeup, no jewelry. She held a steaming mug of coffee, pitch black by the scent of it, in one hand while she ran the other through her thick golden locks. A few of her nails were chewed down to the nub, and heavy bags resided under her eyes.

“Are you okay?” Lacy asked.

Gwen didn’t answer with words, but rather reached into the pocket of her robe and retrieved a packet of seeds: wheat.

“What’s-”

“What do you think?” Gwen said.

“Where-”

“Behind the cabin. I have a clear slot of land,” Gwen said.

“When-”

“Now.”

“Who?” Lacy asked.

“You. Just you.”

“Why?” Lacy balked.

“Why do you think?” Gwen asked.

“I really have no idea,” Lacy said.

“Wax on, wax off,” Gwen said.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Never seen the Karate Kid?”

“What’s that?” Lacy asked.

Gwen took a long sip of her coffee. “I have much to teach you. Starting with this.”

“How?”

“Look on the back.”

Lacy obliged, and found instructions on how deep to plant them and how much water to give them- so on, so forth.

“Waiting for something?” Gwen asked.

Lacy narrowed her eyes. She wanted to protest, wanted to complain, wanted to demand to know something useful. Her parents were dead, and monsters were after her- she needed to know how to fight, how to defend herself, not how to cultivate crops.

However, the unyielding stare Gwen gave her was that of a woman who would skin someone alive for demanding anything of her before her third cup of coffee. Lacy opted to save her protestations for a later occasion. “Do I get a shovel?

Gwen provided her with one, then directed her to the cabin’s backyard. It was an empty stretch of flat field, covered in grass, extending about a hundred yards. Gwen placed herself on the back deck in a rocking chair and pulled out a fresh paperback novel.

Lacy started digging a row in the dirt. Her muscles throbbed after only an hour, but by then she’d only finished half of the row. Gwen gave her an unsympathetic look, and so Lacy kept going. She focused her breathing, drank the cool sunlight through her denuded skin. The spark in her heart flared repeatedly as she worked.

“So, why exactly am I doing this?” Lacy finally asked.

“Because you’re young and untaught and in terrible shape,” Gwen said.

“Gee. Thanks.”

“Hey, you asked,” Gwen said, lighting a cigarette and taking a drag, blowing out a puff of white smoke. “Look, I know this seems abstract, but you’ve gotta bear with me. I’m guessing you have no idea how magic actually works?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Okay, basically: every night, Starlight reaches the Earth from Outer Space. Once it hits the planet, it becomes Stardust, which is what fuels magic. While there are workarounds, as a general rule us mages are limited by the amount of Stardust in an area at a given time. It replenishes each night, but if it’s all used up in an area before the end of the day, it won’t come back until it gets a fresh Starlight bath that night.”

Lacy tore a hunk from the earth, poured out a few seeds, and placed them in the ground before covering them with the upturned dirt. “Okay, okay, interesting, but what does that have to do with-”

“What you’re doing is getting some repetitions in so you can use magic more easily. It’s all about efficiency, and how efficiently you burn Stardust depends on the amount of practice you’ve had, and on your physical condition. Think of this as basic training on both of those fronts. You already have the ability, but you need to work on honing it. Starting small, with these crops, is gonna come in handy. Because when you get back here tomorrow, they will be ready for harvest, and you’ll have taken your first steps towards being able to use your powers on command.”

“Okay, but how?”

Gwen twirled the cigarette in her fingers like a pen, the burning stub narrowly missing her flesh with each rotation. “Mages gather and release Stardust all the time without even meaning to. So when they’re doing something related to their Magical Inclination, small amounts of Stardust are channeled into it. Right now, you can barely use your powers, because, as noted, you’re green and out of shape. But with practice on something like this, you’ll build up some muscle for it, and eventually you’ll be able to burn Stardust efficiently and on command.”

“Okay, but-”

“And if you can’t take my word on day one of your training, then I’m not gonna be able to help you.”

Lacy offered no response.

“Lacy?”

“Okay, I’ll take your word,” Lacy said, with the utmost reluctance. She would give this a day to see if it was bullshit or not.

When she finished the first seed packet, Gwen tossed her another, and then another after that. By the time Lacy finished them all, the sun had set, and her arms and legs threatened to snap off. She collapsed onto the ground, and looked over to her left at the three rows of grain crops she’d dug and planted. Gwen appeared above her and offered her a hand up. Lacy ignored it and picked herself off the ground.

“Good work,” Gwen said, withdrawing her hand slowly. “Come back tomorrow and you’ll see the dividends.”

Lacy nodded, and then said good-bye for the evening and went home.

The walk was long and lonely. The night consumed the sky, and she hobbled on her sore legs into the secluded neighborhood she called home. This better not have been a waste of time, Lacy thought. ‘Cause if it is, then I really don’t know what my other options are.

Danny stood in their driveway, his cell phone pressed to his ear.

“Yes, yes, I understand,” Danny said in a flattened monotone. He paced up and down the driveway, and he waved when he saw Lacy. He held up his hand to stop her from going inside. “Yes, yes, that’s a good plan. Yeah, I like that plan. We’ll move all those units this month as well, Ma’am. Okay. Very good. You have a good-night as well.”

With that, he hung up. He spat on the ground next to him, then muttered, “Fucking cunt.”

“Talking to corporate?” Lacy asked.

“Yeah,” Danny said with venom. “She says hi, by the way.”

“Lovely,” Lacy rolled her eyes. God, that awful bitch- seemed like Danny was on the verge of a heart attack after any conversation at all with her these days.

“You weren’t here when I got home. Where’ve you been?”

“Cultivating crops.”

Danny arched a massive eyebrow. “Is that a metaphor?”

“Yes,” Lacy lied. She didn’t want to explain everything to Danny- in the unlikely event he believed her about magic and ghouls, he’d try to get involved. That would complicate things- for one thing, he’d wanna know why he was just finding out about this now, something Lacy didn’t have a good answer for beyond ‘I’m a pussy.’ It was easier to keep him in the dark, at least for the time being.

“A metaphor for what?”

“I was seeing a therapist,” Lacy said.

“Oh thank God, finally!” Danny exclaimed. “Seriously, Lace, that’s great to hear.”

“Thanks.”

Lacy followed him inside to find steak cooling in the cast iron skillet, the aroma of fatty red meat heavy and tantalizing in the air. Lacy sat down at the kitchen table and rested her chin on the wood. “Can I have some steak?”

“Wait, you want food?” Danny asked. “People-food instead of processed food?”

“Yeah. So what?” Lacy said, raising her head off the table.

“Okay, cool it, I was just joking,” Danny said. “How do you want your steak?”

“Rare,” Lacy said. She sat there while Danny put a new steak onto the iron and cooked it, and she sat there alongside him to eat it. After that, they kept hanging out in the living room, sharing a bottle of vodka and then sitting down in front of the TV, where they watched one of Danny’s favorite cartoons about giant robots and their clinically depressed pilots. Lacy could barely understand any of what she was watching, but a warm glow filled her as she stayed out of her room for the second night in a row. She couldn’t remember the last time that happened. And for the first time in her recent memory, she slept a dreamless, restful sleep that night.

The next day, Lacy woke up at 9 AM. She wasn’t covered in sweat, and her stomach wasn’t groaning at her, and she didn’t dread the coming day. Her legs and chest itched as the first signs of follicular life began worming their way back out, the feeling and sight of which distressed her; but after a few minutes, she realized she couldn’t spend the whole day clawing at her own raw skin. She showered, and she shaved, and she dressed, and she went to go see Gwen as daylight spread its wingspan over the horizon. The city of Grand Rapids faded from earshot behind her as light poured through their sparsely populated end of town. Despite the millions of dollars Danny’s mom claimed to make, they couldn’t afford to live in the city proper, so they clung to the outside line like scavengers. Lacy didn’t mind so much- not living in the city itself kept the noise at bay.

She let the sounds slide over her, processed them but tried to avoid getting bogged down in them. If she let herself, she could spend the whole day just sorting through the various noises and layering them on top of each other… Or possibly taking them apart, though she wasn’t sure how to do that just yet. Maybe Gwen could help her figure it out.

Gwen’s cabin stood in the sunlight, and she sat on her front porch drinking a steaming mug of coffee. She sat on her rocking chair beneath the awning overhead. She wore her flannel bathrobe and read that day’s Grand Rapids Press. The bags under her eyes had grown heavier, and her hair looked somehow paler. “Morning,” she said, closing her newspaper and placing it and her coffee mug on a table next to her chair.

“Morning,” Lacy replied.

“How are you on this fine day?”

“My arms and legs feel like they’re full of cement.”

“Good. That’s what I was hoping to hear.”

“Oh?”

“Yup. Wanna see something cool?” Gwen asked.

“Sure.”

“Come on.”

Gwen got up and showed Lacy around to the back of the cabin. The fruits of Lacy’s labors were self-evident: the wheat had overnight grown tall and proud and ready for harvest.

“Holy shit,” Lacy said. She’d… She’d done this! She’d done magic without even meaning to, and it was something tangible and… Not destructive! She did magic that she could see and touch and smell and that wasn’t going to destroy something! This was awesome!

“You’re bouncing up and down, you know,” Gwen said.

“Oh,” Lacy said. “Uh-”

Gwen chuckled. “It’s not a bad thing. I’m glad you’re excited. More glad you decided to trust me. Now, hop to it.”

“What?”

“Time to harvest this wheat,” Gwen said. She turned around and picked something up off the ground: a scythe. “Get to work.”

“But why?”

“Just trust me on this,” Gwen said. She handed Lacy the scythe and said, “Be careful with this thing. It’s a family heirloom.”

Lacy held the scythe in her hands- it was awkward, weighted too heavily on the bladed end. The wooden handle was painted black, and the curved blade on the end was sharp and reflective. She spent twenty minutes figuring out how to swing the thing without cutting herself open. After that, she began hacking down the crops. Her arms turned to gelatin after thirty minutes, and she hadn’t even finished a quarter of the crop. She dropped the scythe and let her arms hang limp. Beams of golden light reached down from an ocean of blue as wandering clouds sailed lazily across the world’s banner.

“Gwen?” Lacy asked, not moving from her stagnant position.

“Yes?” Gwen called from behind her.

Lacy turned her head to find her teacher sitting on the deck drinking a glass of cold brew coffee and reading yet another paperback novel. She sat in the rocking chair and wore a red sundress with a white floral pattern, a short skirt, and low neckline that exposed her dainty shoulders. She wore makeup and jewelry as well, lipstick that matched her dress, a bit of eyeshadow and mascara, and a silver-chain necklace with two golden rings bound around each other. Surprise washed over Lacy- she hadn’t expected this badass monster hunter to be so… Feminine in her down time. But why wouldn’t she be- a girl could be as feminine as she wanted to- it was her prerogative…

Envy tore through Lacy, and she tried to banish it by shaking her head rapidly.

“Is everything okay?” Gwen asked.

“Er… I’m fine. I just had a question.”

Gwen dog-eared her book and put it on the table, next to her coffee. “What’s up?”

“What’s a Magical Inclination? You mentioned it yesterday.”

“It’s the generalized type of magic a mage is born with a natural affinity for. Mine is necromancy. Yours is druidry.”

“Why are mages born with Inclinations?”

“No idea, we just are. I’m from a family of necromancers, so I was born a necromancer. You probably have a druid or two in the family tree, so you were born a druid.”

“I guess there’s a certain irony to that,” Lacy said, turning back around and cracking her knuckles.

“How do you mean?”

Lacy swatted a mosquito on her arm, then picked the scythe back up. “I hate the outdoors.”

Gwen chuckled. “Well then, O Cynical Pupil of Mine, out of curiosity, is there anything you don’t hate?”

Lacy lowered the scythe. “Hockey. Music. Jesus.”

Gwen paused briefly, then said, “What kind of music?”

Lacy began to chop the wheat once more, her arms full of gears spinning against built-up rust. “All kinds. There’s this one really old band I like called Mudhoney, and they’ve got this one album called…”

Lacy’s mouth kept running for a while, before finally Gwen interrupted her: “Lacy!”

Lacy stopped. “Hm?”

“You’ve been talking for ten minutes straight. Breathe.”

Lacy blinked rapidly, and then realized her throat was horrifically dry. “Can I have a glass of water?”

Gwen obliged, going inside and bringing out a glass. Lacy drank it in one large, awkward gulp. She held the scythe and looked at Gwen, who regarded her with a neutral expression. Her book was laid open on her lap, and she took a long, large drink of her cold brew.

“What about you?” Lacy asked.

“What about me?”

“What, uh, what do you like?”

Gwen chuckled again. “Books, mostly.”

“What are you reading?”

Gwen paused.

“What are you reading?” Lacy repeated.

“... Did you not get a look at the cover?”

“I did, I just didn’t recognize it.”

“You’ve never even heard of the title before?”

“No.”

“You’ve never heard of Lord of the Rings?”

“I don’t really read a lot, except manuals. What’s it about?”

Lacy heard Gwen blink a few dozen times as she heaved a deep sigh. She explained what it was about as Lacy continued her work. It took three hours, and her arms were brittle twigs after the fact. She placed the harvest all in one container, and she showed it to Gwen. She was a lot further into her book by then, perhaps halfway.

“Excellent work. Now, there’s one more thing you need to do out here,” Gwen said.

“What’s that?”

Gwen shoved a new packet into her hand. This one was for corn kernels.

“Seriously?” Lacy said.

“Wax on, wax off,” Gwen said.

“I still don’t know what that means.”

“Crop rotation,” Gwen said with a wave of her hand. “Plant these, same as yesterday.”

Lacy did as she was bid. After about an hour, Gwen brought her a ham and cheese sandwich on wheat bread with spinach and mayo. Lacy wolfed it down in less than thirty seconds. Gwen balked at her. “Sorry,” Lacy said.

“Guess you were hungry.”

“I forgot to eat breakfast before I came here,” Lacy said.

“I see. And how often does that happen?”

“What?” Lacy asked.

“Forgetting breakfast.”

“...”

“Lacy.”

“Most days,” Lacy said, looking down at the ground, shifting her feet.

“Hey, hey, don’t beat yourself up over it- just try to remember going forward. It’s important. Now then: back to work.”

Lacy then went back to work, and by the time she was done, dusk was a looming threat. Her arms and legs and back ached with heavy stiffness.

“Good job,” Gwen said, dog-earring her book once more. She’d finished another quarter of it. “Now come back inside. We’re gonna make some bread.”

They spent the evening baking bread in Gwen’s rustic kitchen. It was a messy process, and flour covered most of the surfaces by the time of full-dark. Lacy helped Gwen scrub the room while the bread baked, and finally they pulled two hot loaves out of the oven. Gwen wrapped one in aluminum foil and handed it to Lacy, and then sent her on her way.

Lacy walked home beneath the starlight, weary of it touching her, like the eyes of God looking down and seeing her hideous, shameful body. She tried to push it aside, tried to remove herself from her thoughts as she walked. She needed to focus, take stock of her surroundings: if another ghoul came for her out of nowhere, it would be her own damned fault if she was eaten because she didn’t bother to listen.

Just like her parents.

Lacy gulped, and she closed her eyes, and she concentrated on walking one step after another. She opened her eyes, and she opened her ears, and she listened to the night. She walked on the side of the road, clinging to the grass as cars whipped past her, going into the jungle of noise that was the city, or perhaps into the wilderness with its equally numerous sounds. Behind her, she heard birds and squirrels and insects and flowing water and wind taking new shapes between the folds of the canopy; ahead of her, she heard car engines and footsteps and cracking glass; all around her she heard heartbeats, and she measured her pace by the steady rhythm of them all harmonizing.

She arrived at home to find Danny’s truck in the driveway, and Danny’s suitcase on the living room floor, and Danny’s tie on the kitchen table. She did not see Danny.

Then the sound of violent vomiting came from the bathroom. She went up to the door and knocked. “Danny?”

“Hey Lacy,” Danny said. He threw up again.

“Are you okay?”

“Ate too much for dinner.”

He threw up once more. Lacy winced. After another few minutes, he left the bathroom. His eyes were red. His suit was a disheveled mess, and some of the hairs on the back of his hands looked like they’d been scratched off. He reeked of booze; Lacy tried not to wince again as the smell hit her. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Lacy said. She held up the foiled loaf. “I made bread.”

“You made bread? Where? How? Why?”
“When?” Lacy smiled. “Who?”

Danny’s eyes narrowed.

“Sorry.”

Danny forced a laugh. “I’ll try some tomorrow. How you doing?”

“I’m doing good.”

He smiled, then turned back into the bathroom to wash his hands. “Good to hear.”

“Sorry I haven’t been making my calls lately.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you’re leaving your room for a change. And we’re plenty ahead on sales for this month, we should be fine.”

“That’s good.”

Danny brushed his teeth, and then the two of them spent the evening watching the first Lord of the Rings movie, at Lacy’s request.

The next day, Lacy woke up at 8 AM and ate the bread for breakfast. It was delicious: rich and nourishing, the labor itself present in the flavor. She returned to Gwen’s house well-fed, and found that her corn had grown tall. She harvested it, then planted soybeans; the day after that was potatoes, then wheat again, and the cycle resumed. Each time, it was easier, and each time her harvest grew taller and prouder and quicker. After two weeks, Lacy harvested wheat two hours after planting it, and she wasn’t nearly so sore anymore.

Gwen looked at the harvest and put her hands on her hips. She stood on the back porch barefoot, wearing cutoff jean shorts and a baggy black BYU t-shirt. She put her hands on her hips and took in the sight of the three buckets of wheat crop Lacy had harvested. “Damn, Lacy,” Gwen said. “I’m impressed.”

Lacy smiled. “So what are we doing with all this? Baking bread?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why don’t you come inside.”

Lacy nodded and followed Gwen inside the cabin. Gwen had set up a pasta-making rig, and for the rest of the day they made the wheat into flour, and then the flour into dough, and the dough into pasta. By the time they’d finished it, fresh Stardust had begun to fall. They sat together at the kitchen table, Lacy slouching in her chair and letting her arms hang limp. Her legs were spread wide, and when she noticed it she experienced a pang of shame and forced them shut. It was terribly uncomfortable, and Gwen side-eyed her. Lacy relaxed, and Gwen got up and gestured at her to stay put for a moment.

Gwen returned from her bedroom a moment later carrying a lump of fabric in her hands. It was a light blue sundress with red flowers and a long, flowing skirt. “You want?”

“I…,” Lacy stammered. A sudden panic overtook her, deep in her chest, accompanied by memories of her mother’s whining, reprimanding tone echoing inside her head the one time she’d caught her. “I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Gwen asked.

“I’m filthy,” Lacy said.

“You can take a shower.”

“I’d have to go home.”

“You can if you want. You can take the dress with you,” Gwen pointed out.

“I… I don’t think I can.”

“Why not?”

“I wouldn’t look good in it,” Lacy said.

“How do you know? You haven’t tried it on yet.”

“Because.”

“Because?” Gwen asked, eyebrow arched.

Lacy replied, “Because… I… I…”

“What?”

“Because I’m ugly! Because I’ll look like a freak!” Lacy shouted.

Silence sat heavily in the room for a moment.

“No you won’t,” Gwen said.

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

Lacy closed her eyes and grimaced, and then she took the dress from Gwen’s hands and ran out of the cabin back towards her house. She covered her ears the entirety of her sprint, desperate to shut out the noise. She didn’t say hi to Danny that night, didn’t eat with him or spend time with him as she’d done for the last few weeks. She retreated into her room and stayed there until morning.

She woke up the next day drenched in sweat, with a sick pit of disgust carved deep into her stomach. Her limbs were sore and her head was heavy, and she did not want to move. She listened to the sounds in her room, and found for the first time they were not enough for her. She listened to the world outside her room, outside her house, to the wind between the tree leaves, the patter of squirrels against ground and wood, to the cars that drove from their driveways into the city proper to begin the day’s work.

Just as she had to.

She couldn’t hide in her room forever. She wished it was enough for her, like it had been before, but it wasn’t, and there wasn’t any going back. She showered, she shaved, and she put on the dress.

When she walked out into the kitchen, Danny stared at her and smiled. “Look at you.”

“Thanks,” Lacy said, gripping the hem. Warmth filled her chest, head, limbs.

“Where’d you get it?”

“Thrift store,” Lacy lied.

She’d never worn a dress before, only a few of her mother’s drab skirts. It was light and freeing and… Amazing. She felt amazing. She expected to feel naked, exposed, disgusting, but for the first time in memory she felt whole. It seemed almost absurd, that a piece of fabric cut a certain way, draped over her body a certain way, could do so much for her, and yet she decided not to question it. She let the light and the warmth fill her without caveat.

She walked through the woods to Gwen’s cabin, and knocked on the door. Gwen put a hand over her heart and smiled brightly when she saw Lacy, and then opened her arms for a hug. To her surprise, Lacy took it, embraced her as a friend.

They made more pasta that day, and they ate and talked together and were merry. Lacy felt alive. She wanted nothing more than to hold onto that feeling for as long as she possibly could. At the end of the day, Gwen handed Lacy a wheat germ and asked her to plant it in the ground behind the cabin. Lacy nodded and obliged, digging her fingers through the dirt and planting the germ.

“Put your hand over it,” Gwen said.

Lacy did so.

“Now concentrate. See if you can wake it up.”

Lacy knelt in the dirt beneath the light of a half-moon, and she closed her eyes and breathed. Around her, light she could not see danced about wildly. Stardust, Starlight- she concentrated on it, reached for it, let it in. Her left arm tingled as the energy ran up her veins and into her heart, and the spark inside ignited. Power surged through her, and she released it through her right arm. She pictured a full harvest of wheat as she did it, and her lips moved even as she wasn’t sure of the words she spoke.

When she opened her eyes, a full stock of wheat had sprouted from the ground.

Lacy eyes went wide with joy, and behind her Gwen applauded. Lacy ran up and hugged her teacher, and the hug was returned. She was so happy she cried, so happy she didn’t even notice she was crying.