Tales from the Universe
The bell rings whenever someone new enters Saint Orison.
One strike.
Deep enough to shake the windows of the bakery.
Nobody pulls the rope.
Nobody watches the road.
The bell simply knows.
BONG.
Then everyone in town stops what they are doing and looks toward the square.
Not because strangers are unwelcome.
Quite the opposite.
Saint Orison has another rule.
When the bell rings—
someone must go meet them.
Fourteen-year-old Ana Reyes hears the bell while carrying groceries home.
BONG.
Mrs. Bell stops sweeping the steps outside her shop.
Mr. Orlov looks up from beneath the hood of a truck.
Three children abandon a basketball game.
Everyone waits.
Then Mrs. Bell calls:
“Ana!”
Ana freezes.
“No.”
“You’re closest.”
“I have ice cream.”
“I’ll take it.”
Ana hugs the grocery bag.
“That’s not the point.”
Mrs. Bell holds out her hands.
“Go welcome them.”
Ana groans.
This is the worst tradition in Saint Orison.
Not dangerous.
Not frightening.
Embarrassing.
Some stranger arrives and whoever happens to be nearest the square must walk out to meet them.
You say:
Welcome to Saint Orison. Do you need anything?
Usually they say no.
Sometimes they ask for directions.
Once Ana had to help a man find a bathroom.
Ancient traditions rarely mention bathrooms.
She hands Mrs. Bell the groceries.
Then walks toward the southern road.
The stranger is a girl.
About Ana’s age.
Black backpack.
Mud on her shoes.
No coat despite the cold.
She stands beside the Saint Orison sign reading a paper map.
Ana approaches.
“Hi.”
The girl looks up.
“Hi.”
“Welcome to Saint Orison.”
The girl looks toward town.
“Okay.”
“Do you need anything?”
“No.”
Excellent.
Tradition completed.
Ana turns around.
“Wait.”
Of course.
The girl unfolds her map.
“Where’s Bellweather?”
Ana stops.
“What?”
“Bellweather.”
“Never heard of it.”
The girl points.
According to the map, Bellweather is twenty-three miles north.
Ana takes out her phone.
Nothing.
The girl frowns.
“It was there yesterday.”
“Maybe your map is old.”
“I bought it yesterday.”
Ana looks at the printing date.
Current year.
Then she notices Saint Orison.
It isn’t on the map.
The girl’s name is Miriam.
She came by bus.
Except no bus stops in Saint Orison.
There has not been a bus route through town since 1987.
Miriam has a ticket.
BELLWEATHER → SAINT ORISON
Departure:
9:10 AM.
Arrival:
11:45 AM.
Ana reads it twice.
“Where’s the bus?”
“It left.”
“Where?”
“Back toward Bellweather.”
“There is no Bellweather.”
Miriam becomes irritated.
“There was when I got on.”
Ana shows her phone.
Miriam shows the map.
Neither proves anything.
Then Ana notices something else.
“You didn’t come from the south.”
“Yes, I did.”
“The bus stop is north.”
“What bus stop?”
“The old one.”
Miriam points down the road.
“We came from there.”
Ana looks.
South.
The bell tower stands behind them.
For the first time, Ana wonders how the bell knew which road to send her toward.
Saint Orison’s stranger tradition is older than anyone remembers.
Ana asks her grandmother about it.
Grandma Reyes runs the bakery and knows approximately everything that happens within ten miles.
“The bell rings. Someone welcomes them.”
“Why?”
“So strangers aren’t left standing alone.”
“Why would they be?”
Grandma looks at her.
“Because they’re strangers.”
This is not enough.
“Why does the bell ring?”
“Because someone arrived.”
“How does it know?”
Her grandmother dusts flour from her hands.
“It’s a bell.”
“That is not a property of bells.”
“It is this one.”
Miriam laughs.
Ana does not.
“Has anyone ever checked?”
“Checked what?”
“The bell.”
Grandma pauses.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Another pause.
“Because it works.”
Ana writes that down.
She has learned to become suspicious whenever something stops being examined because it works.
The bell tower is locked.
The key hangs in the mayor’s office.
The mayor refuses.
So naturally Ana, Miriam, and Ana’s cousin Tomas enter through the roof.
Tomas objects to the word naturally.
They climb from the old courthouse attic through a maintenance hatch.
Inside the tower is dust.
Pigeon feathers.
Wooden beams.
And the bell.
Huge.
Bronze.
Older than Saint Orison.
Tomas inspects the rope.
“Cut.”
Ana looks.
The rope ends twelve feet above the floor.
Nobody could ring it.
“Maybe there’s a motor.”
There isn’t.
No wires.
No mechanism.
Just bell.
Clapper.
Rope.
Miriam walks around it.
“There are names.”
Hundreds.
Carved into the bronze.
Ana recognizes some.
Reyes.
Bell.
Orlov.
Clay.
Families from Saint Orison.
Others she has never heard.
Then Miriam points near the bottom.
Her own name is there.
MIRIAM VALE
All three stare.
“That wasn’t funny,” Miriam says.
“I didn’t do it.”
“When would you even have done it?” Tomas asks.
Nobody answers.
Beneath Miriam’s name is a date.
Today’s.
They find the bell records in the courthouse basement.
Not intentionally.
They are looking for construction plans.
Instead, Tomas discovers fourteen enormous books labeled:
ARRIVALS
The oldest begins in 1791.
Saint Orison was founded in 1846.
Ana opens it.
Names.
Dates.
Where the stranger came from.
Who met them.
Sometimes a note.
Samuel Orison — arrived alone — claims road behind him vanished.
Martha Bell — child — unable to identify home settlement.
Elias Wren — arrived carrying survey map inconsistent with county boundaries.
Page after page.
Ana turns faster.
People who arrived from towns nobody recognizes.
Roads that do not exist.
Ships despite Saint Orison being hundreds of miles from the sea.
One man claimed he walked into town from a desert.
Another arrived during a snowstorm in July.
Another insisted the year was 1911.
It was 1934.
Miriam whispers:
“Your town collects lost people.”
Ana looks at the names.
Reyes appears in 1902.
Her great-great-grandfather.
Mateo Reyes — arrived western road — unable to return by same route.
She reads the note again.
Her family did not move to Saint Orison.
Her family arrived.
The welcoming tradition suddenly makes more sense.
Not:
Be friendly to visitors.
Something older.
Someone arrives somewhere they did not intend to be.
They may be frightened.
Confused.
Alone.
So the bell rings.
And somebody goes to them.
Not police.
Not mayor.
Not an investigator.
Just somebody.
Welcome to Saint Orison.
Do you need anything?
The town preserved that part perfectly.
But like many old traditions, people remembered the action after forgetting the problem it was designed to solve.
Miriam wants to go home.
The problem is nobody knows where home is.
Bellweather does not exist according to Saint Orison’s maps.
Miriam’s phone contains photographs.
Her mother.
School.
Friends.
Street signs.
Bellweather High.
Bellweather Public Library.
Bellweather Station.
Ana freezes at the last photograph.
A brick train station.
Gold letters.
She has seen it before.
Not in Saint Orison.
In the arrival ledger.
A drawing from 1926.
Traveler reports station named Bellweather. No corresponding railway found.
Miriam says:
“So somebody else came from there.”
“Maybe.”
“Then I can get back.”
Maybe.
That word does a great deal of work.
The mayor finally tells them the rest.
Every few decades, Saint Orison tries to return someone.
Road expeditions.
Maps.
Trains.
Once an airplane.
Sometimes it works.
Or appears to.
Sometimes the traveler simply disappears while attempting to retrace their route.
Nobody knows whether that means they got home.
Sometimes search parties disappear too.
So the town stopped trying.
“We help people settle here,” Mayor Clay says.
Miriam stares at him.
“I don’t want to settle here.”
“You may not have a choice.”
Ana dislikes the sentence immediately.
Miriam does too.
“I got here somehow.”
“Yes.”
“So there is a way back.”
“Not necessarily.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
“Then stop saying it like you do.”
The mayor becomes quiet.
Ana smiles slightly.
She likes Miriam.
They return to the ledger.
This time they search for departures.
There are very few.
One entry from 1963:
Helen Marr departed after second bell.
Second bell.
Ana has only ever heard one.
“What is the second bell?”
Nobody knows.
Another:
Thomas Vale departed northern road after answering bell.
Miriam grabs the book.
“Vale.”
Her surname.
The entry is from 1918.
Thomas Vale came from Bellweather.
He lived in Saint Orison for eleven years.
Then one night the bell rang twice.
He walked north.
Nobody saw him again.
Miriam says:
“He got back.”
Ana says:
“We don’t know that.”
Miriam looks at her.
Ana hates saying it.
But it is true.
That night Miriam sleeps at Ana’s house.
At 2:14 in the morning—
BONG.
Ana wakes.
One bell.
Another stranger.
Then:
BONG.
Second bell.
Ana runs to the window.
Lights turn on across Saint Orison.
Doors open.
People step outside.
Nobody knows what to do.
The town remembers the first bell.
The second has become a footnote in an old ledger.
Miriam is already dressed.
“You are not going alone.”
“It might be Bellweather.”
“It might be anything.”
“Exactly.”
They go downstairs.
Grandma Reyes is waiting.
She does not stop them.
Instead, she hands Ana a coat.
Then another to Miriam.
“Cold tonight.”
Ana understands.
Her grandmother is afraid.
But fear and prohibition are not the same thing.
“Be careful.”
The entire town gathers beneath the bell tower.
Mayor Clay has the old ledger.
The second bell rings again.
BONG.
Then something extraordinary happens.
The bell tower clock begins running backward.
2:17.
2:16.
2:15.
People murmur.
Miriam looks toward the northern road.
A light has appeared beyond the trees.
Not headlights.
Too steady.
Ana hears something.
Very faint.
Metal against metal.
A train.
There are no tracks north of Saint Orison.
Miriam starts walking.
Ana follows.
Tomas follows Ana.
Then Grandma Reyes.
Then half the town.
Mayor Clay shouts:
“Stop!”
Everyone does.
He looks at the crowd.
Then the dark road.
“We don’t know what that is.”
Ana says:
“No.”
“It could be dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“We have no procedure.”
That is also true.
Miriam turns.
“What did people do before there was a procedure?”
Nobody answers.
Ana thinks she knows.
They paid attention.
The light reaches the edge of the trees.
A train emerges.
No tracks.
Black locomotive.
Red passenger cars.
It stops beside the road.
The doors open.
A conductor steps down.
He looks at Miriam.
“Bellweather?”
She nods.
He checks a silver watch.
“Running late.”
Miriam laughs.
Then cries.
Then both.
Ana grabs her hand.
“Wait.”
The conductor watches patiently.
Ana asks:
“How do we know this goes to her Bellweather?”
He smiles.
“You don’t.”
Miriam looks at Ana.
There it is again.
No certainty.
Only evidence.
The ticket.
The records.
Thomas Vale.
The station photograph.
The train.
Enough pieces to form a direction.
Not enough to form certainty.
Miriam hugs her.
Then boards.
The doors close.
The train disappears into the trees.
No tracks remain.
Three months pass.
No message.
Then six.
Then almost a year.
Ana begins to wonder whether they made the wrong choice.
There is no way to know.
On October 3, exactly one year after Miriam arrived, the bell rings.
BONG.
Ana runs toward the square.
A stranger stands beneath the tower.
A boy about ten.
Terrified.
Holding a backpack.
Ana approaches slowly.
“Hi.”
He looks at her.
“Where am I?”
“Saint Orison.”
“I was walking to school.”
“Where?”
“Bellweather.”
Ana’s heart jumps.
She kneels.
“Do you know Miriam Vale?”
The boy nods.
“She teaches at my sister’s school.”
Ana closes her eyes.
For one second, the entire world becomes lighter.
Then she remembers why the bell rang.
The boy is still lost.
Still frightened.
Still standing somewhere he did not intend to be.
She smiles.
“Welcome to Saint Orison.”
The old words feel completely different now.
“Do you need anything?”
The boy nods.
Behind Ana, doors are opening.
People are coming.
Nobody knows why Saint Orison stands where lost roads sometimes end.
Nobody knows who made the bell.
Nobody knows where the next stranger will come from.
But perhaps that was never the part the town needed to understand perfectly.
Somewhere, somebody becomes lost.
The bell rings.
And Saint Orison answers.
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