Appendix 59-I: Remnants and Reminders

Appendix 59-I: Remnants and Reminders

(Robert Quick, December 27th, 2012)

The sound of echoed laughter stopped me in my tracks. I hadn’t heard any other voices than my own in a long time. Honestly, I had thought the House was empty but it was connected to so many realities that I wasn’t ever sure. We often thought about the good that did us but it also meant that there were always dangers beyond our borders. It was a wonder that any of us were still alive at all. I hoped the Observatory was keeping the ‘bad guys’ at bay, whether they were Lovecraftian nightmare gods, steam-punk pirates, zombies, or things that we hadn’t dreamed up yet.

A section of the cream-colored hallway had been replaced with a set of glass double doors, the insides opaque. I shrugged at the alteration. This wouldn’t even make the top ten strangest features of the House. Presumably the laughter had come from inside.

Hesitantly, I touched my palm to the glass. It was warm. I cracked the door open. Steam escaped into the cool air, disintegrating into nothing. Applying a little more pressure, I stepped inside.

Chapter 60: The Fall of the Strange and Wonderful House

(Jeanne Morningstart, September 10th, 2014)

And so it was over: all the artifacts had been auctioned off, the ghosts had all found other places to haunt, the alchemists had moved their Great Work elsewhere, and the only two people were left. One was a dragon and the other was Jenny Everywhere.

“It’s strange,” said Jenny, “I haven’t been to this House in ages and I’ll still miss it.”80

Then a bolt of lightning shot down from the lead-colored sky and struck the House. A blue flame roared up and consumed the House’s vast bulk. In a moment it was a ruin, its remains crumbling into the Tarn.

“So it goes,” said the dragon after a long silence. “All things must have their time. I trust you have taken everything you need?”

“Yeah. Just came back for one last thing.” With a flourish of her hand and a wide grin, Jenny revealed a tiny House the size of a Christmas ornament. “It’s a House seed. I’m sure I’ll find some use for it.” She tucked it into her capacious pocket.

And so they walked off elsewhere, leaving behind the silent shore of the Tarn.

80 In the comments: Jeanne Morningstar: “I haven’t been involved in this site in a while — lots of other projects and things going on in my life — but I still had to stop by to mark its passing for a bit.”

This highlights the highly metafictional nature of the story, marking, as it did, the closing of the Ficly website itself to the posting of any new stories, from a Jeanne Morningstar who had not written a Ficly story in over two years. This last story before The Fall of the Strange and Wonderful House was a standalone piece called Facing the Dragon, which did in fact feature a dragon — presumably explaining why a (different) dragon is Jenny’s conversation partner in The Fall of the Strange and Wonderful House.

In an in-universe sense, Jenny’s statement is hard to reconcile with the fact that another one of her incarnations had made a lifetime commitment to the House in The Maids, unless one presumes that the House’s Fall comes so far in the future of previous entries that the Maid Jenny in question is long-dead. 115

Epilogue: Overgrown

(Kendal Reed, September 18th, 2014)

Thump.

That was strange, thought the bishop. The temple shifted, certainly — more than most places, in fact, and for good reason. But she was used to that, and to the noises it made. This wasn’t one of them. She lowered her goggles, lifted a lantern, and headed deeper inside, toward the source of the sound.

“Is anyone there?”

The junior acolytes should all be at home for the night, and so should the maids. Older acolytes would be asleep or guarding those who were — the temple was open to anyone seeking peace and sanctuary — but the sleeping quarters were in another wing entirely. This hallway only led to the well, and the chambers of the scriptures, and the catacombs — the oldest parts of the building. Even if by some twist of fate there were anyone interested in intruding, surely they wouldn’t value anything here…

She turned a corner, and her thought process was interrupted by a sharp clicking sound far too close to her head.

“One chance,” the stranger said from the far end of the humming, pointed thing that the bishop recognized as a weapon only from context. “I try to be nice, even to sensers, but I am hungry and tired and I’ve seen too many good people die today. So you get one chance. What have you done with Lora Dar-Ek?”

The question hung in the air a moment while the bishop hesitated. She knew the name, but… it didn’t make any sense…

“The First Disciple?” she ventured hopefully. “My deepest apologies, traveler. You must have come a very long way. Lora Dar-Ek is long passed.” The stranger tensed and she prepared for the worst, but after a moment she was still standing, so she continued. “If it helps, I’m told it was peaceful. Old age. My mother was with her when it happened.”

The stranger’s head tilted, looking the aging bishop up and down. The silhouette was lumpy and indistinct, obscured by the weapon, but all at once it resolved into a grouping of shapes the bishop recognized — indeed, couldn’t have forgotten if she tried. Goggles there, and scarf there, and bag over one shoulder…

“Shifter?” she asked first, almost to herself — and then remembered the stranger’s question, and suddenly recalled her scripture. The oldest parts of the building… of course… “Oh no. Unanchored Shifter, container of multitudes, all-people, allplaces —” She patted her pockets frantically and finally retrieved the offering, holding it out in one hand. “Your disciple is honored by your attention. Please accept this token of my esteem.”

The goddess inspected the slice of lightly singed bread thoughtfully before carefully reaching out to take it. She took a first bite and chewed thoughtfully. Only after swallowing did she finally lower her weapon and grace the bishop with a smile.

“Thanks, I really needed that.” She stuffed the weapon back into the messenger bag slung over her shoulder and relaxed her posture, leaning against the wall as if she’d lived her whole life in this place. “So. Time, right? Space is easy. Time… not so much. Like, I’m guessing I’ve been here before, and I was older then?” The bishop nodded, but didn’t elaborate further. “And I told you not to tell me about that unless I asked. Awesome. So…” Her gaze wandered around the hall, lingering on spots whose significance the bishop couldn’t guess. “I left something with Lora, before. A little —” She gestured with both hands, indicating a size small

enough to fit in one palm. “Like a… like a model house. Any idea what happened to that?”

The bishop pursed her lips and thought on how best to explain. To her credit, her guest waited quietly and showed no sign of impatience. “As you say, Shifter, time plays tricks with us all. And what seems small can, in its way, contain multitudes. Lora’s scriptures refer to the artifact as a seed, and as one might expect…” She waved her lantern hand slightly, suggesting the space in which they stood. “It grew.”

Jenny Everywhere nodded slowly, then lowered her eyes and took another bite of the offering. She stared into the middle distance and chewed several moments before she spoke.

“Yeah… I was afraid you’d say that.”

The End?