The Novella Life of Illuscia Nester Himawari

    I felt time rush forward, and as it surged, the force of it was pulling me apart. I was myself. I was Marie. I was her father. My mind and soul stretched between all three, but I felt myself being dragged into the last. The man named Solomon who still mourned his wife and daughter, but had been willing to work for their murderers all the same. I caught glimpses of the next few years. Flashes of his new tasks in the lower echelons of some group called The Kin. He had worked for them before without knowing, but now he was on the inside, learning and doing impossible and terrible things, and I could feel his ambition and excitement, his fear and self-hatred. This last was always strongest when he visited the woods. His daughter’s grave. The memorial site for the day he gave up the last of his soul out of cowardice and greed. The fact that he hated himself made me like him slightly more, but I still relished his suffering. Not just be...

  When the woman, Mrs. Bergensohn, first came, there were just more tests. The tests were different. Drawing blood, having various people come and examine me in ways I didn’t understand, asking me questions about the gifts Kalinsky had given me over time. How I liked them, how often I held them, did they ever make me feel strange, that kind of thing. Then one day the tests stopped, and Bergensohn told me that I was ready for my operation. I was immediately scared, both because I wondered what was wrong that I needed an operation and because over the last two weeks I’d come to fear and hate the woman in a way I’d never felt about Kalinksy. It wasn’t that she’d ever hurt me. It was the way she looked at me. Like she wanted to hurt me. Wanted to hurt me very badly, and was looking forward to the day when she could. That day, the day of the operation, was the worst of my life. I was strapped down to a metal table in a room I’d never been in before. ...

    I was back in the train station, but it was brightly-lit. I heard Mum call out to me. Marie, don’t dawdle, the train is here. Except she didn’t say all that, only part. She got so far as “train” before the next part turned into a surprised grunt as the man in the black coat shoved her in front of the train that was to take us to Knightsbridge. I went to cry out, and in my dream I did cry out, but in truth there was already a rough hand on my shoulder and a rag at my face. No one saw because they were all looking at the woman that had just been run over by the train that was screaming to a stop. It was screaming, the people were screaming, the whole world was screaming except for me, and I was the one that wanted to scream the most. The hand clenched tighter against my face as I was pulled back from the platform to the edge of the steps. I could feel myself slipping away now, my legs were jelly and I needed to breathe and fight and scream, to...

    I tried to control my breathing as I stepped toward the map on the wall. I already had an idea of what it was, and as I grew closer my suspicions seemed to be confirmed. A red circle intersected by a blue bar, and inside it, the word “Underground”. My eyes went to the colored lines snaking this way and that, looking for names for all the different stops along the various train routes the map seemed to be showing. I’d never been to London, but I felt sure I would recognize some names if they were there—but no. While there were little stubs off the main lines where stops would be, no words were there. No words were anywhere other than the one inside that blue bar, and... My breath caught as I heard a noise from somewhere beyond the wall. Turning, I followed the wall to its edge, the white hallway curving and opening up to a larger area with ticket booths and turnstiles, all empty and silent in the dark. I shined my light all around but saw no...

    “Listen, man. It’s just a bet. A fucking game , you get me?” I glared at Anton Fisker, sole owner and operator of “The Burning Hour”. My checks the day before had told me that he was twenty-seven years old and had grown up in Michigan before moving to this area ten years before. Upon his arrival, he’d immediately purchased a fifty-acre plot of pine trees and rocky ground out in the middle of nowhere. That was in August. By October of the same year, the first word of a new extreme haunt or fear challenge called “The Burning Hour” began popping up a few places. By this year, it was still an underground event, but one with quite a following. Available only by appointment, and even then, only on Wednesday nights, it had become the white whale of some internet circles, particularly among those for whom the distance, limited access, or the sheer cost, put entry out of reach. There were numerous accounts of what took place in The Burning Hour...

    I knew what he meant right away. Maybe in the same strange way I’d pictured the rolltop just as it had been in Abrams’ house. We were connected somehow, tied together by whatever had happened to him or whatever he wanted me to find. Maybe I could save him somehow? Or maybe he was trying to save me. Either way, the path was clear. I needed to get what was in that desk, and I needed to trust that he was right on the timing of it all. My conviction waivered as I crossed the moonlit road back to the shadows of Abrams’ monolithic home. It was the middle of the night, and her car was still there, so I had to assume she was inside. Was I really going to break into this woman’s house in the middle of the night, even if only for a few minutes to peek inside the desk? What if she was awake and caught me? What if she had a gun? I tried to push the thought away. I’d be quiet, and if I heard or saw any sign of her being up, I’d just ease out be...

    What does that mean? Meat? The paper of the journal stayed silent for the next two hours, and finally I was too exhausted to stare at it any longer. I considered carrying the notebook with me to bed, but something recoiled at the idea. This was all too strange, and while I was still largely preoccupied by the wonder and mystery of it all, I couldn’t help but feel a growing sense of unease too. I didn’t know what I was dealing with, not really. What if it was dangerous? What if I… My eyes snapped open and I could see sunlight coming in through my bedroom windows. I’d slept past eleven, even though I’m usually awake before nine. Even then I felt like I could have slept on, and probably would have if not for the cold bit of metal digging against my cheek. Lifting my head, I looked groggily back down at my pillow. It was a key. A small, brass key like you sometimes saw on lockboxes or rolltop desks. Sitting up quickly, I l...

    “Hello? Who is this?” My voice was barely above a whisper, and I wondered if I’d be able to hear a response over the pounding of my heart. I was staring at the page, but was tensed for any sound or motion from any corner of the shadowy bedroom. As the seconds crawled by, my mind began trying to weakly interject that maybe it was nothing after all. Maybe the word had been there already and we just hadn’t… No. That was bullshit. Maybe I’d missed the fingerprint or thumbprint or whatever it was, but not writing on the very first page. Plus there had been that sound, which I now imagined was the sound of some ghost pencil scritch-scratching the greeting to me. Maybe that was it. I needed to write back instead of talking to it like it was a fucking smart phone. I checked the bedside table’s drawers, but they were empty aside from a t.v. remote and an old phone charger. Then I remembered that I might still have a pen from the last ...