The 13th House on the Block
 
Light. Little speckles of it, popping in front of her eyes. One, two, five…one hundred? Gabrielle blinked herself out of the dizzying spectacle. The light was dim enough that she did not have to cover her eyes in order for them to adjust.
A blur of yesterday night’s events flew through her mind: The skull-like creatures, being carried away, and the mouth-watering smell of a fresh apple—unconsciousness. 
Gabrielle’s intense gaze swept the room briefly:
A spidery rocking chair in a corner of the chamber dipped to and fro, to and fro. Gabrielle’s still slightly drugged mind lost itself for a few seconds in the motion. To and fro, fro and to.
Cobwebs climbed the iron walls in an ivy-like manner, and the seemingly levitating web spinners swung lightly with the breeze.  
Look at what you’ve gotten yourself into, Gabrielle.
Gabrielle heard creaking floorboards behind her.
“Maya! What on Earth is this place?”
Maya pressed a finger to her lips. “Shhh, I hear something.”
Whispers. Uttered harshly by…the walls? Maya pressed her ear to one of the iron panels.
Elizabeth? Elizabeth, are you here?
Logan! No! NO!
Come to me sweetheart…yes, come to me…
Elizabeth? Elizabeth, say something! Are you even here? Elizabeth?
That’s it, sweetheart, come to me…closer, where I can see you…where I can taste that blood of yours…waited long…forget the boy…come to me…
Elizabeth? Elizabeth?
Maya staggered back wide-eyed. “Voices, Gabrielle. Voices from the walls.” She stuttered.
“I take it that’s normal when involved in a rather peculiar mystery, is it not?”
“I…I don’t know… exactly. Perhaps.” She pulled Gabrielle to her side. “Come on, you take a look.”
“You can’t look at sound with the naked eye,” Gabrielle muttered, but pressed her ear against the wall.
“What the hell!” She gasped out as the whispers filled her head; nevertheless, she kept listening.  After a few seconds she straightened up.
So many different voices, she thought, yet all the same. It was always a girl and boy, and the murderer.She moved toward the next wall and gave a grim nod. “Different people, same plot.” She told her sister. “This is an actual haunted house, no doubt about that. What I am curious about is why it is haunted in the first place.”
A high voice suddenly spoke up from a far corner of the room. “I can tell you the story of the Thirteenth House on the Block.”
Chained to the wall was a young boy.
His eyes were spring, his hair summer, his manner autumn, and his skin frosty winter.
Maya gasped. “You poor child!” And ran over to were he stood. She was going to wrap her hands around him, but was blasted toward the opposite wall a second before she could.
“Do that, and you will perish instantly.” Snarled the suddenly angry boy. “I’ve never had much tolerance for motherly creatures like yourself. Even if I did, the seasonskin would paralyze you at the slightest touch.”
Maya gathered all her strength and propped herself on her elbow; the room spun, and the back of her head throbbed painfully. “What are you?” She mumbled. 
“I used to be human.” The child replied, calm as a summer night. “Then I found Espherak. I am one of the four Season Authorities, when I wear the seasonskin. When I don’t… but you did not request that specific knowledge. I am a Season Authority, S.A. for short, and that is all you need to know.”
“Espherak…who is this?” Gabrielle said from the same whispering wall she’d been listening to earlier: her sister being tossed across the room and having a potential concussion was of no importance to her.
“What. What is this, you mean. Espherak is a world. A world of dreams, nightmares, wishes, living—but mostly dead— magic, pain, good—but mostly evil—kingdoms and war. A world like any other, yet different from all. A world I wish I had not innocently stumbled and trapped myself in. A world I am trying to escape. A world you two”—he glanced at each with misery in his face—“ Are now trapped in as well. Once caught and brought here by the Untouchables, you have no other way to go.”
Maya gulped. “The Untouchables are the painted skeletons, right? They give me the creeps.”
“They are restless in their search for freedom of speech.”
“Literally freedom of speech, eh? Why is it they don’t have tongues?” Gabrielle asked out of sheer curiosity.
“They used to have them,” The S.A. stated with a sigh. “Care to hear the story?”
“Not at all,” Maya replied. The S.A. nodded in resolve.
“The Untouchables used to be an alliance of five powerful wizards and the loveliest, wittiest witch in all of Espherak. But one day, eons ago, they were cursed by a powerful someone. Legend tells it was a young man who had fallen for the fair leader named Zulia. The man was lovesick: Charmed doves at midnight to wave lullabies into her dreams and sent the most handsome of the birds to shower her with poems inked on Rose Parchment at dawn.”
“The witch had no interest in an illusion such as love, however. She asked one of her fellows to kiss her in front of the young man, thinking that the latter would then leave her be. Kiss her, the wizard did. Leave her be the young the young man did not. That same day, just before midnight, the man transfigured a weed into Shacklevine—”
“What is that?” Gabrielle interrupted, mesmerized; a child bewitched by the mere storytelling of the possible history of a seemingly impossible world.
“Shacklevine is a plant with potent powers, commonly used for long-lasting curses, uncommonly used for the newly-brought tradition of ‘marriage’. It binds the people it’s wrapped around to whatever spell the binder desires—forever, unless the antidote is found, prepared, and applied to perfection. In that case, it only lasts a few centuries.”
Maya’s jaw dropped. “A few centuries,” She sighed. “How old are you?”
“Oh, just twenty.” The S.A. replied, somewhat elegiacally. “Youth is not an advantage in my world—unless you’re a thief, which I am not.”
“Wait,” Maya began slowly, “you aren’t twenty—you can’t be. Impossible.” She glanced at the child for reassurance.
The truth was that the boy looked like an eight—maybe nine—year old.
“It’s spring, therefore I appear younger. It’s traditional for an Authority to create the illusion to be developing at the same pace as the seasons. Midsummer I will look my age.” He shook his head infinitesimally, mostly to himself—humans were so ignorant to otherworldly culture.
Gabrielle coughed, eyeing the S.A. pointedly. “Getting off-topic here.” She said, matter-of-factly.
The S.A. nodded. “Where was I?”
“Shacklevine at midnight…” Gabrielle hinted.
“Oh yes. So when the young man had enough Shacklevine for his spell, he sent his doves to sing sleeping charms to the group. When the birds returned, the young man walked to the camping spot, wrapped a tendril of Shacklevine around each of the wizards’ hands, and then placed the hands on top of each other. That way, the Shacklevine connected the wizards, and would doom them all to whatever curse the young man casted…The man had not wrapped Shacklevine around Zulia; his plan to slip her a love potion—according to Legend, nobody knows for sure—he did not want her to be cursed. As fate made it turn out, one of the wizards rolled next to the witch in his unconsciousness during the casting of the curse. The Shacklevine touched her body: She would be doomed just as much as the rest of them. It was too late into the spell to stop now, and the young man had no choice but to curse the love of his life along with the wizards.”
(Ironic, is it not, that fairytales always end that way? At least all of the ones in Espherak, as you might soon discover. No happy ending, because when life can go wrong it does—at least, in Espherak. Never a compromise with faith…remember that.)
Maya grunted, “typical.”
Gabrielle raised her eyebrows at their storyteller, no longer too interested. “So yeah. The curse was to turn them into skele-beings, disabling them to speak correctly—let alone utter a spell—during the rest of their lives…the witch along with them.  That’s a very entertaining tale but what does it have to do with this?” She waved her hand in front of her like an artist showing his finest work.
“You asked about the Untouchables; I told you their story. The tale behind The Thirteenth House on the Block is simple: This building is a prison for the mind. The voices you hear; I don’t hear them. I hear the whisper of autumn leaves, the babbling of brooks, and the quiet symphony of sunlight striking the world at dawn.  Those sounds captivate my mind, and as long as I can hear them, I won’t find a way out. It’s fairly logical if you look at it from an illogical point of view.” He said last sentence with an impish grin.
Gabrielle smiled back faintly with a crease between her eyes; thoughtful. “In a hypothetical case in which the mind is not trapped by the sound illusions, could one escape?” She wondered.
“No.” Said the S.A., shaking his head before Gabrielle had even finished the inquiry. “First of all—” He pointed at the low ceiling, “the Ghosts. They’ll De-light you if you attempt escape.” He shuddered at the thought; Maya and Gabrielle stared at the boy silently with boggled expressions on their faces. (The following moments that passed were the type in which moviemakers insert the chirping of a cricket; a silence of sincere puzzlement from part of the sisters, silence of thinking-that-my-words-are-sinking-in from the boy, who didn’t yet realize just how little the humans knew about his world.)
“Oh.” Was all that occurred to Gabrielle. The S.A. hadn’t noticed her blank expression, and nodded grimly.
“Indeed. So there are the voices, Ghosts, and finally, your own fear of stepping into Espherak.” He concluded, listing each threat off with his fingers. The Season Authority seemed to have relaxed in the past half hour or so he’d spent talking with the girls.
“Voices, Ghosts, fear.” Maya recited, her lips pressed into a tight horizontal line. Then she frowned. “Why haven’t we seen the Ghosts…S.A.? And also, what is your name?” She wondered idly why she hadn’t asked the simple question before.
“They blend in with the iron during the day. In a few minutes you will be able to see them, more or less clearly. As for my name, call me—”
“A few minutes?” Gabrielle blurted out, “Why, it was barely dawn a little while ago!” She hated it when people joked about time.
The S.A.’s temper rose, as suddenly as a winter gust; humans were such ignorant creatures when it came down to foreign cultures. “Nobody but travelers like yourselves attempt to measure time here. Time does not pass at the same rate here as it does in your world. One of your world’s seconds can be one of our minutes, century, or millennia—doesn’t matter. Espherak does not change—hasn’t changed—in eons.”
Gabrielle blushed in embarrassment and gave a nervous chuckle at seeing the Authority’s mood change so suddenly. “Oh. How inconvenient.” She glanced at Maya: Help me! 
Maya sighed internally. “I’m sorry, my sister interrupted you before you could tell us your name…?” She slipped into an interrogating tone at the end, making her point.
“Paolo.” The S.A. grunted in reply, his tone still tinged with annoyance.
Maya noticed with a mixture of concealed fear and curiosity that nebulous clouds of sunset crimson flashed briefly beneath the pools of the boy’s light blue-green irises. Overreaction, she thought mildly in a singsong voice.
“Right. Well, Paolo, there has to be a way out of here.”

Polianneska Picket

Far away from the 13th House on the Block—257 Giant Feet, to be exact—a middle-aged woman dozed on an enchanted hammock by the seaside. The tide was looming in dangerously, and every time it stroke the sand, the white froth seemed to turn into a satisfied grin. For the Ocean to take a Being back to The Origins unnoticed, great stealth (and a ton or so of lucky salt) was required.
Three meters to go…two…the water grabbed toward the woman greedily. Its waves roared forth in excitement…
And when the woman was finally within the Ocean’s grasp, a Silence tore through the beach. It was the Tide Alarm. The Ocean was still lunging, but its former victorious rumble was no more.
The woman’s eyes flew open and instinctively peered toward the water. She scowled briefly, when would it finally give up on her? And leaped out of its vicious reach. Tugging her hammock from the patch of Temporary Solidified Air it had been dangling from, she strode toward Picket’s Smoothies of Herbs and The Natural with her head high.
A young boy with dreamy eyes and a shock of electric blue hair stood purposely behind the bar. He didn’t look away from the tufts of cloud he was fantasizing about to tend whom he thought was just another sweaty client. “Welcome to Picket’s Smoothies of ‘Erbs and The Natural. What may I refresh you with?”
“It’s just me, boy. And stop looking at those clouds, for heaven’s sake!” Said Polianneska Picket irritably. Why on Espherak’s Origins had she taken in the boy? She asked herself for not the first, and probably not the last time either. Although she’d rather dump her best supply of Honey-and-Rosemary Lizard Shake than admit it, she’d accepted the lousy half a ruby as payment for the keeping of the boy from his father because she needed company. Not that Bay N’ Shee Beach wasn’t usually brimming with visitors from The Otherlands, because it truly was; they all walked through the jewel-encrusted sand with their eyes wide open—something not highly recommended by anybody who knew about the Blindgulls, who were known to have a greatly developed taste for this particular human delicacy.
But the visitors were too engrossed by the place to care to strike up friendly chatter with anybody who wasn’t in their party. The only words Polianneska ever remembered hearing these particular visitors from The Otherlands say to her were “Er…a cup of water is fine.” After she had finished reciting her extensive menu…off the top of her head, too, of course. Over the decades, she had begun to notice that the only people who actually appreciated all of her concoctions were the people of EspheraCentre (the most thriving island, and consequently the capital of Espherak), which is to say, the locals.
So the boy had had to do. 
“Oh! Sorry Ma’am Picket, I didn’ see it was you, see, I was lookin’ at the sky and concentrating on the Gramatics exercises you left me this morn. I’m very nearly ready to begin ‘em, see, and I promise you, they’ll be all good an’ better than ever by tomorrow. You see, Ma’am Picket, the clouds help me concentration be best. You’ll see tomorrow, them Gramaticals will be all good tomorrow”—Polianneska Picket placed a Silence on the boy, careful that he didn’t notice and kept excusing his wandering mind hastily. She kept staring at him as if she did care about what he had to say for himself with her head slightly cocked to the side. Had she ever been an imaginative, dreamy young girl?
After five tedious centuries of tending Smoothies of Herbs and The Natural, she really couldn’t tell.
Now the boy was frantically bobbing his head up and down, a sure sign that he was about to end his improvised speech. Polianneska undid the Silence.
“—And I’ll leave the notebook on your desk, Ma’am Picket, for you to be so kind as to revise it—only if you really, absolutely truly do feel like it, course. You’ll see.” By this point, the boy’s face had turned a light blue, two or three shades darker than his hair. He inhaled the salty air hugely, and then gazed up at Polianneska expectantly to see if his excuse had been accepted.
“Hand me over a Honey-and-Rosemary Lizard Shake. Make yourself one too, if you want. Quick!” Replied Polianneska with the usual severe expression lining her face. The boy willingly took that as a yes, and disappeared beneath the counter.
Polianneska tapped her toe on a diamond that had bobbed up from the sand right beneath her foot. It didn’t have quite the irritating effect she was going for.
About one thousand, three hundred and twenty-eight hummingbird heartbeats later, the boy emerged holding two tall, transparent glasses, filled to the brim with an murky, amber-like substance with a bed of Rosemary at the bottom and thirteen lizard tails evenly—or as evenly as you can arrange thirteen lizard tails—placed around the brim.
“Good. Now pass it here, boy, and careful with the tails.”
The boy noiselessly placed the two drinks on the counter, but as he was about to slide one toward Polianneska, something behind her caught his eye. As usual.
However, what had caught his eye was remarkably unusual, and the boy didn’t look away, not even when Polianneska’s expression started turning a dangerous shade of red.
“What the blasted banana smoothies are you drooling at?” She barked.
The boy did no more than point somewhere behind her head.
Polianneska grunted. Her commands were never, ever, ignored. She could see the boy was not going to respond, however, and as she turned around to see what the boy was staring wide-eyed at, she took her Honey-and-Rosemary Lizard shake.  Might as well have a nice, cool drink to ease the scorching heat.
But as she was dipping the first lizard tail into the liquid, she saw what the boy was still perplexedly staring at:
Two youngsters (about one and a half hundred years old each, according Polianneska’s calculations) were being heaved through the air by none other than a Season Authority.
Very, very few people ever saw a Season Authority, as the latter loved taking the shape of one of the Four Elements and usually stayed that way, controlling all Natural—or highly Unnatural, as Polianneska often liked to say—events throughout the whole of their quite lengthy lives, hidden to all but the occasional Seer.
So even if Polianneska had never seen a picture of a Season Authority in human form, she knew at once this person was one—nobody else was granted the power of flight by The Elements.
“Martinue Ertimous Trop! There is a Season Authority, of all people, heading straight toward our—Bubbling maggots, they’re heading right toward the Solidified Air!”
At the shout of his name, Martinue Ertimous Trop snapped out of his reverie and jumped over the counter to stand right in front of Polianneska with his chest puffed and his head high, his right hand placed upon his forehead soldier-style.
“Ma’am Picket! What should I do?”
“Tell them to blasting stop flying!”
“Yes, Ma’am!” Martinue dashed through the sand, stubbing a few toes with the concealed jewels that kept popping out right in front of his feet in the process. A foot away from the waves, he started jumping up and down, his long arms and legs making him look like a huge, blue-haired insect.
“STOP FLYING!”
The crashing waves, still annoyed, thundered as loudly as they could, which made hearing—both for the three incoming figures and Martinue—quite impossible.
“STOP, STOP, STOP! YOU’RE GOING TO CRASH!”
This time, the human bullets understood—at least the one in the middle. The girls didn’t know why their companion suddenly looked so terrified; there was nothing but air ahead.
By this time, it was far too late to steer.
With a resounding clunk, two surprised shouts of pain, and one yelp of anticipation, the three figures that had glided swiftly through the sky a few seconds ago lay crumpled in a dizzy pile on the sand.
To avoid further embarrassment, the Season Authority Shifted into a gust of seaside breeze.
Martinue gazed down at the strange newcomers with a worried, and at the same time awed look in his eyes. Had he just killed two prospective customers? He gulped.
“A-Are you o-okay?” He stuttered.
The pile of limbs seemed to nod.
Martinue sighed in relief, and, his job done, strode calmly back to the smoothie stand, careful not to step on or trip over any of the precious stones.
“Ma’am Picket, job a success.” Martinue said with a grin.
Ma’am Picket, for that matter, was alarmed. Had she just missed the opportunity to delight a Season Authority with her extravagant drinks? She couldn’t see him anywhere.
“Boy, what happened to the most important guest?” She asked slowly.
Martinue suddenly remembered he had forgotten to report the Authority’s safety. He gulped for the second time that day.
“Ma’am, he…er…vanished.”
“He did wha—argh!”
The Season Authority had solidified right in front of Polianneska’s face.
“Who is dense enough to leave Solidified Air hanging about?” He shouted angrily, his eyes flaming into red moons.
Polianneska had not been shouted at for centuries, and instead of shouting back, as she would have done with anybody else, she blushed and squeaked a sorry.
Martinue, who had gone back to his former spot behind the bar, asked his routine question.
“Welcome to Picket’s Smoothies of ‘Erbs and The Natural. What may I refresh you with?”
Polianneska Picket couldn’t have been more embarrassed. She was absolutely sure that the Authority wouldn’t want anything to do with her after the Air incident.
To her great surprise and, admittedly, huge delight, however, the Authority propped two elbows on the counter and told the boy:
“Give me the best you’ve got.”