Author: Wildbow

Gone and Done It – 17.6 | Pale

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Avery had told Miss that she wanted to ride home with her mom and Sheridan, instead of doing a tour of the Path to see just what they’d be linking to Kennet.  It made her think of the argument with Florin, how it felt one way but logically went a different way.  Telling Florin to screw off, disagreeing with the whole possession thing and supporting the Lord of Thunder Bay instead had felt right even if his arguments had made a lot of sense.  This call with Miss vs. the ride home had felt right, even if it felt like the sort of decision she’d kick herself for later.

Had.  Now that they were heading into her neighborhood, the whole mess of unresolved stuff, the idea that she’d abandoned Grumble and her dad, that they might be hurt?

Ugh.  Ugh.  Ugh.  It didn’t feel right.

It felt as bad as coming back from the Blue Heron knowing she had to have the coming out conversation with them.  Maybe worse, even.  Coming out was- she knew she was right, she was herself, it was a situation where she only had to worry about how her parents would react and the ramifications of that.

This?  She had never felt one hundred percent right about leaving, even if she’d known she had to go, and she was worried about the reaction and ramification.

It was agony, to the tune of her mom’s late 80s, early 90s car music.

“Looks like Auntie Tracy is already here,” their mom said.  “I told her to come tomorrow.  I don’t know why she never listens.  Now we need to get her to move the car so I can park.”

A bit more bewilderment and anxiety at that.

They slowly pulled in out front of the house, and the people came out.  Dad, Declan, Uncle Sean, Aunt Tracy, and their kids, Kyle and Caleb.  Kerry was super excited, pushing her way through the jumble of people gathered at the door and on the stairs.  Their dad caught Kerry before she could run out across the lawn and over to the car, releasing her when the car was no longer in motion.

“Really wanted to reunite the family before bringing everyone else in,” their mom said.

Avery wasn’t sure how to feel.  Because waiting made her more nervous, she unbuckled the seatbelt and got out.

As if by unspoken agreement, led by Kerry bolting straight for their mom, Sheridan and Avery gravitated toward their dad, and Kerry and Declan gravitated toward their mom, Kerry tackling her at the knees, headbutting the lower stomach.

Her dad put out his arms for a hug, and Avery and Sheridan accepted at the same time.  One arm for each of them.

“I’ve missed you both,” her dad said.

“Same,” Avery said.

“Not me.  I hate people, even if you’re better than some,” Sheridan said.

“Ha ha,” their dad said.

Avery broke the hug, but her dad kept his hand on her shoulder.  They stood there at the end of the lawn while their aunt, uncle, and cousins came over.  She could see Declan hug their mom, with an expression like he was pretending to not care at all.  Except the hug he gave her was really tight.

Avery greeted the extended family.  Aunt Tracy hugged Sheridan with Kerry-level energy and forward momentum, then did the same with Avery.  She was of a similar body shape as Sheridan, just a few inches taller, and she had hair that was more like Avery’s, at the midpoint between red and blonde.

“My girls, dear nieces, can I adopt you?  Or can we have all the quality time this weekend?”

“They’re my girls, and you can borrow, not steal,” Avery’s mom said.

“You might be able to steal Sheridan if you offer better allowance,” Avery said.

“Oh hey, yeah,” Sheridan said.

“Or your own room?” Avery added.

“I don’t think we have the money or the room,” Aunt Tracy said.

Uncle Sean put out a hand for a handshake, and Avery shook it.

“Sheridan, if you’re really thinking about the podcast thing, you could ask Kyle for help with the computer stuff?” Avery’s mom suggested.

Sheridan and Kyle exchanged looks, like neither was wholly impressed with the idea.

Kyle was fifteen, skinny, red haired, and pale to the point of being translucent.  Even though he was between the two of them, Avery interpreted him as being more between Sheridan and Declan in personality.  Kind of ‘leave me alone’ from one and ‘let me play games’ from the other.

Very moody, which fit both.  Maybe it fit Avery too, who knew?  It was hard to say she wasn’t moody when she’d felt as many emotions as she had on the drive in.  It felt like half the time they visited, Kyle would be as interesting and engaged as a damp sponge on the floor, and the other half of the time, somehow, he and Avery would strike up a conversation and it’d be like they were best friends.

“Is your friend coming this Thanksgiving?” he asked, disinterested.

“My- Olivia?”

“Yeah.  Her.”

Oh yeah, she stayed the Thanksgiving before last, he had a big obvious crush on her and she kind of reciprocated and that was a whole other thing.

Not that it was ever anything besides sitting next to each other on the couch and being a bit bashful over hugging goodbye.

“No.  That’s- friendship over.”

“Oh,” he said.  His expression wasn’t just unreadable.  It wasn’t an expression.  She wondered if he cared at all or if he was secretly heartbroken.  Maybe he’d brought up Olivia because it was one of the few things he could remember about Avery.

“You doing alright?” Avery asked him.

“Yep.  Long car ride.”

“We’ll be coming the other direction next month, probably, so don’t complain,” Sheridan told him.

“Or how about I complain and then when you do it, you can complain?”

Sheridan shrugged.  “Whatever.”

“Have you been pampering Kerry?” Avery’s mom was asking Auntie Tracy.

“So much.  We were having a good time, right?”  Auntie Tracy asked.

“I guess.  Avery!”

“Skipping right by me,” Sheridan said, as Kerry ran by.

Avery braced herself for the tackle hug, bending and aiming a knee slightly so Kerry would have to slow down or run straight into the knee.  She accepted the hug.

“Avery, why did you leave?”

Just putting that right out there, huh?

“We talked about it before, remember?”

“Well- we did.  How are you?  How’s school?” Avery asked.

“Why did you leave?” Kerry pressed, with all the insistence and single mindedness a young kid could bring to bear.

“We all had our reasons for making the tough decisions we made,” Avery’s mom said.

“That’s not an answer.”

“I don’t know how you can do that.  Separating,” Uncle Sean said.  “It’s obviously hard on the little ones.”

“Who’s little?” Declan asked.

“It’s an experiment,” Avery’s dad said.  “I think we’re managing alright.”

“Connor,” her mom said, quiet, indicating with her eyes.

Their dad turned around and then sprinted over to the front stairs where Grumble was hobbling out onto the top stair.  Wanting to be included.

That at least was an excuse to go see him, giving him a hug with a heavy heart.  He was as hard as wood, stiff, and clumsy.

“B’n darker without yh,” Grumble mumbled.

“Miss you,” Avery told him.

He gave her a squeeze, then let her go so he could greet everyone else.

Avery took the opportunity to get her bag, signaling Snowdrop before the door opened so the nose that was sticking out the top for air could disappear back inside.  She paused at the logjam at the front door.

“We’re going to have Kerry, Caleb, Rhys, Gareth, Maura and maybe Declan all camping out in the basement, Sheridan and Avery are in their old room.”

“I don’t want to give up my bed,” Declan said.

“Uncle Sean and Aunt Tracy need somewhere to sleep and you got Rowan’s old bed, it’s the biggest one.”

“I don’t want to sleep with them all down there either.  They’ll be giggling and crawling all over and stuff.  I won’t be able to sleep.”

“We will get everyone tired out and do our best to manage.  It’s just for the weekend, Declan.”

“Breanne is coming, right?” Auntie Tracy asked.

Uncle Declan’s daughter, the same age as Kyle, between Avery and Sheridan in age.

“Yes.  We took down the bunk bed so when it comes to Breanne, if I could convince one of you girls to sleep on either the couch downstairs or the floor?  It would be so much nicer.”

“Welcome home, now sleep on the floor,” Sheridan said.

“We can provide a pad.”

“She’s about their age, she could share a bed with either of your girls.”

“I can’t imagine sharing a bed with someone and not wanting to murder them,” Sheridan said.  “Sorry.  Besides, I’m fat, so no room.  Small benefit there.”

“Avery and Breanne can share,” Auntie Tracy said, like it was a fact.  With a tone that sounded like fake joy but wasn’t, she said, “It’ll be fun!”

“Uhhh, we’ll work something out,” Avery’s mom said.

“She’s my cousin, it’s fine,” Avery replied.

Her aunt put a hand on the back of her head.  “See?  Of course it’s fine.”

“Okay,” Avery’s mom replied, frowning a bit.

Things with her mom were better than they were with her dad, but this was an annoying little sticking point.  Sleeping arrangements.  First Liberty, now a cousin?  Egh.

“Avery, why did you leave?” Kerry asked.  “It seemed like you were going to stay and then you left.”

“Enough, Kerry,” Avery’s mom said.

The press of people entering the house and squeezing by meant they were rubbing up against Avery’s bag, with Snowdrop inside.  She could feel a kind of squeak of protest through the familiar bond, and moved her bag around to her front, hugging it.  It felt in the moment like she was in water, the ground too far below her for her to touch down.  She could see Grumble, felt like she had to do so much more to reconnect with him, her mom felt ever so slightly further away with the sleeping arrangement issue, and she could see her dad-

Her dad put a hand on her shoulder, rubbing in a reassuring way, before letting her go to focus on steadying Grumble.

Verona, expression casual and neutral, gave Avery a hug that betrayed the real sentiment, tight and fierce.

Avery drew in a breath for what felt like the first time since she’d been lying next to Nora- not even a deep one.  It felt like every one she’d been taking since had been shallow, getting her just barely what she needed.

Lucy joined the hug a moment later.

“We have so much ground to cover,” Verona said.

Avery nodded.  “Yeah.”

They stepped away from one another.  Avery was again struck by how Verona looked so… bone tired, maybe.  Like her mom had pointed out.  A little scruffier than before.  But also, like- like the parts that had accumulated dust were dustier and the parts of her that were clean were cleaner.  Her mask hung from her neck by a ribbon, hanging over the back of her shoulder, and it was intact.  Three pieces connected, with gouges running at diagonals across it, each so deep that it looked like the mask would break into three again if someone so much as breathed on it hard.

Lucy looked like they’d been apart a year, not a month and a half.  The fact she was wearing boots with that bit of extra lift, and a jacket, they contributed to that.  But so did the look on her face.  The streetlights had just come on, and the light caught on Lucy’s earring.

Verona said, “Miss said she might take you around to the Paths she’s thinking about.  You guys know that stuff way better than we do.”

“I thought it was more important to check in with family and drive home with my mom.  Get things re-established.  If I went with Miss, I feel like I’d be…” Avery searched for the words.  “Floating around on the outside edges, for the rest of the long weekend.”

“Do you know what she’s choosing?” Verona asked.  “Miss?”

“And is stuff okay, you know, with the family?” Lucy asked.

“It’s okay.  I think.  Crowded.  Hm, but to answer Verona’s question, I think it’s what she called the Stuck-In Place.  I’ll have to get the details later.  That’ll be important.  The logic for it made sense.”

“Biggest thing we need to figure out, is if we want to rush a demesne ritual,” Verona said.  “Because we have the long weekend.  We’d be putting you or Lucy in the hot seat, timing the start of the ritual to coincide with the ritual.”

“Uhhh,” Lucy said.  She looked between Avery and Verona.  “I don’t think I’m there.”

“It’s not obligatory but man would it help,” Verona said.

“It would be as hard as hell to do the claim around the Arena.  Even starting from the Undercity, where the ownership is a little looser.  At least in Kennet above, the Arena is still standing, still owned by the town,” Lucy said.

“That’s your instinct, huh?” Verona asked.  “The Arena building?”

“Yeah.”

Like in the dream, Avery thought.

Verona looked at Avery.

“That feels like a bit of a leap.  Especially when I’d be leaving town.”

Verona nodded.  She frowned a bit looking around.  “Want to check out my demesne?”

“Heck yeah,” Avery replied.

“What are you thinking, in terms of planning?” Lucy asked.

“I’m thinking… one makes a point, two makes a line, three makes a triangle.  I think we can cheat some,” Verona said, as she led the way.  The way to the House on Half Street opened up as they approached.  Verona hadn’t needed to use a key in the signpost, either.

“Aaaa!” Snowdrop cried out.

Avery turned, looking.  She saw Snowdrop in the trees, arms flailing as she moved to the side with the retreating treeline.  She skipped over and took hold of Snow’s hand.

“I’m not even-” Snowdrop started to say, as Verona started saying, “She’s-”

They paused.

“I’m not even kidding.  That was scary,” Snowdrop repeated what she’d said before, finishing the sentence.  She smiled toothily, then let go of Avery’s hand, walking around the house.

Just fooling around, Avery thought, shaking her head a bit.

Verona made a gun shape with her hand, and ‘shot’ the door.  It popped open in response.

“Now you’re just fooling around,” Lucy said.

“What good’s a magic Verona house if I can’t?”

Avery looked around.  She’d seen hints of it in the Alpeana dream where they’d talked about the lines they were drawing with the iffy pasts of some Kennet Others, but now she had the full pictures.  Art on every wall.  A lot of it was sketchy.  Overlapping figures, ribbons, gauzy bands and banners protecting modesty… sometimes.  Art on the floor, some in what looked like chalk, but set beneath the heavy lacquer on the old floor.  Some burned in.  Cat, fox, the occasional opossum, deer.  Animal headed people were arranged on the ceiling, mid-leap, or floating in water.

On the wall just to her left, inside the front hall, was a girl lying in an uneven bed of razors, draped in two lengths of white cloth.  The cloth was bloody everywhere the cloth didn’t touch her.  Avery reached out and touched the wall where the girl’s hand was outstretched, as if for help.

The image reacted, the hand pulling back, the expression changing to faint shock, the cloth moving.  Like a ripple had spread out from the point of contact and pushed back.  Verona’s head turned at the same time, as if she was the one shocked too.  Then she seemed to realize what it had been, and nodded.

Verona led them through the kitchen.

“Have you been using the heart?” Lucy asked.

“Nope.  Saving that for after.  Even though it would be handy for a quick few recipes.”

“Probably good you’re saving it,” Lucy said.

“Sounded pretty scary, just from the notes,” Avery said.

“It’s not too bad,” Verona replied.  She brought them through to the dining room.  A block of wood sat in the center, where the dining room table would normally be, but because it was a block of wood, with shelves inset on the sides, there was nowhere to sit.  Not if anyone wanted to have their legs beneath the table.

Verona had a bag of chalk from the sporting supply store downtown, still branded with the company logo, and she reached in to grab a fistful.  She plopped it down on the table, then rubbed it in.

Chalk sank into grooves, and formed a map of Kennet.  Outline, river, and loose perimeter.

“How much time have you spent in here?” Lucy asked.  “Isn’t it supposed to take a while to get into a groove like this?”

“Lots.  I’m fast with picking this stuff up, anyway.  But I have a lower top speed.”

“I don’t think your top speed is as low as you think,” Lucy said.

With hands at each elbow, arms resting on the short end of the table, Avery leaned over the image, brushing away some stray flecks of chalk.  The chalk had settled firmly into the grooves, and even the movement of her hand didn’t distort it any.

Verona made a mark on the map, with a daub of red paint.

“That’s where we are, right?  The House on Half Street?” Avery asked.

“Yeah.  And here…”

Verona made another mark.

“…Is approximately where we’ve been having the council meetings.  Downtown.  I think, push comes to shove, we can mark that out as a key location that means something and gives us another anchoring point.  It’s almost a Lordship council.”

“Helps that we’ve established representatives for each of the sides of Kennet,” Lucy said.  “Well, the ones that exist and the one that’s going to exist.  Hopefully.”

“Very hopefully,” Verona said.  “I want a third anchoring point.  A demesne would be great.  But having three is like, fifty times better than having two, y’know?”

“That sounds so fundamentally wrong, but I get it,” Lucy said.

“I see what we’re doing as building a big catcher’s mitt,” Avery said, tapping the image inset onto the table.  “Absorbing the impact, distributing it out.  And the demesne, the not-quite-a-Lordship council, plus whatever we decided on for a third point?  That’d be like… giving it bones.  Something solid and stable that it can rest on.”

“Oh my god you are such a dork sometimes,” Verona said, smiling.

“Am I wrong though?  It’s a good metaphor.”

“It’s a sports metaphor,” Lucy said.  “It’s a little dorky.”

“For a massive impact we want to ‘catch’!  Shut up!” Avery said, straightening up.  As Verona opened her mouth, Avery pointed at her.  “Shut!”

Pre-emptively, she pointed at Lucy, who raised her hands off the table, in surrender.

“It’s a good metaphor,” Avery said.

“It works,” Lucy said.

Verona put a piece of wood down over the image, then brushed some gold ink over the gaps.  It was a lazy, quick sort of job, but the paint settled down neatly.  As she pulled the wood away, there was a ring of sixteen circles evenly distributed around Kennet.

While Verona sorted out details, making notes, Snowdrop sensed someone, her attention perking up.  Avery’s head turned, “You have-”

“A guest,” Verona said.  Her head had turned too.  “I know.”

“I hear her,” Lucy said.  She was already looking that direction.

Snowdrop could detect the scuffle and sound of tiny feet stamping on the floor.

Cherrypop crossed the living room, and stood on the floor, in the center of the broad, wide arch that separated the living room from the dining room.  A mouse sized figure in an entryway that a car could have driven through.

Cherry drew in a deep breath, tiny hands clenched at her sides, and then shouted, “Ey!”

“Hi Cherry,” Avery said.  She could sense Snowdrop’s approach.

“Where is she!?”

“You didn’t hear?” Verona asked.  “That Snowdrop isn’t coming?”

“Don’t be mean,” Lucy said, as Cherrypop looked between them.

“I didn’t hear that and nobody should hear that because that’s not allowed!” Cherrypop shouted.

“You didn’t bring your famous rocks, huh?” Avery asked.

“That’s not important!  They all said you came!  But I don’t care about you!  Go get Snowdrop!”

Cherrypop was already the color of rust mixed with tomato juice, so it wasn’t technically possible for her to get redder in the face than she already was, but she was working on it.

“What if she gets you first?” Avery asked.

“What?  Huh?  Stop that and make more-”

Snowdrop, in human form, snuck up behind Cherrypop, and threw herself forward, becoming an opossum and swallowing up all of Cherrypop’s head and torso as she got closer to the ground.

She walked off in opossum form, while Cherrypop laughed inside her mouth, periodically kicking her feet and moving her arms around as best as she could, with arms and legs sticking out the front and sides of Snow’s mouth.

“Goblins like it when you’re a bit mean to them, so long as it’s good natured in the long run.  Like when you play with a toddler by pushing them over a lot.”

“There’s a line though,” Lucy said.  “I’d rather encourage Cherrypop to be cool, and Snowdrop seems like the best path to get her there.  She’d be one of the worst goblins we know if she was even halfways competent.”

“She’s had her good moments,” Avery said.

“Are you sure that’s true, and it’s not just Cherrypop affection bleeding in through your familiar bond?” Verona asked.

Avery snorted.

“If the others told her you showed up, then we should probably expect guests,” Verona remarked.  “Let’s get this worked out.  Game plan.  Demesne and council seat as the core.  We’ve got the shrines as the outer rim.  If we can keep this all in bounds, that’s great.  That’s where a lot of our power is going.  Which is where the battery we got from Thea comes into play.”

Avery nodded.  “We don’t want to demolish, transform, or remove Kennet though.  Which is where our scavenger hunt items come in.  I’m reading a bit between the lines here, but the impression I got from Jude and the stuff I read is that certain families used and reused the same ‘mundane’ items so often that they kinda codified.  Might’ve also been that they showed some other groups or individual agents how to do the practice, and those people copied things as exactly as they could.  Down to having, I dunno, a pair of glasses with only one lens.”

“The issue with practice being so reliant on patterns,” Lucy said.

“Things get muddled because terminology has changed over time,” Avery said, looking over the image.  She thought of the dream where the Meteor of Miss had come down.  Which wasn’t exactly how this would unfold.  “Where you have Path Runners and Finders.  And a Finder is someone who goes to the Paths and brings things home, with the focus on home, and a Path Runner is someone who goes to the Paths with the intention of being exploration, and collecting the benefits, and turning those benefits to further exploration of the Paths.”

“And then you have Founders,” Verona said.

“Which are Others that collect enough mundane items that they can bring themselves down to Earth.  And they tend to arrive with a whole lot of knotting and Lostness following them.  The impact sites becomes these little closed off areas that are hard to get to by conventional means, with their own rules inside, and Others who fit that ecosystem, usually.  Like, children never grow up, and the ones that dare to decide to grow up get murdered by the Founder.”

“That sounds familiar,” Lucy said.

“Yeah, probably.  Jude had a mini-freakout when I told him what we wanted to do, but I think a lot of that is because the kinds of Others who collect mundane items are also the kinds of Others who murder Finders, take their stuff, and end up drifting down to Earth as Founders because they’ve accumulated so much ordinary Earth stuff around them.”

“Could a human become a Founder?” Verona asked.

Avery frowned.  “Hm.”

“Just wondering.  Not actually going to, probably.”

“Why add the probably?” Lucy asked.

“Why rule anything out?  Who knows where we’ll be in fifty years?  So?  Ave?”

Avery put her bag down, belatedly, and thought about what she might read to figure it out, couldn’t think of anything, and thought about the book list the Garricks had provided her.  What would work?  “That’s an interesting question, actually.  Because I know a human can make really rough exits from the Paths.  Miss described one way, with Falling Oak Avenue.”

“But they don’t create child-murder Shangri-Las, right?” Verona asked.

“Hopefully?” Lucy asked.

“Nah,” Avery said.  “Nothing like that, as far as I know.  I’m gonna- actually, let me call Jude.  I have another thing I want to ask him, while we’re working this out, actually.”

“Cool,” Verona replied.

Avery dialed, then pressed ‘speaker’, turned up the volume, and put the phone on the table.  The ringing filled the room.

Jude picked up.  “Oh no.”

“I haven’t even said anything yet!  You’re on speaker by the way.”

“Oh no, oh no.”

There was a voice in the background, adult and male.  It was hard to make out.  “Who’s that?  Are you with family?”

“Yes.  Oh man.  Please don’t ask me to do anything.”

“Is that Avery?” a woman asked, barely audible.

“Put us on speaker on your end too, I just have questions,” Avery said.

“At least this means I get blamed less if this goes bad,” Jude said.  His voice quality changed partway through.  “You’re on speaker, talking to a roomful of my immediate family.”

“Avery, honey!  Why is Jude so anxious?” a woman asked.  Jude’s mom, probably.  “What’s going bad?”

“More than normal, anyway?” another female voice added.  Older sister?

“Um,” Jude said.

“Spit it out, Jude.  Come on!”  The dad.

It was hard to break into the ongoing patter of conversation on the other side of the phone, especially because she couldn’t see faces or read body language to find the point where she could jump in, but normally she was better at this than that.  She realized it might be because of the general feeling that had followed from her visit home.

“Oh, hm, I swore Jude to secrecy,” Avery said, talking over teasing from the sister.

“That’s a pretty good reason.  Anything we need to worry about?” the dad asked.

“I don’t think so?  Look, um, I had questions, if that’s okay.  I was going to ask Jude but if I can ask all of you, that’s even better.  Sorry if I’m uh, interrupting your evening, by the way.”

“Girl, you did us a big favor with the Promenade business,” the dad said.  “You could call us in the middle of anything short of a wedding and we’d be alright with it.  What do you need?”

Girl?  Avery thought.

“Um, just to start, because I know you guys know people who know people we have issues with…”

“Oaths?” the dad asked.

“Yeah.  To not spread the word, sell information, that sort of thing.”

“We wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah, but this is important,” Avery said.  “You know what Musser’s group is doing.  The Lordships.”

“Trying to save your little piece of turf?”

“Something like that.”

Avery could hear Jude sigh or something on his end, frustrated.

“We like you, Avery.  We have meetings with the extended family once a week, you come up every single time we meet, since the middle of summer.  If I joke you’re our Hazel we can’t let get away, is that going to mean anything to you?”

“Yeah.  That’s a little… suspect, though.  Not a very funny joke, given how she was treated.  During and after.”

“God damn it, why can’t you be one of my kids?  You read the damn texts.”

“So many of them are boring,” Jude said.

“Whim and Vigor was pretty bad,” Avery said.  “And Ruminations on a Dreaming.”

“See?” Jude asked.

“Look, the point is, we like you,” the dad said  “If it comes down to it, if you need the help, we could come by to help you out, in exchange for something like the Cakewalk solve.”

“Cakewalk solve is only negotiable after you get me my last few things,” Avery said.  “I don’t want to get gainsaid.”

“Yeah.  Something like it though.  We’re not fighters, but there’s some self defense involved when you’re on the Paths.  Just sayin’.”

“A few of the Others that Garricks bound are going to be around.  Might not be the best idea,” Avery said.  “But thanks.  For right now, I’d just want an oath of secrecy, keeping what we’re doing out of Musser’s ears and the ears of anyone who might talk to him.”

“Unless there’s mortal risk or other immediate harm to me and mine, we’ll keep it to those here, so I swear,” Jude’s dad said.

The other voices echoed him.

“Jude, I free you to speak to your family about this stuff,” Avery said.

“Gotta tweak it a bit, cover the avenues,” Lucy murmured.  “Spirit of the law and stuff.”

“Intent,” Verona added.

“You made your Oath and both you and I understood the intent and spirit of the oath of secrecy to mean one thing, if you keep it to your family, I will and the spirits should understand that you’re playing ball,” Avery said.  “I’ll stand up for you in the event of any contest or claim that you didn’t keep your word.”

Verona snorted.  Avery reached over to pinch her arm, but Verona moved out of the way.

“Right,” Jude said.  “Thanks.”

“What’s going to go wrong?” Jude’s mom asked.

“Hopefully nothing.  So um, just running a quick question by you guys.  Can a human become a Founder?”

“O-U founder?  Oscar-Uniform?” Jude’s dad asked.

“Do not try that,” Jude said.

“I’m not trying, don’t worry.”

“Don’t let your crazy intense friend try.”

“This is how I’m talked about when I’m not in the room, huh?” Verona asked.  “This is how they know me?”

“The fact you immediately think it’s you is really telling on its own,” Lucy pointed out.

“He could’ve meant Liberty, actually, who he met,” Avery pointed out.  “Who could easily be described as crazy and intense.”

“I meant Verona.”

“Really telling,” Lucy murmured.

“What on Earth are you doing?” Jude’s dad asked.

“Technically wouldn’t it be off-Earth?” Verona asked.  “At least to start?”

“Just… sate my curiosity, and then I’ll maybe get into it?” Avery asked.

“I don’t think a human, practitioner or otherwise, could become a founder,” Jude’s mom said.  “I think it comes down to connections.  They absorb the impact, and humans have too many, while something Lost has very few.  If you had a human with that small a number of connections, they probably wouldn’t be human anymore.”

Lucy leaned over the table, closer to the phone.  “What about a Lost that’s been on Earth for a while?  Would that be too many connections?”

“What in the name of all gods and spirits are you doing?”  Jude’s dad asked.

“Can you answer Lucy’s question before I answer and you get distracted?”

“Yeah.  That could draw too much away before the moment of impact.  I think I see why you’re asking about the human being a Founder now.  Working out where you fall?”

“Specifically,” Lucy added, “this is a Lost that’s avoided filling in the blanks or being defined by Earthly pattern.”

“The blanks and patterns are something different from the connections,” Jude’s dad said.

“Can we connection block the impact site?” Avery asked.  “Mitigate that?”

“Go get the enchantress text,” the mom said.  “Yes?  The question would be the kind of block we use.  I just sent Jude’s sister to get a book.”

“If I’m drawing the conclusions you don’t want said spoken aloud, you want to make it simple,” the dad told them.  “Something you can put down fast and then you can get out of the way.  There’s got to be easier ways to do what you’re doing.”

“We’re staying,” Avery said.

“You’re staying?”

“We’ve got eleven rings of mundane items, which is another thing I wanted to ask to you about.”

“Eleven sure is overkill for the three of you, if you want protection from the Lostness of it all rippling out.  Even if you have friends, that’s a lot.  And it’s a lot to collect and set up.”

“We’re at seventy-one out of seventy-seven,” Verona said.  “Setup’s not all that complicated, items are in piles.  We just need to distribute them.”

“I checked our list online and got the rest.  Sootsleeves handled it,” Avery murmured.

Verona gave her a thumbs-up.

“And you haven’t been noticed, carting all that in?”

“Dad,” Jude said.  “They’re not dropping it on an enemy.  They’re dropping it on themselves.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes,” Verona said.

“No, no no.  Here I was thinking you were going out of your way to make a… nuke from the Paths.  Upset a Lordship.”

“Wait, can we?” Verona asked.  “Did we seriously just stumble on a possible way to undo Musser’s progress?”

“No, you didn’t.  The Lordship remains, you’d just… really make it hard to hold onto.  Big impact, big move like that, that’s the sort of coup that’d break the claim of just about anyone.  You know about that stuff?”

“Yeah, we got the basics,” Avery said.  “Coup can be anything from a really good insult to an injury, to, I dunno, a super cool dance move that shows the spirits you mean more business than the person you’re trying to beat.  Claim is who has more right to something, a tug of war thing.  If you have a lot of claim, that something comes back to you easily.  Coup helps you weaken someone else’s claim, and diminishes them.”

“You attended the Blue Heron, right.  So you’d get it, probably, then he’d take it back.  And then the Lord could slowly undo what you did.  It’d probably kill the founder.”

“Unless you redefined the area so much that it’s not recognizable or claimable, that could remove a Lord’s throne,” Jude’s mother added.  “But if you start doing that to any areas Innocents would recognize you’re going to run into resistance, and some questions about why the maps look different.  If you don’t make changes big enough to raise questions, you won’t remove the throne.  You don’t want to do something that drastic to- to where?”

“The town they live in,” Jude said.  “That two of them live in, anyway.”

Avery motioned for the chalk.  Lucy passed it over.  Avery started to draw on the table, but the chalk didn’t work.

“Is someone or something putting you up to this?” Jude’s dad asked, in the meantime.

Avery held up the chalk in front of Verona.

“Oh, permission granted,” Verona murmured.

“Didn’t catch that,” Jude’s mom said.  “What did you say?”

“I’m illustrating,” Avery said.  She started to draw.

“I put us up to this,” Verona said.  “My idea, in abstract, with the loose brush strokes.  Lucy did the bulk of the negotiation, convincing the locals to get on board, rallied the goblins and citizens for the scavenger hunt for the seventy-seven items.  Avery did the research and she’s going to take point on the big stuff when we get underway.”

“Oh, you’re actually already taking moves to do this.”

“This weekend,” Jude said.

There was a pause.  Verona fidgeted.

She could sense Snowdrop having fun, at least.  Not that this wasn’t a kind of fun.  In a very terrifying, everything-at-stake way, maybe.

Avery muted the phone.  “Could I get one of you to go to Snowdrop?  When she hung out with Liberty’s goblins she ended up with a black eye and two bald patches where her hair was pulled out.  I can give her some of my well being to heal her, but if we need all hands on deck I’d kinda rather not.”

“I hear them.  I’ll do it,” Lucy said.  “Fill me in on what I miss, okay?”

“Redirect them to something else that’s new and fun, don’t just tell them to stop,” Verona told her, looking over what Avery was putting down, picking at her cuticles with her fingernails.

“Yeah, sure.”

“We’re all doomed to play out the same stories, aren’t we?  A little version of Hazel’s story, promising Finder with knowledge we need and want, drops part of what she knows, then… gone, huh?  And the family will be divided after…”

Avery unmuted herself.

“I don’t think I’ll be gone,” Avery said.  “I see myself more as a Path Runner in spirit than a Finder, and I don’t have the same kind of secrets.  Unless you care that I evoked Hazel’s rule, following someone onto a Path.”

“Did you now?  Can you do it consistently?  Because that’s the difference between getting fifty Benjamins and getting five hundred thousand along with those Wonderkand assholes wanting to recruit you straight to lower management.”

“Just the once.”

“I’d tell you to talk to Jude, the Inconnue Enclave will pay fifty dollars if you fill out the form explaining the situation, the before and after, Jude could tell you where to go and how to do that, blah blah blah.  Except I’m pretty damn worried you might not be around long enough to do that.”

He sounded heartbroken.

Avery finished drawing.  She wiped off the chalk on her hands, then picked up her phone, navigating over to the camera.  “Here, let me take a picture…”

The flash went off.

The camera put up an error.

She showed Verona.

“Oh, permission granted.  I’ll do a bigger version of that later, give you more permission overall.”

“Thank you,” Avery said.  She tried again. Then she sent it to Jude.

“Got it,” Jude’s dad said.  “Tell me what I’m looking at.”

“We send our Other friend to the Paths-”

Avery paused  Lucy was telling Snowdrop and the local goblins to chill out.

“-I go with her, do one end of the process that helps get her home again.  Then I come back, do the rest.  We’re aiming her at this central point.”

“Looks like a portal.  Reminds me of a City Magic practice, to make a door.  Quality of a door?  Help an old man out here?”

“You’re not that old,” Jude’s mom said.

“It’s a variant on our door to access the undercity version of our town,” Avery told them.

“Think of it as a revolving door,” Verona said.  “Two exits defined, third exit left blank.  We drop a whole lotta Lostness on the spinny door, secure the two exits and associated people and places to keep them stable…”

Lucy entered the front door, jogging lightly.

“You’re talking about big-ass practice in the same breath you’re saying ‘spinny door’.”

“Now we’re on the same page,” Jude told his dad.  “This is why I’ve been checking my phone the past while.”

“You didn’t tell us about this?”

“Sworn to secrecy, remember?”

Avery explained, “We’ll have shrines at the perimeter, then the eleven arrangements of the mundane, which again, I want to ask about later.  The mundane stuff will be both a wall of ‘normal’ against the Lost energies and how we pull our Lost friend out from the Paths.  Then demesne, council seat, ideally something else too.  Some diagram work at the bullseye point, to refocus the energies.  That braces us.  A catcher’s mitt for the fastball.  Queen Sootsleeves will be bracing us some, so will some other Others we’ve got.  Ones that know how to manage power, or who’ll eat excess power and stay standing.”

“Queen Sootsleeves, huh?”

“Yeah.”  Avery really wanted to ask what logic had led to them keeping Queen Sootsleeves on what Jude had said was the back shelf of the main house, rarely summoned or unbound, but that wasn’t the focus right now.  Her suspicion and Jude’s was that Jude’s grandfather and older relatives had known too many people who’d met bad ends in the Run Down Kingdom and resentment had led to her being shelved for long enough she’d mostly been forgotten.

She put that aside and explained, “We can have the connection block that… ideally it keeps our Lost friend disconnected enough that things aren’t blunted, but gives her some control.  For the example diagram, I put the usual two-pointer, keep-people-from-seeing-stuff one down, but I figure we’d want something else.”

“We’ve got the book open to the pages for connection blocks,” Jude’s sister said.

“We reviewed a lot of that already,” Lucy said.  She uncapped some water and drank.  “We need to keep practice secret from our families, so we use those a lot.”

“And so have our enemies,” Avery added.  “We learned some from having to work around what they set up.”

“Sixteen point figure?” Verona suggested.  “Upheaval, change, awakening…?”

“That fits what’s probably going to happen, but does it fit what you want to accomplish?  You put the sixteen point figure into situations you want strife, chaos in connections, and opportunity.”

“Probably not that, then,” Avery said.

“Three point for the Hearth’s block, four points for the Throne’s block, five for the Stave’s block, six for the Pair’s block, seven for the Conqueror’s block…” Jude’s sister recited.  “Conqueror’s block?  That’s the sort of thing you use to secure connections around a plan of action.”

“That sounds about right,” Avery replied.

“Except the plan isn’t- well, it is a problem, potentially,” Jude’s dad said, emphasizing the ‘is’.  “But it’s not what you’re concerned about with the connections.  We’re concerned with the point of impact more than what happens while your Lost is on its way.”

“Her, and sure.”

“Would help, I’m sure, but for what you want to do… fuck.  You trust this Other?  Her?”

“You trust her,” Avery said.  “She gave us the Promenade solve.”

“Right.  If you trusted her completely, I’m pretty certain it’s the nine point one.  Isolation, the soul search, the private world.  That puts the power solely in her hands.”

Avery nodded.

“Girl, kid, Avery, I’m looking over this picture, I’m starting to grasp the full idea of what you’re wanting to do…”

Verona picked hard at the nailbed of her left hand with her fingernails, stopping only when Lucy leaned over the table, touching her hand.  Verona set to rubbing at her palm, instead.

“Idea’s there.  Couldn’t say for sure on the execution.  But you’ve got… your bigger diagram design work- there’s what I call toothpicks and bubble gum in here.”

“It works, though, right?” Verona asked.

“Technically, but you’ve got some elementary signifiers in here.  The astrological signs?  You want to use different notations.  It’s fascinating to look at, with this ambition and then the little details that show you’re relatively new at this.  I want to show this to Luca and Finn, and anyone new we get, like an exam question.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.  Vow of secrecy and all that,” Avery told him.

“And you know, rude,” Verona added, pausing in the rubbing of her hand.  “I thought it was clever.”

“It’s-“

The sound cut off.  Avery checked to see the connection hadn’t dropped.  She could imagine Verona’s Demesne connection combined with her annoyance severing the okay for the call to go out, or something.

They muted?

“Hello?” Avery asked.

The pause continued another couple seconds.  Then sound resumed.  Jude’s dad said, “Right.  It’s very clever.  But it’s also ambitious and you want to make sure you do everything perfect.  You’re not all the way there yet.  Can you call this off?”

“Can’t,” Verona said.

“Postpone?”

“Awkward.  We only have so much time before Musser is on our doorstep,” Lucy said.  “And once he is, we don’t think we could put up much of a fight.  He could put up a Lordship and we really, really don’t want that.”

“Right now he’s busy filling seats and getting organized, after we pushed back a little,” Avery said.  “But once he’s done, it’s pretty much a lock for him to take the next few territories.  We’re pretty sure we’re last or close to last on the list, and he’ll have a lot of momentum behind him.”

“And this helps?”

“Some.  A big part of it is we want to stabilize our town.  The undercity part of it and everything else going on… we’re bleeding population,” Avery said.  “If we don’t do this, there might not be a town to protect, further down the road.”

“Can I be honest?” Jude’s dad asked.

“Haven’t you been?” Verona asked.

I think he stung her pride by insulting her diagram outline.

“Please,” Avery said.

“Feels a lot like you’ve got an arm that’s going septic, you’re focused on cutting it off, fitting some wildly experimental new prosthetic on… never tried before, could kill you, and there’s bits of that prosthetic and your surgery tools that- I’m going to say it, even if it annoys my wife, toothpicks and bubblegum.  And all the while, Abraham Musser has a gun pointed at your heart he fully intends to fire.”

“I’d say we’re not cutting it off,” Lucy said.  “We’re trying to save it.”

“Fair. Isn’t it better to focus on a bullet that’s going to go through your heart, instead of a septic arm?  I get that it hurts, maybe it’s even making you weaker, but…”

“We’re-” Lucy paused, looking at Avery and Verona.  “We’re not entirely sure we can do anything about the metaphorical gun, just yet.”

“You’re hoping he misses?  Because from what I hear, he doesn’t.  Abraham Musser is old school, upper crust Practitioner elite, through and through.”

“We’re hoping for a lot of things.  Maybe this gives us an angle.  Maybe he makes too many enemies.  But we’d kinda rather not discuss the strategies or any of that with you,” Lucy said.

Avery shrugged and nodded agreement to that.

“That’s allowed.  Sensible.  Okay, now, in the interest of placating my wife, who is staring daggers at me right now, because she thinks I’ll scare you off or upset relations… shit, you’ve got to do this this weekend?”

“Yeah,” Avery said.  “Pretty much.”

“Those shrines, you’re building them now?”

“Already set up.  Lesser spirits secure and seated.”

“This needs power.  To fuel the border, to push past any rough edges with the central diagram work.”

“We’ve got power,” Verona said.

“I’m talking a lot of power.”

“Pretty sure we’ve got that,” Verona insisted.

“Because we’re not talking about an especially big fireball here, we’re talking-“

“Dad,” Jude cut in.

“Even if what we have isn’t enough, we’ve got a community of Others willing to tap their Selves for this,” Avery said.

“Right.  I’ll take your word for it.  You haven’t worked out that third thing, to go with Demesne and the other thing?”

“Not yet.”

“Figure that out.  Got your mundane items?”

“Seventy-seven,” Avery said.  “I want to take it a step further.  Twelve sets of seven.  Can I?”

“With what you’re doing?  Spirits will see the trend and figure out what the twelfth is meant to be.  There are requirements.  Balances.  You don’t want to repeat exact items across the different sets, items have loose meanings, linked to the ideas behind being Lost.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know if even that’s going to be enough.  You’ll have your own connections to worry about.  There’s a good chance that what you’re doing will repel you.  Too hot to handle, in a way.  Might make the difference in you being able to adjust something that needs adjusting.”

“We awoke with oaths to work with and protect our town and I think we’ve held to those.  That helps right?”

“Definitely helps.”

“Other connections might help too?” Avery asked.  “Or hurt?  To community, people?  We had that advice.”

“Yeah.  I’d say that’s about right.”

“Varying degrees of success on that front,” Lucy said.

“Okay,” Jude’s dad said.  there was a pause, and Avery wondered for a second or two if he’d continue, or if he’d muted the call again.  “In the interest of keeping you around, with your permission, keeping secrecy in mind, we could swear people to secrecy before we provide any information.  We’d talk to the bigger Garrick family.  Put everyone we trust who isn’t doing anything onto the task.  Let’s take what you outlined and take it a step further.  Proper notation for the diagram work.”

“What we have works,” Verona said.

“It works, sure.  But it’s like…”

“Please don’t say toothpicks and bubble gum,” Verona said.  “Ever again.”

“…It’s like you’re driving and you arrive at an intersection and it’s a stop sign, and below that stop sign is a ‘wait 12 seconds’, then a yield sign… when what you really want is a traffic light.  If the spirits have to stop and scratch their metaphorical little heads, that’s going to lead to some jams and a higher chance something doesn’t get where it’s meant to go.  Let us show you how to install a traffic light.”

“Alright.  But any changes you make, I want to see the reasoning, notes, copy any pages you’re referencing,” Verona said.  “If this becomes something that we don’t understand and recognize, even if it’s technically better, that’s worse for what we’re doing.”

“I think we can get our best on this.  With your permission.  If you don’t want to, that’s alright too.  The four of us here will tell everyone else to steer clear and do it ourselves, best we can.”

“Any help would be appreciated,” Avery said.  She looked at the other two.  “What’s the asking price?”

“Goodwill.  On the house, to maintain current relationships, keep you from pulling a Hazel on us.”

“You’re going to have to explain that one to us, Ave,” Lucy murmured.

“Yeah.  Okay-” She realized she didn’t know Jude’s dad’s name.  “If you pick the family members, double check they have no connection to Musser, get them to swear, I can say what needs to be said to bring them in,” Avery said.

“You sure you don’t want us to helidrop in some Garricks?  You’d rather use those Lost?”

“Yeah.”

“The option stands.  I’m going to put Jude on the job of getting the books about the down-to-earth, mundane items, history, rationale, cataloguing.  Tess can look into the connection block.  And… you okay with assisting?”

His voice had faded, like he’d stepped away from the phone.  Jude’s sister or mother replied, inaudible.

“It’s good to have someone on hand to cook, take care of whoever’s on crunch mode.  Care, counsel, manage, communicate.  That’s those three covered.  I’m going to talk to the family.  See who we can enlist.  We’ll get back to you.”

“Thank you,” Avery said.  “It’s appreciated.”

“Hope so.  Are you terrified, Avery?”

“Spooked.”

“Yeah.  Good.  And good luck.  We’ll be in touch.  I’ll call.”

“Okay.”

The call ended.

They stood there, at three sides of the table, looking down and at each other.  Verona rubbed at her hand.  Lucy frowned.

Avery puffed up her cheeks, then opened her mouth to make a ‘plop’ sound.  “Okay.”

“Council leader Louise, huh?” Avery asked.

Louise set aside a blanket that was draped over her lap, standing from her seat on the porch.  “I suppose so.  Hi Avery.  Hi Snowdrop.”

Snowdrop ran over, and hugged Louise.  Snow was wearing her headphones with the opossum-ear shaped rims around the earpieces, and a jacket with a jumble of broad, narrow words strung together in rows, first letter of each highlighted.  Puerile – Ossm – Scavenger – Sage – Unto – Mobs – Pissy – Obscene – Scruffy – Screaming – Ugly – Mongrel… and so on.  An opossum-shaped space at her back was left blank, without words.

“Just sitting outside?  Not listening to or watching anything?” Avery asked.

“Old woman energy, despite being mid-thirties.  Matthew’s running around fixing things.  He’s in the basement using my tools to cut wood, if you want him.”

“Just wanted to give you and Miss an update,” Lucy said.  “If that’s okay?”

“Please.”

“Miss!” Avery called out.  “If you’re not on the Paths!”

“Miss!” Lucy called out.

“Miss!” Verona finished.

Miss stepped out from around the side of the house, standing by the porch.  The thicker post that supported the porch railing blocked the view of her face.  “I’m here.”

“Did you go and come back?”

“No.  Rook and I are still looking for a good distraction.  A lot of the groups, forces, and Others who would be worthwhile distractions stood down after Musser took Toronto.”

It felt weird, talking about this with Louise nearby.  Calling Miss with Louise nearby.

“What do we do then?” Lucy asked.

“We may have to try to time it so that, even if they aren’t occupied, they’ll be too far away to group together and organize.  We can cut off communication, to exaggerate how disorganized they are, but after we used Basil’s Others, they may have worked out more secure means of talking with one another.”

Avery nodded.

“How is your family?” Miss asked.

“Noisy.  The drive was nice and probably needed.”

“Good.  You’ve seen the Undercity?”

“No.  Too busy.  Got here, saw family for a short while, ate, then went to Verona’s Demesne.  Then here.”

“I would have imagined you’d want to explore.”

“I do.  I really do.  But… priorities, I guess.  A lot of tough decisions on the small scale.  The ritual is the big one.”

“And the preparations for that?”

“Almost there,” Lucy said.  “We’re going to do some connection stuff, to ensure you’re not overly tied down when you’re doing what you need to do, during the founding.”

“Understood.”

Verona explained, “Avery brought the items we need, courtesy of Queen Sootsleeves.  We’re going to do another twelve.  We’re confident we can get that done tonight and early tomorrow.  The goblins and undercity people who held onto their stuff in hopes of getting the prizes don’t get anything.”

“Maybe a little something, to keep them happy?” Louise asked.

“Yeah,” Verona replied.  “Which leaves the tough stuff.  Like the fact a big alarm bell is going to sound and people will be able to show up to answer our claim to Kennet.  Others will.”

“We have goblins, Dog Tags, and other help.  We’ll also have the one day rule if we really need it, ideally we can use that after the claim part of the big ritual is done,” Matthew said.  He walked backwards through the door, pushing it open with his back, so he could carry the freshly cut wood planks out.

“What else is tough?” Louise asked.

Avery sighed.  “The Garricks made it sound like we really want that third point of reference.  Demesne, council seat, and… something.”

“Something?” Matthew asked.

“Ideally.  We talked about it on the walk over to say hi and update Louise,” Verona said.  “There’s two options right in front of us, and neither are great.  We can say forget it, just have two out of the three, which makes us wobbly and risks the ritual going bad, that’s option one.”

“Are you following all this?” Avery asked Louise.

“Enough, pretty sure.  If I don’t, Matthew can fill me in.”

“Yeah.  What’s the other option?” Matthew asked.

“We go for three out of three.  And the third point is the seat of the City Spirit.  Or the Carmine,” Verona answered.

Turning to Charles and Lis again, for help.

“Does that tie us down to them?” Matthew asked.

“It doesn’t not,” Lucy replied.  “Question is how much.”

“Neither of you are up for a demesne ritual?” Matthew asked.

“I don’t have a great place,” Lucy said.  “And Avery isn’t local right now.”

“Right.”

“Really don’t want to ask Charles if we can use his spot.”

“Don’t want to screw this up, either,” Verona said.

Louise folded the blanket she’d had on her lap, and put it on the chair.  “You said you’ve eaten.  Do you want to come inside?  It sounds like you’ve been running yourselves ragged.”

“Nah, we kinda have to go back for curfews and stuff soon,” Lucy said.  “Avery and me do, anyway.”

“Alright.”

“Want to be our care, counsel, management, and communication?” Avery asked.

“The Garricks- they’re Finders and Path Runners.  They’ve mentored and worked with me some.  They said it’s good to have someone in a caretaker role, while the rest are in crunch mode.”

“I’m happy to try.  My door is open, you have my number.  I’m on disability, I have time, I can at least drive.”

“Thanks,” Avery said.  “Got any experience with big families?”

“No, but I have experience talking to people who have those.”

“Like me,” Snowdrop said.  “Tons of siblings here, two trashy parents.”

“Yeah,” Louise said.  “I’ve got strawberry milk in my fridge, Snow.  Better drink it before it goes bad.”

“I definitely want to be careful on that front,” Snow said.

“Virtually a goblin,” Avery said, messing up Snowdrop’s hair as she walked by on her way to the door.  Snow flashed a toothy smile at her.

“Helps though,” Lucy said.  “Having backup.  Kind of really feeling it, these days, how I can’t talk to my mom.”

“Or girlfriend,” Avery said.  She perked up a bit.  “Did they mention I got a girlfriend?”

“They mentioned you’d mentioned it several times.  Which I took to mean you mentioned it a lot,” Louise said.

“Yeah.  I’m pretty pumped.”

“Good.  Fantastic,” Louise said.  “If you ever need a listening ear and they’re tired of the subject…”

“Nah,” Verona said.  “We joke but a happy Avery is a good Avery, as I see it.  It would take a lot more for us to give up on the subject.”

“Don’t tempt me.  Sheridan’s cool but she’s not exactly a listening ear and Snowdrop’s- she’s an opossum.”

It still felt weird, saying that in front of Louise.

“She’s also a kid,” Louise said.

“That too.  Neither of which are especially great for listening to her friend and partner go on at length about dating anxiety and all that.  I mean, she tries, but she doesn’t get it.”

“I don’t get it and I usually don’t know what to say.  But Avery listens to me when I do say stuff,” Snowdrop said, as she appeared at the door.

“The advice she gives doesn’t really apply,” Avery said.  She sighed.

“Clicking your tongue at girls you like doesn’t work,” Snowdrop said, shaking her head.  “So don’t try that.”

It all felt like so much.

“I should go,” Miss said.  “Check on Rook, and where we stand.  Opportunities may arise.  Thank you for the update.”

“Matthew?” Louise asked.

Avery looked over.  Matthew had set the wood down against the steps to the front porch, and he was standing by the bottom step, looking out, down the hill, and over Kennet.  He’d stirred a bit at Louise’s voice, but he still looked deep in thought.

“Matthew?” Avery asked.

Matthew drew in a deep breath.  “I might have an idea.  A third option, and like your other options, it’s not especially great.  Let me ask around, see if it’s viable.”

It was impossible to talk to her dad like this.

Aunt Clara had come.  She’d brought three of her five kids and her boyfriend.  All of them were a little intense and weird.  Her two oldest, who were around Rowan’s age, were eating at partner’s houses or staying back for school or work.  Aunt Clara, Rhys, Gareth, and Maura were all very opinionated- strident in their opinions, as Avery’s mom had once put it.

It didn’t matter if they were thirty-five like Aunt Clara or six like Rhys.  It made the house loud in a way Avery wasn’t used to.  There had already been one fight that Avery had been witness to, a pre-emptive, before bed shouting match about whether Maura could wear an oversized t-shirt to bed, and one fight with Clara, her boyfriend, and Rhys on three different sides, not long after Aunt Clara had arrived.   Avery hadn’t been around for that one.

“Kale, drink your water and go back to bed!”

Kale.  Right, oh, there had been a third spat and there might be upset feelings over that.  Uncle Declan had arrived, primarily because Aunt Tracy had come early and he wasn’t to be outdone, then, on hearing that Caleb wanted to be called Kale, had made light fun of the kid.  Everyone had an opinion on that.

The house felt hot, like the oven had been running all day and evening, and it felt like all the air had been sucked out of it.

Normally it felt cozy in a way.  Or interesting when it wasn’t cozy.  Even last fall and last Christmas, a few months into high school, this had been a time for Avery to recharge.  She’d been feeling lonely, not fitting in at school, and she’d been beginning to count the days it took for her to say something.  To have family, even noisy family, and to not just break her streak of not talking for days at a time, but have excuses to talk for hours at a time?  It had been a chance to breathe.

Now, she’d retreated to the back porch, to escape.  Breanne and Kyle had migrated out.  Kyle leaned over the railing, looking at the backyard, and Breanne sat in a chair by Avery, thumbing at her phone now and then.

Breanne looked like a Fernanda type, but with curly red hair and a protective fussiness over her own looks that Fernanda didn’t have- she’d been anxious around the littler kids with sticky hands, getting close to her nice sweater and dress.  She hadn’t looked anywhere close to a Fernanda type last fall or last Christmas- it was all very new to her.

The three of them were about the same age, and once upon a time that had meant they could just be together and play together.  Now it felt like they were three people who’d gone in very different directions.

Avery as the athlete, not to mention the other stuff.  Breanne was the popular girl, coltish in how she was getting to grips with it.  And Kyle was- Avery wasn’t sure how to pin it down.  The too-cool-for-school type?  Disaffected youth?  He looked like a guy who modeled, with how trim he was, but he didn’t model.  He didn’t seem to do much besides game.

“There’s an urban legend starting to go around, about a weird, haunted arcade,” Avery said.  “I dunno if you guys are interested?”

“Games aren’t really my thing,” Breanne said.

“It’s kind of a cool thing to see and experience even if you’re not,” Avery said.  “Bunch of eleventh and twelfth graders will be there.  People to hang with and talk with.”

“I’m kind of tired,” Kyle said.

“All hung out,” Breanne added.

“Guess you don’t want to go for a walk either, huh?  Just us, quiet?  Maybe hit the convenience store?”

“Nope,” he said.

She looked over at Breanne, who shook her head.

“Right.”

“You’re an evening person, huh?” Breanne asked.

“I’m both, I guess.  Got a bit of nocturnality in me, past little while.  Plus I wake up early for practice.”

“I’m neither,” Kyle said.

“Ah, like Sheridan.”

“Guess so.”

Breanne put her phone down, and looked over at Avery.

“What?” Avery asked.

“You know, when you came in the door, Kyle and I saw your bag,” Breanne told her.

“Uh huh?”

“The strap?  We both saw, I think.  Looked at each other.”

“Oh.  The flag?  Yeah, I dunno.  I’m not hiding it.  But I’m not broadcasting it either.”

“Wearing a flag on your backpack strap, right up near the shoulder isn’t broadcasting it?” Kyle asked.

“I dunno.  Not verbally, anyway.  I don’t think your parents know what it means.  Is it a problem?”

“Only if you steal my girlfriend, ever,” Kyle said.

“You have to get one first, Ky,” Breanne said, eyes back on her phone.

“We’re good though?” Avery asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Breanne said, disinterested.  “Wasn’t sure if you knew what it meant.”

“Why is that a thing people keep saying to me?  What kind of ditz energy do I have?” Avery asked.  “Do people think I just picked a flag with cool colors to stick on my backpack?”

Kyle snickered.

“Maybe don’t go bringing up to your parents or other cousins?” Avery asked.

“Yeah yeah sure,” Kyle said, absently.  “It’s really not a big deal.”

“It isn’t until it is.  Look at how Kale’s name change is going over with Uncle Declan and Uncle Sean.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He didn’t seem to get it.  Oh well.

Avery lounged back, tilting herself back on the patio chair.

Then she sensed it.  Words that came to her without being carried by sound.

Let this be my claim.  I, Matthew Moss, claim my home, bought and paid for.  I claim this space as mine, and as a stable point in Kennet above and below.  I claim the connection here, in this space, and nowhere else…

It began.  This would get responses.  This would not only be the last big step they needed to handle, but it would demand a response.  They’d see just how ready Musser’s contingent was to answer it, and how ready they were for all of that.  That, in turn, would shape how the ritual went.

He’d said he would do this if he could get Edith to acquiesce.  Avery had no idea what that deal had been like.  She worried.

“I’m going to bed,” Avery said, standing.  “Going to sleep while I can.”

Signal me if something happens, she willed Snowdrop.

With the words had come a sense, a knowledge as present as her Sight was available to her eyes.  She had only so much time to respond.  Not that her response was important: she would ‘no contest’ this, of course.

No.  When that time ran out, they would have to deal with Musser.

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