Ch 2

Old Habits, New Perspectives

I suppressed a flutter of nervousness, as I stepped onto the elevator. Nervousness that encompassed far more than the prospect of starting a new job and meeting my new boss.

My wife was convinced that this town was the perfect place for our wonderful, eccentric, brilliant little girl to thrive. I was less convinced. Small towns could be incredibly insular, and Demetria tended to be socially awkward at best. And for all this place, this school, this job looked so perfect on paper, we had yet to deal with the reality. The decision to leave behind our entire lives to move here had seemed to me to be gambling with our daughter's happiness. And it was a gamble I desperately wanted to win.

So I took a deep breath to settle my nerves as I approached the half open door labled 'Sean Parker C.O.O. Forest Village Inc.' only to find what looked for all the world like a teenage boy napping at the desk inside.

"Um, excuse me?" I said after a minute of standing uncertainly at the door. The boy at the desk sighed and reluctantly lifted his head to look at me unenthusiastically. A thick strand of his longish dark hair fell carelessly into his face. Sitting in a lazy slouch, and was wearing a sleeveless undershirt leaving his tanned and toned arms bare. I doubted anyone had ever looked less like an Business Executive. My first instinct was to ask if his father would be back soon. however on second glance around the room, I spotted the various missing pieces of professional attire. Collard shirt draped over the back of his chair, suit jacket folded in half on the sill of the open window, tie hanging from the lampshade, and a hairtie around his wrist.

I hesitated and with a second glance at the door asked "Are you...Sean Parker? I'm Darren Jones. I was to start work today..."

He responded with a particularly long resigned sigh.

"I know who you are." he said calmly, then suddenly switching tones he raised his voice. "You're late"

Startled, I glanced at the clock, It was 7:40 and I had been asked too arrive at 8:00

"Not you. Him." He said eyes narrowing in annoyance, and head tilting meaningfully to my right. I turned to look, and realized there was someone else walking up the hallway towards me.

"Sorry, Boss." He called out sheepishly, voice lowering in volume as he got closer "I got caught up, and didn't think a couple of minutes would matter."

"I told you to be here at 7:38. Why would I go through the effort of being specific, if it didn't matter? You could have saved us both a lot of hassle if you had been here when you were told."

I was tempted to cringe at his scathing tone, and it wasn't even directed at me. The new arrival however just looked thoughtful.

"You're right boss, that was downright silly of me. Won't happen again, and" He turned to me, and extended his hand. "I am Joe Baker, and I am sorry I wasn't here earlier. I could have made your first impression of our company much less awkward."

"Its alright." I responded automatically and accepted his hand. Joe Baker was impeccably dressed in tailored clothes, with his dark hair graying at the temples, and wire-frame glasses. He looked every inch the Corporate professional in direct contrast to his 'boss'.

I took a moment to try and process the implications of their conversation while his, and apparently my, new boss handed Joe Baker and piece of paper and assigned him to give me a 'tour and new employee orientation'

I was very tempted to ask him how he had known precisely when I would arrive, but he had promptly returned to his earlier napping position as soon as the paper left his hands. Baker grinned knowingly at me, patted me on the shoulder and wordlessly signaled me to follow him out of the office. So I did.

When we were a reasonable distance away he spoke. "Welcome to Forest Village, how have you been adjusting so far?" There had been a particular emphasis on the word adjusting, that made me pause, but after a moment I replied.

"Fine, I suppose. We only arrived a couple of days ago, and spent most of that unpacking, but the scenery is nice." I hesitated a moment "What did you mean, about adjusting?"

He grinned at me. "Well, the locals, at least the ones we affectionately refer to as the Forest People, can take some getting used to. I grew up in the nearest decent sized city, so have been aware of some of their oddities most of my life, and then I married one, and now two of my three kids are Forest People, as a result I am considered a local expert on dealing with their quirks."

I blinked and frowned "Only two of your three kids are...Forest People?"

He nodded, as if we were having a perfectly normal conversation.

"Its actually not very common for Forest People to have Forest People children, whatever is responsible for the traits doesn't seem to be genetic. Its far more common for them to be born to outsiders, like with you and your daughter."

"What do you mean, my daughter?" I asked starting to feel slightly offended "She isn't one of these...Forest People."

He raised an eyebrow and smiled knowingly "Oh? So she doesn't tend to be preternaturally observant, have an affinity for knives and martial arts, and learned to walk like a ghost before she turned three?"

I stopped walking for a moment. "How did you. What. You couldn't possibly know..."

"I told you I raised two of 'em myself, My oldest was downright eerie, still is mosttimes. my youngest was more subtle, took the whole 3 years to manage walking soundlessly, but then Eaters are pretty easygoing as far as Forest people go."

"Eaters...?" I said hesitantly. I was starting to feel vastly out of my depth.

"Yep, the things I mentioned earlier are a sort of an obvious baseline set of quirks for nearly all the forest people. Then there are extra subsets of quirks that local parlance has given labels to. Three of the more prominent subgroups are the Eaters, Sleepers and Charmers. Those three commonly tend to form triads too." He paused, anticipating my confusion. "Forest people have a tendency to group into threes for some reason. We call those groupings triads or Trinities, because it happens so often, and because they are so significant. You'll see what I mean eventually."

He paused for a moment to retrack the conversation, and I was starting to keep a discreet eye out for hidden cameras.

"Anyway, Eaters are some of the most easygoing friendly forest people you'll meet, but food is always Serious Business. Never mess with an Eaters food.

Sleepers... well, you met the boss. He is what we call a Heavy Sleeper. He shows a high proportion of Sleeper traits. They are all ridiculously brilliant and almost completely unambitious. They'd rather have an afternoon nap than a successful career. That's probably one of the reasons boss gets so testy with me. I was part of the council that voted to stuff him in the C.O.O. slot the minute he applied for a business management position, and now he pretty much runs the company.

Charmers, well they, as you might guess, tend to be charming. Pretty much the most socially well adjusted Forest People. Like to build and maintain information networks. Basically they're the local gossips. But its Serious Business to a Charmer."

Then there are Lurkers, Fighters, Dog people, Bug people and a few others...Really you should just focus on your daughter and maybe her triad, for now. Worry about the rest later."

"Okay." I said somewhat dazed voice, as I tried to process that ridiculous info dump.

I was half convinced this was some sort of elaborate hazing. See how many crazy stories we can convince the new guy to believe. Except, he had just casually tossed out most of my daughters odd habits, and no one could possibly have known, how she would step so carefully one foot in front of the other with her face scrunched in concentration until she could walk...without making a sound. And then there was the rest of it.

"Um," I said after a moment "I think my daughter might be a...Sleeper. She's always been so brilliant, we could never keep enough books around to keep her occupied. Then when she went to school, she would just nap through most of the classes, and still do fairly well. When we tried to suggest she move to a more challenging grade she didn't want too, said she liked taking naps, didn't want to be challenged...it was a bit baffling."

Not to mention the Idea of my twelve year old daughter successfully running an entire company seemed unnervingly plausible.

He snickered "Yup, typical Sleeper. Just keep in mind that naps and downtime are Serious Business, and you'll manage fine. Sleepers are too laid back to have really pronounced issues, although it does vary from person to person. They're individuals not categories, but knowing the categories can help."

Thankfully, after that surreal conversation the rest of the workplace tour, just involved a tour of my workplace. It was reassuring. As if I hadn't just moved my family into some twilight zone conspiracy.

Then we reached the end of the tour, my new workplace. Which consisted of a comfortably large office room, with six moderately sized cubicles separated by three quarter walls, instead of the standard space dividers.

Oh, and when we entered said room, a man was crouched menacingly on previously mentioned three quarter wall, muscles tensed and wary like a cat before it pounced.

"Hello Bob." Joe greeted, as if it were perfectly normal to greet ones coworkers who were covered in weapons and poised threateningly just above your head. "This is Darren Jones, he is going to be your new coworker. His daughter is a Sleeper, so you really don't want to stab him, you know how they get."

The tense, threatening line of his shoulders eased considerably at Joe's calm address, but I could have sworn there was a slight shudder after his last statement.

"Darren this is Bob, or he also likes to go by Newt. Don't take it personally if he doesn't talk to you much, or at all. Lurkers can be like that. And he'll relax around you eventually. They just don't do well with strangers."

Bob nodded his head at me once, either in greeting or in confirmation of Joe's statement. I couldn't really tell. Then he re-sheathed the throwing knife in his left hand, and walked to the other end of the wall with the surety of a cat, to vanish into the far cubicle.

"That reminds me." Joe added "You'll want to take a purple ribbon, and tie it to one of the hooks outside one of your windows, to designate it a guest entrance. Otherwise some of the Forest People will just use any window they please."

I sighed in resignation, I was starting to get the sinking feeling this wasn't all some kind of elaborate joke.

"I don't suppose they knock first?"

"Nope." he replied easily "Getting them to use a designated window is plausible, getting them to knock first is a lost cause."

One the bright side I was no longer worried that my daughter would have trouble fitting in. I had a dreadful sneaking suspicion that she was going to fit in just fine.