I Loaded the Occult Panel

Back home, Richard took out the fountain pen he found most comfortable to use.

He lightly dipped the nib.

The black mass inside the bottle surged up to meet it, clinging to the nib.

Richard lifted the pen to test the feel. It was incredibly smooth, without the usual risk of drawing too much ink and dripping it all over the desk.

Nor would it suddenly run dry halfway through, forcing him to get up and dip it again, only to find his train of thought broken by the time he returned. He had experienced more than enough of those moments.

Not anymore.

He pulled his draft from the drawer and spread it out in the middle of the desk.

He read through the first draft again, but it still didn’t feel quite right.

Under his pen, Burns was reading more and more like a flyer pinned to a noticeboard.

He had written about Burns coughing up blood, not daring to go to the hospital, and hauling coal for thirty-one years.Yet written this way, Burns was nothing more than a generic representative of the exploited worker.

The exploitation was real, but the image was hollow.

Richard crumpled the third draft into a ball, tossed it into the wastebasket, and smoothed out a fresh sheet of paper.

This time, he started with the neighbor.

”During the coldest week of winter, the widower Burns failed to show up for the early morning roll call at the docks.

It was the washerwoman, Mrs. Rosalind, who discovered this.”

..................

After dinner, Evelyn was called over by her brother.

She walked in holding the small bottle of perfume, turning it over and over to inspect it.

”Are you planning to wear that on your head?”

”Of course not.” Evelyn set the bottle on the corner of Richard’s desk. ”Clara said to dab it behind the ears. Just a little bit is enough.”

Richard leaned in and took a sniff.

It was very faint. The layer of violet was barely perceptible, pressing over a subtle tartness of early spring green pear.

”Richard, you said you wanted me to read your draft?”

Richard handed over the stack of paper.

Evelyn sat on the edge of the bed, drew her knees up, and rested the pages on her lap.

She read slowly, unlike their aunt who could jump straight to a paragraph’s key sentence at a glance.

She moved down line by line, pausing whenever she encountered a word she didn’t know.

Richard sat at the desk and waited a while. When the sound of turning pages stopped, he looked back.

Evelyn was frowning.

”Richard, is Mr. Burns... dead?”

”What do you think?”

”You wrote that ’another name was added to the card file,’ doesn’t that mean he’s dead?”

She flipped back through the pages:

”But then you wrote that the door opened on its own the next day. So is he dead or not?”

Frowning, she flipped back and forth through the text again and looked at Richard.

”It doesn’t line up.”

Richard smiled.

”He is dead.”

”Then why did you write that the door opened?”

”If you can’t tell, don’t worry about it.” He set his pencil down. ”What do you think of it?”

Evelyn looked at him for a moment and didn’t press the issue.

She flipped back to that paragraph, her brows slowly drawing together.

”When the old woman earlier knocked three times but didn’t knock a fourth... I felt a tightness in my chest reading that.”

”And when the old man who knew how to write came out and slipped a note under the door... I understood that part. That’s exactly how it is around here.”

”But what does that ’politeness’ at the end mean?”

She looked up. ”Why is it polite not to go look at the body? I don’t really get it.”

Evelyn flipped through the draft from beginning to end once more, finally closing it and clutching it to her chest.

”Richard, I don’t get it.”

She said it flatly.

”I want to show it to Mom.”

”You can.”

”I’m not saying you wrote it badly.”

She quickly added, afraid her brother would overthink it:

”I just think Mom might understand this sort of thing better than I do.”

..................

Margaret was looking through an old art book at the other end of the sofa.

Rogers had given it to her when they were dating; inside were landscape sketches from all over Albion.

Evelyn walked over and placed the draft on her mother’s lap.

”Mom, a draft Richard wrote.”

Their mother closed the art book.

”What did he write?”

Richard walked over to the sofa as well.

Their mother didn’t say anything, simply taking the pages.

Their father poked his head out of the kitchen. ”What is your mother looking at?”

”Something Richard wrote.”

”When did he start writing things?”

”He’s always been writing.”

”Oh?” Their father tried to lean closer, but caught sight of his son standing by the sofa, perfectly blocking his line of sight.

”Go eat your food.” Their mother didn’t even look up.

Their father tactfully retreated to the kitchen.

Their mother finished reading quickly. Before offering any critique, she sent her daughter away.

”Evelyn, your dad is done eating. Go wash his dishes.”

Evelyn obediently hopped off the sofa and headed for the kitchen.

Their mother waited until her daughter was far enough away, then turned to her son, who had been standing by the whole time.

”Richard, do you plan to publish this piece?”

”Yes.”

”In that case, I have two suggestions.”

When she was serious, her presence was even more imposing than her younger sister’s.

”First, the name Burns must be changed.”

”Why?”

”Because the Mr. Burns in your draft is currently alive and well in the third house on the east end of Slag Alley.”

”......”

Richard immediately realized the problem.

”I saw him leave his house just the day before yesterday,” his mother continued. ”He coughs terribly, but he is still alive.”

”If he sees this piece, he’ll think you’re cursing him!”

His mother pushed the draft toward him.

”I can also count the washerwomen in Slag Alley.

If any of them were to read this piece of yours, they would assume the ’Mrs. Rosalind’ inside is a veiled jab at them.”

Richard took the draft back.

”I’ll change it. I won’t let real people think it’s hinting at them.”

”The other point is... throughout the entire piece, you’ve written too blatantly.”

His mother flattened out the final page of the draft.

She hovered a finger over the line: That morning at ten o’clock, another name was added to the parish register.

”I wanted that sting,” Richard said with a frown.

”I know you want that sting.” His mother did not disagree. ”You want the readers to feel the pain.”

”But you can’t let them think you are accusing a specific person, or a specific department.”

”Articles aren’t written like this. As long as you accuse specific people or departments, they will turn their crosshairs right back on you.”

”On me?”

”Do not underestimate the impact of an article.”

His mother picked up her water glass and took a small sip.

”You write very well, and precisely because you write so well, if this piece is published, people will definitely read it.”

”Among those who read it, some will love it, and some will hate it.”

”Those who love it will cut it out and tuck it into their diaries.”

”Those who hate it will go to the magazine that published it, and ask the editorial department where the kid who wrote the piece came from.”

”......”

”Your name will be remembered, and being remembered is not necessarily a good thing.”

Richard’s gaze fell to his own knees.

His mother’s advice truly hit the nail on the head.

”Write about the social issues, make people think... and stop right there.”

”Do not make appeals, and do not propose reform plans.”

”If you do, they’ll have the excuse to say you are ’deluding the public,’ ’spreading discontent,’ and ’inciting class conflict.’”

As Margaret spoke this string of terms, she seemed to know it all by heart.

That was Article 34 of the Albion Publishing Act, the specific definition of a ”seditious publication.”

She hadn’t touched anything in this field for over a decade, yet she remembered it perfectly clearly.

This was the daughter of the Ashford family.

”Just write the story, and let the story speak for itself.

Whatever thoughts it provokes in the readers, that is their own business.”

”Okay.”

Richard nodded. He had indeed considered writing a passage of appeal at the end.

To write that ”this country needs a better poor-relief system,” that it ”needs to decouple ’unemployment’ from ’job-seeking,’” and that it ”needs to stop making poverty an identity that can be permanently marked.”

Looking at it now, he had been somewhat too naive.

..................

By the first day of school, the snow had mostly melted, piling up by the roadside in dirty little mounds.

Richard got up at six. The moment he lifted his eyelids, his mind had already returned to a clear state.

He ran his usual laps around Slag Alley. There was a layer of thin ice on the section of road along the river; he stepped onto it to test it, and the soles of his shoes gripped without slipping.

When he returned home, Evelyn was just coming downstairs with her little booklet.

”Richard.”

”Yeah?”

”It’s the first day of school, you have to take some cookies for your teachers.”

”I’ve never heard of such a rule.”

”Now you have.” Evelyn shoved three small parcels wrapped in wax paper into his hands:

”Inside are vanilla cookies I baked. They’re for Mr. Holland, Mr. Hutton, and the principal.”

Richard reached in to feel the small parcels in his pocket. They still held their warmth; they were fresh out of the oven this morning.

”What time did you get up to bake these?”

”Half past five.”

”......”

”I used the set of silver tools Auntie gave me.”

The little girl tilted her chin up. ”The finished product is much better than last time. You’ll know once you taste it.”

At the breakfast table, Richard pulled one out.

The edges of the cookie were baked to a golden brown, leaving a circle of milky white in the center.

He took a bite. The aroma of butter hit first, with the sweetness of the vanilla bean right behind.

”Delicious.”

”Of course.”

At seven fifty-eight, the school bus rattled into the clearing in front of Greenwood’s main gate. Richard performed his routine morning prayers and walked into the classroom.

Hugh was already sitting at his seat.

A notebook lay open in front of the boy, who was intently using a charcoal pencil to add shading to the final page.

”Morning.” Richard walked over.

”Richard, you’re here right on time. I have something to show you.”

He flipped the notebook to the very front and handed the whole thing over.

”My ’Chicken Leg Sketch Collection’.”

Richard took it and opened it.

The entire notebook was over forty pages long, and every page featured drawings of roasted chicken legs in endless variety.

”This is what you drew all winter break?”

”Not just this.” Hugh flipped the notebook to the last page. ”I also ran experiments.”

A slip of paper was pasted to the last page, filled with over a dozen lines of small handwriting:

”Oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes first, then adjust to 230 degrees for 10 minutes to crisp the skin. Optimal...”

Richard’s finger stopped on the final line.

”In order to draw chicken legs, you tested out every roasting method?”

”A painter can’t just draw what his eyes see, he has to draw what his tongue tastes.”

Hugh looked at his expression, quite pleased with himself.

”Well? Do you think my winter break was busier than yours?”

”......Yes.”

Grey arrived a little later.

She set her schoolbag down, took out a new tin box, and placed it on her desk.

The tin box was a size larger than the one from last term, the lid stamped with a line of small handwriting: ”Greenwood Christmas Limited Edition · M.G.”

Grey came to Richard’s desk, took a gingerbread man out of the tin box, and handed it over.

”I made this myself.”

Richard reached out and took the gingerbread.

The whole piece of gingerbread was about half the size of his palm. The gingerbread man was pinching a tiny quill pen in its hand.

”......Is this me?”

”Yeah.” Grey closed the tin box lid. ”It took me a whole night just to pipe that quill pen.”

”Did you draw one for everyone in the class?”

”Everyone’s drawing is different.”

Grey lifted a corner of the tin box lid to let him see:

”Warren’s is kicking a ball, Hugh’s is carrying a tray, Lillian’s... is hugging a botanical encyclopedia.”

Richard’s gaze swept through the tin box.

Every single gingerbread man held a different item in its hands, and the frosting expressions drawn on each face were different as well.

Warren’s wore a goofy grin stretching to its ears, Hugh’s was staring intently at the baking tray in its hands, and Lillian’s expression was very quiet.

”You were just making these over the winter break?”

”Not just this.” Grey covered the tin box again. ”My mom wanted me to learn how to manage the house, so for most of the winter break, she dragged me off to look at account books.”

”Were you used to looking at the account books?”

”The account books themselves are fine; the hard part is looking at them with my mom.

She would heave a sigh every time she turned a page, and after she finished sighing she’d ask me, ’Did you spot the problem with this entry?’”

”Did you spot it?”

”I spotted one once, and I was wrong; I spotted one a second time, and I was wrong again; from the third time on I just stopped looking, and waited for her to finish sighing and explain it herself.”

Richard couldn’t help but laugh.

”Why didn’t you teach her a bit?”

”Teach who?”

”Your mom.”

Grey stared at him for a few seconds. ”Richard, I’m sixteen years old. She’s forty-two.”

”I mean, when you eventually take over in the future...”

”You really are... Just don’t ruin my good mood on the very first day.”

Grey pushed the tin box forward an inch, and tapped the side of the box with her finger. ”Eat.”

Richard wrapped ”himself” in his hand with wax paper and tucked it into his pocket.

”Can’t bear to eat it? I can always make you another one.”

”This one is enough.”

During the first history class of the new term, Mr. Hutton walked into the classroom with his briefcase and shot Richard a look.

Richard understood implicitly; this meant he was to drop by the office after school as usual.