calico o'connor ; | 7 fin

I died when I was six years old.

No, I swear to god.

This is the point of the conversation where I lose people, they get that glazed over look in their eye. Like that! Don't look at me like that. I know how it sounds. I'm not crazy, not that there's anything wrong with crazy people but my mom sent me to a therapist once and I'm pretty sure I aced that shit. In fact, I've passed every test I've ever taken with flying colors.

Just hear me out, alright?

Our family owns a paper mill - you've heard of it. Well no, we're not those O'connors, that's my uncle's farm. They might have more land, and more money, and better pay but they don't have our spirit! That's beside the point, my story doesn't take place on the mill but in the wilds behind it.

I call it the dead wood, 'cause in the winter it's just these grasping skeletal hands erupting from the ground. We leave that plot of land alone, Mom was always real strict about that. Me and my cousins (yes, those O'connors) would play around them all the time, because our parents said not to and what else is a shitty kid gonna do?

One winter night, I crept out of my room in nothing but my footie pajamas. I swear the woods were whispering to me, maybe, my memory gets real fuzzy around this part. I went to climb ugly Ennard , this big smelly eucalyptus that had a perfectly Calico sized branch.

It was high up too, enough for the shadows to swallow up the grass. I'm sure you see where this is going, right?

I didn't scream or nothing when I fell. It's like I couldn't remember how, which sucks because help might have come sooner if I had. Turns out Momma told us not to play in those parts for a good reason - the workers tossed the parts of their fancy machines out there when they stopped working. The fall wasn't enough to kill me but have you ever been impaled by a piece of scrap metal?

No really! Look here, the scar on my neck. It went clean through!

It wasn't long until I died. I don't like to dwell on that part.

'Cause then I woke up. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that's not supposed to happen.

It was closer to morning by that time, so I didn't have to wait long for Mom to find me. There was a lot of screaming and crying, I knew she wanted to be angry at me but couldn't figure out how to be anything but scared. I tried to comfort her but it was pretty hard to talk, my voice is still a little broken. The scar tissue makes it raspy.

You noticed right? Thanks for not bringing it up, chief.

Mom got me to a medic, and I got all cleaned up. They made up a lot of excuses as to how I survived, most of all they called it luck. Some kinda cosmic miracle that the injury wasn't a little to the left and didn't hit my important bits.

I don't think my explanation is any more unreasonable than that. There's something in the deadwood and it saved my life that night. I had real weird dreams after I died, see, full of mist and color and strange distorted voices.

Now, I don't know what is in the deadwood. I've been researching for over a decade and have an extensive collection of mythology. So many of the books here are redacted or restricted or 'illegal'. Have you ever bought a book off the black market, 'cause I have! It's just as scary as you think.

I'm on the verge of a breakthrough, I know it.

So... could you spot me like twenty bucks?

The Library has this big tome on a the ancient land of "Apple Laysha" but I have a lot of overdue books so they won't - and you're walking away.

I'm gonna take that as a no. Unless...?

Yeah, yeah I figured.

Good talk!