Sorry. This one’s just wrong. Crafter meets Cthulu. Later, there’s sushi.
A shadow crossed the door. The bell rang pleasantly, and Peewee lifted his beach-ball-sized head from her feet. Ellen, tracing a pattern onto a piece of glass, glanced up to see if it was a customer or just someone “looking around.”
Usually, it was women crafters who crossed the threshold of The Glass Gardener, stingily eying the glass in the half-off bin. They were always looking for a new type of project and were frankly appalled by the expense of getting into art glass. A few of them would buy one of the butterfly patterns and a stack of pretty-colored glass squares. Ellen would warn them how dangerous cutting glass could be as she sold them their supplies, and then she would point toward the sign over the cash register: EXCHANGES ONLY.
Then they would come back, and she would shake her head and point at the sign as they awkwardly held their bags out to her with their bandaged hands. Later, drinking a Diet Coke in the evenings after she’d closed up, she couldn’t help but smile. She hadn’t cheated them; she’d only stuck to the deal she’d made. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t warned them.
Being able to stick it to a bunch of lousy wannabes every once in a while made her feel better about having to close the shop. She’d told Rudy that she’d close after two years if she hadn’t made a profit, and she hadn’t. It was her dream—but a deal was a deal.
Peewee “moofed” in warning, rattling the glass on the table, and the customer, a man, stopped walking toward Ellen’s crafting table. He was tall, blonde, and handsome, with big shoulders and a lopsided grin that was supposed to make her so wet between the thighs that she’d have to give him forty percent off, no doubt. He squatted down and peeked under the table.
“Hey there, big guy,” the man said, trying to use the old pickup tactic of talking to the woman’s dog instead of her breasts. “What’s your name?”
“His name is Egbert Diligent the Third,” Ellen said. “But we call him Peewee.”
The man grinned at her, showing off a silver-capped tooth. “Nice. English sheepdog?”
She nodded; close enough. “How may I help you?”
“We had one of those once,” the man said. He stood up. “I’m Derek Morgan. I’d like to commission something. A window.” He had the kind of voice that you expected from a superhero or a drunk frat boy: strident and a little too loud for enclosed spaces.
“How large?” she asked.
Derek pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket; the paper was slightly curled from the curve of his butt. “Six feet, eight inches by three feet, three inches. With a whaddya call it.” He looked at her expectantly.
“I don’t know,” Ellen said. “What do you call it?”
Derek pointed his hands over his head like a child doing the A from the YMCA song— “A pointy thing on top.”
“Like a church window?”
He nodded several times, as if she missed it the first time. “Yeah. But the sides of the pointy thing have a design on them, too, so the whole area will be full of glass.”
Ellen gave him another look. He was wearing business casual clothes, including a rose-colored dress shirt. “You don’t look like a minister.”
He leered at her, one eyebrow up and the silver tooth glinting. He was trying to look charming, but it just came off as pushy. “Wait until you see the window.” He unfolded the paper and handed it to her.
Peewee growled as Derek approached her. She let him growl as she looked over the photo on the paper. As a Christian woman, she was deeply offended, but as a businesswoman, she had to rejoice. The design had tiny piecework with at least a hundred different colors and some brushwork.
“Do you have a frame?” she said.
“I was hoping—”
“My husband’s a master carpenter. We can take care of it if you like.”
“Excellent. You’ll do it?”
“If you’ll pay for it,” Ellen said.
Derek Morgan looked her over. She thought he was probably trying to figure out how to screw her over. She decided to overcharge him. No doubt it would barely cover the annoyance of getting him to pay up, later. “How much?”
Ellen pulled out a calculator. “That’s three thousand, one hundred, and twenty inches, or twenty-one and two thirds square feet. I’m going to charge you five hundred dollars a square foot on this, so ten thousand, eight hundred, and thirty-three dollars and fifty cents.”
Derek Morgan whistled as if in shock, but she knew she had him. Who else was he going to get to make this for him?
“Plus the frame, another five hundred. Are we installing this, or do you want to do it on your own? I have to say, it’s going to be heavy.”
He said, “If I have you install this and you break it?”
“I have all my pieces insured until final payment is received. I’ll refund your money if I break the window. Don’t worry.”
“You install it then.”
“That’s…another thousand,” she said. “Plus tax on everything. And it’s fifty percent down before I put a pencil on paper or a cutter to the glass.”
“What’s half?”
She tapped it out on the calculator, even though she already had the number in her head. “Thirteen thousand, three hundred thirty four dollars and ninety-three cents total…half is six thousand, six hundred and sixty-seven dollars and forty-seven cents. I rounded up.” She put the calculator back in her apron pocket.
“May I write you a check?”
“I won’t start until it clears.”
“How long will it take you?”
“Three months,” she said.
“Is there any way I can get it faster?”
“It’ll cost you.” She took out the calculator again.
***
When she showed her husband Rudy the picture, he turned beet red. It was priceless. “Holy cow, who was this guy anyway? Some kind of nudist orgy guy?”
“He was wearing clothes,” Ellen said.
“I’m glad you had Peewee with you, or who knows what he would have done. Freak.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you first, but you know how much I need the money if I want to stay open. You’ll make the frame for me, won’t you?”
“Ellen, you know you don’t have to worry about that; I can just give you the money.”
“A deal’s a deal,” she said firmly.
“But this is your dream,” he said.
“A deal’s a deal,” she repeated. “Where’s the justice in the world, if nobody keeps their word?”
Rudy spread the picture flat on the table and took a sip of coffee. “You’re really going to make this?”
Ellen considered the picture. The arch on top held a three-lobed eyeball shooting out rays of light, surrounded by a mass of tentacles whose color changed from pale yellow to deep purple the further from the eyeball they were. The corners around the arch were filled with strange black symbols on a blood-red background. The main part of the window, however, was a number of men, women, and what looked like outer-space cephalopods having a bloody orgy.
It was truly disgusting. She wondered where the original was.
“If the check clears, I will,” she said. “Even if the guy backs out of it, I’m making enough money on the first half to turn a profit this year.”
“If you do it, I’ll make the frame for you and help you install it, no question,” Rudy said. “I mean, it’s your dream, right?”
***
She made the window right in the shop, one section at a time. She didn’t do the brushwork, which mostly kept her customer from guessing what she was working on: without the fine details, the flesh-colored glass was too abstract to be obscene, really. Derek stopped by once a week to check on her progress; he hinted that he might be able to send more business her way if this window went well, but she blew it off.
And then she cut herself.
It was on an opalescent maroon tentacle that would penetrate a young black woman’s ear, a gush of blood and gray matter oozing down her neck, and it had a tricky s-curve to it. She should have split it into two pieces, but she was enjoying the challenge. She scored the glass inside the curves in several pieces to keep from snapping the glass where she didn’t want to, and held it firmly with her glove against the table. As she gripped the glass with her pliers, something twisted, and then her forearm was bleeding and a perfectly-shaped tentacle was gripped between the pliers, dripping with blood.
She put the glass down, opened the first aid kit under the table, and wrapped a dozen layers of gauze around her arm. She cleaned up the blood (no sense in making things harder on herself), locked the shop, and drove herself to her doctor’s office.
The doctor stitched her up and told her to go to the emergency room next time. Ellen nodded thoughtfully but knew she’d “forget” next time too, if it was during office hours. Then she went back to The Glass Gardener and opened up for business again.
Peewee whined at her from the storeroom. She couldn’t believe she’d left him here by himself! She’d forget her head next, if it weren’t already attached. She called him, but he wouldn’t come out, not even for a beef treat.
Then someone cleared his throat behind her. She turned around, expecting to see Derek (it was about that time of week), but it was not him. It was one of the monsters from the window come to life, a giant octopus with strange ridges on its head.
“You summoned me, madam?” it gurgled through its beak. It had exactly the accent you’d expect from a butler on an old British television show.
Ellen inspected the ends of its tentacles to see how on earth it had managed to push one through someone’s ear and into their brain, but they seemed as ordinary as sushi.
“I didn’t summon you on purpose,” she told it. “I was making your window and happened to bleed on it.”
“Beg pardon,” the thing said. “I shall depart. Quite sorry to have disturbed you, ma’am.”
“That’s okay,” Ellen said. “I apologize. I’ll try not to bleed on anything in the future.”
“Indeed.” The monster’s eyes sparkled, as though she’d made a joke.
***
Two months went by, and she and Rudy put the whole thing together in its frame.
“This thing makes me nervous,” Rudy said.
Ellen raised an eyebrow at him. “Why? Is there anything on there you wanted to try?”
Rudy grinned. “I have been thinking a lot about your ears lately. No, dummy, I mean, what if we drop it?”
“It’s insured.” Ellen laughed. “You should have heard the phone call I got when they saw the picture.”
“We must have quite the reputation at the insurance company,” Rudy said.
“For sure.”
Ellen stayed up all night doing the brushwork. For a woman who didn’t consider herself creative—she worked by pattern only—she had to admit that she’d brought a certain life to the piece that hadn’t been in the original picture. It would make a perfect addition to a Halloween haunted house, although she suspected it would probably be in some kind of private chapel for Satanists or some dumbass thing like that.
At eight a.m., she took a nap. She called Derek at ten. “It’s done.”
“Excellent!” he said. “I’ll be right over to see it.”
“Why don’t we just deliver it?” she asked. She wanted to have the thing out of her shop; she had it covered with a sheet, but you never knew when a curious customer might take a peek and be completely scarred for life. Not that she wasn’t proud of her work or anything.
“Now?”
“If you’re ready.” She yawned, covering her mouth with her hand.
“We’ll be ready,” he said.
She read the address back to him off his check to confirm it was the right place, then called Rudy.
Rudy’s boss, Bob, answered. “Hello?”
“Is Rudy there?”
“Ellen! Damn it, I meant to call you right after I called the ambulance. We had to send Rudy off to the emergency room. He’s all right, he just broke his ankle.”
Ellen sighed. The illogic of that statement—he’s all right, he just broke his ankle—irritated her like pepper up the nose. And she’d told Rudy never to use the emergency room for something minor like a broken ankle. It was such a waste of time. And the ambulance! Why hadn’t Bob driven him? “When did he leave?” she said.
“About ten minutes ago.”
“All right. I’ll call Memorial. Thanks, Bob.” She hung up, dialed the hospital, and left a message for her husband, who was just being brought in.
Then she pulled back a corner of the sheet over the window, nicked her finger on a sliver of leftover glass, and smeared it on a tentacle. She waited.
Under her crafting table, Peewee yipped and ran into the back room. He hadn’t been bred to defend her against talking octopi, so she forgave him.
The butlerish voice spoke again: “Madam? Are you in need of something?”
“I am,” she said, turning around. “My husband just broke his ankle, and I need to deliver this window. Are you any good at installing art glass windows? And what do you charge?”
“An arm and a leg, madam,” the monster said.
She laughed. “I know who you sound like! Stephen Fry!”
The monster ground the edges of its beak together, wrapping and unwrapping its tentacles. “I don’t know this gentleman, but I’m sure he’s a handsome, well-spoken fellow. Perhaps your dog?”
Ellen snorted. “Oh, come on. That dog cost me nine hundred dollars as a puppy. I’m charging the client a thousand for the setup, of which you’ll be doing only half the work. He’s worth nine hundred dollars plus the value of the labor of all the poop scooping I’ve done over the years. Not to mention the dog food and vet fees. Forget it.”
“Hm,” the monster said. It wrapped its limbs up until it had a manlike shape. Then it pushed itself off the ground and paced back and forth, rubbing a tentacle across a ripple in its head sac that Ellen could have sworn looked like a chin. “Your firstborn child?”
“In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit that I’m infertile and glad of it. So no. That’d be cheating.”
The monster’s skin changed color until it appeared to be wearing a dirty white coverall with a nametag bordered in orange: “Joe.” Its head sac slowly started rearranging itself into human form.
“You name’s Joe?” Ellen asked.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Well, I’m not going to pay you in blood for such a minor job, anyway. It’s not like I want you to take over the world, and normally it’d be minimum wage for this kind of thing. How about I take you out to dinner afterwards? No human flesh, just a steak or something. Or sushi.”
“Sushi…” Joe’s eyes, now brown and round as a puppy’s, looked down into hers with a soft, squelching kind of passion; at least, that was the noise coming from inside his “clothes.”
“I know a good place on Academy,” Ellen said. “I’ll pay, up to five hundred bucks, if you just want to, you know, pig out.”
“I don’t suppose you’d care to sign in blood for that?” Joe asked.
Ellen said, “Just shake on it. We’re in a hurry.”
“Very well,” Joe the monster said. They shook; his hand was dry and firm but a bit soft around the fingertips.
***
Derek opened the door. “It didn’t break on the way over, did it?”
Ellen said, “Mr. Morgan, this is my associate, Joe. My husband hurt his ankle this morning.”
Joe nodded graciously.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Derek said, the way people do when they don’t care but have to make nice. “Let’s get started.”
“Where are we putting it?”
“Are you sure you’re strong enough for this?” Derek asked.
“We loaded it without any trouble, didn’t we, Joe?” Ellen asked.
“Nevermind.” Derek led them into the house. Much of the furniture was covered with drop cloths. “We’re redecorating.”
“Who is it?” a woman called.
“It’s the stained glass lady!” Derek shouted. “I’m bringing her down. It’s ready!”
“Oh, good,” the woman said.
Derek led them to the basement; fortunately, there would be plenty of room to carry the window, and they’d be able to turn it at the bottom of the stairs. Derek led them into a back room across from the laundry.
A pregnant woman was sitting at a modern glass desk, typing at a laptop. “Hello,” she said politely.
“Hello,” Ellen said. She pointed toward the woman’s belly. “Are you sacrificing that?”
The woman frowned and rubbed her stomach. “No, why?”
“Just wondering.”
“It’s going to go down here,” Derek said. He pushed back a garish green rug, revealing a cellar door underneath. He opened it and flipped a switch just inside, revealing bare cement stairs leading into a wood-paneled room. The floor was poorly tiled with fake stone, Ellen noticed. Some remodeling job.
At the far end of the cellar was a short pedestal with brackets clearly meant to hold the window.
“What about light?” Ellen asked. “Light is very important for art glass.”
Derek bent behind the pedestal and turned on a tiny light that wouldn’t light up a flea’s ass.
“That’s not going to be nearly bright enough,” Ellen told him. “You should install some track lighting behind it, especially with that triple-lobed eyeball at the top. That’s the kind of thing that ought to glow, you know?”
Derek looked at the empty space. “I think you’re right. But why don’t we bring the window down and see?”
They climbed out of the cellar, passed the woman, and went back to the truck. Ellen and Joe carefully pulled the securely palleted and bubble-wrapped wrapped window out of the back. Joe took one end, and Ellen the other: Joe secretly oozed a tentacle across the bottom of the window, around Ellen’s waist, and down her leg to help brace the weight. All Ellen had to do was keep the thing steady.
Whenever you see a movie where two people are carrying a lot of glass around, something always happens to break the glass. But not on Ellen’s watch. They got it into the cellar without incident.
“You know what would be good down here? A wine rack,” Ellen said, gently putting her end of the window down. “But what I really think you need is a sump pump.”
Behind her, Derek said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Then he hit her in the back of the head with something hard. Ellen rolled her eyes as she went down: eh, she should have seen that coming.
***
When she woke, she was on a folding banquet table in the middle of the cellar. Joe was tied down on the table next to her with clothesline over a black plastic tablecloth. Classy. An eye opened on the back of his hand and winked at her.
Derek, dressed in a black velvet robe that looked like he’d bought it off the Halloween sale rack, held a steak knife before him and said, “You are awake, my little ones.”
“I wish you wouldn’t make fun of my height,” Ellen said.
“I have an offer for you. Give your blood willingly now, and I will gift you with life immortal.”
“I don’t want life immortal,” Ellen said, using her most nasal, annoying voice, because she felt like it. “I want the rest of my money.”
“You don’t believe me?” Derek asked ponderously.
“Paid,” Ellen said. “I want to get paid.”
“What about you, Joe?” Derek asked. “Believe me, I will take what I need, whether you give it willingly or no.” Then he laughed. He was trying to laugh like a demon from Hell, but he sounded like a cheesy movie actor instead. Okay, he was a complete idiot.
“Oh, just kill them,” the woman said from behind him. “Junior’s kicking me in the ribs, and I just want to get this over with.”
“I rather think you should pay the lady,” Joe said. “It was part of the deal, after all.”
“We don’t have it,” the woman snapped. “Sorry, but there you go. We spent it on the upstairs bathroom. I told him he was paying too much.”
“From what I gather, ma’am, you intend to renege on an honest bargain?” Joe asked.
Derek shrugged. “You’re right. This was a waste of time. I thought she was one of us because she did the window, but she’s just greedy for cash. How short-sighted.”
“I’m a businesswoman, you idiot,” Ellen said. “Do you know how hard it is to run your own business? I don’t think so. You’re used to working for the Man, and you’re used to screwing over the Man when he isn’t looking. But I’m not the Man, and you can’t screw me over and expect me not to notice.”
Derek raised the steak knife over his head and plunged it down, which was as half-assed a way to kill someone as Ellen had ever heard of. If it had been her, she wouldn’t be trying to chop through a breastbone or some ribs: she’d go straight for the throat. And she’d use her good knife, the sharp one.
Sure enough, the knife slid along her breastbone, cutting her bra in two and giving her a nasty gash. The knife skittered toward her solar plexus, then rose again.
“Do you have any opinion on the matter, ma’am?” Joe asked.
“Sorry about the sushi,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be dead.”
Joe snapped his clothesline bonds like spaghetti and slithered off the banquet table, losing his apparent humanity at a rapid rate. He grabbed the steak knife and swallowed it, following the knife with Derek’s hand, arm, and shoulder.
“Wait!” Ellen shouted. “The money! The money!”
“I’ll pay you,” Derek gargled, his face covered with slime. “I swear.”
Ellen said, “I forgot, he’s an idiot. He’ll just try to cheat me again.”
Joe unhinged what appeared to be his jaw and wrapped the top of his head over Derek’s.
“Wait!” The woman was holding out a wallet. “Take it.”
Ellen raised her hand, and Joe pulled his head back. “Sorry, honey. We only work in cash and blood.”
Joe chuckled around Derek’s arm but didn’t spit it out. Derek whimpered.
“I’ll be right back,” the woman said. “Wait. I’ll get cash. Just wait.”
“Or else he,” Ellen pointed toward the misbegotten shape of Joe, “will eat your husband. And he gets that baby.”
The woman ran up the stairs. A few seconds later, a car started.
“I hope she’s quick,” Ellen said. “Or else you’re going to lose that arm.”
“Ah harrrah,” Joe said.
“I’m hungry, too,” Ellen said. “Do you mind if Rudy doesn’t come to dinner? He hates sushi. Raw fish creeps him out. Plus, his ankle’s broken, and he should stay off it.”
Joe shrugged.
After half an hour, the woman returned with eight grand in hundred-dollar bills.
“It’s too much,” Ellen said.
“Keep it,” the woman gasped. “Consider it a tip.”
“You should calm down,” Ellen said, “or you’re going to put yourself into premature labor.”
Joe unswallowed Derek’s arm; Derek’s fingers oozed blood, but the rest of the arm looked all right.
“I digest rather slowly, sir,” Joe said. “One does so enjoy the feeling of one’s food thrashing around for a few days, don’t you agree?”
Derek went pale and ran upstairs as Ellen and Joe laughed. The woman rushed Derek to the hospital; Ellen wondered if they’d see Rudy in the emergency room. If so, what would they say to each other?
Arm in arm, she and Joe went to Ellen’s favorite sushi restaurant and ate themselves silly. She found that she liked talking to the demon octopus; he was funny. And he had a good notion of justice.
***