The Thirteenth Time
Short Story
Note: Not suitable for younger children.
You know how sometimes there are things that happen that you never want to think about again? Not because they’re terrible or horrifying, and not because they were such a perfect moment that everything else seems like it’s seen through a thin cold rain, but because that’s the moment you made a choice, and you know — you know — you made the wrong one.
The Thirteenth Time
The way I see it, we should have been the ones to catch the street god.
We were hanging out at the foot of Ambra Steps because Twelve-times says you get the best view over the harbour from there, and she likes to see the water, and, well, we’re not going to argue with her, are we? Not now. So, we were close when the shout went up – lucky, you know? – and we were running. Kind of running. My knees aren’t what they used to be, and Adrin put his back out last week. We did our best.
But then I said we should take the shortcut behind the Boil, Adrin said no because the god would double back on Castle Street, and Twelve-times said we should just go to the pub. I guess she was right in the end, because we took a wrong turn in Carver Market, and by the time we got there, it was all over.
Used to be there was a way through where Starchangers Alley dead-ends into the Soden Manufactory. Along the back street, over the wall of the Gants Temple, then down to the docks. But that short cut hasn’t been there for nearly forty years, since the manufactory was built, and the street god hadn’t kept up with the times. By the looks of it, the god tried to slip through the manufactory wall then tried to fade to mist, but no one had worshipped it for a very long time, and it didn’t have the strength.
Leved’s gang pelted it with stones and bricks until it was dead. A waste, because you always get more for a live god than a dead one, if you know how to capture it. But Leved, well, he always likes to see blood, doesn’t he? When we turn up, there isn’t much more than a stain left. Worth a couple of pennies if we scrape up that damp dirt, perhaps. None of us are in the mood. Twelve-times says again we should go to the pub, and this time we do.
Continue reading The Thirteenth Time in issue 442 of Beyond Ceaseless Skies.