valencia

The bad news came in the form of a letter. It was written in my brother's flawless calligraphy on thick, yellowed parchment tied by a pink ribbon. After reading it, I stared at that ribbon and felt a surge of irony jolt through me. I dropped the page to the table. I rested my head in my hands like the mourning statue I kept by my bed. It was an image I was intimately familiar with.
I didn't like the idea of leaving my home again. I didn't like the knowledge that no matter how many times I was there for my siblings, risking my life, no shred of gratitude would ever be shown. No favor would ever be returned. But he was family, and no matter how many times I told myself not to, I loved him. I took a deep breath and prayed to the gods for the strength and presence of mind to successfully complete yet another journey.
I would leave, as always, in the middle of the night, when the moon was highest in the sky. I would take only my thickest, warmest cloak, and the knife with the ruby handle my mother had given me when I became a woman. I knew there would be danger involved. There always was.
After I'd finished my humble dinner and cleaned up my small home, I dressed for the journey. I tied the pale pink ribbon in my hair and pulled the hood of my cloak over my head. I would blend in with the night. My journey would be swift and silent, and gods-willing, over quickly. I left my small stone house and ventured into the darkness. Not ten strides out my front door I was met by an unexpected visitor. A snow owl swept from a high tree and landed on the frosted ground before me. I hissed at the bird, trying to scare it out of my path. "Bird, you will give me away! My enemy will have no trouble sighting me if the light of the very moon is my companion."
The owl cocked her hoary head as if trying to understand.
"Be gone!"
The owl scraped her talon feet against the earth. She looked up at me with large, telling eyes. Then, "Do not worry about your opposition. I come to show you the path you must follow to Valencia. For that is where you will find your niece."
So the owl could speak! And she knew of my story and the voyage at hand. The letter I'd received had been from my eldest brother, Levi. His daughter Jolee had been taken by Loriana, the evil one-eyed monster who had power in Valencia. Levi had begged me to rescue the child as I had proven my ability in such situations time and time again. I listened to the owl.
"Do not think of walking, human. Grab hold of my [tail feathers] and I will carry you to Valencia. What meets you there is greater, I fear, than you anticipate."
Before taking hold of the great feathers I asked the fowl, "Who sent you?"
"Your grandmother, Evangeline. She watches over you still from beyond this world. She has entrusted me with the honorable task of serving as your guardian spirit."
So with no further discussion, I took the feathers in hand and was swept up into the night. The owl soared above mountains, enormous and mysterious in the moonlight. She soared over snake rivers and arrowhead forests. I watched with wonder as we traveled the quick route to Valencia .
The dawn was breaking on the Northern horizon when our flight was finished. A pale purple light washed over the valley. The earth felt solid beneath my feet. But it was also hot with the anticipation of what the day held for me in my quarrel against the monster Loriana. I had heard terrible things of her in my travels. I had heard her kingdom was made from the bones of children. Her soldiers were fathers who had been taken from their families and put under a wicked spell to do her will and none else. I didn't doubt either story as my feathered companion and I approached the gates of Valencia.
I gazed at the thick doors and vowed that my niece's skull would not become a knob or knocker. She would be returned to my brother unscathed, no matter what it took. I opened the door to the city and braced myself.
To my alarm, the city was all but deserted. I saw a huddle of men in front of a fruit stand speaking and laughing. They didn't look like victims of a wicked spell at all. I shot the owl a curious look and decided to approach the group of men.
"Excuse me, men!"
They turned to me. Their eyes grew bright at the sight of me. "'Lo, woman," one spoke. "What brings you to Valencia?"
His eyes were the color of the sky on a stormy day. Grey and pale and knowing. "I am here to rescue my niece Jolee from the monster Loriana. I hear she rules Valencia."
The man laughed. The others looked ad me as if I'd missed out on some wonderful joke or tale. He placed a broad hand on my shoulder. "Loriana has been defeated already. Your work here was finished before it began!"
I was startled to learn this from the huddle of soldiers. I looked at the owl for some guidance but her beak was closed tightly. Her large eyes stared forward.
"Good sir, how was she defeated? And what has come of my Jolee?"
The man circled me now, eyeing me up and down. "You have the build of a warrior. I think your niece may have more of you in her than you know."
"What do you mean?" I implored, growing uneasy under his penetrating eyes.
He stopped circling and locked his eyes on mine. "Jolee defeated the monster with a single kiss and a slash of her hand. She is gone. The spell over me and my men is broken. Again, woman, your work is complete."
I swallowed hard. Could it be a trap? I looked again to the owl. She stared forward still, refusing to meet my gaze. I wanted to kick her, part in frustration, but mainly just so she'd pay attention to me.
"Sir, what is your name?" I asked.
He bowed his head to me. "Dalyn... of Prima. At your service, maiden."
"Have you a family in Prima?"
A dark look crossed Dalyn's face. "Not anymore, good woman. They were killed when Loriana came through the city many years ago. It's just me and my men." His tone changed then. "It would be a welcome pleasure to have a beauty like you in my life."
I shied away from his touch and asked where I could find the child. "Follow me, woman. We are going to the center of town. Those faithful to Loriana have been kind enough to lay her body out for the mice and birds to worship." A mischievous look crossed his handsome face. I felt the strange desire to follow him to the center of the city--and the ends of the earth.
So we went to the center of town. I saw with my own eyes the massive body of Loriana. I felt a pang of sorrow, but it was because someone else had done my job. I swept the courtyard for the familiar face of my niece. I still couldn't locate her.
"Dalyn?" I asked, addressing him by name for the first time.
He nodded and approached the carcass of the monster. He spoke to one of the small birds that was already pecking at her flesh. "Bird, where will I find the warrior child, Jolee?"
I watched with surprise as the young crow responded to his inquiry. "You'll find her in the garden, crying for her father. A hummingbird I know saw her there only moments ago."
"Thank you," Dalyn replied, as if the creature knew manners. He then led me to the garden of which the bird had spoken. When I saw her tight black curls bobbing among the lilies, I felt my heart soar in my chest. I ran to the child.
"Jolee!" I cried as I came upon her. I felt my heart crack when she raised her face to me. It was streaked with tears. I swept her into my arms and kissed her several times. "Poor baby, what has happened to you?"
She showed me the flesh beneath her tiny fingernails. She cried that she couldn't scrape it out. She felt dirty with the monster so close to her all the time. I took her tiny hands in mine and pulled the ruby-handled knife from inside my cloak. I gently carved the monster's skin from beneath the child's nails. When I was finished, I handed the knife to her.
"You, Jolee, are a great warrior. My use for such a fine weapon is no more. Take this blade and do with it the work you were unable to finish with your hands."
Jolee took the knife into the center of town. She cut off the head of the one-eyed monster and we lit the body on fire, a sacrifice to our gods. As we stood in the hot red glow of the fire, Dalyn fell to one knee and asked me to be his bride. And though I had only known him a matter of hours, I felt the word "Absolutely" escape my lips.
Jolee grew to be a firm and beautiful warrior. I never served another summon for my siblings or anyone else. Instead, I returned to Prima with my husband and lived the quiet life I had always longed for. I wrapped my mourning statue in a handkerchief and tied it with the pink ribbon. I buried it beneath a stone in the yard, and I never thought of it again.

electrolux

The children were sleeping. She’d already cleaned the dining room where they’d just had their lunch. The dishes were drying on their wire rack beside the sink. She turned off all the lights on the main floor and sat by the window. Bees were hovering around the new tulips in the backyard. They didn’t look like “busy bees” to her. She knew busy.
She called her boyfriend in Pittsburgh. He told her he was having another 13-hour day in hell, he would text her later. Not knowing what else to do with herself, she masturbated quickly and quietly in the downstairs bathroom. She imagined her boyfriend’s flawless lips on her clitoris as she came. She washed her hands.
A school bus drove by. The children went ape-shit for school buses. They wouldn’t even mind that it was the short bus, just so long as it was goldenrod and rolling. They loved school buses. They also loved trucks, and any vehicle moving in reverse.
She sat listlessly on the couch and wished half-heartedly her life could travel in reverse. She was in such a limbo at this nanny job. She made excellent money—under the table, of course. And she was busy, occupied, working 50 hours a week. She was able to drive to see her boyfriend every weekend, and he her. She had her own apartment.
But to her it all felt so typical. So normal and so goddamn redundant. Monday through Friday: feed the kids, clothe the kids, clean up after the kids. Break up a fight, read the same four Curious George books over and over. Go back to her empty flat and wish for the 15 thousandth time that it weren’t empty. The weekends were undoubtedly better, but just as predictable. A two-hour drive, dinner, phenomenal sex, sex, sex. Drive home in time for work.
She held her cell phone tightly in her hand, willing it to buzz with news from someone—anyone. It sat silent and stoic. Nobody would involve her in their life on a day as glorious and warm and clear as this day was. They were all sunbathing or playing Ultimate Frisbee, or suffering the injustices of their own day jobs.
She was sitting, staring out the window, thinking all these thoughts about her mediocre life, when her phone finally buzzed. An unfamiliar number with an untraceable area code danced on the blue-white screen. She selected to open the message. It read: Go to the basement.
Not a chance, she replied instantly.
Trust me, no harm will befall you. Her interest was piqued, as words like “befall” were rare in her cell phone’s inbox. And she was a trusting person. So she stood from the sofa and opened the accordion door that led to the basement she rarely had occasion to enter. It looked as quiet and un-foreboding as always, so she placed a foot on the top step. No harm befell her, so she walked smoothly down the remaining stairs. At the bottom, however, she noticed a slight difference in the basement décor. Rather than the late-90s washer and dryer that had stood to the left since her employment began, the family had installed a set of those monstrously large Electrolux washing/drying machines. She stepped forward to inspect.
When she was within arm’s reach of the washing machine, her phone vibrated again. At this point she became acutely aware of some supernatural force coming into play, as the basement had always been a hopeless dead zone.
This message: See if you can fit.
She was about to send back a sarcastic response when a second message popped up: No harm will befall you. Just try.
So she pulled open the bubbled door, and was surprised at just how big the machine looked from this angle. Text or no, she probably would have wondered at her ability to fit inside the machine. Of course, she knew better. But she couldn’t imagine a single reason why she, a responsible and mostly-grown woman shouldn’t go head-first into an industrial-sized automatic laundry basin.
The reason became very clear the moment the door slammed closed behind her and the machine seemed to turn itself on. The basin she was encased in began turning slowly and she knew the water would flood in and wash away her life at any moment. She wasn’t afraid of dying. She was, most irrationally, afraid of her employers firing her when she failed to retrieve the children from their nap.
The phone buzzed a final time: Hold on.
The basin began turning faster and faster, turning her head-over-bottom a hundred times before she seemed to lose consciousness.

“Ma’am, you really don’t belong inside the washing equipment. Not only is it a safety hazard, but it’s a poor example for the other customers.” She looked up to see who was addressing her, but was met by a great pot belly. She craned her neck to see his face, but only made it as far as his “Lowe’s Home Improvement” nametag before he crouched down and looked her in the eyes. “Do you need help getting out?”
He was old. Too old to be working at Lowe’s, in her opinion. His shaggy grey hair made her guess mid-fifties before she noticed his astonishing green eyes and his clean white smile. “You alright?” he asked quietly, with more kindness than he had used when first addressing her.
“I don’t know where I am,” she stated, before realizing that she did, in fact, know she was in an Electrolux washing machine, which was inside a Lowe’s Home Improvement store. She corrected, “I don’t know how I got here.”
The man pursed his lips. “This is going to be fun,” he said before reaching out a medium-sized hand to help her climb out.
When she stood, she found that she was very close to the man’s height, and that was saying something, as she was only 5’2”. “Thanks,” she mumbled before looking down at her body and making sure everything was intact and where it belonged. She remembered the phone in her hand and checked it for any new messages. His name is ¬¬Eli. You can trust him. The message startled her. She couldn’t imagine why she would need to trust this man for anything more than showing her the quickest route to exit the store. She turned to the older man.
“Eli?” she offered.
He raised his dark eyebrows. “Yes?”
“What’s the quickest way out of this store?”
He considered it a moment. “Well that depends on where you want to go.” He looked into her deep brown eyes with his vibrant green ones. “Do you know where you want to go?”
She checked her cell phone, but no new instructions had buzzed in. She shrugged her shoulders and told Eli the only thing she could think: “I trust you.”
At this, he smiled again. When he smiled he looked like a rough 40, if that. She decided she liked him, and found it easy to trust him. “We’d better make haste, then,” Eli said, taking her hand and leading her past the lawn mowers and propane grills to the door marked EXIT.
She cast her eyes once more around the interior of the store. It was just a normal Lowe’s, complete with customers and employees and, well, home improvement products. She watched the automatic doors glide open with a hiss, and followed Eli as he stepped through them.

The doors led to a train platform, of all places. She looked down and saw that she was still holding Eli’s calloused hand. She followed his arm up to his body, and discovered he was no longer dressed as a Lowe’s employee, but was wearing a three-piece suit and a pocket watch. His hair was different: still long, but combed back from his face, and darker somehow. He turned to look at her with a satisfied smile on his mouth.
“What is this?” she asked, once again bringing the obvious to the table.
“It’s a train station, m’dear.”
“Yes, but where are we going?” The phone buzzed in her hand. Go shopping. You look very foolish in that outfit. She looked down at her outfit and couldn’t help but agree with the mysterious texter. What had been a very casual pair of jeans and tennis shoes now looked embarrassingly out of place in contrast to the skirts and bustles and dresses she was seeing on the women milling about the platform.
“We’re going shopping,” Eli said quietly. “Our train doesn’t leave for another hour or so.”
They exited the train station onto a busy street in what appeared to be Buffalo, NY several years before. They walked swiftly down the road and found a Sears Roebuck. They ducked inside and Eli was very efficient in helping her find a more suitable outfit. They selected a skirt and blouse combination, and Eli was showing her the lace-up boots when she felt it necessary to protest.
“I’m not wearing lace-up boots. The skirt is long enough to cover my Vans. Let’s just get out of here.”
Eli looked at her with soft eyes and said that would be fine. He purchased the outfit and waited patiently while she put it on over her jeans and t-shirt. He consulted his pocket watch and asked if she’d like to grab something to eat before heading back to the station. She declined politely as she tucked in her blouse. She felt foolish, but at least she looked like she belonged.
When they’d returned to the train station and found a wrought-iron bench on which to wait, she decided it was time to start asking questions. She crossed her feet at the ankles, as she had seen a woman in the department store doing. She placed her hands in her lap and tried to look like any other Buffalonian woman waiting for her train. She nudged Eli with her elbow as he sat beside her.
“Yes?” he asked, turning to look at her with those clear, round emeralds.
She whispered as she spoke, not wanting to interest any of the other travelers nearby. “What’s going on?”
“We’re waiting for our train.”
“I’m getting tired of your Captain Obvious answers. Can you just tell me what is happening? How’d we get here, and why are we leaving? Where are we going?”
Eli smiled with his lips closed and turned to address her more comfortably. His voice was lowered as well. “You needed a break in the monotony. Am I right?”
She shrugged. “Well, yeah. But I was thinking something along the lines of a road trip with my boyfriend.”
He nodded his understanding. “I’m sure you’ve heard the old Mick Jagger adage, ‘You can’t always get what you want . . . but you may find, you get what you need.’”
“Yes, I’m familiar with the song. Tell me what I need, then.”
“Well, when you went into the washing machine, you went back in time. Not very far, mind you. Only two or three months. But when we left the store, we zipped back about seventy. Guess they didn’t want you traveling such a great distance alone.”
“They?”
“Whoever’s on the other end of that phone of yours,” Eli replied pleasantly, indicating the device in her hands.
She looked at it, and then back at Eli. “You mean you don’t even know who’s been texting me?”
Eli shook his head and retrieved his own cell phone from the pocket of his pin-striped pants. He used his thumbs to navigate through the menu for a moment before holding it up to her. Take Mia where she needs to go, read the message on his screen. The number was the same as on her phone.
Mia sat back, feeling a little defeated knowing her guide was only being guided by the same mysterious individual that had guided her so foolishly into the washing machine in the first place. She shook her head slowly. “Well, why’d you listen if you don’t know who it is?”
Eli seemed to consider this for a long time. “Two reasons. I am a nice person. I would help any wayward young woman from the clutches of a washing machine. And second, I’ve been looking for some adventure of my own for a while. It’s not cool to be working at Lowe’s when you’re thirty-two years old.”
Mia’s breath caught in her chest. He was only eight years older than her! “So you’re an actual Lowe’s employee? It wasn’t just another costume, like you’re wearing now?”
Eli smiled sadly. “Nope. No costume. I have been at that job since I started college.” He had a far-away look in his eyes and Mia felt a tinge of regret on his behalf. If nannying at 24 was bad, she couldn’t imagine cashiering at 32.
They were quiet a moment, both lost in the thoughts that come from being older than you want with less life experience than you’d prefer. “Any idea where this train’s headed?”
Eli glanced at his own cell phone. “The past, I guess. Can’t imagine how much further back we can go on this continent, though.”
They didn’t say anything else until the train pulled into the station. Eli helped her up the step, and allowed her to take the seat by the window, which she thought was very kind. They sat side-by-side and watched the old Buffalo scenery fly by the window. They were heading east, that much was clear. They were going faster than any 1940s steam engine should probably be capable of going, but they both knew better than to doubt the kind of powers that were at hand. As the train chugged into colonial-era New York City—or New Amsterdam as it probably was at this point, Mia was filled with excitement for the first time. She had never been to NYC, as it was.
The moment they stepped off the train, the large engine and all their fellow travelers disappeared behind them. Eli cast her a puzzling look, and she returned it. They took hands again and walked into the glorified town that would later become the greatest city on earth.