Month: June 2025

Trapper Peak

The Guide stared toward the sunrise over a sea of smog just four hundred feet below his homestead. He scuffed at the ground with his boot and watched dust skitter across the clearing. Long shadows punctuated every pebble.

They were late. Why were the damned pilgrims always late? They needed an early start to reach the summit and return before dark. And there was Zoola to face at the top. It wasn’t wise to keep a dragon waiting.

He brushed hair out of his eyes—when had it gone so grey?— and shoved his hands into his pockets. He’d been guiding the annual pilgrims for thirty years now, almost half his life. Sixty pilgrims up, thirty pilgrims down. It was a nasty business, but if he didn’t do it—

The crunch of tires on gravel announced Jim’s electric pickup finally arriving. Zoola didn’t allow internal combustion on the mountain. Hard to believe people down-below still pumped that poison into the soup they tried to breathe.

The truck rolled to a stop right in front of him, and his friend waved from the driver’s seat.

Friend. That was a stretch for someone he saw one day a year for drop-off and pick-up. But he did like the man. He didn’t ask questions or express many opinions.

“Hey, Old Man. Sorry I’m late,” Jim said.

Again, he thought, but he waved it away as his friend got out. “Glad to see you’re still on the job.”

He took Jim’s offered hand and held onto it, savoring the pressure of palm against palm, the warmth of the flesh, and of the gesture.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Jim said. “Sunshine and clean air one day a year. But, I envy your position, Old Man. When you gonna retire and give someone else a chance?”

“Not gonna happen.” And you’d thank me for that if you knew. He dropped the handshake and looked toward Jim’s passengers.

“So, who are our lottery winners this year?”

The pair were already out of the truck and gaping at the sky. Jim held out the dossiers, but the young woman…. His throat clenched. She was practically the image of— No, he wasn’t going there.

She wore grey homespun shirt, pants, and jacket and a wide grin. A single braid, black as the dragon’s heart, hung nearly to her waist. Dark eyes were crinkled with smile lines. So like—

“Old Man?”

“Sorry, Jim.” He took the documents.

The young woman was Nadie Charlie from Polson. Twenty-five. A scholar of the collapse and the rise of the dragons. He hadn’t realized there was still a settlement up on the big lake. Or scholars anywhere.

The man was Frederick Vider, a fifty-one-year-old merchant from Missoula who apparently owned a good portion of the city. He looked just as he imagined one of Missoula’s wealthy jerk-offs would. Baked on frown, thinning brown hair, stout but reasonably fit. His clothing appeared manufactured. Probably had it imported from Kansas City or some such outlandish place. Probably ate imported real food, too. And lived in a climate-controlled home while his neighbors struggled to keep air scrubbers working and choked down vat-grown algae.

He already knew who he was rooting for. But he also knew Zoola’s preferences. This was going to be a hard one.

“Odd pair,” he said. “But that’s the lottery. I get why folks would enter for the chance of a day in the sun. But why anyone would want to upload into that bastard of a dragon is beyond me.”

“You don’t live in the down-below,” Jim said. “It’s bad and worse every year. If I didn’t get my annual dose of fresh air, I might enter myself.”

“Are you about done, Gentlemen?” Vider said. “I’m here to see a dragon. Shouldn’t we be getting on with it?”

He knew he wouldn’t like this guy. “Hold your horses, Buddy. We’ll be leaving in a few minutes.”

“That’s Mr. Vider to you.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the truck.

“Right,” the Guide said. “Come on, Jim. Let’s get you unloaded. We don’t want to keep Mr. Vider waiting.”

Jim dropped the truck’s tailgate and flipped off the tarp. There, behind the uninspiring crates of compressed algae, was the Guide’s yearly splurge. A keg of Missoula’s best beer.

He grew much of his own food in his greenhouse, but the algae packs would round out his needs. Most folk down-below, the algae was all they got.

Jim hefted a crate and carried it to the storeroom. Before the Guide could grab the next one, the young woman was beside him, pulling it out.

“That’s not necessary, Ms. Charlie.”

“Let me help. And please call me Nadie.”

He let her take it and watched her walk away.

“A bit young for you, isn’t she?” Vider said.

The Guide shot him a look, then lifted the next crate. Jim took the next and Nadie the next, and they had the algae unloaded and stowed in a few minutes. Vider watched, like a man used to watching others work, as Jim and the Guide wrestled the keg into the spring house. The Guide ran a hand over the cool metal. Tonight.

Back at the truck, he shook Jim’s hand again. “See you later for pickup.”

“If you’re still alive, Old Man.”

Jim waved out the window as he turned a circle in the clearing, then headed back down the road.

“Hey, Old Man. Let’s get going,” Vider said.

“That’s Guide to you, Mr. Vider.”

“Whatever. Just do your job.” He already had his City-of-Missoula-issued pack on his back.

But Nadie…She stood in the center of the clearing, smile gone, pack dangling from one hand. She faced the trail, but her focus was miles beyond.

“Nadie?”

She shook her head and turned toward him, her smile back in place. “It’s so beautiful here. I mean, I knew it would be, but…It makes me feel hollowed out. And present, as if I’ve just stepped out of a dream.”

Vider snorted, and the Guide ignored him. He supposed he’d be doing a lot of that today. He scanned his homestead one last time, then shouldered his pack. “All right—”

A shadow swept the clearing.

All three looked up as a sixty-foot-long silhouette circled back. The dragon soared on motionless wings, neck outstretched, and serpentine tail trailing. They banked and rose, turned a higher circle, then flew off to the south.

Vider had backed up under a big pine. Nadie stood with her head tilted skyward, her mouth open in a silent oh.

“All right, Pilgrims. Let’s head out.”

“About damn time,” Vider said and took off up the trail.

Nadie followed, adjusting her pack straps, and the Guide brought up the rear. It was best to keep an eye on the pilgrims, keep them moving and on the trail.

The grade eased after a short, steep stretch, and Nadie fell back to walk beside him. “Is that chittering sound off in the woods a bird?”

“Squirrel.”

“Oh. I’ve seen pictures. Do you think we’ll see one up close?”

“Likely, we will.”

“I’ve never been above the smog before. It must be wonderful, living up here under the sun.”

He glanced at her. “There are trade-offs, but yes, it’s pretty nice.”

“Trade-offs?”

She was a chatty one. This was going to be a long day.

The Alchemy Club

>

Old Baltazar came ‘round every Wednesday evening.

Didn’t matter what time of year it was, or whether it was sunny or raining or snowing. Come Wednesday, there he’d sit, fourth stool from the end of the right side of the bar—bartender’s right, that is—holding court. Can’t say as many folks listened to him most of the time. Can’t say as he even listened to himself. But that didn’t stop him from talking.

Of course, you spend time that close to a man who talks like old Baltazar, week after week, year after year, well, you pick up a few things. Ideas, like. Bits and bobs. Facts, maybe—some of ‘em anyway, but lore, too, and hard to say if it’s an art or a science in telling the difference. Maybe there isn’t any difference. Maybe it’s all the same.

You might say that was the point of the whole thing, The Alchemy Club. Started as a high-minded affair, rich old men telling other rich old men why they were right about this and that, and why everyone ought to listen to ‘em. Not many left as can remember those meetings first-hand, but those as do say they were all bluster. Only substance in those meetings is the same one that’s served at the Club today, and that’s a whole lot of alcohol.

It’s just a tavern now, really. Sure, the old Alchemy Club sign hangs out front and there’s a good bit of dusty paraphernalia cluttering up the shelves in between the bottles and glasses, these cucurbits and alembics and lutes and the like. But no more meetings, not even an official chapter. Not here, maybe not anywhere—not anymore. Still, the place tends to draw a certain type of folk, and old Baltazar, he was exactly that type of folk.

That’s not to say it’s all old men nowadays. Far from it. Lots of different folks—not just young and old, but men and women and people from all different places and backgrounds. The one thing that brings ‘em together, that binds ‘em all as sure as a round of whiskies after midnight, is that they all traffic in what they call “the arts.”

Science, most know it as now. A few old timers still call it magic. Whatever they call it, they use a lot of fancy words, the kind that are meant to make a man feel like he doesn’t belong if he doesn’t grok to it, you know? But underneath all those syllables, it’s not so complicated. They’re just trying to understand the world around them. Trying to explain why things happen, and maybe figure out how to make them happen. Same as any of us. Rest of us just don’t smell so much like brimstone, and thank all the gods that ever were or might be for that.

Every so often, some young gun, just out of school and high on the smell of vellum, comes around packing a bag of hoary old chestnuts. “Really, isn’t magic just science we don’t understand yet?” they’ll say as though they just up and invented the notion and it’s the freshest thing going. Old Baltazar, though, he has none of it. Never does.

“Bullshit!” he’ll yell. “Don’t be an idiot!” That knocks the young ones down a peg or two, especially the ones as are used to only being told how smart they are.

Sure, they try to save face. Get that smug little smile. I’ll just humor the senile old man, you can practically hear them thinking. “Then what is magic?” they’ll ask, every single one of ‘em, every time. Not looking for an answer, mind you—asking the question just to prove that they were right in the first place.

But old Baltazar, he gives ‘em an answer all right, and it’s just about as plain and blunt as the nose on his face. “Magic is magic,” he says, “and science is science.” He’ll give ‘em a good look up and down. “Any idiot with a book can do science. Even you, probably.” They’ll spit and sputter, but he doesn’t let ‘em get going. “Magic, though…that’s something different altogether. Not everyone can do magic. Sure as hell you can’t. You wouldn’t even know what it looks like.”

Of course, these young ones, they’re in it now, up to their fool necks and no way out but to grab hold of something, anything, and try to hold on tight. Flailing about, tossing out words like darts and hoping one of ‘em finds the board. The boldest ones, both the smartest and the stupidest, get to the same place right quick, and that’s to say, “Then show me some.”

And old Baltazar—that’ll set him to cackling, all right. Right on the edge of sanity, that laugh, and never in your life have you heard a sound so confident, or so tired. “Stand back,” he’ll mutter, climbing off his stool, pushing his drink aside, and rolling up the sleeves of his robe so his arms, all skin and bones and liver spots, can move freely.

What he does next—and I’ve seen it a hundred times if I’ve seen it once—it’s tough to put into words. Presses his palms together, interlaces his fingers, pulls his hands in against his chest, closes his eyes. Mumbles something down into that scraggly gray beard of his, bits of food stuck in it, and extends his hands out away from his body, fingers still locked together. And then…

Something happens.

Spoons

I stared at the tiny, shiny, silver spoon in the well-wrapped solstice box wishing we’d just gone to the semi-annual Solstice Ball at Castle Ever After instead of exchanging gifts first.

“I did not want to give you love,” he said to me. “So I gave you a spoon!”

He smiled like this made sense. Like the spoon was an appropriate substitution for love.

“Um.” I didn’t know what to say. I tore my eyes from the offending trinket.

“I know love was on your wish list and a spoon wasn’t. But love’s so messy! Just, you know,” his hands sprang into the air and swirled around, “everywhere. And then if things don’t go right, just messy.”

I blinked, my mind still blank. What response did he expect?

“A spoon,” he went on, “is so useful.”

“But it’s so tiny,” I protested. This spoon would not hold cereal or peas. Maybe one or two peas. Definitely not three. Even flower-fairies would struggle to implement this utensil.

“Love starts out small, too. Then grows.”

He was right.

“Does the spoon grow?” I asked, my mind filling with a spoon that gets ever larger until it was a shovel, or maybe it transformed.

He shrugged. “It’s just a spoon. It isn’t magic or anything.”

“Well, thank you,” I said for politeness sake, and I set the gift aside.

He waited expectantly, his brown eyes big, a near-smile on his lips.

He really should have given me anything on my list. I requested more than love. Perhaps, peace and hope had been too vague. A spoon was not near as useful as he thought. Imagine if he’d given me a magic spoon. A magic spoon, yes, that was useful. And why had he specifically mentioned the spoon in lieu of love?

I had a back-up in case the gift exchange disappointed. Oh, how it had gone awry! Initially I wanted to give him joy. But, alas, all he was going to get was this possibly magic bean.

Adria Bailton (she/they) imagines entire worlds and universes to share while spending her days studying atoms, the smallest unit of matter. More of her stories where she strives to create characters that reflect her own bisexuality, neurodiversity, and disability appear in ZNB Presents, Constelción Magazine, and Worlds of Possibility. Originally from the Midwest, she creates from the US PNW, on the traditional territory of several Indigenous nations, including the Stillaguamish, Suquamish, and Duwamish. Find her at www.adriabailton.com