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“They said the main disturbance was in the law library,” Jean said, jogging up to them.
The library looked a good vector, tall with jagged spires. Eren had barely gotten off the van when his eyes drifted to it.
“You know what it reminds me of?” Jean elbowed Eren in the side.
Eren looked over at him. “What?” he asked, already regretting the question.
“Who you gonna call?” Jean stuck his tongue out and adjusted his glasses.
Eren’s nostrils flared. “Sasha, can you set up…” he started, but then grew distracted.
The law school stretched into the town and the town pushed back. They were so closely entwined it was hard to separate them. There was a group of diners sitting out on patio tables at the restaurant. Eren stared. They were all sitting there, talking, and enjoying their night. But not eating.
“You,” Eren pointed at a woman. “Stand.”
She hopped up.
“Well that’s unusual,” Connie said, still carrying all of the equipment.
“Oh no, I’m not doing this,” Sasha said and crawled back into the van. “Nope!”
“Do the funky chicken,” Eren ordered and watched as the woman began to bust it out. “All of you now, join in. Funky chicken time.”
Jean tapped his glasses and watched the scene. “…Huh.”
“I think your disturbance starts a little earlier than the law library,” Eren said. “You’ve got a bunch of golems here. Mud people. Illusions. They are placed here to give the area a semblance of normalcy but—“
“Are you sure that’s what it is?” a voice echoed in Eren’s head. “Golems? Look harder.”
Eren frowned.
“Eren?” Jean asked.
“My Dad is—“ Eren never quite got the words out before the façade shattered like a broken mirror and his father and Mikasa stepped out.
“A mirror world!” Grisha shouted jubilantly, the people eating dinner on the sidewalk barely acknowledging his presence. “Two distinct realities. Until one began warping into the other and causing all the strange nonsense at the library. Makes people weak to suggestion. We handled it though.”
Mikasa nodded next to her adopted father. Eren scowled.
“So glad you decided to let me know my services aren’t needed,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“We stumbled upon it same as you,” Grisha said, clapping a hand on Eren’s shoulder.
Eren couldn’t hold the grudge. He simply sighed. What a waste of an evening.
“Let’s all head to headquarters, shall we?” Grisha asked, climbing into the van.
There was no sense arguing. Eren climbed in with Connie and Sasha. Jean took the driver’s seat.
“Mikasa, do you want to sit up front?” Jean asked hopefully.
“Dad should sit there,” she said, unmoving.
“Go ahead,” Grisha nudged her. “I’ve got to look over the data back here. Tell Jean to take it easy on the corners.”
Eren sat next to his father as he pored over the readings on the computer screen. Every few moments he would mutter to himself.
“Do you see these lines here, Eren?” Grisha asked, pointing to a topographical map. “Fascinating. There is raw energy moving through those. You can feel it when we pass through one, can’t you?”
Eren nodded. He wasn’t nearly as excited as his father was. Armin would find it fascinating. But Armin was back in Duvall, examining fractures there. Each one of them was trying to divine a meaning from the earth’s energy. Eren didn’t think there was anything there. No answers. Still, this was his calling. This was his life’s mission. Ever since mom—
He stopped. He didn’t want to think about that.
“Do you see this one?” Grisha whispered, just so Connie and Sasha couldn’t hear. “Wait for it…wait for it…”
The van passed over the line and Eren felt a wave of nausea overtake him.
“Woo!” Grisha yelled, shaking out his shaggy head. “Tingles!”
It didn’t really tingle to Eren. But then again, he’d always felt the magic stronger than his father. He felt it more than Mikasa. Not that it meant anything. Feeling is one thing. Being able to do things with it was another.
The van pulled into the carpark and everyone jumped out. It took Eren a moment to find his footing on the ground.
“A little wavy gravy,” Grisha said, taking his hand.
“Eren are you alright?” Mikasa asked, pushing past Jean.
“Ground feels…wobbly.”
“It’s the energy. We shattered that one universe that was causing problems and now we’re getting the aftershocks here. Makes you feel like you’re walking on the moon, right?”
“Or something,” Eren said as the small cul de sac warped in front of him, then snapped back.
“Oh…I forgot, our neighbors are having a cook out tomorrow.”
“So?” Eren asked, rubbing his forehead.
“I promised we’d go.”
“Why?” Eren continued to massage his temples, waiting for the sensation to pass.
“Gotta keep up some semblance of normalcy.”
“Oh! Dr. Jaeger, I have something to show you. I’m really really sorry, but I think I may have improperly stored an artifact,” Connie said.
Eren shouldered his duffel and walked past the office where Connie showed Dr. Jaeger the strange liquid on the desk.
“That is odd. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Connie,” Grisha said, slapping him on the back.
“Everything okay?” Eren asked, looking at the substance.
“Yeah, just residue from a previous encounter. Nothing to worry about.”
Eren shrugged it off and continued to his room. He tugged his hoodie over his head and stopped when he realized his window was open and staring into his neighbor’s bedroom. She came to sit next to the windowsill. Pale and blonde with multiple piercings through her nose and brows she looked as bored with the suburban summer as he felt. He gave a little wave. She gave him the faintest smile in return.
Right. Cookout tomorrow.
He sighed and headed downstairs to set to work in the kitchen. As Jean tried to show off his foosball skills to Mikasa and Sasha ate potato chips in front of the television, Eren pulled on his apron and gathered his ingredients. Sometime after the first batch came out, people became interested in his whereabouts. Sasha lurked in his periphery.
“If you touch them, I’ll kill you,” Eren said brandishing his cake tester at her.
He waited for the first ones to cool and then carefully dipped them in the frosting, rolling the chocolate carefully around the edge to keep it from dripping.
Grisha gave a low whistle. “You’re good at that. What’s the occasion?”
“Can’t go to a cookout and not bring anything,” Eren said, smiling a little. Then after a bit, “No.”
“Why not?” Grisha said, making a face nearly identical to Sasha’s and slowly pulling his hand away.
“They’re not for you, they’re for the party tomorrow,” Eren laughed.
“I like seeing you happy,” Grisha said, kissing his temple. “You remind me of your mother when you smile.”
Eren’s smile faltered for a moment and he turned back to the rest of his cupcakes. “I still have another dozen to go through.”
When he finished, he picked the six ugliest ones. “You each get one,” Eren informed them sternly. “And then they’ll have to wait until the party tomorrow.”
Connie and his father grabbed theirs on a napkin to go, heading back to the office. Mikasa carefully peeled the wrapper off of hers. Jean offered his to Mikasa, but she declined. Sasha broke off the bottom and made a cupcake sandwich and shoved the whole thing in her mouth.
Eren took a bite out of his and headed upstairs.
“It’s back.”
“I see that,” Grisha said.
Eren paused in the doorway again, observing Connie and his father. Grisha tapped the golden substance with his finger and then tasted it with the tip of his tongue.
“It’s…honey,” Grisha squinted to look at the ceiling. “Oh, there. See?”
Connie looked at the tile on the ceiling. “Oh, hey it’s coming from there.” He flopped into an office chair in relief. “I thought I had accidentally contaminated the house!”
“No, it’s just honey. There must be a pretty large hive up in the attic. I’ll get a beekeeper to come out and see if they can relocate the hive.”
Grisha wiped up the sticky mess with a towel and they continued their work.
“Since when do we have an attic?” Eren asked quietly.
He was about to head into his room when he looked down the hall. There was a set of stairs leading up to a rusty red door he’d never noticed. A door that hadn’t ever been there before. He frowned. Tapping his hand on the doorknob, he decided on bed instead.
His neighbor perked up at his arrival, looking at him covered in flour and frosting.
“Cupcakes,” he mouthed.
“Yum,” she mouthed back.
Then he turned off his light and drifted off to sleep.
<*>
“You’re really good at this,” she said the next day, taking a bite.
“Déjà vu,” Eren said, shaking his head. “Dad said the same thing yesterday.”
“They’re really good though,” said the neighbor. “The chocolate flavor is really…yeah. Wow.” And then. “I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.”
“I believe you,” Eren said.
“You’re supposed to be humbled by my compliment, you jerk,” she elbowed him.
“I just realized, I don’t know your name,” Eren said.
“Annie. Leonhardt,” she shook his hand. “I’m hiding. I don’t much like parties.”
“Me neither.”
“I’m not usually so chatty either, but I’ve been so fucking bored,” she said yawning. “There’s nothing to do all summer.”
“I know what you mean,” Eren said, despite the fact that his father’s research kept him fairly busy. The downtime drove him crazy.
“Where do you go to school?”
“State,” Eren shrugged. It was an easy enough lie. He had been accepted there once upon a time.
“Boo, State sucks,” she complained, giving him the thumbs down.
“Eren don’t hoard the cupcakes!” Sasha complained.
“I need to deliver these to the masses,” Eren said. “Nice talking to you, Annie.”
“Ah, and this is my son, Eren,” Grisha said, putting his arm around him. “Eren these are our neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Grice and their sons are the little towheads you see running around playing basketball in the cul de sac. Eren used to play basketball. He was pretty good at it too.”
Gave it up after the spectre in the boy’s locker room wouldn’t quit watching him undress.
“Colt is fourteen and Falco is ten,” their mother beamed.
“Can I have a cupcake?” asked the younger who must have been Falco.
“Yeah sure, your sister already had one,” Eren said, handing him one with lots of frosting.
Falco dropped the cupcake, face going pale. Eren handed the tray to his father.
“I got it, it’s okay,” Eren said, picking it up from the ground.
“She sleeps in my room, but she doesn’t sleep,” Falco whispered to Eren.
“That’s okay,” Eren whispered back. “She’s just lonely.” Then in a louder voice. “I think this one is better left for the ants, let’s get you a new one.”
He slid the patio door shut and leaned on it heavily.
“I don’t know why they’re throwing a party. Dad knows I hate parties,” Annie complained to Eren, luring at the kitchen island. “I hate the noise.”
“Where’s your room? I want to see what my room looks like from your window.”
Annie led him up the stairs. Eren looked at the roof of his house. No room for an attic. Then he turned his eye to the contents of the room. The walls were covered in Death Metal and Punk band posters.
“You like Black Sabbath?” Eren asked.
“They’re alright,” Annie shrugged.
Eren sat on the edge of her bed. “I think you and I would have gotten along, Annie.”
“Speak for yourself,” she said with a snort.
“But I don’t think you’re happy here.”
The AC unit in the other window kicked on and Eren shuddered at the blast of cold.
“Why? You don’t know me.”
“I kindof do.”
“You don’t know the shit I’ve had to go through. No. Fuck you. You don’t know me.”
“I know the people downstairs are good people. They just want to live here in peace.”
“What’s stopping them?” Annie countered.
“I think you’re a good person, Annie. I think you want Falco to be happy.”
“Fuck them. Fuck their stupid happy family. Why do they get to be happy, hm? Why do they just get to move on and leave me here? Everyone forgot about me. They just left! I’m still here! This is my house! I’m still here!”
The AC unit shook violently and with a crash fell out the window. The party goers outside gave a little cry, startled by the sound.
“You haven’t lived here in a very long time, Annie. And when you were here I don’t think you were happy.”
The windows shuddered and then stilled.
“Annie?” Eren asked.
He got up off of Falco’s racecar bed and took in the basketball posters on his wall. Slowly he made his way downstairs.
“Did you have fun at the party?” Grisha asked.
“Yeah,” said Eren. “I made a friend.”
<*>
He trudged up to his bedroom that night and looked out the window, hoping to see Annie. Instead Falco waved to him. Eren waved back. Then his mother came over and waved at Eren and shut the shades. Eren sighed sitting on his bed. He thought of Annie. He thought of the attic. He really should tell his father. The attic didn’t belong there any more than Annie did. He chewed on his lip. Grisha always told them when wandering into the unknown to always take a partner.
Instead, Eren grabbed his flashlight and climbed the ladder. When he came to the attic door, he half expected it to be locked, but instead it swung open and he climbed further. The ladder was impossibly long. Eren considered himself in relatively good shape, but he grew winded as he trekked upward. Eventually, as his ears popped, he could hear the buzzing of thousands of bees. He stepped onto the attic floor and caught his balance.
There was a man up there.
He was very naked, but what surprised Eren was how normal it seemed for him to be naked.
“Hello,” Eren said.
The man looked at him and then slowly nodded in response. The moon filtered in from the one tiny attic window, catching the wings of the bees as they danced on the night air. They should be sleeping, but they were active and swarming the nest. Yet not a single one dared disturb Eren or the stranger. They instead floated on the air around them as if buffeted by some unseen wind.
“I’m Eren.”
“Levi.”
There was a long pause.
“Why are you here?” Levi asked finally.
“This is my house. You’re in my attic.” Eren didn’t bother to say that he hadn’t had an attic before yesterday.
“Oh,” said Levi, not looking surprised in the slightest. “How did you get here?”
“I opened the door and climbed,” Eren said, putting his hands into his pockets.
“How did you see the door?” Levi asked shrewdly.
“All my family can see doors. We can see all the doors and all the locks and we always have a key.”
“I didn’t know humans could do that.”
“Aren’t you human?”
“I am. I was. I may still be. I’m not sure anymore.”
Eren’s eyes finally took in the chain around his neck. He hadn’t seen it at first although in hindsight he should have. It was large and made of iron and connected Levi to something else, something Eren couldn’t see. It was as if the harder Eren squinted, the better everything came into focus. Like watercolor spreading across a wet piece of paper. Levi was carrying a tray of drinks, his face far away and not quite there. Eren stepped closer and Levi recoiled. Instead Eren touched the chain and followed where it led.
“I wouldn’t do that. Master wouldn’t like it,” Levi informed him, following along behind him.
“Master?” Eren asked.
“ME,” said the fiend.
Eren dropped the chain in alarm. He hadn’t realized he’d wandered into a den of dark creatures. Each one of them pulsing and grotesque. But the largest was golden and dripping in amber honey. Not the kind Eren put on biscuits when he was younger, but the kind that was so sickeningly sweet and indulgent it made him gag.
“How did you get here?” asked the fiend, taking a drink from Levi’s tray.
“I—you’re—you’re in my attic.”
The rest of the party looked disturbed by this fact.
“Ah yes. I forgot to tell the rest of you. I thought above a watcher’s house would be a perfect place for our affair. Right under their noses.” The fiend’s honeycomb eyes drifted to the necklace around Eren’s neck.
“If I go missing, then your party isn’t so secret anymore,” Eren stammered.
“I wouldn’t want anything with you anyway,” the fiend waved him aside with jelly-like limbs.
“Why else do you have a human with you?” Eren asked, eyeing Levi.
“He is paying off his debt.”
“Debt?” Eren asked, slowly climbing to his feet.
The fiend knocked over the glass in their hand, spilling it all over the extravagant carpet. Levi immediately fell to the floor and began scrubbing at the stain.
“He is my slave. I am a god of great wealth and substance you see.”
They always call themselves gods. Eren suppressed the instinct to roll his eyes.
“I gave him what he needed and he took it twice over. The first he paid with his soul, the second his body. So you see, he belongs to me.”
“What? Why would you do that?” Eren asked Levi.
Levi dared not pause his cleaning but a cloud fell over his face.
“He doesn’t remember,” the fiend said, chuckling lowly. “They never do. Now it is in bad taste to have a human at one’s soiree unless it is shackled, so leave.”
Eren felt a heavy push and was thrown from the party, back to the empty attic. He struggled to his feet.
“My Master asked me to see to it that you leave,” Levi said, with his hands crossed over his front.
“Don’t you hate being a slave?” Eren asked angrily, seizing his arms. “Don’t you want to be free?”
Eren’s anger appeared to surprise Levi, who by now was so unused to human emotions.
“I am paying my debt,” Levi said slowly as if it were obvious.
“You could be free! You could be human again—a real human being with dignity and a life and free will!”
“I know it must seem pathetic to you. But I made my decision long ago. It must have been important or I wouldn’t have done it.”
Eren couldn’t think of any other way to convince him, so he slowly crept down the ladder and back to his bedroom to nurse his bruises.
<*>
Eren awoke to a presence in the room.
“My Master asked me to watch you, in case you and your watcher family decided to sever the link,” Levi said from Eren’s doorway.
The long chain at his throat carried all the way out the door and up the stairs to the attic.
“You’re hurt,” Eren observed.
“I did not bring a drink fast enough for my Master,” Levi acknowledged. “So he beat me.”
“You’re bleeding.”
Eren hopped out of bed and grabbed a bandage. He pressed it to Levi’s temple.
“Does that hurt?” Eren asked.
“Of course, but the pain barely bothers me anymore. What are you doing?”
Eren couldn’t help it. Tears leaked out of his eyes.
“What is this?” Levi asked, grey eyes warily darting between Eren’s features.
“I’m crying.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m upset! Don’t you remember what it means to be upset? You’ve spent so long in a fairy world, you don’t even know what it means to be human!”
“Why are you upset?”
“I’m upset for you! You should be free! You should not be beaten like this! You don’t deserve to be treated like this.”
Levi was silent.
“You are very strange, Eren.”
“I’m not. In fact, I’m very boring. I spend my whole life running around and shutting down wormholes or preventing realities from crashing into one another, but really? All of that sounds interesting, but it also means you don’t have time to develop much of a personality. Or friends. I mean I have Armin, but he’s in Duvall still. Most of the friends I meet are apparitions or ghosts. I don’t really get to meet other humans. You’re really the first in a very long time.”
Levi blinked.
“Don’t you want to know why you gave up your freedom?” Eren asked him.
“I think…” Levi said, reaching out a pale finger to brush a tear on Eren’s cheek. “I must have loved someone very much.”
<*>
Eren didn’t have much of a plan when he marched back into the attic. He really should have, but the thought of Levi lingering in that state with a chain that went on forever made him bold.
“I want to settle Levi’s debt,” Eren announced, setting down into a plush armchair in the middle of the party.
Parties like this went on for fortnights, so he wasn’t surprised they were still there, gorging themselves and carousing.
“Do you now?” the fiend asked, now fully amused. “He has given me two things that cannot be matched in price. His soul and his body. What would you give me?”
“I can…uh…if you have an item you need from another dimension, I could retrieve it. Or I could, uh, take care of an enemy?”
The party chuckled at his suggestion.
The fiend reached forward and tapped the key around Eren’s neck. “You were born with a very special gift.”
“…What is it you’re asking for?” Eren couldn’t follow.
“Your clan has always had the ability to see us and to see our doorways. It makes things very inconvenient for us. I wouldn’t mind seeing one more with the sight turned into another walking mudman.”
“But, without the sight…I’m nothing.” Sure he wasn’t as talented as Mikasa or Armin. But the sight was the only thing that made him special. It was his purpose in life.
“Eren don’t do this. This is my debt. And mine alone,” Levi cautioned.
“Then Levi stays my pet forever.”
“Wait! Will…will he be okay? You won’t hurt him when you release him, will you? He won’t die, will he?”
The fiend didn’t answer.
“Will it hurt?” Eren asked finally, removing the key from around his neck.
“Yes, but you won’t remember the pain,” the fiend hissed.
<*>
“What is this?” Grisha asked, when he came home.
“Honey glazed ham, I have been craving something sweet,” Eren chorused happily. “And I made fresh rolls too!”
Grisha’s pleased grin slowly slipped off his face. He turned to see Mikasa sitting on a chair in the corner of the kitchen, eyes wet and shiny.
“He’s been like this since I got home,” Mikasa whispered.
They could sense it. They could sense its absence almost immediately.
“Oh Eren, son. What did you do?” Grisha said, enveloping him in his arms.
“I made dinner, it’s no big deal!” Eren protested. “Dad! Dad don’t cry!”
<*>
Eren didn’t remember. Dr. Jaeger said he wouldn’t and he told everyone else not to ask Eren questions that might upset him. When Armin returned from Duvall, Eren embraced him as if he’d been away at summer camp and not out on research.
“He seems happier,” Armin said. “We should leave him be. We can’t reverse it.”
Eren got a job at the bakery on Main. He talked about going back to college so the bakery worked with his classes. It was a comfortable set up. A man walked in with a small red headed child clinging to his arm.
“Uncle Leviiii,” she whined. “I want a cupcake.”
“Pick it out, poppet,” the man said, unbuttoning his black wool coat. “Can I get a candle as well, Eren?”
“Yes sir—How did you know—oh! I always forget I’m wearing this silly nametag. Sorry, what was it you asked for, sir?”
“Levi.”
“Right, Levi, you wanted?”
“A candle. I see you sell them.”
“It’s my birthday!” the little girl grinned.
“It’s your birthday?” Eren gasped in delight. “What color candle would you like?”
“Ummm purple with sparkles!”
“I’ve got just the one,” Eren said, and set it down next to the two cupcakes. “And there’s your total.”
The girl sat down and Eren came over to light it for her. She blew it out in one huff.
“Good job! How old are you?”
“This many!” she held up four fingers.
Eren left them to it, but he listened a little as the quiet man sat with his young companion.
“Did I tell you Daisy, that you almost didn’t exist?” Levi told her.
“Yes,” she said rolling her eyes.
“Your grandparents grew very, very sick. Your Grandma Izzy and Your Grandpa Farlan had a nasty disease that now we vaccinate against, but at the time the only medicine was expensive and not readily available to poor folks like us. But then, by some miracle, they received treatment and got better. And then your daddy was born and then many years later, you.”
“How do you know?” Daisy complained. “You weren’t there.”
He brushed her hair out of her eyes and kissed her head. Eren enjoyed their chatter and waved to them when they left.
Only when he was cleaning did he find a strange necklace left on the table. It was a key on a delicate chain. Shrugging, he put it in lost and found.
When the man returned some time later, looking like an old photograph in his wool coat, Eren greeted him warmly.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” Levi asked.
“Yes, I do! Levi with his niece Daisy! Oh! You left something here last time!” Eren bent down and rummaged around the Lost and Found box. “Ah! Got—“
He was interrupted as Levi leaned over the counter and kissed him gently on the lips.
“Thank you,” said Levi, holding him close. “Thank you so much.”
Eren blinked in surprise, face flushing as Levi turned to leave.
“Keep the necklace,” Levi told him.
“Wait,” Eren muttered to himself. “Wait!”
He chased him down the street and hurriedly scribbled on a piece of paper his number.
“Please call me!” he insisted.
Levi promised he would. Elated, Eren skipped back to that shop. He straightened the bakery display and then swept the floors for crumbs. Nothing could diminish his good mood. Here, a handsome stranger had come back to the store just to kiss him! Armin would never believe it. Mikasa would want the man arrested for sure. Eren couldn’t find anything scary in the tenderness of his lips.
As he carried the broom back to the closet, he noticed a door he hadn’t ever seen before. He first saw it out of the corner of his eye, thinking it was merely the giant mixer. But when he straightened and looked at it fully, there it was. A faded brick red door with a brass doorknob, right next to the sinks. Funny. It wasn’t the office or the utility closet. Eren wondered what it could be for.
He approached it carefully as if worried a herd of elephants might come stumbling out. Curiosity overcame him, he had to know what lay beyond it. He reached a shaking hand for the doorknob. It was cool to the touch. He twisted it slightly and sighed. It was locked. Then his fingers caught the key around his neck and he looked at the door once more.
“I wonder…” he thought aloud.
Then the door tinkled as a customer entered and he forgot all about the door and what lay beyond it. He had a date with a good looking man named Levi and that’s all he needed to know.