Kilney and the house are getting along rather well. Ramshackle feels…miffed? Perturbed? Left out? He isn’t sure. He has rarely stayed this long in a single form and it’s making him feel confined. He hadn’t realized how much he enjoyed playing dress up until he had to stop because of Kilney’s continued presence.
Seeing as both are ignoring him, he escapes into his room. As much as he wants this, he is feeling overwhelmed and the one thing that can help him is to go back to being an it. Once the door clicks shut, he immediately feels his body shift. The clothes disappear, and the feeling of being a person slowly diminishes.
It looks at its fingers that are as large as sausages, like a child’s drawing, and lets out a deep breath. Ramshackle removes its latest journal, number XX. It runs its hand over it and shivers. This will be its last journal as Ramshackle the Second. If everything goes well with the ritual and whatever tweaks Kilney and the house are discussing, it will die and be reborn as Ramshackle the Third. It is looking forward to the new chapter.
But, it’s not sure what it wants to do about the contract. It cannot deny that there was a certain neatness and beauty to the equation of a life for twenty-four hours of living your truest desire. It was a simple transaction with no room for misinterpretation. What changes could it make that would be just as neat?
It decides to go through its journals. Maybe they can give it a clue?
It spends about two hours skimming through its twenty journals and the common theme it notices is choices versus consequences. Most humans, it realizes, don’t go after what they want because they fear the consequences. What they don’t see is, not going after their desires has equal consequences. They think they’re sparing themselves the hurt. They don’t see the hurt of not fulfilling their dreams.
The current contract removes that fear. But what if it gave another choice once the human saw that going after a desire didn’t upend their life completely? What if it asked them if they wanted to go back to life and do it right or continue with the original plan of dying?
Would that help?
It doesn’t know, it would have to ask a human.
And that’s how Ramshackle finds herself back in the drawing room where Kilney is asleep on the sofa. There is a plate full of crumbs and an empty tea cup sitting on the table.
“How was your discussion?”
Fruitful. We need a new moon because the veil between the worlds is thin at that time. It’ll be easier to teach you how to reconnect with the realm. An eclipse would have been best but the next one is a year away.
“Was I born on an eclipse?”
Ramshackle has the impression that the house is thinking.
We don’t have access to those memories. It was a dark time for us. We had almost winked out of existence. But we did solve the problem of feeding you. As Ramshackle the Third, we make sure your connection to your home realm is strong and continued. That connection should sustain you.
“Should? You’re not sure?”
We are confident but we don’t want to overpromise.
Ramshackle smiles. “Well, it’s a good thing because I have thought of a way of upgrading the contract.”
“Really?” asks Kilney.
He rubs his eyes. This is the first time he is seeing Ramshackle as a woman and it…will take some getting used to. He is happy though, that she’s comfortable enough with him to change her form.
She nods and tells them of her solution.
“I like it,” says Kilney. “It’s still neat but gives the applicant more control over their fate.”
Ramshackle preens. The house informs them that the next new moon is four days away and there’s still some preparation that needs to be done, one of them being moving the house to a more remote location.
Kilney is reminded, for a moment, that this is really happening. He’s doing this. He allows himself another moment to contemplate the choice of walking away. The moment passes and they settle on moving to the outskirts of the city where foot and vehicular traffic is minimal and then, they begin.
24 of 26 of an ongoing series The Dream Maker. You can read all posts here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z.
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