Good day Reader,
Apologies for my long absence; I’ve been deep in the weeds of drafting and editing a novel, as well as learning the joys of parenthood (did you know, once your little gremlin learns how to crawl you will never have another moment of peace until they leave the house?? It’s a good thing they’re so damn cute).
Anyways! The r/FantasyWriters subreddit runs a quarterly writing contest, fittingly scheduled around the solstices and equinoxes. This summer solstice’s contest prompted writers for stories revolving around a mysterious astronomical occurrence… There were nine entries in total, and the Reader’s Choice thread is now live, where you can read, vote, and comment on everyone’s stories. I’ve got skin in the game, with the entry titled Dayfall (posted in full below). I’d also like to offer my personal recommendation for three other excellent stories in the list: Did You Eat Yet? by u/ydz-one; Staring at the Sun by u/kitsuneinferno; and Monsters and Manners by u/tookoofox.
Is it a bad idea to hype my competition? Who cares, I enjoyed their stories. I hope you enjoy mine as well; if you do, head on over to reddit and give me a vote, or leave a comment.
Anyway, here’s Wonderwall Dayfall
Rica awoke the morning of Dayfall with a rumbling stomach. The bakery chimney that filled most of her sleeping niche was a mixed blessing—the heat a boon against the chill of the Long Night, but the smells of fresh bread and pastries in the ovens below a constant reminder of the lousiness of her last meal. But today was a new day, a day of promise: today brought the Feast of Dayfall, and Rica intended to secure a good enough spot in the lower plaza to score a handsome portion of the food.
Spurred forward by a loud gurgle inside, Rica lifted the false panel of roofing tile that concealed her niche and squeezed out between the rafters onto the rooftop. Her niche was small—even by her standards—with barely enough room to twist ‘round once inside. But it wasn’t like she needed to move much anyway; the slightest noise might alert the baker to her presence, and that wouldn’t be good for no one. It was a good spot, real top shelf stuff, and she’d worked hard over the past year to keep it secret from the bigger boys in the Milner Street gang. Those burly dung-heaps would oust her in a heartbeat if they knew where she slept.
Which was why it irked her so, as she stretched out her cramped limbs, to find Jax huddled against a chimney on the rooftop next door, his back turned as if to say he’d just posted up there by pure coincidence and wasn’t waiting for her. Jax was small for his age, standing eye-to-eye and only a little heavier than Rica despite being about a year older than her. And maddeningly, he’d somehow found out her secret niche a couple months back.
Rica wasn’t sure what to make of him. For some reason, he’d yet to sell her out to the gang, and hadn’t tried to blackmail her to keep her secret—he hadn’t even tried to cop a feel. Cursing under her breath, Rica fit the false panel back into place, then scrabbled down the frosty tiles to the gutter pipe and clambered down to the alley below.
Fuel was precious during the Long Night, and no one ever wasted a torch to light a dingy old alleyway. Rica waited in the dark, comfortable among the silhouettes of broken crates and detritus, and stroked a finger against the handle of her straight razor. She soon heard his breathing, then a curse as he bumped his shin against a rail on his climb down.
“Heya Rica,” Jax said, joining her as an outline in the blackness.
“What do you want?” she hissed back.
“I found a great spot for the festival today, thought you might like to join me?”
Rica frowned. “A good spot’s valuable. A great spot is rich. What’s the trade?”
“Light, I ain’t asking you for nothing. It’s just a spot that’s good enough for two folks, and you’re the only one I trust won’t cut my throat once we get there.”
“I might so.”
“Nah,” he said, and she could hear him smile in the word. “Now come on, we gotta get moving or we’ll miss out—it ain’t easy to get to.”
His hand closed around hers in the darkness and tugged her toward the alley opening. She flinched at the touch of his warm fingers and jerked her hand free. But she followed after him—a good spot at the feast was worth some unwanted company.
The alley dropped them onto Ligo Way. Rica lingered for one longing moment at the window of the bakery, rubbing her disgruntled belly, then hurried after Jax. The street was abustle with townsfolk, their breath puffing out in dense, foggy clouds. The Long Night tended to split the city into two groups: folk who gravitated toward the warm pools of light surrounding the street lamps and hanging lanterns; and folk who shied away, taking an eerie sorta comfort in the cloying dark. Rica found that more and more people joined her and Jax in the second group as the days wore on.
A few blocks from the lower plaza, they passed a bathhouse with a crowded line out front. A banner stamped with the city crest hung behind two lanterns—Rica couldn’t read it of course, but everyone in Inress was familiar with the yearly admonishment to be well-bathed, clean-shaven, and dressed in gay apparel for the day’s festivities. Rica made do with a scrap of rag dipped in a water trough to scrub the chimney soot off her face.
The morning sky had gained a subtle brightness by the time they reached the plaza. The sun appeared above the crowded rooftops, a deep maroon disc against the bruise-purple backdrop of the celestial clouds. The plaza itself was well-lit by dozens of torch sconces along the outside, as well as the roaring bonfire set up in the central fountain—temporarily drained. Streamers and banners hung from the balconies and windows of every building on the square, in colors that Dayfall would reveal to be bright and garish. The plaza was already crowded, and Rica wondered at this mysterious spot Jax had enticed her along with.
“Damn it,” the boy muttered, “they’ve posted a guard outside the hostel.”
Rica looked to the tall, narrow building across the plaza, backed up against the foundation wall of the upper city. “That was your plan?” she hissed. “To post outside the hostel for the feast? That’s the Shamblers’ spot—we’d be lucky if they only thumped us black and blue!”
“No,” Jax caught her sleeve as she turned to storm away, “my plan is much better than that, but we need to get into the hostel first.”
She glared at him, fingers itching for her razor.
“Trust me, Rica. Please.”
He still hadn’t sold her out to the gangs…
Rica swatted his hand off her sleeve. She craned her neck, searching the crowd for a suitable mark. “Fine. Wait there,” she pointed to the haberdashery next door to the hostel. “I’ll make a diversion.”
He nodded, and she slipped away into the crowd.
Her mark was a tall man, one of the few with a potbelly under his threadbare dress-shirt. He was a butcher, and he’d thumped her something fierce a few weeks back for staring too longingly at the goods. She rode the crowd to him, letting the flow of townsfolk shift and jostle her around until she was right up behind him. Then she flipped open her razor, slit a small hole in the bottom of his coin purse, and moved away into the crowd.
Rica was three bodies away before the first coins slipped free and clinked against the cobblestones. Beggars and merchants alike dove for the spilling treasure, and the butcher spun around at the commotion, throwing more coins free in an arc as he turned. Chaos ensued. Jax nodded admiringly as Rica joined him, and they watched the guard at the hostel step away from her post toward the disturbance.
He led her into the shadows, around to the back door of the hostel. They listened at the half-rotted plank for a moment, then cracked it open and slipped inside a narrow hallway lit only by a dim lantern. Murmurs and muffled laughter came from the front of the building. Jax lit a rushlight off the lantern, and took a staircase off the side of the hall down into a basement storeroom stocked with several sacks and barrels of provisions. For the size of the room, it was a meager stock—but to Rica, it was wealth unimaginable. Her eyes lingered, but her heart also pounded at her chest. The Shamblers were not a gentle gang, and their connection to the hostel typically insulated it from precisely the kind of thing she and Jax were doing.
Well, if she was going to die, she might as well do it on a full stomach. She stuffed a pair of turnips into her pockets, and nabbed a lonely sausage link off a shelf.
Jax ignored the food in favor of a heavy-looking door strapped with iron. He produced a key from his pocket.
“Where’d you get that?” Rica asked around a mouthful of sausage.
“Lifted it off a city watchman last week.” He fit the key into the door’s lock and twisted; it gave a hollow click, and he lugged the door open. Beyond, a gaping black maw swallowed the tiny light of Jax’s rushlight whole.
“Where’s it go?”
“Let’s find out, yeah?” He stepped through the door.
Rica groaned, stalling at the door. But with no rushlight of her own, and the occasional clomp of boots from the floor above to remind her who she was messing with, she followed him in and pulled the door shut behind them.
They moved down a narrow hallway of rough stone for several dozen paces and came to a spiral staircase. Rica stuffed the remaining half-sausage into her pockets with the turnips as they climbed. The steps were steep and narrow, and soon her thighs were burning for relief. Jax slowed ahead of her as they approached a landing, and held a finger up to his lips. They crept silently past a shut door, continuing upward.
Rica’s unease grew with each torturous turn of the spiral, until the stairs ended at a slatted metal gate and her fears were confirmed. Through the bars she saw an alley, but not a dark, debris-cluttered one like she was used to. This alley was clean, paved with broad, flat tiles instead of cobblestone, and well-lit by several arcanophorescent globes suspended in open air. Past the mouth of the alley was a sliver of opulence: the open square of the upper plaza, and a glimpse of the palace balcony on which the royal entourage would soon gather to address the people.
She grabbed Jax by the collar and shoved him up against the gate. “What’d you bring me to the upper city for? If they catch us without work permits we’ll lose our hands!”
“So we don’t get caught, then.”
“You said you had a great spot for the feast, but we’re a hundred feet too high! They don’t even hand out food up here, everyone’s already fat and rich and happy.”
“Yeah, I heard they just roll out casks of wine up here, and everyone gets drunk.” Jax shrugged.
“I’ll never get back in time to get a good spot now—I’ll be lucky to get a rind of moldy cheese.”
“Light! Can you stop thinking about food for five seconds, maybe?”
Rica’s mind went a little blank at the request.
“Stale bread and sour mutton doesn’t even compare to what we’re after today. Think about it: the people up here don’t even bother to carry iron pennies in their purses—probably not copper, neither! We’re talking silver and gold. I never even seen real gold.”
“Jax, you can’t slit purses if you can’t blend in. Only reason it works is no one notices the likes of a few urchins in the lower city. Up here we’ll stand out like a couple of rats in a dog pack.”
“Right,” Jax nodded, the rushlight glinting off his wide eyes. “Only way we could blend in with the likes of them is if nobody could see us at all.”
Rica froze. She closed her mouth, released Jax’s collar and stepped back, considering him.
“Only way we could ever pull it off,” he smiled, “is if everybody were to close their eyes all at once, and then for some damn reason, keep ‘em closed for a while.”
“Dayfall…” Rica muttered. It just might work.
“I figure, a couple slitpurses with an unlikely moment like that could take two, three purses each? If one was really good—like you—maybe four or five? A couple slitpurses with that kind of money… Well, I bet they could disappear if they wanted. Leave the city, go start a new life somewhere else, where they don’t have to sleep against chimneys to survive, or go days between meals.” His look was pleading, earnest.
Longing.
“There’s still a problem. They’ll all be blinded by the light—but so will we.”
Jax reached into his pocket. For a hair of a moment, Rica wondered if he was going for his razor to threaten her. But he brought out two thick, black veils.
He was such an insufferable idiot. But who was Rica kidding? If she was going to die, she might as well do it with a purse full of gold.
She nodded toward the gate. Jax held up the key and smiled.
They left the gate slightly ajar and crept down the alleyway toward the plaza. In the light from the globes overhead, Rica felt more naked than ever. It was reckless. And a part of her, it seemed, found that thrilling. Jax hung back as she sidled up against a decorative archway column and peeked out into the plaza. Throngs of nobles milled about—a large crowd, but nothing like the shoulder-to-shoulder press of the lower plaza. She pulled back around the corner and returned to Jax.
“They’re moving in groups up here, mostly sticking together with their circle. When the bells ring, choose the nearest group of three or more and just work them. You’re not going to have time to jump from one group to the next.”
“Got it,” Jax nodded. He glanced up past Rica, and his eyes went wide. “Look—the king!”
The royal family had emerged onto the palace balcony with their entourage. Rica had seen them before from the lower plaza, where they mostly looked like distant blobs in nondescript finery. From this distance, they looked so much more real: like people with lives, and thoughts, and desires. King Vancel stepped forward to the railing and lifted his hands. The crowd stilled.
“Good peoples of Inress,” his voice reached them, amplified by a court wizard’s spellcraft, “We have endured much hardship together. For fifty-seven days, we have mourned the sun—through the Longest Night in recorded history! But I tell you now, you have weathered the storm. My court astrologer,” he paused for scattered applause as a balding man in a blue robe waved to the assembled nobility, “has read the signs, and declares that the Long Night ends, today!”
Thunderous applause met his majesty’s words. Rica could feel, rather than hear, the uproar from the lower plaza as a rumble in the pavers underfoot.
“Ready,” she whispered to Jax. They tied the veils around their heads, the fabric bunched up above their foreheads and ready to be dropped into place.
“Now join me in welcoming the warm kiss of the sun’s return,” King Vancel concluded, “as the bells ring out for Dayfall!”
The crowd turned and lifted their faces to the disk of the sun, eyes closed. Inevitably, some poor sod in the lower city would ignore all the warnings and look directly at the sun as it emerged from behind the celestial cloudscape; at least one every year joined the city’s small cohort of blind beggars. Most didn’t last until the following year’s Long Night.
Bells sounded from towers across the city, and Rica darted toward a group of half a dozen nobles. She worked swiftly and surely, and had four purses dangling off her left hand before she felt that something was amiss.
The sky was still dark.
Rica made eye contact with Jax as he finished removing a third purse from his group of marks. She drew her thumb across her throat. He nodded, and they bolted for the alleyway. A murmur rose from the crowd as people peeked through squinting eyes, then looked about at each other in confusion.
“You said the signs were clear.” The king’s voice was low and threatening, still amplified through the plaza. Up on his balcony, he jabbed an accusing finger into the astrologer’s chest. The man held his hands up, but his reply was lost to the sky outside the effect of the court wizard’s spell.
“No! You said today. You said at this hour. Well, is it now, or is it not, you insufferable cretin?”
The one-sided argument proved far more interesting to attend to than a pair of scrawny urchins slipping away into a back alley. They pressed their back to the wall safely out of sight, breathing hard.
“My purse,” a voice called out from the crowd, “I’ve been robbed!”
The king’s voice boomed out once more, drowning out the cries of alarm. “We’ve been waiting months now, gods damn you! How much longer could you want? Our stores of lamp-oil are nearly spent, and we’re already due to empty the granaries at least a week before harvest!”
Gasps rose from the crowd of nobles. Watching from the arch at the alley mouth, Rica was truly relieved to be in the upper city: the lower plaza had likely turned into a full-on riot at the revelation that a famine was inevitable.
Up on the balcony, a woman in a long wizard’s frock rushed forward, gesticulating wildly at the king. He paused his berating of the astrologer long enough to glance down over the dismayed faces of his subjects below.
“Stop the spell then, you miserable fu—”
The sudden silence was deafening. The argument continued high above on the palace balcony, feeling somehow less real, less threatening, like a cheap puppet show. The king shook the astrologer about by the collar, shoving him up and down the balcony. Finally he seemed to tire of it and turned away—only to yank a sword free from the scabbard of a royal guard a moment later, and slash the astrologer across the face. He then kicked him squarely in the chest, sending the man tumbling over the edge of the balcony. His long scream broke the silence as he plummeted to the stones of the upper plaza, abruptly cut off by a sickening squelch. Screams erupted as the crowd lurched away from the impact, and the upper plaza devolved into its own form of riotous mob, in fancy dress.
The urchins fled to the safety of the gate in the foundation wall. “What’s it mean?” Jax whispered, his breathing heavy and loud at Rica’s side.
“I don’t know,” Rica said.
“But the sun—is the sun going to come back?”
“I don’t know! But look at them.” She gestured vaguely at the noble mob, watching as a bespectacled older gentleman laid out a lady in a ballgown with an elbow to the throat as he scrambled to get past her. “If this is how the fancy-pants high society folk are reacting to whatever it was just happened, then it ain’t fucking good.”
“Things are about to get real bad, aren’t they?” Jax said.
She nodded.
His fingers, warm and calloused, found her hand in the darkness and squeezed. After a moment, she squeezed his hand back. In the days to come, a trustworthy friend was gonna be more valuable than any purse of gold, Rica reckoned.
The Literary Diversions of K.T. Lazarus 
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