Callahan: A Gothic Tale

Ocean Bar 1988

29 Ocean Bar 1988

"It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving..." -F. Scott Fitzgerald

Flashback, 9 pm, November 2017, Vaughn Residence

There was nothing for her here, Macy realized, as she boxed up the last of her late father's clothes to donate to Goodwill. Dexter hadn't been a man of many possessions, choosing instead to invest in the stock market, setting up mutual funds for his daughter and funding her college education in full, fulfilling a promise he'd made to her as a child.

She had no tears left to cry.

Like he'd said, she shouldn't be a layabout. It was time to move on.

On a whim, searching through Facebook, she recalled a guy her age...what was his name again? Oh yeah. Galvin. Apparently, he lived in Hilltowne—the locale she was traveling to in just a few short days. A nice-enough person, who she'd met during a postdoctoral business trip-turned-bar crawl, before he moved (because he was always moving). Numbers were exchanged, but nothing more.

Fingers shaking, she pulled out her phone and began dialing.

"Hi," her voice trembled at the tone of the voicemail. "I don't know if you remember me, but my name's Macy, I'm moving to Hilltowne, and I could really use a friend."

9 am, Two Mornings Later, Early November 1994, Biochemistry Laboratory

Sample A: 0% agar/100% pumpkin jam—result: Scythe remnant consumed, mess-free

Sample B: 25% agar/75% pumpkin jam—result: ditto, slight smoldering, 1x1x1 cm across

Pumpkin jam, 1 tiny drop of agar essence...and feverfew. Her digits brushed the top of her workstation shelf where she'd put the feverfew jar the afternoon before, but it had vanished. Frowning, she shed her ballet flats, standing atop her rotating stool as she leaned an arm precariously on the metallic shelving above. No dice. What the—? It seemed as though things had gone—Macy paused. Missing? Not exactly. Just—moved. Not in the same place as before. Popping up in areas unexpected, like behind the distilled water soap dish. Or crammed between the window slats. Or in the cornertops of the blinds.

Knowing she hadn't imbibed anything remotely alcoholic or otherwise haze-inducing, she understood there was a fairly simple explanation for the goings-on. Cora. Moving things in the late night hours, no doubt, transforming herself into a raven and wreaking havoc on her workstation—

"Something wrong, Macy?" she gave a start, hearing a familiar saccharine voice.

"N-no. Nothing's wrong," Macy muttered, striding past Cora to the apothecary shelves, no doubt hiding the feverfew she so desperately needed to defeat Scythe.

10 am, Early November 1994, Biochemistry Laboratory

After Cora stepped out for her second coffee break, Macy reached within her purse to text Mel.

1. How's the vector going? 2. Can you buy me a bug?

A couple minutes later, her phone buzzed. Mel.

1. Sticky. Spongy. Will have something in the purse by end of week. 2. Like, a bug, 'bug?'

Macy grimaced at the first point. If she were to design a weapon against Scythe, she also needed a vector—a gel capsule tablet of some sort—to ingest a bit herself, as a proto-vaccine. Said capsule was supposed to be going "smoothly, efficiently," not "sticky and spongy." She began typing her reply.

As in 'hidden camera' bug, Mel. Cora's been hiding my ingredients (again).

Her phone vibrated once more. Can't you file a complaint and have her fired? Initiate a lawsuit?