Avery stood back, staring up at a giant tree. It was two-dimensional, taking up most of the one large wall with high ceilings. Green leaves, red apples, a bent trunk that curved toward the left wall.
She’d never noticed it before. How many times had she been inside this grocery store, and not noticed the tree?
The smell of the fruits and vegetables around her filled her nostrils. Sharp smells, bitter ones, sweet ones, and those hints of citrus. She could smell the broccoli as a distinct thing. The faint skunky smell of the cauliflower. The brussel sprouts. The tomatoes were too much. She’d been here maybe a hundred times before, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever thought about the smells. The bakery, sure, but not this, not here.
Now it felt like the smells were so intense that there wasn’t a lot of air left in this big grocery store.
She drew in a deep breath, walking away from the broccoli and stuff, which meant walking closer to the tree. It loomed before her.
Avery turned. She squinted one eye, almost but not quite wincing, as her mother reached for her, fixing her hair where a good sized lock had fallen free of her ponytail.
“Where are you headed, honey?” her mom asked, compassionate. “Fruit salad?”
Avery looked at the great big decoration, with the ‘produce’ label painted on the wall beneath the biggest and lowest bough. Below that label were the fridges, with some pre-prepared fruit salad.
“The deal is if you come grocery shopping and you’re helpful, you can pick something. I’d be ecstatic if you wanted something healthy.”
“Um,” Avery said. She blinked a few times as she tried to get centered. She’d stepped out of the path of a woman and gotten lost in thought. “It’s not unhealthy, but I was thinking… I’m not in a very meat-eating mood lately. Can I grab something I can do myself or that dad can put on the barbecue?”
Her mother brushed her hair back again. “I don’t want you to make your own meals.”
“I have to learn sometime, don’t I?”
“You do. I’ll teach you more if you’re up for it. The reason I don’t want you off making your own meals is that it already feels like you’re so far away these days. I know your dad and I have our own part in that-”
“-We do. Your dad went back to work, and I’ve been dealing with my work relocating offices. You’re making new friends and I’m so glad, ice water incident aside, but your dad and I used to know what was going on in your head.”
Kerry screeched, loud enough that heads on the far end of the produce aisle turned.
Her mom turned, walking toward Kerry. She talked to Avery as she walked away, “We’ll get whatever you want if you want to stop eating meat. You’ll need protein.”
“It doesn’t have to be your pick. Get a treat from the bakery or something.”
Kerry screeched again, from the next aisle over. Declan said something complain-y. His friends joined in.
“We’ll continue that discussion!” her mom called, as she hurried over to the other kids. “Get the cart!?”
That discussion. You don’t want to know what’s going on in my head, Avery thought. I’m not sure I want to know what’s going on in my head, sometimes.
Her mom was waving her over.
Avery fixed her hair, realized how messy her ponytail must be, and pulled off the elastic. She slipped her hand into her back pocket, which held some glamour, and fixed her hair as well as she could without a mirror, while trying to find her equilibrium again.
It was getting easier. She was cheating, but it was easier. She stood straighter.
Her fingers toyed with the elastic, winding it around and between them, while she caught up. Mom, Kerry, Kerry’s friend Kinley, Declan, Declan two, and Declan three were all in the cereal aisle. Kerry was trying to hold a big box of sugary cereal almost as large as she was.
“What happened to playing statues?” mom asked.
“Declan two pushed me!” Kerry complained.
“Because he’s a douche!” Kinley chimed in.
“Watch your language please,” Avery’s mother warned.
“My mom doesn’t care. She says all the bad words. And Declan two deserves every bad word.”
Kinley was Caroline’s little sister from Avery’s class. Caroline was the ‘horse girl’, her family had a stable and made money on the side taking care of other people’s horses, apparently. Caroline was a bit more down to earth. Kinley was… not a hair out of place, fancy clothes, little leather boots, she owned two freaking ponies, and the only explanation Avery could think of for her personality was that Caroline had binge-watched ‘Fetch’ and ‘Know What, I Mean’ and all the other movies about awful teen girls, and an infant Kinley had taken them as something to aspire toward.
“Who deserves the bad words? You two are the ones who suck!” Declan jeered.
“Hold up, big pause button, let’s play nice or there won’t be any treats,” mom said.
“You weren’t winning either,” Kinley said. “But you always lose, don’t you? Because you’re a losing loser.”
“You’re always using cheat codes for your games,” Kerry chimed in.
“Boooo,” Declan three joined in, taking the girls’ side against Declan one.
“No! Not always. Just sometimes.”
Avery was struck by the awareness that her siblings and their friends were really not that far off from being actual goblins.
“The next person who speaks is going to have to give me a very convincing argument for why I shouldn’t take you all out of this store, drive your friends home, apologize to their parents for the change in plan, and ground you.”
The kids fell silent, sullen.
“You have two options. You can come with me and be silent, or you can go out to the front of the store and play statues.”
Statues was a game where they competed. Whoever stayed still and quiet the longest won. There was usually a bribe of an extra treat in it for them. Winner picked the treat and divided it up into however many portions, then the losers picked the portion they wanted.
It had worked really well with Rowan and Sheridan, apparently. Sorta with Avery, except she’d been too prone to wandering, then not all that well with Declan and Kerry just didn’t buy into it at all.
“It feels dumb, Declan three was saying it was dumb,” Declan said, pouting.
“Then come with. We’re almost done.”
The kids followed as a herd. Kerry had to put back the box. Mom pushed the cart and Avery followed behind the group, ensuring the kids kept moving.
“You were losing in an argument against seven year olds,” Avery told Declan.
“Don’t you start,” mom warned.
“For my treat, can we go to the video game store? I want to get Monte.”
“Those are expensive, aren’t they? Fifty bucks?”
“Seventy,” Declan said.
“That’s a lot of treats, especially considering it’s not something that can be shared with the rest of the family. Maybe after you’ve been good for a few errands, and done some extra helping out around the house.”
“But I need it now. My friends are over and we’ve all been wanting to play.”
“Yeah!” Declan three chimed in.
“Can we can we please? We can come help out as a group later.”
“All three of you working together might be able to do one chore,” Kinley said. “If you spend all day on it.”
“Oooh,” Kerry chimed in.
“Shut up,” Declan three told them.
Avery gave Kinley a once-over with her Sight. Nothing funky. If she hadn’t seen Kinley around for the last year, well before the Other stuff started, she might’ve thought Kinley was an Other. But no, she was just a seven year old who was unusually good at the smack-talk, for a seven year old. Trained on all the kid-coms that had every single character trading one-liners.
Another row of freezers cut the grocery store in half. They passed through, and Avery got some random vegetarian stuff. She was betting some of it was going to suck, but maybe there was something.
“We could make it a family thing, trying this stuff.”
Kerry and Declan protested loudly.
“I think that’d be a disaster,” Avery said. “It’s okay.”
“You need protein. What about yogurt? Greek yogurt is pretty healthy. Probiotic.”
“I don’t know what that means, but ok. Peanut butter?”
“It was in the aisle with the breakfast stuff. Want to go back?”
Avery nodded. “Big tub?”
“Sure, if you think you’ll use it. Look for sales.”
Avery headed over, jogging, and nearly bumped into someone rounding the corner. She found the peanut butter, and tossed it between her hands, looking for other options and granola bars, when she saw Matthew at the end of the aisle.
Which was spooky, even as a fleeting glimpse.
She walked around the end of the aisle, back to the produce section with its massive decorative tree.
Matthew and Edith were shopping.
Her heart pounding, Avery walked down toward them. She stopped where the row of apples, pears and bananas were between them.
“Hello,” Matthew said, on seeing her. No smile. “No bag? No collection of tricks?”
“Only a couple,” she said.
There was a pause. She wondered if it meant something, that the first thing he talked about was the weapons and tools she could deploy. Or the lack thereof.
“Did you come here to talk to us?” Edith asked, as she bagged pears.
“My mom is shopping with me and some of the sibs.”
“Um. I don’t know how okay things are now. Or how not-okay.”
“How okay or not okay are you?” Matthew asked.
“I don’t know. I’m… mad, a bit. That you made it that hard. Scared. Hurt. Worried.”
“Do you think the locals might feel the same?” Matthew asked. “In varying amounts.”
“Who should we be watching out for? How do we approach you all?”
“I don’t know,” Matthew said. “And in some of the cases where I do know, if I named names I’d probably get on their bad sides. As much as we’re mostly united in agreeing to follow the rules, abide by the votes, and protect Kennet, I- we’re not united in anger, or in hurt, or in being wary of you three. I think the biggest change moving forward is that we are that divided, in the background.”
“The Kennet Others agree on only the important things,” Edith said. “The rest… be careful. Treat each Other or cluster of Others as a separate entity.”
“And you two?” Avery asked. “Specifically?”
Matthew sighed. He looked very tired. “It’s hard. I agree with the thrust of what you’ve done. I even agree about the Choir, in general. But the nuances, the specific deals made…”
Edith touched his arm. “Does a part of you wish you were still a practitioner?”
Edith looked over at Avery, across the piles of fruits and veggies that separated them. “Speaking for myself, I don’t want there to be any issues between us, Avery. I don’t want to be on opposite sides, so if you need more lessons, teachings, help with specific Others, you can come to us for advice. We can’t guarantee help, but we’ll try.”
“Gets tricky. Some might resent us for helping her,” Matthew said.
“We brought them on board. We owe them.”
He made a face. Then he looked at Avery. “Edith could be right.”
“Could be?” Edith asked, arch.
Matthew continued, like Edith hadn’t said anything. “Right that there might be underlying sentiment on my part. It’s frustrating, being where I am, with a lot of awareness of both worlds. You three have done fine. You stood up for Kennet as its guardians. Both problems are put off until the future and that’s…”
He trailed off, grimacing.
“…We’ll find a way.”
“I hope so,” Avery said.
“Us too,” Edith said. “Tread slowly, tread carefully. Treat the relationships with the Kennet Others as if they’re new.”
“I wanted to ask,” Avery said. She moved her hand, and remembered she was holding the peanut butter, and that her mom was waiting for her. “We need an address.”
“Who or what?” Matthew asked.
“Louise Bayer,” Matthew said. He pulled out his phone. “I have it here.”
Avery got her own phone out.
“I expected you three to visit her sooner,” Edith said.
“We thought we wouldn’t know what to ask,” Avery said.
“21 Earl st. East,” Matthew said, looking at his phone. “It’s up by Blue Gas. It’s a hike.”
“That doesn’t bother me nearly as much anymore,” Avery said.
“No,” he said. He gave her a small smile. “I suppose it doesn’t.”
“What do we do when we talk to her? How much does she know?”
Matthew frowned. “Like the girl you freed from confinement yesterday evening, she’s not quite innocent, but she’s not awakened either. The term is aware. It’s a fragile state, and being the person or people that shatter that fragility and drive her into this world means that she’ll be vulnerable to Others, without the benefit of Innocence, and you’ll be karmically responsible for much of what happens to her as a result.”
“What does that mean? What happens?”
Matthew answered, “The aware tend to run into Others and get entangled in Other things as they go through their daily lives. If there’s a stray spirit in their neighborhood, or a goblin in the part of town they pass through, they’ll cross paths. Because they’re more open, paths of least resistance, or because the dangerous Others can sense vulnerability. There are ways to deal with it, but it requires a lot of attention. Some families have Blackguards, the aware who are kept unawakened because it’s useful to have a liar. Witch Hunters also count.”
“The easiest route is to avoid unbalancing them,” Edith said. “Don’t disturb their tenuous middle-ground state. Most innocents will find their own balance again, fill in the gaps, and concoct explanations.”
“I made Louise Bayer forget. But while you’re talking to her, she’ll remember. Go easy. Don’t hit her with everything at once,” Matthew added.
“Be careful,” he told her. “She’s a good person, she deserves the care. And with the local Others.”
She put her phone away, then felt the weight of the double-size thing of peanut butter in her hand. She tossed it between hands a few times, then said, “I should catch up with my family.”
She left them behind to resume their shopping, and jogged through the store until she saw the Declans pushing each other around.
It wasn’t that they were all named Declans, but dad had joked they were all so similar in their tastes, fashion, and stuff, that they could be Declan one, Declan two, Declan three, and Declan four. Declan Four had been pushed out of the group after giving some change to a girl they all liked so she could buy something at the school book sale, so that made things a little simpler. And sadder. When they were at Declan two’s house, the names changed so they were whatever one, whatever two, whatever three, and so on. She didn’t actually know Declan two’s name.
Because really, why not make keeping track of kids harder, in the chaos of the house and everything?
“Get lost?” her mom asked, as Avery caught up. She was trying to keep the kids from wrestling with one another. “I was worried.”
“I saw some people I knew.”
“You should eat them all!” Declan two jeered, pushing a box of frozen burritos into Declan three’s face. Declan was grabbing three’s wrists so he couldn’t defend himself.
“If he gets spit on that box I have to buy it and it’s going to be your treat!” mom said.
Kerry crept up on Declan, reaching for his pants. Probably to pull them down. Avery put out a hand, one finger on Kerry’s forehead, and kept her from getting close enough to get a grip.
“It’s like herding cats. Can we please get down this last aisle and pay for things? Declans, last warning! And we’re buying that box now.”
“No! I wanted the game!”
“You’re not getting a seventy dollar game as a reward for behaving when you didn’t behave.”
“What are we supposed to do while everyone’s at the house then? We’ve played all the other games.”
“Go outside?” Avery asked.
“God,” mom said. “I wish they would, and I wish you’d be a bit more of a couch potato so I at least knew where you were half the time. If you want a game you need to behave, Declans.”
Kinley leaned in close to Kerry and whispered in her ear. Her eyes moved up to Avery.
Kerry’s face screwed up in disgust. “No. Ew.”
“What did she say?” Avery asked. It was unusual for Kerry to disagree with anything her preppy, fashionable, witty friend said.
Kinley grabbed Kerry’s wrist, and shook her head at Kerry.
“You’re crazy,” Kerry said, to her friend. “She says you’re cool and she wished her sister was as cool as you are. I think she dented her brain when Declan three pushed her earlier.”
“I didn’t push anyone!”
“Why’d you tell her?” Kinley protested. “And I didn’t hit my head.”
Avery blinked a few times.
“She’s not good at anything except maybe sports, and she’s dopey and her friends are dopier,” Kerry said.
“Be nice to your sister,” mom said, absently. She grabbed a few things. Most things in the cart were large boxes.
They made their way to the cash, and there was only a short lineup. Avery helped load up the belt.
A few aisles down, Avery saw Verona’s dad. The cart was mostly cardboard boxes of frozen dinners and tv dinners. Everything that wasn’t fit neatly in the little compartment for infants at the top of the cart.
He was animated, talking to someone in the same aisle. It was a very different tone and appearance to the way he’d been in the house.
She wondered if he would even recognize her.
“Is that the person you were talking to?” mom asked, leaning in to pick up a quadruple-size thing of meat.
Avery shook her head. “Verona’s dad.”
“Ahh. We still haven’t met Verona. Should I go say hi? Invite him over?”
Avery opened her mouth and nothing came out. She widened her eyes a bit, then shook her head, quick and tight.
“Why?” her mom asked, quieter. “Is it because you’re worried about what he would think, with all the hustle and bustle, or is it about him?”
Her mom gave the man a serious look, then went back to managing the kids, and unloading the cart.
There was no more discussion on the subject of Verona’s dad until they were out in the parking lot. They pushed the cart to the car, and the kids began unloading, Kerry and Kinley at the back seat, which was half-folded down, to pull the bags back and arrange them, while the Declans unloaded.
“What do I need to know about him?” mom asked. “Verona’s dad.”
“He’s weird. He doesn’t hit her or anything, that I know of. But like… I can imagine her getting old enough and leaving and not ever talking to him again.”
“Why? You’ve been over to his house?”
“It’s not like- there’s not anything I can really explain. He makes her do a lot of chores and he complains at her and like… I don’t know. He blames her for their divorce or something? I really don’t get it. But I went over once and it was super uncomfortable, and Verona didn’t want to stick around, so we went out and we kind of didn’t… that was the night we didn’t come home until it was super late.”
Avery was a little caught off guard by her mom’s evident frustration, which looked like more than she had experienced dealing with K&K and the three Declans.
She was more caught off guard when her mom pulled her into a hug.
“There are so many of the homeschool parents,” her mom said, still hugging her, “and they rubbed me the wrong way, because they controlled their kids’ every move. I didn’t ever want to be that. And right now I’m so close to going there and being one of those parents. I want to know everything about what’s going on there, I want to give you rules and I want to confront that, I want you to be safe if it’s a dangerous situation-”
“It’s not dangerous, I don’t think.”
Her mom broke the hug, giving her a serious look.
“But it’s a lot for Verona. She goes to stay at Lucy’s a bunch. After seeing him that one night I’d be inviting her to do the same so it’s not too much for Lucy, but there’s not really any room.”
“Is this why you’re distracted lately? Why you jumped from Grumble shouting?”
“Part of it.” A very small part of it. Point zero zero one percent of it, maybe.
“I don’t want you going over there.”
“For projects and stuff, maybe?” Avery asked.
“I don’t want you going there.”
“But- she’s my friend. It gets awkward if I’m not allowed. And like… I don’t want to go there, especially if he’s there. Can you trust me? That I’ll be smart about it?”
“Done!” Declan announced. “Can we go?”
“In a moment!” mom called out. “Get in the car and get belted up.”
“We’re losing the weekend! We had to come on this stupid errand-”
“Mom!” Kerry called out. “Can I open my treat?”
“We’re about to eat lunch, so no. Get in the car. Give me a moment with Avery.”
“Can we have one piece each?”
“Its okay,” Avery said. “I’m trying to be a good friend to her. I’m handling it.”
Her mom rubbed her shoulders, then dropped a hand to Avery’s elbow, where the bandage was. “This wasn’t related to him?”
“Keep me updated. Let me know what’s going on, or if anything changes, or if we need to call someone?”
“And invite Verona over. So we can see how she’s doing ourselves?”
Avery made a face. “She doesn’t like… people, I guess? Or like, she likes specific people but she doesn’t like groups of people. And we’re a groupy group of people.”
“Invite her over anyway.”
Avery nodded. A concession. “Can’t guarantee she’ll come.”
“We worry about you so much, Avery. Your dad and I and your siblings adore you, we do. And we want good things for you. We failed you so badly, not noticing how lonely you’d gotten, until your teacher reached out to us, and right now, not to make our concerns your burdens, but… I have this feeling like you’re pulling away and somehow we’re failing you, maybe in a worse way. I have discussions with your dad, about you, lying in bed at night. Not just you, Declan has his ADHD diagnosis and Sheridan’s unmotivated but… you keep coming up, and it’s always a question mark.”
“I’m fed. I’m clothed. I’m loved,” Avery said. “I think you’re doing okay now.”
“There’s so much more to it than that,” her mom said.
“Don’t pull too far away, okay? You might not believe it, but I’ve had friends with awful family situations, I’ve been there. So has your dad. Grumble has. Rowan has. If there’s something you’re confused about, you can bring it up. You’re on your way to becoming an adult. Talk to us as adults.”
Avery nodded. “Okay. If you’ll trust me to handle some stuff myself?”
Her mom kissed her on the forehead, then nodded.
Verona’s dad pushed a cart out to his car. He saw her and waved, smiling.
She waved back, halfheartedly. So did her mom.
“Come on,” her mom said. “Or the kids will spontaneously combust in there.”
Avery smiled. “Is that really an incentive to go?”
Her mom smiled, then walked around to the driver’s side.
Avery dusted her fingers with the glamour in her back pocket, then pressed it to her heart. Being treated as more adult. Communicating. Navigating tough conversations.
If a year passed and Guilherme told her this was all in her head, and using the glamour like this didn’t actually do anything, she’d feel like it was worth it, if only because it forced her to keep looking for the little successes and good points.
That done, Avery climbed into the passenger seat, which one of the Declans was already kicking. All the kids were piled in the back of the van.
“With all this talk of me not pulling away, I guess it’s a bad time to bring up the idea of me going to this summer thing Lucy and Verona are planning to do, huh?” Avery asked.
Her mom gave her a level ten mom look.
The problem with having the stuff like the air-rune sneakers and the black rope was that Avery was usually the first to arrive. Verona had wanted to turn into an animal to get around faster, but Lucy wanted to conserve glamour.
There was a hot chocolate bar by the foot of the ski hills that was closed for every season except winter. Avery sat on the corner of the flat roof, which some teenagers had managed to climb up to at some point. There was an old telescope, a blanket that had been rained on and dried enough times to get moldy, and some bottles scattered around.
Someone had had a nice date here, she imagined. Lying on the blanket, looking at stars, a few beers to warm up. Raised up just enough that most of the city was out of view. After hours, most of the streetlights shut off, so only downtown was really lit up, and it really helped the stars come out.
She imagined having a late night date like that with Ms. Hardy, lying side by side, talking about nothing and everything. Being reassured, reassuring, saying inane things. Ms. Hardy knew a little something about everything, she said, and so she could talk about the stars, or about Kennet, or about life, or being gay, or about friends and family, and Avery would listen. And Avery could talk about the other world and secrets and magic.
It would be so nice to be held. Even in the homeschooling, Avery would have social meet-ups with the other homeschooled kids, and kids her age last year had been starting to talk about kissing and sneaking looks at porn on their phones, and dating and who had a crush on who.
Even Olivia had. Avery’s best friend for years had gotten so into it, and Avery had just rolled with it. She’d labeled herself a late bloomer and at the same time she’d been super into her friendship with Olivia, fantasizing about being best friends for life, and being roommates, and sharing everything. Avery had been so excited every time they got to meet up and she’d broken down into sobs when one of their weekends together was canceled. So lame.
A bit of her wondered if that was why her friend had pulled away, joining the Swanson team. If Avery had said something or done something and Olivia had figured it out before Avery had, and rejected her because of it.
Olivia leaving had left a big hole in her heart. No more weekends to look forward to, no more companionship, no more confidante. Nobody to push Avery outside of her routine and way of thinking.
It would be so nice to be held. To have someone say ‘I get you’ and mean it, and to be able to hold that person. Or to fumble through the stuff like kissing, or dating, or being able to think about nights together like star watching on a rooftop. It would be terrifying, because it would be her one shot at it, maybe, but so nice at the same time.
And she’d walked the Forest Ribbon Trail. She could do scary and exciting. If she could get through that mostly intact, she could tackle dating, right? Someone like Ms. Hardy.
Or Pam. Except Pam was off limits now. Because of the Faerie.
She tried to push the ideas out of her mind. It hurt more than it warmed her heart.
Her cape kept people from looking at her, while freeing her to look at the people. She watched a gnarly dude who might’ve been into rock, or just really unhygenic, with hair down past his shoulders and a thick black beard, black tee, and dark jeans, holding the hand of a little girl in a princess costume with antennae and faerie wings.
A woman Avery’s parent’s age was with a friend, laughing too loudly, acting too boisterous.
Avery felt her skin crawl. The laugh and the unpredictability reminded her a bit of the Wolf.
It was very lonely up here.
She saw Snowdrop hop off the back of a truck as it rounded the corner, stumble, and tumble, stopping before she got to the sidewalk.
A car followed after, zooming straight toward the prone Snowdrop. Avery’s hands went to her mouth in alarm, before dropping, reaching for the black rope and rising to her feet. The car passed within two feet of the possum as it rounded the same corner.
Snowdrop picked herself up, stepped onto the sidewalk, and dusted herself off. She looked up at Avery, standing on the corner of the rooftop, and flashed a smile of missing and uneven teeth. She wore a different jacket, black, and a blank white tee.
Avery didn’t move as she watched Snowdrop run over, nearly tripping on a hump in the grass by the hot chocolate bar. Snowdrop scrambled over a row of plastic trash cans, knocking them over with a loud series of bonks and clunks, then leaped to the ladder at the side of the building.
“You need to be careful,” Avery scolded the possum.
“I’m bad at climbing and stuff.”
“I mean about the truck,” Avery said, grabbing Snowdrop’s hand, lifting her onto the roof. “You almost got hit!”
“It was just that one time.”
“That does not make me feel better about it!”
“The goblins don’t think it’s great either,” Snowdrop said.
“That’s- be safe, okay?”
Snowdrop shuffled her feet, then crossed over to Avery, hugging her.
Giving me what I asked for, universe? Someone who knows me and can hug me? Mayyyybe give me someone dateable? Avery thought.
“How were things with the goblins?”
“They’re leaving me alone.”
“What happened? Did they hurt you? Threaten you?”
“Yeah. Tons of death threats and crap.”
“Did they say something?”
“Nah. They’re pretty good about the name calling and stuff.”
“I blame you. You’re a jerk, doing that. Jerk-ass,” Snowdrop said. She broke the hug.
“Was there anything else?”
“Traps? Pranks? Tricks? Did they harass you in other ways?”
“Everything but the pranks. They’re trying to get me to let my guard down.”
They sat on the edge of the roof. Snowdrop leaned over, her head resting against Avery’s arm, her legs kicking.
“I hope it settles down.”
“It won’t,” Snowdrop said. “Cherrypop’s the worst of them. She’s not my friend anymore.”
“You didn’t have to come, you know.”
“Really? You should have said so, because I didn’t want to,” Snowdrop said.
Avery dug in her bag for a chocolate bar. She broke it in half.
They finished the chocolate bar and shared a soda. Avery pitched the balled-up wrapper and the bottle into the recycling bins at the side of the building, by the knocked-over trash cans. The bottle clattered into the bin.
She leaned into Snowdrop so she could access her back pocket.
A bit of glamour. She drew a bullseye on her hand, as a reward for making the shot. I get down on myself for having bad aim, but I have my moments.
“Fifty percent, you suck,” Snowdrop criticized her.
Snowdrop got up from her seat, and walked over to the telescope and blanket. She picked through the things, then carried the battered, weather-worn telescope over to the rooftop’s edge. It was about two and a half feet long and chunky, and she used her hands and feet to hold it, feet at the end, while peering through the aperture.
Avery reached for and grabbed the back of Snowdrop’s jacket, to pull her back in case the weight she was holding out in front of her made her tip forward. The back of the jacket had a red image stamped on it; a circle of possums arranged so each possum had its tail looped around the previous possum’s neck. In the center was just ‘P.o.S.’
Avery used her sight to help. She could see the band that connected her to the other two, and she could follow it to them.
“Verona, Verona, Verona,” she said.
The band constricted. Intensified. Verona looked up and around until she found Avery. She was wearing a black tee that had about ten holes in it. Avery was entirely unsure if the holes were supposed to be there or if Verona was running out of wearable clothes.
The other band did the same.
Lucy raised her hand in a wave. Avery returned it. Lucy wore a hooded pink top with the Dassier waves going from shoulder to sleeve, hood down, and a black tennis skirt. The top went well with her hair.
The connections between the two of them were stronger than the connections between them and her. Which was fair, but also scary, and frustrating.
“My mom gave me a tentative okay on the magic school thing. Still gotta work out the details and figure out a convincing cover story for what it is and why I’m going,” Avery told Snowdrop.
“I can’t help with that. I’m illiterate and crap.”
“Hmm. I’d be worried it’d be a mess.”
“Me? Never.” Snowdrop gave Avery a toothy grin.
“Yeah,” Avery said, smiling at her companion. “Come on.”
They climbed down to the street level, and Avery fixed the position of the trash cans, before joining the other two.
“Guilherme is going to give me some lessons,” Lucy said. “Maricica is… intense.”
“We went to go get stocked up on glamour and stuff, and without really saying anything or agreeing, we decided to keep our distance,” Lucy said. “We didn’t ask. Which might have been her ploy, but it still feels like the better option.”
“Keeping it simple,” Verona added.
“Snowdrop said the goblins were bullying her, pulling some pranks, I think? Except Cherrypop, sorta. And I bumped into Matthew and Edith. They’re cool-ish? They have opinions but they’re not going to come after us or get mad, from what I could tell?”
“We don’t know where John stands,” Lucy said.
“I’m guessing he feels very complicated about all this,” Verona stated.
“Good guess,” Avery said.
Man, how would she feel if she had to lose Snowdrop, and then later had that decision rubbed in her face? And she’d only known Snowdrop for a little less than a week.
“Alpeana is cranky but she was too sleepy to get a good judgment on,” Verona said. “She said she wants to avoid the ‘politics’ of this. Which might mean avoiding us.”
“Sucks,” Verona said, to put a word to Avery’s expression.
“It’s great!” Snowdrop said. “Us alone against the world!”
“Well,” Lucy said. She put her hands into the pockets of her skirt. “I’m glad there’s an us, at least.”
“Agreed,” Verona said.
“Very much agreed,” Avery said.
“It feels weird and bad to be handing off the Hungry Choir to other people,” Lucy said, looking up at the moon. It was only a sliver, up above, visible in the daytime.
“They can handle it in a way we can’t,” Verona said, “I hope, anyway.”
“I hope they all bite it. Then we can handle it ourselves,” Snowdrop said.
Avery messed up the kid’s hair some.
“Should we go? Last of the big interviews, I think,” Lucy said.
Avery turned, squinted, and pointed. The road cut an S-ish shape down the mountainside. A path with a lot of stairs led up, crossing the ‘S’ like the line of a dollar sign, going straight to the gas station.
They ascended. The other two began to grunt and complain about the running around yesterday and how their legs were tired. Even Avery felt it a bit, despite the regular running she did.
The stairs were concrete, with a rail covered in rust. A bunch of candy wrappers, drink bottles, and coffee cups littered the grass and bushes to either side of the stairs.
They passed Blue Gas. When Avery had traveled for hockey, the bright dot of blue against the mountainside was often the first sign that she was close to home. Cars whizzed past, turning off the highway to head down to Lake Superior. Cabins, other towns, some people worked at a water treatment plant. Stuff. It was busier on the road here than it had been in the grocery store.
It was another ten minutes of walking, until Kennet was something distant. To a house that had been battered by winter, with a long dirt driveway and a garage set way back and away from the road.
Louise Bayer was maybe Ms. Hardy’s age, but she didn’t wear makeup or dress up. She sat on the porch, cigarette in one corner of her mouth, book in her lap. Dark hair, slightly-weather worn skin that had darkened a shade in the sun, and a demeanor that made Avery think that she could be a ranch owner or something. Like she spent a lot of years working hard. Even if she wasn’t muscular or anything. Just… tired.
As she saw them coming, Louise set her book down. She drew heavily on her cigarette, dropped it to her porch, and stubbed it out with the toe of her shoe.
“You them?” the woman asked.
Avery switched on the Sight, to look for traps, or anything tricky. What she saw, instead, was the unfurling of connections that had been folded up or hidden. Bands stretching out from Louise to places in Kennet.
“I was told to expect you,” Louise said. “I somehow forgot that, but I knew I should be looking out.”
“We’re here,” Verona said.
Avery looked down at Snowdrop, then nodded.
“Need anything? Water? I might have an ancient can of soda or two in my cabinet, from when I bribed neighbors to help me with some things around the place.”
“I brought my own water bottle,” Lucy said.
“I’m fine,” Verona answered.
“I’m okay,” Avery answered.
“Well,” Louise said. “Want to sit outside? I could invite you in, but I don’t know why you’d want to be out of the sun.”
“It’s okay out here,” Lucy said.
The woman retreated to her seat where the book was.
The four of them approached, settling at the stairs.
“We have questions, about that night,” Lucy said.
“Not sure what I could tell you that others couldn’t,” the woman answered. “But I’ll try.”
“Can you walk us through it?” Verona asked.
“I don’t know what to say. I heard the howling. All over town. And it was… it was the saddest thing. I cried, hearing it.”
Lucy unzipped her bag. She pulled out her investigation notebook. Good.
“We didn’t hear anything,” Verona said. “At least, I don’t think we did.”
“No,” Louise agreed. “No, I don’t think most people did.”
“Was it quiet?” Lucy asked. “Close by?”
“Far, and loud. I thought the windows might break. Except- I took it for a hallucination, not something real.”
“Where was it?” Avery asked.
“That part comes a bit later. But…”
Base of the mountain here, way off to the south.
Avery could see Lucy penning something down. She flipped back to check something- a brochure of town, and after she went back and forth twice more, Avery grabbed the brochure.
She made a mark, with her best guess.
The Others of Kennet didn’t. The first many of them heard about the Carmine Beast was when the goblins came to notify them.
“Why didn’t they hear?” Avery asked, quiet.
“Because something stopped them?” Verona asked.
“Who could even do that?” Lucy asked.
“Faerie, probably. Maybe the Choir. Which is what I meant,” Verona said. “What if it wasn’t here, and Louise saw into the spirit, or the ruins, or the warrens? Or the Choir’s event.”
“That wasn’t in Kennet that night,” Lucy said. “We might be getting ahead of ourselves.”
Lucy finished taking her notes.
“It was eerie,” Louise said. “Disconcerting. I cried tears of blood, but afterward, there wasn’t a drop to be found.”
“That’s-” Verona started. But Avery touched Verona’s arm, stopping her. “What?”
“Let her find her own explanations. She should forget this after we talk to her, anyway. It makes it easier if we don’t push or force things on her.”
“Or taint the testimony,” Lucy said.
“What happened next? Howling first…”
“I stepped outside. I was going to have a smoke. I saw it. Bleeding moon. This… slender and beautiful wolf, or fox, or something between the two. Long-legged. Big as some of the mountains around here.”
“Moon’s important,” Lucy said. “It was bleeding?”
Louise nodded. “Big, full, the outline dripped blood, and it extended down to its head. Ran down its body, but didn’t go anywhere. Disappeared into the fur, I guessed.”
“Blood’s another thing we keep running into,” Verona murmured.
“I don’t,” Snowdrop said. “Blood free, especially around the goblins.”
“You said full?” Verona asked.
Louise nodded. “Lit up the town, the hills around. Seemed bigger than usual.”
“I don’t think that’s right,” Verona said.
Lucy had to dig through her notes. She found the bit about the choir, checking, and found the print-outs from the Devouring Song website.
Lucy tapped the page. Last week of march. Five weeks ago, the moon hadn’t been full.
“Wonder if that’s important, or how,” Avery murmured.
“Something about her? Or telling us something? Or was that a vector for attack?” Lucy asked.
Avery grabbed a spare bit of paper, then began taking her own notes. Keeping track of the questions.
“Then?” Verona asked, while Lucy was busy taking notes too.
“It howled, and it hit me hard. Made my old hurts feel like they were fresh. I nearly passed out. Came to, then against all reason, I got in my car, and I started driving. Trying to get to it. Her, you said?”
“Her,” Avery told the woman.
“Where was she, then?” Lucy asked. “What direction was she going?”
Louise rose from her seat, walking up until she was close to them. She pointed.
Moving along the mountainside.
“I caught up to it by Blue Gas. Then I carried on on foot. Until we got to the Kennet Arena.”
Avery showed the woman the brochure with the map, and the dotted line she’d drawn.
The woman nodded, confirming it was right.
“Can we- if it’s no imposition, could you show us?”
“I’m not doing anything. I was asked to point you in the right directions. This seems like a way to do it.”
It was weird, getting into a stranger’s car. Weirder, when the car smelled like stale cigarette smoke and mustiness.
Avery sat in the back seat, Snowdrop between herself and Verona.
“I got a new lease on life that night. I don’t know why and I haven’t prodded too hard to find out or question why,” Louise said.
“Who pushed for that, do you know?” Lucy asked.
“It was- the man, primarily. Matthew something. A woman, I couldn’t see her face.”
“Who else was there?”
“A woman, wearing a toque. Her hair had been bleached but the roots showed. Hip-heavy. Ummm. Children. They’d gathered together at the Arena. Before that, it was… small shadows. Four of them, different sizes. I didn’t get a clear look at them in the gloom.”
Louise sounded stressed, as she explained that last bit.
“Easy,” Avery murmured.
Couldn’t push too hard.
“Hallucinations, from my medication. I kept going back and forth on it. Now I’m doing it again. Wondering.”
“Every detail is important. If there are hallucinations or things you saw, we’ll try to sort out the truth from the fiction after,” Lucy said.
“Better you than me,” the woman said. “I wasn’t expecting it to be children that came.”
“Teenagers,” Lucy clarified.
“A lot of people weren’t expecting us to be young,” Avery said.
Louise drove them down that S-shaped road. She slowed down as they drew closer to Blue Gas. A bunch of cars were gathered. It was cheap gas for people pulling off of the big road, and it was one of the two big gas stations in Kennet, with an attached delivery spot and fast food place. People could have parcels delivered and pick them up here, and if they did it was often a day or two faster.
Not that any of that was important to the Carmine Beast and what happened to her.
“Caught up to her here,” Louise said. “She was padding along. Sometimes she’d make noise. Bunch of kids were outside, didn’t see her, even as big as she was. The shadows were over there.”
She pointed to the stairwell where the four of them had come up.
“Can we get out?” Lucy asked.
“Whatever you want, but if you’re going all the way to the Arena… I’m better than I was, but I’d rather drive it, as much as possible.”
“That’s fine. Just… want to take in the scene.”
They climbed out of the car.
Avery looked around with her sight.
Red handprints everywhere.
“Meaty bloody bits all under the road,” Verona said. “Like it’s plastic wrap stretched flat over roadkill. Stuff in the trees, where I’m guessing she brushed up against them.”
Avery looked. Some of the leaves and branches were stained red with multiple handprints.
“Awful,” Snowdrop said. “Roadkill isn’t my aesthetic.”
“Not funny,” Avery said.
“I agree,” Snowdrop said, before sticking out her tongue. “Be right back.”
She ran over, and ducked around to the back of the gas station.
“Dumpster diving?” Lucy asked.
“I don’t even know,” Avery said. “But I trust her.”
Lucy nodded. Then she pointed. “Stains, with my Sight. I guess this is where some of that crimson is bleeding out from.”
They walked over to the little stairwell, looking down.
Avery could see the course the Beast had traveled, by the amount of redness.
From above, she could see areas of the city that were bloodier than others.
“Wah!” Snowdrop exclaimed, popping out of the bush. Lucy jumped. Verona was standing too far off to the side to really be surprised.
“Nowhere, no goblin tunnels or nothing. Didn’t stick my head in any dark holes or weird spots.”
“Way different from here.”
“Let’s move on,” Lucy said.
They got back in the car, resuming the drive.
“The four shadows went ahead. Straight down to the restaurants at the edge of downtown there,” Louise pointed, as they navigated the ‘S’. “There was a crash when they ran by a truck that was loading up at the back of the bistro.”
“The wolf-thing, how did it behave?” Lucy asked.
“It made noise. It limped.”
“One leg was curled up. It was moving slower than it had been.”
“Since when?” Lucy asked “The beginning?”
“Can you take us back? So we can check? From the last place you remember seeing her moving on all fours?”
It was a bit of a task, figuring out how to get turned around on the very straightforward road, with the periodic incoming traffic. They backtracked. Trees at either side of the road crowded in around them.
They got out again, and spread out.
By the edge of the road, following the Beast’s path, they found a spot where the stains were thicker.
They didn’t really say or agree what they were looking for, but they walked over the area, with each bit of the roadside getting at least two good looks by their group. Snowdrop disappeared again.
There were no bullet casings. No scraps of fur, discarded weapons, or anything of the sort.
“Nothing here,” Snowdrop said.
“Show us,” Lucy told her.
Snowdrop reached out. Lucy took her hand.
Verona took Lucy’s hand, and Avery took Verona’s.
They were tugged along. Into a darkness beneath a tree, framed by the roadside trash.
The ground was wet, smelled like the occupants of this hole had used it as a washroom and it had mixed with the mud, and the dirt smudged in around them.
“My nice top, too,” Lucy complained.
“I dressed for messier work,” Verona said.
Avery remained silent. A lot of her stuff was grass-stained anyway.
The tunnel was claustrophobic. Water dripped from above, even though it wasn’t raining before.
Snowdrop tugged them through the winding confines, where some of the tunnels were so narrow that Avery had to slide down feet first and pray she wouldn’t get stuck.
They seemed to follow the drips, which got more frequent. Lucy flipped up her hood.
They emerged into darkness. Into rain.
Three cars were crashed around them, two only lightly, the third demolished, wrapped around a tree. The headlights flickered on and off, the radio stuttering.
Rain poured down around them as they emerged, exploring. Echoes by the side of the road stood dully.
The bloodstained handprints were richer in the gloom, like a streak of tomato red against a dark blue background. They were denser, and chunkier, and the blood ran thick enough it flowed like a small river.
“That blood that poured down from the moon landed here, huh?” Verona asked. “Not in our world.”
Lucy looked around. “This is where the attack happened. The Ruins- this is the ruins, right?”
“Nah,” Snowdrop said.
“Louise didn’t say anything about her fighting back. She just… marched along. While being hurt this badly.”
“Straight to the Kennet Arena. Crying out, but not to- not to the local Others, I guess,” Avery said.
“Crying out to people. Going to probably the densest group of people,” Lucy said.
“Lonely, against the world,” Avery murmured.
Avery walked around the edges of the gore-streaked street. A ghost in a car, head out the window, tore down the road. “Just- If it was one person or one thing going on, then why wouldn’t she call out to the locals?”
“You think it was more than one that was involved?” Lucy asked.
“Would make sense, wouldn’t it? She seemed resigned to her fate, if she wasn’t fighting. So… she didn’t trust the locals or something. So maybe she reaches out, in hopes that a person will hear and challenge the local Others?”
The rain poured down around them. Soaking them through. Lucy held her bag over her head for shielding.
“Let’s keep going?”
“Do you want to go?” Avery asked. “And pass back through? I’ll be a little ways ahead.”
“You’re okay staying here?” Lucy asked.
“Sure. If there’s any trouble, I can run.”
“Feels bad, leaving you in a strange world,” Verona said.
“I’ve got the rope.”
It took some convincing, but they agreed. Lucy, Snowdrop, and Verona headed back.
Avery walked amid ghosts and spirits, in this strange, wet place. Her hair was soaked through, her clothes sodden, but… it wasn’t the worst thing.
It didn’t take them long to appear further down the path. So fast, in fact, that it felt like time was a bit fucky. Avery caught up, checking the blood trail, looking for clues. Lucy was wearing what might have been Louise’s yellow raincoat, now.
The bloodstains got bigger and bigger.
“Louise says the goblins stopped at the lit-up parts of downtown.”
“That’s unusual,” Snowdrop said. “They love it when metal is charged up with water running through it, or hot, or whatever. City centers and trash.”
“We can probably rule out the goblins,” Lucy said. “The timeline doesn’t fit. They were at the top of the hill when Louise was, they scattered after this. They couldn’t or shouldn’t be able to get into the town center, and the time they started showing up at people’s places or caves or whatever…”
“No time to conduct a murder and dispose of the body,” Verona said.
“Probably,” Lucy said. “Matthew handled Louise. He doesn’t seem that smooth or canny, to jump straight to handling her, managing things… but he could surprise us.”
“Or he could tap into the Doom, maybe?” Verona asked. “Draw on its craftiness and nastiness?”
Avery was quiet. She looked at the blood. The night they’d come to the ruins, they’d come to the Arena from the other side. If they’d carried on past the Arena… they might have seen the trail.
There were a lot of figures in the rain as they got closer to the Arena. Standing in or near the blood. Echoes. Shadows like omens. A man with a white rose held to his chest, mop of hair wet and in his eyes.
Without the chase of the eyeball collector to distract them, it was easier to just absorb this all. Melancholy.
They searched the scene. Each area got at least two sets of eyes.
Verona bent down, whispering to a dark corner. She reached into her pocket, opened a tin, and pulled out the hot lead. John’s little bit of bullet with the elemental in it.
“Careful. It might still be cool after all the power we drew out of it yesterday,” Lucy said. “If you spend every last drop it might not recover.”
“Just a bit of power, to encourage, and pay for help,” Verona said.
The hot lead glowed, casting the faintest of red lights.
And a face, skinned, eyeless, boneless, mouth like rip in the muscle of the lower half, all wrapped in layers of plastic or gauzy curtains, was illuminated.
“That is freaky,” Avery said.
“It’s cool,” Verona said. “Hey dude. Any details we’re missing?”
The head twitched, twisted and turned.
Verona rose to her feet, moving in the direction it was facing.
There was an eave, or a bit of broken building. The barrier blocked the rain and the slope kept it from getting too drenched. Bloody handprints streaked within.
“The ruins is all the same, everywhere,” Snowdrop said. “There’s no doors or openings or spots that are closer to our world or anything. Just wet and broken everywhere.”
“This is a gap that’s closer to…” Avery asked.
“Not our world,” Snowdrop said.
There was blood in the dry spot, undiluted, clotted, and it hadn’t dried.
Fingers had raked through it. Swiping at it. And there was a pattern at the edges…
“Like brushstrokes,” Avery said.
“It’s hair. It was hair,” Verona said, “or- fur. Fur, right?”
“Think so,” Avery said. She drew her eyebrows together.
“Collecting every last bit of the beast,” Lucy said. “It’s necessary, right? They’re supposed to take the fur, blood, bone, meat, whatever else, and they use it to dress themselves up as the next Carmine? And that makes the spot really hard to take, apparently?”
“The attack happened in the Ruins, from the Ruins,” Lucy said. “It’s why nothing seemed too weird in reality. The Beast was in multiple worlds at once. Or partially in some worlds. I don’t know.”
An echo screamed, ragged. Just background noise, amid the hammering of the rain.
“I just had a weird thought,” Avery said. “Maybe an important one. Something from the Forest Ribbon Trail. And the day we awakened.”
“Do tell,” Verona said.
“Or don’t,” Lucy said. “Depending. There’s a chance we’re being watched. It might be good to do a nice big connection breaking diagram for privacy, for a serious talk.”
“Um, do you have the things from the awakening ritual?” Avery asked.
“Not the skull. That’s on my shelf,” Verona said.
“My bag’s in the car.”
“And the notes?” Avery asked.
They made their way back through the tunnels, slipping between worlds.
Into the sunlight and dry air. Water ran off Avery with a surprising quickness. Like the Ruins-water knew it wasn’t supposed to be here.
Louise was by her car, smoking again. She watched as they approached, Lucy getting her bag.
Snowdrop hopped up, sitting beside the woman.
“What’s your deal, kid?” Louise asked Snowdrop.
“I’m very boring, I do a lot of homework and chores, for a mom who loves me and definitely didn’t decide to stop feeding me when I was a baby. I always tell the truth, and I’m very neat and tidy.”
“Yes,” Avery said. “She does okay, I think?”
“If you need a bed or a bite to eat, just ask,” Louise said. “Anytime.”
“We’d have to be careful,” Avery said. She was wary that Snowdrop hanging around Louise for any length of time would either break that fragility, or cause other problems. What if Louise grew a conscience and reported the Snowdrop situation to child protection?
How would that even work, when most seemed unable to see or hear Snowdrop?
It was… beside the point. It didn’t matter.
She had the knives, the ‘coin’. Avery had the timepiece, but she didn’t need that.
Avery held a finger to her lips, as she had Lucy get out the investigation notes. Going back to early pages.
“Remember this?” she asked Snowdrop. “From the trail?”
She slid the coin across the page.
The coin, tin, was old, stamped with HBC 100. They’d covered some of this in their homework, a week ago. Hudson’s Bay Compay. Fur trading.
And the Carmine Beast had been killed, in part, for its fur. To take its power and mantle.
The coin had reappeared on the trail. She’d showed Snowdrop.
“I don’t know what this means. If it’s complete, or if they made decisions when they signed on for the awakening ritual…” Avery trailed off.
She picked up the coin and set it down on the early investigation notes.
“…If they were telling us or if the universe was, right from the start.”
Edith James. At the awakening ritual, her starting point had been the skull, and she’d exited by coin.
Maricica. Started at thread, left by coin.
The Hungry Choir. Started at skull, left by coin.
Avery slid the coin to each entry. A coin direct from the fur trade.
“It’s a starting point, if we’re looking for sets of suspects,” Lucy murmured. “Even if we don’t know what it means.”
“Edith but not Matthew?” Verona asked.
“There’d be a lot of questions. The how. How it came together. What roles they had. If anyone outside was involved,” Lucy said. “Choir ritual is tonight.”
“Let’s hope it goes okay,” Avery said.
“For the participants, yeah,” Lucy agreed. “And that we get our chance to ask some questions.”