>[1] Write-in

  You stare vigorously at the top of the building and wait. Nothing in particular happens.

  Richard scratches his chin in your peripheral vision. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm trying to fly up there." You frown intently. "Obviously."

  "You look like you're going to pop a blood vessel. Why don't you explain why you think that would work, and I'll explain why you're wrong?"

  You thought it was too obvious to have to explain. "I mean, logically, this isn't a place that exists. I haven't… I don't think I've moved, right? The physical me is still in the tent."

  "How perspicacious," he drawls. "None of that is wrong, yet."

  You power onwards. "So that means it's like… what's it called when you know you're dreaming? L-something. It's like that. Which means I can do whatever I want. Right?"

  "No." Ugh. You'd expected that. "You go deeper when you dream, and it's lighter-weight. And that's all in your head, too, so the rules are set on the fly. Manses? Very internally consistent, usually very reality-esque. You might not know it if you stumbled in by accident."

  You've kept your eyes open so long they're starting to water. Which has enabled you to notice some things. "Then why hasn't the building toppled?"

  There's no supports on it, not even an attempt at keeping it vertical. The bulk of it lists inexorably to the left, while an offshoot, like a drooping branch, leans right. The two sides are connected by fading green pennants. It looks unsafe to be within a hundred yards of, let alone inside.

  "Could be a universal exception within the manse. Quirk of the strings. Though I'm not certain how to test that."

  A smile creeps over your face. You pivot towards the seashore. "Got a spade?"

  "Like a playing card? I suppose, but…"

  "Like a shovel. But pointier, you know. Mother had a whole rack of them for her houseplants."

  "Isn't that interesting. Give me a second."

  "Yes! And I'd—" You wet your lips. "—I'd steal the biggest one, and sneak over to the artificial beach, and I'd make castles. I'd spend hours. If Aunt Ruby was busy, it wasn't as if anybody else noticed me missing."

  "I really could not care less about your issues with your family, Charlotte. Catch."

  You try and fail to catch the cast-iron hand spade that Richard throws you, though in your defense it was not a good throw. It clanks onto your foot. "Ow," you say, more out of annoyance than anything. "Why'd that hurt?"

  "Your mind expected it to."

  "Oh." You pick it up off the ground and test it in your hands. It's a hand spade, all right. Yup. (Are you supposed to know more? You're hardly an expert.) "Alright! I'm going to build a sand castle like that. If it stays up, I guess that's just how things work. If not… I don't know. That's weird. Okay?"

  He purses his lips. "Once you have an idea in your head, there's no stopping you."

  "Right!"

  Before you can build a sand castle, you're met with another challenge: the sand. It's coarse and angular, nothing like the ordinary kind you had at home. Worse, it gets coarser the closer it is to the water. You force Richard to produce a bucket so you can wet some very close to the cliffside.

  He shows you a handful of sand. "Does this look crystalline to you?"

  "I guess so," you say, one arm on your hips. "Will you give me the bucket? Did you really have to make the bucket of iron? I don't suppose you know it's meant to be carried—"

  "Shh. Do you see any texture to them?"

  "Do they look papery… no. Does it matter?"

  "Oh, maybe." He funnels the handful from his palm into a pant pocket, then grasps the bucket with two hands. The sun gleams wickedly off his glasses. "Catch."

  "Hey! …Oh.” He didn't throw it, you realize, as you peel yourself off the ground.

  Everything else goes smoothly, though you're forced to enlist Richard in hauling the bucket. He does it in one hand, just, you think, to show off.

  You build it precisely. To scale, even, though of course you'd need a closer look. Which is why you're surprised when it keeps crumbling to nothing.

  "Are we doing something wrong? Maybe it needs to be wetter."

  Richard's hands, like yours, are coated in black sand. He stands against the cliffside, out of the way of the latest collapse. "I think, maybe, it's just not supposed to exist. It's a crime against nature."

  You tend to agree, having spent 30 minutes trying to build it. "So you think it's not universal?"

  He smears his hands against the cliff. "Clearly not. Which is more interesting, I think, because it means special effort's been put into making it exist. More effort than I'd expect from a casual user. Are you quite done?"

  You've been making a proper castle out of the wet sand, a spade in each fist. (You're ambidextrous now. You weren't before last night. You wonder about Richard's definition of 'temporary'.) "Yes," you say.

  "Good. We should take the stairs— did you consider why the stairs existed, if it were possible to fly?"

  "Not really," you admit.

  "Quite."

  You leave the spades and bucket behind (assured they'll cease to be if you stop looking at them) and follow Richard up the stairs. "I was expecting, at best, someone quite ordinary in their frequency," he's saying. "Got in during the hype, used it quite a lot when it was popular, gradually tapered off. But that kind of person doesn't painstakingly dive in and alter a structure to make it tenable."

  "So what, you're saying he spends a lot of time…"

  "Yes. Even with an extended spanner, it still adds up to hours and hours spent— well, spent comatose, effectively. It would explain the isolation."

  "But why?"

  "Isn't that the question of the hour."

  The top of the cliff is furry with red fescue and feathergrass. You push some aside to search. "Could be a trapdoor," you explain. "I doubt we can just go in through the door."

  "I'm not sure about that." He taps the half-open door. "No need to chase rabbits, Charlie."

  You abandon the grass, brush your hands off on your coat, and duck into the tower.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Unexpectedly, the room you encounter… isn't bad. The wallpaper is suspect, to be sure, and the light fixture crosses the line from "avant-garde" to "ugly". But the unlit brick fireplace is quite nice, and the two armchairs are tasteful. And familiar. They're the armchair Ellery pulled up out of nowhere in his tent. Isn't that interesting?

  There's some papers pinned to the wall (of course), but it's not as bad as you expected. In the corner lies something vertical, covered by a sheet and tied with cord. A clock? A thin bookshelf?

  A wooden door lies to the left, and another to the right.

  You touch the top of the doorframe for good luck. Simultaneously, the right door swings open. You jump.

  "We've talked about this, Thea," says a man. "You can't just drop in on me these days. Not that company isn't appreciated, but…"

  You're exactly as surprised to see Ellery as Ellery is to see you. He gapes in raw disbelief. You gape back towards him, then towards Richard, who looks creditably startled. "This isn't supposed to happen," he mutters.

  You think it's Ellery, at least. It looks like him, excepting a hideous new shirt and a mysterious smidgeon of gravitas. It sounds like him, almost, except you think deeper. He has the same stricken posture.

  "Hi…" He searches your face for something. "…Charlotte?"

  "Lottie," you say. If you have the memory of an eyebrow mite…

  "Lottie. Uh. I like your sunglasses. And your snake. I didn't know you had a snake."

  Is he being ironic? He doesn't sound ironic. He sounds uncomfortable. You look again towards Richard, who shrugs, baffled. "Yes," you say. "Thanks."

  "What are you doing here?"

  You chuckle in a ladylike, nonsuspicious fashion and lean against the doorframe. "Ohoho. Eh. Well—"

  "Look, you should— you ought to sit down. Come sit down. I have chairs for you to, uh…"

  It's not worth trying to negotiate. You sit in a chair. You watch as Ellery sits in the other in the oddest manner you've ever seen. It's not the sitting, which is normal— it's the motion, which you can only describe as inhumanly fluid. A praxinoscope with a thousand different images, or something like it. It's wrong.

  "Right," he says, and stands again immediately. "Can I get you a drink? Uh, anything. Beer, jujube… water…"

  "I'll have some water," you say politely. "Rainwater, please. Not filtered."

  He looks incredulous, which makes sense, as he wouldn't know the difference if it hit him across the face. "Rainwater," you say, again, as if he didn't hear.

  "Okay, then."

  Ellery leaves— fluidly— through the left door. As soon as it closes, there's the unmistakable chunk-chunk-chunk of three deadbolts slotting into place. You're locked in.

  "Oh, good," you sign to Richard, who leans on the back of your chair. "We're locked in."

  "Where's your positivity now, Charlie? I don't know about you, but I'm not staying for a water and an interrogation. There's bound to be other ways out."

  "And if not?"

  "And if not, we'll open the doors. Don't get your panties in a twist. What do you see?"

  >[1] Write-in

  What do you see? Far too much. The room is almost oppressively busy, and even through the tint of the sunglasses the texture is distracting. You try to focus on the obvious.

  "I mean, we should probably make sure all the doors are actually locked."

  Richard slides into the now-vacant opposite armchair and props his head against one fist. "They are."

  You flounce out of your seat. "You haven't even checked! I'm going to go try them."

  "I don't need to check." He adjusts his glasses. "I know it. But if it makes you happy, go ahead and waste the time."

  "Fine, then." You make a clockwise circle to try each gold knob in turn. The right door, despite your best shoving, will not open. The entrance door will not open. The left door will not open.

  You bang on its glossy wooden surface with an open palm. "HEY!" you caterwaul. "HEY! WHY'D YOU LOCK US… WHY'D YOU LOCK ME IN?!"

  The response comes delayed. "Look, I'll be back in a… in a minute. Just sit tight. It's for your own good."

  You pull a face at the door before turning to Richard, who's busy stretching each arm in turn. "Hey!" you say. "He said to wait."

  "I could hear, Charlie. Are you just going to stand there?"

  No, of course not. You dart, like a moth to moonlight, over to the papers pinned to the wall. You're pleased to find them not only legible, but written in a neater hand than those in the tent.

  "8 KITEMAKER," reads one. "Spoke to Maddie ab. helping w/ shipping. Furthered collab. w/ E. Tested Lfish — inconclusive."

  "9 KITEMAKER" is the title for the very next one. "Wt. to Fen 1st thing — deep. Hir dose Lfish. Success."

  There's two empty spaces before another note. "12 KITEMAKER — Don't do again."

  All of the papers are like that: terse, cryptic, and daily. "You think he'd notice if I took one?" you ask.

  "Do one with a lot of gaps nearby and it's fine."

  You pilfer a note marked 20 STRANGER and tuck it into your pocket. The other papers are gone. Which is fine, you reason. It makes sense. You still have them, probably, outside.

  "There's no purpose in covering something up so well." Richard rolls a small metal object idly between his fingers. "If you like it, display it. If you don't, destroy it."

  You stand, hands on hips, in front of the sheeted thing. It's bound by a daunting amount of complex knots. "Well," you say, kneeling down to look at said knots. "Maybe you liked it, but it's too painful to look at anymore. Or maybe you're just too lazy to get rid of it. Or maybe you just like bedsheets. There could be lots of reasons."

  "So you think Ellery just likes the look of bedsheets? You're not going to need help with that, are you?"

  "No, and no, I don't think so." You've had quite a lot of experience untying knots, having… having done something. It was a long time ago. But your fingers were never deft enough to really be good at it.

  That has changed. You consider a new career as an escape artist. The cord falls away, and you pull the sheet off with all the flourish of a stage magician. "Woosh!"

  "There's no need for dramatics," Richard says half-heartedly. He's far too fixated on the object under the sheet to come up with a more original retort. You're far too fixated to react.

  It's a floor-length mirror, rimmed with a thick coat of gold paint. But not a legal mirror, made of polished stone or bronze. The clarity indicates unmistakable glass.

  Glass! Should you even be near it? No wonder the thing was covered — the extrareality should punch holes through the room like it were wet paper. (And isn't it, sort of?) How does Ellery have it? How does Ellery have a lot of it? Possession of it is strictly banned for the lesser sorts…

  You look as you remember, mostly. More disheveled (but that's not your fault, not really). The sunglasses suit your face. You could do with a change of clothes, but your options are limited in that department.

  Richard stands behind you— you didn't hear him get up, but his "Interesting" is directly in your ear. "Can you see me?" he asks, and you turn.

  "Yes?"

  He takes your shoulder and turns you back around. "In the mirror. Can you see me?"

  You squint. "…No."

  "Interesting. What if I—" and he steps to your right.

  You attempt to stifle giggles. Mirror-Richard is a snake, nothing more than that. If you felt generous, you'd call it cute.

  "Don't laugh." He sounds put-out. "It's not funny."

  "Okay, it's not funny." You still giggle. "Is this the— is this the 'true self' mirror? So I'm me, and you're a snake."

  "There's nothing wrong with that." He pauses, huffily. "Take your sunglasses off."

  "Why?"

  He makes the motion of putting something in his pocket, and the sunglasses vanish. "Hey!" you say, and make the mistake of glancing towards the mirror. Under her sunglasses, Mirror-Charlotte has one empty socket, leaking black fluid— when you touch your cheek, the cheek is dry. The other eye is gold.

  BATHIC'S RECOMMENDATION CORNER #1

  

  Crimson Crisp (sorry, CrimsonCrisp?) apple is AWESOME. Look at these babies. Not only are they some of the most gorgeous apples I've ever personally seen (they're almost hot pink), but they're delicious: crunchy, flavorful, a little tart, and small enough to reasonably eat in one sitting, unlike the massive, expensive, and just-okay-tasting Honeycrisp, rated incorrectly by as the second-best apple of all time. Applerankings.com does not have a review for the Crimson Crisp, which shows what they know. A blog I just discovered in the writing of this recommendation, , describes the Crimson Crisp as having the flavors of "cane sugar and distant hints of melon, orange, and spice"; it also suggests that the Crisp is a "a very good apple worth choosing." So there you have it. Their only downside: the skin is a little thick! But that's not enough to hurt anything. Peel it if you care.