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[Chapter 1 written by viv.]
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Meet My Garden Ball
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GrimmKitten: Edna!! Where were you all weekend? I called you Saturday night after that shit Duncan stood me up. Turned into a vodka and apple juice night, lemme tell ya.
Edna1013: Sorry I missed it. We should eviscerate him, real slow-like. Was unpacking boxes from Grandma’s.
GrimmKitten: Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring that up.
Edna1013: No problem. Really. I’ll survive. This was the last bunch of boxes, so now they can sell her house.
GrimmKitten: Do you need help unpacking? I could come help. That shit Duncan left two messages on my machine yesterday. If I stay home tonight, I’ll probably break down and talk to him. Have I told you he’s a total shit?
Edna1013: lol… poor Vicki! So sorry for setting you up with him.
GrimmKitten: Yeah, you are such the bitch. So, should I come over?
Edna1013: Sure. I’ll even make dinner. Chili?
GrimmKitten: Mmmmm… perhaps shall cease search for perfect man and become a lesbian instead, the worshiper of the Fair Chili-Maker.
Edna1013: lmfao…Vick, you tease. I get out of here at 6, so I should be home around 7.
GrimmKitten: 7’s good: I have to grade some papers. See you then. Ciao, Mamacita.
Edna1013: Adios.
#
The doorbell’s bleat yanked Edna out of her fugue. She blinked twice, blew a stray piece of hair out of her face, and stood up on unsteady legs. Her left foot was still asleep, and she nearly tripped over the umbrella rack on her way to the front door. All the while, her mind whirred. How long had she been sitting there on her living-room floor? Had she really seen what she thought she had? Had she actually heard it? Holy fucking…
She unlatched the several locks and opened the door as far as it would go; a stack of boxes blocked it from swinging all the way in, but Edna’s guest didn’t seem to mind. In fact, Vicki didn’t even wait for a “come on in” from her hostess. Chatting as she squeezed between the door and its frame, Vicki brought the real world back into Edna’s apartment in a flurry of curses and expensive perfume. Edna inhaled the whiff of reality and shook her head. It was always possible that the last half hour or so had been a delusion.
“Where’s the chili? I’m starved!” Vicki announced, pulling her scarf off and tossing it onto the tallest stack of boxes near the door. Edna picked it up and looped it over the umbrella stand. “Seventy-three fucking semester papers on Keats… I swear college freshmen shouldn’t be allowed to read The Great One, no less write analyses of ‘Ode to Autumn.’ Am traumatized, Ed. Really fucking traumatized.”
“Really? ‘Cause I couldn’t tell. Would you mind saying ‘fuck’ one more time? Oh, and I need you to check on something and make sure I’m not going completely nuts,” Edna said, shoving some more hair behind her ear. Her hand shook a little. Slowly, her body was thawing out, and her brain was kicking in. Surely all the weirdness had been a figment. Vicki would laugh herself silly when Edna told her about the box.
Vicki breezed into the tiny living/dining room, stepping around boxes and mounds of packing peanuts. She shrugged out of her coat and laid it casually over the back of the couch.
“I can tell you right now that you’re completely crazy, Ed. Only a crazy woman would set me up on a blind date with Duncan Avery. God, if that’s the best I can do, I should just hang it up right now. Did you know he collects pez dispensers?”
“No shit?” Edna replied noncommittally. She hovered in the doorway, watching as Vicki peered over the mess in her tiny living room.
The Box looked pretty innocent over there in the corner, just another cardboard box with far too much packing tape slapped on. Nothing supernatural about it. Nothing at all. See, Vicki was standing right in front of it and it wasn’t talking to her. Edna allowed herself a thin breath.
“Um, will you look in that box,” Edna asked, indicating the Box in question.
“Sure,” Vicki said, obviously playing along.
Vicki leaned down, pulled the flap back, and peered inside. Edna nibbled her bottom lip nervously.
“Groovy,” Vicki said, reaching in with both hands and pulling out a silvery globe. The surface shone like a mirror: no faint purple threads roiling in its depths, no whispery demon voices emanating from it. Edna bit down hard on her bottom lip. “But really, Ed, you don’t even have a lawn. I don’t think you need a garden ball…”
“Ai na vedui, mellon nîn… Daro! I sen adaneth?” asked the ball. It seemed put out. Vicki shrieked and dropped it like it like a steaming turd. It landed back in the box in a puff of packing peanuts.
“What the fuck is that?” she screeched, backing away, nearly killing herself as she fell over another stack of boxes. Edna rushed forward, keeping her friend more or less upright. The sleek beaded headband was hanging at a wonky angle from Vicki’s bottle blonde hair, and her eyes were big as grapefruits. Edna waited for her friend to stop screaming, then she nodded sagely.
“That, Vicki my dear, is my inheritance,” she said with a flourish. Okay, it was great to know she wasn’t the only one hearing voices from her grandma’s garden ball. But it was also a little freaky. The ball was, after all, possessed. Edna pondered the movie “Poltergeist” and tried to remember how one went about setting up a psychic cleansing.
“You inherited a talking garden ball!” Vicki exclaimed, pointing.
Edna nodded again, calmly. “So it seems.”
Vicki stared at it for a moment. Then she turned abruptly and went into the kitchen, murmuring under her breath. Edna followed her. She watched Vicki search the cabinets for a few moments before asking, “Can I help you find something?”
Vicki paused, pulling a large bottle from the shelf above the sink. She unscrewed the top with shaking hands. “Nope.”
“I have some orange juice,” Edna offered, but Vicki just shook her head, upended the half-empty bottle of orange vodka, and took a long gulp. Tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes, and her breath wheezed on the way back in.
“Nah,” Vicki said, her voice cracking. She took another “sip,” more slowly this time. Edna waited patiently. After more tears and a garbled exclamation that sounded somewhat like “fuckamonkey,” Vicki set the bottle down on the counter and sagged against it.
“Better?” Edna asked solicitously.
“Yeah,” Vicki replied.
“So, what do you think I should do? Get a psychic to come and cleanse the apartment? Or maybe a priest? Do priests speak demonic?” It sounded a little bonkers, but then, her garden ball was talking: everything would sound bonkers in such a situation.
“That ain’t demonic,” Vicki said, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “That’s Sindarin. Hon, your garden ball thinks it’s a fucking elf.”
#
Edna, Vicki, the orange vodka, and the garden ball sat down for a little pow-wow on the living room floor. It reminded Edna of those ouiga parties back in junior high school. She wondered if maybe putting her hand on the Ball would make the channeling... er, communication, go more smoothly.
“Who are you?” Edna asked first. Vicki translated, then took a sip from the bottle.
The ball replied, and Vicki translated back, “I am Ingwë, Lord of All Elves Who Dwell Yet in Paradise… or some such crap. He wants to know what you’re doing with his magical doohicky.”
“Magical doohicky?” Edna asked, raising one eyebrow. “There’s an elvish word for ‘doohicky’?”
Vicki rolled her eyes. “Okay, he calls it a ‘palantir’… and he wants to know why you have it.”
“Tell him I inherited it from my grandmother,” Edna instructed, watching the ball intently. As it had earlier in the evening, its mirrored surface pulsed with little purple lightning bolts. When the ball spoke, those purple streaks went absolutely wild. But the voice itself was soft, clear, almost gentle. Edna liked it.
“He wants to know how your grandmother got it,” Vicki said, hefting the vodka bottle again.
Edna shrugged. Vicki translated the shrug. The voice responded; it sounded a little pissy.
“He says he needs to… counsel? … er, talk to some other dudes about this. He’ll get back to you,” Vicki announced, setting the vodka bottle down on the carpet. It tilted alarmingly, and she steadied it with none-too-steady hands.
Edna just stared at the garden ball. After a while, she reached out and touched the cool surface.
“See ya,” she whispered, wondering if the lord of all elves in paradise could really hear her.
#
It was three weeks before Edna heard from her garden décor again. She’d learned a lot of the elf language in the interim, getting a crash course from a grad student in Vicki’s department. Vicki had decided that the whole evening had been a delusion, and she was seeking therapy. She didn’t want to talk about it. But she emailed Edna the name of this kid who was writing a dissertation on Tolkien, the British guy who had supposedly made up the language. Edna was a quick learner, so she was prepared when she walked into her living room and the thing started chatting.
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