Author: Wildbow

Go for the Throat – 23.a | Pale

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The hospital cafeteria was dismal.  There were windows high off the ground, showing the dark sky of the night- or the very early morning.  Fluorescent lights were hung overhead, two of them turned a slight orange by age, and one was slightly dim.  The fixtures looked like Burger Bin chairs and tables that were as old as Rowan, bolted to the ground, with chips missing at the seams and a faint discoloration from years of being wiped down with heavy chemicals.

Some efforts had been made, most of them concentrated on the counters and little confection area.  Plants were set in the corners, rubber trees which weren’t quite tall enough to be visible over the tables, but the confection area had more, along with colorful displays, things were tidier and fixed up, and everything looked fresh and almost forcefully bright.  Except for the skeleton crew of staff.

Dismal, but…

“I expected there to be more people here,” Connor said, as he joined her, interrupting her observations.

There were only three tables of people, when the hospital cafeteria could have maybe sat fifty.

“You got back fast.”

“I gave Rowan the keys.  He and Sher are going to go back to the house, catch some sleep, and look after Declan, Kerry, and Grumble.”

“I’d rather have them close.  All of them.”

“I know.  But for now… it’ll be okay.  Two soldiers are with them.  Things seem to have eased up.  Not that you’d know, seeing the lobby.”

“Yeah,” she said.  It didn’t feel like enough, but what would?

“Food, coffee,” he told her.

She got the largest size of coffee cup, placing it on the tray Connor pulled down.  Then she paused at the baskets of foods in shrink wrap.  Leftovers from yesterday?  There were some triple chocolate muffins.

She shouldn’t, she knew.  She’d regret it later.

She looked at the bagel melts, with a colorful ‘Mr. Fiber!’ sticker on the front of the woven tray they’d been arranged in.  Egg, cheese, and… avocado?  She squinted at it.  Cucumber.  Yeah, that made more sense.

She eyed the muffin briefly, again.

Caught in the crux of the decision, she asked Connor.  “Should I quit my job?”

“W’hem,” he coughed out a sound.  “That’s a question.”

It wasn’t the question she’d had right in front of her, but it was the question that came out.

“Do we move back?” she asked, carrying on instead of stopping.  “Or do you come?  Get you, Kerry, Declan, and your father out of here?  Do we tell Avery, no, doesn’t matter, we’re the parents, that’s it?”

He smoothed the hair on the sides of her head down, then rested his hands there, fingers at the back of her head, palms at the sides, not quite covering her ears.

“I don’t know, dear,” he said.  “It’s complicated.”

His eyes went over her shoulder, glancing.

With his hands where they were, she had to duck her head a bit to see.  The very tired looking middle-aged cafeteria worker was standing there, waiting patiently, a half-smile on her face.

She laid her hands on Connor’s chest.  “I’m-”

My daughter is in the hospital and everything she’s dealing with is bigger than I can wrap my head around.

“Kels?”

“-going to step into the bathroom, rinse my face.”

“I’ll get you food and coffee, have it waiting?” he offered.

She nodded quickly, put the bagel melt on the tray, gave his chest a little pat, and then went.  A group at one table she passed looked like hospital administration, papers and coffees arranged on the table as they leaned over their work, talking in quiet tones.

She had so much work waiting for her.  Eyes were on her after the Compton thing, plus she’d made Noah that promise.

It seemed so far away.  Farther away than a four hour drive.  Insurmountable.

So the words had slipped out.  What if she gave up?

She bent over the sink and rinsed her face.  Moisture welling in her eyes joined the water from her cupped hands and disappeared.

Someone else entered the women’s washroom and glanced at her.

The smile directed Kelsey’s way was sympathetic.  Kelsey offered a smile back, but she suspected the look the woman had given her was because she thought Kelsey was sick.  Face damp, red eyes, no makeup, tired, in a hospital?  Yeah.

She patted her face dry with a brown paper towel, then took a minute to apply some makeup, just to shore herself up a bit.  So she wouldn’t look sick.

Connor was at a table, distant from the other people sitting around the room, and he sat by Jasmine, who wore a jacket over blue scrubs.

Kelsey walked over, then sat.  “Hi.”

“Hi,” Jasmine said.  She had her own coffee.

The bagel melt steamed lightly.  It looked like he’d had them warm it.  He’d prepared her coffee for her, and he’d picked not one but two of the triple-chocolate muffins she’d been eyeing, putting them on the tray.  He was eating his own, breaking off chunks and popping them into his mouth.

“Sorry for that mini-meltdown.  I feel like I have two heads.  A woman in the washroom looked at me funny too.”

“It’s a hospital,” Connor said.  “If someone’s here and having a bad time, I don’t think anyone’s going to be that surprised.”

“Absolutely,” Jasmine said.

“Hey, um,” Kelsey told Jasmine, changing the subject.  “I don’t know if I’ve thanked you for everything with Avery tonight, but-”

“You have.  It’s fine.  We’re friends.  Our daughters are- we’re family, almost,” Jasmine said.  “I don’t see any way we’re not in each other’s lives in a big way, going forward.”

Kelsey smiled, nodding.  “Do you mind if I eat while we talk, or-?”

“Not in the slightest.  I’ve got my coffee.”

Kelsey took a moment, taking a bite.  The bagel part of the melt was dry and not very good, and she washed it down with coffee that was so hot it was only tolerable because the food already in her mouth absorbed most of it.  The rest of the bagel was fine, her issue was mainly the dryness and density of the bready part.

“The work question surprised me,” Connor said.  “I think it might not be a question to be asking at this hour, in this heated a moment.”

Jasmine quirked an eyebrow, so Kelsey, after a moment to consider, answered both him and Jasmine at the same time.  “I’m currently co-leadership with a man named Noah Greene in Thunder Bay.”

“I remember that,” Jasmine said.

“We’re given our leeway and people listen to us if we want to have a voice, but if orders come from higher-ups in Vancouver, we’re meant to adapt.  That’s usually broader strategy-level stuff.  They had word come down about a month after I started in Thunder Bay.  They want a flatter management structure.”

“Fill me in?” Jasmine asked.  “I don’t know the terminology.”

“Removing middle management.  There are bosses, there are employees.  Employees get more independence to navigate through their roles and find out what works, and communicate directly to the bosses.  Also means finding roles for those middle managers.  That’s not easy to begin with, you know.  Egos, relationships.  But that’s something I can do, it’s a challenge, I’ve faced others.”

Connor nodded.  He already knew, though.  They made a point of video calling each other most nights.

“I can break things down into discrete problems that I can tackle, that’s alright.  Five big branches of employee we’re removing middle management from.  Sales, marketing, engineering, innovation, and logistics.  It’s a relief in a way, you know, because problems happen in departments and the managers become an insulating layer.  They handle things- or hide them, and word doesn’t get to us at the top.  Work from marketing gets shunted off to over-stressed workers from sales.  Marketing doesn’t get stuff out on time, which means logistics has to put in the extra hours…  Sorry.  I’m fixated on work, I think, because it’s one thing that makes sense.”

“It’s okay,” Jasmine said.  “It’s a dose of normal.  Sounds like marketing is a common issue, or is that just examples?”

“Our man from marketing…” Compton.  “Let’s call him Russel.  Like a Jack Russell terrier, enthusiasm and drive and nowhere near the level of competence to see it through.  I came to Thunder Bay and I think, with my fresh eyes, I could see what others were missing, because he was charming and brings an energy to the room that covers up a lot of things.”

“Ahhh.  I might know some people here like that… don’t mention I said that,” Jasmine said.

“Same.  It’s unprofessional of me to talk about it, as well,” Kelsey said, putting a finger to her lips briefly.  “Lots of unforced errors that sat for weeks or months before blowing up.  Ticking time bombs.  But Russell was good at dodging the consequences.  He’d charm people into helping him and his department out, and basically hand those ticking time bombs to others.  Or he’d blame economy and changing trends, or claim it was miscommunication.  People liked him.  Noah liked him.”

“People hated him, too,” Connor said.

He’d been paying attention.  Kelsey rubbed Connor’s arm for a moment, smiling.  “There were people who had gotten on the bad side of how he operated and yeah, hated him in a way that was poisonous to everything we were doing.”

“Happens everywhere, I think,” Jasmine said.  “What did you do?”

“I… when we first started talking about things, they were talking about having Russell do what I was doing.  Move him to a place where he could be a leader or co-leader of a major branch.  I drew attention to things, carefully, and they changed to more of a lateral move.  Putting him in Kennet or a place like Kennet for a while, see how he did.  Which I couldn’t do to the man I set up to take over for me, or to the employees I worked with for the last fifteen years.”

“Fair.  Good of you,” Jasmine said.  “You could have said yes and been rid of him.”

“I said no.  I spent… call it political capital, on that no.  So instead of moving up or more laterally, with the middle management role being removed he got demoted.  People want me to… not fail.  But they want me to be wrong, so they can be right about believing in C- in Russell.  That’s one of four things related to the ‘flattening’ that are hanging over my head or Noah’s and my head.  Except they never do things on the one level.  There’s another initiative they’ve been pushing this last year, in concert with the ‘flattening’.  Giving employees ways to train, work with sustainability and environmentally focused organizations…”

“That’s a lot,” Jasmine said.

“It’s fifty percent corporate B.S. meant to look good, but there’s another fifty percent in there that’s a good idea.  The employees are happier, and they get these complicated and involved knowledge bases that don’t easily move to the competition.”

“Which does sound like there’s some corporate B.S. in there,” Connor said, joking a bit.

Kelsey smiled.  “I told Noah I’d handle that side of things.  He’s keeping things running and handling the restructuring, I’m doing my share of externally focused things and handling the employee independence and training options.  It’s part of what I did in Kennet that distinguished me and got me the promotion.  Finding ways to do it in a remote branch like this.  Online, travel.  Getting them to make accommodations, getting our side to sponsor and invest in them.  And I haven’t even made calls I should’ve started making three days ago.  I can’t imagine- I can’t imagine sitting down anytime today to call the people I connected with for the online stuff.”

“How buried are you?” Connor asked.  “Do you need me to shoulder the load or-?”

“I need- I want to take care of my family and sleep for two days straight,” she told him.  Then to Jasmine, she said, “Words slipped out, I said I was thinking about quitting.  Coming to Kennet.  Giving up.  Turning my focus to the most important things.”

“That’d be a bit of a waste,” Jasmine said.  She leaned forward over the table, arms folded with the coffee cup right in front of her.  “All that time developing that career, losing it.  Letting the Russells sneak on by?  Isn’t that a part of why we get worse wages than men?  We’re more willing to sacrifice opportunities and abandon or stall careers to focus on kids and family?”

“In fairness, I did talk about the other option.  Going,” Kelsey said.  “Taking the kids, Connor’s dad.  Sorry.  I know I’m talking about that option like it’s assumed you’d quit, but-”

“I’d quit,” he said.  “I love my job.  I love the people I work with.  But I’d go.  This is scary.  I can pick up where I left off somewhere else.”

It was really, really scary.

Kelsey nodded.

There was a kind of tension that held its sway over the table.

“Can we talk about the girls?” Connor asked, quiet.

“Have to,” Kelsey said.

“Remember when we thought Avery was the easy one of the five?” Connor asked.

Kelsey laughed, high and too loud, in the mostly empty cafeteria.  Heads turned her way.  She didn’t care.

“Lucy never felt that easy,” Jasmine said.

“No?” Kelsey asked.  “You showed me the pictures, where she was this little kid, cute as a button, hearts on the thigh of her overalls, all colors and smiles.”

“She internalizes,” Jasmine said.  “Even then.  She’d laugh out loud and smile when it was time to smile.  But if something went wrong, I could plead, I could hint, I could prod, I could prompt by sharing a bit of myself, she’d keep it to herself until…”

“Bit like Avery on that front,” Connor said.  “Different behaviors at the end of that road, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah,” Jasmine said.  “I guess Verona does the same thing.  They do different things with what they hold inside, that they shouldn’t hold inside.  God.  With Booker, I’d get so frustrated.  He’d do something wrong and Roy and I’d- we’d struggle to find a way to get through to him, and my parents, with me, they’d use the switch.  We had to find our own way, and whatever I did or said to Booker, he wouldn’t care.  Send him to his room, he’d listen to music.  Take away the music and he’d sleep.”

Connor laughed a bit.

Jasmine smiled a bit at that, maybe a bit fondly, too, for the memory of Booker as a child.

“I could make him do chores and he’d find a way to make it fun.  I could bring the misbehavior up an hour later and he’d be dumbfounded, like he’d forgotten or didn’t think it mattered.  It felt like the universe was really testing me sometimes, really making sure I was going to keep that promise to myself, that I wouldn’t physically discipline my kids, then giving me a kid where nothing seemed to work.”

“Ahh, that sounds pretty familiar with most of our five,” Connor said.  “Not quite the same, but… they’re tough sells when it comes to punishment.  Not Avery, though and… not Sheridan.”

“That’s interesting,” Kelsey said, voice soft.  “Yeah, I can see that.  Sheridan pretends she doesn’t care.”

Connor nodded.

Jasmine went on, “I wish Lucy could forget or not care.  I approached her at first like I did Booker, expecting to have to say things three times, no nonsense, clear, blunt, borderline loud.  But I found out that I could come at her with half the intensity and then a day later she’d still be dwelling on it, wary, sulking.  That girl with the hearts on her-”

Jasmine’s voice broke a bit.  She put fingers over her eyes.

Kelsey leaned over to rub Jasmine’s back.

“-on her overalls,” Jasmine managed to say, voice still broken.  She moved her fingers to the sides, leaving streaks of moisture from eye to temple, and blinked a few times.  “Shit, damn.”

“Not even that long ago,” Kelsey said, voice soft.

She got it.  The sheer distance between what they were doing here, and that time, not that long ago.

“She bottles it up, sometimes it explodes.  The Paul thing.  I thought she was doing better, but then the way I saw her react to Anthem?  And that was with me there, when she knew.”

“Throwing herself into danger,” Connor said.

“Sometimes it’s not bottling up.  Sometimes it’s… what I just talked about.  Internalizing.”

“With the company things I was telling you about.  Russell.  The people who hated him.  Frustration, resentment.  It was like poison, for the company.  Like that, but for her as a person?” Kelsey suggested.

Jasmine nodded.

“And Verona?” Connor asked.

“Internalizes, until her body tells her something’s wrong,” Jasmine said.

“I don’t know her that well,” Kelsey admitted.  She asked her husband, “You were tutoring her?”

“She comes to me when she’s stuck on a school thing, with the independent study.  It’s only been a few times.  Half the time, I think she only wants the company.”

“Or someone dad-like,” Jasmine added, under her breath.

Kelsey blew a long, thin stream of air through her mouth, turned to blowing her coffee, and drank.

“Yeah,” Jasmine said, as if she was responding to something Kelsey had said.  “Which is a whole other set of problems, isn’t it?  Does she need someone in her corner, who knows what’s going on, and can parent?  Because I can try, Connor can tutor-”

“I wouldn’t even compare the levels of responsibility or how much- familiarity.  There we go, that’s the word.  You watched her grow up.”

“I might have taken her in, if that really was an option, last summer,” Jasmine said.

“Wow,” Kelsey said.  “That sounds lame, saying ‘wow’ like that, but I- that’s amazing.”

“I love her.  She’s been a great friend to my daughter.  She’s a bright spark.  She is a conundrum sometimes, so independent, but… yeah.  I talked to her mom a bit ago, by the way.”

“Wait, in the middle of the night?” Connor asked.

“She called me.  Brett called her after the fire.  She wanted to know what was happening from a- from me, I guess.  Verifying.  She’s on her way.”

“Oh,” Kelsey said.  “Wow.”

She kept saying that.  It might have been the fatigue.

“I don’t know what the plan is.  But I can guess how Verona will react if her mom does like I expect and tries to take her to Thunder Bay.  Just like I can guess how Avery will react if you guys move out or away from Kennet altogether.  I can guess what Lucy will do if I send her to her Aunt Heather’s until things settle down.”

“They’ll want to stay,” Kelsey said.  “They’ll fight to stay.  Avery will walk a Path and get here and then do what she can.  We could go to the moon and she’d be here.”

“Can take away their phones and they use magic to talk to one another,” Connor said.  “Plot a way to keep doing this.”

“In a situation they’ve unironically, seriously called a war,” Jasmine said.  “One where your bright, empathic, slightly awkward, athletic, warm sweetheart of a daughter got shot.”

Hearing the words felt a bit like getting shot.  Words failed Kelsey.

Jasmine saw and her expression changed, apologetic.  “Sorry.”

“Eat, Kels,” Connor said, quiet.  “You need fuel.  Doesn’t matter if it’s good fuel, let’s just make sure you have the energy to face the coming day.”

She picked up one of the muffins and took a bite.

“They’re doing good things, as far as I can tell,” Connor said.  “Their reason for doing this is good.  They save people.  They want to improve the world, stop… I guess everything we saw tonight?  That would become more normal?”

“They are,” Jasmine agreed.  “I don’t know how to say this, but I’m glad Avery is with them.  I think she tempers- wrong word.  She balances out qualities in the other two that needed that balancing-out.”

“Verona leans into the darker stuff, right?” Kelsey asked.

“I think Verona leans into a variety of stuff, whatever captures her interest, and a lot of that is darker.  Maybe it’s more compelling because it’s more risque.  Maybe there’s a lot of dark stuff out there.  I didn’t fully understand what she meant when she talked about her bookstore, but it seems like she turned something bad to good use.  Her potion healed Avery.”

“Bless her.  Even if the side effects…”

“She survived a gunshot because of that.  That’s what’s important,” Connor said.

“Out of all of us, I think I’ve been the least willing to accept all of this,” Kelsey said.

“I think you helping Avery with the market stuff was good,” Connor said.

“What are you doing?” Kelsey asked.

“Recognizing the good where it happens,” he said.

“I interact with the Garricks to stay involved, I think there are things that are positive. The opossum is cute and I love the idea of Avery having someone to look out for her.  But I feel like, in a better world, with better oversight of all of this, we’d have been invited and we’d have been part of her connecting to Snowdrop.  Damn it, I don’t want to keep being negative, but the past few days have been a waking nightmare.”

“Yeah,” Connor said.  He let out a short, almost derisive laugh, “I can’t believe we thought Avery was the easy one.”

“You have all my sympathies,” Jasmine said, and that much was clear on her face.  It looked like Jasmine might tear up again, which made Kelsey’s own eyes well up.

“I had this patch where I went into business mode,” Kelsey said.  “What can I do?  What’s the worst case scenario?  I talked to Connor about this.”

“I said it was barely a question, but Kels pointed out it is a question,” Connor said.

“What question?” Jasmine asked.

“If we never heard back,” Kelsey said, serious now, eyes moist.  “Or if we heard back and the news wasn’t good news.  What then?  Does the school call?  Do people get involved?  Does our family get investigated?  Torn apart by CAS?  Do they take Declan and Kerry away if they suspect foul play?  Sheridan, even?”

“I’m not sure if it works this way because of how it happened,” Jasmine said, “but if you remember what Miss said, a lot of this stuff gets covered up, automatically.  Without that, I think the locals would take steps to protect us, for the girls’ sake.”

“Isn’t that scarier, in its own way?  What would we tell our kids?” Kelsey asked.  “Sheridan?  Declan?  Kerry?”

“I don’t know,” Jasmine replied.

“Is it irresponsible of us to not take them away?”

“I don’t know,” Jasmine replied.

“If the tables were turned, and I was in Sylvia’s position… If Connor and I weren’t on good terms, if we divorced and if the kids didn’t follow me to Thunder Bay, if we were estranged, a little, with lots of complicated feelings around the divorce mucking things up?  If it was Sylvia and Brett and you sitting at this table, with a sense that I have a career, and I’m not suited for all of this?  How do I feel about that hypothetical me being left in the dark?”

“When bringing her out of the dark has its price?” Connor asked.  “Potentially stalling this Connor-less Kelsey’s career?”

“I don’t want to get too far into the hypothetical,” Kelsey admitted.  “But how would I feel?  How would you feel, Jasmine?”

“I don’t have to think very far back,” Jasmine replied.  “I remember how I felt when I realized.  And Connor, I don’t think it stalls your career unless you take it into account in how you do things.  I don’t think.”

“Hmm.  Okay,” he said.  “We had talks about where we want to be.  Kelsey’s hopes and if she’d take more promotions, say, a decade down the line.  We thought it would be harder.  But we accepted it was the cost of opening up the world to the kids.”

“But this world?” Kelsey asked.  “War?”

“Definitely a harder ask,” he said.

“I met with Sylvia a few times, in Thunder Bay,” Kelsey said  “Once with Verona in tow, kids meeting.  A few times just as lunch meetings.  Introduced me to people.  She’s a networker.  One person was- someone I really need to call for work, but instrumental for what I’m doing.  She’s helped me.”

“I like her,” Connor said.

“And then I feel like I’m spitting in her face, keeping silent.  Not just- not just about magic and it existing.  But Verona’s going down a path.  She’s pursuing things and dabbling in things, and as a parent, how can she deal with that, if she doesn’t know and nobody tells her?  It’s like, if she was in a gang- if Verona was.  And we didn’t say?”

“I don’t think it’s really like that,” Jasmine said.

“I- yeah, okay, but, you understand what I mean?  Verona and the abuse.  What Brett was doing.  Is doing?  If we’d known and never told her?”

“I don’t think it’s like that either.”

Frustrated, Kelsey rested her forehead against her closed fist, elbow on the table.  “I’m tired.  I barely slept and I cried myself to sleep so hard, last night, I think I woke up more drained than when my head first touched the pillow.”

“I do get what you mean.  I do,” Jasmine said.  “Even if the analogies aren’t perfect.”

Kelsey lifted her head.

“I get it,” Jasmine said, seriously, with a lot of emotion in her voice.  “But I want to be careful.  Because I didn’t sleep very well either, even-”

Again, Jasmine’s voice cracked.

“-secondhand.”

Kelsey nodded quickly, using a fingernail to scrape away a mascara-stained tear from her cheekbone.  What had she been thinking, putting makeup on like this?  Knowing this conversation was happening?

Jasmine’s voice was low and serious.  “Whatever decisions we make tonight- this morning.  Or as a result of this?  We have to live with them.  The girls have to live with them.  And you’d better believe they’re sharp enough they’ll call us out if we’re doing it because of emotion, or anything like that.”

“Or they won’t call us out,” Connor said.  “They’ll ignore us.”

“Aren’t they already, a little?  I don’t think we’re getting the full story.  I’m going to bring up Verona again,” Jasmine said.  “Have you two met that cat?”

“Julette?  The copy?  I did a double take when I saw her,” Kelsey said.

“I think she’s spent more time away from her dad than she’s implying.  Having the copy as a stand-in.”

“Where does she go?” Kelsey asked.

“The Demesne.  Her special magic house where everything is comfortable and easier,” Jasmine said.  “Which- I can’t blame her.  But she’s a teenager with an interest in sex who interacts with elements like… the thirteen year old girl with the tattoos, there’s McCauleigh.  There’s, ah, the Oakham girl.  Verona deals with Kennet below in general.  She’s a girl of a creative, dark, and daring attitude with access to a crowd of dark and daring peers.  And she has a secret house.  What do you think she’s doing?”

“She’s fourteen,” Kelsey said.  “What, you don’t think she’s… active?”

“I know she’s active,” Jasmine said.  “I made condoms available to both the girls at the same time other hygiene needs were being met.  A few weeks later I went to get a reusable shopping bag and there was a receipt in the bottom.  I checked to see if it was mine – I deduct anything for work from when I was doing the at-home nursing.  Definitely Verona, and she bought another box.”

“Aha,” Connor said.  “At least she’s using them.”

“At least,” Jasmine said.  “Still, that’s at pace with when I was married with a loving husband and, um, in my prime, let’s say.”

“Could she be giving them away?” Kelsey asked.  “If she’s with these kids who…”

Jasmine seemed to consider for a second.  “That’s… actually pretty likely.  It fits her.  It fits how she interacts with them… Yeah.”

Kelsey felt a bit relieved.

Jasmine switched from mulling it over as she talked slowly to a pretty quick, firm, “But I also think she’s a teenager with an avid interest in the physical side of boys, access to boys, and a secret house.  Draw your conclusions.”

Connor clicked his tongue.  “Yeah.”

“Are Avery and Lucy…?” Kelsey asked.

“My read on things, admittedly biased, is that my daughter is taking her time, still gets shy about holding hands, and wants to find the right person.  Which is lovely and much easier to engage with.  Avery…”

Kelsey was aware she was a little on edge as Jasmine trailed off, considering.

“…is in a similar-ish place, I think.  From what little I saw of Nora and Avery together, they’re both a little nervous, and I think they’re good together.”

Kelsey relaxed.  She flashed a little smile at Connor.

“To get back to my point, though, they have the power to get away with so much.  There’s a lot we’ve been talking about as we go, be careful, the girls are capable of doing this, watch out for that, they can’t lie so you can’t ask them this, watch out for ‘I thinks’ and that kind of language…”

Kelsey nodded along.

“But sometimes you sit back and take it in aggregate?”

Connor asked, “Do you have those moments where you want to slap your forehead, because you think back to a weird little conversation or incident and realize, magic?”

“It makes me die inside a little,” Jasmine said.

“Like, holy hell,” Connor whispered, leaning forward.  “There was a time I was talking to Avery in the middle of the usual family hustle and bustle, something was odd, and I look back and I think, that wasn’t my daughter.”

“I remember last quarter of summer, when Verona was staying with me, Verona was being weird, the responses were awkward, and I called her out on it.  She panicked.  I remarked on it to Lucy, after, and she seemed exasperated.  I think… I think they were training or practicing how to make the dolls… the ones they dress up as themselves with the fairy magic.  Julette, the cat, she’s one, they made her permanent, I think?  And they weren’t good at making them yet.”

“Oh, that’s weirrrrd,” Kelsey murmured.  “Because they did get good at making them, right?”

Jasmine nodded slowly.

“Family policy, swat all our kids firmly in the back of the head as a form of greeting?” Connor asked, smiling.

“Not that funny,” Jasmine said.

“Right.  Sorry.  Buckets of cold water out of nowhere?  That works, right?  Good morning, splash.  Ready for dinner? Splash.  You’re grounded and I think you might’ve snuck off?  Splash.”

“Funnier,” Jasmine said.  “But the whole situation, the dynamic…?”

Kelsey nodded.  “And it goes back to what I was saying about Sylvia, and to a lesser extent Brett.  They’re unarmed in this fight.  We’re scrambling to keep up and stay aware and they don’t know.  That’s rotten.”

“Let’s…” Jasmine considered, weighing her words.  “Let’s let Brett earn back Verona’s and our trust before we give him any information that could be used against Verona.  I’d rather equip Sylvia with the right knowledge or find some other option.”

“Things are still that bad?  I know CAS intervened, and he’s backslid some, but…?”

“Still bad,” Jasmine said.  “Worse in ways.  His tenants creeped on Verona and he was resistant when she tried to veto them.”

Kelsey felt a sadness settle into her chest at that.  “I really hoped.”

Jasmine shrugged slightly, hands around her coffee cup.

“House burned down, so that solves that problem, huh?” Connor asked.

“Solves the symptom, maybe.  But the problem?  No,” Jasmine replied.  “It’s worth keeping an eye out for her, by the way.  It wasn’t a home anymore, but she had a lot of herself and her things in that place.  Years of art.  Things she’d collected.”

Connor nodded.

“Okay,” Kelsey said.  She sat back, picking apart the muffin, eating some.  “Enough moping.  Game plan.”

She saw Connor sit up a little straighter, nodding.  More serious, now.  He knew what wavelength she was on.

“Non-negotiables?” Kelsey asked.

“Kids stay safe,” Connor said.

“I don’t ever want Avery in that kind of danger again,” Kelsey said.  “And I don’t ever want to be in that position I was in these past few days.  I don’t want you in that position.  I don’t want Sheridan or Rowan knowing and agonizing quietly over it.  I don’t want Declan, Grumble, and Kerry sensing something’s wrong but not being able to know or do anything about it.”

“There’s always going to be danger.  The kinds of things Avery does?” Jasmine asked.

“I try to tell myself it’s like she’s into surfing, or rock climbing.  It’s easier to make that leap from my mental picture of who she was to who she is now.  I’ve talked a lot with the Garricks about it.  But this- the war?”

“Fighting someone with everything to lose,” Connor said.  “Who will apparently do anything to protect himself.”

“It’s the endless nature of it,” Kelsey said.  “I think it’s hurting the girls more than they know.  We talk about this being like poison, and… it’s poisoning them in little ways.  They’re great.  They’re brilliant, they’re brave.  But they’re tired, they’re getting hurt more, I think they’re hurting others more.”

Jasmine sighed.  “The Sylvia thing.  Sylvia needs to know, or Verona needs to go live with her mom, or we need to find something sustainable and workable.  But it’s dawning on me just how little she’s been with her dad.”

“That’s a non-negotiable?” Kelsey asked.

“Yeah,” Jasmine replied.  “Verona is fourteen.  She’s independent as hell, she’s setting up the bookstore as a project, she’s been involved with the market, and that’s great, she’s probably eating better than she was with her dad, and I’m thinking worse than when she was with me.  I’m pretty sure that house can’t burn down, flood, or anything like that.”

“There could be magical things that happen to a personal place like that that we don’t know about,” Connor said.  “I dunno, like… magic house cancer?  House gets a mind of its own and all the furniture starts moving around and rebelling?”

“Okay,” Jasmine said.  “That’s… yes.  If we’re weighing options and considering where she’s at, there may be things we don’t know.  I can ask, but yeah.  But she’s fourteen.  She wanted to stay in Kennet, she wanted to stay to fight in this war.  Not because of her dad.”

Kelsey nodded.

“She’s been avoiding him more than she’s been letting on, I think.  All considered… Verona needs a parent.”

“How’s Lucy?” Kelsey asked.  “Where’s Lucy at?  Avery got shot, Verona’s definitely… detaching.  But Lucy?  I don’t want to neglect her.”

Jasmine flashed a little, tight smile, like a little ‘thank you’.  Then she dropped the smile.  “That mental picture of her, a day after I’ve been upset at her?  Wary and almost disappointed in me?  That’s still her.  Losing John, she’s been carrying that for four months and she’ll be carrying it a year from now, I think.  Guilherme too, to a lesser degree.  She comes back from afternoon or weekend morning training with him in a mood, sometimes.  Like she doesn’t realize a light went out in him and then she’s a little less light when she’s spent an hour or so interacting with him.”

“Any non-negotiables?” Kelsey asked.  “For Lucy?”

“I-” Jasmine stopped herself.

“Say it,” Kelsey said.

“She’s mine.  My daughter.  Not the Dog Tags’.”

“Is that a concern?” Connor asked.

“Practically?  No.  But as a feeling?  This- this situation?  The war they’re set on fighting?  I couldn’t point to a nightmare, I don’t really dream, but if I had one, I feel like it would be me, watching her leave the house like she’s a kid going off to her first day in kindergarten, but she’s older, wearing that red jacket instead of the yellow raincoat she wore before kindergarten.  And the Dog Tags are all there, in a group, to welcome her in.”

“Have you spent time with them?” Connor asked.

“Some.”

“They’re pretty good people, and I don’t think they’re after Lucy in any way, like that.”

“They are… some good.  Some damaged.  Some dangerous.  I’ve had the full rotation, going to and from the hospital with escorts.”

Connor nodded.

“It’s not that I think they’re going to kidnap her or anything like that.  I don’t want War to have her.  This war, or War in general.  I don’t want this to be her life.  I don’t want that to be her family, getting the big moments, the time, the affection.  If that’s what she decides when she’s older, that’s one thing, but I don’t think- I don’t think I’ve done so badly as a mom that War should get them instead of me.  Does that make sense?”

“I don’t think you’ve done that badly as a mom at all,” Connor told her.

“I think we’re mostly on the same page,” Kelsey said.  “That this isn’t good for them.  That we’re struggling to parent them.  Especially with the outside forces pressing in, and the trajectories they’re taking.”

Connor nodded.

“The option that leaps to mind is leaving,” Kelsey said.  “I told Avery she put in the time, she bled, I don’t think anyone can tell her she hasn’t given her all.  But they’d find their way back, and we’d lose a bit more of our ability to parent, and we’d lose them, a little bit of their faith, trust, we’d lose that.”

“So do we rule it out?” Jasmine asked.  “Or do we leave and… enable?  Let them use Paths to get in, do things in a limited way?  Require permission?  Because as I’m saying that, trying to imagine it, I can’t- I think of War taking Lucy again.  Of her having that trajectory.”

“There’s nothing we can take away or manage, that would let us put a rein on things?” Connor asked.  “So we can tell them that yes, they can do this, but they need a better mission plan, they can’t be reacting, then reacting to the reaction to their reaction?”

“Nothing we can take away,” Jasmine said.  “Except forcing them to lie so they’ll be gainsaid.  But if we do that, we’ll break our bonds with them.  No.”

Connor nodded.

“So the question is, and this is a horrible, horrible question,” Kelsey ventured.  “Is this a situation where it’s worth breaking or damaging our bonds with our own kids, if it keeps them safe?  Avery almost died, that’s the last straw, we will never go through three days of agony again, we will not let the three of them face that level of risk, at least in the face of… of evil, of someone dangerous actively trying to hurt them.  We will try to take them away, we will make them lie and lose their magic if we believe they’ll try to slip past us.  But that’s it.  Then we hope they forgive us when they’re older and looking back.”

Jasmine’s finger stabbed the table, and remained there, pressing down.  “Point of clarification.”

“Please.”

“We can’t and won’t control them forever.  So it’s really until they turn eighteen.  Four years.  Less than.”

“That’s time they can prepare, grow, take stock…”

“Yeah,” Jasmine said.  The finger remained where it was.  “And when you say ‘we’ll gainsay them’, you mean we’d try.”

Kelsey nodded.  “Implicit in all of this is… we’re saying it’s us or this.  I hate that, that I’m throwing down such a horrible ultimatum, but it scares me to death that it’s a question of whether-”

She had to pause, composing herself.

“-If we’re willing to sacrifice our relationships with our own kids if it means they’re alive in two years.”

“Or we lose both.  We upset them, break their trust, and they keep going, until they’re possibly…” Jasmine trailed off.

“I’d hope they’d know, even in their reaction to this, that we’re doing it out of love and concern.

Connor looked like he was ready to cry.  “I’m flashing back to this summer.  I fumbled things with Avery after her coming out.  I fumbled things with Declan on top of it.”

“And her grandfather,” Jasmine said.

“That’s- I’m not sure I can see it as a fumble.  I don’t think there’s a clear solution.  He’s old, I’m mentally reducing my best guess on how long he might be with us after every single doctor’s visit.  He’s stubborn and set in his ways.  I’ve tried pushing back, and joking, and other things, but he’s teflon.”

“You’re spending how many minutes talking to him?” Jasmine asked.

“I don’t know.”

“And he’s spent how many total hours in front of that TV, with regular broadcasts?”

“If I push or try to convince him, matching or making up for that, what is that, except months or a few years of bitter, ugly arguing that puts Avery in the spotlight, accomplishing nothing except making my dad’s final years bitter and angry, the house unpleasant and toxic to be in?”

“It’s months or years of Avery having those news broadcasts and her grandfather getting vocally angry about her, Connor.”

“Not about her, he loves her.  She’s the apple of his eye, not to be corny or anything.”

“It’s about her, Connor.  Who she is, it’s about the girl she loves and the girls she’s going to love in the future.  It’s about Zed, a role model and peer.  It’s about her friend Jessica, it’s about her.  It’s hate, punctuating those broadcasts, constant and carefully fabricated so it worms into the public consciousness, poisons it, so it earns ad dollars, so it serves political ends for friends and allies of the people who run or put their faces on these networks, creating a ‘them’ for your father to be angry at.  And your daughter is a ‘them‘, here.”

Connor looked miserable, where he’d been putting on a brave face before.

It was Kelsey’s instinct to reach out and support, to put a hand on his arm.  She held off.  They’d talked about this on some levels before, but nothing as blunt as Jasmine was putting it.

“If it’s not months or years of you doing something about your dad, it’s months or years of Avery knowing that you weren’t willing to stand up for her, and that you’d let things slide.  You want to talk about what we’re willing to sacrifice for our kids’ well being?  This counts.”

“I’ve been getting him to cut back a lot.”

“But it’s still on, for an hour in the morning and at primetime, just before dinner,” Kelsey gently corrected.  “Times when Avery’s most likely to be around, when she’s in town.”

“Is he tech savvy?  Because you can block certain websites, I think,” Jasmine suggested.

“Yeah, I mean, no- he’s not tech savvy.  Yeah, I know you can do that.  He doesn’t use the internet for much except the rare email and the once-a-season video call with relatives overseas.”

“TV channels can be blocked.  Or de-listed from the channel browser.”

“I thought about it, but he’d get upset.  Censorship, he’d explode.  It’s worse, all the bad stuff would come out.  Is it right, to take that choice from him?  He doesn’t get many.  But you’re going to ask if it’s right to have it on in the house.  Right.”

“We can find a time,” Kelsey said.  “If Avery needs to stay near the hospital, we say we need things quiet and light.  No TV for a bit.”

“I don’t think she needs to,” Jasmine said.  “I don’t know her full story, but I think she’s healed.  Bone healed a little funny but not in a way that should impact her.”

“Or we let the blow-up happen when she’s not around.  We can make plans for Declan and Kerry,” Kelsey said.  “Send them to a friend’s house for the night he realizes the channel isn’t there.”

“I can’t tell you what to do or how to handle your family.  I have family members where our relationship is warped in its own way, where people could criticize me for what I do,” Jasmine said.  “You know your dad better than I ever could.  But you can take steps to make sure that the next time Avery comes home, that’s not on TV, and it’s never on TV when she’s home- or ever.  You can take steps to protect Declan and Kerry- we don’t know who they’re going to be as they grow up, but straight or not, cis or not, they’re going out into the world with or without that background noise of the voice on the TV in their heads, subtly informing them.  You can try to push back against your dad, so there’s a chance her last memories are of acceptance.”

“I don’t think there’s a good chance of that,” he said.

“Okay.  You can do some or all or any of that.  But if you don’t do anything, just know what that stands for.”

“Avery’s Wolf is someone old,” Kelsey said.  “Her- her nemesis?  Her personal demon?  I read that in the notes they showed us and it made me really sad.”

Connor thought about it for a moment, then he nodded a little.

“That a yes?” Kelsey asked.  “TV controls, we strategize around that?”

Connor nodded again, looking glum.  But maybe a bit relieved too.

“We could have Declan and Kerry come to Thunder Bay for a brief bit.  A week with a long weekend, so they only miss three or four days of school.  Use her sister being recently hospitalized as an excuse.  You can focus one hundred percent on your dad,” Kelsey said.

“That won’t exhaust Avery?” Jasmine asked.

“It will.  But it’s not about physical health, right?  She’s healed?  The way Snowdrop explained it, if I understood her right -really a skill you have to learn- it’s about heart.  About who you are.  So… family.  Foods she likes.  Mmm… skating?”

“Time with Nora,” Connor said, voice soft.  “You know that’d heal her heart more than Kerry climbing on her, wiping snot with glitter somehow in it on her, or any of that.”

“From what I gather, things have been tense, with her pulled away by… this.”

“I want her to have that,” he said.  “Without that tension.”

Jasmine nodded.

“What I was saying, though?  Sorry, to pull us so far off track.  I know what it’s like to have your daughter disappointed in you.  Upset at a- on a deep level,” Connor said.  He picked up a napkin and touched it to his eye to blot out the tears.  “I feel like Avery would be angrier at me, after a big ultimatum on the magic, because I’ve failed her so badly, so recently.”

“I think I let her down when I wasn’t able to come to grips with the magic on the level she needed, as fast as she needed,” Kelsey said.  “So you’re not totally alone.”

“But?” Jasmine asked.  She moved her hands, miming scales.

“I’d rather have her alive but unhappy than risk the alternative.”

“What happens?” Connor asked.  “What do we think their response will be?”

“If I say it’s me or them?” Jasmine asked.  “Me.  Lucy would choose me.  But I think there would be that look of wary hurt on her face for… for a long time.  I think, for her, she’d feel like injustice had won.  That would be hard for her to carry.”

“Other people can fight.  You’ve said that repeatedly,” Kelsey told Jasmine.

“Yeah.  It’s not just the three of them.  But if she wasn’t there?”

“Avery…” Connor ventured.  “If we asked her right now?  I think she’d say us.  I think she’d go to Thunder Bay, I think she’d spend time with Nora.  I think she’d reclaim some ‘normal’.  But over time?  She explores, she stays in touch with people.  I think she’d drift that way.  Back toward wanting to do something.”

“And Verona?” Kelsey asked.

“I asked her outright,” Jasmine replied.  “She said she’s in this to back up Avery and Lucy.  If they say they’re out, I think she’s out too.”

“Simple enough,” Connor replied.

“But.”

“I think the way she works?  It would tickle the back of her brain.  I think she’d dwell on it.  It doesn’t matter if she’s with Sylvia or not, it doesn’t matter if Sylvia knows or not, Verona’s going to find a way to pursue this stuff.  She lives for it in a way Lucy doesn’t.  Put those together, and I don’t see a world where she isn’t going out there with a big magic or special magic bullet ready to solve the problem and stop it from nagging at her.”

“And she’d pull the others in as part of that.  Either telling them, or they find out and…”

“Yeah,” Jasmine replied.

“So does the ultimatum even work, then?” Connor asked.  “We failed Avery-”

Kelsey let out a little sound, almost a sob.

“-We did.  We missed something vital that was going on.  So she was pulled into this, because she was vulnerable at that moment.  Verona’s dad was abusive.  So she was vulnerable, she got pulled into this.  And Jasmine-”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Kelsey said.

“I did some things wrong.  I didn’t realize how it was adding up.”

“-You’re a good mom,” Connor said.  “But the world, the world let her down.”

“Disappointed her.”

“And she wanted to fix it and that was a vulnerability, that was- that let her get pulled in.  That’s the reality, as I understand it,” Connor said.  “So… we lose the ability to be parents, here?  To shelter our kids?  Because they are kids.  I know Lucy has that thing, she stresses they’re teenagers, but that’s not a stable state, you know?  Being a teenager isn’t- it’s not a set of traits you can add up together, it’s not… being a teenager means being a kid sometimes and being an adult sometimes and they rubber band between those things in ways that can even scare them or throw them for a loop.”

Kelsey nodded.

Connor went on, “They can be really mature and adult sometimes, and they can be vulnerable, scared, and curling up with a fuzzy animal, because the world’s too much for them.  And you never know what parts of them are going to leap forward and be really adult and what parts are going to stay surprisingly ‘kid’ even when they’re eighteen.  We’ve got to at least try to protect them when they’re rubber-banded into the kid parts.”

“We can try,” Kelsey said.  “We can do what works, accepting they may not like us much, even if they love us and even if we’re acting out of love and concern.  We can anticipate that Verona might try to tackle this, or that Avery might get pulled into it, and take steps.  Again, it’s got to be better than the alternative.”

“It shouldn’t be this hard,” Connor said.  “Or hopeless.”

Kelsey’s coffee was empty and she really wanted more, but she felt like if she got up, she’d want to go to Avery’s room, not back to this table and this conversation.

She thought about options.

“Do you think he’s listening?”

“The enemy?” Connor asked.

Kelsey nodded.

“Probably, I guess.  I would be.”

“Do you think he’s happy, licking his lips, fingers crossed?” Kelsey asked, miserable.  “Thinking, ‘it sure would be convenient if those parents convinced the kids to give up the war’?”

“You’re not thinking of making any kind of deal with him, are you?” Jasmine asked.

“No,” Kelsey said.  “That’s a whole other kind of betrayal, isn’t it?  I don’t hate what they’re fighting for.  I don’t like what Charles Abrams is about.  I wouldn’t do something that’s that far in the wrong direction, when the girls are after peace and connecting communities and finding a good way forward.  But I wish it wasn’t them.”

Which was the conundrum.

She considered going to get that coffee.  Maybe if a thought or idea crossed her mind, it could bring her back to this table.

Jasmine’s phone on the corner of the table blooped, and all three of them jumped.  The shadow of Charles Abrams that fresh in their minds, after talking about him.

“Is that Sylvia?” Connor asked.

Jasmine nodded.

“Is she close enough to join this?”

“No.  Two hours out, still.”

“I think we should let Verona decide between the options with her mom,” Connor said. “I think it’s her right.”

“I’m going to get more coffee…” Kelsey said.  She paused, then admitted, “And check on the kids.”

They were asking if the kids were willing to forfeit, but saying that felt like a forfeit.  She wasn’t sure she could come to this table and find a solution.

“I’ll come,” Connor said.  “Eat.  Especially if you’re chugging caffeine.  Your stomach’s too empty, you get another of your caffeine headaches.”

Kelsey bit into a triple chocolate muffin, giving Connor a look.

Jasmine picked up her things too.

It felt like Charles Abrams was watching them.  The man who’d shot her daughter, or had others shoot her.  The right thing to do felt like the thing he wanted most.

She got her coffee, tipped the very tired-seeming cashier again, then they walked out into the hallway.

Dog Tags standing by the cafeteria entrance, chatting in low voices, separated.  Mark went ahead, while Angel hung back.

Mark clearing the away, Angel trailing behind them, out of earshot, keeping an eye on their rear.

I have so much work to do, she thought.  Real life didn’t get put on pause for the big work things.

“That’s such a gloomy little cafeteria, no offense,” Kelsey said.

“No, it’s fine,” Jasmine said.  “I usually bring food and eat in the staff room.”

“Too bad we don’t have that option.  You know, it’s gloomy, but…”

“But?” Jasmine asked.

“I’m still on the fence about work.  And there’s a part of Kennet that’s… it’s home.”

“It is,” Jasmine said.

“Even the run down parts.  Did you have Lucy here?”

“I did.  You?”

“Yep.  Yeah.  I was only in the cafeteria once, though, and I was pretty out of it after Avery.  Each of them threw me for a loop, you know.  Different ways.  Rowan was the first, so obviously that’s scary.  Sheridan baked in the oven for a while, but Avery…”

“Oh god,” Connor said.

“Was it a tough birth?” Jasmine asked.

“Nine and a half pounds.  Rolls of baby fat.  Not that you’d know now, she’s so lean.  I don’t know how I’m functional after that.  Declan scared the daylight out us when he stopped breathing.  Kerry tucked hands under armpits, elbows out, knee up in an awkward way, little contortionist.”

“You got to know that cafeteria pretty well?” Jasmine asked.

“In the aftermath, for sure,” Connor replied.

“Sylvia insisted on going to the city.  It was a point of contention Brett would bring up years later.”

Avery was there, sleeping, sprawled out.  Lucy had pulled up one of the cushy chairs and sat in it, head, chest, and arms on the bed, sleeping, with Avery’s leg butting up against the top of her head.

Verona had taken Snowdrop for whatever reason, and was curled up in the other cushy chair in the corner, feet pulled onto the chair, Snowdrop in the ‘u’ of body and legs.

Kelsey, Connor, and Jasmine lingered in the doorway, looking at the sleeping girls.  Did Jasmine see the criss-crossing of pale marks on the back of Lucy’s hand, that stretched across the bed and towards them, like a silent reaching out?  That hadn’t been there the last time Kelsey had seen Lucy.  How much hurt was that?  Healed up and meant to be forgotten?

Their babies.

Jasmine’s arm was braced against the doorframe as she peered around, and the hand at the end of that arm clenched.  Jasmine had been holding things together, but the occasional thought, like a younger Lucy, would make her crack, breaking for a moment, before she pulled it together again.  This was different.

Kelsey could almost read her mind.

And there, in that anger, there was maybe a possibility.

Like with her work, with Russel, if the situation wasn’t working, and there was no clear path forward, the dynamic needed to change.

Months Ago

Jasmine’s fist clenched.

Kelsey and Connor followed, Kelsey’s eyes roving, taking in the odd vistas.  The buildings that seemed familiar but weren’t ones belonging to the town she’d spent twenty years living in.

“I think we’re hoping the river can become a canal, it would be really interesting,” the foundling girl talked a mile a minute.  “It could be a way for those of us who work to get to work.  I don’t know if you’re aware, but we do have that option, it’s going to be so interesting to see how-”

“Um, miss, or- kid?” Connor asked.

“Luna Hare,” the girl said, crisp, turning to face them, hands clasped behind her back, her eyes black and eerie, the expression of the rabbit mask flat and unchanging.  “Guide, errand runner, and possibly other things, I suppose we’ll see.  If you have any questions or if you need anything, do let me know.  I do believe I already introduced myself.”

“It’s been a lot,” Kelsey said.

“Of course.”

“Can we just have a bit more time to take it in, quietly, with our thoughts?” Connor asked.

Luna nodded.  Her head tilted slightly.  “You’re mad.”

Kelsey looked at Jasmine’s clenched fists.

“Not at you,” Kelsey said.

“If you’re mad at Miss, that might be a problem.  If you’re a danger, um, you should know there’s no violence-”

“We want to talk,” Jasmine interrupted.

“Can you give us some quiet on the way, so we can compose our thoughts, and make it a nicer talk?” Kelsey asked.

“Of course.  I’ll lead the way.”

Luna turned and walked ahead, hands still clasped behind her.

It was a winding path, and Kelsey didn’t know if it was meant to be scenic, or meant to give them time to cool down, or if all the paths were winding and scenic here in this new Kennet.  It looked like they could be.

Luna had to do a puzzle at a gate to open it, which made another two gates swing closed.  Some foundlings ducked through as if they were cars trying to beat a red light.

They walked to the town hall, which was more elaborate and fancy than anything in Kennet.  Like some Victorian university, gray stone cast in a blue tint by the perpetual twilight, clocktower at the top, and birds flying out with papers in beaks and talons.

They went up a set of stairs, around the catwalk-like second floor that looked down on the fluttering papers that were collected and sorted in the lobby, and around to the back half of the second floor, where Miss was sorting things out, penning the occasional paper, while her subordinates milled around her.

“Give us some privacy?” Miss asked.

The foundlings that were going this way and that didn’t even miss a beat.  They went from speed-walking from shelf to counter to desk to shelf again to speed walking out of the space.

Luna ducked her head in a curtsy-bow type gesture, then hurried off the way she’d come.  Kelsey watched as the girl went over to the counters, and it looked like she was offering help.

“I expected this meeting,” Miss said.  “Can I offer you anything?”

“Answers,” Jasmine said.

“I was thinking more along the lines of tea and biscuits.  There are rules for hospitality.”

“I was thinking of harsher words than an ask for answers,” Jasmine said.  “Loud and rude and harsh- would it matter?  Could anything I say change how these people you’ve made for your little town see you?”

“Yes.  I spent too long dealing with enemies who aren’t held accountable, I want them to question me.  We may be in a bit of a honeymoon period, and I don’t know how this goes in the long run, when I’m tied into this place.  But they can leave.  Go to another side of Kennet, or leave Kennet altogether.”

“This argument has been raging in my head ever since I found out what’s been going on.  The secrets you’ve kept.  That you used an underhanded method to target vulnerable children and make them your champions?  I’ve had a hundred ‘how dare you’ statements, a hundred ‘you had no right’ arguments pass through my head,” Jasmine said.

“It’s not that different for me and Connor,” Kelsey said.

“It wasn’t meant to become what it did.  From the beginning, they were told they only needed to serve a symbolic role, to do the bare minimum.”

“In the notes,” Jasmine said, voice a little louder and firmer now.  “It says you can see into people.  You can read them, interpret them, see their character.  You had to know that Lucy- that the others, that they’d take this tack.  That they wouldn’t, couldn’t do the bare minimum.”

She circled the long table at the center of the administrative area as she talked.  Miss moved aside, moving around the table too, and birds that flew through the air blocked the view of her face.

“Stop that,” Jasmine said.

“It’s as much a part of me as your hair is a part of you.”

“Stop avoiding me.  Moving away.  Is that a part of you?”

“In a way.”

“Can you see into the depths of people?  Did you know that they’d do what they’re doing?”

“Only to an extent.”

“Are you dodging the question?” Jasmine asked.

Connor, hand at the small of Kelsey’s back, walked with Kelsey to the corner of the table, cutting off Miss’s retreat away from Jasmine.

Kelsey glanced back and saw the foundlings of the administrative building taking notice.  Jasmine’s sharp, harsh words in the library-like space were attention getting enough, but there might have been more to it.  Like they were poking the queen bee and the hive was taking notice.

At least fifty masked faces were turned their way.

“Stop backing away,” Jasmine said, as Miss moved toward bookshelves, instead of Connor and Kelsey.  She swatted angrily at the papers that started flying through the air, blocking the view of Miss’s face.  She moved her head.  “Face me!”

“I can’t.  I don’t have a face.”

“Are you going to evade?  Dodge?  Use weasel word phrasing until you get to one that the notes haven’t covered?” Jasmine asked.  “You used my daughter – our daughters!  For your agenda.”

“I’ve given things up too.  Locking myself into this, becoming this.”

“For your agenda!  But they’re the ones out there, facing the danger.”

“I got shot.”

“For your plan!  For your dream!”

“For your fight against Charles,” Kelsey said, arms folded.

“It’s their fight too.  It’s the fight of a lot of us.”

“Don’t evade, don’t dodge,” Jasmine said.

“It’s what I am.  It’s in the name.”

“That sounds like a dodge on its own,” Connor said.

“If you’ll allow me…” Miss said.

Things shifted, like furniture was moving, but it wasn’t.  It was in the ceiling and walls.

A mask fell from the ceiling, hanging by a chain.

Miss settled, standing there amid the bookshelves, the mask of a woman with closed eyes facing them, blocking the view of her face.

“What am I supposed to say?  The dramatic lines feel like they’d fall flat,” Jasmine told Miss.  “How dare you?  They’re children.  But it doesn’t- it doesn’t come close to matching the anger, the outrage.”

“I’m not angry or outraged,” Kelsey said.

Miss turned her way, the mask rotating.

“But I could be.  I’d really like a reason to not despise you, to understand you.  Some reason to not have you as an enemy.  Because if you can’t give us good answers and if you really did put our daughters up to this, then you’re someone to keep them away from.”

“You haven’t done your job, keeping them safe.  Letting them live their lives.  You haven’t supported them nearly enough for what you’re asking of them,” Jasmine said.

“Dangerous words,” Miss replied.  “I made oaths.  I’ve tried.”

“Dangerous to do what you did with them and then fail them.”

“Give us an answer?” Kelsey asked.  “Help us understand?”

“I don’t know if the answers are good ones,” Miss said.

“Try?” Kelsey asked.

“They’re stellar, exceptionally capable girls.”

“They are,” Connor said.  “This phantom town, a lot of it was them, wasn’t it?”

“Lost town.  Founded town.  Yes.  They’re- if it wasn’t them, then it would be someone else.  Or you would be asking a vulnerable population to not find someone to help protect them.”

“They’re children,” Jasmine replied.

“Children pick up the practice faster, the younger they are.  Obviously there is a balance.  The very young lie and get gainsaid.  And being children meant they could fly under certain radars.  They could attend the magic school.”

“Where someone died,” Jasmine replied.

“It meant the conspirators could underestimate them.”

“They won anyway,” Jasmine said.

“That’s not yet decided.  We’re still struggling.”

“They’re still children.”

“Is that your motte, then, Mrs. Ellingson?  Your position you’ll retreat to?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.  I’d say they’re children and you haven’t really acknowledged that fact.”

“I acknowledge it.  But fine.  If that’s the point at the heart of this… this world was likely to take them anyway.  If not me, then something or someone else.  Maybe even the new Carmine.  Charles.”

“What do you mean, take them?” Connor asked.

“You’ve been told what Awareness means.”

“We’re Aware.  Not awakened, but aware?” Connor asked.

“You are.  And of the special kinds?  The extreme kinds?”

“Not really.”

“Some odds and ends in the notes.  That group that came in,” Kelsey said.

“Clementine, Daniel, and Sharon,” Miss clarified.  “It’s a question of how much, how far, how damaged, and how the universe scrambles to accommodate… or doesn’t.  Many of them are… think of messes left in the corner, because it’s more convenient, junk drawers, scapegoats, things you might buy in case you need them, then never take out of the package.  All of those things and none of them.  The sentiment should hold.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Jasmine asked.

“Those girls, on the courses they were on, were slipping away from humanity.  The innocence that protects people isn’t a firm thing.  It can fluctuate.  In moments of sickness, weakness, infirmity, in old age and youth, innocence slips.  People can glimpse the supernatural.  People can be targeted by the supernatural.  Vicious bogeymen find and select the isolated and the disconnected, because it’s easiest.  Because the cleanup is fast.  Past a point, convention even helps that happen.  The girls were on that track.”

“You can’t pass on a message, let us know?” Connor asked.

“If it wasn’t for the girls, we would have selected someone else.  An adult or group of adults, I strongly suspect, would have been eaten alive.  They come to the table with too many preconceived notions, and people are too ready to remove an adult.  If I didn’t select the girls, then they would have carried on the courses they were on, and from what I saw in them, I would say it’s a coin flip for each of them, if this world would’ve targeted them.  Especially in light of what Charles was doing.  Melissa Oakham was one candidate I noted once, and she was targeted like that.  Jeremy Clifford was another, he wasn’t.”

“So instead of a coin flip for a half chance of being in danger-” Kelsey said.

“Of being put in a situation where they would’ve become aware.  Which isn’t to say it would have been an easy road otherwise.  Verona might have strayed into substance abuse.  Lucy might have reacted to Paul like she did, but gotten into trouble with the law.  Avery might have had something inside her change, a certain spark going quiet.”

Kelsey shut her eyes.  Her arms were folded, and she folded them extra tight against her body.

“But instead of a fifty-fifty you took the sure thing?  Guaranteed they’d be flung into this world?” Jasmine asked.  “You still used them.”

“In a way that empowered them, instead of tearing them down.”

“You used them.  Children.  Because it was convenient to use children.  When they were vulnerable.”

“Yes.”

“You maybe possibly saving them… that doesn’t negate the using them part of it,” Jasmine said.  “You saved them, and you used them.”

“Succinctly put,” Miss said.  “Yes.  Would it help if I reminded you I’m not human?  If I said that it’s only through knowing them that I can relate to these sentiments, and regret what I did, but that I didn’t parallel humans in the same ways when I did it?”

“That sounds like an excuse,” Jasmine said.

“It is.  It’s up to you to decide if it’s a good one.  There’s something else.”

Jasmine frowned.

“When I look at someone, truly look, which requires uninterrupted time and calm, I see not into their future, but into the continuum of their being.  If their traits are like branches, I can see their angle and how that is likely to appear.  I can see what they might be, and imagine it in a certain frame.  Allowing a small portion of Kennet to become aware as you did in the founding was intentional.”

“We already sort of figured it out.”

“But your perception of it all was deepened.  Had things gone smoother, according to my plan, John Stiles installed as Carmine, I hoped to make Kennet a bastion, a place of subtly different rules.  The founding wasn’t a part of it, but it’s still a step in that same direction.”

“What rules?” Jasmine asked.

“Among other things, it would be a place where being aware is common or universal, and where awareness is not a hazard or a limiter for most.  One piece of a greater change I wanted to put into effect.”

“What does this have to do with the girls?” Jasmine asked.

“I said most.  Left alone, if things carried on like that, I had the impression that in their struggles, they would respond to this new set of rules and this awareness in a bad way.  Do I think they would have been villains?  No.  Do I think they would have hurt themselves or others in their rush to find something to cling to?  Possibly.”

“Then don’t do it,” Kelsey said.

“That does more harm in the long run,” Miss said.  “Things need to change.  The girls recognize that.”

Jasmine asked, “So you picked them because if you didn’t and things went according to plan-”

“I picked them for a hundred reasons, many of them… I won’t say good.  Along these lines.  Justifiable but with their injustice as well.”

“One of the reasons you picked them was because if you didn’t, and your plan went forward, they would have been problems.”

“And because I didn’t pick others, they may be problems, or they may have their own issues.”

“If your plan goes forward,” Kelsey said.

“Yes.”

“But it’s not?”

“I hope it will.  Toadswallow has his goblin market idea.  That’s expanding quickly in concept.  It may extend into Kennet found in some fashion.  Things are moving forward.”

“That’s your thing,” Jasmine said.  “My daughter-”

“Wants this too.  Or aspects of it.”

“She was supposed to go to school, get a boyfriend, be safe…”

“And I am telling you that for each of the girls, it’s possible- I used the coin flip analogy before.  It’s not quite a tidy fifty-fifty chance, but it’s a chance within ten or twenty percent of that, for each of them, that this world might have targeted them or swallowed them up.  More, over time, if Charles won and continued to hold sway.”

Kelsey sighed, turning to study Connor’s concerned face.

“And had they survived that chance, there was another chance in that neighborhood that, depending on how things develop and how practice, Others, and magic gathered around Kennet, they would have seized on that.  To awaken on their own, to find a magic item, to find a way of pushing back against the rest of the world.”

“Destiny?” Jasmine asked.

“Very much not.  Disposition.  Personality.  They were reaching for something, and whether it’s fangs in the dark that snap at reaching fingers or magic finding a foothold near here and their reaching hand finding that, there was a good chance.  Would you flip a coin twice and trust your daughter’s well being to that?  Or would you accept that when they fell, some very imperfect, not-very-human beings were there to pick them up and offer a not-very perfect way forward, putting ourselves on the line in various ways to protect and encourage them?”

“I feel like we’re being manipulated.”

“All conversation is manipulation, but no.  That’s- that’s not my goal.  I’m not that canny.  Not when I’m being as straightforward as I can be.”

“There were better ways to save them than this.”

“Absolutely.  But many of us were desperate.  We were reaching too.  I was reaching, despite having no hands.  In the moment I saw opportunity and ruin mounting around Kennet and reached out, Avery was there, looking back at the Arena, unwittingly standing close to the place where a deceased higher power had just died.  The other two girls were not far away, a good match for her.”

Kelsey dropped her eyes to the floor, arms still folded.

“Things are moving forward.  I used a tree analogy earlier.  The branches can grow around an obstacle.  They can grow with us, and I truly believe it is good for them.”

“The obstacle.  Charles?” Kelsey said.

“Yes.”

“Branches can also burn,” Connor said.

Miss paused, then accepted that with a, “Yes.  The girls don’t want to see it burn.”

“If they can grow with the branch, they can burn with it too, right?” Connor asked.

“Yes,” Miss said.  “But I really didn’t think things would be this bad, or that the obstacle would burn this fiercely.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” Jasmine asked.

“I’ve tied myself to the tree,” Miss said, turning toward the open space of the administrative building.  “I will do what I can.  I must.  I can’t change what I’ve done, I can only do my best going forward.”

“I’m still not okay with this,” Jasmine said.  “I don’t think- you do a lot of things that don’t negate or address the actual problem.”

“That may be an issue of my nature.  That I don’t confront.  I circumvent, I evade, I put obstacles in the enemy’s path and make them circle around.  And in the coming weeks or months, it may frustrate you, because I’ll continue to be this.  A subtler, more passive force.  That doesn’t mean I won’t be giving my all, in my way.”

Jasmine shook her head a little, turning away.

“Could I suggest that you go and talk to them?  Digest what I’ve said.  I will make myself available if you need me.”

“You said you’d make yourself available,” Jasmine said.

“I did.”

The council was gathered on the hospital rooftop.  No Rook.  Louise and Matthew had returned.  So had the ghouls.

They’d asked for everyone and this was pretty damn close.

“This is the put-up or shut-up moment,” Jasmine said.  “Miss?”

“I’m listening.”

Kelsey spoke up, “We’re worried this becomes an endless war.  Or a short one, that ends only because key people, our daughters included, are dead.  Can you tell us this won’t happen?”

“No.  It’s possible this drags on.”

“The girls can’t- shouldn’t be in front of this, the entire way.  It’s taking too much, and they’re in too much danger.  The stakes keep rising.  Verona lost her childhood home and everything she had in there, my daughter nearly lost her life,” Kelsey said.  “Are we wrong about any of this?”

“No,” Miss said.  “‘Too much danger may be subjective-”

“Don’t,” Jasmine said, short, curt, and angry.

“No, you’re not wrong,” Miss said, simply.

Kelsey said, “We’re getting close to a place where we’re considering saying you’re in contravention of the awakening oaths.  I don’t know if we can call you out on that, but…”

“My dears, sirs and madams, please don’t do that,” Toadswallow said.

“You can say it, you can call for it,” Matthew said.  “You have less clout than a practitioner.  We could theoretically argue against it more easily than we could if Verona or Avery was going to say we failed.”

“But we can?” Kelsey asked.

“You could,” he said, voice low.

“There have to be better options,” Louise said.

“We’re feeling the lack of options,” Kelsey said.  “Don’t worry.  We’re not planning on doing that.  That would destroy you, right?”

“Some of us,” Toadswallow said.

“Okay,” Kelsey said, taking that in.  “If Charles swooped in right now and tried to accuse you of it, we’d argue you’ve done your share, that counts for extra coming from us, I hope.  We don’t want to destroy you.”

“Then why bring it up?” Nibble, the ghoul, asked.

“Because we’re desperate.  Because that’s the point we’ve reached, in our discussions, trying to find some way to protect our girls, where that option is even being discussed.”

Nibble nodded.

“We’re hoping you guys can help us find a way,” Connor said.

“I’d like to,” Matthew said.

“Miss,” Jasmine said.  “When we first talked to you, after we became Aware, the one on one talk?  We talked about trees and branches and obstacles.”

“We did.”

“That obstacle keeps seeming bigger and bigger.  The girls are being made to reach out, further and further, until things are looking like they could break.  Fair?”

“Fair,” Miss replied.  “I would point out that the obstacle, at least very recently, has diminished.  In part because of Avery’s efforts.”

“That really doesn’t make me feel better,” Kelsey said.

“I know.  I’m sorry.  But it’s true, and if we’re painting an accurate picture before you ask what you’ve come to ask… it’s good to keep in mind.”

“We talked,” Jasmine said.  “We discussed, and we can fight you, we can fight this, we can try dragging the girls away, or taking away magic, or holding our relationships to them hostage.  And it’s ugly and it’s terrible.  You owe us.  You admitted that what you did with the girls- you used them.  You’ve been using them.”

“I did, I have.”

“There’s a reason we didn’t invite the girls here to talk,” Kelsey said.  “You owe us, and we deserve to not be the bad guys here.  We’re offering you one.”

“One girl?” Matthew asked, frowning.

“One chance.  One try.  The girls are going to want to fight, no matter what happens.  So let Avery pick up and heal, let the girls prepare.  Decide what you’re willing to invest.  If you can’t decide this, if you can’t win in one more big confrontation, then accept it’s an endless war.  Do what you want after that, but don’t involve the girls,” Kelsey said.

“Keep them safe,” Jasmine said.  “Because depending, if one of them dies, if something really does happen… we might be talking about that awakening oath again.  Lines were crossed when you chose to awaken them.  A line was crossed with Avery getting shot.”

Kelsey looked skyward, at the moon.  It was still early enough in the morning that even though the town was awake, the sky hadn’t lightened up.

“That’s not meant to be a threat,” Jasmine said, moderating what she’d said a bit.  “I don’t want to be the villain.  I don’t want to be at odds.  The way we were talking about it, we want all hands on deck, all hands helping, all hands fully invested in keeping the girls safe.  If it’s not, you shouldn’t be asking for them.”

There was a lot of tension around the rooftop, even with that softening of her stance.

“It’s conditional,” Connor said.  “The way you talk to them about this, the way you do this, if we really are letting them fight in this war they’ve invested in, if we really are letting you have them this one last, major time?  You frame it to them and you frame it among yourselves that it is the last time.  Then you become the bad guys, to ensure it is the last time.  You temporarily revoke magic, as much as you can, if it’s needed to keep them from pursuing the fight.  Can you do that?”

“Technically?  There are ways things could be worded or stressed, theoretically,” Miss said.  “One part of the oath about keeping them safe and allowing them long and full lives emphasized, at the cost of revoking the power we promised them.”

“You tell them to quit.  You tell them you tried, they tried, it’s too hard, you’ll do something else.  Then do that something else,” Jasmine said.  “You convince them.  You keep Verona from taking it on herself to devise some big countermeasure or attack on Charles and starting things up again.”

“I feel a need to point a matter out,” Toadswallow said.

“Sure,” Connor said.

“The Carmine watches.  He’ll know.  The fact he knows means his forces and power will be concentrated into defeating that one next assault.  Or whatever it is we decide to do.”

“Figure it out,” Jasmine said.  She looked at Miss, who stood at the far corner of the roof, amidst snow that was blowing in swirls, hiding her face, hair, scarf, and dress fluttering.  “Can you?”

“Or does this become us fighting to save our daughters, ugliness, us fighting you, and everything falling apart?” Kelsey asked, emotion thick in her voice.

“That would be a matter for the council to discuss at length,” Miss said.  “We’d need to hold a vote, and as part of that, before, during, or after, we’d need to find ways to talk without Charles overhearing, we’d need to consider how to address the girls.”

“It’s a consideration, then?” Kelsey asked.  “You’re not saying no right this second?”

“I’m not,” Miss said.  “In my perspective, at least, especially considering circumstances, the offer is very fair.  I’m inclined to say yes.”

There were enough nods among the Others around the rooftop that it settled the matter.

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