I: Barbara Wakes
Is it a lie to say she woke when there was no such thing as sleep?
Nights in Idle were always Barbara's favorite hours, ever since she was a little girl gleefully ignoring her bedtime. In the desert there was no such thing as a lingering heat; as soon as the sun sank below the horizon she could enjoy a few hours of delicious coolness in the air. It was a most delightful way to fall asleep under the watchful eyes of Alma Smith, Fable, and the stars above.
There was no Alma anymore, nor was there a Fable. Barbara would have to make do with stars.
Barbara lied on the roof of her shop, above the room which held her bed, above the quiet streets of a sleepy town. The streetlamps were out that night, she noted with pleasure, and there was nothing to wash out the flickering radiance above her. There to her left--a crescent moon, the sickle fit to geld a Titan. There the North Star, the key to a true course and safe travels. Cutting across the heavens in a barrier as mighty as Church Street, a river of light which rumor said might contain new worlds. Other Earths, other Barbaras looking at foreign moons and stars.
It was comforting, she decided, to imagine someone like yourself and yet entirely themselves. Barbara wondered why it had taken her so many years to realize it.
Above her, the river of light turned in its ancient round. Below her, the river of darkness sighed and spread. Slow things, or so they would seem to people who needed to sleep.
Barbara was not people, and she watched the sky.
II: Barbara Walks
"Barb? Oh sweetie, what are you doing out this late?"
Barbara's name was not Barb, but correcting Linda serves no purpose. She glanced behind her to see Linda frowning at her in a lime green jogging suit and bright purple sneakers. The combination was unexpectedly hilarious on a woman who had driven three fast food restaurant managers to tears.
"I might ask you the same," Barbara replied. "Isn't it late to be checking the length of everyone's lawns?"
"I have insomnia, dear," Linda informed her. The narrow-eyed glare struck Barbara as inexplicably maternal given it came from a woman nearly fifty years her junior. "Exercise is the best way to stay healthy under those conditions, and my house is right around the corner. It doesn't explain, however, what you're doing here so late."
Barbara hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. "I prefer to think of it as getting an early start on the day. Sometimes what you really need is a good walk around town to clear your head. Wouldn't you agree?"
Linda Lowes was unimpressed. This was normal. "Not to burn off energy, or pass the time? I suppose everyone has their hobbies."
The word hobbies was said with the precise, puncturing sweetness Linda used to say working mom. Barbara resumes walking, Linda at her right checking a Fitbit which may as well have been attached to a mannequin.
"How's your father?" Linda asked after a minute or so of silence. "It's been forever since I've seen him around town. He didn't move away, did he?"
Barbara considered the throb of blood in her veins and the four thousand, eight hundred seventy-two drops of dew on the nearest car. She considered Brooklynn, sweat forming on her brow as she dreamed of demons and math tests in her bed. She considered moisture soaked into every stone and brick, invisible and omnipresent. She considered plants digging down, down into the soil to drink deep of the waters of Idle.
"Oh, he's around," Barbara told Linda without a hint of guile. "Don't you worry about him."
This answer did not appear to reassure Linda, so Barbara continued for formality's sake. "How are the kids? Doing well in school, I hope."
To her mild surprise, Linda didn't answer right away. They passed a house which Barbara knew had been the site of multiple human sacrifices meant to unlock riches beyond imagining. The HOA was in the process of fining them for their tacky lawn ornaments and improperly placed mailbox.
"Do you ever think about just leaving?" Linda asked in a rush. "Just...getting out of Idle, and not knowing if or when you'll ever come back."
"I used to," Barbara allowed.
"Why did you stay? Was it your family?"
Paesleigh and Kingston were lying so still and quiet seven blocks away. Barbara wondered if Linda knew how often they were awake while she took her evening walks. Children always saw so much more than their parents realized.
"They were a part of it." Barbara's eyes wandered to the right, over the line of houses to where she knew Fable's bookshop remained still, yawning like an open grave. "Not the only reason, but a real part."
Linda gave her a searching look which Barbara answered with a serene smile. "What was the largest part, then? Why did you stay?"
There were two thousand, five hundred and twenty people in Idle, most of them sleeping. Another five hundred were only people from a certain point of view. For many of them, sleep was a lie, no matter how comforting.
"Some places," Barbara said. "Have a way of getting into your bones. And vice versa."
III: Barbara Works
Barbara's Crafts needed a new sign, and ironically Barbara was out of paint.
It took until 11 for the shipment of supplies to arrive, which fortunately gave Barbara plenty of time to haul down the worn sign with a ladder, screwdriver, and creativity. The worn board had patiently advertised her services since the mid-sixties when Barbara finally formalized her ownership. The heat wave had finally baked the last of the color out of the weathered boards, and she had finally run out excuses to replace it.
The feeling of a brush in her hand was oddly foreign, and Barbara abruptly realized that it had been years since she painted anything at all. She was no longer certain she knew how. Three times she lowered the tip of the brush to the wood. Three times she lifted it without a leaving a mark.
Barbara turned to look behind the counter at the portraits of her parents eternally behind the counter. They were some of her oldest work; Barbara was always young, but even then she had yet to see her second decade. She rocked to her feet and crossed to behind the counter to get a better look, to remember the comfort of wood and color in her hand.
Her father was done in watercolor, of course. Barbara smiled at it, a finger lightly tracing the outline of a dark cave, the gleam of still water deep within. She glanced over to Fable's oil-on-canvas and realized with some chagrin that it had grown dusty in her inattention. Dust was a common thing in Idle, but Barbara considered that no excuse: she was not born in a barn.
Armed with a tissue, Barbara tidied the painting to reveal shafts of golden sunlight falling on an empty book. An inkwell sat on a table, quill at the ready. Only a hand was needed to put words to page. Barbara looked at it for a long minute. If she was not her father's daughter, she would have forgotten to breathe.
The bookstore was still empty two blocks east of her shop, a hollow memorial to tale in spite of the overloaded bookshelves.
Barbara returned to the sign and stares at the faded wood. She distinctly recalled a memory from long before she was born: one of the earliest clashes between her father and Fable, perhaps ten or so thousand years ago. It was a chaotic thing, when they did not know each other well enough to hate, even in the alien way such beings hated.
This is not your place, he had said, a crashing waterfall that was also a herd of horses and a little boy who had wandered away from the relative safety of the fires. Begone, before I devour you and all that you are.
Barbara was not a typical child, but she did still have two parents. And perhaps devouring the remainder of Fable would be the most fitting end to the battle that gave her life.
In green the color of desert sage, she painted Barbara's Books and Crafts with a crossed paintbrush and quill.
IV: Barbara Waits
It took nearly two weeks for the Dry Death to realize something was amiss. Barbara was unimpressed, but then not everyone was raised with punctuality as a virtue.
The sunlight intensified and Barbara began to sweat. Afternoons were always the hottest time in Idle, when the light took that eye-watering strength and painted the scrublands in searing radiance. It was the zenith of the Dry Death's power. It was the nadir of her father's.
Barbara fixed herself a lemonade as the door to her shop swung open to admit her foe.
Katherine Paxton did not look herself, and Barbara was fairly certain this was because she wasn't. The form before her was almost completely shrouded in heat haze and trapped sunlight, with only the outlines of what might have once been a woman inside. A corona blazed around its head like a saint's halo.
Barbara felt the heat of its gaze upon her, hatred as enduring as hellfire and twice as ferocious.
"Lemonade?" She offered. "I have a spare cup."
The Dry Death did not move. Its voice was a dead breeze across a dead desert. "This is impossible."
"If you say so." Barbara finished her cup and poured another. "It's just lemon juice and sugar, but not everyone has the knack for cooking."
If possible, its glare became more hateful. A nearby book's pages began to crinkle from the intensity of it. "Your wells are dry. Your town will scatter or die of thirst."
"So they are," Barbara agreed. She went to the sink in the back of the store and rinsed out the lemonade jug with clear, cold water. "Is there something you needed? We just got a new shipment of romance novels in, and those always sell quickly."
The figure stood beside the counter. The figure did not move. The figure stood behind Barbara by a matter of inches, a pillar of heat and hate far taller than Katherine Paxton could ever reach. "What have you done, daughter of my enemy?"
Barbara turned to look at it very deliberately. Then, with exacting slowness, she inhaled--
--Chase Lunsford, cleaning the bar, inhaled--
--Camren Tarrayo, tying her boots, inhaled--
--Linda Lowes, diaphragm working for the first time in years, inhaled--
--and exhaled. A sigh rang through Idle.
The Dry Death was deadly still. "You. You devoured your own daughter as your devoured my husband."
"As I devoured Katherine's husband," Barbara corrected. "But I did much more than that. Or didn't you notice, even with weeks to do nothing but watch and wait?"
"You swallowed the soul of the entire town." The Dry Death's eyes were barely visible.
Barbara laughed. It was a childish thing, but then she was very young. "Now you understand. Every brick is my body. Every breeze is my breath. I hadn't thought such a thing was possible but I'll tell you a secret--"
Barbara leaned forward conspiratorially. The Dry Death swayed back on instinct.
"Even before I became her, my daughter was absolutely extraordinary."
There was silence in Barbara's Books and Crafts.
"It doesn't matter what you eat or what you call yourself," the Dry Death told her. "You are still my enemy. You will still be bleached bones under the sun."
Barbara looked at it without fear. "You didn't bring a gun big enough to destroy this body. Idle is my name and shape--in exchange, I will be its matter and life. A town of monsters is a much more enduring thing than a newlywed. I wonder how much longer Katherine can burn before she's spent?"
The heat haze grew denser. The light outside grew blinding and baking. Barbara did not close her eyes.
"This town has no shortage of hatred. What will stop me from taking another?"
"Oh do." Barbara stepped forward, and the Dry Death stepped back. Another step. Another. Around her there was more of her: the birds took flight outside. The plants on the balcony surged higher. "Descend on one of them, any of them. But tell me this: what do you think will happen when you become a part of the town?"
There was no sound. Every living thing in Idle turned its gaze at once to the town center.
"You have no shortage of hatred, but oh, I'll eat you up I love you so."
The Dry Death towered. The Dry Death raged. The Dry Death swelled with the fury of a star.
The doors to the shop closed.
"Don't be a stranger," she said to the silence.
V: Barbara Weeps
Barbara weeps no more. After all, it's a beautiful day in Idle.