--- title: Whispers visibility: public --- A chapter from Alan's perspective as he searches for a changeling as a trade for Elizabeth doing some ingredient gathering. It's hard work to be a warlock with a night job, but it can be _oh so **rewarding**._ So, close your eyes. The linoleum squeaks under your feet, cheap and practical and beige-white. The fluorescent lights flicker and hum above you, cheap and practical and beige-white. This is the stale-smelling oasis the city can offer you, but there is no city on the other side of the glass doors - just a gas station with air service (but no car wash), and soybeans. Miles and miles of soybeans along the two-lane road. And if you were to listen to the thoughts of the clerk with the exhausted terror in his eyes, the one who doesn't belong in this borrowed body at all, you might hear something like this: ------- The boxcutter in my hand is shaking, and I don't have time to hide it - or the blood on its edge - as I hear the digital chimes of the door opening. Unfortunate to have a customer at this hour. I have words ready. "Damn, got myself again. I need to be careful with this thing!" And it's not a lie. I need to be _very_ careful with this boxcutter. But I don't end up needing an alibi. Nobody wants to interact with the clerk at a gas station more than they have to. Nobody wants to be perceived. Honestly, I barely get a glance at the customer before he's zipped into the long aisle of the fridge section, but it's a him, I think. The boxcutter finds itself a home by my feet, and I look down at the marks on my legs. There will be time and privacy to sanitize both later. These are the runes tonight. I can feel it. I don't know what they do, but I know it's something big. Something that will surprise me. It's very difficult to surprise someone who's expecting to be surprised, which just makes it a bigger question what these runes are for. _He's bundled up for the cold._ I didn't see. _Yeah you did. He's bundled up, and you're out here in your shorts._ He couldn't be wearing more than a light jacket. It's summer. _It's 3 AM, and you're very far from home, aren't you?_ I wouldn't know. But he did let some cold air in. _Far. From. Home._ I choose to ignore her. She gets like this. But it prickles at the back of my mind, because she's never really wrong about things. She's attentive, that's... why I need her. _There's another rune coming, soon. You feel it?_ I ignore her. _I know you feel it, Alan._ I ignore her. _And it's soooooo... triangular. This is a spicy one._ I'm ignoring you. _And you're doing it so **badly.** Come on. You're only wasting your own time here, and the window is the window._ I know how magic works. _Oh see, but you **don't.** Not really. Not like I do._ You're full of it. _Well you're full of me. And you know I'm never wrong._ It's a delta shape with an arched base and a vertical line bisecting it symmetrically. There's an optional horizontal crossbar, not sure what it does yet, but it feels right to include it. We have until sunrise to cast this spell, or we'll never know what it would have done. Did I miss anything? _That it's cold, and that our customer's using his jacket as a shopping cart._ He's what now? _Check the corner mirror._ Fuck, that's obnoxious. Glad it's not my problem. I can feel her smirking, but at least she's made the wise decision to shut up. I need room to think. Holding an intent is very important for getting the runes you actually need. I'm only here in the first place because I got distracted and fucked up my first attempt at spellcasting. I need a changeling, it's my end of the deal. The customer is now trying very hard to not attract my attention. He doesn't know I can see him in the mirror, and certainly isn't looking at me with it. I pick up the boxcutter again, find a blank space on my thigh that I can work with, and I carve. Delta shape. Arched base. Vertical line. Horizontal crossbar. It doesn't even hurt anymore. I've carved a lot of runes. _Very professional work, Alan. Clean lines. I'd bet... Chris, is it? I'd bet he'll hardly even mind later._ Had to be done. _It did, it did. Always so utilitarian._ It gets real old sometimes, you know. Being mocked. _Boys never know how to take a compliment._ Shut up. I'm starting to feel it - what the runes mean. The one by my knee, that represents the object of my desire, someone who can change form at will. But this, uh, spirally one? That's coffee, a cup of coffee being stirred. And the one I just carved, it's the customer - I have to give him what he wants. _Coffee?_ Umm. That seems like part of it. I can tell that if I give the customer what he wants, the next person to walk into my store will be the changeling. But it's actually pretty murky what the customer wants. _Time ticks, my little bomb. Better figure it out before he leaves._ Yeah, yeah. I know. _Speak of the devil! Here he comes!_ Shit. The customer comes out of an aisle near me and walks up to the counter. He has a nonchalant demeanor that says, "hey pal. I definitely don't have a bunch of protein bars stashed in my coat that I don't plan to pay for. We're just bros, my guy." As if that's something I care about. Well I'll make the first conversational move. "Welcome to U-Mart, where the customer always comes first." _Such a gentleman!_ Fuck **off.** I continue on script: "How can I make your evening, sir?" The man in front of me looks around and shrugs. "Oh, just... gotta buy things. You know. Like, uh, this People Magazine." He sets it down, next to- "and this can of Pepsi. Gotta stay caffeinated to stay on the road." I stare at it for a moment. Then stare out the window, and then finally, at him. "It's a bit cold tonight for a chilled can of soda, I'd think." He shifts uncomfortably. "Well, I don't wanna, you know, zonk out while driving." "No no," I agree, scratching my chin. "That'd be bad alright. You just look real cold, with that jacket and all. And it occurs to me that you may not have seen..." I point with my eyes. "... the coffee machine. Can I get you some?" "Oh, you don't have to make me any of that!" "It's made." I shrug. "No reason not to pour yourself a cup, it's even cheaper." Something clicks inside me, I hear a note of the song. "_You do want to keep warm, don't you?_" He looks at me suspiciously. But he clearly wants to get out of this conversation, so he says, "I guess." I grin, and pull my apron down over my bare and bloodied legs. "That's the spirit." He keeps his eyes on me as I circle round the checkout, find the largest cup size, and start filling. "Cream? Sugar?" He almost says no. I _see_ him almost say no. But then he considers how he'd actually want to drink it, if he's going to end up with this drink anyways, and he says "Sugar. Two of 'em. No - three." I smile as I walk back with the packets and the stir stick in one hand, coffee and lid in the other. "Go big or go home, I like it." _It's a shame he's just a means to an end. I could do all sorts of things to this one._ I ignore her. And for the record, he's not my type. But I smile as I start pouring sugar into the searing hot, burnt-tasting coffee and stirring it with the wooden stick. "You from around here?" The man shrugs noncommittally. "Used to be. I grew up around Platt, but I mostly just visit for holidays now." It occurs to me that I don't really know where we are. Or where Platt is. _Far from home._ "Huh. I didn't know we had a holiday coming up." He shuffles awkwardly. "Holidays and funerals. I should've said." I look up from the spiral of the swirling coffee. "I'm sorry. I overstepped." He's staring through his shoes. "Nah. Everyone goes sometime. I'm, uh... kinda the last person in my family now. It's just me." "Shit." "Yeah. So I guess I gotta carry on the family name, or something. Me. And I have nobody, you know? I... don't know why I'm telling you that." I scratch my cheek. "Because you never have to worry about seeing me again later?" "I guess I don't..." he squints at the name badge on my chest. "... Chris. That's a nice name." I nod amicably. "I suppose it is." He gets real still in front of me, for a long moment. And then he asks, "Chris, what do you do when everything in front of you is too hard and everything behind you is gone?" I put the lid on the coffee, securing it snugly while trying not to spill on myself. "I'm not a philosopher, or a therapist, but I think everybody has to find something to live for, or they won't want to live at all." I hand the coffee to him, look him in the eye. "I've never been the type to tolerate a hole in my heart." _He wants to stay awake._ The man is just staring at the coffee in his hands. _He wants to stay warm._ I watch him hold it close to his chest, where a sob stifles underneath his jacket. The jacket hangs on him like a triangle, flaring out widely below his waist, and he stands rigid in the middle of it, his forearms making a horizontal line across his chest... _He doesn't want to live like this._ Before I can even yell, he's caught on fire across his whole body. There's no single ignition point, no rational explanation. I duck as he screams and throws his coffee, melted chocolate bars falling at his sides. The skin peels from his face in front of me, his eyeballs boil. Holes grow rapidly in the jacket, like a giant putting out her cigarettes on him. I watch his clothes fuse to his skin, so that they can burn together, like a suicide pact. He quickly loses his ability to scream, as it turns into a gurgle and then a breathy panicked rasping. And yet it takes _so_ long for him to die. Heat kills quickly. Your proteins denature, your cells stop working everywhere at once, and it's not pleasant but it's brief. I have good reason to be familiar, they've burned witches for centuries. It absolutely should not take this long to die of burning. He rolls on the ground, muscle tissue exposed and combusting everywhere, and I realize it's "stop, drop and roll." I consider trying to find water, a hose, something, but... it's magic. There's nothing to be done with those kind of tools. _This is why we don't get attached to spell ingredients, Alan._ I ignore her. I watch until it's over, and eventually, it is. Magic is not technology. It's slippery, it's inconsistent, it's resistant to being systematized. It's a living and contrarian thing. If it wasn't, we'd just call it technology. Spells are not lasting recipes, they wink in and out of existence, and there's so many flowing through the aether that you need runes to narrow them down. The only way to use Magic at all is as a dialogue, to listen as much as you talk. So if the spell you need is out there, you need to listen for it and cast it before it disappears. Damn the consequences. It had to be done. _It did. And you did so good._ It doesn't feel good. But I'll live. _Is it good enough for you? Only catching stray notes of the worldsong?_ It's not. _Should you be subject to magic's whims?_ No. It should be subject to mine. _What are you going to do about it, Alan?_ I'm going to find the changeling. They're going to walk through the door of my store. My burnt-out crime scene of a store. Fuck. _Alan. Where are we right now?_ I don't know. Far from home. _That's right. The failed spell earlier. Is this your body?_ No. _Is this your store?_ It's... no, it's not... She lurches down, grabs the boxcutter and runs it across our carotid artery. I panic as blood fills my throat, it's unfamiliar and it's awful and oh god oh god oh god oh g I am in my store. I am in my body. The spell is over, and I am fine, at least in a loose sense of the word. There is no boxcutter in my hand. I am breathing hard like a man who's felt death's hand on his shoulder. My heart is beating like a prey animal's, and I don't have time to settle it - or the blood pounding in my ears - as I hear the digital chimes of the door opening. Unfortunate to have a customer at this hour. I have no words ready as the old man walks in, browsing the Chex Mix and the jerky. He's the next person to walk into my store, _my store._ This is him. The changeling. And all I can think is, I didn't know she could take control of my body like that. * [04 - Yes, Anything](/writing/em/04) * [06 - Oh Him? He's Armless](/writing/em/06)