Chapter 3: The Morning After
The first thing Willum became aware of was weight. Not the leaden weight of dread, which had finally dissolved into sleep, but a living, breathing constellation of gentle pressures across his torso. Golden afternoon light, thick as honey, cut through the gap in the curtains and painted a warm stripe over his chest.
He blinked, focusing. Patrick was a sleek, familiar silhouette perched on his sternum. The pipkin’s tail wasn’t just lying there; it was deliberately, possessively coiled in a loose spiral around Willum’s left nipple, the tip giving an occasional, unconscious flick against his skin. Patrick was staring at him, dark green eyes unblinking, already awake and on watch.
“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Patrick said, his voice husky with sleep but clear. “You snored. Like a freight train negotiating a steep incline.”
On the gentle rise of Willum’s stomach, Malcolm sat cross-legged, a micro-screen the size of a postage stamp balanced on his knees. The glow of legal text reflected in his wire-rimmed glasses. He didn’t look up. “Statute of limitations for formal grievance filings in non-familial custodial disputes,” he murmured, more to himself than anyone. His slightly longer tail lay straight behind him like a ruler.
A tickling, wriggling sensation navigated the terrain of Willum’s pectoral muscles. Josh’s shaggy head emerged from the forest of chest hair, his grin wide and unmistakable even at this scale. “Did a circuit. The left clavicle is a way tougher climb after you’ve been lying on it all night. Loosens up the holds.”
From behind Willum’s right ear, a whisper-soft voice chimed in. “Your heart rate spiked twice during REM sleep.” Tyler’s observation was delivered with clinical quiet, a statement of pure fact. The very end of his incredibly dexterous tail, no thicker than a thread, dropped into Willum’s line of sight, giving a single, slow wave.
They were all here. On him. As usual. The normalcy of it, after the seismic shift of the night, was almost jarring. Willum took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling under his passengers. The smell of coffee, smoky and sweet, wove up from the kitchen below. Malcolm must have programmed the machine before climbing up for his morning research session.
“You’re all terrible bed-hoarders,” Willum rumbled, his voice gravelly.
Patrick’s tail tightened minutely, a reassuring squeeze. “You love it. Now. The drawer. Did you dream about it, or are we actually doing this?”
The mirth drained from the air, replaced by a tense, waiting silence. Even Josh stilled, his body half-submerged in hair. Malcolm finally looked up from his screen, his vibrant green eyes magnified and serious behind his lenses.
Willum stared at the ceiling, at a tiny crack in the plaster he knew as well as the lines on his own palm. This was his home. These were his people. The letter in the kitchen drawer was a splinter, and ignoring it would only let it fester.
“We’re doing it,” Willum said. The words felt solid, real. “Here. In the workshop. On our ground.”
A collective exhale seemed to move through them. Josh whooshed out of the hair and executed a perfect, rolling somersault onto the sheet beside Willum’s ribs. “Yes! Okay. Good. That’s… good.” His enthusiasm was bright but brittle, undercut by the nervous tap of his long tail against the mattress.
Malcom nodded once, a sharp, efficient motion. “I’ve drafted three potential response frameworks. Ranging from politely scathing to legally impregnable. We can tailor once we have a proposed time.”
“I’ll handle the workshop,” Patrick said, uncoiling his tail and stretching his arms overhead with a tiny, audible pop. “Make it look less like a wonderful, chaotic home and more like an impenetrable fortress of accomplished adulthood. It’ll require moving approximately four thousand splinters and hiding your ‘I Heart Pipkins’ mug.”
“I like that mug,” Tyler whispered from behind Willum’s ear.
“It’s ammunition in their hands, Ty,” Patrick said, not unkindly. He began walking down the plain of Willum’s torso, his tiny feet careful and precise. “They’ll see sentiment as a weakness. We show them craft. We show them purpose.” He reached Willum’s pajama waistband and glanced back. “You. Up. Coffee. Then we compose the most terrifyingly polite email of your life.”
The next hour was a study in controlled, domestic mobilization. Willum, now in a worn grey t-shirt and jeans, sat at the kitchen island with his laptop. The drawer was open, the letter beside the keyboard like an exhibit.
Malcolm stood on the laptop’s wrist rest, his micro-screen now synced to the larger display. “I propose we avoid phrases like ‘you abandoned him.’ It’s factually correct but triggers defensive litigation posturing. We use ‘prior absence’ and ‘current chosen familial framework.’”
Josh, unable to sit still, was scaling the waterfall of the open fridge door, leaping from handle to condiment shelf with restless energy. “Just tell them to come at three! That’s when the light in the workshop is best. It’s all golden and shows the grain in the wood. Makes everything look… substantial.”
“Aesthetic warfare. I approve,” Patrick called. He was across the room, directing from atop the toaster as Willum moved a large, half-finished cherrywood cabinet to a more prominent position. “Now the mallet! Put the big mallet on the workbench, not on the rack. Look like you just stopped mid-challenge to check your email.”
Tyler was on Willum’s shoulder, his tiny hands buried in the folds of the t-shirt collar for stability. He hadn’t spoken much, but his presence was a constant, gentle weight. Willum reached up and offered a finger. Tyler instantly wrapped his tail around it, just once, a quick, silent squeeze.
The email, when it was sent, was a masterpiece of Malcolm’s devious diplomacy and Patrick’s sharp theatricality. It acknowledged the Mattisons’ request, expressed a willingness for discourse, and firmly stipulated the meeting location: Willum Clark’s Workshop, 3 PM, seven days hence. The tone was professional, unassailable, and as immovable as stone.
The click of the ‘send’ button echoed in the suddenly quiet kitchen.
Josh dropped from the fridge handle, landing softly on a breadboard. “Okay. It’s done.”
For a long moment, no one moved. The action had been a buffer. Now, the reality seeped in. In one week, the ghosts would be given form. They would walk into their sanctuary.
Willum felt the old, cold fear stir. He looked at Josh, who was trying so hard to look fearless. He saw Malcolm’s shoulders, tight with the burden of strategy. He felt the faint tremor in Tyler’s tail where it still touched his neck. He saw Patrick, standing straight on the toaster, his arms crossed, staring at the sent email on the laptop screen as if he could vaporize it with his will.
They were all scared. Not just for Josh, but of the unspoken question the Mattisons embodied: What are you all, really?
Willum closed the laptop. The sound was final.
“Right,” he said, his voice filling the space. “One week. That’s plenty of time.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Malcom, you’re in charge of legal posturing and snack procurement. Patrick, fortress design is yours. Tyler,” he gently lifted his hand, bringing the tiny artist level with his eyes, “I need a new sketch for the mantlepiece. Something… anchoring.”
Tyler’s grey eyes widened, then softened. He nodded, a quick, determined dip of his chin.
Willum’s gaze finally landed on Josh, who was gripping the edge of the breadboard, his knuckles pale. “Josh. You’re with me. We’re finishing the Spruce Creek job today. I need you to check the joinery in the upper cabinet hinges. My fingers are too big.”
It was a task, real and physical. A purpose. Josh’s perpetual grin returned, genuine this time. “The one up by the ceiling? You need a spotter?”
“I always need a spotter,” Willum said, and meant it.
The workshop wasn’t just a room; it was a universe of scent and texture. The air hung rich with the smells of sawdust, tung oil, and honest sweat. Sunlight, just as Josh had predicted, streamed in the high windows in thick, golden beams, illuminating galaxies of dust motes and setting the rich grains of oak and maple ablaze.
Willum worked with a focused calm, the rasp of sandpaper and the rhythmic tap-tap of a chisel becoming a meditative soundscape. Josh was a blur of motion on the nearly-finished cabinet, his extraordinary tail hooking, pulling, testing every hinge, every glued joint from the inside out. He called down critiques and confirmations, his voice echoing slightly in the wooden box.
Patrick busied himself with what he called ‘atmosphere,’ rearranging tools into impressively stark, geometric displays. Malcolm had set up a command post on a shelf, surrounded by law texts and a detailed map of the workshop floorplan.
Tyler sat in a pool of sunlight on the worn pine of the main workbench, a single drop of ink and a sliver of feather his tools. He was beginning to sketch, his tail holding the feather steady as his hands worked with microscopic precision.
For hours, the specter of the meeting receded, banished by the simple, profound logic of creation. They were building something. Together.
It was late afternoon when Willum, applying oil to a tabletop, felt a new weight on his head. Not Tyler—this was a bolder, more central pressure. Then two tiny hands gripped strands of his hair near his temple.
“Hey up there,” Willum said, not stopping his circular rubbing.
“Just getting the view,” Josh’s voice came from above his right eyebrow. He was quiet for a minute. Willum could feel him shifting, sitting down in the thicket of black hair. “You know… they’ve never seen me work. They never asked what I was good at. It was always about what I wasn’t. Not human-sized. Not following the ‘path.’” He paused. “They’ve never seen anything like this.”
Willum stopped polishing. He looked up, though he couldn’t see Josh. He looked at the cabinet, at the flawless joinery his friend had just certified. He looked at Malcolm’s concentrated scowl, at Patrick’s artistic tool arrangement, at Tyler’s emerging drawing of five interconnected figures.
“Then I guess,” Willum said softly, the words just for the man in his hair, “we’ll just have to make sure they get a really good look.”