Author: Wildbow

Wild Abandon – 18.2 | Pale

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Avery let herself into her house, making it in about a foot before running into the press of people there.  Uncle Declan was getting Breanne ready to go, and there were adults in the doorways, with Sheridan sitting on the stairs.  About half of everyone present were still in the clothes they’d slept in.

Her mom and dad stood in the doorway to the kitchen.

Augh.  The look they gave her.

“Hey, you’re just in time to say goodbye,” Aunt Clara said, with a faint air of condemnation.  “Did you enjoy your morning run?”

“I- running was mostly fine.  You’re going?”

“Going to beat the rush, see if we can get back at a reasonable hour,” Uncle Declan said.  “Wish we could’ve talked more, skates.  That’s what Rowan calls you, right?”

“Yeah, and yeah, for sure.  Sorry.”

“We’ll talk hockey next time.”

She nodded.

“Hopefully Queef pulls his head out of his behind and we can have nice things to say about hockey, right?”

“Manners, Declan,” Aunt Clara said.  “The little ones are over in the other room.”

“If they know what queef means then that’s your fault.  Breanne, if you’re going to take that long to lace up your boots, just leave them untied and do it in the car.”

“I’m fine.  Hey Avery?  What was up with the stick thing?  You just got out of bed in the middle of the night and left some sticks on your end?”

“Please, Breanne.  Look at what you’re doing or just leave them untied,” Uncle Declan groaned.

“Sorry, that was a project my friend did.  I took my stuff as I snuck out and left that behind,” Avery said.  “It shouldn’t have been on the bed with you.”

“There are so many things wrong with that.  You’re up and about in the middle of the night?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Avery said.

“It’s fine, Clara.  Let us parent our own daughter?” her dad asked.

“You may want to parent Kerry then, because she’s banging her head on the table again.”

“In a minute.  Goodbyes first.”

“Uh, actually,” Avery said.  “Jasmine’s coming by, she had something to say about traffic and the construction just north of town.  It might be hard or dangerous to get out.”

“How hard?” her mom asked, with a faint note of alarm.

“Just… there was a thing.  Car totaled.  People possibly hurt.  Or worse.”

“Oh,” her mom said, voice soft.  “You weren’t-?  You weren’t part of that?”

“I just saw it from a distance.”

“You may want to stay, Declan,” her dad said.

Uncle Declan looked like he really didn’t want to stay.

“You figure that out.  I’ll be right back, let me drop off some stuff,” Avery said, as she ducked past to the stairs.

“They have to let us out,” Uncle Declan insisted.

As Avery ran past Sheridan, Sheridan slapped Avery’s butt.  Avery made it up another step before Sheridan grabbed her ankle, making her fall awkwardly on the stairs.

“What the hell?”

“You gotta hit me back or I look like an asshole.”

“You kinda do anyway.”  Avery lightly smacked the back of Sheridan’s head, producing a bit of a laugh from Sheridan.

Avery wasn’t really in a mood to laugh, though.  There was a lot going on.

Declan was gone, presumably at school.  Which Kerry should be as well, now that she thought about it.  But she was in the other room?

She closed the door with her foot and pulled Snowdrop out of her bag, rusty fork clamped in her teeth.  “Bangnut, Bangnut, Bangnut.  Asap, Uncle Declan’s green Hamakua.  Don’t let him leave.  You pass that on, handle it, Snow?  Cherry?”

Snowdrop sneezed.

Avery pulled the window open, let Snowdrop out, and then paused.

“Don’t blow it up or anything.  Keep him from leaving to keep him safe.  No fire, no crashes, okay?”

Avery closed the window, got things together, ran a comb through her hair, and got her laptop plugged in and started up for later.  Then she hurried back downstairs.

Kyle was hugging Breanne goodbye, with Caleb apparently having already said goodybe.  Avery took her turn after he was done.

“Email,” Avery said.  “I’m serious.  Stay in touch.  We’re family, we have each other’s backs.  You, me, Kyle, Caleb, at the very least.”

“Yeah.  For sure.”

“We’re family, family looks after family,” Avery said.

“Don’t say that too loud,” Avery’s mom whispered, as Avery went over to her.  Her mom hugged her.

“Why not?”

“It’ll start a fight between your dad and Uncle Sean again,” her mom whispered.

“Mom!  Dad!  They’re leaving!” Kyle shouted.

“You make it sound like I’m going to throw my gloves off and duel him,” Avery’s dad said.

“I want to see that,” Sheridan said, face pressed against the bars of the railing of the stairs.  “I think Uncle Sean would win, sorry dad.”

Avery’s dad checked the coast was clear.  “I just want him to recognize that we’re doing a lot more to take care of Grumble…”

“It’s okay, after,” Avery’s mom said.  She squeezed Avery’s shoulders.  “You okay?  You’re good?”

“Uh, yeah.  Is it okay that Jasmine’s coming?  She wants to talk.”

“Of course.  Is it okay that Uncle Declan is leaving?”

“I hope so.”

Her mom looked bewildered.

But more family came through, and it was a slow procession past the front door, family crowding in together.  Conversations Avery knew her mom and dad wanted to have were postponed.

“Have the little ones said goodbye?” Avery’s mom asked.

“They did a circuit around the table,” Aunt Tracy said.  “You might want to check on Kerry.”

“No need to bring them out, saying goodbyes takes half an hour as is,” Uncle Declan said.

Breanne waved, standing on her toes to keep the wave visible past the press of people.

Avery waved back, then after doing the goofy thing where everyone waved until the car was out of sight, passed into the dining room.  Grumble was sitting in his armchair, watching some angry looking news people, and Kerry, Rhys, Maura, and Gareth were sitting around the table that was still folded out to its full length from Thanksgiving dinner.  Little homeschool workbooks and resource packets were spread out around them.

Kerry was banging her forehead repeatedly against the table’s surface.  Avery put her hand between forehead and wood.

“I should have gone to school.”

“The more miserable you act, the more they win,” Avery confided.

“I said I should get to stay from school if Sheridan and you are getting to.  Which I should, but then they made me do this!”

“Is this how you act at school?” Aunt Clara asked.  “Look how good the other three are being.”

“Can we hang out later?” Kerry asked.

“I’d love to, but-”

“You can hang out now, Avery,” Aunt Clara said. “I’ve got Caleb doing workbooks that are a few years younger than is appropriate for him, but I’m setting strict time limits.  Speed math, you should know these things, snap snap snap.  I can do the same for you.  Where is Caleb?”

“I think he ran away,” Sheridan said.

“You should run,” Kerry whispered to Avery.

“Avery, can we talk to you in the backyard!?” her mom called out.

“Yeah!”

“Hey,” Sheridan said.  “So what the hell, Ave, did you murder someone?”

“Murder!?”  Kerry perked up.  Like the prospect of murder was better than homeschool.

“You left last night and now they’re super serious?  What happened?”

“It’s not murder- not me that murdered, no-” Avery stammered.

“It’s not you that murdered?”

“Will you murder me?” Kerry asked.  “So I don’t have to do homework?  Then you run.  You’re fast at running.”

Aunt Tracy came into the kitchen, and immediately went to Maura’s chair, where Maura was working diligently.  She began combing fingers through Maura’s hair, which made the kid smile.  Aunt Clara did the opposite.

“Instead of fussing over my daughter, you could go get your son and make sure he’s studying.”

“It’s fine.  It’s a long weekend.”

Avery slipped into the backyard while things were ongoing.

A moment to breathe, which ended up being half a breath, because her parents came out, closing the door behind them.

“But you’re okay?” her mom asked.  “No injuries?”

“I’m okay, I said before.  I can’t lie, remember?”

“And the car accident?”

“That’s a whole other thing.  I don’t know exactly how to say it all, but I think some really bad stuff is happening.”

“Bad stuff?” her mom asked, voice pitched higher.

“Like… the guy we were trying to stop?  Musser?  He wanted to take over, right?”

“Right,” her dad said.

“And to fight back, kind of, someone else unleashed a lot of hostile Others on Ontario.  And we don’t know the full story with that, but Musser backed off.  So we kind of won, temporarily, which is good, and we’re safe, kind of, which is also good.”

“But?” her dad asked.

“But a whole lot of people are dying.  Including the people I saw in the car.  Which got speared by a giant bird man and carried off into the horizon.”

Her mom didn’t laugh this time, which was a relief.

“Jasmine’s coming to touch base, Lucy’s managing some other stuff but she’ll swing by.  Verona’s doing the final steps for her magic house.”

“When you say a lot of people are dying-?  Magic people?  Innocents?” her dad asked.

“I don’t know, fully.  Could be some areas are different.  Others are all different.  It’s part of why I came home, I wanted to get my laptop and ask some people who know better.  And figure out what to do because a lot of the people who were invading are sorta stuck here now.”

“My head is spinning,” Avery’s mom said.

“Yours and mine both,” Avery admitted.

“Is Uncle Declan going to be safe?” her dad asked.

“I- I hope so.  I got Snowdrop to get a gremlin to sabotage his car.  I- hm.  That’s not quite as bad as it sounds.”

“We trust you,” her dad said.  “At least until you give us more reason to distrust you.”

“I don’t trust anything,” her mom said.  “What is this world we’re living in?  It all feels like a dream.”

“There’s-” Avery paused.  “If you wanted to tell yourself it’s a dream, I think the universe would help you with that.  You’d just have to let it happen.  Dad would have to let you let it happen, or join in.”

“What kind of mother would I be if I did that?”

“I don’t know.  A happy, sane one?  One that I can go back to if I need a rock?  Some stability?”

The idea struck Avery that this would forever be a thing, now, if her mom didn’t take the out.  If she could.  That this would hang over every conversation, it would taint everything, it would make home not a home.

She’d already experienced that.  She looked at her dad.

“You look tired,” her dad said.

“Yeah.  Been running around all night.”

“When do you get a chance to rest?”

“I don’t know.  I gotta- there’s so much to do.  Emailing Zed and Nicolette, maybe Jude… fuck.  I screwed up the Jude thing- I’ll tell you more of that later.  We’ve got the sixty or seventy practitioners still in town, and I don’t know how they’re going to react or what they’re going to do.  They’re regrouping, and figuring things out.  Figuring out how to get home, what’s going on with all that.  If maybe the Others that got sicced on Ontario are hurting all innocents, or hurting just practitioners, or just those practitioners?  There’s the newly founded Kennet, uh, the Charles thing.  Um, there’s you guys.”

“What can we do?” her dad asked.

“I don’t know,” Avery said, bewildered and lost.  “I don’t know what I should do.”

“Have you eaten?”

“Protein bars.  Jasmine’s bringing stuff.”

“Whatever it is, it’ll last about half a second in this household,” her dad said.

“You could sleep,” her mom said.

“I- no.  There’s too much to do.  I gotta- I turned my laptop on, I should get it.  If I figure out more about what’s going on, I can wrap my head around this.  If Jasmine comes, maybe bring her around back?  Fend off the family?  Give me space to… I don’t even know what I’m doing.”

“Okay,” her dad said.

Her mom didn’t say anything.

Avery went back inside, past the very full dining room, and upstairs.  The ugly feeling chased her, that if it was even possible to safely get back to Thunder Bay, the dynamic might change.  If it was like it was here, after she’d come out…

“Water?” Kerry asked.  “Let me get up.”

“Stay seated, focus on your schoolwork.  Are you this antsy in actual school?”

“I’ll get it, give me thirty seconds to a minute,” Avery said.

If it was like that at Thunder Bay, what would that even look like?  What would that be like?  What could she even do?  If her mom couldn’t accept it all?

An impulse came from Snowdrop.  Not a word, but a generalized feeling: fire and opossum chaos.

You didn’t actually set the car on fire, did you? Avery thought, pushing the question and her concern toward Snowdrop.

She got the laptop and carried it downstairs.

“I’ve learned a lot about burying bodies from the shows I’ve been watching,” Sheridan said.

“Cool.  Hmm.  Will keep that in mind.”

Avery got the water and brought it to Kerry, glancing over Kerry’s shoulder, then went outside, shutting the door and seating herself in one of the reclining patio chairs.  “I think Uncle Declan’s car ran into some trouble, so he might be coming back.”

“Just like that, huh?” her dad asked.

“It’s not just like that, really.  I had to do a big ritual to connect to Snowdrop, because she would’ve died in a few years if I’d left things alone, and I brought her into existence, kind of.  And developing a relationship with the goblins, that’s a thing, and then figuring out how to coordinate…” Avery said, absently, as she logged in and waited for the Wi-fi.  Other devices in the house were eating up the connection.

“How many things have you done to keep secrets from us?  Or manipulate us?  Slow us down or turn us around if we’re doing something?” her mom asked.

Avery looked up.  “Mostly connection blocks.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Means, uh.  I make it easier to ignore me.  Or ignore magic stuff.  So I can go out and do what I need to.”

“Well, I think I get what Jasmine was saying, now, when she said she was scared.”

Avery checked her email.  There were three from Zed.  One asking for information.  Then outlining what he knew about some of the big Others.

Zed had been asked about some Technomancy Others that had taken a Lordship.  They’d taken over a call center.  He was pretty sure it was a bái làn, or ‘White Rot’, or a bái mù, or ‘White Eye’, both of which were related technomancy Others that focused on generating nonsense and stirring upset, then drinking in the confusion and upset to alter its proximate reality.  Having taken over the call center, it was infecting people with the white eyes or white rot, spamming the township with nonstop repeated calls and drinking in power.

The Lord of that area had sealed themselves in their home, using protections to keep trouble out, but were unable to do anything except keep those wards up.  The power that was taken in by the incessant spam and nonsense calls was being channeled into and against the seals and wards, gradually wearing them down.  Either the practitioner would lose concentration and collapse, or their best efforts would stop being useful, and the White Rot would work its way inside and get them.

Zed was asking if he should go.  Initial plan was to go there after he’d handled the- wait.

Wait, no, these were in reverse order, of course, most recent email at the top.

Avery shook her head.  She was tired.

The first email was a general update.  It mostly told Avery what she already knew.  Still, it was verification.  A lot of practitioners, many of them third-string, had just been executed.

Avery took down the names.

Second email, very in depth.  Zed was focused heavily on the big threat.  A ritual incarnate had arisen about halfway between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg.  Dryden was a town about the size Kennet had been, and a force around Dryden was turning people into places and objects into people.  Each of the five thousand residents were unspooled into hallways, roads, and other things, and the various things they wore and had with them became people.

Practitioners, Zed wrote, were able to hold onto themselves, just a bit, but they unspooled easily if hurt or- Avery guessed it was coup.  Any insult, any setback, it’d be a knock against their ability to keep from unspooling and becoming more place.  Too much of a knock against their Selves and they’d become an ongoing fixture.

But implements retained the connection, at least, with memories and limited abilities of the practitioner, Others were mostly unaffected, and a full outfit of complementary pieces of clothing would become a team of people who associated with each other but didn’t remember a life before the Ritual Incarnate.  Before what Zed was calling a Labyrinth.

Oh, and the same dangerous Others that were out here were in there.  Mostly occupying themselves killing the Lord and his family members that had been camped out there, at the far west of Musser’s territory.

Leaving Zed to theorize about how it might be tackled.  Summoned Others to give guidance, a very specific sort of outfit, for a goal-oriented, cohesive team- Zed theorized hyper-urban tactical clothing for a tactical squad.  Any practitioners with implements would be ideal.  All to get to what Zed was thinking was a core of power that was still vulnerable.

Avery sat back, thinking.

don’t go, she typed.  She sent that fast, so Zed wouldn’t commit to anything in the meantime.

Then, while she was typing a follow up message, she got a reply: why not?

“Telling Zed… Don’t go, because Charles Abrams created the Hungry Choir as a trap for Alexander and the other big practitioners.  It had a big juicy battery full of power at the center, basically,” Avery said out loud, as she typed.  For her parents’ benefit.  “And this thing Zed is telling me about might be Charles’ second try at that.  Hold off for now.  Maybe you should tackle the Others who took over the call center.  Whatever that’s about.”

“That sounds serious,” her dad said.

“It is.”

“Louise mentioned a Charles.”

“Yep.  And Charles might be listening and watching as we speak, because he’s kind of omniscient within his domain.  Kind of, and he’s not friendly,” Avery said, as she double checked what Zed had typed for any clues and then backed out.

“Omniscient.  Okay,” her mom said.  She looked up at the sky.  “Hi.”

Then she did that nervous laugh again.

Avery went back to her email inbox, where she’d had some scattered other messages.  Nicolette, old messages from when she’d been trying to communicate what Wye had been passing on, on the phone call.  Nothing new there, just concern and help being offered.  Now new messages from Nicolette, asking for any information she had.  Including about the practitioners who were stuck in Kennet.

And two more messages that had come in while she’d been checking the others.  One from Jude’s dad.  Jude was back and what the hell was going on.  One from Ann Wint back in Thunder Bay.  Asking what the hell was going on, did Avery have any information?

“Everyone’s kind of freaking out.  Day just started and they’re wondering what just happened,” Avery said.  “Jude, Zed, Nicolette, Ann from Thunder Bay.”

“Ann?”

“Remember the women who stood at the end of the driveway when you arrived?  She’s a practitioner, a pretty dangerous one,” Avery said.  “There’s a council back home.  Of practitioners.”

“Oh, is there?  Okay,” her mom said.

“Umm.  I should reply to all of these, but there’s more questions than answers.  I really wanted answers to bring to the meeting later.  Because we’ve got a lot of hostile practitioners and they probably want this info.  Hmmm…”

“Hello?”

Jasmine, at the side gate.

“Hi, hey,” Avery’s mom said, cheering up.

“I went to the front door and they said it would be easier to go around?”

“Lots of people in the house.  Maybe.  Hi, come on through.”

Lucy was with her mom.

Avery hurried off to fire off two quick emails.  One to Raquel:

your uncle left this morning, claim abandoned but he plans to return.
a lot of crap went down.
every lord in the region just got userped sounds like.
hope you’re okay. stay in touch.

And then Fernanda.

musser abandoned the claim attempt.  he will try again
a lot of crap is happening.
if we can talk again now might be a good time.
hope you’re okay.

“How are we doing?” Lucy asked.

“I don’t know.  Lots of people with questions.  Big ritual incarnate turning people into roads and clothing into people or something?  Call center Others murdering the local Lord.  No reply yet from Raquel.  I hope she wasn’t put in charge as a Lord.”

“Yeah,” Lucy replied.  “If there’s any upside to how her uncle treats her like shit, I think it’s that it’s not very likely he’d make her do that, I guess?”

“I guess.”

“They’re gathering, we’ve agreed to a truce for the next meeting, standard rules of hospitality,” Lucy said.  “Went to Miss and got some special permission to stay, for the ones who already agreed to leave and stay away.  Circumstances were this, they’ve changed, we make no attempt to gainsay or forswear, blah blah blah.  But we’re going to have a meeting with two classrooms worth of adults who aren’t our biggest fans.”

“Okay,” Avery said.

“Do we know if it’s safe to travel?” Lucy asked.

“No.  Hm.  Nicolette?”

“Yeah.  Ask.  But some people might already be reaching out to her.”

“Wye, probably.”

“Right,” Lucy said.

Avery fired off an email asking Nicolette if she knew.

Jasmine had brought a huge box of donuts and breakfast sandwiches, and she had a bag of drinks.  Avery peered over it.

“One vegetarian breakfast sandwich, Lucy reminded me,” Jasmine said, pointing.

Avery gratefully took it, along with one donut she held with a napkin to avoid getting glaze on herself.  “Thank you.”

Then to Lucy, she added, “Thank you.”

“For sure.”

Avery took a bite with one hand while scrolling.  Alfalfa sprouts, hash browns, avocado, on brioche.

There’d been four replies in the intervening time.

More people freaking out, more people trying to find information, or get in touch.  Zed reporting two more instances of Others that Raymond had heard of and been asked to deal with.  And one more report from people concerned or intrigued about the Ritual Incarnate.  Which was slowly moving.

There was a Lordship that had been overtaken by a whole contingent of bogeymen.  Thirty in all.  All dressed nice, all with bags over their heads, fanged mouths drawn at random places on the bags.  Thirty bogeymen against one Lord and the two people who’d been staying with the Lord.  The Lord had been neatly butchered, then served as meat cupcakes, meat aperitif and skin sandwiches, with blood tea, for a big gathering, the two other local practitioners in attendance, tied to their chairs and made to eat and drink their friend.  The belief was that they’d be the next two things served at teatime.

The practitioners hadn’t even been awake when the bogeymen had come after them.

And another Lordship, a cursed item under a ward had gotten free.  A cursed scalpel, it found an insecure host and let them become beautiful by scarring and cutting off people’s best features.  It was allegedly heavily tied into the Abyss and much like a bogeyman, if the user was defeated, it would be dropped, lost, dip into the Abyss, and then resurface in short order.

Except it had been supercharged or something because three different wielders had been defeated in the span of an hour, the scalpel slipping away each time, until finally a little boy with a craniofacial deformity he was probably insecure about had gotten to the practitioner, slicing the back of their ankles open as they’d been standing by their car, then cutting the skin off their heads, leaving them to bleed out.

And the scalpel had been dropped, left to go back to one of the original wielders from earlier in the day, who had claimed the Lordship throne uncontested.

Avery wondered what happened to the little boy after that.  Could he go home?  What would his parents say?  What was the story?

Lucy was looking over her shoulder.  She moved the laptop so Lucy could see it better.

Then she typed a message, awkwardly, because of the angle of the keyboard.

be careful.  Carmine Exile knows who you and Ray are.  He knows you’ll be sent to some of these.

That got a thumbs up and a sunglasses smiley face in return.

Lucy pushed the laptop back around to its normal angle for Avery.  “I wonder if Charles is keeping the door open for the bogeymen.  Normally they go back, and it’s a question of if they can come back soon, if they’re angry enough, you know?  And certain places will resist them coming back unless it’s an anniversary or there’s some reason, you know?”

“Yeah.  Something like that.  Keeping the door open – you mean, like, if they go to the Abyss, it’s the opposite of there being resistance to coming back?”

“Just… come back whenever, right?”

“Yeah.  That’s spooky.  There was this one, thirty bogeymen, apparently, as part of a linked network.  All eating people for tea.”

“Eating people?” her dad asked.

Avery nodded.  “This is a lot of scary stuff happening all of a sudden.”

She checked Ann’s email.  From the sounds of it, Thunder Bay was okay.  That was good.  If Florin had taken over, what would’ve happened?  Would it have been hit by something big and bad?

A message came back from Nicolette: Cards say travel will be safe for you.  Not for Musser’s allies.

Thanks, Avery replied.  She looked up at Lucy.  “That’s positive.”

“We might want to talk to Chuck anyway.”

Avery nodded.  She looked in her mom’s direction.  “I think we’re safe to leave.  And to let Uncle Declan go.  I hope Bangnut didn’t do too much damage to the car.”

“You sicced Bangnut on the car?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah.  I called him and sent Snowdrop to help.  I just thought- anything we tried to do with words wouldn’t work, and… yeah.”

“Okay, uh, okay,” Lucy said.

Avery took another bite of the breakfast sandwich while she thought.

More messages.

More situations.

Avery took notes as best as she could, trying to balance the laptop and notepad.

“Geez, you get a lot of emails.”

“It’s worse,” Avery said.  “People are trying to figure out what’s going on.”

“And it’s going to get even worse later,” Lucy said.  “Because we gotta meet those guys again.”

Avery took down more names, and Lordships where the names weren’t clear.

It was hard to get her thoughts in order.

“Avery,” her dad said.

“Hm?” she replied, finishing writing down one name before looking up.

“You said the car got totaled.  Carried off by a bird man?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re talking about all these deaths.”

Oh.  She could see where this was going.

“Yeah.”

“How many people have you- have you seen die?”

The look from her mom and dad was penetrating.  The look from Jasmine was so serious.

“Handful.  It gets fuzzy.”

“Fuzzy?  Fuzzy how?”

“Fuzzy like… sometimes they’re Others and they don’t exactly, uh… die?”

“Some come back.  Or get sent somewhere else when their bodies blow up and then come back.  Or they’re… fleeting existences, I guess?” Lucy said.

“Fleeting?”

“Like Liberty and America Tedd have goblin magic and sometimes that magic just… makes a thinking, breathing, talking goblin and those goblins just… spring into existence and die, I guess,” Lucy said.  “A lot of stuff gets weird.  Like the Foundlings and stuff.  The weird people in Kennet found.  They didn’t exist before this morning.  But they exist now, with memories and lives and identities and roles and weirdness.”

“Does that mean their lives don’t matter?” Avery’s dad asked.

“I-” Lucy started to answer, then shook her head.

“I want their lives to matter.  But I’m worried because we had to let Anthem Tedd go and he went on a bloody rampage, you know?  We couldn’t really fight him to stop him and we aren’t strong enough so… what do we do?”

“Louise should be answering that, not you,” Jasmine said.

“She did,” Lucy said.  “And she and Toadswallow and Miss agreed to let him go but… does that mean we’re devaluing those lives by letting the killer go free?”

“I’m more worried about you,” Avery’s dad said.  “Because I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about Declan.  His video games, desensitization.  Most of it seems okay, so long as I mind the age ratings more, we set boundaries, we encourage other interests and socialization, hopefully we can get him to a better place.  But then, taking those same lessons with you?  Desensitization?”

“I don’t feel that desensitized,” Avery said.  “I’m just… better at moving forward than I was after the first one.”

“Who?” her mom asked.

“Gabriel Necaise.”

“I don’t recognize that name.”

“Eaten by the Hungry Choir.  Forgotten by everyone.  Even his own mom.”

“Louise mentioned the choir,” Jasmine said.

Avery shrugged.

The emails just kept coming in.  There was this conversation, that still felt like walking on eggshells, but the emails were like the world trying to tell her that alarm bells were ringing and everything was going wrong, and she was misusing her time.

“I think you’re wonderful,” Avery’s dad said.  “You talk about saving lives and trying to do good and I believe you.  But for the idea of life and death to get that fuzzy?  The idea of the long term effects of that…”

“It’s not like I asked for it,” Avery told him.

Her mom leaned forward.  “It’s got me thinking a lot about the times you’ve seemed tired, or down.  Defeated, even.  You’ve got your friends and it’s clear you love them, but I’m worried now.”

“Lucy,” Lucy’s mom said.

“Yeah?”

“The elbow injury this summer?  Was that because of all of this?”

Lucy nodded.

“Who?  How?”

Lucy’s mouth opened, and she made a small croaking sound, when she couldn’t find the words.  “Cop.  Which was possessed by a body snatcher.”

“Oh.  How does that connect- I just want the connective tissue.  Is there a point where it clicks and I know the timeline?”

“I don’t know.  I’ll go over stuff with you later, if you want,” Lucy said.

“If you can’t even explain it in a breath, it’s- what is it doing to you mentally?  You’re not a soldier.  No wonder you’re wiped out, drained, defeated,” Avery’s dad said.

“I was tired of life and defeated before,” Avery replied.  “At least now I’m doing something good.  We did something big here and we gotta…”

She trailed off.

“It might be for nothing, if Musser leaves and comes back prepared, with a full read on everything,” Lucy said.

Avery frowned.  “Maybe.  We gotta make it more than nothing  We gotta invest in this, work with it, we gotta handle this stuff, but that takes time and energy and I’m not even living in Kennet anymore…”

“I would feel so much better if you rested,” her mom said.

“After.  I gotta- other stuff.  After.”

“We should go,” Lucy said, quiet.

Avery nodded.

“Be safe,” her dad said.  “For the love of God, please, be careful.”

Avery logged out on her laptop, leaving the password screen up, then closed it.  “Can you put this in my room and plug it in?”

“I can,” her mom said.  “I want to have a long talk.”

“Yeah, I know.  I just gotta- I gotta do a bunch of stuff and then sleep and… more stuff, then after.  I dunno if you want to go with Sheridan back home, let me come on my own?”

“No.  Absolutely not, I don’t.  I’ll lie to the school if I have to,” her mom said, taking the laptop.

“Okay,” Avery said, quiet.  “Can I take a donut for my opossum?”

“Absolutely.”

“There’s milk too,” Lucy said.

Avery got the milk.

She walked with Lucy down to the grass by the back porch, double checking nobody could see.  Lucy’s mom got up too.

“Actually, the others brought up good points before,” Lucy said.  “That some of these people might be able to break past the truce.  If they do, we can escape, but that gets a lot harder if I have to get you out too.”

“You want me to stay?” her mom asked.

“Please stay.”

Jasmine sat back down, forehead all scrunched together.  Their parents were all together, sitting on a grouping of patio chairs, Avery’s dad with a blanket on his lap since he was still in sleep clothes.

They were all looking down at them, so worried.

She didn’t want this to be some supernatural version of what had happened with her dad and coming out.  Where it felt like it poisoned everything or lowered tolerances.

“Where to next?” Lucy asked.

“Kennet found?”

“You don’t need Snow?”

“She can find her way there.  She’s good at navigating realms.”

“Sounds good.”

“Miss,” Avery said.

“Miss,” Lucy said.

“Miss,” they said together.

Wind stirred the leaves, and the leaves swirled around them.  A careful block of their parents’ ability to see them, and their ability to see the area, and they were in Kennet found.

Come, Snowdrop, I have milk, Avery thought.  Then she broke into a run, because she wanted to get away from that melancholy feeling and the worries about what Thunder Bay would be like.

Their parents weren’t okay.  They were so worried, there was so much and so much of that stuff would only make them more worried.

“We have obligations!”

“Tell that to Musser, don’t get mad at us.  You decided to come here for whatever reason,” Lucy retorted.

“You think you’re clever, extorting us?” a woman asked.  She was rangy, with skin that had scarred over from acne years ago, then cleared up, and split ends in her hair.  “Our family members are supposedly hurt or dead, and you’re threatening us?  Keeping us from leaving?”

“Not us,” Lucy said, voice firm.  “We’re not with Charles, not intentionally, not like you mean.”

“Speaking of your family-” Avery started.

“You’re using this situation to your advantage.  We were told about this Abyssal faerie god whatever it is, and how she’s in league with the Carmine Exile, but not officially.  Isn’t it the same with you?”

Avery shook her head.  “No, not really!  Believe it or not, we kind of don’t want everyone murdered, which, speaking of-!”

“Will you swear you had no responsibility?” a man asked.  One of the Songetays.

“No, because we all have some degree of responsibility,” Lucy said.

“You’re dodging, you can’t even give us a straight answer.”

“I won’t be cornered into swearing something that could be twisted around to be a forswearing, especially after seeing the bullshit Musser pulled with the judges, to get his gainsaying down.  No,” Lucy said.  “I knew Charles was up to something-”

“You’re on a first name basis with the Carmine Exile?” the Songetay asked, affecting a tone like he’d scored some victory.

“Fuck you.  I knew him before, I tried harder to stop him than any of you did.  I knew he had a plan, I didn’t know it was this.  That’s as far as my responsibility goes, as I see it.  We did not want this.  All we really wanted was to be left alone.  Musser is using this as an excuse to take over – if he really wanted to stop Charles he’d stop Charles.”

As the discussion continued, Avery took a few steps forward.  Lucy’s hand went out, as if she wanted to grab for Avery and stop her, but then the hand dropped.

Avery crossed the no-man’s land between their group and the group in front of the cabin.  She held out a paper.

“Terms?” Elizabeth Driscoll asked.  She took the paper.

“No.  Names.  Preliminary research.  I thought you guys would want to know.”

“May I?” Elizabeth asked, looking at Mr. Songetay.

He nodded once.

“Dryden, Ontario, far western Lordship of Musser territory.  Overtaken by ritual incarnate.  Practitioners are incommunicado, according to Zed Sadler.”

“Probably dead,” Lucy said.

“Is he trustworthy?  This Zed?”

“I trust Zed,” Elizabeth replied.

Mr. Songetay nodded again.

“Who was there?” someone asked.

“Jorge Davis.  Friend of Anthem,” Mr. Songetay said.

“Did he have an implement?” Avery asked.

Mr. Songetay shook his head.

“That apparently helps with this ritual.”

“Alta Abner, Nipigon.  Another western territory,” Elizabeth said.  “Milly Legendre’s cousin.  Married into the family, didn’t take the family name.”

“Oh fuck,” someone in the crowd said.

“Thirty bogeymen?” Elizabeth asked.

Avery nodded.  “Allegedly.  All linked together.  Two people were with her.”

“The kids,” that same someone from the crowd said.  “Was it quick?  Do we know?  Are the kids at least okay in the meantime?”

“I don’t know a lot,” Avery replied.

“They were bogeymen,” a man with a deeper voice said.  “They were bogeymen with an intent, so I don’t imagine it was quick.”

“Why did you stand in our way?” the woman from before asked.  “If you’d just let this pass without contest, we could’ve been on our way back, we could’ve been ready days ago.”

“I really don’t think you could’ve,” Avery said.

“What do you even know?” the woman asked.  “Seriously?  What do you know?  You’re a child, what do you know?”

“Teenagers,” Lucy said.

“You’re a child, you’re pitiful, stupid children, you slowed us down when it counted.”

“Carry on?” Lucy asked Elizabeth.  “We might as well know what we’re up against.”

“Fuck you, don’t carry on, Liz.  Fuck you, you child.  What do you know?”

“This isn’t productive.”

“Fuck you,” the woman said.  There were tears in her eyes.  “Don’t carry on, Liz.  I don’t want to hear it.”

“I think a good few people do,” Elizabeth replied.

“Mare has family in one Lordship,” someone said, quiet.  “Two nephews in Saul St. Marie.”

“Fuck off.  No.  They- they’re capable.  They earned a Lordship over seventy thousand people, that’s not for nothing.”

“Is the Saul St. Marie Lordship on there?” the man with the deeper voice asked.

“I don’t want to hear it!” the woman raised her voice.  It wasn’t just a shouty voice either.  It was a raised voice with a raised pitch and note of alarm to it that kind of penetrated, like, normal.  The idea of normal.  Normal rules for talking and shouting.

Avery wasn’t that good at facing down this many people who really disliked her.

Elizabeth had given a sign, because the woman transformed.  She wheeled on the two of them, and was stopped by Mr. Songetay.  “Fuck you!  Fuck you!  Fuck your part in this!  Fuck you for getting me dragged out here, when I could have been there for them.”

“If you had been, and if you being there was enough to matter, then I think Char- the Carmine Exile would have sent something stronger,” Lucy replied.

“Fuck off, fuck your justifications-”

“Not a justification.”

“Lucy,” Avery said, quiet.  “It’s not about being right.”

“I know it’s not about being right, but if America Tedd can f-word your attempt to call for help-”

“Don’t say my damn name,” America called out.

“-and if goblin insults with physical blows can curse someone, I don’t want to stand here and take abuse.  We have a truce, we’re talking this out, get her to chill out, okay?”

“Fuck you!” the woman shouted.

Mr. Songetay put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, then gripped tight when she turned on him, like she wanted to fight.  But he thrust her toward the back of the crowd, and motioned to someone.

Two boys escorted the woman back and away.

“How?  Who did it?” she asked.

“It was the bound Other, wasn’t it?” Eugene Legendre asked.

“Yeah,” Avery answered, while Elizabeth went back to reading the list to check.

“What other?” the woman asked.

“Folded wraith,” Elizabeth read.  “Prather.”

“Fuck,” Eugene said.  “We were going to check on that one…”

He drew out the ‘one’ into a groany ‘uh’ sound, counting on his fingers.

“Nine days,” he said.

“A lot of the minor and moderate wardings failed,” Avery said.  “There’s a whole smattering right in the middle of that page.  From what I got through emails, from Zed and Nicolette.”

“We were worried about what might happen if a bunch of the key Legendres got gainsaid all at once.  Might weaken the family,” Eugene said.

“That and-or power got pushed into the prisoners, and they broke out of their cages,” Lucy said.

Eugene nodded.

“How bad?  What the hell is a Prather?” the woman asked.  She looked hollowed-out.

Not all that different from how worried Avery’s parents had looked.  Except she lived on the far end of that worry, after the worst had happened.

“Bad,” Eugene said.

“Tell me.”

“You said you didn’t want to know, now you want to know?” someone asked, raising their voice.  “Some of us are waiting for news.  Most of us- we’ve been calling, we can’t get answers.”

“Tell me,” the woman said, again, talking over the protests.

“Just tell her,” Liz said, turning to Avery.  “You barely wrote anything.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“I do,” Eugene said.  “Strong wraith, spawned off a man who was a monster long before he was Other.  Kept people in cages that would’ve been too small for people half their size.  Like a sick experiment.  The Wraith- it could more or less practice.  Just not well, its practice ran into the practice of some other people, it went bad.  Folded.  Plicate, corrugated, whatever you want to call it.  Horror-wraith.  With the ability to twist people and places up into horrors.  And then he just… carried on.”

“Tell me they’re dead, then,” the woman said, staring at the ground.  Two people had firm grips on her, as if prepared for the inevitable outburst.

“I don’t know,” Avery replied.

The woman melted down, moaning, groaning, no longer holding herself up.  The people who’d been holding her kept her upright.

They dragged her back toward the cabin.  Inside and away.

“We bound it, because none of the Necromancers were willing to get anywhere close to it,” Eugene said.

“Maybe edit what you’re saying?” Sutton asked.  “No need to go in depth.”

“I thought she’d want to know the details.  She was asking for the details.”

“Edit what you’re saying, okay?  For the others?  There’s others on the list?” Sutton asked.

Avery nodded.

“It’s not just that he made some strong Others.  He let Others out of wherever they were being caged and warded in?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yeah,” Avery said.  “Seems like.”

“That didn’t sound like a very good Other to be a Lord,” Sutton said.

“It’s not.  Not really,” Lucy answered.  “They aren’t there to be Lords.  They’re there to be nightmares to deal with.  They’re there to hold the throne while letting the Judges run things.”

“Others we weren’t able or willing to deal with on good days,” Eugene said.

“And ones he designed to mess with you all,” Avery added.

“The Fostras, Timmins Ontario, escaped their warding?”

“We never actually classified them,” Eugene said.  “They looked and scanned like normal people, you know?  Regular family, nice, nothing too unusual, fairly religious, but not weirdly so.  Regular God, no strange gods.  But they took a lot of people in, and one was a classmate of a practitioner over there.  The practitioner said she was one person to his Sight one day, then a completely different Self the next day, while looking and acting mostly the same.  Didn’t scan as Other.  Then when we got called in and tried binding them as an experiment, they stayed put, inside the house.  Didn’t starve despite never getting deliveries or leaving the property, either.”

“According to Nicolette, they’re free and walking around town like nothing’s weird,” Avery said.  “And the Lord of Timmins is living with them now.”

“One of the Rowsomes,” Elizabeth said.

“Okay, well… I wish I knew how bad that was,” Eugene said.

“Offbreed, Lebel-sur-Quévillon,” Elizabeth went on.  “Small town.  Half this size.”

“Pig.  Oddfolk, but animal, not person,” Eugene said.  “Five headed pig, all mashed in there together, sharp teeth, strong.  About five hundred pounds, I’d guess.  Who?”

“The Lord isn’t named.  It just says he was disembowled and dragged across town toward the woods, scared the shit out of the locals, but innocence wasn’t quite broken.”

“This feels like a litany of our failures,” Eugene said.

“It kind of is,” Sutton said.

“Fuck no, we can’t be expected to do a maximum strength binding on every Other.”

“Can’t we?”

“Fuck that.  No.  It takes resources, time, management.  And we barely get paid for that crap.  You guys have undervalued us for years, you’ve cut corners on paying, you’ve cut corners on the resources you give us, the status.  We’ve regularly told people that we’re doing this with shoestrings and pennies.  Now it goes wrong because of something unforseen?  Don’t fucking try to pin this on the Legendres.  Don’t you fucking dare.  Would you even try if my dad was still here?”

Someone took a picture of the list, to carry it to a group that could huddle around them and read as they scrolled.  Someone else took the same cue.

“What are you even here for?” a man asked Avery and Lucy.  The Others were standing a bit back, letting them act as representatives.

“To… work out something, so you don’t, you know, die?”

“I don’t believe you.  What are your actual motives?”

“To find a way forward, share information, figure out what we’re doing,” Avery answered.

“There is no fucking we,” the retort came back.  “You fucking killed Milo Songetay.”

“Milo came at me with intent to kill, and he got a duel with a Winter Fae instead,” Lucy said.

Apparently Lucy was deciding to come clean, because the truth was better than the intimidation the half-truth provided.

“We have eyes that say he ran, and you went for him.”

“Winter Fae, not me-”

“You as a group, plural, all of you.  You worked together on this.”

“And if I’d run?  He would have chased.  Would you do anything except tut-tut your disapproval over the murder of a teenage girl?” Lucy asked, angry now.  “Because he was fast and I might not have gotten away.  So… if he was willing to murder me and come after me and he got the exact same thing turned back on him?  That’s just.”

“He was family,” Mr. Songetay said.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Lucy told him.  “I mean that.  I’m not that sorry he died.  I am sorry that you feel loss, that you lost something.”

Mr. Songetay shook his head.

“It’s our understanding that if you try to travel normally, if you leave, then you’ll get attacked,” Avery said.  “There’s a lot of Others and my last text messages from Nicolette say most people are getting targeted right away.  Musser’s car has fended off some minor attacks but nothing as major as the rest are dealing with.  Every place that was a Musser Lordship is now very dangerous for you to be in.”

“We’re prepared to offer you a kind of sanctuary,” Lucy said.  “Plus any support you may require.  But you have to leave us and our Others alone, you can’t interfere with the town, you can’t cause problems, and you can’t mess with Verona’s claim for Kennet found.  Basic hospitality stuff.  Which I think you’d agree is pretty fair?”

“Who wants your hospitality?” America asked.

“Uh, I do?” Elizabeth asked.

“Check with the family first, Liz,” Elizabeth’s dad said.  “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but let’s discuss, organize…”

“You want to throw some bullshit weird place at us?” America asked.  “Do what you want.  You were losing.  The only reason Musser walked away is he doesn’t think you matter that much.”

“We don’t matter that much but he’ll bring all these people here?” Lucy asked.

“For the final territories?  Yeah.  Basically a celebration.  And we can have this town ready for him for when he comes back.”

“I think my dad is right,” Elizabeth said.  “I think a discussion is in order.”

“Discuss what you want.  I’m going to do my thing.  If we can’t leave, we fight and take over.  So figure out how to get us where we want to be, or be prepared.”

“We’ll talk,” Elizabeth insisted, to Lucy and Avery.

Avery glanced back at Louise, who nodded and beckoned.

There was not much use continuing this.

“Fuck,” Lucy whispered.

“Yeah,” Avery said.  She looked over the group, and momentarily locked eyes with one of the Conrads, and then McCauleigh Hennigar, who moved her head in a faction of a nod.

But in the background, Cyn Gaspard stood with arms folded, ominous, and Angie Demarest was there, apart from the rest, like they were wary of her.  America Tedd was talking loudly, gathering some of the younger war-practitioners to her, Easton and the Legendre boys included, while others hung back in Elizabeth’s group.

It was gutting.

“We may have to revoke the special permission,” Toadswallow said, as Avery and Lucy joined the Others.

“Yeah.  I hope not.  Might mean we have to find a way to send them back down to Kennet found,” Lucy said.

“It’s an option,” Toadswallow said.

“It could have gone worse,” Louise said.

“Could it have?” Avery asked, surprised.

“I’ve seen meetings go worse and turn out better.  Granted, not life or death, but… it’s something?” Louise offered.

“I guess,” Lucy said.

“What’s next?” Louise asked.

“Next step of the plan?” Lucy asked, turning to Avery.

“Next step of the plan, I guess,” Avery said, not enthused.

She had to get her stuff.  But as she jogged down her driveway, she only saw the one car.

Had others gone somewhere for lunch?

The house was whisper-quiet.  The sink hissed, dishes being washed.

“Dad?”

Her dad turned, pressing a finger to his lips.  “Grumble’s sleeping.”

Avery nodded, gently closing the front door.  She peeked and saw him slumped over in his armchair, television muted.  Probably by her dad.  The usual angry looking guy had been replaced with an angry looking woman with a bad peroxide blonde haircut.

A lot of the workbooks on the dining table had been put away.  There were remnants of a snack.

“Where’s mom?” Avery asked.

Her dad handed her a cloth to dry with, and didn’t answer.

“Dad?”

“This is a lot, you know.  Magic.  Monsters.”

“Others,” Avery corrected.  “Give me a straight answer, please?  Please?”

“She’s on her way back to Thunder Bay.  There was another spat with Uncle Sean and me, they left, then Aunt Clara decided she was going to leave right then.  You know?”

That kind of made sense.  Aunt Clara leaving when Uncle Sean did.

Avery nodded.

“And your mom decided it was a good time to go.  Same direction, same rest stops.  Just in case.  You know?  Spur of the moment decision.”

“Without me?  Are we doing that thing where I use magic to go after her?”

Her dad paused for just that half a second.

“We’re not?”

“It’s a lot, Avery.  She just needs a bit of time to come to terms with it.  A week or two, then we’ll reassess, okay?”

Avery stared up at him, studying his expression.

“She’s just scared,” her dad told her.

“I’m scared.”

“I know, hon.  But this is doable, okay?  This is absolutely not a final thing.  It’s like how your mom went to Thunder Bay and I stayed here, some tough decisions, but it’s everyone doing what they need to do.  It doesn’t mean she loves you any less.”

“It gives me a chance to stay here, handle all this,” Avery said, trying to force a bit of brightness into her voice.

“There we go.  Yeah.  It does.  Can I get you a treat?”

“Treat?”

“Anything?  Takeout you like?  Dessert?  Anything special?”

Avery shook her head.  “I guess… it’s been a while since I had a sandwich from Heroes.”

“We can do a lot better than a crappy sub sandwich.”

“I- I-” Avery’s voice was a bit rough in her throat from fatigue.  “I got more stuff to grab and do.  It hasn’t calmed down yet.  Food to go would be good.  Food that’s… familiar.  Comforting.  I guess.”

Her sentences were breaking down into these really small fragments.

“Sure.  Absolutely.  Heroes it is.  The usual?”

Avery nodded.  She didn’t really trust herself to speak.

“Can I leave Grumble to you?  You gotta make sure he goes to the bathroom when he gets up.  Help him over?”

Avery nodded again.  She kind of wished her dad would go already.

“Wipe his bum if he poops?  Make sure he doesn’t fall off the toilet when he leans over?”

She nodded again, a tight little motion.

He rinsed his hands, took her unused drying cloth to dry them, and then ran a hand over her hair as he hurried on to his errand.

Leaving the house essentially empty.

The knot in her throat pulled her chin toward her collarbone and made her feel like she was paralyzed.

“Avery.”

“Yeah, I’m here,” she replied, whisper quiet.

Lucy put an arm around Avery’s shoulders.

Avery waited until she was confident enough to open her eyes without crying or anything, before raising her chin.

Everyone who’d been able to sleep was gathered for a nightmare meeting.  Rook, the ghouls, and a lot of the goblins.

“Did you want to talk to Rook?” Lucy asked.  “Bring that stuff up?”

“Not right now, okay?” Avery asked.

Lucy nodded.

“Let’s figure out where we stand, then,” Toadswallow said.  “Starting with a recap for Nibble and Chloe, who couldn’t attend any of our daytime meetings, and Rook, who is absent on business yet again?”

“I can try,” Lucy said, ending the hug and moving to the front of the group.

“Yo,” Melissa said, nudging Avery.

“Yo,” Avery replied.

“You good?  You alright?”

“Nightmares suck.”

“Yeah.  Finally got my ankle fixed up, then fucked everything else up real good.  You?”

Avery shrugged, shaking her head a little.  She pulled out her phone on instinct, checking, then remembered this was a nightmare, and there were no reality to nightmare phone towers.  At least, not any local ones.

“That bad, huh?”

“Just… real.  Really gotta get Alpy to go easy on us.”

“You look really tired.”

“It’s been a lot.”

“Yeah.  You do realize you’re asleep, though, right?” Melissa murmured, keeping her voice quiet so she wouldn’t interrupt Lucy’s breakdown of the situation.  “Sleep equals less tired.  Or it’s supposed to.”

“Not like this.  This is… not efficient.”

Avery shrugged.

She made herself listen to Lucy’s explanation, focusing as best as she could, so she didn’t have to think about broader, bigger issues.

Avery woke up, and listened for activity.

There was nothing.  The house was quiet.

She exhaled slowly, then sat up.

Snowdrop sprung up in front of her.  Avery would have been startled, but the familiar bond didn’t really allow for that.

“Hey Snow.  What are you up to?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s a non-answer.  Why’s the house so quiet?”

“Your dad figured it’d freak you out, so he stowed everyone in the basement.  No more studying for the kids if they’re pumped with adrenaline.”

Avery frowned a little.  “Took them to the park?”

“Nah.”

“Cool.  You were spying on ’em?”

“Yeah.  Your mom isn’t exactly willing to talk to me, you know.”

“Right,” Avery said.  She closed her eyes for a second.  “Shit.  Guess it’s time to go tackle some of this crap, right?”

“Yeah,” Snowdrop said.  “We’re going to go, kick some ass, tackle the world.”

“Aren’t we?”

“Well, you are.  You’ve been letting everyone down, crapping out on us, fucking up with your parents.  You gotta get your shit together,” Snowdrop said, hands on hips.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but if you get out of my way-”

Avery tried to stand.  Snowdrop pushed her so she flopped back down onto the bed, while Snowdrop stood over her.

“Get it together!  I’ll kick your ass.”

“I think you’re a bit goblin influenced.”

“I’m quitting my job as your emotional support opossum and going to be goblin sage today, okay?  So get it together already.”

“Snow-”

Snowdrop grabbed a pillow and pressed it into Avery’s face, then manhandled her leg.  After a bit, she threw the blanket down over Avery’s legs and then sat on it.  She fished in Avery’s pocket, which was awkward.

“Ow, ow-”

Snowdrop became an opossum to use smaller paws to get into the space, back legs pushing into Avery’s stomach, while Avery tried to manage her, but then didn’t have the strength.  Avery reached past Snowdrop and got her phone out.

“I’m taking this away.”

“Why, Snowdrop?”

“You’ve got crap to do, really important practitioner shit.  You’ve been fucking up, people have no freaking expectations,” Snowdrop said.  “So I’m taking your phone away.”

“Snowww-” Avery groaned.  “I do not have the energy for you to go full opossum spirit with me right now.”

Snowdrop handed the phone back to Avery, and Avery saw that Snowdrop had made a call.

“Aaaa, wait, Snow-”

“Hello?”

“Hi.  Sorry.  Did not intend to make a video call.”

“Pocket dial?”

“Let’s go with that,” Avery said, moving the pillow to put her head down.  “The best answer I can think of to give is that an obnoxious but well-intentioned opossum dialed your number for me.”

“Uh huh?  Well, I’m glad, whatever the reason.”

Avery smiled.  She checked the time.

It felt more like midnight than noon.

“You said you might be staying there over Tuesday?”

“Might be Wednesday too,” Avery admitted.  “Wish we could hang out.  How’s your day going?”

“Finally done with last week’s tofurkey leftovers, so I got a normal sandwich.”

“Heyy, that’s good.”

“Your team invited me to eat with them.  Was nice of them, but then I got called away by the teacher to answer a question, and it was kinda weird to walk over.”

“If you want to hang out with them, you should walk over.”

“It’s almost time for lunch to end, anyway.  How’s your weekend going?  It sounded like it was going to be pretty intense.”

“Yeah.  Barely slept last night.  Just finished a nap.  Don’t know how much longer the house will be quiet.  I guess that’s the reason for the call,” Avery said, glancing at Snowdrop.  “A little dose of normal?”

Snowdrop, sitting on the end of the bed so she could pin the covers down, gave Avery the finger.

“I might be one of the worst people to provide normal,” Nora said.  “My mom made a gelatin dinner last night.  Gelatin and suspended meat.  That shouldn’t be a thing.”

“It shouldn’t.  I bet the opossum would eat it, at least.”

Snowdrop gave her the finger again.

“Wish you were here,” Nora said.

“Yeah.  I wish I was there too.  Share my lunch with you.  Go to your place after school, listen to you drumming…”

The phone rustled on Nora’s end.  Then she began tapping.  The angle was bad, but Avery could see the corner of a bit of tupperware, and the little utensils.  Nora did a little drum solo.

“You gotta give me something,” Nora said.  “Because I think people are looking at me weird.”

“It’s super great.  I love it.  You’re great.  Excellent.”

“Good.  Then it’s worth any weird looks.  I’m afraid to check.”

“Wish I was there so I could kiss you,” Avery said.

“Well… kiss me the next time you see me,” Nora said, very quiet, into the phone.

“And what if I say it again?”

“I won’t complain if you run up the score.”

Avery smiled.  “I want to watch another movie with you.  Like last time.”

“Can definitely add that to the list.”

“And I’ve got a cool thing my friend is making.  I want to show you.”

“No hints?”

“Mmm-nhh,” Avery grunted her refusal, shaking her head a bit.

“Darn.”

Avery’s eyes closed, and they didn’t open for another thirty minutes.

She woke to the sound of Kerry screaming downstairs, and the sound of a man- preaching?  She stirred, momentarily confused.

The video call was still running, and the sounds of the kids downstairs mingled with the sound coming over the phone.  Nora was in class, phone in her lap, pointing upward, and the teacher was going over the lesson for the afternoon.  It wasn’t preaching she’d heard, but teaching.

Nora was smiling, even though she hadn’t realized Avery had stirred awake yet.

That works for an actual Self recharge, Avery thought.  Thank you, Snowdrop.

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