CZM Book Club: The Barrow Will Send What it May, Chapter Two

the Lion. But this book, well it's chapter two, so you probably know what's happening, or you don't because you live a very different life than me, and you start on chapter two.

of the new play? Them in a different culture's sure to do?

I was concussed. What did the doctor ask me when I was a kid and I hit my head super hard on the playground? What year is it? What's my name?

not a corner stone, a keystone. His existence somewhere in the world had been keeping me together. He was gone, and ever since, I hadn't felt like I was in control. Maybe it wasn't him specifically. Maybe I would have felt that way if any of my close friends had died. Did I have close friends anymore? Seventy two? Traveling with others is always a trade off. Being close with other people is always a trade off. Do we give up pieces of our autonomy to be with others? Is it worth it? Eighty five?

almost killed everyone. I even let myself doze off. But do you know what came to me in my dreams?

we get mad at one another over small details. Also, I guess I kind of fed an anarchist to a deer a couple days ago, but that's besides the point. It was collective self defense. He was trying to get the deer to eat my friends. No matter. We'd try the library, then see what we could do about getting a new vehicle. Pendleton goes from rural road to downtown in less than a block, which is kind of impressive. Nothing nothing, pasture, nothing, trees, nothing, then a speed trap

and a tourist trap right in a row. The latter even had a concrete tyrannosaurus out front. That kind of awesome place you don't see much of until you get to the parts of the country people write road trip movies about. Then a Western style tourist downtown, complete with boardwalk and old timey looking lampposts. This town has seen better days, I said, as we drove past a broken trunk of concrete fence that lined the boardwalk. Ain't no jobs now that the tourists are gone? Why are the

tourists gone? Budget cuts? Gertrude said, I don't know the whole ways of it, but a lot of public land went private, and there's not so much outdoor recreation like there was. It was okay for a while, there was still work for the gas companies, but I guess this area wasn't so good after all. And all the jobs are a couple two more many hours east to hear, and no one young sticks around. That's a shame, I said, because it was everything ends. She said that's just God's way.

I didn't believe much in God, but she wasn't wrong. People are staring, I said. We were stopped at a light, probably the only light in town, and an old white man was glaring from behind the curtains of some kind of knickknacks store. Oh they're not staring at you, Gertrude said. The light turned green and she turned left off the main drag. The town was only about three maybe four blocks wide, maybe ten blocks long, lots of small houses

with forests and plains just beyond. People here ain't prejudiced, got nothing against black folks or even folks who dress like I don't know what you call that, punks, I asked. We weren't what most people think of when you think of punks. None of us had mohawks, and I don't think any of us besides maybe Thursday or Brynn, listened to the sex pistols, but we were punks. Sure? Yeah,

what about trans people? Vulture asked. Gertrude looked up in the rear view, probably looking at Vulture to see if she could tell he was trans. Oh, honey, this is Montana, not North Dakota, she said. Does that mean a yes, Sarah no, Vulture asked. We read the news, we've seen people like you online, and people around here are willing to let people be people. That's cool, Vulture said. He didn't sound incredibly reassured, you know, Gertrude said, I never

would have noticed you pass really well. So that's the kind of thing that probably sounds like it's going to be a compliment but turns out not to be Vulture said, have you had you know, I think the three of us tried to cut her off at once. Not a real polite topic of conversation, I said, got it. She genuinely seemed to take it well, but telling her not to ask the questions she so clearly wanted to ask still managed to kind of silence the car for a moment.

So why are people staring, I asked at last, when we stopped at the stop sign. Folks have been staring at me ever since I came back back to town, back from the dead. She said it so casually, like it was something no one would raise an eyebrow at about that. I asked, you mean like they had to put those paddles on you and shock you back to life after a car accident or something. If that's not, I don't know. Also the kind of question that's rude to ask. No, No, it's okay. Gertrude turned right onto

an unlit street. Maybe the library was this way, maybe something worse was happening. For the first time in the whole interaction, Hey, I may be slow, but I'd had a rough day. I was getting uneasy sitting on the edge of my seat, eyeing the law on the doors. I died of cancer last Christmas Eve. I was dead six months. God bring you back. I dealt with crazy folks all my life. It was fine, we'd be fine. I turned over my shoulder to see if my friends

were paying attention. They were. Brin had her hand on her knife. Thursday had his hand in the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie, probably on his gun. Someone like that, Gertrude said. I had a feeling it wasn't God who'd told Gertrude to pick us up. After all, we'd asked for the dead to guard us. She stopped the car. It wasn't sudden, she'd been slowing down, but it caught me off guard, and I reflexively flicked off my seat belt, ready to fight or run. Well, she said, turning to

smile with her cold smile. We're here. Been a pleasure meeting you punks, and God bless. The library was in an old post office building on a darkened side street. Greek style column supported the front of the stone building, and a single flickering bulb and a scance illuminated the door. A hand lettered wooden sign read Pendleton Library Still free, Still open to the public ten am to four pm,

run by anarchists. Beneath it, someone attacked a piece of paper that read, we do not carry the anarchist cookbook. Get your bad politics and bad science recipes off the internet, not from us. I got that one from an actual anarchist bookstore. I had that sign up.

We're closed, A voice said, sleepily from the other side of the door. We're travelers, heard there were good people here. The door opened a slit. The white man peering through the crack looked to be a little bit older than us, maybe in his mid thirties. Gray streaked his thick black beard, and one half of his mustache was stark white. A spade was tattooed and faded blue on his cheek. Who told you that, Gertrude Miller? I said, she picked us up hitch hiking. There was fear in his face. His

eyes darted to each of us in turn. Another face appeared behind his, a woman closer to my age, with pitch black hair cut into baby bangs that continued into an undercut on the side of her head, feral bangs. I'd heard the style called. They went well with her septum clicker and immaculate makeup. Sometimes I'm jealous of people who pull off high fems so well. Oh, for fuck's sake, Vasillis, she said, let them in. Sorry, The man, presumably Vascillius, mumbled.

He opened the door and went inside. And do you know what they found inside there?

sees in small town libraries. Tasteful sconces set into the wall lit the place, and a slightly ragtag assortment of comfortable chairs and couches were everywhere you live here. I asked All of my questions about more pressing matters, like the apparently dead woman who'd driven us to town, were lost in my excitement about people having taken over a

small town library and kept it running. It's funny because when I wrote all of this, like like, oh, they're going to privatize the parks, yeah, Like, well, at least it means we can probably take over my libraries.

led to three other doors, presumably two bedrooms in a bathroom. How, I asked, the county left it empty. We moved in. It's squatted then, technically, Vascillis said, But even the sheriff's wife comes here to check out books. I'm not sure anyone knows or even cares that no one legally owns the place. People assume we bought it, and we don't discourage them. I'm Heather, the woman said. As we did introductions. Wait, Vascilla said, after I introduced myself as Danielle, what's your

last name? Cain, I waited, cringing to hear him call me Danny. He didn't you knew Clay? He said, we talked about you a lot last time he was through here. You know, Clay, Doomsday asked. At the same time, as the ice was broken by knowledge of a mutual friend, a different sort of tension filled the room, the tension of discussing a mutual dead friend. New knew Clay. None of these assholes had come to his funeral. Everywhere I traveled,

people knew. Everyone talked about him like he was a magical gift from the universe to its denizens, which he was, and not one of them had made it to Denver to drink and mourn with me and his mom. Maybe I'd go out that way too, I'd live on in legend, but no one would feel obliged to actually miss me. Sure, Vascilla said, he came through a couple of times a year, always wanted to check out whatever new books we had. The books up here were in fact different from those

on the shelves downstairs. A lot of them had blank spines, a lot of them were gold embossed. Some of them looked older than some people think the earth is. This isn't accult library. I asked, well, what else are you all doing here? Vasillis asked. He and I were the only ones still standing. I realized everyone else had made themselves comfortable on couches and chairs. Rain lashed against the windows, and thunder rumbled across the plane. We uh. I tried to figure out what to tell him. I tried to

figure out what was safe to tell him. We're demon hunters, Vulture blurted out. He put down a book and his phone. He'd been taking pictures of the pages. We're on the run because of some stuff that went wrong, and Eulixie maybe killed a lot of people and some cops too, so much for a cover story. Doomsday and Thursday shot him the same look at the same time. The combined glare would have driven lesser men to silence, or at least to show remorse on their face. Vulture did neither.

You demon hunters, Vasillis repeated, like the words didn't make sense in his mouth, like he was speaking some language he didn't know and was just parroting the phrase back. I mean we are now, I guess. Vulture gave his best whoop, sorry, look to the rest of us, you're here because of the disappearances. Then that was Heather, who was sitting next to Brynn on a love seat. Thursday said yes, Vulture said at the same time, Doomsday ritual must have done a hell of a lot more than

get us a ride safely. What disappearances, I asked, you might want to sit down, Heather said, this is weird. I found myself in a large comfortable chair by the window, and Vasillis brought us all tea. Heather, with a cop in her hand, told us the story. There used to be two more of us living here. She started punctuating her sentence by blowing across her tea, Damien and Asola. Then there's Loki. I know Loki, I said. It's a small scene, hitchhiking, weirdos, queer, kind of small book thief.

I'd stayed with them. Loki didn't like being called he or she. In Oakland for a couple weeks the summer before, they had been planning a rare book heist. I skipped down before I found out how it went. Yeah, Heather said, Loki came through with some books for us. Real shit, they said. Then they and Damien and Asola went winter camping in Glacier, and then none of them came back. Heather took a tiny sip of her tea, decided that it was cool enough and took a longer sip. Months

go by, no word from any of them. Vasillis and I tried to track them down, but never found anything. Not their car, nothing, a record in the back country hiking registry at Glacier, and that's it. Then this spring, a Sola shows up in town. She won't talk to us. Squat's an empty bed and breakfast at the edge of town. We see her around town sometimes, but it's like she looks right through us. She looks right through everyone else too. She's back, but she's not back. Where are the books

Loki brought, Doomsday asked. Most of them are shelled now, Vasillis said, gesturing at the walls around us. Most of them are the same garbage you always find though. Ninety nine point nine percent of occult books or just trash, gibberish, packaged up all spooky, made to sell for as much money as possible. Most of them are shelved, Doomsday continued, Vasillis sighed. The three of them went to Glacier with

one book, one that seemed legit. Loki says they stole it from some of Vola type fascists on the Olympic Peninsula, says those people had stolen it from somewhere in England, the Book of Barrow. Our friends took it to Glacier because they were going to try something out. What were they going to try out? Thursday asked, Vasillis looked to the floor. Heather answered, instead resurrection Loki wanted to hunt a bear and bring it back to life. Oh fuck that,

Bren said. So they went out to the back country wilderness in the dead of winner to kill a hibernating bear, which by the way, doesn't count as hunting, and turn it into a zombie bear. And then they didn't come back. Thursday asked, gee, I can't think of anything that might have gone wrong with that plan. What a mystery, Thursday Doomsday said, No, Thursday said, you've got to be kidding me.

Mystery solved. They got killed by winter or the bear, and frankly, it's hard to claim they didn't have it coming. What about Gertrude Miller, I asked. She told us she was dead six months then was resurrected. Honestly, Heather said, Looking at Thursday, when they didn't come back from Glacier, Vasillis and I thought the same thing you did. But then a Sola came back. Okay, she's shell shocked and doesn't want to talk to us. Heather turned to me.

But then Gertrude came back. She was dead for six months. She was telling the truth about that, then, I said, Heather nodded. Vulture clapped his hands together. We all looked at him, and he tried and failed to wipe the smile off his face. Sorry, he said, It's just we have our first mystery. Yeah, Thursday side, we'll start first thing in the morning. Dinner consisted of reheated couscous, baked potatoes,

and green salad. There were too many of us for the table, so we ate on the couches and easy chairs. We talked about friends in common who weren't dead or missing, the state of the anarchist movement and its role in fighting the rise of fascism and nationalism globally. Then more interesting to me the state of magic. How many practitioners do you think there are, I asked, Until a couple

of days ago. I've gone my whole life without seeing an ounce of real magic, and I have met plenty of people who spend their time trying it's hard to answer, Vascilla said, I guess that worldwide, we're talking about a a few hundred, maybe one thousand people who are real magicians who are tapped into what the endless spirits have to offer. Then below that, I don't know a couple million people who stumble upon magic here and there but

mostly fail. What do you mean? As far as I can tell, there's only one system of magic that actually works with any consistency, and that involves appealing to or summoning directly the endless spirits. But there are a lot of rituals that end up tapping into that power kind of by accident, through a side door that people stumble upon from time to time as they practice other systems. Most of those side doors are for magic that only

affects the practitioner. Like rituals to grant you courage, work well, rituals to heal yourself work a little less well. Rituals to heal other people almost never unless you're communicating directly with a specific spirit. Okay, I said, If there's a system of magic that works, why doesn't everyone know about it? Keeping information rare is harder and harder these days. Oh, I know, Vulture said. We all turned to look at him. He finished his food already and was lying across Heather

and Brynn on the love seat. It's the Magic Feds, he said. I'm on this forum right, and I don't know a lot of it probably isn't true. But there's this thing people mention and no one knows its name. But it's the Magic Feds. And they're like Molder and Scully, but evil, well not evil from their point of view, but evil from my point of view. Yeah, Vasillis said, he used to be the church. Now it's the state. Still an inquisition. Wait, I said, should we be worried

about this then? I mean, Vascillis said, as long as you don't do something crazy and spectacular, like said an endless spirit against your enemies in broad daylight, you'll be fine. Brinn started laughing, so I said, yes, we should be worried. There was a spare bedroom it had been a Sola and Damien's, and we piled in with our bags. Doomsday claimed the bed for herself on Thursday, and I laid my sleeping bag out on the floor. Vulture said he was going for a walk Thursday, said he was going

to stand watch because something felt off. Brynn was out in the living room, still talking with Heather. I was exhausted, but as soon as I laid my head down on my bald up hoodie, I was awake too much, all in one day, too much, all in one week. I wanted Brynn there. I wanted to hold her. We'd been cuddling most nights. I hadn't kissed her or anything. I hadn't really been sure i'd been ready to do something like that, and vice versa. But I wanted to cuddle

with her. She was out in the living room talking to a high femme, gorgeous stranger. That was fine, It would be Fineane had let up, but there was still thunder in the distance. Other than that, everything was quiet. Small towns are strange at night. None of the people noises of big cities, none of the car noises of busy rural roads, and none of the wild life noises of the countryside. Just that thunder and the sound of Brynn laughing from the living room. It wasn't fine. I

was being an idiot, and I knew it. Brynn didn't owe me anything, and she wasn't doing anything wrong. Or even weird or mean. Knowing I was being an idiot didn't make it better. Couldn't I just think about the car crash? Instead? Lightning lit the room. Doomsday started snoring. Worry became anxiety. Anxiety started on its way towards panic. I got up, pulled my hoodie on, slipped on my boots, and went out to the living room. Brynn and Heather

were leaning against one another, talking sweetly. Brynn caught my eye and smiled. It was fine. I went down the stairs and out the front door. Thursday was on the porch, staring off down the street. His backpack was in his hand, concealing his gun. Couldn't sleep, He asked, what is there to keep watch for? I asked, talking about something other than me would be good. It was what I needed. Hell if I know, Thursday said, I'm just I'm just trying to be useful. I feel that. I said, I'm

not always this way. Thursday said, what way? I don't know? Protective kind of macho and nodded. I love Doomsday more than I love life itself. I'm worried about her, I'm worried about the rest of us. So I don't know what else to do besides watch out for her best. I know, how what do you like usually? Believe it or not. I think I'm usually the funny guy, he said. When shit ain't serious, I ain't serious either. It's just shit's real serious. Right now? I can feel that you

like Brynn, he said. It wasn't a question. He'd seen the two of us together. Yeah, he looked over at me, took in my expression for a moment. You're jealous of her and Heather. No, I'm not. He didn't say anything to that. I guess I am.

of the people I know are polyamorous. But it still surprised me. The days seemed so I don't know traditional in a wandering a coultist with a bounty on their heads kind of way. I wouldn't worry about her and me unless I don't know. Idris Elba decided he was single, started hanging around. Doomsday is a crush on Idris Elba. Hell if I know, Thursday said, I'm the one with a crush on Idris Elba. I laughed at that, Glad to know I can still be funny when shit's serious.

He said, I'm glad I met you all. I said, this is hands down the weirdest week of my life, but I'm glad I've gotten to meet you all. You too, Danielle Kane. I'm going to go back and try and sleep again. I said, don't say anything to her what you're in sad sack mode. I get it, we're all sad sacks sometimes. But if you go talk to her right now, you're going to come across wrong, You'll come across controlling. Just go to bed, and if she cuddles up with you, cuddle right back, and if not, try

not to stress about it. Thanks for looking out for us, Thursday, Sleep well, Danielle Kane. On my way back through the library, I saw three rats on the checkout counter. I have a hard time getting mad at rats, all the best animals or scavengers squatters. On my way back through the living room, I saw Heather sitting next to Brynn. Heather's arm was across Brynn's lap, and Brynn had a needle and ink in her hand. She was tattooing Heather. I

couldn't tell what the design was. Brynn looked up at me and smiled sweetly, and I knew Thursday was right. If I told Bryn I was sad. Hell, if I said anything at all, it would come across wrong, and Brenn wouldn't be smiling so sweetly. No more. I smiled back and went down the hall to where my sleeping bag waited for me. It was fine, I was fine. That's the end of chapter two.

they were. I mean, they're like a normal heist. But that's still too high because we're weird punks. But right, we can make the audiobooks really cheap because there's no paper that we have to pay for, so we passed the savings onto you. Anyway, see you next week.