Anomalous

The red and purple beads clacked curiously as Harper Dia pushed them aside. The whole place was curious, in fact; putting down her briefcase for a moment, Harper made a note on her clipboard to report the psychic’s shop as at least a second-class liminal space, if not first-class.

“Hello?” She called. “Agent Dia, Institute for the Research of Irregular Subjects. I’m here to investigate your establishment. We’ve gotten quite a few reports of anomalous entities.”

“Hello—”

Harper jumped approximately seven inches in the air at the sudden appearance of a woman to her left. “Goodness,” she exclaimed. “Yes. Hello. Can you direct me to the owner, please?”

“Oh, that’d be me. Monday Tahhan, clairvoyant extraordinaire.” The woman—girl?—held out her hand to shake. “Sorry to startle you, it’s not on purpose. People never seem to notice me coming.”

They shook hands. Monday Tahhan was nearly a head shorter than Harper. Going by her voice, she might’ve been in her late teens, but she could’ve been anywhere between twelve and forty as far as Harper could guess. Her hair and eyes both seemed silvery blue at first, but the longer Harper looked at them the more incomprehensible their color became, so she looked at Monday’s clothes instead. That wasn’t much better; she wore a vest made of at least three differently patterned fabrics, and it wound around her torso in an impossible mobius-type affair. Her skirt was bright orange denim over a pastel yellow tunic-blouse thing, both of which came to just above her knees. Her shoes, black ballet flats, looked like they had once been shiny, but the entire top layer had been scuffed off.

This was definitely the anomalous entity Harper had been sent to investigate.

***

“So,” Harper began, “we’ve received a lot of reports of anomalous occurrences at this shop. Now, usually we don’t pay attention to places that advertise irregularities as a business since it usually turns out to be fake, but the powers that be made an exception this time because of the number of reports coming in.”

“Which anomalous occurrences have been reported?” Monday asked. The two sat at a smallish table in the back of the shop, and each held a rather heavy mug of tea with an indecipherable scent.

“Let me see,” Harper said, and opened her briefcase on the table between them (for some reason no doubt related to this place, the briefcase seemed to be at least three pounds heavier than normal). She read the subject line of the first report aloud: “‘Flickering lightbulb stops if asked politely.’”

“Ah, yes, that’d be the one in the lamp over there. It’s not flickering presently, but perhaps it will sometime.”

“‘Psychic’s shop ceased to exist at 2:00, reappeared as normal at 3:30.’ There are four more with a similar subject.”

“That was on a Monday, I bet, in early April? That happens when my birthday falls on a Monday. I was born on a Monday, you know. On April Fool’s Day, if you can believe it.”

“Uh, okay. ‘Items on front counter return to same placement when moved.’”

“You mean the bell? That one I didn’t know was an anomaly. Don’t all bells do that?”

“Not to my knowledge. The rest are about you.”

“Oh, excellent. What do they say about me?”

Harper flipped through the short stack of papers. “The general consensus seems to be that they don’t know what to make of you.”

Monday laughed. “That’s a stupid phrase. Does anyone ever know what to make of anyone else?”

Harper shrugged. “I certainly don’t, but I’m autistic, so perhaps it’s just me.”

“You’re autistic? Me too!”

“Most of the Institute’s field agents are. We tend to be better at recognizing things out of the ordinary.”

“Like me and the shop?”

“Like you and the shop.”

Monday took a drink of her tea.

“Alright,” Harper said. “Let’s get to what I came for, shall we?”

“Are you going to dissect me?” Monday said. She sounded more interested than scared.

“Dear me, no—we don’t do that kind of research. Unless the subject is already dead and the next of kin has volunteered their cadaver for study, but that’s an entirely different department’s business. I just have a few questions to ask you, and I might take picture or video footage of any irregular occurrences if you let me.”

“Nice. Ask your questions, then.”

“Okay. I’ll admit, this is my first time interviewing an anomalous person—I’ve only ever identified and recorded places and objects before. So, first question: can you identify what makes you an anomaly?”

“Hmm. Well, there’s so many things, you see. I am unusually perceptive, that’s why I’m able make a living as a psychic, and I’m quite odd in general. But I believe the main one is that I make things turn weird by association with me.”

“Can you be more specific, give an example?”

“I suppose…the light in that lamp didn’t begin to stop flickering when asked until I asked it the first time. And I’m the one who put the bell on the front counter, although I’m still not sure my bell is unusual. And of course the shop.”

“Next question: were you aware before this visit that you are an anomaly, and if so, when were you made aware?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve known since I can remember. I come from a long line of unusual women—anomalous, I suppose you would call us.”

“Can you tell me about them?”

“Yes. My great-grandma Mary was a nanny, and all the children she ever nannied for said that she was magic and took them on grand adventures. Nobody believed them, of course, but my grandma Pippi says it’s true. Grandma Pippi was eccentric too, but people said it was because she was rich her whole life. I think the anomaly gene skipped my mother, though—she’s an accountant. Can’t fathom why.”

Harper chuckled. “Last question. Is there any reason you know of that you’re an anomaly?”

“Yeah, let me think…my great-great-grandma Alice was fairly normal, until she had some sort of anomalous experience as a little girl. She fell into a mirror, I think? Sorry, I don’t remember the details very well. I haven’t heard the story since I was a kid.”

“That’s alright.”

The lamp in the corner began to flicker.

“Oh, here’s an opportunity to record one of those anomalies we talked about,” Monday said. Harper brought out a medium-size portable video camera from her briefcase and positioned it so that both Monday and the lamp were in the frame.

“Go ahead.”

Monday turned in her seat to face the lamp. “Could you stop, please? We’re having a conversation.” The lamp stopped flickering.

“Fascinating,” Harper said, clicking the camera off. “Five years at this job, and it never gets old.”

Monday sighed. “Nice that you have a job you love. Being a psychic was cool at first, but nowadays it only serves to remind me how different I am from everybody else.”

Harper thought for a second, before reaching into her briefcase again. Under the stack of files for her other assignments was the old recruitment pamphlet she’d kept as a memento.

“Have you ever considered joining I.R.I.S.?”