Fall Out – 14.4
Author: Wildbow

Fall Out – 14.4 | Pale

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Avery shook the hooded sweatshirt out, and tiny motes of fluff filled her side of the bedroom, catching the early morning light from the window.  It was tan, with a white fleece lining, and she wasn’t one for shopping, but when she’d gone shopping for school clothes with her mom, it really was the thing she’d wanted to find.  She put it on and zipped it up, and it hugged her body.  Jeans, green ‘Wild Side’ tank… what she really wanted to add was the other find from the shopping trip, a vintage corduroy jacket, but that would have to wait for colder weather.

She leaned over her desk and bunched up her hair with her hands to see how a ponytail looked, then left her hair down.

She slipped on the wooden spy-detection bracelet, two friendship bracelets, a ribbon, and the charm bracelet with her mask, hat, cape, a baseball bat, and the black rope charmed to it.  It felt weird, using that trick again, after going about a month without.  But they’d gone without in anticipation of dealing with Maricica and that night had come and gone.  It had been horrible, but it was over.

They had no idea where Maricica was now.  Estrella was keeping an eye and an ear out, but Estrella and the Blue Heron Institute were a bit of a mess right now.

Thinking back to that night left Avery with a nervous, uneasy feeling.  She soothed it by sorting herself out.  Spell cards were in a pencil case, she had notebooks she was filling out, with notes on Thunder Bay.

Her bag had a few markings on the liner, which had required her to turn the bag inside out and write on the contents.  A small connection block to discourage thieves and prying sisters, and a signed connection mark for herself.  A ‘find my phone’ for bags with magic stuff inside.  It meant she could bring her bag wherever and if she lost track of it, she could find it about as fast as she could write down the adjoining mark and signature.

She checked the City Pin, her gift from Ken, and it was faded, like it had been worn down, the letters and the image of the great lake difficult to make out.  Haven’t made much of an impression yet.

She pinned it to her bag strap, right above the badge she’d sewn on last night, while she’d sat on the patio with Snowdrop in the bushes a few feet away.  A badly stitched pride flag with a message of love, picked up at the library.

She felt a bit nervous just… wearing that.  Plain view, at her shoulder while she wore her schoolbag.

Reaching over to a vase with another faint connection blocker rune on the base, she broke off a half-petal from the High Summer Rose that Verona had supplied her.  She ground it up between her fingers, then gave herself a little check on her cheekbone.  The faint gold of it faded into the pink of her skin first, but took its time on the freckles, leaving them golden for a few seconds.

Last check of the laptop-

“You’re going to roast,” Sheridan observed.

Avery looked over at her sister.  Sheridan had only just gotten up, and wore pink pyjamas with a faded cartoon character on the front, her hair a mess.

“It’s cool out,” Avery told her.  She hadn’t checked the weather because she had something better.  Snowdrop lounged beneath furniture, lying belly-up in a sunbeam outside, periodically turning over to warm what the ambient temperature cooled.

“Maybe now, but if you wait, believe it or not, the temperature might rise!”

“Believe it or not, you can wear layers and take an outer layer off,” Avery told her.  “Why do you even care?”

“Because you do the sports thing, and that makes you sweat, and you wear those clothes and that’ll make you sweat, and it’s this perverse, obsessive pattern of behavior-”

“Exercising and wearing cozy clothes is perverse?  I guess you could think exercise is perverse.”

“It’s this awful thing you do where it feels like you’re trying to cultivate this stink around you, like a one person gymnasium, and the deodorant- I don’t know if you wear any, but it doesn’t even touch it.  Then the smell reaches me and I’m reminded you exist…”

“I’m going now,” Avery said, grabbing her bag and slipping it over her shoulders.

“Hey,” Sheridan said, stepping forward and reaching for Avery’s arm.  Avery rolled her eyes, turning.

Sheridan twisted the backpack strap a bit, turning the badge toward herself.  “You sure?”

“No,” Avery admitted.  “But I feel like I can get away with this where a lot of others couldn’t, so a part of me feels like I should, you know?”

“You can get away with potentially getting punched in the face?” Sheridan asked.  “Not that I think you should- not for that.  Stealing my room, yes.  Being gay, no.”

“I can fight,” Avery said, putting up her dukes, jokingly.

“Sometimes people won’t-” Sheridan said, stopping, before wiping her hand down her face.  “It’s too early in the morning for this conversation.  I haven’t eaten, I haven’t peed.  Just- watch out?  Be safe?  If something happens it’s going to mean you get all this attention, it’ll be this whole other pain in the ass…”

“Wouldn’t you prefer that?  Being left alone, doing your own thing?”

“Nah,” Sheridan said, meeting Avery’s eyes.  “It’d be annoying.”

Avery went from mock punching her sister to a quick hug.

“Ahh, no!  Ew, ew, get off, ew, gross!”

“You’re the one who hasn’t showered.”

Avery left Sheridan upstairs, heading down to the second floor, where her mom and Rowan were situated.  She grabbed some quick breakfast stuff, popping some toaster cookies on to cook, grabbing a banana, apple, and orange, rinsing all three under the tap for a few seconds.  She tied her running shoes on while the toaster did its work.

Even after a couple days, it still felt weird.  Like she was visiting someone else’s house.  A sleepover at Lucy’s, without Lucy and Verona around.

Her mom was in the midst of getting ready for work.  Colorful blouse under a suit jacket, work-appropriate skirt, modest jewelry, hair tied up at the back with wavy locks trailing down, a look that probably took longer than Avery getting showered and dressed.  She spotted Avery.  “Is Sheridan up?”

“Sheridan is just barely up, last I saw.  And cranky.”

“Cranky is usual,” Rowan said, as he trudged across the room, yawning.  “Morning, Skates.”

“Hey Ro’,” Avery said.  “Up before noon?”

He groaned.

“At my insistence,” their mom said.  “Job interview later, wishing you luck, and a side project for the day-”

He groaned again.

“Buy food for dinner, and cook something for the four of us.  I want something out of a cookbook, sir.  I’ll leave you money for the groceries.”

“Anything out of the cookbook?”

“So long as it’s actually a meal and has sides or is a full package deal.  If you want to do a homemade pizza that’s fine, but get some vitamin C and fiber in there.”

“The crash course on adulting continues,” Avery said.

“Speaking of, if you want, we could give Rowan a break, you and I could cook together tomorrow night,” her mom said.

“Sure, maybe.”

“Take a look at the cookbooks when Rowan’s done with them, decide what you want to do.  If you don’t want to add it to Rowan’s shopping list, we’ll have to use weekend time to go shop for it.  Up to you.”

The toaster cookie popped up.  Avery claimed it.  “Okay.  Gonna go eat on the patio.”

“Use the space, it’s nice to have the elbow room.  Vitamin C?”

Avery held up the plate she’d put the breakfast food on, the fruits arranged precariously along the edges.

“Good for you.  If only it was easier with your siblings.”

“Suck-up,” Rowan said, with a bit of a smile on his face to make it clear he wasn’t being hostile.

“Ten minutes before you should go, Avery!” her mom called out.

Avery grabbed her drink bottle from the counter, partially full, and a paper towel.  She went out and down to the patio table and chairs, content with the clothes she’d picked for the temperature, and poured a bit of her water on the table, wiping it free of the dust and grit that had formed a layer on top.

Snowdrop poked Avery’s leg with her nose.

“Apple, banana, or orange?”

Snowdrop reached through their connection, expressing a deep seated need for an orange.  Avery passed it down to the planters and pots that lined the railing on one side of the patio.  Tiny opossum hands claimed it.

“Do I stink?  Sheridan was getting on my case about it, it’s her go-to lately.  Psyching me out.”

Snowdrop looked away from unpeeling the orange to give Avery’s ankle a sniff.  Negation.

“Thanks,” Avery said, waiting for her messages to load.

There was a message from Jude, sent late last night.  Path?  Could run it as a pair.  Parents are bugging me to get more under my belt, also saying I should stay in touch with you.

We’re in touch, she replied.

More in touch.  They want me to milk you for info.  Want to run a path together?  Two of us?  Maybe a couple of my younger cousins/sibs?

Sure!  she replied.

He sent a document.  It was hard to read on her phone, and she ate inefficiently, tearing off the peel of the banana with her teeth so the phone remained free.  She buffed off the damp apple and used the cool apple to balance out the lava-temperature filling from the toaster cookie.

She read for a bit before deciding it was pretty doable.

“Up for a Path, Snowdrop?” Avery asked.

Positive impulses mixed with general happiness as Snowdrop demolished the orange and got herself sticky.

“He’s sent me a write-up for The Build Up.  Straight climb up.  Few puzzles, lots of Others, some Others can be obstructions or hostile, just like people can, I figure.  Seems to be common, that part.  Looks like it’s focused on athletic prowess.  Climbing a building as new rooms get dropped on, rammed into, strapped on, welded on, or otherwise attached to the structure.  Gotta stay ahead of the floors that are getting demolished.  Low to moderate difficulty.  The ‘dismount’ as Jude put it is the hard part, getting the boon and leaving the path, and I guess you’d be tired by then.”

Snowdrop communicated amusement.

“I think Jude picked something he thought might suit me.  Good guy.  Rewards are an option, depends how you want to leave the Path.  Gotta stick it out and keep climbing until you see a window.  Or the window if you want one perk.  Perk one is a boon, a tendency for ropes, cords, chains, pipes, draping flags, curtains to be beside windows and other unconventional ways of leaving a place.  Longer you go without using it, the better the chance and the better the moment.  Kinda fun.  Might get messy, though, imagine being forty and your Christmas lights are always dangling by the window or something.  Gotta get super high up, catch a crane hook or something dangling, let it carry you off.”

Snowdrop became human, sitting with her back to the hedge-like bushes, legs sticking out beneath Avery’s chair.  She sucked orange juice off her fingers.  “I hate messes.”

“Perk two is junk, looks like.  Rescue an Other from falling, shelter it and escape with it past the ongoing demolition.  You’ll get a weekly reward, I guess, of something relevant to that Other.”

“I hope it’s not food,” Snowdrop said.

“You just ate an orange the size of your body.”

“It was dry, not much water content,” Snowdrop pointed out, frowning.  She licked more juice off her hands.

“Could be coins, shiny things, could be food, yes, though I think that’d go bad.  Uh, could be red things, could be dice, could be socks.  And it gets dropped off in the nearest blue container outside of the building you sleep in, every Wednesday.  If only one item gets dropped off, pure chance, it’s a super minor magic item.  I think it’d get annoying to get a plastic pail full of Lost food that’d go bad if you forgot about it, Snow.”

“Right this moment, I’m glad I became your familiar,” Snowdrop asked.  “You’re so wise sometimes.  I like the idea of getting the magic items.  Works for Clem.”

“I think they’re minor enough it wouldn’t be a disaster.  I think,” Avery replied.  “I think.  But yeah.  I’m not keen.  I think Verona would be, though.  Last boon option is another perk.  Makes you twice as good at bearing bad weather, heat, cold, some smoke, fog, some noise, mold, some smells, and, hassles like babies crying next door, construction noise, loud music… there’s a whole list of testimonials.”

“Twice as good isn’t a lot if you think about it,” Snowdrop said.  Though Avery wasn’t looking, she saw Snowdrop’s eyes fall on the end of the banana peel that draped off the table.  Avery passed it to Snowdrop without taking her eyes off the screen.

“It’s a pretty huge thing, actually, but, drawback one, is all those things become between fifteen percent and a hundred percent more likely to happen around you.  Or to you, whatever.  Number’s decided once when you run Build Up, you can change it by getting the same boon again, no other benefit for your hassle.”

“Still sounds bad,” Snowdrop said.  “But I’ve never nearly died of exposure or anything, so I don’t have strong opinions on that.”

“I guess you get the boons too, now, huh?  Since we’re partnered with you as my familiar?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“It sounds like Jude wants to do that one.  Which is why he wants company.  You need to find and greet five different Lost with something in common.  The last three you need to compliment them on that something.  While you’re climbing the building and everything.  And then you hug the last one and everything collapses around you.  Which I guess complicates the partnered part.  Unless we pick the same Others.”

“Can you pick me?” Snowdrop asked.

“I dunno.  I think it’s mainly Others in the building, but you could be right.  It looks like going that way puts you on another Path.  Kickcan Alley.  I think the document is incomplete… or no.”

“No?” Snowdrop asked.  She handed Avery the banana peel.  Avery put it on her plate.

“The Path is fifty feet long, you need to kick a can down the road while walking without stopping, without losing the can off to the side.  The can is an empty beer or soda can of a variety that doesn’t exist on earth.  It is not special, it is not large, there are no tricks.  There are no puzzles.  There are no Others.  The boon reward for Kickcan Alley is roughly eight Canadian dollars worth of random currency, slipped into your pocket.”

“What a shit score,” Snowdrop said.  “Can’t buy anything with that.”

“Texting Jude,” Avery said, as she typed.  “Jude, are you counting Kickcan Alley as a Path for the quota your parents want you to meet?”

“What a dumbass,” Snowdrop said.

“Hey, so what are you up to?  Any luck finding goblins to hang with?”

“Yeah.  They’re brave, come right to me,” Snowdrop said.  “I’m giving up, maybe for good.”

“Going looking today?  Just wondering if I should be on the alert for an emergency situation.”

“Today, not tonight,” Snow said.  “You can’t come.  Not allowed, you’d ruin the vibe.  Loser.”

“Okay,” Avery said, smiling.  Jude’s response came back.  Guilty as charged.

The door to the patio rattled.  Snowdrop became an opossum, hiding beside Avery’s bag.

“Two minutes,” her mom said.

“Sure.”

“I wanted to ask,” her mom said, walking down the short flight of stairs to the patio itself.  Snowdrop wriggled her way into the bushes.  “How is Verona doing?”

“Uhhh… that’s a hard question to answer on a good day.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about her, about that night you called for help, after her issues with her dad.”

“She went back,” Avery said.

Her mom sighed.  “I know.  Jasmine mentioned.  I just- that moment has been on my mind.  I was wondering, would you be okay- I never got the chance to really talk to her mom, while she was in town.  Your dad got the sit-down at the bagel shop.  I know she’s local…”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe having her over for dinner?”

“Her mom?  Just her mom?”

“I would love to have Verona over for a visit too, but I was thinking just her mom.”

“From what I know of her, she’d love that, she loves talking to people about what they do, I’d say be prepared to answer a lot of questions about what you do, sating her curiosity.  And uh, I’m not sure she’s a kid person.  I think she’d do better one-on-one with you than with Rowan, Sheridan and me at the table.  That’d be a weird scene.”

“Okay.  Though you’re not kids anymore, you know.  You’re turning into little adults.  I’ll think it over, see what she’s comfortable with.  It’d be nice to make a friend, if I’ll be here for the next two years.”

“And you should be just about ready to go, right?  It’s about time?”

“Yeah.”

“Love that top.  Very cute,” her mom said, flicking the hood.

I wanted to be cool, not cute, Avery thought, slightly annoyed.  She extended a hand to Snowdrop, pushing feeling into the wave, so Snow would feel it even if she didn’t see it.  Snowdrop waved back, out of sight.

Bag sorted, clothes looking good.  Last check in the mirror- crumb fleck removed from one length of hair at the side of her face.  She wondered if that degree of messiness came from Snowdrop.

Sheridan was all chaos and rush.  Rowan was watching in idle amusement- he had nowhere to go for a while.  Mom had to get everything for work, pulling on driving shoes while carrying dress shoes, juggling keys-

“Go.  Do you need a ride?  Tell me you don’t need a ride-”

“I need a ride,” Sheridan said.

“I’m good,” Avery told her mom.

She accepted a kiss on the head from her mom.

“Go,” her mom said.  Avery went.

Avery hurried down the stairs, as quickly and quietly as she could, so she wouldn’t bother the landlord.  She could hear her mom upstairs.  “Sheridan, if you brushed your teeth this morning, you swallowed something dead between now and then, go brush now, you have ninety seconds.  Rowan, I’m leaving the money for the groceries…”

Then Avery was out of earshot.

“Hey, you,” Jeanine greeted her.  “What was it?  Avangeline?  Averill?”

“I think that’s a vampire movie and an allergy medicine,” Avery replied.  “The name thing gets less funny every day you do it.”

“I think it’s the sort of thing where it’s painfully unfunny for a while, then you circle around to it being funny again.  As I run out of names I’ll get to the hilarious and contrived.  Oli!”

Oli was Jeanine’s brother.  Both of them were big for their age… or lying about their age and they’d been held back two or three years.  Both had similar wavy brown hair but very different general face shapes – Jeanine’s was triangular, Oli’s was square.  Oli was fit, in about the one percent of guys when it came to having muscles, while Jeanine was leaner.  Jeanine wore a low-cut sweater with a collared shirt underneath, jeans, and sneakers that looked like they’d endured a sandstorm.

“Hey, Jeanine.  Hey Ava.”

“Avery.”

“Avalie?”

Avery sighed and rolled her eyes a bit.  Oli grinned.

“See?  He thinks it’s funny,” Jeanine told Avery.  She turned to her brother.  “You’ve served your purpose.  Go away now.”

He didn’t go away and resisted the pushing and shoving.

“I’m supposed to bring you to lacrosse practice after school,” Jeanine told Avery.

“How mad is he I’m not interested in track?”

“Coach Artrip?  He’s fine,” Oli said.

“He’s not mad, he’s disappointed,” Jeanine added, hands on hips for that last word.

“He’s fine,” Oli brushed his sister off.  “He’s happy he has a new player.”

“He asked about what you said at the fence when we said hi,” Jeanine said.  “Oh no, gosh, you didn’t scare them off did you?  That girl runs on her own, of her own volition, I might not have to have to pull teeth to get her to practice!”

“He doesn’t talk like that.  He gets annoyed at you,” Oli retorted.  “Because you hate practice.”

“I push all of Artrip’s buttons,” Jeanine confided in Avery.  “I skip practice a lot and I’m still faster than anyone who isn’t a senior.  Or you now, I guess.”

“Competition,” Oli added.  “Jeanie’s got freakishly long legs.  It’s literally the only thing going for her.”

“I’m an amazon bitch, bitch,” Jeanine said, more to Oli than to Avery.  “I should put that on a t-shirt.”

“Tattoo it onto your forehead.”

The pair had a way of talking over one another and making it very hard to butt in.  Avery stood back, waiting for them to exhaust one another.

“Where are you going?” Jeanine asked.

“Locker, then math.”

“Then let’s go.  I’ll come with.  Go away, Oli.  Shoo.  Frog off.”

Oli threw his hands up, backing off, grinning like a maniac.

“Frog off?” Avery asked.  “That worked.”

“We’ve been doing it since we were seven and eight,” Jeanine told Avery.  “Magic words to get the sibling or little cousins to f-off, but they either get to frog you off or you have to do a dare later.”

“I wish that worked with my siblings.”

“I’ve just got the one sibling, but it’s essential for maintaining sanity.  My parents use it sometimes, too.  They’ll tell us to frog off so they can try to give us a little sibling, then we get to torment them later, or make them order junk.  If you want to annoy your sibs, you still get to, but you have to channel your energies into some dare or prank for later, you know?  It’s a beautiful system.”

“I think I’d be too nice to deploy any mean dares and I’d just go away if asked instead of getting anything mean.”

“That’s your problem then, nice doesn’t work with siblings.  Gotta show you’ve got teeth.”

“Smiles show you have teeth too,” Avery replied.

“Oh my god that’s so corny, fuck you.” Jeanine replied, giving Avery a light push on the arm.  “Fuck off and holy shit is that sweatshirt soft.”

“Just got it.  I love it,” Avery replied.  She side-eyed Jeanine as Jeanine rubbed her sleeve.

“You should!  God, I want rub my face on that fabric until I’ve worn a hole through it.”

It was all Avery could do to keep her face straight and keep from turning red.  She drew a reverse-checkmark on her leg, as if she could pull on the glamour to avoid it.  It worked, either because of the residual glamour or because of the mental trick.  “Want me to check and see where you can get your own?”

“How much was it?”

“Something like forty dollars?” Avery asked, as she reached her locker and started to dial in her combination.  “Worth it, I think.”

“Tell you what, let me save some money, I’ll buy you and you can let me rub my face all over that sweatshirt, how’s that?”

Avery raised her eyebrows, the mental whiplash at that statement and the jolt it gave her heart mingling with faint alarm as something fell out of her locker.  Crumpled papers.

“Oooh, love letter?” Jeanine asked.  “Crumpled.  Hate letter?”

Avery’s head was spinning a bit.  She checked the paper- then showed Jeanine.  Pencil scribblings, intense, like someone had been trying to use up all of a single pencil’s lead in violent back-and-forth.

“Trash,” Jeanine said.  Then she pushed Avery’s arm again.  “What do you think?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure if you’re serious.”  This feels weirdly too easy, like it’s a Faerie trap.  Avery’s eyes glanced around for a moment.

“I’m totally serious.  So do you have a girlfriend?  Or are you wearing that flag on your backpack strap with zero idea of what it means?”

Avery glanced at the people walking around.  Nobody heard or cared, even though Jeanine was a bit loud.  “No girlfriend, and no, I for sure know what it means.”

“Because you wouldn’t be the most oblivious person I’ve talked to.  We had a GSA club last year and that lasted about seven months, and mannnn, some of those kids.”

“So you’re…” Avery ventured.

“Interested, but not a believer in labels or the drama that comes with them.  You’ve got this cool confidence thing going and it makes me want to be silly and foolish with you.  Give me something here.”

It was a very interesting experience to go from everything being cool to being next to this girl in this context, knowing she was interested.  Avery drew on a half-asleep Snowdrop for more calm.

“I’m just-” Avery groped for the word.  “Blindsided.  There was nobody back home.  Feels weird that one of the first people I meet asks me out on a date.  Is this a trick?”

“Oh my god, nobody?  No trick.  But you know, just speaking for myself, you’re this stranger that came off the street, started running with us, blew people away.  You didn’t run screaming from me and Oli talking.  Maybe you’re the trick, some big prank being pulled on me?  I wouldn’t put it past Oli.”

Avery shook her head.

“Nobody at all back home, huh?” Jeanine asked.  “I’d be your first?”

“I- I guess.  There was a GSA, like you talked about-”

“Idiots and vipers?” Jeanine asked.

“Uhhhh, no.”

“Because ours was, every last one of them.  We lasted only a little while, I tried to keep things alive, some of them thought I was bossy, I got booted, and then they fell apart.  Big surprise, right?”

Avery wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she just said, “Ours was nice, just… not for me.  The teacher I was crushing on ran it-”

“Oooh, hot?”

“I thought she was beautiful.  Still do.  But she ran it, I guess I hated that time I spent there was shared, you know?  I sorta wish I’d given it more of a try.”

“So you’re the jealous type.  I’m making mental notes here.”

“Don’t,” Avery said.  “Just because I got jealous doesn’t make it my type.”

“Right, valid.  I’m working with what I have.  This is the most we’ve talked, I extrapolate.  A first date would be a better time to learn types and stuff, huh?  What do you say?  Dinner, tomorrow?” Jeanine asked.

“I’ve got a thing with my mom tomorrow.  We’re making dinner.  I could cancel but…”

“I’ve got this thing with my dad after practice on Fridays, so tonight’s out.  Sunday, then.  No, wait, shit, Sunday doesn’t work for me.  My grandparents are over.  Hmmm.”

The bell rang, giving a few minutes notice for the main bell.  In the midst of it, a coin clinked in the locker.

Jeanine deflated a bit, then summoned energy, giving Avery a light bap on the arm with a hand.  “We’ll talk later, figure something out.  Let me see your schedule.”

Avery had two copies of her schedule and she’d put one on her locker door.  Avery didn’t let Jeanine see so much as Jeanine pushed the locker door flush against its neighbor.  Jeanine pulled hers out of her pocket, held it against the door and compared them.

“Crap.  Okay, next time we see each other is either lunch today or Monday.  Or lacrosse, but I know from experience there’s not much talking at practice.  Artrip will lodge a lacrosse stick in my asshole if I’m fucking around this close to the mini-tournament.”

“Don’t want that,” Avery replied, eyebrows raised.

“We can talk about plans then, or later.  Or you can tell me to frog off.  I’ll only take it a little personally.  But I’ll have a dare for you if you do.  Those are the rules.  Later, Anna!”  Jeanine talked while walking away, grazing a senior guy about her size.

Leaving Avery feeling a bit like she’d just weathered a sudden, ten minute tear-the-roofs-off weather event.

She checked the paper, uncrumpling it, and it was three pages.  She flattened them as best as she could- she didn’t have long, and the hallways were already thinning out.

The pages showed a progression.  She tried rearranging the order, and as she did, she realized the image had changed.

Only three pages, but four scribblings total.

She flipped through them, moving the front one to the back of the pile repeatedly.  The scribblings resolved into a rectangle, a short wall that bunny ears and then a bunny shape with an erased mark in place of a face peeked up from.

One image was something else entirely- she saw darkness and piled up bones in the rabbit-man silhouette, only realized what she’d seen a second after, and when she brought that paper back around, it was normal scribbles again.

The words ‘Ashumare Ashumare’ appeared above the next drawing, the letters unsteady in their placement as Avery rotated through the sequence.

More words.  Ashumare Ashumare, do you see me?  No time to play!

“Ashumare Ashumare, what can I do for you today?” Avery recited, voice whisper quiet, rhyming Ashumare and play with today.

The words dissolved.  Avery was mindful of the time limit.

Ashumare Ashumare, errand runner, into the fray!
She sits impatiently on her council seat,
the Chaser of Storms would like to meet.
Four-thirty of September’s second Friday

That was today, this afternoon.  Lacrosse was this afternoon.

“Ashumare Ashumare, tell Deb I need to stay.  A later time, is there any other way?”

The subsequent scribblings shrunk, until the papers were blank.

Avery put them aside, sorted out her things, shedding excess books, grabbed the painted coin with a woman’s face on it that had appeared on the top shelf of her locker, then hurried on her way.  No time to even dwell on Jeanine’s advance, except to feel weirdly good and somehow conflicted.

Vipers and idiots?

The bell started its lilting final ring before homeroom.

She picked up speed.

“An interloper,” Deb told Avery.  They stood in the mostly empty back lot of a dismal apartment building, about ten feet from a sedan-type car that looked about as beat up, burned, dented, and abused as Deb did.  Deb wrote on a piece of paper she pressed against the car hood.

“And?”

“Goes by Frank.  A dabbler, uneducated, low class, actively practicing, which suggests either ignorance or intentional flouting of rules and conventions.  Make him painfully aware.”

“I’m not really an enforcer type.”

“Nonetheless, you will need to enforce.  That is part of your duties.  This Frank should be at this location, or somewhere close to it.”

“How long will this take?  Because I’ve only got thirty minutes for lunch and I already used ten.”

“I trust you will find a way to manage.  Things of this nature can’t wait.”

“In what I talked about with the Lord, I thought I made it clear I would need to pursue school, sports, bunch of other stuff.”

“It’s clear you need to do this,” Deb said, voice hard.  “Time you’re spending arguing with me is time you’re not getting this task done.”

Avery hesitated, then nodded, taking the paper.

She used her phone to check the address and figure out the direction.

“Why are you still here?” Deb asked.

“Checking- good to go.”

Avery pulled the black rope from her wrist, followed by the hat with connection blockers on the brim.

She ducked around the car, then black-roped away.

The connection blocker had a harder time here than it did in Kennet.  Cameras were a big part of that, Avery assumed.  There were some on traffic lights, on businesses, car dashes…

It at least bought her easy passage through the part of the process where she was trying to orient herself in the city and figure out what even the major streets were.  She paused a few times atop telephone poles, stepped down to collect Snowdrop, who had come running a half-kilometer, checked her phone, and headed to the address on the paper.

She stopped on the street, pulling her hat off.  The guy seemed to be inside a building, which was complicated.  She pulled on the door and found it locked.

Snowdrop sneezed, looking up.  There was music playing.

There, Avery thought, at the same time Snowdrop sent the matching impulse.

Avery glanced around, judged that there were too many eyes around, and then headed down the driveway to the back lot, where she saw a way of getting up.  She black roped her way up.

“Holy shit!” the woman reacted.  She looked like she could have been a tired twenty-five or a young-looking forty.  The clothes and hair didn’t help either.  She wore an oversized t-shirt and jeans, her hair short in a way that suggested she’d shaved herself bald a bit ago and was at the awkward stage of growing it in.  She had been in the midst of pouring chalk onto the rooftop, to form a circle.  A goat was in a cage at the back corner of the roof.

Avery walked around the edge of the rooftop a bit, Snowdrop perched on her shoulder.

The diagram was a pretty big circle, with edgy, abstract markings within, like a tree seen from above, the branches curved and curling.  Some guy’s picture was in the center.  A laminated card.

“Frank Reiber?”

“Franky, yeah.  You apparently know me but I don’t know you.”

“Are you a threat?” Avery asked.

“Huh?” the woman asked.  “To who?  You?”

“Me.  Ken- Thunder Bay.”

“No.  I don’t think so.  I don’t know who you are.  Or Ken.”

“I’m a new local.  Sent by an older local to check on you.  It’s good manners to go to the local Lord and get permission to set up or practice.”

“I didn’t know that.  What’s a Lord?” the woman asked.

“Practitioner or Other in charge of a location.  You know what an Other is, right?” Avery asked.

Snowdrop climbed down Avery’s arm and became human.  The woman’s eyes widened slightly.

“I know.  Ran into a few scary ones.  Real-life actual ghosts.”

Avery frowned.  “Listen, I don’t have long-”

“Me either,” Snowdrop said.  “I’m so very busy.  No time to eat, most days.”

“-but you’re running into a bit of a minefield here.  There are procedures,” Avery told her.  “What kind of practitioner are you?  This looks like a curse.”

“I don’t know what the procedure for calling yourself something are,” Franky replied.

“Damn it,” Avery muttered, antsy.  She didn’t want to be late for afternoon classes.  Her mom might get called.  “Where did you learn practice?”

“From… myself?”

“A doppleganger?  Another timeline?  Anything like that?”

“I made up a spell and it worked, went from there.”

“Did you reference anything?  Did an Other guide you?  Did you draw power or use a magic item?”

Franky shook her head.

“There’s a process to this stuff.  You don’t usually just stumble into it,” Avery told the woman.  She had a thought, in the midst of her anxieties over time and lateness.  “When did you first start… doing this?”

“A couple of days ago.”

“A couple of days ago.  And you came here why?”

“I’m strong enough now,” Franky said.  “My boss screwed me and cut me out of the industry, blackballed me.  Now I can screw with him.”

Avery looked down at the very crude start to a diagram. A couple of days ago.

“Did you see a very red animal or something, before this all kicked off?” Avery asked.

“No.  I was pissed, I thought I’d piss on his picture and set it on fire.  Put stones around it to keep the fire contained.  It smoked a lot, I saw a man in the smoke.  With red hair and a red beard, red fur jacket.  He said I had power so long as I kept my word, never tell a lie, and-”

Franky stopped talking.

Avery frowned, nodding to herself.  “What did he say?”

“I shouldn’t say but- you seem sorta nice.  He said not to trust any of them.  I guess he didn’t mean you?”

“He might’ve meant me,” Avery admitted.  “Knowing him.”

Franky studied Avery, wariness clear on her face.  “Is this the point where you use that creepy black rope to strangle me?”

“No.  I don’t want to hurt you.  I’m not positive the Carmine is the same, there.”

“The Carmine?” Franky asked.  She leaned forward, whispering, “is he the devil?”

“No,” Avery replied, exhausted.  My lunch hour.  I won’t get to eat.  “He’s a guy with a lot of power who might’ve set you on a collision course with us to throw things out of whack or remind us he exists.  Or for other reasons.”

“That sounds like how I’d describe the devil.”

Avery drew in a deep breath.  “The way this is supposed to go, I think the usual route is I tell you to leave, and you either leave or you fight me.  If you fight me, I probably run, and a bunch more people, scary people, all show up to come after you.  They might give you another chance to leave, but they might not.  In which case you might die.”

Or worse but let’s leave that out for now because it won’t help.

Franky stood up, backing up a step.

“Let’s do this a different way,” Avery said.  “Please?  There’s a third road.”

Franky nodded slowly, still holding hands out to her sides, away from pockets, like a gunslinger ready to draw two-handed, except she had no guns.  Avery was pretty sure the woman didn’t have any spell cards or anything else, either.  Franky replied, “Sure.”

“Tell me you want to make an appointment to meet the Lord of Thunder Bay.”

“Why?  Do I actually want to?  Because my word matters, right?”

“Right.  The idea is, you make an appointment.  You tell her everything you were going to tell me.  Don’t react to provocation, they might test you or question you.  You’d want to do your best, don’t panic,” Avery said.  She’d been in this position a little under a week ago.  “You have vital information and it should come straight from your mouth.  The man with the red hair and beard.  Pass on what you know.  Did you live here before?”

“Most of my life.”

“Did you firmly establish yourself somewhere else?”

“Firmly?  No.”

“Okay, so, I have no idea if this is legit, but I feel like if you lived here before you might have more of a right to stay, if you ask for it.  But if you’re going to cause trouble or go after anyone local, that’s going to count against you, big.”

“What happens if I do this, agree to this, and go there to say this stuff, and they decide against me?”

“Probably you get evicted from Thunder Bay, they’d ask you to leave, threaten you with violence if you try and stay.  I think once you see the Lord, you’ll know you don’t want to be on everyone’s bad side.”

Franky frowned.

“I guess I’d have to ask you… do you want revenge against your boss, or do you want to stay?  You might be able to buy permission to get one or the other if you’re helpful,” Avery told the woman.  “I’d warn you about the revenge.  Maybe they’d let you do it, but I’d bet they’d tell you to screw off.  They don’t want headaches.”

“How old are you?” Franky asked.

“Doesn’t matter.  Come on, I’ve gotta wrap up.”

“You’re working with all these scary people?”

“Not with, exactly,” Avery replied.  “I’m trying to deal, doing what I can to stay, trying to be fair and push for something fairer.  If it wasn’t me who came to check on you, it might be someone more dangerous.”

“I want to stay.  I have family here.  But if my boss is here and I can’t do anything about him-”

“There are some things you can do, if you just want him to stay away.  I could potentially help.  But really truly, my lunch break is going to end soon, I’ve gotta go.  If I have to hand you off to some of these other guys, this gets way harder for you.  Do you want to stay or do you want to hurt that boss of yours?”

“I want to stay.”

“Okay.  Then tell me you want to meet the Lord of the City.  That’s your right.”

“I want to meet the Lord of the City.”

“Okay.  I have to pass that on.  Ask to meet them tonight.  Late evening.”

“Tonight.  Late evening, please,” Franky said, frowning as she said it, obviously confused.

“Okay.  Franky, I will pass on the request.  People should get back to you.  For right now, I’m going to ask you to swear not to practice in the meantime.  Stay put, stay calm, keep quiet, don’t stir anything up.  When the time comes, be honest.”

“Sure.”

“What was your job?”

“Aerospace design.”

“My brother’s doing job interviews right now.  Advice my mom gave was that a lot of the time, especially for ground level jobs and stuff, they’re looking for reliability, stability.  They’d rather have someone inexperienced they can count on than someone terrific who’s going to flake half the time.  I think we just want stability here.  Stuff gets awfully- awfully awful, I guess, when that stability doesn’t exist.”

“I believe wholeheartedly in stability,” Snowdrop said.

“Stability,” Franky said.

“Swear you won’t practice in the meantime.”

“I… is this a trap?”

“Not from me.  If it’s a trap from someone else, I don’t know about it.”

“Then I guess I swear.”

“Say it more clearly.”

“I swear.”

Avery nodded.  “Tonight, then.  Clean this up before anyone sees it, okay?  Water.  Don’t risk some line closing as you scrub or whatever.”

The woman nodded.

Avery picked up Snowdrop, setting the opossum on her shoulder.

“Gonna need you to eat extra, channel that energy to me, Snowdrop,” Avery murmured, as she headed back to school to catch afternoon classes.

Snowdrop sneezed a few times in rapid succession.

Avery laughed.  She knew Snowdrop well enough to know what she’d say.

A few blocks from home, she dropped Snowdrop off.  “Watch for cars!”

Then she ran full-speed the rest of the way to school, using the black rope for shortcuts.

Stick clashed with stick.  Avery practically bounced off of Jeanine, from the size and strength difference.  Avery’s practice partner had the ball, a matter of feet away, which apparently made checks against Avery legal.

“Come on now, Kelly!  You said you were fast!”

It reminded Avery of the last game against Olivia.  She got further from the ball, and Jeanine still got in her way.  Kept her from using her full speed.

A game she’d played over and over in her head since.  A scene she’d revisited twice.  Once by Ruins portal, once by the photo’s Alcazar.  Each hit that Olivia had dealt out had been so much worse than the one blow, because it had hit her on other levels.  Emotion, memory, the replays, the regret.  The hardest hits had left an indent in Avery that insisted on replaying in her head at night when she was feeling sorry for herself.

Not now.  Not like this.  Her family watched, again.

She pushed forward.  Jeanine got in her way, blocking rather than checking, and Avery turned, keeping her feet under her, stumbling again from how very strong that girl was as they made brief contact.

I’ve been in real fights since.

Avery’s toes dug into the turf of the field, she found her center of balance, just slightly askew, and brought that in line.  She ran, and Jeanine was there at her left, leaning into her-

And Avery found it in herself to break for it.  Jeanine chased, but the gap grew.

“That’s what I’m talking about!  Be ready!  Hui!  To Avery!”

Avery looked back, spotting Hui readying the throw.  She made her trajectory as predictable as possible-

Hui threw.  Avery went to catch.  Jeanine tried to cross sticks and interfere, and Avery was just out of reach.  She caught the ball, twisting the stick to help secure it so it wouldn’t bounce out.

“Good!  And to me!”

Avery threw to Coach Artrip.  He had to take two long steps to catch it.

“We’ll work on that.”

“Story of-” Avery slowed.  “-my time in sports so far.”

“Stick by us, we’ll make it a story with a good ending,” Artrip said.  “Next chapter is shooting drills.”

Avery stopped, hands on her knees, panting.

“Jeanine, I like the enthusiasm but there are refs who’d give you penalties for some of that.  Body checks aren’t allowed.”

Jeanine laughed lightly, panting for breath.

“Hui!  Let’s talk about how you’re communicating!  I shouldn’t have to tell you Avery’s there!”

“Hey,” Jeanine said.

Avery felt a moment of anxiety, wondering if this would be about the date.

“Thought I had you, and then-” Jeanine made a hand motion.  “Like you’re driving an F-1, switched gears, vroom.”

Avery laughed a bit.

“Artrip’s going to be on my ass to show up to practice, now that I’ve got competition,” Jeanine groaned.  “Water.  Come on.  While he’s distracted.”

Avery nodded.

They went to the table with their stuff, including water bottles and water dispensers.  Avery rinsed her thermos and then drank.

“That your mom?” Jeanine asked.

Avery looked in the direction of the people standing on the parking lot side of the field.  Her mom was a short distance from the car, waving and clapping as Avery spotted her.

“Yeah.”

“She’s hot.  I guess you’ll be hot when you’re older, huh?”

“Has anyone ever heard ‘your mom is hot’ and been like, gee thanks?”

“There’s lots of weirdos out there, so probably,” Jeanine replied.  “Maybe I’m checking if you’re a weirdo.”

“I am, but not like that.”

“Ooh, color me intrigued.”

Avery chuckled lightly, trying to roll with the awkward.  I wonder if Jeremy ever feels like this with Verona.

Not a straight one-to-one analogue, but…

“She into sports?”

Avery shook her head.  “Not in the slightest.  Not even to watch a game.”

“Oh nooo.”

“The family likes singing competitions.  Even the reruns.  Used to be a thing, every night at dinner.”

“That’s so fucking tragic.  I would lose my mind.”

Avery nodded her defeated agreement.

“Girls!” Artrip barked.  “Come on!  Hydration is important, but you can save chit-chat for when you’re off the field!  We’ve got a tournament coming and I want you ready!  Talking to you, Jeanine!”

“Yep!” Jeanine replied.  Then, quieter, she told Avery, “See?  He’s ready to lodge a lacrosse stick up my ass.”

“Everyone together!  Last words before I send you off to get your dinners!”

Avery laughed lightly, because a harder laugh felt like it’d be too much, and a lot of Jeanine left her unsure of how to react.

“Come on.”

Avery nodded.

As they joined the others, Hui shot Avery a thumbs up.

Artrip laid out the practice schedule, talked about practice, told two girls to keep on top of some aches and pains they’d apparently told him about, and went over the small tournament that was coming down the road.

“What we want more than anything is consistency of play.  That comes from consistent practice,” he said.

Jeanine huffed out a sigh.

“Go.  Have your dinners.  I’ll see you Monday.”

Avery’s mom waved her over.  That kind of urgency tended to mean some scheduling mishap.  Probably Rowan already had food ready.

She hurried over.

“He awoke you, then?” Ann asked.

“I don’t know what that means,” Franky replied.

“That’s something, isn’t it?” Florin Pesch asked Avery, quiet.  The puppeteer still had that ‘ready for a day on the yacht’ look.

“It’s something.”

“You ran an errand for Deb Cloutier, huh?  Except your follow-through…”

“Isn’t this right?” Avery asked Florin.  “It’s something a Lord would want to know.”

“Oh, it’s right,” Florin said.  “But it’s not Deb’s sort of right.  She asked you to handle it, didn’t she?”

“To make Franky painfully aware of rules, expectations, yadda yadda,” Avery murmured.

“You’re not in her good books, then.”

A new guy asked Franky, “Did he say anything else?”

“No,” Franky replied.

“That’s Hugh Legendre.  He’s-”

“A sealer and exterminator?” Avery asked.

“Good.  Of course, his sons would attend the Blue Heron.  More friends of Abraham Musser’s.  Enemies of yours, then?”

Avery shook her head.  “I dunno.  Briefly, but I’d be surprised if they remembered me.”

“You’re local now, so they’ll dredge up those memories, I’m sure.”

“I guess him being local is why Snowdrop is having a hard time finding goblins to hang out with?”

Snowdrop looked up at Florin.

“I would guess you’re right,” Florin said, smiling softly.

Snowdrop hissed faintly.

“You two,” Ann addressed them.  “Questions for Franky?”

“I asked mine earlier,” Avery said.  “If Franky isn’t going to go after her boss, or using those curses all over the place, I’m cool with her.”

Florin stepped forward a bit.  “It might be worth keeping her around to keep tabs on what the new Carmine is doing.  If he reaches out to her again, anything of that nature.”

“His reach doesn’t extend where our Lord has sway,” Deb Cloutier replied.

“Not generally,” Florin said.  “But a lot of rules are being bent and broken.  It’s possible for someone to awaken without referencing the seal of Solomon.  A divine endowment, a compact with an Other of standing… but if the Judge is setting the bar this low, other rules might get their own creative interpretations.”

“No.”  The word came from Odis, the old man with the nasal voice, black suit and slight hunch to his back, both hands resting atop a cane.  “There are hard and fast laws handed down by Solomon and there are principles.  A principle can be bent, like the standard for Awakening.  But the laws are immutable.”

“Perhaps,” Florin replied.  “But I’m not sure I’d rule anything out.”

“I would,” Odis replied.

There was a brief discussion about precedent, and other rules, but it was mostly between Deb and Ann, Odis Saulsbury and Hugh Legendre.

“You seem pretty at ease about a lot of this,” Avery told Florin.

“Panic is the worst thing you can do,” Florin replied.  His voice lowered, he confided, “The spirits watch us.  If you think of it as stage magic, make everything look intentional, it can make a big difference in the most vital moments.”

“Sounds Faerie.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Florin asked.  “I think it’s less of a Faerie trick and more a really good principle that Faerie picked up a long time ago.”

“Avery Kelly,” Odis said.  The rest of the conversation died down.  The old man turned to face Avery.  “Would you take responsibility for this new practitioner?”

“Say no,” Florin murmured.

“But-” Avery whispered back.

“It’s a trap.  Trust me.”

“Will she-”

“She’ll be fine.”

Avery looked at Odis and shook her head.

“Florin?” Odis asked.

Florin laughed, abrupt.  “No, Odis.”

“It would simplify things,” Ann said.

“Then you do it,” Florin said.

Ann turned to Deb, saying something that required Deb to bend her head and lean in to hear.

“Why?” Avery asked.

“Taking responsibility tends to mean a master-apprentice type situation.  Like inducting someone into the practice, or awakening them, you take on some of the karmic debt if they screw up.  There’s no need,” Florin said.  “She should get permission to stay, you can still guide her without setting it up so you get dragged under if her ship sinks.”

“Okay,” Avery said.  “You said it was a trap.  And Odis is a Blackforest trapper.  Are the ideas related?  I tried looking that up but the books were restricted.”

“Not related.  Blackforest is a shorthand term for your Hansel and Gretel type situation.  Make a demesne, demiurgic realm, or mystical pitcher plant type trap, lure people in, harvest power.  Usually targeting vulnerable innocents.  Children, typically.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Odis’ predecessor targeted the elderly at nursing homes.  Bus stops that would appear only to certain eyes, lure in anyone who wandered, especially anyone without connections, regular visitors, living family.  Familiar music, friendly faces, a literal trip through the past as the bus went on.  They’d feel young, talk with others on the bus, on a seemingly unending, mystical trip, sun shining through the windows, sharing stories.  Like a warm, nostalgic dream on a sunny spring morning.  At her peak she had those bus-lines laid out across three cities and at nursing and care homes in ten different towns.”

Avery shivered.  “What happened to the victims?”

“They’d wake from the dream, the bus leaving them by the side of the road while it carried off that warmth it had stirred in them.  If they were lucky, they’d be found in some distant place, cold, hungry, dehydrated, and very confused.  They’d never recover the faculties they had.  Something vital drained out of them.”

Disgust welled in Avery at the idea.  Other emotions too- the sheer number of people who’d have-  something that horrible?  No.

Snowdrop licked the side of her neck.  Avery gave Snow’s side a quick rub in response.

More gently, Florin said, “Odis was one of the would-be victims.  He was a gangster when he was younger.  Old school, not to be trifled with.  He maintained his senses, got his hands on the Witch of the Blackforest Bus Line, when she came to figure out who was taking up a seat on her bus without giving up that kernel of warmth she was after.”

“Threw her into the oven?”

“Metaphorically.  Threw her under the bus,” Florin said, smiling.  “He keeps the buses running.  Different routes, different intent.  Sometimes the old, still, sometimes prisoners without anyone to pick them up.  Same idea, the bus comes along, but the feeling it evokes, it doesn’t look for warmth and nostalgia and set its hooks into those feelings.  It looks for people who have hurt other people and enjoy those memories.”

Avery frowned.

“Do not cross Odis Saulsbury, Avery,” Florin said.

“Are you talking about me?” Odis asked.

“To say not to cross you and to color inside the lines for context.”

“You shouldn’t want to cross anyone here,” Ann Wint the Destroyer said.

“I don’t,” Avery said.  “Zero intention.”

“It would have been better if you’d sent this woman away,” Deb Cloutier the Storm Chaser said.  “You haven’t accepted responsibility, but I’ll assign it to you.  You advised her on how to ask for this meeting and how to stay.  If she causes us any hassle, I expect you to handle it.”

“Don’t react, don’t respond,” Florin murmured.

“You’re testing my patience, Pesch,” Deb said.

“Franky Reiber,” Ann said.  “For the time being, I’m going to ask you not to practice.  Hold off, seek an apprenticeship, learn what you need to know.  Practice, especially at the scale you were about to perform?  It’s dangerous.  It’s a good thing Mrs. Cloutier took notice of the situation.”

Which is a roundabout way of saying it’s a good thing I got there in time?

Or would it have been really bad if I’d gotten there slightly later, when it was going off?  Was this like sending me to go handle a person making a bomb, knowing I could be blown up shortly after arrival?

“I thought bigger would hit harder.”

“It would,” Ann said.  “It would also make a far greater mess.  You can’t tell us what the curse would have done, we can’t know the true meaning- you cleaned it up?”

“Yes.”

“You were going to sacrifice a goat?”

“Yeah.  Seemed like the thing to do.  My old boss is a huge asshole, wanted to make sure it would make him sorry.”

“Had you performed that curse perfectly, with years of practice behind you, I think it is very likely there would have been collateral damage,” Ann said, with virtually no emotion.  “You wouldn’t have performed it perfectly.”

“The diagram,” Avery raised her voice.  All eyes fell on her, and she felt very much like she was an interloper, and she’d just upset everyone by speaking up.  Probably didn’t help that they weren’t happy Franky was moving in.  “It… it was all outward, curved branches or tentacles sticking out.  Like the spikes in an elementary diagram.”

She laced fingers together so they stuck out in every direction, to demonstrate.

“Remind me how long you were at the Blue Heron again?” Florin murmured.

Avery dropped her hands.  Everyone’s eyes were still on her.

“That was definitely a diagram that was going to point out,” Avery asserted herself.  “Curved and overlapping lines suggest connections.  But they weren’t lines, they were like gently curved branches or forking tentacles, fat at the base and narrowing to spear-like points.  All extending from the center, where the portrait was.”

“Your point?” Ann asked.  “We haven’t seen this ritual, so we’re forced to rely on your inexpert testimony.”

“I think collateral damage was the point.  I think- gut feeling, I don’t know what it would have specifically done, but I think it would’ve destroyed Franky’s boss by hurting everyone with a connection to him, somehow.”

“I didn’t want to hurt anyone else,” Franky said.  “Just him.  He’s ruined a lot of people’s lives.”

“I think it would’ve hurt others,” Avery told her.  “Just, you know, how I’ve seen a ton of very different diagrams and I can sorta feel it out.  Maybe the idea was to kill them or make them sick or make them suffer some misfortune one by one, I dunno.  I could ask around, I have a friend who has been looking into curses.  But if we know the Carmine Exile set this up and if we assume he has a grudge of some sort… maybe it was intentional?”

“That it was Franky in specific, targeting this specific individual?” Florin asked.

Avery dipped her head in a nod.  “Like giving someone the ability to make a bomb, knowing they’ll make it and use it on someone specific, and because the bomb is big enough, you’ll probably catch the person you really want in the blast.”

The rest of the ‘room’ was silent.  The Lord sat over them all, legs folded and extending to one side, blue eyes providing a lot of the illumination in the underwater space.

“I think,” Florin Pesch said, just loud enough for others to hear, “you make a stellar point, Ms. Kelly.  I think it would be worth investigating the intended target to see if there is anyone on this council or close to this council who might’ve been caught by the curse.”

“Can we leave that to you, Florin?” Deb asked.

“If the Lord of Thunder Bay wishes it.”

The Lord moved a hand, extending it to Florin.

“As you wish.  Happy to do so,” Florin said, smiling and bowing slightly.  “I suspect it’s a mutual acquaintance of Abraham Musser’s and mine, if it isn’t me.”

“Let’s meet tomorrow and collaborate,” Hugh Legendre said.  “I’ve been meaning to touch base with a few of these individuals.”

“As you wish.”

“I think,” Avery said, butting in again.  “If I think about it, isn’t it weird that Franky made this specific thing?”

“There may have been some Awareness helping to bridge the gap,” Florin said.  “A natural instinct for cursework?”

“Did you ever run into a real-life curse?” Avery asked Franky.

“Childhood games, middle school stuff.  Nothing ever came of it.”

“Or run into the supernatural?” Avery tried again.  “In any way?”

“You just up and decided to curse this guy?  Was it after a dream?  Or did you see a certain movie?”

“What’s this line of questions about?” Ann Wint asked.

“Just- I don’t think the Carmine is really equipped to awaken her and also jam this knowledge or instinct in her head.  So I’m thinking, maybe that diagram looks a bit like something sorta related to Dark Fall Fae.  Tentacles, branches, abiguous stuff.”

“Cursework,” Odis said.

Avery nodded.

“The Carmine Exile had a Dark Fall Fae as an ally.”

“Maricica,” Avery confirmed.  “What if she planted a seed?  We know she’s out there, we know she’s gotta be doing something.  She had something at work.”

“At this stage you’re treading into the supposition, and you run the risk of lapsing into your failures and vendettas,” Ann told her.

Get freaking bent, Avery thought.  She held her tongue.

“Let us know if you see anything that points in that direction, Florin?” Ann asked.

“Why state that like it’s an order?” he asked.  “Of course I would.”

“I’m prepared to call it a night,” Ann said.  “I stood my husband up for an evening out so I could be here.”

“If this was a targeted attack, it’s worth it,” Florin said.

“Nonetheless, I stood him up, I don’t want to keep him.  With our Lord’s permission, I’d like to say good night, everyone.  You can continue if you wish.  Deb?”

“I’ll tell you what you missed.”

The Lord shifted position.  The walls began to move.

“I think our Lord is prepared to end tonight’s session,” Deb said, smiling.  “Good night, everyone.”

One by one, people turned, walking into the wall of water.

“Um,” Franky said.

“Come on,” Avery said, moving to the center of the ‘room’ and grabbing Franky’s wrist.  “This way.”

Florin fell into step beside her as she dragged the new practitioner into the wall of water.  The water splashed into and against her face but didn’t penetrate mouth or nostril, the surface tension so high it was more like walking into a very relaxed jellyfish.  The current picked her up, and it thrust her.

She let go of Franky and dropped to a crouch.  Her shoes skidded on wet sand, a hand grazing the ground for the added steadiness.  Franky came out coughing.

“I worry that you, Franky, are a disaster waiting to happen,” Florin said.  None of them were wet.  The water in clothing and hair had been sucked away, leaving them just as they’d been before.

“What did I get into?”

“I don’t know,” Avery said.  “But go home.  Don’t practice.  Don’t lie, be good.”

“I guess I’ve got a pet goat now,” Franky said.  “Unless either of you want a goat?”

Snowdrop raised a paw, making that little sneeze-like sound.

“No,” Avery said, reaching up to scratch Snowdrop.

“I’ll do without that mess,” Florin said.

They walked Franky to the bus stop, then walked a short distance away.

“Every one of these meetings, I think Ann and Deb like me less,” Avery said.

“Probably.  But Ann fancies herself the strategist behind the throne and Deb… I would say she imagines herself an essential appendage of the Lord of Thunder Bay, almost a partner.  I don’t think many agree with her in that, our Lord included.”

“I don’t want to gossip, but… ugh.”

“Then I won’t gossip further.  A bit of non-gossip commentary and advice, accepting Deb’s mission was a mistake.  She’ll expect you to do it again and she’ll take it as a slight if you refuse in the future.  Had you established a firm refusal to work for anyone who wasn’t the city’s Lord, it would be better in the long run.”

Avery sighed.

“I’ll get an early start tomorrow, make visits and ask who might know our intended CEO of an aerospace company.  It’s a short list and I’m on a first name basis with most.  Good night, Ms. Kelly.  And in case there’s any doubt, you did good work today.”

“Florin,” Avery said.

He paused.  He’d been ready to walk away.  He made a small inquisitive sound.

“You talked about Odis, and I think you said he wasn’t a bad guy?”

“No.  Odis Saulsbury is a detestable, dangerous human being with a black heart that got blacker and harder with age.  He survived his predecessor’s attack because there was little warmth to extract.  That’s not gossip, that’s something he’d admit himself.  What I implied was that as awful a human as he is, he’s not doing anything especially awful now.  You could debate the awfulness of his current practice and where the line should be set as opposed to where it is, but he has calmed down considerably and he’s far less dangerous than the Witch who ran the phantom bus lines was before.”

“Hmm, okay.”

“You were saying?”

“Are you a bad guy, Florin?” she asked.  “Because you’re being helpful and you’re giving advice, you’ve backed me up in there a few times now.  But you call yourself a puppeteer and that’s a bit freaky.”

“You said you looked up the Blackforest practice and found the books restricted.  Did you look up puppeteers?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“And there’s a few practices that use that name.  But there’s a published diary series on the Atheneum Arrangement by someone else calling themselves Pesch-”

“My uncle.”

“Okay.  That’s some freaky stuff, Mr. Pesch.  Targeting a church, bringing it down?  Using those methods?”

“Puppeteers of my family line, sometimes called Corruptors, we maintain a collection of bound Others of a certain variety.  Dopplegangers, Jockeys- those are Others who specialize in possession, especially possession of Hosts, those who can take control of the hearts, fates, or minds of others.  ”

“Yeah,” Avery said.  “I guess I kinda hoped you’d tell me I was wrong.”

“I’m not active.  I don’t have any influence over this city.  It wouldn’t sit well with the likes of our Lord of Thunder Bay or Ann Wint, and it’s honestly a poor use of expensive resources.  So you don’t need to worry, it takes an extreme situation for me to even come close to acting against a member of this council.  On occasion, once every year or two, someone will pass on my name and give me a reference, I’ll do my research, and if the situation is right, if the situation is one I can keep contained to one group or localized area, I’ll get paid an exorbitant amount of money to target a particular practitioner family, group, company, or something else.”

“Like the church your uncle targeted?”

“The cult, yes.  I’ll use my Others, infiltrate, and dismantle.  Lay waste, target those around specific individuals, usually to destroy them with particular prejudice.  I didn’t know my uncle’s book was on the Arrangement, I guess he got over his prejudice of technology.  It’s good.  It’s… advertisement.”

The guy in charge killed his wife and kids because he was so paranoid, Avery thought.

“You’re a friend of Musser’s?” Avery asked, avoiding looking as nervous as she felt.

“I am.  We don’t go to one another’s more intimate birthday celebrations, but we stay in touch, we meet for lunches and drinks now and then.”

“Were you one of the people he contacted to target Kennet?  He said he made plans.”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge one way or another.  If there were plans, it’s my understanding they changed when the situation became what it is.”

“So yes, you were?”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge,” Florin said.

Avery scratched the back of her head and looked at Snowdrop.

“Anything else?” Florin asked, smiling.

Avery shook her head.

“Good night, Ms. Kelly.  Again, good work today.”

She remained where she was until he was out of sight, and then she ran home.

“Groups of four!” the teacher called out, pacing in front of the room.  As new students came in, she raised her voice.  “Groups of four!”

Avery stood, stretching.

“Hey, Annabelle, you’re wearing the same sweatshirt,” Jeanine said, as she found Avery in the crowd.

“Oh?  Yeah.  I like it.  I washed it, for the record,” Avery said.  “The name thing still isn’t funny.”

“Just wait for it, it’ll get there.  Do you want to group up?  There’s a few members of the track and Lacrosse teams in here.  They’re not all dumb jocks like me,” Jeanine said.

“Groups of four!” the teacher called out.  “Put your desks together!”

“We can group,” Avery said, looking around.  “I figured I’d look for people who are too shy to find a group.”

“Yeah?”

“I used to be one of them.  Last year.”

“Really?  Huh.  I can’t imagine that.”

Avery shrugged.  “You don’t have to come with.  But it’s a matter of principle for me, pretty much.”

“Weird principles, but sure.  Two more?”

“Sure,” Avery said.

She scanned the room, looking for those who’d stayed seated, waiting for others to come to them.  One boy looked rather shell-shocked in the midst of the people moving around, searching for eye contact, and Avery found that painfully relatable.  She rapped knuckles on his desk.  “Group?”

He nodded quickly.

“Gotta find…” Avery said, keeping the knuckles there.  Jeanine was talking to Hui from the Lacrosse team.  Which was a bit annoying.  Was that to invite Hui in, against Avery’s plan, or was she leaving the finding of the others to Avery?  “…Someone.”

She moved to the back of the class, and in the back corner, saw someone with dreads slumped onto their desk.

She walked over, squeezing past people and desks, and rapped knuckles lightly on the desk.

The person looked up without raising her head.  “Hm?”

“Group?”

“Sure.”

She waved over the guy, and she caught Jeanine’s eye.  Jeanine looked momentarily disappointed as she saw Avery with two others, saying something to Hui, and Avery was left eighty percent certain Jeanine had meant for Hui to join them.

They got sorted, pushing desks into place.  Avery sat with her chair near the wall, facing Jeanine.

Which, like… Jeanine was nice to look at, hit all the marks.  Jeanine was interested.

She drew on Snowdrop energy and checkmarks to keep from getting flustered, sorting out her bag, getting a notebook and pen out.  The guy looked agitated, Jeanine was distracted looking around the class, and the girl in the back corner looked ready to fall asleep.

“Two people per group, one to the front left corner, one to the front right!” the teacher announced.  “Separate packets.  Do not open the folders.”

“Mrs. Carlson likes these games and activities,” Jeanine told Avery, like it was something confidential.

“Can be cool,” Avery said.

“Can be.  But it’s like, why not be a board game designer or something?”

Jeanine got up, and as Avery started to rise, which was difficult with how awkward the desk and chair arrangement was in the smaller room, the guy at the other desk beat her to the punch.  She settled back down.

“You’re new to this school, right?” the girl sitting next to her asked.

“I am.  Moved from a town a few hours away.”

“Huh.  Wouldn’t have figured.”

“I was homeschooled, even.”

“Religious?”

“No.  Not really.”

“How was that?” the girl asked.

“It was… it was okay.  I love my family, but they’re a lot.  I was happy to go to regular school.”

“Mm,” the girl said.  She watched the room with face half buried in folded arms.  “I don’t know if I should even say this, but watch out for Jeanine?”

“Watch out as in…?”

“As in… a lot of hurt feelings and broken friendships left behind her.  Don’t tell her I said that.”

“No, it’s okay,” Avery murmured.  She shifted in her seat.  “I got vibes.”

“Vibes.”

“She mentioned the GSA club.”

The girl sitting next to Avery made a face, wrinkling up her nose and sticking out her tongue a bit.

Was that a face because it was the Gay-straight alliance club, or because of the situation?

“Do you follow-?”

“No,” the reply came back fast, short.

Which left Avery painfully frustrated.  Because yeah, she’d had those vibes.  Little red flags, where Jeanine was friendly but pushy, where it felt like the phrasing of sentences were off.  Or like… if someone called themselves a bitch proudly maybe that could be fine in a certain circumstance, but if it was repeated, in a bunch of variations?  Jeanine did that.

The name thing, even.  What good was a joke if the person it was aimed at wasn’t laughing?  It was just a bit annoying, when Avery was new and trying to make herself known.

Which had amounted to an anxiety and a lack of excitement about going on a date, and a hard time figuring out why, especially when she was distracted running around, unpacking, trying to stay in touch with people, doing the council meeting, checking on Franky, making dinner with her mom, and running around some more.

Someone then commenting, saying yeah, those instincts were valid?  It was super nice.  Until that same someone had that reaction to the GSA.  Which threw it all up into the air again, kind of, with added negativity.

Avery sighed a bit.

“Sorry,” the girl said.

“What even gets taught in a critical thinking class?” Avery asked.

“Even after a week of classes, I’m not sure.  Hopefully we find out today.  Maybe that’s the point of the class, and you get an A+ if you critically think enough to realize the class is a sham.”

Avery pulled her bag up to her lap to get her drink.

She noticed the girl looking at the strap.  The lesbian pride flag.

Is this going to be a thing?

The girl made eye contact.  Lower face still buried in arms, she murmured, “I wouldn’t.”

“Okay, well, I would and did,” Avery said, firm.  “Is this going to be an issue?  Maybe we could change up the groups before things get started?”

“No,” the girl said.  She sat up.  “No, shit.  Sorry.  I’m shit at communicating.  Especially when I’m tired, which is a lot.  Sorry.”

Avery remained tense, unsure what to say or do, or how to interpret.

The girl filled in the silence.  “I didn’t mean to imply- I mean it’s good.  What else did I say, to suggest-?”

“The GSA?” Avery asked, quiet.

“I don’t really follow those sorts of things, I don’t have a lot of friends in this school, so the fact even I heard about how much of a drama fest it became?  Mostly because of Jeanine?” the girl asked, whisper quiet  She made the face again, tongue out, nose scrunched up.

“Ah.  The one back home was nice, at least.”

“Fuck.  Um, so I don’t know if you’re with her, don’t tell her I said this, I don’t want to get roped into it.”

“I won’t.  You’re fine.  And I’m not with her.”

“Okay.  Not your type?” the girl asked.  “Wait, nevermind, none of my business.  Have I mentioned I’m tired?”

Avery put her elbow on the desk.  “She asked me out and the me of last spring would’ve said yes without thinking.”

“What happened in the meantime?”

Avery sighed, super long and heavy.

“Sorry,” the girl said.

“A lot of stuff.”

“Valid,” the girl replied, setting head back down inside folded arms.

Avery looked at her.  She was small, wearing a black death metal tee, black jeans, her hair in thin dreads, with light brown skin and very long lashes that were probably fake, but were the only real reach out to femininity if they were.

“I’m Avery.”

“I know,” the girl replied.  Then she seemed to startle and quickly added, “You’re new and people talked about you right off the bat.  Because of some sports thing?”

“Yeah.”

“So that’s why I know,” the girl said, mumbling a bit because she was talking into her arm, slumped over her desk.

“I brought up my name to get yours,” Avery said, smiling a bit, leaning forward to get into the girl’s field of view.

“Shit.  I mentioned I’m bad at the talking thing.”

“You have.”

“I’m tired too, I’ve said that a few times like a numbskull.  I’m Nora.  But you can call me numbskull if you want.”

“Hi, Nora.”

“And the flag thing…”  Nora mumbled, barely audible.  “I meant I couldn’t.”

Avery looked at her, then settled into her seat.  “Honestly, valid.  Every situation’s different.  I’m pretty lucky.”

Nora watched the class, her eye searching faces, agitated.

“Never mentioned that to anyone,” Nora whispered.

The teacher clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention.  People at the front who’d opened envelopes and read the contents came back to their groups with empty hands.  Jeanine navigated from the far end of the class to their little cluster in the opposite corner.

“Doesn’t have to be anything.  Since I moved there’ve been an awful lot of… difficult people to connect with.  I could use a friend, at least.”  Avery asked Nora, before Jeanine reached them, “Want to hang out sometime?”

Nora nodded, and it was a tiny, tiny nod.

And Avery settled back, feeling… bewildered.  Like something was missing or something was there, and it had been a long, long time, if ever, since that thing had been there, or hadn’t, depending.

“Cool.”

Next Chapter