Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. It's the Cool Zone Media book Club.
Speaker 1: I told you that's always been our jingle. I can't
Speaker 1: believe you all didn't believe me. It is the Cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media book Club, which is the only book club
Speaker 1: that you don't have to do the reading because I
Speaker 1: do it for you. I'm your host, Margaret Kildoy, and
Speaker 1: every week I bring you a story that I want
Speaker 1: to read you. Sometimes I just talk about books I
Speaker 1: think that'll come up to and sometimes I do whole
Speaker 1: weird radio plays and I think that'll come up too.
Speaker 1: But what I do right now is I read you
Speaker 1: a novella that I wrote. I read you The Barrow
Speaker 1: Will Send What It May, the second book in the
Speaker 1: Danielle Kine series. This book was originally published Oh I
Speaker 1: don't know, in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen from tour dot com.
Speaker 1: These were my mainstream published books. These sort of you know,
Speaker 1: started my career in many ways. I had several books
Speaker 1: that came out before it. I have a book called
Speaker 1: A Country of Ghosts, which is an anarchause you took
Speaker 1: a book. I also have this book called What Lies
Speaker 1: Beneath the clock Tower, and it's legally distinct from Chooser
Speaker 1: and an adventure book, and it's an adventure of your
Speaker 1: own choosing book. I got a message from the Chooser
Speaker 1: and Adventure of the people in that trademark who informed
Speaker 1: me that I was not, in fact going on a
Speaker 1: Chooser and Adventure book tour. I was going on an
Speaker 1: Adventure of your own choosing book tour. And I wrote
Speaker 1: them back and I said it noted. But when these
Speaker 1: two books, the first two Daniel Kine books, came out,
Speaker 1: you know, it was like then that I like got
Speaker 1: an agent and started having more people read my books
Speaker 1: and things like that, and so there's like a real
Speaker 1: particular love that I have for these books. I've probably
Speaker 1: talked about this already, but I'm not sure these books. Also,
Speaker 1: I've been writing novella's sort of set in this world,
Speaker 1: although without the magic, basically following Daniel Kine before she
Speaker 1: was well before she transitioned it became Daniel Kine. I've
Speaker 1: been writing them for a very long time. They started
Speaker 1: as a way for me to kind of process my
Speaker 1: strange life of being a crosspunk traveler living in squats
Speaker 1: and doing forest defense and things like that, and I
Speaker 1: wanted a way to do that without writing actual memoir
Speaker 1: because at the time I felt like writing my actual
Speaker 1: memoirs would kind of be telling other people's stories without
Speaker 1: asking them. And also there's some like crime related to
Speaker 1: some of those stories, and I didn't know how I
Speaker 1: felt about publishing stories that were like I do crime. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I've never done crime. I would never do crime. Oh,
Speaker 1: this would have been such a good place to transition
Speaker 1: to ads because the only crime would have been not
Speaker 1: taking advantage of these goods and services. But it's not
Speaker 1: time to transition to ads. Instead, it's time for me
Speaker 1: to start reading you this book, the thing that you
Speaker 1: came here to hear me do. I'm going to start
Speaker 1: again with a couple paragraphs of the last chapter. Last
Speaker 1: chapter was chapter six. Thursday was pinned down behind the dumpster.
Speaker 1: Vacillis drew his pistol aloft, but Doomsday snatched it out
Speaker 1: of his hand and stepped outside, firing calmly. I don't
Speaker 1: think she was aiming to keep those guys pinned down.
Speaker 1: I think she was aiming for the guys themselves. They ducked.
Speaker 1: Thursday ran zigzag. A shot shattered the glass of a
Speaker 1: window not a meter in front of him, but he
Speaker 1: got in through the door, and Doomsday slammed it shut.
Speaker 1: The firing stopped. I fucking hate gunfights. Dun Dun dum.
Speaker 1: Chapter seven. Nothing says well established squat like barricades and
Speaker 1: other defenses ready to deploy. I went through the building
Speaker 1: with a Sola and dropped thick wooden panels over every
Speaker 1: window upstairs. An argument raged. How are you feeling, I
Speaker 1: asked a Sola. I'd rather be watching TV, Sola said,
Speaker 1: as she helped me get a steel bar in place
Speaker 1: over the front door. Yeah. I used to think I
Speaker 1: wanted a life of adventure. Now I just want to
Speaker 1: be left alone. Yeah, I felt that to my core.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'd gambled everything on a life less ordinary. I
Speaker 1: had no savings, no long term partner, no home, no
Speaker 1: roots in any given community. All I had were stories
Speaker 1: and scars and vivid memories of moments too beautiful or
Speaker 1: horrid to comprehend. Sometimes I wish I'd just had a
Speaker 1: little bit of peace instead. I didn't say any of
Speaker 1: that to a solo, though, because because me even pretending
Speaker 1: to understand where she was coming from, that was bullshit.
Speaker 1: I didn't know shit about shit. I'd never been kidnapped
Speaker 1: and murdered. Everything bad in my life, truly bad. I
Speaker 1: had stabbed and fought and kicked my way out of
Speaker 1: to varying degrees of success. Maybe we'll get through this,
Speaker 1: I said. I didn't sound optimistic, though, maybe she said
Speaker 1: I hope. So it'd be cool to find out what
Speaker 1: happens in Voyager, find out if they ever get home.
Speaker 1: I looked out through the people. Half the town must
Speaker 1: have been gathered outside, no pitchforks or torches, just handguns
Speaker 1: and cars, the modern pitchforks and torches. I guess, which
Speaker 1: made us what Frankenstein's monster Dracula. If we were the monster,
Speaker 1: Frankenstein himself was out there somewhere in that crowd. He
Speaker 1: was out there, and he was lying to everyone, and
Speaker 1: everyone was going to believe him. You can hide in there,
Speaker 1: Sebastian shouted, his voice muffled through the thick door. But
Speaker 1: we're patient, we can wait. I didn't want to watch
Speaker 1: TV and live a simple life. I wanted to kick
Speaker 1: open that door and walk out into that crowd and
Speaker 1: stab Sebastian Miller to death. That's what I'd do in
Speaker 1: a dream world, a world in which I could do anything.
Speaker 1: Bucket list be damned. There wasn't shit I could do.
Speaker 1: You want to go upstairs and join the argument, I asked, no,
Speaker 1: Asola said, I'll stay down here, keep an eye on
Speaker 1: the door. If I'm going to die again, I'd rather
Speaker 1: be first, and I'd rather be surrounded by books. I nodded,
Speaker 1: then plodded up the stairs into the angry chaos and
Speaker 1: right into an ad How would that even work? Like
Speaker 1: just like walking up the stairs. Maybe there's posters on
Speaker 1: the wall. Maybe the posters on the wall of the
Speaker 1: library contain verbatim all of the words that you're about
Speaker 1: to hear from our sponsors. I think that's the most
Speaker 1: likely thing. And we're back. The argument was split into
Speaker 1: two camps. Thursday and Vasillis wanted to get out onto
Speaker 1: the roof and try and shoot Sebastian. Brynn. Gertrude and
Speaker 1: Vulture wouldn't let them. Doomsday was sitting cross legged on
Speaker 1: the floor pouring through the Book of Barrow. She refused
Speaker 1: to acknowledge the conversation. I don't see any other option,
Speaker 1: Thursday yelled. Dying in a standoff with innocent people isn't
Speaker 1: an option either. Vulture said, come on, you know that
Speaker 1: this is bullshit, I said, once I got the gist
Speaker 1: of what was going on, quit arguing it's just making
Speaker 1: everything worse. Well, what else am I going to do
Speaker 1: when these idiots won't let me at least try something?
Speaker 1: Thursday asked. Thursday, I said, I approached him, Adrenaline kicked
Speaker 1: into my system, almost the same as when I'd approached
Speaker 1: Sebastian angry armed men, and this was when I usually trusted.
Speaker 1: Listen to me. We're a team, right, Maybe, he said,
Speaker 1: we've made it this far right. You saved my life
Speaker 1: and freedom, didn't you. Yeah, he said, save it again
Speaker 1: by calming down, by not doing something stupid. Fuck, he grumbled.
Speaker 1: The longer we wait, the worse the situation is going
Speaker 1: to get. Maybe, I said, maybe not. But if there's
Speaker 1: one thing I learned while traveling, if you've got a
Speaker 1: losing hand, it's better to shuffle the cards and draw
Speaker 1: all new ones, even if the new ones might be worse.
Speaker 1: That's not how poker works, he said, Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of how life works. Everything is shit
Speaker 1: right now, but in here, for the moment, we're comparatively safe.
Speaker 1: We don't have to act this second. We can just
Speaker 1: get ready for when things change. When is that? I
Speaker 1: don't know, I said. Maybe everyone will get bored. Maybe
Speaker 1: Sebastian will say something damning and they'll figure them out.
Speaker 1: Maybe they'll all go home tonight. Maybe Doomsday will figure
Speaker 1: out something good in that book. Or maybe one of
Speaker 1: us will think of something. Or maybe those rednecks will
Speaker 1: set this place on fire, Thursday said. Or maybe the
Speaker 1: magic Feds will show up and kill all of us, maybe,
Speaker 1: I said Thursday side, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled
Speaker 1: you all. I don't know what to do. Doomsday without
Speaker 1: standing up from where she was, reached out a comforting
Speaker 1: hand and held on to his calf. If we're going
Speaker 1: to hunker down, she said, anyone want to make us
Speaker 1: some tea? I hate being barricaded inside a building with
Speaker 1: enemies outside. I also, for what it's worth, hate that
Speaker 1: this is something I know about myself because it's happened
Speaker 1: more times than I could count. Thanks property laws for
Speaker 1: making my way of life illegal. There's never enough air
Speaker 1: or something when you barricade the doors. There are always
Speaker 1: too many people, both inside and outside, when you barricade
Speaker 1: the doors. We'd waited half the day already the sun
Speaker 1: was high overhead. When I'm fighting off a panic attack,
Speaker 1: I go into scientist mode and observe my body. I
Speaker 1: think to myself, how am I feeling? As specific as possible,
Speaker 1: how and where exactly is the worry manifesting in my body?
Speaker 1: How long does each wave last, and how intense is
Speaker 1: it on a quantifiable scale like from one to ten.
Speaker 1: This serves two purposes. First, it gives me something to do.
Speaker 1: Just the act of trying to track my feelings distracts
Speaker 1: me enough to break out of the worst feedback loops
Speaker 1: of anxiety. Second, it gives me a database of sorts
Speaker 1: that I can refer back to. Okay, I could say
Speaker 1: to myself, you're having one of your existential loneliness panic attacks.
Speaker 1: Expect three major waves with a high water mark of
Speaker 1: seven on the panic scale, one every three to five minutes,
Speaker 1: each one lasting roughly a minute before ebbing back down
Speaker 1: to a level four, or if it's a false alarm
Speaker 1: medical panic attack, that's good for a single eight, followed
Speaker 1: by a descending secession of waves until it's over. Knowing
Speaker 1: what I'm in for keeps the panic from controlling me utterly.
Speaker 1: It knocks each panic attack down one to four increments
Speaker 1: on that scale. This was the old barricaded inside a
Speaker 1: building with cops outside panic attack. Well, in this particular case,
Speaker 1: it wasn't cops. It was armed strangers and an evil magician,
Speaker 1: which was better in some ways. They didn't have the
Speaker 1: institutional authority to lock me in a cage for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life, but was overall kind of worse
Speaker 1: because Sebastian was not what could be called a rational actor,
Speaker 1: and it was impossible to tell what he might do
Speaker 1: with the power he had. So that was the kind
Speaker 1: of panic attack. I had the worst kind A couple
Speaker 1: of the waves they hid up towards nine, maybe ten.
Speaker 1: A wave of panic that hits nine. It just takes
Speaker 1: me right out of scientist mode and right into that
Speaker 1: prison called my own head. I sat on the couch
Speaker 1: closest to the door, my head between my knees, and
Speaker 1: tried to count my breaths. I couldn't. I tried to
Speaker 1: drink my tea. I couldn't. It was all just too much,
Speaker 1: for way too long. It was all just too much.
Speaker 1: Can I join you? I looked up Vacillis. The past
Speaker 1: few days had wrecked him, and he looked it. The
Speaker 1: darkness under his eyes had reached the skeletal stage. His
Speaker 1: hair was a frightened, uncombed mess. His lip quivered under
Speaker 1: his mustache, a nervous tick. Yeah, I said. He sat
Speaker 1: next to me, but not rudely close. I can only
Speaker 1: imagine what you think of me, he said. I didn't
Speaker 1: say anything. I didn't mind him opening up to me,
Speaker 1: though any distraction at all was welcome. For example, the
Speaker 1: way that you're about to be distracted out of the
Speaker 1: story by an ad transition, and if you have cooler
Speaker 1: zone media, you'll only be distracted by the ad transition.
Speaker 1: But if you don't have cooler zone media, you're about
Speaker 1: to be distracted by the ads themselves. And we're back.
Speaker 1: Every excuse I could tell you, it would sound like
Speaker 1: something Sebastian would say. That's part of what's eating me alive,
Speaker 1: seeing all the parallels between me and him, I want
Speaker 1: to say I've lost everything, because in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways I have. Heather was my world. I wasn't hers,
Speaker 1: but she was mine. I just accepted that dynamic while
Speaker 1: we were together. I knew she was going to leave
Speaker 1: me one day. That wasn't what I thought he'd tell me.
Speaker 1: I lifted my head to listen better. When you all
Speaker 1: came to town, I thought, this is it. She'll leave
Speaker 1: with these people. I accepted that, but of course the
Speaker 1: reality is so much worse. I'm sorry, I said. I
Speaker 1: thought for a moment about what I was apologizing for.
Speaker 1: There's this thing when people die where people always blame themselves.
Speaker 1: I may be hyper aware of that being what people
Speaker 1: usually do, because I do the opposite. People die and
Speaker 1: I absolve myself of guilt. Clay died, and yeah it
Speaker 1: was partly because of a demon, but I'm sure it
Speaker 1: was partly because of loneliness. And I know he loved
Speaker 1: me non romantically, and I loved him non romantically. But
Speaker 1: I didn't keep up with him as well as I
Speaker 1: could have. I chose solitude. I chose the road over him.
Speaker 1: We can't save one another, Vascilla said. I know we can't.
Speaker 1: But if I could go back, knowing what I know now,
Speaker 1: I would have stuck with him, and I bet you
Speaker 1: anything he'd still be alive. And I bet you anything,
Speaker 1: i'd be happier than I am right now. So that's
Speaker 1: what I've avoided thinking about. And with Heather, she made
Speaker 1: her own choices. You can't blame yourself for that. I
Speaker 1: wasn't blaming myself for Heather's death. I was blaming you
Speaker 1: and Bryn. If i'd been in any other mood, I
Speaker 1: might have taken that badly or pointed out as botched
Speaker 1: attempt to save her. Instead, I just nodded, which is bullshit,
Speaker 1: of course, Vascilla said, mostly bullshit, But it's true. If
Speaker 1: we hadn't been here, she'd be alive right now. It's
Speaker 1: not our fault, but it's still causation and not correlation.
Speaker 1: What do you call that life, he said, chaos? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I understand Sebastian. I understand what he's thinking, what he's feeling.
Speaker 1: I know magic. I don't have a natural aptitude, but
Speaker 1: I've been studying it for years, and I can perform
Speaker 1: most rituals if I've got the right book in front
Speaker 1: of me. Now, I've got a book here in my
Speaker 1: apartment that could bring Heather back from the dead. I
Speaker 1: could sacrifice myself to bring her back, but I won't.
Speaker 1: And I know why Sebastian grabbed other people instead of
Speaker 1: doing it himself. Why is that? Because Sebastian didn't want
Speaker 1: Gertrude alive for her sake? He wanted her alive for
Speaker 1: his sake. It wasn't that he wanted Gertrude to feel
Speaker 1: the summer air on her skin one more time. It
Speaker 1: was that he wanted a wife. He wanted company. True,
Speaker 1: I love Heather, loved I loved Heather, but not more
Speaker 1: than I love myself. If we survive this, I'm going
Speaker 1: to wind up alone now, at least for a while.
Speaker 1: That's just the way it is. You'll leave, and maybe
Speaker 1: a solo will stay. But I have a feeling we'll
Speaker 1: both be alone for a while, a long while, even
Speaker 1: with the other around. He laughed, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: that's the best case scenario. How do we get to
Speaker 1: that scenario? I asked, I don't know, he said, I
Speaker 1: know one thing, though, we've got to kill Sebastian. There's
Speaker 1: no coming back from what he's done. I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's such a thing as beyond redemption. In my book,
Speaker 1: I said, I try not to believe in vengeance, only
Speaker 1: solving problems. If that means we've got to kill him,
Speaker 1: I won't cry. But there's always coming back from what
Speaker 1: we've done. The path into the light is always there,
Speaker 1: even if most people won't take it. And sometimes you
Speaker 1: need to kill them if they won't in order to
Speaker 1: keep yourself, for your community, or even strangers safe. Bascilla
Speaker 1: shook his head. Any other situation, I'd probably agree with you.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to argue nitpicky shit about creating societies
Speaker 1: with radically transformed ideas of crime and punishment. I also
Speaker 1: didn't want to get off the couch and get away
Speaker 1: from him. Surprisingly, I didn't want him to get up either.
Speaker 1: Talking doesn't always help with panic, but it was helping
Speaker 1: just then. What's with the spade? I asked, nodding towards
Speaker 1: his tattoo to change the subject. It was a different
Speaker 1: man when I was younger, gambling man lost a bet.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing that a drunken face tattoo
Speaker 1: is good for. It's good for teaching you not to
Speaker 1: regret you ever think about getting it removed, I asked, Hell, no,
Speaker 1: I love this thing. How many librarians do you know
Speaker 1: with face tattoos? They run a library that they technically
Speaker 1: stole from the state. You're the only one, I said,
Speaker 1: damn straight, there's nothing in here, Doomsday said, standing up
Speaker 1: at last, setting the book atop Heather's body like she
Speaker 1: was a table. Nothing that's going to help us. What
Speaker 1: we need is a distraction. Gertrude said she was handling
Speaker 1: the whole thing rather well. I suppose she had nothing
Speaker 1: left to fear, Like what I asked. I peered out
Speaker 1: the narrow crack between the wooden shutter and the window.
Speaker 1: Most of the crowd was still there, leaning on cars,
Speaker 1: smoking cigarettes, looking bored. Sebastian Miller stood sentinel in the
Speaker 1: middle of the street, staring intently at the front door.
Speaker 1: It had been what eight hours? Our magic Feds were
Speaker 1: nowhere in sight, which was not reassuring. I bet they'll
Speaker 1: let me go. Me and a Sola, we're not with you.
Speaker 1: We know these people. I bet they'll let us go
Speaker 1: and we'll figure out something. You're the two that Sebastian
Speaker 1: was trying to kill. I said he won't, not with
Speaker 1: everyone else watching. Sebastian always cared a lot about what
Speaker 1: other people think of him. It was a dangerous plan,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't get to the roof and start shooting dangerous,
Speaker 1: and it was better than anything else we'd come up with.
Speaker 1: I followed her downstairs to the front door. A Sola
Speaker 1: was easy to convince Gertrude opened the door a crack.
Speaker 1: Don't shoot, she yelled, it's me, miss Miller. I'm coming out.
Speaker 1: She slipped out, a Sola close behind, and I slammed
Speaker 1: the bar back and placed behind them. I was trapped
Speaker 1: inside again. Fuck. I wish I'd been able to join them.
Speaker 1: I wonder what they'll do. I was back upstairs, back
Speaker 1: on the panic couch. It didn't hit me so bad
Speaker 1: this time, maybe because whether or not it was me
Speaker 1: doing something, I knew that someone was doing something. I
Speaker 1: knew that the current situation would not continue indefinitely, even
Speaker 1: without physically moving. Every passing minute got me closer to
Speaker 1: nod in the library as surely as if I was
Speaker 1: walking towards the en exit. Fuck off and leave us here,
Speaker 1: Vascilla said, that's my guess. Thursday and Doomsday sat on
Speaker 1: the love seat quietly whispering. Vulture was asleep in a
Speaker 1: Sola's bed, brin paste, her boots a rhythmic clump clump
Speaker 1: on the floor. Every time her circuit took her past
Speaker 1: the window, she peered out for a second, Hey, she said.
Speaker 1: On one of her rounds, she motioned us over. Check
Speaker 1: this out. In the distance from the west edge of town.
Speaker 1: A thin trickle of smoke turned into a billowing cloud
Speaker 1: erupting up toward heaven. A Sola's house was on fire.
Speaker 1: Dun dundune. Okay, that's a real cliffhanger, right, because the
Speaker 1: house is on fire. What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen?
Speaker 1: When we come back next week with chapter eight, the
Speaker 1: final chapter in the barrel, will send what it may.
Speaker 1: And I will say writing this particular chapter was kind
Speaker 1: of fun. It's fun the right word. Daniel Kaine is
Speaker 1: the closest I've ever done to a self insert character.
Speaker 1: It's like, not complete. Daniel Kaine doesn't have all the
Speaker 1: same mannerisms and things as I do. But I specifically
Speaker 1: wanted to write about the fact that I have really
Speaker 1: bad anxiety when I'm locked in buildings with the cops outside,
Speaker 1: and I know that, and then I try to explain
Speaker 1: it to people who don't live the same lifestyle that
Speaker 1: I used to live, and they're like, why do you
Speaker 1: know that? And the answer is that I used to
Speaker 1: squat all the time, and one of the things that
Speaker 1: we would do in Amsterdam when I lived there, there's
Speaker 1: a very strong squatting scene there there there certainly was
Speaker 1: at the time. So in order to get into buildings
Speaker 1: and open them up for the people who wanted to
Speaker 1: live there, and we'd go into these buildings that had
Speaker 1: been empty at least a year and open them up
Speaker 1: and people would move in. And squatting was legalized at
Speaker 1: the time, but the cops was still trying to stop you,
Speaker 1: and so in order to do it, we would gather
Speaker 1: at least fifty people to open the building, and so
Speaker 1: kind of like you're not off the hook if you're squatter,
Speaker 1: you're kind of expected to go to these things because
Speaker 1: you know, that's how you got your house, right, And
Speaker 1: so we'd all gather to go do this, and sometimes
Speaker 1: the cops would figure out where we were meeting up
Speaker 1: and they would just like surround the building and we'd
Speaker 1: have to just lock ourselves into these buildings, and squats
Speaker 1: are very well barricaded because people are used to exactly
Speaker 1: the situation, and so we would just be like locked
Speaker 1: in the building, and most of the people I was
Speaker 1: there with were just like laughing, hanging out, smoking, having
Speaker 1: a good time or whatever, and I would just like
Speaker 1: sitting there like it's fine, it's fine, it's totally fine
Speaker 1: that I'm in a building in a foreign country with
Speaker 1: the police locked outside. But I got through it every
Speaker 1: single time and learned a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy
Speaker 1: to help me deal with that kind of thing in
Speaker 1: the future, and so it was just fun to write
Speaker 1: about it in a fictional way. Anyway, see y'all next week.
Speaker 1: It could Happen here as a production of pool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
Speaker 1: find sources where it Could Happen here, updated monthly at
Speaker 1: Coolzonmedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.