The boulders of the jetty stretched out towards the sea. The ocean lapped against the rocks, and occasionally a large wave fell and crashed against it with a boom. Fortunately, the middle of the jetty stayed mostly dry. The boulders were not meant to be traversed, and Eric found himself hopping across gaps and climbing outcrops to stay dry. With the near constant wind and the sea spray he was glad he’d brought a jacket.

Eric hadn’t realized the seawall went out so far. At what felt like halfway he looked ahead and the end looked no closer than when he’d begun. He glanced behind him and saw his town, though the buildings were hardly large enough to notice. Eric rubbed his face, hefted his bag, and continued ahead. He didn’t have anything to tell him what time it was, but his stomach told him it was far past lunch.

By the time Eric reached the very end of the jetty his hands were cold, wet, and cut. His right ear felt frozen, and his knee hurt from when he’d slipped and banged it. But he stood proudly and turned around to look. He could hardly see his town at all against the shore. It might have been the furthest he’d ever gone away from town. That was; unless he went off to college.

An airplane flew high in the distance. Maybe if he chose a school on the coast he could sail there instead of fly. Was he afraid to fly, or was he scared to leave? Couldn’t he stay in the town that’d always been his home?

Eric slipped his backpack from his shoulders and sat down on a flat rock out of reach of the waves. He took off his shoes and let his bare feet get sprayed by the sea. He took from his bag his sandwich and chips and dug in. When half his sandwich was gone, he slowed so that he could savor it.

Eric was smiling to himself, pleased with his place to picnic, when a hand shot up out of the water by his feet.

Half screaming, half choking, Eric shot backwards and nearly bashed his head on a stone behind him. He coughed and spat out his food just so he could breathe, but when he sat up, he lost his breath again.

“What are you doing here?” Eric asked the girl, who held with both hands onto a rock and looked up at Eric just as confused. She had short red hair and a pretty face.

“Swimming,” she said with an accent Eric couldn’t place. “What are you doing here?”

“Eating,” he said holding out what was left of his sandwich. Then he turned red. “Sorry I screamed; I thought I was alone out here.”

“Well so did I,” the girl said. “Who would ever walk across all those rocks!”

“Who would swim all the way out here!”

“Well swimming’s easier, if you know how to. I’m sure I could go from the shore up and around faster then you could hop out here and back.”

“That’s…probably right. It was much further than I thought it would be.”

“Did you come out here just for the view?”

“Yeah, and to eat. I just…needed some space to think about stuff.”

Eric reached into his pack and pulled out a second bag of chips. He offered it to the girl, and she reached up and made a grabbing motion with her hand. Eric tossed it to her, and she caught it. She tore open the bag and for a long moment the two of them just munched, listening to the waves as they lapped against the rocks.

When the girl was done, she crumpled the bag and tossed it up to Eric, who caught it confidently. “Thank you very much for that,” she said.

“No problem. Are you going back to swimming?”

“Sure. It’s been a nice visit, but I can’t hold onto these rocks all day.”

“You could get out and dry off a bit. The ocean’s cold, and you know what people say about swimming after you eat.”

“No. I don’t, but I’m sure your people and my people have very different sayings.”

The girl flashed Eric a sly grin and pushed herself back from the rocks. She winked and rose into the air. She dove backwards, and Eric’s eyes widened at the purple-colored scales she had instead of skin around her waist. His mouth fell open when the tail crested the water, waved side to side, then slapped the water as it disappeared beneath the waves.

The Fairy Cottage

The fairy cottage existed somewhere in the forest. It might have been in a meadow in the forest, but no matter what story you listened to you must enter the forest to find it. Some said it had a green roof, and a leprechaun lived alone inside. Others said it had a red roof and was full of sprites and brownies making food for their queen. If in the story the roof was blue, then a wizard lived alone inside, and spent his days creating magical toys. A purple roof meant elves, who guarded a portal to their world and spied on us whenever we went into the forest. They would shoot if we got too close. We had to be careful; if it was the elves and not the wizard, fairies, or leprechaun.

Gretchen loved the stories of the Fairy Cottage even more than I did and asked our mom to tell them every night. Dad told us them too, but mom told them better. When I asked Dad which story of the Fairy Cottage was true he said he didn’t know. Perhaps all of them, since if someone ever left the house someone else could move into it. A home could be a home to more than one person over the years after all.

One day my sister came to me and said we should go into the forest and find the Fairy Cottage. That way we could see what color the roof was and who actually lived there. Which story was right. We told our parents our plan, but they told us we shouldn’t do that. Mom said it was a terribly big forest and we might get lost. I asked if we could all go together. Dad said he didn’t want to get shot by elves if we got too close. I asked what if it was someone else living there? Dad said he was sure the elves were there. Could I please pass the salt?

But Gretchen and I wanted to know, and we decided that we’d go into the forest without our parents. They’d never let us, but we figured if we told them on Sunday that we were going to spend the day with Grandpa Charlie down the street we could slip away, explore the forest, and febe back by dinner.

Gretchen packed her bag with toys and dolls and anything else the fairies might like as a gift or to trade for. I packed my bag full of food, since Grandpa Charlie couldn’t cook, and we needed to eat weather we were with him or exploring the forest.

When the time came on Sunday morning, we hugged our parents goodbye and headed off down the road. We kept looking back over our shoulders. We tried not to giggle or smile and give ourselves away. Once we had gone one block we ran as fast as we could up the hill towards the trees and laughed. I jumped over a root and Gretchen put her bag down to do a cartwheel. Then we grabbed hands and ran together into the forest.

Our first few hours went fine. We saw animals, and flowers. We followed a path, and even found a small meadow with a creak. We stopped and ate lunch there. We smiled a lot, because we knew we were close.

By the time the sun started to set we were tired and worried. We weren’t close. We should have found the cottage and been back to Grandpa’s by now, but we didn’t know which way we had come. The trail had disappeared.

Then like magic we found a trail. We ran forward, then stopped, for ahead of us in a clearing was a cottage with a plain brown roof.

Gretchen and I hid behind a fallen redwood and tried to remember what story had a brown roof. If it had been a roof of gingerbread the inside would have had a child-eating-witch, but that was the only brown roof story we could think of. Gretchen started to cry because she thought it was a normal house, but I told her that maybe it wasn’t, but that we also needed somewhere to spend the night. It was getting dark, and cold. I’d find out.

I walked up to the house and knocked on the door. No one answered. When I knocked again the door creaked open. I called out and no one answered. Gretchen ran up, and we looked in together. The cottage seemed more like shed. It was a single room and empty except for a bed and a table.

We stood on the doorsteps whispering for a while. If no one was home we shouldn’t go in, but if no one lived there it’d be okay if we did. Why was it a normal cottage we found and not a magical one? It didn’t look abandoned, but it didn’t look lived in either.

Eventually we crept in. It was night, and cold, and the two of us sat on the floor and ate what food we had left. We laid on the bare mattress together and I told Gretchen stories like Dad would. Stories of fae and fairies tricking people and fighting them. Gretchen didn’t like those kind of stories, so she told me some peaceful ones like Mon until we both fell asleep.

We must have been tiered from our walk because we slept in past sunrise. We didn’t have any food left, so when we woke, we hurried out of the cottage back the way we thought we’d come. Luckily we found the path, then the meadow, then the way back home.

When we entered town, I stopped and held Gretchen back. There was something funny about a car on the side of the road. She told me it didn’t look funny to her, and that we had to hurry. Our parents must have been so worried when we didn’t come home last night.

We raced home, but every car I passed looked strange to me. Some of the houses looked wrong too. I thought we were in a different town, but the street names were the same, so we kept running.

When we arrived home, we stopped and stared at it. Our house was the same except it was painted blue, and the grass was long and overgrown. Again I was the brave one and ran up the porch stairs. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. I banged on it with both fists.

A minute later a boy older than I was opened it. He looked at me and Gretchen on the sidewalk and asked what we wanted.

I looked at the house number above the mailbox, then at the boy.

“You’re in our house,” I said.

“No I’m not. This is my house. Always has been.”

The fairy cottage existed somewhere in the forest. It might have been in a meadow in the forest, but no matter what story you listened to you must enter the forest to find it. Some said it had a green roof, and a leprechaun lived alone inside. Others said it had a red roof and was full of sprites and brownies making food for their queen. If in the story the roof was blue, then a wizard lived alone inside, and spent his days creating magical toys. A purple roof meant elves, who guarded a portal to their world and spied on us whenever we went into the forest. They would shoot if we got too close. We had to be careful; if it was the elves and not the wizard, fairies, or leprechaun.

Gretchen loved the stories of the Fairy Cottage even more than I did and asked our mom to tell them every night. Dad told us them too, but mom told them better. When I asked Dad which story of the Fairy Cottage was true he said he didn’t know. Perhaps all of them, since if someone ever left the house someone else could move into it. A home could be a home to more than one person over the years after all.

One day my sister came to me and said we should go into the forest and find the Fairy Cottage. That way we could see what color the roof was and who actually lived there. Which story was right. We told our parents our plan, but they told us we shouldn’t do that. Mom said it was a terribly big forest and we might get lost. I asked if we could all go together. Dad said he didn’t want to get shot by elves if we got too close. I asked what if it was someone else living there? Dad said he was sure the elves were there. Could I please pass the salt?

But Gretchen and I wanted to know, and we decided that we’d go into the forest without our parents. They’d never let us, but we figured if we told them on Sunday that we were going to spend the day with Grandpa Charlie down the street we could slip away, explore the forest, and febe back by dinner.

Gretchen packed her bag with toys and dolls and anything else the fairies might like as a gift or to trade for. I packed my bag full of food, since Grandpa Charlie couldn’t cook, and we needed to eat weather we were with him or exploring the forest.

When the time came on Sunday morning, we hugged our parents goodbye and headed off down the road. We kept looking back over our shoulders. We tried not to giggle or smile and give ourselves away. Once we had gone one block we ran as fast as we could up the hill towards the trees and laughed. I jumped over a root and Gretchen put her bag down to do a cartwheel. Then we grabbed hands and ran together into the forest.

Our first few hours went fine. We saw animals, and flowers. We followed a path, and even found a small meadow with a creak. We stopped and ate lunch there. We smiled a lot, because we knew we were close.

By the time the sun started to set we were tired and worried. We weren’t close. We should have found the cottage and been back to Grandpa’s by now, but we didn’t know which way we had come. The trail had disappeared.

Then like magic we found a trail. We ran forward, then stopped, for ahead of us in a clearing was a cottage with a plain brown roof.

Gretchen and I hid behind a fallen redwood and tried to remember what story had a brown roof. If it had been a roof of gingerbread the inside would have had a child-eating-witch, but that was the only brown roof story we could think of. Gretchen started to cry because she thought it was a normal house, but I told her that maybe it wasn’t, but that we also needed somewhere to spend the night. It was getting dark, and cold. I’d find out.

I walked up to the house and knocked on the door. No one answered. When I knocked again the door creaked open. I called out and no one answered. Gretchen ran up, and we looked in together. The cottage seemed more like shed. It was a single room and empty except for a bed and a table.

We stood on the doorsteps whispering for a while. If no one was home we shouldn’t go in, but if no one lived there it’d be okay if we did. Why was it a normal cottage we found and not a magical one? It didn’t look abandoned, but it didn’t look lived in either.

Eventually we crept in. It was night, and cold, and the two of us sat on the floor and ate what food we had left. We laid on the bare mattress together and I told Gretchen stories like Dad would. Stories of fae and fairies tricking people and fighting them. Gretchen didn’t like those kind of stories, so she told me some peaceful ones like Mon until we both fell asleep.

We must have been tiered from our walk because we slept in past sunrise. We didn’t have any food left, so when we woke, we hurried out of the cottage back the way we thought we’d come. Luckily we found the path, then the meadow, then the way back home.

When we entered town, I stopped and held Gretchen back. There was something funny about a car on the side of the road. She told me it didn’t look funny to her, and that we had to hurry. Our parents must have been so worried when we didn’t come home last night.

We raced home, but every car I passed looked strange to me. Some of the houses looked wrong too. I thought we were in a different town, but the street names were the same, so we kept running.

When we arrived home, we stopped and stared at it. Our house was the same except it was painted blue, and the grass was long and overgrown. Again I was the brave one and ran up the porch stairs. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. I banged on it with both fists.

A minute later a boy older than I was opened it. He looked at me and Gretchen on the sidewalk and asked what we wanted.

I looked at the house number above the mailbox, then at the boy.

“You’re in our house,” I said.

“No I’m not. This is my house. Always has been.”

The stranger dressed in a black coat parked his car a block away. He wore sunglasses and pulled a black scarf around his neck. He walked down the street, one hand on his hat, in case the wind blew it away. The man stood waiting at a bus stop. Minutes passed with his hands in his pocket. Few cars passed. He was alone.

When the sun began to set, and the mist began to fall, the man turned around and opened the gate in the fence. The way along the creek ran behind the houses. The man was unseen, and alone.

In the dark, in the growing storm, the man trekked through the tall grass. He passed bushes and trees and kept to the wooden fence along a familiar path. In the dark the man struggled to find the stump, and from there, the fence board he’d loosened days ago. With gloved hands he removed it, then slipped into the yard behind the old shed and waited.

Occasionally he’d peek his head around the corner to look at the window. To see if the bedroom light was still on.

The night drew on and the wind worsened. The bushes banged against the side of the house. The trees tapped the top of the roof. Rain began to fall. The man hardly moved, though inside his pocket he fiddled.

Inside the house a young man sat at his desk. He dipped the pen in ink, then scribbled it across the page with a flourish, like his sister had taught him when they were kids. The ink pot too was hers. His tears threatened to spill on to the page again. He struggled to keep his hand from shaking.

At the height of the storm lightning danced across the night and thunder boomed. Wind rattled the windows, and somewhere, a power line was downed and the house was plunged into darkness.

The man grew tense, but still he waited. Inside the young man stubbed his toe blindly searching his kitchen for candles. He found one, and matches, and lit his sister’s vanilla scented candle. He felt guilty about using it. His eyes became watery, and he told himself halfheartedly it was because of the smoke. The young man found more candles and lit those as well. He carefully took them back to his room, and placed them on his desk, dresser, and bedside.

The little flames shone through the window, and the strange man saw the brother sit back down and return to his writing.

At last, the man crept out from his hiding spot. He pulled the knife from his pocket, and began to pick the lock. With the sounds of the storm to cover him he snuck inside. He kicked off his shoes, and slowly moved towards the back of the house.

In his room the brother suspected nothing was amiss. Inside the wind was still. He was safe from the storm, and from danger. He was alone, though his sister’s memory kept him company in his heart.

When the man with the knife stood outside the door something strange happened. Although the candles were secure, one bent at the middle and fell with a soft clatter, which made the brother turn around to face the door.

The brother was on his feet when the man burst open the door wielding his knife. Both men were surprised, but the brother was young, and he ducked the blade and swung his fists at the man. The carpet bunched and caught the man, sending him to the ground. Th brother fell upon him. They wrestled for control of the knife, until a blow to the hand sent it flying, nearly impossibly so, to the far side of the room beneath the dresser.

Smoke filled the air as the fire kept burning. One of them threw the other off him. A kick. A grunt. One tried to rise and the other bore him back down. A head hit the side of the desk and split. Then he moved no more.

The brother stood over the man for a moment before stomping the flames still burning. He took up a candle and brought it cautiously towards the man’s face.

“So you’re the man who murdered my sister…”

So once our store had to accept twelve pallets. Twelve pallets. That’s six more then we’re supposed to hold. Four more then what’s safe. And what was more was it was only JJ and I to do it! We spent hours hauling boxes into the backroom and stacking them up as high as we could. Imagine us taking that big ladder, standing on that unsafe top step, and placing another box onto the tower. That’s how bad it was. Just boxes of Lego stacked a hundred feet in the air. The shelves were sagging from the wight they were so full, and everything else was against the wall. Double stacked even. You know how Ronald is a small normal sized human? He wouldn’t have been able to reach the back we had so much stacked up against the wall. Thankfully me and JJ were skinny enough to get back there.

Now you’d think with so much back there things would get buried and we couldn’t stock, and you’d be right. It was ridiculous. Anyways I remember trying to find something back there and squeezing past a tower of boxes to get to the aisle. Except I hit it. A corner snagged against my body and I felt behind me the wight of it all shift.

I knew right then I was going to die.

I cried out and ducked down, covered my head, and hoped to God he’d save me. I heard everything stacked behind crumble. I felt it fall, but I waited a moment, and then another one, and when I realized, I wasn’t buried looked behind me to see what had happened.

JJ, the man and the legend, had spread his spidery arms as far as he could to hold the falling boxes back. He had somehow managed to hold the falling tower with his back. One arm stabilized it, the other braced himself against the shelf on my other side. He stood straining beneath the weight. He looked down at me.

“Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah. Thank you”

“Move. Go CJ. I can’t hold these boxes back forever.”

I scuffed as fast as I could beneath him towards the exit.

“I won’t ever forget you.”

“I’m not done yet. Hhhrrrruuunnggg!”

And JJ showed me a feat of straight I’ve never seen since that day. He pushed the boxes back, knocking them into others, which in turn fell his way. With his other hand he stopped them. His legs buckled under the weight, and with a shot he lifted them back against the wall.

Only JJ had pushed too hard. In trying to save himself he had slammed the towers into the wall, and the old built-back-in-the-fifties architecture couldn’t take it! The wall collapsed! And with it went the towers of sets. All of it fell onto the sales floor and crashed into the support beam! A crack the size of Texas appeared, and every soul in the mall booked it to an exit.

As I ran the entire mall began to rumble. JJ had started a domino effect, and I had only just cleared the door with both stories of the mall collapsed to the ground behind me.

“JJ!” I shouted. “Did he make it out? Did anyone see JJ leave?”

“No!” said my coworkers. “He must still be in there!”

We all immediately ran to the rubble and began to clear it. But we couldn’t shift through the entire mall by ourselves. We couldn’t even get close to the store. It took days for a clean up crew to unbury our store, but when they did they still couldn’t find JJ.

Eventually a new mall and a new Lego store were built. But JJ’s body was never found.

Sometimes, at night, we think we still hear him. If you listen carefully in the back room. I tell you the honest truth. I’ve heard him.

“The people who send shipment is dumb.”

And that’s JJ for you. The myth, the man, and the legend.

San Levi’s Beach Boardwalk was unusually foggy that early dawn. The young fortune teller thought the morning mist strange, but in her odd occupation she saw many strange things. Her and her sisters contributed to the particularness of the place, and of all they had seen fog was nothing to worry about.

What La La did worry about was what might be lurking behind the curtain of clouds. She was sixteen years old and small for her age. So worried was she, that La La nearly ran along the length of the beach, and leapt high into the air whenever an unseen gull cawed. When she did see a figure through the fog approach she would cross to the other side and continue her way at an even faster pace, all the while keeping an eye on the stranger.

The Boardwalk was home to many novelty shops and services, but La La and her sister’s wagons were the most eye catching by far. The three Vardo’s took up the length of the alleyway between the florist and curiosity bookstore. The wagons stood front to back, so that one would travel through them like train cars; although the sisters would never allow a customer to do so. La La and her sisters took their guests in at the door facing the ocean, did whatever service they were to perform, and let them out the same way. The other two wagons were storage, with a space in the middle one for changing costumes.

For while there were three wagons, three sisters, and three different ‘gifts’ between them, there was only one ‘Esmeralda, Seer of stars and Reader of Cards’, which was what the girls and their employer preferred. Esmeralda was a persona each of them could play so long as the sisters kept consistent with their costume and character. This meant only one of them had to work at a time, and then only by appointment for the serious paying guest. The walk ins off the street, if whoever played Esmeralda had the time for them, would likely get the ‘fake’ version of the fortune telling experience; unless the sister working felt fresh enough to freely use her gift for them.

La La swung herself up to the wagon’s back door and took the large key from her pocket. She opened the first lock, entered, and bolted the door behind her. She breathed a sigh of relief. She took a second key from her pocket and unlocked and entered the second wagon. La La did not relock these doors. The wagons were so placed that the doors could only be reached from the porches of the other two, and so needed to be locked only when left for the night. La La took her last key from her pocket, and entered the third wagon.

Before her was the circular covered table and old bookshelves of ‘Esmeralda’s Reading Room’, but in the guest’s chair sat a man sitting so still that La La only noticed him when he unfolded his hands and spread them out in front of him. His presence was so unexpected that La La screamed and fell backwards over her feet to flee from him.

“Do not be afraid, young one,” the man said with so much boyish grin in his voice that La la doubted he was much older than her. “I, the great, uh, Esmealdo, am here to read your fortune.”

The intruder flaunted the skewed veil he wore around his face, the same veil the sisters wore for their act, and that La La had neglected to put away the night before. The chains bounced unevenly off his face, but together with the darkness his identity was hidden well.

“Get out,” La La said picking herself off the floor and feeling for the door handle behind her. “You shouldn’t be here. I’ll call the police!”

“I mean no harm,” the man, boy, said sounding worried now. “Please, won’t you take a seat and let me read your fortune? The stars have aligned! The card’s will reveal your… destiny.”

La La saw a deck of cards in his hands. Her heart stopped, then sped up rapidly. Her desire to get her cards back were so strong that she forgot her fear and lunged out towards them; but the boy was quick, and he leapt out of his chair and around the table away from her.

“Give those back! They were my mother’s!”

“Doubt it,” the boy said giving up entirely on the false voice he had been using. “Shall I read your first card? Behold! The first is-” here he had to hold the card close to his face because of the darkness of the room “-the Joker!”

“It’s called the Fool, you fool! Now give it back!”

The two ran around the table once more, circled back around, then spun around once again. La La tried to climb over the table at him, but she was too slow, and the boy only bolted around to the other side again.

“And the second,” he said drawing another card from the deck. “It the two of hearts! I think that means you’ll find your soul mate.”

La La stopped running. The boy stopped opposite the table from her.

“That’s a standard deck,” La La said.

“I knew that,” the boy said. “This deck’s mine. Brought it from home.”

But La La had stopped listening altogether and had turned her attention to the large

bookshelf by the wagon’s back door. On it were vases, decretive scrolls, and of course several old books. She took the largest and oldest looking from it, flipped open the lock hidden behind the pages, and found inside the glued paper her mother’s tarot deck. The cards fell into her waiting hand, and La La knew simply by the weight every card was there.

Their mother’s deck of tarot cards were special to the three sisters, and it was to retrieve them that La La had braved the morning mist. The cards were not overly valuable, but they were worth taking, and it was what La La had feared the trespasser had found.

“The next is the ten of Clubs,” said the boy flicking the next card off the top of his deck.

“I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure how to read these. Maybe three bad things will happen to you for the next ten days?”

“Get. Out!” La La shouted. She stomped her foot for emphasis, madder now at him for making her think he had stolen her mother’s tarot, then for breaking in and scaring her.

The boy stepped back and felt for the wagon’s front door, never taking his eyes off La La as he did so. The door swung open, the lock either undone or broken, and the boy stepped onto the porch.

“Last card, the Black Joker! That probably means death or something, am I right?”

The boy slammed the door shut as La La hurled the false book at him. It fell to the floor, and as fast as she could, La La locked and bolted the front and back door. La La check the front lock again, reassured herself that it would hold, then sat down shaking at the table. She hugged herself and the deck of tarot to her until she gained control of her nerves. She waited a few more nervous minutes before working up the courage to unlock and open the front door. She saw that it was still misty out, but thankfully there were no signs of the boy.

La La had been about to go inside, but there, folded on the ground before her like an apology, was the veil. She picked it up, felt her face grow hot, and slammed the door behind her.

San Levi’s Beach Boardwalk was unusually foggy that early dawn. The young fortune teller thought the morning mist strange, but in her odd occupation she saw many strange things. Her and her sisters contributed to the particularness of the place, and of all they had seen fog was nothing to worry about.

What La La did worry about was what might be lurking behind the curtain of clouds. She was sixteen years old and small for her age. So worried was she, that La La nearly ran along the length of the beach, and leapt high into the air whenever an unseen gull cawed. When she did see a figure through the fog approach she would cross to the other side and continue her way at an even faster pace, all the while keeping an eye on the stranger.

The Boardwalk was home to many novelty shops and services, but La La and her sister’s wagons were the most eye catching by far. The three Vardo’s took up the length of the alleyway between the florist and curiosity bookstore. The wagons stood front to back, so that one would travel through them like train cars; although the sisters would never allow a customer to do so. La La and her sisters took their guests in at the door facing the ocean, did whatever service they were to perform, and let them out the same way. The other two wagons were storage, with a space in the middle one for changing costumes.

For while there were three wagons, three sisters, and three different ‘gifts’ between them, there was only one ‘Esmeralda, Seer of stars and Reader of Cards’, which was what the girls and their employer preferred. Esmeralda was a persona each of them could play so long as the sisters kept consistent with their costume and character. This meant only one of them had to work at a time, and then only by appointment for the serious paying guest. The walk ins off the street, if whoever played Esmeralda had the time for them, would likely get the ‘fake’ version of the fortune telling experience; unless the sister working felt fresh enough to freely use her gift for them.

La La swung herself up to the wagon’s back door and took the large key from her pocket. She opened the first lock, entered, and bolted the door behind her. She breathed a sigh of relief. She took a second key from her pocket and unlocked and entered the second wagon. La La did not relock these doors. The wagons were so placed that the doors could only be reached from the porches of the other two, and so needed to be locked only when left for the night. La La took her last key from her pocket, and entered the third wagon.

Before her was the circular covered table and old bookshelves of ‘Esmeralda’s Reading Room’, but in the guest’s chair sat a man sitting so still that La La only noticed him when he unfolded his hands and spread them out in front of him. His presence was so unexpected that La La screamed and fell backwards over her feet to flee from him.

“Do not be afraid, young one,” the man said with so much boyish grin in his voice that La la doubted he was much older than her. “I, the great, uh, Esmealdo, am here to read your fortune.”

The intruder flaunted the skewed veil he wore around his face, the same veil the sisters wore for their act, and that La La had neglected to put away the night before. The chains bounced unevenly off his face, but together with the darkness his identity was hidden well.

“Get out,” La La said picking herself off the floor and feeling for the door handle behind her. “You shouldn’t be here. I’ll call the police!”

“I mean no harm,” the man, boy, said sounding worried now. “Please, won’t you take a seat and let me read your fortune? The stars have aligned! The card’s will reveal your… destiny.”

La La saw a deck of cards in his hands. Her heart stopped, then sped up rapidly. Her desire to get her cards back were so strong that she forgot her fear and lunged out towards them; but the boy was quick, and he leapt out of his chair and around the table away from her.

“Give those back! They were my mother’s!”

“Doubt it,” the boy said giving up entirely on the false voice he had been using. “Shall I read your first card? Behold! The first is-” here he had to hold the card close to his face because of the darkness of the room “-the Joker!”

“It’s called the Fool, you fool! Now give it back!”

The two ran around the table once more, circled back around, then spun around once again. La La tried to climb over the table at him, but she was too slow, and the boy only bolted around to the other side again.

“And the second,” he said drawing another card from the deck. “It the two of hearts! I think that means you’ll find your soul mate.”

La La stopped running. The boy stopped opposite the table from her.

“That’s a standard deck,” La La said.

“I knew that,” the boy said. “This deck’s mine. Brought it from home.”

But La La had stopped listening altogether and had turned her attention to the large

bookshelf by the wagon’s back door. On it were vases, decretive scrolls, and of course several old books. She took the largest and oldest looking from it, flipped open the lock hidden behind the pages, and found inside the glued paper her mother’s tarot deck. The cards fell into her waiting hand, and La La knew simply by the weight every card was there.

Their mother’s deck of tarot cards were special to the three sisters, and it was to retrieve them that La La had braved the morning mist. The cards were not overly valuable, but they were worth taking, and it was what La La had feared the trespasser had found.

“The next is the ten of Clubs,” said the boy flicking the next card off the top of his deck.

“I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure how to read these. Maybe three bad things will happen to you for the next ten days?”

“Get. Out!” La La shouted. She stomped her foot for emphasis, madder now at him for making her think he had stolen her mother’s tarot, then for breaking in and scaring her.

The boy stepped back and felt for the wagon’s front door, never taking his eyes off La La as he did so. The door swung open, the lock either undone or broken, and the boy stepped onto the porch.

“Last card, the Black Joker! That probably means death or something, am I right?”

The boy slammed the door shut as La La hurled the false book at him. It fell to the floor, and as fast as she could, La La locked and bolted the front and back door. La La check the front lock again, reassured herself that it would hold, then sat down shaking at the table. She hugged herself and the deck of tarot to her until she gained control of her nerves. She waited a few more nervous minutes before working up the courage to unlock and open the front door. She saw that it was still misty out, but thankfully there were no signs of the boy.

La La had been about to go inside, but there, folded on the ground before her like an apology, was the veil. She picked it up, felt her face grow hot, and slammed the door behind her.

The Pathless is a newly released game for the PS4 and PS5 made by Giant Squid Studios. To be clear the Pathless is a game very much worth the 39.99 if you like open world puzzle solving, nature, and exploring beautifully and freely in a way like no other game before it; but you should not expect it to be the powerful silent stories such as ABZU and Journey.

If you are familiar with the two other game Giant Squid’s directed, you will no doubt see similarities with its art style and story structure. ABZU’S influence can be seen everywhere, which is one of the game pluses. As the Archer you explore five different lands rescuing the sprits of five different animals, on your quest to bring light back to the world.

The difference between The Pathless and it’s predecessors is it’s best feature; the game play. The Pathless lives up to it’s name, as you are in complete control of where you go and do. There is essentially no hand holding, and it is up to you to use your ‘vision’ to help guide you around the steeps. The Archer shoots targets as she run, jumps, and flies. Moving is a joy and made me think of fondly of Gravity Rush in terms of The Pathless’s freedom and detail.

As someone who loves puzzles, I was overjoyed with how diverse and interactive the mysteries of the many ruins of the world. Often I had to explore more or give great thought to the tasks, but not once was I ever stopped or frustrated for being unable to solve. The Pathless is a fair game, but also a forgiving one. It makes clear how it’s puzzles work early on, and from then on you have the tools to solve them yourself.

It’s forgiveness also help when it comes to the combat of the game. The boss fights are essentially a combination of running, jumping, shooting, and occasionally quick time events. Like the fast-passed exploration, the battles are also streamlined to be quick and action driven. You cannot, however, die. At worst you will be knocked out of a ring and let recover until you chose to continue, or else you will simply fall behind a target or need to repeat an event from a short time ago.

Now as for the story I found it to be lacking when compared to the silent master pieces of ABZU and Journey. The end has emotion to it, and I enjoyed it, but The Pathless’s voice acting written lore works against the game. Not because any of it is done badly, but because it adds little more then what I could discern simply by what I saw happen in the game. If anything, uncovering the lore raised more questions then answers and robbed me of any vagueness I could use to imagine the story myself. I am all for branching out, and Giant Squid has done incredible jobs with their mechanics and gameplay, but a studio with such a good track record and style could have easily handled the plot and story without words. That style is a strength of theirs, and they weren’t far off from it already. Knowing less about the Godslayer would have made him more believable, and easily he was the worst part of this magnificent game.

The Pathless takes much of what works and what is fun and runs full tilt with it. Depending on how you like to play I have no doubt you will enjoy the time it takes you to play.

#gaming #review #nospoliers #myopion #ThePathless #ps4 #ps5

The Pathless is a newly released game for the PS4 and PS5 made by Giant Squid Studios. To be clear the Pathless is a game very much worth the 39.99 if you like open world puzzle solving, nature, and exploring beautifully and freely in a way like no other game before it; but you should not expect it to be the powerful silent stories such as ABZU and Journey.

If you are familiar with the two other game Giant Squid's directed, you will no doubt see similarities with its art style and story structure. ABZU’S influence can be seen everywhere, which is one of the game pluses. As the Archer you explore five different lands rescuing the sprits of five different animals, on your quest to bring light back to the world.

The difference between The Pathless and it’s predecessors is it’s best feature; the game play. The Pathless lives up to it’s name, as you are in complete control of where you go and do. There is essentially no hand holding, and it is up to you to use your ‘vision’ to help guide you around the steeps. The Archer shoots targets as she run, jumps, and flies. Moving is a joy and made me think of fondly of Gravity Rush in terms of The Pathless’s freedom and detail.

As someone who loves puzzles, I was overjoyed with how diverse and interactive the mysteries of the many ruins of the world. Often I had to explore more or give great thought to the tasks, but not once was I ever stopped or frustrated for being unable to solve. The Pathless is a fair game, but also a forgiving one. It makes clear how it’s puzzles work early on, and from then on you have the tools to solve them yourself.

It’s forgiveness also help when it comes to the combat of the game. The boss fights are essentially a combination of running, jumping, shooting, and occasionally quick time events. Like the fast-passed exploration, the battles are also streamlined to be quick and action driven. You cannot, however, die. At worst you will be knocked out of a ring and let recover until you chose to continue, or else you will simply fall behind a target or need to repeat an event from a short time ago.

Now as for the story I found it to be lacking when compared to the silent master pieces of ABZU and Journey. The end has emotion to it, and I enjoyed it, but The Pathless’s voice acting written lore works against the game. Not because any of it is done badly, but because it adds little more then what I could discern simply by what I saw happen in the game. If anything, uncovering the lore raised more questions then answers and robbed me of any vagueness I could use to imagine the story myself. I am all for branching out, and Giant Squid has done incredible jobs with their mechanics and gameplay, but a studio with such a good track record and style could have easily handled the plot and story without words. That style is a strength of theirs, and they weren’t far off from it already. Knowing less about the Godslayer would have made him more believable, and easily he was the worst part of this magnificent game.

The Pathless takes much of what works and what is fun and runs full tilt with it. Depending on how you like to play I have no doubt you will enjoy the time it takes you to play.

#gaming #review #nospoliers #myopion #ThePathless #ps4 #ps5

There once was a boy who was lighter than air.

Mind you, he wasn’t always, but he did begin his life floating up to the ceiling with his mother, his father, and all the nurses in attendance staring up at him in astonishment. Thankfully one of them had the sense to shut the window before the breeze could blow him through it, and they quickly fetched him down.

Now you might imagine that it was hard to raise a baby who was in danger of floating away, but there was a very easy solution. His mother and father simply tied a length of cord around one of his legs and the other end around their own wrist. They always held him tightly to them back in those days, but if for any reason the baby were to slip free he would simply bob up to the end of the line and bounce around like a balloon. The baby actually found his quite funny when it happened.

But his parents were terribly careful to keep their baby boy inside their house as much as they could. They were nervous about the cord snapping or slipping off him, and on the few occasions they had no choice but to take boy with them to the store others would stare at him and the cord around his leg. His parents felt so self-conscious about it they would keep their heads down and hurry home.

It wasn’t long after one of these times that the father thought of another idea to keep his son from floating away.

“Wife, one day our boy will want learn to walk like other children. He can’t do that up in the air, and besides, we would feel much better if he could just stay on the ground like normal boys. I will make a pair of shoes for him with lead beads in the heels. The wight will keep him earthbound.”

“But we’d be trusting his safety to a pair of laces!” said the boy’s mother. “He’ll slip out of his shoes and rise up into the sky and then we’ll never see him again.”

“It won’t only be shoes that keep him aground,” said the father. “I will make for him a jacket, and shirts, and pants all with wights sewn into every hem! Why, we’ll weigh him down so much he won’t be able to jump!”

Now the boy’s parents were determined to do this for their son, but it took a long time before they could manage it. For one thing their baby boy, who was always smiling and giggling as if he hadn’t a care in the world, detested wearing cloths of any kind. Socks were a particular annoyance of his, and the baby boots his father forced him on him were torturous. A child that young couldn’t understand why his parents did what they did. He just knew he didn’t like it, and that the only way he could be made to understand, was to cry.

It was at this point in the boy’s life that the weather took a strange turn for the worse. Loving mother’s notice things about their children, but even the most uninvolved parent would have noticed storms blew in whenever the boy cried. Up to that point the skies had been abnormally clear and beautiful, and after dark and wet. The mother decided to test if her son was the reason for the change or not.

On Monday she left her boy mostly undressed and babbling happily and free on the ceiling of their house. Together they enjoyed the sunshine, but the next day she took her son down and dressed him in his weighted clothes, and sure enough the baby cried all morning and for the rest of the day a storm thundered and boomed and bellowed.

The day after the mother let her son float around freely and again the skies were returned to being calm. But on Thursday he was dressed, and his parents were forced to shelter inside as a storm and their son raged. His mother was afraid and no longer sure what to do.

“This changes nothing,” said her husband. “All children throw tantrums, and all children must learn. If we do not keep him safe and teach him how we will lose him forever when he learns how to open the door or window! Will we keep him locked up home all his life because he cries? No. I will not do that to my son.”

And so the father forced his son to wear the weighted cloths, despite the never-ending storm that raged around the house as the boy learned to walk on his own two feet. The boy was not at all happy during that time, but all children grow tired of being upset, and the boy eventually got over it and gave walking upright some real effort until he learned the trick of it. As soon as he could walk he ran, and his parents had a hard time keeping up with him. When the boy ran he smiled, and when he smiled the storm outside lifted.

So years pasted and Sky, since that was what the baby boy’s parents named him, grew to be a child of ten. By that time Sky had learned how to walk, and run, and act in all other ways like any other child might; but if ever Sky took off his weighted clothes he would lift off from the ground and float around happily until one of his parents could pull him back down again.

Now despite his parent’s warnings and their worry to never float around outside, Sky could not help himself but be wonder about what he could do. He could not answer why he could float anymore then his parents could, but he was determined to learn how. He was not foolish enough to attempt anything outside, but for an hour each day after school he would run home and experiment before his mother returned from the market.

Sky began cautiously, taking off one of his shoes and hopping around on one foot. He could not fly or float, but he was close to weightlessness and found himself able to glide down the hallway without touching the ground. Then he took off his other shoe and found himself standing against the roof.

Day after day he did things like this, sometimes discarding his jacket, or socks, or belt. He tried every possible combination and learned how much wight were sewn into his cloths, and how much he needed to wear to keep him on the ground. He secretly watched his father make his new clothes when he grew too big for his old ones, and Sky thought he could adjust the wight in them himself later when no one was looking.

Sky wanted to wear just enough wight to keep him from flying away, but just little enough so that he could kick around and float like the men on the moon. Sky thought it would be enormous fun, as long as he didn’t fly up to the moon himself. His parents didn’t have enough money to send a rocket up to bring him back down, and he thought he’d be terribly lonely if no astronauts were up there to talk to.

Experimenting and working in secret this way took longer than Sky would have liked, he was generally impatient as most children are, but he knew the importance of what he did. His parents would have never allowed it if they had known, but one day when they were both busy doing something or other Sky crept out of the house wearing the weighted cloths he had made himself. He could hardly feel the ground beneath him. With a smile on his face, and one powerful kick to the ground, he ascended into the air.

It was many days before Sky came back down.