Arcana 99: Stage One

Of course, everyone had heard of the Grenfell-Maxwell Marathon, I was the person running the advertisement campaign after all. Even with my skill, it was difficult to spread the message across the globe, especially because Mr. Grenfell refused to give me a target demographic, “Everyone,” he would say whenever I asked, “Everyone needs to see this, and everyone needs to come.” Coupled with Maxwell’s insistence on using incorrect grammar on the Latin slogan I created, it was a daunting task to make the ads effective; one that I was more than capable of doing. With the sheer number of participants I had heard through the radio, there would be no way I could charge too much for my services in the future, even if I was being paid a paltry sum for this job.

After that fiasco with that woman claiming to have won the race, I had little else to do than make a few more calls cementing the synchronized announcement of the next leg before I could take the rest of the day off. And take it off I did. The small island of Flores offered little in terms of entertainment as I spoke neither Spanish nor the many native languages; despite this, I was able to find some food and spent the rest of the evening watching the Sun set over lake Petén. When the Sun had set and the Moon remained in the same position it had been most of the day, I wandered back to the race offices.

I arrived, I entered the lobby, remembered what day it was, stepped behind the counter, and checked the safe. Empty.

After all I’ve done, they still can’t pay me my money?

I marched up the stairs, furious over how I had been cheated. They had the money to meet every demand I made when advertising. Every commercial, every interview, every celebrity endorsement was covered by them, yet they were too stingy to pay me the five thousand dollars I was owed. I approached Grenell’s office, and could barely make out two voices coming from inside. I paused.

Wait, why should I wait for him to stop talking? He’s cheating me! And he should learn that when you cheat Karin Bernays, I’ll cheat you right back.

I threw open the door and gave an exclamation of my grievances alongside some flowery vulgarities. My fury sated and my eyes cleared, I saw that there was only one person in the room, standing in front of an open window looking out to the moon. It was Maxwell, or at least someone with a face like Maxwell’s. Though he still appeared portly, he was slightly thinner and slightly shorter than I remembered.

Upon hearing me enter, he spun around, causing the floor to softly creak, “Wh-what are you-why are you in here!? Get out!” He stammered out this rhetorical question and answer while gesturing towards the door and loudly stomping away from the window.

I planted my feet and stood my ground, “I’m not leaving until I am paid what I’m owed.”

Maxwell made another response. This time he was a little calmer, and a lot more threatening, “Fine, but if you do not leave right now--” I never heard what his threat would be as during that same breath, Mr. Grenfell appeared directly between Maxwell and the open window. Or, more accurately, Maxwell and the Moon. Mr. Grenfell was holding a small box, though I focused little on it as it seemed that that small amount of fat that Maxwell had lost had been siphoned onto Mr. Grenfell.

Grenfell looked to Maxwell then me. He dropped the box, and his hand was suddenly upon my throat. Through my panic and fear, I was unable to perceive much of what happened after, but I did notice three things. First, Mr. Grenfell had not moved away from the window. Second, though Grenfell’s hand had not lifted me, I could no longer feel the floor beneath my feet. Third, the box he had released had not hit the ground; in fact, when last I saw it, it was tumbling as if it had been dropped all while floating in the same place. I saw these things and began to lose consciousness, but before the process could complete, I fell to the floor.

“Dammit,” Grenfell said, “Her involvement is too well known.”

“We could try threats.” Maxwell said while ‘catching’ the falling box.

“As if those have ever worked.”

As they argued over what to do with me, I clambered to my feet and snuck towards the door. I made one quiet step, and Mr. Grenfell silently appeared in the doorway. He spoke some more to Maxwell, paused, then looked out the window, “We have another eavesdropper?” He muttered.

He reached his hand past my head and towards the window. It would never reach it from where he was, yet a moment later his arm pulled back by my ear ignoring my logic and reasoning entirely. As his hand came into view, I could see that it was clasping a metal ball the size of his head. On one side, the ball had a black glass opening, while the other side emitted a soft blue light which created a gentle breeze. The top of this ball contained a mount for a long, thin wire that bent backward as it rose from its metal body.

Mr. Grenfell closed his hand, and the ball that just a second before was too large to be palmed vanished wire and all. He wiggled the fingers of his clenched fist for a moment like a magician emphasizing a trick to hide the sleight of hand. His fingers stopped moving, his fist opened, and chunks of metal—most of them larger than his hand—fell out and onto the floor. His destructive mission complete, Mr. Grenfell looked to me and said, “I know you have seen much, perhaps too, but you will tell no one of this.”

I gave no response. Regardless, Mr. Grenfell stepped out of the doorway and let me escape. Though I couldn’t go far. I still didn’t speak the local languages, and I could feel his eyes watching me as I inched down the hallway. I eventually made it to my room, and with the door closed and Grenfell’s frightening gaze locked behind it, all my panic surfaced and halted my attempts to sleep.

After that display, all of Grenfell’s oddities that I had earlier passed off resurfaced. He neither explained where he had gotten his wealth from nor why he wanted this race to occur. That thought of “why” kept my mind from thinking about “what”.

Though I had no way of knowing it now, or perhaps ever, the truth was that he, Euclid Grenfell, used this race to repay his debt.