Aging ain’t sudden. Mel likes sudden. Clean edges, something she can point at and be done with. But out where the orange groves go a little sour, it don’t come that way.

At twenty-nine, something brushed Mel’s hands under bathwater gone lukewarm. She stilled, pulled them out. Watched the wrinkles smooth away. Laughed it off easy.

At thirty-four, those wrinkles stuck longer than they ought to. Her mom did too—six months past the prognosis—till she didn’t. The wrinkles stuck longer after that.

At thirty-eight, it swam back in moon-soaked dreams—water rising through her house, slow and sure. Her skin dragging her down, claws scratching between her brows. She’d wake with her hands at her throat, sheets damp.

At forty-three, she turned back toward Montura for her twenty-five-year high school reunion. When her mom was in hospice, Mel promised she wouldn’t skip another.

The town sign stood just where she remembered it, same crooked lean, same sun-faded paint. Population 4318.

A gator lay beneath the sign like it’d been waiting for her. It was a dried riverbed given bones—teeth set crooked, eyes beady and certain.

Mel rolled the window down. Heat come in heavy, sweet with rot.

“Well now,” she tutted. “Ain’t you persistent.”

It lifted its head, polite as company. Gave a low sound—just breath with a hint of a laugh. H h h.

It thwacked its tail against the sign. Dust fell. Numbers shook loose. Thwack, thwack. The 18 dropped clean.

It looked at her. Only 43 held. H h h.

Mel rolled the window up and drove on.

At the school, an orange banner read WELCOME BACK, CLASS OF ’01!

Mel flipped the sun visor down and checked her teeth. Moonbright. She pulled the skin between her brows smooth. The 11s slid right back soon as she let go. For a blink, there sat her mom looking back.

She slammed the visor shut. From the Miami Hospital employee ID clipped there, her ten-years-younger self smiled at her. Mel yanked it off.

She headed for the entrance, recognizing folks in pieces. There went Amber by that peppy-as-hell walk, Bobby by the way he still sucked in his stomach when Amber passed.

Behind them, gators dragged fat bellies across the blacktop.

At the doors, Amber wheeled around and shoved at her gator’s snout. “Go on, git!”

The thing didn’t so much as blink.

She shoved harder.

Its jaws snapped open. A wet crack rang out.

Amber screamed.

Thwack. Her arm hit the pavement.

Mel took off running.

Amber went down, clutching at her ragged stump. Blood dripped from her gator’s teeth.

Mel dropped beside her, looking for something—anything—to stanch the bleeding. “Bobby, gimme your shirt!”

He just stood there. “Uh…”

“Good Lord, at least call 911!”

Something scraped the blacktop behind her.

Sure enough, Mel’s gator was ambling on up, taking its sweet time.

“Mel!” Amber rasped, blood soaking into her dress. “You look exactly the same!”

Mel locked eyes with her gator.

This time, she smiled.

H h h.

A wave hit the rock. We looked at the water. A ferryman stood beyond it.

“I can take one passenger,” he said.

I pointed at Agnes.

“Payment?”

My pockets were empty. I had nothing else.

“My commas. I was saving them for a novel. Take them.”

Agnes gasped. The ferryman nodded.

Agnes crossed.

I called out. “Agnes I hope you get home and have supper and sleep and think of me now and then!”

Agnes stamped her foot on the far shore. “Ernest Hemingway, you utter fool!”

The ferryman smiled.

“You could’ve paid with a semicolon; ever heard of one?”

Once upon a time, there lived a man formally known as the Third Master of Shadow, Fourth Dweller of the Cave Past the Brook Behind the Cow Pasture Past the Fork in the Road, also known as Mark.

Mark, while skilled in gaining titles, was not skilled in using titles in gaining wealth. As such, as all thirds and fourths of Great Names do, he resorted to thievery. While shifty, and thrifty, he was no master. He was not nifty enough to sneak grand prizes, like crowns with rubies the size of dragon eggs and dragon eggs the size of dragon eggs. No, he could not even steal the occasionally misplaced castle, despite ample opportunities, as they so often seem to go misplaced between seconds and thirds of Great Names. Therefore, this Third Master of Shadow, Fourth Dweller of the Cave Past the Brook Behind the Cow Pasture, et cetera, et cetera, once so destined for greatness, was reduced to a life of stealing in the shadows.

It was here, in the shadows of a market, where Mark saw his next mark. And aye, thought Mark, what a grand mark he is. The man looked fully desaturated against the fresh finery of his velvet, silver-tipped garb. And oh Great Names, could this dull mark get any sadder looking. His spine curved so far over, it was as if he questioned each step. Mark’s first governess would have had a blast torturing him to stand straight. Mark shuddered.

Suddenly, the dull, desaturated mark stopped in front of a stall of stale bread and subpar honey. Despite making a point of never going near subpar honey, Mark drooled a little watching him. He was hypnotized by the mark’s overstuffed pockets.

He waited for his moment to strike. This moment quickly arose when the mark began muttering to himself, rocking back and forth. Oh, how easy this will be! Mark giggled to himself in glee.

With light steps, Mark crept toward the mark, and with a gentle, practiced flick, reached into his pocket for the treasure within.

Mark jumped as his hand squeezed around… around… a warm, hot, thing. He had never held anything like it before. He held on tight and jerked. What a good job I did! Mark thought proudly.

The mark jumped. Mark paused, standing still, holding his breath. The mark didn’t even look up from his rocking. Mark ran back to his shadowy corner. His closed fist flailed around every which way.

He opened his hand and gasped. He looked back at the dull mark, who suddenly stood still. And what, how, look at him now stretching tall, from question mark to a full exclamation!

Suddenly, Mark heard a growling, low voice rasp out, “Well aren’t you a hideous creature. Return me.”

Mark looked quickly down at his hands and saw a creature. And this creature, oh Great Names, it was certainly not one to call another hideous. It had two beady little eyes, a slit of a nose, and oozed a putrid slime that was neither green nor grey nor brown nor yellow… but somehow, all at once. It had thick and thin hairs of all colors arranged in an odd constellation of clumps, that certainly, any astrologer would agree puts Mercury in retrograde to shame.

“You’re not one to talk,” remarked Mark.

“I should hope not,” said the creature, now leaving a stinking slime trail on Mark’s palm as it rolled off to the ground, landing with a thwack. It began pulsing, then growing, until suddenly, two arms and two legs shot out with wet pops. Mark’s mouth dropped open. “I am a certified inner demon after all. I am licensed for operation on an incessantly worrisome heir, a second to a Great Name, who I imagine now is feeling uncharacteristically well-adjusted. Return me.”

“Excuse me?” Mark sputtered.

“I said, return me. Dear Great Names, did you lose your brains when you lost your ears?” the demon said, in an intonation eerily similar to Mark’s late mother. “If I don’t return to him soon, he might start getting grand ideas, like… that he can write! Or that he should apologize to people! Or, oh the horror, he’ll get the confidence to start beekeeping!”

Mark quite enjoyed beekeeping. “What’s wrong with beekeeping?”

The demon looked Mark dead in the eyes with the same gaze as his father when he learned that it would be Mark, and not his handsomer, wittier, stronger brother Marcus, inheriting the estate.

Mark’s stomach roiled, and he hunched over, clutching it in pain. Dear Great Names, now he was nauseous. What would happen if he just hurled all over the market? Would people notice? Then oh Great Names, would he be banned from the market? Market Fifty was his last chance! How would he get marks without a market?! “Okay, okay, I will return you.”

The demon sighed. “Hmmm. Looks like you’re too late, per usual. The second son has disappeared, see?”

Mark looked desperately out to the crowd. “I really must go.”

“Impossible, I’m afraid. See, possession is at least, oh, 75% of the law, and I am at least 75% possession, so now, I must possess you.”

Mark did not want to be possessed. “I don’t want to be possessed,” he said.

”No one does, Mark, but I can’t help it.” The demon rolled his clouded eyes in the exact pattern–and speed–as Mark’s mother whenever Mark had said he loved her. “You enjoy beekeeping.”

“Anyways,” the demon continued, while stepping an oozing foot into Mark’s open mouth, “I thought you loved others’ possessions? You’re always taking marks, Mark. It’s about time you were one.”