Harriet hated her name. It was old-fashioned and dull. Her grandmother could have named her Ashley or Brittney, but no, it had to be Harriet. For Harriet lived with her grandmother; her mother and father were nowhere to be found. Harriet had looked for them once when she was five years old, but gave up after she found nothing. On this particular day Harriet sat on the wooden fence surrounding her grandmother's farm. Grandmother Olga owned fifty acres of land. She was a strange woman, with many little rituals that she executed daily. Harriet never understood the meaning of these, but as a child they fascinated her. Grandmother Olga never peeled her potatoes in a downward motion, but upward. She let the faucet drip for no apparent reason, and her books were placed upside-down and backwards on the shelves. She threw sawdust into the dresser drawers and drew purple circles on the closet walls. Harriet never understood why her grandmother did these things, but she learned to humor her.
"Grandma," she would ask her, "Why do we do the things we do here?"
"To keep the peace," Grandmother Olga would answer. "If we did not do them, chaos would consume the earth."
Harriet wondered how a dripping faucet and a few backward potato peels could keep chaos from swallowing the earth, but she humored her grandmother anyway. Today she sat at the kitchen table buttering toast and pouring tea for Grandmother Olga, who sat studying her face with an intensity that made Harriet squirm.
"You're grown-up now," Grandmother Olga blurted out. Harriet looked up, slightly ruffled.
"Yes, Grandma, I turn twenty the day after tomorrow." She spread a thick layer of strawberry jam on the toast.
"When I was twenty I had three children," Grandmother Olga said, sighing dreamily. "Those were the beautiful days."
Harriet nearly gagged. The thought of having three children before twenty made her cringe.
"Why don't you get married?"
Harriet knew this question would come and was ready for it.
"Because, Grandma, you need a man. Seeing as there is no man, I cannot get married."
"It's a real shame, it is," Grandmother Olga continued, biting viciously into the toast. "Young women these days haven't a chance. Men are too stupid to do anything with themselves."
"That is very true, Grandma."
"Say, I know where we can find some real men," Grandmother Olga continued. "We can go to Utopia."
Harriet had heard of Utopia many times. It was a perfect country filled with perfect people, perfect land, and so perfect men. Every time Grandmother Olga began ranting about young men she would always suggest going to Utopia. Utopia, Harriet had discovered, was as made up as it was perfect. It didn't really exist and they never went there. That is, until the day she turned twenty.
After the rather unsettling conversation over breakfast, Harriet decided to put such nonsense out of her head and weed the tomato patch. For nearly twenty years Harriet knew only this farm with its fifty acres and peculiar customs. She had never gone outside of the wooden fence and had never seen anyone other than the mailman, the milkman, and the butcher. No one came to visit, and she had never seen any other relatives outside of Grandmother Olga. Her parents, too, seemed to fade away until she could no longer remember their names or faces. Grandmother Olga, for all her boasting, was never visited by the three children she had before she turned twenty. She never spoke of them either, except to mention them in passing.
Until that day in the tomato patch Harriet had never wondered why there was no one around. Then she saw the face in the water trough.
"Hello," she said without thinking. The face smiled up at her. It was a nice face.
"My name is Harriet. Isn't it a horrid name? I would much prefer a name like Rosann or Helen or Ashley, but mother would name me Harriet. What is your name?"
Then something quite disagreeable happened: An arm rose up out of the water trough and grabbed the side. Another arm followed it, and then the face that she found so agreeable came after that. Before she could blink a very wet, very happy young man stood beaming down at her.
"Ah hah!" He laughed aloud. "I am free! How can I ever thank you, Harriet, for the wonderful service you have rendered me?"
"Excuse me?" Harriet was a little ruffled.
"You have unchained me from my watery prison! I must say, it was getting rather clammy in there. And so lonely! Don't you ever get lonely?"
"Sometimes," Harriet admitted. "On a very rare occasion, when the sun hides behind the clouds and Grandma is disagreeable."
"Yes, that is how I feel most of the time." The water dripped dejectedly from his nose. Then he sneezed.
"Oh my, gracious me!" Harriet cried, "you'll catch your death out here all wet like that! Come in and warm yourself by the fire. I'll get you some tea, and maybe find you a dry pair of clothes."
"I am forever in your debt, sweet Harriet."
"You're very welcome - But what is your name?"
"You may call me Neptune."
"Seriously?"
"Yes, I am speaking in all seriousness. That is my title at the moment. You see, I have not been given a name yet."
"Who gives you a name?"
"The one who will be faithful to me forever."
"Maybe you should get a pet then."
"But I have you!"
"What makes you think I'll stay with you forever?"
"You are the first to greet me, dear Harriet. Will you marry me?"
"You are not serious."
"Yes, I am in a way. But then, perhaps your customs are not ours. Ours say that, should a young lady address one of us imprisoned in our titles, we will be instantly free and joined to that lady for eternity!"
"This is not real. I need to go take care of Grandma."
Neptune sneezed again.
"But you must give me a name first, and live with me forever."
"Listen, I can't give you a name. I don't have a name. And furthermore, I refuse to live with you for a day, let alone forever! My grandmother needs me, and I need her. She is old and I must be with her. She keeps me -" Harriet stopped.
"She keeps you safe, doesn't she?" Neptune said, suddenly serious.
"Yes, she does," Harriet said slowly.
"Tell me, Harriet, does your grandmother do strange things? Leave the faucets dripping, peel potatoes backwards, place books the wrong way on shelves?"
Harriet nodded, too stunned to speak.
"Then you're in more danger than you realize, and I've come just in time."
Neptune strode purposefully to the house. Harriet followed him, confused and a little bit frightened. She did not like how Neptune had looked just now, his face angry and sad all at the same time. Neptune, too, was such a silly name. But then, she reasoned, he was a rather silly man. By now they had made their way to the front of the house. Already Harriet knew that something was wrong. The door stood ajar and a dark stillness seeped from the windows.
"Grandmother?" Harriet called, hurrying up the steps.
"Wait!" Neptune cautioned, grabbing her arm and holding her back. "Let me go first."
Such chivalry! Harriet thought as she followed him into the living room. The sight that met her eyes took her breath away. Cushions were shredded, lamps smashed, books thrown from the shelves with their pages torn. Dirt smeared the walls, and a thick, black goo covered the floor.
Grandmother Olga was nowhere to be seen. Harriet ran from room to room, calling her name and frantically searching under the rubble and in the corners for an sign of her. There was none. Exhausted, she sank onto the floor and began to cry.
"Oh hang it all!" Neptune muttered angrily. He sat down next to the now hysterical Harriet. "Listen, girl, we must leave this place at once! Those monsters will be back once they realize that we're still here."
"What monsters?" Harriet asked, suddenly finished crying.
"Evil, black creatures," Neptune said dramatically. "I cannot really describe them; they're indescribably evil! We must go and awaken the guardians of the earth and let them know what has happened!"
"What has happened?"
"Our leader has been taken!" And with that, Neptune bounded from the house and into the yard. Harriet hurried after him.
