Pale: 2.4 - Lucy
Author: Wildbow

Lucy

Lucy was awake an hour before her alarm was set to go off, and she tended to set her alarm early to begin with.  Rain drummed against the windows, but the light of the sky outside was escaping around the edges of her curtains and her room was stuffy, humid, and hot.  Birds had found refuge in trees just outside her window, and were chirping incessantly.  To top it all off, there was someone in her house that wasn’t her mom, and they were periodically laughing.

She felt like she should recognize the laugh, but her memory failed her.

Hot, her pyjamas sticking to her, she hated the idea of having to deal with the rain, or sit in a muggy classroom, hated the idea of dealing with school for a full day with only five hours of sleep under her.  Lucy tossed and turned, drifting on the edge of sleep.  When she heard the voice or laugh, feminine and energetic, constantly being shushed by Lucy’s mother, she found herself at the boundaries between memory and dream, not quite escaping into dream for those precious forty-five minutes of sleep.

Then a precious thirty minutes.

A precious fifteen minutes.

Ten minutes.  She considered waking up later, cheating her way through her morning.  But with weather like this, her hair was going to be a nightmare.  Was it worth getting another thirty or forty five minutes if she were to change her alarm now?  She’d have to deal with comments about her hair all day, probably.  Or weird looks.

Five minutes.  When a day was looking to be this awful, baseline, she could fancy asking her mom for a fake sick day.

Then one minute.  She put her hand out over the alarm clock, waiting.  She smushed her face into the pillow, waiting.

A press of the button cut off the ‘bweep’ of the alarm before it could get to the ‘ee’ part, putting it on snooze.

Reluctant, she sat up, turned off the alarm in that way that required more effort, and detangled herself from sheets.  Faced with the task of making her bed, seeing the roughly Lucy-shaped stain on the satin sheets and pillowcase, she pulled everything off her bed, instead.

It was bright out, for how early it was and how much it was raining.  Masses of bugs were trying to take refuge against her window, which was closed.  She opened it, and flicked the screen to get rid of the fifty or one hundred bugs that were clinging to it.

No breeze to help with the airflow.

With an armful of sheets, she navigated her way to the laundry room.

“-a scam?” Lucy heard the guest ask.  “MLM type stuff?”

“I don’t sell,” Lucy’s mom said.  “I administer it.”

“It feels skeevy.  Are you okay with it?”

“It pays the bills, Heather.  I don’t love it.  I would love to be doing anything else.  But there aren’t a lot of options.  I looked up the medicine before accepting the position.  It’s fine, it helps a select number of people a lot.  The only concerns I have are how they market?”

“A lot of emphasis on the brand name.”

“I mean more of the high-pressure sales tactics.  Not many people need it, and when they find someone who does…” Lucy’s mom sighed.  “…They dig their claws in.  Half the time I’m visiting an elderly person, they’re guarded or holding back worries or information they felt they couldn’t share with the salesperson, because they were steamrolled into it.”

“Can we talk about anything else?  It’s too early for this.”

“Hm.  How’s Booker?  Gosh, the last time I saw him, he was a giant.”

“He’s good!  He’s doing well in his classes, or so he says, he seems to be interested in the subject material.  He’ll talk your head off about political science if you give him a chance, which is simultaneously endearing and exhausting.  He’s got a girlfriend, and she seems sweet.  She’s supposed to come by this summer.”

“It’s summer for University students already, isn’t it?  Is he taking classes?”

“Working.  At the same place his girlfriend is.  It’ll be good to see him, and I think it’ll do Lucy a lot of good.  It broke her heart when he left, even if she doesn’t want to show it.”

Lucy, hugging her sheets, slipped into the laundry room and sorted everything into the right hamper.

She went into the bathroom and turned on the water.  Her hair was still wrapped up in silk, and she weighed leaving it on with the shower cap pulled over it, before deciding she didn’t want to get it wet.  She unwrapped her hair, re-covered it with the shower cap, and-

“Lucy!” her mom called up the stairs.

“You showered last night!”

“This’ll be a quick one!  I’m sticky!”

She heard the not-shouted word of assent from below.

Downstairs, her Aunt Heather laughed.  Her dad had been the only child born to Lucy’s grandmother and grandfather, and the rest of his ‘siblings’ were the long-term foster children that they then brought in.  Uncle Martie and Aunt Renee had been the only ones to be formally adopted, a kind of informal thing that had happened when they were twenty.  Aunt Heather hadn’t accepted the formal adoption.

She was something of a free spirit, and Lucy’s mental picture of the woman always put a wine glass in her hand, even for mornings, but she didn’t associate that tendency with any problems, really.  At worst, a spilled wine glass at the table one Easter, and waking up one holiday at her grandmother and grandfather’s house to find Aunt Heather still dressed from the night prior, sleeping off a hangover on the couch.  Lucy had been young then, hugging a stuffed animal, and had wanted to watch cartoons, and had turned on the television, hurrying to turn down the volume on the set that was so old that it didn’t have a mute button.  She had watched without sound until Aunt Heather got up.

More importantly, maybe most importantly, Aunt Heather had been the one person from her dad’s family that had really stuck around and stayed in contact.  Even Lucy’s grandfather and grandmother were kind of busy living their lives, not helped by the distance.  They sent a generous card on Lucy’s and Booker’s birthday and at Christmas.

Lucy rinsed off, then stood in front of the sink, pulling off the shower cap and undoing the loose coiled braids of her hair.  The basket by the sink had about fifty hair products in it, including ones she or her mom had tried and hadn’t liked, and, as she dug, she couldn’t find what she was looking for.  A second basket had hair styling tools, and she found the slightly dusty tub of cream at the bottom corner.

High hold, humectant free.  She had another tub she really liked, but it had a fruity smell and the same bugs that were clinging to her bedroom window and screen would be drawn to her hair as if by a high powered magnet.  That one was for indoor events only, or the middle week of summer where the bugs weren’t slowly waking up or preparing to lay their eggs before winter.

Even with the hair stuff, her hair had shrunk and deflated.  Her attempts to puff it up, extend it out, or give it any shape at all just saw it sag.  Which meant… what were her options?  Going small?  Braiding it and winding it up?  She’d look pretty severe.  Or a low ponytail.  Which would be hotter, her hair close to her neck on a day that was already going to be a slog.

Her hands still in her hair, dense with cream, she couldn’t even see her face, because the weather combined with even the moisture of a cool shower had fogged everything up.  If her Aunt Heather wasn’t over, she would have opened the door to give the moisture somewhere to go.  She wiped the mirror with a washcloth to give herself a window to see her face and head.

She braided her hair, and wound it up, before setting it in place with pins.  It was dense and heavy enough that she needed a good few before she felt secure.  She really hoped she wouldn’t have to run around a lot for gym.

Seeing her face, she thought about the app.  About how she didn’t rate.

She finished her hair, adding more hairpins as a just-in-case.  Then she got a bit of gel, a small brush, and began gelling down the bits of hair at her hairline, as well as the bits along her head that had escaped the passes of the brush.

Coconut moisturizing cream, rubbed at elbows and knees, and that one patch at her leg that got dry for whatever reason.  Concealer, dabbed under the eyes, and at her hairline, where a couple of reddish bumps were.  Baby pimples.  A consequence of having her hair pulled back into ponytails.

She bothered, she decided, because they’d put it on her if she didn’t bother at all.  They’d note the ashy skin or the even, dull, deflated hair, and even if her classmates were too nice to really bully her, there would be looks and well-meaning comments, or advice that absolutely did not help.

At least like this, she could look at herself in the mirror and look at each part of her body in isolation.  Long neck, good chin, full lips, ears a little big but whatever.  Eyes a little glare-y by default but whatever.  Nose… whatever.  She liked it.  Hair… under control.  Skin… better than most girls in her class, if she was honest.

Objectively… she could rate the angry ballerina in the mirror a seven out of ten.

Subjectively… she rated a zero?

That was on them, and she was putting in the effort, which meant she could give them a hearty and collective fuck you.

She moved to her bedroom, and picked her clothes with a similar mindset.  She hadn’t said as much out loud to even Verona or her mom, but her mindset when it came to picking clothes was that she wanted her things to be bulletproof.  Not in the literal sense, but in the sense that it had no weak points, gave her critics nothing.  No fading, no rips, no tears, no stains.  The material was often from the higher-end athletic brands, because it was hardier and tended to hold up better over time.  Anyone who pointed and laughed at stuff branded with the Vikare swoop or the Dassler waves just looked like an idiot.

Again, not that her classmates did or would, because any obvious bullies would get a harder time than any potential targets.  The thing was that the bullies were still out there, only they were silent.  They thought it.  This kind of stuff was protection against that thinking and those observations.

She settled on a hooded top that stopped just past the ribs.  White, sleeveless, moisture-wicking, with the Mission Canada logo on the breast.  She put it on, then immediately removed it, changing bras, before pulling it on again, so she wouldn’t be flashing hot red through the hole of the sleeve.  Her pants were looser, black, with slits all down the sides and inside of each leg, to let the air flow.  She dug sandals out of her closet and slipped them on.

Hair… clothes… the stuff she needed to put in her bag.  She included a spare umbrella, because she wanted to be triply sure she didn’t get her hair wet.  She weighed everything against the day to come.

Against the mundane day to come.

There were other factors, she thought, as she got the notebook for her investigation notes, and thought about what bases needed to be covered.  The whole thing with the Faerie, the interviews, everything else… it stressed her out just thinking about it.

Maybe today could be a day with no practice, a minimum of Others.

She flipped through the book, and stopped on the calendar.

It was Thursday.  They’d gone back to school Monday, found the flyer, and got the down-low.  They’d prepared and practiced some, extended that practice to Tuesday, and then the ritual had been that night.  Yesterday, they had mostly reeled, they’d done their research, and the Choir had made it clear that they had their hooks in, almost taking Avery.  Then the Faerie, and apparently more Faerie stuff after Lucy had gone home to dinner late.

Tomorrow was the next night of the Hungry Choir’s ritual.

Lucy picked up her phone, and she dialed.

The phone rang four times before Reagan picked up.

“Do you know what time it is?” Reagan asked.  “Christ in a cupcake, I was wondering who or what the hell you three were, and it’s clear you’re not human, because you know I don’t have work or school, and calling me before seven in the morning on a day I should be sleeping in is monstrous.”

“I wanted to call you before I forgot, and to give you time to discuss, think about it, and maybe communicate with others.  We found a little something you might be able to use.”

“I’m listening,” Reagan said.

“These things, they’re bound by certain rules and expectations of fairness.  You can challenge them, if you think they’re gaming it or pulling a fast one.  Unsolvable riddles, unwinnable fights.”

“You say it.  Loudly and clearly, try to get other players on your side so it has more clout, and costs them more.  Scream it to the sky, call them cheats, be very clear, and don’t lie or embellish.”

“We can’t speak in there unless it’s part of the song.”

“I think you can say this.  Maybe… cut to the quick.  Go straight to calling them cheats, then elaborate.”

“…Okay.  What happens?”

Lucy took a seat on the corner of her bed.  “They’ll owe you and the universe proof that the game is winnable.  The…”  Person? Was Miss even a person? “…we inquired, and we were told that in this particular scenario, they might have to turn some of the waifs into people and have them do what you did that night.  I’m not sure, but I think if you get more people on your side, the burden of proof might be higher, and they might even have to give those waifs similar injuries.  They’d have to do the ritual successfully.  If they can’t, you might be freed, or given a pass for that round.”

“Then my understanding is that in situations like that, where they reveal tactics or answers to riddles, or anything like that, is they wouldn’t want witnesses.”

“Maybe.  Or whatever happens when you lose.  Becoming a waif.”

“It’s a thing we could do if we’re going to die anyway.”

“Maybe,” Lucy said.  “But… to me it feels like that’d be too easy for you and too problematic for the Choir.  It costs them power to re-enact the situation and doesn’t get them much.  Maybe if you do it, and they prove they can beat it… you get worse than becoming a waif?”

There was a lengthy pause.  Lucy got up from her bed, still holding the phone to her ear, and got the chain she’d been wearing around her neck.  It had her house key, her side door key, her locker key, the dog tag, and the ring of weapons strung on it.  She donned it and dropped it through her collar.

“What’s worse than becoming a waif?” Reagan asked.

“I was thinking about it,” Lucy said.  “I’ve been thinking a lot about worst case scenarios.  I think it’s not out of the question that you end up becoming a waif, but they leave more of you inside, watching and unable to do anything.”

There was silence on the other end.

“When we got involved, we got entangled with it,” Lucy admitted.  She adjusted how the keys and ring sat beneath her top.  “They started showing up, tried to trick my friend into the ritual.  Could be that instead of erasing memories or revising histories, they suck in your loved ones.”

“My boyfriend,” Reagan mused aloud.  “Or my little brother?”

“Or, um.  I was thinking about this last night, before bed.  Mostly thinking about how the ritual might have grown or evolved over time, and where it might go.  But it applies.  You know that world you get sucked into?  The stage?”

“What if they dragged people in there… and didn’t put them back in reality after?  I could see a situation where they covered their asses and kept people from getting clever ideas like challenging the ritual, by evolving or adjusting how the game works.  Imagine signing up to the ritual, and then they bring you there and keep you there for the three weeks.”

“There’s no food or water there.”

“Except the animals?” Lucy asked.  “I thought it’d make a kind of sense.  They’d give you an animal and you’d have to eat, share, fight over who got how much.  Or you’d have to eat as much as you could on the night of.  The water would be a problem.”

“There’s some.  Some salt water.  Murky water.  Water from taps is rusty or black.  But if you had a few days… you could probably find a way to filter it.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.  She picked up her bag.  “I could see a scenario where they can’t take everyone, because the group isn’t unanimous in speaking out and challenging the round, but then they change the dynamic or they make the game evolve, with the person passing on the message about the challenge, and letting people infer what happened.

“It’s a last resort, then.”

“I’ll pass it on.  Thanks.”

“Keep an eye out for more calls.  I’ll try to let you know if we uncover anything else.  I can’t promise that they won’t be at inconvenient hours.”

“Nah.  For stuff like this?  Thanks for looking out, Lucy.”

“Sure,” Lucy said.  “I should go to school.”

“Back to bed for me.”

Hefting her bag, she opened her door, stepped out into the hallway, and stopped.

The sound of high voices filled the house, all at once.  Seven waifs stood in her upstairs hallway.

Five boys, two girls.  The waif closest to Lucy was a black girl, nine or so, her hair in two braids, and she had one hand at her mouth, teeth digging and chewing at her own fingertips, which were in ruined tatters.  The waif’s shoulders flinched inward as she bit through a part of her middle finger, a fresh trickle of blood running down to her elbow.  The ruined fingers of the girl’s other hand clutched at a dress with tiny flowers in a repeating pattern.

“Are we going to have a problem?” Lucy asked.

The waifs remained where they were.

“Is this entanglement or is it your way of whining at me?” Lucy asked.  “Because if it’s whining, get over it.”

The children didn’t respond or move.  Lucy navigated between them, until she reached the final one at the end of the hallway.  The boy stepped into her way.  He wore a constant, guileless smile, his hair a mess, and an unseasonable sweater with an argyle pattern that would have been better suited to an old man.  There was blood around his mouth, maybe two days old.

“Get out of my way,” Lucy said.

“I will kick you down the stairs.  This is my home, calling Reagan was within the bounds of what I’m allowed and supposed to do.  Don’t try to intimidate me, and get the hell out of my way.”

Six sets of hands seized her from behind, grabbing at her arms, the back of her collar, the back of her top.  She could feel the fingers of the one waif at her arm, grooves cut into fingertip by teeth and filled in with scabs and scars, the edges rough.  Another had ragged long fingernails, painted canary yellow where the paint hadn’t chipped.  Others were just small hands, incredibly strong.

She staggered back, lost her footing, and fell, the long rug of the hallway making her slide more.  One of them pawed at the side of her head.  Twisting, she pulled her hands free of the waif’s hold, seized her necklace, and went for her ring.

The waifs were gone.  The singing had stopped.

Breathing hard, Lucy let go of the necklace.  She checked her arm where the fingernails and chewed up fingertips had scraped at her, and they were only red.  Her clothes… no mess, no stains, no bloody fingerprints.

Trembling, she picked herself up.  She fixed the rug in the hallway with a few kicks, and left her bag behind while she went back to the bathroom and checked herself over.  The fan had gotten most of the moisture, clearing up the middle portion of the mirror.  Her clothes were fine, but her hair…

Her hands shook as she fixed where bits had come loose.  Hairpins at the side of her head fixed it in place.

There was a dark shadow in the corner of the mirror’s reflection, where the fog hadn’t quite disappeared.  Child-shaped.

She hesitated, then wiped at it.  She had to double-check, looking behind her to see.  The little washcloth rack.

“Hey Choir,” she whispered.  “If you happen to be listening and watching… you should know you really don’t want to make an enemy of me.  I’d make it a point to get even.”

She squared herself away, then made her way downstairs, grabbing her bag.

“-contact Paul?” her Aunt Heather asked.

“When you bought this house, the idea was that you both would pay for it.  I don’t think it would be out of bounds to ask him for some help.  Even a one-time payment…”

“I am not going to go to my ex with my hand out, Heather.  And I don’t think he’d respond.”

“Then maybe downsizing? There’s that apartment building downtown.”

“With concrete walls, concrete floor, and shady residents.  Those apartments are like tombs, Heather.  I’m not going to make Lucy downgrade her life.  I can get by.  It’s easier with Booker away for school.”

“You’re helping him with school, though.  With his place.”

“A little bit, as long as he shows me his budget.”

“Paul raised Booker for five years.  I think-”

“-you don’t even have to have your hand out.  Just… float the subject?  You’re so clearly unhappy, Jas.  You don’t enjoy your work, you’re overworked, I don’t even remember the last time I’ve seen you properly smile.”

“That wasn’t forced.  You need more support.  I know your parents need more support than they can ever give, Barbie and Ran are too far away, I’m… I’ll back you up, whatever you need, whenever you need, like tonight, but I’m not good at taking care of my own life, so your mileage may vary.  That doesn’t leave many options.  Whatever we could say, Paul isn’t a bad-”

“Stop,” Lucy’s mom said, at the most recent mention of Paul.  “This isn’t the time or place for a Paul conversation.  I’m not even halfway into my first coffee, for one thing.”

“It doesn’t feel like it ever is, with you.”

“Lucy’s due to come downstairs any moment.”

Lucy waited a few seconds, then stepped around the corner.

“Hey!” Aunt Heather greeted her.  Aunt Heather was white, with her black hair in a boy’s style of cut, and a colorful dress with a bohemian pattern.  “Look at you!  You’re stunning!”

You’re family so you don’t count, Lucy thought, as she accepted her Aunt’s hug, hugging back.

She hadn’t missed that momentary look her mom had shot her aunt, either.  Like, I told you Lucy was going to turn up.

“It’s been too long.  A year?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said.

“You’re taller.  You’re not even a kid anymore!  Look at you!  Spin around.”

“I’m not going to spin around,” Lucy said.

“You’re an actual young woman now.  That’s frightening.  Here I am, past my prime, with grey hairs.  How are you?”

“I’m… there’s a lot going on, with my friends.”

“I brought donuts and cider.”

“Thank you.  Are you staying?” Lucy asked, then reconsidered.  “Sorry, didn’t mean to make it sound like I didn’t want you to.  It’d be cool if you stayed.”

“She was passing through,” Lucy’s mom said.  “But I had a bit of work I was considering, and we thought we’d ask you.  You have options and it’s up to you.”

Lucy nodded, getting a donut.

“I could do these contracts, but it would be two tonight and one tomorrow, in the direction of Tripoli.  It’s an overnight trip.  Heather said she’d be happy to watch you overnight.”

“We could hang out, watch a movie your mom wouldn’t let you watch-”

Her mother cleared her throat.

“Paint our nails, gossip…”

“Do people actually do that in real life?” Lucy asked.

“I’m getting resistance on both sides.  I can take a cue.  Not that, then.”

“Option two would be for you to stay over at Verona’s or something,” her mom said.

“That bad?” her mom asked.

“The last time I went over, he was wanting to put up this stone wall around the garden.  He recruited me to help.”

“I wish he’d ask before doing something like that.  It’s a parent’s job to balance the work and play for their own kids, and that’s hard enough with four teachers each assigning their own homework without consulting one another.”

“He said something like ‘it’s just for five seconds’, then before we were done one chore, he was asking us to take another five seconds to do something else, and then after doing that a few times he’d ask why the first chore wasn’t done.”

“Sounds like a boss I had when I was Booker’s age.  Did he help out, or was he giving orders?” Aunt Heather asked.

“He helped out some, I guess?” Lucy asked, shrugging.  “He gets headaches if he exerts himself too much, he says.  I never really said anything to him or Verona about it, but I stopped sleeping over after that.  I mostly try to go over if he’s not going to be there.”

“Okay.  Communicate those things to me more, if you can?”

Lucy shrugged, nodding, while eating her donut.

“What about Avery?” her mom asked.

“Five kids, with three girls in one room,” Lucy said, her mouth partially full, her hand covering it so nobody had to see.  “Her grandfather stays in a room on the ground floor.”

“Well, option three is I skip the job.  Easy enough,” her mom said.

“Actually, can we mix one and two?” Lucy asked.  “Not that I don’t love spending time with you, Auntie, but I might be doing stuff with my friends.”

“I was thinking about seeing a friend on the return trip,” her Aunt said.  “I was wondering how to wedge it in.  If my afternoon is free and I’m staying overnight, that could work out nicely.”

“Make sure the house doesn’t burn down, take my teenager to the hospital in the event that she needs it -gosh I hope not- see that she’s fed, and stay available?”

“Plus a late night, mom-approved movie?” her Aunt asked Lucy.

“Sounds cool,” Lucy said.

“Yes?” her mom asked her.  On getting a nod, turned to her Aunt, “Yes?”

“Yes, great, okay.  I’ve got to make some calls to schedule, then.  Heather, could you take her to school?  It’d be a huge help.”

“Oh!” Lucy spoke up, before her mom left the room.  “About the phone.  I made a call just now, and I realized it might be long-distance.  To a classmate, about this project Avery, Verona and I are working on, but I realized she’s near Toronto.  You can take it out of my allowance if you want.”

“Then don’t worry about it.  Thank you for telling me.  Have a good day at school- Oh!  I meant to check up with you about Mr. Bader.”

“He’s been pretty quiet since you talked to him.”

“Good, okay.  Where’s my phone?”

Lucy’s mother made her way into the living room.

“Brought you a gift,” Lucy’s Aunt Heather said.  She pulled back a chair from the far side of the little island in the middle of the kitchen, and lifted up a plant.  The leaves were very large and house-plant-y, but the top was a partially open flower of purple leaves.  It sat in a simple white pot.

“Thank you,” Lucy said, taking it.  “You didn’t have to.  It’s not even a holiday.”

“I didn’t know what to get, but I got your mom some flowers to put outside and I saw it while I was there.  Go take it to your room, and go check the little card.”

Lucy hurried to the task, hesitating only at the bend in the stairs to the upstairs hallway, where the waifs had been.  She set the plant on her bedside table, by the alarm clock, and checked the card.  It was a tiny thing, and it had a bit of string tying it shut.  When she undid it, a square of folded-up money dropped into the dirt of the plant.  Fifty bucks. The card itself just had a little heart on it.

She pocketed it, then jogged back down the stairs to the kitchen, looking for her aunt.

“…wound a little tight.”

“She’s fine, Heather.  She gets good grades, she has good friends.  She’s genuinely good, to the point that I trust her to tell me if there’s something she needs or needs to get off her chest.  She’s also keenly aware of everything that goes on around her, and I learned that the hard way.  So please, if you have anything negative to say, or anything sensitive to say, I’d thank you to hold your tongue if she’s even in the general vicinity, or could be in the vicinity.  Really.”

“I promise you, Jas, I didn’t mean it even slightly in a bad way.  I meant it only in a worried way.  You too, with your work, your hobbies, your love life.”

“Enough, please.  I know you mean well, but- Yes!  hello!”

Lucy’s mom changed her tone, going full business mode.

Lucy’s Aunt emerged from the living room, and stopped a little short at seeing Lucy there.

“Thank you,” Lucy said, getting her stuff together, her bag back on.  “For the plant, and the card.”

“I wasn’t sure if the plant would hit the mark, so I put in the little extra to break even.  Spend it on something fun, okay?”

“All set to go?  I didn’t think you’d get ready so fast, but I guess you were mostly ready by the time you came downstairs.”

They got everything together, Lucy grabbing a proper umbrella and flipping her hood up to further protect her hair.  Her aunt opened the door.

Outside, the rain was coming down in buckets.  The temperature was such that it felt like the rain was hitting places where the heat had settled, kicking the heat upwards instead of cooling things off.  The bugs were out in full.

“You’re so well put together,” her Aunt said.  “Back when I was your age… I should show you pictures one day.  Different times for teenage girls, back then.”

“You’re not that old.”

“Hey.  I have some grey hairs I have to dye.  I’m getting there.  We didn’t have videos that talked about hair and makeup, or websites that talked about fashion.  We had to get our information from magazines, sharing them around.  I got it in my head to do up my hair like this punk girl from this eighties television show, and… tragedy ensued.  I had hair like a porcupine, with black lipstick, a choker, and a strapless top I thought was the sexiest thing, and it was really the opposite.  I wasn’t even the only walking train wreck, but… I envy your generation so much.”

Lucy smiled.  “I really want to see the pictures now.”

“Your dad had his moments too.  Barbie, bless her heart, had no idea how to cut his hair.”

Lucy smiled, folding up her umbrella before ducking out of the rain and sticking her head into her aunt’s car.  She couldn’t really get in, though.  The foot area in front of the passenger seat was filled with crap.  Her Aunt stuffed a bunch of garbage into a plastic bag, and threw the rest into the back seat.

Lucy wouldn’t say it out loud, but she wasn’t positive her aunt had stopped being a walking train wreck.

“There,” her aunt said.

Lucy climbed in, putting her bag in her lap.

“I should ask, is it a problem, if I mention your dad like that?”

Lucy shook her head.  “No.  It’s nice, hearing things.  I’d like to see pictures of him too.”

Her aunt started up the car.  They pulled out.  “I don’t know where the line is.  I’d ask your mom, but she’s hard to communicate with sometimes.”

“It’s okay.  You can ask me.  Or say stuff.  Like if you’re worried I’m a little tightly wound…”

“Oh,” her Aunt said.  “You heard that.”

“You’ll want to go over the bridge,” Lucy said.  “Left.  And yeah.  About Paul, too.”

“I think, um,” her aunt seemed to be mentally stumbling.  “Getting into that would be one of the few things that would make your mother absolutely furious with me.”

“Nobody’s ever really explained it.”

“I would, but I know your Uncle Martie said something to Booker, once.  It wasn’t even that clear, but I thought your mother would spit fire, she was so mad.  I don’t want to be on your mother’s bad side.”

The car cut through a puddle, splashing the railing of the bridge.  Just over there, on the other side of the road, they’d talked to Miss yesterday.

“Go left,” Lucy said.  “There’s often a lineup.  You can drop me off at the foot of the hill if that makes it easier.”

“I have no problem taking you to the door.”

There were a bunch of kids out, Lucy saw, making their slow way to school.

There were kids standing still, in the rain, no hoods or umbrellas.  They remained where they were, staring.  Watching her.  Some with mouths agape.  Some with broken teeth, or chewed lips, or blood on their faces that the rain didn’t wash away.  Kids on their way to school weaved through and past them.

“Weather’s supposed to zig-zag this week.  I was joking with your mom that I wasn’t sure if you should come downstairs in layers, a t-shirt and shorts, a winter coat or a swimsuit.”

They reached the base of the hill.  There were already some cars lined up.

“Are you wound up?” her Aunt asked.  “I’d try to find a good way of asking, but I’m the kind of person who sticks her foot in her mouth, no matter what.”

“It’s okay.  I’d rather people were honest.  I’d rather they communicate.  I’m… you’re not wrong.”

“Why?  What’s going on?”

“Lots of stuff.  I think it’s okay though,” Lucy said, quiet.

There were some Waifs out on the sidewalk, their heads turning as the car crawled forward.

“I think I have to be prepared.  I have to be on guard.”

“I dunno.  Lots of stuff, but I can never know for sure.  Did my mom tell you about the Mr. Bader stuff?”

“My gym teacher has been hounding me.  And it’s like… was it something I did or said, that put me in his bad books without me knowing?  Or is it that I’m the easiest face to pick out of the rest of the class, when it comes to calling fouls or picking someone that isn’t running fast enough?  And like, that’d be him doing it by accident, maybe, or unconsciously.  Or is he a hateful prick, and the stuff he’s doing is just the tip of a huge iceberg of prick, in which case I might need to be careful about what he’d say or do if he thought he could get away with it?”

“My homeroom teacher hasn’t said or done anything, but his tone of voice is sometimes like… condescending?  Or like he speaks a little slower to me.  And I don’t know if I’m imagining it, because he’s really nice most of the time, and maybe he talks to every student like that when he’s one-on-one with them.  And I know he taught Booker and Booker wasn’t a great student.  Don’t tell my mom about this, by the way.”

“I imagine she knows.  She did say you’re very aware of what goes on around you.  I don’t know what you could do about it, now that you’ve noticed.”

“If I noticed,” Lucy said.  She muttered, “I dunno.  There’s other stuff, not even related to all of that.”

Lucy considered telling her aunt about the Choir, and the Carmine Beast, and everything else.

What a mess that would be.

She scanned the crowd on the sidewalk and in front of the school, as students rushed out of the rain and in the doors.  It was clearing the way in faster than usual.  No Choir.

This was going to be a long day.

“My class did a popularity contest type thing.  Boys rating girls and girls rating boys.”

“Your mom mentioned that.”

“Oh, did she?” Lucy asked, raising her eyebrows.  “Really?  Because I didn’t tell her.”

“Ah.  She wasn’t supposed to know.  There’s my foot, inserted neatly into my mouth.”

“Verona,” Lucy said, her eyes narrowing a bit.  “Had to be Verona.”

“Bad result?” her aunt asked.

“Rock bottom,” Lucy muttered.

“I can’t believe that.”

“This isn’t me being nice, or me trying to be the cool aunt, but of all my nieces and nephews, and all the kids my friends have, you’re number one or number two, not even just in the looks department.  Really.  If I had to give a recommendation to a… thirteen?”

“Thirteen,” Lucy confirmed.

“A thirteen year old boy.  I’d tell him to go say hi to that girl.  That’s Lucy Ellingson.  She’s super.”

“The boys in my class don’t think so,” Lucy said, looking out the window.  “But that’s on them.  All I can do is try and be ready.”

“All of it.  The disappointments, the crappiness, the… other stuff.”

Still no Hungry Choir out there.

“I wish I had better advice for you, I’d say more but we’re here and I don’t want to hold up traffic,” her aunt said.  “I’ll think on it, so we can talk it over tonight.  At dinner or before our movie.”

The car pulled up in front of the school.

“It’s okay if you can’t, Aunt Heather,” Lucy said, opening her door.  The warm, wet air blasted her in the face.  “I’ve been thinking about it for years, now, and I haven’t been able to figure out what to do.”

“Love you, kid,” her aunt said.

“Love you too, Auntie H.” She stuck her umbrella out and unfolded it.

“Sorry if I added to that in even a small way, with my comment earlier.”

Lucy shook her head, gave her Aunt a quick smile to signal that everything was okay, and ducked out into the rain, managing umbrella, bag, and the closing of the car door.

It wasn’t possible to wait outside for Verona or Avery, with the weather, and visibility was crap, too.

She went inside, dropped off stuff at her locker, and headed to the classroom, settling in at her seat, back row, furthest from the door, closest to the window.  She busied herself with her phone for the ten or fifteen minutes it would take everyone to show up.  The rain drummed against the glass.

Her homeroom teacher entered, smiled at her and a couple of the other students in turn, then set about unpacking his materials for the day.

“The Hungry Choir says hi, I guess,” Verona said, as she arrived.

Lucy looked up from her phone.

“There were two outside the school.  Are they trying to intimidate us before tomorrow night?  It’s not like we have an easy way to get to the Toronto area.”

“I called Reagan.  I told her about the way to challenge cheating.  They got peeved.”

“Do you think they’re concerned because they are cheating?” Verona asked.

Lucy shrugged.  “They grabbed me, even.”

“So what does it mean?” Verona asked.

“I don’t know.  But… makes me think.  What if that’s not the way to beat them, but it gets us closer to the way?  Like… imagine we challenged them to a competition, where we had to defeat them or else?  And then we called them cheats and forced them to show us how to defeat them?”

Verona smiled.  “There’s a lot of holes in that plan.”

“I know, but… thinking.”

“Like, for one thing, challenging the Choir to a game when they are a game feels like a losing proposition.  Especially if their existence is on the line.”

“It’s cool that you’re thinking along those lines, though,” Verona said.

“I’m ticked.  They came after me, they wanted to scare me, and my response to that is I want to get them before they can ever get me.”

“We can keep looking for ways,” Verona said.

“I’m so not in the mood for much of anything right now,” Lucy said.  “If a kid of the right age on the stairwell looks at me funny, I might reflex-kick them down the stairs, thinking they’re a waif.”

“I’m not even sure I’m joking.  I swear, if Mr. Bader rides my ass, or anyone pushes me today, I’m going to flip.”

“You said that yesterday, I think.  It’s still a thing today?”

“Yeah,” Lucy muttered.

The warning bell went off.  More of the class was filing in.  Mr. Sitton stood by the door, mop in hand, as the class tracked in wet and dirt.  Avery was one of the last in.  “Books open!” their homeroom teacher called out, as he mopped the doorway.  “Quiet down!”

“What a crummy morning.  I hope it’s not like this all day,” Avery said.  Her hair was wet, but she wasn’t soaked through.  Probably she had gotten a ride and gotten this wet between the car and the front door of the school.

“I was thinking we’d take a brief break from Practice stuff,” Lucy murmured.

“What!?” Verona asked.

“I said it before.  I’m not in the mood for much of anything.”

“I didn’t think you meant this stuff.”

“It’s fine by me either way, but I gotta go to my locker though,” Avery said.  “Just saying so you don’t wonder where I ran off to.  Be right back.”

“Why?” Verona asked Lucy, as Avery ducked past Mr. Sitton, who put his hands on his hips.

“I want to touch base, compare notes.  Mentally recover.  We should have thought things out more before the Faerie stuff, and we should think things out more now that we’re mostly through the Faerie stuff.  Consider the traps and stuff.”

“You haven’t even gotten your thing,” Verona said.

Avery returned.  The bell rang.

“Just in under the wire,” Verona murmured, as Avery took her seat.

Avery got her stuff out, explaining, “Kerry couldn’t find her rain boots and she has an outdoor field trip.  Everyone in the family was working together to find them.  They were in toy bin, from when she was dressing up her big stuffed animals.  Dad was talking about running to the store to buy some and dropping them off school, if we couldn’t find them.”

“Quiet, please!” Mr. Sitton instructed.

“Pam looks like she’s in a good mood,” Verona said, to Avery.

Verona was smiling more than Avery, as Avery looked.

Lucy looked between the two girls.

“What did you do?” Lucy asked.  There were still murmurs across the class.

“Quiet!” Mr. Sitton said, with less patience than before.

“Tell you at lunch,” Verona said.

Verona was too cavalier and happy about this, Avery too clearly not happy…

Aw no, Lucy thought.  She bit her lip, as the class went quiet, grabbing her math book from her bag.

What did you two do last night with the Faerie?

She’d had to pretty much strongarm the pair into going out at lunch, because the lunch room was too crowded for a proper conversation.  Now they stood beneath the big tree at the foot of the hill west of the school.  Lucy kept her umbrella and hood up.

“I don’t know why you’re getting so intense about this,” Verona said.

“Really?” Lucy asked.  “Have you thought about it for five seconds?  No, wait, I’m actually getting more upset about this as I say this, because I’m imagining that you didn’t take five seconds to stop and think about what you were doing.”

Avery waved away some bugs, before putting her hands in her pockets.

Neither of the two really answered Lucy, except in body language and things unsaid.

“Yeah,” Lucy said.  “When you said you were going to try out being a boy, I thought, okay.  Sure, explore you.  Give peeing while standing up a try.  Try on some clothes.  I don’t really get that whole thing with different genders and non-genders, but if you try being a boy and decide it’s a sometimes thing or an always thing, cool.  My mom says it’s our job as teenagers to figure out who we are.  And if you figure that out with the help of the Faerie, great.”

“It was deeply uncomfortable.  I figured out what I’m not, more than anything,” Avery said.

“Right?  If it’s just that, great.  Watch out for the traps, but great.  Verona was going to be there to give you a swift kick in the ass to break the glamour, maybe.  I could wait a little nervously for the phone call where you say everything turned out fine, but yeah.  But you went straight for Pam?”

“I didn’t go ‘straight for Pam’, like you’re making it sound.  I went for Pam,” Avery said.  “And I did think about it, I asked myself what Maricica wanted, and what I could do that might go against that.  So I thought I’d do something nice for Pam, as minor as it was.”

“You didn’t kiss her?”

“I did but- that wasn’t it, that wasn’t why,” Avery said, anxious.  Rain dripped from the hood of her raincoat.  “She’s always been so hard on herself, she doesn’t think she’s pretty, and she was hard on herself when I talked to her.  Like she’d be more likely to believe someone would be pranking her than be genuinely interested in her.  I always hated that I didn’t tell her she was pretty, that one time I heard her dumping on herself.  I thought I’d do that.”

“Did you want to kiss her?  Because I’m not sure there isn’t something unconscious here, and…” Lucy trailed off, shaking her head.

“I wanted- yes but no.”

“Explain,” Lucy pressed.

Verona stepped forward, hand up, “Maybe back off just-”

“I’m mad at you too!  I’m getting to you in a second!” Lucy raised her voice.  “Don’t tell me to back off!”

“Hey!” The voice was distant.

The three of them turned.

It was Jeremy from their class, a little way up the hill.  He wore a yellow raincoat.

“Everything okay?” he called down.

“Go away, Jeremy!” Lucy called up.

“Talking some stuff out,” Verona added.

Lucy made a hand gesture, dismissing the boy.  Jeremy headed back in the direction of the school.

“I did want to kiss her, and I told her that, but… it wasn’t why I went to find her, and when she first asked if she could, I didn’t want to.  I didn’t want to the second time either, exactly.  Not while I was wearing a different face and using a different voice.”

“And essentially lying to her.  Using knowledge of her from elsewhere-”

“I don’t think I did.  I acted mostly in the moment.  I looked for my chance to tell her she was pretty.  I bought her ice cream.  I kissed her because I thought it was the only way she’d believe what I’d said about her.  With how much the body and face I was wearing felt weird, it felt more like a sacrifice than a cool moment.”

“But it was cool, wasn’t it?” Verona pressed. “You seemed happy.”

“I was happy that she was happy.  I… it was nice but it was mixed.  I dunno.  It didn’t feel great, long-term, but I made her happy and that was what mattered in the end, right?  I told her she wouldn’t see that face around again, I didn’t get her expectations up, I didn’t want her to pine or whatever.”

“Would you be okay if someone did that to you?” Lucy asked.  “If Jeremy turned out to be a practitioner and turned into a girl, kissed you, and you found out?”

“I don’t know,” Avery said, uncomfortable.  “It doesn’t matter.  I’m not doing it again.  And again, the kiss wasn’t the point.”

“The kiss happened,’ Lucy pressed, stepping a bit closer.  “I’m going to do that thing again, where I pull on my own experiences, and I need you to not act like I’m talking down to you or making you out to be a child version of me, okay?  Because I might flip out on you.”

Avery nodded, looking glum.

“The shitty thing about people is that they’re going to judge you by what you do, not by what you intended.  And I’ve had to deal with that a lot.  And that’s pretty usual.  But when you’re slapped with the label of being an outsider, they’re going to flip it around on you when it’s inconvenient.  They’re going to make their assumptions about what you intended.  People are going to find ways to make you the bad guy.  You don’t get the luxury of meaning well, and I think that’s part of growing up.”  Lucy saw Avery open her mouth and cut in, “I say that as someone who’s growing up beside you.”

Avery shut her mouth and nodded.

“Verona,” Lucy said, turning.  “The whole idea of at least two of us agreeing on something is that you were supposed to watch over her.”

“Um,” Avery said.  “For what it’s worth, Verona kind of did?  She was quizzing the Faerie, being really strict about definitions.  Even said she was channeling you or something, making up for the fact that you couldn’t be there, in getting permission to kick the Faerie’s ass, if it was needed.”

“For just that night,” Verona said.

“Why does that make me even more upset with you, Ronnie?” Lucy asked, exasperated.  She hated feeling this way.  Frustrated.  Angry.  She was trying to find the words to get these two on the right page, at the same time she was trying to figure out just why it bothered her so much.

“Maybe you want to be angry, and no matter what I say, you’re going to get upset?” Verona asked, sounding innocent.

Lucy narrowed her eyes.  “Really?”

“You really want to do that?  You want to go there?” Lucy asked.  She raised a hand and it was shaking.  She transferred her umbrella to the other hand, but the hand she’d just freed up wasn’t much better.

“Revising my stance and statement,” Verona said, quietly.  “I didn’t realize this bothered you this much.  I get that you think I messed up and I’m not sure why or how.  I’m listening.  What was I supposed to do?”

“More!  Do more!” Lucy raised her voice.  “Do you think this is fun?  No, don’t answer that.  I’ll say it different.  Do you think this is fun for me?”

“We had a good time experimenting with the ring and stuff at your place.”

“And after?  With the Faerie?  With the Choir?” Lucy asked.  She held her umbrella with both hands, so she didn’t have to worry about her hands shaking.  “Come on, Verona.  How do you think I felt holding you while you were a fucking mink?  Did you think maybe I was standing there, terrified you were never going to go back to normal?  That I was wondering what I was supposed to do about this creepy Faerie woman that had just transformed my best friend, when a warrior Faerie couldn’t even seem to scratch her?  What do I do except maybe lose a lifelong friendship?”

“Are we not supposed to have fun?  She said it would break, I was me, underneath it.”

“Maybe-” Lucy started, and she had to gulp in a breath before continuing.  “Maybe not so much fun with the Faerie that – god do I miss hyperbole- but how many people now have said the Faerie are bad news?  Including the damn Faerie themselves!?  Maybe save the ‘fun’ for other times and places!?”

“‘Kay,” Verona said, one note.  “Sorry I scared you.  Sorry I didn’t think.”

“Do you know what scares me most?” Lucy asked.  “It’s not the creepy children that are showing up, or the crotchety old forsworn dude, or even being held at freaking gunpoint.  It’s the idea that this will be it for the next however many years we’re alive and together.  Me, being the level-headed one, while the two of you fuck around.  Cleaning up messes, or worse, that one of you will do something and I’d regret it the rest of my life, that I wasn’t paying enough attention or steering you in the right directions.  That I could be old and still kicking myself every single day because I didn’t protect my best friend from herself!  Or protect someone from being hurt by you, Avery!”

“I wouldn’t hurt someone,” Avery said.

“No?” Lucy asked.  “No, really?  Because I can think of a few ways you’ve opened that door.  You said she wouldn’t see that face around anymore.  But is it maybe possible the Faerie was spying on you and saw the face?  That she might dress up as that boy, or dress someone else up as him, and mislead Pam?”

“Yeah,” Lucy hissed out the word.  “Miss called it entanglement, right?  With the Choir?  And she suggested the Faerie were worse and more subtle.  If you had a spiderweb sticking to your hand, and you touched Pam… don’t you think that’s maybe enough?”

“The Faerie was there, watching,” Verona said.  “With me.”

If there was anything remotely good about this situation, it was seeing Avery go visibly pale at that.

“What if she finds out?” Lucy asked.  “It was all a lie, you were in disguise, right?  She’d go from feeling good today to being devastated, confused, and maybe even losing… whatever it was, that keeps mortals safe and away from Others.  And you two are putting me in the situation of having to think of this?  Really?”

“You’re good at it,” Verona said.

“Don’t be freaking irreverent with me,” Lucy said, angry, shaking her head.  To Avery, she said, “You said Verona was good and on the ball for one part of one conversation, but where does that leave me?  You guys get to have your fun, but what do I get?  What release or relief or casual fuckups do I get to have?  Did you think that maybe I want to cut loose, but I can’t because I have to watch over you two?  Did you think maybe, just maybe, I’d appreciate having either of you step in and offer to kick asses, or just give me a bit of backup?”

The two girls were silent.  The rain kept pouring down.

“I’m more scared for you two than I am of the monsters, and the monsters are scary.  I need you two to step it up.  Verona… I’m struggling to convey this…”

Verona nodded, shrugging at the same time.

“I know it’s not your whole deal here, what I’m asking of you.  You probably feel like I sound like your dad or whatever.  But we’re in this.  I don’t think there’s a good way to get out of it.  You told me once that you never wanted to be even a bit in debt, because you’ve seen too many people miserable with it.  We’re in debt, so to speak, okay?  We signed onto this, and they get some say over what we do and how, until we solve the mystery.  Maybe even after.  I want to be clear of that.  I want to deal with the living ritual bullshit that captured our classmate.  I need you to be that Verona that’s clever and on the ball and focused and offering backup all the time.  At least around the Others.”

“I invite you over all the time, and I don’t go over much.  My aunt was telling my mom that my mom supports me, supports Booker, goes the extra mile constantly.  I know my mom backs up her friends and invites them over for wine and a cry, or goes to help one friend with a sick kid.  But then my aunt runs down the list of all the people who back my mom up in turn and…”

“…Nobody.  It came down to Paul as a serious consideration.”

“I feel like that’s where I’m at.”

“Is that your dad?” Avery asked.

“No.  My dad died when I was little,” Lucy said.  “He got Hep A from working elbow to elbow with a coworker, who got it from animals.  He went to the doctor a couple of times, and they didn’t realize he was suffering from liver failure.  My mom was away at nursing school.  My big brother Booker found him.”

“Oh,” Avery said.  “Sorry.”

“I’m going to go,” Verona said, jerking her thumb back at the school.  She was already walking.  “Sorry.”

“Give me something?” Lucy asked.  “Tell me I didn’t just make a fool of myself for nothing.”

“You didn’t make a fool of yourself,” Avery said.  “I feel like the ass, here.”

“Just gotta think,” Verona said.  “See if I can’t figure out what to do or how.”

Lucy spread her arms a bit.

“I am sorry,” Verona said.  “I don’t like letting you down.  You’re my favorite person.  I just gotta think about this, consider what you said, see if I can’t make it up to you.”

“Being here and not running away would be a start.”

“Gimme a bit?” Verona asked, rocking back a bit, taking a step as she said it.  “You said you didn’t want to do practice stuff today.  So for today, let me give this a hard think.  Then I want to come back and be the backup you need.”

“So long as you’re not going to Others to make yourself into that Verona.  No practice?”

“Nah.  No Faerie or anything.  I was thinking I’d skip this afternoon’s classes and use connection blocks to ensure I wasn’t bothered.”

“You used a connection blocker yesterday, in Ms. Hardy’s class.  I’m not saying you can’t or shouldn’t, but… be aware?”

Verona headed back toward the school.

Lucy looked at Avery.  “I don’t know you as well.  So I don’t know what to say, that I haven’t already covered.”

“I messed up,” Avery said.  “I thought I was going down a different route than what the Faerie wanted.”

“No,” Lucy said.  “Because now you’ve got a hard choice to make.  I’d even say she’s cornering you.”

“What have I walked into?” Avery asked, barely audible.

“For one thing, you’ve tipped her off about Pam, if she didn’t already know.  Pam’s at risk of being entangled.  So the dumb, selfish move is that you could carry on, and Pam becomes something she can use against you.  I already covered some of the ways how.  Maybe she has to use it against you, if that’s what a Faerie has to do.”

“Or you solve the entanglement the way Miss told you to,” Lucy said.

“Distance,” Lucy added, in response to that sentence Avery hadn’t spoken.  The question she hadn’t asked.  “Walk away.  Leave no meaningful connection to Pam.  Trust Verona and I to handle the worst case scenarios, if something happens to Pam, but you should stay clear.  Best case scenario, you did your good deed, and you both go in different directions.”

“You said I was cornered.”

“Oh, you were and are,” Lucy said.  She drew in a deep breath.  “You have to cut off a connection.  Someone that made your days brighter and made your heart warm.  And by doing that, you become a little bit more Other, don’t you?  A little more like Alpeana, maybe, who was cut off from her family.  Or the possible ways of becoming Faerie that Guilherme went over.  It doesn’t seem like you become Other as long as you’re tightly enmeshed with your family, friends, or neighbors… or your crushes.”

Avery turned, looking back toward the school.  Verona was still trudging up the hill.

“It just occurred to me,” Avery said, her back to Lucy, a bit of emotion in her voice, “that we have what?  Ten teachers?  People who’ll go over the Practice and the different places and the types of Other, and who’ll hand us gifts.  But there’s nobody really to go to for advice on this stuff.  We can’t trust any of them.”

“No,” Lucy said.  “Just each other, at least for now.”

“Which is why you want us as your backup.”

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, or what role I’m supposed to fill.  I’m not sure of much at all.  I really did walk away from that meeting with Pam thinking I’d done something good, and I thought it was selfless, because I gave her my first kiss in a way that ruined it a bit for me, but it made her happier and stronger.”

“I think, um,” Lucy said.  “If you’re starting out with deception… it’s not going anywhere great.”

“I feel a little sick.”

“I guess… how do I avoid getting entangled more?”

“You step back.  Be careful.  Think hard.  Maybe we get three-way consensus before any Faerie stuff.”

“If she says there’s nobody for you in Kennet, maybe the answer isn’t to challenge that or immediately ask if you can meet one of these people that aren’t for you, but to look elsewhere.”

“Long distance relationships?”

Avery nodded to herself, then made a face.  “Okay.  Alright.  Shit.  Ugh.  But okay.  I do feel bad for not watching out more.  I want to make it up to you, but I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t want to sound too much like a bitch,” Lucy said.  “But if you actually ask me to tell you what to do to make it up to me, and make that my burden or job, on top of everything, I might throw you in the nearest puddle.  I need you to put in that effort of figuring out.  Like I think Verona might be doing.”

Avery sighed.  “Is she going to be okay?”

“She does this, when things get tough.  Sometimes it’s a positive step away.  Sometimes she forgets stuff ever happens.  If Verona gave me permission, I could tell you what happened on her dad’s birthday last year, but I’m genuinely unsure if she even remembers it happened, or if she avoids the memory.”

“I really don’t know the deal with her dad.  But now I’m afraid to ask, after stepping on your toes about yours.”

“Nah.  He’s… you know that type of kid, who asks you to play a game he made up, and changes the rules when he’s losing, and throws tantrums, and makes everything about him?”

“Imagine that kid grown up, and he’s got a kid who kind of has to do what he says.”

“Oh.  Still not sure I get it.”

“It becomes clear once you meet the guy.  Like, I know I just said that I do a lot of the inviting over, and Verona doesn’t return the favor, but I don’t like going over because he’s there.”

Avery looked back in the direction of the school.

“Do you want to come over after school?” Avery asked.

Not especially, Lucy thought.  Her aunt was at her place, and she was actually looking forward to spending time with her.

But… she couldn’t slap away a hand that was extended like this.

“Who is even this guy?” Sheridan asked.

“What are you, four?” Lucy asked.

“What?” Sheridan asked, bewildered.

“Watch for a few more minutes and figure it out, or ask during the commercial,” Lucy cut in.  “Do you see your parents interrupting every few seconds?  Grow up.”

“Wow, Ave,” Sheridan said.  “Love your friend.  What a guest to bring over.”

“Try getting on my bad side,” Lucy said.

They were sitting around a dining room table, and even though the length of the table was pretty good, the amount of food ate up a lot of real estate, and the chairs were situated in a way that made it hard not to bump elbows.

Just being in the room with all these relatively strange people and the overlapping conversation was enough to get her heart rate up.  Then there was the combative approach the other kids had taken when Lucy and Avery had commented that they’d rather watch a show, and Lucy was stepping up to the plate on that as a matter of personal principle.  Little Kerry was just to Lucy’s right, doing a very bad job of reaching over her plate to hold a full glass.  Lucy was convinced that glass was going to tip over by the end of dinner.  Avery’s ‘grumble’ was getting help eating from Avery’s mom, and he kept making little choking sounds while swallowing.

Which would have been a lot, in sum total, but the hot food and the press of bodies made the humid room even muggier.

“Anyone want another burger?” Avery’s dad asked.  “Lucy?”

“No thank you.  It was good,” Lucy said.

“Me,” Rowan said.  “Thanks.”

Having to answer questions and get involved in conversations while keeping track of the television was another thing.

How did Avery have the energy for this and have the energy to do after school activities?

“I don’t understand the plot.  We couldn’t have watched Singfest Canada?” Sheridan asked.

“Yeah!” Kerry piped up.

“Singing’s been ruined for me,” Avery said.

“Wholeheartedly agreed.”

“It’s the commercial break,” Sheridan said.  “We could switch the channel over for a few minutes.”

“I know how that goes,” Avery said.  “You switch it and then you want to watch to the end of that performance, and hear the judging.”

“That’s just underhanded,” Lucy said.

“Then can someone give a recap of what’s happened so far this episode?  Because I think it expects you to watch the rest of the season,” Sheridan said.  “And if nobody understands what’s going on I don’t see why we’re watching it.”

“Yeah!” Kerry chimed in.

“I’m admittedly a little lost,” Avery’s dad said, from the back door.  It was open, which was letting a few bugs in.  The barbecue smoked in the background.

“It would be easier to follow if certain sixteen year old girls weren’t being rude and constantly interrupting it,” Lucy said, looking at Sheridan.

“I think you’re the one that’s being rude, coming into our home as a guest and being confrontational.”

“I’m responding to you.  Is that being confrontational?”

“That’s the definition of confrontational,” Sheridan said.

“Please, Sheridan,” Avery’s mom said.  “Dial it back, be nice.”

Sheridan protested, “Every day, right after school, Kerry gets the TV and watches her cartoons, then Declan has the TV and plays his games until six, when Grumble watches the six o’clock news, and then Declan plays more if there’s time for dinner.  Can’t this show be my thing?” Sheridan asked.

“And when do I get my thing?” Avery asked.

Declan piped up, “When you get taste and pick something at least half the people here can watch and understand.”

“I agree with Dec for once,” Sheridan said.

“Okay!”  Avery’s dad said.  “Okay.  Please.”

Avery’s mom had her fingers at her temples.

“We need some civility here, please.  I think it is entirely fair that a guest can pick what we watch when they come over,” Avery’s dad said.

“I’m going to bring over my friends every day,” Declan said.

“No you’re not,” Avery’s mom said.

“Within reason,” Avery’s dad said.

Kerry, sitting in a booster seat just to Lucy’s right, was slowly extending a hand toward the side of Lucy’s head.  The girl froze as Lucy looked at her.

Lucy, her hands still not entirely clean from finishing her burger, reached over with both hands, toward Kerry’s head.  Kerry looked confused, then disconcerted, shrinking back down and away.

Lucy stopped before actually making contact, and used a napkin to wipe at her fingers.

“Listen, since it seems like most of you have finished eating, and the rain has mostly let up, how about we make things in here a little more sane?  We need things from the store, and if I can get some volunteers, you can use the extra to buy ice cream bars.”

“Yes!  Me!” Declan said.

Avery looked at Lucy, then raised her hand.

“With Avery and Lucy going, I’m hearing two people who are out of our hair.  Do I hear three?  Coalition of three Kellys and guests?  You get enough to buy extra treats.  Three people, for some cash, free selection of junk food…”

“I don’t want to go with Avery and her friend,” Declan said.

“Still hearing two.  Two people, going once… going twice…”

“I want to watch my show,” Sheridan said.

“Me too,” Declan said.

“Two people,” Avery’s dad said, getting his wallet out.  “Thank you.”

“And we can change the channel,” Sheridan said, going for the remote.

Lucy walked around one end of the table.  Avery took the harder route, around the head of the table, hugging her grandfather and getting the money from her dad before finding her way around.  Sheridan backed her chair up an inch or two to get in Avery’s way.

“You’re more childish than some of the actual children at the table,” Lucy said.

“And you’re a jerk.”

“Not so much of a jerk right now as I am a bad influence,” Lucy said.

“What?” Sheridan asked.

Lucy discreetly pointed toward the pitcher of water with ice cubes.  She saw Avery’s look of recognition, then a look of internal debate.

“Avery,” Avery’s mom said, as Avery picked up the pitcher, which was only a quarter of the way full.  “Don’t you-”

Sheridan had realized what Avery was doing, but wasn’t in much of a position to react or stop her.  Avery pulled back Sheridan’s collar and dumped the ice water down around her back and front.  Sheridan shrieked.

“-dare!” Avery’s mom finished.

Cackling, Avery slipped past Sheridan, who had practically fallen out of her seat.  She deposited the pitcher on the coffee table in the living room as they ran through and out the front door, Sheridan’s cussing following them.

Avery kept jogging ahead, even past the point where they’d passed the end of the driveway and Sheridan hadn’t even appeared at the front door.  Lucy ran with until she had to call Uncle.

“I’m going to get in trouble for that.”

“Sorry if you do,” Lucy said.  “She deserved it.”

“I don’t know how you even stand all of that.”

“No choice in the matter,” Avery said.

“I’m getting a headache,” Lucy said.  “That may have shortened my lifespan.”

The rain was just a patter now.  Lucy flipped up her hood to be safe.  Heavy clouds had rolled in.

“What do we do next?” Avery asked.  “And I realize, on asking that, that it sounds like I’m putting that burden on you, to decide.  Are we really doing that all the time?”

“I don’t want you to second guess yourself all the time,” Lucy said.  “Especially if it makes you useless.”

“More useless,” Avery said.

“Enh,” Lucy said, with a one-shoulder shrug.

“That was super unconvincing.”

“I’m kidding.  I am.  Really, though, I don’t want you to be consumed with doubts.”

“Might be too late for that.”

“Just… prioritize what you’re doubting.  Try thinking out loud?” Lucy suggested.

“I want to go places.  That’s a want.  I don’t know how much it helps us solve the mystery or resolve the… you called it a debt, to Verona.”

“Because I think that’s something that she could think on and use,” Lucy said.

“Okay.  Solving the mystery so we don’t have that hanging over our heads.  And because it might be the right thing to do.”

“If it’s that powerful, that its absence is making all of Kennet bleed to our various Sights, then how much meat or sinew or fur or bone is there?  Is it possible that we could go to the right place and find a trail of evidence leading us to where it’s stashed?”

“If it were that easy, an Other might have pointed it out.”

“Unless they’re in on it,” Avery said.

They walked.  A car drove through puddles, but didn’t make splashes big enough to catch them on the sidewalk.  Rain drummed Lucy’s hood and slowly dampened Avery’s hair.  Avery ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it all back.

“I don’t like feeling weak,” Avery said.

“Me either,” Lucy said.

“Maybe we talk to Alpeana and the Goblins?  Get tools, get stronger?  I don’t think they’re as likely to mess with us as the Faerie are, even if the Faerie gifts are…”

Avery made a motion with her hands, to convey something inarticulate, like she was trying to mime ‘big’ and ‘many’ at the same time.

“Yeah,” Lucy said, “there’s a lot there, on a lot of levels.”

“Yeah.  How do other Practitioners get stronger?” Avery asked.  “Are there big steps?  Can we… I don’t know?  Is there a ritual to level up, in the eyes of the spirits?  I might have seen too many of Declan’s games and anime shows.”

“Maybe we ask Miss,” Lucy said.

They reached the convenience store.  Avery got out her phone, and started picking out the essentials.  Lucy went hunting for the jerky, then some select chocolate bars.  Salted chocolate, good stuff.

She went to the back for a drink.  The bell at the door binged, as someone entered.

She’d been on guard all day, since the Choir first thing.  The tension hadn’t quite left her, and it had only been alleviated a bit with her ‘bad influence’ move and Avery’s ice water.  She looked up at the little mirror that gave the person at the counter the ability to see people in the aisles.  She saw the man who walked through, stopping at the counter for a second.

“Decide on a drink?” Avery asked.

The man came through, down the aisle.  He stopped just around the corner, opening the fridge door to get milk.

“Remember what I said at lunchtime?” Lucy asked, quiet.

The man in the mirror looked up, his features warped by the domed reflection.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget.  What part?”

“About needing to cut loose,” Lucy said.  “And needing backup when I do something stupid.”

Lucy handed Avery the stuff she’d picked out.

The man was already heading to the counter.  Lucy followed.

“Uh!  Lucy!” Avery called out.

Lucy had moved her knife sheath and knife to the inside of her jeans waist after lunch, in anticipation of possibly running into the Choir or something else that was dangerous.  She drew it.

The man –Paul, she could see it for sure now- set the milk on the counter, said something brief to the guy there, and went straight out the door.

“Paul!” Lucy called out, running after him.  “Hey!  Paul!  Why are you running!?”

Paul beeped his car door open, and opened it, climbing inside.

She closed the distance, threw herself onto the hood, and then brought the point of the knife against the hood.

“Coward,” she mouthed the word, dragging the knife’s point a quarter inch against the paint.

She saw his eyes widen.  He opened the door.

He was a skinny guy, white, his graying black hair short, his beard short.  Wrinkles were permanently set across his forehead.  He wore a short sleeved button-up shirt with a vague plaid pattern, and khaki pants with sandals.

“Hey, Paul,” she said.  She slid down the hood, but kept the knife’s point against the hood.

Avery and the guy from the convenience store counter stepped outside.

“Put the knife away, Lucy,” he said.

“I wanted to talk.  Why were you running?”

“Please, put the knife away.”

“Please, Paul, engage with me,” she said.

“What’s going on here?” The guy from the convenience store asked.

“They know each other, I think,” Avery said.  She still had the stuff from the store, which meant she was technically shoplifting.

“It’s complicated,’ Paul said.

“Paul here doesn’t want to explain,” Lucy said, “and neither does anyone else in my life.  It’s the damndest thing.”

“This isn’t you,” he said.

“You don’t know me anymore, Paul.  So this guy, he’s the one who dated my mom,” she explained, for Avery’s benefit, and to explain to the clerk.  “Five years.  My dad died when I was young, and my mom was single for a while, and then after a few months of dating, she brought Paul over.  And he kind of stuck around.  Five years!”

“You’re coming across as unhinged.”

“I’m pissed, Paul!” she raised her voice.  “I’ve been sitting on this for years.  So you gotta help me out here.  Have a conversation with me.  Give me that closure.”

“Put the knife away,” he said.  “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“I’m still a little confused, Luce,” Avery said.  “And a little spooked.”

“This guy, Paul, he was almost like a dad to me.  Got Booker through his teen years.  Was sweet to my mom, helped with the chores, helped with finances.  They got engaged, bought a house together.”

“I am sorry,” Paul said.

“And then he- you decided you’d rather suck on your own mother’s tits instead of my mom’s, right?” Lucy asked.  “Is that how it goes?”

Paul’s confusion was palpable.

“And… I’m going inside,” the clerk said.  “Do you want me to call the cops?  Paul?”

“Yeah,” Paul said.  He wouldn’t meet Lucy’s eyes.

The bell on the door rang as the clerk hauled it open, stepping inside.  He was still watching through the window.

“You ran, Paul.  You left.  You didn’t even say goodbye to us, after being like a dad for five years.  You bailed.  You gutless coward.”

She scratched the car again.  Longer this time.

She saw Paul reach out, like he was going to try to stop her.  Then his arm dropped.  He remained where he as, standing between his car seat and the open car door.

“Do you know the kind of hurt you left our family with, leaving like that?  How much it hurt Booker?  Or that I saw my mom with a look in her eyes, that night you took your stuff and left, and she was so devastated that it devastated me?” Lucy asked.

A pained look crossed his face.  He looked away.

“Come on, Paul.  At least look at me.  At least acknowledge what I’m saying.  You could speak up and participate in this conversation.  Give me something, besides some really shitty life lessons.  I don’t think there’s much you could say that would make me respect you less than I do right now.”

For a moment, she thought he was going to say something.  He didn’t.

“You had the good life.  You obviously cared about each other.  You obviously cared about Booker and me.  When you bailed, that taught me a few things, like how you can be super nice, giving, fair, communicative, you can show respect, you can be thoughtful, you can be fun… and you still get dicked over.  And you know, for me, that was the start of seeing a lot of ugliness from a lot of people.  And for so long, even with you, especially with you… I blamed myself.”

“No,” he said.  “I-”

“You what?” she asked.  “Come on.  Do more than stand there.  Talk.  Explain and do more than leave me to fill in the blanks.”

“It’s not necessarily the kind of thing you can put into words.  Sometimes relationships don’t work out.”

“Bull!” she raised her voice.  “No, bull.  Because I saw it work.  I was paying attention, because to me, when I was eight, nine, ten years old, you and my mom were what I wanted to be.  You were good to each other and for each other.  That’s why I was so confused.  That’s why you have this look on your face, like you shit in your bed and you’re lying in it, and you can’t own up to the reality.”

He looked down at the damage she’d already done to his car hood.

“There’s a pattern I’ve noticed,” Lucy said.  “A kid nearly drowns me and I have to puzzle out why.  Why me in particular?  Why single me out?  What did he want?  A teacher treats me like he thinks I’m dumb, when all I’ve done is get good marks in his class.  And I have to weigh all the questions and possibilities.  It could be this.  It could be that.  My gym teacher gets on my case.  Same thing.”

“I’m sorry that happened.”

“Don’t apologize,” she told him.  “Not unless it’s for what you did to my family.  Because I don’t think my mom has ever been one hundred percent okay since you left.  And she’s terrified of Booker and me finding out your reasons… and it’s not because she did something wrong, is it?  She didn’t cheat, she didn’t steal from you or whatever.”

“The only way what happened with you and my mom makes sense, with the sequence of events, the way you pulled away and then left… is if I think back to meeting your family.  And your brother and your mom would say stuff when they didn’t think others could hear.  In these scandalized whispers… ‘those children don’t look like they’re yours’.  ‘People will wonder’.”

Lucy blinked a few times.

“Your family pressured you, they gave you crap.  Your mom wanted you to have a nice white wife and they never had a nice word to say about my mom, who never did a single thing wrong.  And you caved.  You fought with my mom about it, and then you got your stuff and you left.  Because somehow that was easier.  You’d rather be a mama’s boy than be my dad.”

Avery made a sound, off to Lucy’s right.  Lucy flinched.

“All my life, there’s been these big question marks.  Some teachers, some classmates, some boys at the lake, comments from strangers.  If my mom can’t get work because her name isn’t white enough.  And there’s usually these really easy explanations I could turn to.  Could it be this?  Or are they racist?  Could it be that?  Or are they hateful, or ignorant, or that fucking pathetic?” Lucy asked.  Her eyes were damp, her chin and neck rigid.  “And then there’s you.  This one big exclamation point.  One thing that makes sense in why you left our family.  And I think I could actually find my way to forgiving you if you actually admitted it out loud.  Give me this one.  One time I can be sure, and I can put it to rest.  Or give me another explanation.  Any other explanation would be better than wondering.”

“I really do wish you and Jasmine and Booker the best,” he said.

“Don’t you dare disengage and walk away from this,” she said.  “Or you deserve every bad thing that life brings to you, you deserve every person you meet to see through you to the coward you really are.”

“Suck on your mom’s tits forever, get evicted from wherever you are and live in her basement forever!” she raised her voice, dragging the knife’s edge across the hood, back and forth.  “Unless you own up to what happened or you right the wrongs done.  I hope you get weird boners looking at your mom, because that shrew is the only woman you deserve at this point, you pathetic excuse for a human being!  When you die I want it to be unmarried, alone, and unfulfilled, because you gave up on better!  I said it three times and I could say it over your grave.  Coward!”

The car pulled away, careful at first, and the knife’s edge dragged against the hood.  When she almost had a grip, like she could hang on, he pulled away faster.  She landed, and the bottom corner of the knife nearest to the handle cut into the side of her palm.

He stopped, and for a moment, she thought that getting hurt would be what got him out.  Brought him back.

She slammed her hand against the scratches on the hood, and blood spattered.  “Let the car mechanic ask you about that.”

He pulled away, then turned, to get to where he could pull onto the road.

“You deserve it all, because you wronged my mom!  You shattered her happiness!” she called out after him.  “You wronged my brother!”

Avery came to her side, kneeling beside her.  Avery took her hand, turning it over.

“I don’t have anything with me for this,” Avery said.  “I could use my shirt, but I’m not sure it’s sanitary.”

“I didn’t know what to do or say, so I kept an eye on the guy at the counter.  To make sure he wasn’t calling anyone.  If he did, I could’ve broken the connection.”

“It’s okay,” Lucy said.

“Do you think Paul is going to call cops?”

“He’s too much of a coward,” Lucy said.

“You should put pressure on it.”

Lucy did, pressing her hand hard against the side of her other hand.

“Do you want- I think we should get you a doctor.  To get that stitched up.”

“No.  I have stuff at my house.  I’m going to go back.  Check in with my aunt.”

“You asked for backup and I think this moment is really the kind of moment where backup is most needed and necessary,” Avery said.

“I don’t want backup.  I don’t want company.”

“Please,” Lucy said.  She climbed from her knees to her feet, which was awkward when she couldn’t use her hands.

“Avery,” Lucy cut in, her voice hard.  Her eyes damp, she looked her friend in the eyes.  “This isn’t the time to be butt-head stubborn about stuff.  No.  I want to go, you should get the stuff for your family.  Ice cream bars.  Deal with the punishment for icing Sheridan.”

“Icing, god, if only.  Ice-watering,” Avery said, without smiling.  “That doesn’t matter.”

Lucy talked, looking at the roads and trying to orient herself.  “Tomorrow’s another day.  We’ll do practice stuff, see how Verona has processed.  Work with that.  Maybe go someplace weird.  It might be nice to find out something for Reagan, since tomorrow night’s the next thing for the Choir.”

“I don’t think any of that matters much right now, Lucy.”

“I’m going.  Don’t follow,” Lucy said.

Lucy pushed back Avery’s hand, and she walked, hands pressed together.

After she’d walked two blocks in a straight line down the road, she looked back.  Avery was still there, at the convenience store.  Watching.

Which wasn’t technically following.

It was only after she’d walked another two blocks that she heard the soft clapping.

“Good show,” Toadswallow said, from the shadows of one ditch.  It wasn’t quite dark out.

“Get bent, Toadswallow,” Lucy said.  “I wasn’t putting on a show for your benefit.”

“You did good.  That was top fucking notch,” Toadswallow said.

“Wheee!” Cherry piped up.

“Maybe don’t piss off the girl who’s still got a knife and who just demonstrated she has no patience left,” she said.

Munch kept pace with her, walking on his knuckles, loping forward.  He moved through front yards, keeping to the shadows by bushes and fixtures.   “Lucille?”

“Don’t call me Lucille,” she said.

“You introduced yourself to us all as Lucille-”

“I frigging know I did,” she said.  “Again, don’t test my patience.”

“Okay,” he said, like the ‘oke’ and the ‘ay’ were two different words.  “Do you want us to destroy him?  This Paul?”

She kept walking, her eyes fixed forward.  Her hand throbbed.

She seriously considered it.

“No,” she said.  “I think I did a pretty good job.”

“Do you want us to let you know, my dear?” Toadswallow asked.  “I’m interested to see how life treats him now.”

“I’m done with him,” Lucy said.  “A part of me wanted him back.  Until tonight.  Not now.  I don’t want to hear or see anything about him.  I’ll get angry at you if you tell me anything.  Or if you do anything to him.  Let him sit with what he got tonight.”

“Dear me,” Toadswallow said.  “I don’t want to get on your bad side, so I won’t.”

“Finally,” Lucy answered, her voice airy.  She stared off in the direction of her house.  “Someone gets it.”

“Want something for the bleeding?” Toadswallow asked.

“I want to be left alone while I walk home,” she said.  “Go.”

When she finally took her eyes off the road, the goblins were gone.

The rest of the way home was quiet, which was merciful.

It made it easier to hold herself together.

She let herself in with her key, and then the tears started flowing.

“Lucy,” her aunt said, from the other room.  “I was wondering what movie-”

Her aunt stepped into view.

Lucy went to her aunt, hugging her- clutching her and probably getting blood on her shirt, and began to sob.  When Lucy fell to her knees, her aunt dropped down with her.

“Don’t tell my mom,” Lucy managed.