Chapter 2: The First Morning's Weight
The grey light before dawn found Milo already awake. He’d slept in fits, the unfamiliar sounds of the house jerking him from dreams he couldn’t remember. He unzipped the sleeping bag and stood in the cold room, his breath pluming in the air. For a moment, he just stood there, listening. The stream below murmured. A crow cawed from a distant pine. The house was quiet, holding its breath.
He ate an apple and peanut butter on the tailgate of the rusty, non-functional pickup truck parked beside the shed, watching the sky bleed from grey to pale gold. Then he got to work.
The cardboard over the windows was pathetic, already damp from the night’s dew. He needed something solid. In the shed, he found the stack of warped plywood sheets. They were heavy, water-stained, and nails were rusted into them at odd angles, but they were wood. He dragged one out into the yard, the effort straining his wiry frame. Using his grandmother’s crowbar, he pried the old nails free, the shrieks echoing off the trees. He repeated the process until he had a pile of semi-straight, splintery boards.
He measured the window openings with a piece of string, marking the plywood with a stub of pencil he’d found. The handsaw was brutal work. The rusted teeth bit and stuck, requiring him to put his whole body into each pull. Sweat soaked through his shirt despite the morning chill. His hands, already calloused, grew raw. Blisters rose and burst. He ignored them.
By midday, he had rough squares cut for the eight main ground-floor windows. He hauled them one by time up the porch steps, his muscles screaming. Hammering them into the old window frames was a percussive therapy. Each thwack of the hammer sent a jolt up his arm, each driven nail felt like a sentence of permanence. The light inside grew dim, filtered through the gaps around the plywood, but the wind’s constant whisper was silenced. The house felt quieter, more contained. His.
He stood in the murky living room, breathing hard, the hammer dangling from his aching hand. It was something. It was a start.
The boxes from the attic sat in a row near the fireplace. He’d barely glanced inside them beyond the quilt and the photo. Now, he opened them with a new purpose.
He found china, delicate with a pattern of tiny roses, wrapped in yellowed newspaper. A set of tarnished silverware in a felt-lined case. A music box with a cracked lid, a ballerina frozen mid-pirouette. A man’s gold pocket watch, the crystal smashed but the engraving on the back still legible: To Robert, With All My Heart, E. He packed it all carefully into his backpack, cushioning it with the old newspapers.
The bike ride to town was easier the second time, his legs adapting. The Pine Mill Mercantile felt different now. He wasn’t just a kid buying beans. He was a person with something to sell.
The man with the mustache was behind the counter again. He looked at Milo’s loaded backpack, then at his dusty, sweat-streaked face. “Back so soon? Run out of water?”
“I’ve got some things,” Milo said, his voice steady. He unzipped the pack and began laying items on the counter with deliberate care. The china. The silver. The watch. The music box.
The man, who introduced himself as Carl, wiped his hands on his apron and peered at each piece. He picked up the pocket watch, popped the case, squinted at the workings. He held a plate up to the light. His expression was unreadable.
“Where’d you get this stuff?”
“It’s mine,” Milo said, meeting his gaze. “I own the Vance place on Old Pine.”
Carl’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “That old wreck? Hell, I heard it fell down years ago.” He set the plate down. “This is old. Not antique, really. Not in great shape. The silver’s plate, not solid. The watch doesn’t run. The china’s got hairline cracks.”
Milo’s heart sank, but he kept his face still. He’d learned not to show want. Want was a weakness people exploited. “What’s it worth to you?”
Carl named a figure so low it was almost insulting. Milo didn’t flinch. He pointed to the watch. “That’s a Waltham. The case is gold-filled. The movement’s good, just needs cleaning.” He’d looked it up on the mercantile’s patchy Wi-Fi during his last visit. “The china is Royal Doulton. The pattern’s discontinued.”
Carl’s mustache twitched. “You know your stuff.”
“I know what I’ve got.”
They haggled for ten minutes. It was a quiet, tense dance. Milo held firm, his voice low and factual. He cited details he’d memorized. He didn’t beg. He didn’t get angry. He just stood there, a worn-out kid in a dirty shirt, insisting on the value of things someone had loved.
Finally, Carl sighed. “Fine. Fifteen hundred for the lot. Final offer.”
Milo shook his head. “Two thousand.”
“Kid, be reasonable.”
“The silver alone, sold piece by piece online, is worth eight hundred. I’m saving you the trouble. Two thousand.”
Carl stared at him, then a slow, grudging smile spread under the mustache. “You’re a tough little bastard. Alright. Two thousand.”
He counted out cash from a lockbox under the register. Twenties, fifties, hundreds. The bills felt heavy, real. Milo stashed them in his inner jacket pocket, the weight a comforting pressure against his chest.
“You find anything else up there, you bring it to me,” Carl said as Milo zipped his empty pack.
Milo just nodded and walked out, the bell jingling behind him.
He didn’t celebrate. He bought supplies: a real handsaw, a box of nails, a wrench set, concrete powder, and a cheap but serviceable electric screwdriver and a long, heavy-duty extension cord. He loaded it all into a second-hand duffel bag, strapped it to the bike rack, and pedaled back, the money a secret furnace against his skin.
The next few days fell into a brutal rhythm. Dawn to dusk. He mixed concrete on a piece of plywood using the shovel, patching the worst of the foundation cracks. He cleared the worst of the briars from around the shed, his hands and arms lashed with red scratches. He swept, he hauled, he cut. He slept the deep, dreamless sleep of pure exhaustion.
The plumbing was the next mountain. The stream was fine for washing his face, but the thought of another cold, shivering bath in the open water as autumn deepened was grim. He wanted a shower. A real one. Hot water.
He found the main water valve near the stream’s well, a rusty wheel stuck fast. He soaked it in penetrating oil from the shed and threw his weight against it with the wrench. It didn’t budge. He swore, the sound swallowed by the trees. He tried again, his feet slipping in the mud. Nothing.
Inside, under the kitchen sink, the pipes were a corroded nightmare. He tried to loosen a coupling. The pipe, brittle with age, snapped with a dry crack, spraying him with a trickle of brown, stagnant water that smelled of rotten eggs. He stumbled back, coughing. He stared at the broken pipe, then at his useless wrench, then at the water slowly pooling on the tile.
Defeat was a cold stone in his gut. He could patch wood. He couldn’t charm rusted pipes.
He needed a plumber. The money in his jacket felt lighter, inadequate. He’d need more.
The attic called him back that evening. The single candle cast a wobbly dome of light as he sifted through the remaining trunks and boxes. More clothes, moth-eaten and smelling of camphor. Old tax records. A box of letters tied with ribbon, the ink faded. He set them aside carefully. They felt too private to sell.
In the farthest corner, under a mildewed horse blanket, he found a long, flat chest he’d missed before. It wasn’t like the others. It was made of a dark, almost black wood, smooth and seamless, with no visible latch. He ran his hands over it. It was cold. There was a subtle carving on the lid—interlocking circles and strange, angular symbols that seemed to shift in the candlelight.
He used the crowbar. The wood didn’t splinter. It resisted, then gave all at once with a sound like a sigh. The lid lifted.
Inside, resting on a bed of crushed, deep-purple velvet, was a book.
It was large, bound in what looked like worn, mottled leather. The cover had no title, only a single symbol stamped into it—an eye within a triangle, surrounded by more of those angular runes. The pages were thick, rough-cut parchment. He lifted it out. It was heavier than it looked.
He set it on the cleared floor by the candle. He opened it carefully.
The inside was handwritten in a dense, swirling script, black ink faded to brown in places. It wasn’t English. The letters were alien, geometric. Diagrams filled the margins: complex arrays of circles and lines, sketches of plants he didn’t recognize, celestial charts. One page showed a human form, with intricate lines of energy drawn flowing through it. Another depicted a binding circle, its instructions precise.
He turned a page. A folded piece of paper, brittle and yellowed, slipped out and fluttered to the floor. He picked it up. It was a note, in the same spidery hand as the attic labels, but this was fresher, the ink a dark blue.
“The bond is not of mastery, but of need. The spirit reflects the heart that calls it. It will be what you require, and your requirement will shape it. Choose your words with the care of a surgeon, for they become the bones it walks upon. It is a companion for the truly alone. - E.V.”
Milo stared at the note, then back at the book. A grimoire. His grandmother’s. The word felt silly and too real at the same time. He traced the diagram of the binding circle. The instructions were detailed, almost like a recipe. It listed components: a written description of the companion, a spoken invocation, a drop of blood.
It was madness. The absolute solitude of the past week, the crushing weight of the work, the deep, ancient silence of the house—it all pressed in on him. He was so alone it was a physical ache. A companion for the truly alone.
His hands moved before his mind could talk them out of it. He cleared a space on the dusty wooden floor. Using a piece of charcoal from the fireplace, he carefully copied the largest circle from the book, following the diagrams exactly. He grabbed a sheet of paper and wrote down the description for his companion. He needed help fixing the house, he couldn’t do it alone. It needed to be strong, capable, motivated, smart, and loyal. That last detail included because of every time someone had abandoned him. He pricked his thumb with a rusty nail, letting a single, dark bead of blood fall onto the picture.
He knelt outside the circle. The candle flame danced wildly, though there was no draft. He read the invocation aloud, his voice a dry rasp in the silent room. The words were guttural, awkward on his tongue. They felt heavy, like throwing stones into a deep well.
Nothing happened.
He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. A laugh, hollow and relieved, escaped him. Of course nothing happened. He was tired, he was cracking up from the isolation. He kissed his bleeding finger and stood up to go downstairs. He laughed again at the absurdity and his own craziness.
Then the candle went out.
Not guttered. Winked. One second it was there, the next, total blackness. The temperature in the room dropped sharply, his breath suddenly a thick plume. The charcoal lines of the circle on the floor began to glow with a faint, phosphorescent blue light.
A pressure filled the room, like the air before a storm. The glow from the circle intensified, not illuminating the room but somehow drawing the darkness into itself. In the center, over the instructions, the air shimmered, warped like heat haze over asphalt.
A form coalesced from the distortion. It started as a swirl of shadow and light, then solidified, gaining detail, density.
He was tall—well over six feet—and muscular in a way that seemed carved rather than built. Tan skin gleamed in the eerie blue light. He had sharp cheekbones, a strong jaw, and short black hair streaked with vivid silver that drifted around his head as if stirred by a slow current. His eyes opened. They were a piercing, impossible icy blue, and they fixed on Milo immediately.
He was naked.
Milo scrambled backward, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The figure looked down at himself, then at Milo. His expression shifted from blankness to a focused, unsettling curiosity. He stepped out of the circle, which immediately faded to dull charcoal. The air warmed slightly.
“Well,” the figure said, his voice a low, smooth baritone that held a note of wry amusement. “This is a first.” He looked around the crumbling room, the plywood-covered windows, the dusty floor. His blue eyes returned to Milo, who was frozen, crouched like a cornered animal. “You’re smaller than I expected.”
The voice wasn’t just in the room; it seemed to vibrate in Milo’s bones. He couldn’t speak. His throat had sealed shut. This was a mistake, a colossal, terrifying mistake written in blood and lunacy.
The figure tilted his head, those blue eyes scanning Milo head to toe. “Cat got your tongue? Or are you just disappointed?” He grinned, a flash of white in the gloom. “I don’t have a name yet. You didn’t give me one. How about…Wyatt?” He said it like he was tasting the word, plucking it from the air at random. “Yeah. Wyatt.”
As he spoke, his body began to change. It was a nauseating, fluid spectacle. His height surged upward, then compressed, his shoulders broadening before narrowing. His facial features melted and re-formed—different noses, different jawlines, eyes shifting in shape and shade—a gallery of handsome strangers flickering in a second. He laughed, a sound both musical and deeply mocking.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. You drew the circle, little witch. You wrote the guide.” In a blur of motion, he strode forward and snatched the sheet of paper from the floor where Milo had dropped it.
Milo flinched, scrambling back on his palms.
Wyatt held the paper up, studying Milo’s hurried script. “Strong. Capable. Motivated. Smart. Loyal.” He chuckled. “Worryingly vague. Leaves so much to interpretation.” He flexed his free hand and a shimmering, silvery stylus of light appeared in his fingers. He bent and added swift, decisive lines to the bottom of the page, the script flowing in arcane symbols that glowed briefly. “There. Refinements.”
He straightened. “NAME: WYATT,” he declared, and the shifting of his form slowed. “HEIGHT: 6’5.” His body stretched upward, the ceiling now closer to his head. “YOU SAID STRONG AND CAPABLE, RIGHT?” His frame filled out, muscles knitting and swelling in a subtle, powerful transformation that looked less like growth and more like a sculptor revealing what was always inside the stone. “BUILD: MUSCULAR.”
The flickering of his face settled, the features locking into a final, devastating arrangement: strong brow, straight nose, a mouth that seemed made for smirks or softness. He was painfully, unrealistically handsome. The silver-streaked black hair settled into a perfect, tousled state.
The reality of it, the solid, breathing thereness of him, broke something in Milo’s brain.
“No,” Milo whispered. Then louder, a raw scrape of sound. “No!”
He turned and ran. He bolted for the attic stairs, taking them two at a time, his feet slipping on the worn wood. He hit the main floor and sprinted for the front door, his heart a frantic bird trapped in his chest. He yanked the door open and plunged into the cold night.
He made it three steps onto the porch before his foot caught on a warped board. He pitched forward with a strangled cry, heading for the hard planks.
A large hand shot out and wrapped around his bicep, arresting his fall with effortless strength. It pulled him upright, steadying him. The touch was warm, electric, and utterly alien.
Wyatt stood beside him, now on the porch, having moved with impossible silence and speed. “Running’s rude,” he said, his tone lighter than the situation warranted. “I just got here.”
Milo wrenched his arm free, staggering back until his spine hit the rough siding of the house. He was panting, trembling from adrenaline and sheer terror. “What are you?”
“What you asked for,” Wyatt said, leaning casually against a porch post. He still held the paper. “A helper. A companion. You needed something that could swing a hammer, think through a wiring diagram, not crumble to dust in the rain, and be by your side. So here I am. This,” he gestured to himself with the paper, “is the template. The guide. You wrote the first draft. I just… edited for clarity.”
Milo stared, his mind reeling. “I thought… it wasn’t real. I thought companion meant like a Spirit, stone golem, demon… The book, the circle… I thought it was just crazy people stuff. My grandmother was just… crazy.”
“Your grandmother was pragmatic,” Wyatt corrected. “Lonely, too, I’d guess. The bond’s about need. You needed something more than a floating wisp. So I’m something more.” He offered the paper. “If you’re not satisfied, change it. Add more details. Make me shorter. Make my hair green. Give me wings, though that might be tricky with the roofing work.” He said it plainly, a simple statement of function.
Milo looked at the paper, then back at Wyatt’s patient, gleaming eyes. The idea was horrifying. “That’s… that would be messed up. Changing you like you’re a video game character.”
Wyatt’s eyebrow lifted. “I’m not ‘me’ yet. I’m what you make me. The guide is a starting point. But okay. Suit yourself.” He shrugged, the motion emphasizing the width of his shoulders. “It’s chilly out here, you know.”
The statement was so mundane it cut through Milo’s panic. He was standing on a porch in the middle of nowhere with a magically conjured, naked man who stood a foot taller than him. The absurdity was a cold dash of water. His practical survival brain kicked in, overriding the fear.
“You’re naked,” Milo said, his voice flat and his eyes drifting down to the impressive member between Wyatt’s legs.
“Aware,” Wyatt replied, a slow smile spreading.
Milo pushed off the wall, his movements stiff. “Wait here.” He went back inside, his legs feeling like wet clay. He went to the bedroom and dug through his duffel bag. He pulled out a pair of grey sweatpants and a faded black t-shirt, the softest things he owned. They’d be comically small.
He returned to the porch and thrust the clothes at Wyatt without meeting his eyes. “Here.”
Wyatt took them. “Gratitude.” He stepped into the sweatpants with an easy grace. They ended well above his ankles, clinging tightly to his powerful thighs and leaving his ankles and hips exposed. His package sat down his right leg and strained against the fabric. The t-shirt strained across his chest and shoulders, the sleeves cutting into his biceps and his stomach exposed, hard ridges carved like stone, shifting with every heavy, low breath. He looked ridiculous and somehow more real, more concrete, standing there in ill-fitting cotton.
Milo finally risked a glance. The solid, physical normality of the clothing, stretched to its limits, made the situation marginally less world-ending. It was just a guy in too-small clothes on a broken porch. A guy who’d materialized from a circle of light.
“Now what?” Milo asked, the words barely audible.
“Now,” Wyatt said, folding his massive arms, the paper still pinched in his fingers. “You show me this plumbing problem.”