In the distant year of our Lord 1857, the Philological Society of London came to the conclusion that the existing dictionaries for the English language were woefully incomplete. They set out to revolutionize the dictionary itself, and as a result, the world now has the renowned, most comprehensive, and entirely AI-free large language model: The Oxford English Dictionary. Interestingly, not only did these scholars yearn to update the dictionary with new words that had come about in the last century or so, but they also wanted to create a resource for word searching that “would be less stuffy and pretentious than the official dictionary of the French language” (Pompliano 2020). The work of defining anything, then, is a mystical and powerful undertaking. If a word can be defined in a pretentious manner, then that supposes that a word can be defined incorrectly. And if there’s a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to define simple words, careful attention must be given to any and every such task. A world without definition is chaos, and chaos cannot reign forever. It is on this linguistic plank of truth that Ursula Le Guin’s fantasy novel, A Wizard of Earthsea, builds its world. And through her world, the power of language is made evident as a weapon to be used with great, meticulous, and honorable caution.

Fantasy has long held to the tradition of wielding language legalistically. The origin of such a practice finds its roots in literary–and specifically Irish and Celtic–Fae lore. For example, in any story where a Fairy might be, they are known by their penchant for following the letter of the law rather than the soul of the law in a form of obsessive literalism. (If a Fae invites you over for a meal and this includes entering into ‘their realm’, tradition dictates that you might very well be stuck there forever! You did agree to come over, after all, and you never specified how long…) Such traditions in folklore persist as the “faded legacy of ancient primitive belief systems, worshiping animistic spirits of place or diminished pagan fertility deities” (Bihet 2026). Bihet’s conclusions are preceded by the codex-like seminal 1895 essay of Alfred Nutt, titled “The Happy Otherworld in the Mythico-Romantic Literature of the Irish,” where Nutt was truly the first scholar to take on the task of categorizing and understanding the traditions of Irish folklore. Nutt explains that in his study of understanding the origin of Irish literature,

[His] investigation is based on texts that cannot be later than the eleventh century of our era, and may be as early as the eighth or seventh century, in the form under which their substance has come down to us. They are the product of the belief and fancy of the Irish race during the period lying between these two dates at all events. Possibly, nay probably, they derive from a far earlier period. They are also the result of the historical conditions and influences to which the Irish race was subject, down to the eleventh century at the latest” (Nutt 1895).

According to Nutt, much of Irish folklore was a reflection of the world in which the Irish people lived, specifically the political systems under which the people were governed. With Nutt’s line of reasoning in mind, the emphasis on literalism and linguistic legalism in Fae lore might, at least in part, be due to the history of Irish Brehon Law, which was the “ancient legal system that governed early medieval Ireland, primarily spanning from the sixth to the eighth centuries CE. This system was administered by Brehons, the judges responsible for interpreting and enforcing the laws, which were deeply rooted in oral traditions” (EBSCO 2023). Other scholars, such Majorie Swann in her 2000 journal article, “The Politics of Fairylore in Early Modern English Literature,” argue that fairy writings, such as the fairy poems of Herrick, “parody high culture and the high church” (Swann 2000). In either case, the Fairy and her language were literary tools to depict a cultural aspect of their time, either in form of parallelism or critique. Specifically, the Fairy embodied the power language has over people.

Ursula Le Guin uses the power of ‘true names’ in A Wizard of Earthsea to demonstrate a similar such revelation regarding language and the world. Master Hand explains to his disgruntled student Ged that

To change this rock into a jewel, you must change its true name. And to do that, my son, even to so small a scrap of the world, is to change the world. It can be done. Indeed it can be done. It is the art of the Master Changer, and you will learn it, when you are ready to learn it. But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard’s power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow (Le Guin 1968).

To the reader and to Ged, it is confounding at first that giving a name to anything could be so potentially perilous and influential. In this way, to name something is to have power over it. It is the power of life and death, in fact. Such a conclusion gives the ‘namer’ extraordinary capabilities worthy of both respect and fear. And while this might seem like a harmless conclusion–that people can use language to name things– changing a pebble seems harmless to Ged, too. But it was his own nameless shadow that nearly brought him to ruin, and his naming of that shadow that permitted him to live (Le Guin 1968). Le Guin herself reinforces this paradigm in her acceptance speech for the Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the National Book Awards, where she asserts

I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries — the realists of a larger reality. … Books, you know, they’re not just commodities. The profit motive often is in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art — the art of words (Moyers 2014).

The art of words is elevated by Le Guin to Excalibur levels of importance, and with good cause. Stories can be more than entertainment, they can be vessels of truth and change–especially if ideas, problems, and morality are adequately framed with words that make them not only true, but persuasive. And while this may come at a cost, Le Guin insists that, despite the risks, artists should still make art (even if it conflicts with profits), and with the same caution as a wizard who knows what good and evil might ensue after such an act.

If Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea is anything like its predecessor, folklore, then its central message about the power of naming things represents a certain aspect of truth within the modern world. In his essay, “To Name Is To Govern,” Martin Weigel argues that Le Guin’s novel is a reflection of a plethora of real world realities. He explains that

Le Guin puts her finger here on something of deep and universal significance. To name something is to summon it into existence. It renders it concrete. It gives it identity, shape, meaning, significance, and value. It establishes its place in relation to other things. And when we can name a thing we can exercise control over that thing. To name a thing allows us to place a value on it. To locate it in relation to other things. And to share and communicate that with other people. For better or for worse, I hasten to add (Weigel 2025).

What’s more is that he also believes Le Guin’s method works in the negative: “That which cannot be named cannot be managed. And that which cannot be named cannot persuade and enroll the commitment, belief, and resources of others,” (Weigel 2025). In the real world, these principles prove true the more one tries to look for examples of them. Certainly, people have tried to rename structures, places, oceans, and even people in order to reclaim them for their own purposes. In January 2025, Donald J. Trump attempted to rebrand The Gulf of Mexico the The Gulf of America, and much earlier in 2009, the Chicago Sears Tower was renamed Willis Tower (The US Department of the Interior, 2025). In the case of the president, he changed the name after assuming his role. In the case of Chicago’s tallest building, the name changed with new ownership. More interestingly, both of these renames have not gone well. Colloquially, people keep on calling them by their ‘old’ names (Roos 2025). But when ‘colored people’ became ‘people of color’ in the 21st century, and when ‘the gays’ became ‘The LGBTQ+ Community’, many people followed suit–perhaps because no single person in power imposed the concept onto them, but because the change was made by the collective and for them (Malesky 2014). Or, in Le Guin’s words, the change served a need.

Ged, in his journey to identify and name his shadow, embarks on an awakening to the power of language that all people are invited to experience themselves. In the beginning, Ged sees the ability to name things as a place of total pleasure and control. Power, to Ged, is great fun. And he is full of pride as he thinks to himself that “surely a wizard who had gone past these childish tricks of illusion to the true arts of Summoning and Change was powerful enough to do what he pleased” (Le Guin 60). Shouldn’t the new owner of a building not have the right to change its name as he pleases? Shouldn’t leaders be able to rename places someone else has already named? But as Ged experiences the horror of being controlled by what cannot be named (his shadow), he cowers and attempts to be free of naming things altogether. But these two extremes are neither solutions nor good. Dictatorships and cowardice help no one. Ged, just like all people, has to come to terms with the great power his words have, both for himself and the world. When he names his own shadow and the darkest parts of himself, he “had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life’s sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark” (Le Guin 254). Le Guin insists that names give a person not only the power to understand themselves, but to take responsibility for the things they name as well as understand those things for which they now must serve, shepperd, or manage. There is no power for power’s sake that can be sustained, only honorable stewardship of worldly responsibility.

If William Shakespeare is to be believed, then brevity is the soul of wit. And Le Guin continues that legacy by anointing names, short as they may be, as the soul of their subjects. While Le Guin did not, on her own, conceptualize the concept of harsh, linguistic legalism, which has its roots in Irish and Celtic folklore, she used the tradition as the foundation of a reality that is just as–if not more– ancient; in A Wizard of Earthsea, language is revealed to be a powerful weapon that both identifies truth and more importantly, has the propensity to change the world.

Works Cited

Bihet, F. (2026). Late-Victorian Folklore: Constructing the Science of Fairies : Revenant. Www.revenantjournal.com. https://www.revenantjournal.com/contents/late-victorian-folklore-constructing-the-science-of-fairies/

EBSCO. (2023). Brehon Law (Early Irish law) | Research Starters | EBSCO Research. EBSCO. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/brehon-law-early-irish-law

The U.S. Department of the Interior. “Interior Department Advances Restoration of Historic Names Honoring American Greatness ” U.S. Department of the Interior Website, 24 Jan. 2025, www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department -advances-restoration-historic-names-honoring-american-greatness.

Le Guin, Ursula K. A Wizard of Earthsea. Parnassus Press, 1968.

Malesky, Kee. “The Journey from “Colored” to “Minorities” to “People of Color.”” NPR.org, 30 Mar. 2014, www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/30/295931070/the-journey-from-colored-to-minorities-to-people-of-color.

Moyers, Bill. “Ursula Le Guin’s Viral Video: “We Will Need Writers Who Can Remember Freedom” | BillMoyers.com.” BillMoyers.com, 27 Dec. 2014, billmoyers.com/2014/12/27/ursula-le-guin-will-need-writers-can-remember-freedom/. Accessed 17 Mar. 2026.

Nutt, Alfred, ‘The Happy Otherworld in the Mythico-Romantic Literature of the Irish,The Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth’ in The Voyage of Bran Son of Febal Vol. 1, trans.,Kuno Meyer(London: David Nutt, 1895), pp. 101-331.

Pompliano, Polina. (2020, September 17). What the Dramatic Origin Story of the Oxford English Dictionary Can Teach Us About Innovation. Readtheprofile.com; The Profile.

The Profile

What the Dramatic Origin Story of the Oxford English Dictionary Can Teach Us About Innovation

Some of the most important innovations have come from the world's most unlikely sources…

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6 years ago · 3 likes · Polina Pompliano

Roos, Dave. “Why Did the Sears Tower Change Its Name?” HISTORY, 17 July 2025, www.history.com/articles/sears-tower-name-change-willis-why.

Swann, Marjorie. “The Politics of Fairylore in Early Modern English Literature.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 2, 2000, pp. 449–73. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2901875.Accessed 17 Mar. 2026.

Weigel, M. (2025, February 28). To Name Is To Govern. Martin Weigel. http://martinweigel.org/mrweigelgmailcom/speak-the-name-wield-the-power

In a time that feels like very long ago, exposition was considered an ordinary part of a novel’s skeleton, especially in the world of fantasy. Today, however, if there is too much, it is almost seen as an errant limb. A single Google search about why this part of the genre’s landscape has shifted reveals shockingly antithetical results; rather than a list of reasons for exposition’s disappearance, there are articles upon articles insisting upon its eradication.

The notion that exposition is ‘bad’ writing and being exceptionally concise is ‘good’ writing is an idea that, on its head should, seem obviously reductive. But speak to any graduate student studying creative writing, and they will quickly explain what their professors have told them: show, don’t tell. Characterize, don’t over-explain. Trust the reader! In other words, use exposition and risk losing the interest of your audience and the integrity of your grade. But what then, should writers make of J.R.R. Tolkien, or George R.R. Martin? Perhaps the first thing to do about all this is to secure an initial-based pen name for good luck, and second, one should squint at the advice they have been given in their classrooms, questioning the authority of these musings and the breadth of control one should give to such advice in their own writing.

Ursula Le Guin makes a case for the survival of exposition–albeit, good exposition. In her famous 1969 novel, The Lefthand of Darkness, she dedicates whole chapters to textbook-like essays where her world is explored in more detail by way of its fables and legends. Of course, there is also a ‘traditional’ narrative, a narrative that follows two characters, a human Genly and an alien Estraven, in close detail. But between the chapters covering those two, there are fables and ‘histories’ interwoven between them, acting not just as informative pauses, but as launchpoints of subtext that give the narrative more depth. In just the second chapter, readers are introduced to “Chapter 3: The Place Inside the Blizzard” that follows the tale of how two brothers, yes biological alien “brothers who vowed kemmering to each other” despite it being “never permitted” for them to “vow kemmering for life. Yet this they had done” (Le Guin, Left Hand of Darkness 23). Kemmering is the alien word for sex, procreative and otherwise. And while initially shocking for a human reader to learn that full siblings are able to procreate in this alien world, it sets an important precedent for the rest of the text: attraction to these Genthenian aliens does not align with human expectations–it is far broader.

This plank of reasoning is one of the many needed to assist the reader in believing how the human stand-in protagonist, Genly, might fall in love with a genderless alien. If it’s not about biology, if it’s not about gendered expectations, Le Guin insists that the “love for him” Genly feels for Estraven must have been built out of the depth of respect Genly had for Estraven as a person (Le Guin, Left Hand of Darkness 305). In another textbook-like chapter, titled “Chapter 7: The Question of Sex” the author argues this with clarity, asserting that to Genthenians, “one is respected and judged only as a human being” (Le Guin, Left Hand of Darkness 101). Without the exposition dedicated to the exploration of how two brothers vowed kemmering for life, an act that was considered wrong not because of their biological status as brothers, but because of their refusal to separate at its conclusion, readers would not be able to see the way Genthenians view love as an act of not just sex, but loyal devotion–a devotion worth fighting for! This is a devotion they would later recognize in Estraven as Genly struggles to identify it in himself.

Clearly, exposition in this book was not considered problematic for its time. The original review from The New York Times asserts that

Lake said that the making of a flower was the labor of ages. The writing of new myths for children runs it a close second. It is easy enough to provide tired or unoriginal stuff, of course, and we see it on every side; but to create something of sufficient imaginative strength to touch those archetypal depths where children feel at home, while maintaining a narrative simplicity which young minds will be able to follow, is not easy (Nye 1973).

Overflowing with honey-laced paise, if it takes time, according to the NYT, that’s a good thing, a noble thing, for an author to do in the name of creating fantasy worth reading. The patience the reader had in the 1970s must have had a higher threshold than the modern reader. A 2021 article from The Writer’s Digest titled, “Writing Mistakes Writers Make: Using Too Much Exposition (Too Early)” insists that

Not every story opening has to be as poetic as reading Shirley Jackson or Cormac McCarthy, but readers appreciate stories that don’t attempt to dump a lot of description and backstory into the first chapter (or any chapter really) of the book. If you need to start off with exposition, think about the reason why your story needs it and why at that moment (Lee Brewer 1).

In other words, according to The Writer’s Digest, modern writers need not try to imitate those who used exposition rightly before them. But if they do, be overly mindful to only do it when the story needs it. Be minimal, be brief.

Le Guin herself addressed this argument for brevity in stories. In her book, Steering the Craft: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Guide to Narrative Prose, she explains that “teachers trying to get kids to write understandably, textbooks of style with their notion of ‘transparent’ style, journalists with their weird rules and superstitions, and bang-pow thriller writers—they’ve all helped filled a lot of heads with the notion that the only good sentence is a short sentence. A convicted criminal might agree. I don’t” (Le Guin, Steering the Craft: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Guide to Narrative Prose 26). Instead, she says “crafty writers (in any genre) don’t allow exposition to form lumps. They break up the information, grind it fine, and make it into bricks to build the story with” (Le Guin, Steering the Craft: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Guide to Narrative Prose 75). Le Guin does not see exposition as the ugly stepsister, instead, she argues it is an often mishandled tool.

The world of fantasy is the wild west of genre fiction, with plenty of naysayers hoping to impose their sheriff-like rules upon it. But if Le Guin and her success is any indicator, a wise writer might think twice before doing away with the age-old itch to write quality exposition.

Works Cited

Brewer, Robert Lee. “Writing Mistakes Writers Make: Using Too Much Exposition (Too Early).” Writer’s Digest, 11 Dec. 2021, www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/writing-mistakes-writers-make-using-too-much-exposition-too-early. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.

Le Guin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First‑Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story. Eighth Mountain Press, 1998.

Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness. Ace Books, 1969.

Nye, Robert. “Doings in Earthsea.” The New York Times, 18 Feb. 1973, www.nytimes.com/1973/02/18/archives/doings-in-earthsea.html.

Marcus didn’t mean to kill Angelina. Not really. But she was dead as a doornail, alright, and white as a sheet. In his candle-lit studio apartment, strewn with white rose petals and piles of books, Angelina Zanovich lay frozen in time on his kitchen tile, her perfect blonde curls soaked deliciously ripe with red. It took him a minute to gather himself, but once he did, Marcus shook her at the shoulders, watching her little cross necklace glisten under the smattering of their shared ecstasy, and then hastily wiped his mouth clean. In a final attempt at hope, Marcus held a quivering hand over her nose and pressed his ear to her chest just to be sure, and it was as he suspected: the girl had no pulse, no breath, no nothing. And to make things worse, they both had a worship service to lead at St. Anne’s Chapel in just under eight hours.

“Shit.” He pressed his fingers into his cheeks, pulling the transparent skin down from his sullen eyes. “Heavens above. Fuck me.”

On one hand, Marcus considered himself an ethical vampire. Many moons ago, he had been a simple, hardworking locksmith who could often be found surveying the ever-growing international cookbook section in his local library. He wasn’t of the opinion that much had changed since then. So up until that moment on his kitchen floor, his convictions had successfully shielded him from killing of any kind. It wasn’t without difficulty, of course. He had soldiered on for the past six years as a wallflower and night-shift custodian at the Transfiguration Hospital, which meant he had grown painstakingly accustomed to quietly cleaning up bodily ooze. He didn’t love it, but it was the best job for someone with his rather unfortunate and sun-sensitive condition. It also made sneaking into the blood bank refrigerator far easier than it should have been. But on the other hand, this was no bodily ooze. This was no blood bag. This was Angelina, the only soft-hearted nursing intern that Transfiguration Hospital currently boasted among its crone-infested ranks. At twenty three years young and at just five foot four, she had eyes like blue roses and smelled of spring sunshine, which was why Marcus, an unlucky immortal imprisoned forever at the ungodly age of forty six, was so surprised five weeks ago when she of all people approached him in the hospital break room for what seemed at the time like no reason at all.

“So, you’re into vampires?” She plopped her white lunchbox down beside him without asking. He’d responded by rigidly flinching. Then Marcus, clumsy even in undeath, almost dropped his dog-eared copy of The Historian onto the gum-ridden linoleum below.

“What?” His gaze darted to the girl who so easily and unknowingly poked right at his most well-kept secret. He watched as her slender wrist withdrew a single green apple from her bag. The pulse he heard in his ears was not his own, and he swallowed the familiar dry lump in his throat.

“That book,” she spoke with a Russian accent and gestured with the apple in hand. Marcus had to look at the book’s cover to remember its name.

“Oh.” He raised both his eyebrows. “It was just something to do. Read, I mean.”

“I like reading about vampires, too.” She smiled at him. “I think they get a bad reputation in books, you know? All romance. No guts. It’s ridiculous.”

A strange part of him suddenly felt less heavy, as if a window had been opened.

“I’m Angelina.” She began cutting her apple into slender, even slices.

“Marcus.” He set the book down and watched her fingers working the butter knife. After a while, he realized his silent staring had gone on for a moment too long. But she filled the emptiness with words before he could figure out what to say.

“I heard you singing today. In the morgue.”

Marcus felt a chill run down his spine. That wasn’t good. In fact, that could be very bad. Did she know something? See something? Had she found him out? The truth, of course, was that he was singing in the morgue today. But it wasn’t for fun. He had long surmised that the sound of his voice was just loud enough to cover the clinking of jars as he rummaged through the organ donation fridge, where he would sometimes find blood fresh enough to drink. But maybe that night he had gotten a bit carried away with his volume. He did rather like the chorus. But that couldn’t be it. She must have seen something, or at least suspected it. Marcus frowned.

Angelina’s wide blue eyes moved away from her apple slices and studied his face, noting his concern with immediacy.

“You sounded lovely, I mean. I’d die for Elton John,” she blurted out awkwardly, twirling the butter knife. “Is ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ your favorite song?”

Marcus rigidly tilted his chin up as he considered the question, still unsure if the ground of this conversation was more of a minefield or meadow.

“It is.”

Then she did something he didn’t understand. Suddenly confident and composed once again, she clicked her tongue at him. Three times. Slowly, too. Marcus furrowed his brows and waited for the inevitable, for her to come out and say something like ‘Don’t lie to me, you elderly vampire. I know what you are’. But she didn’t. Instead, the words she chose stunned him in ways no sunlight or silver ever could.

“Actually,” she punctuated the sound. “‘I’m Still Standing’ is the only right answer. But I’ll forgive you just this once because you sounded so nice while being so very wrong.”

Then, she let out the most contagious and private giggle, as if she were sharing a juicy secret for his ears only. He found himself joining in.

“In all seriousness,” she began. “I have a question for you.”

“Oh.” Marcus felt himself leaning in to listen.

Angelina set down the butter knife and spoke with her pretty, pale hands.

“My church, St. Anne’s–you know the one off Maple Street–we need another male vocalist for our Easter service. Just the one show. Badly. I wouldn’t normally ask, but our guy, Carl, I think he got caught cheating on his wife and doesn’t want to come back. He said it’s just mono, but it’s a real scandal--and a darn shame because I thought Carl did such a nice job regardless of that, but you know how people can be. You should have heard the way he belted. An unreal tenor. But anyway, when I heard you today, I just had a special feeling that maybe…well, that maybe I should ask you.”

Marcus felt his face contort in ways it hadn’t since he realized he couldn’t see his reflection anymore.

“What?”

“Before you say anything, it’s a paid position,” she poked the butter knife again. “And I can drive you. I think we live in the same building, which is wicked convenient. I’ve seen you in the elevator.”

He winced at how childish it sounded to call something ‘wicked convenient’. But he knew, of course, that this was true. They did live in the same building. He would sometimes catch himself staring at her hands as she fumbled with hangnails and consequently perfumed the air with the scent of her honeysuckle blood. Though, he was surprised that she was even mildly aware of his existence. Most people looked through Marcus with glassy eyes, not at him with wide ones.

“Angelina, I’m not exactly the church-going type.” Marcus frowned and leaned back in his chair. “Unless you’d like to watch the building go up in flames, perhaps?”

She laughed so loudly that some of the other nurses and doctors and custodians gave them a sideways glance. Marcus felt the air hum from the attention. But really, he had only been half kidding. Marcus hadn’t tried to walk into a church since long before that prostitute he shouldn’t have taken home left him drained and undead in some unforgettable rat-infested alleyway, and that was ten years ago. His last church visit? More than four decades ago.

“You don’t have to be devout to sing,” Angelina leaned in and lifted her hand up to her mouth as if to whisper something no one else should hear. “Our drummer is an atheist, believe it or not. And I’m pretty sure the man upstairs has seen everything under the sun, if that’s what you’re worried about. Church was made for sinners.”

Marcus felt a smile twinge on the side of his lips.

“I’m flattered, really. But I’m afraid I will have to decline.”

She took another slice of apple and examined it. He watched her throat as she bit in.

“Perhaps you’ll come just to see me sing then? If you’re nice, maybe I’ll let you take me out afterwards.”

She took another nibble from the slice with one hand. With the other, she pushed a pink post-it note toward him that slid nicely beneath her two red and freshly lacquered fingernails. The note contained ten bubbly numbers written in a pungent black ink. Marcus raised a single graying eyebrow. His index finger pulled the sticky note closer, and he memorized the figures with record speed.

“What are you doing?” The question felt important, so he said it.

“Asking you out.” She patted her mouth with a napkin peppered with light pink cherry blossoms. Everything she said sounded so matter-of-fact, so wrapped up in a bow.

“Yes, I see that.” He raised an eyebrow at her. He didn’t know how to explain that he wasn’t sure why she would be doing that. He was a custodian, eternally middle-aged, and quiet. What else was there to know?

“You like Elton John, you can sing, and you like reading about vampires,” she said, as if seeing inside his mind. “Trust me, those stars align far less often than you would think.”

A beat of silence.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty four this October.” She tapped her fingers on the table. “And single.”

“Do you know how old I am?” Another important question. He imagined her mouth as he asked it.

Angelina rested her chin in her palm and began twirling the butter knife on the tabletop.

“When I need that answer,” she said, smiling into the formica. “I know who to ask.”

❦❦❦

When Marcus arrived home, it was just past four in the morning. After dozing off on the bus and making two thoughtless wrong turns, he floated into the shabby brown doors of his apartment building before the first beams of light jutted their way through the trees. His seventy-five-year old neighbor, Magdalena, was out smoking a cigarette in the hallway as he approached with his keys.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” she murmured over the course of a single, raspy exhale. “They still treating you good at that hospital, baby? When are they going to give you something other than the graveyard shift?” Magdalena crossed her legs and leaned against the wall. The bells on her tiger slippers jingled in the haze of the hallway. Marcus waved at her politely.

“I love the graveyard shift,” he said, fumbling with the ancient lock. “Keeps me young.”

She squinted at him.

“So you say. But, now that you mention it, you do look sort of chipper today.”

Marcus decided to change the subject. It was hard to talk about something you didn’t understand.

“How are the boys?”

Magdalena had two grown sons. One was a teacher. The other was a drunken marine who was dishonorably discharged from both the corps and her household. Magdalena, bless her heart, also took care of his two sons, Carlos and Dwayne, with something between a militant iron fist and a grandmother’s heartfelt doting.

“Same old, same old. Dwayne won the spelling bee, and Marcus got a girlfriend.”

“Who?” Marcus glanced over his shoulder as the lock finally unlatched.

“Carlos. He fixed up the courage to finally ask that girl he’s been chasing to prom.”

“You must be proud.” Marcus nodded as he jostled the door open. “Have a good day, Magdalena.”

“I am. I am. You too, baby.”

With the door tightly shut behind him, Marcus let out a single, shaky breath. Mostly because it felt like the right thing to do. Next, he pulled out a first, then second, then third blood bag from his satchel, carefully avoiding the nail file he used on his incisors and his emergency umbrella, and set them evenly on the wire racks in his yellowing and otherwise empty fridge. When he turned back to the counter, the pink slip at the bottom of his bag called out to him from the cream-colored tile floor. He knelt down to pick it up and pressed the fragrant paper to his chapping lips.

“What a day.” He shook his head as he imagined the face of Angelina, pale and blue-eyed, then her neck and her thighs. “What a goddamn day.”

❦❦❦

The logistics of the Sunday service in question would be the death of him if he wasn’t careful. So Marcus tried to hold out on setting a date for as long as he could, but she worked him over like oil on a stubborn lock.

The three-week long marathon of anxious, yet endearing text messages from Angelina consumed him more than his determination to exercise reason. Reasonable vampires would not talk to curious young women. Marcus knew that. Reasonable vampires would eat girls like this. And it’s not like he didn’t consider it. There was a risk in getting close to a coworker, let alone a neighbor, after all. But it was as if she wanted to know everything about him in a particular way, to consume his inner thoughts like they were her most addictive candy. His hobbies, his passions, his ideas. She liked them. And he liked that she liked them. So he let her–one after another, one bite at a time–enjoy them. And, if he was being honest, he didn’t mind her attention or her questions that ranged from the mundane to the intimate. Whether he liked Anne Rice or whether he ever wanted to have children. Yes and no. She always listened. She liked to listen. And what a rare thing that was. It might have even been nice, for once, to be noticed by someone. More than to be noticed, but to be seen.

All of this, coupled with her intoxicatingly innocent hallway glances at work had more than solidified his fate.

Marcus stood at the entrance to his local Trader Joe’s on a rainy Saturday evening, trying to weigh the romantic differences between blue carnations and white roses. They were somehow all out of red ones. Perhaps it was because it was the night before Easter, so all the well-to-do housewives and holier-than-thou grandmothers had raided the floral section for their tabletop centerpieces. Maybe it was just a cruel twist of fate. But in the end, he decided on the roses because he felt like they were the kind of thing a man should buy for a pretty woman. Carnations were more of a chaste performer’s reward, and Marcus wanted to be very clear about his intentions.

With the proper bouquet in hand, he went over the plan in his head. Marcus had just a few hours before the sun was going to make things very difficult. He would have to get to the church in the middle of night, somehow make it inside and remain unseen until the service, and he would have to do it all without setting off any alarms, figurative or otherwise. But that was ok, he reasoned, because he knew how to pick locks. And it would just be a few hours of waiting. It could have been worse.

Everything went off without a hitch. Marcus walked three blocks from his usual stop and arrived at the church just as the sky started to careen with churning and unruly thunder. It was a brick building with two ornate stained glass windows that stared down at the onlookers from their wide and chiseled steeple. A little sign out front read ‘Sinners Wanted: Apply Within’, which Marcus shrugged at and took to be an invitation as good as any.

He made swift work of the lock on an unassuming side window, propped it open, and pulled himself inside. Though, he had miscalculated how far down the drop would be, and promptly plummeted into the echoing wood with a loud and clumsy thud. Thunder rang out from the sky, which masked some of the noise he had been making, or so he thought.

“God,” he groaned, his face pressed against the hardwood. That was going to bruise. Marcus looked over to his side, examined the roses in the dark, and found them to be perfectly unscathed. Just when he was going to accept the fleeting feeling of relief, a voice wandered into the air like a mist.

“Hello?” A deep voice echoed. “Who’s there?”

Marcus felt his eyes widen at the sound. He quietly scrambled to his knees and perked up his ears. Usually, Marcus could hear a pulse from a room away and by proxy locate a whole person. Or at least detect them. But over the rain and his own racing panic, Marcus could only hear the footsteps in the dark as they patterned in calculated ticks across the floor.

Think, Marucs, think. The vampire studied the room, making note of the large, wooden pews currently obscuring his view and the door just to the right of the aisle. It looked to be a closet. He could get there without being seen, so long as he moved fast. The footsteps suddenly stopped, and Marcus, thinking quickly, snatched the roses from the floor and darted into the closet, moving more hastily than any human could ever hope to see. With the door tightly shut, Marcus backed into the corner. No sounds came from the outside. Nothing but the puttering of rain against the roof and a tight, cottony panic as it packed itself firmly into the channels of his trembling ears.

❦❦❦

Against all odds, the rest of that Sunday went on as planned. Marcus somehow emerged from the closet, noted the sign that read ‘confessional booth’, and straightened his tie without so much as a sideways glance from anyone around. There were too many people to notice, at least, and far too many people to care. Like worker bees in beige suits and blue dresses, the churchgoers around Marcus buzzed with a familial sort of excitement that he could neither place nor understand. But when he spotted her, that feeling drifted away like a breeze–and so too did the memory of being cramped in that airless room.

“You made it!” Angelina waddled between limbs and bodies to squeeze her way over to him. She wore a short white dress that cinched at the waist. And while he watched her walk, he noted a little bruise on her ankle. The vampire licked his lips.

“I did. But are you sure this is a church?” He feigned ignorance. “This place should be cinders with me standing in it. And yet–”

He gestured to the air. She giggled.

Angelina led him by the hand to a pew where she told him he’d have the best view. His only issue was that the massive crucifix on the wall behind the pulpit sort of gave him a headache to look at. It whirred and simmered on his irises if he stared at it too closely. But he kept that information to himself as she kissed him on the cheek.

“Thank you for the flowers,” she said. If he hadn’t done so already, he thought he might have died. “White is my favorite.”

He sat stunned and wordless for the entirety of the service. The songs, of course, were catchy enough. The sermon was fast enough. But the way Angelina would smile and sway as she strummed her little guitar made Marcus’s mind wander out of the church, far from the streets, or their city, or their lives. Marcus’s mind was in the clouds, amidst the stars themselves, and it remained there for the next three blissful weeks.

He snuck in every Saturday night, and stayed until sundown on Sundays, hiding in the basement or making himself comfortable in the attic where he would drink or read or sleep. The only trouble was, the more time he would spend with that girl, the more blood he would drink. He was going through bag after bag, more than one a day. The hospital even held a staff meeting about ‘missing specimens’. But there was no stopping him now. When the day had given itself up to the night, Marcus would emerge from the church basement and slink out the window, texting Angelina immediately and inviting her out for an evening stroll, or a movie, or the mall. It was an easy little routine. And no one was noticing. Marcus, after all, was highly trained in the art of remaining invisible. Or at least, it felt that way for a while.

On the night of the fourth Saturday, Marcus arrived at his usual window, only to find it strangely open. Nothing came of it, thankfully. But at the end of the usual service, the priest walked up to him quietly, long after Angelina had left for her car, and caught him by the arm just as he was headed for the stairs.

“Marcus, is it?” An eerily familiar voice asked. “Angelina’s Marcus?”

Marcus’s head turned slowly as if he were an owl and stared down at the hand on his elbow.

“Uh,” he stuttered, “Yes?”

“I think you should join the church choir,” the priest said, pushing up his glasses. “That way you’d have reason to be here so late on Saturdays.”

Marcus swallowed, feeling the whole world stop around him. He blinked, completely stunned, and said nothing.

“Churches aren’t places for deadweight, son,” the priest tried again. “And Angelina said you’re a natural.”

Marcus stared forward, too stunned to speak.

“I’m trying to help you son, if you’d let me.” The priest patted Marcus’s arm. “So, what do you say?”

And that’s how, without another thought, Marcus nodded and became the best lead tenor that the St. Anne’s Chapel had ever seen.

❦❦❦

“Angelina?” Marcus asked, squeezing her hand under the milky lamplights of the Trinity Oaks Park. “What would you do if you couldn’t die?”

“You mean other than going to heaven?” She asked.

“Yes.” He nodded. “Other than heaven.”

“You always ask such fun questions.” She pursed her lips as she thought about it. “I think I would buy a plot of land somewhere. Maybe out in Washington state. In the woods. Then, I’d open a library for night owls and collect my favorite books. Or buy lots of Apple stock. I’m sure God would let me know.”

“You seem ambitious,” Marcus chuckled.

“I am.” She squeezed his hand. “Speaking of which, I want to see your apartment. Perhaps even make you a meal. I think it’s about time, don’t you think? I’m rather good at cooking. And we could practice that hymn– ‘New Wine’ was it? Until you get that third stanza right.”

“I don’t see why not.” Marcus blinked. “No need to cook, though. But I’d love to do just about everything else.” He pressed her hand to his lips and shuddered at the honeysuckle ache biting at the back of his throat.

❦❦❦

The very next Saturday, Marcus rolled out of bed early and scrubbed his whole studio down to its bones. He cleared his throat as Angelina arrived around noon, just after he lit the candles and set his Spotify playlist to a thoughtfully curated collection of Elton John and Eddie Murphy.

“Oh my God.” Angelina paused between each word and blushed. He watched her as she pressed both her hands to her cheeks. “Marcus, I had no idea you were a hopeless romantic.”

“I have my secrets.” He repressed a cough and gestured for her to enter, and so she did. So perfectly. So willfully. So well. He closed the door behind her and locked it without thinking. And when she turned around, without a prompt or a prayer—it happened.

“I love you,” she said, taking his face in her hands. His nostrils flared.

“What?”

“I love you,” she pressed his cheeks. “So, are you going to kiss me or not?”

Marcus swallowed and tripped over the words. “I am.”

And so he dove in with his face, hoping to find her lips, but did so at such an angle and with such force that he clobbered her right in the nose. She winced and fell backwards, slamming her head against the corner of his kitchen countertop. Then, as if in slow, lifeless motion, she thudded to the floor, red rivers pouring out from both her perfectly small nostrils.

Everything next was a blur. The red, the slurping, their shared little moans. He couldn’t help it. Until he stumbled back shivering, his mouth sopping wet. All trembling. All aching. All horror.

“Shit.” He pressed his fingers into his cheeks, pulling the transparent skin down from his sullen eyes. “Heavens above. Fuck me.” Marcus scrambled backwards.

“Angelina?” His voice wavered slightly as he studied the fading blue roses in her eyes. But she was not there. The light of her was snuffed out like a match. He brought his face to his knees and shivered. Think Marcus, think.

❦❦❦

Marcus had no idea what to do. He paced his apartment floor for hours, glancing at her unseeing eyes every now and again. At some point, he reasoned there was no solving the issue of her body now. As the clock ticked past three in the morning, the best thing he could do was act normal, and normal meant leaving for church and securing his alibi.

“I’m going to hell,” he muttered, grabbing his coat and keys. “I’m absolutely going to hell.”

❦❦❦

He insisted she was sick, that it was just a bad case of mono and that she would be fine in due time. The band offered their prayers, which made him feel ill.

“No prayers needed.” He raised both his hands. “She will be fine.” But the words stuck in his mouth like sharp razor wire, and his unbeating heart throbbed like a fresh wound.

The service came and went, and he was eager to be done with it. But just as Marcus darted for the basement door, a familiar tap prodded at his shoulder.

“My son?”

Marcus paused, frowned, and glared at the priest, who was smothering a piece of bread in jelly with a dirty butter knife. Patience was in short supply that day, but Marcus held his tongue.

“You don’t look well.” The Priest turned the knife over slowly and wiped the blade clean. “Maybe you should eat something.” He handed Marcus the limp slice. Marcus stared at it silently.

“Thanks.”

“All good things to the glory of God.” The priest nodded. “See you next week.”

❦❦❦

On the account of some undeserved miracle, Marcus made it home. As he stood outside his door, fumbling with his keys, his neighbor Magdalena leaned against the wall smoking yet another silky cigarette. It wafted into the air like a spiders bending web.

“Those things will kill you, you know,” Marcus said, fidgeting with the keyhole.

“Your girlfriend seems to like them,” Magdalena exhaled as she spoke. Marcus’s head snapped back to face her. She raised an eyebrow at him and rubbed her swollen ankle against her calf.

“What’s her name?” Magdalena pointed with her two fingers. “Anabella or something? You never told me. She sounded Russian.”

Marcus blinked at his neighbor slowly, waiting for her to continue.

“Angelina.”

“That’s the one.” Magdalena nodded. “She came out here soaking wet, banging on my door, asking for paper towels and a cigarette. Gave me thirty dollars for the trouble before she went back inside. Called me a doll.” Magdalena puffed a little ring from her wrinkled lips. “I like her.”

With his whole body feeling like a freshly shaken soda can, Marcus turned back to the door. He shoved the key into the hole with a newborn and violent intensity.

“Have a good day, Magdalena,” he mumbled as he forced the key to move.

“Oh–one more thing!” She called out to him. Marcus sighed and turned his head.

“I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

“I’m sure you are,” Magdalena coughed. “Some men from the hospital came by earlier. Asked me if I’d seen you with any hospital property. I told them no. Obviously.”

She raised a mother’s eyebrow up at him. Marcus swallowed. He said nothing.

“Stay out of trouble, baby,” she said, but her voice was just a blur.

Marcus slammed the door shut behind him, his arms pressed to the wall. He stared at the scene before him with freshly wide eyes to find that the blood was all gone, but the candles were still lit. And then, it happened. Again.

Angelina Zanovich, in all of her glory, sat long-ways on his sofa, legs crossed and lips humming, wearing his clothes. In her hands was a dog-eared copy of some book he had already forgotten to finish. And though Marcus parted his lips, the words never came. At least, not from him.

“Hello, Marcus.” She lowered the cover, her red eyes peeking over the pages. “I have a question for you.”