Pale: 2.9 - Avery

Avery

Avery tumbled, the ribbons that wound around her feet unwinding as she fell, forcing her into a violent spin, head down.

Her feet were freed, and the ribbon pulled at her neck.  Avery’s heart leaped, and she was convinced it would pull taut, snapping her neck.  She reached up, to catch it or stop it, but her hands were bound, tethered to a point around her upper face, unable to reach high enough, unable to grip anything if she could.

The pull at her neck maintained her continued, falling spin as she plummeted, wind rushing up at her with terminal speed.  Her fingers grazed branches, and promised ground just feet below.  At the very least, she was able to kick at the air, at branches, to try to get her feet under her.

The eyes unwound, and it was dark, and it was more disorienting to be able to see than anything because she still spun, still grazed branches, and the vast surfaces around her gave no sense of up and down.

She shut her eyes, felt her head jerk as the last ribbon came free, and her entire body weight pulled on her arms as the ribbons unwound from her arms and hands.

Her fingers hooked at the ribbons, trying to find enough purchase that she could get a grip.

Game on, Avery, she willed herself.  You know the rules of this game, even if you’ve never played before.

She managed to get the grip she wanted.  She continued to spin, hit more branches, and tugged yet again, ribbon digging into her hand, as she reached the last of it, her hold on it the only thing that kept her from plummeting the rest of the way.

Can’t look down, she thought.  That’s a rule.

She dangled, swinging slightly, an uncomfortable distance above the path, and she kept her eye on the horizon.  Two walls, infinitely tall, loomed on either side of her, a purple-black in color, with branches and full-fledged trees growing out of of gaps.  Someone had painted on the walls in complex, endless murals, depicting more trees.  Below her was a sea of what might have been white mushrooms mingled with leafless branches.

Every branch, whether twig or tree limb, painted on the wall or otherwise, had a ribbon attached to it.  Each ribbon was as bright as a halogen light, but the light didn’t extend past the ribbons themselves.

The only useful light came from the ‘sky’, which managed to shine with an eye-searing brightness from high above the infinitely tall walls, dampened by the distance it traveled and some intervening wall-foliage.

Avery’s hand was slipping.  She took a deep breath, made sure she was square, then let herself fall.

Her left foot hit ground first, her right foot sliding.  Faces, pale and eyeless, leaned in toward her.  She found herself instinctively reaching for the wall, then pulled back.  She twisted her toes and used them for traction, for what little good that did.

Two small hands grabbed her left hand, pulling hard.  Steadying her.

She found her balance.  Then she froze, transfixed by the scene, the path long and straight in front of her, the destination brighter than it was here, the sky so bright she couldn’t look at it, while it cut into her vision like a laser, leaving dark afterimages she couldn’t shake.

The ‘mushrooms’ she’d noted were mannequins, reaching out of parts of the wall where planks peeled away or had broken, pale with features etched in but left unpainted, sometimes with mouths open, sometimes with damage.  There were torsos stacked on torsos and arms attached to neck-holes.  Trees and branches grew through and out of them, all with ribbons attached.  To her left, the mural of trees had a cluster of branches painted around an air vent, and the ‘ribbons’ were attached to the vent, so they blew inward, at face height.

“Ah!” her companion made a sound, like it was reprimanding a dog.  Something rough rubbed past Avery’s chest and jabbed sharp at her chin.  Avery, annoyed, pushed it aside.

“Hi,” Avery said, her eyes on the horizon.

“That’s bad.  You obviously don’t know the rules about looking down.  Moron,” her companion said.  The voice was young.

Avery’s eyes remained fixed on the light at the end of the path.  “I wasn’t intending to look down.  It would be nice to know who I’m traveling with, though.  Can you walk ahead a bit so I can see you?”

The person beside her let go of Avery’s hand.  They didn’t move.  “You’re going to have me take your place at the end, guaranteed.  Murderer.  Idiot.  And you want to look me in the eye?”

Avery didn’t take her eyes off the way forward.  “There are other ways, as a maybe.”

“No,” her companion said.  “There aren’t.”

“I- I’m doing this to help people.”

“Right, and you aren’t doing it to help yourself any.  No magical boons, no opening of doors.  Sure, I believe you.  Disgusting.  Loser.”

Great frigging companion you got me, Verona.  Thanks.

“I… want to get along here.  For as long as this journey lasts.  Then we can figure out-”

Something moved behind the wall, and the purple-grey-red planks of wood shook almost free of their housings.  One of the mannequin heads turned toward Avery, staring at her with blank eyes.

There was a wheeze of a laugh, from behind the walls, echoing in through one of the many painted vents with ribbons attached to them.  Not her companion.  Something else.

“Take longer to get your sentences out, murdering a-hole.  Hesitate more.  Let’s drag this out.  We’ll postpone my horrible fate, okay?”

Her companion was now walking around Avery, poking at mannequins and tugging at ribbons.  Too short for Avery to see more than the top of its head.

“Please, can we not make this harder?” Avery asked.  “I’ll admit that I did have selfish motives, I did want the extra power, and the other things this ritual gives me.  But I would have hesitated to do it for that alone.  I really did want to help people tonight.”

“Now you’re lying to yourself,” her companion said, voice quiet.  “Ugly.”

Something banged against the planks further down the path, and the walls were like a tight drum, carrying the sound into the narrow space, that was only maybe five feet across.

“I would like to see your face,” Avery said.  “So I can know who I’m dealing with.”

Her companion walked up the path until she reached a group of shattered mannequins with a larger tree growing through them.  She climbed up them, knocking mannequin parts loose, as she climbed.  It was a kid, no older than eight, possibly younger, with messy blond hair, a jacket, a top, and bare feet.

Avery measured her steps carefully, getting a feel for the ground, before catching up.

The opossum girl hung from a branch over the path with both hands gripping the leafless wood, her face at Avery’s eye level.  Her hair was bleached and messy, her skin pale and smudged in places, her feet dirty, and she had dark circles under her eyes like someone had punched her.  She wore a white jacket with a hood, and big black buttons had been sewn onto the hood to be eyes, cloth for ears, and actual teeth from various animals sewn in around the edge of the hood.  She didn’t have any shorts or skirt on that Avery could see, but she wore an adult-sized t-shirt that came to her knees, black.  It was printed with ‘I have class, I have sass, I scream at own ass’.

“Murderer.  A-hole.  You prepared for this crap,” the opossum girl said, accusatory.  She was missing teeth.  Her expression was solemn.  “Makes me excited for the next parts.  This is going to be good.”

“Can you tell me what your trick is?  I read that the animal companions on the path have tricks they bring to the table.”

“I know it and think I’m not going to tell you, somehow,” the opossum girl said.  She swung on the branch, and more of the mannequin parts clattered and fell free.

“Do you have a name, at least?”

“Yeah, but you should name me, Avery.  You should pick a great name for me, so it sucks extra when you have to leave me for the wolf.”

Why did it have to look like a kid?

Avery supposed the opossum had been a little one, so there was some analogy there.  She wondered if opossums were assholes in general or if Verona had picked out the worst one, somehow.

“Are you virginal?” Avery asked.

The girl’s eyes opened wide.

“In the practitioner and Other sense, not the ordinary sense.  You’ve never bled or tasted blood?”

“I have.  Both,” the girl said.

That might explain the hostility, then.

Avery jumped at the sound of another bang against the wall.  Broken, painted bits of wall cascaded down, dropping onto the narrow path, further ahead, with some ribbons following after.  A few were caught in the conflicting drafts of air, where vents on the left wall blew in similar directions to the vents at the right wall.

“Be afraid,” the opossum girl said, swinging.  She dropped to the ground, then dashed off the path, right at the left wall.  She pushed at a segment of the wall between two painted trees, beneath a headless mannequin body that was stuck in an arch, stomach thrust skyward, and the wall opened like a door.  She disappeared within.

Small hands gripped Avery’s right hand, pulling her off balance.  Avery caught herself.

The little girl was there.  She hadn’t circled around, Avery was pretty sure.  She’d appeared too quickly.

“You should stay, dunce.  I can go ahead without you, and talk to the wolf at the end of the path.”

“Stick with me, please,” Avery said, reaching out for the kid’s shoulder, fingers bumping her neck, before she found the grip she sought.

How dangerous was the kid, if she was ‘bloody’?  Was she capable of doing harm, or was it only in attitude?

It made it harder to trust her.

Things moved behind the wall, pounding and thumping.  Periodically, wood creaked, like something big was walking on floorboards on the other side.

Avery reached to her wrist, where she had a few charms hanging from a simple rope bracelet.

A bracelet Olivia had bought her.  The pledge on Olivia’s part had been that she’d buy a new charm for the bracelet every birthday and Christmas, in addition to other presents.  Olivia had given it with one charm, a skate, then forgot the following Christmas, then bought a rabbit, and then the friendship had ended.  Olivia had gone to play for Swanson and had ghosted Avery, ignoring and then blocking the messages Avery had sent.  It wasn’t even like she’d sent many, or been demanding, or even been accusatory.  She’d sent two the first week, then one a week for the next two weeks.  Then after another month, she’d sent Olivia a happy birthday message.  She hadn’t even cared about the hockey team or Olivia leaving, only that she’d lost a friend.

Avery had dug up the bracelet because it was convenient.  It was a strong bracelet, and with other charms removed, she could add her own.

Mask- she tore it off, shook it violently, and shucked off the glamour she’d used.  She donned the mask.

“That’s so lame,” the opossum girl said.  “You look so uncool.”

Cape.  She draped it over her shoulders, hiding the squicky eyeball necklace she wore.

Then hockey stick.  Actually Rowan’s old one, from the basement.  It wasn’t engraved with anything.  She didn’t want to risk it cracking or firing off when she needed it for something far more mundane.  The one she’d brought on Tuesday night had cracked on the first use and broken on the second.

She used the stick to check the path, feeling for bumps and branches she might trip over, while keeping a grip so that she could lean on it if she needed to.

“If you don’t strenuously object, I think it would be convenient if you had a name you wanted,” Avery said.  “Do you have something you want to be called?”

“I want you to call me Dead Meat.  Or Unworthy Sacrifice.  Oh!  Actual Literal Trash.”

Avery sighed.  “That’s even more of a mouthful than opossum girl.  What if I named you?  If that leaves me feeling guilty, I think I can deal with that.  At the very least, it’s more convenient than calling you opossum girl.”

Something whispered from behind the walls.

“I’m all for it if it makes you feel bad.”

“Then… you’re wearing a shirt that says you have class.  I like that.  What if we called you… Aveline?  I named a doll that when I used to have dolls.”

“Okay, then… not that,” Avery said.

The girl was walking ahead in the path.  Avery glanced at her face, and saw the sour expression cross it.

It was important to remember her task.  There wasn’t much light here, and the first length of the path had one item.  If she missed it, she’d be in trouble.  Skull, woven object, timepiece, coin, and axe.  Especially axe.  She couldn’t afford to get hurt this early on.

There was a lot of garbage hidden among the fallen branches, scraps of wood, fallen ribbons, and mannequin parts.  Paint slopped here and there, suggesting shapes of objects that weren’t actually there.  More problematic was that she had to focus her eyes forward.  She couldn’t walk up and look closer, because she couldn’t look down.

“You have awful taste in names,” the girl said, walking backwards, expression getting worse and worse.

“They’re names I liked as a kid.  I used some for a story I wrote for school.  But fine, a different approach, then.”

The back and forth with this little girl was distracting, but that wasn’t the worst thing ever.  Avery would rather have the company of someone who loathed her than be utterly alone in a place like this.

“Flower names?  I’m trying to think of some.  Cicely.  Sweet Cicely is a flower, and it works as a name.”

“You’re really bad at this.”

The kid looked at her, and there was something in her eyes.  Wary, surprised, hopeful.

“Snowdrop?” Avery asked again, hoping to see that glimmer.

“It’s not as bad as the other ones.”

“But do you like it?”

The kid gave her a funny look.  “I hope you miss finding the item that’s supposed to be around here.”

“Okay, that’s fair, Snowdrop.  And it’s two items.”

“Nah,” Snowdrop said.

They walked between the two walls.  On the one side, something pounded.  Sometimes it was fifty or a hundred or two hundred paces ahead of them, sometimes it was behind.  Like the thing on the other side was trying to sound them out, knocking on a wall to find the hollow spot, but the opposite.

On the other, there were whispers and subtle movements, and sometimes a small hand reached out to pull on a branch and make it move, or stir a mannequin.  It spooked Avery just about every time.

Game on, she reminded herself.  It was something she told herself at the start of any event, whether it was a prelim hockey game with her team or gym class.

Every game had rules.  In soccer, if the ball went out of bounds and she was the one who touched it last, it went to the other team.  In Hockey, there were icing rules, and rules about stick handling, and her league had rules about body checks.

Sometimes that meant walking a very fine line, trying to stay in the zone where she was skating or running her hardest, keeping her eye on the puck or the ball, and staying constantly aware of where everything and everyone was on the ice.  The coach and captain would be shouting and she’d have to listen for the calls amid the din of the Arena.  She had to control her physical contact with other players on the ice, where she could get in close and bump shoulders while trying to get the puck, but a body check would get her pulled off the ice.

This was the same.  In addition to reading the papers Miss had given her over and over again, she’d done visualization training, not because it had ever done anything special for her, but because she’d wanted to put herself here, mentally, and figure out what she needed to be aware of.

She’d pictured a winding path and so far this path was straight, though the branches and mannequins leaned in, and detritus had gathered where the path met the painted wooden walls on either side.  That made it easier to keep her eyes focused on her target.  She’d imagined it would be the next bend, but for now it was that point where the path was brighter, off in the distance.

Every step mattered, and how she reacted to aggression.  She couldn’t back up, not even a step, she couldn’t look down.  Everything stayed in bounds.  The stick scraped left, then right, then left again.  Periodically, she caught on a branch or object, and sent it skidding far enough ahead enough that she could see what she was dealing with.  An empty cup.  A television remote.  A baby’s shoe.

“I was going to lead a nice long life.  I had the rest of the time with my mother to get drunk on her milk, cozy and safe.  Then a good life awaited me, eating trash, eating bugs, eating plants, and eating carrion.  I would have found a mate, I would have had babies, and I’ve heard that Nature rewards good animals who have babies with a weeks-long hit of happy, like we’ve been given heroin.  Doesn’t help keep some moms from eating their babies.”

Avery scanned the area as best as she could.  Mural, mannequin, road ahead, branch, ribbon.  Mural, road, mannequin, trash.

“Nothing’s set in stone,” Avery said, “but if it does come to that… I am sorry.  I’ll remember your name.”

“Nothing around here,” Snowdrop said.

Avery wished she could back up to look for something.  Her eyes were peeled for a glint of steel, or possibly rust.  For any shapes that looked too smooth to be a branch, but too dark to be mannequin.

The wind picked up, sweeping from the path ahead to behind her, gusting in through the various vents and gaps in the walls.  Mannequin arms and clawed branches reached in closer to the path.

She had played hidden object games as a kid.  It was a way for her parents to keep her occupied while Declan had been a toddler, something that taught her to spell, when she had to identify the word and use it.  Every time she’d run into a word she didn’t know, she’d run to her parents, get the answer, then run back to the computer.  It had been a big part of her process of learning to read.

She wished she could say that the skill she’d picked up as a kid made her better at this, like she was trying to translate her sports experience to this whole endeavor.  But it didn’t.

She felt lost and she felt like she’d already walked past two objects.  That she could be passing by the axe unwittingly, giving one of the monsters at the side of the path the opportunity to come after her.

And Snowdrop wasn’t helping much.

“I’m going to die a meaningless death, when I had a real chance of contributing to my species,” Snowdrop said.

“Can you please chill out, Snowdrop?  Please?  This is nerve wracking as it is.  If that is what happens, I’ll try to do something to keep your end here from being meaningless, and… I don’t know, I’ll see about doing something nice for your species.  I don’t know what that would be, but if it would make you feel better…”

“It wouldn’t, you sad, lonely failure.”

There was a violent crash just ahead of Avery and to her right, a heavy impact like someone had driven a truck into the wall.  A tree came down, tearing through a spot in the wall that was depicting an identical tree, crashing through wood and into the path.

Falling wood brought more branches down, made mannequins collapse, and the crumbling cascaded toward Avery.  She turned on her Sight, to better track the motion, and her legs twitched with the impulse to jump back, or jump forward, or navigate this collapse.

Was that the axe?  Of the five items, the axe was supposed to forecast danger, a trap or the opportunity for Others by the wayside to hurt her.

If it wasn’t the axe, they shouldn’t be able to hurt her.  Which turned this into a situation like it was with the Others of Kennet.  Couldn’t hurt her, but they could bait her into hurting herself.

Or was it a distraction?  Sleight of hand, so she might fall prey to another object?

She looked around to see if there was anything she was missing, being careful not to look down.

Faded color in the mural, that didn’t line up with the mural’s colors.  There was a tree with an apple, and the apple had faded hues that made it look rotten.

Being careful not to step too close to the point where the floor met the wall, she extended her hockey stick.

More things crashed ahead of her.  She tried to keep her cool.

Don’t freaking drop it.

Scraping, moving, she dragged it away.  The wall was solid, but the paint was loose and tore away easily.

At first, she thought it was a bit of turtleshell.  In the gloom, with the only light being a slice of pure white so high above it barely touched them, she thought it was a bit of painted turtleshell.  There were parts of it that were broken, and there were parts that had a lip.  Scraps of paint clung to it, but even in the gloom with the crap on it, it was clear there was color there.

It was too light to be turtleshell though.  She moved her stick, bouncing it slightly.

A basket.  A woven basket.

“You’re going to make this tricky, huh, Forest Ribbon Trail?” she asked.

She adjusted her grip on her stick, then flicked the thing upward.  She caught it out of the air.

“You need to close your eyes now,” Snowdrop told her.

“But… the instructions said I didn’t need to, if I brought it.”

“No.  Close your eyes,” Snowdrop said, smiling wide enough to show off the teeth she was missing.

“Snowdrop, I don’t-”  Avery shook her head a bit, and then she closed her eyes, holding the broken bit of basket in one hand, the stick in the other.

She swept the ground with her stick, checking her footing.

“Yes, do that,” Snowdrop said.

Avery’s steps were tentative.  She prodded, checked, and flinched as something struck the broken wall to her right.  The fallen tree was in her way, and it was in her way in a troubling way, because the branches now stuck out in every direction, including toward her.  She couldn’t step back or let herself be forced back, and at the same time, every branch that she pressed against was like an elastic band, bending rather than breaking, her inching progress just adding to the strength and the threat of the pushback from the branches.  She struggled to find both footing and enough traction to keep forging ahead.

There was a sound of a sigh.  Small hands gripped her wrist, and began moving branches.  Pine needles rasped against her stomach, chest, and her bare arms and legs.

She climbed onto the tree, using the hockey stick for balance, and found footing ahead of her that didn’t line up with what she’d remembered seeing before she’d shut her eyes.

Like the tree was a stair, and she was ascending to a higher stair.  Which definitely hadn’t been the case.  Was she walking on fallen wall?

“How do I know when we’ve reached the next object?” she asked.

“I don’t know and I’m not saying.  It’s your job to figure it out, not mine.”

Avery allowed herself to be led forward, her stick raking the ground, searching.  It didn’t feel like fallen wall.  It was too flat.

Wind from vents pushed out with enough force that mannequins clacked and tree branches knocked together.

She allowed herself to be led.  Experiencing this, her ears peeled for any sound, her hand gripping the hockey stick and trying to analyze every point of contact, to guess at density, at shape…

She moved slowly, possibly more slowly than Snowdrop wanted.

“Be quiet here.  Don’t say anything,” Snowdrop said.

Non-virgin mystery animal is really making this ten times as hard as it needs to be, Avery thought.

But the animal had been the one that Verona had been able to find.

She’d made the decision.  She needed to own this.

There were whispers to her right.  A creaking to her left.

“Avery,” a small voice said.  It sounded Kerry-ish, by age.  “Avery, open your eyes.”

Avery kept her eyes shut.

“Snowdrop here is lying to you,” the voice said.  “She has been from the beginning.  You read that you didn’t need to close your eyes, so why are your eyes closed?”

Was she supposed to listen to these voices, that mimed her own instincts, or listen to the companion?  Was a hostile companion still bound to give her service?  Snowdrop had helped her climb, and had kept her from stepping off the path?

There were more whispers to her right.

The guide had said she needed to maintain a relationship with the local Others.  It had also said… what was the punishment for opening her eyes?  She’d told herself she wouldn’t, no matter what happened, but now that she was here… it was a little harder to hold that conviction.

She was in a scary place with a bunch of scary things, and there was literally nothing she could trust, except the hockey stick in her right hand.

Because she’d been so convinced she wouldn’t open her eyes, she hadn’t memorized the punishments one hundred percent.

Was this an open your eyes, become Lost, like Miss was?

No.  The axe promised harm or death.  She could deflect that by putting Snowdrop in harm’s way, but only if it didn’t kill her before she could ask for it to happen.  The coin… was it that it made her lose something if she didn’t give it away?  The Timepiece would make her lose someone or something vulnerable and precious.  She remembered that one, because she’d thought of her Grumble.  The Cat Skull was another one of the serious ones, which would put her by the wayside of the path, while the Other would be free, possibly using or taking her body.  Like Miss had done to someone.

The woven object punished her by forcing her into a loop.  She remembered now.  She’d return to where she was, and have to walk the next part blind again.  If it was wrong.

Avery opened her eyes.  She looked at and saw Snowdrop, further down the path.  The girl didn’t have an expression on her face.

Off to the sides were four Others.

To the left was a doll’s head, bigger than Avery’s house.  It lay on its side and peered through the gaps in the trees, where it was now impossible to tell where there were gaps in the wall and where the wood was stained so dark it was indistinguishable from pitch black.  The black hair of the doll’s head didn’t help any.  Artificial eyelids clicked closed, scraping over cracked eyes, then opened.  It shuffled a few feet to get a better view of her through the trees, and the ground on the far side creaked and cracked.

At this stage, it was easier to imagine the ground on that side to be a network of interlinked roots than any ‘floor’, per se.

On Avery’s right were three more Others.  A boy with black tattoos and heavy body modifications, with things slid under skin to deform his face, some of those things obvious and apparent, like the handles of scissors, a dead mouse, and a fork.  Others were mysterious.  A man who could have been an everyday guy she’d seen on the street, brown haired and dressed like a stereotypical dad, biting his fingernails.  A girl in a white dress, her head bowed so her hair covered her face, her hands out and cupped.  In her cupped hands was the opossum baby she and her friends had wrapped in ribbon.

The boy with the tattoos whispered.

“I thought the Others by the wayside were supposed to show up during the second length of the Path,” Avery said.

“This is the second part,” Snowdrop said.

“This is the first part.  You’ve yet to find the second landmark, don’t worry.”  It wasn’t the girl speaking, but the opossum in the girl’s cupped hands.  It had the voice of a mature woman, smooth, confident, and reassuring.

“I have no name, but you can call me the opossum that can lead you past the Wolf safely.”

“That’s a mouthful,” Avery said.

“I should be out there, not her,” the opossum said, with conviction.  The baby animal reached out with a paw, pointing in Snowdrop’s direction.  “She’s a deceiver.  I can guide you.  I can tell you things.”

“Listen to them,” Snowdrop said.  “Think hard about it.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have a boon companion who cannot tell a lie?” the girl with the opossum cupped in her hands asked.  “I could illuminate, shed light, and share.  About the Others in your town and who you can and can’t trust.  About the Choir.  About your family, and how things are about to get much more complicated for your family, soon, and not just because you’re not leaving the Path like you hoped or planned.”

The last bit shook Avery a bit from the response she’d already been concocting.

“I’m- are you thinking of the detour?”

“No, I am not talking about the detour.  If you keep Snowdrop as your boon companion, then you will not leave by wolf or by detour.  It will be horrible.  I’d say I’m sorry for how this will go, but if you refuse me, then you kind of deserve what comes at the end of the trail,” the opossum in the girl’s hands said.

“I think I should keep to the steps as they were written down,” Avery said.  “Sorry.”

It struggled to stay upright and fell over.  It was too young.  It writhed, stretching in a way that made its sparse white fur spread out enough to reveal the very pink skin beneath, and its mouth moved as the adult woman’s voice came out.  “What do you think this is, Avery Kelly?”

The use of her name made her shiver.  Snowdrop had done the same thing.

“What story is this?  All things Other have some roots in the annals of man,” the baby opossum said.  “Fairy tales, fantasy stories, myths, religions, and urban religions.  There are no original stories.  So I ask you… what kind of story is this?  Don’t jump to the obvious answer.  Give me a good answer and I’ll tell you something you should know.”

The obvious answer, a troubled path with a wolf at the end, was Little Red Riding Hood.

“I’m not the most widely read person.”

“Child,” the Opossum by the Wayside said, speaking to her like a teacher might.  Like Ms. Hardy might.  “They used to call these Paths a kind of Dream.  We are the figments and constructions of this so-called dream.  Those of us here take specific shapes and fall into specific roles because we are reinforced by you.  Your memories, your hopes, you fears.  It is how we know your name, we know you, deep down inside.  Your current, deceptive companion does.  The Wolf knows you to your very core and she intends to use it to destroy you.  We know what you’ve read and we know what you’ve watched.  You have that knowledge in your head.”

“You can’t just tell me?”

“That would be taking away from the longer-term goal.  If I told you, then you would be unable to walk away from the Paths with what you require.”

“From guessing a bit of pop culture?”

“Two steps down that same line of thought is a deeper answer.”

“But even if you get the answers you need to, pop culture and deeper answer alike, if you don’t take me as a Boon Companion in little Snowdrop’s place, then the Wolf will have you, I’m sorry.  Your family will be anxious in the morning, but they will dismiss it, letting you slip in their priorities as they’ve done so very many times before.  Your friends will be devastated and unsure what to do.  Miss has told you she can’t come.  Time will pass and you will not leave here.  Unless interfered with or delayed, and they will be, by outside parties, your family will not start looking for you until the mid-afternoon, when they try to call you.  Your phone, in your bag right now, will answer the call, and they will hear only rustling, animal noises, and small frightened sounds.  The Wolf’s noises and your sounds, Avery Kelly.  They will panic and there will be nothing they can do.”

Avery almost took a step back at that.  She lifted up her foot, then couldn’t remember how far forward it had, or how far back, and she couldn’t step back.  She wasn’t sure she should step forward either.  There were a few cases where she shouldn’t, like the risk the woven object didn’t want her to move forward if her eyes weren’t closed, or if the axe was here, or if there was something else.

Unable to stand on one foot, she set her foot down, and felt a sharp pain in the back of her calf.  A kick, from Snowdrop, before her foot settled.

“Snowdrop-” she started.

There was movement to her right.  She looked, and saw the little girl, head still bowed, hair in the way of her face, elevating the possum baby she held, so it was close to Avery’s face.

In a woman’s voice, the possum murmured, “You would not have Snowdrop with you.  You would be utterly alone, with only the Wolf to keep you company, and the Wolf is very poor company to keep.”

“Snowdrop,” Avery said.  “Any opinions on the matter?  Clarifications?  Thoughts?”

“You should take her and abandon me.  The way to the Wolf will be harder, but the end result will be what you want,” Snowdrop said, her eyebrows drawn together.

This feels so flipped around.  I thought it would be more cut and dry but it’s only constant confusion, a strange place with strange people.

She could see why this would be described as being like a dream.  It was a little more structured, but it had that general feel.  Like things were familiar, but when she peered closer or wondered, she found herself grasping, empty-handed.

Like this was a big, messy riddle.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Avery said.  “That’s it, right?”

The girl with the baby opossum lowered her hands.

“A bit of Wizard of Oz, with the yellow brick road, or the Path.  A lot of Alice in Wonderland,” Avery said.

“One person presently on this Trail isn’t supposed to be here,” the opossum by the wayside told her.

“What?  What’s that supposed to mean?  How does that thought connect?”

The boy with the facial modifications whispered something.  Avery looked at him, then looked away.  Flesh had been cut away in specific designs, to create ridges, scars, and recessed spirals.  Gross gross gross gross.

The girl was walking away, carrying the small animal with her.  The man lingered.  Avery gave him a curious look.

“Where are you going?”

“We’ll be further down the path.  This is still the first length. The second is coming up.  I and the others will trouble you some.  If you change your mind about taking me to the end of the Path, you can tell me then.  I won’t make your life too much harder in the meantime.”

She was so confused, and kind of really spooked.

She looked the other way, and saw the doll’s head, staring and blinking, ceramic eyelids sliding over the broken glass of her eyes, which sat ajar but hadn’t fallen or fallen from their more-or-less approximate positions.

Avery looked back the other way.  The Others were lingering, as they slipped into the trees.  Ground splashed with paint had looked, through optical illusion, like more wall, but they walked on it now.

The boy who whispered.  Avery could see the scarring and the missing flesh, and she could see bone in the gaps.

She was on the lookout for a skull, and there was, technically, a skull.  But she was looking for a cat’s skull.

If she stretched, if she really thought about it, then were the horns at the top of his head like ears, lying flat?  Were the protrusions beneath his face intended to deform it, so he looked like he had a cat’s face?

“Snowdrop,” Avery said.  “Are you here?”

Her companion walked up the path a bit, to be easier to see.  She flounced, biting her lip as she looked at Avery with dark-ringed eyes.

“Did that boy with the tattoos and body modifications look like a cat to you?”

“Nah,” Snowdrop said, biting her lip.

“Facial feature wise?  The bulges around the upper lip, cheekbones, brow?”

Avery had been fifty-fifty on it, and had intended to use Snowdrop as the tiebreaker.

But now she’d asked and she didn’t feel fifty-fifty about it any more.  She felt like asking Snowdrop and then doing the opposite was the biggest asshole move, but…

She tucked the bit of basket into her waistband, then, still holding her hockey stick as a kind of walking stick, the flat end up, she put out a hand for Snowdrop.

Snowdrop hesitated, then took her hand, looking confused.

Avery turned, to walk back the way she’d come.

So that was one thing answered.  This was a topsy-turvy place where things and people didn’t make sense.  Alice had the white rabbit who fretted about being late, that led her through the areas.  Avery had… a very belligerent, not-terribly useful urchin girl.

Who wasn’t supposed to be here?  Herself?  Was it Snowdrop, if Snowdrop was non-virginal?  One of the Others?  An invader?

Who would invade?  The Choir?

There was a giant doll head, the girl who carried the other opossum, the normal man, and the whispering cat.

She walked the way she’d come, and she didn’t recognize anything.  There was less and less wall, and the wall that was there was different, stretched between branches and between the trunks of trees like membrane.  Some trees looked artificial, like paintings on boards for a school play.  The ribbons were omnipresent.

When would she know if she got it right?  When she walked for hours and there wasn’t another landmark?

What did she do then?  Should she turn back again?  Bail out using Snowdrop as a sacrifice?

The slice of blinding white sky above was widening, as the walls ceased to be a thing.  At the same time, the foliage was denser, and the approximate light was similar.  The mannequins were still present, but less of them were propped up by the road, and more were draped across the ground in the distance.  Across roots, when there was nothing for the roots to dig into but swimming darkness.  Some dangled from trees, or were impaled by branches.

There was another sound, like someone banging on a wall.  Except there were no more walls, really.  Nothing that could produce that echoing boom.

Was it the cabin where she’d been left?  Were Verona and Lucy under attack?

No.  The cabin had log walls.  There was no way something could produce that kind of noise by hitting a log wall.

“Talk to me, Snowdrop?”

“I hope the wolf gets you like the other opossum said, lonely freak.”

“Talk to me about things in a way that makes me less anxious?  Please?”

“I want you to listen to me and I want you to believe me, Avery,” the kid walking beside her took on a more emotional tone.  “She could give you what you need, you’d be happier in the long run.  Switch me for her and I’ll be Lost and that’s better than the Wolf getting me.  You get to go back to your friends, you get to try and do what you need to with the Choir, everyone wins except that other opossum.”

“I’m not going to use her,” Avery said, “until I know more or see more.  I think I’m closer to understanding you, and I’d rather have a devil I know than an Other I don’t.”

Snowdrop was silent, head bobbing up and down at the bottom edge of Avery’s vision as she hurried to keep up.

“Come on.  Keep an eye out for the three objects.  I’m really, really hoping that the wolf doesn’t have the timepiece.  Whatever object is fifth and last is supposed to dictate how the Wolf acts.  And we don’t have the time for it to-”

Avery recalled what the girl by the wayside had said.

Was that what she was talking about?  How long would it keep me?

She had to focus.  The cat skull was one of the more dangerous items  and she was hopeful that she’d spotted it.  She wasn’t sure if it counted as an item or landmark if it was one of the Others, but…

But she was pressing forward.  And she had the axe to watch out for.  There was also the coin, which could make her lose something.

It would be some kind of karma to escape this Trail and arrive at her destination, but to lose the necklace.

The banging continued, louder and louder, the sound of something massive striking wood.  The echo when there was next to nothing for the sound to bounce against.  The rattle of wooden planks that had been knocked ajar, when there were no planks.

There were more whispers in the trees.

They’re occupying this place, which might mean this is the second length of the journey.

Two objects on this part, instructions were to beware the Others, to keep to the path, not to step back, not to look down.

Leafless trees streaked in purple and black paint with bright white ribbons that shed no light clustered in thick and dense.  The path was five feet wide but the branches on either side were narrowing down until it felt like it was less than a foot wide, and any movement past that point made branches scrape at her arms.

The doll was there, head upright now, looking over and through the foliage with a painted face, a smile frozen on the lower half.  Sinister.

Part of Avery expected it to move all of a sudden.

There were more whispers.

“I am so very sorry for what I have to do now,” the normal man said, from the wayside.

“Who are you?  What are you?”

“I’m Todd,” he answered.  “And I’m so very tired of this place.  It’s like drowning in nothing for forever, and if you’re lucky, then once every twenty or fifty or one hundred years you can get to the surface, you find a place like this, with a role you’re supposed to step into.  If you’re clever about it, you can leave.”

“Todd, If you’re diplomatic, though, you can find someone willing to use the coin to free you,” Avery said.

“You’re already carrying the woven basket.  The Wolf will ask if you have more than one object.  It won’t negotiate if you don’t leave all but one behind.  I know you want to use the woven object.  I know why.  And I feel like shit about this, but I’ve got to stop your journey down the Trail now.  It’s my only chance.”

“But you can’t save everyone, Avery Kelly,” the other opossum said, behind her.  “This is the second reality you have to face, as part of your journey along this trail.  The world is bleak, terrible things happen, and you cannot fix it, whether you are a thirteen year old girl or a master practitioner in her seventies.”

“I don’t believe that,” Avery said, looking back.

“No.  If you did, then it would not have to be something you had to face,” the small, pink white-furred thing spoke.  “Todd is a very good teacher, however, in the bleakest and most awful things.”

Snowdrop made an alarmed sound.

Todd was in the middle of the path.  Avery stopped her forward march.

Todd had a gun, and there wasn’t anything resembling cover.

“Been a long time since I did my thing,” Todd told her, sounding very sad.  “I think if I wear your skin, I could get free of this path and return to your world.  I have to resist my instincts.  I don’t know who or what I used to be, that’s been Lost, but whenever I think about what I’ll do when I’m free in your world again, I keep thinking I’ll have to kill someone and lay my eggs in their corpse, and do that every day until someone gets around to exterminating me.”

“He’s a neat guy,” Snowdrop said.

“No, he isn’t,” Avery said.  “Todd… don’t be a dick.”

“Do us all a favor?  If you approach close and let me strangle you, I can minimize the damage to the skin the bullet would cause.”

“That’s a good plan,” Snowdrop said.  “Let’s do that plan.”

Avery hesitated.  “Would it hurt less?”

“I have no idea,” Todd said.  “It’s been so long since I laid my hands on a mortal I’ve entirely forgotten specifics about how you all work.  To think I used to do it a lot.”

“It would hurt less than the Wolf getting you,” the girl by the wayside said.

“Yeah, do it,” Snowdrop said.  “Let him strangle you.”

To Avery’s right, the whispering boy reached out from the trees, snatching for her stick.  She pulled it back out of the way.  She almost stepped back, trying to get her balance.  She kicked Snowdrop, who was taking cover behind her, instead.

Todd was on the path because of the axe.  He had to be.  That was a problem.  Where was the axe?

Somewhere near him?  By him?  Under him?  With him?

Avery’s mouth was dry.  She had no friends here, and this freaky dude who looked super normal but laid eggs in people, and did it a lot wanted to kill her?

“This is a mercy, believe it or not,” the girl behind her said.

“Shut up!” Avery said.  “The real mercy would be letting me go on my way and help people in trouble!”

“If you take me as your boon companion, I can resolve this.  I can take you past Todd here and past the Wolf.”

“You can try,” Todd growled the words, reasserting his grip on the handgun.

“I swear it to you.  Victory over Todd, successful negotiation past the Wolf, as you imagined it.  Then we will take that necklace to the people who are about to face the Hungry Choir, and we will tell them how to use it to best effect.”

“Yes,” Snowdrop whispered.  “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

How did it go?  Rub?  No, not rub.

Avery ventured closer to Todd, raising her chin.

He reached for her throat.  She let him.

She hauled her hand out of her pocket, carrying a fistful of glamour.

The cat-faced boy reached from the woods, grabbing at her, keeping her hand from rising.  The dust poured out.

“Hold her, I’ll make it worth your while,” Todd told the boy, as his fingers dug into Avery’s throat.  He lifted her.  Her arm jerked, but her wrist was held firm, by a hand with rough and sharp things pushed under the skin of the palm.  Points dug into her.

“Strike the deal with me while you still have breath!” the other possum called out.

Avery kicked and Todd fended her off, twisting and pushing her up against trees, near the edge of the Trail.

Todd gulped, then smiled.  A dark blue and green stone was clamped between his teeth.

There was a jostling, and Avery’s wrist was freed.

She brought her hand up to Todd’s face, some glamour still in her grip, and she raked her thumb from the pinky finger to the first finger, with a force and fierceness that made it feel like she’d drawn blood.

Flick was to make glamour brighter.

The glamour in Todd’s face turned a brilliant white, flaring.

Blinded, choking, he dropped her.

She didn’t have her stick anymore, so she kicked him hard in the side of the leg, then body-checked him in the way she totally wasn’t allowed to do in hockey.

Pushing him off the path.  Snowdrop ducked beneath him.  She’d been the one who distracted the whispering boy and loosened his grip.

She could see the axe now.  An image, carved into bark, a simple triangle with a line dropping from one point.  It was low to the ground, which made looking at it dangerous.  Avery couldn’t aim her kick as she raised her foot.  She kicked the bark free of the tree’s trunk, and she could see the bare trunk out of the lower edge of her vision, even though she couldn’t see where it had gone.

“We bring one thing to the wolf!” Snowdrop raised her voice.  “One thing!”

“One thing,” Avery said, “But even if we don’t bring this, we can do something about it, to be sure.”

She brought her foot down a few times, until she felt bark crunch underfoot.  She ground it under her heel, until the bark had broken down enough that she could be sure the image was disturbed.

She hurried forward, one hand finding Snowdrop’s head, and using it to guide the girl and keep track of her.  Her hand felt empty without the hockey stick, which had been taken from her.

“Avery Kelly,” the possum by the wayside said.

“Your parents didn’t want you, Avery.  You were an accidental pregnancy, when they thought they were done.  It was only after Kerry that they realized a medication your mom takes for her early arthritis counteracts her birth control.  They regret you.  They try to be good, but the reason they found it so easy to ignore you for those lonely months was because what they truly wanted, deep down inside, was a life without you.”

Avery grit her teeth, marching forward.  Coin and timepiece.

“I could resolve it.  I could tell you what to do, that would strike a chord in your mother’s heart, and kindle your father’s love for you.  It would require you to do something you’re good at doing, you simply don’t know the words or specifics, and you won’t in a timeframe that matters.”

“I believe my parents love me,” Avery said.

“They do, but it’s uneasy.  It was hard for them to let go of the stress that came with an unexpected child.  There are times the love wanes.  I can see to it that doesn’t happen.”

“Avery… can I appeal to your better nature?  You want to save people.  Save me, at least.  I’ve told you the truth.  I recognize your problems.  I know you.  Allow me to help you.  Save me from this Lost existence.  The coin isn’t far and you’re liable to miss it.”

Snowdrop squeezed Avery’s hand.

“Ten paces ahead.  It’s under a shallow layer of dirt.  You can’t look down and you’re meant to scuff it with your foot, feel the ground slide beneath your toe, and realize you can’t go back for it.  Then you’ll lose something crucial.  It’s the Trail’s price, tonight.  Pick it up.  Bring me out, and with a subtle trick, I can help you avoid the danger that waits for you.”

“Avery… please?  Please.  I beg you.  Please,” the woman’s voice followed her.

She swept her foot over the dirt, back and forth, as she advanced.

“Please.  Ask for what you want, I’ll figure out ways to make it happen.  But don’t leave me to this.”

Avery found the coin.  No traction.

She dug her toe into the dirt, eyes fixed on the trail ahead.  Then, with care, and it was really hard not to look down, stepped ahead to put one toe in the hole and used the other to move the coin onto the top of her shoe.

“Snowdrop, is it in place?” Avery asked.  “Right in the middle?”

Avery sighed, then did her best to adjust.

“Would you let that Other behind us go?”

“If it meant you stayed and were Lost?”

“What if I used the Coin instead?”

“I could bring that abnormal Todd guy with.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Avery sighed.  “Is the coin in place?”

Avery brought her foot straight up, flicking the coin into the air, and she was careful to step forward as she caught it.

The woven bit of basket popped free of her belt, dropping to the ground.  She kicked it ahead a bit.

“Please,” the Other behind them begged.  She was making crying sounds.  Avery would have looked, just to see what the baby possum looked like while crying like an adult woman, but…

She held up the coin at eye level so she wasn’t looking down at it.  Keeping things in bounds.  Sticking to the rules of this game.

“One item,” Snowdrop said.

“Yeah,” Avery said.  “I think I understand.  Thank you.”

She’d reached the end of the road the pleading Other had been hinting at.  Not the one that talked about the world being a horrible place where everyone couldn’t be saved.  That was… she had her reservations about that.

But the stories, like the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, the Matrix.  Contained, nonsense worlds with their own special rules.

She wasn’t an English major, but the Practice seemed intent on making her one.  There was a common idea that tied them together.  A- a moral, she supposed.

The reason the Forest Ribbon Trail made someone better at finding lost and Lost things, and traveling paths and Paths wasn’t purely practice.  It was personal growth.  Self-discovery.  She was supposed to come to terms with something about herself, like Alice and growing up, or Dorothy and the idea of home.

“Please!” the Other screamed.

“What do you think she does, Snowdrop?” Avery asked.  “Does she have a deal with the Wolf, where she says something, or does she do something horrible in reality when she’s free?  Or maybe she possesses anyone she forms a partnership with.  Would she be holding me in her hands, like she’s holding that other opossum?”

“Nah,” Snowdrop said.  “Not as bad as any of those things.”

“Good to know,” Avery said.  She turned over the coin, then held it down for Snowdrop to see.  “Recognize it?”

Avery nodded.  “I do.”

Guilherme had given her a practice.  A glamour, to bring out her best self.  But to capture it, she needed to chase it first.  Mark it like warpaint, worn after the battle.  After she was sweaty from a game well played.  After she was brave.  After she was noble.  It stressed that she had to decide who and what she wanted to be, then solidify it.

But to do that, she had to find that someone.  And this…

Every single trap so far had been marked by indecision.  Hesitation.  Even her boon companion evoked it.

She exhaled slowly, forcing herself to be calm, and she laid her hand over her heart.  There was still glamour in it, from when she’d thrown the fistful at Todd.

This is me, calming the fuck down as I figure stuff out, and find confidence.

As I leave a bit of that awful indecision behind.

So, you know, if I’m going to have any natural glamour, let it start with that.

When she pulled her hand away, there was no dust on it.  Only a trace of moisture, because she’d been running scared for most of this.

“You said we bring one item, huh?” Avery asked.

“One item, numbskull.”

Avery tossed the coin to the Other behind them.

Avery smiled.  Putting one hand on the back of Snowdrop’s head.  “Did you want another name besides Snowdrop?  Before the Wolf?”

“Yes.  I can’t get used to it.”

She started walking, guiding Snowdrop.  She dropped her hand and pointed down as they walked.

The Trail continued to change as they walked.  The trees were more dense, the ribbons no longer white, but crimson.

The Wolf wouldn’t be easy.

“I think if I’m grabbing one item, it’ll have to be the timepiece.  Because we need that time.”

“That’s dumb.  Loser.”

The path creaked beneath her feet.  She couldn’t look to see, but it felt like she was walking on boards with a thin layer of dirt over top.  It felt like the boards had absolutely nothing beneath them, the way they buckled and bowed beneath her weight, and she didn’t weigh much at all.

The Others hadn’t followed.  In a way, defeating each of them on a mental level had put them behind her.

The pounding sounds continued.  Now she felt them reverberating through the ‘floor’.  She couldn’t see the source, with the mist that had gathered, but she was getting closer and closer, and the inconsistent pounding was getting louder and louder.

There was a pause, and silence lingered.

Then a bang, and the edge of the Path to Avery’s right popped, a board springing into the air, as the rest creaked, and groaned.  She couldn’t see or look, but she could hear them coming away one by one.

Her focus was so much on her ears and tracking the sound that her eyes weren’t trained on anything in particular.

The Wolf appeared, leaning forward out of the mist.  A face twisted by age, as big as Avery’s upper body, pale, with shaggy black hair.  Eight feet tall, with breasts that drooped to the pelvis, held tight against her upper body and stomach by a stained, tight red dress.  Every feature was warped by what could have been arthritis.  Her movements were slow, but made imposing by the way the boards beneath them creaked.  Like one sudden movement from her could plunge them into oblivion.

Drool dripped down from the Wolf’s mouth.  Avery didn’t look to see what it did to the ground.

“Did you bring something from the Trail?” the massive, gnarled old woman asked, her voice drawn out.

“I have nothing.  I want to take the timepiece, so you don’t keep me here for an inconvenient length of time.”

The woman stepped away, the ground creaking beneath her.  She reached off to the side, and plucked something from the tree.  She gave Avery a small toy hourglass, like the kind that would come from a cracker at Christmas.

The woman smelled so bad.  Avery glanced at the side of the trail.  A branch without a ribbon-

“How was your journey?” the old woman asked.

“It was-” Avery started, eyes still glancing.

The hand came fast, striking Avery in the side of the head, clapping one ear, striking her jaw, and dashing her thoughts to white noise.

She squinted her eyes shut, so she wouldn’t unintentionally look down.

“Look at me,” the old woman said, her voice wavering, her face leaning in until her chin was almost at Avery’ shoulder, “while I am talking to you.”

Avery straightened, and before she could open her eyes, a gnarled, dry hand grabbed her by the shoulder, two fingers touching her face to pry eyes open.

“I want to negotiate,” Avery told the old woman.  She touched her ear and her hand came away bloody.

“It doesn’t matter.  Neither the negotiation nor the blood you’re touching now.  It’s not true harm.  You’ll heal from that before you leave.  The true harm comes later.”

“I want to negotiate, as the Forest Ribbon Trail allows,” Avery said, again, swallowing.  She’d use the rule of three if she had to.

The old woman smiled.  “What are your terms, then?”

“That I be allowed to visit one location and see to affairs before you have me for the one hour, and that I forget what happens in that hour.  That I suffer no lasting damage.  That gifts are given appropriate to the token.”

The old woman wiped drool from her chin.  She worked her jaw, like it was sore, and broken partial dentures moved in her mouth, running up against teeth that had managed to survive.

“I don’t have the memory to remember all that.  I’m an addled old woman.”

“Then I can repeat myself, as many times as it takes.”

“The rules are that I can waste your time if the timepiece is the thing closest to me, child.  Even if you carry it, it is the closest thing to me.  You have a time limit.  Repeat yourself if you wish.”

Avery reached out in Snowdrop’s direction.

The opossum girl approached, and Avery put her hands on the girl’s shoulders, keeping the girl between herself and the Wolf.

“Aha,” the old woman said.  She smiled and drool dripped down.  Then she laughed, and it was an uneven sound, unhinged.

She hobbled away, pacing, moving.

“You figured out her trick?” the old woman asked.

Snowdrop carried the woven thing.

“But the rule for the woven thing, child, remember?  I may temporarily blind you.”

Avery flinched as the old woman reached.  Her arm was long, even considering her height.  She gripped Avery by the side of the face.  With her other hand, she reached into her own mouth and crushed it against blackened gums.  The thumb came away black.

She smeared it against one of Avery’s eyes, and it stung.  Her eye didn’t open again.

Avery saw Snowdrop back away, off to the side.

“Stay close,” Avery told Snowdrop.  “Please.  I need the time.”

With the last moment before the thumb smudged against her other eye, she looked.  Checking.  The detour.

She tracked the branches, searching, trying to tell a fork from an individual limb.

The hand struck her in the side of her head once again.  While she reeled, her eyes shut to avoid looking down, the thumb smeared against her eye.  She could open it, and it stung, but she could see some things.  Blurry outlines.  Snowdrop.  The clearing.

She shook despite herself.

“I want to negotiate, if you’re done.  By the terms.  I have kept to the rules.”

“You have.  It doesn’t matter.”

The ground beneath Avery creaked as the Wolf drew near, kneeling so her knobby knees were almost at Avery’s toes.  She leaned in close.  “Who rules the kingdom of the blind, Avery Kelly?”

“I don’t- the seeing man.”

“Not a man, no,” the Wolf’s voice rasped in her ear.

“You?  Because you see?”

The wolf moved.  Avery couldn’t see how or where.  Her head jerked.  She tried to keep the rules in mind, about not looking down.  Even if she had only ten percent of her vision, that could be enough.

Something crashed through the thicket of trees.  Avery turned, doing all she could to avoid backing up, standing firm.

“Stop!  What are you doing?” Avery shouted.

“Not me.  I’m here, waiting for negotiations to resume,” the Wolf said.

Avery blinked, trying to see.  She made out a shape.  A hand.  A massive doll’s hand.

The doll’s face was beyond the thicket, lying sideways.

“I know what to do!” Snowdrop raised her voice.  “I know what to do!  I’ll help!  I can bring help!  I can save you!”

Then the hand receded.  Taking Snowdrop with it.  The face remained.

The one who sees?  Not a man.

“Nicolette Belanger?” Avery asked.

The doll’s face cracked in an effort to make a smile.

“Wasting no time to secure a third win,” the Wolf rasped, beside Avery.  The ground creaked as she settled into a sitting position.

Avery remained silent and still, trying to think.  What did she have?  What options?

She couldn’t think of anything.

“The gimmick.  The opossum.  It plays dead even when it doesn’t mean to, fainting.  Deceives when it doesn’t mean to.  It says the opposite of what it means to, but it can deceive well enough to bring a token item into the Wolf’s negotiation.”

Avery swallowed hard, blinking, trying to clear her vision.

“What she said about knowing what to do, and being able to help…”

“Was a lie,” Avery said, rubbing at her eyes to no avail.  Her hands were shaking.

The wolf chucked, and it was an eerie sound, lilting, like a different person in a different mood had started it than the one who’d finished it.

“Avery Kelly, I did tell you to look at me when you talk to me, didn’t I?  I’ve stretched my patience, but you’re being rude.”

“I can’t see.  You covered my eyes in guck,” Avery managed.

“I don’t see how that matters, does it?”

Avery heard the spatter of drool against the ground, and felt the ground beneath her feet creak and shift as the skinny, knobby, eerily tall Wolf crept forward.

“You did so well, up to this point.”

It was all Avery could do to avoid backing away.