Pale: 4.4 - Avery
Author: Wildbow

Avery

It was weird, being home and exercising and not having Kerry climbing all over her, or Sheridan butting into her space.  She stretched.

Avery had grabbed some cassettes from the old music store downtown, when she and Lucy had gone up that way to check on Snowdrop and the goblins.  Five dollars for any five cassettes.  It gave her something to do with the tape player, since she’d traded away the Ouchie Wa Wa tape for the Paths contact and escort, and the Crying Cold Tears tape had worn out at the end of school party three days ago.  They didn’t have any tapes left over from what they’d gotten from Zed.

She shifted to a different stretch, one knee on the floor, the other foot down, adopting a lunging movement while focusing on her awareness of her body.  The voices from elsewhere in the house were muted.

Declan was off to camp, Rowan was doing a thing with his girlfriend and some friends, kind of like the end of year party, but they were gone for a week.  Mom was away at work again.  Kerry was home, but there wasn’t that feeling like she’d been pushed into Avery’s space by a lack of elbow room.  It wasn’t that their place was small, but more that everyone was so different, and everything they liked doing required a room, or a good portion of a room.  Sheridan was… she was supposed to be doing laundry, but who knew how long she’d be at that?

She was taking a break from soccer, because keeping that up while staying at the Blue Heron Institute for any length of time would be crazy.  She’d considered trying, but between having to explain to her parents what she was doing back in town, and having to figure out a Path she could walk six times a week, it didn’t make sense.

The end of school and the start of summer shuffled everything around.  Last year, she’d gone on this trip to the states with a bunch of the homeschool kids, then she’d gone camping with Olivia to catch up.  The days had felt three times as long, and they’d spent the nights talking in hushed whispers until Olivia’s parents had told them to shut up.  There had probably been nights they only slept three hours because they were talking so much, and they’d barely noticed it the following days, powering through with junk food from the big red tin.  She hadn’t been around to notice the house emptying as her siblings got busy elsewhere.

She wanted to stay in shape, and stretching alone wouldn’t do it.  Maybe she’d take up running, if the school didn’t have practical lessons that involved running from a horde of goblins, child-snatching Faerie, or whatever.  She wasn’t ruling anything out.

She shifted her footing, so the foot on the leg she was kneeling with had toes braced against the floor.  She rose into a standing position as smoothly as possible.

She stood, back arched, arms overhead with palms pressed together.

The stairs creaked.  Couldn’t be mom.  Couldn’t be Grumble.  Dad or Sheridan.

Either one would be barging in, soon.  She broke from her position to go to the dresser, where toys lay on the corner closest to the bunk bed she shared with Kerry, and a bunch of clothes and minor jewelry stuff cluttered the other half.  She didn’t really have a space on there, but she’d prepared a bandage, a bit larger than usual, and laid it in the middle, paper still on.  On the white side that was supposed to sit against the wound, she’d drawn a connection break sign, surrounded by tiny lettering that read ‘mask the wound’.

She stuck it in place, over the scratch from when the Cold Tears guy had elbowed her and somehow cut her in the process.

She got a bit of glamour from her makeup kit, and used her thumb to smudge it at a bit of sweat she was wiping away, at the side of her neck.  Her eyes opened wide, her Sight sweeping out, and filled the room with mist and handprints – predominantly hers, Sheridan’s, and Kerry’s, in their respective sizes.  She could see herself in the mirror, and in the midst of the haze, she could see the shadow of the deer’s head shape, and the immature antlers with two ribbons tied to the one.  In the midst of the haze, around and in front of her own face.  Her eyes were misty, but the pupils and the dark ring around the irises remained crisp, and the area around her eyes was white, like it was on her mask.

The glamour on the side of her neck was a slash of thumbprint in gold leaf.  It faded into skin.  A golden checkmark, to reward herself for exercising and focusing on herself.

Guilherme had told Avery that she needed to identify the person she wanted to become, develop a clear mental picture, and then close the gap between herself and that person. To identify the wins and see the mistakes as opportunities to grow.  It was stupid, on a level, but it kind of worked.

Sheridan let herself into their room.

“Done with the laundry?” Avery asked.  She put another bandage over her wrist, same idea.

Sheridan’s bed creaked as she collapsed back onto it.  She held a tablet, and within seconds, had the the opening of some television show playing, with violin to start.  Lying back, reaching over head, Sheridan pulled the curtain partially closed, making the room mostly dark.

She lay there, big enough around the middle that her belly could hold her tablet up at a viewing angle.  Zombie mode on a Sunday morning.

Avery made sure she had everything, including her makeup stuff, annoyed by the lack of light, but not really wanting to fight Sheridan over it.

“Can I grab one or two pieces of jewelry?” Avery asked, indicating the little jewelry tree that Sheridan had put out of Kerry’s reach, by the dresser.  It was wire, a foot tall, and was painted over to look like wood, with necklaces, earrings, and other things hanging from branches.

“A loan, not a gift?”

“Can you give me something for it?”

Avery moved the tree into a position where she could better view the contents.  “What do you want?  Money?”

“I won’t ever say no to money,” Sheridan said.  “But meh.  I don’t care that much.”

“I can take it then?” Avery asked.  She picked out a broad copper bangle, it had been hammered into shape, and had a mottled texture from the multiple hammer blows.

“Let’s say… you can take it, free, but if you lose any of it, you pay me triple what it’s worth?”

Avery whistled, but then she nodded.  “Sure.  Deal.  I’m thinking you’re a bit of a mercenary, like this.”

“You know, dad’s been trying to figure out how to talk to you since the party on Friday night.”

“Hm?”  Avery touched the bandage at her cheek, her back still to Sheridan.  The people in her grade had kept things under wraps, she was pretty sure.  There had been some mentions of some guy on drugs crashing the party, but the cops hadn’t investigated, and the smoke from Lucy’s rune had masked what they’d done.  Brooklynn hadn’t seen the guy disappear, or she’d mentally conflated him and John Stiles as one person.  She’d talked about it on social media, playing it up for drama, but it didn’t seem like anything important had stuck, for her.

“You know his coworkers have kids who go to the school, right?”

“Right, Chicken Wings?”

Avery had met some of her dads’ coworker’s kids as part of her socialization around and after homeschool.  None were in her grade.  Chicken Wings dealt weed and some other minor stuff, but he wouldn’t be talking about that, or making himself complicit in getting younger kids drunk and high.

Sheridan hadn’t followed up.

“Why?  What’s this about?” Avery asked.  She turned around.

Sheridan put her tablet down, the show still playing, and craned her head as she looked toward the door.  Dad was downstairs and Kerry was who knew where.

“Well, this is secondhand knowledge, or sixth-hand knowledge, but Chicken Wings heard from some guys who were at the campfire, that you were telling some other guys stuff.  Chicken Wings’ dad told dad.”

“The other story I heard was that it’s someone badmouthing you because they’re pissed you didn’t want to date them.  I didn’t hear that bit from dad.  I had to ask this girl I did a project with, who was there that night.  Kay Black?”

Kay Black was probably related to Brayden.

“Badmouthing?” Avery asked, trying to sound casual.

“Trying to, anyway.  I overheard dad talking to mom about it on the phone.  I don’t think he knows what to believe.”

“What are they saying?” Avery asked.  She put the bangle on, then sorted out her bag, removing a bit of one of Kerry’s necklaces she’d strung together, where the necklace’s string had caught in the velcro.  She put her larger gym bag close to the door.

“That you’re a lesbian.”

Avery looked back at Sheridan, eyebrows raised, expression otherwise neutral.

“Dad got really upset with Chicken Wings’ dad over that,” Sheridan said.  Her expression was hard to read.

“I don’t know the specifics,” Sheridan said.

Avery got notebooks where she’d taken a box knife to the pages that she’d used for school, the empty pages left over, some other notebooks and a sheaf of paper, and a hard pencil case.

She had another notebook where she’d stored clippings and images.  Stuff like art of movie characters, one anime character she’d seen in an online music video, with pink hair, and some fashion items and models in fashion that she liked.  Her ‘inspiration me’ booklet.  Images that she could keep in mind as she reinforced her self-image with glamour.  Putting it together had helped her figure some stuff out.  Not just about the look or attitude she wanted to convey, but also how there were types of girl she liked, and that didn’t line up with the type of girl she wanted to be.

What would that ideal her do?

Why was her dad upset?  He’d seemed mostly cool about stuff.  Sometimes people felt differently when it was their kid, right?

“Is it a problem?” Avery asked, looking Sheridan square-on.

Sheridan let the tablet flop down to rest against her chest.  Her expression was dispassionate, half-lidded.  “I can’t read dad’s mind.”

“I can deal with dad later.  I mean is it a problem with you, that I’m into girls?”

There were pounding footsteps, small and fast.

Kerry burst through the door.

“Dad’s wondering when you want to go,” Kerry said, not even missing a step as she made a beeline straight for the jewelry tree that Avery had moved.  Avery put the thing back out of Kerry’s reach.

“Just about ready, I think,” Avery said.  She put her inspiration book in her bag.

“No what?” Kerry asked, craning her head to see the jewelry.

Sheridan ignored her.  “Y’know, I always thought it’d be Declan.  Isn’t it a younger sibling thing?  Hormones in the womb or whatever, getting mixed up as you have more kids?”

“What are you talking about?” Kerry asked.

“I really don’t know, Sheridan,” Avery said.  The ‘no’ had been an answer to her earlier question.

“What are you talking about what are you talking about?” Kerry piped up.  She grabbed the strap of Avery’s bag, and Avery pulled away, annoyed.

“I guess I can’t be a jerk to you anymore, huh?”

“Huh?” Avery asked, squinting.  “What?  How does that make sense?”

“I dunno.  I’d feel like an ass, knowing you’re dealing with crap.”

“Ass,” Kerry echoed.  “You have the big ass, Sheridan.  Kinley said so.”

“And you have a soaked head and a mouth filled with soap,” Sheridan said.

“What?” Kerry asked.  “No I don’t.”

Sheridan put the tablet to one side of her bed with enough force it clipped the wall, then lunged to a standing position.  Kerry froze for a second, then bolted, just barely avoiding Sheridan’s hand.

Sheridan closed the door, then leaned back against it, huffing out a breath.

“Treat me the same,” Avery had to raise her voice a bit to be heard over the sound of Kerry drumming her fists on the door and shouting.

“I’d milk it for all it’s worth.  Get every advantage you can, and tell the haters to fuck off,” Sheridan said.

“Well, I’m not-” Avery stopped before finishing.  She felt like the way she’d been about to say ‘I’m not you’ would have felt mean somehow.  “Treat me the same.”

Sheridan rolled her eyes.  “What are you going to do about dad?”

Kerry kept banging on the door.

“Grumble’s really into shitty politics, you know,” Sheridan told her.  “Be careful.”

“Avery!” her dad called up from downstairs.

“-yeah,” Avery finished, because she couldn’t remember what she’d been intending to say.  Not that there was a great answer to the issue of Grumble.

She opened the door, picking up her big gym bag, then got her backpack too.  Kerry hurried into the room, seizing the bag, adding to the weight Avery had to manage.

Kerry reacted by grabbing on harder, dragging her weight down even more, making moving impossible.

“Avery!” her dad shouted.

“Get off!” Avery warned.  Then she grabbed Kerry’s wrist, which Kerry reacted to by clutching the bag even more, hooking her fingers into the open zipper pocket.  “Sheridan, you want to do the soap thing?”

Kerry let go, her eyes going wide.  Avery continued to hold her wrist, and resisted, refusing to let her sister get away until Sheridan had gotten up again and swooped her up in her arms.

Kerry screamed, top of her lungs, a singular, seemingly unending sound.  Sheridan walked across the hall to the bathroom, carrying her six year old sister like a battering ram.  Kerry flailed.

“Don’t actually put the soap in her-”

Kerry’s flailing led to her smacking her head against the edge of the sink.

The screams changed tenor and timbre, becoming a sound of actual pain and horror.

Avery’s dad came up the stairs.  Sheridan put Kerry down, and Kerry slumped down, lying on the bathroom mat.

“Is she okay?” Avery asked.

“My hand took more of the impact than her head.  It hurts like heck, but she’ll live.”

Avery watched her dad, studying him, and saw the glance he gave her, the smallest change in his expression.  It was hard to not read a thousand things into that.

It was only every interaction with this family for the next fifty years that was on the line, right?  Only.

Avery felt a pit in her stomach, and hoped above all that her dad had been upset for other reasons, like the coworker was being a dick about it, or something.

“I’ll give you a ride in a second.  Get your shoes on?”

“I can get another ride if you’re busy,” Avery said.

Kerry shrieked.  Sheridan frowned down at the kid.

“There’s no blood,” dad said.

Avery headed downstairs, bringing her bags with.  Kerry was obviously playing it up now, being upset for the sake of being upset.

Now she had to figure out how to get out of here without her dad asking questions.

She set her bags down, checked her phone, and then looked into the living room, where Grumble sat, watching television.  Normally he’d watch the morning news, watch again at noon over lunch, and then watch the six o’clock news just before dinner.  Sometimes he sat outside with the radio going.

Avery had never paid much attention to politics.  She didn’t get it, most of the time.  But she was starting to.

She approached her grandfather, and sat down on the couch, across the room from him.  He sat in his armchair.  Frowning at the screen.

“Don’t you get bored of watching that?” she asked.

Grumble said something unintelligible.

“It’s always unpleasant and awful.”

“Got’na know whats go’on’n in the world tuday,” he mumbled.

“People shouting at each other.  Being hateful and intolerant.  Lying constantly.  Companies being awful.”

“S’me’em’re arright,” Grumble said.

“I’m heading off to a summer thing.  Going to be gone most of the summer.”

She dropped her running shoes, and began lacing up.

He muted the TV and pawed at the lever with a stiff hand twice before it went down, letting him swivel the chair.  Most of the time he kept it locked so Kerry wouldn’t push him around.  He turned to face her.

“Stay safe, stay healthy, be patient with… that?” Avery told him, indicating upstairs.

Sheridan snapped at a screaming Kerry.  The floor creaked as her dad or Sheridan walked.

“Worse when I was’re age,” Grumble said.

“Six’ve us, five boys,” he told her.  He looked around.  “House’s big as this room.”

“I’m not sure I believe that,” Avery said, smiling.

“S’true.  M’brother hung me up by my o’eralls, on t’hook on t’back of door.  Y’ve ‘ot it made, hmm?”

“Does this remind you of your childhood?”

He moved his arm, struggling to coordinate, and then moved his fingers.  Index finger and thumb held a short distance from one another.  A little.

“Y’ll be missed, Ave my girl,” he said.

“I’ll miss you too, Grumble.”

Saying that felt weird, when she sat so far away from him.  How long had she been doing that?

He beckoned her closer, with a movement of the hand.  She got up, crossed the distance, and hugged him.  His body was condensed, hard, and stiff.  She hated that she thought of the Wolf, as he patted her back with a hand.

She ended the hug, then went back to tend to her stuff, making triply sure she was ready.

He swiveled back to face the TV.

The man on the television was talking about how Canada depended on oil, economy-wise, and the reporters were getting agitated, shouting him down.  Bringing up climate change.

“Let’m talk!” Grumble addressed the television.

“Grumble?  What would you say if I asked you not to watch that stuff so much?” Avery asked.  “As a favor?”

“What else’m I g’na do?” he mumbled.

“Take up bird watching?  Or read?  Or watch movies?  You could start a blog.  Grumble’s grumblings.”

He made a side-to-side head motion.  His hand followed suit with a stiff so-so.

This had kind of become a good share of what he did during his waking hours, since the stroke and since grandma had passed.

It sucked, and she’d talked to Lucy before about how it sucked.  Lucy felt like the world was against her, and Avery felt like that wasn’t exactly it.  There were a whole lot of crummy people, but the worst she’d dealt with was people being dumb.  As word got out about her coming out, she was betting she would run into the bad people, lots of dumb people… but that didn’t bother her.  She had backup.

She was pretty sure that if Lucy got a wish, she would’ve wanted to fix everything out there.  Or just to make it better.

If Avery got a wish, she wanted her family to be okay with it.  She wanted her Grumble, and her mom and dad, and in an ideal world, she wanted her siblings to not be a pain in the ass.

She got some business-card sized bits of paper out of the front flap of her bag, and drew a connection sign of two interlocking diamonds, leaving gaps here and there.  Then she drew a Celtic ‘family’ trinity knot, so it wove into it.

She’d had to draw a bunch, as part of her prep to go away for summer.  Some of the extra Blue Heron materials were stashed in her room and her stuff, marked with the symbol, with more intricate symbols that Matthew and Edith had helped with.

It was subtle, and it would hopefully last the summer, keeping her family from asking too many questions about where she was going.  Matthew had lent some power, blackness like ink, and they’d used them for the big runes, like the one on poster-size paper under her mattress, which also protected some of the notes she wasn’t bringing with.

This one was smaller, and it didn’t have the branching arms that warded off attention.  She named her dad on the borders of the paper.  She wanted attention.

She drew two, in thin pencil lines.  She slipped one into the back space of her grandfather’s chair.  She held onto the others.

“Avery!” her dad said.

Right, while she held it, she would pull that attention.

“I’m ready,” she said.

Her dad came down the stairs.  Sheridan and a teary-eyed Kerry followed him.

“Time to go?” her dad asked.  “You okay, dad?”

Grumble mumbled a response.

She badly wanted to ask her dad stuff.  To not have this hanging over her head the entire time she was gone.

She looked at Sheridan, then walked over and hugged her sister.

“Ew, get off me.  I’ve already got one sticky-handed little sister grabbing me all the time.”

“Nyeh, nyeh,” Kerry made sounds while sticking her hands into Sheridan’s hip and stomach.

“Call me if you find out more?” Avery asked, glancing in the general direction of her dad, who couldn’t see her face.  “Please?”

“What’s this?” her dad asked.

“Sister stuff,” Sheridan told him.  To Avery, she said, “What’ll you give me?”

“Nyeh,” Kerry said, jabbing Sheridan.

“So annoying.  No, not really.”

Avery nodded, then she gave Kerry a hug.  While she hugged her little sister, she slipped the other connections paper into Kerry’s back pocket.

“I can get another ride if it’s easier,” Avery told her dad.

“It’s fine, I think.  Dad, you’ll be okay? And Sheridan, can you watch-?”

Kerry ran back in the direction of the kitchen.

“Okay, Sheridan,” her dad said, walking swiftly after.  “She’s doing art stuff in the dining room, and there’s glitter, and glue, and we laid newspaper down-”

“This sounds like a lot of work for that little nightmare,” Sheridan said.  “Am I getting babysitting money?”

“No, you’re giving me fifteen minutes of your time in exchange for- Kerry, please put a lid back on the glitter before you knock it over-”

“It’s really a lot easier,” Avery raised her voice to address her dad.  “Less complicated!  Me getting another ride!”

“I wanted to drive you over and see you off.  Dad, could you turn the television down?”

“Same vol’me as l’ways,” Grumble complained, his voice gruff.

“You’re missing so much, being away,” Sheridan said.  “I guess I should help dad with those two.

“Avery!” her dad called out.

“What?” Avery asked, exasperated.

“Could you?  Get that other ride?  My hands are full.”

“Absolutely,” she said.

The graphite would wear out.  At best, if they found either paper, the runes would be worn out, the papers blank.

Avery got her phone out, and sent a text, before picking up her bags.

“Hey, Sher?” Avery asked.

Sheridan was almost out of view, rounding the corner to go check on Grumble and Kerry.  “Huh?”

“Thanks for being a reasonably cool sister.”

“Don’t you put that on me.  I don’t want it.  It comes with responsibilities and stuff.”

“You take anything more than the wrist thingy?”

“Ninety bucks if you lose it.”

But it kind of meant a lot, at the same time.  She worked her way past the front door while hefting the bag, and then headed down the street.

Matthew parked a little ways from her street.  Verona and Lucy were situated in the back with Snowdrop.  Matthew sat in the front, alone, some instrumental music seeping out past open windows.  Avery ran over, and vaulted over the side, with the assistance of a step on the bumper.

“We were just talking about opossum boys,” Verona said.

“If our girl’s going to find an opossum lad out in the wild, and think, oh man, that’s a fine specimen.”

“I’m all about that opossum boy,” Snowdrop said.

“Opossum girls?” Avery asked.

“Do you know what you’ll look for, when and if you ever want a mate?” Verona asked.

“Nah.  I’ve got no instincts.”

“I’m morbidly curious now,” Lucy said.

“I’ll tell you what I’m probably not going to do.  I’m not going to follow in my ma’s footsteps and find the nearest available loudmouth boy that clicks his tongue all the freaking time, I’m not going to become a young mom and pair up with some dude for life, only to secretly have a bunch of kids by other men.  I’m definitely not going to end up having kids twice a year, every year.”

“Oh, woah, what is going on with opossums?” Verona asked.

“We’re a class act,” Snowdrop said, smiling and showing off her missing teeth.  “And I gotta be classier.  Not going to die before I’m twenty-one like my ma did, no ma’am.”

“You being a class act may or may not be true, but you’re not going to die before you’re twenty-one, if I can help it,” Avery said.

“Nah,” Snowdrop mumbled, shifting position so she sat beside Avery.  Avery put an arm around Snowdrop’s shoulders.

The truck took them out of Kennet.  Out to the Blue Heron Institute.

The trip took them north, away from civilization, and down well-maintained but empty roads.

They knew they were close when they saw Zed’s station wagon, with the wood paneled sides.  Avery had no idea if he was escorting them or if he’d just happened to arrive as they did.

The road wound through hills that were dense with vegetation.

“Still a ways to go,” Snowdrop said, looking around.

“Yeah,” Avery said.  The warm summer air combined with the steady wind of being in the open rear of the pickup truck was just about perfect.  Being in the woods was… it was more perfect, and she was glad that the Forest Ribbon Trail hadn’t totally ruined that, at the very least.

She’d have to reconsider her stance on that if she was out in the woods at night at any point.

The school was not especially fancy.  There was a main building, that had a central spire, and had large, blue-tinted windows.  It looked sort of churchlike, but the church parts had been replaced or reworked.  Two two-story buildings flanked it, made of stone like the central building was, with peaked roofs with blue shingles.  The way they were laid out with a zig-zagging orientation to the rooftops reminded her of a crown or tiara.

There were other buildings, arranged around it.  They were more boxy, with stone at the lower halves and wood at the mid and upper halves, set up in a crescent shape, so the front doors all faced a central area.  Past the buildings, Avery could see an open field, another field that had a bunch of stuff set up in it, with brown and black patches in the grass and sandbags piled in the distance, and off to the side of one of the main school buildings was a row of picnic tables with a kind of canopy tent erected over them.  There were trees, there was a view off one side of the hill that looked out over rivers and more trees.

A bunch of cars were parked toward the center of the area.  Students had already gotten out, and family members were socializing, instead of dropping their kids off and bailing, like Avery remembered people doing at the homeschool event last summer.

Matthew parked the truck about as far away as he could, while still being on the school grounds.  Ahead of them, Zed parked, then climbed out.  He immediately headed through the crowd, to where Brie was talking to a tall but mousy blonde woman with a nervous smile.

A lot of the kids were fifteen, sixteen, or older.  Closer to Zed’s age.

Matthew got out of the truck, and helped lift their bags down.

“Not comfortable getting closer?” Lucy asked.

“No,” Matthew said.  “Sorry.”

“We appreciate the ride,” Avery said.  “Simplifies things a lot.”

“You weren’t necessary.  I could’ve given directions,” Snowdrop said.

Matthew’s eyes were dark as he surveyed the school and the crowd of a hundred people, that included kids and parents.

To him, these people were enemies.  Threats to his way of life.  Here, they studied how to hunt him.  They organized against him.

Avery wondered if he felt like she felt when watching some of the people on the news her Grumble paid so much attention to.  People who hated her, or who organized the world into those who were worth more or less and then spread and taught that view.

“I can’t believe we’re here,” Verona whispered.

“Be careful,” Matthew said.  “Think twice before trusting.  Be safe.”

“All I’m gonna say is I’m unarmed,” Snowdrop said, slyly, while taking a rusty, thin fork and sliding it into the sleeve of her hoodie.

“Uh huh,” Lucy said.  “Maybe become a regular opossum, so you’re harder to recognize?  I think you’ll be safe from any trouble, but to be safe…”

“Also, last thing I’m going to say, so we’re all on the same page?  I’m also not an arsonist,” Snowdrop whispered, hand cupped.

“Yeah.  Go small possum.”

“I’m a model student,” Snowdrop said.  “Well groomed, well polite, well behaved…”

Snowdrop shifted to her regular opossum form.  Avery picked her up, and set her on a shoulder.  Snowdrop made a tiny sneezing sound.

Seeing this, with the mix of people, all of whom seemed more together than she was… breaking into this strange new environment, it was very familiar.

Another two cars pulled up.  Matthew ducked back into his truck.

“Thanks again,” Lucy told him.

He glanced back at the larger group.

“We might be swinging by, to talk or to handle stuff,” Lucy said.

“Call before you do,” he told her.

“So you can hold us at gunpoint until you arbitrarily decide if we’re trustworthy?” she asked.

“Because we’re using protection to keep practitioners away.  Spirits, goblins, some wards, some elemental stuff, and glamour, to twist things subtly for anyone using the Sight to look out for other things.  There are other countermeasures I can’t and won’t tell you.  Nothing that you’d think was especially immoral… but if you were compelled to tell them everything…”

“You think they would?” Avery asked.

“I absolutely think they would,” he said.

The cars that had been coming up the road passed them by.  Matthew started up his truck.

Kids peered out the windows, staring at them and at Matthew.  Some of them had the traces of the Sight coloring their eyes, making them look like stormy waters.

“Don’t put anything past them,” Matthew warned.

Avery nodded, alongside her friends.

Matthew pulled back onto the road, then drove away.

Some ominous freaking words to leave them with.

“Bye and good luck to you too,” Verona said.

A ten year old girl ran over to hug a boy of about the same age.  Behind her was a guy that was six feet tall, hunched over, with an expression like stone.  He wore a black trenchcoat that was very weirdly fit around his body, buttoned up from ground to neck, the bottom of the coat grazing the ground and hiding his feet.  He also had baseball cap that seemed to small for him, set askew.  His eyes were entirely white, except for the narrow pupils, which didn’t rove or move to look around at anything.  He followed behind her, the movements of his legs not visible, his head not bobbing with any steps.  Like he was floating.

Just… out in the open, like that.

Some middle aged dad had a huge-ass sword strapped to his hip and upper body, and the blade looked longer than his leg, to the point it would be dragging in the dirt if it wasn’t for the straps.  His teenage son had a gun at each hip.

Parents mingled.  Kids found friends.  Avery, Lucy, and Verona walked around the edge of the crowd, circling around to the front, and looking at the buildings and the bits of practice.

“Hey!” Zed called out.  He waved.

Avery raised a hand in a wave.

He brought Brie with him as he navigated the crowd to reach them.

“You made it!” he greeted them with a smile.

“I thought that might be you three driving behind me.  Couldn’t get a good look.  The inside of the truck cab was dark.  Spooky stuff, haha.” Zed’s laugh was easy.  He was wearing a sleeveless tee and jeans, a big belt buckle, and he had a wispy mustache.  His hair was parted and slicked back, shiny like some oil had been used.

Like they hadn’t had a fight where they’d flung monsters at each other.

Which was a thought that made Avery feel better, not worse.  She wanted to live in a world where enemies could become friends.

“We meet again,” Brie said.  “In better circumstances than the last few times, I hope.”

“I hope so,” Lucy said.

Brie’s arms were tattooed heavily.  Avery recognized the marks that had been on her arms, and on the others.  Eight phases of the moon, with the full moon at the wrists.  Fine chains spiderwebbed out, connecting to the moons and to other chains, in a complex network that might have been hiding a diagram in it.  A hint of tattoo at the collar of her simple white dress suggested the tattoos extended across her body.

“Okay, so… do you want a tour?  Do you want to see anyone or anything specific?  Do you want names?” Zed asked.  “They’ll take your photo shortly, and then they’ll distribute files so people know who’s who.  You’re three of the seven freshmen.”

“I was told it was eleven,” Brie said.

“Eleven this year, but only seven of the eleven are showing up this summer,” Zed said.  “You three, then Jorja, Dom, and…”

He snapped his fingers a few times, trying to remember.

“Talia,” Brie supplied.  “And me.”

“Yes.  Thank you.  And Brie, of course.”

“Jorja’s the third sibling to come.  Her older brothers are already here.”

Zed pointed them out.  The girl was ten, with hair about as straight and black as hair got, to the point it looked like it was wet, with the way it lay against her scalp.  She was pale, and her clothes slightly mismatched for age, size, and type.  She was the one who had run over to greet the boy, with the large, gliding Other following behind, always moving slowly and not catching up to her until she stood still for a little while, which was rare.

To Avery’s sight, there were black handprints all over her, with the finger of one handprint hooked into her eye and pulling her eyelid down.  Black veins webbed out from the handprints.

“Callers.  That’s caller with an a, not an o.  Slang for them is Druid or Draoidhe, but I’m not sure how PC that is,” Zed confided.  “Most druids tap into the big, old nature spirits.  her family taps into more urban things.  The black gutter, the glass prison, the chemical lightning.  Each kid picks one of these big, unrestrained lord spirits in the same general category, and then sort of taps into it for big, unrestrained, nasty practice.”

“Spirits of drugs?” Avery asked.

“Yeah,” Zed said.  “My gentle verdict?  Avoid.”

“Avoid Jorja and her brothers.  Got it,” Lucy said.  “Are the other newbies as young as her?”

“Yeah, kinda?  Dom and Talia are ten and eleven, I think.”

“We’re old for freshmen, then.”

“It’s really not that structured,” Zed reassured.  “You get freshmen and seniors in the same class sometimes, and sometimes people who’ve been coming here for four years sit in on a beginner class, looking for new insights from a different teacher.  Try not to ask too many questions if you’re in an advanced class, that’s all.”

“You’ve been coming here a while?” Avery asked.

“Three years.  Dom is from a family of historians.  They study patterns in history, to see if any accidental rituals emerge.”

“Accidental rituals?” Verona asked.

“I don’t know how much to explain, because I don’t know how much you know, and I’m not the best teacher.  Uh, when non-practitioners do stuff, they can still create rituals.  We call them accidental or emergent rituals.  If you find a big enough or ancient enough one, you can tweak it or harness it.  City layouts forming diagrams that influence economy?  Big money, potentially.  Patterns in, I dunno, wars followed by baby booms?  That could potentially be a whole generation that’s special.  They came here to deal with Ray, the guy I’m apprenticing under, so I’ve got the scoop there.”

“Is that common?” Avery asked.  “People coming here for one teacher?”

“Abso-hella-lutely,” Zed said, smiling.  “Most of the time, Mr. Belanger, Mrs. Durocher, or Ray will reach out to people with associated interests.  Jorja’s family is really interested in learning from Mrs. Durocher, who is maybe in the top ten in the world when it comes to dealing with powers so big that humans really have no business meddling in them.  She taps into primeval spirits, things so old they predate human language, or even the pre-human conception of animals having categories.  Beasts arguably older and more raw than any gods.  No form or boundaries.”

He pointed to the woman Avery had been thinking of as tall-but-mousy.  The woman covered her mouth while she laughed.

“I’ve been staying here, and she’s helping me with the Choir I’m holding inside me.  We’re trying to figure out what I’ll be.  If I can loosen the chains a bit and let the Choir out like a small, localized storm around me, or if-”

“If you’ll be a Host?” Lucy asked.  “Keeping it caged within?  Dealing with the power another way?”

“I’d be really interested in hearing what you end up doing, either way,” Lucy said.

Lucy was thinking of Matthew.  Maybe of ways to deal with Matthew.  Maybe of ways to help him.

Avery met Verona’s eyes.  Verona smiled, wide.

Yeah.  Avery liked this direction of things.  For very different reasons, she guessed, than Verona did.

Zed went back to what he was saying before, “The other families are ones that have been here for a long time.  They’re here because the Institute is close and it’s a good way to expand their knowledge.”

“I think we’re getting sidetracked,” Brie said.  “I can’t remember what we were originally talking about.”

“Yeah, that’s… there’s so much out there, you three,” Zed said.  “More than you could learn in four years of being here full time.  I could keep answering follow-up questions, but we’d be here until the fall semester.  Or until I start admitting how much I don’t know and you lose all respect for me.”

“Probably not all respect,” Verona said.

“Mostly I want to know who to trust and potentially befriend,” Lucy said.

“That’s…” Zed trailed off, looking over the crowd.

A long twenty or thirty seconds passed.

“You’ll have to get to know the teachers,” Brie broke the silence.  “Mrs. Durocher, Mr. Belanger, and Mr. Sunshine.  Most things revolve around them, or involve them a bit.  Trust, though?  You’re safe here, because the school rules prohibit harm.”

“There are ways around that kind of prohibition,” Lucy said.  “Like if you act on instinct, that may not be willful enough.  Or… stuff.”

“That’s more or less true.  The school contract is pretty thorough, though,” Zed said.

“News to me,” Brie said, quiet.

“You’re safe.  If and when you’re not, you’d better believe I’m going to do what I can to protect you,” Zed told her.

“Do you three want to meet the teachers?”

“Not especially?” Lucy answered.  “We’ve already met Alexander.”

Zed led them around the group.  Mrs. Durocher was talking to the parents of Jorja and her two brothers, who had the same handprints with black veins.  Alexander was addressing some older students.

A man with longer, wavy hair he’d partially straightened, with red sunglasses, was sitting on the stairs, talking to a younger girl with a stuffed elephant that was moving its head around.

They approached, waiting for a break in the conversation.  Zed deftly stepped in to get Mrs. Durocher’s attention.

“I’ve brought you three of your freshmen,” Zed told her.

She looked down at them, and her eyes disappeared, receding into her head and leaving a darkness that was somehow as vast as the whole clearing they were in, but incapable of reaching beyond the boundaries of her eye sockets.  The feeling that hit Avery as she saw it was like being at the last milestone of the Forest Ribbon Trail again.  She backed up a step, and Snowdrop hissed.

“If you’ll excuse me, Electra?” Mrs. Durocher asked.

“I’ll get Ulysse settled.”

Ms. Durocher nodded.  Then she turned her vast, empty eyes to the three of them again.  Avery resisted moving back a second time.

“Lovely,” Mrs. Durocher said.  “We have so many this year.  This spirit isn’t a familiar, is it?”

“A boon companion,” Avery said.  “I was under the impression they were similar.  At least based on what little I’ve heard of familiars.”

“They are.  In old, old days, they preceded familiar relationships.  Bonds forged not with a ritual, but a journey of necessity,” Mrs. Durocher said.  Her nostrils flared, and the wind chose that moment to subtly change direction.  Avery was left wondering if they were connected. “Lovely to see.  I have a familiar, but he spends a lot of time away.  His teeth have been at the throat of something old for three years, I think.”

“I… that’s sad,” Avery said.  Then she reconsidered.  “No offense intended.”

“He’s made for it.  Through a connection to me, En gets a taste at life at the same time he’s fulfilling his bloodlust, and through a connection to him, I have a way of keeping tabs on that particular project, even when I can’t be there.  I can feel his teeth in scale and fur as we stand here speaking.  That’s not to say I wouldn’t have loved to experiment with something like a soul companion, but you only get one, don’t you?”

“I guess?” Avery answered, feeling very on the spot.

“Does having a soul companion block having a familiar?” Verona asked.

“No, my dear,” Mrs. Durocher asked. “But some familiars are takers, or tyrants.  Even little, long-term connections can get ruined, without care.  It wouldn’t be kind to any soul companions I gathered.”

“Drat,” Verona muttered.

“Are you saying Drat because you thought I’d accidentally blocked myself from getting Alpy?” Avery asked.

“This again,” Lucy said.

“Such interesting questions.  I get the impression you’ll be charming students.  That lost spirit of yours, she’s the one who burned down the student library, is she?  Gave our Nicolette a scare?”

She didn’t sound angry at that, and Zed looked agitated- but for reasons that had nothing to do with any immediate danger.  He reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out the clunkiest cell phone Avery had ever seen.  It looked more like a hard plastic brick than anything.

“Uhh, yeah.  It was a crazy night, apparently,” Avery said.

“Hopefully the scales are even after your negotiation with Nicolette.  Speaking of libraries, is that our Nina Lecerf bumping around in that device of yours?” Mrs. Durocher asked Zed.

“She wants out.  If I may?”

Zed put the phone down, dialed a number, and stood back.

Avery stumbled a bit as paper slipped free of her bag and pocket.  Blank pages, some napkins, and stuff from other students found courses in a growing wind and found a common destination by traveling those courses.  They slapped against the air and found a three-dimensional human figure in the air.

Then, as if by a million colored pens drawing at once, features appeared on that form.  She stepped forward, dusting herself off.  Her hair was in a bun, she had a slight smile, and oversized glasses.  Her clothes looked like those of an old fashioned student, but they were hard to pin down from any movies Avery had seen of the olden days.

“Good evening, Mrs. Durocher,” the woman said.  She beamed at Avery and the others.

“Our library burned.  We moved the damaged books to a back room.”

“I know!  I heard,” the woman said.

Alexander approached.  He smiled at the woman.  “Would you be interested in doing us a favor, Nina?  Restoring what you can, and binding new books to replace the ones you can’t?”

The woman held both hands over her heart, and there was a faint paper sound, as if she had papers inside the breast of that suitcoat that was so fitted it could be a corset.  “May I?”

“Go, Nina.  You have thirty minutes.  I’ll set up something longer-term in a bit,” Zed said.

Nina curtseyed, then hurried into the school.

“She’s an Animus,” Zed said.  “A librarian in this case.  A conservator and collector of knowledge.  Her entire existence as an Other was and is books.  Visiting old bookstores, antique stores, auctions… sitting in libraries every night, making her own books or painstakingly copying tomes getting too old to be readable.”

“And she’s a prisoner of yours?” Lucy asked.

“A-” Zed seemed taken aback.

Well, that’s our reputation gone in record time, Avery thought.

“How did you bind her, or get her?” Avery asked, trying to phrase it more politely.

“She’s bound, right?” Verona asked.  “You had to let her out, and you only did it for a short time.  Then she’s stuck again?”

“It was a mutual deal,” Zed said.  “I offered her access to a trove of material online, and to help her figure it out and adapt her.  After ten years, she can decide to abort or renew.”

“As a thingy of knowledge and whatever, is she even capable of saying no and ending the contract?” Lucy asked.  “Or does she have to take the option where she’s bound for longer?”

“I find this line of questioning fascinating,” Alexander said.  “I’m so glad you three decided to attend.  When we didn’t get the paperwork, I wondered, and ended up doing some augury to judge if you would.  Every question you ask is a hint at where you come from.  Perhaps we’ll puzzle you out by the end of the summer semester, and reward you for giving us that knowledge and trust with a trove of knowledge.”

“Alexander,” Mrs. Durocher said.  “You do know where they come from?  I’m not the only one who’s put it together?”

“Given our history and the way these things have gone the last twenty times, I might suggest that I have two thirds of the story, and you have one third, but your third gets straight to the heart of the matter.”

“They’re wild practitioners.”

“What’s that?” Zed asked.

“Practitioners of old ways, Zed.  Patron Others and practitioners who are tied to them.  The way things were done before Solomon, when they were formalized.  Which leads to questions about who and what spearheaded the organization of this little triad of practitioners.”

“I have some notes on that,” Alexander said.  “We’ll have wine and discuss all of our students tonight, I think.  Ray?”

“If we must,” the man who had to be Raymond Sunshine said, sighing heavily.  He was holding a laser between his hands for a kid to play with.  The kid looked too young to be attending the school.  Closer to Kerry’s age.  A bunch of other kids of similar age were hanging back, like they were too afraid to approach the scary old guy in black, with the long hair and crimson sunglasses.  Even if the lasers were neat.

“Not so cool to know we’re getting analyzed,” Lucy said.

“No ill-will is intended,” Alexander told them.  “Whatever you may think or know about me, I want you to know that I am also passionate about what we do here, and I do enjoy teaching.  I wouldn’t make this school my life if I didn’t.  I want to teach you more and to do that I need to know you.”

Lucy glowered more, but she held her tongue.

Alexander smiled.  “Knowing that you’re wild practitioners with multiple patrons helps me to make sense of you.  It tells me you’re probably strong, with a wide base of power.  It means I can expect you to be… interesting students.”

“Unruly and interesting,” Mrs. Durocher amended.

“I’d believe unruly,” Alexander said.  “Not filling out the paperwork.”

“Is that going to be a thing?” Avery asked.  “A problem?”

He laughed, and shook his head.  “It means we’re a little more off guard, a little less prepared to help you.  But I look forward to getting to know you and I’m reasonably certain I’ll know what I need to know by the time the semester ends and that we’ll impart a fine education in most things practice related.”

Letting you know what you want to know is our tuition, Avery thought.  Giving you that, basically.

But we get our own payment.  We get to find out stuff that we need to know about dealing with the murderers of the Carmine Beast.

“It looks like everyone’s present,” Alexander told Ray.

“They are,” Ray said, adjusting his sunglasses.  He shook off the light show, then straightened, standing by Alexander.  Unsmiling, even a bit grim, he gave the kid he’d been playing with a small wave.

“I look forward to talking more, you three,” Alexander said.  “I should address the students.  The parents will get antsy if we keep them too long.”

“He does love this part,” Mrs. Durocher said.  She followed  Alexander as he walked over to the stairs.  He stood so the double set of doors that led into the school framed him.  Ray stood a few stairs down and to his right, and Mrs. Durocher stood a few stairs down and to his left.

Some parents kissed children, and the older children made faces.  Others retreated back to cars.  But the general and natural setup seemed to be a circular clearing, more or less ringed by houses, except for where the road led into things, at the twelve o’clock position, opposite the school at the six.  The students gathered around Alexander, and the parents moved back but remained where they could watch.

“I think we learned more cool things in the last ten minutes than we got in lessons with two of our teachers in the last five weeks,” Verona said.  She looked on top of the world.

“Our usual teachers are… fairly tight lipped,” Avery murmured.  Lucy nodded, and Snowdrop followed suit, shaking her head.

“A lot of secretive murmuring between you three,” Brie said.

“That’s us,” Lucy said.  “Hopefully it stays us for the rest of this summer program.”

She looked back at Zed, and then stopped.

He wasn’t smiling.  And he looked serious.

“Just so you know, Nina does have a choice,” Zed said.  “And she chose to be bound.”

“Okay,” Lucy said.  She didn’t flinch or anything.  “That’s good.”

“But while we’re on the subject, you do know that those goblins and that gunman are probably massively dangerous Others who either hurt people or are going to hurt people somewhere down the road, if practitioners like us don’t intervene, right?”

Avery kept her mouth shut too.  And she wasn’t sure what to think, because… Zed might be right.  But was admitting that much the first step in a long and problematic education, that proved the Kennet Others right, about them going to this school?

The crowd had quieted, and people had said their goodbyes.  Alexander seemed to bask in the moment, magnanimous and patient, framed on either side with the sapphire-tinted windows and his fellow teachers.

Maybe fifty, sixty students were present.  How many families?  How many of them were powerful?  With rituals carved out from street layouts and cycles of war and births, or from ‘lord spirits’ or crazy old god things?  And some of those people in those families would be visiting and helping to teach, imparting knowledge, networking, stuff.

How did you even deal if confronted with something as organized and versatile as all of this?

This is what the Others that awakened us are so scared of.

“Welcome,” Alexander addressed the crowd, starting his speech. To Avery’s sight, his eyes were like bright mirrors.  “Welcome, new students and old…”