Star Harbor Nights

She was meant to go straight home after school and stay there until her mother arrived, but since that wouldn't be until nine or ten o'clock at night, Sera saw no reason to hurry. She knew her mom only tried to keep her indoors because she was worried about what kind of "crowd" her daughter hung out with... if she ever tried actually listening to her only daughter, though, she'd have known that there was nothing to worry about. Sera Meyers didn't "hang" with any "crowd."

She didn't really mind that her mom thought otherwise, though... at least when Mom was wringing her hands over the trouble she imagined her daughter getting into, she was paying Sera some kind of attention. That was why Sera had colored her hair. The short-cropped hair was meant to be purple, but most of the "permanent" dye had faded the first time she washed her hair, leaving behind a sort of dirty gray.

She got a lot of smart ass comments about it at school, but the whole point of dying your hair weird colors was supposed to be that you didn't care what anybody thought, right?

“Pardon me…”

Her train of thought derailed itself, and she nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden sound of a voice in her ear.

"How would you like to purchase something wondrous?"

Even wrapped up in her own thoughts, Sera was a pretty wary person; a combination of home life, school life, and street life had turned her natural paranoia into a finely honed survival skill. She was used to crossing the street or turning a corner long before her path would take her within hailing distance of another human being, where possible.

Somehow, though, she’d been taken completely by surprise by a scruffy man of indeterminate age who sat on the dead grass between the sidewalk and the boarded up pawnshop she had been walking past. The dirty overcoat he was wrapped up in had faded to the same ugly washed-out gray color as the paint on the wall he was leaned against... urban camouflage at its finest. She quickly covered her shocked expression with her finest disinterested sneer.

"Didn't you hear?" she asked glibly, shaking off her fright. "Drugs destroy dreams. It's all over the TV."

"Drugs? No, no... I offer you no pretty, petty poisons today. I offer something much more valuable."

"If it's so valuable, then why are you a bum?" she asked him.

"A bum?" he scoffed. Sera took a cautious step backwards as the man rose, spreading his arms expansively. His coat fell open, revealing well-used but surprisingly clean dark blue jeans and a black collarless t-shirt in similar good repair. "Why I do beg your pardon, young sir, but it is my understanding that a bum is a gentleman of little or no means, while I… for my sins… am a gentleman of some means."

"I'm not a 'sir,'" Sera glowered. She was getting pretty sick of adults assuming that she was a boy. So her boobs weren't exactly huge at the age of twelve, but was there some federal law that said after a certain age, you had to start determining sex on the basis of hair length alone?

"I apologize, young lady," he said. "Allow me to introduce myself... I am Reverend Jack, the itinerant preacher."

"You're a priest?"

"A preacher," he corrected.

"Same thing."

"Oh no, my dear b.. dear girl," Reverend Jack explained. "A priest is invested of a divine link to his or her patron deity. A preacher merely expounds upon the word of said deity, as he or she is given to understand it."

"So what are you trying to sell me?" Sera asked. "Salvation? A personal relationship with Jesus Christ?"

"Never met the gentleman," he said. "No, I'm here to offer you... this."

He opened his clenched fist to reveal cupped within it a glass ball... impossibly, it seemed slightly larger than his closed hand had been. The glass was clear and full of some uniform black substance, which could have been liquid or solid. As Sera watched, he gave the ball a little shake, and the blackness within was lit up by tiny streaks of light. She had a sensation of falling, and the orb seemed to get bigger... or closer. The streaks grew more detailed, and she could see that they were brilliant, multicolored star bursts. Other things, patterns of some kind, swirled in the darkness beyond them... and then Jack pulled the orb away, out of her immediate line of sight, and the connection was cut off.

"What is it?" Sera asked, her voice tinged with awe in spite of herself.

"Why, nothing less than the world in a bottle... or a world, anyway," Reverend Jack said. "I was given the privilege and responsibility of carrying and caring for it long ago, but now I tire of my task and wish to pass it on."

"I thought you were selling it," she replied, her suspicion returning.

"Oh, merely a formality," he said. "Under the laws which govern such things, I cannot do anything so simple as to give the world away... doing so would not absolve me of my responsibility, and if you were to lose or--heaven forefend--damage the world or its vessel, I would be held accountable by the powers that created it. No, for the transference to be recognized, it must be done as an exchange for a minimum of a set value."

"What is that set value?"

"Ten dollars, American."

Sera stared, stunned at the absurdity of the situation.

"Okay, let's go back over this,” she said. “You tell me that you've got a whole world wrapped up inside that glass ball."

"Yes," Reverend Jack confirmed.

"And you want to give it away," Sera said.

"Yes."

"But according to the big hairy cosmic rules you can't… unless someone gives you ten bucks for it," Sera prompted.

"Indeed," Reverend Jack said. “I feel I have made that point quite clear.”

"The rules of the cosmos really say ten bucks?"

"Yes, that is a suspiciously round number, isn't it?" he admitted. "Well, the exact amount specified is something just less than nine dollars and seventy three cents. I was merely rounding up for the sake of convenience. If I were in charge of more than the one world, of course, nobody would have to worry about such silly technicalities, but... well, we all must make do."

"So what if I don't have ten bucks?" Sera asked.

"Then I suppose I'm wasting my time, aren't I?" Reverend Jack said, pocketing the orb. He turned away from her.

"Wait!"

"Am I, then, to understand that you do have such a thing as ten dollars on your person, then?" the reverend asked.

"Yeah," Sera said. "But, can I see it again?"

"Certainly," he said, holding it out again. "As long as I can see your money."

Sera pulled the creased and wrinkled ten dollar bill out of her jacket pocket and held it up in plain sight. The reverend gave the orb another little shake and the light show started again. Sera found herself drawn down into its swirling depths once more, watching the streaking bursts and the patterns forming, with more patterns forming behind those patterns. She fell deeper and deeper into the world of the orb until she saw something like glittering stars and tiny jeweled worlds set around them... she heard Jack saying something, and heard herself responding, and then the bill was snatched out of her one hand, and the weight of the world settled into the other.

She shook herself out of the spell and cupped the ball with both hands, then turned and began to walk away numbly, her previous destination completely forgotten.

"Mind you don't trip and break it," Reverend Jack called after her, then added, under his breath, "at least not until both of us are very far away."

"Because the glamour would break with it and she'd see you just sold her a cheap snow globe full of old motor oil, right?" a woman's voice said, mock-scoldingly. He turned to see a woman of pale beauty dressed in a black evening gown. She leaned against the wall of the building, touching it only with her outstretched fingertips. The side of her body matched the angle of the edifice’s slanting shadow exactly, keeping her just outside of direct sunlight.

“My dear Miss Night,” the reverend said. “Where on earth did you come from?”

“That’s a question for the ages, Reverend,” she replied. "But, I don't know what's harder to believe... that you're still selling counterfeit worlds to kids for booze money, or that they buy them from you. I know kids today are gullible, but this is just ridiculous."

"Ah, but Trinity, my dear, I have two overwhelming advantages on my side. First, deep down all children want to believe in magic,“ he said. “Especially magic they can personally hold in their grubby little hands. Second, I am able to accurately produce a more-or-less exact duplicate of what a bottled world would look like," he continued, digging in the pocket of his great coat and producing another, similar orb. "Insofar as I have the original one right... oh, bugger!"

"Problem, Jack?" Trinity asked, grinning a Cheshire grin.

"That... that... she walked off with my world!"

“Sold the wrong one, did you?”

“Damn me for a fool!“ Jack cried. "I can’t believe I did that!”

"I can’t believe you’ve never done it before… and you really can't just take it back, can you?" Trinity guessed. "You weren't being completely dishonest with that girl... it really does have to be a sale. Maybe if you explain that you accidentally sold her the real one instead of the cheap knock-off you meant to give her, she'll sell it back to you."

"Do you really think so?" the man asked hoarsely, a dim hope showing in his eyes.

"No, I'm being sarcastic," she replied. "Anyway, I was just wrapping up some business of my own and now I’m on my way to the club. Come on, I'll buy you a drink, seeing as that ten bucks is probably the last income you'll see for a while."

"Thank you, that is far too kind of you," Reverend Jack said sincerely.

"Yeah, it really is," she agreed.

He hardly noticed as his mind was already turning to other subjects.

"I wonder if I could make a new one from memory," he said aloud “I should probably start now while it's still fresh and sharp in my head… now, or after I‘ve had a few drinks, to fortify my mind against despair…”