Castles made of sand.

Just on the other side of the big forbidden fence around the perimeter of the backyard is where they began. Holes blasted gently into the cliff all the way to the bottom, and now stairs made out of stone. A railing. A safer way down to the sea, switchbacked into the cliff instead of the near-vertical treacherous path through the rocks before.

And at the bottom, a platform deck and a removable (in case of very bad weather) dock on the deeper side of the property where the big rocks used to be piled up. Where I fell into the sea. Where Caleb's going to moor his next purchase, no doubt in this being a benefit to more than just me as he eyes a sailboat small enough to catch a sunset or two on a calm summer night.

I did expect a whole yacht club to be down there by now, since it took so long, but now I see why it did. I didn't know the path was going to be made and now that it is there, I don't understand why it was never done before. All of this means the children and their friends can now hang out down on the beach without so much difficulty since they are getting older now.

And it means I can go down by myself. Finally! I've already packed a bag with my sketchbook and my music and a pear, as always and I keep the bag on a hook by the patio door, ready to go. I might not be inside so much for a bit. I hope not to be, anyway. :)

Brightly wound (waking up in hell).

Good morning.

It's very sunny out today and I don't know what to do with it, run and hide in the darkest corners, of which there are few anymore since we blew them all up, or venture outside to watch my skin blister and sear in the painful, unnatural light.

It's a subversive kind of day that follows a night like last night.

Early up this morning, propped and prodded against his arm as my head lolled back against his shoulder, shaken and stirred and cajoled out of bed.

I have a surprise for you, he said.

Yet I could not open my eyes.

Come on, sleepydoll. Time to wake up now.

There are stones piled on my eyelashes and concrete poured onto my brain this morning. I open one eye, squinting up into his face. He bends down until we are touching noses and says There you are. He smiles and I notice his teeth are so very white. Or maybe I am still blinded by the night in which the ribbon burned a strip across my temples as I was forbidden to see anything that might surprise me or cause alarm and so I remained behind the fold until now.

Get dressed.

I obey, pulling out a black dress with no less than one hundred buttons, stockings with seams that must be painstakingly straightened once on and my heavy platform shoes. I appear at the door several moments late and he frowns. It's nice out, I thought you would show up in shorts.

I don't have shorts.

Then I can take you shopp-

This is fine. And it is. I freeze while others bake in the sun. Lochlan took all the heat growing up, literally AND figuratively and I got all the cold somehow and I've never figured out how to equalize since. Lochlan would never in a million years say a thing about my clothes. I wish this one would follow suit.

He recovers quickly and asks if I am ready. I nod and he holds out his hand. Oh, I'll be led, I see. Much like I am straight through life, down dead-ends and around blind corners, doubling back and trying a different path. It's a labyrinth but I have no short-term memory to find my way out and so I live within the high walls, running down path after path. They all profess to know the way out, the lot of them and yet if I run long enough through a day I'll discover all of them are still right here. If I found the way out I'd be gone, and you'd never see me again. But that's neither here nor there, and as the lady of the house, I've been given a great and terrible honor today.

I get to inspect the finished dock.

He's built something for me. Finally somebody made something just for me.

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

How long till you're gone
From every troubled thought?
Cause you're still here to heal what's wrong

And it was only my fault
Such a beautiful view
With a long way to fall
I was afraid how it could hurt
To leave the safety up above
But if it doesn't, it's not love

Batman arrived as promised, just twelve hours later than expected. He buzzed the gate right after breakfast yesterday morning and I greeted him without even unlocking the screen door.

Hi.

Hi, Bridget. I brought you something. He holds out a small, soft package wrapped in pretty paper. The Mermaid Parade t-shirt.

I unlock the door to step outside and I take the shirt. I'll have to pay you for this. I can't take gifts from you anymore.

Don't be ridiculous. Nothing has to change.

Yes. It does. It's time.

Let's go for a drive and talk. Can we do that?

You need to go. I'm sorry. Jake is already relocated. I told you I wasn't going to change my mind. You asked me to choose and I chose family. This is the way it's supposed to be.

What happens when something goes wrong?

It already did. Look. You push too hard and you cease to be a part of my life. You'll be the third permanent absence. Only you get to keep your life. Be thankful for that, I guess.

Don't lump me in with your ghosts, Bridget.

I can't help it. That's where you are now. The past.

Maybe I should speak with Ben.

This isn't Ben's decision, it's mine.

What about the rest?

Again, nothing to do with them. I speak for myself. Don't come around anymore. It's not like I'll leave some gaping hole in your life. Hell, you called once a year for over a decade. You don't need me.

See, that's the thing. I might. You got under my skin.

Then peel it off and I'll escape and you can keep going. It only hurts for the first hundred years or so. But I'm forever grateful to you for everything.

Bridget-

I shake my head. My plate is full. I whisper it.

He puts his hands in his pockets. He's going to make it easy. I know it is, baby. I know. He fishes out a business card and takes his pen from his breast pocket. He scribbles a phone number on the back and a word. He moves in very close until we are kissing distance and he takes my hand and presses the card into it. If you ever need anything, you simply call this number, and say this word. Can you do that for me? Bridget? Promise me.

I shake my head and press the card against his chest. No, I can't. I have what I need.

Then put it in a drawer and when you turn one hundred years old, burn it.

I close my fingers around the card and nod. We're getting to that point and he's going to leave and that will be that and it's over and maybe this is a bad idea.

I'm going to return to the previous schedule and we'll go from there. I can respect your wishes but at the same time, you are woefully irresponsible and unprepared so I'll call on New Year's Day. Like I used to. May I?

I nod again. Yes, out of words. My brain is reverting to stunned purposeful silence. I did this and I don't like it when they're not within reach, no I don't. Only he isn't part of "they" and I am doing okay now. I don't need a safety net under the safety net, I've walked this line so many times I can do it in my sleep. Built-in redundancies are wasteful and complicated and unfair to everyone involved. That's why I gave outs. I gave chances and I gave tries and I gave excuses and I gave in. I gave a little curtsy and a tiny almost-bow when the lights went up and I swore I'd never climb the ladder again but then I did, addicted to the lights, and the gasps of amazement and the cheers. Addicted to all the eyes on me. Sated on pure adoration and drunk on near-misses but presently sober and right on target again.

Holding steady.

The lights are no longer trained on me. I have abandoned my mask of makeup and my costume and I've abandoned the appreciative stares and the held-breath and the compliments and smiles at the end of the evening. I've abandoned the fireflies and dirt roads and burned-out bulbs and unnamed towns. I've abandoned stacking the boys like armies against the night, against each other, against everything and I stepped back in front quite abruptly. I am so small from here, but it's not nearly as scary as it once was.

You may. I'd like that. My voice comes out strained, formal and weirdly strangled and he understands perfectly. He steps forward even further and kisses my cheek slowly, with purpose before stepping back. He hesitates and then reaches forward and squeezes my fingers even tighter around the card and he searches my eyes for confirmation that I know what I'm doing. I nod and try for a small smile but it fails and he picks it up anyways and returns it to me. Then he turns and leaves.

Not a backward glance.

Not another word.

Stop writing on my open windows, sweetheart.

When you look you see right through me
Cut the rope, I fell to my knees
Born and broken every single time

Always keep me under finger
That's the spot where you run to me
Might see some type of pleasure in my mind
cause I'm super awesome and Bridget loves me.

from: Ben.

(He does this every time I leave my computer.)

With. Drawn.

(Boys have left the collective before. Dylan first. Then he came back. Then Corey left. But he also came back. Ben. Look where he is now. Maybe my luck will hold. Though, we all know what kind of luck I've had in life so far.)

My sundress ruffles in the ocean breeze as I stand down at the end of the yard where the best view of wide-open Pacific can be had. I cross my arms in the most closed posture I can come up with, rubbing at the goosebumps on my upper arms. Keith stands beside me drinking a beer I don't recognize. He must have brought it back with him from the states, for after they were finished loading PJ's truck for New Jake's move to Andrew's old house.

I'm going to need flowcharts shortly to keep track of everyone, though losing two will make things easier and keep the even numbers I like so much.

What about you? Do you work for Batman too?

I work for myself.

Like a boss, too, I bet.

Like a boss, Bridget.

I would ask you to prove it, but you're not around enough to be a spy for Batman.

Come on, Bridge. Jake needed the money. He's not good with that sort of thing. And it was never his intention to wind up on your bad side. Truth be told, I think he had quite a crush on you.

Entirely mutual. Selling out isn't good though. We were helping him.

He didn't want to become a charity case.

So he became a snitch?

Ouch. Bridget, maybe you should rethink this.

Keith, if you think it's easy to excommunicate someone from my life then you don't know me at all.

I thread the church key opener from his case of beer into my hair, making a big messy knot at the back of my neck (I can pin it up with anything) and I frown at him. He pushes a kiss against my cheek and tells me he'll see me tomorrow.

I hope so, I tell him, ignoring the kiss in favor of a big crushing hug. Batman comes back to the city tonight and I'm not looking forward to it at all. So if I'm still around tomorrow that will be a good thing, right?

The Gingerbread Men.

Run, run, as fast as you can.

This morning Ben put the whipped cream on the table (leftover from strawberry shortcake) and the chocolate sprinkles too. He drank his coffee in one go, filled his mouth with whipped cream and motioned for me to pour the sprinkles in on top. I stood on a chair and did just that.

That beats Fourbucks, he said.

He offered me some but I declined. I like my coffee black and slow and plain and old and awful. I can't deal with all the variations when I walk into a coffee shop so I make it at home every day. The old castle was within walking distance of a great coffee shop and it was always so cold living in that city so we could justify it, now I have to drive to find a nearby shop and it would be a special trip and I don't do special trips for things I can make myself, I don't care how many sprinkles they offer. Especially when gas is 1.62/litre and coffee six dollars a cup.

Now if they could put edible glitter on my coffee I might change my mind.

I put edible glitter on Ben once. It was as successful as you can imagine (shhh my mom reads, so I can't tell you how successful). Then he put it on me. Sometimes I'm surprised I still have all my original body parts when it comes to Benjamin but I do, luckily enough.

And not to worry about Batman. The threats were not to our personal safety or anything, they were more of the warning as to how miserable our future will be without him there as a safety net sort of threats. He will also still own and run the parent companies of the various outfits that employ some of the boys. Their employment is not on the line, nor will it be in the future.

So for once we're civilized and organized and yes, this will be difficult but at the same time Batman has hardly made an effort to let me in or let his guard down. Add to that the half-dozen or so other 'project' girls scattered around the globe (that I found out about yesterday) and really it was not a difficult decision.

Oh but I'm his favorite, I was told.

I guess I'm a sucker for a man in a cape. An attention-paying, fast-talking, world-saving, sure-of-himself-at-all-costs superhero but at the end of the day I'll still wedge myself in quite firmly between the rockstar, the fire thrower and the devil because that's where I belong. With the freaks, not the luminaries. With the known, the understood, not the mystery. With the exciting coffee, circus shows on the lawn every night at dusk and homemade evil too.

And the x-rated glitter parties because those are just the best.

Brave.

I want to hear your voice call me, call out loud
When you talk to me I'll hear you out
I want to space it out, too close, move on out
It's all around for you to see
Yeah, it's all I want to see
But there's such a lot of baggage

If you are playing along at home in picking sides, you'll want to switch sides at this point. Things are going to shift a little. Just a little. Last July Batman asked me to abandon my loyalties to Caleb and I refused. He asked again this morning and again, I refused. He began to threaten both of us and so I went one step further and abandoned any loyalties I have to Batman.

I've now forced to ask New Jake to move on (and move out) as well.

No worries, he won't actually be out in the cold, Andrew is going to arrange to sell Jake his place, and Andrew is moving here to the point, to live in the...other house next door (we haven't come up with a good enough name for it yet).

Batman thinks I am overtired and projecting and posturing, and that when he returns late Friday/early Saturday he will be able to smooth things over and all will be well. Only it won't and I've already told him that. He forced me into a corner and instead of surrendering I came out swinging. And it makes me sad as hell that they can't coexist in my presence but at the same time I have a duty to ensure that my son has unrestricted access to his father and I have a bond with Caleb that not even Caleb can break, and he's tried. Very very hard.

Everyone backs me up. There wasn't a moment's hesitation. No debate, no protest from Loch even, I think he/they shared that fear of the unknown in a way that was a million times scarier than whatever Caleb can bring. At the end of the day Caleb makes mistakes but he's human. He loves Henry, Ruth, me and almost everyone else in the house in some way or another. He's a fixture, not a whim like I was to Batman. A fixer-upper, damsel-in-distress, project-girl for the ages. Fuck his promises to Cole. Cole is gone. Cole NO LONGER CARES.

Me neither.

Painproof girl.

Jake finds me and passes me his phone. He mouths a name at me. Batman.

Hello?

Why did I not see how quickly he would spill the beans when confronted with your big watery eyes and ridiculous cuteness?

He's a good guy. Telling the truth is always the best plan. Wouldn't you agree?

Depends. Sometimes things are done for your benefit that you don't necessarily need to be aware of.

Does this mean you're plotting Caleb's removal from my existence again?

Oh, Bridget. You have no idea.

So does this also mean you aren't coming for a late afternoon snack of crow and admissions?

No, sorry, but as I reminded you last week, I'm in New York until Saturday. Friday night is the earliest I can get out if need be.

I can't keep track of where everyone is.

Where is August?

St. John's.

Where is Christian?

Portland.

And where is Ben?

Sleeping.

Well, I've fallen rather far down the list then, haven't I? He laughs.

No, I don't have your schedule.

I'll have it sent to you. Now just please don't leave the house for the next three days and I'll be there as soon as I can.

Are you serious?

I wish. It seems like the only way to keep you out of trouble is to lock you up and so much is clearer to me now. I have to go, just stick close to Ben, okay, Bridget?

He sides with the devil, you know.

Not for long, he doesn't.

Will you stop at Coney Island and get me something?

I already did.

Cool things I find in my Instagram feed (Part 1):

Har.

(Actual post to follow later. We've run out of strawberries and whiskey, so I need to go shopping first.)

Une espion (ici dans mon coeur).

Mike stopped by this morning, on his way back from taking Caleb to a meeting. Not sure why Caleb couldn't drive himself today but I know that the literal handful of sleeping hours we amassed over the weekend collectively have made for a lot of slow starting on this rainy cold Monday morning.

He wanted to check in and see how I was. I told him he could call but he said he was in the neighborhood.

Yeah, right.

This was a visual inspection, not all that different from the one Lochlan gave me, or Mike would have simply called. I told him I was fine, that I would probably see him again in a couple of weeks. I gave him my five-hundred-watt smile to seal the deal so that he would see that I am eager, that I am okay. I kept my bruised wrists behind my back and I talked really fucking fast, too, but that's neither here nor there.

It was after he turned to leave that things got interesting.

He walked away down the steps but veered down the path to the driveway, ostensibly to say hello to New Jake, who is in the driveway keeping the Sunbeam motorcycle on life support every chance he gets. (Today was a day off from working with Sam, since Sam is on a little long-weekend vacation with Matt so they can sort out their hearts together in private). I am keeping one eye on Jake today and one eye on the clock because he is my next victim for giant rustic sandwiches. Today I'm plotting sprouts and swiss on rye, toasted with a side salad of tomatoes and oh fuck, nevermind. You really don't care what we're going to have for lunch, do you?

I went up to my balcony to water plants instead of watching the men. My balcony is off the master wing, the wrong side of the property. Instead of the water, it overlooks part of the driveway and the side yard. Brilliant design, really, but good for sun for my potted flowers. I'm done watering when I realize Mike is still here and that he and Jake have taken up some interesting posturing. I get as close as I can to the railing without being seen and I hear the defensiveness in Mike's voice.

No one's looking out for her here so I try and do what I can.

You don't know anything about any of us, so don't assume.

Actually you're the only one I haven't really been briefed on, Jake. Want to tell me how long you've been a hired gun?

Let's cut to the chase then. Jake smiles. I was hired to keep an eye on Bridget. Your boss knows that. He probably didn't tell you because he's so surprised I wound up living sixty feet away and he doesn't quite know what to do about that so he feigns ignorance and pretends that the story I give them holds. But in the interest of Bridget's safety, I think she should continue to think of me the way she does now.

How do you protect her when you can't shadow her moves?

That isn't required. I only keep my employer informed.

Mike is nodding, possibly deciding that Jake is not an imminent threat. He checks the clouds and then asks Jake if anything ever happens to give him a call, he can be here in minutes. Jake thinks for a minute and then nods and shakes Mike's hand. There's a brotherhood of a different sort, right there. Hired goonage.

I crawl off my balcony and in through the double doors.

Goonage indeed. I count to one hundred and then go downstairs. When I get outside the driveway is empty. The bike is locked away in the garage so I head back into the house and after a brief peek into the kitchenI find no one and so I head down the hall.

The door is closed. New Jake is in his room. I knock and he tells me Come in. I barely hear him. He is standing at the bureau testing his blood sugar. He holds up his numbers and I nod. I've learned more about managing diabetes in the past year than I ever knew growing up.

His room is so cozy. Stacked with books. Tidy, unlike most of the other boys. His messenger bag contents are laid out neatly on the desk, a clear and questionable departure from you would expect to find on an apprentice carpenter should you find one and ask him to empty his pockets. It's an everyday carry kit for urban survival, and I'm not as dumb as I look.

Jake had huge holes in his story and I didn't ask him to shine lights into them. I did my own investigations and I had my suspicions before today but I waited for him and I can't wait anymore.

Jake works for Batman. He is a spy, plain and simple. A plant, here to keep an eye on me as I exist under the dark wings of the brothers Grimm, one living, one dead, because Batman made a promise and a promise is a promise, after all.

Which explains why Caleb balked when new Jake arrived and won me over.

I just knew that new Jake, with his coincidental name and terrible habit of going days without eating properly, did not fall into my care by accident. Accidents like this don't happen. Everything's coming out, we're laying it all on the table at last. Every last secret, every swallowed feeling, every lie told in an effort to live transparently, pure. There's no other way we're going to make it. And besides, he's a lousy carpenter. Sam wouldn't have much use for that and so Sam obviously has chosen sides as well. I'll have to deal with him later.

Time to call in the beginnings of Jacob's truth.

How often does Batman pay you?

He whirls around, looking alarmed. Too late to check the expression but he tries, nontheless.

I work for Sam...A weak defense, maintaining position. This doesn't give me any reason to trust him if he's going to stand there and deny the truth. I tell him this and he smiles.

You know, he really wasn't kidding when he said you were addictive.

I roll my eyes. I need answers, not charm. I won't have strangers in my house, Jake.

I'm the safest man here, Bridget, I can guarantee you that.

I let that inalienable truth hit the floor and remain, a fixture.

What exactly are you doing, then?

Information management.

You report my activities.

Yes, mostly. And the others, as necessary.

Caleb's movements as well?

Yes, if necessary.

What does Batman do with the information you give him? Is he plotting something?

You'll have to talk to him about that. I just provide the intel.

The intel. There's that word again. The last time I heard it I went on a wild goose chase to the other side of the country and set myself back a thousand years if a day.

Give him a call. Tell him you need him to stop by.

Bridget, I-

Just do it. Please. And come and find me when he arrives. I guess you'll know where I am.