The Imaginary Corpse, page 31
“And me,” says Chip.
“And me,” says Golem Jones.
“And me.”
“And me.”
“And me.”
Everyone echoes the call. Mr Float gets briefly overwhelmed by the flurry of identical orders, but after a quick headcount he starts lining them up like an assembly line, the soda gun working overtime in his translucent hand. While he does that, I take a deep breath, try not to shake, and turn to Chip.
“Chip?” I say.
“Hm?”
“Tell me the news.”
I hear Chip’s smile in the way he inhales. “Citizens of Portland today are as exultant as they are mystified, for the nightmare of the Teatime Man is finally over – by his own hand. The Teatime Man, one Frederick Harbor of Sandpoint, Idaho, has turned himself over to the authorities, saying that he knows it’s time for him to be punished for, quote ‘what a bad father he’s been…’”
There’s more, stuff about how long Fred Harbor’s reign of terror was, how many children he kidnapped, how many of those are going to the hospital. I think Chip mentions a trial date. I log it all, setting it aside to comb through later for evidence of how the heck this all came to pass. For today, I let myself focus on the part where it’s over.
Eventually, Chip finishes reciting the article, sounding the most pleased I’ve heard him since the door to Smile House broke. Mr Float starts doling out the shots of root beer, handing them off on trays to make it easier on everyone. I notice he’s poured six more than he needs, then I realize he’s counting himself. I take one of the shot glasses in my paw, the smell of vanilla and sassafras tickling my sinuses, and I let myself take a couple seconds to be sure I’m ready for the feels train before it leaves the station.
“To the fact-finders who fell facing the Teatime Man,” I say, holding the shot glass high.
That jangles a few nerves. I guess they didn’t think villains would figure into the toasts. Welcome to my world.
“To the fact-finders,” says Golem Jones, his hand soaring overhead compared to the rest of us.
“To the fact-finders,” agrees Chip.
The others repeat it, though not without some shades of reluctance.
I slam the shot back, and raise the next one. “To the soldiers of the Mousehole Wars.” I hate lumping them together like this. If this ever happens again, I’m learning all their names. I’m making sure the fact-finders don’t have them, too.
“To the soldiers,” everyone says, with a little less confusion.
The third shot is to Victor Crane. Miss Mighty belts out his name, and the others speak it with reverence, too. The fourth is to Plug, repair-octopus of the Memory Reefs, and by then people aren’t reluctant anymore, though Mighty and Jones are still the loudest. The fifth is to Cable. The sixth… the sixth I have to hesitate on. Mighty next to me has figured it out, judging by the way she lets her hand hover near my paw on the bar. But I swallow the latest fusillade of nerves, and I lift the shot-glass.
“To Spindleman,” I say, my eyes misting up.
Everyone hesitates. Focred and the Sadness Penguins trade anguished looks among themselves.
“To Spindleman,” agrees Golem Jones, with sadness in his voice.
“To Spindleman,” echoes the group.
To Spindleman. To a life far too short. To a Friend I’m certain was wonderful. I won’t pretend its death was worth it. I won’t pretend the Teatime Man’s arrest makes it all right. But I will say that at least we can honor it with some amount of justice.
The crowd falls silent, looking at each other, hanging on their closer friends among the group. There’s still sadness hanging over us, but there’s a lot less tension; I even see relief on a few faces. We needed that. I needed that.
“Thank you, Tippy,” says Golem Jones, a warm, rocky presence next to me.
“Yeah,” says Miss Mighty, as she gestures for another drink. “Thanks.”
“Of course,” I say. “I mean, what am I for if not helping people?”
Miss Mighty tilts her head back and laughs, and the brightness goes up on my world. Usually, Miss Mighty only laughs about how foolish a villain is being. This laugh is her happy laugh. It’s loud, and it’s high, and it’s just a little bit musical. I like it.
“Hey,” I say, riding the wave. “Do you… do you want to come to a party later? In a couple days? Give us all time to recover and then–”
“Of course,” Miss Mighty says. “Any party you invite me to I’ll be at. ’Less Dr Atrocity is stealing the moon again or something,” she finishes with a smile.
“Great,” I say. “Great.” Usually I’m okay at small talk, but her mentioning Dr Atrocity has thrown me for a loop. I’m more fragile than I was admitting, and that’s saying something. “Do you mind if…” I swallow. “Is it okay if I go?”
Miss Mighty furrows her brow. “You askin’ if you can be excused?”
Yeah, okay, I’ll smile. “I guess I am.”
“I mean, of course,” Mighty says with a shrug. “But, you sure you want to be alone?”
“Yes.”
Mighty shrugs again. “Okay.” She gives me a smile that I know is genuine, if worried. “See you around, then, Tippy.”
“I’ll make a point of it.”
“You’d better.”
I wave goodbye, turn around, and stop, feeling nailed to the spot. The fact-finder is looking directly at me – not near, not past, at and in and deeply. I’m not sure if it’s trying to intimidate me, or if that’s just the way it looks at people. I maintain eye contact, feet planted, and say, “Thank you.”
The fact-finder flickers into their much less welcoming form, a throbbing mass of what looks like roadkill and burnt crayons. They shift back to their businessman form, and they mouth without sound the words, “You owe us.” And then they’re gone.
I shudder, for sure, but I don’t let it bother me too much. Owing Big Business a favor isn’t as scary as what I have to do next.
I head for the door, stopping and talking to just a few Friends – Mr Float, Chip, Golem Jones, – to make sure they’ll come to my party. The smiles they give me keep me warm all the way up until the door closes, and I’m alone outside. I’m not sure if Playtime Town has actually gotten darker since I was inside, or if it’s just my mood. Either way, I know what I have to do.
I start walking, and head down the street to Saint Sunbeam’s.
I stay for an hour. Spiderhand doesn’t wake up.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I walk up the Welcoming Arms stairs, walk into my little apartment. I swim through the treasure-trove of letters I’ve been neglecting, and I let my mask of confidence drop as I look around and see what’s changed.
Spiderhand’s room is still exactly the way he left it, organized chaos with a tea-party theme. The spices he loved to rub between his fingers are still in the kitchen cabinets. The big round table is still there, right next to the tea service he served us from at that last big meeting. And in the corner, big and black and well-cared-for, is the piano. The kettle he filled up before we went out to the Space Kingdom is even still there, still full of cool, clean water.
Take care of our home, that’s what he told me. Playtime Town is our home. And the Teatime Man is now a part of our home. He’d want me to take care of that, too. He’d want me to believe the best of others. I will. Eventually.
I pick up some of the mound of letters, head back to my room, sit down at my desk. I take a long, nose-tickling pull from my flask of root beer, and I start sifting through the letters.
One of the Sadness Penguins is missing – they never came back after we scattered in the Space Kingdom. Golem Jones says a Friend visited him recently, saying their home Idea’s volcano just erupted for the first time. And a smeared note from Wrrbrr says the Santa Erzulie Cinema is being haunted by something she calls a ‘popcorn ghost.’ There’s a lot for me to do.
Good.
There’s a knock at my door. I twitch, and when the knock comes again, I realize the twitch is because I’m expecting them to kick the door down. I smile, relieved, and swing the door wide.
Standing at the door is Breaker. She’s wearing a new tool belt, some new tools and some old, a screwdriver and a drill and a hammer and some things I couldn’t explain if you handed me an instruction manual. But, more importantly, she’s wearing a worried expression. Did Miss Mighty check on her? Should I have checked on her?
I should have checked on her.
“Are you alright?” I ask.
“Y-yes,” she says, massaging her arms with each other. “I w-was – Miss M-Mighty told me what you were d-d-doing. S-she found me…” She smiles up at me. “Dr Atrocity took me in after the… after e-everything.”
I guess I can still get surprised.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” I say, guilt and snappy phrases traffic-jamming my brain. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Can… I come in?”
I step back, and gesture for her to follow. She glides into the living room and stops, studying the piano.
“What is that for, anyway?” she asks, enthralled.
“It’s a piano,” I say. I shake my head. No sarcasm. Not today. “Sorry. It’s a musical instrument. You make music with it.”
Breaker twists her arms into her version of a nod. “Sasha experienced music a few times,” she says. “She really liked, um, rock and roll?”
I chuckle. “Yeah. Sandra did, too.”
Breaker’s worry has tripled in the last couple seconds. “Your m-maker’s name was Sandra?”
“Yep,” I say. “I… that’s all I want to say right now, but…”
Another arm-nod. “I understand. But I would like to hear more someday.”
Um… “What did you need to see me about?”
Breaker’s arms twist up under her, a noodle bowl of uncertainty. They come undone with a shiver, and she blurts out, “I need a place to stay and I was wondering if you wanted a partner.”
I stare. I stare for a long time, while my thoughts pinball around each other. Breaker decides to fill the void by looking hurt and ashamed at my carpet.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just… liked helping you and planning with you and I want to learn, and, and your j-job is all about learning and thinking and, and, and f-fixing and… I wanted to help people the way you helped me and…”
She doesn’t stop. She probably can’t stop. I would say I feel awful, except I now know a new definition for that word.
She’s smart. She had to be to help Sasha with what she did. She’s got a great memory. She’s quick-thinking. She’s inventive. And she’s good, deep-down good, the octopus who stayed kind when the Teatime Man forced them to figure out a new way to survive. From the moment she came to Playtime Town, behind the fear, all she wanted to do was help. Help, just like I help. I should have checked on her. But also, underneath the rest of the crisis, a part of me wanted to check on her. To be a Friend who checks on Friends like Breaker… and to be someone Breaker would want to check in on her.
Teaching her could be difficult. She might not take to it. But I have to let her try.
“Yes,” I say.
Breaker stops.
“Yes,” I say again, before she can start back up. “I’d love to have you be my partner.”
“I…” Her eyes are saucers. “I… I…”
“You’re welcome,” I say with a smile. “Listen, though: I’ve never really had a partner.” Not that I acknowledged, anyway… “I’ve never really worked with anyone but hired muscle. And I have some bad habits when it comes to clues that I’m still trying to get past. So this is going to take some learning for both of us. And if we’re going to work together, it’s important you get along with Miss Mighty, and with Chip, and I think these days with Big Business and Dr Atrocit–”
“Of course!” she says, arms flailing. “If they want to help, I’ll figure out a way to help them help. J-just as long as I can help, too…”
“You’ll always be able to help. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I say again. “And now… the but.”
Her arms twist up again. “Yes?”
“You can’t stay here.”
Breaker’s mood plummets. “What?”
“That room? That’s Spiderhand’s room. He’s hurt. He’s hurt bad. But he’s not dead. If I give his room to someone else… if you overwrite his things accidentally, maybe he…”
“Oh. Oh gosh. I wouldn’t want to – I don’t – I d-didn’t mean–”
“You’re fine,” I say, with less truth than I’d prefer. “You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s never anything wrong with asking for a favor.”
“I h-hope I didn’t hurt y-you–”
“Not at all. Partner.” The good news? I don’t have to dig too deep to find a smile.
“I… thank you,” she says, with a faint sigh.
I shake my head; it’s way too full of feels. “Look, I need a few minutes to gather my thoughts, but then, why don’t we go visit Golem Jones? He should be able to hook you up with a place to stay.”
“I – yes! Yes! Let’s do that!”
“Great,” I say. “Just a few minutes. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Thank you!” Breaker says. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
She rushes out of the apartment, leaving me alone with the worst possible company: my thoughts.
I take as deep a breath as my remaining stitches will allow, and inhale deeply the smell of detergent, root beer, tea, and just a tiny hint of sea air. My smells. Spiderhand’s smells. Those aren’t going away soon. Those aren’t going away at all.
An idea crosses my mind. I walk out to the kitchen, and I pull down two of Spiderhand’s teacups from one of the cabinets. When we’re done finding her a place to live, Breaker might want some tea. It’s what Spiderhand would do.
This case doesn’t end the way I want it to. But it ends the way I need it to. And besides, the story doesn’t end here.
I return to my desk, go back over the letters. There aren’t a lot of clues here, really, and I wouldn’t expect there to be. The writers aren’t detectives, or they wouldn’t have to come to me. They have other jobs to do. They were made for other reasons. I keep shuffling through, seeing if anything clicks for me and my detective stuff, and set them aside to be sorted through later.
I need to help these people. I need to see what I can do with the Teatime Man. I need to help Breaker, my new partner. And I need to help Spiderhand, my original partner, the one I never gave the satisfaction of a chance to actually partner up.
No, not never. Never means we aren’t going to fix it, and we are going to fix it. We’re going to fix a lot of things.
The next case could be harder than this one. The next case could redefine how I think about the Stillreal and the Imagination and everything else that humanity cooks up between their ears. Again. Or, it could be totally routine. Both are okay; because no matter what, we’re going to take it. That’s what we do. We’re the Stuffed Animal Detective Agency, Detective Breaker and Detective Tippy, and their third partner, Detective Spiderhand, out on injured reserve, and all their friends and allies and contacts. We make sense of a world that sometimes refuses to make sense. We remind everyone that the world is basically a good place, even – especially – when it seems to be anything but. We help people.
I like solving mysteries. I like gathering clues. I like feeling a puzzle come together in my mind. But those are tools, a means to an end. What I really do is help people, both with their problems and with believing the best of the world. That’s what Sandra needed me for. That’s what… that’s really what got me stuck here in the first place. But as long as I do that – as long as I help – I know everything will, eventually, work out alright. Even if getting there hurts. Feeling smart and like I made something make more sense will just be a bonus on top.
Losing Daddy ruined Sandra. But that doesn’t have to mean it ruined me.
Have I mentioned I love the Stillreal? Because honestly, no cynicism meant, I do.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This job can feel so incredibly lonely at times, but the truth is that no writer really writes alone. The Imaginary Corpse is the product of my imagination and labor, yes; but also a whole mess of feedback, comfort, empathy, understanding, and other peoples’ hard work. I couldn’t have done this without their help.
To that end: Thank you to my family, the first people to read something I wrote and see it as something besides a hobby, and the people who brought the original Tippy home to me all those years ago. Thank you to my agent, Lisa Abellera, who helped me navigate these first huge steps into a big wide world and made me feel like I belong here. Love and emoji to the Isle of Write, who helped me feel like a Real Writer doing Real Writing and were with me through the lowest lows and the highest highs. You’re the best cadre of writers I could ever hope to be a part of, and the best people I could hope to know.
Endless thanks to my wife, Sonya, who was the first to tell me this story was amazing, who took on so many extra chores so that I could sit just a little longer at the writing desk, and who saw every convention and pitch party and feedback session as an investment in someone and something she believed in. You’re amazing, sweetheart.
And thank you, always, to Yossarian, one of the best cats I have ever known, who snuggled me through the hardest parts of this novel and so many other aspects of my life. He passed on during edits, but I am grateful the Worst Cat will live on forever through this story.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten someone, so let me end with: to everyone who gave me a kind word and told me I had something here, this is for you. You helped me keep writing, and I am overjoyed to get to repay that with a novel. I hope you like it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TYLER HAYES is a science fiction and fantasy writer from Northern California. He writes stories he hopes will show people that not only are we not alone in this terrifying world, but we might just make things better. His fiction has appeared online and in print in anthologies from Alliteration Ink, Graveside Tales, and Aetherwatch. The Imaginary Corpse is Tyler’s debut novel.
