Episode 76: Job Fair (Spence)

Spence wanted to be successful. He wanted his life to flow effortlessly toward accomplishment. What he had, instead, was a tight back, a pacing heart, and the four kids that were so new and so foreign he still wasn’t sure they liked him. He wasn’t sure he was qualified to be their dad. Being handed kids at the adoption agency felt wrong. No one else cared about them, though. Even his mom wanted him to adopt them to make a political statement, not because it was in his best interest or their best interest. 

He would do his best. Given their alternative life with Forrester, he knew he was the right choice. He understood how Soren and Nim had ended up with Meldrey, how Aadya had decided on Nellie, and how Konrad and Nell had chosen their three gancanagh boys. It was about the kids, about wanting to give them the best chance at a good life, and about having the room in his life to do so (chaos aside). 

Still, it was more responsibility than he was prepared for. 

Spence felt the pressure of life pressing down upon him, in a way that simultaneously felt like drowning and being crushed. There was no out at this moment – he could only press forward because every time he looked at his kids he knew he had to do something to make the world better. Just adopting them – feeding them and reading them stories and fostering who they were becoming – wasn’t enough.

Spence was trying to do too much, too. Between running for governor and pursuing security and being a dad to everyone, he was spread too thin. His mind rested in a haze of uncertainty, with something clouding his ability to even consider thinking half the time.

Clovercrest was the cornerstone of suffering in Sylem. He knew it not just by the collapsing homes, scorched in layers of fires from years past and in fresh soot of the recent fire. He knew it not just by the smell in the air, but by the putrid taste that made him almost gag. More than those things, he knew it by the strength of the people who lived there without a voice to represent them.

Still, coming straight from the Dells was a mistake; there, the air was fresh and crisp and full of life. The difference was difficult to stomach. 

He had chosen clothes that would be a balance between Clovercrest and what he normally wore. In a place where clothing looked more like rags, and dirty faces that bathed in the sewage of old lines couldn’t muster a smile, Spence didn’t know how to relate enough to gain their support. What he had picked looked too new, too clean. His table was a sore thumb in a neighborhood destroyed by fire and neglect.

He wished Rhyss would show up soon. He wanted something to lean on that said I’m not insane, Rhyss promises.

He looked up at the tent one last time, with the words Job Fair sketched onto a banner in Ach’s elegant and precise handwriting. The B looped to the F so faintly he could feel Ach’s fingers tracing the paper, the marker just touching like a feather. He knew that touch well. 

He sat at far side of the table, with Olida’s eyes transfixed on his every movement: three clipboards in a row, each with a few sheets of paper lined up on top and clipped under the metal clasp, pens in a cup full of sea pebbles, and a basket of fruit beside a tin of piroulines and a plate of cookies.

Ach was perfect for this part of the job. He had planned the setup to be welcoming. It wasn’t saying we have this and you don’t, it was a promise: a future with me as governor will be fruitful.

Hugh was out in the street playing a game with some of the neighborhood kids and Cady had a dollhouse set up between their tent and the one his dad had set up – to provide free, basic, medical exams. She had a few friends from the neighborhood with her. At least the kids were a way to connect with the people. They spoke the same language: fun.

He hoped Orris or Olida (or both) would join them. He wished he could have brought Fort, Emma, Ella, and Jax. Having heirs was frustrating sometimes.

“What’s that house?” Orris asked.

Spence looked beside him, to the curly brown hair that made Orris unique in his little clan. “Who lives there?” Orris added.

The house was covered in dark blue shingles, except for a small patch of tan ones that hadn’t been stained. The trim was grey, like the sky. One of the shutters hung on the edge of the hinge, the other had fallen to the ground and rested in pieces. The ground beneath the shutter was yellow, with brown blades curling out from underneath trying to grasp light from its dark starvation.

“I don’t know,” Spence replied. He rested his arm around Orris.

“What about that one? You know those people?” Orris asked.

Ach sat up, his voice as poetic as ever, “Part of why we’re here is to get to know people.”

“Your uncle Rhyss knows everyone,” Spence added.

Even if Ach spent most of the day in the background, he was there. Spence knew it was hard for Ach to be in social environments, and this one would cause him some anxiety. He loved Ach, in every way. He loved that he had taken a chance and been with Ach, though he would always love Talise too. He wouldn’t have been able to do this as Talise’s husband. He would have had a kingdom to take care of.

Not that he didn’t – someday. Konrad had been training him in the mornings. His body ached from the bruises of the sword and his legs burned from the dozens of laps around the palace he had done. He found out the purpose of the four mile perimeter of the palace grounds – running. He had trained with Konrad in the mornings for years, but nothing like this. 

Orris glanced around the space for Rhyss, who had not shown up yet. There were dozens of people starting to move about the neighborhood. They offered glances toward Spence, wary signs that they were aware he was there but they weren’t sure about approaching. No one struck Spence as suspicious.

Spence looked back to Orris, “You can ask Rhyss when he gets here.”

Orris looked up at him and then sat at the table. He found a small puzzle game in the bag they had brought with them and began working on it.

“Is there where you sign up for a job?” A woman asked. Spence looked up from the table at her brown hair. Her scalp was stained with the dye she had used on it.

“Yes it is,” he replied. He offered his hand. “I’m Spence.”

She shook his hand then picked up the clipboard that listed the jobs available.

“What sort of work are you interested in?” he asked her.

She looked up from the list of jobs, her lips in a firm line and her eyes narrow, “How do you expect any of us to be able to do the jobs needed around here?

“We have training for everyone,” Spence explained. He had this part down; the Dells trained people every day and had the art of training inexperienced hands in the ways of construction perfected. Thanks to Meldrick and Aadya, he knew everyone who expressed an interest in a job would receive the training to do it well and would be in a position to go forward and use that training to get a job, if they needed one.

“”We want the work to be done in a way that helps the most people,” Spence explained. “If we end up with more jobs than people, we’ll look outside Clovercrest and the surrounding neighborhoods.”

It made Spence jittery to think of all those people hoping he would fail or slip up. He didn’t have everything down. He knew how to rule a kingdom better than a town. He wasn’t sure he was the right person for this job, but he knew the other guy wasn’t going to do a decent job. Spence was a better choice.

He realized his goals had shifted in the past few days. His initial reason for running was to be a voice for gay people. Now, with Cady and Hugh in his life, and Rhyss as his brother, with the disparity in front of him and the vision that he could change it, he realized he wanted change more than he wanted to back out.

The girl kept looking at the list and eventually settled on signing up for a job involving grouting stones.

While she signed her name, another woman came over – the one Spence had decided was the neighborhood police. Her feet pounded into the ground with each step. A man with greying blonde hair and a wide jaw accompanied her today.

Spence scanned the man for any signs that he was someone to be wary of. Then, he glanced at Ach, who smiled then pretended to focus on a hazelnut stick. Spence knew he was watching too, in the background.

The man stood casually beside the woman, while she leaned toward Spence, “Where do we tell you what work needs to be done?”

Spence’s gut expanded in the relief that she didn’t attack him. Out of the corner of his eye, his dad was already headed over, probably anticipating the same possible outcome.

“Hi,” Spence greeted her. He knew if he was going to do well in Clovercrest, in any capacity, he needed her to like him. His anxiety boiled.

Maybe he just had problems with authority.

It caused him concern, with two variations of himself in the world. One was bound to be just as disobedient as he and Talise were.

Probably both of them.

He understood why his dad tracked all the kids. He even agreed with it, now that he was on the other side of it.

It was the worst part of young parenting – he was young enough to remember how awful everything his parents did was but too much of a dad to care.

Sometimes he wished he didn’t have kids, even though he had just adopted four in two weeks. He had Talise and Niels and a ton of support to help. He suspected the four of them would always share the duties of raising kids. 

He wasn’t just raising his kids either, he had a community raising a generation. He knew it was important. Even here, in Sylem, there were hardly enough kids to justify major improvements to schools and parks. The Dells weren’t any better.

He loved his kids.

He also knew, especially in that moment, that when he wanted to avoid reality he went on detours in his own mind. He refocused on the woman, who was watching him, her mind tapping the table rapidly.

“I started a list last night,” he told her. He handed her the clipboard. He had been given all the information about necessary safety upgrades from Xander, but he had added his own ideas: A large community garden instead of rebuilding the homes that families wouldn’t need anymore: Cady’s and Hugh’s. He also drew up a design for a school with a nice park where a burnt down building sat untouched for as long as Spence could remember, and a few extra shop fronts for members of the neighborhood to open.

It helped that he had been there before – saving lives to collect energy. He knew the neighborhood, even if they saw him as an outcast.

“My house doesn’t need to be upgraded,” the woman demanded. “I just need my porch fixed. And my neighbor and his mom disappeared.”

Spence met her challenging you murdered them gaze with an innocent, “Rhyss is your neighbor right?”

She would have crossed her arms, but he was pretty sure she couldn’t.

“He is,” she stated.

It sounded like his mom counting down to punishment.

Tell me where they are or…

She seemed like the kind of woman that could put an adult neighbor in time out. Sitting on her porch, watching the other neighbors go off to their families while he thought about however he had crossed her. It would be an ironic end to his campaign: Gay Candidate Killed for Kidnapping his Brother. It was the sort of headline Niels got in Bablyon. He had once been accused of cheating on Talise with an octopus at a restaurant.

“Rhyss is safe,” he assured her. “He’s coming today; He’s my brother.”

She deflated, yet didn’t look any smaller or less authoritarian.

The man she came with stepped forward, “I can do light carpentry.”

He sounded like a foreigner. Spence glanced at Olida, who was sitting beside Ach telling him about Ms. Clumpy and her sister Jules. Ach looked up from his thick eyelashes at the man, but he kept his head low. Ach was good at pretending to not notice people – it stemmed from his desire to not engage socially. It made him an excellent spy.

Maybe he was, and the woman liked taking people in. Clovercrest wasn’t known for high mobility, but the woman didn’t seem to fit the general mold of someone there. It wasn’t her clothes, which fit in. It was her confidence and her house, neither of which needed repairs overall.

While he mulled it over, and his dad backed off, Rhyss appeared with Meldrick.

Rhyss walked over to the woman and hugged her.

“Rhyss, baby,” the woman said, her arms wrapped around him. “We were worried.”

It was like every menacing tentacle in her body turned into warm strands of love, embracing Rhyss. He would have loved to see her in battle, but at the rate things were going he also hoped he never would.

“She was just looking for you,” Spence pointed out. He looked back to the man, and handed him a pen. “Go ahead and sign up.”

He watched the man scribble his name down onto the paper, and read it.

“It’s nice to meet you, Grant Endicott.” Spence’s left hand wrapped around the top of the clipboard as his right reached for the space between the man and himself.

As he parted, Rhyss looked toward the two of them from beneath Ms. Anney’s arm.

Meldrick caught the look and offered his own hand. “Nice of you to sign up. I’m Meldrick.”

Meldrick shook Grant’s hand, then offered it to the woman.

She kept one arm draped across Rhyss, her other pinned to her side.

“Anney Lovel. Rhyss here is like family to us.”

The obvious response was Rhyss is family to us, but Spence thought it might be insulting, since Rhyss was so new to the family.

Meldrick seemed to feel the same way.

Rhyss was still staring at Grant.

Spence tried to sort why it seemed odd to him. He looked around and traced his mind for anything suspicious, aside from everything, because when it came down to it the man made Spence’s skin crawl with the uncertainty of what he was up to.

Spence scanned the entire street – making sure Cady and Hugh were fine – and reassessed the faces.

Grant Endicott seemed like the only one out of place.

He let his eyes wander back to a street sign.

Grant and Endicott.

He looked back at Rhyss, then toward Ach to make sure he caught on. Before he could make eye contact with Ach, a teen came up to the table wearing a shirt that would have been better used as a stomach corset,  but she had forced to cover her breasts.

She leaned forward.

Maybe she hoped to rehabilitate him.

“Hi,” Spence said. He offered his hand, more to get her to stop nearly flashing the world than to be polite.

If Emma did that…

At least he didn’t have to worry about Ella. She was naturally modest.

He wondered if Olida or Cady would make him worry about intentions. He was mostly gay, with some interest in girls but a definite preference, and still had managed to get a girl pregnant at fourteen.

And again at sixteen, because he was more of try twice learn once person back then.

He didn’t need this distraction. Grant was still there. The woman that was so warm to Rhyss had been lying to him, too.

Not that is surprised Spence, but it surprised Rhyss.

“I need a job, too,” the girl stated.

Spence wondered what sort of jobs she thought they were offering. Maybe something for morale…

“What kind of job are you interested in?” he asked. He handed her the list.

 It made him sad for Clovercrest; he hated when someone put themselves out here like they had to. She had to be worth more; maybe this could help her learn a few skills.

“What about…I can be a supervisor. They make more, right?” she asked.

Rhyss broke away from Ms. Anney. “Do you want to help Mrs. Gibson watch people’s kids while they work?”

“Ch! No. I want a real job and a resume.”

“What about making sure everything is level and helping put walls up?” Spence suggested.

“Can it go on a resume?”

He could picture the value: supervising, attention to detail, keen eye.

“It can,” Grant replied for him. “It’s how I got started in carpentry.”

The girl nodded to him and wrote her name down on a blank line. She wrote down Level person, then dropped the clipboard onto the table. It stirred the pens, which Ach and Orris began reorganizing.

Spence wondered if he knew how to do carpentry or assumed it was easy enough to lie his way into the skill.

As they talked and Spence edged the conversation toward more personal attributes, his dad came over and congratulated Anney on her pregnancy. Rhyss made another face, and Spence wondered how well he knew her. He seemed fond, but there were secrets Anney hadn’t shared.

Including the man. Spence hoped he hung around while his dad distracted Anney. He didn’t think Rhyss would confront him with Anney around, but he could tell that Rhyss wanted to.

Anney left, for an ultrasound. He appreciated his dad and how well he read subtle cues often.

Things were moving now and faces began to pass by one by one. Spence felt a thrill that people were being responsive to his efforts to include the community. He stood most of the time, but when there were lulls he reached for Ach’s hand.

“I’d like to help, but I don’t want to be paid,” a man said. Spence turned to face him. He had crinkly blonde and brown hair that flowed toward his shoulders. He was fit; more than anyone else there, except for himself and his dad. He was more defined than swordfighting made Ach. His arm was wrapped around a woman with long blonde hair. Again, Rhyss looked at this man like he was someone unexpected.

Spence had expected the job fair to bring in some enemies and unexpected eyes. The concerning part was that the most suspicious person was with someone Rhyss trusted.

“You don’t?” Spence asked the man, as he gravitated toward Rhyss, to be there whenever Rhyss decided to speak up about the oddities going on.

Meldrick offered his hand, “Meldrick.”

Spence offered his after. And then to the woman, who announced herself as Elizabeth.

“What sort of job interests you?” Meldrick asked. “You look like someone that would do well with a job that requires more strength.”

“I’ll do whatever you need,” the guy said. “I can’t work every day, but I’ll be here when I can.”

Meldrick pointed to a job on the list, framing.

Spence looked up at the guy and Elizabeth. “What about frame work?”

“Alright,” The man replied. He signed his name Cecil Royce next to it.

As he did, Spence picked up the third clipboard. He looked down at in, pristine lines waiting for the polarization of who people were – what they were willing to stand for.

He wasn’t sure a neighborhood like Clovercrest was ready for this type of decision, but he looked out to the growing crowd and the various faces that may or may not be lying to him, and he spoke, “As everyone signs up for jobs, we’re also offering the chance to have longer lives, about eight-thousand years.. We know that it’s created tension between Sylem and Elesara. All you have to do is sign a magically binding waiver. It states that you are not and do not plan to be involved with the Caelum.”

While Cecil read the agreement over, his familiar Laina caught his mind. A dozen feet away, a woman with her lips in a tight line and her eyes low set, her shoulders hunched, and shoulder length hair

She stared at Cecil, standing just across the table from Spence.

Spence looked to Cecil, who had noticed. Cecil set the clipboard down and went to see her. Spence wished he had caught Cecil’s expression, but he had turned too quickly. 

Spence tried to divide his attention between the guy approaching the booth, Grant, and Cecil’s conversation. He had Laina serve as his ears or Cecil. She rested under the table and turned her ears toward them. Spence heard the conversation through her, from a spell he had made for today.

“Your people have her,” the woman, Lil he had called her, accused.

“I’m working to protect her. I’d like to get her out before the babies come.”

“Why do they want her? She’s worked there for years without an incident.”

Cecil’s tones sunk lower as he spoke. Spence looked toward a guy that had stopped by. Grant would have to wait too.

Babies. Spence studied them out of the corner of his eye as he guided someone through the process of signing all of the sheets – job and longevity – and then thanked him.

The man and woman looked like people.

He had no idea what Emily looked like.

But, Emily was expecting babies.

He made a leap, and hoped it was right.

While he did that Cecil accused Lil of letting her work at the job, and Lil talked about the Caelum and other cults and how crappy life was in Clovercrest.

“People die for refusing to join,” Lil pleaded. “That was her only choice.”

“People die for leaving,” Cecil replied.

People die, Spence added, in his own mind.

Another person signed up for a welding job. He smiled again and this time Ach shook his hand, then Mel. Hugh had come over and was asking for cookies, which Ach had thought of.

More kids joined the table, just as Spence heard Lil say, “Rhyss was a no one until a week ago.”

He crouched to the ground to pet Laina between people, scratching between her shoulder blades and letting the ripples of her coat flow underneath his fingers as he brushed them toward her tail.

“The same cult that wanted Em – for her body or her magic,” Lil added.

Confirmation.

“Did they know about her magic?” Cecil asked.

“I tried to avoid this. She’s too good. No one else in the neighborhood would dare to mow lawns at midnight, and she was a glowing orb of wards. At eight. She made her own familiar. I didn’t teach her that. Or the spell she uses to reabsorb him.

Cecil moved closer to her. Spence could only see their feet. He stood, Laina in his arms, and offered her to Cady to pet.

Cady held her underneath the armpits and swung her from side to side.

Spence smiled at the helpless expression of Laina’s little face.

“See the woman in the tent?” Lil said. “She’s been helping Em. Introduce yourself if you want to save her.”

“The gypsy?” Cecil asked.

Spence tried to focus on what was going on, but he wanted to talk to Nim and Soren about gypsies, he wanted to confront Cecil about Emily, he wanted to get ahold of Konrad.

He still had a fair. His life was quickly becoming more than he had time for.

“Sh,” Lil insisted. “She’s a wiccan.”

Spence glanced at Ms. Anney, the woman Rhyss thought he knew so well. She wasn’t a wiccan?

“Don’t let anyone doubt that… Em….”

“Is having twins. Right when my group is planning a twin study,” Cecil snapped, as though it was Lil’s fault.

Maybe it was. She was in with gypsies. Maybe she had given Em some insta pregnant stuff so she would fit in with the Dragons or whatever.

Lil straightened, “With the man your princess was supposed to marry.”

Spence had no idea what that meant. Princess…. All he could think of was Talise. He looked to Rhyss. He could see it – Rhyss and Talise.

He was her type, with a nose ring and a scent Spence was certain would draw Talise in.

Spence decided to step over. Grant had wandered over to Ms. Anney and the booth was calm for the moment. He crossed the space and offered his no really, I do care, smile. “Excuse me, we haven’t met yet,” Spence said to Lil. He offered his hand, “Spence Lavesque.”

The woman, Lil, shook his hand. “I offer childcare services. families that take jobs may need them and can’t afford them.”

“I.. yeah. that’s a job. We could pay you for,” Spence replied.

“Good,” she replied. She turned back to Cecil.

Spence stood there, half unsure what he intended. He wanted to talk about Emily, to talk about twins, but he also felt like there was no use trying.

Cecil looked at him, “I already said, I don’t need money. I only want to help.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Spence replied.

As he walked back, they talked in an even quieter voices and Spence couldn’t understand them. Rhyss was still staring at Grant but looked at Spence as his chair skidded out from under the table. “Does everyone treat outsiders like they’re toxic here?”

“Only by experience,” Rhyss replied. He took a cookie off the plate and sat in a chair.

“Awesome,” Spence replied. There had to be a better way to do this. The guy knew where Emily was, and there was a twin something going on. He cared about Sylem, a lot, and he couldn’t just leave this campaign behind for sir stupid head to win.

“That was Emily’s mom,” Rhyss informed him. “I don’t think she likes me. I don’t know the guy, though.”

Spence loved detective work and the security side of things. “I think he’s suspicious, but not Caelum.”

“He’s like the blonde version of Beardguy. Just give him a sword and watch him boss people around.”

“I don’t think giving him a sword will help anything,” Spence replied.

He needed to improve his sword skills.

Rhyss laughed, but Spence felt the heaviness of choice settling over him. He looked at Rhyss, at ease in the booth.

Maybe Rhyss would make a better governor.

Even if that were the case, Spence had things to do. He helped a few people look over the list until Anney came back from the medical tent, full of fury again, and stopped in front of the sign up sheet. She picked the one with the part that explained agreeing to not join the Caelum and slapped the clipboard on the table. 

“Now hang on a minute – those people kidnap us all the time. How are we supposed to guarantee that.”

I said ‘no intent’ Spence thought.

He was certain Anney wasn’t the type of person anyone crossed unless they were prepared for the repercussions.

Meldrick was up for the job that afternoon.

“It’s about intent,” Meldrick said. “You’re are signing that you intend not to. We want to ensure our interests are being looked out for as well.”

Grant moved around Anney and took a pen, scattering the neatly organized pens.

Spence owed Ach.

He had an idea, sitting in the back of his mind, to make wedding rings and new swords together from the sharted metal of their old swords.

He could take a quick bathroom break and get it set up.

“No one intends to join the Caelum, it happens to them,” Grant said as he signed the paper.

“The paper includes a protection clause,” Meldrick added.

Maybe he should run for governor, Spence thought.

“We will protect our allies,” Meldrick added.

That part was okay – he was the king of ally-land.

“This new community involves wards against the Caelum,” Spence made up.

It would now.

Rhyss leaned across Grant’s view. “You’re real name,” he said.

“That is my name, unless you know something I don’t.”

“I’ve known Grant for years,” Anney said. She wrapped her arm.around Grant, “He lives on the Avenue, is why you don’t know him Rhyss.”

“Can I sign?” Cecil asked.

Spence handed him the clipboard and he signed that sheet as well. Finally. Whatever distraction Lil had given, it hadn’t detoured Cecil.

“Me too,” the flashy girl, Germaine, said.

As each signed, Meldrick shook their hands and granted them longer lives. Old faces turned young again (because sixty out of eight-thousand was much younger looking than sixty out of a hundred), and the crowd grew.

Spence relaxed, helped his kids feel included, and reveled in the community that made up Clovercrest. They deserved an improvement in their lives, but they didn’t need it. Not desperately. They had each other. He would have to deal with the other issues – Grant, Cecil, missing people… But for a few moments, he had something real, something wiccan. Something both his dads could be proud of.

Spence stood.

He kissed Ach’s cheek, “I’ll be right back.”

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