To anyone who found their way here looking for Neil Gaiman's Calendar of Tales: I'm sorry to disappoint you. This is just a random person online taking his idea and his questions, and doing her own Calendar of Tales. You're more than welcome to stay and read my story too, though I have to warn you, I am definitely no Neil Gaiman.
_________________________________________________
What’s the most unusual thing you have ever seen in July?
An hoodless car trailer being pulled by a motor boat (answer from mom. again.)
(although I would like to say, there were some other great ones too this month. Please keep them coming.)
To say that the sea was a mirror was an exaggeration. The sea was never that calm. But tonight it was as close to it as it ever was. The only thing moving on the water was the small ripples caused by the warm breeze, light as a feather on her skin. It was well past midnight, she knew, but she didn’t really care. Sitting at the shore, looking out over the ocean was really what she wanted to do all night on a night like this. The grass under her was almost as soft as the wind, the bark rough through the back of her dress. She smiled to herself, closed her eyes and breathed in deep, smelling the scent of the sea.
A sound from the other side of the fence broke the silence. A car coming to the shore. During the day it wouldn’t have been surprising, there was a small boat dock there, but it was in the middle of the night. And in the middle of the week. She watched through the spaces between fence boards how the car, pulling a trailer, pulled to a stop next to the dock housing a couple dozen motor boats.
Two men came out of the car. One headed to the dock to get one of the boats, while the other one walked around the car to unhook the trailer. It had something bulky on it, hidden by a cover of a big, black sheet of plastic. The way he moved the trailer made it seems like it can’t have been too heavy. They were both wearing dark, baggy clothes. Other than that, nothing about them stood out. Very average-build guys, though undoubtedly male. In the twilight of a summer night the light wasn’t good enough to properly see details of their faces, but they didn’t look old. They didn’t notice her, sitting still in the dim light, half-hidden by the fence, and she stayed quiet and still to keep it that way. She didn’t know what they were doing, but just the thought of interacting with them put her on edge.
So she watched silently as the man on shore pulled two big barrels out of the car, attached them to the bottom of the trailer to work as pontoons, and tied the trailer to the motor boat. The men nodded to each other. One of them climbed into the motor boat, started the engine, and headed out to the sea.
“He’s off,” said a serious, not unpleasant voice on the other side of the fence into a phone, almost startling her. “Yes. Yes. Not yet. Will do.”
The man got back into the car and drove away. She sat still until she couldn’t hear the car or the boat anymore, then stood up and walked back inside, bare feet silent in the cool grass, her peaceful night of staring out over the sea ruined.
***
She woke up two nights later to a sound coming from outside through the open window. She usually didn’t wake up to sounds in the middle of the night, but everything had been so quiet the sound of the car passing by on its way to the boat dock had been enough to pull her awake from the lighter sleep phase.
She got up to close the window to block out the sound, but looking out got a glimpse of the car now stationary at the shore through the trees between her and it. Two dark figures were moving around it and the trailer it had been pulling. One of them took a motor boat from the dock, they attached the trailer to it, and the figures went their separate ways, one with the boat and the trailer, the other with the car a moment later. She made sure to pull in a little from the window to be in the shade of the curtains as the car passed. The men made her uncomfortable, and the thought of them knowing she’d seen them filled her with fear that didn't make sense to her. Even if they saw her, what were they going to do? She was safe inside, the doors locked. She leaned back closer to the window after the car was gon. She got a better look at the trailer now that it was a little way out into the sea, where the trees weren’t obscuring the view. There was something bulky on it, covered and tied down with a big, dark sheet of plastic.
Random people moving something around in the middle of the night she could have written off as just an odd thing that happened once, even if the random people seemed to be sneaking around. It was weird, but it was the normal kind of weird. But the same random people moving the same kind of something around twice within a short period of time, both times in the middle of the night, seeming like they were sneaking around? That was the weird kind of weird, and she felt her curiosity peaking even as her fear of letting them see her hadn’t yet completely evaporated.
***
A few nights after she saw the men the second time she had trouble sleeping. Her tired thoughts were spinning in circles, preventing her from falling asleep. She was wondering about the strangers with the trailer, and whether she would dare to ask her long-time crush out, and what she should have for lunch tomorrow. All of them things that couldn’t actually be solved in the middle of the night, but for some reason her brain wanted to think about them right now.
There was a sound of a passing car from outside. For a moment she simply squeezed her eyes closed, and hugged the pillow between her arms a little tighter, just wanting to sleep. But as she heard the car stop, she sighed and got up. Maybe it was nothing. Some young couple who wanted to go secretly skinny-dipping in the middle of the night. She hoped it was that, but the dark-clad strangers had now been here twice, and she needed to know if it was them again. She knew she definitely wouldn’t be able to sleep if she left herself wondering about that. And even if it wasn’t them, if she was going to spend the night tossing and turning in her bed, she might just as well creepily stalk some strangers from her bedroom window.
It was the strangers, with dark clothes and the trailer with a mystery load and the car and the boat. She didn’t think. She pulled long sleeves on top of her light pyjama and snuck out. She needed to get a better look of the men. She was aware that this was probably a bad idea, but her middle-of-the-night brain had made the decision and gotten her going before she had time to think about it rationally.
It had rained earlier, and the grass was wet under her feet as she made her way towards the waterline, chilling her bare toes. She moved as quietly as she could, staying behind trees where possible. The wind and the waves washing over the sand masked what small sound she made. She managed to get to the shore just as one of the men moved the boat from the dock. The third spot on the right. She tucked that bit of information away for now and slowly sat down. The men were so focused on what they were doing and making enough sounds that they didn’t notice her. She wanted to inch closer to see if she could get a good look of their faces, but she didn’t dare.
She shivered slightly in the cool night wind and watched. Their routine was the same as before. Pontoons, trailer rolled into the water, its contents hidden. The man in the motor boat took off.
“He’s on his way,” the same, not unpleasant voice from the first night said. “Yes. Two more, and we already have them ready to go. I believe we will be able to move them tomorrow night, and the night... Yes, sir, we’re aware that it won't work if even a small piece is mis... Yes, we know the time is nearing. We need two more nights for the deliveries. That leaves two more nights before the full moon, enough for the construction. Everything will be ready to open the gate at midnight. Yes, sir. Everything planned and under control. The master will be freed. Yes.”
He hung up the phone, entered the car and drove away. She let out a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding. What were they doing? Building a gate? Where? And to where?
She made her way back to her bed, and failed at sleeping for most of the rest of the night.
***
In the morning the motor boat was back. Maybe that was the case every morning after they came, but this was the first time she’d paid attention to it.
That day she went shopping. She had somehow expected buying a gps-tracker would be hard. Turned out it wasn’t.
That evening she went swimming. While she enjoyed being on top of the sea more, being in the sea always made her feel light and relaxed. She took a couple more strokes, then flipped onto her back, floating with her eyes closed, resting, her right hand on the hull of the third motor boat on the right to keep her from drifting away or bumping into something. After a while she turned and swam back to shore.
That night she slept like a stone. The lack of sleep the previous night had left her exhausted.
The app on her phone had recorded the location of her tracker all night. It showed a route to a small island farther out in the archipelago and back to dock. She kept staring at the map all through breakfast. She took the last sip of her coffee and called a friend.
“Hi. The weather is so good today I was thinking on going kayaking today. Yeah, I know. Anyway, I was thinking of going farther out than starting from here, just to change things up a bit. But I’d need a car with a roof rack to get the kayak there. Can I borrow yours for the day?”
Three hours later she was on the water, paddling her way towards the island the tracker had gone to the night before. Despite the fact that she was here to make sense of creepy strangers’ shady dealings, it was wonderful to be on the water. The sun was shining, the water surprisingly clear, the wind the kind of nice and cool that meant you wouldn’t notice burning your face and shoulders until it was too late, and the sea gulls were screaming above. For a good hour and a half she simply enjoyed the push of her paddle in the water, the swaying of her kayak.
Still fifteen minutes out from the island a faint feeling of dread began creeping up inside her. She tried to shake it, but it kept growing stronger as she neared her destination. By the time she was getting close, all she wanted to do was turn around. She didn’t. Despite her fear she pushed herself out of the kayak and onto the smooth rock gently sloping into the sea and pulled her kayak high up enough that its rope reached the closest tree.
She took a moment, just sitting down and having a drink of water. She extended the moment and had a sandwich too. She wasn’t really hungry, the feeling of needing to get off this island trumping all other feelings, but she knew she needed to eat, and if anyone found her here and asked, she could say she was just out kayaking, and decided to have a lunch break. And, if she was honest with herself, she was stalling and avoiding going farther inland on the island. Not that there was much inland. The rocky island was just big enough to have a small forest in the middle of it.
Eventually she couldn’t procrastinate anymore. The longer she did that, the longer she would have to stay on the island. So she stood up, left her stuff a little spread out, like she had simply stepped away for a minute and would be back any moment, instead of intentionally snooping around an island. And then she walked. She could clearly feel the push of whatever was here, and she went right towards it.
It wasn’t hard to find. It was two hundred meters into the forest, on a clearing. A gate, like the man had said, made of ancient stone. An unfinished one, like the man had indicated. Most of it was built up, but there were more pieces of ancient stone next to it, big and small, that would clearly fit together to make the rest of the gate. There was no one there. Just her and the gate, alone on the tiny island.
She wanted nothing more than to run away from the gate.
She didn’t want to know who or what was supposed to be freed through that gate on the fourth night from now. She did know it was something she absolutely didn’t want coming through the gate.
She did the only thing she could think of. She stepped to the pile of gate pieces and picked one up. It was about the size of her fist, and weighed about half of what she had expected. So it wasn’t stone, then. She didn’t know what it was. It didn’t matter. She clamped her fingers around the piece and ran back to her kayak, packed her things, including the new piece of not-rock, and got off the island. The feeling of terror from the gate didn’t quite leave her until she was almost back to her borrowed car.
***
Indonesia had been beautiful, she thought to herself as she watched the sun setting to their left. The Filippines would hopefully be beautiful too. The engine of the boat was buzzing comfortably underneath.
Arms wrapped around her from behind.
“This has got to be the best idea you’ve had in the two years we’ve been together,” she said.
“I know you love the sea," she could hear the smile in that voice. "Let’s go have dinner?”
“You go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
After she was alone again, she dug a fist-sized not-a-rock from her purse. The quiet splash it made as it disappeared below the waves was one of the most satisfying sounds she’d heard in a long while.
