WARNING: This week’s picture contains a word that most people consider to be inappropriate, so I have hidden it behind this tag.  If you feel that your eyes would be soiled by seeing this word, you may continue to read the accompanying story without examining it.  However, I cannot guarantee that you will get the same enjoyment if you do not look at the picture.

Consequences be damned! ▼

“Hey, do you see anyone?”

“No, man, the coast is clear.  Do it!”

“Alright, I’m doing it!”

“Yeah!”

Abigail looked up.  She had been walking along the path of ceremonial gates for an uncertain amount of time, though she was pretty sure that it had either been about fifteen minutes or a week and a half.  The eerie silence was definitely getting to her, but, since she was totally lost, she had no choice but to keep trudging forward, hoping to run into her brother . . . or anything at all, for that matter.  Throughout this time she had been hearing voices, but these ones sounded different.  The voices did not belong to Theo (not that he wasn’t perfectly capable of having a conversation with himself), but they did seem to be coming from a distance, unlike the discomforting whisperings that had been floating in her head.

She spotted two figures a ways ahead of her.  They were crouched down on the side of the path, busy doing something.  Even from that far away she could hear a fair amount of snickering.  Her brain, however, only took the time to process these facts later on.  The moment she saw them, all she thought was that this was a chance to see a non-vulpine face for the first time in far too long.

“Hey!” Abigail cried out desperately as she began to dash toward the two unknown figures.  They appeared not to hear her, and a few seconds after she started to run they sped away at a fast walk.  Having longer legs than her, they were quickly able to put some distance between them, and Abigail was too tired to keep up her pace anyway.  She stopped to catch her breath right around the spot where the two mysterious figures had been crouching when she first spied them.

After a few moments of panting she happened to glance down at the post she was leaning on.  Abigail scowled in disgust.  She now understood why the two boys (once she saw their handiwork, she could only think of them as boys) had taken off so fast, and she no longer felt disappointed about not having been able to catch up with them.  Abigail was not opposed to graffiti per se.  In some forms it could almost be considered a legitimate art form, and there were certainly some “canvases” that could only be improved by a little more paint.  On the other hand, a lot of it was childish and vulgar, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and was written in a place that, to some people at least, was considered sacred.  It was this kind that always drove her crazy.

This time, however, her anger was on more levels than usual.  It was just so unfair.  She had been banished to wander the silent, orange tunnels alone for an approximate eternity, just for suggesting that she did not completely believe in the existence of the Fox God.  These delinquents, on the other hand, who thought they were so cool, were going to get away with defacing its shrine, laughing all the while.  Where was the justice?

“So do something about it,” a voice in her head suggested.

And, without giving the idea a whole lot of thought, Abigail decided to do something about it.  Had she finally snapped under the pressure of the shady green silence of the endless forest?  Possibly.  All she knew was that she was mad as hell, and she was not going to take it anymore.

“Hey!” she shouted again, in a tone thoroughly different from the one she had used before.  After their initial sprint the two boys had slowed down, which allowed Abigail to catch up with them fairly quickly.

The two boys turned around when they heard her dashing up the path, and they looked down at her, confused.  “Are you lost or something?” one of them asked.

“Yes,” she replied hastily, “but that’s not the point.”  She glared up at them.  “Are you going to apologize?” she asked sharply.

They frowned.  “For what?” one asked.

Abigail’s eyes glinted.  “You know what.”

The two boys looked at each other and shrugged.  “Dude, let’s just keep going,” one said, and they turned away.

“It’s not me you should be apologizing to!” she called after them.

They turned back.  There was a hint of fear in their eyes.  “What?”

She took a deep breath, unable to believe she was actually going to say it.  “This is the Fox God’s shrine,” she declared solemnly.  “You have offended him by defiling his home.”

One of the boys swore.  The other chuckled.  “Whatever,” he said.  “I thought you were going to tell the park ranger or whatever they have around here.”

“The Fox God is a trickster,” Abigail continued, struggling to keep a straight face, “and he doesn’t like tourists to begin with.  What do you think he’s going to do to you when he sees what you’ve done?”  She wished Theo was there.  He was much better at this kind of thing.  “Many people have gone missing on this mountain over the years, never to be seen again.”

They were no longer laughing.  “Oh yeah?  What’s he going to do?”

“Anything he wants,” she said casually.  “He can deal with a couple of punks like you as easily as breathing.”

At that moment a gust of wind rushed through the tunnel.  It was unusually warm for the cool, shady forest, and it felt surprisingly damp, almost as if it had been exhaled from a giant mouth.  Still, it was not nearly as unsettling as the noise that accompanied it, which, to someone in the right state of mind, sounded distinctly like high-pitched, inhuman laughter.

The boys never stood a chance.  They took off immediately, screaming curses at the top of their lungs.  Despite the fact that she was now alone again, Abigail felt strangely satisfied, even after she thought she heard a voice in the breeze whisper, “Thanks.”

“Theo!”

Theodore looked up at his sister.  He did not appear relieved in any way, as if he had failed to realize that they had been separated for hours, possibly never to see each other again.  It figured.  Abigail had been wandering through the woods, hearing voices and narrowly avoiding fights with miscreants, and all that time her brother had just been standing there serenely, staring at . . . a bunch of paper cranes?  She was going to berate him for his lack of concern, but as she approached she couldn’t help but get drawn in as well.

“Wow,” she said softly, her eyes drifting up and down the long rainbow line of tiny folded birds.  “I’ve never seen so many of these before.  There must be thousands of them!”

“There are exactly fifty-two thousand three hundred thirty-seven,” her brother responded promptly.  “I counted.”

Abigail rolled her eyes.  If he had been standing there long enough to individually count over fifty thousand cranes, then the mountain shrine was not only a Bermuda Triangle but a time warp as well.  The number didn’t even make sense.  As far as she had ever heard, you only got something for making a thousand cranes, so what would be the point of hanging up three hundred thirty-seven of them?

“Do you suppose these were all made by the same person?” she asked suddenly.

Theodore’s brow furrowed.  “It seems unlikely,” he said, either thinking hard or pretending to think hard.  “Given that the world record speed for folding one hundred cranes is just over seventy-eight minutes, these cranes represent a sum total of thirty-two days of crane folding at the very least.  That’s without any breaks for eating, sleeping, or going to the bathroom, of course.”  He turned toward his sister.  “Why do you ask?”

“Well . . .,” she began hesitantly.  The idea was utter nonsense, but there comes a time in any dire situation when a person is desperate enough to try anything, no matter how ridiculous.  “You know how they say that if you have a thousand cranes you get to make a wish?  That’s fifty-two wishes up there, and . . . I mean, what person could possibly need to make fifty-two wishes?  So, I was just thinking we could maybe, you know, borrow one.  So that we can get out of here.”  Her voice slowly trailed off throughout the entire speech, meaning that it was extremely unlikely that anyone was able to hear the last fragment.  Anyone human, anyway.

Theodore frowned.  “I don’t think it works that way,” he said.  “I believe that the power is imparted into the cranes through the act of folding, not simply by possessing them.  I doubt that the Gods would want to reward someone who simply came along and stole someone else’s hours of hard work just so she could reap all the benefits.”

Abigail wanted to shout that it didn’t really work the other way either, and that the whole concept of granting wishes was preposterous, but instead she just fumed, angry at herself for even having suggested such foolishness.  She had only said it because she wanted to get out and go home so very badly.  Abigail was starving, her legs were starting to twitch uncontrollably from having walked so much, and the sun would be going down soon, unless time really had stopped while they were inside the shrine.  This idea seemed significantly less impossible after having walked through the endless tunnel of gates, surrounded by the forest that had been, with a few notable exceptions, completely silent.  Her watch was still going, but she supposed that that could just be a trick to get her to think that everything was normal when in fact it was most definitely not.

“Okay,” she said, once fuming time was over.  “Do you have a better idea of how we can find our way out of this place?”

Her brother shrugged.  “It could be difficult,” he said, still without even a hint of worry.  “I lost my map a long time ago.  It was snatched from my very hand by the breath of—”

“Of the Fox God,” Abigail interrupted.  “Yes, I remember.”  She wished she could forget.  “Have you seen anyone around here that we might be able to ask?”  Abigail knew that asking for directions in a foreign country, especially directions as complicated as the ones leading out of the shrine would surely have to be, was generally a long, awkward, fruitless process, but she was still willing to try anything at that point.

He shook his head.  “I have seen no one and heard no one.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.  The only people she had run across since they split up had not seemed like the type to know their way around the place, and she doubted very much that she would run into them again anyway.  “So, since no better options have presented themselves, we’re going to use . . . use the power of the cranes,” she finished lamely, unable to believe that she was actually saying this.

“I still don’t think it will work,” her brother said.

“Really?” she asked, annoyed.  “You of all people are going to be skeptical?”

“Using the wishing cranes for purposes other than their original intended one could result in serious consequences.”

“Well we’re doing it anyway,” Abigail declared with surprising firmness.  “Make a wish.”  She faced the cranes, closed her eyes, and wished that they would be able to find their way back to their hotel.  Then, just to be safe, she clicked her heels three times and whispered, “There’s no place like home.”

“So do you really believe that this is going to work?” Theodore asked a few moments later.

Abigail opened her eyes.  She hesitated over his used of the word “believe.”  “All I know is the Fox God owes me one,” she said.  She turned around, picked a path, and walked toward it with her best attempt at confidence.

It was a beautiful spring day.  The sun was bright, and not a single cloud marred the brilliant blue sky.  The temperature was in that perfect range where you can comfortably wear a t-shirt and sit in the sun without having to worry about getting too hot.  Abigail thought that sitting outside next to a river or in a park would be the best way to spend the day.  Unfortunately, that was not why they were there.  They had not traveled thousands of miles to just sit around and enjoy the weather.  They could do that anywhere.  They were there to experience culture.  That’s what Theo insisted, anyway.  Thus they ended up at yet another shrine.

“So what’s this place about?” asked Abigail.  She was not quite as bitter as she had expected to be.  Sure, she had sulked through most of the train ride, but once they actually arrived it didn’t seem so bad.  She would have preferred to be out in the sun, but a walk through the woods of the shrine was pretty good, as second choices go.

Theodore pulled out a guide pamphlet.  He always had one, though Abigail never noticed him picking them up.  “This,” he announced, after flipping through the pages, “is a shrine to the Fox God.”

“Hmm,” she said.  Abigail’s attraction to shrines and temples was in their architecture and their natural surroundings.  She was not especially interested in the gods or spirits or other mythological figures that were being honored there.

Her brother, of course, was very interested in these things, so he continued to read.  “The Fox God has been worshipped as a deity of fertility, rice, agriculture, industry, and worldly success,” he said.  He looked up from the pamphlet and glanced around.  “Ah, I think that’s a statue of him over there,” he said, pointing.  Then he frowned.  “Or maybe it’s a ‘her.’”  He turned back to the pamphlet and flipped through all the pages again.  “It’s not clear.”

“I guess we’ll have to check the statue,” Abigail joked as they walked toward it.  She certainly hoped that it would not portray the vulpine anatomy in enough detail for them to be able to determine gender, though she realized that this was not out of the question.

Theodore ignored her comment and continued reading.  “However, the Fox God is best known for being a trickster.”

“Huh,” Abigail said.  “I guess it’s not that different from Western mythology.”

“Yes!” her brother declared excitedly.  “Just look at his . . . or her face!  Can’t you see the effortless cunning and guile evident there?”

Abigail looked up at the statue.  “Actually, it mostly just looks angry,” she said.  “Like it’s going to spit that scroll at me in disgust or something.  What’s that scroll for, anyway?  And that bib?  Does it say in your guide?”

But Theodore had more important things to discuss than scrolls and bibs.  “Oh, of course the Fox God is angry!” he said dramatically.  If Abigail had been looking at him and not studying the statue, she would have noticed that he was no longer reading from the pamphlet.  “Why shouldn’t he . . . or she be, with these foreign devils trespassing on his or her land?”

“Foreign devils?” she asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow as she turned away from the statue to face her brother.

“Yes!” he said again, quickly raising the guide back to his face.  “It says here that over the years the Fox God has caused dozens of unsuspecting foreign tourists to disappear at this very shrine.  It calls it the ‘Japanese Bermuda Triangle.’”

“Uh-huh.  How do you even get lost at a shrine, anyway?”

“The paths lead up the mountain for miles and miles,” Theodore explained ominously.  “The dense forest cuts off all sense you had of the outside world.  When you’re alone out there, it’s very easy for the wily Fox God to lure you off the beaten path.  Can’t you imagine him or her out there, whispering gently into the ears of those who do not know better, causing them to go astray, secretly laughing all the while?”

Abigail pictured not a spectral fox spirit but an old man with a bed sheet, an ancient projector, and a kazoo, mumbling something about how he would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids.  “That doesn’t make any sense,” she argued back.  She normally wouldn’t have bothered, but this Fox God business was just so ridiculous.  “You said it’s a ‘god’ of industry and worldly success, right?  Why would it want to scare off tourists?  I’m sure that’s how this place makes most of its money.  Does the ‘Fox God’ want to go broke?” she asked with a smirk.

Theodore looked down at her seriously.  “It is beyond the capability of mere humans to understand how the mind of the Fox God works.”

“No,” she countered, starting to feel a little irritated, “humans know exactly how the mind of the ‘Fox God’ works, because humans invented it!  All this stuff is made up.  I mean, I could make up another ‘god’ right now: the . . . ‘Weasel God.’  It’s worshipped as a deity of mockery and criticism.”

“Such blasphemy is not wise, especially while we are within the bounds of the Fox God’s shrine!  Do you want to get lost forever?”  He did not seem nearly as concerned as he should have been, though, seeing as it was Theo, Abigail figured that he would probably enjoy being lost in the woods forever.  He’d think it was an adventure.

“Whatever,” she grumbled.  “I’m not afraid of any Fox God.”

“You will be.”  At first Abigail assumed that it was her brother who had said this, but when she looked up she saw that he was already heading off in the direction of one of the paths where he had just said tourists had a tendency to disappear mysteriously.  No one else was around.  “You will be.”

“Choose wisely.”

Abigail turned around.  “Did you say something, Theo?” she asked, her voice betraying a bit more than a hint of nervousness.  Her brother, however, was standing off in a corner, closely examining yet another statue of the Fox God.  He would have had to shout in order for her to hear him, and the voice had sounded much closer, much more intimate than that.  It must have just been in her head.  Or it could have been . . . no, Abigail decided firmly, it was just her brain playing tricks on her.

“Hey Theo!” she repeated more loudly.  “Come over here!”  While her brother approached she examined the two paths before her.  She had, of course, seen the ceremonial gates before at every single shrine they visited (which meant that she had seen dozens, if not hundreds of them), but she had never encountered so many in one place.  What did it mean?  Why were they split into two tunnel-like paths?  And, most importantly, how could they tell which one to take?

“So which of these two paths do you think we should follow?” she asked when he arrived next to her.

Theodore began his usual thorough inspection.  Abigail often wondered if he was really studying anything when he did this, or if he was merely buying time in which to develop the latest most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.

This time, though, after the investigation he returned not with a dramatic statement but with a question: “Where do you want to go?”

“Just to see more of the shrine, I guess.  Let me see that guide pamphlet.  Maybe there’s a map in there.”

“Ah, I lost the pamphlet a while ago,” he said, without any of the irritation that Abigail would have expected from a normal person.  He sounded intrigued, if anything.

“What?” she asked, fully displaying the annoyance that was appropriate to the situation.

“A sudden gust of wind snatched it from my hand,” he explained wistfully.  “The breath of the Fox God, you might say.”

Abigail refused to dignify this with a response.  At least, she refused to dignify it with a response that in any way acknowledged the possibility that there was a Fox God, that he had breath, and that he used it to harass tourists by blowing their maps away.  “Well, let’s just pick whichever one is shorter,” she said.  She tried to peer around the tunnels to see which one looked more like an inside track, but the forest surrounding them was too dense.

Theodore shook his head.  “I can see only one solution to this problem.”

Here we go, Abigail thought.  “Yes?” she asked, bracing for impact.

“There are two paths, and there are two of us,” he stated simply.

“No,” Abigail replied almost immediately.  This was her default mental reflex to any of Theo’s suggestions, but she rarely put it into words so quickly or bluntly.  “These two tunnels could lead anywhere.  What if we come out the other end and we’re nowhere near each other?  It could take hours to meet up again!”  “Or days, or weeks, or years,” the mysterious voice whispered into her brain.

“But wouldn’t it haunt you, taking the one path and never knowing where the other led?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then I can still see only one solution.”  Theodore placed himself directly in front of the two entrances and raised his arms.  Then he lowered one and pointed at the right-hand gate with the other.  “Eeny, meeny, miney, moe,” he said quite seriously.  After performing the entire rhyme he held his finger in the air significantly for a few seconds and then announced, “Take the left gate.”

“Works for me,” said Abigail.  Glad to put that decision behind her, she quickly proceeded down the left-hand path.

Once inside the tunnel, however, she began to wish that she was still outside.  It was much darker and quieter than she had expected, giving her the impression that she was the only person on Earth, or at the very least the only visitor to the shrine that day, which meant that she was receiving the full attention of the Fox . . . Abigail put such preposterous ideas out of her head.  She knew that the tunnel of gates did not actually have her trapped; there were gaps between them through which she could easily extend her arm and, if it became necessary, squeeze her entire body.  The abnormal darkness and quiet was caused by the thick forest, not by anything supernatural.

As she continued to walk down the path and the minutes ticked by, she had no choice but to wonder if they had made the wrong decision.  She really wished that she could read the writing on the walls (she knew that they weren’t actually walls, at least not physically), because there was so much of it that she was sure there had to be something that would indicate where she was going.  “Hey Theo,” she asked eventually.  “Are you sure we shouldn’t have gone the other way?”

When she got no answer, she turned around.  Her brother was nowhere to be seen.  That explained why she hadn’t even been able to hear his footsteps in the eerie silence of the orange tunnel.  She knew what had happened the moment she realized he was gone.  Theo had tricked her into taking the left tunnel so that he could explore the right one.

“Theo!” she shouted.  “Theo!”  No answer.  Peering between the gates, she could see that the other path was still right alongside, at least for the moment.  She began to run, hoping that she could catch up with him before his path split off, but the terrain became very hilly, and she had to slow to a walk.

“You have chosen . . . poorly.”

She did not even bother to ask if it was her brother that time.  “Shut up, you,” she said as she proceeded along the seemingly endless tunnel.

The rain was coming down in sheets, and the wind was almost blowing fiercely enough to knock people down.  The newspaper had said that the typhoon would go around the city, but to Abigail it felt like it was coming straight through.  She was already soaked and wanted to get back to the hotel as quickly as possible.  This was why she was not at all surprised when, less than a minute after leaving the cover of the subway station, her brother came to a complete halt in the middle of the sidewalk.  “I can’t get past this,” he said.

“What?” she shouted back.  Unlike usual, her request for clarification was not because she had not understood him but because the rain was so loud she had not heard his words.

“I can’t get past it!” he shouted back, indicating the bizarre system of curved metal railings in front of him.

“Sure you can!  Just walk around it!  That’s what I did!”  At least, that’s what she thought she had done.  She had been in such a hurry that she had not even noticed the contraption when she passed and was halfway out into the street before Theo spoke.  Abigail quickly ran back to the curb while the light was still green, stepping in an ankle-deep puddle and splashing water all the way up to her face.

Theodore looked at her with scorn.  “I don’t mean physically,” he said, lowering his voice to a mere half-shout now that she was standing next to him.  “I can’t get over its existence.  What is this device?  What is its purpose?  What does it do?”

“I don’t suppose we could discuss this later,” Abigail grumbled.

“I cannot proceed until I know,” he said, shaking his head.

She sighed and turned her head skyward, forgetting that it was still pelting rain.  Wiping the water off her face, she resignedly asked, “Well, what does it look like it does?”

He stepped past her and seized the railing tightly with both hands.  “Visual appearance is not the only important feature,” he said.  “The feel, the smell, and the sound can all be key factors as well,” he added, giving it a solid kick to listen to the dull, metallic ring.  For a moment Abigail was worried that he would lick it, too, to examine the taste, but fortunately he managed to restrain himself.

“It seems to be intended to manage the traffic on the sidewalk in some way,” he said after a thorough (thoroughly drenching, from Abigail’s point of view) examination.  “Not to stop it, as one can still get through the curved path, like so,” he clarified, drawing a backwards S with his finger, “but to slow it down before it reaches the intersection.”

“Maybe it’s there to force bicycles to slow down,” Abigail suggested.  She didn’t really care one bit about the device’s purpose, but she knew that she would never get Theo away from there unless she at least tried to take the matter seriously.  “They probably don’t want them racing out into the middle of the street.”

“Impossible,” Theodore said, shaking his head vigorously.  His sister would have been annoyed about the hundreds of water droplets this sent flying in her direction if there hadn’t already been billions of water droplets falling from the sky.  “No bicycle could manage such a sharp curve over such a short distance.  It’s physically impossible.”

“I don’t know,” she replied.  “Have you seen some of the bikers around here?”  Abigail could have sworn she saw one the other day negotiating an alleyway that was about half the size of a residential street back home, cutting between one parked car and one moving car.  And the person had been holding a TV at the time.

Theodore measured the width of the entryway with his hands.  “No,” he insisted.  “This is definitely for pedestrian use.”

This explanation made no sense to Abigail.  What was the point of building a device like this to slow down pedestrians?  Was the city really concerned that people would be walking along the sidewalk so quickly that they would forget to stop themselves before they stumbled out into the street?  “Are you sure?” she asked.  “Maybe it was supposed to be for bicycles but they built it wrong.”

“But look!” he cried, pointing across the street.  “There’s another one exactly like it over there!  Are you suggesting they made the exact same mistake twice?”

“It could have been a mistake in the blueprints or something,” Abigail muttered.

“We may be thinking about this in entirely the wrong way,” Theodore said.  “We’ve been assuming that this device was placed here to be helpful, but what if it’s not?  What if it’s simply here to prove a point?”

“And that point is: ‘We have a bunch of extra C-shaped bars and we don’t know what to do with them?’” Abigail suggested sarcastically.

“The point is control,” he explained.  “If they can make people walk through this, even though there’s no benefit or reason for it whatsoever, then they prove how obedient the people are.  It’s like herding sheep, or making animals jump through hoops.  Supreme control,” he finished, glancing back at the shiny metal contraption.  “Unless . . .”

“No,” Abigail snapped.  “No ‘unless.’”  She had reached the point where she was not sure she would ever be dry again.  “Sometimes you just have to accept that you don’t understand why things are what they are.  I’m soaked to the bone, and I honestly wouldn’t care if this stupid thing was part of some government plot to brainwash the entire world.  We’re leaving.”

Theodore nodded glumly and followed her around the mysterious curves of the metal apparatus.  As they crossed the street he looked back.  A pedestrian walked up and began to twist through the enclosure.  “No!  Fight the power!” Theodore shouted, so excitedly that his sister had to grab his arm to keep him from tripping over the identical device on the opposite side.

“It’s a summoning circle!”

As usual, Abigail had so many questions that she did not know where to start, so she went with her traditional, “What?”

“Right here!” Theodore shouted, pointing to a design on the ground.  “It must be a summoning circle!”

Abigail looked down at her feet to humor her brother.  She saw an ornamental geometric design in the stone just outside the entrance to the temple.  She did not see a summoning circle, though to be fair she had no idea what one was supposed to look like.  “What’s a summoning circle?” she asked.

Theodore groaned.  He had trouble understanding how his own sister could fail to be familiar with such a basic concept.  “It’s a runic diagram,” he explained, “used to aid in the summoning of a spirit, demon, monster, or other powerful entity.”

“They don’t look like runes,” she said, glancing casually back down at the pattern.

“They don’t have to be runes,” he responded, exasperated.  “Geometric designs can be just as effective, depending on the situation.”

“Huh,” said Abigail.  She squatted down to look more closely at the carvings in the stone.  They did not appear especially magical to her.  “So how does it work?” she asked.  She knew that she shouldn’t encourage him, but she was bored, and she did not see how he could really cause any trouble.  Unlike most of the places they had visited, this particular temple complex was all but deserted.

“Well, the summoner—or summoners, as the case may be—stands at the edge of the circle and focuses all of his energy toward the center.”  He began to pace slowly around the circumference, pausing occasionally to study the pattern.

“And then you all join hands and sing a song, right?” she asked, but by that point Theo was too absorbed to hear her.  Abigail started to walk as well, not around the circle but away from it.  She looked up toward the top of the mountain and then out at the grayish-green shapes that formed the rest of the range.  The temple’s remote location was, she assumed, the main reason it had not become a tourist trap like everything else, but she savored the remoteness.  It was nice to be able to enjoy some peace and quiet for a change.

Of course, peace and quiet are two things that tend to disappear the moment you realize they’re there.

“. . . but we really won’t be able to find out anything for sure until we try it,” she heard her brother say.

Abigail turned away from the breathtaking mountain scenery to see that Theo was sprawled out on his back in the middle of the circle.  His hands and feet almost reached the edges.  “So you’re sure this thing is a . . . summoning circle?” she asked.  She did not bother trying to prevent him from trying whatever it was he intended to try.  What could happen?

“It has to be!” he declared, picking himself up and standing back outside the circle’s rim.  “We’re right outside the entrance to an ancient, abandoned temple!  How could it be anything else?”

“I think it’s more unpopular than actually abandoned.”  She did not know whether the temple was ancient or not, because she had forgotten to check.  Some of them were, some of them weren’t, and some of them said they were even though they had burned down and been completely rebuilt several times over the centuries.  “So what are we supposed to do?” she asked.  Sure, scenery and solitude were nice, but in actuality she was really, really bored.

“You stand there,” he instructed, indicating a spot on the circle opposite from him.  “Now we need to chant something.”

“Like what?”

“Hmm . . . what’s the name of this temple?”

“I forgot to check before we left,” Abigail admitted, a little bit embarrassed at her carelessness.  Checking in the temple itself was impossible, as both of them were still unable to read any signs.

“Then . . . do you know any Latin?” he suggested.

“I know fake Latin.”

“Hmm.”  Theodore stared down at the circle again.  “Actually, I think we may need another person for this,” he said after a few moments’ further study.  “The predominance of triangles in the design suggests to me that the circle was intended for use by three summoners.”

“I guess you’re out of luck, then, because I haven’t seen anyone else on this mountain besides us since . . . oh come on!” Abigail grumbled angrily as she saw a lone figure walking up the path toward them.

Theodore’s face brightened and he quickly dashed over to talk to the woman before his sister could stop him.  “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said politely.  “I was wondering if you could help us with an experiment.”

Abigail’s faint hope that the tourist would be unable to understand him disappeared when the woman answered, “What sort of experiment?” in a typical English accent.

“Well, you see, we’re trying to figure out if that summoning circle over there still works, or if its powers have faded over the centuries along with the temple.”

Abigail groaned and rolled her eyes.  The woman leaned to the side to look at the pattern, and then she turned back to Theodore.  “It works,” she declared matter-of-factly.

“How do you know?” Theodore asked curiously.

“You’ve summoned me, haven’t you?” the woman explained.  Then, without another word, she proceeded into the temple.

A silence settled over the forest clearing.  About a minute later it was broken by Theodore.  “Of course!  The three points of the triangle don’t represent three summoners, they represent two summoners and one summonee!  Why didn’t I think of that?”

As her brother squatted down to stare at the circle, Abigail walked back to where she had been observing the mountain range.  The mountains, at least, had stayed where they were supposed to be, rather than appearing and disappearing to follow the whims of a crazy person.

“You know,” Abigail said as she weaved her way through the bodies, “this place is actually pretty cool.  Once you get past the sheer quantity of tourists, that is.  Oww!”  She suddenly stopped and began hopping in place, cradling her throbbing foot in her hand.  “What was that?”

The tourist tide in their immediate area began its ebb, and a few moments later the crowd parted enough for her to notice the large rock against which she had just stubbed her toe.  It came up to about the level of her knee and was decorated with a rope and paper squares, like just about everything else at the shrine.  There was also a large sign that presumably attempted to explain why someone had thought it was a good idea to leave such a big rock in the middle of everything where someone could easily trip over it, but of course Abigail hadn’t the first clue how to read it.

Before she had a chance to repeat her angry question, Theodore materialized at her side, already flipping through the English-language version of the explanatory pamphlet.  “This is the Love Fortune-Telling Rock,” he announced after a brief search.

“You’re making that up,” said Abigail.

“I am not,” he countered, making sure to hold the pamphlet high enough that she could not snatch it away from him.  He held it in such a way that the brightly-colored pages covered his face, but it did not matter.  Abigail knew that Theo spent so much time making things up that his face remained straight (as straight as it ever got, anyway) whether he was lying or telling the truth.

“The Love Fortune-Telling Rock . . . ah, excuse me, Love Fortune-Telling Rocks are part of an important tradition here at the shrine,” he continued.  “If one can successfully walk from this rock to the other, then that person shall be granted good luck in all the affairs of the heart.”

“What other rock?” she asked, looking around.  Eventually she spied it through the swaying forest of shifting legs.  Another miniature boulder of similar size and shape had been placed on the ground approximately ten yards away.  “So that’s it?” she asked skeptically, peering at the glimpses of gray that flashed between the mostly pale white calves of the other visitors to the shrine.  “Seems like a pretty easy way to get lucky.  I mean, get good luck,” she corrected, though since they were talking about luck in love she realized that they were essentially the same thing.

Theodore consulted the guide again.  “Ah.  It says here that the participant must either be blindfolded or have his or her eyes closed in order to complete the ritual.”

“That’s crazy!  Look at this place!” Abigail said, sweeping out her arm to indicate the area around them.  The only reason she had enough space to perform the gesture was that it had not yet grown so crowded that people had to stand on top of the Love Rock to fit in the shrine.  The tourist tide had flowed back in, making the short journey to the second Love Rock, which was no longer visible, appear to be near impossible even with one’s eyes open.  “Try to do that walk with your eyes closed and all these people swarming around?  You’d get knocked flat on your back before you even took two steps!  Probably get trampled to death, too.”

“Love is blind,” said Theodore.

“Uh-huh,” Abigail replied.  She firmly believed that Theo knew as much about being in love as he did about being blind.  Totally blind, that is.  He was practically a world champion at the selective kind.

“Perhaps being willing to undergo the dangerous trek is a sign of total devotion to one’s lover,” Theodore suggested.

“If you’ve already got the lover, what do you need the luck for?” Abigail muttered bitterly.

Theodore could not possibly have heard her in the commotion of the crowd, but he continued, “Or maybe it is a symbol of one’s willingness to sacrifice to the gods that inhabit the shrine.  They are the ones granting you the good fortune, after all.”

“Uh-huh.”  Abigail was not particularly interested in sacrificing to the shrine gods right at that moment.  “We should go,” she announced suddenly.  “All these people are making me feel a little claustrophobic.”

“So you’re not going to do it?” he asked.

“No,” she replied as she searched for channels in the sea of humanity that surrounded them.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” he said gravely.  “It also says here that people who touch the rock and then don’t attempt the trial are cursed with bad luck until the end of their days.”

Abigail grinned and turned back to face her brother.  “Now I know you’re making things up.  Give me that pamphlet.”

“I am merely reading what is written here,” he said, holding the brochure safely out of her reach.

She sighed and looked back down at the rock.  For no particular reason, she reached out to touch it.  The surface was very smooth, as if it had been stroked by hundreds of people who had hoped some luck might rub off on them.  It was also probably covered with hundreds of people’s worth of germs.  And at that moment she decided to try it.  She did not believe that completing the dangerous journey would really give her good luck.  She was not doing it “just in case,” either.  Abigail chose to try the Love Rock Challenge for the same reason that great men before her had chosen to climb Everest or fly solo across the Atlantic: because it is there.

Abigail placed her feet right up next to the Love Rock, fixed what little she could see of its partner in her gaze, closed her eyes, took a step out into the unknown . . .

. . . and was immediately struck in the face by the elbow of a tourist who was backing up to take a picture.

“I’m going to join them,” Theodore announced suddenly.

“You . . . what?” Abigail asked, lowering her camera.  “You’re going to join who?”

“Them,” he answered, pointing toward the group of men in front of them who were waiting patiently to proceed.

“You’re going to join the Funny Hat Brigade?” she asked skeptically.

“All it takes is a hat,” he declared solemnly.

“Uh-huh,” Abigail responded, rolling her eyes as she went back to taking pictures of other parts of the parade.  Then she stopped.  Theo liked to make proclamations like this, and most of the time he never acted on them, but every once in a while they were a prelude to his doing something insane that got them both into trouble.  Unfortunately, there was no way to tell which kind of statement it was beforehand, so if she wanted to avoid a disaster she had to treat them all as if they were serious.

“So how would you join them?” she asked, returning the camera to her pocket because she knew this was going to be a lengthier conversation than it really should be.  “Don’t you think they’ve spent weeks, maybe even months practicing for this?  You can’t just waltz in and take a spot in the parade.”

“All it takes is a hat,” Theodore repeated.

“But—”

“No.  Don’t you see?  Look at them.  There are people of all types in that column.  Young and old.  Short and tall.  Those with glasses and those without.  Only one tie binds this group: their costumes.  If I had a hat like that, along with the rest of the outfit, then I could be one of them.”

“They’re also all men,” Abigail muttered, but this would not be an obstacle for Theo.  And it wasn’t like she wanted to join the Funny Hat Brigade.  “So why do you want to join them, anyway?” she asked, growing more and more concerned that this would be one of his tangents that actually turned into reckless action.

“To see the world as they see it,” Theodore explained.

“I don’t think they see the world any differently than we do.”

Theodore gave his sister a look, as if to say that she was the most naïve person he had ever met.  Then he turned back to contemplate the column arrayed in front of him.  “Their eyes are shaded by the brims of their hats,” he said at last.

“You want shade?” Abigail asked.  “We can go stand under that tree right over there.”

“It would not be the same,” Theodore said, shaking his head sadly.

“It’s exactly the same!” she began to protest, but her brother was already stepping away from the line of spectators.  “Wait!  Stop!” she cried, causing Theo to halt and turn back toward her.  “How are you even planning to get a costume?” she tried desperately.

“I will wait for one of the men to leave the parade in order to go to the bathroom,” Theodore explained, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.  “Then, while he is unawares, I will use the element of surprise to knock him out and take his costume.”

“What?” Abigail asked.  She seriously wondered if he thought that the element of surprise alone was enough to knock a man out, or if he understood that his fists would also be required.  “That’s the stupidest . . . one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard!” she corrected, recalling some of their previous conversations.

Theodore shrugged.  “It always works in the movies.”

Before Abigail had a chance to explain that just because something works in the movies doesn’t mean it will in real life, or that that particular trick no longer worked every time even in films, one of the members of the Funny Hat Brigade abruptly left his line.  He had an expression on his face perfectly befitting a man who has been trying to hold it in but can take it no longer.  “Now’s my chance,” said Theodore, and he took off after the man, cutting through the crowd with surprising ease.

Abigail was unable to follow, being disadvantaged by the height difference between her and her brother, so she remained exactly where she was, hoping Theo would be able to find the spot again.  She tried to take a few pictures but wound up spending most of the time worrying about just how much trouble he could get into and growing more distressed with each answer she came up with.

A few minutes later, the man returned to his place in the line, followed shortly afterward by Theodore, who remained amongst the spectators.  Abigail was thoroughly relieved to see no signs that they had either fought or attempted to exchange clothes.  “So what happened?” she asked, natural curiosity overriding the desire to move on and forget the incident had ever happened.

“We talked,” he answered.  He sounded slightly disappointed, but mainly his tone was thoughtful.

“And?”

“He said I am not yet ready.”

“See?” she said, pulling out her camera again.  “I told you that you need practice to be in a parade.”

Theodore shook his head.  “It is not a matter of practice,” he explained.  “It is simply a matter of being ready.  He said that any man can put on the hat, but there are few who can truly wear it.”

The camera descended once more.  “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Abigail said.

“He said he could see it in my eyes,” her brother continued, talking more to himself than to her.  “That someday I would be ready.”

“You’re making all this up,” she said, deciding that at this point it was best to just ignore him.

“Someday I will wear that hat, and I will see the world through their eyes,” Theodore went on, no longer paying attention to his sister’s doubts, or the click of her camera, or the parade passing by in front of him.  “And I will be one of them.”

“Hello, woman with camera. I see you.

“Did you think that you were invisible? Did you honestly believe that some sort of mystical tourist shield would prevent my eyes from finding yours? If so, you thought wrong. You cannot hide behind your expensive digital camera, or your companion, or a tree. You are standing in broad daylight. And I see you.

“I know the real problem: you can’t see me. At least, not for whom I truly am. You look at me, you point me out to your gawking friends, you take pictures of me, but what you see is the parade. In your ignorance, you believe that I am nothing more than a part of that parade. You think that I am just a puppet, waiting to be pulled along with all the rest, just a robot, just a doll. But I am not. I am not just part of the scenery. I do not exist solely for your entertainment. I am a human being, just like you. Well, not exactly like you. There is one great difference between us: you cannot see me. But I can see you.

“Don’t look at my partner. Don’t compare me to him. We may be standing next to each other, wearing the same clothes, carrying the same instruments, but we are as unalike as night and day. He is just what you assume him to be. He is nothing more than a tiny cog in the vast mechanism that is this display. He is content to stare vapidly forward, taking no notice of his surroundings, interacting no more with the world than would a statue. But he is not me. Perhaps that is why you fail to see me. You equate us, believing that if one man standing in the middle of the street is a mindless drone, then all of them must be the same. I tell you now: this is a mistake. He will never glance in your direction. His neck may be fully capable of rotation, but his brain will never feel the need to make it do so. He does not see you, cannot see you. I can and do.

“And yet you do nothing, make no response. Is it possible that you can no more hear the words I am speaking to you than you can see the expression of purest disdain and loathing on my face? This must be the case, and I find that as I consider this situation, it is not so hard to believe. Why should you be any more capable of hearing than you are of seeing? I could strike you in the face and you would be no more aware of my existence as an individual than you are now. You would probably believe that it was all part of the show. You would feel the script, not my hand, my hand that I use for eating, and drinking, and reaching, striving. It is not just for holding a decorative staff. But you will never feel my hand, my hand which I am starting to think may be realer than you yourself. I could take my hand, seize you by your stupid nose, press my face into yours and scream, ‘LOOK AT ME!’ But you would not see me. You cannot see me. But I see you.

“If you were capable of conversing with a being that you can only perceive as an object, a performer, you might ask, ‘So what?’ For the sake of argument let us pretend that you can hear me, can speak to me, and you say, ‘Yes, you can see me. What now?’ What would you believe that I would do? What sort of response would you expect from a man about whom you are unable to know anything? Would you think that you see sadness, despair, apathy, boredom, anger, hatred, rage in my eyes? I will tell you what you would expect, if you were capable of anticipating anything other than simply standing there, taking picture after meaningless picture.

“You may not be able to see me, but I know you can see the swords I wear at my waist. You probably assume that they are fake, with no other purpose than to decorate my side. I assure you, they are not. They are real, realer than you. Even the ones my idiot companion carries are real, though he is no more capable of drawing them than he is of deviating from his set path. But I can draw them. I understand what a sword is. I understand what it is for. I must admit, I have considered using it on you. It would be quick, that I can assure you. The strike would be, I mean. The aftermath . . . could take longer. In those moments I would speak, and you would finally hear me. You might even see me. Would you be able to see me if I was drenched in your blood? Would you be able to see me if—”

“Oh my god,” said Abigail, lowering her camera. She turned away from the parade to face her brother. “Would you just shut up, Theo?”

Theodore did not turn to face his sister. He continued to stare at the spot where a man she had taken a picture of had stood several minutes before. “It’s what he was thinking,” he said, his voice hollow. “I could feel it.”

“Somehow, I don’t think so,” Abigail said, rolling her eyes. “He looked in our direction for, like, a split second. And even if he was looking down on us, I really don’t think he could have come up with anything half that creepy.” She shivered.

“How would you know?” Theodore asked. “You never saw him.”

Abigail sighed. “Sometimes you have to look at the big picture,” she tried to explain. Her brother continued to stare fixedly at the spot on the road. Abigail shook her head. “Just watch the parade,” she said wearily.