Juego de la Lapicera Tuesday Rett perches on one of these chairs, but the other is empty for the moment. Rett peers into the darkness beyond view, his red, dot-matrix eyes wide. The sound of soft scratching can be heard, and eventually Montague emerges from the corner. In his right hand is a nearly square slip of paper, with one corner torn irregularly and a row of ragged edges to show it was ripped carelessly from a spiral notebook. In his left are two number 2 pencils. Montague lays the paper on the center of the table with more care than he used to pluck it from the notebook. Rett: Rett!! The cat-doll peers down at the paper, on which Monty has written two yeses and two nos diagonally from one another. The Showman takes a seat in the opposite chair before gently laying one pencil lengthwise across the center of the page. The second one he carefully balances crosswise on tip of the first. Rett’s eyes gaze curiously up at Monty’s face as he leans his head back and takes a deep breath. Montague: Can we play? Expectantly, Montague tilts his head forward and squints at the pencils. Ever so slowly, the one on top begins to rotate, one agonizing millimeter at a time, until the graphite points unquestionably at ‘Yes.’ Monty grins and rubs his hands together. The chair squeals in protest as he drags it closer and leans in to begin his line of questioning. Montague: Sebastian Everett-Bryce… Beginning the question is all he ever gets to do. Turns out the Chaos Champion’s name has far too many ‘s’ sounds in it, and the sharp exhalations force the top pencil to teeter and roll off the bottom one. Immediately, Montague sees through to the trick, and sighs. Montague: This won’t do. O Jogo das Tres Formas In Montague’s quarters inside the farmhouse in Gnaw Bone, a squat, oval coffee table sits in the center of the room. Two chairs flank the table, both carved of the same dark teak as the tabletop. Rett leans forward on one of these chairs, his hands on the table, but the other is empty for the moment. Rett peers into the darkness beyond view, his red, dot-matrix eyes wide. The sound of soft scratching can be heard, and eventually Montague emerges from the corner. He approaches the set up already on the table, three high ball glasses and three red candles, arranged into intersecting triangles. Montague lays down six slips of paper that look like they were torn without finesse from the same page as yesterday. The slips each have one word writ upon them: Bad, Good, Sebastian, Nothing, Chaos, Montague. Pulling a roll of masking tape from inside his jacket, Monty picks up Bad, Good, and Nothing and tapes them, words facing inside, to the bottoms of the glasses. Doing his best 3-Card-Monty demonstration (pun intended), he shuffles the glasses with blinding speed, then slides each one back into triangle formation. Crumpling the remaining three words, the Doctor-Professor tips each glass slightly to flick one underneath. Another series of complicated gestures as Montague shuffles the glasses again. Rett: Rett!! Montague takes a seat, then holds his breath as he turns the glasses over. After peering into each one, he cocks his head to the side. Reaching into one of the glasses, he pulls a wad of paper out and reveals his own name. Montague rolls his eyes after reading the word at the bottom. Rett: Rett?! Montague: Unfortunately, my friend, it amounted to Nothing. Puertas de tu Mente
In Montague’s quarters inside the farmhouse in Gnaw Bone, a squat, oval coffee table sits in the center of the room. Two chairs flank the table, both carved of the same dark teak as the tabletop. 
Wednesday
Thursday
In Montague’s quarters inside the farmhouse in Gnaw Bone, a squat, oval coffee table sits in the center of the room. Two chairs flank the table, both carved of the same dark teak as the tabletop.
Rett dangles his legs off one of these chairs, his arms crossed in front of him, but the other is empty for the moment. Rett peers into a mirror atop the table, turned at a forty-five degree angle so that it creates a periscope effect. Though Rett is sitting perpendicular to the room’s door, he can see it in the mirror.
Eventually Montague emerges from the corner, carrying a fresh red candle and a box of matches. As he passes the mirror set up on the table, he grabs the other chair and carries it with him. Approaching the door, he is flanked by two more free-standing, floor-length mirrors. Because of how they are set up, an image of the door is reflected within each mirror.
Monty sets the chair down behind one of these larger mirrors, but gives himself a good view of the other. He walks to the center point between the door and mirrors, then sets the candle down. Striking a match, he lights the wick, the flips the overhead light to off. Before settling into the chair, Montague knocks on the door three times.
Now, he waits as he peers from his seat and into the mirror across the way. His eyes are glued to the reflection of a reflection of a reflection of a door. Minutes tick by endlessly as he waits. The night stretches out around them, drawing the walls of the room out into eternity and collapsing the items and creatures within the room into the smalls square foot of space.
Rett: Rett!
Montague’s shoulders slump, and he’s about to push himself back to his feet when he notices the flame of the candle flicker. Holding up a silencing hand toward Rett, Monty tenses with anticipation. A hopeful smile crosses his lips.
A figure appears and pushes the door in slightly.
Montague: Seb…?
Daedalus: Dinner is finishing up, Monty. Daedalus made enchiladas.
Montague: Ooh!
He leaps to his feet and flicks the overhead light back on. Excitedly, he gestures for Daedalus to take the lead and they march out.
Rett stares at the door with ? ? as his eyes.
Susurro del Diablo
Friday
In Montague’s quarters inside the farmhouse in Gnaw Bone, a squat, oval coffee table sits in the center of the room. Two chairs flank the table, both carved of the same dark teak as the tabletop.
Rett sits comfortably upon a golden, embroidered pillow that has been placed on one of the chairs, and the other remains empty. As Rett peers out, a plastic clacking can be heard beyond the view. Eventually, Montague emerges with a candle and a digital clock radio. These he places on the table, lighting the candle before stepping over to Rett’s chair.
Montague: Going to need this, my friend.
He gently nudges Rett off the pillow so that he can carry it back to his own chair by one of the corner tassels.
Rett: Rett!
Montague takes a seat in the opposite chair and sets the pillow on the table. He buries his face into the pillow up to his eyes, which he fixes on the clock. As the hour strikes midnight, he begins to chant.
Montague: The Devil tells lies. The Devil tells lies. The Devil tells lies. The Devil tells lies. The Devil tells lies.
The Showman continues this chant until the digital readout shows 12:06–a total of sixty-six times–then raises his head. With a smirk, he blows out the candle, and in the darkness waits.
The red numbers on the radio’s face, and the dot matrix of Rett’s eyes are the only lights. Monty stares into the clock, his heart beating in rhythm with the semicolon which separates the hour digit from the minutes. As he watches, the blinking begins… to… … .. slo-o-o-w…
6:07
Montague blinks, shaking his head as he lifts it up off the pillow. The room has grown frigid, and he has to stare a few minutes to process what’s going on. After a few moments, he realizes that he fell asleep here sitting at the table.
La Muñeca Viviente
Saturday
In Montague’s quarters inside the farmhouse in Gnaw Bone, a squat, oval coffee table sits in the center of the room. Two chairs flank the table, both carved of the same dark teak as the tabletop.
Rett stands upright with his head cocked on one of the chairs, and the other chair remains empty. As Rett peers forward past a lit candle, his reflection peers back from over the opposite chair. Behind his own chair is the other floor-length mirror.
Montague emerges from behind the mirror Rett is staring into, carrying a box of salt in one hand, and a Sebastian Everett-Bryce action figure in the other. He places the figure down on its back beside the candle, then stares at its reflection in the mirror behind Rett.
Montague: Let’s play! Let’s play! Let’s play! Let’s play! Let’s play!
Rett: Rett!
Swiftly, Monty blows out the candle and pitches the room into darkness. The heels of his boots can be heard clacking against the hardwood floor as he scampers toward the door. A quick glimpse of dim light appears as the Doctor-Professor exits, slamming the door behind him.
Seconds later, a clattering in the darkness sounds from around the area where the table is.
An hour goes by before the door creaks open with infinitely more caution than it was slammed sixty minutes ago. A bullseye lantern slips through the portal at chest height, followed by the head of Montague.
The Mothman casts the beam of orange light in the direction of the table, but to his astonishment, the table is empty. The doll had moved!
Montague: Sebastian?
He aims the beam from the lantern around the room, blinking with confusion for a second when it bounces between the two mirrors. One of those flashes, though, reveals something small over near the wall. With curious anticipation, Montague steps into the room and hurries over to where the action figure lies face down next to the moulding. He dashes salt from the box over the figure.
Montague: Well, well. Now how did you find yourself over here, Seb?
He chuckles, but then…
Montague: Great Caesar’s ghost!!
When Rett pounces out of the darkness and into the lantern’s beam to renew his assault on the action figure, The Showman pinwheels backward, planting himself on his rump and dropping the lantern, which promptly extinguishes.
El Hombre de Medianoche
Sunday
Rett has been banished from these proceedings.
Montague sits alone at the teak table. Upon the surface, a strip of paper, much more carefully cut and prepared, with his own name written on it. A candle provides the light, and the flame glints off a long straight pin as it flickers.
Reaching out, Monty takes up the straight pin in his left hand, then pushes the point into the index finger of his right. When a red bead appears, he pushes his thumbnail below to coax an even bigger drop to appear. Finally, he slashes his finger across his name, smearing the letters slightly.
Carefully, Montague folds the paper three times. Pinched between his left thumb and forefinger, he lowers it into the candle flame until it catches, flaring momentarily before crumbling to ash around the candleholder.
Monty blows out the candle.
A knocking begins. A steady, unbroken staccato as Montague raps his knuckles on the table top with the insistence of a young cop with an arrest warrant. As the twenty-fourth knock comes, it seems almost magnified in the silence that follows. That silence will hold the darkness for what feels like hours.
After Montague is certain the sun has risen and set twice more since he put out the flame, the door creaks open. Footsteps enter the room. Instantly, Monty clicks a flashlight toward the door, illuminating the approaching figure.
Montague: Dead Seb?
Dead Seb: Well ah reckon it is me, ain’t it?
Tempest’s pet corpse lumbers into the room, a beartrap slung over his shoulder with a chain.
Montague: What the are you doing down here?
Dead Seb: Confarnit, you hollered for me dint ya?
The Showman sighs, slumping down into his chair.
Montague: I was trying to call the real Sebastian.
Dead Seb: Boy, I am the real Seb, ya hear?
Montague: No, Sebastian Everett-Bryce, the Chaos Champion.
Dead Seb: Firebug?
Monty blinks, taking a moment to understand the nickname Dead Seb has given his namesake.
Montague: Right, the Arsonist.
Dead Seb: Now wut in tarnation you tryna bring that ol’ boy down here for anyhow?
Montague: He and I dance for the Chaos Championship once again tomorrow. I’m having trouble deciding what sort of game I want to play with him.
Dead Seb: Oh, I git ya now. Well, I tell ya wut, wut I likes to do is…
He unslings the beartrap and hucks it so that it lands several feet behind Montague. Splinters fly as it bites into the floor.
Dead Seb: Ketchum with mah manketcher here, then drag ‘em on back to the outhouse, right? I hangs ‘em up in there overnight, juss to break their spirits and such.
Montague: Seb, I–
Dead Seb: Next day, I drag ‘em on outta there…
This he pantomimes by turning around and dragging the beartrap by the chain so that it digs furrows through the floor.
Dead Seb: … and down to mah workshop! Thas when the fun really gits ‘er goin, you know what I mean?
Montague: While I’d love to hear more about how you find dates, especially in this new brogue you’ve seemed to develop, I’m not trying to kidnap and torture Seb. I just want to… you know… play with him.
Dead Seb: Well slap me on a biscuit and call me gravy! I thought ya’ll dint like this ol’ Firebug? Ya’ll said the only way he’d ever resonate wit the fans was if’n ya’ll pulled his ribs out and made him into a xylophone, and gave the front row mallets!
The Doctor-Professor blinks.
Montague: I wish I had come up with that colorful insult, but to be fair, I don’t think I ever put my disdain for the Chelsea Crippler in quite those terms. At any rate, I’m not angling to become entangled in another pointless, distracting donnybrook with Sebastian. I have a complex dance number to plan, with three other partners, further down the road. Two of them are performers I have a great deal of respect for, so you see, I must sort out how to hurt my friends before I can give any energy to social media popularity contests.
Dead Seb: Well then why you workin’ so hard down here if’n you don’t care about him?
Monty raises an eyebrow.
Montague: Oh I care. I care about Sebastian a great deal indeed. He’s been champion for over six months, and he’s rapidly racing up the top ten of most celebrated Chaos Champions. That sort of thing matters to the Grand Slam Champion, and putting it in peril makes him twist in ways I find very amusing. I don’t want to embark on an embittered campaign against him. As I said, I just want to play.
Dead Seb: Your cornbread’s not all the way done in the middle, is–
Tempest: Monty?
The overhead light flips on, and in this much clearer light, Dead Seb can be seen slumped back in the chair opposite monty.
Tempest: Monty, didn’t I ask you not to practice your ventriloquism on Seb?
He crosses his arms, looking haughtily out of his one good eye at his friend. Montague has the good grace to at least look sheepish.
Montague: Sorry, Temp. Couldn’t help myself.
