The Oysterville Inheritance
By Andy Thomas
2008


	In the midst of his lecture, the music teacher; professor Halibent paused for dramatic effect. Through the empty air, he was wont to; grasp for any slight gleaning; ascertain any instant inkling; measure such pregnant pause, in reading the classroom mood. Any more, it was so difficult to gain - let alone keep - the attention of students. It seemed fully half of them were text messaging on cell phones, or listening to their miniature music players, or both. Cell phones and music players in the classroom were against school rules, but he didn't mind. Professor Halibent's only rule was silence. Asking questions of him regarding the class material, and holding a dialogue over the same was allowed and even encouraged; but any other noise on the part of the students was strictly forbidden. As for his allowing them their text messaging and music players; as long as the employment of such devices within the classroom milieu involved outward quiet, the Professor's 'silence rule' was satisfied. He reasoned that those who wanted to participate would do just that, and the other students would simply pass through. In either event the professor had long since made his peace with it. The professor wondered as well, whether the world of teaching had passed him entirely by.  
	The professor was struck by the vulgarity of so much contemporary music. It seemed to him as though so many listeners were selling themselves short. From what he'd heard of it, the music suffered from a sort of stultifying sameness throughout it all. He had to admit that the recordings were most often, well-engineered. It was just that the actual, underlying composition and performance so often seemed overly lent to the base and banal; rather than the edifying or inspiring. Perhaps overly simple, repetitious music had its place. It only seemed that by then, such a place were virtually everywhere. The professor wondered from time to time, if musical styles were a sort of cyclical thing. Perchance it would eventually pass; all without exception into a decadent, musical miasma; and once that lowest sonic ebb had been reached, the whole of it would spark a sort of renewed aural renaissance. The professor could only offer the students what he knew of music. They would be left to take it or leave it. As for the class atmosphere, so long as the students obeyed the one rule of silence, everything was golden.
	Be that as it may; before continuing, the professor moved to the piano and sat on the bench before it, then began to play as he spoke. "You see, for example here are the notes E, and A# or Bb. You can hear it; the tritone; an augmented 4th or diminished 5th. The sound of it demands resolution; as though the notes combined are everywhere at once, or nowhere at all; inside and outside. Being a transitory sound, it calls for resolution. Most everyone of every musical culture agrees that the octave is a repetition of the same note, yet at a doubled or halved frequency; whichever the specific case may be; above or below. The tritone on the other hand is that note which exists at the center of, or in between the octave notes; and of course is known in the Western, twelve-tone tradition as being the aforementioned, augmented 4th or diminished 5th. We can create a 'doubly diminished (?) 7th' chord; in this case by adding to the E, and Bb notes; a further G, and a Db. Then we have an ostensible 'e doubly diminished 7th' (e?7?) chord; two tritones forming a four-note chord, each of the four notes being a minor third in interval from its neighbor; all notes in succession being equidistant from one another. If one might say that the single, two-note tritone politely requests resolution, then the 'doubly diminished 7th' chord with its dual tritones screams, RESOLVE ME!" 
	For emphasis, he hammered out the seemingly neverending, undulating doubly diminished arpeggio on the grand piano; after awhile letting up, so as to merely tickle the keys, ranging back from the erupting crescendo a moment prior, and into a diminuendo, yet continuing for a moment longer and despite the softening of the timbre; with the unwavering cascade, comprised as it were of but the four notes of the 'vii?7?' chord, ranging up and down the keyboard and through the various octaves as it went. Finally, he played an 'f minor' triad. This resolved the entire thing into a touch of colored gloom. For further effect, he played a 'C Major/minor 7th' (C E G Bb) or 'C7,' or 'V7' ('Five Seven'), Dominant chord within the key of, f harmonic minor; then followed with an 'Ab Major' (Ab C E) triad ('Ab Major' and 'f minor' being relative Major/minor keys), then an 'Eb Major/minor 7th' (Eb G Bb Db); the 'Eb7' being the 'V7 Dominant' chord in the key of Ab Major); and finished it all with a final, Ab Major triad.
	He then explained, "Now, if you want to play within any Major, natural minor, or melodic minor key, then any 'doubly diminished 7th' chord is - you might say, technically - never fully within the given scale. The 'doubly diminished 7th' chord is - strictly speaking - the domain of the harmonic minor key. It is the chord built off of the raised 7th, or leading tone of the harmonic minor scale. In the case of the 'e?7?' chord which I just played, being the 'vii?7?' chord it resolves to the 'f Minor' triad, or tonic chord in the key of, f harmonic minor." 
	"On the other hand, the 'diminished/minor 7th' chord fits at some point within all three of the Major, natural minor, and melodic minor keys. In the case of Major, and melodic minor keys, it is built upon the 7th, or leading tone of the scale. Of course, the 'diminished/minor 7th' chord is also found, built upon the supertonic or second note of any natural minor key. Additionally, a 'diminished/minor 7th' chord can also be constructed off of the raised 6th of the melodic minor."
	"In the case of a given Major key, if we remain for the sake of example within the relative Major of f minor; the key of Ab Major, then the 'dimished/minor 7th' chord built upon the same leading tone or 7th note of the scale is none other than, 'g?7' The four notes comprising this chord are G, Bb, Db, and F. Where the 'doubly diminished 7th' chord whispers 'haunted house,' by at least slight contrast, the 'diminished/minor 7th' chord has a watery, ethereal appeal. Well, at least that's how these chord types sound to me. Of course, your mileage may vary."
	"Allow me to add in a couple of asides. Of the 'doubly diminished 7th' chord - the notes being equidistant from one another - you could perchance call it by any of four names; by the name of any note within the chord. In the case of the 'e?7?,' you could also call it 'g?7?,' 'bb?7?,' or 'db?7?.' In the case of the latter two, you would probably - technically - refer to them as 'a#?7?' and 'c#?7?,' respectively." The professor looked out upon the students in the room, and sensed that he was losing at least a few of them; that is, to a greater extent than normal. "For now, don't worry about any of that. I just wanted to get the idea out there. I would like to mention a couple of other things."
	"Since I've been going on a bit about the 'doubly diminished 7th' chord, it might only be fair to mention as well; the augmented (+) triad, as found built upon the mediant or third note of both the harmonic and melodic minor keys. In the case of f minor, whether harmonic or melodic; the Ab+ triad is comprised of Ab, C, and the raised 7th or E natural. Like the 'doubly diminished 7th' chord, the augmented triad has equidistant notes, spanning an octave. However, the interval between notes of the augmented chord being a Major, rather than minor third; there are only three notes per octave. To my ears, an 'augmented' arpeggio sounds like angels, or spirits. Additionally, you can split the octave into whole tones, and there are six per octave. This 'whole tone scale' sets a mechanical mood, like a robot or a computer. I could throw in that the twelve-tone, chromatic or half-step scale, offers a bit of the sense of playful melancholy. Again, these are simply my impressions. I seem to be getting way off on a tangent here. It's time to reel things in a bit before closing. Getting back to splitting the octave in half; of the tritone, and its call for resolution..."
	An Asian girl; really, a young lady; perchance in her mid-twenties; a student who had seemingly been bent upon gaining the Professor's attention for several weeks previous, suddenly shot her hand skyward. As always, she sat in the front row. The professor paused, then called on her. "Yes Thavy, you have a question or comment?"
	"Professor, I don't understand. You say tritone is nowhere and everywhere? Inside and Outside? How can it do that?" She leaned forward in order to expose more cleavage, her ample bosom spilling forth between undone top buttons, and beneath the wispy veil of her sheer blouse. Through the blouse and satin peek-a-boo bra underneath, the Professor could have seen her areoles and nipples; had he only looked.
	Indeed, if Professor Halibent had been a man of less composure in the face of such a nubile young princess, exactly as Thavy were there in her softening machinations; he might have faltered. Thavy was tapping a pencil upon her desk, the eraser end of it making nary a sound on the treated plywood surface; manicured nails grasping the writing utensil in a sensuous manner as she went. With the other hand, Thavy played with her glorious mane of raven black, shimmering hair. In any event, she had sought the professor's attentions in apparent vain. He never seemed interested, no matter what Thavy wore; regardless of how she spoke; despite any fragrance Thavy might waft his way; no matter what she did with her hands. These things worked so well on other males; whether boys or men. Why didn't they work on the Professor? As much as he ignored Thavy's signals, she wanted the music teacher even more.
	"Well, Thavy; that was a manner of speaking, if you will; perhaps a bit of poetic license of my part." In some combination of fascination and slight puzzlement, she looked on. If nothing else, he was helping her to learn English. Professor Halibent had so many words. No one else spoke like that. Thavy understood, then she didn't. In either event, Thavy always listened as best she could.
	Continuing, the Professor went on, "I would say, try it for yourself. Play a tritone on your instrument of choice. Play equidistant tritones - a 'doubly diminished 7th' chord - as I have described here. Perhaps the easiest to remember and play - at least on the piano - would be G#, B, D, and F. Ask yourself, when you cycle through these four notes, 'Is this where I want to be?'" He was playing again; those very four notes. "Or, is this where it was all leading?" and he played an 'a minor' triad. He went on, "Later, we will talk about the tritone as a transitional device, whether in traditional composition; or in real-time improvisation such as found in jazz. For the time being, I should like to leave you all with a few thoughts regarding the tritone.
	"If, to your ear; any chord containing one or more tritones demands no resolution; if you like it just the way it is, and don't sense that it needs to go anywhere else; that is your prerogative. Also, if you seek to resolve a tritone; again, you should do it to suit your own ear. Much of what I've just now described fits within the fairly strict canon of classical European theory. It is a particular musical mindset. There is much more to the world of music, outside of the formal structure of European classical. You could say that rules were meant to be broken; especially in the field of music. You might also say that, traditional jazz has grown to be a sort of, new classical. That is to say that, by now so many ostensibly jazz musicians subscribe to a body of strict rules. In its purest sense, jazz is about sonic experimentation... no rules... Oh, it looks like class is over. I will see you all on Monday. Next week, we explore the Pentatonic scales, and their use for either good or evil." He winked at his students, and a number of them responded with rolling eyes. Thus ended Professor Halibent's lecture for the day's class period. The course was 100-level, Psycho Acoustical Musical Theory.
	The school was Duwamish Academy, nestled as it were; within the industrial district, a block or two off of Delridge Way; there in the shadow of the West Seattle Freeway. The Academy building was outwardly soundproofed. Even so, the noise of nearby commerce or industry might, then and again filter through. From Harbor Island or thereabouts, one might randomly discern the, faint forlorn horn of a tugboat as it towed a lonely freighter. Here and there, cranes might mechanically whisper as they unloaded freight from abroad. From time to time, the murmurings of a train in the yards of the steel mill might make their way within. With all manner of noise emanating from the neighboring commerce and industry; the vast majority of the sounds were neutralized entirely before reaching inside the Academy.
	Duwamish Academy was a brick building, and immediately surrounded by dilapidated warehouses and factories; so many stockyards and production floors either silent altogether or largely scaled back from before; the majority of it yet teeming with industrial refuse. Much of the surrounding industry had fallen into disuse and decay. The sounds were yet there, but not with such frequency as one might have heard, back in the day. In either event, it was by no means a quiet neighborhood. As a sort of visual saving grace, the 'campus yard' surrounding the non-descript brick building contained all manner of trees, which in combination provided an ocular wall against the backdrop of the grimy environs without. The air within the building was automatically treated and conditioned by a state-of-the-art HVAC system. Dependent upon several interacting and ever-changing factors, the air outside ranged from; at certain times surprisingly pleasant, to at others downright vile. Members of both the student body and faculty alike were known to joke about what an olfactory adventure it often were, in simply entering and leaving the building proper; traversing by foot between the school and the parking lot.
	Moving right along, Duwamish Academy offered degrees, primarily in Astral Physics, Aboriginal Lore, and Psycho Acoustics. It was the premier learning institute for things esoteric; at least West of the Mississippi, and otherwise within the overall borders of the USA. Indeed, the only school on a national level which approached Duwamish Academy with regard to mystery curriculum was; Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachuetts.
	As the students filed out from the classroom; as if by rote, a couple of boys sought audience with Thavy. She giggled and - again - pretended not to understand them as they approached her and spoke, their palms sweaty, and each of their countenances bubbling with some combination of fear, confidence, apprehension, and anticipation as they did. They were so cute. She was determined in any event to have the Professor. Of course, he didn't appear to know that yet.
	After fetching the mail, Professor Halibent retreated to his office. There was no computer. There was an old, rotary phone. There were paintings of the South Pacific adorning the walls. There were file cabinets, bookshelves, and strange musical instruments strewn about. An upright piano adorned a back wall. Having computers and electronic instruments, but not with him at the school; the Professor enjoyed a simple office.  He lit a pipe and went through the letters. 
	Filtering through the mail, the Professor thought back to the aborted performance of his South Seas Sextet. Remembering the disaster which was to have been the debut, public presentation of the musical work; he glanced across the cramped room, and toward the strangest instrument of all.
	The seeking of critical accolades had never been his bailiwick. The aborted debut of the South Seas Sextet had neither helped in such acclaim. To the contrary, it nearly destroyed his career as a composer. Something about the inclusion of the instrument - the particular and peculiar one sitting there across the office from him - had caused the calamity of that would-have-been, opening night. Though the instrument had been salvaged from the ensuing and disastrous fire; he'd never since played the thing.
	On the one hand, the professor couldn't bring himself to throw it away; on the other, he wondered if it were somehow magical, and not in a fluffy puffy fashion as one might imagine, but rather; in a very terrifying manner. As it turned out, after an extended musical hiatus following the failed debut of the sextet; he began to play the keyboards exclusively, and employing modern technology; could program a keyboard to sound off in any myriad number of ways. The professor continued to compose and record, but decided to forget altogether; anything the critics might say of his work. For Professor Halibent, the bottom line was in musical exploration, and the making of anything from simple songs to full-blown electronic symphonies; all in a manner which satisfied himself. If ever someone else should happen upon any of his body of work and gain anything of personal value from the same; such would simply be icing upon the proverbial artist's cake. He filed through the letters.
 	The mail was mostly junk. One letter caught his attention, and he opened it. It was in a modern, medium-sized manilla envelope. Inside was a computer-printed note, and on the stationary of some legal firm located in Ilwaco, Washington. The firm was called, 'Columbia Estates.' The letter explained that a friend of the professor's father had passed some time before. This father's friend had left the Professor a house on the Long Beach Peninsula, out on the Pacific Coast. As the letter explained, the house had been deeded to him thirty years previous, with the orders to make the transfer three decades hence.
	Apparently, the benefactor had served - with the professor's father, the elder Halibent - on a Navy Destroyer in the South Pacific during the war. The benefactor had gone on to a successful fishing business, and he and his sons had operated several boats out of of Ilwaco, on the Pacific at the mouth of the Columbia river. Over time, the once thriving venture had been wiped out by multiple sinkings; each of the fleet of boats meeting their watery grave, one by one. The man had watched, as one after another these small fishing vessels had been sunk in the unforgiving waters there about the mouth of the Columbia. Given the sheer number of craft, both large and small alike which have found their watery grave amidst the at once life-sustaining, deadly eddies, it might be stated that those passages encompass perhaps the world's largest ship cemetery; around and about Cape Disappointment. As it turned out, the entire family had been lost. There had been no daughters, no grandchildren; and the man's wife had also, long since passed.
	At some point the benefactor - friend of the Professor's father - had made up a will, and pledged the house on the peninsula to the son of his best friend from the war. After that, the benefactor himself had been lost to the water. One stipulation of the will had been that the recipient - professor Halibent - not be notified for a full thirty years after the death of the seafarer. The three decades had passed; so Professor Halibent were now to become the owner of a house on the peninsula, just North of Ilwaco. Curiousity piqued, he could as well only imagine what the state of its dilapidation might be.
	Along with the formal letter was a smaller envelope. It was aged a great deal. Professor Halibent opened it, and read the hand-written letter as it had been penned upon old-fashioned stationary. The writing seemed rather rushed or sloppy; in deciperhing the same it read:

	15 Oct, 1974
		Dear Dexter Halibent,
	You probably don't know me. I'm not sure whether your father ever spoke to you of me. You and I have never actually met. During the war, I served with your dad on the destroyer Albert Pike, DD-99. Our ship was involved at Guadalcanal, and about the rest of the Solomons. I don't know how much of that he ever mentioned to you.
	Before the war, he and I had been in the same college fraternity. After the war, we were in the same lodge. As time passed, we moved our separate ways and lost regular contact. He did contact me when you were born.
	As for my own family, we settled in Long Beach, WA and operated a fishing business out of Ilwaco. For awhile, it was a great success. Then came the losses. To make a long story short, my sons are all passed, lost to the sea. The wife is long gone. I still fish, but fully expect the waters to take me one day soon. However it is that I eventually pass, I want you to have the house on the peninsula. If everything goes as planned, you will be reading this letter 30 years after my death.
	My own family being gone, you're like a 2nd son to me. Your father and I were once that close. So, the house is yours. You can do whatever you want with it.
	Affectionately,
		Lewellyn Samuel Day
		1974

	Professor Dexter Halibent's father had spoken highly of Mr. Day. Dexter had only vague memories of the same, from the 1950s or thereabouts. He knew that the strange musical instrument had been something his own father had brought back from the time spent in the South Pacific.
	Dexter's father had returned from the war and started a business in widgets. Dexter had been an only child. Mr. Halibent's business had flourished, and the son Dexter had grown up attending private schools, and living in a large house on several acres of land at a place in Snohomish County, North of Seattle.
	From an early age, Dexter's chief companions had been his own imagination, and the large library his father had kept at the house. There had also been the always available, buxom maid. When he had come of age, she and her lady friends had shown Dexter how to 'be a man.' Having first enjoyed such casual couplings, after a time the same had merely left him bored with exhaustion. Dexter soon again retired into the library.
	Dexter's mother had been a reclusive sort, spending much of her time on the veranda and watching birds. Father had been so involved in the widgets business that he'd scarcely been home at all; instead, incessantly traveling the world and working out export-import deals. The few times the elder Halibent had been around, and when he had spoken of the war; Lew Day's name would invariably pop up amidst those tales of grand seafaring adventure. 
	Father had given Dexter the odd musical instrument for his 16th birthday, the elder telling the son that it was a relic from an ancient, lost civilization of the South Pacific. It was then that Mr. Halibent also mentioned that his friend Lew had brought back a large cargo load of similar souvenirs, stashed upon a liberty ship out of the captured port facility of Truk and ultimately debarked at Portland, Oregon. On that day, Dexter's father had been a bit tipsy from sipping cognac, and the younger Halibent hadn't thought much of any of it. Even the strange musical instrument had done little to affect his interest. 
	By then being a bit the sullen teenager, and as well having a sort of disaffection at the lingering absence of his father prior to that; Dexter had left the party table in some small sort of huff; tossing the gifted instrument into a corner of his bedroom, and retreating to the library with its panoply of musty books full of darkly flowering prose which, taken on the whole posited the existence of myriad worlds beyond our own; locales overlowing with terror and beauty, defying human comprehension. He was lost to his own imagination, fueled as it were by the scribblings of long-dead authors whose vision continued to live but through those very tomes.
	Father didn't mind. He understood isolation. He had neglected his own son, but could see as well that Dexter were on the right track. What greater frontier could a person explore, beyond one's own mind? The library had been a great boon in Dexter's mental development. The elder Halibent would have to take solace in having provided a good living for his wife and son, and on the evening of the birthday party; found his way to the veranda, sitting silently aside his sort of estranged spouse. The two of them sipped cognac and watched birds into the fall of night. 
	The elder Halibent left on business the next day. The mother soon died of some unknown ailment. Dexter left for college just a few weeks later. He took the instrument with him, everywhere he went and for the remainder of his life. As it turned out, his father suffered an accident and died, somewhere in the Orient. The estate was put up for sale, and Dexter expended his own energies toward the discovery of, and creation of music. With the bequest brought by the liquidated assets of his deceased parents, and being an only child; Dexter never needed much worry about matters of finance.
	The strange instrument seemed to hail forth from such an obscure place. When he plucked its strings, the call was from another world. It were as though water flowed invisibly through the air; darkened, heavy water; subtly laden with thrashing fins and tentacles. Dexter could never define the songs it made, yet by the same token and for the longest time he'd scarcely been able to set the thing down for any great refrain. The incident at the opening of his South Seas Sextet had weaned him from the instrument. Yet, Dexter couldn't rid himself of the thing. It was a sort of link to his father; not so much as to what actually had ever been; but what might have been; perhaps in a perfect world.
	He thought of Thavy, the exchange student from Cambodia. Sensing she had a kind of student crush on him, Dexter was determined that it should go nowhere. He did worry so about her. She was such an exotic beauty, and the boys who approached her were so unworthy. Thavy was beyond them all. She was beyond Dexter. That was the part he didn't understand. Perhaps Thavy were beyond everyone. Dexter could only hope that she had the sense not to lose herself to any lothario. His greatest ambition for Thavy was that she might return to her native Cambodia and become an Apsara dancer, and singer. As a matter of fact, he had dreams of her; wearing a golden, spired crown and dancing a slow, sensuous dance for him as she sang some far-off, ethereal song. The dreams always seemed to be set against the backdrop of some alien, underwater milieu.
	It being Friday, and classes done for the week, professor Dexter Halibent returned to the nearby condo overlooking the Puget Sound at Alki Point; packed a small bag, and took a drive; soon finding himself on I-5 South. After awhile, he left I-5 at Tacoma, crossed the Narrows Bridge, and took the highway to the coast.
	It was a May afternoon, but it could have been Autumn. The skies were dark. A light rain or sort of heavy mist filled the air and painted the ground in shades of grey as it fell. He drove past the forlorn cooling towers of the stillborn, Satsop nuclear plant. Atop the towers, blinking red lights warned off any would-be, low-flying aircraft. Otherwise, the funneled monoliths were devoid of life. They reminded him in any event of pairs of inverse, ever-so-slightly rugose; cones. The plants themselves had never been finished; never been made operational. A sort of sense of massive failure loomed about the place. Once, the imminent prospect of any actual plant operations had portended nuclear waste. As it turned out, the undone reactors were caught between a place of real, fiscal doom on the one hand; and that forgotten potential of enormous amounts of radioactive flotsam on the other. At the Trojan plant some distance to the South, there aside I-5 and on the border with Oregon, near the Columbia river; the reactor had operated for awhile and been shut down, its wastes left to fester in pools about the place. All of it - the Trojan plant foolishly built, operated for awhile, and carelessly discarded; combined with the stillborn Satsop plants to the North - added to a sort of sprawling melancholy which seemed to blend into the overall milieu in a somehow, most fitting fashion.
	Perhaps the Trojan plant, and the hideous Hanford Nuclear Reservation to the East; both being along the Columbia River, had contributed to a sort of mutation, as experienced by the inhabitants of the states of both Washington and Oregon. Readings indicated that the radioactivity had reached along the Columbia, and as far as the Pacific Ocean. Perchance the radioactivity had also spread through the air and as far as Seattle, and were at least partial cause of the sort of miasma, presently prevalent there. 
	It could be that of the fine dust from the ghastly, depleted uranium munitions being employed in far-off wars; such spall had found the jetstream, and were spanning the globe and contributing to the mutation. The cell towers dotting the landscape, with their microwave emanations could neither be ruled out as playing a part in the cause of this overall transmogrification of humanity.
	Aside from the myriad, ongoing physical manifestations of a plethora of regional, national, and worldwide mutation; the changes were social and political as well. It is fairly certain that by then, the vast majority of inhabitants of the USA were united in agreement upon one compelling theme; that of tyranny. Myriad advocates of that same tyranny might disagree on the specifics, but nearly everyone agreed on the need for it. One person might desire a strongman, another a queen, and yet another a committee of ostensible wisened ones, or congress; the underlying theme tying all these variants of governance together, being to ensure that most everyone must suffer under the yoke of despotism.
	We; all of the advocates of tyranny could quibble over the specifics - how many jails, what number of police; how many rules and attendant punishments for disobeying the same; who gets to be exempt from certain laws and who does not; how many courthouses, and judges, and executions; how many jailers and prison psychiatrists; how many of the - by definition - fraudulent insurance companies; what variety of banking monopolies and their attendant funny money; the number and composition of oversight committees, and the nature and range of allowed kickbacks or bribes; who would get to either 'take one for the team,' or benefit from the same; what flavor of ultimately untenable monetary policy or fiat currency; what manner of accepted grift; a list of sacred cows; accepted and rejected parameters of fashion; an assembly of specific marching bands; agreed upon societal scapegoats; parameters establishing how beautiful a person might be allowed to become, before everyone else might tear them down in a fit of envy; the upper and outer limitations upon intelligence, common sense, and creativity, which if anyone dared surpass the same would result in their being pilloried in the unsavory, plebian courts of opinion; an understanding as to which men of means would be lent a free pass in the public mind, such men being given without limit the ability to pilfer the community chest with impunity, whilst the plebians bickered amongst themselves as to whether they, the proletariat should subsist on lentils or kidney beans - but the attendant and all-embracing, general after effects given by that same looming despotism were never in question. The decadence of the overall citizenry in such a regard was beyond dispute. Of course, to say such a thing out loud was fast becoming a criminal offense. Any advocates of self-rule or human liberty had long since been summarily silenced, if not destroyed outright by the body politic. It was all but symptomatic of the mutation itself.
	Somehow, whether by radiation or other toxins flooding the earthly environs; be they solar flares or galactic gamma rays; or some kind of sonic anomaly or electromagnetic flux; the people of Washington State, and the entire nation of the USA; had arrived at the place of that aforementioned decadent, tyrannical transformation. Fairly well all that was left to us were our heavy drum beats, and that secret individual desire on each of our parts to drag those around us into the gurgling miasma of broken dreams. Beauty had faded; human adornment had been replaced by a sort of agreed upon, nondescript prison garb. Facial features had morphed from the human, into the inhuman. Booming, deadening drumbeats littered the sonic landscape. Melody and harmony were killed. Microwaves permeated every living breath. The cancer of such irresistable degeneracy manifested itself in the dreary, day to day existence of embattled citizenry. We were at war with ourselves. Within the socio-political milieu of Seattle proper, it seemed there was nothing left to fight for. 
	Myriad mutants, we sat smily-faced about the bleachers of life; and plotted against our neighbors; with noxious, underlying machinations cloaked beneath a veneer of soft words and shimmering phrases; the faux surface sociability concealing the deadly daggers of such underlying, destructive intent. The blackened chasms of totalitarianism had been papered over by pictures of fluffy puffy little stuffed animals, cotton candy, and ribbons and bows. Yet beneath it all the horror cascaded and spread, unabated. To be fair, it may well be that; in a world of motion, true liberty is an impossibility. In any event, and whatever the real cause; the watchword of the day and age were tyranny.
	As for city dwellers in specific, it tends to happen; that over time we sink to a sort of lowest common denominator. Real languages are lost, and true music is discarded. In their place are raised rough slang and heavy, menacing, mechanical drumbeats. The change might take some time, but it occurs nonetheless. In the thrall of the metropolis, even the most refined of ancestors will eventually spawn hideous mutants. Sometimes it occurs within a few years; in other cases it takes multiple generations. The end is always the same; cosmopolitan debauchery. Some of us might even retain the outward trappings of fancy clothes, fine words, and a sort of hifalutin  music; nonetheless our features ultimately sag as we become inwardly lewd. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.
	Regarding the geological underpinnings of Western Washington, the locale rests upon a kind of unnatural shelf. West of the Cascade mountains, there is no bedrock to speak of; excepting perhaps the area beneath the coastal range or Olympic mountains. Aside from that, there are no real flatlands, save for the river valleys. The rest of it is hill after undulating hill. In certain cases, these undulations are actually quite sharp. In haphazard fashion about the uneven terrain, the highways and byways twist and turn throughout, all of it dictated by the placement of the hills. Beneath the hills and valleys flow underground streams and rivers, into subterranean  ponds and lakes. The rivers and lakes on the surface hint at the of the number of fresh water bodies which lie below the lay of the land. It has been said that a well-digger could drill to fresh water, anywhere in Western Washington; the only question being, how deep one would need to go at a given location. Fresh water would be found in virtually any event.
	Moving right along, Professor Dexter Halibent drove on through the gloom. Soon, he was amidst the tree farms. At first glance, and disregarding the signs which marked the way; the whole of these stands appeared as non-descript pine forests. Of course the trees were new growth. At their harvest height, they would be destined for the production of plywood, two-by-fours, and paper; certainly not the milling of large beams, as it takes an old growth tree from which to fashion the same. 	The odd feature regarding these sprawling tree tracts, and that which gave Dexter pause; the thing which the signs vaguely intoned; was the fact that they were all clones. There was no differentiation between them, across literally thousands of acres at a time; myriad copies of a singular tree, spanning sprawling swaths of forest. 
	He eased on through the Willapa Hills, and down again to the tidal flats about the coast. Along lagoon shores, boats bobbed at docks. Small road bridges spanned tidal channels. The heavy mist had not abated. Though there were yet several hours before official dusk, the air held forth a sort of pregnant twilight; birth pangs of darkness arriving well before the fall of night. It served to soothe Dexter as he went, at some point reaching for the legal stationary in the passenger's seat. Dexter dialed in the phone number as he drove. A quick couple of questions to the receptionist at the law office, and the call was over. Yes, they were open until six pm; and yes, he could stop by and pick up the deed and keys to the house in Long Beach.
	Ilwaco was a weatherbeaten place. The town sat at the Southwestern corner of Washington State, adjacent to Cape Disappointment; which in turn pointed, out to the actual confluence of the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean. Ilwaco overlooked Sand Island, sheltered in a harbor as it were by the Cape. At their moorage along the final stretch of the Columbia below, lines of fishing boats shifted slightly about.
	Driving down one street, and then up another, Dexter brought the sedan to a stop outside a small corner office building. There were no parking meters, so he skipped up the steps and entered. The receptionist was there, presumably the same woman who had been on the phone. She arose, and showed him down a hallway and into an office door. 	There sat the lawyer whose name was on the stationary. He seemed to be immersed in playing some video game. 	After a moment he set the thing on pause, and spun to face Dexter. "I see you got the letter. Of course, you're..." and he took a moment to fish for a document from a stack of papers on the desk, "... you must be none other than... Professor Dexter Halibent."

	"That would be me."

	"Have a seat then. Can I get you anything to drink, coffee, tea, water?"

	"That's quite all right. I'm not wanting at the moment."

	"I hope you don't mind, but I need a swig." The lawyer pulled out a silver flask and took a quick nip. "I know it doesn't look good, but what can I say? We all need something to get us by."

	"That's quite all right. It's your god-given right to medicate yourself."

	"Uhm. Okay. Let's get right down to business." The lawyer spun again, toward a file cabinet and pulled out some papers, and a set of keys; then turned to face Dexter once more. "Here is the title, and there are the keys. That's all there is to it. Sign that copy there, and we keep that; then take the other papers for yourself."
	
	Within moments the paperwork was finished, and Dexter had the keys and the title. He said, "So; we're finished here, right? That's all there is to it?"

	"Yuppers, that's all." The lawyer paused with an odd expression on his face, as if weighing whether he should say something further. There was something on his mind. He seemed reluctant to share.

	"That is all, correct?" Dexter asked again.

	"Uh. I might as well say..." it were as though a dam broke across his expression, and some important detail were being presented, "...Do you know anything about the legend of Lew Day?"

	"I haven't heard much. My father told me some stories about the South Pacific and the war." Dexter didn't mention the story of the trinkets in the cargo load.

	"Well, it's just that... well, Lew Day and his family were a sort of local legend, at least decades ago; they were. Papa Day... Lew Day came back from the war and started a family, and a booming fishing business. Their fleet of small boats grew, and Lew's sons became fishermen as they grew of age. At some point though, it all went South on them. They started losing boats. Papa Day started losing sons. Really, none of that is much out of the ordinary for what goes on out there..." and he pointed out toward Cape Disappointment, "where boats are lost all the time... and not just boats, but ships. It's a regular maritime cemetery out there."

	"I've heard of that."

	"Well, the thing is.. and again it's not that out of the ordinary... Papa Day lost all of his boats... over the years... one by one... he lost all of his sons, too. Eventually, he was lost at sea himself... but... but that's not what I'm getting at."

	"And? So?" Dexter shot the lawyer a sort of quizzical, faintly annoyed look.

	"It's just that... the house. The Day House in Long Beach... or Oysterville... your house... it's said to be ... haunted."

	"The place is haunted? You don't say..."

	"Well, it's been a long time... but people have never quite stopped talking. Oh, I don't want to jade your initial perceptions, or ruin your holiday, or rain on your parade, or whatever the right words are. I can only say, be careful. Just, be careful."

	"That's fair enough. If you were to ask me, whether it were better that that you had never said anything at all; in truth, I'm glad you mentioned it. I'm not sure what a person does, to be careful of a ghost, or evil spirits, or whatever we might call... it." He widened his eyes and continued. "I will see what I can do as to being... as you say, careful. In any event, I wish to thank you for this seamless transaction. Off I go!"

	Dexter and the lawyer stood and reached to shake hands, and as they did the lawyer started up again, "Just let me know; if you ever need building permits - or whatever - for construction on the property or whatnot. If you ever want to sell the place, I can help you with that, too."

	"I'll keep that in mind. Thanks again."

	With that, Dexter turned and left, exchanging a curt farewell with the receptionist as he went. As Dexter found the street again, he was considering what the lawyer had said. Dexter had a house on his hands; and as events were unfolding, perchance a haunted one at that.
	He hopped into the sedan, trolled it out into the street, and quickly found the highway North - Route 103 - to the Long Beach Peninsula. The drive from Ilwaco to the peninsula was a scant five or ten minutes. At the peninsula, the highway ran a further ten or fifteen miles along its length to the North, before ending at Ledbetter Point State Park. Running the distance of the peninsula, there were several towns, including; Long Beach proper, Nahcotta, Ocean Park, and a sort of pretense of a town; really a disparate collection of disconnected vacation houses; Oysterville. At Oysterville, there were a cemetery toward the ocean side, and a famous restaraunt haunting the bay on the other. One could sit at the quaint, rustic eatery - itself a converted old house - and marvel upon the giant piles of spent oyster shells, dotting the mud flats of the bay as they did. Dexter's inheritance had an Oysterville address. Just beyond it all was the aforementioned state park. 
	Separating the peninsula from the mainland to the East, one found Willapa Bay. From the mainland, the bay would consume the fresh water from several small rivers. Fully half of the bay's surface area was known as intertidal zone. Being a shallow water bay, at low tide there were great expanses of mud flat along its shores. Environs replete with marine and bird life; Long Island sat just off the Southeastern shore of the bay, where the Naselle river emptied into the same. Long Island was the centerpiece of a nature preserve which included much of the entire bay. The Willapa Hills tickled the low-lying clouds beyond, as if to draw forth their gentle rain.
	In human terms; over seemingly endless time, the Long Beach Peninsula itself had been formed out of sand being washed to the North by the mouth of the Columbia. In geological terms, the same span of time had been a mere heartbeat. In either event this gigantic sand bar - or spit - served to capture the bay, and Long Island behind it to the East. From the West, waters of Pacific Ocean flowed in and out of the bay, around the North end of the peninsula. 	The peninsula ran, more or less within a range of two miles across along its entire length. On the Pacific; West; or ocean side ran the narrow expanse of sandy beach. As it turned out, locals claimed it to be the largest single stretch of the same, in the world. The entire beach was perhaps twenty miles in length. Most of the tourist venues were on the sandy, ocean side.
	On the opposite, East side of the peninsula were the tidal mudflats before the bay. The bay side had a few paved streets or gravel roads, with summer homes haphazardly dotting the landscape. Sandridge road was the main bay road. It departed route 103 just North of Ilwaco, and reconnected about half way up the penninsula, at Nahcotta. Other than tourism, the peninsula locals lived off of oyster harvesting.
	As it turned out, Dexter's Oysterville inheritance was nearby all of the cemetery, restaurant, and state park. In the immediate area, there were stands of trees separating any houses. On first pass, he actually missed the turnoff and went all the way beyond the cemetery and to the nature preserve. Turning around, and a mile or two back; he noticed the overgrown outlet or driveway, and turned into it. Barely past the opening, he stopped before a sagging gate. The rear end of his sedan was just off of the road proper. Looking up the driveway, Dexter could see that it was paved, but with well-established patches of ocean grass forging up through cracks throughout its length. 
	As the car idled, Dexter exited and examined the gate. It was locked on one side, and on the opposite; it appeared as though the rusted hinges might break at the slightest movement. There was no way he was going to be able to work the lock itself. It too was rusted over. The chain and lock were a sort of single, time-melded loop of oozing, encrusted oxidization. Dexter gave gave a hearty tug to the thing, and it broke. Next, he tried to open the gate. It fell off of its hinges with an unceremonious clang. Barely retaining  balance, he propped up the unsecured gate. Quickly, Dexter carried the thing forward, and off to the side of the driveway, then leaned it up against some overgrown foliage. Getting back into the car, a police cruiser pulled up behind. Hands upon the steering wheel, Dexter waited.
	On foot, an officer approached as the police car sat, idling and blocking the road. The voice of a second officer, barking on the cruiser PA; ordered Dexter to turn off his engine, roll down the window, and put his hands on the dash. Dexter did just that. At the same time, he hoped that none of the neighbors - remote as they were - were catching wind of the incident. It was certainly no way to introduce oneself to the community; what with being unceremoniously accosted by the police for an act of apparent, flagrant vandalism; if not outright breaking and entering. The way the police had happened upon him, Dexter knew that it didn't look good.
	
	The first officer approached in the rain, "What do we have here? What are you doing? This is private property, you know."
	
	Unnerved, Dexter answered excitedly, "It just dawned upon me! I should have stopped by the police station in town. You see, I have - just today - been given inheritance of this place. I'm actually the owner, now."

	The officer seemed taken aback, "Ok, don't try anything. Can you show me some proof? How about a title?"

	Within the cover of the car roof, Dexter fetched the title from the passenger seat and presented it to the officer, and elaborated, "See; here it is. I received it in Ilwaco earlier today; not an hour ago as a matter of fact. Is this good enough for you?" The officer leaned in to read the paper, looking it over in the fading light.

	"Well, all I can say is, welcome to the Peninsula. This certainly looks legitimate. You are Dexter Hali... Hali, right?"

	"Dexter Halibent, Yes that would be me." Dexter reached for the wallet in his jacket pocket, and produced a couple of pieces of picture ID, including his driver's license. "Here."

	"Sure enough. Ok. It's just my partner and I were driving around, and we saw you messing with that gate. To be honest, you looked like a vandal. We don't get much trouble around here. I mean, it's really quiet. You stuck out like a sore thumb. I suppose the gate was broken?"

	"Yes. Apparently this place has been abandoned for thirty years. I took the title just now. In my headlong rush to see the place, I forgot that checking by the peninsula police station might have been prudent." Dexter reeled the paper title back in, and set it again on the passenger seat.

	"Yeah, this is the old Day place. Of course you probably know that. I've been on the job for twenty years. No one has lived here since before I've been around. I s'pose that gate was ready to fall off, all on its own. You just gave it a push, I'm sure. Anyway, I can't say as how I blame you; forgetting to notify us and whatnot. You must have a lot on your mind."

	"Yes, this is a sort of impromptu trip. It appears as though I didn't plan very well for it. Maybe you could say I'm winging it. Perhaps; in my overweening curiousity to see the place as soon as possible after having received the news of this sort of inheritance, I didn't think about much else. I simply received the notification in the mail today, and immediately drove to the coast; to procure the title in Ilwaco, and then on to here. In retrospect, there's probably a lot that I should have considered, but did not. Say, maybe you can help me out a bit..."

	"Yeah?..." The officer appeared a bit dumbounded by Dexter's seemingly convoluted speech patterns. The Sheriff was getting the gist, it's just that he thought Dexter sounded like a... city slicker.

	"I'm wondering; how do I get the phone, water, and electricity re-started here?"

	"Oh, head back to Ilwaco in the morning. The local utility office should be open, even on Saturday... at least until noon." The officer pulled out a business card and - under the cover of the brim of his hat as he leaned over - hastily drew directions to the place on the back. Handing it to Dexter, he said "That should do her. Well, I'll let you go now. You be sure to take care of yourself out here. If you need anything, be sure to let us know down at the station. I'll pass the word around, to keep an eye out around here, and not to mind the broken gate. I take it you'll fix that when you can? As for trouble; don't worry. We don't get a lot of squatters or anything. This is really a quiet place. Our job practically does itself out in these parts. The only problems we get are a few brawls here and there back in Ocean City and such. Oh, I don't mean to talk your ear off. I just want you to know that this Oysterville is a very quiet town; if you can call it that." 

	"Ok. I'll see what I can do about the broken gate. Meanwhile, thanks in advance for getting the word out. Again, sorry about the non-notification. In a way, I'm glad you happened upon me. Thinking about it a bit, I suppose it could have been a lot worse... our first encounter that is."

	"Yeah, I guess it could have been bad. No harm, no foul. I've got a question for you though."

	"Yes?"

	"How is it that you were deeded the house? From what I heard, old man Day lost his whole family. He was kind of famous around here, so people continue to talk now and then. You're not a relative, are you?"

	"Oh; I see what you're saying. It must appear as sort of odd. As it turns out, Lewellyn Day and my father were in the Navy together during the war. That's where I come in. For whatever reason, the house was willed to me. I've got an actual letter from Day to my person. He wrote it decades ago, and I just received the same today. The law office had held the house title - and the letter - for a stipulated period of time. I don't know exactly why Day specified things the way he did. Would you like to see the letter? I've got it right here."

	"Oh. That's all right. I get it now. Thanks for answering. I guess I really had no right to ask. The deed and your driver's license should have been enough. Well, thanks again. I'll let you go. Take care."

	"Good Night."
	
	Dexter reached over, retrieved a can of WD-40 and a flashlight from the glove compartment, and as the police cruiser ambled off; restarted the car. The sedan began up the uneven driveway. For several hundred feet, it threaded through - on either side - thick stands of trees and brush. Before breaking into the opening of the yard proper, the track ran for several hundred feet. Upon reaching the front of the house, Dexter stopped upon the turnaround; itself composed of the same cracked, weed-punctuated pavement as the driveway. The surrounding yard was an apparent jumble of overgrown weeds, lawn and sea grass, and gnarled trees. In the middle of the turnaround was an apple tree. Tiny Gravenstines were sparse in dotting its tangled lower branches. The apples had yet, a good two or three months before ripening. Myriad sucker shoots reached skyward.
	Flashlight and WD-40 in hand, Dexter made his way to the front steps and porch; 'Weatherbeaten' being the first word which came to mind. It was a relatively large house; smaller than the one he'd been raised in, but larger than most city houses. The porch wrapped all the way around. Circling the same, he navigated past random spots of rot dotting the floor of the deck; arriving again at the front steps on the one hand, and main door on the other. A cursory inspection had revealed the need for siding paint, and that the porch and its roof would need to be fully replaced. Of the house proper, Dexter figured that the main roof would need to be redone. That would have been a best case scenario. In the worst case, he would enter the house to find massive water damage. Not being much of a carpenter or remodeler, it hadn't yet occurred to Dexter, just how much work might be necessary in order to set the place back into ship shape.
	Fumbling through the keys the lawyer had given him, Dexter chose the one which appeared to match the dullened deadbolt on the front door. The door lock was certainly in better shape than the padlock at the gate had been. After spraying the key and lock with WD-40, Dexter paused for a moment. The rain pitter pattered upon the sagging porch roof. In the distance, ocean sang its timeless, compelling song. The aged lock gave in to the ministrations of the key.
	The door opened with a groan, and the flashlight's beam fell upon an interior which had remained unchanged for perhaps three decades or more. Dexter eased his way inside, and closed the door. As expected, the light switches didn't work. The smell was of mothballs and wood, yet inexplicably without mold or must. Finding his way through a dining room and kitchen, and to the back of the house; the back door unlocked and opened as easily as the front one had.
	Returning to the living room and starting up the stairs, Dexter was greeted with a series of seemingly unending cobwebs, step by step and throughout the climb to the upper floor. Here and there, he sensed the random spider upon his hands or face, but decided the chance of being bitten by a Brown Recluse to be fairly remote; and so continued upward.
	Making the way from bedroom to bedroom, Dexter was fasinated by the period furnishings. Dexter tried the windows in every bedroom, and managed to open and close all of them. It began to appear that the inside of the house was intact, and only the outside had been subjected to the ravages of time. Beneath the fall of night, the flashlight was going dim. Dexter needed to find another source of illumination, or give up further exploration and sleep in the car whilst waiting for the break of dawn.
	Soon Dexter was back on the main floor, and in a closet off of the kitchen. There he found an old Coleman Lantern, and amazingly enough it yet had fuel. Back at the car, there was a survival kit. Inside there were some emergency matches. He lit up the lantern and lugged a jug of water and a sleeping bag, back into the house.
	Having set the sleeping bag and the water on the floor inside the door, Dexter set about exploring the interior anew, beneath the white light of the lantern. There were strange paintings upon the walls. He was fairly certain that, in the daylight they would depict cheerful things, but in the gloom of the night it seemed as though they were alive with a sort of slithering, undirected contempt. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. A chill seemed to come from without. Zipping his jacket all the way up, Dexter retreated with his head, as far as possible into the confines of the hood.
	The furniture represented a small fortune. It would have been considered antique by the standards of today. The eerie thing about the furnishings was their combined, pristine effect. The whole of it were as it would have been, yet decades before. There were no must or mildew. From inside, the place appeared as unchanged over the years. True enough, the electricity was off. The phone and water were probably off as well. Dexter wondered if, once the utilities were turned back on; it all might function normally. Returning to the upstairs, he reconfirmed the same thing about the details of the bedrooms; the furnishings were, without exception well preserved. The previous spectre of interior water damage had not materialized.
	Dexter found a pull-down staircase in one of the smaller bedrooms. Climbing to the attic, he noted the same intact state of affairs. There was a skylight, but no moon or stars shone through on this night. It was yet cloudy outside. For a short while, a full rain had been falling. It tickled the glass of the skylight, and thudded in semi-rhythmic dullness upon the mossy shingles of the main roof proper.
	There were a few old-fashioned stuffed chairs, and a table with an apparent star map upon it. A large telescope yawned beneath the skylight. Of course, its specifications were probably nothing impressive in comparison with what might have been newly available to the amateur astronomer in this day and age.
	He backed down the steepened, drop-down staircase and found a phone on a bedside night table. Dexter picked it up; just in case. Of course there was no dialtone. The receiver weighed a ton. It must have been made of heavy bakelite. The phone was rotary. Returning to the closet off of the kitchen, a door led to the basement stairs. The place was so quiet. The only sound was of the rain outside. Upon standing motionless, he became aware again; of the additional, rushing sound of the ocean off in the distance. Something about it seemed to mesmerize him.
	Dexter caught himself, and walked down the steps. Along the descent, he was greeted by another series of webs. There were a furnace, an old washer and dryer, and a freezer. It was all in surprisingly good shape. In overall preservation, the interior basement was akin to the rest of the house; fairly well pristine. Pronounced was the contrast between all of the old fixtures and furnishings, and their seemingly ageless state. Someone - had it been Lew Day himself? - must have once been an outstanding architect and builder. Whatever the case of that, the builder had certainly sealed the insides against any potential ravages of time; at least within a context spanning several decades. Of course, if given thousands of years; Dexter was certain that the entirety of the house - inside and out - would most surely founder and collapse. Given the ravages of unlimited time, what structure and its contents would not? As things were, at least the interior of the place remained in remarkably good condition.
	Dexter retreated to the living room, and unrolled the sleeping bag. Spiders had never much bothered him. If they were there, he wasn't concerned. Perhaps, even the bite of a Brown Recluse would be but a test of his constitution. Suffice it to say that, Dexter had other things on his mind.
	Settling into a sleep, the strangest senses came over him. There were watery depths, and a sort of strange music; not unlike what he'd created out of ostensibly whole cloth for his own South Seas Sextet. Something seemingly terrible loomed just out of the range of immediate sense. Thavy pranced within it all. She was there in an Apsara costume; with golden, spired crown, and all adorned in bracelets; slowly, sensuously, deliberately dancing, and singing a golden, honey-laden siren song with great, yet imperceptible purpose. The looming thing was about the water; that vague impression of the other, hideous entity hovering just beyond conscious realization. In the morning he awoke with a start, and continued to consider Thavy. 
	What was it about her? Thavy was easily thirty years his junior, and despite all common sense, Dexter was somehow attracted to her. Of course, he had hidden this attraction under an expert mask of indifference. Her voice was like a sugary song, yet he had never let on. In her physical form, and the way she adorned herself so; Thavy was beyond beautiful, yet Dexter had feigned disinterest. If she only knew. He could never let her know.
	Dexter was met by the dim light of another rainswept day. He locked the house, and drove to the town of Long Beach. There was a boardwalk, lined by arcades and fast food eateries. There was a motel. Beyond, there were some carnival rides and a small go-cart track. Already he could hear the sounds of the tourists, intermingled with the lawnmower engines of the go-carts, and the always strange callings of the calliope as the merry-go-round turned. Dexter stopped and ate at Denny's, then drove to Ilwaco.
	After spending some time sorting things out with the staff at the utility office, he was assured that power, water, and phone had been switched on at the Oysterville house. They gave Dexter his new phone number, and asked him whether they should send the monthly utility bills to that address, or to the condo back at Alki. He decided that they could send the bills to his Oysterville address. Additionally, he charged what would amount to several months' worth of fees to his debit card. That way, the utilities wouldn't be of any concern for some time going forward. Upon returning to the parking lot of the utility office, there was a strange note beneath a windshield wiper of his car. Carefully unfolding the dampened note and seeing some odd script, Dexter gingerly placed it upon the dashboard inside the car, and forgot about it. Before leaving Ilwaco, Dexter purchased a chain and lock at a hardware store. These would serve as a temporary front gate at the house. Soon, he was back at the Oysterville inheritance. 
	In the daylight, the contrast struck Dexter even further. The exterior was, for lack of a better word, dilapidated. Looking from the outside, he  wondered for a moment whether the interior explorations of the previous night had been a mirage. Upon entering the house, he confirmed that the interior was indeed, in excellent condition. It had been no hallucination. Overall, something about the place combined to both inspire, yet terrify him. Dexter looked again at the paintings adorning the walls. They were of ocean milieus; islands, palm trees, tiki huts, boats, ships, calm and storm, sunrise and sunset, docks and piers. Lew Day had been a man of the sea. 
	Dexter explored a bit more, discovering a study in a corner of the main floor. A cursory perusal of the room's contents revealed a collection of books. Some of the tomes looked familiar. Reasoning that his own father and Lew Day might have had a similar taste in reading material, Dexter wondered if the books before him were triggering the memory of otherwise forgotten titles he'd known as a child. On a desk and under an old-fashioned reading lamp, there was a diary. Dexter sat in an upholstered chair and began to thumb through it.
	It was "Papa Day's" diary; the notes of Lewellyn Samuel Day. Dexter made a mental note to later, read the entire thing in detail. For the time being, a cursory purusual of the same indicated that it told the tale of Mr. Day's life; from the end of the war until just prior to his disappearance in the late 1970s, and giving details of the family fishing business; the apparent and ultimately tragic sanitarium confinement of his wife; the sons and boats lost to the waves; and strangely enough, intonations of forgotten cities beneath the sea. Perhaps most fantastic of all were those poetic whisperings, alluding to the shrouded existence of an undersea ruins, and located on a hidden shelf beneath that very Long Beach Peninsula! Lew Day must have had a macabre sense of humour; a fanciful imagination. How could there be a hidden, forgotten city in the waters directly beneath that sleepy coastal spit? Certainly, the entire maritime milieu had; by then been catalogued by scientists of great expertise and renown. The actual discovery of a lost, sunken city would have had enormous archeological ramifications. No such public revelation had ever been forthcoming.
	As the ongoing daylight filtering through the windows seemed to somewhat fade, Dexter tried the reading lamp at the desk. It worked. Then, going throughout the house, he found that the light switches were all working. Again, it was just as it had once been. The fact that it was so well preserved sent a whisp of ill-defined chill up his spine. Dexter went to the bathrooms and tried the water. After passing a bit of rust, the faucets seemed fully functional. Taken aback by such a string of unnaturally good luck, Dexter went to one of the phones, and in lifting the receiver detected that familiar dial tone. All of the utilities were fine. There were no clouds of smoke or electrical smells; no signs of bad wiring. There were no tell-tale sounds of water within the walls; no broken plumbing pipes. Back in the living room, Dexter tried the thermostat, and heard the old oil furnace in the basement firing up. Accompanied by a vague petrol scent, the house was soon filling with heat. Shutting the furnace off, he made a mental note to have the furnace checked out, and - if necessary - cleaned; and oil delivered at some future date.
	It occurred to Dexter that the necessary repairs were going to be external. The fact of the unspoiled state of the interior continued to gnaw at the edges of Dexter's consciousness, but he wasn't going to complain. Things were as they were. So the list of repairs involved the exterior; the entire porch, including its roof would need to be replaced; some of the exterior siding would need shoring up; an outside paint job was in order; the main roof would, at the least require shingle replacement. The yard would require a good deal of long-neglected maintenance. Being a man of no small means, Dexter could easily pay for the list of repairs. It would simply be a matter of finding a group of quick and efficient subcontractors.
	That Saturday afternoon, Dexter took a long nap. For dinner, he went to a fast food place in Long Beach. In the evening, Dexter retreated to the study of the house and caught up on some reading. For the time being, the diary was set aside. He would take the same back to Seattle. Sleeping late on Sunday, Dexter gathered the diary; then locked up the house and headed back to the city. At the end of the driveway, he looped the long chain around the posts which remained in the ground on either side of the opening, then secured it with the new padlock. At the last moment before pulling away, Dexter spied the previously wettened note from his car winshield, now resting dried upon the dashboard. He put it inside the cover of the diary.
	Late Sunday night and back at the condominium near the Duwamish Academy; Dexter began to think about his career as a teacher. As the Spring semester were set to end a mere score of days hence, he figured it would be easy enough to finish out. Over the Summer break he might decide upon a further course of action. Professor Dexter Halibent was contracted for another year at the Academy, but knew as well that; if need be, any instructor thus contracted could readily renig upon the same. It had been established within the Academy, that it were better for a faculty member to bail on contractual stipulations, than to remain and teach without a heart. In any event, Dexter hadn't quite realized it, but the house at Long Beach had already become an obsession. The diary was with him at the condo. 
	Reading it anew, it dawned on Dexter; that here and there, in the margins were notes in seemingly that same incomprehensible script as the note from his car. Lifting the note from inside the cover, he compared it to the marginal script. Thumbing through the book and comparing the note to the scrawlings in the margin, he found an apparent match.
	The body of the diary itself described Mr. Day's life after the war. Some of it hearkened even further back, to tales of the DD-99 as it had participated in the naval battles around Guadalcanal and the Solomons; an extended shore leave by the crew of the ship after the American occupation of Truk; the former Japanese major base of operations, by then a sleepy backwater of the Pacific Theatre as the fight had moved forward and the war were winding down. The diary spoke of the load of mysterious cargo which Dexter's father had once alluded to, and its transport to Oregon, and how the same had been secured in the house at Long Beach. It was odd; Dexter's inspection of the property hadn't revealed any such cache of trinkets about the place. He would have to take a closer look.
	Overall, the diary was not an easy read. It were some combination of the  margin notes with their apparent, alien penmanship; and the body of it, which began easily enough in fairly legible fashion, but spiraled throughout the narrative, into a sort of antediluvian scribble. Formerly complete sentences, paragraphs, and passages; all of it decayed through the series of consecutive entries; and into the random, barely coherent jots of a madman. 
	Regarding the overall narrative, there were a few things Dexter was able to nail down with some sense of certainty. First of all, there had been some strange sect in the South Seas during the war, and Mr. Day and some of his fellow crew members had participated in their rites. Dexter wondered if his own father had been among them. Given the musical instrument in his own possession - the one Mr. Halibent had passed to Dexter as a teenager - and the strange events surrounding its employment as part of the public debut of the South Seas Sextet; and the sort of small disaster which had immediately ensued its unveiling before an unfortunate audience; he was left to ascertain that perhaps, father had been involved in whatever Lewellyn S. Day were alluding to in the diary.
	Secondly, Mrs. Day had been lost to a sanitarium on the Kitsap Peninsula. The diary spoke specifically of a problem with tuberculosis, but hinted as well at a sort of gnawing madness on her part. Dexter made a mental note to stop by the Colvos passage where the sanitarium had apparently been located, and make an investigation.
	Thirdly, of the formerly flourishing - yet ultimately floundering - family fishing enterprise; each of Day's three sons been lost, one after the other to the unforgiving waters off of Cape Disappointment. 
	Lastly, there were those ever-increasing, incoherent scribblings toward the end of the narrative. Again, they spoke of the undersea ruins of ancient and long-forgotten seafaring societies. Alas, they alluded to such a ruins just beneath the Pacific shelf; below Ilwaco and the Long Beach Peninsula.
	The maddened ruminations involving some prehistoric submarine underwater civilization were a bit too much for Dexter to fathom. He became dizzy with nigh imperceptible gleanings of watery depths, puncuated by broken and scattered pillars; and the intonations of some forgotten, watery milieu; whispering yet of some fantastical, time-transcendent, seafaring immortal. Through it all, a sort of sweet, alien love song played betwixt dismal undertones. He caught himself and snapped back into mundane consciousness.
	That was quite enough for the weekend. Dexter made up his mind to ask a professor of Aboriginal Legends at the Academy to translate the note from the car. Circumspect, Dexter dared not reveal the contents of the diary to anyone; not just yet in any event. Soon after, the lights were out and he fell into a deep sleep. Thavy faded faintly, in and out of Dexter's dreams. What was it about her? He was breathing underwater. So was she. That irresistable love song wrapped itself in and out of the at once compelling, indiscernible vision.
	As with many of the dreams of Thavy, Dexter awoke only vaguely aware of the same. Out of those same waking hours sprang a sort of cautious confidence in his continued ability to fend off her - by then obvious - advances. Perhaps it were only a young woman's game; to gain the heart of an older man, then dump him unceremoniously. Perchance Thavy were but a proverbial Blue Angel, and Dexter a sort of designated Kurt Jurgens. Dexter needed to watch himself, and said it aloud in getting ready for class, "once burned, twice shy" and headed out the door, remembering the note from the car windshield as he went.
	During the five-minute drive to Duwamish Academy, Dexter had some thoughts about the dismal decay of civilization. Suddenly, it all appeared as inevitable. Dexter ruminated that perchance earthly suffering; human tyranny; torture, starvation, physical deprivation; intellectual, poltical, social, and monetary fraud, on and on: Of all of those solemn, misbegotten things never understood; as to how people could survive and even thrive through such myriad tribulation; it was suddenly obvious. The vast majority of humanity are content to haunt these earthly environs, even in the worst imaginable conditions; simply because the alternative - lurking as it might about the shadows of human perception - must be, by comparison untenable. 
	That is to say that, even the seemingly most abysmal and trying of living conditions as apparent in this world are; perchance preferable to the other, said alternative as being but stacked; as an unused soul in one of an infinite array of small containers amongst a warehouse of souls, consigned into the chilling, blackened confines of such a tiny cell; each of the imprisoned spirits awaiting that chance to, once again sally forth from their confines, with the anticipation of occupying anew, any human body. No matter what the suffering of this world, being stuffed inside a tiny, cramped and empty space was an even worse thing. In this way, Dexter realized; it could be that such is why, while we're here; the greatest number of people never seem to mind the ongoing tyranny. 
	Of any given earthly locale; for every citizen of the same to simply have a roof over their head; to live each day free of physical hunger; such is a miracle of human civilization. Regardless of whatever else might be going on, a sheltered and fed populace is highly assured of societal tranquility. As it turns out, people often continue to strive in the face of far less; such that, even without a steady flow of proverbial daily bread; or for whatever reason finding oneself without shelter and exposed to the elements; people continue to strive forward in the face of it all. 
	Of course, if - for even a day or two - you remove the food from a large group of people, then all bets are off as to that aforementioned tranquility. Often, such quickly devolves into a sort of free for all. It all depends upon the sum of the individual character, of each of the persons  comprising the overall group. In any event, a complete lack of food for any great length of time will eventually witness even the most upright of souls, finding themselves falling into the mayhem of cannibalism. Only the most stable of mind; stout of soul; strong of heart can resist the horrorific machinations of mass starvation. The majority of the throng of humanity fall to inhumanity, at some point short of the same; famishment. 
	Beyond that of being stacked inside one of a myriad of small containers, Dexter pondered other alternatives to this overall earthly milieu. Instead, maybe another choice were to live on a sort of planet of midgets, as in the movie Phantasm; to there serve as an anonymous slave under agonized gravity, beneath the constant, stifling heat of multiple suns, consigned to - without end - carry rocks about an unchanging, relentless desert landscape.
	Further, it could be that to leave this world as a human is to yet return to the life of an insect, arachnid, reptile, or rodent. Perhaps these human containers we occupy are but a disguise which we project from the ostensibly hideous forms we actually - in truth - are. 
	In short, there had to be some reason for the simple happy-go-lucky attitude so prevalent in the mass of humanity; that apparent lack of concern given by so many to the ideals of enterprise, decorum, palette, or any number of attributes one might attach to the idea of a real, advanced civilization. Even the; at first glance simple, in any event elegant notion of simply 'being for the sake of being' has been lost in the overarching white noise, so attendent to the culture of this day. It seems as though any more, so many of us are given neither to outward concern, nor to inner calm.
	In any event, Dexter took small solace in the idea that the world, as it seemed to be crumbling all around him were yet so much better than any - real or unreal - alternative. He considered that this earthly milieu might be as good as it ever gets. Dexter took a small oath to, from that day forward bear down in his own undertakings, and to - there and about - set aside random moments, and simply breathe. He realized as well, that a single hearbeat is perhaps the biggest miracle anyone could ever expect of this earthly place; and that to cherish the same might actually be the key to life.
	For a further moment, Dexter vaguely entertained the idea that he were a child of the sea. The thought itself never reached the forefront of his mind. Like so many of previous visions, musings, dreams, and phantasms; and as they spiraled forth through sleep, and waking hours, and around; again and again; such particular aquatic notion loomed as but a revenant within the faint echoes of realization.
	Soon, he was in the parking lot of the Academy. Upon exiting the car, Dexter was caught off guard by Thavy. She seemed to pop out of nowhere, and the sing-song sound of her greeting warmed him. She saw it. He caught himself, but in that one slight moment they both knew.
    "Good morning professor, we are going to study pentatonic today?"
	"Er.. um... I mean, yes Thavy, that is what is slated for this week. We're going to cover a panoply of pentatonic scales, as found the world over."
	She handed him a CD-ROM.
	"Please listen to this one. It is Khmer song. You know, Cambodia was once French colony. This CD has European and Khmer song, all in one!"
	"That's right. I had forgotten. Let me listen to this in my office, or at my place of residence. If it fits the lesson, I'll include it tomorrow or the next day."
	"Oh, I think you might like it. I think it fits." She smiled at him as she walked away, her scent wafting behind her as she went.
	"I'll let you know."
	Thavy turned and smiled, then walked away again.
	Without any real conviction, and with faint self-assurance that Thavy didn't know, Dexter meandered to his office. Thavy knew.
	Inside the office, Dexter listened to the CD-ROM. Thavy had been right. The European - or 'diatonic' - influence was fairly easily identified. Yet, during certain bridges a sort of 'Asian sounding' pentatonic variation would appear. Intermixed within it all were some apparent East Indian influences. The whole of the song was fascinating, and could definitely be included in the week's lessons. Before going to the classroom, Professor Halibent ran the note from Ilwaco by the office of a peer, Doctor Kaasteen Klinkit. 
	He knocked, and she called for him to enter. Upon opening the office door, Dexter realized that Kaasteen must have been wrapped up in some intensive research. It looked as though she'd literally been camped within her office for the entirety of the preceding weekend. There was a dishevelled cot in the corner, and the aroma of coffee hung in the air.
	"Kaasteen, I don't mean to disturb you, but I need some help with this." Dexter dropped the note on a small clearing on Kaasteen's large desk, covered as the majority of it were; by opened books and shards of glyphed ceramics.
	She looked up at him for a moment. "I'll take a look at it during a break. As you can see, I'm very busy. I've stumbled across a sort of theory of the last ice age, and how it relates to the legends of aboriginals up and down the length of the Pacific Coast, from what we know as Alaska today, and South through modern-day British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. It's beginning to appear as though there may be a real connection between those legends and the actual geological record."

	"Fascinating."

	"Maybe a little diversion is just what I need. Can you tell me anything about this?" She picked up the note paper. "What is it?"

	"I was hoping you could tell me. Where it comes from isn't important, at least not for the moment."

	"Mysterious."

	"Well, I don't mean to be overly obtuse, it's just that I don't really know what it means. I'll tell you what though. I found it on the windshield of my car, in Ilwaco."

	"Ilwaco; Cape Disappointment. What were you doing in Ilwaco? Oh, never mind. I'm sure you'll tell me when you're good and ready. Like I said... when I take a breather from this project.. I'll give it a look. Off the top of my head, it looks like it might even tie in with what I'm working on at the moment. Life sometimes has its synchronicities."

	"Well, I'd better get going. By all means, please let me know if you are able to at all decipher it."

	"Ok, I'll let you know. How about if I guarantee to give it a look by the end of the week?"

	"That should be fine. Thanks for your help. With that I should probably say, 'have a good week.' Be sure to get your rest."

	"I know, I've been working all weekend. I promise you, I'll be sure to get some rest."

	With that, Dexter left Doctor Klinkit's office and went to teach the Psycho Acoustics 100 course.
	The week went quickly. Outside of teaching either of two courses, Dexter was making telephone arrangements for various contractors to renovate the Oysterville inheritance. In the evenings at the condo, Dexter would thumb through the diary. His dreams gained slightly in definition. Thavy was there and about, within them; dancing; and singing a siren song amid the ongoing, equivocal foreboding of an enchanting, alien music. There were water, and sunken cities. It seemed that all of it was accompanied by a sense of unfathomable doom; a bone-chilling terror looming just outside of the periphery of each and every dream-time milieu. It never forced itself into the picture. It was simply there; far outside the center of the confused jumble of aquatic, aural dreamscapes.
	In the Psycho Acoustics 100 classroom, Professor Halibent covered a plethora of pentatonic scales. First, he demonstrated a basic grouping of 5 naturals, A C D E G; employing that simple scale as a framework to demonstrate how it could be made to sound pretty or alluring; or if used in a different fashion, how the same could speak in a sort of alien or primordial way; and demonstrating further, how a musician could quickly cycle back and forth between the two. He touched upon how that basic scale, or minute variants of the same could be found in aboriginal cultures across and spanning the globe; African, European, Mezo-American, Asian. In each case, a localized employment of the scale might further include some subtle ornamentation, or notes additional to the basic, 5-note scale; some of the 'extra tones' being entirely outside of the 12-note system of the West. Professor Halibent briefly covered a sort of diminished variant of the pentatonic, as found within certain Japanese music. 
	He went into how pentatonics and their variants could be found in Vietnamese music, and how an ostensible 5-note scale were often mixed with a sort of classical European, diatonic sound, apparently due to the one-time French colonization of 'Indochina;' and by recorded example showcasing how a given song might sound like something out of a nightclub in Paris, then segue into a very 'Asian-sounding' passage, and back to a European styling. 	During the discussion of Vietnamese song, Dexter could see that Thavy appeared a bit impatient. Realizing that Vietnam and Cambodia had been at least somewhat rivals, he shifted gears as quickly as possible, and presented the class with Thavy's example of Khmer music. He played her CD for the class, and explained the way pentatonics were blended with; not only European, but East Indian modes. From there, he promised to study the exotic scales of India and other locales of the East. He intoned that they would further cover scales beyond those found within the 12-frequency European system; for instance the Gamalon scale with its 19 notes as found in Bali.
	As the week passed, Friday arrived. Throughout the week, Thavy had been a bit nonchalant; yet from time to time Dexter would have sworn to himself that she were like a cat playing with a proverbial mouse. The now-and-then gleam in Thavy's eyes would catch Dexter off guard. As for her requisite questions, he unfailing found the need to steel himself beneath the velvet onslaught of her sing-song, syrupy voice.
	It were almost as though Thavy and Dexter were alone in the classroom. Half of the students were bored, and taking the class as an elective. It wasn't part of their various major studies. Among the rest of them, a question arose here and there. It could be said that Thavy asked as many questions as the entire remaining class combined. Dexter noticed too, that the young men were no longer so eager to approach her after class. It were almost as though Thavy had erected some kind of invisible barrier between they and she. At the same time, Dexter was drawn irresistably into her web of wiles. He put on a good face; played a charade that no one saw through; no one, that is except for Thavy. They both knew. It seemed as though no one else did.
	Upon returning to his office after the Friday morning lecture, he'd almost forgotten the note which had been left on Monday past with Doctor Klinkit. The rotary phone rang, startling him out of a daydream. "Professor Halibent here." It was Doctor Klinkit. "I've had a chance to look over that note. You're not going to believe this... well, maybe you will."

	"What is it, Kaasteen?"
	
	"It's just a short phrase, but it speaks of so much. I found it to be a variant on a South Seas dialect."
	
	"Let me guess, the Solomons?"

	"As a matter of fact, yes. Is there something you aren't telling me?"

	"Well..."

	"Never mind. Like I said, I trust you. You can tell me more, after you sense the time is right."

	"Thank you for that. I can't explain at the moment. I'll be sure to let you know when more of the puzzle pieces have been assembled. So, what have you got?"

	"Here's the deal: There's a legend of a sea monster... a sort of god... as near as I can tell, it's pronounced Tee-oat-zee. If one were to take a stab at translating it into English, it would be spelled, T-o-Z. The brief script speaks of a sort of awakening, or return of some sort. I can't exactly decipher it. The kicker is that variants of this legend are found throughout the aboriginal cultures of the Pacific; from the Solomons, to New Guinea, Indonesia, the Philippines, the Southeast Asian coast, and to the West along what we know as modern-day Chile, the Mexican Pacific Coast, including Baja, and up through California, Oregon, our own Washington, and BC and Alaska. Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, Marhalls, Marianas; on and on. In other words, variants on this - 'Tee-oat-Zee' - legend are found throughout the ancient coastlines, and about the island cultures of the entire Pacific Rim or 'Ring of Fire.' Now, they have done some research on this at Miskatonic U. As far as they have deduced, certain ancient seafaring sects also referred to this one as, 'Dagon.'"

	"So, what does it mean?"

	"Well, this is a very powerful being; at least in myth. It's got an almost extraterrestrial origin, as though our world might be its prison. Some of the legends allude to its having fallen to Earth, long before the advent of humanity. They say that it sleeps in the depths. It's a 'fish god from outer space,' for lack of a better short description."

	"A god? You mean like Jehovah or Jesus or something?"

	"Earth to Dexter! You're teaching at Duwamish Academy. Haven't you heard them say, that we put the 'Du' in 'WooWoo?' We specialize in the esoteric; the lunatic fringe stuff, remember? Our credits don't transfer to the broadly accepted league of colleges and universities."

	"You know, I suppose I never gave that much thought. I'm sort of on the periphery. Of course, what you're saying with regard to Duwamish Academy; it's actually the way others see us. To the contrary, we both know that, between yourself in specific, and I in general; and of course and as well in light of what our esteemed colleagues are doing; among them professors Plonkset, Rauchner, Zorn, Eaglin; doctors Arcanian, Nagy, Takasaki; that we're actually on the cutting edge of things. Given the veil of obfuscation which lends itself to the whole of our combined fields of scholarly endeavor, here at Duwamish Academy; convincing acadedmia at large of the fact of our relevance is an altogether different animal. Perhaps it is enough, at least for now; for our staff to heap accolades upon one another. Let's think of it as our waiting within the penthouse at the pinnacle of the proverbial ivory tower; biding our time until the remainder of the collegiate brigade climb those last steps in reaching our own dizzying heights; that is if they might, before everything 'out there' descends into an utter miasma." Even though he was on the phone, Dexter waved his arms around for effect.

	Kaasteen could be heard laughing a bit. "Ok. Fair enough. Let's just acknowledge that we; the combined faculty of Duwamish; each of us see our respective lines of research as valid, regardless of what conventional schools might believe. To our credit, we do inherit some of the brightest of students. We stay in business because of the trust of some real movers and shakers in the shadows. In short, it's not just our own - the staff's - confidence which keeps us going as an institution. We have students who are eager to learn, and we have financial support. So, I see your point."

	"Getting back to this 'tee-Oh-zee.' Can you elaborate?"

	"Yes. 'Tee-oat-Zee'... 'ToZ' isn't like a biblical deity. To the contrary, 'ToZ' is far more old school. Think of a powerful entity, yet without any real relationship with human beings. Instead of a sort of anthropomorphic deity; one who communicates to each of us on a personal level... imagine instead a being who exists, whether we do or not; a terrifying entity, oblivious to anything we might do. At 'best' - if you could call it that - this thing could have spawned humanity, but as a source of entertainment or a food supply, but not as a potential companion in a reciprocal relationship. Instead, imagine the mass of humanity as a kind of plankton colony about the ocean, and ToZ as a Blue Whale. Its ostensible interests would be in doing battle with other gods of similar stature, more or less equal to itself. The whole of humanity would be a slight sidelight."

	"I see. So this isn't a being to be trifled with?"

	"You could say that. Listen, I've got to continue my own project, but I'll see if I can unearth any more on this ToZ; that is, in my spare time. Are you ok with that? There isn't any pressing need here, is there?"

	"First of all, thanks for your efforts in looking into this to the extent that you already have. I will look forward to any forthcoming, further information; and will promise on my own part, not to run off and do anything foolish. When I am satisfied with the entirety of what it is I've gotten myself into, I'll let you know. In the meantime, I pledge not to tilt at any fleshy, undersea windmills; fair enough?"

	"Ok. I'll talk to you next week sometime. Take care."

	"Thanks Again. Bye-Bye."

	Dexter left the school in a mixed mood. He went back to the condo and packed some bags. There was only one more week of regular classes before final exams. Glad for for the subdued daylight; of late so occluded as it were, by the neverending parade of overcast skies; the ongoing mist and rain suited him well. By then, and of the sunny days; the pleasant, pastel orange and yellow hues of Dexter's youth had been replaced; by a whitened spectrum of unrelenting, overbearing illumination. Presently, the clouds mitigated any unfolding solar phenomenon. He wondered whether the change in the sunlight were perceived or real.
	Dexter packed, and headed to the coast. This time, he drove to the ferry terminal in downtown Seattle, and caught a ride to Bremerton. The procession of automobiles boarded and parked, filling out the car decks. Leaving frothy eddies, the colossus lurched away from the pier. Dexter navigated the companionway to an upper, passenger deck. From there, Dexter watched the water off of the starboard side. Off in the distance, a local landmark; the Space Needle poked out from behind the cityscape of downtown Seattle. He turned and spied a sort of strange woman staring at him. Dexter could only think of her as a child of the sea. He started toward her, but she hustled away. For a moment, a cluster of tourists blocked Dexter's pursuit, and by the time he had picked his way through them, she was gone. Inwardly, Dexter shrugged, returning to the outer rail and resuming contemplation of the waters below.
	It was black; or as near to being black as a color could be; without actually being black. It melded from a blue-green, somewhat sparkling surface and into a heavily darkened hue, and only a few feet below. Suffice it to say that, the water of Puget Sound is dark; as though veiling ancient secrets; perchance things hidden, which mankind were never meant to know. Could anyone, and with any great certainity; entirely dismiss the possibility of anomolies lurking about those depths? It seemed far-fetched. The best of marine scientists had catalogued every underwater peak and valley. What if somehow; some thing; or some being; or a sort of prehistoric, thalassic cyborg; had eluded the finest sensors of our modern science?
	As some small exercise of mind, Dexter weighed the possibilities. Certainly, life at Duwamish Academy had given witness to any number of strange goings-on; yet the setting had been a sort of cloistered, ivory tower environment. Outlandish ideas and concepts; large-than-life legends of ancient, extraterrestrial, godlike, seafaring beings; none of them had any place in the real world; or did they? The disaster at the debut of Dexter's own sextet had, long since given him great pause in seeking to dismiss the maddeningly circumspect proclivities of the paranormal. It seemed as well, that to simply forget altogether; the occult, metaphysical, and the esoteric; it were at such a moment of ultimate forgetting, where the same would reach out from beyond nothingness and drag Dexter, back to within the circle of looming madness.
	What of the water? As Dexter stared anew into the depths, frothy surface spirals trailed behind the craft. Could there actually be more to the Puget Sound; more than the fact that it were a conduit for pedestrian commerce; something greater than the give and take over discussions of its established ecosystems; something deeper, darker, waiting below to spill forth on some given twilight with an overarching, antediluvian terror? The plebian conversations revolved around modernizing the ferry fleet; or private citizens erecting sea walls all about the beaches, and in so doing, disrupting the known environment; port authority issues regarding cargo loads, shipping lanes, pier utilization; town hall debates over industrial pollution from the factories dotting her shores; all of which dismissed by mere omission, the possibility that entirely something else - a thing unknown amidst the bandying about of conventional wisdoms - might be in play regarding those gloomy waters.
	The ferry undulating toward its Bremerton destination, Dexter lingered on the deck. Snippets of dreams entered the periphery of his vision. There were the broken pillars, barely descript hybrid amphibians, a sort of series of inverted pyramids; and that looming fear, seemingly always just beyond any slightest perception. He caught himself and turned, heart palpitating; and seeing that the ride were nearly done, headed back to the car deck.
	Soon, the ferry had docked, and Dexter found himself driving South along the peninsula in the direction of the town of Alalo, where a sanitarium had once operated under the auspices of a certain Dr. Adair. Apparently, Lew Day's wife had been sent there to recover from tuberculosis. From the diary entries, she had died there; and once 'Papa Day' had realized the nature of the place, he'd never forgiven himself for having sent her there to begin with.
	Leaving the ferry and heading South past the naval docks, Dexter spied several ships in various states of maintenance; among them an antique Destroyer (DD) of the Fletcher class, much like the one his own father and L.S. Day had served aboard during the war. Once, most certainly proud in plying the waters of the world, she rested now; her dilapidated state but stark testament to the unyielding passages of time. Along her formerly elegant lines ran rampant, burnt sienna rust. Superstructure plexiglass panels had been removed, as had all her weapons mounts. A couple of old liberty ships sat astride the DD, neither of them in any better shape. In contrast, a modern-day missile frigate was docked a few hundred meters away, and amid the bustle of personnel seen entering and leaving the temporary gangplanks; cranes loaded her with munitions and other supplies. For a passing moment, Dexter wondered what secret cargo she might have ever seen, stowed within her decks whilst returning from the Persian Gulf, or whatever other exotic locale had been among her nautical haunts.
	Amid the abundance of dripping, lachrymose greenery, Dexter drove past vacation homes and other scenery. The rain had picked up a bit. On the water, there were craft of every size and shape. Along the shoreline, gortex-ensconced pleasure boaters buzzed about small marinas; loading their boats with provisions in preparation for nautical weekend jaunts.
	Within a short while he approached the unincorporated town of Alalo. There, the ostentatious homes of the interloping commuters puncuated streets otherwise lined by run down, unhappy houses occupied by out-of-work loggers. Here and there he passed an entire alcove or cul-de-sac of newer homes. Traffic was minimal. Soon, Dexter happened upon the hill overlooking the Colvos passage proper; parking at its foot in an empty, unattended, weed-infested gravel lot, and scanning the fence separating the same from the forlorn remains of the burned out house above. Amid the hillside, unmanicured shrubs dotted the gradual slopes, interspersed by clumps of longish grass. Blackberry brambles were the most prevelant of all. Dexter approached the locked, wrought iron main gate and wondered what his approach should be. Visually, the place seemed isolated from the rest of the town, but he yet had some sense of being under a kind of surveillance.
	Casting aside any misgivings, Dexter worked his way along the fence. Soon he was in a stand of cottonwood trees, and continuing along the fence. There were no gaps to be found. Finally, he reached the point where the fence met the water, there being able to work around it and, once inside; started up the hill. Fairly certain no one could possibly be watching, a coldish gaze yet seemed to dog him during the climb. He paused and looked out upon the Colvos passage. In contrast to the panoply of craft just to the North; the water off shore here, and opposite the former sanitarium offered up the sparse visage of a single, meandering tugboat. Upon spying the lonely craft, Dexter sensed that the unseen observer might be aboard. The tug was too far off for him to fathom anything more than a blurred sense of motion about her decks. Dexter continued the ascent. 
	After a time he was on the plateu, once shared by the old house and its outbuildings. The former outbuildings were - one and all - boarded up. Indecipherable grafitti dotted the decaying structures. The main house was yet a charred remains, with all manner of vegetation growing up from within it. Dexter climbed what was left of the front stairs, then from the porch precipice, examined the detritus within; and in so doing, was immediately struck by a series of diquieting impressions.
	There were metaphysical gleanings of prisoners - patients; doctors in sadistic repast; family visitors realizing - only too late - the depths of depravity that lurked within; involuntary electro-shock treatments, starvation therapy, icepicks, tubs full of ice water, leather confinement straps, rubber rooms, padded cells, sensory deprivation; it was all quite enough. 
	The official name of the place had been, 'Tree Hill Institute.' Later, some had referred to it as 'Deprivation Lift.' Whether real or agonizingly chimerical, Dexter had sensed enough of the place. Reeling in the face of the visions, Dexter retraced his path away, and back to the parking lot.
	He started his car and left the lot as quickly as possible. A police car was going in the opposite direction. Dexter drove past. Apparently the officer had arrived just a moment too late to press trespassing charges.  Soon Dexter had rejoined the highway, and was on the way South again, and toward the Willapa Hills, Long Beach Peninsula, and the house at Oysterville. The remainder of the trip passed without event.
	As he drove, Dexter thought of how the diary had intoned that Mrs. Day had been sent to the sanitarium at a doctor's reccomendation, sometime in the late 1950s. Soon after, the fraudulent practices of the place had been publically exposed, and it had gained the moniker, Depravation Lift; based upon Dr. Adair's unorthodox standard treatment for nearly every ailment under the sun; a literal starvation diet consisting of nothing but a daily dose of thin tomato soup, and the odd asparagus sprig. As it turned out, such mistreatment was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. In the end, the house had mysteriously been burned down; as rumour would have it, by relatives of deceased patients. Dr. Adair was run out of the country, and had sought asylum in Australia.
	Dexter reached the house in Oysterville. The contractors were due to meet him there at the first light of day. For dinner, Dexter lucked into a table for one at the restaurant overlooking the bay. Then he saw first hand, the myriad piles of shucked oyster shells dotting the mudflats. The bay was indeed shallow. What was the percentage of fresh as opposed to salt water? Of course, that must depend upon the season and the tides.
	The strange sense of underwater secrets seemed to again enthrall him, yet gently within its silken grasp. The underlying, overarching terror loomed at large, and as always; just outside his real, conscious perceptions. The strange music met his mind in a kind of sacred, slow dance. It was a song of otherworldly love... but... but; he couldn't put his finger upon it. Whilst eating from an assorted seafood plate, Dexter decided to read the Peninsula Gazette.
	An article caught his eye; something about a missing infant; a bit more about a rash of the same having occurred some decades previous. He shifted gears and purused a series of short articles about community bake sales, arcade raffle events, and the eclectic musical tastes of the calliope operator at the merry-go-round in Long Beach.
	Basking in the soft languor of the after-dinner moment, Dexter smoked a pipe out on the deck; and the rain fell, both upon and beyond its cover. One could vaguely discern a mellowing music as the droplets caressed the undulating bay. Dexter liked this place. How was it that he'd never before considered it? Had Dexter spent too much time in the city? Had his time at the Academy been a sort of diversion; a singular means of forgetting what had happened at the aborted opening of the South Seas Sextet? 
	Certainly Dexter was set for life, at least financially. At some point during the interim of his life, a sort of lost love had; long since come and gone, leaving him ultimately cold in that regard. Throughout the entirety of the ensuing decades, only Thavy had ever seemed capable of breaking through the romantic void. He ordered a pastry and finished it in the face of dusk, leaving at twilight for the house.
	When Dexter returned, there was a light on in the living room. He brought the sleeping bag, and a couple of gallons of water from the car. Upon closing with the porch steps, a song was heard from inside. It was playing on the old radio in the corner of the living room. Entering, he identified the strains of, 'Sea of Love' by Phil Phillips and the Twilights. Dexter wasn't generally fond of pop music, but some of the classics had a way with him.  
	It was a common, albeit effective device; employ a Major chord, then move to a 'Major/minor 7th' chord, two full steps above. It seemed a roundabout way of modulating, from an apparent Major key, and to its relative, harmonic minor; yet by going to the V7 chord of the latter and not the tonic or 'i' triad. In the case of 'Sea of Love,' the opening two chords were G Major, and B7. In any event, there was something about the combination which served to massage Dexter's heart with a sort of, bittersweet melancholy. Of course, wherever a given song might go next; after the pregnant combination of those two chords; such would determine the composition's overall emotional delivery. Suffice it to say that, Dexter liked it. Entering the house and crossing the living room, Dexter arrived at the old radio and turned the dial so as to try and get a better reception. Oddly, the channel was lost altogether. It was nothing but static. There were no stations to be found. Dexter turned the radio off, and wandered about the haunt.
	After sauntering about the place for awhile, he unfolded the sleeping bag on the floor and retired for the night. At the sounds of rain caressing the house; Dexter was soon fast asleep, and dreaming of Thavy; dancing in Apsara fashion, adorned as she was in her spired golden crown, fringed satin skirt and finely embroidered sort of sash top, with bejewelled forearms and wrists, rings on her fingers, and singing some sweet, siren-like otherworldly song. After awhile he was breathing beneath the water. There were the scattered, broken pillars, and the dizzying alien avenues. A sort of hybrid human species flitted about, as always; off in the distance. Just beyond lurked but inklings of that familiar, terrorific miasma.
	Awakening with a start, and to the sound of contractors at the door; Dexter arose to meet them, sliding into slip-on shoes as he went, and reaching for the jacket on the sofa nearby, then opening the door to a chorus of "Good Morning."
	"Good morning. You must be, none other than the contractors." As Dexter shook their hands and exchanged curt pleasantries, he went on. "How about,  if you all take a look around outside, and let me know what you think?" They passed a few further greetings, and the contractors disappeared around the outsides of the house. One of them brought a ladder from his truck, and inspected the roof areas. Awaiting their overall prognosis, Dexter sat on a couch.
	Some time later, they converged at the front door again, and gave their combined opinion. The foundation was in great shape. Underlying the main roof, the structure was sound, and could get by - at least for the time being - with an application of all new shingles. The porch roof, and porch itself needed full replacing. The outside walls needed quite a bit of repair, and the whole exterior should be painted. Of the old oil furnace, one of the contractors agreed to bring in someone to inspect and clean it. Also, someone would check the oil tank outside the house and make sure it was up to code. Dexter told them that, as far as the overall interior went; everything were in fairly good shape. He didn't want to - just yet - order any real indoor work. He asked them to replace the kitchen and basement appliances. If it became necessary later on, to perform any indoor renovation beyond that; Dexter would be certain to let them know.
	They went over cost and scheduling. The contractors said that, between the four of them, their assistants, and any further subcontractors; they could - if left to work around the clock - finish the work in two weeks; three weeks at the outside.
	They went to fetch some computer laptops; and from smallish, portable printers produced formal estimates, invoices, and contracts. Dexter spent the better part of an hour filling out paperwork and passing out deposit checks. They all left, and pledged to start work on Monday. In the case of the chain at the driveway entrance, and any requisite indoor access to the house, Dexter promised to drop spare keys at one of their offices in town. From there, the given contractor could pass along duplicates to the others involved. He told them as well to bring in a locksmith if they saw fit, and change the locks.
	"That was easy enough" he thought as they returned to their trucks and left. He locked up the house, and took a trip into town. Dexter was intent to leave the place for three weeks. Then the house might be ready.
	After duplicating the house keys, and dropping them at one of the contractor offices; he stopped at a small hamburger joint, and ordered a fish sandwich with fries and lemonade. The merry-go-round calliope haunted the background of his thoughts. After eating, he walked over to the go-cart track, and bought several tickets. For what they were, the rides seemed a tad expensive; but as it turned out, entirely worth the outlay. 
	With great exhilaration, he drove within the confines of the small but challenging course. Dexter raced again and again, driving amongst a steady stream of varying drivers; race to race. It seemed he could tell by looking at their faces; the tourists from the locals. Finally, in his unmitigated enthusiasm, Dexter overshot the finish line at the end of a race, skidding to a stop in front of the cashier's booth and maintenance shop. Then, one of the employees matter-of-factly escorted Dexter from the premises. The attendee, dressed in greasy coveralls; pointed to the sign listing the track rules and showed where at least two of them just had been violated. Dexter understood, and walked away satisfied; making a mental note to - one day - return to the track. 
	During the walk back to his automobile, Dexter happened upon a fortune teller booth, nondescript and nestled between a couple of arcades. Approaching; sitting across from the lady; producing some currency from his pocket; he laid it on the table before her. She looked at Dexter in a sort of distrust, but took the money anyway. The tarot woman asked for his palm. She seemed lost in thought, for an undending moment examining the hand in silence. From the distance, the calliope continued to sing. Putting down his hand, the lady produced a deck of cards, shuffling them in wordless silence.
	The tarot woman held the deck forth and said, "cut" in some foreign accent. She looked Asian. Dexter sensed that perhaps she had a sort of seagoing verse or two, written someplace into the chapters of her overall genetic book. The woman took the cards and began laying them out in a formation on the table between them. This was all punctuated by nearly indistinct "oohs" and "ahs" as she did. After a few moments of this, the lady began to speak.	
	"You, or your father. You come from far away land. You are very far from home, but almost there. You don't have to work. You do what you want. I see love, but is it really? Do you have any love, or is it - how you say - infatuation? You have to prove your love. You have to prove your love. Be brave. I can't tell you any more. Good luck." She waved Dexter away and proceeded to ignore him altogether as he backed out of the place, and resumed walking up the street. He thought to himself, "Well that was - fun; I suppose. I wonder what she was going on about?" There was a pit in his bowels.
	Sherrif Harper - the same officer who had accosted Dexter the previous weekend - pored over the cold case file. There was something about the old Day place which didn't sit right with the sheriff. The fact that, after all of the years of quiet; someone had returned to the place; it seemed to spark a sort of morbid curiousity on Harper's part. He'd already looked into Dexter Halibent's past, and found references in a news database to the disastrous debut of the sextet piece, and the accompanying fire which had brought it to a halt. Harper had looked into the records of Dexter's father - Charles Ward Halibent - and corroborated that the man had once served in the Navy with L.S. Day. Beyond that, the audit trail of the elder Halibent's post-war enterprises had gone cold. 
	Harper had then turned to investigating Dexter's place of employment - the Duwamish Academy - and could find virtually nothing on it. The only thing of even mild interest had been a sort of roundabout, school web page which offered enrollment options and nothing else. Harper had stopped short of actually filling out the online enrollment forms. The sheriff wasn't quite that curious; at least not yet; although he was fast getting there.
	He sipped on some black coffee and reviewed the cold case. Infants had gone missing, starting over fifty years previous, and here and there up until thirty years past. It had been a roughly twenty-year, ongoing serial string of disappearing babies. Between Ilwaco and the reaches of the Long Beach Penninsula inclusive, there had been nearly two dozen incidents. In every case, no perpetrator had ever been identified. It had all stopped, right around the time of Lew Day's disappearance. Harper wondered under his breath, "What kind of demented child thief uses marine fauna as a calling card?"
	There were the rumours. The same had more or less been kept from the local population at large; down through the years circulating instead, as but whispers between officers of law enforcement in the area. 
	Deputy Darwin Downs had been with the force for some fifty years. By then he was in his seventies. Being of no great spark, Darwin had always been content to fill out police station paperwork; and watch over the jail, empty as it usually was. Field work had never been his forte. In years past, he'd only grudgingly done some of the same. When the time had arrived, he'd never thought of retiring. The department had retained him at a reduced wage, and in a purely administrative capacity. Darwin called across the quiet office to the Sheriff. "You remember old man Day, right?"

	"Yeah. What about him?"

	"You remember the stories about the war, and the strange habits he brought back with him from the South Pacific?"

	"Darry, now you're talking old wives' tales. Of course I've heard the rumors..."

	"What makes you so sure they're rumors? You're sitting on an unsolved case from decades ago. Don't you think it a tad strange thet, someone returns to the house and another baby goes missing, and after thirty years with no such happenings?... thet old man Day dies thirty years before, the last one of his family wiped out, and now someone goes poking about the old place, and it happens again?"

	"Well Darry, you got me there. This is a bit odd, I'll give you that. What can we do, though? The Days were a respected family in the community. They were famous fishermen... the dad was a war hero to boot. People said things, I know. Old man Day started losing boats. The sons died. Along the way, the mother was lost to a lunatic asylum. After it all, old man Day set out to sea one morning, and his boat was found capsized after a big storm. His body was never found. Of course, that's neither here nor there. That's a regular maritime cemetery out there. You and I both know. Hell, we've both lost relatives out there... just about everyone from hereabouts has either lost someone on a boat, or someone in the logging fields or timber mills... well... you know... when they were running... some families lost people to both the sea and the forests. We can't impugn"

	"Impugn?!"

	"We can't accuse the Day family of any crime. I admit though; this whole thing is strange. It doesn't sit well with me, and I'm sure it bugs you, too."

	"I lost a nephew to... thet... thing... or whatever it was. I had a mind there for awhile to kill Papa Day myself. There was something about him, and I didn't like it."

	"You shouldn't say that stuff to me. Keep it to yourself. You're like a brother, but... just... just calm down!"  Sheriff Harper guzzled his coffee. He lit up a filterless cigarette. "Listen, we're gonna keep an eye on that place. You and me. We'll check in on ol', 'Professor Halibent' from time to time. We don't have to drive right up and make ourselves known. We can just park a ways down the road, and take a quiet walk... sort of up the driveway. We can ask neighbors to listen. Maybe, just maybe we can tap his land line. He said he was getting a phone installed."

	"Now I'm the one who should be telling you what's illegal, but I won't. The baby case has set ill with me for so long. Odd enough, this could be a break in the case. It's a crying shame that it's costing another baby for it  to happen. Anyhow, you do whatever you want. I won't say a word. As for what I said, I'd be obliged if you kept it just between us, just like you said."

	"Darry, you got it. Let's agree on one thing though. First of all, I'm your boss. Second, I might bring a couple of the other officers into this, as needed. I've got a strange, bad feeling about all of it, and somehow I think it might become necessary."

	"Ok. You make the call. I'll your - Sheriff Jack Harper's - deputy and not some old, vigilante wannabe."

	"It's a deal there, Darry. Now get me another coffee. It looks like it's going to be a long night. There's a lot here to sort through."

	Deputy Downs fetched Sheriff Harper a coffee, as the latter got back to piecing together the police records. It was dusk, but it looked as though he might be there until after midnight. Saturday night poker with the boys was out. Harper sent Downs ahead without him. "Just tell them I'm under the weather." Soon, Harper was alone with stacks of aged police records, and his thoughts. He certainly had a notion or two.
	Back at the house in Oysterville, Dexter hunkered down for the Saturday night. This time, he tried one of the beds; there in one of the smaller upstairs bedrooms. After checking it for bugs or whatever else; satisfied in its serviceable state, he slept in the same. It was that familiar, restless, dreamy sleep. The terror gnawed around the edges of his consciousness, yet never struck to his core. He awoke to an ethereal Sunday morning, watching dawn come and pass from his warmed cocoon inside the sheets and blankets. It continued to vaguely tweak his outlying sense of perception, that the house were apparently liveable after thirty years of disuse. It played within the cobwebs of his mind; the very real possibility that the place were somehow haunted. It was raining again as he made the bed, packed up his few things, and headed back to Seattle. Without incident, Dexter drove back to the condo near Alki Beach. In the afternoon he took a long nap. 
	The phone rang. He picked it up, and Thavy was on the line.

	"Young lady, I can't have students calling me at home. It is rife with impropriety."

	"You mean you don't want it... you don't like it? It's not right?"

	"Yes, Thavy... it's not right."

	"I think you know, what is right. Let me tell you story."

	"Ok... Thavy... I'm listening. You tell me a story. What have I got to lose?"

	"There is a lot to lose. That is not my story though. I was born in Cambodia. It was after the war. My country was very sad. I don't think you know. You can't know... how it was. It stayed with me. I come to America, but it stay with me. I never forget... other Cambodian... my people... they say I crazy. They say I am crazy. They wonder why I study music; why I go to Duwamish Academy."

	"You love music, right?"

	"Yes, I love music. You see, that's not enough. Cambodian family wants to see family member making money... money for family. If not making money, then Cambodian woman marry man who makes money. Then Cambodian woman make baby. Sometimes, Cambodian woman make babies, and money. Sometimes, in America... Camodian man lost... depressed... sad. America not like Cambodia. Before I was born... my family work for Lon Nol. My parents had good life. You know Lon Nol? After Khmer Rouge came to Phnom Penh, my parents very poor. My parents lose all family... when I was born... we were so poor. You would not believe. You cannot know. I hope you never know. People say, America bomb Cambodia... unbelievable amount... too many bombs... then, Khmer Rouge take everything. Khmer Rouge destroy my country. It's still not right. Even today, it's not right. It makes me cry."

	"I don't know... don't know what to say. You just... talk until you're finished talking. You just...say what you want to say."

	"I can't talk any more about sad, sad Cambodia. I have a dream. Maybe it wasn't you, but it was someone like you. You're the closest thing. You remind me of dream. I dance for you. You enjoy it. I sing for you, and you love me. We stay together, beneath the sea. It is there though."

	"Wait a minute. What is there?"

	"I can't tell you. I think it's ok. Still, it scare me. You need to be brave. Are you afraid of me because I still young? You think I going to attract you, and then... when I win your heart... I dump you. I know. That's what you think. You can't think that. Even if that's what I do; you have to be brave. This is for you. You have to believe. Let me lead you. I know, nobody ever think that. Nobody ever think a woman lead a man. Don't be that way. Wherever you go, take me with you. They say I crazy. No Cambodian man want me now. I don't want Cambodian man... I don't want American man. I want you. You decide. Do you want me? Don't say now. You decide later. You think about it." She whispered, "Good-bye" and hung up the phone.

	He checked, and the caller ID function was blocked. After the phone conversation, Dexter wondered if Thavy would even show up for the last week of class before finals. For the first time in a long time, Dexter Halibent was at an utter loss. He'd not suffered such emptiness since the disaster of the South Seas Sextet. His mind raced within the void of confusion. How had Thavy gotten his unlisted number? She looked like him. That is to say, Thavy and he had sort of the same body shape. It was uncanny. The head, the chest, the arms, the legs. It was like they were blood relatives; yet they had been conceived and raised worlds apart. If nothing else, the next couple of weeks would prove to be interesting; of that he was fairly certain. Dexter went back to sleep, and fell into a deep, dreamless state. It were as though he were floating within a nothingness. There were no scenes, or movies, or sensations; only that formless void; perchance a sort of Ain Soph.
	In the morning, Professor Halibent picked up the diary on the way out the door. Circumstances were spinning rapidly out of control. Dexter decided that Dr. Klinkit should be given a chance to weigh in on the narrative. He dropped the book off at her office. Kaasteen told Dexter that, with finals arriving only a week hence, that she wouldn't get back to him before then. Dexter assured her that he could wait, realizing as well that there were no need to go back to the house on the peninsula; at least not until after finals. Hopefully, by then the remodel would be done. Before that morning's class, Dexter went to his office and called one of the contractors. 
	He asked the contractor to contact a local landscaper; to trim back the overgrowth encroaching about the place; prune the trees, tidy up the lawn. Further, Dexter specified a new gate for the front driveway. The sprawling blackberry brambles about the periphery of the yard could be left for later. Beyond the new appliances, Dexter also requested a bit of interior work; that the drapes and bed linens might be changed. The checkbook was wide open. Somehow he trusted the locals with the work, and in their eventual fair billing for the same.
	Classes went without much event. Professor Halibent spent the week in review. He touched upon some of the more exotic scales found outside of the Western 12-tone system. From time to time, there was yet that gleam in Thavy's eyes. There were as well those forbidden dreams of her at night.
	During the off-hours, he wondered what life with Thavy might be like. She was nearly thirty years his junior. What if it were really true, that no one of Cambodian birth wanted her? What if Thavy really wanted to stay with him, and it wasn't just a setup for that proverbial, sucker's fall? His own yearnings for her were overwhelming, or so it seemed. Was Dexter's mind playing tricks? The love of an older man with a younger woman seemed so improbable. What could he have possibly done to have deserved Thavy's  possible want, exhibited as such were by her undeniable attention? She was too good to be true. Maybe Thavy and Dexter could reach a sort of understanding. Perhaps they could live together, and make music. She certainly had a voice beyond compare. It would, with near certainty translate to something special from the standpoint of actual song. From the signals Thavy sent him during class that week, she was simply waiting for Dexter to make some kind of decision. That knowing look of hers; off and on again as it were, bespoke that - if need be - she could outlast him. All of it served to give Dexter pause regarding his own life. He was already fifty-six years old. In the grand scheme of humanity at large, Dexter had already lived a long life. Maybe he should buy a ring, and ask for Thavy's hand in marriage. What could he possibly fear?
	In the Psycho Acoustics 100 class, they had spent the week in review. Dexter had also previewed the Fall Semester; among other things touching upon alternate systems of musical temperament, and those notes found outside of traditional, 12-tones as found on the standard piano. The rest of the material would have to wait for the level 140 Psycho Acoustics course. Friday was open. With the ensuing, final classroom session empty of course material, Dexter surprised himself in deciding to present the strange South Seas instrument before the students. 
	On Friday, Dexter arrived early at his office, and tuned the thing up. It resonated with that watery, extraterrestrial sense. To some small dismay, he could not quantify it. On the other hand, unquantified music had a quality all its own. The world was full of base and banal music, easily quantified as to its physiological effects. In contrast, Dexter's strange South Seas instrument whispered of some hidden milieu, cautiously revealing itself to the human ear.
	In class, Dexter gave the instrument a brief introduction; announcing that it had been brought back by his father from the South Pacific after the war. A student in the back of the room asked, "what war?" to which Dexter gave a brief overview of the battles between the USA and Japan, some 65 years previous. Sensing the students' collective, cascading loss of attention (and to an even greater extent than usual), he readied the instrument. Thavy lit up in anticipation. She was sort of glowing.
	Dexter began to play, and a strange sense set in over the room. The music carried him away. Somehow, Thavy and Dexter were connected. It were as though no one else was there. The notes spoke of that far off place, yet so at the center of everything unimaginable. Outside of Thavy, student reaction was mixed. Some found the music odd but interesting. Others drowned it out with the sound of their personal music boxes. It drove one of them into a fit of madness.
	The lone sound of the strange stringed instrument was broken by the distraught yelps of a girl in the back row. She started screaming, "Oh My God... He's a... He's a.." and she pointed at Professor Halibent. "He's a... aaarghaaahaaah!!! Make it stop! Make it stop!" Setting the instrument down and reaching behind his desk, Dexter pressed the emergency button. For better or for worse, these sorts of incidents weren't entirely out of the ordinary for Duwamish Academy. At some point, every classroom had been fitted with a 'panic button,' and trained staff were hired to monitor the same during school hours. As Dexter tried to approach the girl to calm her down, she stood and ran. In a frenzied flight she knocked over empty desks. She wouldn't let Dexter near. The other students sort of retreated from her maddened path.
	Moments later a couple of trained staff showed up. One of them produced an odd-looking device, and pointed it at her. She went silent, and fainted to the floor. Together, the two of them picked the student up and carried her from the classroom.
	As he went around, righting the overturned desks; Dexter sought to reassure the remaining students. "Well... eh... I'm sorry to see that. I'm... not... certain... what she was going on about. Somehow... it isn't everyone's cup of... tea. I hope... she's ok. In any event, that must conclude my demonstration of the instrument from the Solomon Islands. Class is dismissed. I will see you for the final, next Tuesday. Enjoy yourselves this weekend. Don't spend too much time studying. Be sure to stop and smell the flowers."
	In a chatter, the students rose and exited. Thavy lingered behind, and waited until the classroom was empty, save for she and Dexter.
	"Professor?"

	"Yes, Thavy."

	"You keep thinking. I will wait for you. Decide if you want me to lead you. Decide if you want to go home; with me."

	"Thavy, I..."

	"I know. You are confused. It's ok. I will wait. I know now. I know what you think. You decide. Let me know. Sometime. Have a good weekend, ok?"

	Thavy turned and sashayed toward the door, her hands making Apsara motions as she went. Thavy turned again in the doorway and said, "I love... your music" then disappeared around the corner.
	Dexter spent the weekend on a drive around the state. He headed North, up I-5 and across Highway 20 at Diablo Dam; drove South and stayed at Lake Chelan for the night; on Saturday, meandered around the Eastern half of the state; drove to Yakima, and stayed there overnight; heading back to Western Washington on Sunday along route 12; and finally, North along I-5. As Dexter passed through Olympia and Tacoma, he wondered how the contractors were doing. He didn't want to deal with them; not until they were finished with the work. Dexter would check back with them after finals week. The trip East had posited an, out of sorts air. Perhaps it were the despotic sunshine of the Eastern half of the state; the lack of precipitation; or being away from the salt water.
	In any event, once Dexter were back in the lowlands of the Puget Sound basin, things seemed tenable. On Sunday, it continued to alternate between mist and rain. That evening, Dexter watched the Sound from his deck; smoking a pipe and wondering about Thavy. Of course he had to ask her. No matter what might happen, no woman had ever spoken to him like that. Thavy's age couldn't be a factor in the equation. Not only had love whispered between them, but Thavy herself had spoken. She was waiting for Dexter. It was an unreal scenario. Dexter decided that, if Thavy were ultimately to destroy him; then so be it. How bad could it be, anyway? She might cuckold him and then ask for a divorce, and make him buy her a house and pay child support. Dexter thought it a risk worth taking. Besides, in actuality things might go much more swimmingly than such a 'worst case scenario.'
	Dexter decided to buy Thavy a ring. Monday being an off day, he would purchase it then. Somehow, Dexter would have to find the place and time to ask her for a dinner date. It would have to happen on Tuesday, at the final exam. If Dexter could ask Thavy to dinner; then to marry him; they could get married; and move - together - to Oysterville for the Summer. 
	Monday morning, Dexter Halibent bought a ring for Thavy Sokhom. Then he went to visit the President of the Academy, the esteemed Dr. Hathaway. The appointment had been made, earlier that Morning. Presently, it was just past lunch hour. The office was dimly lit, yet one could discern a large collection of books aligning the otherwise unspectacular walls.
	"Have a seat Dexter." The bespectacled Doctor lit up a cigarette. "What can I do for you?"

	"I realize this is short notice, and fully appreciate your readiness to meet with me. I don't know where to begin, or what to say." Dexter was at a sort of loss for words. After a pregnant pause, the Doctor urged him to open up, and say whatever it were that was on his mind.

	"Dexter, I've been here since you arrived; what was it, fifteen years ago? Did you know that I'm a fan of your music? I have many of your recording releases, and listen to them from time to time. I've got no real favorites, but enjoy them all. They so fit with the spirit of this Academy. Did you know that it was on the strength of your compositional endeavors, that I took the chance in hiring you? You've been a great teacher. I'm not sure, just how much you might be aware; of how your students have appreciated you over the years. Having been a teacher myself, I know from experience that it's sometimes difficult to tell. All of that aside, you have my trust. There is nothing you can say which will either shock or offend me, rest assured."

	"First of all, what about the girl; Sandra May; the one who had the episode on Friday? Is she all right?"

	"Yes, she's fine. We've put her under expert care. I'm not sure exactly what happened to her, but after a short time, and with the right curative techniques, she seemed to regain her faculties. She is in such good spirits, that she will be able to participate in exams this week. We expect her back on campus by tomorrow. Luckily, her schedule is open today. Fair enough?"

	"I'm heartened to hear that. The instrument, I don't know exactly what to make of it."

	"There were mentions of that amongst the staff; and intonations of an earlier incident with one of your compositions, as presented in public for the first time; a sextet?"

	"Yes, the South Seas Sextet. Somehow, the venue caught fire. Luckily, no one was hurt, but the performance was cancelled."

	Hathaway shot Dexter a playful look. "I know a little about odd, sort of alien artifacts. Perhaps you simply haven't found the proper milieu, out of which the instrument might shine. On that topic, I would encourage you to hang on to the thing." Hathaway's countenance went serious. "When the time is right, you will know to play it." Suddenly inscrutable, Hathaway continued, "Until that moment, stick with the so-called conventional instruments, ok? You're an absolute wizard with the keyboards, and synthesizers, and all of that computer music stuff."

	Dexter seemed to weigh the doctor's advice. "All right then; let me get to the point of this visit." Doctor Hathaway waited. Dexter continued, "I'm in love. I want to marry her."

	Hathaway smiled a generous smile, and asked Dexter who the lucky woman might be.

	"That's the problem. She is a student."

	"Ok. Stop right there. Let me say it. This is not without precedent. At Duwamish Academy, age doesn't matter. We don't censure teaching staff who fall in love with students. We only ask that it is a sincere relationship, and not a fling. Short trysts are so often harmful for everyone concerned; both the lovers, and those around them. I trust that this something more; much more. You intend to stay with this woman? Are you absolutely certain that this student of yours might reciprocate your longings, at least in some mutually beneficial manner; that is to say, you've met your match?"

	"Yes... she's... she's actually talking to me... and asking me to decide. I've arrived at the point where I intend to marry her. That is the last hurdle. I've got to ask her, and that will be the moment of truth."

	"Wait. That will be _a_ moment of truth; perhaps not _the_ moment of truth. You know my own attitude regarding that; there are many moments of truth along the way in life, but no defining, singular moment of truth. Yet, I don't mean to quibble with you. I trust that you are in tune with what I'm saying. I only wanted to clarify a small point."

	"Yes, you're right. I only wanted your approval for this marriage proposal. The last thing I want is trouble. Also, I want you to marry us. I know you're a sort of shaman, with a license to perform marriages; correct?"

	As though lost in deep thought, Dr. Hathaway tapped his chin, and let out a big breath. "I can do that. I will do that. Consider it done. Let me know when and where. We can do it any time, as long as it is outside of school hours. Love knows no real schedule. I believe that, the sooner you resolve this - one way or another - the better. When do you plan to ask her?"

	"Tomorrow, after finals. I'm going to ask her to lunch or dinner, then spring the question."

	"That's all well and good. Let me know as soon as you can. We can take care of this any time after that. There's just one thing..."

	"Yes?"

	"Her circumstances must fit. She needs to agree that I should wed you. I mean, after she first agrees to marry you; carts and horses and all of that, you know. That is to say; she could agree to marry you, but not by me. You need to find out."

	"I think... I think that she might avail herself to this. From what she has told me - and assuming she's sincere, which I believe she is - there isn't much of a family for her to turn to. She's one of our immigrant students. She seems fairly well alone, here in the States."

	"Do you mind telling me now, exactly who she is?"

	Realizing that Dr. Hathaway had more or less intimate knowledge of everyone in the smallish student body, Dexter told the doctor then, "Thavy Sokhom; you know, from Cambodia?"

	By then, the Doctor was positively beaming. "Ah. Thavy Sokhom. You know, she looks kind of like you. As odd as that may sound..."

	"No, not odd at all really; I've noticed the same."

	"Yes, she looks like you; the same body shape; of course in a sort of reciprocal fashion, she as female and you as male. Your body types, your countenances; the shapes you share in common. I'll tell you something. She is alone here. She lives alone. For whatever reason, it appears as though her extended family has shunned her; those who are here in the States at least. You seem determined; steadfast in this. You've weighed the eventual possibilities, even the unwanted outcomes. You've done this, of course; right?"

	"Yes. I think I can handle whatever happens. I need to ask her. She's got to decide. She talks to me. No one has ever talked to me that way. My life has been without love for so long. I dream of her, you know?"

	"You dream of her. She speaks to you. Do you ever think of anyone else? You're not surfing the internet, looking at all kinds of pictures; you're not one of those, are you? You don't look around at all?"

	"That's just it. I don't surf the internet. I use the computer to make and distribute music. I don't look at pictures of women. I don't persue any of the actual women who pass through my life. I've been stone cold in that regard for years. Thavy is the first I've considered in seemingly forever."

	"That settles it. You ask her. You have my full approval. Let me know. Will that be all?" Dr. Hathaway reached out to shake Dexter's hand. As they shook, the Dr. put his other hand over their handshake, as if to intone a sort of instant, newfound affection. "Let me tell you something," the Dr. said.

	"Yes?"

	"Are you aware, that in this day and age. When a - 'man' - is without a woman; that in virtually every case of the same he is either homosexual, or addicted to some sort of erotica? The fact that you remain heterosexual, and you don't look at pictures of women; that you don't ogle the women in your life; all of it says a lot about you. It says that your love for Thavy is probably true. I can't tell you with much certainty about her; not beyond what we've just discussed. But you; you are an atypical male in this 'modern' world as we call it. I mean that in the best, most respectful way possible. Good luck in asking Thavy."

	"Thank You. I'll get back to you, probably tomorrow afternoon or evening."

	"Ok, see you later. Oh, one last thing..."

	Dexter turned before the office door, "Yes?"

	"Did you know that I'm married to a woman from Taiwan? She's twenty years my junior. She started out as my secretary. We've been together for over twenty-five years. She's approaching fifty years of age. There are some unique obstacles in such a relationship, but I think you can handle it. It might be the best thing for you."

	"Thanks again, Doctor." 

	Dexter left the office on a cloud. He felt like a young boy, pining in anticipation for a first love. He had the approval of the school president! Now, Dexter simply needed to ask Thavy for her hand in marriage. He went back to his place, and worked on some computerized musical compositions, then fell into a deep sleep as the rain played a gentle song upon the skylights of the condo. More than ever, he saw Thavy in his dreams. Amidst that haunted music, She held him in her arms. She whispered candy-like musical phrases into his rapt ears. That constant terror loomed, yet imperceptibly in the distance. They swam together amidst an ancient, sunken city.
	Tuesday, after the Psycho Acoustics 100 course exam; Thavy lingered again after the others had filed out. Dexter thanked his stars, then nervously asked her for a lunch or dinner date. She replied, "What do you think? Should we go to dinner? I know a Cambodian restaurant... on Empire Way... they have a lot of Cambodian business there. I come to your office.... after my last exam... maybe four o'clock." Thavy was standing so near to him then. Her breasts heaved, and teased his chest as they committed that ever-so-light, frottage. She backed away with a mischevious grin, and walked out the door.
	Attempting to while the expectant hours away, Dexter spent the rest of the morning and the afternoon in his office. He read this book; and that book; then graded exams from the 100-level course; passing out a lot of good grades along the way. Sympathetic in particular to the plight of Sandra May, he gave her an automatic A. Anyone who could break down like that, and recover within days as the young lady had; deserved an 'A' regardless. Besides, Dexter felt responsible for the overall incident.
	It was 3:45 pm. There was a knock on his office door. Expecting Thavy, and calling out for her to enter, then spying who was actually there; a deflated Dexter attempted to greet Doctor Klinkit. She was a bit taken aback by his disappointed countenance, but proceeded despite the same. Kaasteen stepped into the office, and closed the door behind her.
	"I need to talk to you. It's about that diary..."

	"I'm afraid that this is an awkward moment. Can it wait until tomorrow, or later in the week? I could stop by your own office, and..."

	"You don't understand!" she whispered in apprehension. "You need to know about this."

	"Ok, I suppose I've got a few minutes. In any event I absolutely must take care of some business. I've got a 4 o'clock appointment. In the meantime, what have you found?"

	"Long Beach has a history. Actually, the entire surrounding area does. I didn't mean to dig into this, but after deciphering some of the glyphs in the margins of the diaries, it dragged me headlong into an investigation."

	"Please, do tell."

	"Well.. it appears to involve Lew Day, and something he brought back from the South Pacific, after the war. It involves that ToZ character, and a cult or sect surrounding the same; something which has been passed on for literally thousands of years, back into pre-history; by the locals of those islands. Are you aware..."

	"Aware?"

	"...aware of the rash of infant chidren who went missing around Long Beach, decades ago?

	A sort of dismal light went on inside Dexter's mind. "Oh... there was an article in a recent edition of the Peninsula Gazzette." Putting 2 and 2 together, he went on, "Let me guess. It's started again, hasn't it? Somehow Lew Day is on the periphery of this - for lack of a better word - phenomenon; the fact of this string of missing children. Let me further speculate that this spectre had taken a... thirty-year hiatus."

	"Check, check, and check... Something is going on there. To be fair, I'm not convinced that it has anything to do with Mr. Day or his legacy. It's just that, coincidences point to him. It seems he used to... in the bars around Ilwaco and Long Beach... spin yarns about his time in the South Pacific, and after a few drinks he would be bragging that some fish god had given him prosperity. Amongst the locals, he gained a reputation as being quite the character. When his wife went mad, and he started losing boats, and sons, and babies went missing; some of the locals began to take it all the wrong way. Apparently, he withdrew from the drinking haunts, and kept within his ever-shrinking family and business circles."

	"Where do you come up with this information? It seems you've talked to an actual old-timer or two."

	"Well, there's a lot out there on the internet. After some electronic digging, and a few phone calls, I put a few pieces together. Here is what I'm really saying: I think that the house is harmless. I mean, I'm going to give the place the benefit of the doubt. If you like, I can put you in contact with a Dr. Benjamin Fisher. He has sensors and such. He's a 'professional ghost hunter' if you will. He comes highly recommended."

	"Let me consider it..."

	"Ok, setting questions of the house aside for a moment. What concerns me is that, some of the older locals in particular might be wary of any new occupant to the place. Maybe you can work to gain their trust. Just..."

	"Just what?"

	"Well, just keep your eyes open. There may be something very strange going on there. Be alert. Watch your step. yada yada."

	"I will keep my eyes open, and watch where I'm going. That's a promise."

	"Just remember; the old man knew something. He was involved in something. He brought something back from the Solomons. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine." She handed him the diary. "Take care."

	Just then, Thavy appeared in the doorway. It was 3:50 pm. "Oh, am I too early?" Taken aback, Dr. Klinkit turned to face her. Dexter detected the hint of a scowl on Kaasteen's face. Thavy's scent intermingled with the air of the office. Clearly, such was the scent Dexter had originally anticipated, not five minutes previous.

	"Dr. Klinkit, Hi." Thavy smiled at her. Kaasteen Klinkit tried to smile back, but the feigned aspect of it could not be hidden. Her dislike of Thavy was barely masked. The sort of ominous, budding joviality of just a moment before had been unceremoniously nipped by the sudden appearance of Thavy. Dexter wondered what had ever passed between them. "I was just leaving" Kaasteen said as she waved good-bye to Dexter, and made her way past Thavy, and through the door.

	"I think she don't like me. I don't know why." Thavy looked sad.

	"I have no idea. Have you taken any of her classes? How would she know you, otherwise?"

	"I had one class. It was last year. Somehow, she don't like me. Do you like her, or do you like me?" Thavy sat on his desk. Her form gently shadowed him.

	"Uh... I like you both... that is to say, that... uh... she is a friend, but you're a special friend."

	"Oh, Thavy is Professor's special friend." She smiled, and her eyes gleamed as she tickled the desktop with her manicured nails, creating a sensuous, rhythmic tapping; causing Dexter to wonder how those same nails might feel... on his..."

	As though launched out of his chair, Dexter said, "Thavy, let's go." He stood with a jolt. "Show me where this restaurant is."

	"Ok. Do you think people talk about us, if they see us leaving together?"

	"Thavy, to be honest I don't care. I like you. I really, really like you. You know that teacher-student relations; under the right circumstances in any event; such teacher-student relations are ok within certain parameters of the school handbook?"

	"Yes. I know. I want to make sure that you know, too." She smiled again.

	They exited the building, he following as she led him to her car. "I need to drive to my place. Then we go to the restaurant together, in your car."

	"Ok. Show me the way."

	They got into their separate vehicles and threaded their way through the industrial district, onto the West Seattle Freeway, and then continued East over I-5 and up to Beacon Hill. She lived by the golf course. Now Dexter knew where she lived. They were definitely making progress. She parked her car, and then sashayed to his, and got in. 
	They found the restaurant, some miles to the South. It was on Empire Way. As they arrived at the locale, Dexter instantly thought of it; the neighborhood as a 'little SE Asia;' a small Phnom Penh, Vientiane, and Saigon rolled into one. It struck him, how the alphabets varied so. The Vietnamese script adorning certain stores looked almost European. Apparently they'd once spoken Chinese, but the French colonists had sort of foisted 'their very own Viet language' upon them. On other storefronts, The Laotian and Cambodian script appeared as Indo-Asian. The Sanskrit influence was readily apparent in both, perhaps slightly moreso in the Cambodian.
	They entered the Cambodian Restaurant. He held the door for her and then followed. A pretty hostess in a sort of folk garb seated them both. She brought them water.
	Dexter looked across at Thavy. He couldn't wait another moment. His mind raced. His heart seemed to skip several beats. His mind reeled. He didn't know what to do. There was really no way to practice for this. His confidence was high enough that he decided to pop the question. Seated as Thavy were on the bench opposite, Dexter got up from the booth and knelt at her feet.
	He pulled out the ring and asked her, "Thavy Sokhom, will you marry me?" For a seeming eternity, She sat silent. A grin grew upon her face. Employees and patrons of the restaurant craned their necks to see what the commotion was about. Suffering through the longest moment, Dexter realized how perfect Thavy's face was. It wasn't that she was perfect, really. He didn't know what the word, 'perfect' actually meant. It's just that, he had never seen a woman as beautiful in countenance as Thavy Sokhom.
	She said, "Yes." Thavy held out her hand, and he put the ring upon her finger, kissing the same hand. He paused again. It seemed they stared at one another for several moments, then the rest of the place broke out in applause. He got up and sat aside Thavy on the bench, rather than across from her. The two of them faced together, into a corner; away from the rest of the patrons as they went back about their own culinary business.
	A waitress arrived at the booth, handed them menus and; in Khmer told Thavy that dinner was on the house. Thavy turned to him in mischief and told him. "Dinner free... because we get married... wait... I can't marry you until you pass a test. Can you pass test?"
	Dexter was taken aback. "What sort of test did you have in mind?" 
	
	"I order food. You have to eat food with me. If you can eat the same food, then we really get married."

	"Then there are to be no more tests, correct? We will really get married?"

	"Yes... no more test... that is..." and she almost laughed as her smile was so expansive, "that is... until we are married... then I test you some more. I test you forever. And you... you love it!"

	Then, Thavy most definitely had him. He did love it. Dexter loved everything about her.

	"Think... your biggest test... your forever test... is that..."

	"Yes?"

	"You always love me.... no matter how old... you always love me... I know you think I beautiful... beautiful... now... but all woman get old one day... you love me then... you love me forever... you promise me... forever and forever... you love me... no matter what... you love me... you know what woman need? You know what Thavy need?"

	"Uh..."

	"Thavy need Dexter to love her... Dexter love Thavy forever."

	"I love you. Thavy Sokhom, I love you."

	"That's good. I think we be happy together. Now, I order food."

	The waitress returned, and Thavy ordered the food in Khmer. Thavy and Dexter spent awkward minutes waiting for the same. In the meantime, Thavy asked Dexter about certain English words. It was immediately apparent that, among other things he was going to help Thavy with her English; and she would teach him Khmer. She was going to sing for him. They were going to make music together. The food arrived. Since Thavy had ordered in Cambodian, he had no idea what might arrive at the table. There was a large bowl which wafted of curry. On the side was a fish dish, slathered in a chili pepper sauce. Another plate held spring rolls.

	"We have chicken curry, Tilapia fish, and spring roll. This is not Thai spring roll, but Viet style instead. Camdobidan call it, 'nime'... in English, I think it spelled, n-a-m." They ate out of the dishes together. It was spicy, hot. Dexter was already used to this. He loved chilis and ginger, garlic and tumeric. For most natives of the USA, this was odd; but at some point along the way, Dexter had gained a real taste for zesty foods. As a matter of fact, by that point in his life; Dexter couldn't live without the likes of chili.
	"It's 5-star. You like it? You pass the test? We can eat the same food? I can't be with someone who don't like 5-star." She was playful. Thavy could see that the food didn't bother Dexter, and to her delight he was quite enjoying the same. Their noses ran and their eyes watered a bit, and they looked at each other and laughed, gathering napkins and wiping the watery features of their faces.
	"Yes, it appears as though I've passed your test. I like spicy. Cambodian food is very good."
	They rubbed their noses together, stopping just short of a kiss. He gently stroked her hair, and she ran her nails up and down his arm. The waitress re-appeared and spoke, "Seems like you two in love. You go to Cambodia? You stay here, or you go there? Maybe you travel, back and forth? Oh... it not my business. You seem so happy. I hope you stay together. You know, real love knows no age. It make me happy, just to look at you."
	Then, the waitress and Thavy engaged in some animated conversation in Cambodian, as Dexter looked on and listened to the musicality of their intermingling voices. He couldn't possibly care what they were saying; it was the sheer honey dripping from their words which so moved him to a sort of aural ecstasy.
	The waitress retreated, and returned with tiny glasses of dark coffee. It was thick and black, bitter but sugary to the taste. The style of coffee was a holdover from the days of 'French Indochina.' Dexter told himself that he could get used to this. True to the waitress' word, they were given the complimentary dinner. Dexter reached to tip her from his wallet, but Thavy interceded. "You can't do that... not now... when they say free, they mean free... it's ok... maybe someday we come back, then we spend a lot of money, and leave a big tip... today.. no tip.. maybe tomorrow or the next day... big tip...ok?"
	"I understand."
	They got up together, and left arm in arm. Thavy had her ring. They were engaged. He loved her. That was all that mattered. Dexter thought, "A man needs to love a woman. A woman needs in turn to be loved." For the first time in a long time, his life was somehow complete. The future held forth a certain promise.
	They drove back to her place. Thavy led Dexter to the door. Amid the drizzled, silvery haze of the enchanted milieu, they came together in a kiss on her porch. It was a long, lingering, tender kiss. He yet had that sense of insecurity. She was so young. Her blossoming scent indicated that she enjoyed his contact. She pulled away and whispered, "I go inside now. I will call you, and leave my number on your machine. We can't go further... not tonight. It's enough for you?"
	Taken aback, he managed a "yes" as they hugged, and Dexter turned and left as the door of the house opened and shut behind her. As he arrived back at the condo, the rain intensified as twilight closed in upon the locale. As Thavy had said, her phone number was on his answering machine. 
	It was all he could do to keep from calling her for the remainder of the week. Each night as Dexter slept, a sense of melancholy mingled with undeniable duty hovered over and within him. The entirety of his consciousness was like a sort of forlorn, silvery, spectral canvas; a nascent picture painting, upon which his unmitigated, multi-hued desires for Thavy wandered in aimless anticipation. Something harkened to a day long past, where chivalry had once been the order of the day. It entered Dexter's mind that he had become Thavy's slave. She was a queen, and he; a sort of court jester. At least a part of it had to do with their age difference. It would seem that, in many cases of a much older man getting with a young woman, that it was the price to be paid by the man; that such were the requirement of approach, if not actual entry. They could never be equals. Dexter was at Thavy's mercy. He set himself upon that uncharted course of being the best companion he could, whatever else might happen as they would go forward together.
	On Wednesday, Dexter notified Dr. Hathaway of the engagement. Dr. Hathaway asked Dexter to make marriage plans, and to call back. Dexter oversaw another final exam on Thursday, then finished the class grades for both of the courses which he taught. Friday evening, Dexter called Thavy; as she had specfied.
	
	"Dexter?"

	"Yes, Thavy. How are you?"

	"I've finished all exams. It looks like I did ok. How about you?"

	"You did well on your exam in our class. I trust that you did every bit as well in the others."

	"I think so. We need to see each other. I will come over. Tell me where you live. It looks like Alki."

	"Yes, it's in Alki." He gave her the address and hung up the phone. She arrived an hour or so later. Dexter let her in, and they sat on the couch together.

	"Do you mind if I smoke this pipe?"

	"It's ok. You smoke. Don't blow it at me, though." She smiled, and so  did he. As he filled the pipe, Thavy watched; then she reached for the lighter on the coffee table, and gave Dexter a light.

	After a pause, Dexter began the conversation. "We need to discuss our marriage. The school president - Dr. Hathaway - is licensed to perform marriage ceremonies. Would that be all right with you?"

	"Yes, but let me bring some of my friends from Cambodia. They have passports. Can you fly them in for the wedding... and fly them back after the wedding? We do three day ceremony, but simple. We mix Cambodian and American ceremony. I already have plan."

	Dexter hadn't anticipated this turn of events. That Thavy had thought about the wedding didn't surprise him, yet; of the idea of friends from Cambodia, he was thrown for a slight loop. True enough, Thavy had seemed sort of alone here in the States, but the possibility of friends in attendance; friends from Cambodia; hadn't previously occurred to him. "I suppose I could do that."

	"They're dancers, like me. We dance after the vows, when we celebrate."

	"Oh. Actually, that sounds wonderful." He was vaguely considering what he'd gotten himself into, yet by the same token was determined to see it through. After mulling it for a few moments as they spoke, Dexter decided that the idea of Thavy and her friends dancing at the wedding appealed greatly to him.

	"We go and talk to Mr. Hathaway. You make appointment. You call him. We have a Khmer wedding, only simple. It's ok if he marry us, but we say vows in Cambodian. Let's sit together now."

	They sat together, then fell asleep on the sofa, side by side. In the dawn light they woke up together. Their dreams had been of the sea.

	"I go now. You make appointment with Hathaway. You let me know."

	Awhile after she left, he called Dr. Hathaway again. It being the Saturday immediately following finals week, and expecting to leave a voice message and get an eventual call back; Dexter was halfway surprised when the doctor answered the office phone. Dexter asked Hathaway for an appointment, and it was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, pending Thavy's approval. Dexter called Thavy, and she agreed. He called Dr. Hathaway again, and the date was set. They met the following afternoon. At the outset of the meeting, Thavy played with the ring on her finger, and showed it to Dr. Hathaway; a look of certain pride upon her fine features. Hathaway was bemused.

	Dr: "So, what kind of ceremony are we looking at? Where and when, how?"

	Dexter: "I've got a house in Oysterville. It's being remodeled. We could have the wedding there, in two weeks?"

	Thavy: "Oysterville? Where is that?"

	Dexter: "It's on the Ocean; by Ilwaco."

	She lit up again. "Oh, yes... we get married by the sea! We have three day ceremony, but simple. Maybe part American, part Cambodian; but three days!" She cocked her head and smiled some more.

	Dr: "You are going to make for a beautiful bride, Thavy. I've got some ideas in mind for a fitting ceremony. I know a bit of your language."

	They spoke, Thavy and Dr. Hathaway; for a few moments in Cambodian. Dexter looked on in fascination. It was indecipherable. From listening, he could tell that Thavy were fluent, where Hathaway was but conversational in the same; Khmer language. Thavy turned to Dexter and said, "I teach you Cambodian too. I teach you vows. You speak Cambodian at our wedding."

	Dexter: "Let's set this ceremony for three weeks from today; well, yesterday. Let's make it a Saturday wedding. My heart trembles with anticipation." Thavy rubbed his arm. "You two..." Dexter turned to Thavy and then the Dr. in turn, "Thavy and Dr. Hathaway; you make the arrangements. I take it that, on such short notice and under these unusual circumstances; that it will be a fairly simple affair?"

	Dr: "Yes, simple but elegant. The main thing will be the vows. Thavy can write those. Do you agree Thavy, the vows are the most important; and the three-day party?"

	Thavy: "Yes, I will write vows. And my friends will be there." Holding her hand out to Dexter, "You give me credit card. I bring them here." Dexter opened his wallet and handed her a credit card. Thavy was beaming. "It will be simple, but three days; three days and three nights. We start on Saturday morning, end on Monday night."

	Dr: "That settles it. Thavy and I will stay in touch. We will let you know of your vows. We can hold final rehearsal the Friday before the wedding. That credit card; it has a high limit? She can make whatever arrangements are necessary, employing that?" Dexter nodded in the affirmative. Dexter's father had left him with a great deal of money. The card was practically without limit. He left the rest up to Thavy, and Hathaway. Thavy Sokhom's spell over Professor Dexter Halibent was fairly complete, and he didn't mind a bit. Despite any reservations, he was anxious to see what the future might bring.
	Thavy and Dexter left the office, and spent much of the following two weeks together. They shared tender kisses and heartfelt ministrations. She cooked for him, and he for her. She would go off for a day here, or a half a day there, and make further arrangements with Dr. Hathaway. Dexter sort of forgot about the diary, and anything Dr. Klinkit had mentioned. The newfound love was the thing propelling him forward. Thavy's yoke was easy. 	Thavy would help him practice the vows she'd written.
	Out of the blue one night, Thavy broached a certain topic. A rain played upon the roof of the condo as she started, "I think you would be sad if I were with other man. I think that you don't care when we might... you and me... you know... do.. do 'it'... but you would be sad if I do it with anyone else. I think that you stay with me anyway... as long as I come back to you... always end up by your side... you know.. you old." She smiled at him.
	Dexter sat, overawed by the sudden conversational turn, and the hypnotic effect of her hands as they ran over his body, combined with the ethereal honey pouring forth as her words filled the air. He could only listen. That recently discovered but by then familiar, silvery melancholy enveloped him as she continued, "I make a joke... I know you older... it doesn't matter... not too much... you think I too young? It makes you afraid? It makes you worry? You don't want to be sad. You want me there, at the end of every night? ...at the start of every day?"
	
	Her caresses continuing unabated, he spoke in a sort of monotone. "Yes. The age aspect of our relationship does concern me. It is as if you are a Queen, and I'm your slave. It seems that if you were to cuckold me..." She laughed. "You know what the word, 'cuckold' means, Thavy?"

	"Yes, I know that word. Cuckold."

	"If that happened, I would have to go along with it. It seems only fair. As much as it would surely break my heart, and as night follows day, and as the rain falls... it would break my heart into a million pieces to know that you had been with someone else. By the same token... I must be willing to accept that. It does come back to age. How could I expect you to be happy with me, in that way at least? If you were to remain loyal to me, and there were never to be another; it would be the greatest gift you could ever give me. Even so, I'm going to love you no matter what."

	"You love me no matter what? That makes you ... how you say? ... vulnerable.... some say... fool.... I say... sweet... you like honey... even though... sometimes... you smell like onion..." She laughed again. "But you... are... like honey... I make you promise... you never know... you never know about anyone else... I never do anything in front of you... I always be there at night, and in the morning... I always return to you... you never know if I go away for awhile... but you always know that I return to you. I am your Queen. There is no other way. I care enough for you... enough to make sure to feed you with my touch... I always sing a song for you, and only for you... you make music for me, and I sing song for you... we make record... recording... CD-ROM... I cook and clean for you... you cook and clean for me... Cambodian woman have lots of babies... ever since Khmer Rouge... I not the same as other Cambodian woman... no baby for me... no baby for Thavy... you be my baby... no one else... we grow old together... probably, you die before I do... but we stay together, no matter what else I do... I always return... every night... I always there... every morning... I know it break your heart to think of me with someone else... I also know that you are in no hurry to... you know?... how you say, consumate?.. couple?... I know, you prisoner of my touch... prisoner of my voice... it enough for you... I always know... you follow me... I lead you now... you know it right... Dexter... Dexter Halibent... you know it right...?" Her shining, syrupy words annointed him with want.

	He replied, glassy-eyed and in that same monotone.	"What I'm wondering about is this: How do you know me so well? You seem to know me, better than I know myself. How is that?"

	"Maybe we secret relatives. Maybe spirit is stronger than blood. Somehow, maybe we bound together. Somehow... you special... I... special... we... special." She stopped speaking, and leaned over to kiss him again. They kissed, and kissed some more. Eventually they slept in the same bed. Their engagement remained without physical consumation.
	After those couple of whirlwind weeks, they went together to the house at Oysterville. The contractors had completed their work without incident. Thavy and Dexter had stopped in town and paid them all. Upon arrival at the house; there was a new gate, and the cracks in the driveway were cleared of weeds. The yard was manicured, the old lawn mowed. Trees had been pruned. Sections of garden had been planted with flowers. The house looked much as it had, but new all the same. The outside was new; the roof shingles, the porch, the sidings repaired, the paint. Inside, the bed linens and drapes had been changed; and the appliances replaced. The furnace had been cleaned, and the oil tank had checked out. Off in the distance but within the confines of the estate proper, there remained the thickened blackberry brambles, occupying in total a good acre or three. The landscapers had, as instructed by Dexter, not tackled those outer sections of the yard, including the largest patch directly behind the house. Having only recently arrived about the general milieu, a conspiracy of ravens watched over the place.
	Thavy and Dexter wandered around. As they walked the yard, Dexter noticed for the first time that it was uneven, as though there were unnatural mounds there and about, beneath the trees and the lawn. He didn't think much of it. Dexter further noticed a sort of break in the blackberry brambles and made a mental note to perhaps explore it further. 
	Thavy was ecstatic. The wedding was but two days off. Thavy's friends from Cambodia, and Dr. Hathaway were expected the following afternoon. Today was Thursday. Tomorrow would be the rehearsal. Saturday morning would see the ceremony, and after that they would throw a celebration for three days.
	At twilight, the two of them were standing in the living room, and - out of the blue - the radio started again with the watery strains of, 'Sea of Love.' Dexter went as he had the previous time, and attempted to improve the reception. Again, the signal was lost and the band was replaced by pure static. Thavy stood, hands on her hips; acting as though nothing were amiss. By midnight they retired to the main upstairs bedroom. The new bed linens were of satin. They fell into a deep sleep, in the spoon position as they were wont to do by then.
	The next day, they rode to Tacoma in Dexter's sedan; there gathering all manner of groceries, including spices and produce as they went; and on the return trip to the peninsula, stopped at a roadside seafood market to purchase some fresh fish. Upon unloading groceries at the house, a couple of vehicles appeared in the driveway. It was Dr. Hathaway and five Camdodian women. Thavy rushed to greet her friends. They were - without exception - dressed smartly. Dexter remarked to himself how beautiful they were, and how Thavy was the most beautiful of all. Dexter sensed they were as though, out of the reliefs at Ankgor Wat, six Apsaras come to life. 
	As the ladies caught up with one another, Dexter and Dr. Hathaway exchanged greetings, then unloaded luggage and provisions from the cars. Save for the intermittent, 'srey,' or 'mui,' or 'bong,' Dexter couldn't much decipher a word the women spoke, but it was all like sweet music in any event. As the Khmer ladies settled along a bench on the porch, Dr. Hathaway and Dexter retreated to the study. The Doctor's wife was waiting back in Seattle. The ceremony would not be requiring of her presence; and knowing neither Thavy nor Dexter, all parties agreed that it would be best if she stayed in Seattle.
	Dexter and the Dr. went over the wedding vows. Dexter produced a piece of paper, upon which Thavy had drawn the simple phrases. She and Dexter had already practiced them a bit. Dr. Hathaway examined the paper for a moment, and again talked Dexter through the impending ceremony. That evening, the wedding party rehearsed. Afterwards, a couple of Thavy's friends prepared a dinner.
	As they sat around the table, the atmosphere was pregnant with celebratory anticipation. After an evening of conversation, they retired to separate sleeping quarters about the house. Soon, all were asleep. By morning, the air about the house was abuzz. Thavy and Dexter had spent the night in separate rooms. The ceremony was to be a greatly understated, variant of a full-blown Cambodian wedding. It was intended to be faithful to the traditional style of wedding; beautiful, yet within the limits of the given situation. It would last three days and three nights.
	In the morning Dexter was provided with traditional Cambodian bridegroom garb. After dressing, he was escorted by the five dancers to the main floor, and presented with a glowing, richly adorned Thavy. Along the way the women played small cymbals. Thavy had been prepared by the others. As if straight out of a dream, she was in full Apsara garb, as were they. They all wore their golden, spired crowns. Their raven black hair glistened beneath the understated morning light, as it filtered through the rhythms of the pouring rain, and throughout the milieu.
	Thavy's garments were red, embroidered in gold. The others' were the obverse; gold embroidered with red. Dr. Hathaway, in a hooded orange robe; said a sort of blessing over them all.
	Thavy and Dexter placed garlands about one another. The ladies produced a silver vase with flowers, and the couple held it between them. The ladies then sprinkled dried jasmine petals about the house. On the ocean side, an altar had been set upon the porch. Thavy and Dexter proceeded there and knelt. The women brought trays laden with sweets, cognac, and tobacco. Hathaway strummed a guitar, and the women sang a simple song for the couple. Thavy and Dexter fed each other porridge, fruits and sweets.
	One of the other women performed a mock hair cutting ceremony on the couple. Previously placed rings were retrieved from their manes. Dexter stood, and Thavy sprayed perfume on his feet. She stood and they joined hands. Hathaway spoke over them as the women looked on. Thavy and Dexter's hands were placed on a pillow, and a short sword was held over the same. Hathaway tied a red thread around their left hands, and solemnized the union with a sprinkling of jasmine water. Each of the women stepped forward and did the same. Thavy and Dexter recited brief vows.
	Three candles were lit upon the altar. The couple were adorned in rings and chains. The party formed a circle about Thavy and Dexter, and passed the candles seven times around them. The women sang in harmony while doing so.
	Hathaway intoned that Dexter should kiss the bride. As the newlyweds kissed, the other women broke out in peals of joyous approval. The vows were completed. Dr. Hathaway issued a hearty, "congratulations" to the couple. They all went inside, and one of the dancers put a CD into a portable player. 
	Dr. Hathaway and Dexter sat on a couch as the women performed a dance. Hathaway produced a small video camera, and recorded the dance from a state of pleasant repast. Dexter's eyes remained fixed upon Thavy. Smiling as she  danced and sang; her gleaming, sugary voice graced the air amidst the impassioned strains of the Khmer song wafting forth from the CD player. After a time, their dance was done. The women retreated to the kitchen, where they set out to prepare a feast. Thavy stayed with Dexter. Hathaway dismissed himself, stating that he could probably help out in the kitchen. As Thavy and Dexter sat on the couch, he ran his fingers over her crown. He caressed her through the embroidered satin of her dancer's outfit. The scent of her hair permeated the gentle scene.
	Suddenly, the radio in the corner perked up. Yet again, it was 'Sea of Love.' Dexter bolted toward the thing with a start, and once more tried to tune the receiver. As before, the song disappeared from the dial. Dexter unplugged the thing from the wall outlet, and returned to Thavy on the couch.
	She said, "Sea of Love... isn't it strange... it keeps playing... Sea of Love." She ran her hands over him, and showered him with further affection by the honeydew hues of her softened voice. "Sea of Love... do you... do we... do we live in a Sea of Love? Am I... your pet?... or... are you ... my pet? Am I.. your queen?... are you ... my slave? Do you... love me?"
	"Yes, I love you." Dexter was awash in conflicting thoughts. They were married. This was their celebration. The milieu was haunted. Thavy seemed to know as much. She didn't even mind. She was so far ahead of him. It were as though Thavy anticipated everything; or at least that she seemed unfazed by any unexpected eventuality. Meanwhile, he was reeling through it all. Dexter had to admit to himself that; in any event he didn't want to go back. Dexter only wanted to go forward; or to stay there... where they were... forever. 
	After a time, a feast was served. The ladies had removed their crowns; all except for Thavy. She was the mistress of the table. The food was oustanding. They ate, and cognac was served. Dexter and Dr. Hathaway smoked after dinner. The women continued on in animated conversation, laughing amongst themselves as they went. The Dr. would interject a comment here or there, and they would invariably giggle at his remarks. None of it really bothered Dexter. Somehow, he had known that it was part of the price he must pay, in having Thavy at his side. The fact that Dr. Hathaway knew Khmer was no surprise to him. Someday, Dexter might learn enough from Thavy that he himself might become conversational - if not fluent - in the same.
	They celebrated like this for three days. On Sunday and Monday, the women all wore Western garb. Their dress was elegant. On Monday, several still cameras came out and the women took digital pictures. Throughout the celebration the conversation would turn serious, and the lot of them would speak in English; the ladies and Dr. Hathaway inviting Dexter into the overall conversation. When they would return to inevitable passages of Khmer, it seemed as though Dexter were sort of catching on to a bit of it here and there.
	When they spoke in English, among other things Dexter realized that these women were very concerned about the state of their country. It seemed like Cambodia was mired in a sort of social pestilence. By the sound of it - or from what Dexter could make out at least - their land was plagued by a raft of corrupt politicians.
	The elderly, Khmer Rouge cadre were dying off. Many of their followers, who had been but teenagers and children some thirty or more years previous; were by now only beginning to face up to what they had once done. It were as though, the entirety of one generation had been set against another. Pol Pot's slogan of 'old' versus 'new people' had perhaps carried multiple meanings.
	Today, Cambodia needed a sort of miracle in order to go forward. The women asked Dexter if he might travel there; if he might go there to live; to help turn the country back around. Certainly, the ancient lands of what we know as modern-day Camodia had once been great centers of real, elegant civilization. Their Apsara dancing, combined with the singing and the underlying instrumental music; were all, combined proof of that esteemed heritage.
	One of the dancers said to Dexter, "So many men come from other countries. They only want to take advantage of our women. It seems like nobody comes to Cambodia, to help us rebuild; to help us recover; and to expect nothing in return. Maybe you could do that." Dexter was taken aback by the unexpected turn of conversation, but found himself ruminating over the thought. Thavy answered her, "Leakhena... maybe we - Dexter and I - go back to Cambodia... to help. Dexter different than other men." She ran one of her fine hands up and down his arm. Although agreeing inwardly, Dr. Hathaway threw out a slight, "ahem" as if to indicate his own discomfort at the direction the conversation had taken. The ladies picked up on his cue and moved on to discussing other matters.
	Dexter weighed the idea of going to Cambodia. Before then, it hadn't quite occurred to him. Thavy promised that at the very least, she and Dexter would pay them regular visits. She stopped short of promising a complete return, although in her heart it seemed perhaps the right thing to do. She silently asked herself amidst the outward celebration and conversation; what she needed any more with America. Dexter was hers. What - or who - else did she need? The American culture hadn't hypnotized her as it seemingly had, at least some of her fellow immigrants. She was yet partial to her homeland. Even with all of its problems - or perhaps because of the same - returning might be the best thing to do. She would have to measure Dexter's feelings in the matter. For the time being, Thavy was determined to enjoy an extended honeymoon period on the peninsula. She was already in love with the place.
	By Tuesday, Dr. Hathaway and Thavy's Cambodian lady friends left. They promised to see each other again. Thavy vowed to return to Cambodia; in some fashion or form; and soon. Tearfully, they hugged and kissed one another, the dancers waving from the cars as they drove away. Hathaway and Dexter shook hands and spoke their terse good-byes. The place went silent. It was  Tuesday afternoon.
	Thavy and Dexter had dinner reservations at the restaurant overlooking the bay. She wore a purple, silk dress. They enjoyed the scenery; the food; the conversation. Day by day, her English was improving by leaps and bounds. Dexter picked up on a bit of Khmer. They returned to the house. That night, they had their nuptuals. 
	Thavy led him into the bedroom. She told him, "Honey, we have to consumate our marriage now. I can never promise that I will want to do this again, but we must do this; at least one time. You deserve that much; at least that much. Take me slowly. Make love to me. I open my body to you. I am your Queen. You are my slave. Tonight, you are free to do with me as you want. You must; whatever else you do; consumate this marriage."
	Making love into the night, they consumated their union. Afterwards, as they basked in the glow, the song came from the radio in the living room. Again, it was 'Sea of Love.' Dexter hurried down to investigate. A slight chill ran through him. The radio was yet unplugged. It went silent again.
	He went back upstairs, to their bed. Thavy was waiting. She smiled. "Honey, we have a haunted house. Do you mind? Is it so bad? Do you not like that song? What if it's our song? Our American song? What if we have American song, and Khmer song? What if the radio plays a Khmer song? As if on cue, an ethereal tune wafted up from below. It was the radio again, playing an enchanted Khmer love song. Dexter didn't even bother investigating. He was entirely under Thavy's spell. Dexter's misgivings at the antics of the misbehaving radio had been out of ostensible concern for her. In truth and for whatever reason, it hadn't really bothered him. He realized then, that if she didn't mind; and further if the thing were suddenly playing a Khmer song; that somehow it was part of their shared destiny. Again, she seemed to be leading him along. Dexter didn't mind. Part of him wondered where she had been all of his life. Another part of him was ecstatic to be where he was; with Thavy.
	As the song faded from below, they held each other close. Above them, the rain pattered on the refurbished roof. Again, it played a song of the sea. They slept in one another's arms, and dreamt of a sunken city. That small inkling of terror ranged about, on the glistening periphery of their mutual consciousness.
	Sheriff Harper investigated the scene. Another infant had gone missing. The signature traces of kelp, mixed with sea water were found. Another window had been left unlocked, and the baby lifted from its basinet. The mother was out of her mind with worry and grief; the father silent, yet pensive-looking; siblings standing by in a sort of daze. Harper wished there were some way he could encourage them about the prospects of return, but in light of the past, such were dim indeed. Inwardly, Harper made a couple of decisions, then left the family members to their unfolding grief whilst returning to the station to file a report.
	A strange form slithered across the ground, from the site of the kidnapping, and toward the old Day house. It hurried from cover to cover; from behind a bush to the dark behind a boathouse, from beneath a pier to behind a tree off of a shore; from the concealment of a hedge to the impenetrable visual screen afforded by a boat on a trailer. In this fashion - cover to cover - it made its way back to the old house. Soon it worked its way through the woods bordering the far side of the property. It found the large blackberry patch, and pranced down a vague, thorn-ridden passageway. There it returned to a hole in the ground. In a moment it was running headlong through a tunnel beneath the surface. Once again the thing - whatever it was - had escaped. An infant cooed calmly within its gentle amphibian grasp.
	Late in the morning, and on toward noon, Thavy was out of bed and dressed. She gently awoke Dexter. Something subtle had shifted, changing overnight. Brimming with effusive nonchalance, Thavy told him she was going into town, and asked him to wait for her. He agreed, and she left. Once downstairs, Dexter plugged the radio back into the wall. After grabbing some small brunch, he decided to explore the yard. There was something curious about it. Dexter found some sheers and approached that small opening to the blackberry patch which he had spied some days before.
	He wandered amidst the patch, and it turned out that there were numerous small pathways inside. The sheers allowed for the creation of space, to more easily move as he went. The rain continued to fall. It was a warm rain. He realized that it was the solstice. After a sort of small eternity spent amongst those brambles, Dexter happened upon a fairly large hole in the ground. Seeing that it led sideways and out of sight below, Dexter instantly made a connection with the anomalous mounds of the yard. Dexter thought the better of exploring the opening alone. Anxiously, he went back to the house, and made a couple of phone calls; contacting doctors Hathaway and Klinkit; urging them to come at once; to which they both agreed. Hathaway had a sort of odd stipulation. He insisted that his wife accompany him. Hathaway told Dexter that he couldn't explain, but that there was no other way. Reluctantly, Dexter assented. They were on their way. Klinkit would meet with Hathaway and wife in Seattle, and the three of them would make the trip together.
	As he sat and waited, Dexter trembled. A certain fear of the unknown tore at him from within. It were as though he were on the precipice of some overarching destiny, yet weren't certain of his own wherewithal in being able to carry the same through. Thavy appeared in the doorway, and strode across the room. She planted herself in his lap, and showered him with affection, the sing-song of her voice providing him with a certain calm. 'Sea of Love' painted the air once more. As the song played, Thavy said, "Look at me. Look into my eyes." Her eyes shined with a bright white light.
	Thavy spoke over the music. "Do you know, Tee-oat-Zee." He was immobile within her magical grasp. Dexter remained silent. She continued, "I think you do. Tonight, you will see. Now you know. You belong to me. I belong to ToZ. We are... you and me... children of the sea. Tonight you will see. You have to trust me."
	She went on, losing her ethereal tone, and shifting into a matter-of-fact manner, "I bought some supplies; flashlights, climbing rope, canteens. Tonight we go down the hole." She removed herself from his lap and sat next to him. The radio had gone silent again. A spreading calm seemed to soak up his sorrows. She said, "Like me, I saw you were walking alone. Now, won't you please stay." He turned to her and couldn't look away. 
	Her sweetened song of a voice returned in full, "The instrument. It is in the bedroom now. I want you go there, and play the instrument. This is the time." Dexter arose, transfixed and went to the bedroom. He played the instrument. As twilight arrived, the rain increased upon the roof.
	Thavy greeted the doctors, and Hathaway's wife as they arrived. Klinkit's earlier, seeming dislike for Thavy having been replaced by a sort of wary resignation; Kaasteen seemed apprehensive about, and concerned over Dexter's general welfare. She spoke to Thavy, "You know what you are doing, right?"
	"Trust me" Thavy calmly replied. Dr. Hathaway put an arm around Kaasteen, as if to reassure her, saying "Believe. Just believe." Hathaway's pretty wife stood in demure silence. The four of them climbed the steps, and walked the hallway outside the bedroom where Dexter played. They continued to another bedroom; the one with the drop-down ladder to the upstairs. The star map was there, as was the old telescope. Darkness had followed twilight. For a moment, the rain abated and the skies above them cleared. They compared the map to the view through the telescope. The time was confirmed. Everything was perfectly in place. Returning to the main floor, they assembled their provisions. As Thavy handed out water and flashlights;  Hathaway produced a few unusual, strangely ornamented rods and distributed them amongst the three lovely ladies. He went and recovered Dexter from the bedroom. By then, Dexter had regained his wits; and was determined to go through with whatever were required of him.
	As the rain returned the party of five - Thavy, Dexter, doctors Klinkit and Hathaway, and the shining chinese spouse; Dui - filed about the darkness and across the yard, then through the blackberry patch; and found the hole beneath their flashlights. A rope ladder was secured to an old stump hidden amidst the brambles. One by one, they climbed down into the void; Hathaway, Dexter, Thavy, Kaasteen, Dui. After gathering below, they followed the tunnel. Soon the tunnel - shored up as it was by beams of timber - broke off in any number of directions. Hathaway led them from tunnel to tunnel, and upon the discovery of each dead end, they returned to the main branch. After awhile, they found a tunnel which didn't end, but connected with another passage; one far more ancient than any of the others. The timbers of the outer tunnels gave way to the petrified wood lining the antediluvian main branch. They started down. Thavy offered Dexter a drink from her canteen. He took a few swigs and handed it back to her. Hathaway led them, and Dexter followed behind the three women.
	Sheriff Harper assembled at the police station with Deputy Downs, a couple of other officers, and and additional four locals. Harper deputized them all. Among them, there were eight men. The ones with no suitable guns of their own were additionally issued shotguns from the police armory. They set out in a couple of police cruisers, for the old Day place.
	In the lead car, Deputy Downs broke the silence. "Jack?"

	"Yeah?"

	"Are you sure about this? I mean, having a hunch is one thing, but..."

	"I don't know what to tell you, Darry." Jack Harper was agitated. His hands clenched the wheel. "Let's call this... more than a hunch... ok?"

	"It's just that... what if we're wrong... this isn't going to look good... it could even mean trouble... big trouble..."

	"I know. As they say though, a man's got to do what a man's got to do. Are you with me? I can let you out... right here... right now... you can walk back if you want to..."

	"No.. I'm in... Let's do it."

	Save for the sound of the rain, they continued on in silence. The cars soon reached the turn-off into the driveway of the old Day place. The gate was open. Lights were on in the house. There was an second car at the turnaround. They pulled in behind the other two cars, and the eight men filed out and gathered in the dim light of the porch. 'Sea of Love' wafted from inside the house.
	Harper led them to the porch, and he knocked on the door. There was no answer. It started to appear as though his hunch were correct. He called out as forcefully as he could. There was still no answer. Harper took it upon himself to try the door. It was unlocked. The men fanned out and searched the house. There was no one there. The radio had gone silent. Harper instructed them to search the yard. They fanned out again, across the property. After awhile, one of them called from within the blackberry thickets. "Sheriff! Over here!" The rest of them fought their way through to the hole. A rope ladder was hanging down. They followed one another, into the hole. Harper instructed them to stay within earshot, and they went various directions amidst the subterranean turnoffs. He told them to look for any signs of Halibent; anything out of the ordinary. Deputy Downs was the first upon the actual, main passage. He could clearly see that it went from relatively recent construction, into a primordial pattern. He called for the others. A few minutes later, all eight of them had assembled at the head of the hoary tunnel. They started down, one behind the other.
	Hathaway led the other four down the passageway. There were these sort of, golden spiraling trinkets scattered there and about along the way. The party ignored the intermittent, inscrutable baubles. By Dexter's foggy calculations, they were moving in a South-Southeasterly direction, and passing beneath the bay above. As they descended, slight stalactites adorned the passage. Here and there, the otherwise rugose, underlying petrified wood of the passageway was interrupted for a short space by a smooth surface along either wall; each occurrence of the same, smooth section adorned in various glyphs. It were as though such interspersed and utterly unnatural surfaces had - amazingly - been maintained through yawning aeons of time. Dexter recognized bits of the script from the diary margins. As they continued on, Dexter's mind began to scatter. He had remained at the rear of the procession; then and again looking uneasily back. After awhile, Dexter only looked forward. Thavy was just ahead of him. She began to sing, and none of the others seemed to mind. In the distance they could discern an alien music. Thavy seemed to be in tune with it. As they progressed, the music grew with extraterrestrial, watery intensity. Thavy's singing blended in. Dexter's spirit turned to honeydew, decorated by a metaphorical sprig of overarching terror.
	Presently, the passageway opened into a large cavern. It was magnificent. Covering more than half of its expanse was a large pool of water; really a small lake. Inexplicably lit, the walls of the place were of smooth, golden-green stonework; assorted carvings upon them. A glyphed, stone bench was positioned on the edge of the pool. Hathaway and Klinkit led the way, and Thavy called for Dexter to sit next to her on the bench. Shadows seemed to hover behind stone pillars about the edges behind them.
	As he sat, Thavy offered Dexter some more water. He drank again. Somehow he became dizzy, and soon lost consciousness. Dexter woke up, bound in apparent hemp rope and lain upon the bench. Through the totality of Dexter's senses, everything spun. His vision reeled. Thavy floated above him. It were as though he were under the influence of some powerful drug. He was alone on the bench. Thavy stroked him as she sang along with the phantasmal, aquatic, interdimensional background dirge. Her sweetness intermingled with the fantastic terror building within him. Dexter was out of his mind with fright, yet held fast under her sugary, magnificent spell. He couldn't quite identify Hathaway and Klinkit, or for that matter, Dui. His mind was too far gone; his normal state of consciousness so incontrovertibly altered as it were. Thavy was everything.
	Between the three of them; Kaasteen, Hathaway, and Dui began some sort of inhumanly obscure call and response; the lady Dr. of Aboriginal Legend, the nigh elderly President of the Duwamish Academy, and his wife; their combined chanting a sort of series of interlocking, ethereally undefined musical phrases, which seemed to hail forth from a damnable place outside of eternity. Singing, Thavy continued with her ministrations over Dexter. The uninitiated might have considered the whole of it a cacaphony; yet to Dexter it was an unfolding, at once flowering yet horrific epiphany. About the background of the overall, smooth stone platform; a series of former shadows materialized from behind the pillars. There were at least a score of the unrecognizable, bipedal beings. They slithered forth, and joined the music in subterranean, amphibian dance. 
	From within the looming madness, it vaguely occurred to Dexter; emanating from the center of that ill-defined stupor of epiphany; it reached his racing thoughts that the repugnant, gruesome, vile, repellent; a panoply of unflattering adjectives which one might attach to the vestiges of primordial trepidation; it all held its own place. The unearthly goings-on about the sacrificial bench, at the lip of the overlarge pool, and within the unreal chamber itself; all of it reached a sort of bustling, stygian, water mocassin pitch. The various, dancing visages seemed to call from a place from within Dexter's heart of hearts. There were an ongoing crescendo of building call and response; Thavy's song; an alien organ echoing forth through the eerily thickening antediluvian air; that same air seeming to spin, as with a cornucopia of indecipherable musical hues.
	The water of the pool began to swirl. Something reached forth from the spiraling, submarine chaos and grabbed at Dexter in his transfixed bondage. A Being, wet and slippery pulled him from the bench. Thavy's singing soared forth from behind Dexter as he went. These were truly the old ways. What had been forgotten was now remembered. What had been asleep was now awakened. What had once been taken was now given.
	Harper and his good old boys rounded the last bend before the exit to the alien alcove. The din was giving them pause. Hearts palpitated. Downs had never heard such a thing. Neither had any of the others. They readied their weapons. All eight of them burst into the chamber. The sight before them chilled their blood, one and all. Dexter was being held above the water by something entirely unnatural. Then and there, those of them who had not been before; went grey at that moment. Those who had already been grey, got a bit greyer still; all within an instant of happening upon the primordial scene, and gazing upon the incomprehensible, unfolding event.
	Thavy was swinging a sceptre. Hathaway was reading from some scroll, and Kaasteen and Dui were swirling wands of their own. Their call and response was indecipherable, except in the uniformity of its prehistoric inhumanity. Slithering beings broke from their dance, and fell about the Sheriff and his men. The visages were bipedal but perhaps wholly amphibian. Shots rang out, contributing to the overall cacaphony. Thavy was hit, and she fell and sank as she sang a last note, into the underground sea. Hathaway, Dui, and Klinkit joined the charge against the interlopers. They were quickly dispatched as well, the three of them dying as their blood flooded out onto the stonework of the floor. The otherworldly symphony didn't much abate. The water yet swirled. Dexter had been taken under. 
	What ensued was a sort of hand-to-hand combat between minions of an undersea god, and incredulous locals. When it was over, several of the amphibians lay dead on the sprawling stonework; the rest of them having retreated into either the shadows, or the water. Several of their bodies laid silent amidst those of Hathaway, Dui, and Klinkit. A few of Harper's men were grievously wounded. The water had stilled. The cavern rang silent. Thavy and Dexter were nowhere to be found.
	Downs died in Harper's arms. He seemed to be trying to point at one of the lifeless amphibians as he went. He was calling out, "T'mmy...T'mmy... T'mmy," then stopped. Harper wasn't sure what to make of it. There remained four unwounded men. Three were incapacitated, and one - Darwin Downs - was dead. In their disgust, Harper and the other three who retained their mobility pushed the dead - human or not, alike - off into the water. By then, Harper cared not one whit for the bodies of Hathaway, Dui, or Klinkit. The whole thing seemed to reach into the very fibre of his sensibilities, and left him utterly chilled with disgust. He and the others disposed of all of the bodies; all of them except for that of 'Darry' - Darwin Downs. They spent the next several hours - and despite all exhaustion - evacuating the wounded comrades and the dead Darwin from the passageway. Approaching the surface, cell phone service was restored and they called ahead for help. At the bedraggled party's nearing the hole, some EMT personnel were already waiting for them. These professionals helped with extracting the ghastly human portage from the hole. 
	Upon returning to the surface, Harper was shocked to see that the old Day house had collapsed in upon itself. It was a pile of twisted debris. Harper thought, "good riddance" and collapsed after returning to the seat of his car. Exhausted, the Sheriff gathered himself for a moment, ordered a deputy assistant to dynamite the hole, then nodded off on the steering wheel. Awhile later Harper was awakened by the sounds of TNT from behind the ruins of the house. The hole had been sealed, ostensibly for once and for all. Whatever he had seen down there, Harper only wanted to forget. The wounded, and the other three unwounded; without exception all seven survivors wanted to - forget. Each of their posse had entered the hole, and regardless of age; without exception fit. The encounter had left them broken and aged. The EMT trucks took the wounded away. The three standing deputies had been sent back to their houses. In a sense, they all - the seven survivors - began to wonder if they had any sort of real home. Two of the three wounded would eventually die. The other would lose an arm and a leg. That would leave four of them being of whole limb, and a fifth; crippled-for-life survivor.
	Early in the pre-dawn hours, Harper returned to the station. A sullen deputy sat there; a man who had not been out to the Day place, but who was working his regular, graveyard shift at the station. The deputy sensed that he should remain silent. In truth, the night shift deputy only recognized Harper - at first anyway - by the uniform of the Sheriff. Harper was an old man. His voice remained more or less the same. 
	Ignoring the ongoing, curious stares from the deputy, Harper went through the papers on his desk. He looked at the list of names from years before. The name of 'Timothy Downs' reached out to him. He whispered to himself, "Timothy Downs... ...T'mmy!" Harper was gripped in a miasma at the realization that those amphibians he'd seen; and the missing children... "No!" he whispered. "It just can't be." Then he broke into a sob. The junior deputy retreated to an adjacent room. 
	Harper caught himself. Something had moved. He called out to the deputy in the other room. "Hey, Smith. Did you feel that? It felt like an earthquake." Smith returned, his face in a pall. "Yeah. It was a tremblor.. I guess that's what they call it. We don't get those do we? Not here. Not in Long Beach."
	"That's right, we don't get earthquakes here." The ground moved again. Harper and Smith looked at one another, as if one might tell the other how to proceed.
	The amphibians, hiding within the shadows of the cavern; followed one another into the lake. They swam with the fantastic creature, ToZ. Somehow, Thavy and Dexter had merged together within the heart of the same. The two of them frolicked as one into a blackened, eternal abyss of unrelenting love. That strange, alien music salved them as they swirled into the endless chasm. Their unified love shaded the way into the heart of gleaming darkness.
	They were without age; without discernable form. The newly-awakened, alien undersea god had consumed them; truly consumated their love. Dexter's faith had held. Thavy had remained true to him in heart. He really had loved her. The gnashing form of ToZ passed through the depths, to the bottom of the earthly seas. 
	Beneath the shelf of the Long Beach Peninsula, an underwater city began to teem with life. The radioactive effluvium from the mouth of the Columbia had served, over time; to awaken the place from its slumber. Long before this modern-day radiation; even prior to all humanity; the extraterrestrial, underwater god had been consigned to such depths. The submarine cities dotting the floor of what we know as 'the Pacific' had long-since gone dark and silent. They had remained as such for aeons. Only the radiation produced by contemporary humanity had provided a needed catalyst for the entry into another age. 
	The city in the waters beneath Oysterville and environs would never be as it once had. Yet, neither would the world above. The overall mutation; above and below; was a variable on the timeline of forever. The stars had been right. The Children of the Sea had returned to the same. The looming radiation and microwaves originating at the surface had spiced the entire pageant with utter unpredictability of renewed chaos. In the sea, hidden alien supercomputers spewed forth their own sort of incomprehensible bilge. One day it would all intermingle - above and below - and a new planet would be born.
	For now, the city below the peninsula felt its first heartbeats since forever. The new age was nascent, the course ahead fraught with eddies of terrorized surprise and delight, all interlaced with extraterrestrial music and covered in the splendid honey of undying love. Wherever radiation from above flowed into the waters below, other bastions; newly infant outposts whose amphibian pitter patter portended but an unsure nautical destiny; were birthed. Things would change. They would never be the same as they had been, before. They would never be the same as they were, presently.
	The key to Thavy and Dexter was that they both had volunteered; agreed upon their call to fate. They had taken it upon themselves; answered the siren song of their mutual predestiny. As it turns out, the difference between tyranny and liberty is that one merely tolerates the former, whilst welcoming the latter; rushing as it were, headlong into the face of one's predilected, sugar-coated terror.
	Along the trembling Long Beach Peninsula, curiously spiraled golden baubles began to wash ashore; offered up by a restless sea. Inexplicably, the unmanned merry-go-round calliope momentarily strained with an ocean song.

Andy Thomas
2008