“He was a strong-looking man with a rectangular face and short brown hair. He looked like some sort of large tree — immovable and strong. His gray eyes looked over a pair of small spectacles to the man in the hammock, then to Peter.”

The Storytellers: Atlantis, p. 43

- The Storytellers: Anterria, p. 121

Eltanin had always been a strange combination of princess, knight, and odd, batlike creature. She was inspired directly ...]]> “The pale woman hovered around the crew in her usual
elegant dress, but with the addition of a large, pointed hood, which easily hid her large, pointed ears.”

- The Storytellers: Anterria, p. 121

Eltanin had always been a strange combination of princess, knight, and odd, batlike creature. She was inspired directly from Gamma Draconis, the brightest star in the constellation Draco, and kicked off my now wide array of other characters inspired by the mythology and history of stars.

With each draft of Anterria she got more complex and powerful, but I always wanted her to keep a certain amount of simplicity, though not exactly the kind she had in the beginning. Branching into other arts I love, I decided to bring a version of her big, blue hood to life.

SUPPLIES/SKILLS -

• Aran weight yarn, at least 210 yards (Caron One Pound in blue in the photos)
• Size US11 needles, or size to obtain gauge
• Tapestry needle
• Garter stitch
• Stockinette stitch
• K2tog
• Left facing k2tog
• Kitchener stitch

GAUGE -

• 12 stitches and 20 rows in 4×4 inches of stockinette stitch

CO 160

Rows 1-12: knit

Row 13: BO 47, k 113

Row 14: BO 47, k 3, p 60, k 3

Row 15: knit 2, k2tog, knit 58, slip 2, turn second stitch, put both stitches back on the left needle, k2tog from the left side of the front loop.

Repeat this pattern at the edges on RS only until you have a total of 60 stitches including the garter stitch border.

K 26 rows with the 3 st garter border.

Keep to the pattern, but stop 5 stitches from the end. Wrap the 5th stitch from the end, then turn, stop 5 stitches from the end, wrap the 5th stitch, then turn. Next set, wrap the 10th stitch on both rows, then the 15th stitch on both rows, then the 20th, until there’s nothing left to wrap in the pattern of the stitch counts.

Keeping to the pattern (garter border, stockinette center) knit all the way to the end of the next two rows, picking up the wraps appropriately.

Knit 56, right facing k2tog, knit 2, place marker.

Knit 2, k2tog, knit to the last 3 stitches. Wrap and turn. Purl across to the last 3 stitches, wrap and turn.

Decrease with appropriately facing decreases in the center, and keep wrapping in increments of 3. Stop when there are 6 (x3) wraps on each side. Knit across 2 rows in pattern, picking up the wraps appropriately.

46 stitches total. Cut with a long tail, use the kitchener stitch to seam invisibly. Weave in the ends.

1

Life flows in a strict progression. Time, however, is a fickle creature. It shrinks and grows dependent on perception, and is a measurement wholly relative to itself. Memory can seemingly bring you backward in time; nothing can bring you forward except life. The nature of life is all that stabilizes the violence of ...]]>

1

Life flows in a strict progression. Time, however, is a fickle creature. It shrinks and grows dependent on perception, and is a measurement wholly relative to itself. Memory can seemingly bring you backward in time; nothing can bring you forward except life. The nature of life is all that stabilizes the violence of time.

 
A life with the utmost appreciation for time is the only hope to fully transcend the more violent half of existence. Life, while it may seem the more expressive force, is not the more hostile. None of us fight against life — we all fight time.

 
Life is freedom; time holds us captive.

 
Yet, while each on its own is enough of a study, the combination is a thing to be feared above all else. Life easily manipulates our time; time may easily deprive us of life. And, sometimes, time and life get so bored with their occupations that they throw an extra energy into their attack of each other. Strange things happen. People are lost in the scuffle.

 
Winter had broken, but the late spring day felt more like a summer afternoon. Most of the schools were out. The street was a scene full of sunlight, green trees lining the sidewalks and cars full of people, both on the street and empty ones parked parallel to the curb.

 
Music blasted from several vehicles as they sped by the brick porch. The sidewalks weren’t crowded, but full enough to ensure a fairly steady stream of customers to the coffee shop. A sign hung just below the second-floor window. It was a large, wooden cutout of a mug and saucer, with “The Jagged Ledge” underneath in bold letters.

 
A pair of pale hands pushed the window-paned door open, and their owner hopped down the steps enthusiastically. She looked similar to the other young people on that street, but struck a chord of eccentricity with her bright red hair, which was pulled back, and her black rimmed glasses and black-and-white striped shirt. No one really stared at her long enough to try and figure out why she
emitted such a strange feeling, but let her fade into the background of their thoughts.

 
At any rate, she didn’t notice the ones who stared a little longer. The girl hummed a jovial tune to herself as she unlocked a red-wrapped chain that secured a black, vintage-style bicycle to the rack. With a graceful swing, she straddled it and kicked off toward the street.

 
Just as she joined traffic, a second pair of pale hands, this time belonging to a man, pushed the Ledge door open. He was uncommonly tall, which let him descend the few stairs in one step. He came to the sidewalk level and scanned the field of heads up and down the street, running a hand through his black hair in worry. He then took off at an impolite speed, bumping into many people on the way.

 
That head of cherry red was getting away from him.

***
Everyone took their bicycles out for the day. When he lost sight of the girl’s bright red hair, he started looking for the retro-style bicycle in every rack he passed. He walked so quickly that he actually skidded to a halt once it caught his eye.

 
After a second glance, before a second thought, he pushed open the door to the nearby book store and was assaulted with overzealous air-conditioning as the tiny bell rang. He stood there in silence for a moment, eyes darting across each aisle. Picking one at random, he started down it with long steps.

 
A few seconds later, the bell over the door rang again. He growled inwardly, then dashed back to the front door and threw it open. The girl kicked her bicycle off into traffic, a new, blocky bulge evident in her small canvas backpack.

 
“Rowan!” he shouted.

 
Her head swiveled back at the sound of her name, just before a small car cut the bicycle out from under her, and there came the sound of broken glass and more impacted metal.

***

“Jacob Walton?”

 
“Uh…who may I ask is calling?” Jacob didn’t recognize the man’s voice, but the tone put him on edge. It sounded official. Jacob never had “official” calls. That’s what he got for opening his phone without checking the ID.
“This is Adam at the Doyle Memorial Hospital calling for Jacob Walton at the request of ‘Sydney,’” the man informed. Jacob stopped walking. Someone behind him in the hall crashed into his back, but he ignored it. He dropped his heavy laundry bag as the person huffed and went their own way.

 
“I’m Jacob, yeah. What’s happened?”

 
“Sydney and his sister were both involved in a vehicle incident down on Magpie Street. He’s asked for you to come as soon as convenient,” Adam said.
Jacob knew Sydney well, he liked to think — well enough to spot false politeness that was probably added in Adam’s message. Sydney tried — sometimes he really tried — but his default mindset didn’t have those kinds of manners. What he really meant was more like “Jacob, get over here or I’ll freeze your underwear.” Something like that. Jacob was about to tell Adam he’d be right over, but his thoughts halted with the painful sensation of a record scratch in his head. Did he say Sydney and his ‘sister’?

Though he knew Sydney well, they had only been friends a few months. They met when Sydney collapsed from exhaustion on the floor of The Jagged Ledge, a shop which Jacob frequented and only subconsciously acknowledged as a contributor to his hipsterish appearance. Jacob was the one to call the ambulance, and had been one of Sydney’s only hospital visitors.

 
He pushed his thick-rimmed glasses up.

 
“You said ‘sister,’ right?” he asked.

 
“I did. When will you be able to come?”

 
Jacob lifted his laundry bag again, checked his watch, then put the phone back up to his ear. “I’ll be there in about half an hour,” he said.

 
“I’ll tell him.”

 
“Thanks.”

Jacob closed his phone, ending the call. He heaved the laundry bag higher over his left shoulder, then shoved the phone in his pocket. He turned to walk the other way down the hall. There would be time for laundry later. He could spend his time analyzing the situation, or he could ask Sydney himself. That is, if he was actually up to talking.

 
Sydney had only two visitors when he was in the hospital before, when they had first met. Those people were Jacob and someone Sydney disaffectionately named ‘Montresor.’ Sydney woke up with amnesia which he led others to believe had cleared — it never did, but this Montresor, or someone closely connected, gave him a name and address to assume, in addition to a class registration and
student ID for the University of Colorado. The information came in a note left in a pot of daisies on his bedside table when he was sleeping. It was such a bizarre situation, one more likely to be found in a paperback novel than real life. Not in Colorado Springs, at least.

 
Jacob came to terms with the reality of it quite a while ago. He’d even begun thinking a bit like Sydney. Whether it was out of intention or mere influence, he didn’t know. As he thought about it more on the way back to his half-packed dorm room, all he knew was that Sydney had no sister he remembered. Jacob moved an empty packing box, tossed the bag on his bed, then grabbed his car keys from his table before he left the empty suite. As Sydney often said since that peculiar Saturday in March when they had first met, “Sometimes, the direct approach is best.”

 
A few minutes later, he climbed into his tiny blue car and turned the key,
then made his way to the hospital.

***

 
Eerie.
Amen.
Abecedarian.

Sydney put down the pen and rubbed his eyes. The crossword was nearly complete, but the painkiller, or whatever was in the clear bag on the pole at his side, had him pausing to reorient himself every few moments. His left hand, which he kept under the table, resting on the knee brace, was thickly bandaged in white. The IV found its way under the bandages, however. He was alone in the little hospital cafeteria, except for the female nurse in blue who filled out some sort of paperwork ten tables down and behind him.

 
His left elbow was in a curious contraption he’d been told was an “elbow brace.” He thought it looked more like some kind of robot arm, but that might just have been the IV driving his imagination.

 
Sydney didn’t like hospitals. It wasn’t just the association of being ill or injured, but something else that nagged at the back of his mind, unexplainable. The long, white halls terrified him; the lighting made it hard for him to focus. There, in the cafeteria, at least there was some color, and he could get away from the incessant beeping. He could hear it, even when he was sure all machinery was
separate from him, until he came to the field of colored tables.

He liked to think he wasn’t usually so demanding, but kicking up a scene was well within his capability. He had some kind of allergic reaction to the original sedative, so they couldn’t just sedate and quiet him down for a few hours. He worked this to his advantage, and they arranged for him to sit there, doing the crossword in the newspaper instead of lying in a beeping room. That is, if his approach still qualified as actually doing it.

 
He’d been ignoring the clues for down and across, filling in the words he wanted, in whatever place he wanted. It all fit together, so far.

 
Sydney heard someone push the door open to his left, but he didn’t look up. He heard footsteps of two people, but still didn’t look. The sounds from a pair of flat, rubber-soled shoes, and the cast rubber soles of the last nurse Sydney had seen, combined with the step patterns and volume, made him fairly certain who they were. He didn’t really care if he was wrong, which was the only reason he didn’t look.

 
Jacob quietly took the seat across the table, then leaned forward on his
elbows.

 
“Like I told you, he’s fine enough to leave right now, provided he has someone to check up on him later,” the nurse said. Sydney’s glassy eyes suddenly sparked with acknowledgement of the statement. He looked up, first to the nurse, then to Jacob, as if in a panic to verify that he’d heard the sentence correctly. “Yeah, sure. I’ll check up on him. I’ll sign whatever I need to, or…whatever,” Jacob said, tapping his feet impatiently.

 
“All right. Come see me just outside, once you’re finished. I’ll be at the desk,” she said.

 
“‘Finished’?” Sydney asked.

“I said I wanted to talk to you alone for a minute,” Jacob cut in, and Sydney looked back at him suddenly. He wished the nurse would step a little closer, or he’d have whiplash, too, by the end of the conversation.

 
She took one step away, but Sydney cleared his throat and she turned back. “When you come back,” he began, “could you make sure to unhook me? I’m all full-up,” he finished, poking the clear tube that ran under the bandage of his left hand.

 
“Ah. Yes,” she said, then was gone, taking with her the nurse from the back of the room.

 
“Great,” Sydney groaned, and he flicked the pen across the table, into Jacob’s lap.

 
“What possessed you to throw yourself on broken glass?” Jacob burst, picking up the pen.

 
“Interesting choice of words, there,” Sydney answered, running his fingers along the crease of the newspaper.

“And, by the way, you don’t have a sister, last I knew,” Jacob continued.

 
“She asked me to.”

 
Jacob’s fiery annoyance cooled off a bit in the confusion. “Asked you to what?”

 
“Say she’s my sister.”

 
“Why?” Jacob asked.

 
“I don’t know.”

 
“You didn’t think it could have been, oh I don’t know…the head injury talking?” Jacob said.

 
Sydney stared at him a moment. “I didn’t ‘throw’ myself on ‘broken glass,’ Jacob. Stop being overdramatic.”

 
“Well, what happened, then?”

 
“They should have already told you,” Sydney mumbled.

 
“I want to hear it in your words, not theirs.”

 
They locked eyes. Jacob knew Sydney’s look — it reminded him of about a month ago, the only time since they’d known each other that Sydney had tried drinking a full cup of coffee. It was a strange, unearthly gaze with a distinct lack of verbal inhibition.

 
“I was watching her. At The Jagged Ledge. Something was familiar.”

 
“You have absolutely no qualms over stalking, do you?”

 
Sydney paused a moment. “No.”

 
“Just asking,” Jacob said.

 
“I followed her because I remembered her. She rode her bicycle into traffic, the traffic rode into her. She was on the other side — I took a shortcut across the bent hood and cracked windshield.”

 
“Of course you di—you remembered her?”

“Yes, I remembered her. Something like a conversation we’d had before. But she had a different hair color, I’m sure of it.”

 
“What color?”

 
“Uh. A sort of dark-blondish color. Her hair is some kind of Killjoy red, now. Why—”

 
“Details. You know,” Jacob said.

 
“I know,” Sydney sighed.

 
“What’s her name, anyway?”

 
Sydney pushed himself up out of the chair by his right hand, wincing as he bent his knee out. He awkwardly attempted to fold the newspaper over, but Jacob took it and did it for him.“Rowan. I overheard the cashier at the Ledge comment on it when she gave it for her order. Rowan Dexter, going by the name in the front cover of the notebook she had with her. I only had one look at it. Now, I’m really getting tired of this thing —” he glanced at the IV tube, “so let’s just get this over with. I need to go home and make sure Montresor deposited enough for me to cover these medical bills.” He pinned the newspaper under his free elbow, then wrapped his fingers around the IV pole and made his way to the hall door. Jacob drummed his fingers on the table, then stood to follow.

***

The void slowly congealed into a sort of strange, weightless sensation. It came as a thick, black fog of thoughtlessness, nothing but half-assembled feelings. Up and down eventually separated, but only slightly. She then divided the inside from the outside, and her dark eyes cracked open.

 
Rowan lay motionless in the dim, quiet room, her primary-red hair loosed to fall on her shoulders. Her left eye was hidden with a bandage that extended to her left ear, and some of her hair was cut away to make room for it. Her left leg was obviously in a cast under the thin blanket, and her left arm rested on her stomach in a black splint and sling. Her right side was much the same, but bandaged for sprains and other unnatural twists. Half her face was obscured under the oxygen
mask.

 
She felt a presence to the right.

 
“Oh…hello, there,” said a rather short nurse in green. “I’m just here to check on how you’re doing.”

 
Rowan’s eye didn’t move. She just stared at the same spot on the ceiling. The nurse gave a little frown, but then returned to her practiced pleasantness. “I’ll be back in a minute to check on you again with the doctor. All right?”

 
Rowan didn’t respond. Her eye shut again.

 
“Well…” the nurse hesitated. “I’ll be back,” she finished, then was gone. Her eyes were closed, but she hadn’t fallen back asleep yet. There was a curious, comforting noise that floated in the fog along with the faint beeping of the monitors. It sounded like a music box.

She fell back asleep with the song in her head, and the nagging feeling that she
had something important to do.

{More}