Chasing the Moon

CHAPTER NINE

Diana awoke, slid the dresser away from her door, took a shower, and got dressed. Today was a new day. She was determined to make the most of it. And she was determined to do that by proving she could have an ordinary, run-of-the-mill experience from start to finish. She still had to ignore her monstrous roommates and all the weird things only she could see. But she could do that.

Unending Smorgaz lay flat on his stomach in a corner of the living room. He was a huge, purple lump. Unlike Vom, Smorgaz slept on a human schedule. His steady snore sounded very much like a buzz saw wrapped in cotton.

Vom reclined on the couch, reading a book. As he finished each page he tore it out and gulped it down.

Diana had time for a quick breakfast. Unable to find anything to eat, she used her powers to will a carton of orange juice and some cereal into existence. The multidimensional qualities of the apartment made using her magical abilities easy, and she figured it was a good place to practice. Her box of Frosted Flakes came without a bowl, milk, or a spoon, though. It was annoying how the magic lacked common sense. She created these items as well. Everything molded itself out of the kitchen counters, rising up as if budded from the tile, and she wondered if she was creating reality or if the apartment, like some obedient living thing, was reshaping bits and pieces of itself to her desires. Was she eating cereal or some small piece of an otherworldly monster? Like a tick sucking blood from a dog?

When she bit a spoonful of cereal, she thought she felt the kitchen tremble. Whether the feeling was real or not she couldn’t know, but that was just par for the course now. Better to not overthink it. She picked up her bowl and orange juice and went into the living room.

“Hey, did you hear that sound last night?” she asked Vom. “That long sort of howl?”

“Oh, that’s just Fenris. The wolf that chases, the herald of Ragnarok, the ravenous godling…”

“I got that covered last night. Although shouldn’t he be named Managarmr?”

“What?”

She took a swig of juice, right out of the carton because she didn’t feel like wishing for a glass. “In Norse mythology, Fenris is the giant wolf that bites off Tyr’s hand and kills Odin at the end of time. Managarmr is the wolf that pursues the moon and swallows it as one of the events leading to Ragnarok.”

Vom lowered his book. “How the hell do you know that?”

She shrugged. “Internet.”

“So you were just looking up obscure mythological references at some point in the past because you thought it might come in handy someday?”

“I don’t know. Must have had some time to kill.”

“I’m just shocked you remembered that name.”

She smiled. It pleased her to shock a cosmic horror, even if only a little.

“Fenris is easier to say than Mana—Moona—Maga—”

“Managarmr,” she said.

“Yes, that.”

“Do you know him?” she asked.

“Fenris? Oh no. Can’t say we’ve ever met. He’s a greater eldritch while I’m only a lesser embodiment. We don’t travel in the same circles. And if we did ever meet, he’d probably just eat me because he is as far above me as I am above…”

Vom trailed off, not finishing the sentence, and she ignored the potential insult.

“You guys have cliques?”

“In a way. It’s like high school, except instead of jocks versus nerds, it’s things who eat civilizations versus things who eat galaxies. I could devour the universe if you gave me a few billion years, but Fenris could do it in a few years, a decade at most if he put his mind to it.” He crumpled another page into a ball, tossed it in the air, and caught it in his gut mouth. “I’m a big fan.”

“So why is he wasting his time chasing one insignificant moon? I thought he wanted to escape our reality?”

“Maybe the moon has something to do with it. I don’t know. You’d have to ask him that. It probably has to do with the same reason I like hanging around you. There’s something about it that draws him, something he needs. All anyone knows is that he’s been after the Earth’s moon for… oh, about five billion years or so… give or take.”

“Weird.”

“Takes all kinds,” said Vom.

She deposited her bowl into the sink. “Crap, I’m late for work.”

“I thought the fire ruined your job.”

“No, I fixed that.”

“How?”

“The same way I started the fire in the first place,” she said. “Magic.”

Vom sat up. “Well, aren’t you the fast learner?”

She smiled. “I don’t know if it really worked yet. I just know that I concentrated really hard last night on undoing my first spell.” She frowned. “That doesn’t sound right. Do you call it a spell?”

“You can call it whatever you like.”

“Spell just makes it seem too… ordinary,” she said. “New Agey. Like something hippies do.” She imagined herself dancing in darkened forests, wearing long, lacy sleeves, and honoring the mother goddess. She didn’t have anything against it. Seemed like it might be more fun than church.

It didn’t feel right because there was nothing mystical about her newfound powers. No rituals, no incantations or prayers, no sacred tomes. No commandments or law of threefold return to guide her. She was on her own here with what little help Vom could supply. And that wasn’t much, since, in many ways, he was just as lost as she was.

All she knew was that she could make things happen by editing reality, and if she could start a fire by accidentally revising it into existence, she didn’t see why she couldn’t re-revise it out of existence. She’d willed away her original fire last night for fifteen minutes until a tingle along her spine suggested that the edit had taken place. She’d considered calling this morning to double-check, but couldn’t think of a way to phrase that phone call.

“Hi. It’s Diana. I was just checking if the department store was still burned to a crisp or if that thing I just mentioned no longer happened.”

It’d be easier to just go and see for herself.

Vom swallowed his entire book and woke Smorgaz. “Get up. We’re going to work.”

“I’m going to work,” she said. “You’re staying here.”

“Is that a good idea?” asked Vom. “What if you run into another lost entity seeking a focus? You’ll want us around.”

“I thought you said that didn’t happen very often.”

“It doesn’t. Not usually. But it’s not as if there’s a cap on how many deranged other-dimensional monsters will be drawn to you in a week. You seem to have a knack for it.”

She didn’t want them to tag along. Two pet monsters, even well-meaning ones, could wreck the illusion of normality she was going for, but that was already a lost cause. Outside this apartment, on the streets, was a city filled with monsters and contradictions that a sane mind could only ignore.

“You can come,” she said, “but try not to be conspicuous.”

The fuzzy green beast and the giant rubber hedgehog saluted.

“You won’t even notice we’re around,” said Vom.

Her magic wish had worked. The department store was restored. Diana noticed the remnants of the undone reality. Some black smudges, leftover smoke damage she assumed, clung to spots on the ceiling, and the whole place had a subtle, seared-wood-and-insulation scent throughout. But otherwise everything appeared in order, and once the managers had lectured the cleaning staff (something Diana felt bad about but couldn’t prevent) everything went back to normal. She even succeeded in making everyone forget that she’d been absent for five days.

That was the thing that bothered her most about this experience. It was one thing to unmake her previous mistake. It was another to go around screwing with people’s minds. It was a violation of their innermost selves. People weren’t robots for her to reprogram at her whim, but she didn’t see a choice. Undoing the fire and allowing everyone the memory of her absence would only leave questions she couldn’t answer and very probably cost her job too.

Just this once, she decided. No more. The resolution would’ve held more weight if she’d even understood these new powers.

“Very nice work,” said Vom. “Not many human minds can pick up the subtleties of reality manipulation. Usually it’s all ‘I am like unto a living god. Quake before me, mere mortals! I wish for a million dollars, a gold-plated robot butler, and adoration from all around me.’ ”

Diana said, “Jesus, is everyone that petty and dumb?”

“Not everybody,” said Smorgaz. “But most.”

“Of course, those kinds of eager beavers don’t last long. They end up drawing too much attention to themselves, and the universe usually has to slap them down to keep things in order.”

Smorgaz pulled a coat off a rack, checked it in the mirror. “Does this color work for me?”

“Yes, it goes great with your eyes,” replied Diana reflexively. She snatched the garment away and put it back. “You guys promised you’d be unobtrusive.”

“Sorry,” said Vom. “We didn’t realize it would be so dull.”

“Didn’t you just spend one hundred years locked in a closet?”

Unending Smorgaz hiccupped, and two spawns rolled off his back. They scampered away to wreak whatever havoc they could in their brief life span.

Smorgaz cringed. “Whoops. Sorry.”

She handed them a few dollars. “Go to the food court and buy a soda or something. Just behave, please.”

“We’ll be nearby. Just whistle if you need us for anything.”

“And remember,” she called just before they turned the corner. “Don’t eat anything that doesn’t come on a menu!”

And then they were around the corner and gone.

She leaned against a display and gathered her wits. When the monsters were around they caused all manner of trouble, but she could keep an eye on them. When they were gone she didn’t have to think about it, but it didn’t mean they were behaving. Either situation was both a relief and frustrating.

She spotted Wendall walking by and waved to him. He lowered his head and picked up his pace away from her.

She wondered if she could alter his memory just enough that he wouldn’t freak out when he saw her, but immediately ruled it out. This magic stuff wasn’t a cure-all. It wasn’t perfect, and even if it had been, she’d only been using it for two days. She was no expert.

Wendall’s half-memories of yesterday were important. She was dangerous company, and he would be better off keeping his distance.

Diana hadn’t thought much of Wendall in the time they’d worked together. Now he embodied that ultimate normality that had gone missing from her life. Something she’d taken for granted when it’d been around. Something that actively avoided her now.

She’d fix that by ignoring the weirdness and concentrating on the ordinary. So even though there was a shadowy bloblike entity browsing skis in sporting goods and a snaky thing swimming through the air, she ignored these things and thought about selling coats.

She was going to sell an assload of coats. To prove that she could, and to make up for burning down the store, even if that now technically had never happened. And also because she wanted to do something normal.

A mother with two children in tow stepped into her section. Diana, smiling perhaps a bit too widely, approached.

“Can I help you, miss?”

The woman acknowledged Diana in the vaguest manner, like a mosquito buzzing in her ear.

“I think it’s time the children bought some new jackets.”

The boys were noticeably annoyed by this.

“Mom,” whined one, “we just went jacket shopping last week.”

The woman ignored them and started looking through the racks. Diana, knowing the drill, stepped aside and waited to compliment the woman’s choices. She bought two new coats for the kids and two new coats for herself. It was an auspicious beginning, and Diana took it as a good omen.

No sooner had the family left than another man appeared. This one sneaked up while she was working the register. He was tall with sallow skin and a big, waxed mustache.

“Excuse me, young miss, but I seem to have a great need of a new coat.”

She smiled. “Right this way, sir.”

He bought the first garment she showed him. He paid in cash, then wandered away in a bit of a daze.

Almost immediately two more customers appeared to take his place. They were just as eager to buy, and all Diana had to do was point them toward the racks. A woman with a distant stare set her purchase on the counter.

“Anything else for you, miss?” asked Diana.

The woman’s gaze focused on Diana. “Oh… of course. Yes, something else.”

She grabbed a random coat within reach and put it beside her original purchase.

Diana got the nagging suspicion that normality was about to slip out of her fingers again.

“Do you really want that?” she asked.

“Yes, I do,” said the woman in staggering syllables, almost as if she didn’t know where the words came from. “I want a coat.”

“I want a coat too,” said the elderly woman in line behind her.

“Coats are good,” they said in unison. “We need coats.”

Wendall walked up beside her.

“Hey,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“I want to buy a coat,” he replied.

He reached for one of the garments beside the register. The customer grabbed him by the wrist.

“This is my coat.” There was an edge to her voice.

“Have you bought this coat?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“Then it’s not yours,” he replied. “I will buy this coat since you haven’t bought this coat yet.”

“Hey, I’m next to buy a coat,” said the old woman. “You can’t buy a coat before me.”

“No, I will buy all your coats too,” said Wendall. “One can never have too many coats.”

A new customer, carrying more jackets than he could reasonably hold and struggling to keep them all in his grasp, jumped in line. “These are my coats. You can’t have them.”

Diana sighed. Things were weird again. She tried to bring them under control. “Can everyone please stop saying the word coat so much?”

They all paused.

“But coats are important things,” they intoned in one cultish voice.

With that point of commonality settled, they resumed squabbling over who was in greatest need of a coat and who deserved the lion’s share of the sacred garments.

Diana lowered her head and muttered to herself and the universe.

“This isn’t what I had in mind.”

Only a moment later the coat department was brimming with customers, all of them fighting over purchases. Aung man with crunchy, unkempt hair tried to grab a garment from a frail middle-aged woman. Shrieking, she pounced on him.

There was madness as coat-mania caused the crowd to turn on each other. A dozen melees broke out. A group of children wrestled with a leather-clad biker. A blind man beat a chunky nerd with his cane. And a slimy tentacle monster battled a duck-like Neanderthal over a blue hoodie. The combatants were hampered by their refusal to put down their prized clothing, which limited the damage they could do to each other, but things were getting out of hand.

Diana focused her willpower.

“Stop it!”

The mob hesitated. A few people carried on halfheartedly. The feathery Neanderthal yanked away the hoodie. The tentacle monster growled.

“I said stop.” Diana sensed the shift in reality. “Everybody… just go home.”

“Go home,” they chanted in unison, turning and shuffling away.

“No, no. Stop.”

They stopped.

“Give me a second here. I need to think this through.”

She leaned against the counter and pondered. These magical powers were messed up, a monkey’s paw she couldn’t throw away.

“Okay, I have it,” she said. “I want you all to put down your coats and just go about the rest of your lives as if everything that just happened never actually took place. Oh, and it’s okay to like coats, just don’t like them too much. I guess what I’m saying is that coats are nice, but they’re nothing to kill someone over.”

“Coats are nice,” her cult agreed in unison, “but don’t kill for them.”

“Oh, and stop doing that, please. It’s starting to creep me out. Now go on. Get out of here.” She adopted the kind of gentle voice reserved for stray cats. “Shoo now.”

The short-lived Church of the Hallowed Windbreaker quietly dispersed. Diana spent the next half hour putting coats back on the racks. Her department remained empty until lunch rolled around. She grabbed a piece of warmed-over pizza at the food court and sat at the table with Vom and Smorgaz.

“I just don’t get it,” she said. “There has to be a way to turn this off.”

“Why would you want to turn it off?” asked Vom. “Most people are unwilling victims of reality.”

“And now I’m the victimizer.”

“You’re just being melodramatic.”

She slurped her soda, nibbled her pizza.

“It’s not right. People weren’t meant to have this kind of power.”

“Says who?”

“Says everyone.”

Vom shook his head. “Everyone is idiots.”

“Everyone are idiots,” corrected Smorgaz. He pursed his lips. “Everyone am idiots?”

“Regardless of whether you were meant to have this kind of power, you have it,” said Vom. “And there’s no way to get rid of it. Are you going to finish that?”

She slid her paper plate across the table. Vom devoured it.

“I know how to get rid of it,” said Smorgaz.

“You do not.” Vom slurped Diana’s soda without asking, then ate the cup.

“Sure, I do. It’s not permanent, but it works.” Smorgaz leaned forward and spoke in a quiet tone. “World peace.”

He sat back with a knowing grin.

“How the hell does that work?” asked Vom.

Smorgaz winked. “It doesn’t.”

Diana used her patient voice. “Can you explain it to the rest of us in a little more detail?”

“It’s simple really. Manipulating reality takes power. Your connection with Vom and myself gives you that power. But it has its limits. Screwing with a few minds here and there, rebuilding department stores, that’s easy. You could do that all day without exhausting yourself. But world peace… that’s a tall order. Trying to make it happen would be like trying to push a mountain with a bulldozer. You’ll run out of gas, but you won’t get results. Unless running out of gas is the result you wanted in the first place.”

“That actually makes sense,” said Vom.

“Why shouldn’t it? I’m not just a mindless spawning machine, y’know.”

A trio of clones budded off his back. Vom caught one and promptly ate it, but the other two bolted across the food court, eliciting surprised yelps from the lunch crowd, who assumed they were rats or puppies or some similar nuisance.

Diana excused herself from the minor chaos and went to the bathroom in order to concentrate. She found an empty stall, sat on the toilet, and cleared her head.

She pictured all the people in all the world getting along, accepting each other’s differences with tolerance and grace. She went the extra mile and pictured everyone holding hands in a grassy field, singing songs, drinking Coca-Cola together. Just living together in a great big harmonious sing-along.

Her gut tightened. A knot formed in her shoulders. She felt queasy, but the power was leaving her, spreading outward, trying to manipulate reality to her desires.

She hit a wall. The nebulous forces she was attempting to unleash flowed back into her.

“Damn it.”

She gritted her teeth. This wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d hoped. Maybe her magical powers were aware of themselves and didn’t want to be wasted. Or possibly reality itself was pushing back, trying to avoid holding the hot potato. She didn’t understand the metaphysics. She just closed her eyes and pushed back.

“Come on…” Her heart beat faster. She could smell burning bacon and hoped it wasn’t coming from her. “… Get happy, damn it.”

The magic stream slowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether. It sloshed between Diana and the universe in a delicate balance. Humming “Imagine,” she exerted every ounce of willpower she had. It was easier now that her body had gone completely numb, and there was nothing to distract her.

“Happy happy, joy joy, you bastards,” she groaned.

The resistance crumbled, and all the magic rushed out of her like a flood. She could actually see it, a rainbow of colors and shapes that twisted and altered reality on a primordial level, deeper than molecules. Deeper than atoms. Even deeper than quarks, gluons, other mysterious science-tastic words Diana had picked up from watching Discovery Channel. It was like reaching underneath all that to get to the core programming at the heart of the video game that was the universe, and using a cheat code to alter an inalterable law. Infinite lives. Endless ammunition. Level skip. World peace.

An invisible force snapped back at Diana and knocked her off the toilet. She wasn’t hurt, but her hand did end up in the bowl. She was drained, exhausted, but it was gone. All the strange power within her was used up.

She was out of gas.

She pulled her hand out of the water. Bad day for long sleeves, but all things considered, It could’ve been worse, she thought.

Right before she threw up.