She lay cradled in a little nest that had grown for her, at the heart of a little world she had made using scavenged memories and wishes. The slight swaying of the tree caused by the wind she had summoned was soothing, as was the lack of voices. She liked being around people, but sometimes solitariness was good. From being pulled any which way until you were stretched so thin you barely knew yourself anymore, you could gather yourself into a compact drop, so each part of you kept all the others in its sights.

The downside was that too much navel gazing rotted your mind, and too much time alone led to boredom.

At some point, hurt and afraid after being betrayed in on of the bigger worlds she thought of as "outside", the thought had crossed her mind that being a Creator meant that she could make people for company, too. She found the thought of being able to create a person to her tastes of company, and changing them on a whim sickening.

Her world felt less real than the outside worlds, and it would remain so. A temporary retreat, and a place to stash the few mementos she wanted to hang on to.

There could be no surprises in your own creation.

Janine and Fred had a nice dinner at home together. It was still nothing as happy as, say, a year ago, but they were healing. The conversation was carefully edging towards family planning, when the children appeared in the garden.

"I'll lock the door." Janine spoke and moved automatically, not pausing to be horrified.

When she came back, Fred stood with the back to the window front, blinds drawn, staring at the sofa.

Lilly, who would have turned nine in three months, sat there, holding the hand of her little brother. She turned to look at her mother. Her face was dark, rotting. Light glittered in her left eyesocket, reflecting off the carapace of a carrion beetle.

"You cannot exclude us. We're part of the family."

Janine choked. This can't be real. Nightmare.

"You left us," Jimmy. His body was pale and bloated, his voice even fainter than in life, and he had always sounded shy. "That was bad."

There was distant thunder outside as Lilly told him, "Don't worry. We won't be alone anymore."

She smiled first at her mother, then at her father. He twitched and threw back the blinds to flee, only to find the glass door darkened with soil.

Lilly said, "We're family. We will always stick together."

The house was hers, and everything in it. Six generations of family history, both metaphorically, and in the form of mementos in the form of register, photos, some diaries, books, and all the suitcases, clothes, crockery, and other things someone at some point didn't use anymore, but didn't want to throw away, either.

She wanted to burn it down, get rid of all that weight.

Alas, that was impractical. And there might just be something interesting among all that stuff. Sorting through it would take ages.

They had fed him up, given him the toughest fibres for armour, and even gave him a metal spear. They honoured him, until it was time. The tribe hid in the furthest corners, leaving him to face the monster alone. It swallowed him instantly, the clatter of his weapon drowned out by its incessant roar. However, a moment later that roar changed, and the monster withdrew. Even if it hadn't been killed, his sacrifice had bought the other some time.

The dustbunnies had a new hero, and someone had to replace a vacuum cleaner bag ripped open by a nail.

After weeks of searching, Mara had finally found the spirit pond. She knelt and recited the traditional verses that attracted the spirits. They communicated with each other, an echo of which tickled the human's mind, faint like sounds just at the edge of hearing.

She ended her invocation: "By the seekers' pact, I ask, grant me a wish."

What is your wish? the spirits asked in her thoughts.

"I want to be able to see the future. I-"

She perceived that the spirits did not want to hear her reasons. She didn't guess that they knew them already. They could see the thoughts of helping beloved people avoid death, and buried beyond those the wish to be special and respected. After a short exchange among themselves, the spirits agreed.

Very well. Their satisfied mood seemed benevolent to the human. You will have your wish when you wake up. Now sleep, child.

Making her tired enough to curl up on the spot was nothing. The actual magic would take a bit more effort.

And time.

On the ground of the slowly silting pond a stone egg waited to be found and cracked. It would be a huge surprise.

Archaeologists don't expect to dig up living people.

The thought that she should feel just sick, not sickly fascinated, crossed Bea's mind. Maybe it was just too odd. She tried to form cogent questions as she turned to Miriam, who smiled and fidgeted, watching her. Nervous, but enthusiastic, hoping a friend was as excited about something as she was?

"So. How did you arrive at this idea?" Bea asked.

"It it all about souls, you see? I decided that the best way to get into that field of research was through shadows. Demons, soulless by nature, have no shadows, humans turned vampires lose theirs along with their souls, and the ghosts of the dead are nothing but shadows in this world - clearly there is a link."

Bea nodded; the idea was not exactly new.

"Unfortunately I couldn't find a cooperative demon, vampire, or ghost to examine, and neither do I have the means to catch and restrain an uncoorperative one. The solution to that dilemma would be removing the soul of a human to monitor the changes this causes, and possibly examine the soul directly. Since the shadow is lost when the soul is, it is only logical that if you remove the shadow, so is the soul." Having gotten out some of her thoughts, Miriam was obviously calmer. She also gave Bea some time to digest this.

Bea could follow the logic, even if something was missing there. Without quite willing to, she turned to look at the closest flabby shape hung on the wall. "Those aren't shadows, though."

"Well, no. After some false starts and much thinking, my reasoning was that the shadow must be fixed in some way to the body. The point of affixion is fluid, of course, but if the surface it attaches to is removed, it should be separated from the body."

"So you started skinning people." As soon as she said it, Bea wondered if that plain statement hadn't been too much of a provocation.

"Yes." Miriam smiled a bit wider, encouraged because her friend followed her ideas, but started frowning immediately after. "I need to refine the process, though. It kills the test subjects too quickly, and naturally the soul flees, making examination impossible."

Bea nodded thoughtfully. "You did consider that, too, though, didn't you?"
"What?"

"The soul flees the body upon death, so removing the soul from the body causes death. It is the same logic you applied to vampirism."

Miriam fell silent, gradually looking more and more distressed. "That would be a disaster. Years of work for nothing. But you're right, I need to consider that carefully before proceeding."

"Maybe you could seek contact with someone researching vampirism? How their losing their soul is different from normal death?"

"Yes, yes, maybe..." Miriam finally ushered Bea out of the room, very distracted by that new thought. Back in the more mundane part of the house, she pulled herself together. "Thank you for your help. Even if this might shoot my work down, I'm glad I let you in on this. Get too caught up in details..."

Bea smiled. "I think I should leave you to think it over for a while. We can meet again in a few days, if you'd like." She would have liked to asked who those people had been before they became test subjects. She would have liked to tell her old friend that she'd gone mad. But with that in mind, she kept quiet. Her next stop would have to be the authorities.

That day, Goaskin and Umber went to the clay pit. Goaskin wanted to show Umber the differences between earth sprites, depending on the ground, and Tiel, his other apprentice, showed neither talent for nor interest in dealing whith those elementals, so he had stayed home.

When they came back, they heard strange noises from the chamber Goaskin called his study; it was a quiet place high up in the tree. Not so quiet right now. Goaskin sent Umber to the apprentices' chamber and continued up the rounded stairs to investigate.

He found Tiel staring at a whizzing creatue. A sprite, moving quickly and erratic, changing colour incessantly. Where it touched the smooth bark of the floor, it left ashes in some places, and coaxed buds and blooms from others.

"Tiel, don't look at it!"

He pulled the boy behind him and focussed on the jinking sprite, trying to calm his thoughts and neutralise it. He was not calm enough, but it evaporated in a discharge of magic that turned the small vase of flowers in its niche into a handful of green sand.

When he was sure it was gone, Goasking took a deep breath.

"Tiel," he said sternly, "did you really summon a chaos sprite?"

"Yes!" Pouting, what he probably thought defiant. At least he had noticed his teacher was angry.

"Why?"

"Because it said it's possible!" Goaskin picked up the journal Tiel waved at. "I understood the feeling it described, and it said they could do anything!" Way too much excitement in there.

Goaskin sighed. "Tiel, they are nearly impossible to control, and most of everything is not something you want to happen." His voice grew sharper than Tiel ever had heard. "Do you want to be turned into a toad? Or be teleported ten paces below the earth? Or have your mind thrown into limbo, leaving your body with less brains than a cabbage? If so, summoning a chaos sprite is a good idea, but do. Not. Do. It. Here."

After a moment's hesitation, the boy started a litany of justifications. "But it almost did what I wanted it to!"

Goaskin listened, leafing through the journal in search for a certain passage, waiting for his cue. "But it would have said if it was dangerous!"

Goaskin shoved the book into the boy's face. "Read!"

"Do... not do this... and... um."He looked down at his feet. "What you said, teacher."

"Right. Next time, read all the way through, boy."

Tiel nodded hastily and ran off.

Goaskin sighed, weighing the book in his hands. After short consideration he decided not to stash potentially dangerous books somewhere where his apprentices could not reach them. Tiel, for one, might get more curious. Tiel would learn to be careful, without causing a disaster first. Probably.

"Ah, finally we can talk in private, just you and me."

Daaren carefully kept his face blank. Counting two guards and three servants in the room with them, who did not seem about to leave, he concluded the Baron must be completely insane. Better not to irritate him.

The diving holiday had been a good idea, Hal decided. There was a fascination to watching the living corals and the fish and invertebrates among them in their own element, a thrill to entering an unfamiliar world you could never reach on screens. He swam on leisurely, trying not to startle the permanent residents too much, looking for fresh sights.

He nearly had a heart attack when something found him, a slim shadow bigger than a human, bristling spines and sharp teeth, shooting from its hiding place at him. After the initial shock, he recognised his wife. Her ID seemed distorted over the fanciful sea-monster face, as his must be, too, but still unambiguously hers. When she reached for him, he raised a webbed hand to trace the symbol's lines, not embedded into the skin as they were used to, but applied decals.

Those hired bodies were quite something.