SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

July 26, 2085

I have been thorough in documenting Unidentified Patient #307’s refusal to continue with our sessions. The condition he set was vague; I was to research the history of Grünwald from when it was its own town, prior to its incorporation into greater San Antonio. He wanted to be able to have an “informed conversation” with me on the topic.

In the interest of incentivizing him to resume speaking with me, rather than commuting straight home from the hospital as usual, I lingered in the district yesterday evening. I had little information to go on aside from a name Patient 307 gave me during our last session: “Ethan Clegg.”

Historical Grünwald is a pleasant place. Its main street and a few of its buildings have been preserved as culturally relevant, but I have heard rumblings that the city has plans to revoke that status and reclaim the land to develop commercial real estate. These old buildings may not be standing for much longer. That may explain 307’s urgency on this matter.

I soon found the Clegg Family Public Library, not far from the hospital. The librarian was kind enough to help me search the entire catalog. The name “Clegg” alone returned too many results to investigate in a timely manner.

Searching for “Ethan Clegg,” however, returned only one result—a memoir.

I printed two copies. I am placing one in Patient 307’s chart for reference purposes. I will keep the other to read on my own time.

John Tyton Parce, PsyD

Licensed Psychologist

Two copies were made. One was placed in Patient #307’s file.

I only have that copy.

The US Coast Guard released its final report on the OceanGate TITAN incident on August 5th, 2025. I have just finished reading it in its entirety. The PDF can be found here.

And they said, “Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”

Genesis 11:4

In the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean, there is a place that has become as forbidden, unattainable, and shrouded in sacred myth in the public eye as the firmament must have been to our Biblical ancestors. When the Titanic sank in 1912 and brought 1,500 souls to their Maker, she passed well out of human reach for seventy-three years. When she was found again nearly forty years ago, a ghost ship slowly being gnawed away by microbes, it was only by the very edge of human ingenuity. Even now, exploring the bottom of the ocean is a challenge answerable only by the world’s most technologically adept (and well-funded). For the average person, the Titanic and her Stygian tomb are out of reach in this lifetime, as are the heavens above.

Stockton Rush was not an average man. He sought to make the depths commercially accessible. But like the builders of the tower of old, he sought to pass the impassable and touch the hallowed space not in God’s name, but to make a name for himself. And in his haste to reach the decaying grail and anoint himself a god of industry, he suffered the wrath of the divine.

At the time the Tower of Babel was built, there was no written scripture as we understand it, no religious law, no ritual. This is what sets Rush’s hubris apart from that of those ancient people. By the time he made his descent, the prudent way to achieve his goal was already well-established. But he wanted to find a cost-effective way, and so he stepped off the narrow path.

Alongside the true Christian Church, and sometimes in place of it, there has developed something I like to call the Church of Best Practices. In our work lives, we are subject to systematized error detection and asked to outsource our judgment to flowcharts. We are to Trust the Experts. We are to Follow the Science. Even speaking an opinion without having Done the Research to back it up can be a social faux pas in certain settings. These are not inherently bad principles. But in the wake of a tragedy like this, the gravity with which Rush’s transgressions are discussed lends them a sacred weight, evoking deadly sin. He failed to follow the prescriptions of this grand church, and he paid the consequences.

“At some point, safety is pure waste. I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed, don’t get in your car, don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk. And it really is a risk-reward question. I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.

Stockton Rush in an interview with David Pogue for CBS Sunday Morning, July 2022

Innovation requires risk, yes, but the Church of Best Practices is devoted to mitigating those risks, seeking a medium between reckless exploration and stagnant safetyism. Viewed through this lens, pressure testing submersible vehicles and materials becomes a sacred rite. Maritime regulation, always expanded after a disaster, becomes scripture written in blood. Coast Guard oversight becomes a priestly blessing. To obtain certification for a vehicle is to consecrate it. Rush’s prior disregard for the creed of this church led to his excommunication from the “dive community.”

Much has already been made of the parallels between the TITAN disaster and that of the Titanic herself, so I will not spend much time on that here. I will only note how sadly poetic it is that the Titanic, a tower of iron meant to dazzle the world and anoint her creators as gods of industry, became the peak of another man’s personal tower, one that began at the surface and reached downward. Like the people who built the Tower of Babel, Rush sought to elevate himself by touching a boundary. But rather than building for the heavens, he plunged into the depths. He dreamed of enthroning himself at the nadir of an inverted tower twice the depth of the Grand Canyon. And he suffered the same fate as those in Genesis and again in 1912. Communication ceased and the tower was left in ruin.

What were the sins of Stockton Rush that provoked the divine?

He deceptively labeled his paying guests as “mission specialists” to dodge the stricter regulations placed on vessels that carry passengers. This was flagrant defiance of maritime law. His refusal to submit to certifying authority was blasphemy against the Church of Best Practices.

His offerings were poor.

The carbon fiber hull was a parsimonious sacrifice. Rather than give freely of himself that he might enjoy the bounties of discovery, he offered a flawed and impure vessel. A weak and sick lamb for the altar.

His initial designs attempted to use carbon-fiber endcaps for the cylindrical crew chamber. After cursory testing, these endcaps were found wanting. Rush received a recommendation to use Grade-4 titanium. This metal was well-established as the standard for deep-sea exploration. God-made purity. Instead, in the interest of saving money, Rush chose Grade-3 titanium. A compromised chalice full of impurities, unworthy of the abyss.

The ocean demanded gold, but she was offered plastic.

Rush’s gold went to keeping his company floating above the surface rather than making his vessel fit to dive beneath. Financial pressures led to underhanded practices. Prepayments from interested parties went directly into covering outstanding expenses. The official “dive count” given to investors and clients included expeditions by the previous Cyclops vessel, and failed dives were added to the count as well. Each dive was a Mass without absolution, and Rush walked away without confession or forgiveness of his sins.

You might think the inflated dive count lured people into a false sense of security, but the truth is that many guests and employees tried to sound the alarm. The guests were given empty reassurances; the employees were simply dismissed. Guests of previous dives, successful and failed, noted that they did not receive the promised training and remarked after the tragedy how easily it could have been them. There but for the grace of God. Safety standards and emergency procedures were detailed in OceanGate’s documentation, but rarely followed in practice. OceanGate’s culture was clear: Stockton Rush’s word was law. And his word was false, warped by the need for more gold, and it led to disaster.

One of the last dives of the 2022 season, “Dive 80,” experienced a loud banging sound toward the end of the expedition as the TITAN was approaching the surface. The submersible was given a cursory inspection and operations continued. The Coast Guard investigation board, studying the acoustic data in the aftermath of the implosion, noticed a significant change in all data after the bang. The report indicates that the sound heralded a marked reduction in the hull’s integrity. A warning trumpet from an angel, gone unheeded.

Cost-cutting sealed TITAN’s doom. To save money on taxes and storage, the vessel was left outside in a parking lot during the off-season in Newfoundland, Canada. From July 2022 to February 2023 it endured multiple cycles of freezing and thawing, without even a tarp (saving Mr. Rush approximately $1,250). This questionable storage method is theorized by the Coast Guard’s investigation board to have been a significant factor in the deterioration of the hull’s structural integrity. OceanGate may have stopped going to church for the winter, but the offering could not be so easily neglected.

These oversights are the crux of what went wrong. Stockton Rush never intended to hurt anyone. But, through ignorance, hubris, and recklessness, he did. This is Baneful Banality.

Rush sought to elevate himself to godhood, but he was already acting as prophet-king, hawking revelation to a yearning populace while silencing dissent from inside his ranks. As in Biblical times, innocent lives were ended whose only crime was their proximity, for placing their trust in the wrong person.

When the abyss took TITAN, there was no time left for rites of baptism. There was only a thunderclap of judgment. Then Rush’s poorly consecrated vessel became a vessel of another kind. His cup runneth over and the ocean ate of his body and drank of his blood. In death, he crystallized the very rules he sought to sidestep. 335 more pages of scripture appeared in the bible of maritime regulation.

This is the legacy of Mr. Rush. Perhaps in another time the remains of the TITAN, too, would have been irretrievable, and his machine would have laid forever next to the grail he sought. In some sense, then, he may have gotten what he wanted. As it stands, he has associated his name with the Titanic for the time being. Another billionaire is planning an expedition, and as of this writing all coverage of the announcement is framed in the context of Rush’s folly.

The ocean reflects her almighty Creator; she takes offense at false idols, demands humility and truth, punishes hubris without mercy, and consumes innocents whose only crime was trusting in those who would anoint themselves false gods. The true Church gives us traditions and rituals to protect our souls; perhaps the Church of Best Practices is the counterpart to help our bodies survive the hazards of the material world.

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In the works is also an audio version of A Small Price. More Tales From Hammersmith Valley are coming as soon as I think of some.

To inaugurate Baneful Banality, here is a piece I wrote some time ago on one of the most fascinating and impactful tragedies in modern history: the R.M.S. Titanic. Below is a brief biography of one of the Titanic tragedy’s most towering figures, a man who worked hard, loved deeply, and saw his life cut short by the compounding of other men’s mistakes and hubris.

JTP

“I am just now learning the Titanic was a real ship.” This admission exploded across social media in the immediate wake of the unfortunate OceanGate tragedy. It’s a sad reminder that we are doomed to repeat the history we refuse to learn. Fortunately, the history of the Titanic, both before and after the sinking, is fascinating.

And no discussion of the Titanic’s history would be complete without first examining the life and death of arguably its most tragic figure: Thomas Andrews, managing director and head of drafting at the Harland & Wolff shipbuilding company.

Thomas Andrews was born in Comber, Ireland, on February 7th, 1873. The Andrews family was prominent in Ireland; his father and two brothers were politicians. Thomas’s maternal uncle was William Pirrie, Harland & Wolff’s chairman.

Everyone who met Andrews loved him: children, elders, animals. He was described by his family after the disaster as an inquisitive and temperate lad full of vitality and compassion for every living thing around him. He was particularly talented at cricket and horsemanship. He developed an interest in boats by the time he was eleven years old. He was not very interested in school, but he would stop at the shipyard on the way home and listen to the sounds of hammers.

At the age of sixteen, Andrews was placed in a premium apprenticeship at Harland & Wolff. Did his relationship to Lord Pirrie play a role? Possibly. But Pirrie made it clear to his employees that the boy was to be treated as any other apprentice and given no special favor.

One thing is for certain, though: Andrews did not waste the opportunity. He busted his ass at that apprenticeship. Here is an excerpt from the biography Thomas Andrews, Shipbuilder:

He took extra shifts to fill in for sick workers, repaired leaking holds, and memorized every detail of the shipbuilding process. That alone would be exhausting to most, but he also stayed up until eleven PM most nights, studying naval theory, and he played cricket once a week.

In 1894, at the age of twenty-one, Andrews was hired to the drawing office of Harland & Wolff. He rose quickly to the top, supervising constructions, repairs, and modifications. He was always a physical presence in the yard, walking among the workers. More than once, he nearly got killed by dropped rivets and stray tools. He would catch slackers and give them a talking to; everyone got exactly one chance to get it together. He would jump in and help out with any problem he saw.

The contemporaries of Thomas Andrews said he could have built a ship from the ground up, riveted it, driven its engine, steered and captained it on his own. He knew everything a man could know about ships.

In 1907, plans began for three new Olympic-class liners for the White Star Line. These ships—the Olympic, the Titanic, and the Britannic—were designed to be the biggest and safest ocean liners ever built.

Andrews famously asked for forty-eight lifeboats per ship, rather than twenty, and was overruled.

But what is not so widely discussed is that Harland & Wolff’s leaders, including Lord Pirrie, were following the convention of the time with that decision. The purpose of the lifeboats was not to have capacity for every passenger at once, but to ferry them to the safety of a rescuing ship.

(All other factors being equal, forty-eight lifeboats may not have helped, as the crew of the Titanic only managed to launch eighteen of the twenty it did have on hand.)

In 1908, Thomas Andrews married Helen Reilly Barbour, and in 1910, they had a daughter, Elizabeth Law Barbour Andrews. Shortly before Elizabeth was born, Andrews took his pregnant wife to view the Titanic under construction at the shipyard.

The Titanic left Belfast on April 2nd, 1912. Andrews was on board and supervised every aspect of her operation, making notes and conducting inspections on behalf of his employer. He was extremely busy during the days the Titanic spent at the Southampton dock.

Lord Pirrie, by the way, was a business associate and close friend of J. Bruce Ismay and other prominent members of the White Star Line. Pirrie was intended to be on the Titanic’s maiden voyage, but he was recovering from surgery and sent Andrews in his place.

The news of Thomas Andrews’s death devastated Lord Pirrie, who was still in recovery on top of that personal loss. He was not asked to testify in the investigation afterward because of his condition.

The lifeboat decision would torment Pirrie until his death from pneumonia ten years later.

As I mentioned, the Titanic’s crew did not even get to launch the lifeboats they had. The two collapsibles simply floated off. If the crew had taken any longer to realize the ship was sinking and take action, more lives would have been lost that night. The singular attention to detail and dedication to the craft shown by Thomas Andrews is rightfully credited with saving lives.

Victor Garber was a great choice to play Andrews in the James Cameron film, but the dramatic scene of him being last seen in the smoking room staring at the clock may have been inaccurate. Multiple eyewitnesses reported seeing him on deck after that time, throwing chairs to people treading water in the frigid North Atlantic.

Other reports said he was ultimately at the bridge with Captain Edward Smith at the end.

The lessons learned from the Titanic were later applied to make her younger sister, the R.M.S. Britannic, even more robust. She was put into service as a hospital ship during World War I. She unfortunately struck a mine and sank in the Aegean Sea in 1916.

The Britannic sank even faster than the Titanic, but thirty-five of her forty-eight lifeboats were launched, saving 1,036 of her 1,066 passengers that day. Add that to the number of wounded people treated on that ship, and the Britannic likely saved more lives in total than were lost on the Titanic.

I like to think that this fact would give Thomas Andrews some peace.

I got an EPUB copy of Thomas Andrews, Shipbuilder from Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32166

Sadly, the closing of 2024 also saw the closing of WBS Apparel. As the Infinite Summer poolside reader is out of print and their merchandise is no longer in production, I was given permission by the editor of The Double Dealer, my friend , to share my submission with my subscribers.

This story, Tubing, placed third in the contest and won me a gift card, with which I bought a sweet pair of their eye-catching sunglasses. Jim, Chet, Max, Kurt, and Dom, I am looking forward to seeing what you all do and build next. Thanks for the memories, the magazine, and the glasses.

Tubing

My bros and I wake up early on Saturday. My head’s pounding, we were celebrating the end of the semester up until about three hours ago, but nothing’s stopping us. Junior year’s over. I have a precious few days before I’m expected back home in Corpus to work at my dad’s shop. The guys all say they’ll come down next weekend so we can hit the beach. But today is about tubing.

We throw on swim trunks and tank tops. The tubes go in the back of Tim’s RAV4 and then we fill the coolers. After the fuck-up with the big cooler last year, we came around to getting a few of those personal-sized inflatable ones.

We get creative with the booze because cans and bottles are banned at the Guadalupe. I pour a couple fingers of whiskey into a CamelBak bottle and brim it with Coke. The bros used to make fun of me for the frozen pre-mixed margaritas and fuzzy navels but I’ve made believers out of them. Packs of beef jerky and a ziplock bag with smokes and a lighter go on top.

The drive takes two hours. It’s hot by the time we get to New Braunfels. We blow up our tubes while we stand in line for the bus to the river entrance. The heat radiates off the pavement and the bus smells like diesel. But the water in the Guadalupe is always cold. Looking forward to that.

Since we have our own tubes, we skip the rental line. But we get a locker to hold our phones and stuff. I lash the tube and cooler together and get cozy. Headache disappears instantly. I lay back and put my hat over my face. I think about how the water particles move together for a short time and then disperse into the environment.

A bump. I sit up in my tube. I’m at the traffic jam before the first chute. I was out for about forty-five minutes. I can’t see any of my bros. That doesn’t bother me. This float has a designated start and stop.

Things open out after the chute. I drag my stuff up the concrete steps to the first rest stop, with the picnic tables, wondering if the bros are waiting here. They’re not. I sit down and dig my smokes out. She asks if she can have one.

I look up. She’s my age, cute face, dirty-blonde hair cut above her shoulders. Can’t help but notice her body in her olive-green bikini. I slide a couple of cigarettes out of the pack and tell her one of them is hers if she sits down. She does. I light up and tell her my name. She says hers is Alison.

I ask what she’s doing here alone. She says she lost her friends and she feels dumb for not bringing her phone. She doesn’t trust those waterproof carriers they sell. I don’t either. She’s eyeing my cooler and I can tell she’s thirsty. I tell her to help herself. When she reaches down, I see a tattoo of the back half of an arrow, as if it’s pierced between her shoulder blades.

“Oh, my God,” she says. “A fuzzy navel?”

I tell her she’s welcome to it. I pick up the CamelBak bottle. It’s gotten a little bit warm because this cooler doesn’t actually insulate for shit and when I open the nozzle a jet of foam shoots straight up in the air and she laughs. We drink and share a bag of jerky. She’s ready to look for her friends. So am I.

We tie our tubes together. She drinks my booze and shares my smokes and I tell her she’s running up a tab. She promises to pay. Things get a little blurry after that. At this part of the river, everyone’s buzzed. It’s noisier, but everyone’s having fun.

I catch a prickly and piney smell and I ask loudly who’s puffing and not passing. People laugh. Someone’s got a speaker and Alison and I sing along to “Drive” by Incubus. A dude is standing up on his tube and throwing cherries at people out of a Tupperware. I catch one and I give it to her. She says it’s been soaked in Everclear.

At the second rest stop we lay on the grass. She wants to give me her number. There’s a bicycle cop with a pen and notepad. Alison’s handwriting’s going out the window. Mine would be, too. I stick the paper in the cooler. A distant thought tells me to put it in the bag with the smokes, but it will be fine.

I’m past buzzed when we get back in the water. We wade out chest-deep and I have one hand on our tubes and the other around her waist and I stop to kiss her. I lift her up. She weighs nothing in the river. The Guadalupe is always cold but I still remember the smooth warmth of her thighs around my waist.

My tingling fingertips run along her back under the strap of her top and I ask her why she has an arrow tattoo. She tells me when you get shot with an arrow, the worst thing you can do is pull it back out and you have to push it all the way through. She doesn’t elaborate. We hold hands the rest of the way.

At the exit, she finds her friends and tells me goodbye. I promise to text her. I look for the bros but they arrive after me and I realize we probably passed them up at the second rest stop. I empty the cooler of trash and find the paper reduced to pulp, no digits recognizable. I never see her again.

I have an incredible summer. But I think a lot about how she and I, two drops of water, moved together down the river for a moment.

And the Guadalupe is always cold.

Hello, readers.

Publishing the records of Dr. Parce has kept me pretty busy, but it’s not the only thing I’m doing. I’m stranded, after all, and I’m trying to find out as much as I can about this town.

It’s called Hammersmith Valley. I only know that because of a wrecked sign at the end of the road. This whole place is destroyed. Absolutely deserted. The windows are blown out. The houses are falling apart. Power lines lay on the ground. I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to have electricity.

There’s no one here but me.

But there is a library, and there are all the notes and photographs and newspapers that people left behind. I’ll be collecting everything I can find and sending it to you in case something happens to me. Someone has to finish this.

I have to warn you: some of these stories I’ve found are dark. Very dark. Something out of a horror movie.

But if you’re ready to hang with me and see what I’ve learned about this world I’m in, keep reading.

Here is the first of the Tales from Hammersmith Valley.

A Small Price

For Roman

Ethan didn’t think it took a monster to know one, but he was sure it took a monster to kill one.

He sipped his beer and listened to the crash of the waves outside. The open windows let the salty breeze into the bar, enhancing the taste of his beverage. He dropped a few dollars next to a greasy plate topped with crumbs of fried batter.

The bartender was quick to sweep away both the plate and the cash. His rheumy eyes peered at Ethan from between a dirty wool cap and a brown beard.

“How was your lunch, stranger?”

Ethan kept his gaze on his glass. “Fine, thanks.”

“You a tourist?”

“Not really.” Ethan took another drink and considered the sound of the ocean again. “Business seems awfully slow here.”

“Well, everyone’s busy getting ready for…” The bartender caught himself and suddenly grew very interested in wiping some glasses by the till.

“For what?”

“For… nothing. Never mind.”

Ethan pulled a thick roll of cash out of his jacket pocket and thumbed through it. “It sure seems like something is going on around here.”

The man’s eyes fixated on the money. “The festival. This time of year that’s what everyone is working on. Even me. You’re my only customer today.”

Ethan peeled off a five-dollar bill and looked it over. “A festival, huh? Must be a pretty private affair. I didn’t see any tourists on my way here.”

“That’s right. Nobody comes here from outside. You’re the first visitor in a long time. Years, even.”

“Why?”

“Couldn’t tell you, stranger.”

“Maybe somebody else will.” Ethan stuffed the money back in his pocket.

The bartender winced. “Wait a minute, mister. What do you want to know about the festival?”

“Whatever you care to tell me.”

“Well, it’s tonight, and it goes until midnight. You know autumn starts tomorrow? We throw it every year so we can have a good harvest and a good fishing season. The village needs all that stuff so we don’t starve.”

“Yeah, I know.” Ethan finished his beer and headed for the door.

The bartender followed him and grabbed his sleeve. “Hold on.”

Ethan’s temper almost got the better of him. It would have been so easy to drop his human disguise, to show this bartender the pure darkness underneath. If that didn’t convince him to take his hands off Ethan, it would have been even easier to just rip him apart.

But Ethan didn’t do that. He kept it together and fixated his cold blue eyes on the man. “Tell me something interesting, then.”

The bartender let go of Ethan’s arm. “At midnight… we feed the beast.” He went pale, like he’d just confessed to a crime. They regarded each other in silence for a moment.

“The beast, huh? What do you feed it?”

The bartender stammered, not looking at Ethan anymore. “We… aw, jeez, mister, I really don’t wanna talk about this anymore.”

“That’s a shame.” Ethan pulled the fiver back out of his pocket and set it on the bar. After a moment of thought, he threw down another five. “For your trouble. Thanks again.” He left the trembling man behind and stepped out the door.

He had gotten what he wanted; he was at the right place. His quarry was here. Pressing the bartender any further would have been risky. He’d have to gather more information in the village.

He fumed at how close he had gotten to losing his cool at the man. A mere human was no match for a creature like him. Then he reminded himself that that was what set him apart. He kept those urges under control so he could protect humans from the monsters that didn’t.

As soon as he got to the main road, he glanced to the right. He reassured himself that the boat he’d brought over here was still moored at the marina. To his left, further inland, he saw nothing but trees and meager farmland. The village was ahead.

The houses looked modest but comfortable, mostly built out of whitewashed wood. This place was a little more primitive than he had gotten used to. He saw kerosene lamps but no lightbulbs. His beer had come from a keg and his transportation here had been a plain sailboat.

The year in this world was 1905, as he had found out before his arrival to the island. He’d lived through the early twentieth century in his own home world, but that was a long time ago.

As he walked the sandy path through the village, he noticed that the place had everything except people. The houses and shops were deserted. His right ear picked up the white noise of the ocean while his left heard the surprisingly cold wind stirring up the trees in the distance. He would have thought he was in the wrong place if not for the faint sounds of shouting just ahead. He quickened his pace until he was past the last houses on the north side of the village.

A strange sight gave him pause. On either side of the path were several rows of concrete bowls on waist-high pedestals, resembling bird baths. They showed varying degrees of age and erosion, but nearly all of them were covered with melted candles and assorted small treasures and keepsakes. At the base of each pedestal, a name was carved. He stepped back and scanned the names—Emily, Christine, Allie, Susan, Roxanne, Elizabeth. All girls’ names.

The structure that stood out was the one farthest from the path. It had no dirt, stains, or decorations on it. The detail in the edges was still clear, not yet blurred by wind and rain. There was no name at the bottom.

Ethan swallowed his growing dread and continued along the path.

The island sloped up ahead of him towards a sharp peak, where the sand and sparse grass gave way to a sheer cliff above the sea. Assembled on the promontory was a crowd of a few hundred people forming a vague horseshoe shape. A small group stood apart.

The grassy hill leading up to the cliff was strewn with tents, tables, and wooden stakes all decorated with autumn-themed streamers and fresh flowers. A ring of stones encircled a shallow pit full of ashes.

As Ethan got closer, he could discern words from the shouting. An old woman’s voice carried over top of the crowd.

“Today is the day the winds grow cold. We have heard the beast draw his first breath of the year. He stirs in his hunger. We give him this offering to protect our village and ensure good fortune for our farmers and fishermen.”

Ethan got to the crowd and started making his way through. No one seemed to notice him. Everyone’s eyes were forward. When Ethan got to the front of the crowd, he could see the people standing separate from it.

Seven young women wearing plain sackcloth dresses stood behind the old crone, who held her hands in the air while she shouted. She was standing at the edge of a sinkhole cutting into the ground, probably four feet long and two wide, too deep to see the bottom.

The old woman’s curly grey hair was piled up on top of her head in a giant lopsided bun, and her crooked fingers were covered with silver and gold rings. A cold breeze kicked up and billowed her blood-red shawl like a cape.

Ethan—and the rest of the crowd—jumped back at a rush of hot air and a terrible noise coming up from the hole in the ground. It was a long, low ripping sound, the snore of whatever behemoth had taken up residence in the belly of the island.

The old crone turned to the young women. “Cast your lots! The beast demands his offering! The lottery must begin!”

Each of the girls held out clenched fists. The crowd went totally silent. Ethan’s guts began to crawl when he saw the fear in the women’s faces. They all kept their eyes shut tight.

The old woman produced a wooden bowl from somewhere underneath her shawl and walked over to the girl at the far left. With a quiet word from the crone, the young woman opened both her hands and dropped what looked like a pair of red cubes into the bowl. The crone went down the line, pausing at each girl to let them drop their cubes. Each pair was a different color—orange, yellow, green.

The fifth of the seven girls was easily the prettiest of the lot, with fair skin and wavy brown hair that glimmered in the overhead sun. Her cubes were blue. Ethan thought, but he couldn’t be sure, that the crone’s hand passed over the bowl as those blue cubes landed.

As soon as the seventh girl’s violet cubes were in the bowl, the old woman turned and presented it to the crowd. Everyone gathered around, including Ethan. The cubes turned out to be painted dice.

“Red, four and two—six!” the people who could see into the bowl called out to the rest. They did so simultaneously. It must have been part of this mad ritual. “Orange, five and three—eight! Yellow, two and one—three! Green, six and six—twelve! Blue, one and one—two! Indigo, six and four—ten! Purple, five and two—seven!”

The fifth girl, the fair one with the lowest roll, dropped to her knees and sobbed. The rest cried too, but they didn’t fall.

“The lots are cast,” said the old woman. “Dear Cora will be our virgin sacrifice to the beast this year. One life lost for the good of us all. A small price to pay.”

Ethan froze. He had pieced together what this lottery was for, but to hear that lady say it so brazenly still shocked him.

Some of the crowd, probably family members, rushed forward to claim the women who had been spared by the whim of the dice. Only Cora was left alone to cry by the sinkhole. The horrid breath of the beast came roaring up again as if anticipating its delicate meal.

“Everyone come forward,” the old woman said. “Lay hands on young Cora and thank her for the bountiful year to come. Now is the time for any final words you wish to say to her before she is dropped to the beast. We will all be too busy with the festival between now and midnight.”

At the thought of the girl falling down that sinkhole, Ethan bit back a sudden surge of anger. Were these people really about to let this happen?

He forced himself to stay calm and watch them. They put hands on Cora’s shoulders, prayed over her, whispered in her ears. Some of them wept as they walked away.

One young man about Cora’s age became seriously distraught. His face turned red and his fist clenched around her sleeve, as if he were determined to follow her to her doom. She didn’t seem to notice; she was still in the middle of an intense crying fit herself.

A man of about sixty came up to the younger man and gripped his shoulder. “That’s enough, Asher,” he said. “She had the same chance as everyone else.”

But the young man didn’t budge.

The old woman came to Asher’s other side and whispered something in his ear. His entire demeanor changed. His face went blank and he relaxed his grasp on Cora’s dress. He allowed himself to be led away by the older man in silence.

The old woman turned to the other villagers. “Let me remind you that men have tried to stop the sacrifice before, out of love or selfish desire or just because they fancied themselves heroes. What happened to them all—be they men of our village or outsiders who got word of our custom? All they ever managed to do was stir the wrath of the beast, get themselves killed, and ruin our harvest. Every time the ritual is disrupted, we lose more lives than just one.”

Everyone kept their heads down as they finished giving Cora their goodbyes and headed back down the road. Ethan shook his head. Out of a few hundred people, just one had shown any will to go against this fate.

He could have spoken up to the old woman himself, but he’d seen people in the thrall of fear and belief before. Instead of rooting out the thing that scared them, they’d turn on the dissenter. That was one thing he didn’t miss about Grünwald.

The crowd didn’t cause him any concern. He could have singlehandedly slaughtered this village if he wanted to. But that was no solution. The whole point of going incognito was to protect the people and leave the village somewhat intact, just without its beast.

Better to let them continue with their ritual for now while he gathered more information. The old woman had just confirmed what the bartender had told him—the sacrifice would occur at midnight. That gave him a little less than twelve hours.

What he could do right now was offer the girl some hope. He buried his anger and joined the last of the stragglers walking up to Cora. By then, she had calmed down a little and was giving quiet responses to the people who talked to her. When it was his turn, he put his hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered.

She glanced up at the unfamiliar voice. Her puffy, reddened eyes stared into his blue ones. Her grief subsided and she gazed at the stranger with something like awe. Ethan didn’t want to do anything to alert the sheep around him to a wolf in their presence, but he wanted to reassure this girl. He let a fraction of his real strength show through when he squeezed her shoulder. Then he left without another word, feeling her eyes still on his back.

Ethan went out of his way to be a polite but unobtrusive presence that afternoon. He overpaid for food and drink and he pitched in whenever someone needed a hand. He cut wood and helped pile it in the ring of stones for a bonfire. He helped the bartender haul dozens of barrels of wine from one end of the village to the other. The people bustled around him, setting up stalls and adorning every horizontal surface with the last of the summer blooms.

Ethan was carrying a tray full of cut fruit for one of the older women when a group of children ran down the road in his direction, all holding flowers. He held the tray up over his head and the kids parted around him, never missing a step, chanting as they went.

Who’s for this year? Who’s for the beast?

Poor, poor Cora gets to be the feast!

The kids all ran to the same house up the road and threw their flowers onto the doorstep. The door was open and they all ran inside. A few seconds later they emerged carrying jewelry, letters, and small articles of clothing like shoes and a summer hat. They ran back the way they had come, streaming around Ethan like before.

A middle-aged man with an alcoholic’s nose followed the kids out of the house. He stopped on the porch to look at all the discarded flowers. As soon as the children were out of sight, the man put his hands in his pockets, closed his eyes, and wept.

After Ethan had spent a couple of hours establishing himself as useful, he began to ask casual questions of the villagers. No one knew exactly how long this harvest ritual had gone on, but for sure it had been longer than they had been making those dozens of miniature shrines for sacrificed girls. It had always been young women, always been virgins.

One detail that Ethan found fascinating was that no one seemed to have any idea what this beast looked like. One of the farmers gave him a furtive tip that the children sometimes drew pictures of the beast, but Thirza took them all.

“Thirza?”

“The old woman. The one who oversees the lottery. She’s been doing it as long as I’ve been alive.”

“Where does she live?”

“At the end of the road.”

Ethan thanked the man and dropped the matter, still avoiding obtaining too much information from any one person.

From others, he gathered that the sinkhole wasn’t the only entrance to the cave. The ocean flowed into it at the bottom of the cave on the north end, where the monster swam in and out as it pleased. But the current and the rocks made a climb or a swim into the cavern far too treacherous for mortals to attempt.

Ethan also learned that Cora was nineteen, her father was a well-respected fisherman, and her mother had died when Cora was quite young. If this ritual went as planned, this man would be alone in the world.

While Ethan and several other people took a break for supper, he watched two men coming down the path. It was the young man who had become upset—Asher, Ethan recalled—and the older man who had led him away. They now wore leather belts full of stoneworking tools and thick trousers caked with white dust.

The pair of them approached the unmarked concrete pedestal, and Ethan realized the bowl of it had been filled with the belongings the children had taken from Cora’s house. The elderly mason stood and watched while Asher, probably his apprentice, carved Cora’s name into the pedestal. Asher’s eyes still looked vacant as they had after Thirza had whispered to him. Even so, his hands shook as he worked, for which he received a scolding.

By the time the sun touched the ocean to the west, preparations were largely finished and the people began to gather on the grassy slope, where all the food and wine had been set up. Ethan took the opportunity to sneak away and find the old woman’s house.

Like all the homes on this island, the door was unlocked. With a long glance each way down the road, Ethan let himself in. At first glance he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. It was furnished with very little—a bed, a table and chair, a lantern, a wash basin.

The only unusual element in the room was a portrait over the fireplace. It was a painting of Thirza herself. The lined face, the giant bun of grey hair, and the blood-red shawl were unmistakable. The picture drew Ethan’s interest because of its age. It was yellowed and weathered, on the verge of crumbling into flakes of paper, but it showed Thirza as Ethan had seen her just a few hours ago. He looked for a date, but the bottom corner below the artist’s signature had been torn off.

He scanned the home for anything else of note. At the back of the house was a tall wooden bureau with a keyhole in each drawer.

He stepped back outside and looked again. Everyone was busy at the north end of the island and nobody was coming this way. Then he tried opening the drawers. They were locked.

Just for a second, he cast the human disguise off his right arm. His real limbs—tentacles so black they reflected no light at all—slithered into the simple locks and moved the bolts. His arm returned to its human form and he checked each drawer quickly. Three of the four drawers only held clothes.

The bottom drawer, though, was full of papers. With another glance outside, he emptied the drawer and set its contents on the table. A small slip of paper fell out of the stack and drifted to the floor.

He didn’t want to spend any more time in this place, so he went through the papers as fast as he could. As the old farmer had said, most of them were drawings and watercolor paintings. “The Beast” was written on several of the pictures. By and large they depicted different sea creatures—whales, giant squids, saurian things with fins and tails and teeth.

Ethan stuffed all the drawings back into the drawer. After a quick visual sweep, he saw the piece of paper that had fallen. He picked it up and examined it. The paper was yellowed and wrinkled, a torn strip. He didn’t need to walk back across the room to know that it was the ripped corner of the portrait, or that the date written on it was in the same hand as the artist’s signature.

1844.

At sunset, the bonfire was lit. The casks were cracked open, and skewers of meat, fish, and vegetables were stuck in the ground near the flames. Torches were lit at the fire and stuck at intervals along the path all the way from the edge of the village to the sinkhole. Ethan nursed a glass of the dark red wine and stared at the revelers. Once the festivities began in full, he would be able to snoop around unnoticed.

Someone sat down on the grass next to him. “Do you like it?”

He turned. It was Cora. She had changed into a much longer white dress. Her chestnut hair was in a loose braid over her shoulder and her head was crowned with a weave of baby’s breath. She’d been crying, although that did not detract from her beauty. Ethan thought of her father and his heart ached.

“Like what?” he asked.

“The wine. It’s a Cab… um… Cabernet. They had me pick.”

He glanced at the bitter swill in his glass. “Do you know anything about wine?”

“No.” Despite everything, she laughed. They both did. To be polite, Ethan took another sip.

She scooted a little closer. “You’re not from the village.”

“That’s right.”

“You’re different. Everyone’s talking about how strong you are. How you just showed up out of nowhere and you’re helping out without asking for anything in return.” She paused. “You’re a hero, aren’t you?”

He didn’t answer. Her slender hand reached across and grabbed the collar of his jacket, bidding him to turn to her again. When he did, their faces were less than an inch apart. Her breath was warm and smelled of summer fruit.

“I don’t want to die,” she whispered. “Please help me.”

“I’m going to.”

“There aren’t any heroes here. The men are afraid of Thirza and do what she says.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone else gets older, but she stays the same. Someone has to protect us from the beast. The men can’t do it. Anytime someone steps up to save one of us from being sacrificed, she says something to them, makes them weak and afraid. But you…”

Ethan tried to pull back a little, but her desperation gave her strength.

“You know, the beast only wants virgins,” Cora whispered. “If I’m not a virgin anymore, they’ll have to choose someone else.”

“Stop. Stop.” Ethan removed her hand from his collar and turned away. “That’s not the answer.”

She sat back, her face flushing. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just so scared.”

“We’re going to fix this,” Ethan said. “You’re going to go on after tonight and be someone’s beautiful wife, and you’ll give him fine children. But it’s going to be somebody your own age.”

Cora composed herself and created some space between them. “You talk like an old man.”

He wasn’t going to tell her that he was old enough to be her grandfather two hundred times over, that he’d seen things she could read about in history books. Instead, he changed the subject. “Go be with your father,” he said. “Leave this to me. You’re not going to die tonight.”

“There you are! Where have you been?”

Ethan looked up in time to see the old crone, Thirza, seizing Cora by the arm. She dragged the girl to her feet and got in Ethan’s face with a withering glare. He swallowed the urge to return the glare, feigning drunkenness instead.

“You had best just get out of here, outsider,” Thirza said.

Behind the old woman’s eyes, Ethan saw something that told him she resembled him more than she did the people around them. Only he saw the spark that jumped between the rings on her fingers. Then she whispered words of command in a language he knew well, a language that told him his impression of her was correct. If only she knew that such words held no power over him. Not anymore.

“Sure thing,” he answered with a slur, getting unsteadily to his feet and letting the sour wine slosh out of his glass. “Yes ma’am.”

He caught Cora’s look of utter despair as he turned away and headed for the village. Thirza pulled the girl in the other direction, toward the promontory. As soon as the old hag’s eyes were off him, Ethan dropped the act and started walking faster.

He passed Cora’s house. Her father slumbered on the porch, having already drank himself into oblivion. Ethan couldn’t blame the man.

The south end of the village was close. Between the houses and the bar, Ethan would be alone and out of the torchlight. He could drop his human disguise and slink into the cave under cover of darkness.

He was just stepping off the road when he ran into someone also creeping around in the shadows. He caught the interloper by the shirt front, turned, and shoved him into the light. It was the young man, the apprentice mason.

Ethan bristled with anger. “What are you doing?”

The young man’s trembling hands gripped the wooden handle of a tile hammer. He looked terrified, but still readied himself to swing the sharp side of the hammer at Ethan’s head. “I could ask you the same thing, s-stranger.”

“Your name is Asher.”

“That’s right.”

Ethan smirked. “You want to save the girl?”

“More than anything.”

“You plan to kill the beast with that thing?”

“It’s the b-best I’ve got.”

Ethan’s smile faded. “You’d die for Cora, wouldn’t you?”

“Y-yes. Now step aside.”

“You’d better leave this to me, Asher.”

“No. I saw you talking to Cora. If you’re going to the cave, I’m going with you.”

“It’s going to be dark. Can you see in complete darkness, Asher? I can.”

Without a word, the young man stuck his hammer in his toolbelt and pulled up a torch from the side of the road.

Ethan sighed. “Let’s go.”

Staying in human form made the trip to the cave harder, but not by much. For his part, Asher turned out to be surprisingly competent. They took turns holding the torch above the water as they climbed.

“What’s your name, stranger?”

“I’d rather not say.”

The boy glowered. “I’m giving you a little trust here. If you won’t tell me your name, at least tell me what you’re doing here.”

“I heard about the beast, so I came to kill it. That’s all.”

“Why?”

Ethan gritted his teeth. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“No, sir.”

“I’ll answer your question if you answer one of mine first. No one else but you is out here trying to stop this. Why is that? Who is she to you that you’re willing to risk death for her?”

Asher stopped climbing. “Well, mister, she’s the girl I wanted to marry. My father is a farmer. Every autumn after the ritual I’d get so excited to bring our harvest to the village. Because then I’d get to trade with the fisherman’s daughter. Every year I tried to gin up the courage to talk to her, but every year I failed. And now that I’m finally living in the village and apprenticing with the mason, I thought I’d get my chance. But…”

“I see. Does she know you wanted to marry her?”

“Of course not, mister. Even you couldn’t miss that she’s the prettiest girl in the village. I was never the only one trying to get her attention.”

“But you are the only one on his way to put a spike in the beast’s head.”

Asher was quiet for a minute. “Look, mister, fair’s fair. I answered your question.”

“That’s right, you did.” Ethan sighed. “I hunt for a particular monster called the Destroyer. I came here to see if this beast is it.”

“What’s in it for you?”

“One for one, Asher.”

“Fine. What’s your question?”

“What did the old woman say to you to get you to let go of Cora earlier today?”

“You know, mister, I would tell you if I could. I didn’t understand what she said, but I had to let go. Old Thirza does that. In fact, it was something she did almost every time she saw a man talking to Cora the last couple of years. I wish I knew what she said. Is that enough of an answer for you?”

“Actually, it is.”

“Well, then. What do you get out of killing the beast? Is it for sport? Or do you plan to ask the village for some kind of payment after it’s done?”

“Not at all. None of you will owe me anything. I suppose I do it because I’m something of a monster myself. When the time comes, you’ll see.”

That seemed to satisfy the young man. They descended in silence, winding around to the cliff. Now they were close enough to the water that the spray from the waves wet the stone face.

Ethan was sure Asher would slip off and be battered to death by the current against the rocks, but the boy gripped the cliff face with a tenacity only a foolhardy young man in love could muster.

They managed to clamber around to the mouth of the cave, but they were going to have to swim to get in.

Ethan pointed. “You see those waves? You’ll never make it. You’ll drown.”

“Can you make it?”

“Yes. I can.”

“Great. I’ll hold onto your back and carry the torch. You swim us into the cave.”

The boy wasn’t going to be deterred. With a sigh, Ethan slid into the water. Asher climbed onto his back and wrapped one arm around his shoulders. The young man was trembling again, but he made no move to turn back.

The water was dark enough that Ethan could cheat a little. He let his human guise slip from everywhere below his shoulders to ease his swimming. Above the surface, Asher’s torch threw flickering orange light across the walls and ceiling of the cave. There was a shore not far ahead, but the torchlight wasn’t strong enough to illuminate further than that.

“It’s hot in here,” Asher said. “There’s definitely something alive in this place.”

“Maybe. Hey, it’s shallow here. You can stand.”

Asher let go of Ethan and shifted his torch to his left hand. He drew his hammer with his right and crept forward. He kept his eyes up, as if the beast was likely to drop on them from the ceiling. In the distance they could see a vertical shaft of soft white light.

“There’s the sinkhole,” Ethan said. “That’s where they’ll drop her.”

As they moved forward, their feet left the hard, wet stone and stepped on something that crunched. Asher brought his torch down and let out an involuntary yelp of fear.

“B-bones!” he shouted.

Ethan almost snapped at the boy to shut up, but he was right. All around the shaft of moonlight were human bones. Ethan inspected them quickly. None bore any signs of aging. He could tell they were all female. Some had fractures to the tibia, fibula, even the femur. A glance at the ceiling told him the drop was about twenty, twenty-five feet. A drop feet-first would break legs without killing. They would be helpless, unable to escape whatever came for them in here.

Asher’s torch moved. “Over here, mister!”

Ethan looked. Whatever he had expected to see, it wasn’t this. An ancient wooden table stood by the wall of the cave. It was lined with glass jars and beakers full of colorful fluids and animal parts in embalming fluid. At the end was a kerosene burner with a black iron cauldron on top. The burner had a low blue flame and the thick red liquid in the cauldron bubbled like magma. Feathers, aged papers, and tiny animal bones littered the floor around the table.

Ethan shook his head. “Unbelievable. I should have known.”

“What? What’s going on, mister?”

Ethan was about to explain, but a gust of cold air hit him from behind and cut him off. The almighty roar echoed through the cave, hellishly loud in this enclosed space. Asher was screaming, but Ethan couldn’t hear it over the cacophony.

Ethan looked up, and his eyes went wide just as Asher’s torch hit the floor and blew out.

Even the terrible roar of the beast couldn’t bother the villagers now. The festival was at its peak. Drunken men and women danced around the fire, swigging wine and stuffing their faces with meat and fruit. Singing and shouting and laughing filled the air. The smoke from the fire hung low around the island, casting a dull orange glow over everything. Clothes were coming off.

Cora stood on the cliff and stared at the dark hole that would be her doom. For an instant, she was filled with disgust at the people around her, naked and inebriated, celebrating that their lives would go on for one more year at the cost of hers. A horrid thought arose in her mind—the thought of flinging herself off the cliff to cost the villagers their sacrifice. But that wouldn’t work, just like her thought of offering herself to the stranger wouldn’t have worked. They would just cast lots again, and one of the other girls would die tonight along with her.

To minimize the loss of life, she had to go through with this. There was no other way. For what must have been the tenth time that day, she started to sob.

A pair of cold, wrinkled hands clasped her face. “Dear child. Pretty baby. So young, so beautiful. Please don’t cry.”

Cora opened her eyes to see Thirza. The crone brushed a stray lock of brown hair out of Cora’s face.

“Tonight is about you,” Thirza said. “All of this is for you. You’re the princess for the night.”

Cora pulled away from Thirza.

The old woman clicked her tongue. “You asked for a hero? Well, you are the hero. Your youth and innocence will save everyone. You should be happy.” She took a long, deep breath, pulling the cold autumn air in with a loud hiss. “It’s time. Be brave for your village.”

Cora stared down at the sinkhole that would be her tomb. The opening stretched out in front of her, looking as enormous as a train tunnel, straining to swallow her whole. In that moment, the cave and the beast were one in their desire to devour her life and make her nothing.

Thirza put her hand between Cora’s shoulder blades. The first nudge was gentle. The second, not so much.

“Stop! Stop!”

Cora, Thirza, and the conscious villagers looked toward their homes. A young man was running up the path, sopping wet. Cora recognized him. It was Asher, the stonemason’s apprentice. He was about her age, but they had only spoken a few times.

Asher stopped a few paces short of the sinkhole and pointed at Cora. “Don’t do it! It’s a trick!”

Thirza stepped around Cora in a huff, her red shawl billowing in the wind. “Watch your tongue, boy. Unless you want the beast to eat it.”

Asher shook his head. “It’s a trick of the air. The cold north wind. It pushes the hot summer air up and out of the cave. There’s no beast. None at all. You’ve been lying to us.”

“How dare you!” Thirza screeched. She grabbed Cora’s arm and shoved her.

Cora’s hands reached out in desperation, but there was nothing around the edges of the sinkhole to grab onto. Both Cora and Asher screamed as the girl vanished down the dark shaft. The crone advanced on the young man next. “Now I’ll deal with you.”

Another bellowing cry ripped up through the cave. But this was not the rushing air of the beast’s roar. This was something else entirely.

The villagers shrieked in terror as a creature darker than the night sky emerged from the depths of the sinkhole. A mass of squirming tendrils formed the core of its being—there was no discernible head. It had Cora in its grasp.

Even Thirza backpedaled in fear as the monster bore down on them. It turned the thrashing girl on her feet and set her down on the grass. Asher ran to her side and pulled her away from the undulating mass of tentacles. The two of them held onto each other as they stared at the horrific scene.

The tentacles reached for the ground and congealed into a single mass. It changed shape and color, morphing and shrinking down until the monster was gone and only Ethan stood there. He held the cauldron in his hands.

“Here’s your beast!” he yelled. “She’s been feeding on your young women for generations to keep herself alive!”

Thirza turned pale, grasping at her face and shaking her head wildly. “No! It’s not true! This outsider is lying to you!”

“Then you won’t mind if I do this.” Ethan turned over the cauldron and dumped the red potion in the grass.

The sound that came out of Thirza was nothing like a human could make—an echoing wail of a dozen sirens coming together in one dissonant keening. She jumped and stamped and pulled her hair in her fury. At the apex of her rage, her face split open into a skull wreathed in fire and snakes.

“Witch!” the people cried in terror. “Thirza is a witch!”

The red cloak billowed as Thirza levitated off the ground and flew at Ethan. They collided at the edge of the sinkhole. Arcs of fire, so crimson they at times appeared magenta and violet, jumped from Thirza’s body into Ethan’s. He returned in kind, battering her skeletal head with blows from his dark tendrils.

“I must have Cora!” Thirza screeched. “I must consume her beauty! Her youth will sustain me!”

The rest of her flesh melted away as she expended her remaining magic on Ethan. She poured her wrath into him. Her unbridled selfishness, fermented over generations of leeching off the lives of others, climaxed in a tantrum of petulant fury.

Ethan burned. Chunks of his dark flesh were blasted away by the fiery onslaught, and it occurred to him that he could die here. Black tendrils melted and sizzled away—but the core of him was never touched. He moved, smiling as he did, not away from the assault but towards it.

“You’ve already doomed yourself,” he said. “Are you strong enough to take me down with you?”

Ethan seized Thirza by the arms and the wheeling fire spread from his body to hers. Her jaw opened inhumanly far to scream as her red shawl was set alight. She tried to pull away from her own burning shroud.

With the last of his strength, Ethan lifted Thirza over his head and hurled her away from him. They hit the ground at the same instant. Ethan only had time to watch Thirza collapse into a pile of charred bones before he blacked out.

Ethan’s eyes opened, met the full blast of the morning sun, and squeezed shut again. He rolled over, groaning at the pain that ran through his entire body, and realized he was in a bed. He sat up and opened his eyes one more time. A tiny room greeted him, with simple wooden furniture and white dust all over the floor.

He stood up and shuffled through the open front door. He was at the end of the village’s main road and the festival grounds were in sight. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he took in the scene around him.

Most of the people were cleaning up, probably with pounding headaches just like him. Some looked for clothes and blankets to cover themselves. A few were pointing at him and whispering. Other were looking at the pile of bones that still emitted black smoke.

“He saved us,” they said. “The stranger killed the witch.”

He found Asher at the sinkhole, measuring its length and width while the master mason chiseled away at a large, wedge-shaped stone. Two other men were using wood and rope to build a contraption that looked like a pulley. Cora sat nearby, her knees to her chest, guarded by her father. The fisherman caught Ethan’s eye and made his way over. Ethan met him halfway.

“I heard you saved my daughter,” the fisherman said. “And the whole village, it sounds like.” He smiled underneath eyes that were still red and watery. Then he held out his hand to shake. Ethan took it. The people cheered when they saw.

“The witch is no more!” they called to one another. “The beast of the island is dead!”

Ethan and the fisherman walked over to check on Cora. She stood when she saw Ethan and threw her arms around his shoulders.

“Thank you,” she said. “You’re a hero.”

“No, I’m not,” Ethan answered. He walked over and clapped a hand on Asher’s shoulder. “Here’s your hero. Doing what he did took courage.”

Cora and Asher smiled at each other. Ethan took a step back, hoping to take advantage of their distraction and make his getaway.

“Hold on, mister.” Asher approached him. The young man’s eyes had dark circles underneath.

“That was your bed, wasn’t it?” Ethan asked.

“It sure was.”

“Did you get any sleep at all, Asher?”

“No, sir. There’s a lot of work to do. We have a lot of remains to get out of that cave for proper burial. And then we’re sealing this hole up for good.” Asher pointed at the stone being shaped by the mason. Then he got close enough to whisper. “The witch wasn’t the monster you’re looking for, was she?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Does that mean you’ll be moving on from here?”

“That’s right.”

“Can I convince you to stay a little while and rest? You handled the witch for sure, but she got her licks in.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good…”

Cora came to Asher’s side and put her hands around his arm. She favored Ethan with wide, vulnerable eyes. “Please?”

“Fine. One day.”

Asher smiled. “That’s great to hear, mister. There’s just one more thing I need to ask you for.”

“What?”

He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Ethan. “Cora and I designed this. Well, she did most of the work,” he added after getting a gentle elbow to the ribs.

Ethan unfolded the paper. There was a sketch of a man with ruffled hair, wearing a jacket. Instead of hands, he had tentacles coming out of his sleeves. And he stood on a rectangular base.

“That’s me,” he said. “What is this?”

“It’s a statue,” said Cora. “Asher’s going to build it right over the sinkhole.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Yes we do.” Asher tapped the bottom of the drawing with a pencil. “I need to know what to put right there. Your name, mister.”

Ethan gave a sigh of resignation. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

“No, sir.”

“Fine. My name is Ethan Clegg.”

“Thanks, mister.” Asher took the sketch back and walked off with Cora, hand in hand. Ethan watched them go, letting himself relax a little.

He spent the day with the villagers, patiently answering their questions about the witch, the cave, and the beast. He was steadfast in declining to answer any questions about himself or the dark form they had seen rescuing Cora from the sinkhole. He accepted all offers of food and drink and he insisted on paying until the villagers finally put their collective foot down and refused to take any more of his money. The village settled down by sunset and turned in early that night.

He left them on the next tide, unmooring his boat before dawn. He wanted to be gone before they had a chance to realize that their “hero” was himself a monster far more menacing than any village witch. If he sailed away, they’d be singing songs about him next harvest. But if he stayed the year, they’d be baying for his head on a stick next.

Ethan had learned all the ways of men over the years, even if he had never been one. Nor could he be a hero; a hero was a man who feared death but faced it. He didn’t qualify on either account. What he had wasn’t anything like courage—the only man who had shown that on this island was Asher.

He glanced back to the island as he made for the open sea. The shore was empty. No torches burned tonight. The villagers’ work was done for the day, but his would never be. He would keep traveling, keep hunting. Even so, he imagined a beautiful young face framed with baby’s breath and chestnut braids, sleeping in peace, no longer in fear.

He had purchased that peace with his own pain and that was not a bad thing. The weight of his own darkness lifted from his soul ever so slightly. Another thousand years of days like yesterday and he might be able to call himself something other than a monster.

There’s more to the story of Ethan and the Stranded Investigator. Dive into the found documents of Dr. John T. Parce to continue your journey.

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The pig sitting across from us tried to look confident, but I could tell he was scared. He kept fiddling with the Chugg Bank & Trust pin on his tie. Not that I could blame him. He was the bank manager. If I remember correctly, his name was Slog.

The last time I had seen him, he was getting his face beaten in by an angry sheep on the front steps of this very building. Justice had prevailed, of course, and that sheep had been dragged off to be fed to the pig god. Even so, the day had left a mark on Slog. His snout was still a little crooked. I doubted he had let any sheep be in the same room with him since then. Until now.

In the corner of the room, a security camera swiveled back and forth, watching us all. It was a steel orb with an opening in front for an aperture with a red light inside. The camera reminded me of the head of Durdge. But he was gone, not worth thinking about anymore.

Slog looked at the camera too. Knowing someone was watching from the Megatropolis seemed to put him at ease. He turned back to us and cleared his throat.

“I’m told you gentlemen have an interesting proposal,” he said. He didn’t look at me the whole time he talked. I was thin, probably looked exhausted, not very threatening. He kept his eyes on Swifter, who was even bigger than the sheep who had broken his nose.

Swifter slid a glossy booklet across the table and said, “Here’s what we’ve got so far.” He was proud of that book. He’d had it done right—printed, laminated, stock photos, all collated and stapled.

Slog flipped through it, but he didn’t keep his eyes off Swifter for more than a few seconds at a time. After he skimmed to the end of the booklet, he laughed and tossed it back at us.

“Impossible,” he said. “Even if the bank were willing to give a business loan to sheep, your numbers are wildly off. You can’t do what you are proposing to do on so little expense. You haven’t factored in supply costs. The hospital goes through millions of Chuggbucks per year in bandages and pain medication alone.”

“We’re not going to need any of that,” said Swifter.

Slog laughed even harder.

Swifter glanced at me. “He’s not buying it.”

“That’s OK. We can show him.” I got out of my chair and walked around to Slog’s side of the table.

“Stay away from me!” The pig upended his chair in his scramble into the corner. “I’ll call security!”

I squinted. “That sheep did a number on your face last year, didn’t he?”

Slog settled down a little. “You know about that?”

“It happened right in front of me.”

“So you know what will happen if you lay a hoof on me. Wait a second, what’s going on with your eyes?”

I ignored him and went to work setting the cartilage in his nose back in its proper place on his skull. He must have felt it. He reached up a shaking trotter and felt his snout.

“I heard the rumors, but I never…” he muttered. “You’re real. The Healer is real.”

“That’s right.” I picked up the booklet and waved it in his face. “Take another look and see if the math adds up for you.”

“S-sure.” He took it out of my hoof. I set his chair upright and gestured for him to sit back down, then I took my seat next to Swifter. We waited for Slog to compose himself and read our proposal more carefully.

“I still don’t see the point,” the pig said after a few minutes. “You know how this works, right? Everything’s under the same banner. It’s all owned by the Chugg Corporation. Even if the insurance company ends up cutting the patient a check, the money gets spent on Chugg products. It all circulates back here. I’m not sure why you think competing with the hospital will benefit Chugg.”

“This part goes over my head,” I said. “My business partner can explain.”

Swifter leaned forward and smiled. “There’s a hidden cost, friend. Productivity. Every day a sheep spends in the hospital is another day they’re not at their desk, or another shift they’re missing at the Quarry. Give the insurance payouts to us—we can even take half of what the hospital charges—and we’ll have those sheep back on the line the next day. Even if they need multiple visits, we’ll run evening hours so they don’t have to miss any work.”

Slog’s eyes flashed. So did the lens of the camera over his shoulder.

“Alright,” he said. “You really think you can have it up and running in a year?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’ll call and let you know whether it’s approved or denied. You should know, however, that there are going to be some conditions because of your history of misbehavior.”

I have to admit I was intrigued. “What kind of conditions?”

Attention all citizens of Uptown Megatropolis. This is a public broadcast from the Chugg Corporation.

We are pleased to announce that renovation of the Chugg Bank & Trust main branch has officially begun. The newly expanded ground floor is being converted to a reinforced bunker that will house up to three thousand individuals comfortably for an extended period of time.

This facility will be the designated gathering point for any emergency evacuation. It is intended to protect pigs in the event of natural disaster or sheep riot.

All citizens are forbidden from disclosing details about this construction to non-pigs. No mention of this new expansion will be made outside of Megatropolis walls.

Public address system provided and funded by the Chugg Corporation.

Too many questions, Doc. I’m running the show now, in case you forgot. But if you must know, yes, we got the bank loan. That was how things stood for a good while. I was building. So were the pigs. But everyone’s lives didn’t stand still for that. My friends had work to do, too.

Dreamer was doing her best. I thought about her a lot, even though I had to keep her at a distance. We’d been through a lot together, she and I, but it was just safer for her to stay away.

She was living her life. She stuck to her University studies like her father had told her to. On the weekends, she tried to keep herself busy so she wouldn’t think about everything that had happened before. One thing she had gotten into was gardening. It makes sense, really, if you remember the gift her dad gave her at Boxer’s funeral.

There was a little plant nursery in Fleece City. She would go there on her days off to get stuff for her flowers. She was there one spring day, about a year after Swifter and I had met with Slog at the bank. A perfectly normal day for her. Until a voice from outside caught her attention.

“If you had seen the miracles that we birds have witnessed, sheep, you would not be so indifferent now. While you sit in cubicles and browse in stores, the engine of your freedom languishes in the Megatropolis! Will you not take action?”

Dreamer came out of the store and into the city square. She stuffed her purchases into her school satchel and made her way through the Sunday shopping crowd, trying to see who was talking. She knew that voice from somewhere.

She found the source when she got to the Optera fountain in the center of town. The pedestrians were keeping their distance from it because of the noise. An old egret, the pastor from the church at the Quarry, was standing on the edge of the bronze bowl. She had never known his name. In one foot he held a megaphone. All around him were rough-looking birds. Hawks, magpies, screech owls, grackles, and even a familiar raven formed a perimeter to keep anyone from silencing the egret.

“The Church of the Goddess is dissolved!” he said. “We spread the word of Optera with the best of intentions, but we were only contributing to the pigs’ system of control over you.”

Dreamer was the only one who stopped to listen. She had heard of these bird rallies, but she had never gotten to see one before. They tended to get chased off by dogs in the Quarry, but here in Fleece City they had a stronger foothold.

“What say you, sheep? Have we not always had your best interests in mind? Yes, we birds have stumbled and fallen along the way, consumed in our own squabbles. We were led astray from you. No longer! We have thrown off the control of pigs and are united in purpose. We want to be your allies against the abuse of pigs and the dogs that serve them. Will you join us and march for freedom together?”

Dreamer could read every emotion around her, even though she tried her hardest to suppress that power these days. In fact, it had been steadily getting stronger ever since she had come face-to-face with Optera on top of the mountain. She felt the old egret’s determination, tainted by a burgeoning discouragement. She felt the annoyed boredom of the guard dogs at the gates. And she felt the willful ignorance of the sheep around her. Just as she tried to push away her power, so they pushed away the questions the egret’s words stirred in their hearts.

And there was something else. A slow-burning, vicious hatred. It was so strong, and so out of place in this bright city, that she turned away from the fountain to find where it was coming from.

Above her and across the town square, she saw it. A figure sitting on top of City Hall. The building was backlit by the morning sun, so she couldn’t see much other than a silhouette.

“Goddess-Eyes!” the egret said. Dreamer spun. The old bird was smiling at her. “Care to say something? I bet these people will listen to you.”

She shook her head. Her cheeks burned. She tried to hide back in the crowd, but now they were looking at her too.

“I understand,” said the egret. “But if—”

Dreamer looked up to see what had cut him off. The figure on the roof spread grey wings and glided down to land on the pavement. It was Specter, the old condor. And he was blocking Dreamer’s way.

The birds guarding the egret started taunting him.

“Finally decided to show up, Specter?”

“We’ve seen you skulking around. Say something already.”

Dreamer couldn’t believe it. Specter looked even more haggard than when she had last seen him. His eyelids were dark, his face waxy, his body missing patches of feathers.

The egret set his megaphone down. “You have no authority over us any longer, so it is best if you move on.”

A nasty little smile crept up Specter’s face. “You misjudge me, old Iber. I’ve seen the error of my ways, just like you. I want to join your cause.”

“That’s a lie,” Dreamer blurted out. She regretted it instantly. She had sworn to her father that she was done getting involved.

“Even one without the eyes of the Goddess can see through your lies, Specter,” said the egret, Iber. He raised the megaphone again. “Specter was exiled by Optera herself when he tried to separate us from her. The true prophet of the Goddess exposed his lies for all to see! That made him useless to the Chugg Corporation, of course, so he was sent away from them too. For his lack of loyalty to the birds, he has lost everything. His only chance is to get back into the good graces of the pigs by undermining our newfound unity. We won’t let that happen, will we?”

Specter stepped around Dreamer and approached the fountain. Iber’s protectors closed ranks around him. Specter pointed with one claw at the raven in their midst.

“You,” he said. “Let’s go.”

The raven gulped, but didn’t move. Iber put a wing around the raven’s shoulders.

“You will not separate us so easily,” the old pastor said. “Young Osser here believed in the Church and thought the world of you, even at the peak of your corruption. After being chastised by Optera, he came to me with sincerity, looking for absolution. Unlike you, he means to change his ways. Specter, your failure is complete.”

Specter’s talons made white lines in the pavement. “You’re going to regret this. I may not be able to handle you all, but the two of you will stain this fountain red before I go down.” He bent his legs to spring. Dreamer gasped.

“Enough of this,” a deep voice commanded. Specter stopped in mid-jump and so did a few of Iber’s guards. Everyone looked down the path.

Caper had arrived.

The big eagle owl stepped between the condor and Dreamer. Nobody else moved while he looked his old rival over.

“You think you have nothing left to lose, Specter, but you’d be wrong.” Caper made a dismissive gesture at Iber and the others with his foot. “What good would it do to throw your life away in a bloodbath in the middle of a public square over a few insults? They can’t hurt you anymore. Let go of this feud and leave the pigs behind.”

Specter hissed. “Your time will come, Caper. This isn’t over.”

“I wish you saw it differently. You are the most gifted speaker of us all. If you truly changed your ways, you could be a powerful force on the side of freedom.” Caper sighed. “Where have you been living? You look miserable.”

“None of your business.”

“The pigs left you homeless, didn’t they? Why don’t you use my hut in the forest while you find your new path? I stay in my quarters at University most of the time anyway.”

The condor made a rattle in his throat and then spit on the sidewalk at Caper’s feet. Dreamer stepped back, but Caper didn’t.

“You think you can keep humiliating me and getting away with it,” Specter said.

“Not at all. It was a sincere offer. Just think about it.”

Specter turned away and spread his tattered wings. With a last glare at Dreamer, he took off into the sky.

Caper turned to Iber. “You mean well, but this isn’t helpful.”

The egret’s jaw dropped open. “Sorry?”

“Look, there’s more going on right now than I can explain, but agitating like this will do no good. Neither will drawing attention to Dreamer. These sheep won’t listen to you while their lives here are still comfortable. Trust me on this.”

Iber sighed. “Alright. We’ve had enough for one day anyway.” He flew off. His bodyguards followed him. The raven, Osser, hung back for a few seconds and stared at Dreamer.

“L-look,” he stammered. “I’m sorry.”

She blinked. “It’s… fine. You don’t have to apologize to me.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he just mumbled a thanks and took off after the others, leaving Dreamer confused.

“These birds hang on your every word,” Caper said. “Their Goddess spoke to you. That puts you at the center of their new understanding of the world.”

“I don’t want that,” Dreamer answered. “I never asked for it.”

“That is why Optera is able to trust you with such responsibility. She knows you won’t misuse it.”

“Yeah. She said the same thing when…” Dreamer trailed off.

“When what?”

Dreamer frowned. “She said… I could strike something with lightning. Just once. I’m hoping that it was some kind of a metaphor. It bothers me that she would hand me that kind of power like it was nothing.”

“It is nothing compared to Optera’s might.”

“You know what I mean.” Dreamer flinched. “Sorry, Professor. That was out of line.”

“No apology necessary.”

Dreamer remembered her bag full of supplies that she needed to get back to her dorm. “What brings you out here, Professor? I’ve never seen you in town before.”

Caper smiled. “I came looking for you. Your friends said you would be here. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. What can I do for you?”

“I was hoping I could convince you to take a walk with me.” He pointed past the fountain. “That way.”

She looked. “Out the western gate? We’ll be a long way from school.”

“I know. I will carry your bag for you. There is something out there I think you should see.”

The remainder of Sheepskin, Volume II is securely archived. A copy of this record may be obtained here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GHRQYDCV

Licensed Psychologist

BRANCHETT MEMORIAL HOSPITAL AT GRÜNWALD

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

BRIEF SUMMARY OF PATIENT PROGRESS:

It is with great regret that I must report a severe downturn in the behavior of Unidentified Patient #307.

Date of Admission: May 25th, 2085

Date of Visit: June 30th, 2085

Treatment Time: 0855-1010

Principal Diagnosis: Unspecified Psychosis with Behavioral Disturbance

PATIENT NAME: Undetermined. The patient self-identifies as “Healer” or “Snapper,” but as no legal name has been confirmed, the patient remains in our database as Unidentified #307.

OBSERVATION:

Patient #307’s condition has not dramatically changed since initial admission. His medical team tells me that his appetite is good and he remains well-muscled for a man appearing to be in his sixties. Grooming and hygiene have improved, and he maintains a neatly trimmed beard. This serves to highlight the round and pitted scars near the hairline on both sides of his forehead. He is supine in bed with four-point physical restraints at the wrists and ankles, but the head of the bed is elevated allowing him to sit upright.

PERTINENT HISTORY:

Patient #307 has been under my care for thirty days. Psychological treatment was initiated five days after his initial admission to Branchett Memorial Hospital, during which the medical team experienced great difficulty with his behavior.

This gentleman, who identifies himself as “Healer,” is being evaluated to determine if he is mentally competent to stand trial for charges of public disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Briefly, “Healer” was arrested while ranting on the street a few blocks from here, stating that a “man wrapped in lightning” was on his way and that the sun would soon be snuffed out forever if we did not act. He became aggressive when approached by police.

“Healer” was making excellent progress as documented in his patient file. As he was exceedingly interested in the history of Grünwald and its mythical “mother bear” figure, I made a deal with him: he would tell me about himself, and I would research this history in order to have an informed conversation with him.

Over the course of several weeks, he wove a narrative of his own struggles with mental health as well as a great deal of personal growth and loss.

This tale was told through the lens of an alternate world, which I believe is an attempt to process his memories while preserving his ego and shielding himself from pain. “Healer” claims to have been a sheep in this other world before traveling here to Earth and becoming human. He has not yet told me how this transition happened.

Upon his arrival and during most of his story, Healer called himself by the alias of “Snapper.” He revealed the name of Healer to me in an apparent gesture of trust, which I consider to be something of a breakthrough.

In light of the progress we were making, I recommended that Healer’s hospital stay be extended to further examine his state of mind. I believe he can be fully rehabilitated, and I would like to see the charges against him mitigated or dropped altogether. But this outcome heavily depends on his behavior and cooperation.

I have received a report that Healer accused an administrator of being a “pig” before attempting an assault. Because of this outburst, he has been placed back in physical restraints. On his initial arrival, Healer demonstrated that these four-point restraints are not enough on their own to keep him and others safe. Only a combination of restraints and chemical sedation brought him under control before I was involved with his case. I requested that I be given a chance to speak with the patient before sedation is administered this time.

Of note, the attending medical team has begun investigating other causes for Healer’s behavior besides psychological diagnoses. I have been informed that CT scans were unremarkable, but the patient has been placed on a waiting list for a cranial MRI.

SUBJECTIVE:

“Healer” is fully alert and oriented to his surroundings. Despite his restraints and the reports of recent outbursts, he is calm at this moment. Upon my entry, Healer regards me with a steady gaze and a smile suggesting he is pleased with himself. Healer greets me warmly by name.

OBJECTIVE:

This session consisted of 75 minutes of verbal interview. As usual, I begin the session by obtaining the patient’s permission to record our conversation. I have transcribed the audio recording and attached the resulting document to this file.

307: Good morning, Dr. Parce. You’re here early.

PARCE: Good morning, Healer. I am here because I understand you’ve been a little more agitated than usual. Would you like to talk about why that is?

307: Not really. But we’ve been doing this for long enough now. I know how it goes. It’s your way or the highway. Just like another dusty old egghead I used to know.

PARCE: Indeed. Why did you threaten that man? He is one of the administrators here.

307: Exactly. He’s a pig. What good does he do for this place?

PARCE: Consider this. Should you end up standing trial, hospital staff may be called to testify. Why make things harder for yourself?

307: To make things harder for you.

PARCE: I don’t understand.

307: It’s been a little one-sided so far, you know? I’ve been telling you everything about myself, but I don’t know anything about you. That has to change.

PARCE: That is not how this works.

[The following exchange is in the audio recording, but Dr. Parce didn’t include it in the transcript that he put in 307’s file. - The Stranded Investigator]

307: Fine, then. I have nothing more to say to you. Give me back to the police or whatever you want to do.

PARCE: I would rather things didn’t turn out that way, Healer.

307: What difference does it make to you?

PARCE: You haven’t told me your full story.

307: Well, you haven’t filled your end of the bargain either. You were going to look into the history of this place when it was still its own town. Before San Antonio swallowed up Grünwald like a little snack. We were going to talk about the myth of the mother bear. If you won’t give me what I want, just get rid of me. Until then, I’m going to make life hell for everyone in this hospital.

PARCE: It was our agreement that you would tell me how you left your world and ended up here first. You haven’t done that yet. You left off partway through your tale.

307: Oh, you’re interested now? Got you hooked, huh? Tell you what, Doc. Tell me one thing about yourself, and I’ll play ball.

PARCE: Alright. What do you want to know?

307: I’ll settle for your date of birth.

PARCE: Why is this relevant?

307: Hey, if you don’t want to answer—

PARCE: Fine. I was born on the twenty-fifth of March, two thousand and fourteen.

307: You’re seventy-one and you’re still doing this, huh?

PARCE: You have what you wanted. It’s time to cooperate.

307: Three twenty-five fourteen. Three, two, five, one, four. Very interesting, Doc.

PARCE: Let’s move on.

[The transcript in the patient file picks back up at this point. – S.I.]

307: Fine, fine. What do you want to talk about today?

PARCE: How you transitioned out of that sheep world of yours and became human.

307: Why is that so important, anyway?

PARCE: It will help me to know when you emerged out of that phase of your delusions and accepted yourself as a human being.

307: If you say so. We’re not even close to that point yet. Where did I leave off?

PARCE: Let me check my notes here. Ah, yes. Your friends Ponder and Mauler had been taken into the pig city to be tortured and then put into the service of the Chugg Corporation. You had sent Tenber to pose as a dog and get close to their leader. The dogs held a funeral for Boxer. Then you left your professor and your girlfriend to strike off on your own.

307: That’s right. This is the best part, Doc. This was when I stopped being such a coward and decided to make the pigs pay for what they did to me and mine. Sound good?

PARCE: As long as you promise to keep your vengeance to the story and not take it out on any more “pigs” you encounter in this world.

307: That’s fair.

The previous publication was Dr. Parce’s first course of treatment with Unidentified Patient #307. I organized it and labeled it Sheepskin, Volume I for reference purposes.

I said previously that I would stay out of the record and let his words speak for themselves. That is no longer possible.

I also said that “we” were investigating his disappearance. There is no “we.” There never was. I am alone, working with incomplete material and diminishing options.

These are confidential records of patient treatments, never intended for public viewing. I am publishing them anyway.

Dr. Parce matters to me for reasons that are not yet visible in the record. That context will come later, if I make it that long.

Dr. Parce revisited the patient and initiated another round of treatment. You may consider the following collection Sheepskin, Volume II.

Read it carefully. Something is not right.

John T. Parce, PsyD

Licensed Psychologist

[The following is a transcription from a tape recording. This document contains the first interview session with the patient referred to as Unidentified #307, who was admitted five days ago.]

PARCE: The date is August 30th, 2085. I am in the room of our unidentified patient number three hundred and seven, who was brought to us by the police. Their report indicates a violent and difficult arrest. The police were called while the patient was ranting to the general public about the coming of a “man wrapped in lightning” and a demonic conspiracy to snuff out the sun. He became belligerent when they approached him, and he now faces a misdemeanor charge for resisting arrest. He was highly confused and distant when I first arrived, but he is growing more alert by the minute. He has answered some questions about his previous history—incoherent as those answers might be—and provided a self-portrait. Now then, sir, I am highly pleased at how cooperative you have been since our session began. Do you care to comment on why that might be?

307: Because you remind me of someone. Have we met before?

PARCE: I assure you, sir, we have not. Are you ready to begin the formal interview?

307: I don’t have any more time to talk. Are you going to help me get out of here or not?

PARCE: That depends on your progress. The more information you can give me, the better I will be able to help you.

307: What do you want to know?

PARCE: First, tell me your name.

307: I gave that to you already.

PARCE: You did write it down on the drawing you made, yes. Please state it for the tape recording.

307: You can just call me Snapper.

PARCE: That isn’t your real name, I assume?

307: No, but it will do for now.

PARCE: Alright, then, Snapper. Can you tell me where we are?

307: This is the Branchett Memorial Hospital of Grünwald. I know where we are and I know what day it is. And I know why I’m here. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Can I go now?

PARCE: It’s not that simple. I need to perform a thorough evaluation of your mental state so I can make recommendations. Would you like treatment or would you like to go to jail?

307: I don’t have time for either one of those. The longer I let you hold me up, the harder my job is going to be. One of my enemies is getting closer, and another is getting further away. I’d rather not blast my way out of here, but I will if I have to.

PARCE: Is that a threat?

307: No. Just a fact.

PARCE: Talking like that is how you ended up here to begin with. Why were you shouting at people, anyway? What did you hope to accomplish?

307: I wanted to warn people about what was going to happen. But no one would listen.

PARCE: I will listen, if you will settle down and talk with me.

307: You will?

PARCE: That’s what I am here to do. But you cannot make threats.

307: I just need to leave.

PARCE: Why? You have food and shelter here. It must be better than the street where you were found.

307: I can’t tell you why.

PARCE: Then I cannot help you. I will have the staff transfer you back into the custody of the police. Goodbye, Snapper.

307: Fuck you, Doc. You think they can hold me? You think I haven’t dealt with the cops before? Fine. I’ll talk. You listen. I lived in a police state. I’ve been there. I grew up in it.

PARCE: Is that so? What country did you come from?

307: I told you already. Not another country. Another world. Not much different from this one. I see how the corporations own it all—the hospitals, the government, the schools. But in my world it was worse. So much worse. The pigs did everything they could to bleed us dry. Nothing you can do here can scare me. 

PARCE: The pigs? What kind of world is this?

307: Like I said, we were all animals there. Sheep like me, we were the laborers, the lower class. The birds were scholars. The dogs were like the police and soldiers you have here. But just like here, the schools and the government were a sham, a front for the ones really in control. The birds were bought off, and they said what they were told to say. The dogs just followed whoever was strongest, so they enforced the will of their corporate masters. And we sheep didn’t have a choice. If we were good workers, we had a shot at a long life. If we screwed up, then…

PARCE: How did you escape? How did you make it to this world?

307: That wouldn’t make sense to you just yet. I promise.

PARCE: How did you survive in that world, then? You seem to be awfully defiant for a sheep.

307: I didn’t start that way. My father kept me in line.

PARCE: Your father? What was he like?

307: What do you want to know?

PARCE: Was he a sheep, like you?

307: Hardly. He was one of the last of the great horned rams.

PARCE: Tell me more about him.

307: What, you want my whole life story? We don’t have time. I have to leave here. 

PARCE: You promised to talk. I need to know as much as I can about you before we can properly address your concerns. Now tell me about your father.

307: You’re not going to let this go, are you, Doc?

PARCE: No.

307: Fine. Alright. Well… what I remember most about my father is his voice. Deep and gravelly, you know? Like he couldn’t get enough air. Which was true, by the way.

PARCE: What’s your most defining memory of him?

307: Oh, you want one day in particular? I could tell you about the day things really started to fall apart. The day that set me on the road that brought me here.

PARCE: That would be delightful. Tell me what you remember. I will try not to interrupt unless I need clarification.

Chapter 1

307: It was the morning of my final exam at Primary School. I was seventeen. All I did back then was stew in my own anger. Everything about my world pissed me off. The way the other animals treated sheep. The way they spied on us. And worst of all was the way my dad tried to help me get past it and fit in. I was on my way, too, but then I screwed it all up. And so did my dad.

 If we had just kept our mouths shut and let the pigs have their way with us, our lives could have been peaceful. If I had resolved to ignore what was being done to my people, I could have even fooled myself into thinking life was good. But that wasn’t how it turned out. They weren’t going to let me have that.

I had barely slept in weeks, which might have been part of the problem. Someone would spy on me through my bedroom window back then. A creature. At the time, I couldn’t tell what he was. All I could see was a pair of stumpy little hands jerking the windowpane to see if it was locked. And one red eye that zoomed in and out and clicked like a camera lens. I had no doubt he was recording me. Not every night. Not even most nights. But just enough to keep me afraid to fall asleep.

PARCE: Let’s stay focused on your father. What did he think about this creature?

307: My dad didn’t care about the creature, and he sure as hell wasn’t sympathetic about my lack of sleep. He’d just yell through the house, “Up for school, son, let’s go.” If I didn’t get up then and there, he’d drag me outside.

And all the way he would order me to ignore my nighttime visitor, as if I hadn’t been trying for years. We went through all that many times, if you couldn’t tell.

I did see his point. I couldn’t miss any more school, especially now that I was at the end of Primary. We were already being scrutinized enough. That was my fault.

So I slid out of bed, tripping over my own hooves. I was a clumsy kid, always stumbling around. My body felt unbalanced. My dad tried to say it was because I was a teenager, but I knew that had nothing to do with it. My sheep body was just too awkward.

I walked through the house and met him in the yard—

PARCE: Sorry, but you had a real house? You mentioned a bed and a window?

307: Yeah, but that was about it. Not much else to say. Bare concrete floor, no decorations, no comforts, nothing. Just the way my dad liked it. He was a minimalist, I guess.

PARCE: Who built your house?

307: My father said he did.

PARCE: With hooves? How did he accomplish that?

307: You know, I asked myself the same thing every day. He would say, “I just did.” I learned to stop questioning things like that.

PARCE: That doesn’t make much sense. Your world doesn’t seem to make sense thus far.

307: We haven’t even gotten started, Doc. Do you want to hear the story or not?

PARCE: Go on, then.

307: So I went outside and found him lying on the lawn, reading his paper and coughing up a storm as usual. He stood up, which was always hard for him because of his knee. I always winced when I saw that left leg giving him trouble. I blamed myself for that, too. You see, I hadn’t done a very clean job healing his wound.

PARCE: What do you mean by healing it?

307: Just that. I healed it. But I wasn’t good at it back then. I was just a kid. My dad always said I should “get back in there” after I’d spent some time studying sheep anatomy at University.

PARCE: Tell me more about this healing.

307: I thought you wanted to hear about my dad. Stay focused, remember?

PARCE: I did say that. Can you tell me why he was coughing? You said earlier that he didn’t get enough air.

307: He always said he felt a mass, you know, like a foreign object deep in his throat. I think it restricted his airway. He let me try to heal it one time, but it didn’t respond. I tried to get him to go to the hospital in town, but he refused to go. He insisted that the staff there had a vested interest in making him even sicker. He got pills in the mail from Chugg Pharmaceuticals, but they didn’t help.

Anyway, that particular day he folded up the newspaper he’d been reading and stashed it under the porch steps. He was always reading that trash. The Chugg Report. Pure propaganda. No truth to be found anywhere. 

“Whipper-Snapper,” he said, “you have got to start getting up earlier. You’re going to have to eat and walk.” He led me to the gate and then we were out in the field, on our way to Fleece City. That’s where the Primary School was at.

I never enjoyed that trip. It was a long way, because my father wanted to live out in the country. We had an acre out there, just a stretch of flat grassland like the rest of the field. He always said having to get up early was better than living with the city’s electronic eyes on us all day. And yet he refused to listen to me about the creature at my window.

He never talked much during the morning walks. And there wasn’t much to distract me out there in the grassland, so I was alone with my thoughts. Those trips to and from the city, day in and day out, were when I was most aware of how uncomfortable it was to be walking on four legs.

Even though the skies were clear blue and there was never anyone around, my father was a paranoid mess. Being a pair of sheep in a land full of predators, we both should have been looking over our shoulders. But he took it to an extreme.

My dad jumped at every sound and his eyes darted to every movement in the grass. He was always sure that some wild dog, driven mad by hunger, would come bounding out of nowhere to snatch me up. He watched the birds as they passed overhead, as if any one of them could have been spying on us. To be fair, he was right about that.

And those horns of his… everywhere he looked, that was the way his horns pointed. He almost never looked directly at someone because of the implied threat of his horns. The points had a red stain he’d never managed to wash off. Guess if he ever told me where that came from.

Anyway, he’d hang back and watch our surroundings, and I would lead us to the city. It would have been to the east because the sun was in our faces. I don’t know. I just followed the dirt path. Over the years, our hooves had worn away the grass here. Every few minutes, I would step off the trail to grab a bite to eat.

I hated eating that way. Let me tell you, ripping up grass with your teeth is disgusting as all hell. It’s undignified. That’s one thing I don’t miss about that world. But I would have had no answer if you’d asked me what I’d have rather done.

My father tensed up. Out of habit, I glanced at him and then followed his gaze. Half a dozen magpies flying in a tight group were headed in our direction. But they didn’t approach us. They wheeled to one side and disappeared into the pine forest that grew halfway up Ptera Peak. My eyes wandered further up the mountain, where the dead tree stood. I almost got to look at what hung from the tree.

My father said, “Don’t look at it.”

I answered, “That just makes me more curious.”

“It’s there to be ignored.” That was always his last word on the thing on the mountainside. He tried to distract me by talking about what he’d read in the paper that morning.

He said, “Listen to this, Snapper. The Chugg Corporation is rolling out a Cybernetics division. They’re going to be working on improving medical research. There’s a big joint project with Chugg Pharmaceuticals, but there aren’t any details yet.”

“That’s great, Dad.”

“They might end up doing some good for people. Even if it’s by accident. Maybe they could figure out what’s going on in my lungs.”

I rolled my eyes and said to him, “It’s all run by the same pigs that own the hospital you won’t go to.”

“You know better than to say stuff like that out loud.”

“It needs to be said. They have no interest in making us better. They just want to profit. You said so yourself.”

“I’m trying to help you see the good in things, son. You have to take the good with the bad sometimes. Think about it this way: you have so much passion for healing. Maybe at a place like that, you’d have an outlet. You know… a legitimate one.”

I didn’t answer. My father let it go. Why wouldn’t he? We’d had discussions like that too many times already. Besides that, his distraction failed. As soon as he went quiet, my mind wandered back up the mountainside.

We arrived at the entrance to Fleece City while I was still pondering the thing hanging from the dead tree. We came to a black wrought-iron gate. I remember it clear as day. That iron fence ran all the way around the city. Two dogs stood guard. I always wished I could be one of those instead of a sheep, you know? A big German shepherd like them, almost like a wolf, with the teeth and—

PARCE: Did you call them that in your world? German shepherds?

307: Of course we did. Why not?

PARCE: What about other dog breeds? Irish setters? Great Danes? Dalmatians?

307: Yes, we had all kinds of dogs there. 

PARCE: Did your world have those places? Germany, Ireland, Croatia?

307: No. What’s your point?

PARCE: Let me propose something to you, Snapper. You seem to be struggling with cognitive dissonance in your memories—your revulsion with eating grass, your difficulty as a quadruped, the different breeds of dogs having names from this world. Might these be outcries from your subconscious, signs that all this is a fabrication? What if we set those issues aside and let you and your father be humans? Would we lose anything by transposing the events of the story from your alternate world into this one?

307: We sure would, Doc. We’d be losing the truth. Look, I know all that stuff doesn’t line up yet. It didn’t for me at first, either. But there was a reason for it. I don’t know if I can trust you enough to tell you yet. Can you live with that?

PARCE: For now. Go on. What happened when you and your father reached the city?

307: My dad got out in front before we got to those guard dogs. Then he told them why we were there. Same thing every day. I think the routine of it placed their minds at ease. No one was really comfortable around him because of the horns. 

“Good morning, boys,” he said. “Just bringing my son to school.”

He turned his head—and horns—to the side, giving the guards the signal that they could safely approach. They sniffed him down, then they did the same to me.

“Alright, Old-Timer,” one of the dogs grunted. “Go on through.”

Old-Timer. That’s what everyone called him. Old-Timer and Whipper-Snapper, that was us. Dumb names. But my original name wasn’t safe to use. And his, like the horns, made everyone uneasy. So he had our names legally changed when I was little. From then on, Old-Timer it was.

We walked through the gate and into Fleece City. That gate went straight to the commercial district. As usual, Old-Timer stopped to survey his surroundings and watch the morning rush.

A crowd of sheep rolled in from the suburbs at the south end of the city. Normal pedestrian traffic, same as you might see here. Some of them were headed to work at the bank or the stores. Others were dragging kids to school. Almost all of them were white or grey in their coats, like me and my dad, but every now and then you could see someone whose wool was tan or brown. Those sheep were born in the Quarry far to the west.

Right next to us, by the gate, was Little Piggy Primary School. You couldn’t miss it. The sign was painted in this nasty garish pink. It stood out because everything else was flat grey. If not for the foot traffic, you’d never know anyone lived or worked in Fleece City. Every surface was pristine. There were no cracks in the pavement. No graffiti on the walls, no trash bags in the alleys. Not a spot of yellow in the grass.

PARCE: You’re getting off topic again.

307: Sorry. Anyway, once Old-Timer had reassured himself that nobody was coming after me, he led me toward the school. But as we got closer, we noticed a crowd gathering in front of the City Hall down the block.

Mayor Wilter was coming out, headed down the concrete steps. He was an older sheep, kind of weak in the shoulders, as we said, quiet and mumbling. He was in his third term, although no one seemed to know anyone who voted for him. His favorite issue was “combating anti-pig sentiment.” His appearance itself wasn’t usually enough to draw a crowd. Something was going on.

“Go,” my father said, motioning with a foreleg toward the school. Then he headed over to see what the commotion was about. I followed him.

But I couldn’t see through the crowd. So I crept around the edge of the gathering until I got to the fountain in the middle of the square, right across from City Hall.

Like the buildings, they kept this sculpture free of any tarnish. It was a big bowl, all wrought from bronze. In the middle was a cool statue of Arghast and Optera, spraying water up into the air.

PARCE: Sorry, a statue of what?

307: Oh, a couple of the gods of our world. Arghast, the creator, and Optera, the first demigod he made. You want me to get into that now? That’s a whole other story.

PARCE: No. Thank you.

307: Didn’t think so. Anyway, I climbed up onto the fountain so I could see over everyone. But I tried to duck behind the statue a little so my father wouldn’t see me. A couple of other kids followed my example, so that helped me blend in. From the fountain, I was able to look over the crowd and see that they formed a circle around the sidewalk in front of City Hall. I couldn’t believe what I saw.

There was a pig. A real live one. They came over here sometimes to conduct business, but for the most part they stayed in their own city a few miles away. This pig was wearing a jacket and tie, but he wasn’t getting any business done at all. He was getting his ass kicked.

A big grey sheep had headbutted him right in the face and was gearing up to do it again. The pig was lying on his side and his snout was gushing blood. It was splattered all over the pavement and the sheep’s forehead. 

The sheep was yelling “Swine!” and going on and on about how pigs drank the blood of sheep so he was just taking back what was ours. So everyone in the crowd was gasping and talking to each other, you know, how dare he, doesn’t he know you can’t say that, blah blah blah.

He scuffed his hoof on the sidewalk and lowered his head and we all braced for another hit. But those two guard dogs whipped around the fountain and cut through that crowd like knives. They went right for that aggressive sheep and, Doc, they just floored him. They must have trained as a two-man team for years. Just one coordinated strike and he was on his back. He kicked out, but they grabbed his forelegs with their teeth and crushed the bone. Then they backed off. So did everyone in the crowd.

That sheep tried to stand, but his legs just collapsed under him. He was crippled. Now it was his blood pooling on the sidewalk. I can still hear his screams.

Mayor Wilter finally spoke up. “Everyone, please, over here. I want to talk to you.”

On command, the whole crowd turned their attention away from the bleeding sheep. Even the two dogs left him alone. They got to the pig, helped him up, and started walking him down the road to the hospital.

I was the only one still watching the guy on the ground.

Wilter was talking. “This is the kind of hatred we have to fight against,” he said. “Slurs against pigs, unfounded rumors about blood rituals, these are the things that divide our society. We sheep have to embrace all other animals and make them feel welcome in our city.”

He kept going, everyone was nodding, I stopped listening. I was watching the bleeding sheep on the sidewalk, and I was gathering my courage for what I was about to do. But I stopped when I saw what was approaching from the far side of town.

The sight of it made me sick to my stomach. It slithered along the road, leaving a slimy trail behind it like a huge slug. I’d never seen this… thing before, but I had heard about it from my classmates. There’s no way I could describe it, except… it looked like someone had taken an animal and turned it inside out. It was a mass of flesh, a transparent sack with organs writhing around inside. You could see the veins pulsing. Bones stuck out all over the place. The skull of a sheep was perched right on top, like a trophy. Eyes popped up in the front, the sides, the back, wherever. They would look around and then retreat into the tangle of guts.

It looked like one of those, what do you call it, when you have a growth that has hair and teeth in it—

PARCE: A teratoma, it’s a kind of tumor.

307: Tumor, yes. Tumor. That’s what this monster was called. The Entomber. I’d heard the rumors but they didn’t do the real thing justice. I could barely stand to look at him. But I had to, because no one else was paying attention. Everyone had their eyes on the mayor while Entomber crept toward the crippled sheep on the sidewalk.

He stopped screaming—he froze—when he saw Entomber coming at him. Then he tried to get up. He couldn’t. His front legs wouldn’t support any weight.

I realized it was now or never for this guy. If I could heal his legs, it might give him a chance to get up and run. No one was watching.

I jumped down from the fountain, snuck around behind the crowd… and bam, my father was right there, tripping me up and pinning my head to the ground with one hoof. With my chin jammed against the sidewalk, I couldn’t open my mouth to protest. He tried to turn me, but I was able to keep my eyes on the bleeding sheep five feet away from me. I wish I hadn’t watched.

Entomber vomited up his own stomach, prolapsing himself into a long slimy tube with teeth sticking out every which way. He retched a yellow glob onto the crippled sheep, and the screaming came back double. Everywhere the yellow mucus touched, the sheep’s flesh turned into red foam and sizzled away. He howled and flopped over onto his back as the skin fell off his legs and chest. Some of the other sheep at the back of the crowd began to turn around. Entomber spit out a second acid glob that hit the poor sheep right in the face, and his screams turned into hissing and wheezing as his tongue and throat disappeared. As soon as he went quiet, the crowd listening to the mayor forgot about him all over again.

“Let go, damn it,” I said through clenched teeth. All my dad did was press down on my head even harder. I couldn’t do anything to help as Entomber rolled over the dying sheep. When the monster’s entrails went into reverse and furled up back inside him, they pulled the sheep’s body along. I hope to God he died quickly.

Entomber turned around and slithered back the way he came. My dad didn’t let up an inch.

“And that’s all I have to say on the matter,” Wilter said. “Have a good and productive day, everyone.” Same as Entomber, he turned and headed back the second his job was done. The crowd started moving again as soon as they were dismissed.

I started to move, but Old-Timer still didn’t let go of my head. I managed to turn just enough to glare up at him. He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring up the steps at City Hall. I couldn’t see what he was looking at through the legs of the bustling sheep walking around us. Almost like he was keeping me down and out of sight.

Just for a second, there was a gap in the crowd and I could see up the steps to the entrance of City Hall. Wilter’s assistant pulled the door open to let him in. The lobby was dark inside for some reason.

And there was that single red eye. The one from my window. Looking right back at me.

The gap closed and I couldn’t see anything again. But that was when my father finally took his foreleg off the back of my head. I stood up and turned on him. 

“I could have helped that guy,” I said. “You know I could have healed his legs. At least enough for him to run away.”

My father didn’t look at me. “Yes, you could have, and Wilter and Entomber and your red-eyed friend would have seen it. After I promised them you would never do that again. And then it would be you being digested in Entomber’s belly right now.”

“We let him die,” I said. “Doing anything would have been better than doing nothing.”

“That’s not always true, son,” he answered. “Now, go to school. We’ll talk about it later.”

I said, “Yeah. We will.”

The remainder of Sheepskin, Volume I is securely archived. A copy of this record may be obtained here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9FWTXGP

Licensed Psychologist

BRANCHETT MEMORIAL HOSPITAL AT GRÜNWALD

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

Date of Admission: August 25th, 2085

Date of Visit: August 30th, 2085

Treatment Time: 0905-1020

Principal Diagnosis: Unspecified Psychosis with Behavioral Disturbance

PATIENT NAME: Unknown [Unidentified #307]

Sex: Male

Age: Unknown

Height: 170 cm [5’ 7”]

Weight: 84.3 kg [186 lb]

Race: Unknown

Hair color: Grey

Eye color: Brown

OBSERVATION:

Patient #307 is a male of stout build appearing to be in mid to late sixties. Well-nourished with above-average muscle mass for age. Unusual facial features and uncommonly greyed skin color make ethnicity impossible to guess. Grooming appears inadequate. Hair and beard are long and unkempt. Prominent, poorly healed scarring at the hairline above both eyebrows. 307 is currently supine in bed. Responds to verbal prompts. Able to spontaneously move all limbs, but motor action is delayed due to chemical sedation.

PERTINENT HISTORY:

Little to no background information is available. 307 arrived on 8/25/2085 via ambulance, having been apprehended in the street during a violent, delusional outburst.

307 appears to be a local or to have at least spent some time here in Grünwald, as he has knowledge of the town’s history before its incorporation into San Antonio proper. In particular, 307 makes oblique references to figures of local tall tales and myth, such as the “mother bear,” which I will not delve into here. Suffice it to say this patient demonstrates a marked fixation on the inarguably tragic and arcane events of Grünwald’s history, both real and fictitious.

SUBJECTIVE:

307 is extremely somnolent due to chemical sedation, demonstrating none of the belligerent and paranoid behaviors that have been well-documented over the five days since initial admission. 307 normally becomes suspicious with inquiries about personal history, frequently attempting to redirect questioning. However, on this date 307 is unusually cooperative with questioning about the content of delusions, likely due to the efforts of the staff to provide a stable medication regimen.

OBJECTIVE:

All vital signs remained within normal limits throughout the session.

This session consisted of 75 minutes of one-on-one, face to face interaction. Initial interaction was pleasant, but confused. When I inquired if he was born here in Grünwald, 307 became insistent that he was not born in this world at all, but in another world in a different dimension. He stated he was glad to be human, but was not born as one. 

In an attempt to assess the patient’s orientation to reality, visual perception, and fine motor coordination in his current state, I gave 307 a set of art supplies and requested a self-portrait. The result is attached below.

307 insisted that he and every other citizen of his original world was an animal of some kind. In an attempt to lead him to speak more on the subject, I made a provocative suggestion that sheep are not considered among the most intelligent of beasts. 307 grew significantly more alert and answered that the sheep of his world, along with the dogs, pigs, and birds, were able to think and speak just like humans.

Taking advantage of his increased responsiveness, I requested more details about the patient’s life in this world of his. He launched into a narrative about his previous life prior to his “travel to this dimension.” I have captured this narrative on a series of tapes which remain in my possession.

I will present my findings in sequence as I finish transcribing each audio recording.

Electronically signed on 8/30/2085 at 1118 by:

John Tyton Parce, PsyD

His records were gathered here as part of an investigation into his disappearance. But Dr. Parce’s fate may end up as just another tall tale, one of the many strange and horrible things that have occurred in the town of Grünwald, Texas.

We are releasing these records as a last resort. Many of these documents stretch the limits of belief. But it is all we have to go on. From this point forward, we will let the words of Dr. Parce speak for themselves.

Help us find the good doctor.