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*Scuffing noises. The ambient sound of late-evening dodo bird calls and the low whine of an orange sky shot through with puce. A voice, neither tenor nor baritone, toeing the line between smooth caramel and the crackly precipice of puberty, begins to speak*
“Ahem – is this working? I hope it didn’t break when I dropped - Oh! The light’s on! Uh, hello, Night Vale! This is Esteban The Scientist-Palmer here, bringing you live updates from the tree in Mission Grove Park. We have an exciting show for you today, although it must be sans-weather, as I dropped my iPod 360 in the lake of acid that opened up in the vacant lot behind the Ralph’s last week. Sorry about that, listeners.
Today our geology teacher tried to teach us about orogenetic mountain building. And I was like, uh, mountains? What the heck are they? Papá always tries to tell me that mountains are real, everywhere, and not just the lone mountain out in the scrublands. But he’s not a geologist, he’s a scientist. He’s allowed to get things wrong occasionally. At least, that’s what Father says when the laws of physics break for the third time in a day, and Papá needs to lie down for a while.
In other news, the Night Vale Community College girl’s basketball team hit a home run yesterday (metaphorically speaking) in their game against the Desert Bluffs Too Basketball Fun League. Father says it’s impolite to brag on the radio, but I will mention that my cousin Janice scored the winning points! According to Uncle Steve Carlsberg, she’s planning on going pro! Good for you, Cousin Janice. Your family is rooting for you! Especially Father, who wore a homemade NVCCGB balaclava to the game in support. Go Nighthawks!
Breaking news from Mission Grove park: Roger Harlan and his little sister, Rodrica, whom no one can remember when or where she came from, are walking by right now! Rodrica and I are in the same class at Night Vale Elementary. Hi, guys! They are currently waving back at me. Or, perhaps they are waving at the tree in which I am sitting. I shall ask the tree if it knows them personally.
Ahem – hello, tree! Would you mind answering a few vital questions for our listeners?”
*The sounds of gentle cooing and coaxing. A sharp rustle, and then a gender-indeterminate yelp of fear and a hard thump*
“Oof! That was close. I, uh, don’t think the trees want to be interviewed today. Let’s keep this between us, huh Night Vale?”
*Off-recording: the dulcet, fully-grown, caramel tones of an adult man. The voice may have once been deeper, a dark honey toffee, but has since become lighter and softer like a Werther’s original*
“Esteban!” the soothing voice calls, “Dinner! Ven aqui, pequeñito!”
“Dos minutos más, padre! Sorry, listeners. I am being called away to the fourth most important meal of the day, right behind breakfast and the City Council mandated after-school fruit gummy snack. For now, I must bid you, ado. Good evening, Night Vale. Good – “
“ESTEBAN!” Another, also soothing but infinitely deeper voice screams. The other voice can be rather volume-deaf sometimes. Ever since the…Incident, resulting in his father’s selective vociferism. “YOUR DINNER WILL SCAMPER AWAY AGAIN IF YOU LET IT GROW COLD!”
“Jesus, Ceec, tone it down a notch?”
“WHAT?”
“I SAID – “
“I’M COMING! Goodnight, listeners! See you tomorrow!”
The recorder clicked off without the press of a button. Esteban The Scientist-Palmer – also known as Stevie Junior, but only to Uncle Steve Carlsberg – scraped his purple backpack off the sidewalk, stuffed his battered tape recorder into the side pocket, and slung it over his back. As the backpack was filled with as many samples as he could find in the school cafeteria that day, the residents near Mission Grove Park were treated to the site of a small boy toddling at break-neck speed towards home.
“Hi Bubbles!” Esteban greeted the fluffy ball of fur floating near their mailbox as he approached the quaint free-standing townhouse. Khoshek’s second litter of kittens were even more adorable and mobile than the first. Esteban had all but begged his parents to take one home. They never did relent, but as the kitten had just appeared at their mailbox one day, they had a hard time saying no.
Carlos was waiting for him on the porch with a smile. “Hola, mijo. Shoes off, por favor. Backpack?” He took the hefty bag with a grunt. “How was school today?”
“Great!” Esteban’s nimble fingers untied the forever-tangled laces of his purple Chuck Taylors. “I took a sample of the growling gum under the lunch table. It snapped at me, but Rodrica Harlan distracted it while I scraped some off into my sandwich baggy. It liked the bologna but did not seem interested in swiss. I made a note in my field book.”
Carlos ruffled his messy black curls with a broad hand. “Excellent work! I’ll put it in the fridge and we can take a look at it under the microscope tonight while your father is at work.”
Esteban grinned. His pointed canines gleamed in the green light of the foyer. Despite not being born to either of his parents, Esteban had taken on physical characteristics of them both while growing up. His rakish curls and dark, delicate skin were reminiscent of Carlos, as was the fascination in the natural world and its workings. The pupil-less white eyes, sharp teeth, and silvery markings on the limbs, as well as a love for peanut butter hamburgers and cat videos, were all Cecil.
And speak of the devil-shaped man: “Darlings!” Cecil poked his head through the doorway, “It’s dinner time! You can talk shop later. We don’t want a repeat of last week’s scamper through downtown.”
Cecil herded his family into the kitchen. They tended to eat early (whatever that meant for Night Vale) so that Cecil could spend some time with the three of them together before his show began. He took care of Esteban in the morning and after school while Carlos was at the lab, and Carlos had him at night while he prepared, performed, and potentially purged the show.
“What’s dinner?” Esteban sniffed the air as they sat. “Broccoli chops?”
“And fish fritters!” said his father brightly.
Carlos paused in serving himself from the steaming casserole dish. “Are they…locally sourced?”
“Oh, tiered heavens no!” Cecil looked horrified, “I would never purchase any fish or fish byproduct that came from the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area. They’re imported, don’t you worry sugarplum.”
Carlos eyed his plate. Then he shrugged. Such acceptance came much easier to him after so long in this strange town. Meanwhile, his son was dug into the meal with great enthusiasm. A comfortable quiet fell over the The Scientist-Palmer family for a few moments.
“How was school today, Esteban?” Cecil asked, wiping the last of the fish fritter sauce with a slice of chickpea bread. His cooking had improved greatly, especially during their son’s Horrible Hexagonal phase when he was six. “Did your scrying lessons go well? I know you were excited for that when you left this morning.”
“Oh, yes! They were so neat!” Esteban promptly dropped his fork and began recalling his day in vivid detail, waving his hands energetically. His purple-rimmed glasses – the bridge of which were affixed with tape after their visit to the library, and would need to be replaced soon – were slightly too big, and kept slipping down the bridge of his nose in his excitement.
“And then Ms. Hitchcock said mountains are caused by tectonic faulting, and so I raised my hand and was like, uh, what’s a mountain? Am I right?”
“I really wish you’d stop arguing with your geology teacher,” Carlos muttered as Cecil high fived their son. Ms. Hitchcock had a degree from outside Night Vale, and was one of the few scientists outside of his team he could talk to about what little memories of the rest of the world he had.
Esteban ignored this as he picked up his fork again. “Will Cousin Janice be picking me up after school tomorrow?”
“I believe her schedule is clear in the afternoon. I’ll check with your Aunt Abby to make sure her classes at Night Vale Community College do not conflict and ask her. Would you like to do homework at Aunt Abby’s house tomorrow?”
“Yes please! Will,” Esteban pulled a face, “Uncle Steve Carlsberg be there?”
“Mijo,” Carlos reminded him, “We do not speak ill of the living at the dining table. Besides, you love your Uncle Steve.”
Esteban’s face smoothed out into its usual cheer. “I know! I’m just practicing my radio growl. How was that, Father?”
“Your inflection grows better by the day, my dear!” And then Cecil murmured something in Modified Sumerian with a wink that made Esteban giggle. The principle at Night Vale Elementary had forbidden him to take Spanish, Double Spanish, or Weird Spanish, on account of his home fluency in all three, and so he had chosen the language his father studied.
“Speaking of unutterable utterings,” said Cecil, rising from the table and straightening his neon bow tie, “I should get going. I will see you tomorrow morning, darling. Unless you have more of those teeth nightmares and end up in our room again. That would be unfortunate.”
“Don’t worry, Father. I won’t forget to curse the windows tonight.”
Cecil kissed his forehead. “That’s my boy-shaped being.”
“Have a good shift, bunny,” Carlos said after his husband kissed him goodbye.
After dinner, Esteban and Carlos wrangled the leftovers into an enchanted Tupperware (wedding presents from Abby and Steve), washed the dishes, and said their thanks to the Elder Gods over the bloodstone circle in the living room. After that, Carlos bundled his son into his hybrid coup and drove them to the lab.
At ten years old, Esteban was intimately familiar with the care and keeping of specimens in the lab. Everything that needed a delicate hand had already been checked over by Carlos before closing, but he was a good father (it was the first thing a father was) and had been slowly granting his son more scientific responsibilities over the years. They spent a half-hour ogling the plastic baggy of vicious gum, before Esteban tugged on the sleeve of his father’s lab coat to remind him the radio show began in five minutes. Carlos hurried them back to the car so they wouldn't miss anything.
“Do you have any homework, sweetheart?” Carlos asked when they entered their house once more.
Most of the time, Esteban did his homework on the coffee table, settled in the carpet with his City Council approved inkwell and writing utensil by his elbow. Carlos would sit on the couch with his iPad, both peacefully working as the soothing baritone of Cecil’s voice filled the air.
Tonight, Esteban shook his head. “No, Papá. Can we cuddle?”
For a ten year old, Esteban was especially precocious. Carlos wasn’t sure if this came from being raised in Night Vale in the sense that his parents taught him to be extra observant, or if that was his sixth sense kicking in as an early bloomer. Whatever the reason, Esteban always seemed to sense when his father’s hypersensitivity to touch was flaring up again, and only asked to cuddle on good nights.
“Of course, Chiquito.” He opened his arms and let Esteban burrow in.
Carlos sunk into the couch (which sniffed them, but otherwise did not try to swallow them whole) with his son tucked against his chest. His mass of dark curls were barely visible as he all but disappeared into the depths of his NVCR sweatshirt. The article of clothing had been Cecil’s from his intern days. Cecil insisted he would either one day grow into the sweatshirt, or the sweatshirt would shrink on him. Only time – which wasn’t real – would tell.
They listened to Cecil’s show as the sun went screaming down, turning the world a cool shade of turquoise, then bruised yellow, and then the dark blue of night. Nothing especially heinous occurred today; just more indeterminate time passed in Night Vale. Esteban started to fall asleep mid-weather, and was out by the closing remarks.
Carlos watched his son sleep for a moment. Esteban, their little miracle, their son. Carlos had never expected to find love – to get married – to adopt a lost little boy in the wreckage of yet another of Night Vale’s horrors. Everything about him was perfectly imperfect. The sun-warmth of his brown skin, the bandages covering overexcited scrapes and bruises on his knobbly knees, his near reverence for scientific discovery and journalistic inquiry in equal measure. There wasn’t a single part of him that Carlos would trade for the universe.
From the antique radio on the mantle, Cecil’s soft voice murmured, “I must bid you ado for now, listeners. Good night, Night Vale. Good night.”
Carlos smiled. He scooped up Esteban and carried his dead weight to his room. The star-studded bedding had changed again; tonight, it pictured the outer left corner of the Milky Way, glimmering faintly in the inky twilight. Esteban woke briefly as Carlos tucked him in, making grabby hands for the giraffe plushy Uncle Steve had gifted him as a toddler. Carlos made sure the toy was within reach before sneaking out of his room to wait for his husband.
Esteban drifted off, plush giraffe companion clutched in his hands, perfectly content.
Some time later (as time was sort of jiggly today), the door to Esteban’s room creaked open. There was a hushing noise from the hallway, a soft giggling sort that warned of trouble if someone were to wake their son. This noise was followed by a wet smack, as if, hypothetically, a radio show host shushed his scientist husband with a kiss. The sort of kiss that never got tiring, no matter how many years they had exchanged such.
Cecil crept in, smiling at the sight of his perfectly imperfect son sleeping sound in his bed. He tip-toed over to brush back that wild tangle of curls and kissed Esteban’s forehead.
In the morning, Cecil would wake him and help him prepare for school. They would eat gluten-free waffles (with strawberries, as a tribute to the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home) and drink orange milk to the rusty sound of the sunrise. He would walk him to school, each taking turns narrating the sights in the neighborhood. Cecil would double check that he had his lunchbox, his municipally approved textbooks, and his boy scout certified inter-dimensional Svitz Army Knife, hug him goodbye, and let him go off on his own adventures.
For now, Cecil let his son sleep.
“Goodnight, my love,” he whispered, “Goodnight.”