Excerpt from “Cody Gallagher And The Eternal Concepts”

The silence in the van was stifling. There were only seven students and one teacher who belonged to the House of Time, so the school had sent them in a van instead of the bus. Which Cody thought was for the best. It would have been funny to get into a bright yellow school bus in their best formal attire. 

Cody curled against the window, trying to focus on the dark shapes of trees off the side of I-90. It didn’t work. Not when Julia in the seat to his right was staring at Micheal like he was personally delivering her to her execution. In the back, Fern was damn near a panic attack. Cody had only seen whispers of Fern since day one, and yet they had appeared just long enough to say something cryptic about the upcoming party to Isaiah and Chaz. Isaiah, for his part, was trying to distract himself with his poetry notebook. 

Chaz was asleep because he did not care what danger they were barreling down the interstate towards. 

And then there was Jesse. Gone was any of the easy humor he fell into. He was stony, bracing himself for the coming storm. If Micheals white knuckled grip on the steering wheel was any indication, then he was doing the same. 

Cody wasn’t sure if he wanted to break the silence. He wasn’t sure what he would even say. Ryo gave him a look over Julia from their side of the car. They were feeling much the same way. While they got ready for the trip, Ryo had gone over every bit of information they knew. Ryo had taken much less time than Cody to get ready. Their parents had insisted on buying them a suit for formal events and art showcases. They’d given up on the tie after neither of them knew how to tie it, and unbuttoned the top buttons of their white shirt to make it seem like an intentional casual look. After they’d both failed to come to any kind of game plan for the event, Ryo had taken the toolbelt full of gadgets and the tools they used for their clockwork projects. They’d also added a set of steampunk style glasses with various magnifying lenses to their everyday look, grumbling about being blinded during fights in class.

Cody himself was wearing possibly the nicest outfit he’d worn in his memory. Shelby had pestered him into getting one artsy button up shirt. It was a nice, long sleeve dark blue piece with a pattern of gold stars. He wore it with the top three buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up, showing off the black turtleneck underneath. His pants he’d made himself. Somewhere between cargo pants and black dress slacks. He’d added the gold chains himself. He’d parted his wavy orange hair to one side, letting its natural volume work its magic. His hair wasn’t long, no matter what people (Chaz) said. It ended at his chin if he let it fluff up. The finishing touch to the look were his round yellow glasses, of course. They were becoming just as much of a staple piece of his wardrobe as his jean jacket. He sighed. One night without it and he already missed the weird feeling of protection it gave.  

Micheal took a deep breath and finally broke the silence. “Isaiah, please wake up Chaz for me. We need to talk.”

Cody didn’t think it was possible for the tension to get worse, but it absolutely did as Chaz blinked awake. Even he knew something was up. He didn’t make any gripe about being woken up from his nap.

“Julia, Jesse, Fern, you three have gone through this before so a lot of this is going to be repeated but please pay attention.” Cody didn’t think any of them could have zoned out if they wanted too. Micheal continued. “This dinner is attended by every member of the House of Time in america. Every single one. All concepts, all parts of the house. Even you, my freshman who have not discovered your concept yet, have been invited. Because everyone, for better or for worse, is invited. Regardless of moral and political beliefs. Some of them are really old, and since everyone except maybe Chaz in this car is part of a minority, I’d like to apologize for their behavior.”

“Am I the token straight white guy here?” Chaz asked. 

“Yes.” Cody, Ryo, Isaiah, and Jesse chorused.

He grinned. “Ok chill.”

Micheal smiled for a second before he resumed. “I need to warn all of you that a good portion of the older members aren’t exactly…human, anymore. Or at least they don’t appear to be. You’re going to see some things that might scare you.”

Fern piped up, and Cody abruptly realized this might have been the first time he’d ever heard them speak. “Who’s hosting this year?”

“History, so the Curator,” he was going to leave it at that, but then for the freshmans benefit he added. “The strongest child of each concept are the ones who host. They rotate every four years which concept is in charge.”

Which left a bazillion questions still present, but only one that really needed to be answered in that exact moment. “Where are we going?”

Micheal chuckled. “Good question Cody!” For just a second, he saw the tension drain away from the upperclassmen. Fern and Jesse cracked smiles, and even Julia’s intense gaze lightened a bit. Micheal took one arm off the steering wheel and punched the dashboard, hard. The whole car slammed forward as they came to an abrupt stop. Cody winced when his head hit the window. That probably wasn’t good for his already messed up brain. 

Chaz groaned. He’d face planted into the seat in front of him, because the idiot was not wearing a seat belt. “Not cool man. What the hell was that?” 

“That is the state of the art transportation system available to house of time members know as ‘whacking your vehicle with enough magic to make it go faster than the speed of light.’” Jesse told them with a grin. “Very scientific. Well researched. Absolutely not something that we found out how to do because someone in the olden days had a hissy fit and managed to ride a stagecoach from Delaware to Virginia in six minutes.”

Micheal was out of the van first, quickly followed by Cody and Ryo on either side scrambling to get out. He was facing a well maintained, familiar looking field. Darting his head to one side, he saw what really made his head spin. “That’s the Washington monument.”

Julia gently laid a hand on his shoulder and led him to the other side of the vehicle. They were parked on the side of the road, standing in the frozen night air outside a giant marble building. Big staircase and roman columns. Hung from those columns were large banners advertising things like “Butterfly exhibit” and “History starts here, early human exhibit”. 

Isaiah spoke up first, grabbing his sword and its seeth from the back of the van. “How the hell did we get to washington dc?” 

There was a little twinkle in Julia’s eye when she answered “Magic.” Then she was bounding up the steps, the lace of her yellow dress swishing behind her. 

Jesse and Fern followed. They’d both worn their concert blacks, though Fern had opted to add a black cloak to hide behind. Chaz had called them a vampire, and they hadn’t refuted it. 

Chaz finished getting his ax out of the van. Cody was by no means surprised to learn that his version of dressing up was white slacks, sandals, and a solid brown button up short sleeved shirt instead of his usual bright patterns. He stood next to Isaiah as the four freshmen looked up at the Smithsonian national museum of natural history in complete shock. But Chaz was Chaz, and Chaz was impatient, so he grabbed his roommate’s hand and pulled him up the stairs, knowing Cody and Ryo would follow.

The rotunda of the museum was a sight to behold. Marble columns held three stories of balconies, ending in intricately carved arch windows. Above all of it, a domed ceiling with a skylight letting in the pale glow of the moon. Standing above the party like a king was a life sized statue of an elephant atop a tall platform, trunk pointed to the ceiling. To his right, what was usually the information desk had been converted to a bustling bar. Most of the room was filled with tables. Golden chairs and silverware, of course. With centerpieces made of tule and bits of ancient pottery and broken clocks. Classical symphonies played from some unknown location, making their entrance feel like walking into a movie set. 

Micheal shepherded the four of them to one of the more centrally located tables. They each found their nameplates, and moved them so they could sit next to each other. “So what’s the game plan?” Isaiah started, rolling up the sleeves of his yellow dress shirt. 

“Why are you looking at me?” Ryo’s baffled expression made Cody chuckle.

Isaiah shrugged. “You’re the smart one.”

“With engineering. If anyone’s going to know how to do espionage it’s probably you, Mr. Creative Writer,” They shot back.

“Espioa-what now?” Chaz asked. 

“Spys, Chaz, we’re spies. I write poetry! Mostly. I’ve written one short story about spies for a class. Do you think I put effort into researching that?”

“Guys!” Cody whispered, making them both stop short. “If any of us knows how to be a spy it’s Chaz, cause he wants to make action movies. What are most action movies? Spy movies.”

Everyone’s eyes shot over to Chaz. He shrugged. “For starters, spies don’t talk about the fact that their spies in front of the enemy.”

Micheal smiled from across the table, not even looking up from the stack of history essays he was grading. They’d kinda forgotten he was there. When they didn’t say anything, he raised an eyebrow. “Fern snuck up to the bug exhibit as soon as we got here and Jesse’s currently casing the bar to see if he can steal alcohol. I am unconcerned with whatever you think you need to spy on here.” 

That effectively ended that conversation, and the four of them split off to go…socialize? Well, Isaiah and Chaz found people to talk to. Ryo was wandering around, trying to pretend they weren’t making a list of the names on the namecards. Cody stayed in his seat and people watched.

The people were weird by normal standards, though Cody had expected that. Eccentric, over the top clothing, weapons, the works. None of them totally seemed to conform to the current time period. People dressed like it was the 1800’s, some people in full sets of armor, and 1920’s flappers teasing Jesse as he was dragged away from the bar by an amused Micheal. Others just had pieces of old relics added to their otherwise modern outfits.

But, like he had been warned, not everyone in the room was human. Some were close to humans. Upon first glance they didn’t seem all that different. They were just off. Smiles too big, teeth too sharp, limbs too long, little things Cody wouldn’t have noticed if he couldn’t feel the thing he’d learned was his concept poking his shoulder like a small child trying to show him something cool. Then there were the people who were clearly not human. Like the person Isaiah was having a hushed conversation with in the shadow of a pillar, under the sign for the mammal exhibit. They were a tall, skeletal figure in a pinstripe suit with a black cloak holding a-

That’s a scythe. His brain helpfully supplied. Oh that’s just the actual grim reaper. The grim reaper is at this party. That’s nice. He snarked mentally. And with a second look at their conversation Cody mentally geared himself up to go argue with the grim reaper if needed. Isaiah was slowly backing away from the skeleton, trying to peacefully step away from whatever they were saying. 

Just as he was about to go intervene, Isaiah froze and paled drastically. The gold that usually looked so grand seemed sickly with his terror. Above him, the skull symbol that had become achingly familiar floated, Declaring that Isaiah Samson was the child of death.

He sprinted back over to their table, and Cody knew more then noticed just how many eyes watched him. He collapsed into his chair, burying his face in his hands, and let out a low sigh. Cody glared at the whole room, with just enough magic in his eyes to make them look intimidating. Those watching them backed off, but he could tell they weren’t scared. He turned his attention back to his classmate. “Hey. You ok?” Isaiah groaned again. He didn’t move his head, which left Cody to talk to his braids. “I’m willing to go terrorize the grim reaper if needed.”

That earned him a chuckle. Isaiah peaked up at him. “Nah, it’s not that bad. He didn’t even say anything mean. Just things I didn’t want to hear.” he took a deep, steadying breath. “The animals? Yeah, well their ghosts. Or something close to that. Death is complicated as hell.”

Cody passed him his glass of water. “Do you want to talk about it?’

He considered it for a moment. Cody glanced around. People were still shooting glances at them. Isaiah gave him a sad smile. “Not here. We’ll talk later. I think we’ll all need to talk soon.”

They gave up their conversation when Micheal dragged a fuming red Jesse back to the table. He had a smile on his face, but was trying his best to hide it behind his red beard. It wasn’t working. Jesse flopped into his chair. “Come on, teach! I know I was in the wrong but did you have to embarrass me like that?”

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” he teased. He wrote something on the essay he was grading and handed it to Jesse. “86%. Not bad.”

Julia snuck into her chair, quiet as a mouse. “I texted Fern. They’ll be down soon.” She whispered to Micheal. Her ballet bun was starting to frizz up, and she was running her hands over the lace on her dress anxiously. 

“Why would you text Fern?” Cody asked.

An ethereal voice cut through the rooms. “Everyone please have a seat. It’s time for dinner.” Cody’s head shot around until he was looking at the platform. Standing in front of the elephant was a woman almost as tall as the creature. She had a round figure, and most of her skin seemed to have turned to stone. Her joints were the only visible piece still made of olive skin. She was dressed like an ancient roman goddess in flowing white robes, golden strapped sandals, and a golden chestplate with barnacles and rust. Her face was hidden by a rusted greek helmet, the feathers Cody had expected to see had long since decayed away.

Cody knew on instinct that this was the Curator.

Cody caught a glimpse of her amused smile through the slits in her helmet. It was unnerving, to say the least. He felt a shiver run up his spine. Ryo and Chaz made their way back to the group’s table, and sure enough Fern slunk down the stairs to take their own seat. 

The curator spoke again, her deep otherworldly voice echoing through the rotunda. “Thank you, friends, for joining me on this night as we celebrate the noble house of time. Before we begin the feast, I have a short speech to make.”

Jesse sighed and muttered “Every host says that and then they talk for hours. Just great.”

“We’ve lived through many era’s, and will continue to live through the next,” The Curator continued. “You can feel it, can’t you? Deep in your bones. That sense that something is coming. Isn’t it delicious?” Muttered agreements rang out from the other table around them. There was something sinister in her voice, something hungry. “Time works in mysterious ways. The brilliant, ever present madness.” Cody’s grip tightened on the fabric of his pants, as something deep in his gut told him she was looking directly at their table. “I’m so delighted to see what the future holds.”

A door slammed open somewhere in one of the exhibits, and waiters in black suits carried out trays of various foods to different tables. A plate with a covered lid slipped in front of him, and the lid lifted to reveal…

A microwave tv dinner made for small children. Complete with dino nuggets and mac and cheese. He jumped when one of the waiters dumped a whole box of twinkies on the table. 

Ryo was staring at their plate with equal disgust. “What is this?”

Jesse chuckled and threw one of the dino nuggets into the air, catching it in his mouth. “Remember how we said some members are really old? Well there like, really really old. Doubly so for the four hosts of these dinners. They don’t really know what teenagers like to eat anymore and with people having … interesting diets,” he settled on, pretending to ignore the mound of raw meat that had been delivered to a group two tables down whose faces were too angular and teeth too sharp to be natural. “It’s probably for the best that they just buy stuff made for kids.”

“They think we’re small children,” Fern whispered. Cody added a second tally to the amount of times he had heard them speak. “We’re so very young compared to them.”

Cody looked down at his plate and shrugged before digging in. Food was food after all. Throughout the whole meal there was that all too familiar feeling down his spine. The kind that electrified him, put him on high alert. The adult house members’ eyes drifted over them as they ate. It took him until he was finished with the watery mashed potatoes to realize the way they were looking at them. 

A look shared across the table with Julia confirmed the sinking feeling in his gut. We’re the entertainment here.

Dinner was fun, if you ignored the spooky atmosphere. And for all it was slightly demeaning the little ready meal had nostalgia. Not something nostalgic from his childhood, but the concept of childhood in general. Plus it was a nice change of pace from the routine he had got so easily trapped in. 

Cody left the table after he was finished, leaning against the green marble platform holding the elephant, talking to a group of human members who could barely be in their college years. They chatted about their times at the academy. Details were frustratingly vague, but it was enough to satisfy the urge to use his powers and know everything about every weird creature in the room. He wasn’t sure how that would be taken, and (sometimes) he knew better than to test his luck.

It was pure restlessness that had his eyes roaming the second story balconies of the rotunda, but he should know better than to think anything was entirely an accident. Julia’s sharp eyes bored down on him from behind the looping pattern of the railing. She was crouched, holding each side, giving her the distinct impression of being trapped. She mouthed “She wants to meet you.” And then she was gone, drifting into whatever gallery was up there like a ghost. 

Cody went back to their table, grabbed a twinkie, and ate it while mentally debating the pros and cons of running away from whatever horror was undoubtedly waiting for him. Not seriously, of course. He had always been far too curious for his own good. So he stuffed another twinkie in his pocket, downed the rest of the shirley temple he’d acquired, and walked through one of the grand stone door frames and up the stairs. 

The entryway Julia disappeared through was dark, as if the shadows had collected right there to block his view of what was inside. He raised an eyebrow and glanced at the sign above the entrance way that labeled it the “Bone Hall.” Pushing through the darkness, he immediately found himself face to face with a human skeleton. It didn’t unnerve him as much as it should have. He would admit that he jumped a little. 

Muffled voices whispered back and forth in the next section of the hall, but he didn’t move just yet. The room was dimly lit, designed to have most of the focus on the bones in the display cases. Built into the blue walls, panes of glass were surrounded by wooden frames as if they were art. Maybe they were. He was standing in front of the marsupial display. The human skeleton stood proudly next to a gorilla and a chimpanzee, with an orangutan perched and a gibbon jumping in frame like he’s about to land a sick pose in an action movie. 

All of them long dead, of course. Unnamed, except by species. 

“Are you going to just stand there all night? That would be a horrible way to spend a party, for all three of us.” The Curator’s voice cut through his thoughts. 

He took a tentative step forward, around the marsupial display and into the first large room of the hall. The blue walls deepened, and the display cases running either side got larger. Rhino, elk, giraffe. Above it, a cutout in the walls on either side let the bones of a stellar sea cow and a gray whale hang suspended halfway into the room. The fluorescents meant to show off the specimens casted everything in an eery glow. 

Julia scrambled over from where she had backed herself into the far corner. “This is Cody Gallagher. He’s a freshman. That’s fourteen years old,” She reminded the hostess as she stepped almost in front of Cody, shooting him a look to stay back.

The Curator herself sat on the top of what was supposed to be a round set of six individual seats, but she didn’t nearly fit into the little plastic indentions. Her flowing dress covered half of it like one of those sheets people used to keep dust off furniture. She was a massive woman, nearly eight feet tall if Cody had to guess. At normal size, she would have been big, and that width had stayed proportional as she grew taller. 

Cody wasn’t sure how he knew she used to be a normal size for a human being. 

She smirked under her helmet, and Cody played with the fabric of his cardigan. He wished desperately for the familiar stitching of his jean jacket. Eventually, after she finished appraising him, she spoke. “So your history’s newest little favorite.”

“Well we don’t know I’m a history kid, like, for sure yet,” he tried, but it sounded weak to his ears. Julia gave him a baffled expression while the Curator laughed. 

“What else could you possibly be? Cody. You’re smarter than that,” the grin under her helmet was sharp and piercing. “History has never been patient, as much as people think it does. But history grabs everything right as it slips from the present. It leaks into the present as well. And it will not wait for you.”

Julia pulled a piece of her hair down from her bun and ran her fingers through it. Her meticulous tight bun finally came unwound as the stress got to her. It was held up only partially by the rubber bands, sliding down the side of her head. She took a step closer to Cody, and he swore the heads of the skeletons in the room moved to follow her. “Curator,” she warned.

The ancient woman paid her no mind. She gestured around the room, at the pale white bones. “Aren’t they lovely? This is my favorite room here. The start and end of everything. Of history. Everything is bones and will be bones.” She leaned forward, grabbing two of the seats of the round bench. “But you’re not interested in them, are you?”

Cody took a step back, his heart hammering in his chest. His skin crawled as the empty sockets of giraffes stared him down. They were terrifying, yeah, but not really interesting. Cody had always had a hard time thinking about the big picture. It had been, and still was, easier to live his life day by day, week by week, and month by month. “I’m not. No,” he answered, “Is that wrong?”

She laughed, and Cody had to take a step back from the sheer power it commanded. “Wrong? There is no wrong here. See, this is my view of history. Which is completely different from Julia’s, who simply has enough anxiety that it gave her foresight.” Julia flinched. The Curator didn’t care. “Why she is a child of history is something even I don’t understand, but in the end that’s not my decision.”

“Don’t talk to her like that,” The words were out of Cody’s mouth before he could think twice about it. Which wouldn’t have been weird if as a matter of principle and safety he watched his tongue. Julia’s sudden grip on his arm grounded him. He hadn’t realized he needed grounding, until the skeletons snapped back into their places behind sheets of glass. His mind felt back in his control. The scary thing was he didn’t know when it had slipped.

But based on the sharp amusement in the Curator’s eyes, she did. “Feisty, aren’t you? The short minded ones always are. I’ll guess you’re either unfathomably impatient, or patient in the way a beast stalks prey that will tire itself out soon enough.”

Now that he knew to look for it, Cody could see the way the room swirled around her, all of it waiting at her beck and call. She stood up. The room moved with her, blue painted walls expanding so she could stand comfortably in the center. She dwarfed every fragment of history in this room, and they knew it. 

“There is no right way to be a child of history, but you have to pick a lane. Even I, in all my power, cannot be every aspect. The sooner you find out what your power really is…” Cody didn’t like the way her eyes glowed through the slits in the helmet as she spoke. “The better.”

A scream pierced through the exhibit. 

Cody whipped around and rushed back out onto the second floor balcony of the atrium. He didn’t even need to look to see what was going on. Tables had been flipped and scattered around. Behind what had once been theirs, Ryo and Isaiah were watching the action. In the center of the atrium, just barely hitting the elephant’s base, a massive wolf that had once been Jesse tussled with a Lioness with far to human eyes who had once been another party goer. A glance around told him everything he needed to know. Fern was sprawled on the ground, being held by Micheal, who kept glancing up at the section of balcony Cody was gripping for dear life. 

Jesse was defending Fern from the lioness. And he was losing. Badly. 

The Curator’s hand came to drum away on the railing. “Hm. I wasn’t aware I had allowed fights at my dinner party.”

Julia looked between them. “No. No, Curator.”

“Be quiet, Julia. Tonight is not about you.”

She pressed her hands over her mouth to stop a sob from bubbling up. 

Cody heard, from the second floor, the wail Jesse the wolf let out as the lionesses claws ripped into his fur. “Why is no one stopping this?” Couldn’t they hear? Did they have any compassion? He looked around again, and noticed that none of the adults were moving anywhere, except to look at the balcony they were standing on. Not just the balcony, but at the Curator. “They’re waiting for your signal. You have to make the call for them to intervene.”

She didn’t answer but she didn’t need to. Her smug smile was enough. 

Across the room, Cody finally spotted Chaz. He was scaling a column. Ryo and Isaiah spotted him and tried to tell him to cut it out without getting noticed. Chaz saw them, he just didn’t listen. With a furious scream and gold coursing through his veins, he yelled “Cowabunga, asshole!” And lept from the balcony at the fight. His fist connected with the head of the lioness. It let out a scream as the stone floor cracked from the strength of Chaz’s landing. Cody was only slightly surprised to see a glowing anatomically accurate heart interrupt the battle. Of course Chaz was a child of life. 

Jesse’s wolf and the lioness were back at each other’s throats in seconds. Chaz was dragged to shelter behind the table by a rope of mismatched metals Ryo had made from centerpieces and silverware. 

Julia took the tiniest step closer to Cody and the Curator.  She’d taken her bun fully out by now and was frantically combing out tangles she’d never had. “Please-” she started.

“I’ll let that slide, just this once. Micheal, the rebel, cannot be trusted to tell you children all the rules. It’s dangerous, if you ask me, but he’s never been one to listen.” 

“Call it off,” Cody demanded. The tussle raged on below them. Micheal had pulled Fern under the balconies and as far out of harm’s way as he could while keeping his eyes on both the fight and the Curator. 

With the way her head was turned, Cody couldn’t see any of her face. “What are you looking for?”

“What?” He spit out, wincing as Jesse howled in pain.

“I’m not going to call it off.”

“Why?” He glared with all the strength he could muster, eyes glowing in a warning she wasn’t even looking at. “What makes you think you have any right to not let people help someone?” Something sharp shot through his head, and the world got much smaller in a matter of seconds. The only things that matter right then were the Curator, the fight, and Cody. “Why are you enjoying it?”

“You’re asking the right questions, and yet you still don’t know what it is you’re asking!” She scolded. The lioness roared as Jesse got a good bite into its leg. “You could see, if you got the guts to try, but you don’t even know what you’re seeing.”

What he was seeing…?  The answer hit him in a flash as for just a second time stood in anticipation. “Memories.” The words slipped out unwillingly, and he almost flinched at just how much of an oversimplification it was. He tried to correct, but it still wasn’t enough. “The memories that make a person who they are. Why they do what they do.”

The Curator finally turned her head to face him. She bellowed out “Stop the fight.” Everyone waiting for the signal rushed in to break them apart, as blinding gold flowed above Cody’s head. An eye. A haunting, emotionless eye. Looking directly at him.

With a fury and a fear Cody hadn’t realized had been building, he opened his eyes and looked at the Curator. His mind went flying. The rush, overpowering. Hundreds of thousands of years worth of memories, one in particular stood out. A small girl’s voice screaming, crying, begging someone to listen and “remember what he did”. 

The shock of being forced out sent a shiver through his whole body, and he was asleep before he hit the ground. 

Addie Sparks is a writer from Washington state who loves the sky. He is a two time writer for the 14/48 highschool playwriting festival and has written works in fiction and poetry. Currently he is working on a novel and studying creative writing in Michigan.