Tobias arrived on a ferry in the middle of the day, dressed in clothes he had ironed.
Alaric liked the part in the application about the ironed clothes.
Tobias hadn’t said it exactly that way.
In his small, neat handwriting, on the second page of the form Alaric sent to applicants who made it past the first round, Tobias wrote: “I will arrive looking presentable.” He added, “I have been told this matters less than I think it does, but I am going to do it anyway.” That sentence showed what kind of person he was.
The ferry arrived at the natural anchorage just before noon.
Tobias got off, carrying a suitcase that had traveled the world with someone else before him.
He found it at a second-hand store near a bus stop in a Hudson Valley town.
Tobias stood for a long time on the rocks at the gate before going in.
How a person stands at a doorway, crossing the threshold, is what matters most in a day.
Then he stepped through.
He walked up the path in the way Tobias always would, as Alaric would notice over the next few months.
Tobias moved slowly and carefully, always aware of his steps, as if he could sense everything around him as a steady hum.
The hum on Vantage felt different.
Tobias had spent most of his adult life looking for places where that hum was quieter.
He hadn’t found one until now.
He stopped twice on the way up the path, without explaining.
Alaric, who had read his application more than once, understood without asking.
At the porch, Alaric stood up, not to greet Tobias but to make tea, and came back with two mugs.
“Tobias.” “Mr.
Vane.” “Sit down.” So he sat.
By now, Alaric had done the intake conversation a few times.
The form he made had three questions, always in the same order: What do you need?
What can you offer?
What do you want Vantage to be?
He had the form on a legal pad in front of him, but he didn’t look at it.
He already knew it by heart.
“What do you need?” “Quiet.” “Operationally, or psychologically.” Both.
The hum is strong.
I’ve been to about two hundred places in my life looking for the kind of quiet I needed.
I came up here yesterday from Beacon.
The ferry was the loudest part of the trip.
“How is the island?” “Quieter than anywhere I’ve been since nineteen eighty-three.” “What can you offer?” “I can feel appliances.” “In what sense?” In a practical sense.
I can tell when a circuit is failing.
I know when a wire isn’t seated right.
I sense when a system is overdrawn.
For years, I’ve made a small living as a freelance appliance diagnostic consultant.
My clients pay cash and don’t ask questions.
The jobs are small, but I’m very good at them.
“All right.” I can also feel signals, though this part has been less useful in my life.
“What kind of signals?” “The kind that comes from above.” He didn’t say anything else, and Alaric didn’t press him.
By now, Alaric was starting to understand Tobias.
He was the kind of man who would share more when he was ready, and who watched you closely while giving the first part of his answer, deciding if you deserved to hear the rest.
Alaric let the moment go.
“What do you want Vantage to be?” “A place where my situation is one fact among many, instead of the central fact of my life.” “That’s exactly the sort of place this is.” “All right.” He signed the residency form.
Alaric signed it, too.
Alaric kept the original and gave Tobias a copy.
Then Alaric handed him the key to the second house.
It was a small one-bedroom up the eastern slope, finished a few weeks earlier.
Alaric walked him over to it.
Tobias stopped at the door.
“There’s a frequency around the doorway.” “What is it?” “That’s the residential gravity boundary.
The interior of every residence is at eighty-five percent of standard.” “Good plan.” “Take whatever time.
The first night feels different.” Tobias stepped through.
Alaric noticed Tobias adjust his shoulders slightly, just as he had done the first time he entered the residence.
He had seen Dara do it, too.
Even Xavier seemed to sense it from outside the doorway, though he hadn’t stepped in yet.
“All right,” Tobias said quietly.
“Thank you.” Take the rest of the day.
Come down for dinner if you want, or not.
Either way is fine.
He came down for dinner.
— Riya came two weeks later.
She arrived at four in the morning, in a quiet motorboat, with her uncle.
He was a quiet man who had agreed to drop her off on his way to a fishing trip that, Alaric suspected, he was not really planning to take.
The uncle helped her with her bag, but did not come up to the gate.
He stood on the rocks at the anchorage and watched her walk up the path until she reached the gate, then turned the boat around and motored back into the dark.
She was thirteen years old.
A woman named Lakshmi in Toronto, who identified herself as Riya’s aunt, had filled out the application.
She explained the situation in careful, plain language, the kind someone uses after searching for a place for a niece for a long time and finally finding a website where the founding document made it seem possible.
Riya’s parents had not handled her abilities well.
The aunt had done what she could, but she was running out of options.
Riya could change the color of her eyes.
That was her whole ability.
It was neither useful nor dangerous.
For the first eight years of her life, her eyes were a deep brown.
Then, one morning when she was eight and a half, she looked in the mirror and saw her eyes were a pale, clear gray.
She looked again, and they were hazel.
She spent the next twenty minutes cycling through every eye color she had ever seen on television.
That morning, she thought it was the most fun thing that would ever happen to her.
But things had not gone well at home.
By the time she turned thirteen, her ability had cost her most of her friendships and two schools.
She had also lost both of her parents’ affection in any way she could recognize, and even her comfort with looking in mirrors.
She had been staying at her aunt’s house in Toronto for the past several months.
Her aunt had done her best.
Once again, the aunt had filled out the application.
Alaric had read the application three times.
He met Riya at the gate as the first morning light appeared in the east, carrying a thermos of hot chocolate.
On his way down at four-thirty in the morning, he wondered if hot chocolate was the right choice.
He decided it would probably keep being the right thing for a while, and he should get used to it.
She was a small girl, looking younger than thirteen.
She wore a too-big sweatshirt and a pair of sneakers that looked almost new.
She held her bag in front of her with both hands, as if she thought it might disappear if she set it down.
“Riya.” “Hi.” “I’m Alaric.” “I know.” “There’s hot chocolate in this thermos.
There’s also a kettle in the kitchen if you’d rather have tea.” She looked at the thermos.
“Hot chocolate is good,” she said.
He gave her the thermos.
He didn’t ask her any of the three intake questions yet.
At four-thirty in the morning, at the gate, in the cold, he wasn’t going to ask a thirteen-year-old girl whose uncle had just left what she could offer.
He led her to the kitchen, let her drink the hot chocolate, and let her sit at the table.
After a while, she said, “Dara’s the one in the website pictures.” “I figured.” “Is she awake?” “Probably not.
She likes mornings, but she doesn’t like four-thirty in the morning.” “On it.” “You’ll meet her at breakfast.” “There’s a guest room.” “Right enough for now.” He showed her the guest room, the same one Dara had used on her first night.
Dara now slept in the second bedroom upstairs, but the guest room had been made ready for the next person who needed it.
There were fresh sheets, a small lamp on the nightstand, and a glass of water by the bed.
Riya stood in the doorway for a long moment.
“It’s warm in here,” she said.
“It’s the gravity.
The whole house is at eighty-five percent.
It feels different.” “It feels nice.” “I know.” “Can I — ” She stepped inside and stood in the middle of the room for a moment, holding her bag in front of her.
She took a long breath that turned into a quiet, surprised laugh.
It was the kind of laugh that comes from someone who has carried something heavy for a long time and finally sets it down.
She put the bag on the bed.
“I’m tired,” she said.
“I know.
Go to sleep.
The door is unlocked.
I won’t come in unless you call.
There’s a glass of water, and the lamp turns off with the chain on the side.
The bathroom is the second door on the right.
If you need anything, I’m in the kitchen for the next hour, and after that, I’m upstairs.
Dara’s room is the closet door at the top of the stairs.
She is the one you knock on first if you don’t want to wake me.
She prefers it that way.” “That’s the plan.” “Welcome to Vantage.” “All right.” He closed the door behind himself, very quietly, and went back to the kitchen.
She ended up sleeping until two in the afternoon.
— Celeste arrived by ferry in the middle of the day, carrying a small toolbox and her own thermos of coffee.
She was forty-six and had spent the last twenty years working as a welder in plants where the heat sent younger workers to the hospital.
The temperatures never bothered her.
Since she was a teenager, she told people she didn’t get cold or hot, and let them think she was joking.
She wasn’t.
Her application was written in short, professional sentences, the kind you’d expect from someone who had filled out many forms and didn’t waste words.
Immune to temperature extremes, it said.
Willing to do welding, structural work, and kitchen work.
Have my own tools.
Can pay nominal rent.
Alaric had read the application twice and then written back, on the same day, please come.
She arrived at the porch.
She set the toolbox down.
She set the thermos on the rail.
“Mr.
Vane.” “Celeste.” “I read the document.” “The kitchen-temperature law.” “It works on the kettle here.” “That’s right.” “Does it work on the welding?” “It would, if I declared it.
I haven’t yet.
I haven’t had a welder.” “You do now.” “Yes, ma’am.” She faced him for a long moment.
“All right,” she said.
“I’ll take the application questions in any order you want.” He skipped them.
He had read the application.
The application said it all.
He gave her the key to the third house, farther up the eastern slope, with windows that caught the most morning light.
She walked up with her toolbox and thermos.
She came down for dinner in clean clothes, no makeup, and a face shaped by years of work.
She sat next to Tobias, and they talked about welding and appliances for almost two hours.
Dara sat across from them, eating her dinner quietly, and Riya, on her second day, sat at the end of the table with her hot chocolate, listening.
After dinner, when everyone had gone, Dara helped Alaric with the dishes.
“That’s three,” she said.
“Three.” “Tobias, Riya, Celeste.
Plus you and me.
We’re at five.” “You should think about community building.” “I know.” “I made a list.” She handed him a folded piece of paper.
He opened it.
The list was four pages long, all in her handwriting.
The pages were divided into categories: Infrastructure, Daily Operations, Future Residents, and Things I’ve Noticed.
He read the first page, started the second, then looked up.
“How long have you been keeping this?” “Since the second week.” “You’ve been keeping a community needs survey since the second week of being here.” “True.” “By yourself.” “Of course.” “Without telling me.” “You were busy.” “Dara.” “What?” “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” “You’re going to be in charge of more things.” “I know.” “I don’t know what to call the role yet.” “You can decide that later.” “All right.” He folded the list.
Put it in his pocket.
Finished the dishes.
Outside the kitchen window, in the dim light, the three new houses were lit.
He watched them for a moment—three windows glowing on the eastern slope, in a place that, just two months ago, had been only one man, a flag, and a leaky tarp.
He thought, I seem to have built a community by accident.
Tobias found the water table by feeling for it.
Celeste has volunteered to weld whatever I ask her to.
Riya asked, at breakfast, if I would mind if she changed her eyes to match the herb tags in the garden.
I told her to change them to whatever she wanted.
Dara has been running a census since the second week.
I made the laws.
They made the rest.
This may be the model.
He put the pen down.
He turned the kitchen light off.
The lights on the eastern slope stayed on for a long time.
— CREATORS’ THOUGHTS FanficForger Hey there!
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