Remember Remember

By Reverie Quist

“I’m not good at being a human,” I explain, crunching a dead leaf under my feet as I take a step closer to the sidewalk bench. “I’ve been practicing, but I’m amateur at best. Humans, they’re… close to what I am, but I can’t avoid making them nervous around me.”

Big Ben chimes the late hour several blocks away. Howell jolts, his breath a visible cloud in the cold November air. For the leader of a secret organization that studies the supernatural, he hasn’t hidden his unease very well, peering up at me from his seat with that almost-afraid stare I’ve seen countless times before. I can tell he hasn’t decided if he believes me or not. But he’s listening.

I have to keep him listening.

Gaze flitting to the dimly-lit scarecrow propped across the street, I join him on the bench, my bones giving subtle cracks as I bend down. “I’m telling you this so you understand I speak from experience. I know when someone is pretending to be human. I see them make the same mistakes I do. It’s wrong. It’s… creepy.”

“Well,” he chirps, hiding behind a forced, cheery English cadence, leaning back, and twisting the tip of his mustache. “I must admit, sir, when you asked to talk business, I was expecting something closer to a stock exchange.”

“I know too well who you really are.” I smirk, peering at the alleged master of trickery. “None of your false personalities hide it from me.”

Howell’s eyes narrow and he straightens. “Oh?” His false English accent fades into natural French. “And will I get the courtesy of your transparency, too?”

I sigh, relenting, and remove my glove.

“Silas,” I say, offering him my hand. A firework erupts in brilliant colors overhead, casting light on swirling scars and black feathers where there should be human skin. “Have you heard of me?”

Howell’s eyes widen. His hand moves to his coat pocket where I see the faint outline of a gun.

“So you have.” I nod, pulling on my glove again and standing from the bench as smoke comes down in faint wisps from the sky. “Save your bullets for the traitor in your midst, Howell. One amongst you is not what he seems… and is planning to blow your headquarters to oblivion.”

Howell frowns. His gaze wanders to the scarecrow. To the crowd of people gathered around it with sparklers and holiday songs.

“Why are you helping me?” Howell stands up beside me and follows as I walk toward the crowd. “Why risk being seen to tell me of a traitor?”

I tilt my head and scuff my shoe along the cold, damp road. “Let’s just say it’s in both of our best interests that your little League of the Clock stays operational. Your traitor has a card up his sleeve that would mean trouble for your kind and mine alike.”

“Who is it?” He runs a shaking hand through sand-colored hair. “Who did you see?”

A flash of sparkler-fire reflects off the rain puddles on the street before us. I turn up my coat collar to shield my uncanny face from the light.

“Not sure about the name…” I shift to walk behind Howell as we near the crowd surrounding the scarecrow. “I only know he’s stolen your maps, conspired with your enemies… and he’s much too fond of gunpowder.”

Howell stiffens. “The 5th of November…” he whispers, glancing back at me as the crowd raises a thrilled cheer.

A wave of heat blows through us as the scarecrow bursts into flames.

“Remember, remember…” I continue the rhyme.

A new voice suddenly growls from the shadows behind us.

“Gunpowder, treason, and plot.”

Howell’s gaze darts over my shoulder and he grabs the gun in his pocket. I turn around to see a man in a dark cap inching toward us with an unsettling smile and eyes as dark as ink.

“That’s how it goes, right?” he asks, opening his hand to reveal a small, ticking pocket watch.

“A time bomb?” Recognizing the traitor, I start to circle him, my chuckle drowned out by the crackling scarecrow behind us. “How fitting.”

Taking advantage of my distraction, Howell lunges at him. A swift strike to his head with the handle of the gun disorients him, letting Howell snatch the watch and give it to me to deactivate. Before he can get away, Howell wraps an arm around his shoulders, holding him in place.

“That one was meant for me,” Howell hisses, pressing the gun discreetly against the traitor’s spine as I open and deactivate the bomb. “Likely there’s one meant for headquarters, too.”

I step in front, shielding them from the cheering crowd, and watch as the man’s hands bend unnaturally, fingers working to stretch and seize Howell’s wrist.

“You won’t be able to hold him for long,” I warn my new associate.

Howell nods. “Then don’t make me regret trusting you.”

I sigh, glancing between the burning scarecrow and Big Ben’s shining face several streets away.

Figures it’d be all up to me.

A minute later I’m in the air, hauling the bomb from the clock tower in small black claws, shape-shifted wings propelling me into a sky filled with fireworks. This one was complicated—there wasn’t time to deactivate it. I fling the bomb as high as I can, hoping to add another explosion to the show, then dive back down.

My wings turn back into arms just in time to help break my fall, my almost-human head hitting the gravelly earth in place of a raven’s.

I look up past Howell’s wincing face to see a bright flash of sparkling white explode in the night sky. The crowd cheers.

Howell helps me up, his arms covered in swirling scratches. The traitor is gone.

“Sorry you lost him,” I grunt, rolling my shoulders back into place.

Howell shakes his head and grins at me. “Lose one ally, gain another, I suppose.”

I can’t help but chuckle. “Indeed.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Reverie Quist is a theater nerd, a guacamole-aholic, the proud owner of a stuffed gnome named Fuzzbert, and a spec fic writer who had a little too much fun coming up with this pen name. She’s been making things up since she was a small gremlin, and now that she’s a less-small gremlin, she can’t help but write about those make-believe things. She actually can’t stop writing. It’s a problem. (Please send guacamole.)

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