Another ridiculously tedious story, loosely based on Real Life.

Rachel sat in the dark. She was sitting only because she had just been awakened and made to sit by the delicate trigger she had set long and long ago. It had gone off -- spelling instant awake and alert to her brain. Something was going on, she had only to discover what that might possibly be. Her strange disorientation came from this being a novel experience, not from the scant-mindedness of drowse or any desire to be asleep once more.

It was altogether unlike whatever she had imagined it would be like. It felt as though she had been suddenly dropped into another place. Ta da, there you are! No warning but this. No immediate enemy except the dark. The same dark which was normally her best friend and confidante.

Avoiding such pitfalls as listening to her own breathing and heartbeat, she scanned the silence. It annoyed her now that there was no truth to her thought that residual sound should exist. A tree falls in the woods with no other living thing present, yet the sound is remembered by life itself, documented by the fall of a tree. And so with the sounds of motion of any kind, as well as any color, texture, and even the less tangible things like personality. Convoluted esoteric hypothesis production had become something of a hobby lately.

But there it was, the sound. It replayed within the intense concentration she was giving life at that moment. Not much of a sound; no exciting thumpings or scratchings, no muted screams, no breaking of anything, not even the rending of multitudes of flesh.

"Pa-Ting?" She asked her room, the dark her friend again. "What the hell is 'pa-Ting'??" More than just the impossibilities of her theory ignored themselves for a moment and she knew it clearly. A chip of paint had fallen from the ceiling of the next room and ricochetted from wood to glass, bouncing then soundlessly on the rug.

"So, what does it mean?" This time she asked herself. Too much time had passed since she'd suspended the broken vial-alembic from the wall of her living room. It had been depleted of its intention, and remained there with no distinct purpose. What else had she hung there? Oh yes, the mottled two-inch black tapers she'd made with Beth Aldor and Suzanne Oneida, and the odd little berries she'd found on her most recent foraging expedition. The southernmost wall of her livingroom had been unceremoniously spattered with nails and thumbtacks to which Rachel, Diety of Packrats, fastened the various little objects of her infrequent attention.

"I wanted to study that," she confessed in a whisper.... she could have easily been referring to nearly anything attached to that wall. "I guess I'd better make sure--"

Chi-i-i-rp! The life she'd been concentrating on previously nearly fled from her. She gasped it back into herself and reached for the phone. Chi-i-i-rp!

"Speak," she said into the receiver.

"Phone tag, you're it!!" Then a tap-and-click as the caller broke connection. One o'clock in the morning, and were those hallway noises in the background? Sounded like David with a piece of tin stuck in his vocal cords. She got out of bed; he would arrive in about forty-five minutes.

Chi-i-i-rp! She grabbed the receiver again and from her irritation said, "What!"

A shocked hesitation could be heard from the other end of the line, and then, "Rachel? I'm sorry, did I wake you?" It was Suzanne.

"No; I had to answer the phone." Rachel made a mental note on the afteraffect of adrenaline rushes; how it seems one must change consciousness in order to recover. Such ironic bliss to have to rouse oneself from being so vividly awake.

"Ha ha. Very funny. I AM sorry to call you so late, but I just had the most disturbing dream...." She seemed to hesitate again, but Rachel knew she was actually trying to sense any sublimated reactions. "It woke me up, and I had to call to see if you're okay."

Rachel sat back down on the bed, "Yeah, I'm okay, but David just called. How's Terry?" This was getting to be one of those infamous coincidences they, as a group, seemed to like to share at the most inconvenient hours.

"I don't know; he's visiting his mother. I didn't even think to call him." She sounded surprised with herself.

"Well, I'll let you go and do that now. I'm sure his mom won't mind as long as you say something hysterically spousal to her. She might even think it's sweet."

"Yes. I'll call you back, if that's okay."

"Absolutely." There was still the matter of determining what exactly had caused that alarm-ward to go off, after all. Which was, of course, seriously complicated by David's impending arrival, and now Suzanne's dream. "Bye."

"Bye," Suzanne rang off.

Before Rachel could stand, Chi-i-i-rp!

"Hi Terry," she cheerfully pronounced.

"Wuh? ... How'd you know it was me?"

"I've been answering the phone like that for a week hoping you'd call," Rachel responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "But, seriously, Suzanne is at this moment trying to call you."

"Oh," Terry started to say.

"And it's my guess you were just trying to call her." A short pause, "No?"

"Well, YES, actually. I tried to call her first, but the line was busy. ... But you figured that out." He explained while thinking it through.

"Yes, and right now she's discovering that YOUR line is busy, and wondering if you've died."

Terry's wary voice asked, "What's going on?" More punctuation was added, intimating concerned curiousity over female conspiracies and/or health troubles.

"I'm going to have to let you ask Suzanne that, Terry. David's on his way over. Suzanne can call me back. Unless you really need to talk to me specifically right now."

"Uh. No, I guess not. I'll try to call Suzanne." He would have his answers from Suzanne. He knew it positively. Terry's integration into the bizzarre workings of the everyday life of the extraordinary had not been particularly smooth, but now he at least realized that he'd been somehow chosen to be extraordinary as well. And he could handle it; one of his most outstanding features.

Rachel hung up the phone without saying goodbye. Perhaps this rudeness was caused by her distraction over their newest coincidence, but most likely Terry had done the same thing, so she gave it no significant thought. Fortunately there were only four of them caught in this web of similar occurrences. Patience was NOT one of Rachel's best features, and she seemed always to be the one to answer the phone a minimum of three times during these episodes.

"But what IS it??" She asked herself in the dark of the room next to the wall where this all began for her.

It was Keith Green Rachel listened to while awaiting David. Yes, Keith was vibrantly and fiercely Christian, but he could really belt out the tunes and make you know he meant and truly believed it all. Besides which, she had no objection to Christianity in particular, just don't try to proselytize her without a real desire to explore your own doubts about your beliefs.

"To obey is better than sacrifice. I don't need your money; I want your life. And I hear you say that I'm coming back soon, but you act like I'll never return." The words were sincere, clear and easy to follow, the music fun to sing to, ... she'd given up trying to shake off liking it about seven years ago.

Urgent knocks. David had no other method. She answered the door.

"Oh, kill it. Kill it, PLEASE!" David objected instantly, moving toward the cassette player. Once he'd gotten the music shut off he added, "Or were you trying to kill me?"

"That has been my intention all along, David. Didn't you know?" She asked him. "Perhaps you could tell me why you're here?"

"Well, you're in a mood, aren't you?" David seemed to enjoy switching his sleep cycle around and trying to make people --Rachel in particular-- keep up with him. "I was gaming and I thought of you. So, I decided to come over and left the game."

"You're here to play Circa Now?" She was incredulous, "You drove more than forty miles after midnight to harrass me into running Tiras? Who's not doing anything remotely interesting?"

David tried to seem shocked that she would be surprised about this, then corrected his appearance to reflect a serious manner. "I wish I could say that, but, no. Right before I called I felt a twinge. Like something terrible happened. And then I thought of you." His face changed suddenly, as though he realized it was ridiculous for him to have travelled so far, no doubt breaking the speed limit all the way, without some kind of more reasonable explanation. He was plainly waiting for her to berate him.

"Oh, sit down. Suzanne and Terry called shortly after you did. Apparently they feel the same."

"None of us have spoken in a month or more. Not that I know of, anyway." He was attempting to apologize. "I guess I was wrong."

"No; you're right. One of my wards got tripped just minutes before you called. But I can't figure out why. Unless my ceiling's about to fall in, that is." She looked up. It was obvious to both of them that the ceiling was quite sound, if ever-so-slightly in need of touch up work on its last plaster and paint job.

"Didn't your landlord see that on the last inspection?" David asked.

"I guess he figures he's not going to worry about fixing up the place until I leave...especially since that happy incident with the window pane." She gestured quickly at a nearby window which contained a considerable amount of new wood in its structuring. "Anyway, I'm waiting for Suzanne to call back. She should have called by now."

They sat and talked sporadically until they fell asleep.

Morning's dismal light cut through the window, and there was a knock on the door. A polite, not terribly urgent knock. It seemed to go unnoticed by the two bodies resting scattered on livingroom furniture.

Another knock, "Rachel! Rachel, it's Beth!" This woke Rachel who looked quickly around the room and seemed mildly surprised to find David serious about sleeping on the couch.

Key in the lock. As Rachel stood the front door opened. Beth pushed into the house, focusing her attention on getting her key out of the lock. It seemed to be no easy task. Rachel approached to help Beth with the brown grocery bag she tried to balance on one knee.

"I'm sorry; I forgot you were coming over this early. I haven't gotten anything ready yet." Rachel took the bag while Beth continued to struggle with the lock.

"Looks like you had an interesting night." Beth pointed her face at David twice, then bent down to give a mean look to the assembly eating her key, "What's he doing here? Oh dammit, I hate this door!" She punched the wood above the doorhandle, letting the door swing open until it banged against a milk crate filled with file folders.

"I'll get that, you take this." Rachel said. David began to stir. Beth and Rachel switched positions, the bag making crinkling sounds as it protested changing hands again.

"What? Who's that?" He was one of those less graceful with the art of returning from the realm of dreams.

"It's me, David." Beth turned and set the bag on a director's chair. "So, what are you doing here? Don't you have class today?"

"Yeah. I guess I'd better skip it." He answered, finally sitting and rubbing at his eyes, "I came over after gaming last night." He looked at the others. Rachel stood with Beth's keys in her hand, Beth reached for those keys. "Don't either of you have to go to work?"

"We have the day off," they said in unison, and glanced at each other to smile.

"Oh. I guess I should go, then." David had the difficult look on his face of one who knows for certain he's interrupting something.

"Well," Rachel started, "I think we should call Suzanne first, and find out what all that was about last night." She shut the door while apologizing to Beth with the entirety of her mien.

"What?" Beth asked, "You didn't have sex, did you?" She accused them both, reacting to this guess as though Armageddon had begun.

"No!" Rachel jumped on her question, horrified. "He just came over!" She composed herself and then added, "Suzanne had a dream, for some reason Terry was awake and concerned, and David here got the urgent desire to protect me."

"What broke?" Beth began to examine the room. "Not the refrigerator, again, I hope," she took the bag from the chair and started toward the kitchen, scouting her path for signs of destruction. "You have got to move out of this place, Rache. It's a strange-magnet."

"That's the thing, Beth. Nothing broke. It was the most feeble twinkling of doom I've experienced in years." Rachel began to follow her. David stood to do the same.

"How many years?" Beth asked, now setting the bag on the counter and opening the fridge. "You unplugged it again, didn't you?" She let the door swing wide, forcing Rachel to catch it or get hit. No light came from inside. It was empty.

"It could have been a false alarm, then." Beth commented, squishing the bag to make it fit, and then laying it on its side instead.

"No, I don't think so," Rachel doubted scientifically. "That was one of my strongest wards. I set it to warn against occult-related movements focused at the house. I'm sure it didn't just pop off for no reason. Still, all the other wards are intact, so there's no other information."

"Could it have just decided to deactivate itself?" David questioned.

"I'm hungry, Rachel. Does your toaster work?" Beth included.

"Yes, well no. I mean, yes the toaster works, and no the ward was most definitely triggered."

"Let's call Suzanne," Beth said, reopening the refrigerator to remove a package of frozen waffles from the bag.

"And then I went to the post office to look for you, but it seemed that no one had seen you. So, I called your landlord and he'd never heard of you. It was like I'd made you up based on the things I'd seen in your house -- which, by the way, your landlord said had not been rented out for three years." Suzanne concluded the telling of her dream.

"But Jim and Anna told you I'd gone to the post office," Rachel puzzled.

"They were laughing at me the whole time they said that!" Suzanne insisted, "It was some kind of joke to them that I would come looking for you! Like they invented you so they could fill some kind of work quota or launder money by hiring a fictional employee." She stopped, then picked up the thread again. "Like I'd been in on the scheme from the beginning and I must be losing my nut because I started to believe in you."

"And you say that Terry felt Timpani jump onto the bed and that woke him up?" Beth was listening attentively from the bedroom extension, having taken her breakfast in there to eat it. Beth knew that Timpani had been Terry's most favorite pet before her death on the highway.

"Not only that, but he could feel Timpani's breath on his face before he opened his eyes. It's how she would wake him up when she needed to go outside. It really upset him. He's sleeping on the couch in the other room right now."

"I don't get it," Rachel stated. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Are you sure that nothing broke?" David asked from the coffee table. He could hear both Beth and Rachel, but not Suzanne.

"I really want to come out there to see you. I can't seem to shake the feelings from that dream, and I need to touch you to be sure you haven't faded away." Suzanne began a new paragraph, "I know you and Beth have plans -- incidentally, Happy Birthday Beth. But, would you mind if Terry and I stopped by sometime this evening?"

"No; I'd LOVE to see you, Suzanne. And since it doesn't look like David will be leaving anytime soon, I guess we could make it something of a party. See you then." Beth hung up the phone and took her dishes off the bed.

"Yeah, hopefully David won't mind being ditched for a couple hours here and there today," Rachel said with a sidelong glance at David, who was spinning a glass on the coffee table, almost completely engrossed in this action. "I'm not sure Beth is too happy about all the changing of plans, but I know that she's been wanting to see you. Make it about sevenish so Terry can have some real sleep. You can stay over if you want."

"Great. I'm sorry if we've messed up anything for you," Suzanne apologized.

"It's okay; there's very little to do about it now," Rachel acknowledged. "I'll see you around seven. David will let you in if you find that you're early." She hung up the phone and slid it back under the set of shelves which acted as an entertainment center.

"So, what's doing today?" David asked, catching his glass before it skittered off the table for the third time.

"Well, David," Beth started. She apparently had no troubles with expressing her feelings of imposition. "Rachel and I are going to run a few errands, then we're going to lunch -- alone -- and we're going to Outerville to find an apartment."

"Oh," he paused, not at all daunted. "Well, is it okay if I stay here for awhile? I'd like to check out that catalog from Harbinger Books, maybe go in on an order with Rache." This was normal life for David; he could adjust quickly to being almost anywhere, claiming the whole universe as his one true home and desiring a grave as vast as the earth once his physical form had expired. Obviously, he was working toward visiting that grave soon.

"What was that last thing you said, Beth?" Rachel asked to preclude any immediate tension between Beth and David. She also sensed either mischief or domination in Beth's remark, and was taking the most direct route she knew to determine which it really was.

"We're going to find you a new place. You've lived here for more than two years now, and it's no secret that your landlord wants you to leave. Besides, rent's cheaper in Outerville and maybe there's a two bedroom I might like to live in, too. I've been wanting to move back out of my mom's for awhile now." She turned back on David, "You have to stay here to wait for Suzanne and Terry. Then, if you want, you can join us for my birthday dinner."

"I can't move. There's just too many interesting little places here. And I like the availability of these places. You know I don't like to drive, and I won't walk from Outerville." Rachel paused, but not long enough for David to sense his turn to speak. "In fact, I'm quite surprised that Durham is not positively littered with witches; it's like Mystical-Trinket Heaven here."

"I'm surprised you didn't mention the weeks it would take you to pack," David commented. "In my opinion, it's not the 'littered with witches' part you need to be concerned with, it's the witch's litter you've accumulated. And maybe you just haven't noticed all the other weirdos about, since you hardly ever leave this house."

He looked toward Beth and stated sincerely, "I didn't realize it was your birthday, Beth. I'm sorry. I'll stay out of your way."

"You dated me for a year, and you still don't know my birthday?" Beth's reaction contained much of a derisive sneer, her voice a paradigm of ambivalence. It was not a fair assesment of Beth to declare that she had a bitch-streak a mile wide, though that's the front she preferred the world to see. She was, however, most thoroughly Irish -- her appearance and temperament betrayed her. Being the newest member to their group of friends, she had not yet acquired the uncomfortable linking of fates which afflicted the rest of them. For a fact, her main gift was an uncanny ability to generate kinematic normalcy -- genuine phases of normal reality -- in which the rest of them happily took refuge. It was no surprise, then, that she found their preoccupation with things occult to be compelling and at the same time almost fanciful. Beth Aldor was a stable and rational human being who just happened to possess the exact skill needed to make the world around herself tolerable. And she knew it.