Playing a Part – 15.3
Author: Wildbow

Playing a Part – 15.3 | Pale

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Lucy waited, standing up on her tiptoes for a moment, then dropping down, then bobbing on the spot in her eagerness, the fingers of one hand entwined with the fence for a grip, giving her balance.  She even stepped onto the semi-horizontal bar of her bike, which was one of twenty already chained along the school fence.  Standing on her bike gave her extra height, to try to see past parents, cars, and the kids trudging toward school or meeting up with friends.  High school students had their own cars, usually borrowed, and parked in the back lot.  Little kids filtered out and around, ushered by parents and teachers into the schoolyard, where they were free to run any which way.

The crowd looked so thin, compared to what it usually was.  They’d only lost a third of the students, about, but it felt like more.

She’d rode over from her house, riding her bike while the weather was still good enough, and she’d noticed the car missing from the driveway.  So she’d hoped that she’d arrive and there’d be a bit of time.  Her legs hurt from pedaling harder, and from the tip-toe thing, as she tried to see past the mess of cars.

She was in the middle of thinking about texting him when she saw his mom’s car.

Wallace’s mom got out of the car at the same time he did, and a car behind them did a mini-honk.  Whatever the opposite of laying into the horn was called.  Like, a lot of people are wanting to move along here, lady.

But Wallace had one arm in a brace and one arm in a sling and apparently his mom didn’t want him closing his own car door, or lifting his own bag, so she got those things instead.

Lucy knew Wallace’s mom had some of the same stuff going on.  Food allergies and joint issues and some other stuff besides, but she was taking on a role as the caregiver here.  To Wallace’s embarrassment.

Wallace saw Lucy and hurried over.

“Hey!” he greeted her.  “Were you waiting for me?”

“Yuh,” Lucy replied, smiling.  “I thought I missed you, I saw your car was gone from the driveway, I thought you’d already be here, maybe talking to teachers?”

“We got gluten free donuts for breakfast.”

“Ah,” she said.  She felt silly now.

“My mom’s trying to treat me.  I yelled at her a couple nights ago.”

“Oh no.”

“Yeah, I- she’s been more anxious than I am about everything and I sorta let her have it and I was a total jerk.  She’s been trying to make it up to me since.  So… donuts.”

“It’s nice she listened.”

“Yeah.  I guess.”

Kids pushed past and Wallace lifted his arm up and out of the way to avoid any major impacts.  And Lucy could see Brayden, making his way over like he wanted to talk to Wallace.  Others were gathered in the loose cluster of high schoolers near the one end of the school where the middle and high school classes happened.  While kids went to play, the high schoolers just mostly stood around.

She didn’t want to be in the midst of that.

“How are you?” Wallace asked.

Lucy looked around and saw that one of the monitors, a parent volunteer standing guard by the doors of the school and monitoring what was basically a pre-school recess for the younger students, was ushering some younger kids inside.  Through her earring, she could make out the instructions given to them, stay close, use the washroom, and come right back outside.

“Come on,” she said.  “Want me to take your bag?”

“Actually, if you could adjust the strap, it’s sorta sitting awkward- actually, yeah, take it?  Sorry.”

“All good.  Come on,” she said, tilting her head, checking the coast was clear.  “Walk like you know where you’re going.”

She led him through the doors of the school, wearing her own bag, with Wallace’s additionally slung over one shoulder.

She stopped at the door to the kindergarten, which was right inside, holding up a finger, and listened, ear with the earring pressed against the wall.

She heard the kindergarten teacher inside, walking away from the door.

They slipped past while the guy’s back was turned.

Down the hall, past the washrooms.  Where was a good spot?  The library was dangerous.  There were classrooms down the hallway, along with lockers, a few of the lockers unlocked with doors ajar.

“Where are we going?” Wallace asked.

The lost and found room was by the set of fire doors that were perpetually left open in the warmer days and weeks.  A teacher and some parents were inside.  Clothes left behind at school and forgotten by parents were left there to stink up the room, piles and piles of clothes, some years old, most unwashed.  Chances were pretty good that the parents picking through the stuff weren’t trying to find some sweatshirt that had been taken off at recess and forgotten, but people without much money, picking up what they could.

They escaped past that too.  The music room was recessed and extended down past a short set of stairs into a basement, for the added soundproofing, but there were people talking down there.

They eventually reached the end of the school where the middle school classrooms ended and the high school classes started, which was a two-story affair, like the far end of the school where the first through fifth graders were, and went behind a set of stairs, where there were a few lockers stuck against the wall, and a few things stored under the diagonal angle of the stairs.

“What’s this?” Wallace asked.

“Wanted to talk to just you, nobody else hanging around,” Lucy said.  She put the bags down and leaned against the wall, hidden from view from anyone   “How long before we get another chance?”

“Oh,” he said.  He moved closer, leaning against the same wall.  Lucy extended a leg, touching the side of his leg with her foot, then felt silly for doing it, dropping the foot back down to the ground.  He smiled, though.  “I’m okay with that.  Better than okay.”

“Okay,” she said.  She extended a hand to the halfway point between them.  After he took a full second to realize what she was doing and what she wanted, he put his hand in hers.  They leaned against the wall there, holding hands.

“You’re leaving around lunch, right?” she asked.

He nodded.

“And we probably won’t get a chance to really talk before then?”

“Yeah.  Probably going straight to my mom picking me up.  Then leaving town, hotel, hospital, lots of hotel and hospital, probably some stuff where my mom tries to treat me like she’s been doing.”

“Distractions?”

Wallace nodded. “Probably she’ll go back to being annoying as the day comes.  She was getting so annoying.  Like cleaning the house top to bottom would make things go better?”

“Are they going to go okay though?”

“Dunno,” Wallace said.  “From what they said, there’s this… this big chance-”

He moved his hand, and hers with it, turning his body so he could move the sling-hand, indicating a wide, three-foot distance between his hands, head and eyes moving back and forth.

“-that things go okay, and I get better, and I dislocate my joints less than I did before.  Less slings, less braces, less pain.”

“I hope so.”

“And there’s this chance- small.  But maybe it gets better but there’s new stuff to deal with…  Like they talk about side effects like maybe there’ll be minor chronic pain, or a slight chance of numbness, especially in the ring finger and pinky finger.”

He marked out a half-foot of distance, now.

Lucy nodded, her expression serious.

“And a teeny tiny chance it doesn’t fix anything or makes things worse and I get the numbness and pain and a bunch of other stuff and I regret getting this surgery every day for the rest of my life.”

He used the fingers and thumb of his sling hand to mark out about an inch.

“Way my mom’s acting, she can’t let go of that tiny chance, she acts like it’s a fifty-fifty chance, and she’d blame herself because she was pushing for it, and she got this set of pins and stuff screwed into her elbow, back when chances were way worse, and it went terrific for her, and she seems to feel like it stole my luck from me.  It took me getting really mad for her to stop.”

“I wish there was some magic I could work to make your mom more chill and make this go better.”

“No magic, just reality,” Wallace said, shrugging.  “This is nice, us.  A quiet moment.”

“Good,” Lucy said, feeling awkward, like there was more she wanted to say or do.

“Feels like only now that it’s mostly quiet, I’m realizing how noisy it’s been the rest of the time.  School-” still holding her hand, he lifted their hands and moved them in the direction of everything they’d just left behind, head tilting at the same time.  “-and people talking or teachers talking at me, or I’m home and my mom’s freaking manic, or I’m talking to doctors about expectations or my family’s calling to wish me well…”

Lucy felt like talking now would only add to that, so she gave him a sympathetic look and nodded.

“I guess what I’m saying is… I think my favorite part of my time with you is these- these moments, where we find the quiet and it’s just us.”

Lucy felt something halfway between heartbreak and heart-fullness in that, that she didn’t know how to parse.  The expression that found its way to her face was very like the sympathetic one from a moment ago, but more, more emotional.

“I mean, I like the other moments too, don’t get me wrong,” he protested, like he’d completely misread her.  He averted eye contact, looking around the little nook behind and beneath the stairwell that they’d found.

She leaned in, and because his lips weren’t in easy reach, kissed him on the cheek.  A flutter-light touch against warm cheek.  Which felt chaste and childish in the moment, so her hand impulsively reached up and touched his chest, which felt like too much.  So she dropped it, fingers running from chest, around sling, to stomach, which was meant to be a withdrawal but felt like an accidental way the fuck more–

She flushed, emotions shifting into maximum gear while she was very still, scanning his face for any signal she’d gone too far or given the wrong impression about why she’d pulled him into a private spot.

He smiled at her.  He didn’t lean in or touch her, which felt like maybe he hadn’t gotten that wrong impression.

She didn’t know what to say that might not fix that delicate, lucky balance, where maybe he’d gotten just why she’d wanted this moment and didn’t walk away with the wrong impression.  Didn’t walk away with the wrong impression and then leave a few hours later, to keep that wrong impression for a long time, she amended, mentally.

“That was nice,” he said.  He leaned his head at a tilt, resting it against the wall, facing her.

“Oh, good,” she replied.

“I feel like these moments are the ones that stick.  As much as us going for ice cream or playing games while my mom hovers is its own kind of nice, I think these quiet times are the times I’m going to remember.”

She nodded fiercely.  More emotions bubbled up, restless, warm and low in her belly and then fluttery and light and jittery as they reached head and lips and the tingle of the flush in her face.

On impulse, knowing there was a risk he’d misunderstand, she leaned in and kissed him.  Warm end tender and answering that restlessness.

“Let’s pretend that’s for luck,” she whispered.

“Happy to,” he said.  Then he moved abruptly, leaned in, and kissed her.

Felt different to be receiving instead of giving.  For him to be taking that step.  Even though a kiss was both-ways, it was hard not to parse it as one person giving the kiss.  And where her kiss to him had mostly helped to quiet that restlessness, his to her only stirred it up, gave her a thrill.  His right hand in the brace let go of her hand and rested on her left arm and her right arm pressed against the wall and it was like this little contained space for them.  Being boxed in by him, in a good way.

It made her think of how her kiss had been like relief and his had been the opposite and they could fall into a constant, dizzying loop or back and forth… which made other stuff flash through her brain that she quickly dismissed because this moment wasn’t about that.

And the kiss.  In the middle of it all the kiss persisted, interrupted by the fleeting am I doing this right? thought.  By the thoughts about how nice it was, even if they weren’t doing it perfect.

“That,” he said, face red as he pulled away, “is because I like you.  No pretending.”

“Oh good,” she said, quiet, eyes dropping, bashful, the various pent-up feelings rushing through her and out what felt like the knees, leaving her a tiny bit wobbly.  She leaned against the wall again.  “Because I like you too.  I’m going to miss the heck out of you while you’re gone.”

He nodded.

“Can I give you a hug?” she asked.  “Is that weird?”

She wasn’t sure why she was giving more importance to a hug than a kiss.  Or why she’d asked.

But he shook his head.  It took a second to really close that distance, because his arm was in a sling and his other arm in a brace and they were leaning against the wall so there wasn’t room to slip an arm past.

Which made it feel more significant.  Less like this perfunctory thing and more like two puzzle pieces sliding together, his upper body twisted at a slight angle, so the arm wasn’t in the way.  Her arm around his ribs and shoulder, his arm at her side brace awkward, hand at her back.  She leaned a head against his shoulder, gentle as she could, then sighed.

She felt him sigh too.  He was warm, and even though he’d moved so his sling-arm wasn’t in the way, his hand was.  Just a flat hand pressing against his own stomach and hers.

The hug felt more like the relief part of the loop.  An exhalation of the two of them.

“It’s going to be a long few weeks.”

“Might be longer,” she said.

“Don’t you say that.  You might make it come true.”

“Just… people leaving, it’s a thing now, stuff’s changing.”

“No way am I not coming back,” he told her.

She liked that he said it like that.

The bell rang, signaling permission to enter.  In another ten minutes the second bell would ring and they’d be expected to be inside classes, and a few minutes from then, the final bell would signal the start of class.

They broke the hug with the same carefulness that they’d entered it with.

“Should get to class, maybe split up so people don’t think-”

“Yeah,” he said.  He leaned back, back resting against the wall, and propped up a foot against the wall, so his leg was bent at two forty-five degree angles.

“Good luck with things, if I haven’t said,” she said.

“You did.  Even sealed it with a kiss.”

“Oh, right.”  She knew she was supposed to move on, but-

“You two!”

She turned a hundred and eighty degrees on the spot.

Teachers.  Mr. Sitton and Ms. Hardy.

“You’re not supposed to be in the school before the bell rings,” Mr. Sitton said.

“It just rang,” Lucy said.

“Don’t get smart with me,” he told her.  “What were you doing?”

“Talking,” Wallace said, behind Lucy.

“Wallace is leaving at lunch, he’s got surgery.  I wanted a chance to say bye without Sharon and Mia and George making a big deal or interrupting,” Lucy said. Or teachers interrupting.

“Okay,” Ms. Hardy said, before Mr. Sitton could say anything.  “That’s fair, we’ll give it an exception just this once.”

Mr. Sitton didn’t look like he wanted to give it an exception.

“Thanks,” Lucy said.  She hurried to grab her bag.  Wallace added his own, “Thanks.”

Lucy got his bag for him and helped put it at one shoulder.

“Come on, with me, the two of you.  My homeroom class.”

“I’ve gotta hit my locker,” Wallace said.  “Get books.”

“Go,” Mr. Sitton said.

“Need help with your bag?” Lucy asked.

“He will manage,” Mr. Sitton said.  “Go.  Break it up.”

Lucy frowned, but Wallace was obliging, so she didn’t kick up a fuss about it.

“Good luck, Wallace,” Ms. Hardy said, before going to her own class on the ground floor.

Lucy and Mr. Sitton walked up the stairs and over to homeroom, leaving Wallace at his locker.  The very first students were reaching the upper floor.

“You’re such teenagers,” Mr. Sitton said.

Lucy bristled.

“Acting like it’s the end of the world when you have to be apart for a few days.  Jeremy!  Walk!”

Jeremy, running over to Wallace, slowed to a walking pace.  The sudden shift of focus from what Mr. Sitton said to Jeremy left Lucy frustrated, wanting to retort or say something but unsure of what that might be.  So she fumed instead, high-fiving Jeremy as he passed her on his way to go talk to Wallace.

She hurried forward and away from Mr. Sitton.

Like… would he be okay?  Maybe the surgery had an eighty percent chance of going well and a fifteen percent chance of mixed results like the numbness thing, and maybe a five percent chance of a horrible result.

But then maybe there was a fifty percent chance he might leave for good.

It felt greedy to want things to go well and for him to stay and for things to go back to a good or better normal.  And if she had to pick one or the other to not feel greedy, then she wanted him well, healthy, successful surgery, not coming back to Kennet, instead of the opposite.

It left her with this complicated feeling of losing him somehow, even though the odds weren’t exactly like that, and she suspected she could sympathize with his mom.

And then Mr. Sitton saying that?  Acting like she was blowing things out of proportion?

Mia passed and winked at Lucy, before turning her full attention to George.  It seemed like George was on his way back to the ‘in group’.  Hailey, who’d gone off with George into the woods to smoke weed and give him an alleged blowjob, was sort of on the outs, still.  Too many girls had liked George and had had dibs on him.  Hailey had been part of the dance event where the dance club had gone to New York and won one of the lesser awards, but it had been a tense thing.

Lucy wasn’t sure what to do about that, except to maybe steer away from shit-talking Hailey when her name came up, and avoid absolving George of being an insensitive prick about things.

But this was the way things went.

Lucy settled into her seat and watched the people filter in, Mr. Sitton talking to one student or another.  And she kind of hated him.  He’d been a bad sort of normal before, treading into uncomfortable territory once in a while, but now?

Wallace settled in at the seat one desk ahead of her, followed quickly after by Jeremy.  She felt a little spike of jealousy that they were having time together and she wanted more, but heck, Jeremy’s friend was leaving for a while too.  Jeremy had to have that general sense that maybe Wallace would go and not come back.

Verona came in, and Lucy had to take a second to check before determining which Verona it was.  The Fetch.

Fetch-Verona went to the back sink and filled one of the eco-friendly water bottles. While she did that, Melissa entered, cane in hand, gave Verona a long, hard look, and then frowned at Lucy.

Lucy made a small hand gesture, waving her off.  Later.  It wasn’t the first time Melissa had noticed something, but there hadn’t been any great occasions to address it where Lucy was with Melissa alone.

Fetch-Verona sat behind Jeremy.

“Thirsty girl,” Jeremy said.

“You know it,” the Verona said, flashing him a smile.  “Gotta hydrate these sticks and twigs that are stuffed inside me.”

“Sticks and twigs, huh?” Jeremy asked.  “Wouldn’t have guessed.”

Fetch-Verona shrugged.

Melissa glanced at Lucy again.  Lucy shook her head a little.

“Oh, uhhh… first, here.”

Verona passed Lucy a note.  It was a schedule.  A list of locations and places Verona would try to be at set times.  So they could communicate or pass messages in a pinch.  A bit of a compromise they’d settled on.  So Lucy would know sooner than later if Verona had gotten into trouble and if a rescue attempt was needed.  Verona was checking in with Matthew too, at different times, and sending Peckersnot around for the little things and updates.

Which was good.  Better.

“Second thing, I’m supposed to tell you,” Fetch-Verona added, “good luck, Wallace.”

“Thanks.”

“Why say it like that?” Melissa asked.  “Supposed to tell him?”

“I mentioned it to Verona,” Lucy said.  “She can be a bit scatterbrained.”

“Leaves and dust up here,” Verona said, tapping her noggin.

Really, really need to have a conversation with Verona about what qualities she’s imparting on the Fetch.

“Sounds like you’re spending too much time outdoors,” Jeremy said.

“Spent all night sitting on a bench behind my garage.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind.  Think of it as me being silly.”

Really need to.

Melissa’s head turned, not that Lucy could really tell, since Melissa’s mane of slightly unkempt, crimped hair blocked the view of most of her head and face.  She was looking at the door.

Another student, talking to Mr. Sitton.  Where Mr. Sitton had been hovering, answering some questions for students about classes and if notes would be needed, or would they be watching TV later since it was Friday, hint hint, he gave the new student his full attention, stepping away from everyone and telling some kids who came to him with questions to go take a seat.

The guy was a bit burly, one of the two tallest kids in class, next to George, and much like George, he hadn’t gone skinny as he’d gone up.  His hair was short and black and it looked like he’d tried to make it nice but it mostly ended up spiky instead.

“Hello hello,” Melissa murmured.

“You are unashamed,” Jeremy remarked.

“I’m a cripple, it’s not like anyone wants me, so I’m going to enjoy from afar.”

“Melissa,” Lucy said, “if you could haul your own head out of your ass and stop being so hard on yourself I think you’d do just fine.”

“I’d do just fine for him,” Melissa said.  “Is he a new kid?  Please tell me he’s joining our class.”

Mr. Sitton walked the guy over to his desk, taking papers.

“Eyy,” Melissa said, super quiet.

Something about the look in the guy’s eyes- the wariness.  It prompted Lucy to use her Sight to check.

Verona’s vision was better for it, but Lucy’s could do in a pinch.  The sheer amount of staining, the heavy blades that impaled the shoulders and stabbed down into the chest cavity, making the Sight version of him bend forward like a hunchback when the regular version of him stood tall…

Black sheep.  Someone from the Undercity.

Lucy frowned, and he met her eyes.

He frowned back.

The bell rang again, ten minutes since the last one.  The last students came in.

Directed by Mr. Sitton, the new kid walked over to take a seat near the center of the classroom, a column over and a row down from Melissa, across the aisle.

“New?” Melissa asked.

He nodded.

“What’s your name?”

“Bracken,” he said, glancing at Lucy.  “Bracken Fry.”

“Jeremy,” Jeremy called over.  “Jeremy Clifford.”

“Wallace, Wallace Davis,” Wallace said, picking up on the joke.

“Melissa, Melissa Oakham,” Melissa said.

With a wary look in his eyes, tension in neck and shoulders, it seemed like he had to tell himself it was a good natured joke, instead of a joke at his expense.

Jeremy nudged Fetch-Verona, who was slumped on her desk, looking out the window.  “This distracted creature is Verona.”

“Yo,” Fetch-Verona said.

“And you?” Bracken asked.

Lucy frowned slightly.  “Lucy.  Ellingson.  Where are you from, Bracken?”

“You know where I’m from,” he said, terse.

“Woah, what?” Melissa asked, turning.

The final bell rang.

“You’re dangerously close to being a donkey,” Wallace said.

“I’m a what?” the guy asked.

“Quiet, please!” Mr. Sitton called out.  “Settle in, settle down, there’s a few things to go over before I send you to your next class…”

“It’s a joke,” Wallace hurried to respond, quiet.  “We have a Brayden, Bryan, Bryson, Brady, and a Braison got held back, though Bryan left, so-”

“Quiet!”

“Bray bray bray, like donkeys,” Melissa said, leaning over.  “But you don’t have a ‘Y’ or an ‘I’ in your name so you get a pass.”

“Oh,” Bracken said, looking uncomfortable.

“Where are you from, that Lucy knows you?” Melissa asked.

“Melissa Oakham!” Mr. Sitton called out.  “Do you want detention or do you want to be quiet like I asked you to?”

“Is that an actual choice or-?”

“It’s not.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth, then slumped into her seat.

“Logan Wasselman, whatever’s so funny, please settle down…”

As Mr. Sitton got the class into order and began homeroom attendance, Bracken glanced one last time at Lucy, then seemed to make a deliberate attempt at ignoring her.

In the rush of students leaving for lunch, Lucy stole a moment with Wallace, taking him off to the side and quickly leaning in to give him a peck on the cheek.

“No PDA on school grounds!” a teacher in the hallway called out.

“See ya,” she said, quiet.

“See you.”

She stood in the doorway, watching as he headed down to where his mom stood by the car.  She opened the door for him, taking his bag.

Lucy watched as they drove off.

“Hey,” Mia said.

“Hey.”

“Sorry about your guy being gone.  How are you doing?”

“I’m okay.  Worried.”

“Is this an okay-okay?  Or a time-to-binge-on-junk-food-okay?”

“No binging.”

“Want to hang out and talk?” Mia asked.

“Uhhh… can we put that as a maybe for after school?  Hanging out would be cool, but I’ve got- I got a note earlier, I should go handle that.”

“Teacher?”

“We’ll see!” Lucy said.  “Bye, thanks.”

“After school!” Mia called out.

Lucy passed the Verona-Fetch, glancing at it, then Melissa.

“Hey, I wanted to talk-”

“After?  Sorry.  Just need to handle something.”

Lucy went to the washroom, stepping inside, checked the note, and then checked her phone.

It took a couple of minutes before everyone having their post-class washroom breaks had filtered out, drawn by the promise of food.

Lucy meandered down to the sink nearest to the window, checked the coast was clear, then exhaled onto it.  With the fall cold from the cracked window, her breath misted slightly on the mirror.  A few more puffs fogged it up more.

She drew a fox.

The condensation shifted.  A cat.

Followed by an ‘I – ok’

Then a ‘U ok?’

“There is a black sheep in our class,” Lucy murmured, as she wrote something to that effect.

She had to puff more on the mirror to mist it up again.

Verona’s message was appearing there, stark lines drawn in faint condensation.

‘U got it?’

Lucy parsed that.  Do you have it handled?

She was in the middle of writing a reply when the door opened.  Lucy jumped, ready to wipe everything away.

She relaxed, then resumed writing.  Think so.  Gotta see about him.  Will check in later.  We should plan.

Melissa went to wash her hands, then paused as the lines appeared.

“What the hell?  Ghost?”

“Verona.  The real Verona.”

“Fucking heck.  I knew something was up.  But you kept deflecting-”

“You know that every single thing I tell you makes you more at risk of terrible stuff happening, right?  Even the part where I tell you it makes things riskier?”

“Yeah well… sucks, I guess, I still want to know.”

“Okay,” Lucy said.

“What is she, then?”

“She’s a fake Verona and please don’t pick at the loose threads or go digging too deep, or it might actually be a disaster.  It’s fragile.”

“Now that you said that, I actually want to pick at-”

“No,” Lucy said.  “Not funny, don’t.  Seriously.”

Melissa frowned.  She bent down and splashed her face with water.

Lucy breathed on the mirror, then wrote on it.  After school?

Ok bye, was the response.

“What’s up with Bracken?” Melissa asked, patting at her face with a paper towel.

Lucy washed her hands.  “Bracken?”

“Who is he?  Where is he from?” Melissa asked.  “Or better yet…”

A pair of younger girls entered the bathroom.

“…what is he?” Melissa asked, quiet.

“Possible trouble covers most of those bases,” Lucy answered.  She dried her hands with a paper towel and used it to wipe the mirror free of messages.  “And I intend to go find out how possible, and fill in the gaps.”

“Don’t leave me behind, I want to go see, c’mon,” Melissa said.

“Later.”

“Abusing the fact I’m a cripple by walking fast.”

“Stop saying that.”

Melissa groaned.

Getting past the door slowed Lucy down, and Melissa was just fast enough that she could push herself to catch up, catching Lucy’s sleeve as they stepped out into the hallway.

“Hey,” Melissa said.  “What is he really?  Where’s he from?”

“Again, me telling you-”

“Yeah yeah yeah.  Really.  Tell me.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s from the same place Verona’s currently at.”

“On the other side of the mirror?”

“That’s- the mirror is just a case where the veneer is thinner- kind of.  Sorta.  A… dark side of Kennet.  Bit tougher, bit meaner, less rules.”

“No shit?  There’s a nega-Kennet?” Melissa asked, quiet.

“Basically.  And I really should go check on what a guy from a hypothetical nega-Kennet is up to.”

“I love that there’s a nega-Kennet,” Melissa said.  “I’ve always felt I don’t really fit in here, like I belong here but not here, you know?  In a slightly different place or time?”

“Yeah, well…”  Lucy wanted to say Melissa didn’t belong, but… “Honestly, you might fit in there, some.”

“I want to see it.”

Shit.  “No I don’t think you should want to see it.  I’ve seen people dying, I’ve seen monsters, I’ve seen-”

The door opened.  The two girls left the bathroom.

“Bad stuff?” Melissa asked, tempering things down while the girls were close enough to hear.

“Yeah.  And Verona thinks I should stay away from there.  She thinks it’s too much.”

“Is that where she’s been?”

“Mostly.”

“I want to see it,” Melissa repeated herself.

“Shitty thing is, I think there’s a very real chance you might, because of your weak protections and because you might be suited to that place,” Lucy said.  “Which is part of why I’m telling you it exists.  If you realize you’ve slipped over to the other side of Kennet… really seriously, call us.”

“Right.”

Lucy’s eyes narrowed.  “Hey.  I’m serious.  Melissa, I’m going out on a limb telling you, I need to hear you say you’ll call if you find yourself over there, and I need to believe you when you say it.”

Melissa frowned.

“You could die.  Or worse.  There are- we think there’s three serial killers over there.  There’s a sex cult where the leader gives women these fast-forward pregnancies.  Gang members here are mostly like, sad old dudes with motorcycles who are too poor to live in the city with other bikers, and kids who scribble lame looking gang signs on walls.  Gang members there hang bodies above intersections like art displays.  There’s a hospital where they were turning people into monsters, basically.  You’d be a target because of your leg.”

Melissa took that in.

“I call you on the phone?” Melissa asked.

That was the sort of question Lucy wanted to hear.  “Phones don’t work that well over there.  Call our names three times.  If you’re close to the school, find kids, ask to be taken to the Vice Principal, say it’s about us.  That you’re protected.  If you’re downtown, look for someone with blue paint, weirdly blue tattoos, or a thing about birds, ask to see the Witch, same deal.  But call our name three times whatever you do.”

“There’s a witch downtown?”

“Melissa.”

“I want to hang out with the witch.”

“These instincts?  That ‘that sounds interesting’ or ‘that’s cool’ feeling?  That feeling is not your friend.  That feeling leads to more things like your ankle.”

“Ouch.  Going there?”

“Fight your instincts on this stuff.”

“I’ll call.  Say your name three times.  Ask to see the principal or the witch, depending on where I am.”

“Vice Principal.  If you say principal without the vice part, they might not believe you, or they might consider it a loophole.”

“Vice principal.  Call you three times.”

Lucy nodded.

“How do I get there?”

“Fucking hell, Melissa, do you want me to stomp on your ankle until you can’t walk, so you don’t wander off?  Because I will and it’d probably be way nicer than what might end up happening to you if you go-”

“I’m not asking-”

“-there and end up dealing with the wrong people!”

“I’m not asking to try to go there, I’m asking so I know what to watch out for so I don’t go there!”

Lucy faced Melissa down, hands on her hips.

“Seriously.  I believe you.  Real Kennet is boring, dark Kennet is bad news, I get it.”

“It might seem cool at first.  But maybe five or ten minutes in, when you see your first dead body or if you run into the wrong person who doesn’t follow the rules you’re used to, I suspect you’ll end up wishing you’d called for help five or ten minutes ago.”

“Got it.”

“You’d end up there by accident, I think.  You’ll get a sense you’re there pretty fast, if you’re keeping an eye out.  Or a nose out.  The air quality is different there.  The way the light hits the sky.”

“And what do I do if I’m not near downtown or the school?  If I can’t ask for the Vice Principal because it’s late-”

“She sleeps at the school.”

“-or I’m nowhere near the Witch downtown?”

“The Witch of Bitter Street.  Remember that.  If you’re not in a position to ask them, call us, then hide.”

“I have so many questions.”

“And I’ve got to go talk to our new student.  Maybe later, okay?  For now… enjoy lunch, enjoy normal.”

“Can I come with?”

Lucy shook her head, then she fast-walked away.  Down toward the small gym, which had tables that folded down to serve as a cafeteria.  She walked through, looking.  No Bracken.

She left the school and walked out to the side yard.

There.  Not in the yard proper, but in the smaller play area with sand and play structures, occupied by the first kindergarteners and first graders to finish lunch.  Or who had been so excited to play they were already out, forgetting about eating.

The lack of hall monitors and yard monitors seemed to be a symptom of the direction things were going.

Bracken was there, big for a guy in his mid-teens, pushing a younger kid on the swings.

Lucy approached, walking around the play area, keeping the fence that kept the little kids in bounds between them.  As she got closer, he bent down and said something to the little kid.

The kid ran off, climbing up the play structure.  Bracken approached.

“Witch?” he asked.  “One of the three big ones?”

She nodded.  “Lucy.  One of the major practitioners of Kennet.”

“Had that feeling,” he said.

“Yeah?  Special skill?” she asked.

He shook his head.  “I’ve been feeling way the fuck out of place, and you’re one of the only ones looking at me like you know I don’t belong.”

“We gotta talk about you being out of place, Bracken.”

“Do we?” he asked.  “What happens if I tell you to fuck off?”

“It’s hard to say for certain but I have a suspicion it might be the same thing that happens if you don’t, except I’m a lot less nice about it.”

“Why are you here?” she asked, frowning.

“Why is it your business?  Who gave you this authority?”

“Because I’m an appointed protector of Kennet-”

“By fucking who?” he asked.

“By the same forces that gave me incredible magic ass-kicking power.  And taught me curses, and taught me a bunch of other stuff.  I’d much rather have a civil discussion, Bracken.”

“And I’d rather you fuck off, but here we are.”

He was loud enough a little girl on the play structure behind him stopped what she was doing, pressing her face into the bars to watch with wide eyes.

“Mind your language around the kids.”

“You’re still talking like you have any right to boss me around.”

“Just talk to me, Bracken,” Lucy said, fighting to keep her tone level.  “I’ve been told that you guys respond better to force, and you’ll fight up until you’re bullied into obedience.”

“Sure, yep,” he replied.  “Basically right.  And I’ve been given the impression you can’t do shit with your curses and stuff as long as there’s regular people watching.”

Lucy frowned.

“So you want to fight?” he asked.  “I’m stronger than you when you don’t have your curses, and I’m pretty sure you can’t do your thing if I break your teeth and fingers.”

She didn’t flinch, but she could feel the menace radiating off him.  The willingness to do just that if he had to.

The little boy pressed his face to the bars, just beside the girl.  She could see the staining, somewhat lighter, on the kid.  Six or so, skinny, the same spiky black hair.  Maybe even the same hair product.  Lucy was struck by a mental image of Bracken trying to get himself suitable for school, then doing much the same with his kid brother.

“That your brother?”

“Fuck off.”

Lucy counted to three.

And he walked away before she was done counting.  Away from the eight foot fence and around to another part, where he had a better view of the little boy.  The fence dropped down to about three feet in height.  Still enough to keep kids in bounds, but not so tall that the fence blocked the view of any yard monitors.  When there were yard monitors.

She circled around, following him.  “Bracken, talk-”

“Fuck you, black girl,” he cut her off, venom in his voice.

“Woah,” she replied, tone and demeanor chilled, now.  “Why go there?”

“Why not?  I don’t care enough to remember your name, it’s a basic description of you.”

“You could call me the First Witch of Kennet.  That’d feel less targeted.”

“You want to talk about targeting?” he asked, aggressive.  His hand lashed out, over that short fence, for her neck.  She caught his wrist and put another hand at his elbow, twisting one and applying pressure to the other.

Chin set, looking down at her hands without lowering his face at the same time, he held that position.

“I want to talk, period.”

“You want to send us back.”

“That’s one possibility and this kind of thing is making it more likely, not less.”

Bracken stared her down, his arm in her grip, then lifted.  He wasn’t supernaturally strong, but he was strong in the way that maybe one percent of fourteen year olds were.  Enough that he could lift her slight form off the ground- or force her to release the tension in her arms while he pulled upward against the two-handed grip she had on his arm.

He twisted, dropping her, moving fast, his other hand reaching for her as she landed, finding her footing.  He didn’t grab her neck like he’d wanted, but he got her collar and the necklace she wore.  John’s dog tag, Songbird ring and weapon ring skittered left across her upper chest, then swung right.

The front door of the school opened.

Melissa.  Standing fifty feet away, out of earshot, looking at the scene.

“Bracken,” Lucy said.

“Fuck you, fuck off.  You leave me alone, I wont’ break you, how’s that?  And if you want to curse me?  Or do anything?  You’d better make it bad enough to keep me down forever, or I’ll come after you.  You want to play cop?  I’ll play the meanest fucking criminal back.”

“First of all, that’s uncalled for,” she told him.

“Don’t care.”

“I don’t see myself as a cop.  I see myself here as more of a-”

“Don’t care.”

“-social worker,” she told him.  “And if that was some teacher coming out to start yard duty instead of Melissa, you’d be in trouble.”

“Still don’t care.”

“You should.  Because I know it’s mostly lawless in the Undercity, but here?  Here, fucking around gets you in trouble, it means people look into you harder, and it might mean bad things for your little brother… if that’s your little brother.”

“He is,” Bracken said, terse.

“Okay,” Lucy said.  She caught his wrist again as he moved his hand, tugging on her collar.  It was a nice long-sleeved top and she didn’t want him tearing it.  Or stretching it.  “You sat through class, you looked uncomfortable.  But you’re playing along.  You seem to care about him.  For his sake, you gotta keep playing along.  If you get in trouble with yard monitors, or if the school double-checks the paperwork you gave to apply, who’s he got?”

Bracken exhaled heavily through his nose.

“Tell me what’s up,” she said, her voice tense.  She didn’t like being held like this, clothes stretched against her side and shoulder, at risk of tearing.  She didn’t like this kind of personality.  “Tell me your story, we’ll see about options.”

“Handling things fine without you, cop witch.”

“Again, a teacher could walk out that door any time.  And if they do and you’re holding me like this, it’s bad news.”

He let go of her.  Then, huffing, straightening out his own shirt, he replied, “Don’t need any of your options.”

As if emboldened by the fact he wasn’t holding onto Lucy anymore, Melissa ventured closer.

“We have contacts on the other side.  If it’s a question of talking to the right territory leader and getting permission or anything like that, maybe we could do that.  Smooth out wrinkles, call in favors, whatever.”

“And if I don’t want to go back?” he asked.  “If this is better for him?”

Lucy nodded.  “What’s his name?”

“Bag.”

“Okay.  Well, that depends on a lot.  I think we could strike a compromise.  If you agreed not to hurt anyone, to be good?”

Bracken snorted air through his nose again.

“…It’s pretty important.”

“I’m an asshole, I won’t say I’ll turn over a new leaf.  It’d just be a lie.”

“Your brother needs you to fight that desire to be an asshole,” Lucy said.  “If you want to stay.  If you need to stay.”

“Some assholishness is okay,” Melissa said, as she got close enough to join the conversation.  “Case in point, me.”

“What about an agreement to abide by the law, avoid hurting anyone except in self defense?” Lucy asked.

He didn’t reply.

“Why are you here, Bracken?” Lucy asked.

“I’m interested too,” Melissa said.

“Are you a witch too?” he asked.

“Only in the sense of personality,” Melissa said.  “Witch, bitch, whiny cripple, whatever you want to call me.”

“Yeah?” Bracken asked.

“She’s a special case,” Lucy added.  “You can talk freely around her.  More or less.”

“Saying ‘special case’ makes it sound like I belong in the special class,” Melissa replied.

Bracken exhaled through his nose, hard, amused.

“What’s the story?  If- I don’t know what we’ll end up doing, but I don’t want you to be unhappy,” Lucy pressed.  “Depending on what you did to get here or to apply to school, maybe we can help avoid them digging into you.”

“Filled out papers with whatever.  They scanned it.  Apparently they’re busy, it’ll take them a while to get to, stuff’s screwed up here?”

“It’s screwed up, yeah,” Lucy said.  “How confident are you in that paperwork?”

Bracken shrugged.

“Walk me- us through this?” Lucy asked.  “Work with us, we can work with you.  Paperwork was the last major thing you did?  Okay, well, maybe we erase all computer records to buy you time, or break in and tweak stuff.  We could help like that.”

“Yeah?” he asked.

“It’s gotta be a bad feeling, worrying, waiting to see if they eventually get to that paperwork, upend your life with questions you can’t easily answer.  And it’s pretty clear that if you have bad feelings you get aggressive.”

“Gotta,” he said.

“Let’s… let’s work on that, work on the asshole thing, and let’s try to fix it so there are less situations that’ll leave you getting angry or asshole-y,” Lucy told him.

He exhaled heavily.  More kids were coming outside now.  The fastest of the lunch eaters.  Some joined those who’d skipped lunch.

With them, some teachers stepped outside.

“Walk us through it,” Lucy told him.  “What neighborhood were you from?”

“Smoke factory, in the factory area.”

“They make smokes there?” Melissa asked.

“No.  They just make smoke.  Keep the machines going, pump it into the atmosphere.”

“Huh.”

“What happened?” Lucy asked.

“Foreman took charge, wanted to make other stuff, they still called it the smoke factory, still.  Put Bag to work.  Put me to work.  Bag got burned, we left.  Tried to find another spot.”

“School?”

He shook his head.  “Bunch of kids back at the Smoke Factory were extorting us, demanding stuff, pushing their work onto us.  They left before we did, ended up at the school.  It wouldn’t be safe.  They’d cut us in our sleep.”

“Damn,” Melissa breathed.

“Where’d you go?” Lucy asked.

“South end residences.”

“Family Man?” Lucy asked.

He nodded.

“Bad news.”

He nodded again.

“What’s this?” Melissa asked.

“Did you even eat lunch yet?  Why are you here?”

“Curious.  And it’s the safe kind of curious, right?”

“No, it’s almost never the safe kind of curious.  You’re breaking down protections, Mel,” Lucy said.

“Saferrr kind of curious?” Melissa asked.

Lucy sighed.

“Pretty quickly learned that new boys in the area weren’t looked kindly on,” Bracken told Lucy.  “Family Man showed up three weeks ago, wasn’t like he is now, back then.  Mostly normal.”

She nodded.

“But he made a joke weeks ago, about castrating all eligible kids- boys, so they wouldn’t grow up to be competition.  Made the same joke again eight or nine days ago.  A lot more people laughed.  Made the joke a third time just three or so days ago, and it didn’t sound so jokey, and some leech of a guy who wanted to win him over started talking about it like it was a plan they could and should put into place.  We didn’t stick around.”

“Okay,” Lucy said.

“He’s not so normal now.  He’s- built different.  Physically.  People treat him different.  Got the white picket fences he puts up everywhere, on the barricades and stuff.  Brands some people, got people branding themselves, or tattooing themselves.  All the girls and ladies want him, all the guys want to be part of that tight inner circle that won’t get castrated.  ‘Cause they get girls and shit, right?”

“Language,” Lucy said.  “For Bag, for you, if you get caught swearing close to the kindergarteners-”

“Yeah,” he said, looking over his shoulder.  “Got it.”

She went on, “I can’t say for sure that we’ll handle it right away.  This guy is someone we’ve wanted to handle for a while but it’s… tricky.”

“Yeah.  So I hear.”

“How tricky can it be?” Melissa asked.

“Like, this guy doesn’t sleep in the same house two nights in a row, he keeps a small private army with him.  If they don’t have guns, a lot of them have bows and stuff.  And other improvised weapons.  Verona thinks his physiology is different, so even if we do get a shot at him, there’s no guarantee that what knocks out or stops your usual criminal type will stop him,” Lucy said.  “And the people who do fight for him are- a lot of them are zealots.”

“A third of Kennet is with him,” Bracken said.

“What?” Melissa asked.  “Seriously?”

“A third of their Kennet, which is about a third of what our Kennet used to be.  Which is still four to six hundred people, about.  Occupying most of the residential area west of the River.”

“Sounds about right,” Bracken replied.

Lucy nodded.

“We found a guy, didn’t want his balls seared off with a branding iron, he didn’t think he had it in him to get into the inner circle.  Guy’s a coward, but there are two kinds of coward, you know?  The kind who give up and the kind who fight harder.  He fought to get away.  I said we’d pay, if he brought us with.  We’d also give him some cover, so he’s not some creepy guy, he’s supposed to be a widowed guy with a family.  He helped with the paperwork, showed up to talk to people.  He’s helped us more than he had to.”

“We’ll want to talk to him too,” Lucy said.  “Lay out the ground rules, see what’s up, what he needs, what keeps things good for us and good for you guys.”

“Maybe,” Bracken told her.  “He won’t like that.”

Lucy nodded, frowning.  “What we really need is a system.  For if any of you come over.  If you guys just start showing up, that could be a disaster.  What we need is for you to check in with me, one of the other two witches, or the local council.”

“A lot of people won’t like that.  I’m not sure I like that.”

“F…udge,” Lucy swore under her breath, mindful of the proximity to the playground, even if kids weren’t in earshot.  She ran a hand up her forehead to her hair.  “Look, I’ve gotta talk to people, sort this out.  Keep your head down, cooperate, we’ll see what we can do to help you out.  But you’ve got to keep that anger in check, try to be a nicer person than Melissa, here, as a goal, and… yeah.”

She floundered a bit.

Bracken just stood there, staring her down.

“I want to talk to Verona about doing something about the Family Man.”

“Incoming,” Melissa whispered, before taking a few steps back, like she was minding her business.

Lucy looked.  She could see one of the yard monitors walking across the little kid’s playground.  Away from a group of little kids.  She was sixty or so, and had the look of someone who hadn’t had their skin get looser so much as it had taken on intense texture.  Like a cigarette smoker who’d had the tar baked into her, setting skin like leather.

The kids behind her who might’ve seen what happened or heard the swearing, who would have or could have told the yard monitor… Damn.

“Excuse me!” the woman addressed them.  “Were you two fighting?”

“No,” Bracken told her.

“Quite a number of our younger students seem to think you were.  That’s grounds for expulsion.  What on earth were you thinking?  Office, now.”

“I showed him an arm hold my mentor told me about,” Lucy replied.

“It’s fine, she’s helping me with being new,” Bracken said.

“Office.  Now.”

“Ma’am?” Melissa cut in.  “As a mostly neutral third party… I think you got this wrong.  The kids got this wrong.  It’s fine.”

“She’s helping me,” Bracken repeated.

“I don’t recall this being up for debate.  Office.”  The woman stood there, sternness distilled, surrounded by a haze of cigarette odors, even though she wasn’t smoking.  She stood there, as if she was trying to radiate authority against them while they stood firm.  Mostly firm.  Lucy had a sick feeling in her gut at the possible consequences that could unfold from this.

“Ma’am,” Melissa said.  “You’re being silly.  You got the wrong idea.”

“You too.  Office.”

“I’m going to go get lunch,” Melissa said.

“No you aren’t.  Excuse me!  Young lady!”  The woman turned her attention from Lucy and Bracken to Melissa, who was walking back inside, using her cane.

And the little kids seemed to pick up on the energy, alternately acting nervous, like Lucy felt, and acting wilder.  One little boy ran up and tugged on the woman’s skirt, either to tease or out of that nervousness.

“Need less of this,” Lucy told Bracken.

“Bag.  Come on, let’s go somewhere else for lunch,” Bracken said, while the woman’s back was turned.

She and Bracken walked away.  With the woman up the front steps and trying to deal with Melissa, who might’ve seemed like an easier target, they were partially out of view now.  The woman started walking back toward them, with a growing number of kids leaving the lunchroom and joining.  And more yard volunteers.

“I’m going to message Melissa,” Lucy told him, as she glanced back.  “Um, I think she’ll be happy to give you any pointers.  Back you up, be a friend, show you around, tell you what rules you can break and what you can’t.”

“Don’t need it,” Bracken said, guiding Bag with a hand on the little boy’s shoulder.

“It’s a requirement of mine,” Lucy said.  “You can have me and my friends cooperating and helping smooth out the wrinkles, or you can have me… not wanting to deal with this.”

“It’s fine.  Bet she can’t pick my face out of a crowd.”

“I think she can pick out mine,” Lucy said.

“Don’t care,” Bracken said.

“Bracken, man, you gotta…”

Lucy stopped as she heard the yard monitors coordinating.  Pointing her out.

“That girl.”

She reached into her pocket, sorted through papers, and wrote down a connection block.  Bracken watched her out of the corner of his eye.  Pretending not to care.

Kids that had been milling around the cigarette lady left the play area, asking her questions and fighting for her attention.  It took two yard monitors to manage them.

Giving Lucy her escape.

Bracken snorted air out his nostrils, in what seemed like the closest thing this guy had to a laugh.

“Any help you can give us on the Family Man will help.  Are you available after school?”

“Are you going to follow through on the paperwork thing?” he asked.

“If we can figure out a good way to go about it, maybe,” she muttered, texting Melissa.  Can you guide Bracken around some?  Keep him on the straight+narrow?  Maybe steer him away from possible racism + sexism?

The reply came back: Was going to do that without u asking.

“Okay, so-” Lucy started.

She realized Bracken had split away from her.  Walking over to the side door of the school, his little brother in tow.

“-so yeah,” she finished, as the door closed behind him.  “How much is this going to be a repeat thing?”

“That,” Miss told her, “is a hard question to answer.”

“Okay, well… I don’t think we’re equipped for this.  Not if they’re all going to be monumental pains in the ass like Bracken is.”

“Might have to give a little more to get a little more,” Verona said.

They had gathered on the shore by the bridge.  Two goblins lurked in the weeds by the water, and Miss stood there, back to them and the road above them, too far to be easily seen from the far shore.

“What do you think about the paperwork?” Lucy asked.

“I do think I can handle that,” Miss said.  “I’ll have to see what the system is.  But I can get in there tonight.  I can let you know.”

“Okay,” Lucy said.

“Speaking of handling,” Verona said.  “Lucy…”

Lucy shook her head.

“Let me?  I’ve got this.”

“Do you, though?  That’s- shit, I’m not calling your capability into question,” Lucy said.  “I am worried that you’re leaving this weekend.  Bracken seemed worried that whatever the Family Man was doing was imminent.  What if it kicks off while you’re gone?”

“I could try coming back.  Paths might skip the one day to return to Kennet rule.”

“They might not.  I’ve got your back, you’re handling stuff, sure.  But where are you at now?” Lucy asked.

“I’m… dealing.  I’ve done a lot of the easy stuff.  The Family Man is a good third of Kennet though and that’s a bit of a snarl.”

“By all accounts, yes,” Miss added.

“Then can we help you with the not-easy stuff?  Or can you trust me to at least keep an eye on things while you’re gone?”

“Matthew’s volunteered to try to keep the peace,” Miss said.  “The goblins will be out as well.  It was never our intention that any of you should shoulder the handling of one massive portion of Kennet like you are, Verona.”

Verona made a spitting sound without spitting.

“Let me help,” Lucy said.  “You support me in my role.  You’re leaving to support Avery in hers.  Now let me do the same for you.”

“I don’t want you to have to deal with this stuff.”

“It’s going to be a bigger and a worse headache if you try to keep me out of it and then something happens that needs a practitioner involved.”

Verona frowned.

“Kennet’s my job too.  Trust me with it while you’re gone.”

Verona nodded a little.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.  Thank you,” Verona said.

“Here they are,” Miss said, looking up.

Lucy looked up too, and she saw Matthew at the bridge.  Bracken and Bag were right behind him.  Bag held a stick and let the stick rattle against the vertical parts of the railing as he passed them.  Another man followed them.  He didn’t look very related to them, despite having the same general characteristics- dark hair, tall.

“Melissa said he was a looker.  Don’t exactly see it, but it was funny, reading her texts,” Verona observed.

“I don’t think he’s interested back, though,” Lucy said.

“She said that too.”

“She liked Jeremy too.”

“Still does.  Very obviously,” Verona said.

“I guess she likes taller-than-average guys with black hair and lots of social awkwardness?”

“Who the heck knows?” Verona asked, a half-smile on her face.  “Jeremy’s not that bad.  Not once you get to know him.”

“Yeah.  But before then, it can be a little… enh?”

“A teeny bit.  I like it though.”

The group up above stopped as apparently Bag wanted to make a point of dropping the stick into the water, but wasn’t sure he could get it in from where he stood, so he ran back about twenty feet to stick it through the railing, letting it fall.

“What happens down the road?” Lucy asked.  “Has this happened before?  What does Kennet become, if we assume it doesn’t go completely negative-”

“A distinct and real possibility.”

“What’s our best case scenario then?” Lucy asked, eyebrows raised, forehead wrinkled.  “Let’s say we find a way to stop it.  If a bunch of our people end up down there, a bunch of their people end up up here, then…”

“The definitions get muddied?” Verona asked.

“Yeah.”

“Then the definitions become muddied,” Miss said.

“And Kennet becomes a place that’s a little scarier, a little more dangerous, a little darker?” Lucy asked.  “The sort of town that people don’t want to stop in?”

“Perhaps,” Miss said.

Matthew, Bracken, and Bag reached the end of the bridge and circled around the railing to the slope, walking down to the shore just beneath the bridge.

Lucy thought of Melissa.  “Is it like… if Kennet were a person, Kennet becomes Aware?”

“I like that,” Verona said.  “I mean, I don’t like it, not as a thing that’s happening, but I like the phrasing.”

“It works on a number of levels,” Miss said.

“A little more vulnerable, possibly defined by special rules?  And if Aware have trouble getting traction in work, in politics, in life, then does Kennet do that too?”

“After everything our town has been through, a reality like that acting as a sort of lingering injury would not shock me,” Miss said.

“That… sucks,” Lucy answered.  “Holy shit, fuck me, that sucks.”

Verona bumped her shoulder into Lucy’s arm, leaning into her, then leaned her head on Lucy’s shoulder.

It was almost like a hug but not quite a hug, because Verona had her hands in front of her, thumb rubbing at her palm.  Lucy rested her cheek on the top of Verona’s head.

“Everything okay?” Matthew asked.  “Something sucks?”

“Our best case scenario might suck,” Verona told him.  “For Kennet.  Unless we want to become tyrants and systematically eliminate and remove people like Bracken and Bag.”

Bracken shifted his footing slightly, hand tightening at Bag’s shoulder.  The man hung back a bit more.  He had a terminally bad slouch, wide eyes, and hair he hadn’t washed in a while.  It made him look like a bucket of cold water had just been dumped on him and he hadn’t recovered.

“I think that kind of purity test would hurt Kennet way more,” Lucy said, staring down Bracken.  “And us.  And everyone.  No.”

“Yep,” Verona said.  “Thought it was worth raising as a possibility.”

“Thank you for coming, Bracken,” Miss said, as she walked down the shore, past the goblins, who poked their heads up.  Tatty and Kittycough.  “Doyle.  Bag.”

“Sure,” Bracken said, frowning.

“So, let’s talk strategy,” Verona told him.  Verona stepped away from Lucy, tapping Lucy’s arm with a fist.  Lucy smiled slightly, and rubbed at the slight crick in her neck from leaning her head over to the side.

“Strategy?” he asked.

“The Family Man,” Verona said.  She extended a hand, pointing in the direction of the homes across the narrow river.  Their homes.  “Flip side of that.”

“It’s so empty on this side,” Bracken said.

“Doyle has some knowledge,” Matthew said.

“I lived there, before these boys,” Doyle said.  He had a delay before he spoke and a delay between sentence fragments, like each bit of phrasing came as a surprise to him.  “Few weeks.  Since the start of fall.”

“Bracken mentioned you didn’t like the climate,” Lucy told him.

“Climate?  I didn’t want to lose my nuts.”

“Right,” Lucy said.  She felt at a bit of a loss.

“Understandable,” Verona said.  “I’ve kept an eye out, I didn’t get the sense things were that imminent.”

“You’ll excuse us if we don’t want to risk it,” Doyle replied.

“What can you tell us?” Miss asked.  She’d found a spot to stand where the shadows beneath the bridge were deepest.  Hands behind her back, face and shoulders buried in shadow.

“You’ve got the Family Man.  More monster than man at this point,” Doyle said.  Bracken nodded.  “Ten or so lieutenants.  They’re getting monstrous too.”

“Knotting?” Lucy asked.

“Is that what it’s called?  Like the V.P.’s pets?  And the Witch?” Doyle asked.

Lucy nodded.

“Then yeah.  He picked out some because they already had large families.  Some because they’re bastards.  Most of them have their own sub-lieutenants.”

“Not all,” Bracken said.

“Not all,” Doyle agreed.  “Couple of them are such bastards they go alone.  Nobody wants to work under them.”

“Bracken,” Bag said.  He tugged on Bracken’s arm.  “Can I?”

The goblins were splashing in the water.

Bracken let him go.  Bag went down to stand in ankle-deep water, poking a finger into the taller weeds, reeds, and grass that sprouted up from rocks at the water’s edge, while Tatty babbled something and Kittycough tried to catch something that might’ve been a frog.

“When’s he weakest?  When does he have the least people around him?” Lucy asked.

“Probably when he retires for the night,” Doyle said.  “Picks a house, throws a party.  There’s a lot of competition over that.”

“No schedule?” Verona asked.

He shook his head.

“How many people?”

“Inside?  Two or three lieutenants, some of those lieutenants’ favorites.  They don’t have people standing guard outside, since that’d be obvious.  But they watch from nearby houses, ready to surround anyone trying to get into the house.  Anyone trying to get at the Family Man.”

“Has anyone tried?” Matthew asked.

“Couple.  It’s pretty intense.  Lots of pressure.  When it comes down to it, what do people want?  Companionship, possessions, status, place in the world,” Doyle said.  “The Family Man’s hogging all that.  Getting… not fat, but… more, because he’s hogging it.  Pushes everyone else out.  If they aren’t his they’re not important.  Some snap, he makes examples out of them.  But as he’s gotten stronger, less people are trying stuff.  I haven’t heard of any attempts at ousting him for the last while.  When he started joking again about cutting off balls.”

“Burning,” Bracken said.  “Less blood.”

“That was the third time,” Doyle said.  “When they started getting more serious.  When we left.”

“Nobody’s trying?” Matthew asked, to steer the conversation away from the uncomfortable topics.

“Not that I’ve heard.  Nobody wants to be the start of that exercise.  There was lots of pressure to keep things cool, not mess around, implication was that if you rocked the boat and he went on a rampage, you wouldn’t just be maimed, you’d be everyone’s enemy.”

“And getting in?” Verona asked.  “How do they handle membership?  I’ve been warned away, but what’s to keep me from disguising myself, trying to walk in, walk around, see what’s going on?  Maybe see where he’s settled in for the night, so I can plan an attack, ritual, or have Matthew let his doom loose on a house?”

“Used to be more relaxed.  But lately there are perimeter guards.  People who have the job of tracking comings and goings.  If you leave by one way, one shift, you have to come back that same way, same shift.  War paint helps.  The picket fence?”

“Gang sign,” Verona said.  “You saw in that collaborative doc we did.”

Lucy nodded.

“…Carries the group’s affiliation out there.  Lets others know we’re out there.  That gets you back in easier, but makes it harder out there, where people push back at you.”

“Okay,” Lucy said.

“Tattoos are better yet.  But even with that, sometimes they can go out to buy stuff, get out of the neighborhood, away from it all, then they try to come home and they can’t.  When women aren’t pretty or of a fertile age, when guys aren’t part of the inner circle or the inner circle’s sub-lieutenants.”

“And if we can get inside, past the perimeter?” Lucy asked.  “Who keeps track?”

“I don’t think you can just wander.  Some families are… they never leave the property they got.  Unless it’s an event.  If you wander you might get noticed, and a few minutes after getting noticed you might get flanked by ten or twenty men with guns,” Doyle said.

“You’d need the right clothes, too,” Bracken said.

“Are events scheduled?” Verona asked.

“Fuck!” Verona swore.  “Why is this so annoying?”

“Because he knows people like you are out there,” Bracken said.  “He knows there are enemies out there, looking for a gap.”

“We’ve got glamour, we’ve got connection blockers,” Lucy noted.  “We could call this an emergency and set up a portal, open a door straight there.”

“That gets attention,” Miss said.

“And weakens the barrier between worlds,” Verona said.

“It’s an option.  If it means rescuing hundreds from physical harm?”

“It is an option,” Miss said.

“I’ve tried toeing the line,” Verona said.  “Walked around, even ventured inward some.  The attention feels too concentrated for glamour.  Or connection blockers.  I’ve thought about poking my nose in more, but every time, I get a bad feeling.”

“I can tell you there’s more to it,” Miss said.  “A component of the divine.”

“Divine?” Lucy asked.

“The man at the center holds himself up as a major figure, and others support that view.”

“So if we let this continue, he becomes a fucking god?” Lucy asked.

“Literally?” Verona asked.  Lucy punched Verona lightly in the arm, and Verona cackled.

Miss answered, “I think we wouldn’t have to worry about him ascending to any kind of divinity for a good while.  But while we’re on that course, it’s a minor background factor.  The practice equivalent of fighting in the midst of a heat wave,” Miss said.

“What’s the timeline?” Lucy asked.

“For?” Miss asked.

“All of this.  The divinity, the… everything else he’s doing.”

“Six months to a year and a half, for the divinity, by my best guess,” Miss said.  “Obscure and sufficiently bloody cults that are cut off enough from the rest of the world can take on their own practice-like elements or members can become more Other.  The knotting is enough of a cut-off point.”

“Okay.  So… we definitely don’t want to let things go that far,” Lucy said.

“If we haven’t removed this guy before then then I think we’ve majorly messed up,” Verona said.

Lucy nodded.  “And the other stuff?”

“I think…” Doyle started.  He stopped when everyone turned to look at him, looking very much like a man who hadn’t expected to be heard when talked to.  “A lot of the women who got pregnant two weeks ago look like they’re more than halfway along.  And last I saw, the women who announced their pregnancies a few days before we left?  Looked like they were more than halfway along.”

“He showed up with pregnant women,” Bracken said.  “The kids already look like they’re Bag’s age.”

“Okay, wait, with the pregnancy timelines.  Like…” Lucy looked around, then reached in a pocket and got chalk.  She drew on the slate.  She drew two arcing lines.  “Like it’s accelerating, so the ones who get pregnant a week from now are going to catch up to the ones who got pregnant earlier, and…?”

“Probably give birth all close together,” Doyle said, stepping forward, using his toe.  She drew where his toe went.

All the lines meeting at one point.

“When, about?”

Doyle shook his head.  “Don’t know.  But it’s fast, picking up speed.  Could be two weeks, end of next week.  Could be a bit later, could be sooner.  I could give you a better idea if I saw them around more.”

“These things find a groove and pattern,” Matthew said.  “Something like this is more likely to converge onto a specific date than to miss the mark.”

“Even a specific time,” Miss said.

“How many?” Lucy asked.  “How many pregnancies?”

“A hundred?” Doyle asked, looking at Bracken.

Bracken shrugged and nodded.

“A hundred babies?” Verona asked, incredulous.  “I can’t imagine having one.”

“How’s he set for food?” Matthew asked.

“Not great.  They were rationing.  More food for the pregnant women.  A lot of us were leaving to forage, but then they even cut that off.”

“Keeps people weaker than the lieutenants,” Bracken said.

“And the timeline for how he plans to mutilate many of the men?” Matthew asked.

“And boys,” Doyle said.  He looked at Bracken.

“If it was two weeks from now, I’d be surprised it took that long,” Bracken said.  Doyle nodded his agreement.

“What if they’re the same date?” Matthew asked.

“One night with a hundred births and a few hundred more people butchered?” Lucy asked.

“The dots connect to me,” Matthew said.  “The butchering solves the food issue, at least in the short term.”

“Geez, no,” Lucy whispered.

“He’d be weak after,” Verona said.  “Or during, even.  In the chaos.”

“Let’s not get to the during if we can help it,” Lucy replied.

“He might be weak after in some respects, but he’ll be stronger in other ways.  If he’s drawing together events like this, it resembles a ritual,” Miss told them.  “And I’d be more inclined to mentally adjust the time it takes him to reach a sort of godhood to six months, instead of a year.”

Lucy frowned.

Verona’s phone beeped.

“Shit,” Verona said.  “What sort of timing is that?”

“What is it?”

“Alarm I set for myself.  I didn’t want mom to try getting in, buses sort of suck.  I figured I’d use practice to travel, time my arrival to match the bus,” Verona said without looking up, flipping through pages on her phone.  “I don’t feel good about the idea of leaving now.”

“What’s the chance this all goes south while Verona’s gone?” Lucy asked.

“Before Sunday?” Verona asked, looking between Matthew and Miss.

“Before Monday,” Lucy corrected.  “Takes a day to get back in.”

“Right.”

“Low,” Matthew said.  “Things would have to accelerate more than they already are.”

“But they could?” Verona asked.

“I wouldn’t rule anything out.”

“I think you could leave and come back with reasonable confidence.”

“Leaving how big a chance that this gets ugly for Lucy?” Verona asked.  “How big a chance that this goes absolutely terrible and I regret it forever?”

“I think if you start making decisions by that metric, you’ll never feel safe to leave,” Miss told Verona.

“But… I don’t want to leave this mess for Lucy.”

“I’ve-” Lucy started, before stopping.  “I’ve got Matthew, I’ve got Miss, the goblins are backing me.  I might even be able to get Guilherme out of his cave.  I think we can hold down the fort.”

“But do you want to hold down the fort?” Verona asked.  “Everything I’ve been doing, it’s to spare you from the worst of this.  And this sure as fuck sounds like it’s the worst of the worst of this.”

“I want you to back Avery up.  It sounds like she’s happy, like things are working.  But I’d feel better, you’d feel better, and she’d be better off if we…”

Lucy reached out with a hand, then let it drop.

She couldn’t say.

She wanted to talk about what Avery’s nightmare had been.  The council of her new city reaching for her.  The fishhook set into Avery’s flesh.

Avery’s fears lay here, in the now.

Verona frowned.

“You asked me to back you up.  To let you do your thing.  I’ve tried to be better about… letting you go.”

“And you’re letting me go to Thunder Bay?”

“No, not what I meant to say.  I want you to let me go.  Return the favor.  Let me do this.”

“With a cultish community ready to blow up in a bloody, horrible way, right in your face?” Verona asked.

“Ready to, but it probably won’t.  And if it does, I can handle it.  I need you to trust me to handle it.”

Verona frowned.  But she nodded.

The phone alarm went off again.  It had a snooze of a couple minutes, apparently.

“I’ll take my turn visiting later on.  Give Avery my love.”

“I will,” Verona said.  She looked at Matthew and then Miss.  “All good?”

“Extend my best wishes to Avery,” Miss said.

Verona nodded.  “I’ll go get my stuff.  Luck!”

“Luck,” Lucy replied.

She watched her friend go, up to the bridge, then over.

She hadn’t lied, really.  She’d told the truth.  She did want Verona to go to Avery.  She wanted Avery to have that backup.

But she wanted Verona to stay.  She didn’t want to be alone in this.

She’d sent Wallace off with the worry he wouldn’t return and it frankly terrified her that Verona might fall into the same pattern.

Yet she’d be so, so glad if Verona did.  If Verona escaped all this and if Verona got away from her dad.  Just like she would be glad if Wallace did, if Wallace got the best possible result from his surgery and got away from Kennet without things getting bad.

She wanted the best for them.  So she put on a brave face.

She had to blink a few times in rapid succession, looking skyward.

“Are we thinking patrol schedules?” Matthew asked.  “Maybe stationing goblins and people to keep an eye out for any changes in how they’re doing things?”

“Yeah,” Lucy whispered.  “Sounds solid.  John-”

She stopped.

“You okay?” he asked.  He reached for her shoulder and stopped short of touching it.

“-John rubbed off on you a bit, huh?  Patrols and people on watch?”

“Yeah, the other Dogs too,” he said.  Then he asked again, “You okay?”

“I’m-” she started to answer.  “I’ll catch up with you on that stuff later.”

He dropped his hand.

“Okay.”

“Call my name if you need me,” Miss said.

“Okay,” she replied.  She turned to Bracken, doing her best to choke back emotions and put on a neutral expression.  “Bracken.  Doyle.  Thank you for the information.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” she said.  “I hope we can continue to work together.”

“Yeah.”

Feeling awkward, like she’d left in the middle of things without a good excuse, because she’d left in the middle of things without a good excuse, she walked away.  Up the slope to the bridge.  Home.

Bracken had said the area felt empty.  Now she could see why.

All along the slope and the shore, backed by the sparse arrangement of homes that was the Undercity version of the neighborhood Lucy had grown up in, were the residents.  The Family Man’s ‘gang’.  His cult.

Many wore homespun clothing, especially the kids.  A lot of it was thin, insufficient for the cooler weather.  Very pregnant women knelt on the black slate of the far side of the shore, hand-washing clothes in the river by scrubbing them against the rocks.  Many of them had children standing around them without playing.  Dumb, clinging, idle.  Men stood on the upper rise of the slope, many armed.

Lucy saw boys with crowns of what looked like popsicle sticks, painted white, with tips clipped off.  The ‘white picket fence’.  Girls wore bracelets that were more like armbands than actual bracelets.  She saw necklaces, one collar, one arrangement around a leg, one boy with strips of bark with underside facing out, clipped into the right shape, painted that stark white in a way that stood out from the off-white of the linen-ish tunic he wore.

A few men had the markings around arms, like barbed wire tattoos, but stark in their whiteness, like no tattoo could really be.  The tattoos held the white better than some of the war paint, white paint smeared on and around arms and on foreheads.

And the territory was marked out the same way.  On every conceivable avenue of approach, fencing had been erected, sometimes actual white picket fences with the horizontal beams set too low, so the posts stuck out, forward, at faintly menacing angles.  Other times just straight-up stakes with points sticking outward, as if anticipating a charge, painted that stark white color.  Walls had the marks, too.

The use of white in clothing and the decorative elements made the tones of skin stand out.  Red from the exertion of scrubbing clothes against rocks.  Red from welts.  Bruised.  Black eyes.  The sky was overcast, but the light didn’t dim around them, and the whiteness of the marks and clothes didn’t suffer for the lighting.

“Need help!?” Lucy called out.  “Rescue?  Want out!?”

People looked up at her.  A few mothers got up, slapping wet clothes over their shoulders, and dragged kids away, up the opposite slope, toward the neighborhood.

Silence answered her.  Men stood there, tense.

“We’ll be here.  Keeping an eye on things,” she said.  She wasn’t sure the sound of her voice reached them.  “If it’s not me, it’ll be someone else.”

Lucy walked partway down the slope, then sat herself down.  She took the bag that was slung over one shoulder and set it at her feet.  She pulled out a music player and portable speakers.

She put the music on.

Then, getting the battered old guitar out of the case, she pulled it into her lap, settling as comfortably as she could.  The slope helped her to sit with an adult-sized guitar when she wasn’t quite there yet.

She pulled her necklace free, and the ring, weapon ring, and dog tag rasped and rattled against edge of the guitar before she tucked it into a better position.

She listened to the music, fingers finding the chords she’d already taught herself without strumming.

Then, tentative, strumming along with the ones she had confidence in.  At first it was single notes, then it was paired chords.  Finding her way.

“Mockingbird,” she sang, not really belting it out, but more just finding the timing, trying out the sound of her own voice as she played the guitar.  The words were very drawn out, to the point they almost weren’t words in places.  “You have not… said a word…”

More people got up, leaving.  It wasn’t because she was being obnoxious, she was pretty sure.

It was because she wasn’t one of them.

“All your friends…” she sang, playing lightly.

The last of the people left.  A few of the standing guards nudged kids to get on their way.  One kid lingered, listening.  A boy with red lines up and down his arms and across his face, with broken skin where lines had intersected others.  He had to be pulled away by a brusque old man.

Lucy wanted to step in but she was pretty sure it would very quickly become a war.

I’ll help soon, she pledged.

With the guard and kid leaving, the slope opposite hers was emptied.  People went inside or disappeared out of sight, past houses and buildings.

She turned up the music and she didn’t sing what followed, focusing on the chords.

Sitting on an empty slope, facing an empty slope.  Nobody on the bridge – there was just the barricade that blocked cars.  It felt like a version of Kennet with only her in it, smoke mingling with overcast sky.

Just gotta hold the fort, she thought, strumming here and there.  Keeping watch.

And, she thought, letting the music drown everything out.  Gotta figure out how to deal with all these people who need help and don’t know how to accept it.

Next Chapter