Pale: 2.5 - Avery
Author: Wildbow

Avery

“How’s it going over there?” Ms. Hardy asked.

“It’s going okay.  Hi Ms. Hardy,” Aubrey said.

“Stop hesitating, Faith!” Mr. Bader shouted.

Avery stood at one corner of the field with two of her teammates, Audrey and Aubrey, twins from a grade above her.  They were were doing Mr. Bader’s Three Goal challenge, and for the process to go smoothly, the girls who weren’t playing defense or running point were doing their best to keep the balls in bounds, or give out balls.

Three small goals had been set up in a triangle, with a player on defense at each goal.  One player had to take a ball, navigate through the cones in the center, get past the defense, score, pivot, and repeat.  Three times in total.  It was supposed to drill them on responding quickly.

Ms. Hardy was on the other side of the fence that separated the field from the parking lot, holding a cardboard box under one arm, the bottom edge resting on her hip.  Her eyes, half-lidded and decorated with eyeliner Avery thought of as almost Egyptian style, were scanning the field.

Avery wished she could be that casually cool.

“Did you get fired?” Audrey asked.

Avery looked in alarm at the little cardboard box.

But Ms. Hardy chuckled.  “No.  Don’t worry.  Classwork to go over this weekend.”

“Going home a bit earlier today, then?” Avery asked.

“Shoot.  I was hoping to swing by for a minute after practice, ask for advice on something.”

“Is it important?  Can it wait until Monday?” Ms. Hardy asked.

“Not too important, I don’t think, and yeah,” Avery said, shrugging.  “I guess.”

A spattering of wet droplets came down from the sky, prompting Avery to look up.  If it was going to rain, the weather was really doing its level best to sneak up on them.  A heavy cloud cover, but no real hint of the actual rain starting.

The air was hot, making it uncomfortable to breathe.

“Faster, Faith!” Mr. Bader barked.  “I’d rather see you make a mistake than freeze!  You can learn from a mistake, but if you freeze you’re holding the rest of us up!”

Ms. Hardy said, “Mr. Lai is going to meet me in the parking lot Monday morning and help me move some things for a home project into my car, if you wanted to swing by and chat with the two of us.”

“It can’t be one-on-one?”

“Not typically, no.  I do trust Mr. Lai and I think you can too, if that helps.  If you’d rather it was a group of other students, we could do that at lunchtime on Monday.  Depending on what you wanted to talk about, I’m sure I could round up some students.”

“Okay,” Avery said.  “Probably not that.  I might think on it over the weekend and show up on Monday.”

“Sounds good,” Ms. Hardy said.  “Offer for the lunch meet stands.”

A ball was kicked over in their direction.

“I got it, you talk,” Audrey said, running after it.

Avery knew who those students at the lunch meet might be.  Three of the boys in her class, a couple of others in school.

It was a bit frustrating.  Avery considered the time she’d opened up to Ms. Hardy about her loneliness to be a life changing moment.  A few quiet questions from this cool, caring teacher and she’d broken down, opened up about everything.  Her teacher had listened, considered, connected, and cared.

But ever since, they hadn’t really had one-on-one talks.  Bits of advice, yes, but always brief.  Or slightly longer talks, if Ms. Hardy was going somewhere or Avery was going somewhere, and they happened to cross paths.  If the conversation continued for more than a couple of minutes, Avery got this.  The deflection, the guardedness of it, where Ms. Hardy would want to make it a group discussion instead.  Mr. Lai had a gay brother and was Ms. Hardy’s friend, so he was usually the person there.  Ms. Hardy and Mr. Lai had something like a general LGBT student group where Ian, Justin, and Noah from her class and a larger group of the older teenagers and their friends would go talk with the teachers as referees.

Avery didn’t even really like Ian and Noah, felt iffy on Justin, and being around the older teenagers made her feel like she was sitting through dinner with her family, except she didn’t even know them or feel any familiarity.  She’d gone once and didn’t feel eager to go again.  It wasn’t what she wanted or needed.

She wanted the one-on-one time with Ms. Hardy, but she did understand what Ms. Hardy had said about the boundaries teachers had to maintain with students.  That didn’t mean it didn’t suck butt.

It was why she’d been so happy to talk for more than a few minutes with Ms. Hardy, last week.  Touching base, even if it was a bit clinical.  How are things with your family?  Are you managing with class?

“Focus, Melissa!  We need you here on Earth, not in la-la land!”

“I could hear him from my desk in the classroom at the second floor,” Ms. Hardy said.

“It’s not so bad,” Avery said.

“Does he raise his voice to you?”

“He’s a good coach,” Aubrey added.

“Makes sense,” Ms. Hardy said.  “He had some background.”

Audrey had fetched the ball, kicking it over to one of the players on defense.  The player maneuvered the ball to sit beside their little netted goal.  She jogged up to join them.

“He’s really good when it comes to training us in groups of two or three, when it’s just a couple of us who’re wanting to get really polished at something,” Avery said.  “He’s good as a coach like this.  But as a gym teacher…”

“Hey,” Audrey said.  “He’s fine.”

“I don’t know if he knows how to deal with the students who don’t give a crap,” Avery said.

“That, I can say, is never easy,” Ms. Hardy said.

She thought of Lucy yesterday.  The sheer emotion.

A few months ago, Ms. Hardy had reached out and Avery had broken down.  The dam had cracked and everything had poured out.  It had needed to happen.  It had been important.  It had been healthier in the long run.  The dam wasn’t supposed to be there.

And… Lucy hadn’t had a Ms. Hardy, she supposed.

In her analogy, she wasn’t sure if Lucy was building up the dam herself, dropping rocks on top, or if she’d gone hacking at it, knife in hand, with enough intensity that she’d accidentally cut herself.

“I think he gives some of my friends a harder time than others,” Avery noted, watching the girls play.

“Avery!” Mr. Bader shouted.  She jumped despite herself.

She felt her face heat up as she ran.  Mr. Bader threw a ball, and she bumped it with her chest, then the side of her leg, turning to follow it.  Through the posts, straight at Melissa, who had taken up roost by one goal, playing goalie more than she was playing defense.

Melissa wasn’t allowed to use her hands, though.

Avery paused, seeing if she could bait Melissa out.

“Don’t dally!” Mr. Bader called out.

Avery drew back, feinted, then kicked hard.  The goal was small, barely two strides across, and the soccer ball bounced off the side.

“I know you can do better than that!”

She felt the flush at her face as Faith kicked the ball out to the side.  Part of the exercise was to score when approaching from odd angles, and Avery decided to apply that, approaching the goal from the side.  Faith met her halfway.  Avery dribbled around Faith, put her body firmly between Faith and the ball, and kept it there until the little goal was just to her left and she could let the ball roll in without much of a kick.

Last ball, last player, last goal.  Avery met the ball, then went at the goal hard.

She wasn’t much of a player when it came to accuracy.  Not in basketball, not in soccer, and not even really in hockey, which was her favorite sport.

But she was comfortable with her handling of the soccer ball or puck.  She decided to play to her strengths.  Run fast, keep that ball right where she wanted it, as she ran toward Samantha, and maintained control of it as she slipped past Samantha.  She saw Samantha stick her foot out and adjusted her own footing.  Samantha’s cleat scraped against her shin guard, but it didn’t tap the ball.

She dribbled the ball into the goal.

“I want to see you practicing shooting, Avery!  I didn’t take hours of my day last week to give my forwards shooting practice, just for one of you to pretend it’s not a thing!”

She nodded her acknowledgement, huffing, and bent forward with her hands on her knees.  Her skin prickled with sweat and the ambient warmth.  Samantha vacated the goal, leaving Avery in position as defense.

Aubrey was already done trouncing Melissa.  Avery waited for Aubrey to get to her, removing the ball from the goal and kicking it toward the collection of balls by Mr. Bader.

Ms. Hardy was talking to Aubrey’s sister.  Avery watched Ms. Hardy leave.

Aubrey handily dealt with Melissa, then Faith.  Aubrey had a good kick, with killer accuracy.

Avery watched as Mr. Bader punted the ball over the girl’s head.  She did the opposite of what Melissa had done, and headed straight for her opponent.  She paused for a moment to let her get the ball, then immediately went for it, not giving Aubrey the time to get centered, set her eyes on the goal, or shoot.

Aubrey tried to feint, and Avery claimed the ball, kicking it back toward Mr. Bader.

“Good, Avery!  We need to work on that, Aubrey!”

Faith vacated her spot so Aubrey could take up position.  Aubrey didn’t, though.  She paused.  “Hey?”

“Don’t badmouth Mr. Bader to other adults, okay?  It’s pure luck we got a guy who can coach at all.  I don’t know if you remember Mrs. Burke last year but-”

“I wasn’t around last year.”

“She was a mom who volunteered and she barely knew the first thing about soccer.  I know it’s not your sport either, you’re a hockey girl, but some of us are counting on doing well enough here that we can put it on our applications and use it to get into a half-decent school.”

People were already thinking about applying to schools?  Wasn’t that like, three or four years away?

“I’m a soccer player too,” Avery said.  “And I didn’t say anything untrue.  He was kind of a dick to my friend.”

“Get in position, Aubrey!”

“‘Kind of’ isn’t good enough, okay?  If he breaks an actual rule, and you have proof, fine, I guess.”

“Proof like what?  Should I secretly bring my phone with me to gym class and practice, and record stuff?”

“You should keep from saying unsubstantiated stuff you’re not sure about, with ‘I think’s and ‘kind of’s, when rumors spread and it’s his career and our team on the line.”

Aubrey started jogging to her spot.  Avery jogged with to maintain the conversation.

“Isn’t it better if we say something so it can be fixed?”

“This isn’t social time, ladies!”

“Not when the obvious fix is canceling the team, suspending him for a while or replacing him.  My mom’s on the school board and they always take the easy way.”

“Avery!” Mr. Bader said.  One word, harder than before.  He pointed.

She jogged back to her position, arriving just as the ball was thrown for Aubrey’s twin sister.

She worried there’d be a reaction or a continuation of the conversation, as she foiled Audrey and claimed the ball.  Instead, there was just a tight smile, and then Audrey went over to replace Melissa.

Audrey wasn’t very good, in contrast to her sister.  Maybe that was why she didn’t seem to care as much.  There was a possibility that the two girls would talk and there’d be more said about it next practice, though.

Avery wasn’t really sure what else to do about it.

She’d spent a lot of time last night, mulling over Lucy and her situation.  What it would be like.  What she could do.

Lucy angrily telling her and Verona how she felt like she had no backup.  How easily and casually she had offered Avery some of that backup at the dinner table.

She wasn’t sure whether she felt glad she’d done this, felt like it wasn’t enough, or felt like she’d made things worse with her team.

Which maybe kinda fit with what Lucy had described.  Not ever knowing.

Avery did her three ‘defends’, then vacated the goal.  Mr. Bader set her the task of rounding up the balls and stuffing them into bags.  Aubrey got the balls from the other end of the field, kicking them over one by one, while her sister stopped them and rounded them up.

There were no more comments.

Mr. Bader called the end to practice, and the girls split up.  Maybe a third headed for the showers in the school.  The rest headed to the parking lot, where parents had started to gather, or just started on their way home.

Avery’s dad stood by the car.  She could see the back seat was full, and Grumble was in the passenger seat.  She jogged over.

“Ever think about doing cross-country?”

Avery’s classmate was sweating more than most.  Probably having that crimped hair she had barely cut since she was in grade three was acting to partially insulate her.  Even pulled back into a high ponytail, it draped her shoulders and neck.

“Because your aim isn’t really that hot, but man I’m jealous of how fast you are.”

“I don’t really like running for running’s sake.  It doesn’t feel like there’s much of a point.”

“Ok.  I was just figuring.”

She didn’t really ‘get’ Melissa.

“Good practice?” Avery’s dad asked.

He moved to hug her, and she protested, “I’m sweaty.”

And it’s weird getting a dad hug in front of everyone.

“I don’t care,” he said.  He extended his arms.

She gave him a perfunctory hug.  “Where do I sit?”

“You’re going to have to squeeze.”

“Can I sit in the far back?” she asked.  The car was a hatchback sedan, with a spacious back storage area.

“Not allowed.  There’s no seat belts back there.”

The back seat had Kerry strapped into her car seat, Declan in the middle seat with his handheld game thing, and Sheridan, who kind of wasn’t equipped to cede much seat space, either in terms of willingness and personality, or in terms of her fat butt.

Avery squeezed past Kerry, the toes of Kerry’s shoes dragging against her side, making her soccer jersey dirty when the whole of soccer practice hadn’t.

“Eww, you’re sweaty.”

“So are you,” Avery said.  Her kid sister’s hair was plastered to her head.  “What are you eating?  That smells awful.”

“Let me know when you’re buckled in,” her dad said.

“They smell-” Avery had to fight to get in beside Declan, who didn’t take his eyes off his game or help in the slightest, “-almost like cough syrup, juice that’s been sitting on the counter overnight, and faintly of musty butt.”

“Delicious cough juice butt,” Kerry said, her mouth so full of chewy purple candy she could barely speak or keep the chewed candy in bounds.

“How would you know what butt smells like?  Smelling a lot of musty butts, Avery?”

“I have to smell you most days, Sheridan.”

Kerry waved the bag toward Avery’s face.  Avery pulled back, almost headbutting Declan.

“Get out of my face, Avery!” Declan said, his voice rising in pitch, like he was standing on a cliff’s edge.  His eyes didn’t leave the screen.

“Move over, and I won’t be so in your way.”

She found her space between him and the car seat, not that it was much of one.  The hard plastic of Kerry’s kid seat scraped and jabbed.  Then she had to fight to find the socket to plug the seatbelt into, while Declan bumped her with his hip a few times, trying to lay claim to a bit more seat real estate.  When she leaned over toward him to get more length on the seat belt, he dug his elbow into her side.  She kicked his leg with the side of her cleats in retaliation.

“Ugh.  You’re slippery, so gross,” Declan protested.  He pulled right, away from her.  “Who said girls don’t sweat?  You leave a slime trail wherever you go.”

“How wrong you are.  We don’t sweat or play video games,” Sheridan said.  She touched something on the screen.  “See?”

“Nooo!  No!  What did you do?  I didn’t want to use him!”

“Lower your voice, Declan,” their dad said.

“My game!  I’ve been playing that for two hours, you fat bitch!”

“Ohh!” Kerry chimed in, digging into the bag of candy.  “You shouldn’t say that!”

“You shouldn’t be playing a video game for two hours to begin with, and don’t call your sister names,” Avery’s dad said.

“I should get to call her names when she dragged my silver-white onto the battlefield in the warning round!  I needed that for the boss!”

He was being so loud Avery had to cover her ear.

“I will take away your advance gear if you don’t calm down and apologize for calling your sister names.”

“She messed up my game!”

“Should have saved,” Sheridan said.

“You don’t save in this game!  Oh my god, I can’t win now!”

“You’re very busy losing actually…” Avery’s dad said.  “…privileges to your console.”

They hadn’t left the parking space.

Avery fended off the bag of grape apes that was being waved at her face.  The artificial grape smell of it was thick in her mouth and nose.

“Can I like, not be in this car?” Avery asked.  “I could run home.  I might even be able to get home before this entire thing is settled.”

She mentally defined ‘settled’ as the end of hostilities between Declan and Sheridan.  She could probably run five laps around Kennet and solve the Carmine Beast thing solo before those two laid down arms.

“We were going to go get fast food,” Avery’s dad said.  “Your mom has a work thing in Thunder Bay.  I’m not up to cooking.  Stay seated.”

“No, Avery.  You ducked out on dinner early, but if you keep leaving mid-meal, skipping family dinners, or going away for weekends, you’re going to end up a feral child.  Stay seated.  And Declan, if you can’t give me the console and apologize in the next minute, you’ll lose all game privileges.”

Declan was crying now.  Droplets fell onto the screen, and he did his best to wipe them away without pressing anything or activating anything on the touchscreen.

Kerry stuck the bag in Avery’s face, a look on her face like she thought this was a game.  Avery snatched the bag from her six year old sister’s hand.

Then, seeing the shock on Kerry’s face, quickly folded and rolled up the top of the bag, and pressed it into Kerry’s lap.  “Stop.  Please, Kerry.  It smells so bad.”

“I was so close to winning,” Declan whined.

“This is hell,” Sheridan said.  “Living with this is hell.”

“You’re not making it any easier!” Declan said, through tears.  Then he reached out and grabbed at Sheridan’s side, twisting and pinching.

Avery saw Kerry’s face, going from the earlier shock to a tearless sniveling, like she was fighting the urge to get upset and break down into wailing.

And then it was just noise and infighting.

“How are you doing, Grumble?” Avery asked, over the noise, as her dad reached in her and Declan’s direction, trying to take the game from Declan’s hands.

Grumble said something unintelligible, and made a stiff so-so gesture, hand flat and waggling.

Sheridan, being pinched and grabbed at, popped her seat belt, opened the door, and escaped the car.

“Get back in the car!” Avery’s dad ordered.

“I’m going to walk home.  I’ll buy dinner with my own money.”

“No no no,” Declan protested.  Their dad had a firm grip on one half of the handheld console.  “My friends are playing and I told them I’d win one by tomorrow.”

“Sheridan, you’re in trouble too.  There was no call to take his game from him.”

“I didn’t take his game.  Punish me later.  It can’t be worse than having to spend the next half hour doing drive-thru.”

Avery popped her own seat belt, escaping past Kerry to the other door.

“Avery- Okay, you know what?  You two watch each other.  Stick together, come straight home.  Sheridan, we’ll talk about your punishment when you’re home.”

“I was thinking I’d see my friends,” Avery said.

“I think that’s exactly what I didn’t want to happen this weekend.  I’d like to show your mom that if she has to keep going back there, she can trust me to keep a handle on things.”

“Let Rowan-” Avery paused as Kerry raised her voice, protesting about being hungry.  “Let Rowan do his thing with his girlfriend.  Declan could go to his friends, I’ll go hang with my friends.  They said I’m welcome.  If it keeps things more sane…”

“She’s not wrong,” Sheridan chimed in.

“I wanted this to be an actual trial run, it’s- Declan, please quiet down.”

“My friend’s going through a hard time, I think,” Avery said.

“I don’t- Kerry.  Okay.  Fine.  Stay in contact by phone.  Let me know what you’re doing.”

“Bye Grumble,” Avery said.  “Love you.”

“Love yeh,” he mumbled back.

“I love you too.  Kerry, please!  I told you you could only have a treat if you behaved-!”

Avery backed away from the car, then started walking in the general direction of the Burger Bin.  She pulled out her phone.

“Why are you walking beside me?” Sheridan asked.

“I’m walking in the direction of the Burger Bin, you?” Avery asked, still looking at the phone.

Avery texted a quick message to Lucy.

“What’s this thing with your friend having a hard time?” Sheridan asked.

“Are you asking because you actually care?” Avery asked, putting her phone away.

“She ran into her ex-stepdad yesterday.  He bailed on them five years ago.  She kinda flipped, did a number on his car.”

“I’m not sure if it’s a ‘go her’ moment.  It was more sad than anything.  She had a bunch to say about the way people have been treating her in general.  Like my coach.”

“This is the black one?”

Avery gave Sheridan a look.

“What?  Is it racist to ask that?  Genuine question, because I don’t know.  And I don’t keep track of your friend’s names.”

“It’s Lucy, yeah.  I was going to ask one of my teachers…” Avery trailed off, checking her phone.

Lucy.  It was a ‘no’ on coming over.  She was doing dinner with her aunt and mom.

She hadn’t even wanted to talk about it earlier in the day.  Avery felt the gulf.

“You were going to ask your teacher what?”

“Some stuff in general.  About friendships and maintaining friends and… it’d be nice to ask about team stuff because I might have messed that up just before you guys picked me up, and I’m kind of on a team with those two, and I dunno.  It’d be nice to have some perspective.  I thought I’d ask her about dating advice and programs, but… that’d be dumb.”

“Which teacher?  The one who talked to mom and dad?  Black hair, intense makeup?”

“You realize she’s a cat lady, right?  And there’s rumors about her?  You might want to go somewhere else for your dating advice.”

“She really helped me out the one time,” Avery said.  “She’s given me advice before, and it was good.  She’s cool.”

“It was pretty funny how she totally freaked out mom and dad on an existential level.”

“I don’t think it was existential.”

“Your existence, anyway.  They’re like, oh shit, Avery exists!”

“That quite wasn’t how it happened.”

“Nah.  It happened to me too.  They were busy figuring out all the firsts with Rowan, like, he was their first teenager, their first kid who had to deal with high school, who had to deal with school administration, who wanted to go to summer camp… and then you guys start appearing.  And here I am, just chewing on the popcorn, waiting until I’ve got a space of my own, and then I lose space as Kerry moves in.”

“You’re too nice about stuff.  It’s why I give you a hard time, try to shake you out of this little rut you’ve dug for yourself.”

“I don’t think it helps like you think it does.”

“Maybe.  Well, can’t give you much advice on that stuff you want to ask your teacher,” Sheridan said.  “I don’t have any friends.  Or teams, or hobbies, or anything I really care about all that much.  A boyfriend would be so nice, but dating advice?  Pshh.”

Avery gave her sister a sidelong look.

“Don’t pity me or anything.  I’m not unhappy.  Life’s fine.  It’s just dull and super annoying when you’re whining, or Declan’s being noisy, or Kerry clings.  One more year of classes and then I can apply to a shitty University somewhere, I’ll figure out what I want to do with my life in my freshman year at Uni like mom, dad, Grumble and Gran did, and then my life finally starts.”

“Looking forward to that.”

“To getting rid of me?” Sheridan asked the question with a bit of an accompanying snort.

“A little bit,” Avery said.  “And also looking forward to you maybe finding something to do that you’re interested in, that isn’t making the rest of us miserable.  Picking on me, messing up Declan’s game.”

“We can dream,” Sheridan said.  “That was a little funny, though, right?”

Avery made a face, and a so-so gesture, mostly to keep the conversation with Sheridan tolerable.

“From the way he made it sound, I accidentally messed him up in the perfect way.  Maybe it’s a special skill.”

“What career would even come of that?  Do you end up Sheridan, master of international espionage?”

“That’s not a career, you little loser.”

“Gonna text my friend, and if I can go over or do something with her, I should be out of your hair tonight,” Avery said.  “Do me a favor and don’t let me walk into traffic while I’m typing?”

Avery sent a message to Verona.

Is it ok if I come over for a while after dinner? Grabbing a burger at the Bin.

The reply came back fairly fast:

Bring me one?  And fries?  I’ll pay you back.  & can you stay over?  I was thinking we should do the last few interviews.

Verona, dwelling on the interviews and the investigation.

Burg might be cold by time I get there.

Microwaves exist.  No prob.

But… there was the invitation to stay over.

I want to listen, Avery thought to herself.

When Lucy expressed her reservations about Mr. Bader.  When people warned them about the Faerie.  When people warned them about the danger of the Choir, and how strong it was.  Told them to not get involved.

The little regrets were stacking up.

And she’d been told to be careful with Verona’s dad.  That he was weird.  She typed out her reply:

Will me staying over be ok with your dad and all?  He’s…?

She sent it like that.  If she started reconsidering every message, she’d never send everything.  Verona’s reply was one word:

Verona’s sent another message right after.  Sheridan poked Avery in the side of the head, to steer her around a gully in the sidewalk.

“Thank you,” Avery murmured, looking up from the screen.  “Being a good big sister as a change, hm?”

“Keep talking like that and I won’t steer you around the next one.”

She read Verona’s reply.

Might be uncomfortable but not unbearable.
It’s easier to go out tonight if we’re at my place.

She told Verona she would stay over.

The microwave hummed as Verona’s fries heated up.  Avery couldn’t understand how she could eat them like that, when the microwave would change consistency, texture, moisture…

She ate some of her own fries.  She’d rather have them cold than eat them post-microwave.  It was mostly about the salt, anyway.

It was a late hour to be finishing dinner, about fifteen past eight.  Avery had stopped in at her house for two minutes to change clothes, and had arrived late, bearing a lukewarm burger and cold fries for Verona.

Verona’s house was so quiet.

There was no television on that Avery could hear.  No A.C., no chatter.  Verona didn’t fill the silence, as she peered in through the microwave door.  The neighbors were too distant to be audible.

The house was about the same size as Lucy’s, and both were a little smaller than Avery’s.  But, like… one parent and one kid in each of their homes, compared to Avery’s place where there were eight people, eight people’s stuff, and the little assistance features for Grumble that took up that extra space.

More than the quiet, it felt dark.  It was hard for her to identify why.  The curtains were a little more drawn in, at the edges of windows; Verona had said her dad got migraines and had come home with a bit of a headache.  So that made sense.  But it didn’t account for all of it.  It was in the color of furniture, where there weren’t many solid reds, or yellows, or blues.  It might have been the angle of the house, where the sun shone in through the side, rather than the front.

It might have been the mood.  The two of them not really talking, and Verona’s dad as this big unknown that hadn’t even introduced himself.  He was just upstairs, like a vague presence, as if they were in a cave and he was the bear at the back of the cave they didn’t want to agitate.

The microwave beeped, loud.

“Hungry Choir is tonight,” Verona said.

“Yeah,” Avery said.  “I wish we could do more.  I was thinking, like, what if we got enough ribbon, and the right animal, and I could use it to go over there?”

“The Forest Ribbon Trail?”

“You can apparently use it as a way to get places.  But I thought back to that conversation earlier, and… what would we even do?  Who do we save?  How?  And then I wondered if I’m being a coward and trying to just find excuses not to go and not to get entangled a lot more.”

“I think it’s the kind of thing where we’d have to find a solution, then go after it,” Verona said.  “Going there every night looking for weak points hurts us more than it hurts them.”

Verona shrugged, nodding.  She went to take a recently microwaved french fry, limp, and pulled her fingers way, sucking on them.

Again, the quiet.  No video games, no music.  No mother that hummed every time she did the dishes, to the point it seemed pathological.

Lucy’s place hadn’t felt like this.  There had been the stove, and Verona had been there, there’d been stuff to show each other.  Verona had put on music.

Was it just Lucy’s absence?

“Are things going to be okay with you and Lucy?” Avery asked.

Verona shrugged again.  “Hope so.”

“That’s it?  Just… ‘hope so’?”

“I don’t know what you expect.  I can’t say for sure.  We’ve been through bad patches where we fought, and we’re really bad at fighting with one another.  We’ve been through serious patches when being friends wasn’t as much fun because of other stuff going on.  Like my parents divorcing or her thing with Paul.  And we’d just…”

Verona shrugged for a third time.

“…do what we could.”

Verona went on, “I don’t think we’ve had a bad and serious patch in her friendship.  I thought we were just dealing with some bad, but it was serious for her.”

“It should have been serious for us too.”

“I messed up so bad with Pam,” Avery murmured.  “I feel a bit sick about it now.”

“Did you decide what to do?”

“Cutting contact.  But then, like, can I really talk to Ms. Hardy about stuff?  Or am I risking entangling her too?  Where do we draw the line?”

“I don’t think it’s that slippery a slope, Ave.”

“Still leaves me anxious.  Wondering about whether any other people I’m with are being entangled without my knowing it.”

“I wouldn’t stress too much about that.  But it’s good to keep in mind, maybe.”

“I’m so worried about Lucy, too.  That thing yesterday, it-”

Avery stopped.  There was a heavy thud, followed by two more.  Bangs against a wall or floor.  Three bangs in total.

“What was that?  Is he okay?”

“That’s how he calls me when he doesn’t want to yell,” Verona said.  She handed Avery the packet of microwave-heated limp fries.  “Excuse me.”

Verona headed upstairs.  Avery set the packet of fries she didn’t want to eat down on the counter, finished her own fries, and found the bin to toss out the extra fast food bag, the foil wrappers for the burgers, and wiped up the salt that had leaked out over the slate countertop.

She did a little circuit around the ground floor.  Front hall, living room, dining room and kitchen were arranged so they each took up a rough quarter of the house, each connecting to the room on either side.  It was tidier than her own house, but maybe not as clean.  Grit behind the TV, salt from winter crusted in the little resting spot for boots by the back door.  Nothing huge, and not anything that would make her think twice about eating or sleeping here, but… different.

She investigated a display cabinet that held little knick-knacks and trinkets, along with chinaware that looked neat but didn’t really go together.  She wanted to look at some figurines, so she went to pull out a dining room chair.  It didn’t budge.

Which was disconcerting.  Chairs were supposed to move.

Some investigation explained why.  She wiggled the chair, and it came loose, but there were little marks on the floor, like it had melted in.

Verona or her dad had mopped and waxed the floor, and had done so while the chairs were under the table.  The wax had gathered up around the legs, solidified, and it was Avery, not either of the two people who lived here, who had noticed that fact.  The table was the same, as she gave it a light push and it refused to budge a millimeter, despite not being an especially big table.  The other three chairs… the one at the head of the table wasn’t quite as deeply set.

How long ago had it been, that the chairs had been waxed into place like that?  Or rather, how long had it been that these chairs hadn’t been dragged out from under the table and sat on?  The socket where the chair leg had stopped formed a bit of a crater.  That depth… either they used a lot of wax for one mop and wax, which didn’t really line up with the one chair being less deep-set… or they’d done it over time, never eating at this dining room table, over a long period that had seen multiple house cleanings.

It wasn’t that she meant to snoop, but it was so alien to her, she couldn’t help but wonder.  It simultaneously made Verona make a bit more sense to Avery, and yet left Avery with a multitude of questions.

It had, as best as she could count, been about ten minutes that Verona had gone upstairs.

She ascended the stairs, and stood at the second stair from the top.  The hallway extended across the upstairs, branching off to the left and right, into the bathroom and two other rooms.  Verona stood at the end of the hall, in the doorway to Mr. Hayward’s room, at the end of the hall.

“You’re just like her,” Mr. Hayward’s voice was deep, but not strong.  It sounded almost plaintive.  “You tune me out, you try to walk away while I’m talking to you.”

“I left my friend downstairs.”

“On our tenth wedding anniversary, she left early to go spend time with her friends.  Writing on the wall, wasn’t it?  I came home that night alone to relieve the babysitter.  Most couples would spend the night together on their anniversary at the very least.  Have some intimacy.  Didn’t even have to be sex.  I would have given her a footrub or a massage.  Do you remember that night?  You would have been nine.”

“You don’t remember the first thing you said to me?  No?  Because what you said was something that will always stay with me, Verona.  ‘Where’s mom’.  Not, I love you dad.  Not how was your night, or any caring at all.  I wish I could say I’ve never felt as alone as I did that night.  You didn’t smile at me.  You gave me nothing.  You did smile at your hung-over mom the next morning.”

Avery, standing at the stairs, at the far end of the hallway, hugged herself, feeling uneasy.

“Writing on the wall, like I said.  I should have known.  That she resented me.  That she didn’t care one iota about me.”

“People grow apart,” Verona said.

“No, Verona,” Mr. Hayward said.  “No, no, because I put in the effort!  I pushed for couples counseling!  I made concessions.  I changed myself for her.  In ways I still haven’t fully come back from.  I tried to close that gap and she might as well have spat in my face, for all it mattered.  Gaps happen if you let them.  But I wasn’t willing to let it happen like that.  Our separation was her walking away from me.  Walking away from us.”

“Ah,” Verona said.  “Sucks.”

“‘Sucks’?” he asked.  “Is this the writing on the wall with you too?  I put in all this effort, I spend all this time trying to communicate and reach out to you, and I get a ‘sucks’?”

“Really sucks?  I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll try!  Say you’ll act like a proper daughter!  Say you’ll spend time with me when I’m not making you.  Lie down next to me, watch a movie with me like you used to.  Connect with me.”

He went from raising his voice to almost begging over the course of a few sentences.

“I’ve got a friend over.  My new friend Avery.  She’s cool.”

“And you’d rather spend time with her than me?  Because she’s cool?”

“I can spend time with you most nights.  She’s over for tonight.”

Verona looked back over her shoulder, and saw Avery standing there.

Avery couldn’t help but feel like she’d seen something she shouldn’t.  Verona, for her part, didn’t even flinch.

Verona motioned for Avery to go, indicating one of the doors.

“Is that her?” Verona’s dad asked.  “Invite her in here.  Let me cover myself up with a sheet.  It’s too hot, even with the A.C.”

Verona, head leaning against the doorframe by her dad’s room, put one finger in her ear, out of sight of her dad, and winked at Avery.

Avery hesitated, then plugged her ears.

Verona pulled her finger from her ear, giving Avery a thumbs up.  Avery withdrew her fingers from her ears, and caught the end of Verona saying, “-n’t think she heard just now.”

“You could go get her, bring her in.  I should meet your friends.”

“I think I’m going to go do stuff with her.  Projects and some fun stuff.”

“Go do that, then.  Fine.  After I’ve worked my ass off for you for the whole last week, two jobs…”

Verona motioned with her hand.  Avery opened the door Verona had indicated, and let herself into Verona’s room.  The intervening walls muffled the words, until she could hear the voice, but not decipher what he was saying.  It was mostly him talking.  Tone only kind of came through.

The room was actually dark, unlike the rest of the house, which had just felt that way, somehow.  But there were posters with interesting images, that might have been from music albums.  Old art projects were hung up here and there, without much order or organization.

Verona had said she’d collected skulls, and sure enough, there were a few skull decorations, as well as the little one-toothed raccoon or beaver skull that they’d used for awakening.  One was plaster, maybe, and there was a stone with a black ore running through it that had been shaped to look like a small fist-sized skull.

Avery had had to put in so much effort to keep her siblings from getting their paws on practice stuff, but Verona had a computer desk with a laptop shut and moved to one side, and it was scattered with the stuff.

Her dad didn’t ever walk into her room, look at what she was doing?

There was a creepy sound, and it took her a second to make heads or tails of it.  Low, on and off.

Filtered through a wall with pretty good sound blocking, going out one open window and into another, was the sound of a man at least three times their age, sobbing in a way that was more childish than when Declan had cried in the car.

She hadn’t known.  About Lucy’s deal with her stepdad.  That Mr. Bader’s actions had weighed on Lucy that much.  That Lucy had been that on the edge, that frustrated.

That Verona could be so used to this weirdness with dining room chairs rooted to the floor and a grown man sobbing that she wasn’t freaking out or losing it.  Lucy had undersold it, kind of.

Or things had gotten a bit worse since the last time Lucy had seen it.

Avery had never really been to many friends’ houses. Olivia had lived the next town over, and except for one brief occasion when they’d been on their way to the pool, had mostly gone over there to do activities, then driven home.  She’d been over to some houses of other homeschooled kids, but the only times she’d hung out in the other kids’ rooms was when she’d been really young, and at that age, like with Kerry, a person’s room or a portion of their room was less a mark of them as a person and more a place to store toys.

Avery looked through some of the scattered notes.  It looked like Verona scribbled notes down in one book, then copied them over in a more organized fashion to another.

The mixture of the organized and the disorganized was something Avery could never get away with at her house.  Any organization like this bundle of neatly stacked paintings would get disturbed by her siblings, but at the same time, Sheridan or her parents would give her a hard time if she left clothes scattered on the floor like this.  Verona had some stuff piled up behind the door.  Towels and hand towels, socks, tees, underwear, and what might have been a smock, daubed in bits of ink or paint.

Three mugs sat on the desk, one apparently for water for the watercolor, one empty, and the other with a trace of tea in it.  Avery couldn’t imagine herself sitting at that desk and not accidentally drinking the watercolor.  Or constantly picking up the empty mug.

Mr. Hayward raised his voice.  Calling Verona’s name.

“Want to go?” Verona asked.

“Verona!” Mr. Hayward hollered.  He banged three times on the wall.

“What?” Verona asked, from her doorway.  Speaking down the length of hallway and into the dimly lit room at the other end.  She sounded impatient, and frankly, really unhappy, in a way Avery wasn’t used to.

“Turn off my light.  And take these dishes.”

“Let me get organized first,” Verona said.  She went to her desk, and began gathering the books, notecards, and the sheaf of papers, sorting them into her bag.

“Can you take my bag for me?  I’ll grab it downstairs.”

Avery nodded, picking up the striped canvas bag.  Lighter than it looked.

“What do you need?” Verona asked, as she stepped into the hallway.  “Calling me again?”

“My light and the dishes.”

“I wanted to make sure you heard.  You conveniently ‘forget’ sometimes.”

There was a pause, and some clinking.  The room at the end of the hall went nearly dark, lit only by the images on the big television that faced the bed.  Mr. Hayward was around the corner and out of sight.

Verona emerged, carrying three dinner plates, two mugs, two glasses, and various silverware.  She indicated the stairs with a movement of her head, pausing in her room only long enough to get the two mugs.

“Verona!” Mr. Hayward called out.  “Can I ask you about one last thing!?”

Verona shook her head, lips pressed together.  She slipped down the stairs without making a noise.  Avery did her best to follow suit.  At the kitchen, Verona sorted out the dishes, slotting them into the dishwasher.

There were three thumps from upstairs.

Verona ignored it, one finger going to her lips.  The dishes made next to no sound as she finished up.

She didn’t look scared about it.  She looked matter of fact.

“What if he comes downstairs?” Avery asked, quiet.

“I don’t think he will, not until he needs to use the bathroom or he gets hungry.”

“That-” Avery started, before stopping herself.

“What?” Verona asked.

Avery felt like she should be afraid of offending her friend, in questioning or challenging this, but Verona really didn’t seem to care much.  At most, there had been a fleeting look of upset as she’d escaped into her room.

“Lucy said something really similar about Paul, last night.  Like, that he wouldn’t tell the police, I don’t remember the exact wording.”

“I kind of understand if you know your dad, but I don’t think she’s seen that Paul guy for a while now.”

“Yeah, huh,” Verona murmured.  “Interesting.”

“Interesting?  That’s not how I’d put it.”

“I guess, um,” Verona grabbed her bag.  “We have our individual monsters, and they occupy so much of our thinking…”

Avery followed Verona, as Verona strode over to the front door, stepping into her shoes without lacing them up.

Verona waited until they were outside and the door was gently shut before finishing, “…We get a pretty good idea of how they tick.  We kind of have to.”

“I don’t have a monster like that,” Avery said.

Verona smiled, and it was a weird smile.  Rueful, or weird.

“Man,” Verona said, her tone changing.  She pulled out her phone.  “Didn’t mean to leave this early.  I hope Lucy can make it.”

“Don’t ignore me,” Avery said.  “Say what you were thinking?”

Verona nodded, a little too fast, not making eye contact, like she was thinking.

She was so good at lying, she could seamlessly pull off that thing where she’d said Avery hadn’t heard Verona’s dad.  But this stumped her?

“Can I hug you?” Verona asked.  “Would that be weird?”

“If you need a hug, that wouldn’t be weird at all.”

“I don’t,” Verona said.  She stepped closer, and wrapped her arms around Avery.  “I hope you never have to deal with that kind of thing.  I think you will, and it could be tonight, tomorrow, ten or twenty years from now, but I really hope you don’t.  That’d be nice.”

Avery floundered for a response.

Verona’s pocket vibrated against Avery’s side.  Verona pulled back.  “Lucy.”

She put the phone to her ear.

Disconcerted, Avery stepped back a bit.

“Yeah,” Verona said.  “The two trees.  Yeah.  See you there.”

She ended the call, then put the phone away.

Avery looked back toward the house, with the slightly uneven lawn, the garden that lined the front and part of the side of the house, bounded in with squared-off blocks of stone, but that didn’t have any plants at all, with a leaning garage, and no lights on from within the relatively dark interior.

Verona sidled up beside Avery, and looked at the house as well.  “If we’re quiet he should be asleep when we go back, and we can be up and doing something before he’s awake.  Sorry.  I thought that since he came home and went straight to his room to lie down, that he’d be out of our way.”

Avery wasn’t sure what to say.

“We oughta go near the Faerie cave to rendezvous with Lucy,” Verona said.  “You up for it?”

“Yeah,” Avery said.  “I mean, I gotta, right?  If I’m going to back you guys up?  We just need to be smarter about that.”

Verona smiled.  “Come on.”

It was a relief to get away from that house.  The walk over the bridge and down the rocky shore was a nice one.  There were more people out with their dogs, which were splashing in the water.  One seemed intent on getting a fish that was in the shallows.  Its owner was trying to stop it and get ahold of the leash.

What fun, doggo.  I hope you get your exercise.

“Where do you want to be in twenty years?” Verona asked.

“What do you want your life to look like?  What kind of practitioner are you?  Do you have a job?”

“I haven’t really thought about it.  Ever since the first night where we saw the Hungry Choir, I’ve been feeling like I spent my whole life up until recently unable to see more than a few feet in front of my nose.  Then the Pam thing, it was like… I thought I was expanding my thinking, and it takes Lucy yelling at me for me to realize I’m still only seeing a few feet in front of my nose, and the Faerie used that against me.”

“I’ve been thinking about the Faerie,” Verona said.  “I think it’s more likely they used it for themselves.  They can’t do stuff against us.  They can and have to entertain themselves.  As a matter of instinct.”

‘There’s that word again, huh?” Avery asked.

“You didn’t really answer my question, by the way.”

“I don’t know,” Avery said.  “Don’t people spend most of their lives figuring that out?  My mom said she didn’t know what she was meant to do in life until it came to having kids.”

“Why are you asking?”

“I’m still trying to figure some stuff out.”

“Is this the same sort of stuff you were saying you’d think about for Lucy?”

“Kinda,” Verona said.  “I see her.”

They stood near the two birch trees that met to form a kind of arch, partway down the rocky shore.  Water had once settled or ran along the base of the two trees, and had stained them.  More weather had stained the top, and the branches had grown entangled.

Lucy wore the same clothes she had during the school day.  A tight tee with the Mission Canada logo and loose fitting shorts, a sweatshirt tied around her waist.  She wore her hair in a low ponytail, and carried her bag over one shoulder.

The school day had been muted.  They hadn’t chatted much.  Lucy had wanted to leave Verona alone, Avery had wanted to be sensitive with Lucy and accepted the first signals that Lucy didn’t want to talk.  They’d recapped only briefly at lunchtime, helped by the fact that Verona had heard the Paul story before.  All she’d needed was an update on what had happened last night.

“Hey, friend,” Verona said.  Her hands were in the pockets of her denim shorts.  She wore a broad-striped tee that parted at the collar, with a button that was never supposed to be done up.  Avery didn’t know the fashion term.  Like a polo without a collar.

“Where are we at?” Lucy asked.

“I’ll be the backup you need,” Verona said.

Lucy nodded, smiled a bit.  “Thank you.”

“I spent a while thinking last night.  About the gifts we got.  I know we still need to get the last few from Guilherme and Maricica, and there’s a bunch left to collect from the Others as we do the last interviews, but I put some thought toward the Faerie ones in particular.”

Verona pulled her bag off one shoulder, got it around in front of her, and pulled out the sheaf of papers.

“I appreciate that,” Lucy said.  “We’ll have to go over it together, figure out if there’s anything to watch or or use, before we use the gifts.”

Verona nodded.  “I drew while I was doing my thinking.  Did you a picture.  You can put them on your wall near your bed, or beside your bed, along with a marker.  The diagrams on the back double as spell cards.  I wanted to make you something or give you something, but the complex diagrams eat power just by being there, and I think if we make too many of those, the locals might get antsy.  We’re leeching power from them for anything we’re not paying for with some other tricks.”

Lucy looked over the pile of papers, turning some over.

Avery could interpret the circles and diagrams.  That one, it had radiating, rotating fire, at a high intensity and high output.  On the other side, it was a cute octopus painting.

“You’ll want to be careful with that one,” Verona said.  “I kind of thought, you know, if the Hungry Choir showed up in your room again or whatever, you could blow a hole in the wall and run.  Maybe.  I let my imagination run wild, because it’s really all I’m good for.  I liked the idea of being your backup even when I’m not there, by having given you those.”

Lucy hugged the pages to her chest, eyes down.

“Sorry if it’s not your style,” Verona said.  “The art, I mean.”

“You’re my best friend.  Things by or about you are worth a place on my wall.”

“Can I hug you?” Verona asked.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what our friendship was and is and where I want it to go.  I remember we fought a bunch when we were kids and we’d both get into a game in very different ways, or the time we did sailing camp and you loved it and I hated it.  And we made up with hugs.  It feels like we’ve been drifting apart by fractions after every fight or, uh, I called them serious times to Avery, I think it was.  When life gets shitty.  After every one, we don’t feel quite as close as we did.”

“You think, uh, hugging like when we were kids is going to help that?” Lucy asked.

“Can’t hurt,” Verona said.  She swallowed.  “I don’t want to drift apart over the course of our lives.  So I’m going to try harder.  I promise.”

“Have to be careful with promises,” Avery said.

“Nah,” Verona said.  She looked off to the side, and her eyes turned purple.  “This one’s important to make and keep.  I have to make it something I keep in mind.”

Both of them seemed better and more at ease than they’d been when they stood two feet apart.

Lucy made a hand motion, and Avery joined the hug.

“I’ll be better too,” Avery pledged, her eyes shut.

She felt Lucy’s head move in a nod.

They broke the hugs.  Verona stuck her hands in her pockets, her bag still slung over one shoulder, dangling.

It was getting dark.  The sun was down.

“How did things go with your mom?” Verona asked.

“I told her about Paul.  Mostly.  She told me I could be super grounded or I could go talk to someone.  I chose to talk.  I don’t know how that’s going to go when I can’t lie, but…”

“Tricky,” Verona said.

“…There’s a chance the curse I set might get lifted pretty soon.  She’s going to reach out to Paul.  I think he might actually pick up and answer her, after yesterday.  I nailed the coward curse in three times, if he can overcome that and overcome his natural instincts, he’s free and clear.”

The three of them turned.

In the shadows by conifer trees with long needles, Alpeana crouched.

“Hey.  We came to see you,” Avery said.

“Telling me my night’s hard work is all for nothin’?” Alpeana asked.

“Night’s hard work?” Lucy asked.

“Aye, it’s like subcontractin’, innit?  Spirits and whosits haf got a bunch of minds to put to gradual change, dreams are a way to go about doin’ it.  Spent the better half of last night plantin’ subtle ideas in people’s heads, this guy he cannae be trusted, he’ll turn tail and run.  Ain’t it so weird he spent so long livin’ at home with his ma?  What’s goin’ on there?”

“Sticking him with a label?” Lucy asked.  “Nothing more?”

“Oh, aye, Lassie.  If you wanted more, you cannae be lyin’ in little ways all the time.  Makes it easy to shake, and they say a curse you can shake can go back to the sender, stronger than it was.  You’re lucky he’s not much of a shakin’ sort.”

“Goblins neglected to mention that,” Lucy said, her eyebrow raised.

“If ye be wantin’ thoughtful sorts, goblins aren’t the way to go, Lassie.  Most can’t see much further than the next bloody nose they can inflict.”

“What would happen, if it landed on me again?” Lucy asked. “Could I shake it by meeting the same terms?”

“Ownin’ up to your wrongs done and cowardices?” Alpeana asked, from the dark.  As the sunset waned and the shadows deepened, the mare emerged more and more.  “Aye.  You could shake it, then it might go back to him, dependin’.”

“Karmatic balances and intent, innit?  I cannae say I know for sure.”

“What are you thinking?” Verona asked.

“I’m thinking I’m okay with that.  If he can shake it, if it does land on me because he’s angry or because I did mess up, that’s fair, isn’t it?”

“I did some good work last night, so I’ll be hopin’ it sticks, if you don’t mind my sayin’.”

Avery smiled a bit.  “I don’t want anyone to suffer, though.”

“Sufferin’s the way of it, sometime.  What’s fur ye’ll go by ye.  Speakin’ of, as nice as it is to have a blether, I really should be seeing to my rounds.  We can talk and I can answer yer questions, but I gaunnae address some doin’s while we’re at it.”

“How bad is this going to be?” Avery asked.

“Well, since ye asked, I’ve got some easy, early ones lined up.  An auld codger, bitter and black-hearted.  I can tell ye, if anyone deserves a fitful sleep, it’s him.  Should be easy on the wee conscience, when he beat his pretty wife and weans, and there’s no court’ll convict him or punish him for it, but his own mind.  Sleeps early, wakes often.  I like to go by, make sure he’s handled early on, or I’ll sometimes miss my chance.”

“I’m not sure I like picking on a defenseless old man,” Avery said.  She felt uneasy.

“He won’t sleep easy, no matter what happens, Lassie.  But if we see to him, might be he’ll change his mind about things, or find it in him to make amends.”

“Might be we’re just twisting the knife, though, and nothing will come of it,” Avery said.

“Oh, aye.  Ye dinnae have to come, but I thought if ye would, it would be easy to do it this way.”

“Hm?” Verona made an inquisitive sound.  She looked like she’d stirred from a thought.

“Your da.  He’s due.  Fell asleep by his telly.  I can skip him, aye?  Doesn’t hurt much.”

“Oh,” Verona said.  “You don’t have to skip him.  If there’s a chance of growth, or him settling into a role he’s supposed to fill…”

“Verona!” Avery raised her voice, scolding.

“I don’t mind,” Verona said.  “Really.  Actually, I’d feel way better about going into my house than some strange old man’s place, seeing how you do what you do.”

“Aye, that’s one way of it.”

“Guilherme.  The children are here.”

“Take care not to get near me, pestilent thing.”

Avery’s heart hammered.  Something in her perspective had changed, and the fact she found herself reacting, her breathing short, had nothing to do with the woman’s near-nudity, nor Guilherme’s imposing size.

They approached from the cave, but they were only visible through the arch.  the view of the same path across the shore from the side of the arch didn’t reveal them.

Lucy put a hand on Avery’s shoulder.

“Gifts.  I do want to get these out of the way.  Lucy.  A gift that will be useful tonight,” Maricica said.  “My last one to give to you all.”

“Can you write it down?” Lucy asked.

“My dear, I can show you.  It is so much better to show than tell.”

“Please write it down.  We’ll review it.”

“Are you sure?” Maricica asked.  The smile that spread across her face was a bit sly.

And, Avery reminded herself, entirely false.  This face wasn’t hers.  She’d given Avery a glimpse of another face entirely.

When someone tells you something, listen, Avery thought.  Whether it’s a friend saying a teacher is a dick to them, or a Faerie telling you she’s delivering a trap to your hands.

Maybe even a teacher, saying she has to maintain boundaries.  Ugh.

Maricica may well have shown Avery what she was.  And by the expression she wore now, it was hard not to feel like they were playing into her hands.

But that was the inevitability, right?

Maricica withdrew a paper from within the folds of her wing, walking to one side as she wrote on it.  It freed Guilherme to approach without drawing too near to her.

“Avery,” Guilherme said.

“Can you write it down?”

“As you wish,” he said.  “John told me to keep it simple.  I will.”

“You said it was better?  You said hers would be a lesson, and you weren’t wrong.”

“Maricica would change you into someone you don’t recognize.  I would highlight the you that you want to be.  It’s subtler and more blunt at the same time.  You’ll want to be careful all the same.”

“A man with wealth will soon find himself surrounded by so-called friends, with no idea if they like him or his money.  So will the greatest swordsman in the world, who attracts people by way of celebrity.  Self-assuredness has its own draw.  People without it would seek to find it.”

“I feel like if I had that much self-assuredness, I’d be even less me than when I was Kell,” Avery said.  “I may have to think on this one and discuss it with my friends before I use it.”

“Good,” Guilherme said.

He handed Avery a slip of paper.

Alpeana was getting antsy.

Maricica returned, with her own paper.  She ducked as Guilherme swung an arm in her direction, and tittered.  There was no cave echo to mutate the sound.  She held out a folded paper to Lucy, but held onto it as Lucy gripped it.

“Become a bit of moonlight,” Maricica said.  “Or a bit of smoke, or a bit of flame.”

Lucy tugged the paper free of Maricica’s hand.

“There’s a deposit of glamour in there.  Be careful when unfolding it.”

“You smell of goblins, and your lips taste like a curse,” Maricica told Lucy.  “Be careful.  Curses and lowly practices travel paths of least resistance, and the most common path of least resistance that draws lightning from the heavens, rain from the sky, and light from the sun is down.  Sink too far, and you may find it all tumbling down on your head.”

“Can we get gang now?” Alpeana asked.  “I don’t want to be late.”

“Do you have a boss that yells at you?” Verona asked.

“Och, nae, no.  It’s only the whole uncountable cosmos and the immutable confabulation of everythin’ breathin’ down me neck, innit?  I’ve not been much late to the work and I’m not about to start now, am I?  When it’s tied into the very fabric of my bein’?”

“Really now?” Lucy asked.  “But you can pick and choose who you do?  Skip us or Verona’s dad?”

“She’s anxious,” Avery said, giving Lucy a nudge.  “And she’s cooperating, and she’s being nice enough to hear us out and give Verona’s dad a pass, if Verona wants, which I really think Verona should want.”

“Who first?” Alpeana asked.

“Go easy on him?” Verona asked.

“Aye.  Can do.  One of ye take another by tha hand.  I can only tug ye along with usin’ my hands, unless ye want to take hold of this hair of mine.”

“Uhh,” Avery said.  The hair was very greasy and had a lot of stuff in it.  Alpeana was cute in her own weird way, but not so cute Avery wanted to hold her hair.  She took Lucy’s hand.

Alpeana’s hand was cool to the touch, and slippery without being wet, in a way that made Avery’s hairs stand on end.  Alpeana took Verona with the other hand, and then tugged.

Avery’s stomach was left by the shore, as they made the quick trip back to Verona’s house.

They were dropped onto the stairs.

“Son of a-” Lucy swore, as she slid down a few steps before getting her feet beneath her.

“Ye shut your wheesht,” Alpeana hissed.  “Ye’ll wake him.  Though I suppose if ye do, ye’re not as bad off as you might be in another situation.  ‘Da, I’m home’, no?”

“Yeah,” Verona murmured.

Alpeana scaled the wall to the ceiling, and traveled the length of the front hall.

“I don’t like this,” Avery said.  “Hurting your dad.”

“It’s a bad dream,” Verona said.  “I’ve asked people for help.  I’ve argued with him.  I’ve tried to do what he said he wanted.  I’ve ignored him, I’ve spent whole days at a time with him.”

“And maybe you’re just hitting a sad, messed up guy while he’s down?” Avery asked.

“Maybe,” Verona said.  “But if there’s a chance it changes him…”

Avery floundered, wanting to change Verona’s mind.

But she felt paralyzed in a very similar way to when she’d seen Lucy facing down Paul.  That had been so angry…

And this felt so sad.  Verona, who seemed so unflappable, so often, looked low.

“He’s your monster that you’ve been wrestling with, I guess.  But it feels wrong to me.”

“Come on,” Lucy said.

Alpeana was on the ceiling.  Below her was a man that was maybe eighty pounds overweight, wearing an undershirt that stretched across his belly, the stubble grown in after a morning shave, his cheeks either greasy or moist from crying.  The plates Verona had taken hadn’t been all of them, or Mr. Hayward had gotten more and put them by the side of the bed.  There were some food wrappers stuffed in the drawer.

The television was on, and was the sole source of illumination in the room, very blue.

How bad does this have to get, before I say stop?  Avery asked.

Alpeana barfed blackness and drainstuff.  Her hair extended, reaching down, like it was liquid.

It buried Mr. Hayward’s face, extended into his open mouth.

Verona shifted her footing, arms folded.

He twitched, turning his head, as if to escape it, then moved his hand, reaching up lazily, with no sense of what he was fighting against.

An arm, thin, feminine, and strong, reached out of the tide of black stuff and grabbed him by the wrist, pinning his arm down to the bed.

“I’m calling uncle.  I’m sorry, Alpy,” Verona said.  She looked agitated.  Her eyes were wet.  “Fuck.  Wimping out already.”

“This isn’t wimping out,” Lucy said.

The darkness receded, drawing back up to the figure on the ceiling.  Alpeana stared down at them with eyes that had no white to them.

“Costs me a wee bit of somethin’, reachin’ in.  If I’m not finishin’ the job I’m not getting me pay from the cosmic tide and bellow, aye?  I cannae be stoppin’ and startin’ all night.”

“Aye,” Verona said, affecting the accent unconsciously.  “Sorry.  I’ll make it up to you.”

“I hope so.  I like ye, lassies.  I’m try’nt to be fair to ye.”

“Another night, ye think?”

“We wanted to interview you.  I have questions in my notebook.”

“How about ye get yer notebook out and figure out what yer going to ask, and I’m goin’ ta go make sure this auld codger sheds a tear of regret for the violence he did ta his sweet pretty wife and bairns?”

“It’s what I am, Lassie.  If ye want me to stop, ye might need to put a permanent end to me.”

“I don’t want to do that,” Avery said.

“Do you hurt them, in the dreams?” Verona asked, looking at her dad.

“Aye, but not with blood and death.  I’m best with sorrow sweet and drawn out long.  With ones like this one, and tha auld codger, I show them wha they missed in their shortsightedness, a wee taste of tha life they could have lived, and a long hard ride in tha sorrow of knowin’ it’s their own sorry fault.”

“And the little girl you mentioned?” Lucy asked.

“Aye, tha’s sweet and it’s sorrow in its own way.  Might leave a bairn more melancholy than they should be but it keeps tha wheel tickin’ and it puts her where tha cosmos needs her ta be.”

“Reconsidering?” Avery asked Verona.

“Why?” Verona asked, not taking her eyes off her dad.  “Are you?  He tries hard, and he does the basics of what a dad’s supposed to do, according to those guys from the government.  Feeds me, shelters me, makes sure I go to school.  Just… he’s broken and he won’t put himself back together.  I don’t think he’s where he’s supposed to be.”

“Then-” Lucy started.

Verona wasn’t done.  “But I don’t want him to hurt.  I don’t want to see him hurt.  He makes me more miserable than anyone and I feel exhausted and even a bit of dread when he comes in the door, but I love him.  I want to not live in his house, at least after I’m eighteen, and I’m not even sure I’ll come back to visit him when I’m gone, but… I love him.”

“I should be going, lassies.  Are ye comin’ or are ye goin’?”

Verona put out a hand.  Avery took Lucy’s hand and took Alpeana’s.

Another jump.  To a different end of town.  Alpeana placed them on grass.  Verona stumbled.  Lucy fell over.

“I’ll be a few minutes.  Make yerselves comfortable, aye?”

Alpeana slipped beneath the door, the entirety of her body squishing down into the stuff like tangles of pubes and hair pulled from the drains, dyed black instead of red and brown.

Lucy pulled her notebooks from her bag.  Avery paced, getting her hat out of her bag and pulling it on, so they could at least break some of the connections.

The back door opened.  All three girls jumped.

But it was Alpeana.  She looked alarmed.

“What’s wrong?” Avery asked.

“Miss!” Alpeana called out.  “Miss!  Miss!”

Avery turned, then turned again.  Miss was in the doorway, her silhouette blocked in large part by the door.

“What is it?” Miss asked.

“Interference,” Alpeana said.  “Someone got here first.”

“Another Mare?” Avery asked.

“Och, no,” Alpeana said.  She looked agitated, crouching down.  “The echo I should’ve used to answer his dream.  Someone tore it apart for pieces, aye?  Took tha eyes.  They’re lookin’ in.”

“Someone, not something?” Miss asked, as she strode into the house. Alpeana followed.  The girls followed Alpeana.

“Aye, we’ve got a practitioner spyin’ on thin’s here.”

“These three girls are the only practitioners in Kennet, with the exceptions of the cases of Matthew, who cannot practice, and Edith, who isn’t human at her core, and they’re too preoccupied to do this.”

“You’re sure?” Lucy asked.

“It’s an outsider, miss,” Alpeana said.

The girls entered the bedroom.  A man, face covered in blackness, was lying on a bed, shirtless and sweaty.

Beside him, flickering, was the ghost of the woman that had to be his wife.  Her eyes were missing, with only a slash of darkness in their place.

“Ye girls had best be goin’ home or comin’ with us,” Alpeana said.  “I’ll warn ye, though, we’ll be going to pass through some right wrong places if we’re going to track down these eyes, the fella or fillie who took ’em, and figure out why they’re here.”

Believe them when they say stuff.  They say these places are ‘wrong’… then they’ll be pretty rough, right?

But going to these places was the reason I wanted to practice in the first place.  I wanted to explore worlds.

“All three of us or none of us,” Verona said, to Lucy.

“Why are you saying that to me?” Lucy asked.  “Are you thinking I’m going to back down?  No, we were going to visit these places anyway.  We have to.”

“Then that’s a yes?” Verona asked.  “Because I’m trying my best to be good.  I am.  Avery?”

“Yes,” Avery whispered.  “Let’s go.  Let’s figure this out.”