Voices in the Dark: Part Ten

Part Ten

Jazzercise Woman danced her way to Addy’s side, where she stopped and took off her

headphones.

“Addy, Addy, Addy…” she said in a slow, deliberate monotone.

The woman who had spent the summer skipping and twirling past her window… radiant,

ridiculous, and infectiously cheerful… lowered herself onto the curb beside her. Up close, she

seemed… different.

She placed a hand on Addy’s shoulder. Addy felt a rush of comfort at the familiar

presence, until the woman pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and took a long, practiced drag.

She slowly exhaled a cloud of curling smoke as she looked Addy up and down, taking a moment

to frown at her bloody crotch and disheveled hair.

“You look like shit,” she said, offering the pack.

“I’m fourteen,” Addy replied.

“Yeah, well… you never can tell. You know, they don’t actually have cigarettes in most

other universes… or is it “universi”… “plural-verses”? God, I fucking hate the limitations of

your language.”

Addy stared at her.

“Who are you?”

The woman took another long drag before she spoke.

“Name’s Glee… Glee Shin. Third Regional Marshal of the Convergency Conservancy.”

She winced slightly. “I know. Fucking terrible name. Wasn’t my idea.”

Addy opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Questions piled up too fast to form.

Glee nodded, as if hearing them anyway.

“I know… What the fuck, right?” She said, motioning to the frozen world, her broken

house and the missing sky.

“Look, usually this part’s simple. When two worlds begin to overlap, it causes what we

call a convergence. My team swoops in, handles the mess, I tie off the loose ends, bada-bing, the

universe keeps on humming along.”

Addy noted that the two repair men had now assembled a bridge that spanned the chasm.

Currently, they were reuniting the two halves of Mr. Gower with what looked like a welding

torch.

“Of course in your case”, Glee continued, “‘Loose ends’ would normally mean

vaporizing you and your little sister."

Addy stiffened.

“The only reason we’re having this charming little chat is because you did something

very, very unusual.”

Addy glared back at her.

“Everything I’ve done this summer has been unusual.”

“Oh, come on kid, you know what I mean,” Glee insisted.

“The thing in the sidewalk…” Addy said quietly. “That thing… I… I touched it with my

mind.”

“Touched it?” Glee laughed. “You did a fair amount more than that. Let’s just say that if

you wanted to connect with me like that you’d have to buy me dinner first. Oh sweetie, you, by

some kind of fucking miracle managed to bridge minds with an Overseer!”

“An Overseer?” Addy repeated.

“Yes,” Glee responded, “as in, they that oversee… like you know, oversee fucking

everything?”

“Wait like… a god?”

“If that helps your brain not melt, sure.” Glee said around a mouthful of smoke.

“Wait, bridging with an Overseer,” Addy said furrowing her brow, “that’s how I got all

this new stuff in my head then? How I knew what would happen… Is that what happened to

him?” Addy pointed at the prone body of The Howler across the ravine.

“Not at all,” Glee responded, “he was more like a radio antennae that occasionally

wandered into some of our broadcasts. Total fluke. Too bad too. Looks like it fucked with his

brain.”

“Then, what exactly is an Overseer?” Addy asked.

Glee leaned forward, her voice dropping, not softer, but more intense.

“They don’t exist the way you think. Rather, they make existence by thinking.

Everything… every world, every moment, everything that is… it is all thought. Their thoughts…

Thoughts woven together and vibrating in harmony. A big, beautiful tapestry.” She tapped her

ash into the street.

“Except sometimes a thread starts to fray, or breaks. A chord goes out of key. That’s

where I typically come in, my department anyway. Our job is to fix disharmony… when we

can.”

“How?” Addy asked.

Glee shrugged. “Death. Birth. A war. A miracle. A butterfly wing here, a plague there.

Balance.”

“A plague?” Addy’s eyebrows shot up.

“I know what you’re thinking. COVID wasn’t us.” She said with a smirk, “Some

mother-fucker ate a goddamn pangolin that had bat shit on it. Those open air meat markets in

China… god… fucking disgusting… a pretty badass virus though.”

Addy thought for a moment.

“There were men down there… down in the crack,” she asked, “were those the

Overseers?”

“Baah. Don’t make me laugh,” Glee snorted. “No, not Overseers… mostly they're a

bunch of assholes actually, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Okay, but then…” Addy started.

“We’re wasting time kid,” Glee interrupted. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Addy nodded. “Ok, so what about Lily?”

Glee stood up, dusting off her yoga pants, and placed a hand on top of Lily’s statue-like

head.

“Little Lily here was the last piece of the puzzle. The exact right piece actually. A perfect

fit. We were almost done, ya know? But then you,” she gestured at Addy with the cigarette, “you

came along and cocked things up, didn’t you?”

“All I did was save my sister,” Addy replied with a surge of defiance.

Glee studied her for a moment.

“Well, she is alive, I’ll give you that” she said. “But your universe is still fucked… Not

sure if that counts as ‘saving’ anybody… That crack that ripped your house in half? That’s just

the beginning.”

Addy looked at the jagged seam splitting the earth, and tried not to remember the

impossible geometry beneath it.

“We slowed things down,” Glee added. “Bought ourselves a little time. But we still need

to balance this shit out unless you want your universe to pop like a soap bubble.”

Addy steeled herself, then said, her voice trembling, “Can you take me instead?”

“Ah, that’s cute… a teenage martyr!” Glee continued shaking her head. “It can’t be you.

Not anymore, anyway.”

“Why?”

“Like I’ve been trying to tell you… because of what you did.”

Glee was lighting a second cigarette. Addy was astonished with how quickly the woman

had burned through her first one.

“When you bonded with that Overseer, it changed things. Permanently changed things.

Part of you is in it now. Part of it is in you. And that’s an egg you can’t unscramble.”

Addy felt something cold and vast stir at the edge of her thoughts.

Glee continued, “your most personal memories, your passions, your worries, bad dreams

and high school crushes, all of it is imprinted on that Overseer. Everytime it weaves a new

universe it’ll have Addy Henderson fingerprints all over it.”

“Uh…” Addy started.

“I wasn’t finished,” Glee cut her off. “Ya see, it’s a two way street. You are changing as

well… becoming something else. What it imprinted on you, it’s not something a human can just

walk away from. It’s making upgrades under your hood even as we speak. Ultimately, you will

become something… well, something else… Maybe not today. Not tomorrow. But eventually…

kid, you won’t just live in a universe anymore. You’ll give birth to them.”

Addy stared at her.

“So, obviously killing your sister without your permission?” Glee shook her head again.

“Let’s just say it would be politically unwise.”

Despite everything, Addy almost laughed.

“Hey, I’m up for reelection,” Glee continued, “I can’t afford to have an Overseer out

there who holds a grudge because I killed her little sister… bad optics… but the rules are the

rules and balance is balance… we still need someone and Lily fits the bill perfectly. Do you

know how much research goes into this shit? It’s no small thing, saving a universe.”

Silence stretched. Then Addy spoke.

“What about him?”

She pointed towards Mr. Gower. “He’s already dead. Why can’t he be one?”

“Him? Well…” Glee chuckled, “just between you and me, that fella isn’t exactly what

you’d call ‘local’.”

Addy looked puzzled.

“He’s not human, hun. I’m not even really sure why he’s here, but it’s not his time and

it’s not my problem. That’s why the boys are fixing him up… This is delicate work. You

accidentally dismember the wrong foreign entity and before you know it, I lose my job,

economies crash, the price of eggs goes up… you know how it is.”

“I really don’t,” Addy admitted.

“But,” Glee continued, “if we wanted to keep things in the neighborhood, I suppose that

guy could do.”

She motioned towards the Howler, still frozen on his back.

“No, not him,” Addy said, alarmed.

“He’s not perfect,” Glee agreed. “Your sister would be better… but maybe.”

She raised her voice. “Bill! Get me a PAW level on the weirdo.”

“Hey,” Addy said, not liking where this was going. “He’s not a weirdo. His name is Jeff.”

“Oh, my mistake.” Glee said, rolling her eyes. “Bill, get me a PAW on ‘Jeff’.”

Bill approached with a cube-shaped device, long wires came from it, terminating in

dagger-like spikes. It reminded Addy of the machine her father sometimes used to jump-start

their car. Bill aggressively plunged the spikes into The Howler’s neck and watched small dials on

the side of the cube.

Lights flickered. A low tone rang out. Bill gave a thumbs up.

Glee nodded once. “Okay. Looks like we have a winner.”

Addy stepped forward.

“No, wait…”

Glee’s eyes met hers.

“It’s him or Lily, sweetheart. Now let the grownups do their work.”

Addy’s vision blurred and a lump filled her throat as she watched Bill and his intern pick

up The Howler… “Jeff”... and carry him down into the chasm and out of this world… he was

gone.

Addy was surprised by the intensity of her sobs. Huge tears poured from her eyes and the

world spun. Did she just condemn The Howler to death? The massive weight of guilt came

crushing down on her.

“No more. Please, no more.” Addy managed to say, gulping for air and wrapping her

arms around Lily, “I didn’t mean to hurt… I just wanted to protect my family. I… I… it's not fair.

It’s not fair…”

“This world isn’t fair, kid. Certainly you must know that by now.” Glee said, crushing her

cigarette beneath her heel. “But hey, maybe someday you’ll make one that is… if you’re into that

sorta thing.”

“Bill,” she yelled, “temporal reset, please. Let’s move!”

Instead of Bill, the intern reemerged from the chasm. He held up a small cube, a red

switch glowing faintly. A thick cable ran from it, down into the crack, into whatever lay beneath.

“I have it right here.” He responded, “it’s primed and ready.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Glee demanded.

“I’m Ted… Bill’s intern. It’s an honor to…”

“Jesus Christ,” she interrupted, “I don’t fucking care.”

Practically trembling, Ted placed the box in Glee’s hands.

Addy took a deep breath and tried to control her crying.

“Will I see you again?” She asked.

Glee Shin, the duly elected third marshal of the Convergency Conservancy, smiled.

“Hopefully not for a very, very long time.”

She inspected the cube, and put her hand on the switch.

“Oh, and sorry about this next part,” she said. “It’s a real bitch… Good luck,

Orangevalien.”

She flipped the switch.

Addy’s mind exploded into searing white pain. Not pain like breaking bones or burning

skin, but a deeper, previously unimagined torture… as if every part of Addy was being peeled

away… flayed… laid bare and exposed… raw and vulnerable… layer by layer, until nothing

recognizable remained. Memories. Fear. Love. Name. All of it stripped away, until the only thing

left was a single, glowing ember.

And that ember was the smallest, truest piece of her. The absolute, most fundamental part

of what made up her “self”... the seed-crystal of “Addy”.

It sparked.

It flickered.

It went out.

*****

“Hi, you are currently being recorded.”

Addy woke as the Ring Camera’s light flooded her bedroom.

Peeking through her window, she was delighted to see a mother possum. This time,

instead of carrying her five babies, these somewhat bigger offspring followed behind her in

parade formation. Addy wasn’t sure why but she felt like she had seen them somewhere before.

Back in bed, Addy pulled the blanket close and tried to relax. She knew she needed a good night

of sleep.

Tomorrow was the first day of school. She had her outfit picked out. Dance team tryouts

were coming up.

While high-school during a pandemic wouldn’t exactly be normal, going back to school

was the most normal thing she had done in months.

The Summer of COVID had been very strange. This was of course true for all teenagers,

but somehow Addy was sure that hers had been exceptionally strange… but for the life of her,

she couldn’t remember why.

She was simply aware that something inside her had shifted… expanded… changed in

ways she hadn’t imagined… but she guessed that’s what growing up was all about. Nobody

really knows what change is like until it actually happens.

Still, far in the back of her mind, a part of her remained aware that something larger,

distant and even frightening awaited her… something enormous and far away.

Sometimes it took her breath away.

For now though, she was content to simply be a 14 year old girl.

Addy Henderson lived in a not-so-ordinary place, but she enjoyed a thoroughly ordinary

life. She had a hilarious little sister and parents who loved her. She still had her small group of

friends, was a competitive dancer, and had a pile of homework that never seemed to get any

smaller. Her mind was still preoccupied with upcoming deadlines, rehearsal schedules, new

pimples blooming at the absolute worst possible times, and the desperate desire to be noticed by

a certain boy in her second period chemistry class.

Yes, it was all very ordinary indeed… and in her home on Pecan Avenue, life was good.

*****

Many years later, when the super-intelligence packet buried deep within her mind finally

began to unfold, Addy sat down and started writing. The stories and characters flew from her

mind as if she were reliving old cherished memories, instead of inventing something new.

Strange Tales from Chestnut Avenue would go on to become an international bestseller,

propelling Addy into the kind of fame and influence that even the most elite of authors seldom

get to experience.

What she didn’t know, but still sensed in a vague, distant way, was that as she wrote,

somewhere far away… beyond the limits of understanding, in the place that exists in between

places… something answered.

A new thread was forged in the great tapestry… a new world vibrating into existence.

A fair and beautiful world where the night sky was constantly ablaze with colorful,

dancing sparkles.

A world where immortal sea captains battled nameless terrors of the deep sea.

Where a dancing woman healed the broken hearted, and fish occasionally fell from the

sky.

Where a lonely, prophetic man wandered the towns and villages, making his predictions

and uttering his warnings to anyone brave enough to stay up past their bedtimes… listening for

voices in the dark.

The End