We stared in amazement at what this find may mean for us.

"It's here for the taking," Brother shrugged, "gimme a boost."

He landed in the dumpster with a thud.

I checked the school parking lot: empty due to Christmas break.

He pushed and I pulled. Success!

Ecstatic, we pulled our treasure away. In small puffs, our breath took wing upon the shimmering winter air. Giddy with hope, we hardly felt the cold by then.

We arrived at the door of our

impoverished home, filled with childish certainty: Santa would remember us this year.

This year we had a tree.

Both girls wore long coats with big buttons that reached to their knees.

Winnie wore a sleek red one with a furry white undercollar. While Sadie's was a dim mustard yellow color.

Currently they huddled within the last stop from a large delivery truck. This one being an old, creaking little shop.

And just ten hours left before the Christmas party the following night.

"I don't like you and you don't like me," Winnie had so eloquently said, "but thinking your parents stole those old decorations-- beautiful as they are-- it's stupid. And your family isn't stupid Sadie."

A truce.

*This chapter is part of "The Small Town Magic Arc." This saga began with Chapter 134*

The imposter posing as Jahno pointed at Tamma and laughed maniacally as she wept. The smile then faded from Cyclo's face as he pointed at the doppelganger of his human form.

"Useless minion!" Cyclo hollered as the fake Jahno suddenly found himself being pulled towards his boss. A laser blade shot out of Cyclo's finger and impaled fake Jahno. The imposter helplessly tried to grip the laser blade in a feeble hope of freeing himself, only to find his hands getting absorbed into the laser. He screamed as the rest of his body vanished into the laser, which then retracted back into Cyclo's finger. Cyclo's body then shrunk back into the size of a normal human as his features returned to those of the real Jahno.

"Dearest Tamma, please don't cry anymore, I did all of this to give you the life you deserve!" Jahno pleaded. "Precious daughter, a treasure like you should get the best of the best, including the mansion that has been in our family for generations. But you must realize sweetie, the money to maintain it had to come from somewhere!"

"So you created a monster alias and blackmailed our people to pay you to cover the mansion costs, all while pretending to be a helpless victim?" Tamma protested, standing up and trying to be strong, despite her tears continuing to flow. "I don't want the mansion.... never did! I just want to be like everyone else!"

"We aren't like everyone else, we are better than those commoners!" Jahno replied in disgust. "If you won't accept your rightful place in our family as the superior residents of Aplonica, then you leave me no choice!"

"What are you plotting now Cyclo, or Jahno, or whoever you truly are?" Rick said boldly, as he stood beside Tamma along with Essie, Cerissa, and the Pirate.

"Just what I've been doing all along." Jahno smirked. "I will simply wipe Tamma's memories of this, along with the other townsfolks' as well. Did you really think this was the first time Tamma, or anyone else in town has uncovered my dark secret?"

"You altered my memory?" Tamma cried out in horror. "All of this has happened before?"

"Too many times to count." Jahno laughed. "After all, if an outsider like this Pirate fellow could figure out who I really am so easily, did you really think that people we live with every day couldn't uncover it? But once I eliminate these wannabe heroes and clear your memory my sweet girl, then we can go back to the way things should be. You will only remember me as your loving father, doing all he can to protect his beautiful daughter from an evil monster!"

"This sounds similar to the amnesia Glicko gave us!" Essie cried out to Cerissa.

"You're right." Cerissa said in a troubled tone. "Just like our enemy, Jahno is also taking away memories and manipulating others as he pleases."

"I have a question for you Mr. Mayor." The Pirate calmly asked Jahno. "Where did you get your powers, including that cyclops transformation? Was it given to you by a warlock, or a man posing as a doctor? If that is the case, then you my friend are being used by our enemy Glicko."

To be continued....

Every Sunday, I receive a box.

It comes on a small van, grey smog harumphing from its exhaust.

The box is made from thick cardboard; quality tape is wrapped around each gap. It takes me some time to open the box as I've never quite perfected a technique.

Once the packaging has been ravaged, I peer inside, four roughly ripped corners frame my face. At the base, an arms' depth away, sits an envelope.

I lift the envelope from the dead center where it always seems to sit, delicately peeling the wax seal.

A letter. To me. 'You are nothing'.

If you’ve just begun dating that special someone and you’d like to see how your honey reacts under extreme pressure, invite her or him to an intimate dinner. At your house. Seated at a small table with just you and your parents. And, in this case, my seven brothers.

Besides, I felt it was only right to invite Karen to dinner at my family's small wood house, because I’d already partaken at her family’s comfortable, brick home. And the dinner there was a feast. Her mother made roast beef with gravy, and the gravy had its own special porcelain dispenser! Her mother also served white and green vegetables that I had never heard of, and they were bathed in a creamy cheese sauce. And their beautiful wooden dining table was covered in a lace tablecloth, and you would not believe the elbow room! There was just Karen, her parents, and her younger brother. And no one had to sit on a piano bench!

I knew I was out of my element. When her father led the mealtime prayer, I reached for my forehead to make the sign of the cross, but stopped when everyone’s hands stayed still. They closed their eyes, so I closed mine ... part way, because I had to see when it was time to reopen them. And when the odd words came from their lips, I stayed silent.

Come Lord Jesus, be our guest and let thy gifts to us be blessed. Amen.

At the conclusion of the prayer, someone stuck a big bowl of mashed potatoes in front of me. I soon learned the art of passing food around the table at dinnertime. These German Lutherans had some curious mealtime customs. But their food was great, and they were good company and there was laughter. Not once did religion intrude upon the table talk, even though Karen’s folks knew about my religion, and her father was an elder in their Lutheran church.

Several weeks later, it was Karen’s turn to go on display at my Catholic house. If she was nervous, she didn’t show it. Karen smiled and was the picture of composure as she and all 10 members of my family crowded around the dining room table. She got to sit in a real chair, because she was a guest. (One of my younger brothers and our mother sat on the piano bench, because they were both left-handed.)

There were no napkins at our table, but Karen wasn’t fazed. Then, all but she made the sign of the cross, and all but she launched into a prayer:

“Bless us O Lord and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ Our Lord, Amen.” (However, we sped through our prayer. It sounded more like one continuous word.)

Still, she was composed. But her true test came the instant we said “amen,” because that was the signal for my parents to stand up and dish out the food. Their arms moved furiously around the table. Dad dolloped the mashed potatoes with a big spoon as if he was on a precision bombing mission, each scoop hitting a plate with a hearty thwack. Mom moved around with the fried chicken, dropping her missiles by hand. They worked as a team; my mother finished her run first, so she moved onto spooning up the canned corn.

My father took on the final pre-dinner mission. He grabbed the salt shaker with his big fist and strafed the table, making a pass over each plate. But Karen took a stand: As the salt began to rain down in front of her, she reflexively put her hands over her food, and the crystals bounced off. None of us had ever seen such an expert defensive move at the dinner table. My brothers were in awe. But this Catholic family harbored one nagging question: Why didn’t Lutherans like salt?

Just like at Karen’s house, religion did not intrude at the dinner table. People were too busy eating, laughing, joking, and salting.

Nunney has a castle which, for some reason, fails to dominate the attention of any passer by. Nestled between said castle and an over-topiaried churchyard once stood a tavern. I use the word tavern rather deliberately; the patron’s slick use of ‘pub’ only worked from his own tongue. It was dank, low-ceilinged yet still decadent. Somehow, this became my sanctuary.

Once per fortnight, my grandfather and I would pack away our identities (those of embittered, recently turned enemies) and we would drive the twenty minutes of twisted lanes to this tavern. The day in question was no different: we sat, side by side, as we coursed through the Somerset country in curt silence. I slammed the car door petulantly as we parked, squinting to see through rays of sun that somehow made it through the castle’s pointless arrow-slits. I could feel my grandfather’s gaze boring through my inch-thick thighs but he hadn’t the gumption to make a comment. Of course I had not yet eaten today.

At the door, we left our histories on the grisled black mat. A bell rang, summoning the attention, but not the presence, of the patron. Fraser was a disturbing man, practically the sole member of staff that we would see. His skin a translucent grey denoting sickness, eyebrows slanted in permanent disapproval and voice deep with a Scottish lilt. He wouldn’t move from behind the heavy bar, looking down instead at the reservation book lit by a gas lamp. It would not have surprised me if those pages were made from animal skin parchment. Checking it was a habit. Of course we were there, but he seemed to like tracing his calloused finger down the page to find our names regardless.

He led us to a table in a private room, running us through its history for the umpteenth time. The history itself was no doubt fiction but it fit with the narrative of messy noise this man liked to live within. He used the wooden menus to gesture to a mediaeval mural unlit on the back wall. “It’s crucial that light does not reach this. Conservation is key when it comes to relics…” Each sentence failed to properly end; it often felt like he would reach a point and then decide we weren’t really worth his explanations. After several false starts at conversation, he would leave us to ‘settle in’.

Each visit, I would purposefully disrespect the patron. I was acutely aware that he rewrote the entire menu each week, with absolute attention to detail, trend and season. My obsession with food meant I was, of course, entirely informed on the inclination towards tart apple in starters. I was no stranger to the asparagus that’s so fresh at this time of year. Each fortnight I would place down my menu, assertively provocative, and order the caesar salad. Dressing on the side. Fraser wouldn’t even write down my order. His reaction paralleled grief. She can’t decimate my expertise in this way (denial)? How dare she (anger)? Would Miss accept just a slither less of the dressing (bargaining)? Why do I bother sharing my gift to a world so ungrateful (depression)? Finally, he would slink back to the kitchen (acceptance) whilst I bore the brunt of Grandfather’s glare.

This evening, again, was no different. I had worked very hard this week to curate my ever diminishing diet, and would probably barely touch the dressing today. I looked the publican directly in the eye on his return and placed my order with no regrets.

We had already accepted, however, his choice of wine. As we consulted his taste, you could see the satisfying scratch we had given his ego. Five straight minutes he had spoken, five minutes of barely audible sommelier babble which comfortably filled the silence between two with so much to say. Fraser, in the end, was the one to settle, despite pointed comments set up as inaccessible questions. And he had returned with a bottle coated in dust. It’s odd how the British see signs of taste and wealth in dilapidation. He blew the dust towards a musty window, pouring a glass for my grandfather to taste. I knew he had no understanding of wine, so watching his act always filled me with a bit of joy. It’s amusing to watch someone else belittled.

Then, the magic window opened. The moment wine touches our tongues, they become untied, spreading open an evening’s truce. Grandfather forgets, briefly, how irate my self-imposed torture makes him. I, in turn, let go of the immense reins of anorexia. We soften around the edges, falling into a more comfortable rhythm of observational chatter and recollection of memories. Bread arrives, warm and salted, and I don’t hesitate to tear a corner. Just a corner, but it’s a casual aside that would usually never happen. By the time I sat behind the salad, I was a different person entirely. I was a frequenter of restaurants, noticing the succulence of the chicken breast and how it complemented the salt of the pancetta. I revelled in how carefully each crouton had been doused in, no doubt homemade, olive oil. I dipped each leaf into the dressing, and even I could not deny that the publican had created something of wonder there…

We left as dusk was settling around the stuffy village. Fraser watched us from his same spot at the bar, and I wondered fleetingly whether he knew the significance of this outing. The outside now felt too small, tight around me, imposing somehow. The pithy candles in windows and bunting on gutters seemed insincere and I just wanted to be home. So we both paused, resuming our familiarly toxic roles and clicking back into an awkward dance that we now called life.

Staring down at her shackled hands, the shame sets her cheeks ablaze. Is the air heavy with malice? Or is that simply her imagination. Always, she had soft landings, until now. Handcuffed to the table, left to wonder what comes next. Your mind retraces your steps at times like this. How, exactly, did I end-up here. Working backwards through the hours, days, weeks, months, years of her life. Was it just inevitable? Or a series of foolish decisions? Or an emptiness, a yearning, that brought her here.

She splayed her fingers across the wood grain. Is it just painted aluminum? Are there clues here, on this table, about what comes next? If there are, is she equipped to see them?

Her entire body tensed as the door creaked open. She squeezed her eyes closed. She heard laughter down a hallway. Was it menacing laughter? Her mind, in the moment...so muddled, so frenzied...she was afraid to open her eyes. She focused on the sounds, the creaking door, the soft latch as it closed. The click as it locked. Footsteps, breathing...hers? theirs?

The touch on her hand made her jump and her eyes flew open reflexively.

"Don't be afraid." he said with a smile.

I meet you at the table

We play our cards as they’re dealt

I call your bluff

You don’t call mine

You leave me at the table

Leave your cards on the table

Leave your heart on the table

I keep mine

Flush away my emotions in pursuit of the game

You leave straight away

We meet again at another table

Years down the line

The eye contact Deja vu from another time

but we’re playing a new game

Given new cards

Given a chance for a different call

I meet you at the table

The gentle flame ignites once more,

the shape of your face contorting in the dim light,

turning to shadows as you whisper softly.

The grotesque grin on your face is enough to induce nausea,

my stomach churns as your words fall flat.

They’re lost on me,

I’ve no strength but to stare across the table.

I see your mouth moving but hear nothing you say for a long moment.

Some of your words finally break through the haze-

It was all you.

It was always you.

I’m suddenly on the cold, hard floor.

I’m shaking violently,

tears fighting to escape my tightly pinned mouth.

You’ve sewn my lips shut.

You’ve told your last stories about me.

Should have made the last one count.

You silenced me for good this time.

I sit up,

stunned by how good you suddenly look.

Your face turns beautifully perfect,

like when I first met you.

You hug me,

and I lean into your strong embrace.

That’s right.

You’re okay,

You’re mine.

I allow myself to be your puppet.

I am yours.

And it all goes dark again.