EDIT: Whoa, this baby made it through ONC's first round??? Yay!

***

After running into the cold, the one-room shop is warm and cozy, even if the wet mud on my jacket still freezes me.

We have about fifteen minutes left before the shop closes when Lavinia, the owner, comes back after some quick errands. Her hair is silver-white and crinkly, loose and long down her shoulders. Cared for, but not always brushed to perfection.

Her eyes are violet, almost translucent and red in spots, and her skin is ghostly pale. She wears an old but crisp powder-blue dress with a floral design, a round collar, a pale, long bow around the neck, and big white buttons. She looks like she might be slightly younger than my last foster mom, in her early forties.

Most of the time, she goes barefoot, but now she wears sandals under the shadow of her ankle-length dress, which looks like something out of the 1930's. Her face is round, eyes and mouth lined, though she can't be older than fifty.

I don't understand aging in the Dreamlands. I came here five years ago, when I was nine. Now, I'm growing, and I'm older because I want to be. Lavinia, from what I can guess, was alive in the early 1900's. I don't know if she died, since many here are people who died in the waking world.

Before either Nell or I greet Lavinia, her eyes glance over my striped shirt and jacket, both coated with mud. Her violet eyes widen. "Oh, dear! What happened?"

"Someone stole some truffles," I explain, feeling a little guilty.

"Oh, dear." Lavinia sighs. "We really need a 'no stealing' law." I wonder how it'd be enforced. If you hurt a cat, you get cursed to be eaten alive by a wave of them. "Who was it? A cat, a zoog? A person?" She pauses. "A Great One?" Nell tenses at that.

I wring my mud-crusted jacket in my hands. "A gourd. Orange, if that matters."

"They're truly getting out of hand. I do wonder if your mother has been experimenting in the patch again.

My mother, Cecilia Haunt, isn't my blood mom, who grew more shadowed with time. Cecilia, or Cece, is the one who took me in and brought me here. I never knew my blood parents; they died when I was about three, and ever since I was buoyed around in the system.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save the chocolate, Miss Whateley." I could tell Lavinia I'm sorry for a lot of things she's gone through, but that'll make her feel obligated to say, oh no, dear, none of that was your fault, which I know. And I'll feel guilty she feels guilty that I thought I had to say I'm sorry to her.

She had two sons, but one died, and the other I'm not sure about. She doesn't talk about either; Cece told me about them while tinkering with her thought camera, which can photograph memories. It hurts to think that someone so nice would go through the pain of losing a kid. I can't know what that's like, but thinking about it makes my stomach cramp.

I do know what it's like to never speak out loud about people, so they only exist in your head. To everyone else, they're invisible, meaningless.

About the chocolates, Lavinia says, patting my shoulder, "Aw, don't worry about it, pumpkin." Her look is pitying.

I shudder at the name, but I'm not sure if she knows my reason when she pulls her hand away. Hurt flashes in her eyes. Quickly, I ask, "How's Asenath doing?"

Lavinia smoothes out her expression, but her mouth's still a thin line. "She's been losing her hair, which she's distraught by. I think her gills are about to come in. Hopefully, it won't be too long and painful a process for her."

I chew my lip. "I hope not. Is there anything I can do?"

She worries a hand in my hair. "That's very sweet of you, but I'm afraid there's not much any of us can do. But others have gone through this, haven't they?"

"Do you miss anything about your home?" I ask her.

She grows pensive, staring off into space. "The wild strawberries in the meadows. And the whip-poor-wills, though I feared they'd steal my soul." She blinks, coming back to reality, and meets my stare. "Are you all right?"

I offer a small smile. "Yes, just tired."

"Poor thing. You can go home now if you'd like. I'll give you your full payment now."

"Hello, Howard," Lavinia says.

He's a tall, strange, wispy man with an oddly proportioned chin. He's personally compared it to an insect's mandible. His hair and eyes are a dark brown, his face white and long, with square glasses. He always wears a simple gray suit and calls himself "Grandpa Theobald."

Howard says, "Grandpa would like some coffee ice cream, please."

As Nell stands to go to the freezer, I say, "Aw, you're not that old." I try to smile, but a chill has crept into my skin and hasn't left. Howard goes to the freezer and comes back to pay for his carton. We have other things here, too, such as milkshakes, which Lavinia refers to as "coffee cabinets."

Curiosity gnaws in me. "So, Mr. Theobald, what do you do to pass the time?"

Reserved, he offers a ghost of a smile. "I tend to sit by the window with my feline friends and read."

"I read a lot as a kid," I say. I miss it. When you can't go on your own adventures, reading fictional ones helps. Mostly, I read Cece's science books now.

"Oh?" Howard asks. "What did you enjoy reading?"

I think about it. "Adventure stuff. Fairy tales. When I was a lot younger, I once read a story where there was an ornery cat."

"Yes?" Howard says.

"Her brain was turned to glass, so she'd act better."

"Ah, reminds me of some of the stories my grandfather would read me when I was a boy. Nothing like the morbidity of childhood tales." I catch a glimpse of something deeper in him, which looks a lot like grief. Or maybe that's projection talking. "All those stories of witches, woods, and darkness."

"I can't stand the dark," I say. That's why I liked the cottage. With Cece's electrical experiments and lights, the rooms were never dark.

"When I was young, I was terrified of the dark. My grandfather had me close my eyes and took my hand, and guided me through out entire house in the dark."

My eyes widen. "With all the lights off, too?"

"Yes, and that cured my fear. Everything was as it should be, and in the end, I could travel through the shadows, even if I believed I couldn't before." I'm jealous of him. Maybe Granny might've done that for me if she'd been alive and had taken me in.

After Howard says goodbye and leaves, we all close the shop and go our separate ways.

"Hey, Nell?" I ask.

"Yes, you may embrace me," they reply, knowing I was going to ask for permission. When I go to hug Nell, they accept it, no longer freezing.

After Nell leaves, Lavinia sets a hand on my shoulder. "Take care, hun." Some of her Eastern New England accent seeps through, and her gentle touch slips away. As she leaves, the streetlamps for a soft halo around her hair.

I've never worried about walking alone in Ulthar as evening turns to night. There are some things in the waking world I've never seen in or around Ulthar. I've been told that wolves don't exist here, but that wolf-people might somewhere far away. Despite all the bricks, there are no churches in this place with its cottages and sweetmeat, which to my disappointment, isn't meat.

When I'm alone, I head to the town square where the no-hurting-cats decree stands. I hurry to the circle of burning streetlamps, the stars of dust globing the lights.

I see nothing special, no statue. The only eyes are mine and the glint of cat-eyes. I guess that means it moved.

Disappointed, I walk alone to the other end of town, past the flowerbeds and white fences. Soon enough, hearing the faint buzz of blue electricity, I come across two hangling electric lanterns and go up the narrow path on the hill.

Unlike many of the small cottages around town, Cece's home is a two-story house full of sharp edges on the inside and outside. The gabled roof is dark and points up like an arrow in more than one place. The paint of the house is as orange as an autumn sunset. The windows are clear triangle mosaics.

When I go up the stairs and open the front door, the place smells of yellowed pages and book dust, the faint scent of metal and smoke, the rich aroma of jasmine tea on the kettle. On the orange walls are dreamy paintings, tapestries, and statues from all over the waking world. Some of the oil paintings depict scary wolf-people eating people in stringy bites. You know, fun stuff.

"Mraw?"

I look down and see a green-eyed orange tabby. "Hey, Caramel," I say to her. Her eyes are wide and speckled, always looking at me with a lack of judgment. Rare for a cat.

"Mrrr." She butts her head against my leg. An aroma fills the room. sharp but sweet, like cinnamon. The thought camera lies on the display table. I go over to inspect it, seeing myself in its lens.

I took a picture of my memories once; the polaroid only showed several eyes.

"Ah, Eileen. Hello."

I jump and look into the octagonal living area, the stairs spiraling along the back of the room. Halfway up them, a woman stands, her pale, spindly hand on the banister.

It's not Cece; it's Keziah, who often visits. Her dress is sapphire-blue with geometric patterns like constellations, which seem to move, so I blink. Her braided black hair sits on her shoulder.

She glides down, standing a few feet from me, by the green-and-gold sofa. "I was just leaving." When she moves past me, goosebumps prickle my arms. The front door opens and shuts.

"Welcome back." I look up at Cece, staring down from the floor above. Tall and thin, she wears a gold shirt and a violet brocade with silver geometric patterns. Her eyes are so pale they match that shirt, skin a little lighter than mine, and black curls pulled back in a tight bun.

When she comes downstairs without a sound, she takes in the mess, me. "What happened here?"

"I fell chasing a pumpkin."

As her eyes flicker from my muddy shirt to my face, I can see her processing the info. "Never a dull moment."

"How have you been doing today?" Often when I ask this, Cece tells me what she's been doing, as if that's the same thing. Maybe to her it is.

She waves a hand. "Experiments." She picks up the thought camera. "Electricity was all the rage at the start of the twentieth century. You could have public displays and people would flock to them for entertainment, like executions. If I could go to Earth again, I doubt it'll be as effective. I'd need to think of something newer, maybe more perilous." After she sets the camera done, Cece claps. "People are so fascinating." She lowers her hands. "Despite themselves."

The thing about Cece is that people are drawn to her. She doesn't blend in. Everyone has some kinda opinion, whether it's Keziah, who adores her, or Marceline, who avoids her. Like letting one of the truffles with a soft center melt on my tongue, I crave that: recognition that tells me I'm something more than myself.

I can't help but feel gratitude, even if it feels like something's missing. In this town, in me.

Cece isn't terrible, only distracted, and I'm not sure she understands all that well how to show affection. She gives me things. Because she enjoys bright colors, she gave me my yellow jacket.

It's kind of cute, but I don't think Cece's ever hugged me; she carried me once, when I first came to the Dreamlands and was too overwhelmed.

Cece shrugs. "I don't hate her. None of us hate each other. We merely diverge in opinion, mostly because of their worship of the Mother of a Thousand Young. Cybele or Lilith, as she's been called through time."

I blink. I only have a vague idea of what she's referring to. I don't know much about the religions of this world, only that it's a lot less Southern Baptist. "What's wrong with the Mother of a Thousand Young?"

She dismissively waves a hand. "Stupid goat. 'Oh, look at me, I live in the woods. Look at my horns, my org—my parties'. Parties."

"What were you really going to say?" I ask with a raised brow.

Cece says, "Organization."

"Right," I deadpan.

She clears her throat. "Anyway, you best get yourself cleaned up. I imagine that isn't comfortable. I have some fresh scents you can use."

There's something she's hiding, won't tell me if I tried a thousand times. Honestly, there are probably a million things. Her eyes are always distant, unconcerned, and sometimes I want to ask, What would it take, what do I need to do for you to miss me?

But I still can't forget when I was so tired and hungry and, without much debate, Cece picked me up and carried me. She didn't say anything, didn't complain, just did it because I needed it.

My bath is quick, and I change into clean clothes, a flowery nightgown and red socks. I've dealt with sucky insomnia forever, but for some reason, I sleep easily.

But then, when I wake up, I'm in my gown, halfway down the stairs. My hand grips the railing. I see the blue of early morning. I've been sleepwalking. Guess my sleep wasn't as peaceful as I thought.

When I look at the front hall, the front door, something glows behind the wood. I want to blink, but I can't stop looking. The light, whatever it is, pulls on my skull. Reaches inside.

The stairs creak under me as I touch the coarse red rug on the hardwood floor. Moving to the door, I grab the knob and open it.

The eye statue blinks at me.