Avery

“Change her back!” Lucy raised her voice.

Avery dropped down to a crouch, reaching, and the small animal backed off.  Avery couldn’t see it well in the dark, because it had black fur with a white underbelly, but it looked like it might be a weasel, stoat, a ferret, or something like that.  She wasn’t sure on the differences.  Mostly she could only see it by the white markings around the eyes and insides of the ears.

“She’s scared of me,” Avery said.

“You’re a giant to her, more than one hundred and fifty times her size.  Give her a moment to adjust,” Maricica said.  Her wings shifted, dropping further down from her bare shoulders, like she was about to move or do something, but it was just a change of her standing posture.  Holding her ground.

“Or you can frigging change her back!” Lucy raised her voice.

“If you’ll give her a moment, she should find a comfort zone with the body and the situation.  She didn’t give her permission for the change, and deleterious practices are always more effective if the subject invites it.”

“Dele-what?” Avery asked.

“Harmful.  Inflicted wrongs.  Curses and unasked-for effects like a transformation,” Maricica explained.  “If they ask for it, either by opening their mouths and saying the words, or by doing something in and of itself wrong and deserving of being wronged in turn, the deleterious effect will stick.”

“So this won’t stick?” Lucy asked.

“If she didn’t want it, it would be easy to shake off.”

“She doesn’t seem like she recognizes me,” Avery noted.  “Does she know what she wants?”

“That would be a rub.”

“A rub?” Lucy asked.  “I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean in that context, except it’s in no way acceptable to call it something as minor as a ‘rub’!”

“Glamour may become confused with reality if left unchallenged,” Guilherme stated.

“I want to challenge it!” Lucy raised her voice.

“She would need to, and it seems she’s fallen into the glamour.”

“Shhh,” Avery soothed, as Verona ducked her head and backed away a bit.  She tried to keep her voice gentle and quiet.  “It’s okay.  See?  It’s me, Avery.  Just last night, you said you loved us.  I think that was the first time in my life that someone who wasn’t my family said that to me.”

“Don’t make this mistake of thinking this is ignorance,” Guilherme said.  “The Fae of the Dark Fall often trick children into animal forms.”

“You’re only agitating the girl, suntouched oaf.”

“Shh,” Avery soothed.  She dropped lower to the ground to make her profile smaller, her hands out, palms up.  “Come on, slinky Verona.  I’m safe.”

“They are good for little, but they are masters when it comes to transformation.  Themselves and others.  When all you have is a hammer and a propensity toward rot and ugliness, you’ll often find yourself using the hammer.  Animals can be made complacent, loyal, scared, or edible in ways much harder to achieve with the typical human.”

“I’m so disappointed you’re this agitated, Lucy Ellingson,” Maricica said.  “If she wants to return to normal, she should be able to.  It will be an effective lesson that will help her learn to make effective use of glamour.”

“She doesn’t want anything, that’s my problem!”

“Give her time.  The Self wins out in the end, against a working as shallow as this.  We’ll see how it emerges, or if it unravels the working and returns her to normal.  It may help if you talk to her.”

“Come on,” Avery murmured.  She turned on her Sight to try and see if she could make out Verona better.  She couldn’t, really, but she could see the tether, and she could see the small movements.  A whisker twitch.  An inquisitive sniff at the air.  Weasel Verona inched closer.  “Shhh.  Look at that pretty fur.  Of course it’s black and white.  I’d take a picture on my phone if I didn’t think it would scare you away.”

Lucy, watching the Faerie with a wary eye, slowly got down on her hands and knees, before dropping down beside Avery.  “I’m getting my nice sweatshirt dirty, lying down like this, Verona.  I need you to get with the program and clue in.”

“Use nice words, Lucy,” Avery said.  “Animals can read tone.”

“My tone is nice,” Lucy said, smiling, “the words don’t matter.”

“Come on,” Avery coaxed Lucy as much as she was coaxing Verona.  “Nice things.  How cool would it be if you could do this when you wanted to?”

“Hey, Ronnie,” Lucy said, her voice uncharacteristically soft.  “Hey.  C’mere.  Let’s get you back to being you.  You’re my best friend, you’re like family.  We’re tied together by the awakening.”

Avery watched as Verona inched a bit closer, reacted to a tiny movement of Avery’s hand that Avery hadn’t realized she was making, then reacted to the turn of Lucy’s head.

“Okay, Ronnie?  I want us to be secret witches even into our old age, to have quiet conversations together with Avery where we discuss if our boyfriends or Avery’s girlfriend should be let in on the secret.  We can get married and each of us have two maids of honor… or more like Avery and I will, and you can do something weird like that hypothetical you talked about last Christmas.”

Lucy, lying belly down on the ground, rested her chin on one hand, the other outstretched, palm up.

“What hypothetical?” Avery asked.

“Like… she said something like the only way she could stand having a boyfriend around without getting annoyed with him would be if they each lived in different houses, and never actually got married.  Like couples sleeping in different beds, but he’d have a house and she’d have an apartment over a bookstore or something.”

“I don’t see the appeal,” Avery said.

“I don’t either, but she did.  Does, unless her mind changed.  Damn it, Verona, don’t make me talk about you in the past tense.  You don’t get to frig off and-”

Verona twisted and dashed into the darkness of the cave.

“-You nitwit!  At least try!” Lucy raised her voice, loud enough Avery winced.

Avery got to her feet.  “Are there tunnels or ways out in there?”

“Or light?” Lucy asked, walking back to the Faerie, looking agitated.  “I have a flashlight in my bag, but do you have anything like a light switch?”

“We have means,” Guilherme said, “But-”

Verona came back, dashing across the cave’s floor, looking almost cartoon-like as she moved each leg multiple times in her scrabbling efforts to find traction on the flat stone.  Heading for the cave entrance.  To outside.

Avery dove, reaching for her, but the combination of her belly-flop on the hard stone and Verona’s speed made her miss.  Wincing, rolling onto her side, she reached out for the tether, trying to grab Verona’s tether like she had grabbed her mask from Declan.

Lucy, too, dove.  It was too slow, Verona was already at maximum alert.  Avery did what she could, trying to get Verona not by tugging her back, but by flicking her toward Lucy.

Lucy grabbed Verona’s tail by the end.  In the gloom, grabbing the black furred tail seemed to be a surprise to Lucy, to the point she let go immediately.  Verona, twisting and reaching back in reaction to the sudden touch, had lost momentum.  A second grab by Lucy secured her.

“Alpeana,” Maricica said.  “They woke you.”

The mare emerged from the dark, hair messier than usual.  She lurked at the very edge of the light that entered the cave, wincing at the brightness of it.

“Gotcha,” Lucy said.  “I got you, okay?  Relax, relax.”

Lucy stroked Verona’s fur, fingernails digging in past dense fur.

“Almost scared the literal poop out of me,” the ferret said.

Avery closed her eyes, mouthing a thank-you to- she wasn’t sure what.  There had to be something out there, if there were mares and faerie and goblins and ghosts.

“Sorry we disturbed you, Alpeana,” Avery said.  She wasn’t sure what to do with her hands, and she felt like the apology should be more formal.  “Thank you for scaring her back in our general direction.”

Alpeana rubbed at one eye.  “I dinnae do nothin’, I was only sleepin’, and she comes runnin’ up smellin’ like sunlight an’ glam.  Glam’s hard for me ta ignore, but sunlight?  I might as well be allergic.”

“It burns you?” Avery asked.

“Makes tha eyes water.  Every bit of ye recoils and wants to put up a fight, but you can’t be fightin’ the sun, lassie.  Not many sorts can.  Leaves ye hurtin’ in little ways all over.  Like allergies.”

Why were accents the best thing ever, and was there a better accent than this burr?

“You don’t have to stay if being this close to the door is hurting you,” Avery said.

“I’m already up.  I’ve got to be at work tonight, an’ besides, I can’t be slinkin’ back off to bed when there’s guests out.”

“We weren’t planning to stay long,” Lucy said.

“All tha same,” Alpeana said, not moving.

“Just gotta get Verona here back to normal,” Lucy said.  She jostled Verona.

“Do we gotta?” Verona asked.  She stretched her already long body.  Lucy was holding her cradled in folded arms, and Verona pressed into the gap between arms and body, her body stretched out against Lucy’s ribs, her head settling into the crook of Lucy’s elbow.  “This is interesting.”

“We need to go get dinner.  You’re welcome to come to my place if you want,” Lucy said.

“Gimme a bit.  Let me see if I can figure this stuff out.”

“I’m just glad you didn’t go bolting outside while still animal brained.”

“This entire body is so weird.  The heartbeat’s so fast, and it’s so nervous and alert…”

“Is she going to be okay?” Avery asked Maricica.  It was hard to figure out where to look with the Faerie woman.  Eye contact was intimidating, anything else felt evasive, rude, or weird.  She spent a lot of time studying the pattern on the part of the wings that was on the floor.

“I do believe she is,” Maricica said.  “She dove deep but she resurfaced.  Most who take animal forms don’t learn to speak so quickly.  As Miss suggested before the awakening ritual, skills like a strong imagination make a good skeptic and a good practitioner both.”

“And useless for most real-life things,” Verona said.  “Like school, and getting organized, and keeping on task with making dinner…”

“I need you to start figuring out a way to undo this.”

“But this is cozy.  You’re warm.  You’re safe and friendly and this body really appreciates safe and friendly,” Verona said, stretching and writhing more.  She sounded almost drunk.

“Give her a moment,” Maricica said.

Avery looked at Maricica’s eyes, and it was easier, because the Faerie woman’s attention was entirely someplace else.  Studying Verona, studying Lucy.

Looking at the glamour, maybe?

“Do you sleep during the day?” Avery asked Alpeana.

“In tha sunlight hours, aye.”

“What do you do at night?  You said work?”

“I find tha people who’re most troubled and I trouble them more.”

“Some get therapy tha hard way, and some get a wee sheets-wettin’ bad one when they don’ deserve it, aye?  Cosmological, innit?”

Avery was pretty sure that if she could get a recording of Alpeana or any other girl saying cosmological in a thick Scottish burr, she would listen to it on repeat for days.

“What do you mean, cosmological?” Verona asked.

“Sometimes Fate or Time or Economy have a wee wrinkle and they need to nudge someone or somethin’, or tha cosmological balance sheets don’ add up and they need somethin’ like me ta take a peek or pull some things apart to sort out why and how.”

“Tied into the greater workings of the world,” Maricica said.

“I don’t suppose you ran into that a lot after the Carmine Beast died?” Lucy asked.

“Aye?” Lucy asked, surprised.  “What happened, or… what did your boss say?  Do you have a boss?”

“No.  No boss, not so far as I’ve ever met.  I work with instinct and nobody’s ever said I should do elsewise.  Give a small child a dream of her da dying before ‘is time, stretch it so it feels like tha dream goes for weeks?  Leaves her changed, after, even if she dinnae remember half of it.”

“Is that a jab?” Lucy asked, her voice harder.  “Are you messing with me?”

“I- no,” Alpeana said, her dark eyes opening wider.  “I’ve just been woken up, lassie, I might be a wee bit muddled, but I don’t think I’ve been jabbin’ at anyone or anything, why?”

Lucy looked like she was going to say something, then Verona moved, and she turned away, pacing towards the door.

“It’s monstrous,” Lucy said, with her back turned.  “Doing that to someone.”

“I dare say I’m a monster, lassie.  Might be tha she hugs her da a little tighter, after.  More likely tha wee bit sleeps uneasy, has some bad days, but the invisible wheels of tha world turn a bit righter, a bit straighter.  If I didn’t, the snarls might become doors and the wrongs in the cosmology might become right problems.”

Lucy turned away, walking a few steps.

Avery watched Alpeana’s expression change a few times.

“Um,” Avery said.  “You said it changed, after the Carmine Beast.”

“Sometimes I take what’s there an’ I move it around, or change a wee detail, sometimes there be a need, an’ I need to use what’s out there to build or fill in, an’ sometimes there’s a wrinkle or a snarl and I fix it an’ go on my nightly way.  Lately, this past month and a bit, wha’s there is bloodier, messier.  Wha’s missing is raw at the edges, an’ when I go to get materials, most of wha I have to work with is blood and chaos.  Wrinkles and snarls?  Same idea.  Means I need to go further afield to find what I need.”

“We should go eat with our families soon,” Lucy said.  “As soon as we can figure out the Verona situation, but we’d like to interview you at a later point, get more details on that.”

“Aye.  Whatever ye need.  Best if it’s at sunup, or you can come with me as I do tha rounds.”

The Verona situation was that Verona was now lying belly up, legs splayed, head back and in the crook of Lucy’s elbow.  Lucy saw Avery smirk, and looked down.

“Don’t you dare tell me you’re sleeping at a time like this.”

“I’m awake,” Verona said.  “I’m listening.  I wouldn’t want to miss learning about all this stuff.  It doesn’t mean I can’t lounge.”

“Alpeana,” Verona called out.

“When you say further afield, what do you mean?  Are you spirit?  Or ghost?  Or something else?”

“I don’t rightly know, lassie.  I used to be a wee girl, not tha I was much of one, we had so little.  I dinnae remember the particular details, but I remember standing watch over my ma and da’s bed.  If I shook them out of a fitful sleep, they treated me kind.  Then I did the same for my brother and sisters.  Got a feel for when a bad one was coming.  Then neighbors, only I dinnae wake them up.  Then, some time later, I’m up in the cabin rafters, watching careful while my family got themselves sorted to go to church.  They wondered where I went.”

“So many of them they lost track of you?” Avery asked.

“Five sisters and one brother.  They dinnae forget me as much as they forgot everythin’ for a bit.  They got sick, I was the only one who dinnae get it.  It was the first church outting after.  Then I got the call, like an instinct tha’s not from me to me, but from somethin’ bigger to me.”

“Dream,” Maricica said.

“Might be,” Alpeana said.

“I’m sorry that happened,” Avery said.

“I haf a purpose, lassie, I don’t go hungry, I haf friends and I go interestin’ places.  It’s nae so bad.”

“Interesting places?” Avery asked.

“Yeah,” Verona butted in, from Lucy’s arms.  She craned her sinuous neck around a bit.  “Going back to that, where do you go to go further afield, for resources or materials?” Verona asked, again.  “I’ve been wondering about power sources, or resources, and how it’s all put together.”

Now I know how Lucy feels when Verona derails conversations, Avery thought.

“I dinnae have names for where I go.  I just go,” Alpeana said.  “Maricica comes, now and then.”

“I need materials sometimes,” Maricica said.  “Glamour is strongest when you build on a solid backbone.  There are places you can go that are more Other than human.  Many are hazardous.  The ruins, the abyss, the warrens- detestable.”

“Goblin infested,” Guilherme noted, speaking up for the first bit in a while.

“The paths, the spirit world.  The Faerie courts, of course.  There are other Other places.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Verona said.  “Explain?  Briefly?”

“We don’t have time,” Lucy said.

“But-” Avery cut in, stopping.  “-I want to know.”

“You’re pulling a Verona on me, now?”

“It’s the first thing Miss said about the practice, before we awakened, that really got me excited.”

“That reminds me.  We still need to deal with the Hungry Choir,” Lucy said, turning away from Avery and toward Maricica.  “Were any of these places where they, uh, ‘set the table’ last night, so to speak?”

“No,” Maricica said.  “But that is a very good question.  It would be their own place.”

“Was it Kennet, or like Kennet?” Lucy asked.

“It was Kennet, just… stepping in a direction that mortal feet cannot usually step.  Adjacent.”

“How many places are adjacent to Kennet?” Lucy asked.  “Or types of places?”

Maricica smiled.  “A good number.  Some are adjacent in a way that would put them outside Kennet, such as the Abyss or the Courts, and some are far, far away, like the Paths.  That said, the spirit world, the ruins, the basest parts of the warrens are adjacent in…”

“In a way that would put them technically inside Kennet?” Lucy asked.

Lucy nodded, seeming to considered that for a second.

“If you want to know more,” Maricica said.  “Alpeana could be an escort.  She knows ways and routes.”

Avery looked at the mare, who sat in the shadows, pale hands combing and tugging their way through her hair.  When clumps or dark stuff came free, they were wiped against the dress, which was ragged and weird in texture, and might have been fashioned entirely from the stuff.  A dark face with dark eyes turned Avery’s way, staring back.

“I’d love that,” Avery said.

“I was thinking along another line, kind of,” Lucy said.  “The Carmine Beast’s power is still in Kennet, isn’t it?  But there’s no obvious… I dunno.  Blood trail, or evidence, or anything like that?  Metaphorical or otherwise?”

“You’re quite right,” Maricica said.

“So… someone could have killed the Carmine Beast and taken its power somewhere to stow it?  Technically in Kennet, but not… here?”

“That is possible.  The goblins could have stowed it in the shallow parts of the Warrens, for example, Edith could have taken it to the spirit world, or Alpeana could have taken it to the ruins.”

“Or the Hungry Choir’s world?” Lucy asked.

“Would it be physical?” Verona asked.  “What would it look like?”

Lucy’s phone began beeping.

“It depends on a great deal,” Maricica said.  “Someone like Matthew could drink it up, if he could wrestle his Doom long enough.  A Fae like Guilherme could make it look like something and hide it in plain sight.  But most often, it would resemble the typical resources one claims from a dead beast, writ large and alive with its own power.”

“And bones, tendons, fur, and fluids.”

Lucy shook her head, checking her phone.  “We should have left for dinner fifteen minutes ago.  My mom’s liable to be peeved.  Nobody thought to mention this stuff about overlapping locations with Kennet?  Or the power being meat and stuff?”

“Frankly,” Maricica said, “you didn’t ask, and I suspect many didn’t think to mention it because they thought you had already asked, or considered it common sense.”

Lucy sighed heavily through her nose.  “I feel like Verona’s not motivated to break this glamour so long as I’m acting as her bed.  She’s going to stay a… weasel?”

“Mink,” Maricica said.

“How do you break a glamour?” Avery asked.  “You said it could be done delet-”

“Yeah.  How would I deal with it if someone did it to me?”

“A complex question, depending on-”

“Brute force,” Guilherme cut in.  “Typical glamour is fragile.”

Avery jumped as Lucy tossed Verona out of her arms.

The creature flipped end over end, and then hit the ground, sprawling.  In the hidden movements and shifts of dust from the awkward collision with the floor, masked by the tricks darkness played on the eyes, the weasel became human Verona again.

“Ow!  Geez!  My tailbone!”

“Your tailbone?  My arms, from carrying you!  I was worried, you jerk!  I completely forgot about dinner because I felt sick, worrying about you wearing that shape for however long, and I didn’t eat much of a lunch!”

Seeing Lucy giving Verona a hard time put Avery in mind of having Olivia over for dinner and her parents arguing with her siblings.  It was awkward, and both Maricica and Alpeana were watching.  Guilherme too, but he was moving through the dark, rustling.

“We should go,” Avery said.

“You should come back,” Maricica said.  “This evening, once you’ve attended to your filial role.  Your last gift awaits.”

Thinking about the other gift stung a bit.  Avery felt like she might be able to decipher the riddle of it or find a loophole if she could think on it long enough, but the conversation and the situation with Verona hadn’t really allowed a lot of thinking.  The end result made her feel a bit heartsick.

“It’s one solution to what ails you,” Maricica said.

“It’s a trap,” Guilherme said.  “I know what she intends to do, and I already have a better way in mind.”

“It’s a means of self discovery,” Maricica said.  “You’ll be a richer person for having explored other avenues.”

Avery rolled her shoulders a bit, uncomfortable.

Lucy had helped Verona to her feet, and was now working on getting her closer to the door.  Verona was being a bit of a brat, plucking at her tongue.

“Arrive in the evening when Alpeana is absent, and we can light the cave,” Guilherme said.  “Her rights as first guest trumped yours, or we would have found a compromise.”

“I forgot they cannae see in the dark,” Alpeana said.  “I wouldn’t haf asked you to keep tha lights off.”

“Next time, then,” Guilherme said.

Avery nodded, turned to jog after her friends, who were at the entrance, and came face to face with Maricica, who had moved between her and the door.

The Faerie bent her head down, and Avery froze.

The Faerie whispered in her ear.

Then she was gone.  Avery remained in place for a minute, then ran after the others, who were giving her anxious looks.

“What was that?” Lucy asked.

“She wants me to come back later,” Avery said.  “I think I’m going to come back later.  If I can get away from my parents, which shouldn’t be too hard.”

“I don’t think you should be coming back here alone,” Lucy said.  “I didn’t miss what Guilherme said, about them abducting kids.”

“I don’t think they can, with the oaths they swore,” Verona said.

“Even with that,” Lucy insisted.  “Your idea, before, Avery?  About wanting us to have unanimous consent or agreements before we practice?  It might be a good idea to have a rule like that when it comes to dangerous Others like the Fae.  At least two of us have to agree to stuff.”

“And we can’t forget there are traps,” Lucy said.  “So we have to pay a ton of attention.  We can’t fuck around, Verona.”

“I don’t think I’ve relaxed like I did while you were holding me since I was a baby,” Verona said.

“That’s bad.  That’s playing right into their hands.  Traps, Verona.”

“I know,” Verona said.  “But… if they want to trap us, they’re going to.  That’s what they are, apparently.  Saying no or freaking out might be the trap.  So… let’s understand it first.”

“That was good, by the way,” Verona added.  “Asking about the overlapping places.”

“Yeah,” Avery said.  “I didn’t think you were even thinking about that stuff.”

“It’s all up there,” Lucy said, indicating her head.  “Floating around.  Two pieces clicked together.”

“It’s good,” Avery said.

“You’re really coming back tonight?” Lucy asked.

“I might be.  I want to.”

Lucy shook her head.  “She’s being brazen about there being traps.  You can’t know which has the trap-”

“So we assume they’re all trapped,” Verona said.  “Plan ahead, think of ways through, ways it can go wrong.”

“That’s a lot of planning and thinking,” Avery said.

“But it’s a lot of power, and it’s tools we can use,” Verona said.  “We should sit down, work through what we got, and think about each and every gift, and every part of the conversation.”

“Exhausting,” Lucy said.  She looked at Avery.  “And you want to go back?  This soon?”

“What was she offering?” Verona asked.

“Mom!” Avery called out.  She grabbed the print-out from the printer as she passed it.  Making sure she covered a statement from earlier in the day, especially before she was doing a heavier practice.  “Mom!  I can’t find the boxes!”

“Check the basement!”

“Where in the basement!?”

“Mom, mom, mom, mom-!”

“Give me a second, Kerry, please!”

“But I have stuff for school tomorrow-”

“It’s almost your bedtime!  You’re just telling us about this now?”

“I only remembered now!”

Avery thought about navigating through the kitchen to the basement, but Kerry, her dad, her mom, and Sheridan were all there.  Sheridan wanted their dad to take her for driving lessons.

The television blinged and blanged with Declan’s game.  Declan’s friends hooted and hollered while Declan groaned.  Amber and Cal, if Avery remembered right.  She was glad to see Amber again.  After Declan had been teased about his friendship with a girl, he’d dropped his friend cold.

The noise from the TV was incessant.  Avery escaped into the back yard.  Her Grumble sat in a lawn chair, while Rowan, Laurie, and their friends stood at the base of the porch stairs, fifteen feet away, doing a bad job of hiding the fact they were vaping or smoking or whatever.

Her Grumble beckoned, moving his whole hand because his individual fingers didn’t move so well.  She approached, walking halfway to him.  He beckoned again, and she closed the distance, and hugged him.

His answering hug was stiff and rough, but the smile he wore when she pulled back was genuine, albeit halved by the stroke he’d once had.

“You arright?” he asked.  His voice had a burr of an entirely different sort to Alpeana, gravelly and not rooted in any accent.

“Ups and downs,” she said.  “More than usual, lately.  Kinda mostly downs, past day.”

“Your soccer?” he asked.  “Team problem?”

She shook her head.  “Just general problems.  A classmate might’ve died, kind of.  I don’t know.”

He reached for her hand, and it was uncoordinated enough she had to put her hand in his, rather than let him take hers.  He gave her a squeeze.

It struck her that she could tell him because he didn’t really talk a lot with her parents or other cousins.

“Are you okay, Grumble?  Are you lonely?  Or do you ever feel like you’re being left out, or lost in all… that?”

He shook his head.  “Don’t worry about…” and mumbled something she couldn’t quite get.  An old man like me, maybe.

“I worry.  I love you, you know.  I wouldn’t want you to be secretly unhappy.”

“I lived a good life,” he said, speaking like he was mumbling with a mouthful of gravel.  “I’m content to watch over this, proud of everyone, and what my daughter has done and made.”

“Except maybe Sheridan?” she asked, smiling a bit.  “You know, someone could say it’s okay if you’re not so proud of her.”

He made an exaggerated wink.  Avery smiled.

“No,” he mumbled.  “Her too.  She’s a…” something something.  Good girl?  Good egg?

“Let me know, you know, if you’re ever feeling alone in this crowd.”

“Like you?  Before?” he asked.  He still held her hand, and reached awkwardly over to pat roughly at the top of her hand.  “Your mom said.”

“Awkward,” Avery murmured.

“She cried at the dining room table that night.  She loves you,” her Grumble said.

“I love you,” he said.  He let go of her hand to reach out, poking roughly at the side of her belly.  She smiled and pulled back out of the way.  He added, “You’re my favorite.”

“I wonder if you say that to most of the grandkids.”

“One or two,” he mumbled, winking again.  “If I want a driver.  Or a favor.  Mostly you.  And you don’t have to do anything but be you.”

“Do your sports.  Give y’r’rall.  Study hard.  Keep being good.”

He held her hand in both of his, tight.  “Meet a good man.  Bear children.  Pass on that goodness.  If you can sit in a backyard like I sit now, picking your favorite grandchild after… after a life well lived, that’s all I want for you.”

Her smile faltered a bit.  She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the side of the head.

“Love you, Grumble.  Let me know if you ever need company.”

He nodded, letting go of her hand.

She ducked back into the house.  The plates and dishes from dinner were still all over the table.  She gathered up what she could and took it into the kitchen, loading it into the open dishwasher on her way through.

Basement. There were plastic totes and boxes everywhere.  Old albums that didn’t fit on the shelves, yet to be digitized.  The photo digitizer, yet to be plugged in.  Old equipment from skiing, for a family of seven, across a few generations.  A sewing machine that came as part of a desk.  The spaces between stuff were narrow enough that she had to turn sideways at times.  Upstairs was better, but this was the aftermath of years of the life lived up there, stored away.

She sorted her way through, checking the occasional box.  Halloween stuff, more halloween stuff.

She lifted a box down and began sorting through it.

“Find what you’re looking for?” her mom asked.

“Think so.  Hand-me downs.”

“We can buy clothes if you need clothes.  You don’t have to be thrifty on our account.”

“It’s for an experiment,” Avery said.

Verona was waiting for her at the birch arch.  Avery hopped off her bike and leaned it against one tree.

“Lucy couldn’t make it?” Avery asked.

“No.  She was late for dinner and her mom enforced curfew.”

“Darn,” Avery said.  She hesitated.

It felt wrong, doing this without Lucy.  But they couldn’t always be three.  Life got in the way.  Family meant obligations.  School and even her team meant obligations.

She felt a little nervous at the idea that she might have to miss stuff if her team stuff got more intense.

The cave was lit.  A sword lay on the ground, and caught light from outside, reflecting it in five different directions.  More blades, mirrors hanging from the ceiling, and scattered old coins caught those bits of light, similarly reflecting it out.

Guilherme was absent.  It was dark out and Alpeana had already started her rounds, it seemed.  Maricica sat in what had to be Guilherme’s chair, one wing draped over her, the other across the floor, like an inviting carpet.

Avery averted her eyes as Maricica dropped her feet to the ground, moving her wing out of the way, the other wing slipping down.  There was no need to look away, really.  The Fae revealed only what she wanted to reveal, and she wasn’t crass.  She simply suggested, hinted, teased.  Probably with everyone and everything she interacted with.

Dust rolled down and off of the Fae’s wing as she walked.  As she walked around the pair of them, the dust puffed up like it had hit something behind her.  When she moved on, there was a chair there, ornate.

“Tell me you’re not going to kidnap us or steal us away,” Avery said.

“I won’t,” Maricica said.  “Sit.”

“You mean no harm or foul?”

“No.  I will keep to the awakening oath.”

“Do you invite me to truly and thoroughly kick your ass and make you regret your actions three times over, if I feel you’ve wronged my friend?” Verona asked.

Avery raised an eyebrow, looking back.

“Gotta stand in for Lucy, right?” Verona asked, smiling.

“I invite such for tonight only.  I will not tie my hands further, nor trust that your feelings will not change or become less reliable.”

“Does that mean you intend to wrong Avery sometime after tonight?”

“It means what I said.”

“Or that you think I’ll lose it?” Verona pressed.  “This is an interesting evasion.”

“It is ill-advised to make long-term deals, even with fleeting lives such as those of man,” Maricica said.  “That was the trap Solomon set for the Others.”

“That’s even more interesting,” Verona said.

“Ask Miss.  She can tell you more.  For now… you have somewhere you want to be, don’t you, Ms. Kelly?”

Avery hesitated, then sat.

“Touch my wings,” Maricica said, from behind Avery.  The wings stretched out to either side and ahead of Avery.

She reached out to either side, touching the silky material.  The dust stuck to her hands.

“Feel the weight of it, cup your hands and feel the gravity of it.”

Avery did.  It was heavy, dense.

“Tilt your hands, sift it, let it blow away like dandelion puffs.”

“Glamour is about the feeling and the relationship between you and the idea,” Maricia said.  “I would like to give you a new skin to try on, as I did for Verona.  I would like your permission.”

“We’d like a time limit,” Verona said.  “And ground rules.  No permanent changes.”

“Until the clock strikes ten or the effect breaks on its own.  No permanent changes except to memory and the lessons Avery takes away.”

“Okay,” Avery said.  “I don’t think this is going to work, though.”

“Perhaps not, but won’t it be quite the experience to try?”

“Is this a definitive yes, then?”

Maricica touched her hair, fingernails touching scalp.  The effect was like a massage.

“Guilherme and his ilk would have you smear glamour on, but glamour and your hands make a tool for shaping and alteration.  Rub your fingers together as you might roll your thumb over a coin’s surface, and you can change color.”

Avery did.  The dust at her fingertips and thumb had taken on a blue tint.

“Press the glamour in to darken, flick the thumbnail against the fingers to lighten.  Stroke to lengthen, use the nails to cut and shorten.  The heel of the hand to knead and produce deformed bulges… and the lightest of touches following any of these motions to extend the effect out and over.”

The effect was like being at the barber, sitting in the chair, while her appearance was at the mercy of someone she barely knew or trusted.  Verona wasn’t freaking out, at least.

“There are parts you’ll want to attend to yourself,” Maricica said.

“Nails?” Avery asked, moving her hand up.

“Yes,” Maricica said, her hands moving to Avery’s face.  “Gently. You’re not trying to dig a canyon.”

Avery drew her nails across one side of her chest, smearing the dust across her top.  She worried she’d only done the smearing, without actually achieving anything, but when she reached down… nothing.  Even her sports bra was gone.

“Once it gets the hang of what you’re doing, the rest should follow, and attending to the rest will reinforce the whole.”

Avery pressed the heel of her hand into her lower stomach, around where her shorts were buttoned up, pressing down, to knead, produce an uncomfortable bulge, then the extension.

“I think I might have done that wrong.”

“No.  Try to accept what comes, find your comfort.  It will meet you halfway.”

“Rolling with it was what worked for me, when it came to finding my voice,” Verona said.  “Like… I just went at it like talking animals made sense.”

“How does this make sense?” Avery asked, indicating the front of her shorts, which sat differently with what was now beneath.

Maricica grabbed her throat, and she felt a moment of alarm, worried she’d offended.  There was the faintest of kneadings.

“You brought clothes?”

“Rowan’s old clothes,” she added.  She reached up toward her face.  Maricica intercepted her hand, briefly massaging it.  The differences were subtle, but there.

She offered up the other hand.

Maricica lifted her from the seat with a surprising strength, and set her down in a standing position.  Like she was dusting Avery off, she swatted at Avery’s hips.

Her shorts resettled, slightly lower down, pinching a bit at her new, slightly narrower hips when they did.

“The fae of the spring court especially would struggle with this,” Maricica said.  She moved around Avery wearing one wing like a toga, the other held out like a painter’s easel.  She adjusted and poked here and there.  “They like their lords and ladies, and do not do well thinking outside of that binary.  But what fits who differs from culture to culture.  Go back a few hundred years and your men would be laughed at by some today as feminine, wearing tights or clothes much like dresses, their hair long.  The skinny jeans of yesteryear, the long hair of the seventies, the bulky flannel shirts your women wore in the nineties… it means what you want it to mean.  Peter Pan was played by woman actors.”

Verona had her phone out.  It was set to camera, and she held it out so the camera showed Avery her new face.

A boy’s face, her own age, with freckles darker and spread more evenly across the face, hair longer on top and dark.  The shape of her face was different.  As Verona stepped back, she could see how the line of her body was different.

She adjusted her shorts, halfways wishing she’d changed into Rowan’s clothes first.  They were a bit tight around the armpits and hips,

“I have like, fifty questions to ask you,” Verona said.

“Would you like to go with her?” Maricica asked.  “With him?  Perhaps as a canine companion?  Or a male friend?  It wouldn’t take long.”

“I- no,” Verona said, meeting Avery’s eyes.  “She might need backup or cover.”

“I have to admit, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do like this,” Avery admitted.

“No?” Maricica asked.

“Go do what you’ve always wanted to do.  Have fun,” Verona said.

Avery biked, deeply unsettled by the extra anatomy.  It was more up and forward than she’d imagined it being, but… even so, it was there.

She tried to put it out of mind, as she biked toward downtown, in the same direction as Heros and the other stores the kids at school went to for lunch.

She’d known she’d want to do this tonight.  She worried the Faerie knew that was the case, and had suggested it for that reason.  But that was a losing battle.  She’d get paranoid, thinking about being watched -being watched more, after Lucy’s worry about the goblins spying on her- and second guessing everything.

For right now, though, she was doing what she’d done last fall.  Before the winter had brought snow, in those lonely weeks and months, she’d made a habit of going out biking.  It was creepy and maybe stalkery, but… Pam was out there, across the street  from her parents’ shop, which closed at eight.

She liked seeing Pam, so she’d gone out more at night, in hopes of running into her.  She hadn’t had the guts to say hello, so she’d just waved while riding by.  And that had been nice, at a time when not a lot of things were nice.

This felt dirty, somehow, like cheating.  Maricica had called the glamour a lie, stated with enough certainty to override it and make it a kind of truth.  Wasn’t she wearing a lie, then?  It sorta felt like that.  Like it made everything from riding the bike and being here… wrong?  She couldn’t put her finger on it.

Verona was good enough at bullshitting to wear the lie comfortably, and Avery kind of resented every reminder that it was what it was, including the unique anatomy, and the way her shirt sat.

Pam was helping a little girl with a spinning superhero toy, with a string to pull that made the superhero soar skyward before it unfolded and paused in the air.  It wasn’t unfolding right.

Avery coasted to a stop and watched from a distance as Pam tried to fix the string.

Before, she would have just taken the fact that Pam was here as a nice bonus in her day and moved on, happy that Pam smiled when she waved, and thinking maybe she’d made Pam’s day a bit brighter too.

It had been a bummer when the snows came and she couldn’t bike anymore.  It made it a bit too difficult to swing by for a chance meeting.

It was hard to shake the idea that it was stalkery, too, so she hadn’t exactly resumed it when the snow had thawed.

Now, though.  Wearing a different face gave her a kind of courage.  She biked a little closer and approached.  Pam, who was crouching down in front of two nine or ten year olds, looked at her and then handed over the toy when Avery reached down.

Avery licked her thumb, touched her hair, and got a bit of the glamour on there.  She used it to adjust the string, stroking it softly until things were in line and coiled up.  At the same time, she fixed a chip on the wing.  She’d seen toys like this before.

She knelt down, her eyes momentarily level with Pam’s, and gave the end of the string to the nearest kid.

The kid pulled back, and the toy went soaring.

“Whoo!” Avery and Pam cheered, along with the kids, who immediately ran off, chasing the toy toward the sloped field that led down toward the river.

“Nice work,” Pam said.  “That was a fast fix.”

“My sister had one, so I learned the ins and outs,” Avery admitted.  Which was true.  Sheridan had had one, which had been handed down to Avery, but it had been so battered it only worked one time out of three.  She’d learned how it was put together while trying to fix it.

Then Declan had stomped on it.

“I haven’t seen you around.”

“Nope,” Avery said.  “New face.”

“Are you moving in?” Pam asked, bright, straightening.  She had put a flavored ice tube on the wooden railing between the sidewalk and the field, and picked it up now.  Her lips and tongue were blue.

Avery leaned into the railing, watching the kids.  “No.  Sorry, not anytime soon.”

She wished she was as good at this as Verona.

“Too bad.  New faces are nice,” Pam said.  “And nice new faces are… bleh.  Haha, I don’t know how to phrase it.  I meant that you did something nice.”

Avery smiled.  “You were helping them first.”

“They’re my cousins.  I’m watching them.  I don’t get credit for that, when they’d just whine at me for the next hour to fix it if I didn’t do anthing.”

“You get some credit, at least from me.”

“Okay, sure,” Pam said, smiling.  “I wish I got some of that from my family.”

“I know that feeling.”

“Pamela,” Pam said, putting out a hand to shake.  As Avery reached for it, Pamela withdrew it.  “I don’t know why I went for a handshake.”

“You can call me Kell,” Avery said, putting her hand out, instead.  That’s not a lie, right?  She can?

This felt like cheating.  Like it was all going to come around and bite her in the ass, or something.  It was too nice.  Too close to what she’d imagined doing, when passing Pamela, and thinking about striking up a conversation, or in school.

“I do errands around my parents’ shop in the afternoons.  I collect the change from one of the games they put in the back for kids to play, that kids drop all over the place.  It’s usually enough for a treat or two after the shop closes.”

“Hey, better than nothing.”

“It’s not really much better than nothing.  They’re pretty crappy, but they’re only fifty cents.”

There was a bit of an awkward pause, and she decided to act on impulse again, halfway expecting everything she did to be the thing that would break the illusion.  Maybe literally.  “Can I buy you an ice cream?  I think there’s a store just down there?”

“What?” Pamela laughed, one note.  “Why?”

“Because it’s way better than nothing?  Because I want to?  As a reward for putting up with little cousins?”

“I feel like I’m being pranked,” Pamela said.

“But… what’s the quote?  You must be truly desperate if you’ve come to me?  If you go up toward the ski hill, I think some of the popular kids hang around the ski hill.  They’re going down the hills with cardboard sleds, I think.”

“But you’re here.  You’re someone that’s nice to kids.  You’re, um.”  Avery indicated vaguely in Pamela’s direction.

“I’m what?” The question was defensive.

“Pretty,” Avery said.

Anonymity didn’t keep her face from flushing as she said it.

She’d wanted to say that, insist that, back at school when she’d heard Pamela talking about herself, months ago, and had kicked herself for not speaking up ever since, even as she simultaneously knew she wouldn’t have known what to say and would have cocked it all up.

She’d told herself she’d work with Maricica, learn what she needed to learn about glamour, and simultaneously try to at least fix that.

Except… Pamela looked hurt.  Wary.

“Are your friends watching from a distance or something?  Am I a bet?”

“No!  I mean, no, you’re not a bet, yes, I think a friend is watching me, but it’s not because of a bet.  It’s because- my intentions are good.  I’m going to get that ice cream.”

“Okay,” Pamela said, wary, frowning.

“What’s your flavor?”

Avery gave her the thumbs up.

Face flushed, Avery went in, bought two ice creams, and took them back outside, half expecting that Pamela would have fled.

In silence, the two of them watched the kids play, firing the toy up, where it made loud laser sounds, then dropped back down.

The toy broke again, the kids came running up, and Avery fixed it again.

Things were nice, when she wasn’t hyperaware of how she was pretty much lying.  It felt off, and that offness blurred into just about everything around her, making her feel like a charlatan.  It made the clothes feel weird, made her unsure of her expression…

Like her entire life had been inverted, and things she was previously insecure about were now secure in anonymity, and everything she’d taken for granted was a massive forgery, just close enough to reality that she couldn’t make out the flaws, but just wrong enough she could tell they were there.

“What would you say if I wanted to kiss you?” Pamela asked, averting her eyes.

“I…” Avery’s mind went through about fifty different answers, and settled on none.

“You don’t want to.”

“I do!  I do, but… I’m not… this is the last time you’re seeing this face, probably.  It’s not fair, it’s…”

I don’t like wearing this glamour.  Even if it lets me do things like this.

“You weren’t lying to me, before?”

“I think you’re really pretty.  It sucks to hear you apparently don’t believe me, but I sorta get it.  My friend might be out there watching from a distance, but if she’s laughing, it’s at how much of a dork I’m being right now.  Not at you, she’s not that kind of person.”

“I thought maybe if I asked you to kiss me, and you said yes, it’d be because of the bet.”

“No bet.  Really.  Who would do that?”

“Assholes.  There’s a lot of assholes.  People treat you as subhuman if you’re fat.”

“You’re not fat.  You’re curvy and I… really like curvy.  I like your face.  I like- I like your clothes.  I think you’re clearly nice, and cool, and…”

Pamela leaned in, and Avery stopped talking, pausing to wrestle with herself.

The glamour broke across her chest, like a crack spreading across ice, starting at the heart.

She kissed Pamela, and… she’d never thought kisses would be warm, stupidly.  She’d never thought kisses would taste like the ice cream that Pamela had just been eating.

Mostly, she wished she was herself.  It was a pointed regret, that made the cracking spread further.  She prayed it wouldn’t be in a way that Pamela could see.

But as pointed as that feeling and regret were, she wanted to give Pamela this.  A nice moment, a person telling her how it was, in reality.  An answer and a moment that she could use when waging that internal war against assholes like she’d talked about.

“I think, um, I’m going to eat pistachio ice cream a lot, from now on,” Avery admitted.  “And think about this.  It was nice.”

She saw Pamela’s face, pink, break out into a smile, like she finally believed what Avery or ‘Kell’ had been telling her.

“I guess I’ll do the same with, uh, caramel?”

“Vanilla chocolate caramel.”

“Okay,” Pamela said, biting her lip.

“I’ve got to get going, or my mom and friend will get frustrated with me.”

Avery ran, twisting her body to hide any of the cracking along the chest, even though she suspected her shirt covered it.  The feeling of wrongness sat with her and made the cracks impossible to ignore.

The glamour fell away by the time she reached Verona, coming away like panes of stained glass that turned to dust instead of shattering on hitting the road, while she biked.

“After all that, I thought you’d stand there like a dork,” Verona said, smiling.  “But you went for it.”

“She went for it.  I accepted.”

“It didn’t last long at all, though,” Verona said.  She turned.  Maricica was standing further in the alleyway.

“It wasn’t for me,” Avery said, “That wasn’t me.  It felt like a lie.”

“It’s not the skin you’re supposed to wear,” Maricica said.  “Some could.”

“I’m still glad I did it.  Assuming there’s no traps I didn’t recognize…”

“You’ll know if it’s a trap when the moments arrive,” Maricica said.

“I’m glad I did it.  Thank you.”

Verona elbowed her.  “First kiss?”

“Excepting a time boys held me down in third grade and kissed me… yeah.  I’m still not sure it counts.  I wasn’t me.”

“Then it doesn’t count,” Verona said, shrugging.

“We gotta get home,” Avery said.  She looked up.  “It’s getting dark.”

“Guilherme stopped by to look, and make sure nothing was going tragically wrong,” Verona said.

Maricica scoffed.  She wrapped her wings around herself as she walked between buildings.  They began to take on the appearance of clothing, as she disguised herself as an ordinary twenty-something woman in a dress.

“Did he say anything?”

“His gift awaits,” Verona said.  “Subtler and surer.”

There was a moment, as a car passed with highbeams on, that Avery saw Maricica’s face in silhouette.

It wasn’t a human face.  Or even a human-like face.  If anything, it looked like a bat’s head mixed with a whole spider.

The abrupt, blinding light passed, and Maricica looked her way and smiled, like nothing was wrong or unusual.  A girl who could have been her babysitter, or Rowan’s friend.

She hadn’t forgotten about the Choir, or the murder.  Or the scary stuff, or the doubts and paranoia.  She hadn’t forgotten the monsters.  Maricica was one.

But… for moments like this?  Even mixed feelings?

“Then I think I’ll try Guilherme’s thing too, then,” she said.