A knock on the door interrupted Verona from her morning preparations. Blow dryer, hair clay for ‘beach hair’ volume and messiness, spray for shine. She snatched up a sweater the squirrel and pigeon had grabbed her and pulled it on on the way down the stairs. She slipped, heel grazing one step, and the Demesnes adjusted, supporting her.
“Coming!” she said, as she approached the door, glancing back to make sure the coast was clear. Magic stuff, in case it was a person? All clear. Rude stuff or obvious mess, in case it was Jasmine or Connor? All clear.
She opened the door.
Shoe and Luna were at the door, Luna with a small box, Shoe with two bigger ones, one stacked on top of the other.
“Oh! Hi Luna, hi Shoe. These are books?”
“Yep!” Luna said, while Shoe took about three seconds to adjust his hold on the boxes to be able to give a finger gun, making a muffled click of his tongue from within the large shoe he had pulled over his head.
“Come in, put that down. That looks heavy. Can you even see around those boxes, Shoe?”
“He can’t even see past the shoe,” Luna said. “But he’s good at figuring his way around.”
Verona took one box and put it down on the table. “I’m still sorting out the last batch you gave me.”
“Can we help?” Luna asked, brightly.
“Yeah! Sure. But I’m going to have to pay you, I think.”
“I’m happy with the scrip,” Luna said. “Miss upped the rates. She really wants us to tap into the town’s energy right now, keep Kennet found relevant.”
“Sure! Sure. I mean, I like sorting the books okay, because it’s my project, and I like books, but you’re kids, are you sure you want to work in a dusty shop-to-be when you could be playing in the snow?”
“Yes! I’d love to.”
“Shoe?”
Shoe nodded.
“You guys are weird. Is it that you’re bored? Literal winter wonderland and no obligations and you want to be here?”
Luna looked down, scuffing at the floorboards with the toe of her fuzzy boot.
“What is it?”
“I wanted to see your class work from the online class again. And try it myself.”
“You’re so weird,” Verona repeated herself. “Sure.”
Luna perked up.
“Come on. Get those open, and let me get my laptop.”
Verona went upstairs, spent another few seconds plucking at her hair to keep it from bunching. It had gotten longer and she really wanted it to go more out and away, not straight down.
She had a smudge of clay on her forehead. She wondered what the kids down there thought about that.
“Arrright,” Verona greeted them, as she came back downstairs. She reached through the Demesne to make an edit, and gave herself an outlet by the main counter, plugging in her laptop. “I guess I have to walk Shoe through this?”
Shoe nodded.
Kennet found had a whole thing where every building had been raised up a floor, so Verona had been pulling on that to achieve the same effect in her Demesnes. Any Demesnes could achieve some kind of space warping, to be larger on the inside than on the outside, but the fact there were energies and precedents she could tap into made it easier. Right now, the library was really only accessible through Kennet found, but she could spend power to cheat it a bit, and every time she did, it got a little more effective and a little less costly.
She’d set up the ground floor as a library, with some tables that would later be counters, and shelves on every wall. Those tables that were meant to be counters were marked with papers she’d taped into place. Each had a letter on it.
“We’re going through books, trying to judge appeal,” Verona told them. “S-tier, that’s super, it’s great, I’m talking valid practice texts, captivating story ideas, stuff that makes you want to stop doing what you’re doing and check it out. It’ll eventually go behind a glass case. A-tier is good, readable, interesting. At B tier, we have niche interests, but not too niche. They’re A-tier, but not for everyone. C-tier, it’s mediocre, D-tier, it’s bad, and F tier, it’s…”
Verona scanned her eyes down the spine of the books she’d already sorted into F-tier. She set a seven hundred page book down. “A day with dad, a minute-by-minute play by play, told as a bedtime story. Mathematically deconstructing the shapes of the most common garden gnomes. An autobiography of Lena Ackley, who admits in the foreword that her life isn’t that interesting and she only wrote the book to pad out the days of her retirement. Skinned Knees, a coffee table book with, you guessed it, pictures of kids’ skinned knees. Nipponklugheit, a pseudointellectualist, pretentious ramble, hurriedly translated into Japanese by one colleague of the author, then translated into German by another, and translated back into English by the disinterested wife of the creator. That is, in fact, all the title, from Nipponklugheit to ‘disinterested wife of the creator’.”
She showed them.
“I’d read the workday book,” Luna said. “Insight into how people function. I might skip parts.”
“There’s a one hundred and twenty-five page subsection where he goes to the bathroom partway into the workday.”
Luna shrugged.
“You do you.”
“It’s very subjective,” Luna told Shoe, wisely. But she’d only said it because Verona had said it to her when giving her the rundown on sorting things out.
Shoe clicked his tongue and gave her a thumbs up.
“Do you know what subjective means?” Verona asked.
Shoe hesitated, then shook his head.
“It means it depends on the observer, I guess. So if you’re sure it goes in one of these tiers, put it in the right box- Verona gave the box with a big F on it a pat. “-and tell me the book so I can put it on the spreadsheet. If you’re not putting it in the box, don’t tell me. If you’re almost sure, put it somewhere by the box. Less sure, further from the box. Check each other’s work. I’ll organize the shop later based on interest. Feel free to ask, let me know.”
“Bear s-word,” Luna said, picking one up. “Sorted by hue and shade, a photobook. F?”
“B. We have goblins in town. Maybe they’ll be customers.”
“Right!”
“Show me the cover…” Verona said, typing. She glanced, then put in the book information. “Cool.”
“When we were asking around to see if anyone wanted to get rid of books, some asked if you’d decided about trading. What’s that about?” Luna asked.
“Oh, uhhhh, let’s say they can bring in their books when we’re closer to done, and they can trade up by tier. I’ll give away a B if they’ll give me an A.”
“Okay!” Luna said, with sudden good cheer. “Because I have some books I’ve read I could get rid of.”
Shoe held up a book, standing by the ‘C’ box.
“Pygon, friend of drakes. Generic fantasy. C is a good call,” Verona said.
Shoe held up four more.
“Pygon, Friend of Drakes. Pygon, King of Drakes. Pygon, Exile of Drakeland. Pygon, Return to Drakeland. Yyyyep. I’d feel meaner about calling these bad if they’d actually been written by someone.”
“This one doesn’t have a title,” Luna said. She held up a book.
The book was bound in goblin skin, the goblin’s face stretched across the cover, and its mouth opened and closed, yellow eyes rolling around, looking at nothing in particular. A chain bound it closed.
“Probably magic, might need identification. S. Been getting a few of those. A lot of cursed books, but hey, curses are usually the flip side of decent practice. I asked Miss about it, and apparently there was a stock of them at the Stuck-in-Place. We think they followed her down, because they tend to try to establish connections.”
There was a knock at the door upstairs. Verona concentrated, connecting the bookstore door to Kennet below. With a motion, she had the door open. “Come in, guessing it’s Mal.”
“Am I that predictable?” Mal asked. “Oh, you’re doing something boring. Not as boring as your school stuff, though.”
Along with the blowing flecks of gray snow, the pigeon and squirrel followed Mal in. The pigeon flew over to the side of Verona’s laptop, put down a piece of paper, flutter-hopped over the laptop keyboard, making Verona squint her eyes closed and step back, and then disappeared upstairs. The squirrel began writing stuff down.
“What’s up?” Verona asked Mal, while glancing at the paper.
Books for sale at BSW. $200 for set of 100.
“I wanted to visit McCauleigh. Figured it’s fastest to go through here. What are you doing?”
“Er, one sec. Page-on, what quality were the books?”
The pigeon gave her a wing-waggle.
“Is there room to negotiate, or can I draw a hard line?”
Another wing-waggle.
“I’ll check in at a later time, when she’s available. Bring a gift, maybe, see if that softens her up any. Alright, thanks. Puts me in a pretty good spot.”
The pigeon touched beak, then pointed its wing.
“If you wanted to check and figure out a few good times, that’d be great,” Verona told the pigeon. To Mal, she said, “Sorry, preparing my bookstore. I was hoping to get everything set by March break. You know, if Musser doesn’t fuck everything up.”
“There’s some books needing picked up in the Vice Principal’s storeroom, you know. She’s cranky about it taking up the space.”
“No,” Verona said, turning to Mal. “I don’t know. Because you were supposed to tell me.”
“Telling you now. Undercity books, Vice Principal’s storeroom.”
The squirrel leaped to the counter with Verona’s laptop, putting down the paper he’d been writing on.
Sweater-dress for sale in undercity, frayed, holes, scorch marks. Peak grunge style. $8.
Verona did a check mark on the paper, signed it, and slid it over to the squirrel. “Good find, thanks. Mal, I’m going to tell her you’re the reason I haven’t picked it up already.”
“Hey, what?” Mal asked. “I’ve got to live there!”
“And I’ve got diplomatic stuff, trying to wrangle all this and keep the warlords of Kennet below happy.”
“That’s ass,” Mal said, as she walked around to where Verona was. “You’re ass. But you’re an ass with a… damn cool living book.”
“Guessing it’s cursed,” Verona said.
Mal, about to touch it, pulled her hands away. “Other reason I’m stopping in, you wanted to know when they all showed up.”
“They showed?”
“Looks like.”
“Okay. I’ll probably go check things out when I’m done here. Thanks.”
“Sure thing. Whatcha reading, Luna?”
Luna jumped.
Verona tilted her head to better read the cover and spine. Luna momentarily covered it up, then relented. It looked like a leather bound book with metal borders representing reaching limbs.
“Horrific Coitus. Care and consideration of a Horror in the bedroom. I don’t know where to put this. It’s practice stuff which you like but it’s also…” Luna trailed off.
“Does it have pictures?” Mal asked.
“Some. Not like you’re thinking. C? D?”
“S!” Verona exclaimed. “Not sure how usable it is, but there’s probably nuggets of cool info in there. And sex sells.”
Luna handed it over. Verona put the title into the spreadsheet, clicked a few checkmarks in the same row for genre, and then flipped through it briefly before putting it in the box. “I wonder how many people in the world this would apply to. There’s got to be some practitioner couples working at keeping it together after one or both of them borks a ritual and grows a dozen arms or whatever, but is that like… five couples in the world? One of which wrote this?”
“I’m kind of curious to read it now,” Mal said. “Friend discount?”
“Maybe. Let me do some checks to make sure it isn’t cursed to like, compel you to fall in love with the next horror you meet or something.”
Mal, in the process of opening the book, dropped it, with a slight bang as it hit the table. Verona wasn’t sure if Luna’s ‘eep’ was from the bang or the realization she’d read some.
“Your bookstore sucks,” Mal muttered.
“It’s not done yet! Preliminary stages! Look, check this out. I ordered this online with leftover birthday money. Peddling.”
Verona showed Mal the book.
“Why do you need a book for that? Get a bike,” Mal said. “Pedal all you want.”
“Peddle. As in sell, pawn, distribute? Look, it’s mainly a practice all about selling cursed items to innocents, right? And you reap power by feeding off their dooms, disasters, and whatever, rope in their souls, maybe-”
“This is supposed to convince me your bookstore won’t suck?” Mal asked. She relaxed a bit. “Fuck, because I’m definitely on the fence now. I wouldn’t want to be a customer, probably, but you might convince me to be an employee.”
“-context! This is context. See, a lot of it is about integrating magic into the shop, like making it so your shop can even rove, if that’s what you want. Imagine I just pop up somewhere in an alley in Toronto, sell weird books there, then disappear. With pre-established deals with Lords, of course.”
“Now you’re getting boring again.”
“How is this boring?” Verona asked, grabbing Mal by the shoulders of her coat, hanging there to pull Mal off balance. “It’s magic!”
“It’s business magic!”
“It’s cool! Look! There’s a whole layout thing you can do with your shop to help draw customers toward what they need. Imagine if I index that to my book spreadsheets! Help them find the weird book, just for them!”
Mal dragged her fingers down her cheeks. “I thought you were cool.”
“Cooler than you.”
“That’s a lie, and now you’re gainsaid, bitch!” Mal retorted, posing. “Suck it!”
There was a coo from upstairs. Verona gestured, and the trapdoor in the floor above opened. “Oh, look, no I’m not. I guess the spirits agree-”
Mal looked horrified.
“-or you can’t really gainsay me because your word doesn’t matter as much and it’s subjective.” Verona said, in a lower voice.
“Aha! Screw that. Tattoos automatically make you cooler, and I’ve got lots of tattoos, so there.”
The pigeon came into the store area, riding the hook that a tray hung from, as it slid down a rope at a gentle angle. The squirrel hurried to push books aside before the tray settled on the counter that would eventually have the cash register. Plates of cookies and tea.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Verona said. “But thanks. Mal, Luna, Shoe, have at it. Tea.”
The pigeon cooed, hoping down the counter, pausing, then going back to pick up a biscuit bigger than its head. It carried it off to share with the squirrel.
“You’ve got a magic house with minimal parental supervision,” Mal said, taking about four cookies and hopping up to sit on a counter. “This could be party central. You could chill out, do what you want, say fuck it, screw everything out there that’s hard. You’ve got magic, you’re doing your share for Kennet, you’ve fought, you’ve bled, you’ve kicked ass. Retire, do cool magic, sleep in, do cool magic, breathe.”
Verona thought about the nightmare she’d had. Herself, grown. Still living at home. Except she wasn’t really living. Turning to drugs to escape, because she didn’t have magic.
“Can’t,” Verona replied. “Too easy. And I’ve got goals. I’m going to be a sexy sorceress with a magic bookstore. I want my store to pop up in places, and people will track me down to bring me really interesting practice stuff to talk about.”
“That sounds so cool!” Luna exclaimed.
“Right?”
“Except you’ve got a long way to go to get to sexy, hon,” Mal said.
Verona crossed her arms. With a glance, she had the murals on the wall around Mal move. A woman in a straightjacket with a book in her folded lap moved her head, mouth open, so it looked like she was biting Mal’s head. A group of masked Others surrounded by a flurry of torn pages that protected their modesty all moved their arms, giving Mal the finger.
“You know, ’cause you’re short?”
The murals adjusted. Double-fingers, this time. The straightjacket woman bit down, and a splash of crimson paint exploded against the wall behind Mal’s head.
“And you’re still a kid.”
“Eh, I’ll accept that,” Verona said. “It’s why it’s goals and not… I dunno. Nows?”
“Truly, you’re a master of words,” Mal said. “Eh, you’ll get there.”
Verona relaxed the mural. The straightjacket woman moved back, foot raised up. two long toes stuck up over Mal’s head, giving her bunny ears.
Luna choked a bit on her cookie.
“And I,” Mal said, getting up, “am getting out of here. Thanks for the cookies.”
“Actually, if you give me a bit, I’ll come with.”
“Cool.”
“Luna, Shoe, I know I’m leaning way hard into executive dysfunction, starting projects only to stop ’em. If you want to see my school stuff, feel free. Just don’t actually do my homework, okay? Or if you do, don’t submit it for me or help me cheat. Hang out, make yourselves at home. And if you want to keep sorting books, same deal as Page-on and Squire-l, I’m not going to tell you not to do whatever rows your boat if it also helps me. You know the drill.”
“Awesome,” Luna said.
“I’ll write up some scrips…” Verona signed a few papers, filling in the paperwork. “So you can get Kennet found cash if you want cash…” Verona got her coat and earmuffs, wrapped a scarf around her neck, stepped into her boots, and emptied her tea into one of the water bottles that were now riddled with scratches, flecks of paint, residue from sticky notes, and faded markings from runes she’d put on it. She pulled on her bag and her cat mask. “…And I’ll see you.”
She gave them finger guns and a wink. Shoe returned it. Good guy.
“Bye!” Luna waved.
The nice thing about Kennet found was that it was perpetually dusk, so the usual glare that came from stepping outside in winter in the daytime wasn’t there. Verona pulled her scarf up around her mouth and chin. Another Squire-l find. The scarf was about three times as long as a normal scarf and that gave her a lot of freedom to do stuff with it.
Kennet found was under a foot of snow, and even in a perpetual twilight of evening, it glittered. There were about a hundred foundlings out on the ski hill, but the town itself was dense with foundlings doing things with snow- trampling patterns or pictures into the snow on slanted rooftops, and creating snowmen in unlikely places, like bridge railings and roof peaks.
“I need a carpenter for my shop counters and shelves,” Verona mused.
Mal sniffled. “I know people. Do you want it done shitty, do you want it to take forever, or do you want it done by an middle aged guy who’ll stare at your tits whenever you’re in the room?”
“Gosh,” Verona replied. “How do you make them all sound so good?”
“It’s an art.”
They were crossing a bridge that didn’t exist in Kennet above, and below them, people were preparing goods for sale. Their main market would be Kennet below, but Doyle, the guy who’d helped Bracken and Bag escape the foreman, he was looking to open up a shop to sell some of it. He hadn’t quite started, and hadn’t named it, but Verona was thinking of it as a not-so-General store. A little bit of everything, with a tilt toward the unconventional. A foundling was going to be working directly with him.
Kennet wasn’t all the way back to normal, but it had recovered some. Four thousand people, from the past five thousand, but there were four thousand in the undercity and maybe two thousand foundlings. That would eventually level out. In the process of bouncing back, people like Doyle were taking the opportunity of very cheap store space downtown.
“I don’t want to sound like a sissy,” Mal started.
“Wait, before you change the subject,” Verona said. “Shitty guy.”
“Hm? Oh. Yeah. Sure, I’ll send him your way.”
“You don’t want to be a sissy? Complaining about weather?”
“Nahhh,” Mal said. Her boots squeaked as she walked through the snow. The bridge had been cleared, but there was still snow that had been trampled down that a shovel would struggle to pry free. “McCauleigh. I worry about her.”
Verona nodded.
“It’s a month, you know? She’s scheduled to do her thing. The big ritual? She doesn’t talk about it, but after I bring it up she gets really bitchy and… stubborn-quiet.”
“Taciturn?”
“Fuck you, nerd.”
Verona batted at snow that had piled up a few inches high on the railing and knocked it into Mal’s general direction. Mal pulled on Verona’s earmuff and released it, causing it to snap back against her ear.
“Fucking ow,” Verona cussed, went to punch Mal, and stopped. “Wait, how did you do that?”
“Went to the town hall, filed the exception for sibling and goblin playfighting, and rules of manner,” Mal said. She poked Verona.
Verona tried to poke her back but couldn’t. “Not freaking fair. Why do you put so much effort into stuff that’s so pointless and mean?”
“Rules of manner, bitch. It’s how I am and how I must be.”
“Frig. Now I’m going to have to go file shit to get back at you.”
“I look forward to it,” Mal said, poking Verona.
“But about McCauleigh… I get you. Serious business.”
“Figured I’d stop in. See how she is.”
Verona raised her eyebrows, looking over at Mal.
“Fuck off,” Mal muttered.
“No, it’s cool. It’s good. She’s a friend, right?”
“If you’re going to make a big deal of it, I’m going to go, and you can handle it.”
“No, come. Come on.”
Verona tugged on Mal’s arm to keep her from walking back the way they’d come. Mal relented.
They reached the community center, and Verona kicked snow off her boots before entering, holding the door for Mal, who trekked snow in.
Some foundlings were contesting tickets at one reception area, and there was a dance class being taught in one room with an open door. In another room- a bunch of foundlings were unmasked. One was the foundling that was going to work with Doyle. One of the teachers or teaching assistants was one of the refugees from Kennet below. Verona glanced at the sign on the door.
Preparing so they could go up to Kennet above if they needed to. The topic of conversation seemed to be adjusting to a mindset in a place where violence could potentially happening at any time – but wasn’t common.
And in another room… Anthem was sitting forward in a chair, while McCauleigh slumped in hers, looking not entirely engaged. A few stragglers from the day’s class were talking around a table with water and some snacks.
Verona knocked lightly on the door, even though Anthem had spotted her.
He finished what he was going to say to McCauleigh. “-if that’s what you want to do. Go. Be with your friends. There’s a bit of time to work this out, still. Don’t panic.”
“I don’t panic. I told you that.”
“We’ll talk about that. Go. Spend time with them. When things are tough, pay attention to the people who support you. For me, many times, that was Abraham Musser. For you, I think it’s them.”
Verona winked, knowing the light purple glow of one of her mask’s eyes would wink out and come back at the same time.
The only reason McCauleigh’s family wasn’t making an issue out of the fact she was still here was because Anthem was here, and she was supposedly learning from him. Which she was. Both practice and life lessons.
But, as Mal had said, McCauleigh only had another few weeks. Late in January, she’d be expected to do the ritual. A hard, hard decision had to be made before then.
McCauleigh grabbed her jacket and bag, carrying them over. “Ronnie. You were gone for a while.”
“Yeah. A few days this time. Let my dad believe I was staying with my mom, fudged things with connection blockers.”
“Which Lord this time?”
“Trying to find and deal with the Dropped Call, the pay phone Other. It didn’t answer, which I guess is fitting. I thought we could make a claim ourselves, call it an absentee Lord, but the others didn’t want to deal with the shit that would come down on our heads.”
“If even Musser’s having trouble ousting them…” McCauleigh pulled on her coat.
“He’s ousted a few. Others come in to make their own claim. He can keep on winning, he doesn’t gain any ground.”
“I’m glad you’re safe, at least,” McCauleigh said, in a more sullen tone than her usual. “I need more cold weather clothes. I got a bunch of them sweaty and damp while doing community service bull, and then I didn’t have anything to wear.”
“Sure. My house?”
“No stripes.”
“I’ve got some stuff Lucy gave me. Might be a little small, but it’ll do you. Or I can glamour up a size change with some new winter glamour tricks.”
“Careful,” McCauleigh said.
“Yeah.”
“Gibberish!” Mal exclaimed, loudly enough some of the people talking quietly by the water and coffee turned.
“Come on. Let’s get you a day pass out of Kennet found and you can come with. You can be some extra eyes on the situation.”
“The situation?”
“They’re here,” Verona said.
She texted her dad.
Verona:
coming over. got friends with. wear pants
Dad:
We need to have a conversation.
“Ugh.”
Verona unlocked and opened the door, and let herself and McCauleigh in, while Mal stayed on the front porch, lighting up a cigarette.
She insisted that as a denizen, an almost-Other of Kennet below, it extended her lifespan rather than shortening it.
Her dad was in the front hall.
“Can I have a word?” he asked, motioning toward the kitchen.
“Nope! Coming in, going out.”
“That seems to be your pattern as of late. Which is why I want to talk to you.”
“I’m getting some chores done, I’m kicking ass at my online class stuff, and right now I’m helping out a friend.”
“There’s more to being a part of this family than just some chores,” he said. “Verona.”
She led McCauleigh upstairs, leaving him behind.
Verona pulled some clothes out of the closet. Lucy had a habit of passing on any clothes she was done with to Verona- originally it had started as a clothes exchange, because that was what best friends did, right? Except Lucy didn’t really wear her stuff. Then it had been a way to have clothes to wear while painting, that she didn’t mind ruining as much, and then she’d stopped doing art, but Lucy had had her growth spurt and Verona hadn’t as much. But they’d kept doing it.
McCauleigh took them pretty indiscriminately, and when she’d stuffed her bag, Verona offered another.
“Is that going to be okay?” McCauleigh asked.
“More closet space in a closet I barely use anymore? Sure.”
“I mean your dad.”
“Yeah. See, I interpret him like an Other. Every Other has rules. People do too, but they’re mostly same-y rules. But my dad, I know he’ll show off his shittiness if I stick around too long, so I don’t stick around. I know he’ll be shitty right off the bat if he’s pissed… but only if I’m alone. He doesn’t like people knowing how he acts with me, so if I have a friend with…”
“He doesn’t do anything?”
“Not much. But let’s keep this to a few minutes.”
Verona got some art supplies, a multi-tool, and some jewelry she’d bought two years ago and never used, putting everything in a pillowcase she also needed, before putting it in her bag. Stocking her Demesnes.
“What’s the plan?” McCauleigh asked.
“With my dad?”
“I’m asking ’cause, you know… I’m trying to figure out my plan.”
“Yeah,” Verona murmured. She snapped her fingers. “Socks. I keep forgetting socks.”
She got socks. McCauleigh sat on the corner of her bed.
“I’m thinking of an answer, by the way.”
“Sure. No pressure, I guess.”
“Nah, it’s just… there is no strict plan. I don’t see myself looking back much after I turn eighteen and move out. Maybe sixteen, but that gets messy. He’s had chances to realize he did stuff wrong, he’s had chances to fix himself. He rebounds. Because he’s comfortable being miserable. Which sounds like an oxymoron, but…”
“Nah. Talked about that in the civility class.”
“Sure. Cool. Being able to say ‘woe is me, I’m a victim’, lets you let yourself off the hook for a lot. And the more you’re on the hook for, the easier that is to fall into. If he turned around, took therapy seriously, reconsidered basically everything? Maybe it would be nice to have another parent to spend time with. Dunno.”
“I asked Anthem today, how he thought my parents would take it.”
“And?”
“And my big thought, the thing that nags at me, is I know family secrets. I know bits of practices our family designed and refined, and it’s the family business,” McCauleigh said. “So I asked Anthem. Would they protect those family secrets and practices?”
Verona sat against the edge of her desk, facing McCauleigh.
“He’s not sure and I’m not sure,” McCauleigh said, quiet.
“So you’d be on the run?”
“Maybe. Probably. But…”
The bed creaked as McCauleigh shifted her position.
“But?”
“But… might go back,” McCauleigh said, eyes moving across the various pieces of art Verona had put on the wall, willfully avoiding Verona’s gaze. “Do the ritual.”
“Kill someone?” Verona asked, quiet. “Earn your stripes?”
McCauleigh shrugged, staring at one watercolor picture of trees.
“I think you gotta look me in the eyes and say it,” Verona murmured. “Because I think it’s going to be a thousand times harder to do it in the moment than to say it here, to my face.”
“Not a thousand times harder,” McCauleigh said. She met Verona’s eyes, then looked away. “In-”
“Keep that eye contact,” Verona told her.
McCauleigh sighed a bit, then made eye contact again. Holding it. “When I’m in the ritual space, family all around me, Others, heat of the moment, I think it’ll be different. Easier to cross that line. There’s none of that here.”
“Killing someone, you mean. A ritualized fight to the death. To be welcomed by War into the ranks of the gore-strewn, access Hennigar family powers, all that jazz. Killing someone.”
McCauleigh looked away. “I think I can. I’ve learned stuff from Anthem. Mostly I got out of my own head, I was caught up in this whirlpool of shitty thoughts, sabotaging myself, I can do it.”
“McCauleigh,” Verona said, voice harder this time. “Look me in the damn eyes and say it. That you’re going to kill a person. That you’re going to murder. For the heck of it, say why.”
“I- I lose everything, you know? I don’t know how to- the whole reason I’m asking for clothes, it’s because I can’t- I don’t know how a washing machine works. I don’t know how to go out and buy clothes. Before talking to you, I didn’t know how to shave my legs and pits.”
“Woobtube videos for all that junk,” Verona murmured.
“I don’t know food. I don’t know if I should be paying attention to vitamins or what fucking milk costs. I didn’t do survivalist training like the Tedds. I don’t know money… we had money in our accounts whenever we wanted something, so long as it wasn’t four figures.”
“You’re scared.”
“I’m- fuck you. Don’t attack me like this.”
“Calling you scared isn’t an attack. It’s an observation.”
“I’m unprepared. I’m a kid.”
“Lucy would get mad. She’d insist we’re teenagers. Halfway between kid and adult.”
“I don’t feel halfway. It’s not like a kid can rent an apartment themselves. I’m pretty sure I’m too young to work. What if I get sick and there’s no Other to take care of me? What do I do?”
“Hospital, if it’s bad. Suck it up if it’s not so bad.”
“But I don’t know what bad is. I don’t- I don’t know,” McCauleigh said, turning her eyes back to Verona. “I’m pissed at them for not preparing me better. Instead they’ve been preparing me for this. The ritual. And I think I could win the fight.”
“And kill the person? Some would-be olympian marital artist? Junior MMA style fighter? Someone with hopes and promise?” Verona asked. “I keep asking and you keep going on tangents. Look me in the eye-”
There were three thumps on the wall. “Verona!”
“-and say it.”
McCauleigh looked Verona in the eye, with less light and life in the gaze than there had been for weeks. She sighed. “I’m going to-”
Verona folded her arms.
McCauleigh broke eye contact.
“Try again. Start over. You gotta say the word kill, or murder.”
“Does this ruin things?” McCauleigh asked. “Between us, as friends? Does the fact I even considered going back fuck this all up? Or does it fuck it up if I say the words? Does it make the last few months pointless?”
“You’re dodging.”
“I- tell me.”
“No, McCauleigh. It doesn’t make the last few months pointless. Doesn’t ruin things, exactly, but I’d be-”
“Disgusted?”
“Disappointed.”
“Okay. I really think, you know, even if I can’t say the words, I can make the call back home, ask to be picked up. And then I’d go, and I’d be caught up in… it’s like a series of one-way roads, currents. Just have to go with the flow, build up momentum. Get into the fight, get through the fight, really gotta- I think I’d have to find a way to hate them. Really resent the shit out of them for every hit they do to me… and end up killing them.”
McCauleigh met Verona’s eyes at the last few words.
“And what happens if you lose? Or if you get to the final moment and you can’t do it with all that momentum behind you?”
“The way the ritual works, they’d have to kill me. The other contestant. And I bet they’d hate me and resent me. And they’d be a lot more scared, because it’s new to them. If they managed to kill me, the family would give them power, money, contacts, offer to give them everything they were giving me, including a role adjacent to the family if they want it. Most don’t actually.”
“In which case?”
“They’d all sacrifice us both if neither is willing to kill.”
Verona sighed.
“Anyway,” McCauleigh said. “I said it.”
Verona had to word her statement carefully to avoid gainsaying her friend. “You said the words but you didn’t say it.”
“What the fuck?” McCauleigh asked.
“You gave up responsibility. You didn’t say you’d kill them, exactly, you said you’d let yourself get caught up in the flow and you’d end up killing them. Like it’s not even your fault.”
There was a knock at the door.
“I can’t help but notice how he remembers to knock when I have a guest over.”
Verona opened the door. “Yeah?”
Her dad leaned against the doorframe, trying and failing to look casual. “If you could take an extra few minutes to tidy things up as you’re moving around the house tonight, it would be appreciated. I’m planning on taking an ad out in the paper I do the website for. For renters. It would be nice if the place was ready and perfect any time potential renters decided to come by, because they’d have access to our kitchen.”
“Talking about something serious, actually.”
“It’s always serious with you. No, uh, while I’m on the subject of renting out the basement, because I’m working two jobs and you’ve got all this free time with your new school schedule-”
“Get a clue!” McCauleigh raised her voice, getting to her feet. “She said we’re talking about something serious!”
Her voice cracked a little at that last bit, as anger and frustration crashed into one another. Verona hadn’t really seen McCauleigh cry, ever, but it looked like she might.
Verona looked at her dad, who stood there in perplexed silence for a moment. Then he shut the door firmly behind himself.
“Fuck,” McCauleigh muttered. “Sorry. I’d say I know I wouldn’t want you giving my family shit and making my situation worse, but you actually have, so I guess I shouldn’t be sorry.”
“Did I make your situation worse?”
“Not what I meant.”
“Okay,” Verona replied. She leaned back against her desk, arms folded.
McCauleigh looked up at her, meeting her eyes, and neither of them talked for a good four or five seconds.
“Can’t say it,” McCauleigh decided, eyes dropping.
“You’ve got a few weeks to work on that, at least.”
“Are you mad? You seem mad.”
“I don’t get mad, all that much, I don’t think.”
“Must be nice.”
Verona shrugged.
“Come on. Like Anthem said, no pressure to decide yet.”
McCauleigh got the bags, slinging them over her shoulder.
“Do you need to do anything about the renters?” McCauleigh asked.
“Nah,” Verona said. “He’s been saying he’d put the ad out for months now. I don’t think he actually wants strangers in the house, using his kitchen.”
They went outside to Mal.
“Onto my second cigarette. Did you try everything on?”
“Nah,” Verona said. “Come on. They’re here, we should go see. McCauleigh knows enough random faces that she can tell us if anything’s sketchy.”
“Sure,” McCauleigh said.
And there they were.
They came in droves, opening up the trunks and back hatches of their cars. They pulled out skis and snowboarding equipment.
It was the end of school break for most university students. And for those students with a budget… Kennet. The barrier to entry was broken down, countered by Kennet found, and Lis wasn’t pushing for different.
There was a tendency, hinted at with marketing, for the people at Bowdler to the east of Kennet to be more of a party group- big cabins, close together, close to downtown. The hills would be busy.
Greensey, to the west, was at the edge of more residential areas, and was quieter. The hills were steeper, and the group it tended to attract was quieter, more mature, and more serious about the skiing. Already, a portion of the hill was marked out with flags and orange plastic tape for some racing event. A slash of the orange against white.
Every business was turning out extra effort. Students who weren’t too worried about finals at the local high school were working downtown or at the ski hills, or helping out their family businesses, whatever those businesses were. Everything from the local paper to people selling and mailing out crafts through Artisans Online had a shot of adrenaline in the arm. The bakery would, if the last few years were any indication, be unable to keep shelves from emptying as fast as they were filled. Killaloe Dough would have twenty or thirty minute wait times.
Verona closed her eyes, then opened them again, with the Sight active.
Kennet, already shrouded in a foot-deep layer of snow, was shrouded further by the gauze, which was chased around by the wind. The figures were nuggets of meaty red in the midst of it.
“It might be weird, but there’s so much of this I hate,” Verona said. “The assholes, more assholes, the noises at night, the waits, the fact that everything good is snatched up right away…”
They walked through the crowd.
“But I feel like… pride for my town, at the same time. Like, heck yeah. This is what we’re here for. A stop on a long drive, but also skiing, snowboarding, suicidally reckless hills to toboggan on. Strangers having parties late into the night, every night. Starts with the first real snowfall but then when school lets out for the Uni students… bam.”
“If you don’t want to wait and if you want good stuff, you should come to Kennet below,” Mal told her. “Just don’t ask the butcher where he gets his meat.”
“I mean, like… fuck,” Verona struggled to convey it. “Do you get it? Why this is big? Because ever since last spring, ever since a month after the last skiiers gave up and left for the season, this is what I’ve been fighting for. This is what I’ve been working on. I’ve been- the knotting, it meant people wouldn’t be able to come in. The town would get this far, and the last people would give up and we’re not giving up. It might actually be better than ever. That’s nuts!”
“You’re not usually like this unless it’s about practice,” Mal said.
“You live here, don’t you get it?”
“I don’t live here here, you know.”
“Ugh.”
“I don’t get it either, sorry,” McCauleigh said. Her eyes were sad. Again, it looked like she could cry. “But I’m going to miss this town. It’s the first place I felt like I could calm down like I have. I feel like once I leave, I’ll never feel like that again.”
“You could stay,” Verona told her.
“Nah. Not really. I could- technically, yeah. But not in spirit. I’m not built for the small town life.”
“Bummer.”
“Verona!”
It was Lucy. She was with Wallace, Mia, and George.
“Heya!” Verona greeted them. Lucy had said she’d be coming this way, but she hadn’t said she’d be with them. She put her arms out. “Hug.”
“What?” Lucy asked. “Did something happen?”
“We said we should hug more, especially as we drift apart.”
“That was a while ago. But I won’t say no,” Lucy said, hugging Verona. “You see all this?”
“I see it. Yeah. Lively. It’s cool.”
“It’s really cool,” Lucy said. “Better turnout than ever, maybe?”
“I think maybe, yeah! I was telling these guys that.”
Lucy got it.
“It’s exciting. The way the fall was going,” Mia noted, looking around. “Thought we’d get kicked in the throat with no turnout, or construction left blocking things.”
Lucy squeezed Verona’s arm, and Verona smiled.
“The mysterious McCauleigh,” George said, as a way of greeting. Verona saw Mia’s eyes narrow a fraction. “And…”
“Mallory, or Mal,” Mal said. “We’ve crossed paths a bunch, you know.”
“Right, yeah. Anyway, good to see you, Verona. You should hang out with us more. Fill us in on what’s going on with you.”
“Would be cool, but no pressure,” Lucy said.
“Wouldn’t know where to begin,” Verona told him. “What’s up with you guys?”
“I’m actually leaving. Helping out the family. My uncle manages the cabins, and he’s put me on the team to help turn over the cabins.”
“Turn over?” McCauleigh asked.
“Guests out by noon, then we have one or two hours to get that cabin ready for the next guest. Everything scrubbed, toilet paper and soap changed out, trash out, beds made, wood stove cleared of ash, logs stacked, all that. It’s actually a bunch of really cool guys I’m doing it with. My cousin and some of their friends. Bunch of them around our age. We’re partying tonight when we’re done. You should come.”
“Guys and girls,” Mia noted.
“Yeah. They’re cool too, I guess,” George replied, doing a bad job of deflecting. “See you guys later. Get in touch if you want to hang out around a fire and maybe sneak a few drinks. Mia, you especially should come tonight.”
“If I can convince my parents.”
“Sure. Try! See you later,” George said.
He kissed Mia. She flashed him a tight smile after.
Mia looked anxious, seeing him go.
Summer camps and camp counsellors, cabin crews, and all that… there was a reason people like George looked forward to summers and to this time of year. Bunch of likeable, often attractive teenagers in close proximity, sometimes bored after hours, drinking was permitted so long as they weren’t caught or doing anything stupid enough to cause trouble, tons of fresh air, no supervision because they often were the supervision…
Like rabbits. And George wasn’t really known for sticking to one girl. He’d been at the heart of that one bit of Dancer drama that had stretched from the start of summer to Fall.
“I have to go, don’t I?” Mia asked.
“He’s going to want you to come around every night, Lucy said.
“I can’t every night.”
Leaving the nigh-inevitable unspoken.
“We could swing by,” Lucy offered. “If we’re out for a walk or something?”
“Yeah?” Mia asked.
“Yeah,” Wallace said. He looked at Lucy. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Maybe together.”
“Sure.”
“I know I’m probably being neurotic,” Mia said.
“Nah,” Verona said. Which made Mia look more worried.
Lucy shot her a look.
“But I can check in too, sure,” Verona threw in. “Why not?”
“Make sure he’s okay? Like… with any drinking? Other stuff?” Mia asked.
It wasn’t the drinking or recreational drugs that had her worried about George.
“Sure,” Verona said. “I go out for walks at night anyway.”
“Same,” Lucy said.
“Be careful with that. Rough crowd,” Mia said, looking wary.
“We’re tougher than we look,” Lucy told her. “And we’ve got an errand of sorts to run. You’re coming over, right, Ronnie?”
Verona nodded.
New people meant incoming Others. Hopefully nothing complicated.
To Verona’s Sight, he was gauze and gossamer, with no meat… until he pulled his snowboard out of the truck. The equipment was meaty.
“Exactly what it says on the tin?” Verona guessed. She turned off her sight, and saw a very serious looking snowboarder getting ready. “What do you see?”
“Shards and splatter. Like people got hurt near or around him.”
“Should we go say hi?” Verona suggested.
“Maybe. I don’t want people getting hurt here. Maybe he can shed light on it?”
Together, they approached.
“I thought there was no Lord here,” the snowboarder said, as he closed the trunk. He hefted a bag on one shoulder, and held the snowboard under one arm, very comfortably. Like he’d been born to do it.
“No Lord, but there is a council.”
“What are the rules, then?”
“Checking in. Making sure you’re set, that there’s no danger to locals. I’m Lucy Ellingson, first witch of Kennet. This is Verona Hayward, third witch of Kennet.”
“Zip. I race people.”
“Animus?” Verona asked.
“I don’t know. I race people.”
“And they get hurt?” Lucy asked. “It’s happened before, hasn’t it?”
“Sure. Not my fault though. Overconfident types, not used to losing, they push things too far, trying to win. It’s only been a few times, and I’ve been doing this for decades.”
“But those times were pretty major, weren’t they?” Lucy asked.
“Yeah. Sucks, but I can’t control what others will do. You kicking me out?”
They exchanged glances.
“How long are you staying?” Verona asked.
“Tonight and tomorrow. Other hills to race on.”
“I think we can okay the stay. Welcome, call our names if there’s an issue.”
“Did you get your store set up?” Toadswallow asked.
He wore glamour, appearing human, and was dressed in a coat that looked like more of that fabric that was too ugly
“No,” Verona said. “I started to push myself too hard, getting the temporary counters up, spending power on the space… realized it wasn’t worth it. Making myself miserable. Aiming for March Break, now.”
“Too bad. The Arcade got found by people and raided, goblin market isn’t a tidy fit for this incoming crowd. Your store would have been a good bridge.”
“Yeah,” Verona agreed. “I can ask around, see about the different projects in Kennet below.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing. I worry that if you set something else up, it would get knocked down. Let’s move carefully, figure out what’s going on, first.”
Verona nodded.
An echo of a boy clung to a woman, who sat on a picnic bench by the lodge at the corner of the ski hill, where a lot of the skiiers and snowboarders went for pit stops, hot chocolate, and to warm up.
Verona watched as the woman’s husband and daughter tried to urge her to come. She had her skis.
No, she wasn’t up to it.
Sinking into misery. The boy echo whispered in her ear.
Verona observed for a bit, drinking her tea.
A very robotic echo. The lines it repeated were circular, fractured.
Echoes had a whole range of functionality, and the ones that were most ‘whole’ could invent their own lines. As they got less functional, there would be echoes that could formulate sentences from pieces of the scripts they had, then ones that had to stick to a script, and then ones that were stuck in a moment, caught repeating a few lines.
The least of them almost never recovered, and those ‘recoveries’ were arguably not a real recovery. The stuff they used to shore themselves up wouldn’t restore them to what they’d been, but faked it. Situations like complex spirits, like Edith, or where an echo was taken as a familiar.
Exceptions for everything, of course. Like wraiths.
Anyway, they lost intelligence as they dwindled. This boy was barely aware of the world. He was one miserable, traumatic moment and he’d found a way to set his roots in his mother. Who had probably witnessed the moment. Now it replayed in her head, feeding him.
Verona grabbed salt from the counter, pouring it into her hand, and casually tossed it at the boy as she passed behind the woman. Flecks of salt cut through the echo like fire through spiderweb. He collapsed.
“Hm?” the woman asked. Salt had hit the back of her coat.
Verona ignored her, continuing to walk.
She saw as the woman got up, getting her skis, hurrying to catch up with her husband and daughter.
“Melissa wants you,” Bracken said. Bag stood on one of his feet and tugged on his arm, but Bracken was sturdy enough to not really budge with a little kid using all his strength and weight on him.
It was dark out. Verona and Lucy ate their dinner together at a table.
“Is this an annoying want or a legitimate want?”
“Legit,” Bracken said.
“Where?” Lucy asked.
Bracken pointed at one of the cabins.
“Eat and walk?” Lucy asked Verona.
Verona nodded.
The cabin Melissa was at was part of the same general scattering of cabins that included the cabin that the furs had been in. This one was a little closer to Kennet than that one.
Melissa was sitting on a stair. She looked really good. She’d lost maybe twenty pounds, and looked way more comfortable sitting on a snow-dusted stair in the cold, cane in hand, than she had for a long time.
With her was a boy with one arm and one leg in a cast, maybe a year older.
“Hey Mel. Bracken said you were out here.”
“Mm. Crips gotta sympathize with crips.”
That new?” Verona asked him.
“First run of today,” he said, sounding miserable. “Family’s out for the weekend.”
“I was telling him about our cool little murder arcade we had this fall. Would be cool if I could show him, distract him some. Share some sights.”
“I was talking with Toad about that,” Verona said.
“You know someone called Toad?” the guy with the broken wrist and leg asked.
“Pseudonym,” Lucy told him.
“It’d be nice to have something set up,” Verona said. “But… hm. There’s a certain secret bookstore that’s in the works. If you don’t mind it being really far from done… there’s some cool books you won’t find anywhere else.”
“This is like this supposed arcade that has games I can’t find anywhere else?”
“Had, and yeah, except books, and tea, and biscuits. If you can hobble over there…”
“I’ll help,” Melissa said.
“Come by tomorrow afternoon,” Verona said. She took out a blank spell card and put down the address. “Gives me time to tidy and sort things out.”
And look at doing a mini-version of that ritual, to find products that appeal to secret dreams, passions, wants and needs.
“How was it? Were you safe?” Jasmine asked.
“No fighting,” Lucy said. “A couple super minor scares. I saw a new goblin, not very cooperative. I signaled Toadswallow and let him handle it.”
“Echo, latched onto a mom, keeping her from moving on. We saw a snowboarder animus. Looks for people to race,” Verona said.
“It was a good night,” Lucy said. “Right?”
“Yeah,” Verona agreed. “We made that possible. We helped our town. I think that’s really cool.”
Jasmine kissed Lucy on the top of the head. “Good nights are good. Are you guys going to bed?”
Verona nodded. “Pretty wiped. Thanks for having me over.”
“Anytime. Really.”
Verona lugged her stuff upstairs, and plugged in her laptop as she got to the top floor. Lucy turned hers on too, to find something for the two of them to watch together.
Today and tonight were reminders. Of what they’d been working for – an integrated Kennet, a Kennet that could have an influx of tourists, a Kennet with really cool stuff happening behind the scenes, where people could get a peek at those things, and come away with mystery in their hearts. The Arcade was out, but that door maybe wasn’t closed forever. Maybe by next October, they could set up another.
But for every good thing they could hold up as a thing they wanted to make possible and keep going, there was a threat.
All of this could be taken away. By Charles. By Musser.
When Verona changed for bed, she put the black top she’d had on under her sweater by the windowsill. She was casual about it, but when she met Lucy’s eyes, there was a silent acknowledgement.
“Emergency?” Avery asked. She had Snowdrop perched on her shoulder, yawning.
“No. Touching base, I think,” Lucy said.
Verona nodded. “That’s the idea.”
They crossed the roof of the Arena. All around them, Kennet was lit by flame. Heat shimmers moved with the flame, and made the image fracture. Here, the flames were yellow-white, Kennet above. There, they were red, with thick black smoke. Kennet below. Kennet found had blue flame, and hints of Miss’s silhouette, traced by fire.
In the distance, black silhouettes against starless night sky, lit up only by the occasional flare of flame or light shows in the distance, as a mystical war was waged by other forces. One of the sides or one of the individuals was using gold to trace the diagram lines.
“It’s a stalemate, still?” Avery asked. “Us, Musser, the traitors?”
“Think so,” Lucy replied. “But we need to be prepared for that to change. Musser said he’d challenge us, he doesn’t want to be gainsaid. He will come.”
“And McCauleigh is supposed to go home,” Verona said.
“Liberty went home, I think she had her fill of her dad and her sister,” Avery said. “But in a good and healthy way. They’re still in touch.”
“And then there’s you-know-who in red,” Lucy murmured.
“The yoohoo in red,” Verona supplied. “It’s all so fragile. But it could come crashing down from any one of those things. If it’s a bunch of those things… I dunno.”
“Leaves us with the question,” Lucy said. “Where do we stand? Are we ready? What do we do?”
Avery put her hands into her pockets, looking around at Kennet. “I’ve got some meetings this week, but there’s also the big thing with the Promenade coming up. We’re coming down for Christmas. I might not be coming alone.”
“Keep us up to date? By nightmare or by phone?” Lucy asked.
Avery nodded.
“Ronnie?” Lucy asked.
“I’ve been chasing down a few ideas. One of them’s even good-ish, I think. And collecting books with niche knowledge. Stuff about claim, about judges, about family legacies… kind of have to dig through photobooks of bear shit and skinned knees, but you know.”
“I wish I was in a better position with my job,” Lucy said. “Nobody stands out. Everyone I’d think should be a candidate… I wouldn’t want to do it to them.”
“That ties into my plan,” Verona told her. “That maybe, we need to reconsider everything. Overturn our preconceptions.”
“About-?” Lucy started. She stopped, looking around.
“Hm?” Avery asked. “What’s up?”
“Just checking the coast is clear. And-”
She turned her head, and her earring glinted in the flame.
Alpeana followed a moment later, a slim, short, white-skinned figure followed by a tide of black hair. She landed on the Arena rooftop on all fours. “Woh!”
“Woh?” Verona asked.
“Aye, no.”
She was manipulating the nightmare. Her eyes were wide open, alarmed.
As the nightmare came apart, the individual pieces of the scene separating and slipping away into oblivion, Verona could see it.
A shadow, tinted red.
An observer.
Alpeana turned her face toward Verona.
That’s that, then.
The ‘nightmare’ ended. The meeting canceled.
They were being listened in on. Charles knew, now. He could listen in, now.
Verona woke up, lying in the cot, a bit blanket below her, two more above her, within arm’s reach of Lucy’s bed.
Lucy lay there too, her eyes open now.
They didn’t talk. Talking risked giving away more information.
He knows we’re plotting against him, now. He has to. Don’t know how much he heard before Alpeana got to us, but…
No more nightmare meetings to coordinate. If Charles decided to come at them, they’d have to come at him just as hard. If not, they had to make every move they made from here on out with extreme caution.
No more nightmare meetings, no real-life meetings. And going to any place they were really out of Charles’ reach would probably provoke him. In his position, Verona knew that if the three teenagers who wanted to kill her went somewhere she couldn’t hear or see, she had to anticipate an attack. She’d have to go nuclear.
They had their jobs, they had deadlines. They-
They had to trust each other now. That they’d carry things out, that they’d be able to work in concert, to make all of this happen.
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