Blog Post #9: La Vie En Rose

Lyra Banks stood outside the cave when Elwood emerged.

“Lyra?” Elwood asked “Where have you been?”

“The perasphere, fixing constace imbalances,” she said.

“What’s a perasphere?”

“A metaphysical place created by nocturnes,”

“Why were there so many constace imbalances?”

“They occur whenever there’s a spike in malicious thought or action. Murder takes the biggest toll on the constace, but the imbalances are mostly smoothed out now.”

“They won’t be like that for long,”

“What makes you say that?”
            “There’s a man without a name, who most people call Grim, who’s looking for me. When he finds me, he’s going to kill me.”

“I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

Elwood saw his future quite clearly. He knew Grim was already here, because whenever Grim was around, Elwood had a gnawing feeling in his stomach, and the air around him felt thicker and darker. In a few hours, he would leave Lyra, go for a walk. He’d never visited the cutlery museum, so he’d stop by. There Grim would find him and shoot him.

“No, this is my fate,” he said.

Lyra looked down at the constellation tattoo on her arm.

“I’ve known my fate my whole life, all nocturnes do. I die on the eve of my 20^th birthday. Knowing this I escaped the perasphere, trying to run from fate. On my first night outside, someone somewhere was playing La Vie en Rose. It’s a song which means I’m looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. It reminded me of how our perspective on life can change our life. We can live in fear or sadness because of the over looming fate of death, or we can enjoy each moment as it comes. That in each second that passes, we get the privilege to be alive,”

As Lyra said those words, Elwood started to cry. Suddenly, Elwood didn’t want to leave this world. There was so much he wanted to learn, so much he wanted to do. He had missed out on life because he didn’t know how to live. Now he was going to miss out on the rest of his life. Lyra Banks stepped towards Elwood and enveloped him in a hug, letting him cry on her shoulder. And Elwood felt so much better to feel compassion from someone, he wished the moment could last forever.

Blog Post #8: The Lion Queen

            On Elwood’s afternoon walk, he encountered a majestic pink lion behind the old powerplant. Elwood was unafraid of the lion. Being eaten wouldn’t be nearly as terrible as the fate that awaited him. He thought it was strange that he had gone on a walk to find answers to the many questions he had about Lyra, and instead, he found a pink lion. The lion never pounced, it just stared at Elwood, and Elwood stared back. Amidst the staring in the forest washed with rose-colored sunlight, Elwood and the lion had reached some sort of understanding. It was as though the lion could look into Elwood’s eyes and see straight to his soul. 

The moment couldn’t have lasted forever, so it was the lion who moved first, flopping onto the forest floor, belly towards the sky, sighing loudly. Elwood then knew exactly what to do. He walked towards the lion and scratched its rosy fluffy fur. Suddenly, the lion rose to his feet. He started to walk off, but stopped and looked again to Elwood, as if to say “follow”.

            Day faded into night. The lion entered a dark cave as Elwood followed. An explosion of warm pink light erupted above him. Elwood looked up into scattered glowing gemstones impeded in the ceiling. In the brilliant illumination, Elwood could finally see where he was. The walls of the cave extended far into each direction and had morphed from rough stone to onyx which sparkled with specs rose-gold stone. He followed the lion to an archway with a painting hung at the apex. It was of a sitting girl with a sunlit background, fire in her eyes and hair, and a constellation on her forearm. Just below the painting was a signature. “Lyra” it read.

            The lion disappeared into the dark room. As soon as Elwood walked through the archway, the rose-colored crystals lit up again as pale pink light rained down from the ceiling. The room around him was intensely large and circular, with a railing looking down into a pit. Below the railing, was a habitat of sorts, illuminated by white and yellow lights. The floor of the pit was covered in ivory sand and plants of various shades of rose, resembling an African grassland.

            And there in the habitat was a healthy pride of pink lions. 

Blog #7: The Box

Love You a Latte had unexpectedly run out of coffee, so Elwood sat at a table with Phoenix drinking chamomile tea. Phoenix was tapping her fingers on her smoothie and bobbing her leg underneath the table. She hated sitting still.

As it turns out, reader, the box that Jack Stars had given Elwood was not a sakake-bako box. It was structured like a one, but upon further inspection, Elwood noticed runes and lines connecting holes in the box which were not characteristic of sakake-bako boxes. It was this difference that apparently made it impossible to solve. Elwood had been at it for three straight days before Phoenix took him out for a much-needed caffeine boost.

A caffeine boost that turned out to be caffeine-free with a spoonful of sugar.

“Other than the box, I just don’t know if we have a lot else to go on. Is there anything you could think of that might lead us to where Lyra went?” Phoenix asked.

Elwood’s mind drifted back to the night of the circus, to the person who strolled up to him just before he left.

“Noah,” he said “Noah can see ghosts. Maybe he could talk to Mr. Evans.”

“Why would he help us?”

“He wants to know why he can see ghosts. You could tell him about nocturnes.”

“That is out of the question, nocturnes have been kept secret for hundreds of years.”

“Then why did you tell me about it?”

“You’re a blank.”

“I don’t understand what that means.”

“You’re a nocturne born without the trademark constellation on your forearm. Blanks are usually cast out of the society early in life, due to the fact that they can’t manipulate constace. You can, however, exist in the perasphere which will make you useful, once we figure out where Lyra was headed.”

Elwood furrowed his brow and sipped his tea. He still didn’t quite understand what Phoenix was talking about.

Suddenly, Phoenix’s eyes widened. If there was a lightbulb over her head, it would’ve lit up.

“That’s it! The box! Those aren’t just lines and dots they’re constellations! I should’ve known it was nocturian.”

“Pardon?”

“I know how to solve the box!”

Phoenix and Elwood dashed out of the coffee shop and ran back to Elwood’s apartment. Though when they opened the drawer where the puzzle box was kept, it was empty.

The box was gone. 

Blog #6: Pink Lions

        Phoenix searched Mr. Evans old room, breaking in with lockpicking skills she’d learned outside the perasphere, for any clues to where Lyra had gone. She sent Elwood to search for other parts of the town Mr. Evans was known to frequent. After a fruitless and tedious combing of the dead man’s apartment, Phoenix hoped Elwood would come back with some clue. Instead, Elwood came back with a box.

            “What is that?”

            “A Japanese puzzle box.”

            “This is no time for puzzles!”

            Elwood put the box into his jacket pocket. He could always solve it later.

            “Maybe, we could check his mail? Lyra loved sending letters.”

            “We could ask Bea.”

            “Who’s Bea?”

            “She works in the mailroom. There’s a circus going on tomorrow, we could find her then and ask her.”

            “Excellent,”

…………………………………………………………………………………………...........................

            Elwood entered the red and white tents after dark when the stars lit the clear sky. Despite the full moon, you could barely tell it was night at all. The explosions of light from circus games, string lights, and booths were brighter than daylight. It was all so wonderous and strange, the circus, the chaos, noise of crowds, wild animals, and carnival games. Elwood even spotted a pink lion among the animals, who seemed to be staring at him.

            They found Bea by the popcorn stand, scarfing down sea-salted kettle corn.

            “Excuse me, I was a friend of Mr. Evans. Is there any way I could get a look at his mailbox? I think it might help with the grieving process,” Phoenix said.

            “To look at his mail?” Bea said.

            Phoenix clenched her fists. This was her problem, never thinking things through. Before she could get another word in, Elwood pulled out his puzzle box.

            “Where did this box come from?” Elwood asked.

            “Oh, I uh, it was in a package originally sent by Mr. Evans, but it was returned. I thought if someone could open it, it might help us figure out why he died.”

            Elwood nodded, but Phoenix was infuriated.

            “So you have the right to go through his mail, and we don’t?” Phoenix said storming off.

            Elwood followed Phoenix as she left the circus, but not before looking back to see the strange pink lion who was staring at him so intently before. But as he stared into the cage there was no lion.

            And the door was wide open.

Blog #5: I must be dreaming

Reader, when we are told something that goes against how we understand the world, against science, against fact, we automatically reject it without a second thought. So when Phoenix told Elwood about nocturnes, he thought she was insane.

That is, until an orb of swirling white light appeared in Phoenix’s hand.

“This is what constace looks like,” she said.

Elwood staggered back, his mind searching for an explanation. A dream, he thought simply. I’m dreaming. That seemed to be enough for him to concentrate on Phoenix’s words.

“It’s the essence of deviation from reality.”

“Pardon?”

“I suppose it is hard for dinocts to understand. It’s the stuff that allows the world to break away from the laws of the universe. It’s akin to…magic.”

Elwood stood silently watching the swirling sparkling light. Suddenly, he felt something materialize in his pocket. Reaching into his jacket he pulled out a glowing pink flower. With his other hand, he pulled out another flower identical to the first. More and more flowers materialized. They overflowed in the pockets of his jacket, suddenly spilling onto the gravel of the parking lot. His dream was apparently getting stranger.

“This is an example of what constace does,” Phoenix said gesturing to the flowers “Haven’t you noticed anything peculiar about this town? About the people who live here?”

Elwood shook his head.

“This place, this town has been an active site of constace since the stone age. There’s so much of it here, we’re practically swimming in it. That’s why the people here are so strange, psychics, seers, phyllokinetics, they’re attracted to this place. That’s why nocturnes first settled here. There was so much constace to manipulate, it was a cake walk to create metaphysical ports,”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

Phoenix sighed. “Nocturnes. manipulate. constace. Constace. makes. things. weird. There’s. much. constace. here.”

Elwood nodded.

“But without nocturnes, constace does its own thing, especially in multitudes like this. That’s why strange things happen, like the frogs, and the glowing flowers piling at your feet.”

Elwood looked down at his feet again, where a small mountain of pink flowers was appearing.

“Lyra used to live here, and if she’s missing, and there are no nocturnes in this area…”

Phoenix trailed off for a second, contemplating.

“Mr. Evans…I think he might’ve been their guardian, and if he’s dead, we have a big problem.” 

Blog 4: Phoenix

There was someone trying to get into the building when Elwood was retreating to his room after a visit to the diner. Since it was late, Elwood half expected it to be his doom immersed in the darkness of a moonless night, mouth ajar with a toothpick between his canines, holding a shotgun with a death toll higher than the reaper himself. Instead, it was a young woman in a dark blue hoodie with red hair. Not the kind of natural red which looked a bit like ripe sun-kissed orange, but the red died on the flags that bore the Starry Plough. Surrounding the woman was an army of slimy green amphibians. She was buzzing one of the apartments when one of the croaking beasts hopped near one of her sneakers.

“...kick you straight to the moon if you don’t fuck off,” she mumbled.

The frog lazily closed its left eye and exploded its chest into a small bubble. This seemed to infuriate the woman who reared back her right leg preparing to punt the slimy thing down the street when Elwood dropped one of his books. The woman forgot herself and turned around to locate the source of the sound. Rage drained from her face, and a cold seriousness set upon it.

“Do you live here?” she asked.

Elwood nodded picking up his book.

 “I’m looking for Lyra Banks, is she here?”

“No, left a couple of days ago. She told me, if someone was looking for her, that they should talk to Mr. Evans,”

“Fine, where can I find him?”

“In the cemetery,”

The woman cursed under her breath running her hands through her red hair. As she did so, Elwood noticed a strange stark white constellation tattoo on her forearm, one of a different shape than Lyra’s but their likeness was uncanny.

“Why are you looking for Lyra?”

“She’s my…” the woman waved her hands in a circular motion trying to think of a word, suggesting their relationship was complicated “Whatever, why did Lyra talk to you? Who are you? How do you know her?”

“We’re old friends? I’m Elwood Clark,”

“Clark…Was your mother Ursa Clark?”

“Yes…” he said.  

The woman’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“A blank,” she mumbled “How remarkable.”

“Pardon?”

 “I’m Pheonix, Orthros tribe, circumpolar nocturne,” she said.

“I’m sorry, what?”

 “We have much to discuss,”