Dash to Pieces – 11.6
Author: Wildbow

Dash to Pieces – 11.6 | Pale

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“Almost two!” Avery shouted.  She was standing on a streetlight, Snowdrop crouched beside her.  “We’ve got about five minutes!”

“Don’t rush it to fit the timetable!” Lucy called out.  She was in spirit mode, and had painted most of the immediate area with her ‘Arena’.  Her opponent was a Wraith King.  “It’s fine to go a bit over, but we get hurt if we start getting rushed!”

Verona didn’t have that crazy agility or teleporting stuff, and she couldn’t go spirit mode, and she was all out of animal transformations.  She’d snatched some feathers out of the air after dissolving the last one, but that was only a teeny bit of glamour and transformation, secondhand.

Her contributions to the team had fallen behind.  She didn’t have an implement, she didn’t have a familiar, and her role was very backseat, hanging back and watching for opportunities to help or deliver the master stroke.  One problem she was running into was that delivering that master stroke required resources.  They had power to spare even with Edith bound and their runes not working great, but actually turning that power into useful things required time or objects.  Runes drawn on paper, or bits of animal fur and feathers and things mixed with glamour and drawn up with more runes, and she really wanted to enchant some items on her own but that took time and resources and uuugh.

She dug in her bag for the last of three packets of spell cards she’d drawn up while on vacation, bound together with an elastic, separated by post-its, one extending out to the top, one to the right, and one to the left, all in a hard, waterproof pencilcase she’d drawn Tashlit eyes on.

Her thumb ran along the side of the cards as she watched the Wraith King, while she held them inside her bag.  Montague had stopped his work a while ago but the rain had continued.  It pattered down around them and even though it wasn’t as intense as before, Verona remained soaked through every layer of clothing.

Echoes and ghosts were impressions from distinct psychic events.  Most only lasted a matter of seconds before expiring, only available to be snatched and used if a necromancer or other specialized practitioner was in the right place in the Ruins or some closely aligned adjacent realm.  Bigger and more profound events that dug more into the depth of a person’s Self or Soul made for richer, more structurally sound echoes.  Echoes kept on replaying scenes with less and less fidelity until they faded away.

Damaged echoes or echoes with a lot of oomph but no ability to follow their routine tended to spiral out.  In those spirals they could appear in reality, often as visions, flickers of faces, images in mirrors or reflections, or tricks of the light, and often with short, brief lived bursts of activity.  They tended to implode or explode when handled and were pretty dangerous for non-experienced practitioners to handle.  They were termed spectres.  Some hypnotized or possessed people, even.

Poltergeists were echoes who synced up with an intense emotional battery, and acted a lot like spectres except they didn’t spiral so much as they orbited or looped through their target of choice.  Those who were naturally vulnerable to seeing Others like the sick, the very young, the old, and the mentally ill were often also very emotional and the most emotional of those types made good anchors for the poltergeist in reality.  Lots of knocking over of objects and increased echo activity when the troubled child or the abused old woman had a freak-out.

If an echo in her Sight was like a bandage pulled away from a face, holding the shape of that face and signs of the accident that required the bandage, then a wraith was what happened when something fit itself to that mold, putting it on like a mask or giving it a bit of crackling lightning inside.  Stuff, often dark stuff, that lined up with the dark emotions that drove the most persistent and troubling echoes.  An echo with a bit of dark spirit in them.

There were some of those around.

Or an echo with some Abyss influence or even a shadow of goblin nastiness in it?

There were some of those around downtown, yep.

Or an echo with an incarnation or something incarnation-heavy latched on?

Yeah.  They were looking at one right now.  One very big wraith that looked very intense, looked like it had passed a status check from a fashion designer who liked monochrome, and carried a key, thematic item?  This wraith was ten feet tall and carried a wagon wheel that had been painted pink, wore a pink dress and had pink hair the echo probably hadn’t had in reality.

The woman paced slowly, running the hand that wasn’t holding the wheel from collarbone to pelvis and back again, hard.  She turned her head and the echo part of her took a moment before it followed, the fluid parts of the echo ‘splashing’ against the rocks of the face beneath.

The Wraith laughed, abrupt, hard and forced.  With the laugh, she extended her influence.  Partial images of scenes boiled up all around the city block.  Other echoes stirred in response.

She was halfway to Lucy by the time Verona even clocked to the fact it had started moving.  Lucy swiped at a reaching hand and severed it, more instinct than anything.  Avery came in with the salt, driving the Wraith back and salting the ground to discourage further attempts.

Lucy’s retreat made it look like she was fighting through a crowd of people who were grabbing at her.  She looked tired.

Verona flipped through spell cards, trying to decide what might help disperse the things, but she didn’t have a lot.  She’d mostly drawn elemental stuff.  By the time she settled on a ‘motes of glittering light’ thing as something jarring, Lucy had already escaped.

“Freaking jumpscares!” Lucy swore.  “Fuck off!”

The Wraith laughed, twisting, regrown hand gripping her face.  “Nothing!”

The loud voice carried, banging off of walls.  More scenes bubbled up, following off of the ‘uh’ and ‘ing’ sounds of nothing with fragments of other sentences.

“It’s nothing, don’t sweat it!” the Wraith crowed.

It was like the kid with the stupid hat had been training Verona for this.  Echoes tended to stick to human limits and the Wraith part of them really juiced them up.  More power, pushing boundaries, more unpredictability.  Sometimes the nugget of something inside operated the echo by pulling on the levers of certain triggers or making events play out in certain orders.  Other times they weren’t that intelligent and intensified or ‘flavored’ the wraith.

Another forced, hard laugh.  Verona’s skin crawled, face flushing.  That wasn’t the echo’s power, but something instinctive that reached below or around it.  She could imagine a normal person laughing and talking like that and none of the circumstances it would fit to were comfortable so she was uncomfortable.

There was a chicken and egg thing that went on with wraiths, or something cyclical.  Strong events combined with an Other physiology that was very fluid and ‘plug things in’ drew in spirits, other echoes, and just about anything receptive to being plugged in, which empowered it, which made it more active, which made it more prone to drawing things in.  Sometimes they found a balance, roughly even to the echo’s predisposition to dissolving over time.  Sometimes they even steadily grew until something happened.

Sometimes they became too juicy and another Other devoured them for power.  When they weren’t especially cognizant of reality but packed a lot of power, that left avenues for the canny Other or practitioner to prey on the vulnerabilities of a badly programmed robot with a nuclear power core.  Easy power source.  No special terms for that that Verona was aware of, but the books had talked about it a lot.  Books written by practitioners with practitioner motives.

The individual pieces and power sources that made them them could promote loops, especially when the wraith had a lot of individual echoes driving it, and a loop could become a vortex or storm.  In echo-heavy areas that was a danger, the edges of the ‘storm’ having lots of edges that encouraged having stuff plugged into it, which drew more echoes into it, until the entire thing burned out or something exploited it.  Some grew so large that they were hard to deal with.

And then there were the situations where a wraith picked up some brains along with the power, or got power of a sort that scared others off and wasn’t easy prey.  In those situations, they could get very big and they could start to get heavy.  Same idea as the Carmine Beast, same idea as a god.  If they got big and heavy enough that the fabric of reality started to crater below them, then that crater could fill with power, and the wraith got its own little pocket demesne or pocket dimension with its own rules.  Wraith Kings.

Or queens? Verona thought.  But that might be its own thing.  They were princes if the pocket reality was temporary or conditional and there might’ve been something about wraith princesses, but that was weird when she mixed it up with Goblin Princesses like the Tedds.  Stupid gendered language…

Wraith Kings could sometimes spawn or control Echoes, sending them out on errands or to spread influence.  Which really felt like it could be a Wraith Queen schtick, if terminology split, but she’d have to look it up and man she really wanted to write a textbook one day, and get this garbage right.

This one was on the threshold between Prince and King.  It had its arm hooked through the spokes of the wheel, which didn’t stop the wheel from turning with increasing speed, spokes passing through arm, and the wraith contorted, hands gripping face and body.  “Do you like it!?”

“No!” Lucy shouted.  “This is ass!”

The hard, forced laugh again, stifled. The wraith’s hand gripped her own face hard enough it looked like it could crush the bone beneath flesh.

“What’s your deal!?” Avery shouted.

“It’s nothing!  Don’t sweat it!” the Wraith shouted, in a voice that Verona thought would probably loop through her head on its own, like a catchy piece of music.

Echoes were being drawn in.  Sympathy was the big thing that made echoes dangerous, and this wraith queen’s schtick was pulling in other echoes that matched or aligned roughly to her flavor.

The area around her that was bubbling up with faint phantom images got more intense, spreading out.

“Heads up!” Lucy called out.

Verona scribbled down a note and laid the notecard against her neck. It clung to skin.

They’d redrawn the lines twice over and the fact that their skin was wet and smudged was definitely not in their favor, but it was better than nothing at all.  The runes on Verona’s skin went cold as the Wraith King’s effect swept over her.  She was crouched by the side of the road and reality twisted around her until she was standing, leaning against the hood of a car.

She was equipped to break through the Wraith King’s mirage, but she didn’t, instead letting herself fall into it, staying aware that she was Verona, that this was a fake scene.

She was outside a school.  The scene blurred too much in places where things weren’t in focus, but were crystal clear where they were.  He stepped outside.  Images swirled, the Wraith King drawing on echoes it was attached to, trying out combinations, trying to build a more effective scene.  Verona was aware of the pink wheel turning.

The teenage heartthrob, walking out of school.  Dark loner type, lanky, hair white-ish now that a dye job had rinsed out, and an expressive face that looked like it could destroy her with a look or make her knees go out from under her in a good, gooshy way if he used another look.  He wore a gray tee and black jeans that were very tight across his hips and pelvis in a way that her eye kept going back to.  He had really narrow hips and wide shoulders and boy.  Boy like in oh boy and boy like in male and guy and wooo.  Emotions were pushed into Verona’s head and chest, spelling out a story.

Verona knew that she’d written his name everywhere.  She’d fantasized for hours on end.  There was a picture on her wall that he didn’t know she’d taken.  This was a guy the echo had really, really liked.  Except the guy had been different for the echo.  This was some combination of the puzzle pieces it had that it had decided would work best for Verona.

And it worked.  She raised a hand in a wave and her heart leaped in her chest.

She’d ridden the highs and lows until she’d become literally sick over it, her body unable to handle the emotional swings.  And right now, right in this moment, she was both at nadir and apex and she felt sick and she felt like this could be something.

If this is what love feels like I am so glad I haven’t fallen in love yet.  If I ever will.

What was she the incarnation of?  Love?  Why a wheel?

“Hey, bunny,” he said.

He had a pet name for her and it was bunny.  Verona felt very glad she was leaning against the car because that was one of the weak-kneed goosh moments.  Feeling everything she was feeling and getting that warm greeting from a person who wasn’t normally warm.  Woo.

“New ride?” he asked.

“It is.  Do you like it?” she asked.  She ran her hand along the hood.

“Yeah,” he said.  He turned away from her, and she felt that swing of disappointment.  Why was every emotion so extreme?  But he was only walking around the car, looking in, cupping a hand to peer into the back seat.  She looked at his butt, glanced at his face as he looked up at her.  “New?”

“Yep.”

“It’s nice.  I’m jealous.”

“There’s no need to be jealous,” she told him.  Her face flushed.  She hated that it flushed as much as anything.  It took effort to get words out, past that hate, past the flush, past everything: “It’s yours.”

“It’s- what?”

“You were saying you needed a ride and getting to work and your dad’s is really awkward but you didn’t want to change schools so… here you go.”

“Bunny- Erica, what the hell?”  She was Erica now, not Bunny and that broke her heart in a small but profound way.

She laughed, trying to inject levity, but everything was so extreme that the laugh came out forced, too hard, rattling her brain and thoughts.

“Erica, no that- no.”  He turned.  A friend of his waved and was walking over.  He waved for the friend to go away.

“It’s nothing!  This is nothing!” she urged him, touching his arm, then pulling away like he’d shocked her when he reacted in a way that was the opposite of fond or easy.  “Don’t sweat it.”

“Erica, no, just… no.”

“You don’t want it?”

“I want it, but not like this.  Not-”

“Go on a first date with me,” she told him, forcing herself to say it, to finally say it.  “And we’ll call it square.”

A look of agony crossed his face and the agony reached her, extended through her, twisting and tearing and pushing her to say something else.  Why was it agonizing to contemplate a first date or to take a car he clearly wanted?  Why was this hard?  She opened her mouth, ready to push forward because she’d spent thirty-one thousand dollars and there was no way but forward at this point.  Then his friend arrived.  “Hey, Erica.”

“Go away, go away, not right now, just need a second,” her crush said, stammering.

“Why?  What’s going on?” friend asked.

She loathed that boy with all her being for interrupting and making this harder when she really wanted to make something happen and get-

Verona was tackled.

Stupid to leave her flanks exposed.  There were other things downtown.  The mirage clung to her, persistent, fragments hanging around.

“Hey, guys, get this, Erica bought-”

She reached for her spell cards and picked one off the top.  Offensive.

She stopped short of using it when she recognized Nibble.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I was okay.  I was trying to see what the Wraith was all about so I could help deal with it.”

“You wanted to be trapped in there?”  Nibble climbed off of her.  He’d knocked her to the ground in his haste to get her clear.

“Yeah,” Verona told him.

He had to work to get to his feet.  His foot was in the process of growing back, but it was a bone club with spikes sticking out of it, some spikes extending into and through the flesh that was working its way south.  She climbed to her feet and then helped him.

“Can you go back in?” Nibble asked.

“I think only if she invites me in.  And she might know I wasn’t really buying it.  There’s intelligence or something driving that… whatever that is.”

“So I ruined it,” Nibble said.

“You were trying to help.  In a bunch of other situations earlier tonight, that would’ve been just what I needed.  It’s cool, Nibble.”

She checked on the others, keeping a mailbox between herself and the Wraith King.  Avery was wholly in, and Lucy was fighting despite being under the spell.  Snowdrop bit Avery in the arm, and Avery woke up, only to slip back under.

That would be the inevitable nature of the incarnation powering this Wraith King.  Rarely a matter of if it worked, but more when.  If it wanted you and nothing else pre-empted it, it got you.  Death always won out in the end.  War’s conflicts inevitably broke out, but they always, inevitably returned to Peace.

“Why did you want to be in there?” Nibble asked.

“I was trying to identify the emotion or idea that she’s meant to project.  Symbolized by a pink wheel?”

“I got a taste of it.  I was in high school, Chloe was a popular girl?  Felt like a car crash about to happen.”

“Yeah.  Did you buy Chloe a car to try to win her over, Nibble?”

“Yeah, but there was more to it.  An urge, a… it felt like it was touching that part of me that’s a ghoul.”

Verona nodded.  “Tell me more?”

“It doesn’t bother you?  I don’t know your limits or comfort zones.”

“Tell me more.  It’s cool.”

“If I get hungry enough it’s like I can’t control myself.  Chloe got like that earlier.  It’s not her fault, but she went after your friend down there.  Lucy.”

“Urge?” Verona asked.  “Why a wheel?”

“Drive?” he suggested.

“Yes!”

“No,” Nibble said, crouching.  “If it’s Drive, can’t you steer?  It didn’t feel like I was steering.”

Lucy got bowled over.  The size of the arena shrank, the color differences fading.  She maybe didn’t fight as well while under the spell.  Lesser echoes under the Wraith King’s influence paced at the edges of the arena, ready to collapse in if the boundary gave.  Avery kept her arm around Snowdrop’s face, teeth at her arm, as the two of them beat a bit of a retreat, looking for an opening.

Verona stepped out of cover and threw a damp spell card.  It exploded into light, and the Wraith King shied back.  Lesser wraiths and echoes became visible in the brief glare of the glowing paper as it drifted through the air, before rain beat it down and it hit a puddle, swiftly going out.

“Nibble!”

“Are you okay?  Do you need help, I don’t know how to help.”

“Was it that you didn’t feel like you could steer because of Fate or you didn’t feel like you could steer because of Nature?”

“Is there a difference to a ghoul?”

“Come on, dude.”

“Nature, then.”

She flirted with the attention of several lesser echoes.  Experiences washed over her, and getting Nibble’s take helped her brace against it.  Hunger.  She wasn’t ever really hungry.  Even at his worst her dad had fed her.  Lust.  That was exciting and she’d definitely had moments here or there, but she’d never experienced it full bore like these echoes were.  She could analyze it, a more distant observer, and she was cool with that.

A tiny bit of her felt like she was missing out, not being able to ride these particular roller coasters, but she was cool with it, at least for now.

Yeah.  This wasn’t drive but biological drive, that part of people that made them do stupid things for love, for food, for needs.  Incarnations were inevitable in part because they existed in flux with counterparts.  Comedy and Tragedy, Death and Life.

What was this?  Impetus?  Impulse?  What was the opposite of that?

She definitely acted on impulse sometimes, but not like she’d seen in that echo.  She floundered for an answer, both in terms of the resources she had and the actual answer she needed to find.  It should have been clear, but-

“Accept it!” Avery shouted.

Avery pushed something out there.  It expanded out like Lucy’s arena, but it came as a rolling cloud of mist and handprints.

One of the bottom ‘spell cards’.  Raw utility.  She’d attached a pattern to the material of a sticker set, using the white space between stickers.  Verona peeled it off, touched it to her cheekbones and forehead, and then shouted, “Avery!”

She turned on her Sight.

Avery’s trick allowed others to share Sight.  Avery was sharing hers, so Verona returned the favor.  Lucy dropped her Arena, let the echoes collapse in, and started fighting through.

The scene swallowed Verona.

“I was just trying to do something nice!”

“That’s too nice!  The entire school is talking about you!  Us!” the girl told Verona.  There’s an us.

The girl was a good six inches taller, athletic, hair shaved on the sides, black and swept to one side with stark blonde highlights on top.  She wore a hoodie and corduroy jacket.  It was like a denim jacket but soft.  Muscular body under such soft clothes…

Verona couldn’t help but smirk.  Not really what turned her crank but go Avery.  This girl was smoking hot and Verona could not blame Avery.  If she unfocused her eyes, took gender out of the equation-

“Erica!  Are you listening to me?” the girl asked.

“I don’t care,” Verona said.  She wanted to hug her, hold on, to convey feeling that way.  The feeling gripped her.  She started forward-

“I care!  They’re pushing me, the entire school is pushing me and you realize there’s no way, now?  There’s no way I could take you on a date and have it feel natural, and if I don’t then they’ll all hate me.”

“No, there’s a way, I just wanted to do something nice, that can’t be that bad.”

“It’s bad, Erica.”

The pink wheel turned.  Not the steering wheel but the wheel on the ground, the consequence of Drive.  And the opposite of impulse was what?  How could she break through?

She grappled for it, before realizing she could be herself.  Yes, she had her moments, but-

The scene ceased to line up.  What looked like a very small Lucy came tearing through, wearing her Fox mask, watch, skin and hair beaded with rain that wasn’t falling in this scene, augmenting her speed, and plunged a sword into the chest of the girl.

The scene reoriented in perspective, mirage falling away, and the figure of Erica’s affections was standing a distance away, such that Lucy was normal size and the girl -the Wraith King- was very big but perspective alone made her seem roughly normal sized.  As the mirage slipped away, Lucy lost footing on the more immaterial figure.  The sword dragged against and through flesh without cutting.

Avery leaped down from above, her eyes glowing purple.  Snowdrop came with her, in opossum form, but became human in the landing.  Snowdrop seemed more able to manipulate and manage the Wraith King’s face and body, so she handled the task of holding her mouth open.

The Wraith King started to move, one hand moving off of the ground as she stood taller, Lucy dropping down, Avery still perched above.

Verona found the card she wanted.  It wasn’t a fancy one, and really needed something to be drawn in the middle.  A few marks with a marker as she ran forward- she threw it.

Paper stuck to the Wraith King’s wrist.  It was a simple binding, one piece of a shackle.  Verona carried the paper she’d paired to it with a Pisces rune.  As the Wraith King reached for Avery, Verona hauled back on the paper, moving it and the attached piece.

The pisces rune wasn’t really meant for this.  It detached, because the faint attachment that the paper found to the Wraith so it’d stick to it was far weaker than the attachment between the papers.

All she managed to do was make one sharp tug on the Wraith’s wrist, delaying its ability to swipe or grab at Avery and Snow.

“You want salt or you want to cooperate?”

“It’s Impulse, I think!” Verona called out.  “It acts in the moment!”

The Wraith went after Avery, lunging, grabbing.

“Salt it!” Lucy shouted.

“Seconded!” Verona added.  Sucked, but…

Avery tossed the salt into the Wraith’s face.  Dissolving most of it.  It was too strong on its own, drawing on power.  Verona spotted the turning wheel, held in the Wraith’s hand.

“Cut off the-”

Lucy was already on it.  Going shadow, leaping in, becoming Lucy again, emptying a good half of a box of table salt.

“Wheel, yeah.”

The Wraith crumbled.  Lesser echoes scattered.

“That’s it,” Lucy said.  “Pack up, let’s go to bed.”

“Feels bad,” Avery said.

Felt bad.  Verona hadn’t worked out the solution to the Wraith, exactly, before the others had found it.  She felt like she’d been almost there.

“Hey Nibble,” Avery said.  “How’s Chloe doing?”

“Better.  Not great to go outside though, unless nobody’s around.  But at least she’s still at a point where getting better after a bad episode is possible.  Thanks for asking.”

“Can you do us a solid, Nibble?” Lucy asked.  “We’re stopping here, at Matthew’s recommendation.  Can you round up some Others to fill the gap and cover downtown?”

“It’s part of why I’m here.  Also, I wanted to talk.”

“About?” Lucy asked.

“Edith, and next steps, and trying to figure out what to believe.”

“The Judge laid it out.  Edith had a chance to make her case and she admitted it.”

“Other stuff.  What we were told and what was suggested to us when we signed up, what Kennet’s about, where it’s going, where the people that’d kill this big Other would want Kennet to go.”

“Is this like, tidbits you know and want to share?” Avery asked.  “Or more like… you don’t know and you really want and need answers.”

“More the second.  I might have tidbits but I don’t think anything jumps to mind.”

“Might have to wait, Nibble,” Lucy said.  “We’re… fifteen minutes overdue to stop here and go to bed.”

“Yeah.  Sorry, right, you guys are probably overdue as it is.  You’re daylight types.”

“I’d like to think of myself as a nocturnal type, frankly,” Verona told him.  “But-”

She had to stop because Snowdrop wanted a high-five.

“But until I’m an adult that’s living on her own I’m forced to be a daylight type, yeah.”

“Yeah,” Nibble said.  “I’ll bother you another time.  Part of it is that I wanted to say thanks.  For not destroying Chloe.  I know you could’ve.  I’ve been wanting to say it for a bit but you weren’t around.”

“I was keeping my head down.  Yeah, don’t worry about it, Nibble.”

“We owe you a gift, don’t we?  For being good to us?”

“Not being heartless isn’t really gift territory, Nibble,” Lucy said.  “Don’t worry about it just yet.”

Verona made a sound of protest.  Avery elbowed her.

“Want to walk back with us?” Verona offered.  “We could chat.”

“I’m covering downtown, so yes, I want to, but no.  I’ll manage things here.  Some goblins are coming.  What’s left of Creamfilled’s group is brewing some noxious stuff that scares off the echoes.  Gash is going to lead the deployment team.”

“Need salt?” Avery asked.

“Can’t use it.  Nah, I’m dragging echoes close to Death and darkness the rest of the way, and trying not to get too imbalanced.”

“Good luck,” Lucy told him.

“You too.  Get home safe.  Enjoy that.  Family, being a daylight type, even a forced one.  It’s a better way to recharge than what I’ve ended up with.”

He sounded pretty weary.  Verona could have jabbed or played with the idea of daylight types and being nocturnal, tried to engage him, but she sensed he wasn’t up for it, and frankly, she wasn’t super up for it either.

They moved on, to the South end of downtown.

“Lucy,” Verona said.  “Best friend, I gotta ask… when you wore one of our Sights to stab the love interest-”

“Mm hmm?”

“Did you stab my would-be love interest while wearing my sight, or did you stab Avery’s?”

“Yours.”

“Didn’t even hesitate to admit that.  Wow.  That’s something.  My love interest had a fashion sense, I’d think you’d appreciate that.”

“Ennhhh,” Avery said, making a so-so gesture.  “And you’re acting like mine didn’t?”

“My love interest didn’t even have fleas,” Snowdrop said.

“Wait, wait wait wait.  Did a high school opossum romance play out?” Verona asked.

“It did!  There was a really nice high school.”

“I don’t- I want you to draw pictures or something, Snow,” Verona said.

“I’m a really good artist,” Snowdrop said.

“Snow wasn’t really affected,” Avery said.  “But there was a little, huh?”

“Nah, there was a lot,” Snowdrop said.

“We’re getting sidetracked from the important business of Lucy stabbing my pretend boyfriend,” Verona said, turning.

“I saw him.  A bad boy type with bleached hair and eyeliner, Verona?  Really?” Avery asked.

Verona cackled.  “I liked yours.  I expected a different body type, but-”

“If you’re thinking of Pam’s body type I’m kind of not… the Pam thing going sideways because of Maricica’s transformation and me not thinking things through sorta spoils that.  Bleh.”

Verona paused.  She hadn’t expected it to be a sore spot, but… she glanced at Lucy, who shook her head a fraction.  “But that girl the Wraith pitched at you as a love interest…”

Lucy frowned at her, but Avery smiled.

“She was something,” Avery said.

“If I was even remotely into girls…” Verona said, trailing off.

Lucy shook her head.  “I didn’t wear Avery’s sight and stab her because I had the sense that Avery would pick someone super nice and I can imagine Verona’s pick of boyfriend being a bit grating.”

“Wowwwww.  Wow fuck off, don’t be mean to my hypothetical boyfriends,” Verona replied.  “Hey, by the way, what was yours?  I didn’t get to see, you didn’t have the eye-gates thing prepared to pass it on!  That’s cheating!”

“Lucy rode the entire echo-dream,” Avery noted.

“Two and a half times, if you count the bit of Verona’s as a half,” Lucy said.  “The Wraith Queen refined her attack the second go-round.  She did time shenanigans too.  That did not feel like it took fifteen minutes.”

“You’re not telling me,” Verona said, being as annoying as possible, jostling Lucy’s arm.  “Describe your boy.  Draw him with glamour for me.”

“Ow, ow.  I bumped my arm when I fell earlier,” Lucy said.

“Sorry.”

“You didn’t bust your elbow again, did you?” Avery asked, concerned.

“No.  But I’m going to bruise.  Why couldn’t this entire thing happen in cold weather when I can wear long sleeves?  I hate hot weather.”

“I want my striped sweaters,” Verona said, plaintive.  “And hot tea and cozy blankets.”

“I shall forever mourn my fake opossum boyfriend, who had me completely under his spell,” Snowdrop said, in a dreamy voice, not even participating in the conversation.

The rain pattered down around them.

They reached the top end of Avery’s neighborhood.

“Parting ways?” Avery asked.

“Only in the physical sense,” Verona told her, extending a fist.  Avery bumped the fist with her own.

Avery smiled.

“You good?” Lucy asked Avery.

“Pretty, uh,” Avery paused, looking around.  “Emotionally…”

“Wrung out?” Verona asked.

“Tenderized?  Bam bam bam, long lead-up, Edith, everyone else, then echo, spirit, echo, wraith king, wraith king, whatever?  And that last one was a doozy, y’know?  A taste of what you can’t have?”

“You can have that, Ave,” Verona said.

“Not in Kennet, apparently.”

Lucy nodded.  She looked at Snowdrop.  “Look after our best friend, kay Snow?”

“Not my job, screw that.”

“Thanks,” Lucy said, while Verona gave Snow a thumbs-up.

“Pace yourselves,” Avery said.  “The periods of rest are as important as the times you’re on the ice.”

“Oh god, sports metaphors, no,” Verona groaned.

“Get sleep, hydrate, plan,” Avery said.

Verona groaned.

“It’s good advice,” Lucy said.

“It’s tainted advice.”

“I’ll see you guys tomorrow, hopefully.”

Verona nodded.

They crossed paths with Nat at the bridge, gave her a status update so she could pass it on to Toadswallow, then made their way to Lucy’s house.  They passed Verona’s house on the way.  The lawn was mowed.

She had no idea what to feel about that or how to analyze it but the lawn was mowed.  She wondered if her dad had done it and noticed the Warmed Cow Shit label on the mower.

Verona didn’t feel tenderized.  That was the wrong way to frame her own emotions.  She felt like…

Like nothing was resolved.  It was all loose ends.  Half things.  Temporary things.

They snuck into Lucy’s room, using runes to scale to the window and then slipped inside.  They changed out of wet clothes, dried off, put on sleepwear, and then Lucy quietly broke open the makeup kit and got some nail polish remover and cotton swabs.  The fluid stung the nose, but they managed their runes, did each other’s backs and hard to reach spots on the shoulders.

Lucy’s room was so nice but it wasn’t her room.  It didn’t have her art supplies and shelves of old art stuff she could page through for reference, the books and the materials and the models and random reference images from random magazines she’d picked up.

She was homesick.  Or roomsick.

She didn’t want to go home.

The highs and lows at the same time in a really complicated mess of feeling that didn’t go anywhere, and almost demanded for her to do something stupid to get resolution.

She wasn’t that type.  It was why she’d been more free of the Wraith King’s grip, she liked to think.

She settled on the creaking cot, just by Lucy’s bed, while Lucy, hair wrapped up, collapsed on her bed, pulling a sheet over her hips as a barely-there nod to the idea that people slept under sheets.

She’d wanted to end the night on a higher note, with an answer pulled out of a deeper understanding of practice, kicking ass, delivering purpose.  But because she’d been a bit too slow she’d just kinda hung back while the others jumped in and collected war wounds.

“I’m so worried that if we do this wrong my hometown and the job my mom wanted so badly won’t be here after this summer,” Lucy murmured.

The cot was close enough to Lucy’s bed for Verona to reach over and put a hand over Lucy’s.  Lucy twisted around and held Verona’s hand with her other one, so she could clasp it, holding it firm.

“Gotta do this right,” Lucy said.  “Set it up, not make a mess of it even while we’re dealing with bad types.”

“Yeah,” Verona replied, voice soft.  She gave Lucy’s hand a squeeze.

“I’m so glad you’re back.  I don’t think I’d be strong enough to do all of this if you weren’t here.  It’s so nice to talk with Avery again and I was fucking it up when you were gone.”

“It’s cool.”

“I don’t think it is.  I think if you had been gone to your mom’s for good then if her parents had that conversation with her about moving away I think she might’ve really gone,” Lucy whispered.  “When things get scary she backs off.”

“She’s plenty brave.”

“But that’s cause of us, cause of you.  We gotta figure out our next moves,” Lucy said, eyes only partially open.  “Who to stop, how to protect ourselves.  Where we can get the next batch of answers.”

“We’ve got a meeting with Rook and Nibble wants to talk.  But most importantly, this is really, really important,” Verona whispered.

“Hm?” Lucy grunted.

“We rest.  Like Avery said, without the dumb hockey metaphor.  Time here is just as important.  We recharge, rest, recuperate.  Eat, get centered.”

“Mmm,” Lucy said, sleepily.  Something in her shoulders relaxed, and she repositioned her head on her pillow, holding Verona’s hand firm as if she worried she’d lose her grip while adjusting.

“Take it easy.  I think we did pretty decent.  You guys did at least.”

“For recharging, you’ve got your favorite bagels in the morning, with salmon and cream cheese.  And you can sleep tonight, dreaming of that boy the Wraith flung at you.”

Lucy’s grip slackened a bit.  She’d fallen asleep crazy quick.

One of very few things that didn’t feel like loose ends right now.  Verona held Lucy’s hand for the hour it took her to fall asleep.

“Are you two breathing?” Jasmine asked.

Verona gave her best groan.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Even though she groaned, it was definitely a feeling to be here.  In Lucy’s room.  There was another, opposite feeling that she was too familiar with.  She was thinking about those a lot after dealing with the incarnation-based Wraith King last night- those opposed sentiments and ideas.  When her dad would pull into the driveway and her heart would sink.  That profound, quiet feeling when he got off on a rant, sitting in his bed.  Heavy and suffocating and pressing her down like it would make everything harder now and forever in the future, bit by bit.

This was the opposite of that.  Lifting her up.  Making things easier.

This is temporary, she reminded herself, to dampen it down, keep herself from getting too easygoing.  Because this ended and if she was too carefree now she’d pay for it at the end of summer.  They’d stop the killers and then she’d go home and with any luck she’d be strong enough and her dad would be better but that would all fall through if she let her guard down and the full weight of it hit her on the first day of fall, or whatever.

So she reminded herself it was temporary.

“You get up first, Verona,” Lucy said.  “Then convince me.”

Verona groaned again for effect and for fun.  Lucy swatted her with a small pillow.

Jasmine still stood in the doorway.  “Come on.  Rule in this household is that you have to be up and ready to face the world by noon, that means showering, getting dressed, and being alert.  It also means eating breakfast, and it’s not breakfast if it’s past ten.”

“Some rules exist to be broken,” Verona protested.

“Not my rules in my house.  Up!”

Verona got up.  Lucy mashed her face into the pillow.

“C’mon.  Breakfast bagels?” Verona said.  Lucy’s mom had bought a bag to bring home after their stop there yesterday.

Lucy forced herself to sit up.

They took turns showering, and Verona sat on the counter and texted Avery while Lucy did her hair.  It was raining out and cooler weather than much of the summer had been, which allowed for middle-weight clothes.  Verona was happy to break into some of the clothing she’d set aside, including one of Lucy’s old pairs of pants, frayed with one knee worn out, and a top she’d bought with her mom.  She combed her hair and her bangs were long enough that she ended up pushing them to the side and using a hairpin to get them to mostly stay that way.

“Good,” Jasmine said, as they settled on stools at the counter in the middle of the kitchen.  “I hope I won’t have to twist your arms every morning to get you out of bed.  What were you up to last night, that has you so tired this morning?”

“Stuff,” Verona said.

“Stuff?” Jasmine asked.

“Talking about imaginary boyfriends and stuff.”

Lucy made an exasperated, annoyed sound at Verona.

“Okay,” Jasmine said, reaching over to the far counter and getting a piece of paper.  She put it in front of Verona.

Verona read the list.

13:18 August 7th —- POS MERCHANDISE BOOKWORM HOLES —- 21.90
13:18 August 7th —- POS MERCHANDISE TREMME FEMME —- 109.91
16:31 August 7th —- POS MERCHANDISE SQUEAKY WHEEL… —- 5.59
16:40 August 7th —- POS MERCHANDISE BARN PIT —-  8.04
00:16  August 9th —- POS MERCHANDISE BRIDGE SHACK —- 239.73

Jasmine took a seat across from Verona, hand on cheek, elbow on table.  “Your mom sent me this screencap, wanted to ask what you were up to.”

“Stuff,” Verona said, again.

“Stuff, huh.  At sixteen minutes past midnight, when I thought you two were quiet in Lucy’s room?”

Lucy matched her mom’s pose, looking at Verona.

“Don’t act like you’re innocent, Lucy.”

“What I’m thinking is sometimes these transactions, especially in a small town, especially in a corner store with crappy internet, these things would take a long time to process, right?”

“Sometimes, but not that long.  Is that what happened?” Jasmine asked.

Verona shook her head.  “No, but it sometimes happens.”

“What’d you buy for…” Jasmine turned the paper around.  “Two hundred and thirty nine dollars and seventy three cents, a little after midnight?”

“Some junk for a project.  Trying to make friends.”

“Is this a project I can take a look at?”

“Not so much.”

“And friends I can meet?”

“Older kids?” Jasmine asked.

“Older,” Verona admitted.

“I see,” Jasmine said.  She made a bit of a face.  “I’m really disappointed.”

Verona’s gut dropped out of her stomach.  “I hate that I disappointed you.”

“In both of you, by the way.  I can’t imagine a reality where you weren’t out with her, Lucy.”

Lucy nodded.

“If you have to buy friends they’re not friends worth keeping,” Jasmine said.  “And if you have to break the rules to go see them then they’re really not worth keeping.  What were you thinking?  That your mom doesn’t pay attention?”

“I wasn’t actually aware that debit cards get statements like credit cards.”

Lucy smacked her hand against the side of her face.

“What’s even the difference between the two?” Verona asked.  “I figured it was like an allowance and I could spend it how I see fit.  And I can refill the amount later, get people to pay me back, probably.”

“Uh huh,” Jasmine said.  “On your mom’s next scheduled call, you should talk money management.  And make sure there’s an open line of communication between you two, to prevent these misunderstandings.  Don’t fritter away money.  It would go a long way if you could eat crow and ask your new friends to pay you back for snacks you bought.”

Verona nodded.

“And if I can’t meet these friends I don’t want you hanging out with them like that.  Especially not after hours.”

Verona grunted.  It was better than saying anything damning or binding.

“Were you safe?  Were they fine with you?”

“Mostly we got wet with the rain and exhausted by all the drama,” Verona said.  “They tried to involve us but we managed okay.”

“Does ‘we’ include Avery?  Do I need to talk to her parents?”

“Can I plead out on this one?” Lucy asked.  “Yes, but Avery was super cool and she’s dealing with her mom moving out.”

“Is she?  Is she moving?”

“Don’t think so,” Verona said.

“Was that why you went out?”

Verona shook her head.  “But I was looking out for her a bit more because of that.”

Maybe not enough more but it wasn’t a lie.

“Same,” Lucy added.

Jasmine sighed.

This felt awful.  A headache buzzed at the back of Verona’s brain.

“I’ll leave it to your mom to talk to you about the money part of this.  Now, for my part of this, if you were out that far past midnight, despite my stated rules about curfews-”

“Not cool, I know,” Verona said.

“Lucy?”

“It’s not cool,” Lucy said.

“You’re much quieter than Verona.  Were you the ringleader?”

“It’s not that.  I’m sticking to your other rules, not volunteering too much information to people in authority when you’re in trouble, deserved or not.”

Jasmine gave Lucy a look, but allowed herself a half smirk.  “I’m going to stick to the same rule I had for Booker.  Before he was of legal drinking age.”

“We didn’t drink- anything technically alcoholic,” Verona said.  Only when an echo of an alcoholic briefly possessed us and that was his thing.

“Oh my god could you have said that in a more suspicious way?” Lucy asked.  “We didn’t drink alcohol, period, or do drugs last night, don’t worry, Mom.”

“If anything we were trying to get one of the two people we knew were drinking to quit it.  The other one I know of had one drink and stopped,” Verona said.

Lucy looked at Verona, shaking her head.

“Small mercies,” Jasmine said, giving Verona a look.  “My logic is that part of being an adult and growing into adulthood is learning that you can’t mess around when you don’t know what the next day will bring.  So, if Booker got hung over we’d make a day of things a person with a hangover wouldn’t want to do, like mowing the lawn and running errands on foot, and having Booker look after my neighbor’s screaming young kids while I went out with her for brunch with that neighbor.  Now, if you want to stay up late and break my rules and if you’re very tired today…”

“Very tired,” Verona admitted.  And sore.  Lucy elbowed her.

“We’ll find a very full day of things for two tired young ladies to do.  To start with, you two are going to cook me breakfast.  Do you know how to make coffee, Verona?”

“Nuh uh.”

“Perfect.  Learn fast.  And I know for a fact you don’t know how to make french toast, Lucy-”

“I was going to have bagels.”

“Oh no, no no.  Bagels are easy.  We’re not doing anything easy today… come on, up.  I’ll answer questions if you have them and you have your phones- for instructional purposes only.  Get moving, up up up.”

Verona groaned.  “Can I have some of the coffee once I figure out how to make it?”

“You’re thirteen and I’m a nurse.  No.  You can have water or juice.  Up, off the stool.”

Verona got up.  “It’s almost a treat to get to make something for you.”

“It’s not a treat to know you’ve been out after hours and putting me in a bad spot, Verona,” Jasmine replied.  Verona’s stomach bottomed out again, just with that.  “Today isn’t meant to be fun, but it’s not meant to be mean either.  Let’s get that weariness into your bones, teach you some things and get some things done while we’re at it.  Come on, breakfast and cleaning up,  then we’ll figure out what you’re making for lunch, cleaning up, then a hike…”

Verona sighed.

Verona sagged against a tree.

A tiny hand patted her leg, making her jerk, before she realized who it was.

“Are you patting or painting?” she asked Peckersnot, checking her calf.

Peckersnot patted the top of his head.

“Thank you.  That’s very sweet of you.  And suspicious.”

“Toad said you’re moving slow today,” Ramjam said, peering down from the branches above, proceeding to get his tightly curling horn stuck on a branch.  He smacked it until it broke.  “Checking you’re alright.”

“You okay, Ronnie?” Avery asked, stepping out of the trees.  She was carrying an armload of sticks.

“Worn out.”

“You and Lucy both.  Didn’t get to sleep in?”

“Not much.  Worse, I didn’t get much time to set aside for drawing spell cards.  I’m running low on supplies.”

“Want mine?”

Verona nodded.  Avery took a second to portion them out.  “This one’s fire, this one’s-”

“I know what they do.  Fire arrow, light, light, focused light?”

“You’re way faster at reading the designs than I am,” Avery said.  “Gonna go.  Check in with us when you’re done?  You’re better at this.”

Verona nodded.

Avery moved on.  Snowdrop followed.

“It’s not too bad.  Okay, thank you.  I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow night if this keeps up though.”

“It’s going to keep up,” Ramjam said.  “You want more rocks?”

Verona nodded.  “Or planks, or clean, natural materials.  No garbage.”

“Garbage is great!” Ramjam said, brightly.  “It’s so useful!”

“It’s garbage, isn’t that the opposite of useful?”

“If it isn’t useful you can smash it!” he said.  “Sometimes just for fun, sometimes to make it smaller garbage you can use.”

“These guys don’t want garbage,” Verona said, holding up the contained spirit.  “This one gives me a natural, clean, pleasant vibe.”

“Pansy, wimp!” Ramjam insulted the bottle.

“Be nice.  These guys are cooperating, and we need way more of that,” Verona said.

She made herself resume moving.  Picking up stones and stacking them into a formation.  The formation had a hollow in the center, and one middle section that jutted out like a shelf.  She leaned it into two trees, then reached down for some moss, and arranged that, to fill gaps.  It would be nice if it became a nice mossy stone assembly.  The moss came from nearby, so the area should be nice for growing it some.  She got more moss, keeping one hand on stones to keep everything balanced, and then put the moss inside the hollow, making a nice bed.  Little bit more-

She reached down and something wet touched her fingers.

She looked down and saw Peckersnot there, hand on her fingers.

“I don’t think they want this, buddy, whatever it is.”

He shrugged, exaggerated.

She lunged for him, belly flopping on mossy forest floor as she grabbed him with one hand.  He wailed and fought as she smeared the wetness on his back and stuck him upside-down to a tree.

She had river water in one bottle she’d already emptied of its spirit, and used that to rinse her fingers before pouring the remainder over the shrine.  Peckersnot made noises of distress throughout.

She cleaned it, wiping away a few stray smudges of dirt and sorting out the little things, making small adjustments. Then she drew on it with chalk, to insulate it against the spirits and forces she didn’t want to take up residence.  Couldn’t have her new, friendly spirit getting evicted.  She also set up a schedule, lying on the dirt and drawing twelve marks around the underside of the edge of the central shelf, one set of twelve marked with sun, and another set of twelve marked with moon.  She made partial reference lines, with gaps for certain time periods.  Scheduling when they were connected would hopefully minimize the damage Monty did.

She rinsed the ground around it, walking in measured paces.  Then she checked with her Sight.

No spirits within, minimum of meaty things, it was dark, solid, and tied into the immediate area.  The schedule was there, ticking in slow motion around it.

She rinsed her hands, undid one of the screw-on caps on the thermos-style, eco-friendly water bottles, and took the spirit into her hand.  It held a small shape.  It was something insect-ish and indistinct, probably covering an abstract category rather than any specific line.

“We’ve built you your shrine as pledged.  We’re willing to join our power to yours if you’re willing to return the favor.  We need to protect this area, against outside forces.  If you’ll do your best to lend your aid and ward off troubling forces, we’ll try to maintain tribute,” Verona said.  “Let this be your castle and manse, your dwelling and sanctuary.  If you accept the terms, let this be a mutual effort, in defense of this place, so you may grow as we do.”

She laid the spirit on the moss bed, inside a triangle of stones formed by the central shelf and two flat stones that leaned against one another, draped with moss.

Then she dug into her bag and she placed meat, leaf, and a daub of honey on the shelf by the entrance to the ‘tent’.  “Here.”

The spirit hesitated, then leaned out of the tent, gulping down each of the three morsels.  A moment later, it swelled in size, winding its way around and through the little shrine.  To Verona’s sight, the meatiness of it filled the gaps and occupied the hollow.  It settled in, a spider as large as she was, curled around the edifice of stone, its main body more an assembly of legs wound together than an ordinary abdomen.

She touched the shelf of the shrine.  The spirit extended a leg, laying it over the back of her hand.

“Thanks,” she said.  “Moving on.  The residents of Kennet should be checking in soon, with a bit of a schedule.”

She pulled Peckersnot off the tree and brought him with.  “You going to be good, P.S.?”

Peckersnot shook his head.

“I’m pretty tired, little man.  If you keep it up, I’m going to come up with a worse punishment every time, so decide if it’s worth it, ‘kay?”

Dangling upside down by the leg she held, he nodded.

“Coming, Ram?”

“Gonna patrol and smack stuff.”

“Don’t smack the shrines.”

“Nah, not gonna.  Bugs are cool.  You’re cool, bug spirit.”

The spider on the shrine waved one foreleg at him.

She headed off to check on the others.  It wasn’t too hard to navigate, so long as she kept to the perimeter.

This area of forest wasn’t that far from where she’d dealt with Sharon, and where they’d repaired parts of the perimeter, fixing up the bound-together configurations of sticks and re-hanging certain arrangements.

“Lucy, Lucy, Lucy,” she whispered, “Avery, Avery, Avery.”

She could see the connection.

“Creepy!” Lucy called out through the trees.  “Tickling the back of my neck when you pull on connections like that.”

“Wanted to let you know I’m coming so you don’t shoot me or throw a rune at me.”

“Yeah, sure,” Lucy said.

She approached and watched as they tried to put a shrine together.  Snowdrop had the cat-ish spirit with the stone mask out of the jar and it was wound around her.  Wavy cat?

“How’s it going?”

“It didn’t like our first version.  I really don’t know, Ronnie,” Lucy said.

“Can I?”

“For sure.”

Verona set about investigating the materials.  She held up rocks and branches and the spirit didn’t seem to have any strong preference.  She picked out the flatter stones and laid out the base stone, setting it against a tree.  Then she considered, and noted the hollow in the tree.  “Axe?”

“Don’t have,” Lucy said.

“Dropped knife?” Avery suggested.  She unsheathed the blade.

Verona took Peckersnot and stuck him to the old shrine.  He made noises of protest.

She took the knife from Avery, then sprinkled clean water on it.  That done, she used it to cut notches in the exterior of the dead tree.  It cut pretty easily with the knife being damp, which she was glad of because her arms were sore and tired.

“We had to scare off some spirits,” Lucy said.  “They were passing through and the barrier didn’t do a lot.”

Verona nodded, checked the groove, then set a stone down so it was half on the base stone while the other end sat anchored in that hole in the tree.

She began to set the stones that way, working their way up the tree to the hollow.  She placed them near each other, made the ascending stones split into forks and then rejoin, anchored them in wood, and followed the flow of the tree as best as she could.  When her arms got tired of the repeated motion, Lucy took over lifting the foot-wide, inch tall bits of slate.  She pushed bits of wood and flakes of stone between individual slabs and used them to fix the fits where she’d cut notches too wide.

She made pretty good time, she thought.  She paused to rest, rubbing her eyes, and then got meat and gave it to the still-flailing, still protesting Peckersnot.  He stopped complaining.

She framed the hollow with more slabs, then stood back.

“Huh.  Twisty,” Avery said.

“That’s the idea.  Spirit?” Verona asked.  “Any thoughts?”

The spirit rose up a bit, investigating.

Verona took clean water, stepped on a low branch of a nearby tree, and poured it into the hole and onto the top slab.  Water flowed off the edges of the slab and onto the slab below, with a lot of spillage.  Some got on her.  She carried on, pouring onto slabs to soak each, then washed the ground around the tree.  She washed her hands, then wrote down the schedule on the slabs she could reach.

“Don’t let one of those fall on your head,” Lucy said.

“They’re pretty wedged in there.”

“Still.”

Verona washed her hands again, then held one out for the spirit.

It moved away from Snowdrop and onto her hand, size varying freely as it settled.

“The shrine is built as pledged,” Lucy said.  “If you’d have it.”

“You’d better want it, that was a pain in the butt to do,” Verona said.

Lucy extended a hand and the spirit laid a paw on that hand.  Lucy told it, “Join your power to ours, and take our power unto yourself.”

“We’re still pretty powerful, it’s a good deal,” Verona said.

“Stop interrupting,” Avery said, nudging her.

Lucy continued.  “Protect this area against outsiders, help slow the influx of spirits, and pass beneficial effects into Kennet, where your abilities and talents let you.  This is your castle and manse, your dwelling, your sanctuary.  That is given freely, in exchange for your willingness to listen and hold back last night.  Accept our greater terms of mutual cooperation and we can take that further, growing together, protecting this place and one another better.”

“You’re really good at delivering good sounding speeches,” Verona told Lucy.

She and Lucy lifted their hands and the spirit moved up to the top shelf, near the hollow in the tree.

She watched as it took its time investigating, then settled, twining itself around the tree and through the construction.  Fleshy meat thing bits flowed through and helped bind the slabs to the tree itself.  When she turned off her sight, tiny branches and growths were working their way around the slabs, helping to secure them in place.

“That’s four shrines built out of sixteen,” Lucy said.  “We want to space them out over two nights?”

“I’m not sure my arms can take doing eight tonight,” Verona said.  “And we’ve still gotta do a pass through downtown, to pick out the Wraith Kings before they get too big, and deal with any malevolent spirits.”

“I don’t want this to be what we’re doing for four straight nights,” Lucy said.

“It should be good though, right?” Avery asked.  “We’re not rebuilding what Charles did, that’s a house of cards, he said.  But we can do this.  They’ll screen out some?”

“We can hope,” Lucy said.  “I don’t think it hurts any?”

“Shouldn’t,” Verona replied.  “There’s whole disciplines related to what Zachariah from the Blue Heron did, setting up totems and shrines and adjusting spiritual flows.  We can’t make a wall, really, not with shrines, but we can have spirits on the border, all in defensible locations for spirit-against-spirit combat, and-”

There was a rustle, followed by a rumble.  A goblin in the trees yelled.

They exchanged glances, then broke into a run.  Verona snatched up Peckersnot.  His back was still sticky, and had to be peeled off of the stone.

A wraith as tall as the trees was slowly treading into the area, and Ramjam kept swinging a big stick through one of its legs.  Here and there, bits disintegrated and had to reform, but it didn’t seem to care.

“What did you smack!?” Verona shouted.

“I didn’t do this!”

Verona traced the thing’s path, then put her hands to the side of her head.  She broke into a run and ran back to the bug shrine.

It had been kicked down, trampled by the spirit.  The spirit lurked near the ground, amid the fallen stones.

“Oh guy,” Verona said.  “You want me to get that jerk, or do you want me to get started on rebuilding?”

It relaxed a bit at the mention of rebuilding.  Limbs bristled and legs stabbed at the ground.  It climbed onto the highest intact grouping of stones and made angry noises in the direction of the wraith.

“Hey, Pecker, you want to be my sidearm?”

Peckersnot, clasped in her hand, nodded.

“Can I load you with salt?”

He paused.

“Squirting that thing with salty goo?  There’s gotta be some extra credit for that one.”

Peckersnot nodded.

“Then, with your permission, I ask you to be bound.  Take a weapon form…”

The colors that made up Peckersnot bled in together, then shadows and everything inside his outline boiled up and distorted.  He settled into the weight of a small water pistol with a surprising weight to it.

“What do you want us to do?” Lucy asked.

“Back me up, or protect this guy until I can start on rebuilding,” Verona said.  She took salt from Avery and poured it into the open hole on the side of the water pistol, then gave it a fierce shake.  She shouted after the absentminded wraith.  “I spent over an hour working on this!  I hauled stones!”

“I’ll back you up,” Avery said.  “Lucy was saying she was wiped.”

Lucy nodded.

“I’m wiped too, but that asshole kicked down spindly-leg spirit’s shrine, damn it!”

She gave chase.  Peckersnot was one-shot, so she’d have to use other things.

The wraith kicked at a pile of sticks that was probably a den for lesser animals.  Avery picked up speed and then darted into trees, cutting ahead.

Ramjam was still attacking the thing’s legs.

“You don’t have salt?” Verona called after him.  She really hated running.

“Used it!  Threw the box in the air and bam!  Box blew up!  Salt shower!  Was great!”

“You gotta conserve that stuff!  You don’t need a lot to mess up a spirit!” Verona told him.

“But it was great!”

Avery stopped in the wraith’s path, and it focused on her.  Avery looked past it to Verona, then pointed right.

Verona ran that way.  Circle around?  Got a plan?  Getting me out of the way?

Then Avery was there, beside her.  She grabbed Verona’s arm, still running, black rope in hand, and past a weird cut between trees, they were in front of the wraith.

Verona separated from Avery, got some of her last feathers, and became a bird.  It was a brief, two second transformation, but that was enough time to get up high.

“You kicked down my spirit friend’s shrine!” Verona told him, crouching on a branch, tiny green water pistol in hand, bubbles oozing and dripping from the end.    “Take this!”

She sprayed it in the face.

It flailed.  The salt wasn’t pure but the principle was there, and Peckersnot had brought his A game when it came to whatever else was loaded in there, fluid-wise.

Verona pulled out some salt, then hopped down, throwing herself at the wraith.  She passed into and through it, overlapping images racing through her mind. An angry child struggling to find release for emotion.  A guy messing with his neighbor’s car out of jealousy.  A road rager.  A woman breaking a store window that had pro-equality stickers in it.  And somewhere in the center was a face wrapped in barbed wire with broken razor blades jammed into gums in place of teeth, screaming.

It was denser than air, but not enough to outright stop her fall, so it made for a softer landing than a normal jump from a high tree branch would do.

“Stand down, apologize to my friend-” Verona told him.

He swung an oversized fist at her.  Avery pulled her out of the way of harm.  The fist hit ground and left an indent.

Whatever was powering him, that razor-face, was making him physical enough to deliver the hurt and knock down shrines.

“Not much redeeming here,” Verona said.

“Sucks,” Avery said, encapsulating the feeling.

They got out the salt and began tossing it out.  Verona mingled spell cards and swings of the box of salt, letting it spray out in lines and clouds, and it cut easily through the Other’s being.  As it got smaller, though, it got more resistant and more physical.  They backed off, Verona switching the box of salt to her other hand because her arms were tired, preparing to toss a card if she had to.

The Echo was reducing down to some vague shadow of that razor-face she’d seen a glimpse of.  It flexed arms and legs, snarling, blood streaming from its mouth and down its head in thick gloopy lines.

Ramjam came at it from behind, charging in.  The Wraith was physical enough to touch, and Ramjam touched its ass with a firm headbutt.  It was already rearing up, preparing to charge, and the headbutt sent it well on its way.  Avery intercepted with a swing of the ugly stick, catching it across the chin.

It collapsed, then dissolved, the echo part of it giving up its last gasp, and the physical part of it was not so physical that a body could be left behind.  It crumbled and deflated.

“Dick,” Verona told it.  “Come back, Peck.”

Peckersnot became a goblin again.  Then he squirmed his way out of her hand, dropped to the ground, and vomited a solid quantity of what looked like seventy five percent salt and twenty five percent fluid.  It formed a wet, grainy pile.

“You okay, dude?” Verona asked.

Peckersnot, still vomiting out a ludicrous quantity of salt, gave her a tiny thumbs up.

“We really got him good.”

He extended a second thumbs up.

“So that’s what, three shrines built, one needing rebuilding?” Avery asked.  “It’s a house of cards of its own.”

“Hopefully not that bad.  Let’s keep at it,” Verona said, crouching down to give Peck a firm pat on the back and help his process along.  He dropped the thumbs and settled on all fours, still coughing tiny coughs.

She hated work that was seemingly endless.  Grass growing back after each mow.  Laundry.  Dishes.  Making food.

There was an end in sight for this, wasn’t there?  End of summer, then everything came together.  Every preparation would matter, every step would be vital in its own way, either for or against them.

Bone-deep weariness, even before Jasmine had gotten on their cases about being out after curfew.  It wasn’t even physical or mental.  It was like a weariness of Self.  With the shrine getting knocked down, she wasn’t even contributing more than the others on that front.

She rejoined the others.  Lucy and Snowdrop were feeding the blurry spider spirit meat.  Verona bent down, winced, and then hefted the first necessary stone into place, scraping stone against stone as she went to rebuild.

They were halfway.  Three nights deep into working on the shrines, and they’d gotten halfway.

Lucy had called for a break.  She’d called it a Self recharge day, and Verona’s way of recharging was art.  She inked over her sketches, sketchbook in her lap,

Jeremy sat about ten feet away.  His fingers were black with charcoal and he’d touched his chin and gotten a bit there.  She liked that.

“Do you ever get, like, the big impulse?” Verona asked.

“Hm?” he asked.  He glanced up at her.

“Big kick in the pants from the good ol’ hormones, to do something stupid out of love or lust or anything?”

“I feel like I’m doing stupid things for dumb reasons with you a lot,” he said.

“Nah, I mean really dumb stuff.  Like buying a dude a car to get a first date?”

“That’s a thing?”

“Apparently.  I was subjected to an edited retelling of that story.  I think it happened nearby.”

“I dunno,” Jeremy said.  He sketched.  “I could see it.  Put me next to someone super cool, another artist, pretty, cool, witty, someone who keeps me off balance and occupies a lot of my regular brainpower because of that?”

“Who is this girl?” Verona asked.

“I wonder.  But you stick her next to me for a while and I’m bound to do something dumb.  Aren’t any of us?”

“Dunno.  I was a little slow on the draw compared to everyone else when that one came up, about the girl giving a dude her car.  So I thought I’d bring it up.”

“I can see myself doing that.  Liking someone enough I go a bit off the deep end.  Depends a lot on the situation.  I hope someone close to me would hit me with a clue-by-four before I did anything that dumb.  Was it a used car?”

“Thirty one thousand dollars if I remember right.”

“Bullcrap, what?”

“I guess she had money.”

“Still!”

“Can you stick out your foot?” she asked.  “I’m trying to draw feet better.  From below and stuff.”

They were sitting on rocks by the water, not that far from Tashlit’s.  The water trickled and frothed its way through a running crevice between rocks, a part of the river that was more deep and narrow than flat and shallow.  Quiet, dark, pleasant, good company.  She’d set out early, taking a break from Lucy, who got grumpy while tired, and after having breakfast with Avery on Avery’s back porch.  Avery wanted to go see if she could round up some people for a soccer game.  Which seemed like insanity on a hot day when they were supposed to be unwinding, but whatever.

Both Verona and Jeremy sat on beach towels, their supplies and partially eaten lunches arranged around them. Most of Verona’s clothes were in a pile by her beach towel, and most of Jeremy’s were folded neatly behind him.  He’d been using them as a pillow while sketching the sun shining through branches overhead, drying off from their swim together, just a bit upstream.

She stuck her own foot out, adjusting the position of his after he moved it.  He tapped her foot with his, then tried to work toes together so they entwined, like they were holding hands.  She cocked her head to one side.  When they did manage some mesh, it was pretty uncomfortable, so they broke apart.  She rested the sole of her foot against his.

“You know about Avery’s deal, right?”

“That she’s gay?”

“Yeah.  You know any girls we could pitch at her?”

“I barely know any girls besides you and family members, and my family’s too old.”

“Damn.”

“It’s nice of you to think about her like that.”

“It’s all a little bit shit, you know?”

“What?” he asked.

She set her sketchbook aside and adjusted her beach towel, lounging across it, stretching.  “Stuff.  Trying to build stuff only for jerks to kick it down.  Being caught between needing to get stuff worked out and disappointing Lucy’s very cool mom.  Feeling like I’m betraying my mom by asking to stay with Lucy’s mom.  Trying to fix stuff and only breaking it more?  I’ve got a friend whose skin is literally falling off, and another friend who is lonely and I think getting ground down by that, and another friend who gets way too down on herself for her failures.”

“I… crap.  That’s a lot.”

“Crap.  Sorry.  I’m venting and I hate being the person who vents.  Sorry, I’m super tired, I told you.”

“I know and I really don’t mind.  I don’t know what to say, I want to give you good answers but the most me and Wallace or me and Brayden talk about is video games.  They say boys and girls mature at different rates and I feel really underequipped at times like this.”

She put her hands under her head.  “I wonder how much of that is really boys maturing slower and how much is girls having to mature faster because it’s all kinda shit?”

“Y’think?” Jeremy asked.  “Do you mind if I keep drawing you while we talk?”

“I’d be offended if you didn’t.  Helps me process, drawing while talking to someone.”

“Yeah,” he said, quiet.

“And yeah, I think.  I think when I was ten or younger guys older than my mom is now said creepy stuff to me and I didn’t even know what they were talking about and by the time I was twelve I was understanding it.  Had to start thinking seriously about staying safe, knowing people like that were out there.  Keeping Lucy safe, because it’s not just that she’s a girl, she’s black, and you’d better believe there are some real jerks who’ll show their worst sides when they think she’s the only person that hears them.  Usually a comment here or there, but sometimes more.”

“Yeah.  Forced growing up, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“But like, also, girls start growing before boys do.  That’s usually what they mean, right?”

She made a disgusted sound.

“What?  Did I say something wrong?  I didn’t want to downplay anything or-”

“I didn’t grow that much, Jeremy.”

“Well…” He paused.  “You’re perfect in my books.”

She rolled her eyes, then turned over, lying on her belly.

“Can you go back to the other pose?  I was drawing-”

She sighed again, then adjusted, going back.  He nodded, tongue sticking out between his lips.  He glanced at her, then paused in his drawing  “I don’t know what to bring up.  There’s stuff I want to say but I’m worried that’d make all of this feel more shit.”

“If you cross the line you may make it better by showing me cat pictures.”

“I came armed.  Okay.  Is this about you leaving your dad’s?”

She groaned.

“Sorry.”

“No it’s… it is.  I feel like I’m behind, and it’s dragging on me and making everything harder.  I’m forcing myself to take a break.”

“I’m your break?”

She nodded, grabbed clothes and balled them up under her head.  She used them as a pillow, lying on her side looking at him.

“Good,” he said, only one word.  But he seemed to sit a little taller and a little happier.  “Not good you need breaks.  It’s summer.  It should be… all this.  Except with friends, and barely any family and video games and relaxation.”

“You want me to invite my friends?” she asked.  “For figure drawing?”

He flushed.  “Not what I meant.”

“I think I get what you meant.  Yeah.  It’d sure be nice.  I think my problem is that I lack stamina.”

“Stamina?”

“Yeah.  For running, but also everything else.  Maybe it’s how I was raised and maybe it’s genetic but I don’t have it in me for the long haul.  I’d have to stop being human to fix that.”

“Not an option until science advances us a bit further, then you can be a cyborg,” Jeremy said.

“Not an option, really, yeah,” she replied.

“If you ever need a break like this, I’m happy to oblige.”

“Oh are you?” she asked, teasing.

“Doesn’t have to be figure drawing.  I meant-”

“Yeah,” she said.  “Can I move?  Do you have the gist of it?”

He nodded.

She turned over, lying on her back.  “Thanks.  For being happy to oblige.”

“And I’ll send you more pictures of Sir.  He’s overdue and should be out on his own but my family isn’t pressing the issue.  Cat pictures make everything better, don’t they?”

“It’s the Verona cheat code, basically,” she said, giving him a smile.  “Good call, Jer.”

“About Avery, has she tried online?  If Kennet’s a bust, maybe something with other teens on the web?  Chat rooms?”

“I think with the way her last major friendship ended, them doing long distance BFFs, she’s a little reluctant.”

“Hmm.”

“I feel shitty, unloading all of that on you.  It’s not stuff where there are easy fixes or I’d have thought of them already. It’s stuff that’s just there and-”

“And you want me to listen, not offer advice?”

“I don’t want to put you in that position to begin with.  Thus me feeling shitty.  I’m tired and my defenses are down.”

“A lot going on,” he said.

“I just realized, do I have dark circles under my eyes?”

“A bit.”

“I put makeup over them but then we swam.  Ugh.  Don’t put those in any drawings.”

“Okay, don’t worry,” Jeremy said.  “I kinda like them though.”

“Do you?”

“Is that weird?  Hard to say why.  I’m glad you came to me when you’re tired and needing to take it easy.  That you trust me when guys are creepy to you-”

“To all girls, pretty much.”

“Yeah.  I- that’s… feels good.”

“Does it make you feel manly?” she asked, in her best purr.

He flushed, and she laughed.

The laugh went on for a bit longer than the performative ones did.

“Damn it!  I was on guard for that earlier,” he said.

She laughed more.

“Do you have any weak points?” he asked.  “Ways I can get you to turn red or whatever?”

“Nah,” she admitted.  “No great ones.  I guess that’s part of the deal?”

“The deal?” he asked.  He put the sketchbook aside.  She motioned, and he showed her.

It was a pretty nice picture.  He’d used white pencil or something to really good effect for the highlights.  She smiled.

“The deal,” she said.  “The me deal.  If I gave way like that, then I feel like I wouldn’t be me anymore.”

“So you can tease me but I can’t tease you?”

“You can try but I might get uncomfortable and stuff.  I don’t want to be all…”

She made a Tashlit gesture, fingers extending out from the heart, making wobbly shapes.

“That’s kinda crummy,” Jeremy said.  “Sorry, I-”

“No, no.  You’re probably right,” Verona said.  “Frig.  I’m tired, so I’m putting my foot in my mouth.  Shouldn’t have said that.  It is crummy.”

The water trickled.  Something rustled in the bushes.  Verona turned her head and glared at that spot of foliage, daring it to be an Other.

“Can we reset?” Jeremy asked.  She’d turned her head away from him.  She turned back to face him.

“Reset to when?” she asked.

“Before this convo?  Because this is nice, relaxing.  You’re really pretty, and I want to keep sitting here with you, and maybe do it again sometime.”

She nodded.  “We can reset.”

Jeremy smiled, but it looked a little sad.

She probably couldn’t tease him anymore.  Not if she’d let him know he couldn’t tease her or that she’d take offense if it worked.  That wasn’t fair.  But that changed things and made them less lighthearted and easy and everything had a weight to it or loose ends and tangles.

Was that the mature thing?  Was she mature at all?  She felt like the opposite, in some ways.  Ugh.

She gave him a look, then flipped through her sketchbook.  She’d drawn his form and drawn his face and she was pretty happy with it.  Gangly nerdy guy, but she liked that.  The unique look.

She studied him.

“Want company?” she asked.

“You mean inviting-”

“On your beach towel?  Don’t have to do anything, but I’m tired and I could stand to nap.  You probably make a better pillow than my clothes.”

“I- yeah.”

She smiled, standing, stretching, and picking up her things, brushing off grit that had gotten on the beach towel and then transferred to skin.

The bushes rustled again.  She turned her head and gave them a death glare.  Eyes peered up at her.

“What’s up?” Jeremy asked.

“That’s my phone,” she said, pointing at her phone.  She picked it up.  “Excuse me.”

“Sure.”

She’d wanted a bit more than a nap but now there was this and she stalked her way into the woods.  The goblin scrambled its way through foliage.  She had to leap over a branch, get down on three limbs and reach with her free hand to snatch it out of the bush.

Biscuit.  Better than some possibilities.

“Message,” the goblin said, giving her her best puppy dog eyes.

“They can’t call?” Verona asked.

“No phone,” Biscuit said.  “Rook.”

“Important?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Verona said.  She put Biscuit down, turned, and closed her eyes for a second.  That nap and junk would’ve been really nice.

She went back to Jeremy and the beach towels.  “Gotta go.”

“Kinda guessed,” he said, hugging knees to his chest.  “Darn.”

“Another time?”

“Another time.  Like I said, any time you need to unwind.”

She shot him a smile, pulled on her clothes, and gathered her stuff.  She bent down and kissed the top of his head, then ducked away into the trees.

They needed to find a way through this.  Past this.  They needed to make the next big steps in dealing with the Carmine threat, especially with August nearly half over, and things set to go nuclear at the end of the month.

Hopefully Rook and Miss were the Others to ask.

Next Chapter