Author: Wildbow

Loose Ends – E.3 | Pale

3 weeks later, Verona

“So, to start us off, mapping it all out for the big ritual,” Verona explained.  “Consider me very open to suggestions, ideas on symbolism, modifications, all that.  The valley to the east of Kennet?  That’d be where we set the spike, for our ritual.”

“Hmm,” Avery replied, looking over.  She checked the coast was clear, then tapped her foot three times and used wind spirits to leap up onto a rooftop.  She skidded a bit on the snow there before finding traction.  Forging her way up the snow that had piled on the roof, she reached the peak, and stood there, hand on chimney, looking around.  “Not the Arena?”

“I get why that’s your thought, but my line of thinking is that the valley is where we fought the bulk of the spirit influx, it’s where Anthem Tedd attacked Miss and the Foundlings, it’s where the cabin was where we blew up Edith…”

“It’s where the Hungry Choir first attacked the Carmine, setting off nearly a year of fighting,” Lucy added.  “Where the Witch Hunter… Ralph?”

“Raphael,” Verona said.

“Where he sniped at us.”

“Hmm,”  Avery made a doubtful noise from her perch on the rooftop above them.

“There’s a throughline to the logic,” Verona assured Avery.

“Does that line intersect at ‘the rebar doesn’t have an edge’?” Avery asked, looking down on them from the rooftop.

“Readily fixed,” Verona said.  “And maybe beside the point.”

“If the instructions say ‘include one item that has an edge’, though?” Avery asked.

“We’d only be using the ritual as a model.”

“It’s your first opportunity to do a big ritual that’s not rushed by circumstance, and you want to take this shortcut?” Avery asked.

“I said it’s readily fixed,” Verona insisted.

Avery looked at Lucy, who shrugged.

“Okay, and you’re not elaborating, meaning you want to show us, not tell us,” Avery said.

“If I say I can do it and it turns out I can’t, for whatever reason, then I’d be gainsaid, which delays us another while.  So yeah.”

“Right.”

Verona flashed a grin at Avery.

“Hmm.  Okay.  I hope I don’t sound like a pest-”

“Nah.  Whole idea of this talk is to work out the flaws, fix them.  Pick it apart.”

Avery frowned.  “What about the fact the rebar isn’t from Kennet, as far as I know?  It’s from the Abyss, got plugged into a goddess, then got shoved into Charles’ side in the Crucible.  Is it too disconnected?”

Lucy looked over in the direction of the valley.  “If a dragon rose up out of Kennet and we went on a big quest to slay it, and we champions of Kennet came back with the sword used to do the slaying, or a big chunk of the work, I guess?  I think it’s worth saying it’s a Kennet thing.”

“Ooh, that was good,” Verona said, nudging her friend.

“Thank you.”

“Okay,” Avery said.  “I buy that part of it.  That was good.”

“Thanks again.”

“I still feel like it fits the Arena, though.”

“Let me keep going?” Verona asked, “Some stuff you raise might get explained later.”

“Go for it,” Avery said.  “Do I need to come down?”

“Either-or.  These items represent the Incarnate pillars, right?  From the valley, keep traveling, nearby landmark, important to Kennet?”

“Sorry, Greensey Hills,” Avery said, still on the rooftop, looking over at the smaller hills to the west end of Kennet.  “You don’t rate, I guess.”

“Bowdler is on your city magic pin and it’s the more important one for where we’re coming from and going,” Verona said.

“Any guesses about pillar?” Lucy asked.

“Hmmm.  Options are Nature, Fortune, Fate, Time, Death.”

“It’s very interesting to see the order you think of stuff,” Verona commented.

“Hmmm, not sure I see Fortune.  Or Fate, death.  Nature I could see but… Is that location tied to time because we’re a seasonal town, based around the ski hills?”

“Yep, time-”

“Woo!”

“-and yeah, partially about the seasonal time stuff,” Verona confirmed.

“It’s also where a lot of our holiday stuff happens, when it’s not the Arena or right outside city hall.  Canada day, the little grove of Christmas trees at the base of the mountain,” Lucy explained.

“It’s also good framing with our focus object for Time,” Verona said.

“Timepiece.  The town center?  If you’re standing at a certain point, you could see the big town clock with the mountain right behind it.”

“No.  Hint: it’d be above and behind the ski hill, not in front.”

Avery frowned.  Then her eyes widened.  “We can do that?”

“We fought Musser to an inconvenient standstill, we unraveled the Hungry Choir riddle, we made it,” Verona said.  “We beat Charles.  Would I be out of line if I said we can do anything?”

“Probably,” Lucy said.  “I’m noticing how you phrased that as a question.”

Verona snorted.

“Moon, bloody moon?” Avery asked, moving her backpack strap to tilt the pin up toward her face, where the city magic pin displayed ‘Kennet’, a graphic of a bloody moon shown suspended over the Bowdler ski hill.

“Tracks time through phases and placement, tied to Carmine, the Hungry Choir, and we hatched the moon to make Kennet found in the face of an imminent deadline.”

“It’s on the pin.  You don’t have to convince me.”

“I debated imbalance a bit.  I mean, piece of rebar… the whole freaking moon,” Lucy said.

“There’s admittedly some disparity,” Avery said.  “Sorry Ronnie.”

“Might need some counterweight stuff going on,” Verona sighed.

“Some.”

“But it fits.  It’s more of a ‘hey look, symbolic meaning!’ than, like, carrying it.”

“Sure,” Avery said.  “So… Rebar in the valley for War.  Moon over the ski hill for Time.”

She traced her finger in an arc, stopping at downtown, frowning.

“Downtown,” Lucy confirmed.

“Sure.  Hmm… coin.”

“Coin.  Fortune.”

“Market.  Makes sense.  What’s the focus object?  HBC coin?”

“That’s a bit impersonal,” Verona said.

“Personal to me, but not Kennet,” Lucy noted.  “And we wanted to avoid the trap of making this too ‘us’.”

“Fair.”

“Toadswallow’s got the first dollar the goblin market earned.  Mr. Black has the first his store earned, he thinks.  He said he framed it and his wife thought it was tacky so it didn’t get put back up again after they turned his office into Brayden’s nursery, he needs to dig it out of his basement.  But yeah,” Verona reported.  “I asked Miss if she could track something like that down for Kennet found.  She put her admin foundlings on it.  Odds are good.”

“Cool.  Rebar in the valley, moon over the ski hill, first dollar downtown…”

“Do you want to go straight to the end, or reverse course and go to the beginning?”

“Oh, did we skip ahead?”

Verona shrugged.  “It’s not really an ahead or behind thing, it’s pillars, but there ended up being a loose timeline, so… I guess.  So yeah, you can figure out what comes before the valley or what comes after the market.”

“Far end, curved line going from the valley to southeast Kennet… that’s Edith and Matthew’s house, my house, um, school, hospital, school again…”

“Yep.”

“Any further and I think we’re getting too far away, weird spacing.”

“Spacing’s a bit weird anyway.  Top-heavy,” Verona admitted.  “Still outlining, I think there’s room for diagram fudgery.”

“So far, if we’re decorating a circle, we’ve only drawn a third of that circle,” Avery said.

“It’s kind of a golden spiral,” Verona said.

“A huh what now?”

“Spiral, used in art composition,” Verona confirmed.

“And science, comes up in nature,” Lucy said.

“Yeah?” Verona asked.

“Math.”

“Ew.  Anyway, to balance out the diagram, I was thinking we could have another set of things on the other half, to form the circle.  Or counter-spiral, I guess.”

Avery turned, looking the opposite direction, toward Verona’s old house.  “Would be nice if we could have ‘nature’ represented, My instinct would be the shack we used to connect to the Forest Ribbon Trail.”

“Opposite end of town, sadly, gets a bit awkward,” Verona said.

“Could you do A, A, B, A, A, B, B, A, B, B?” Avery asked.  “Substitute A and B for Incarnate pillars and… whatever else you’re thinking?”

“You need one more B and one more A,” Lucy said.  “Since we’d have six pillars.”

“Harder to balance,” Avery said.  “Three-one-two, three-one-two?  Or, oh, hey, since we have a half circle, and what we’re doing is still tied to the idea of secrets, a line between Innocent and Other that’s subject to change… moon?  Crescent?  Moon being related to secrets is one of the motifs in Paths.”

Verona considered that.  In her head, she imagined how the layout might shift.  She nodded.  “I can definitely work that in.”

“Throwing it out there,” Lucy said.  “One way a diagram can be imbalanced is synchronicity.  Too many ‘like’ objects at one point, without something of equal weight?”

“Moon and the actual moon,” Verona said.  “Yeah.  Still, it’s a cool motif.  Let’s finish our talk, confirm this is what we want to do, and then maybe head back to the House on Half street, I can sketch out something.”

“Sounds good.”

“This wouldn’t go bad and awaken all of Kennet?” Avery asked.  “Since you’re modeling this megahuge ritual on the Awakening ritual?”

“I don’t think it would, and yeah.  A bit part of the Awakening ritual is the person or people at the center reaching out.  Saying ‘hi, world of Others and weirdness, here I am, come meet me halfway.’  So let’s do that, custom tailored to Kennet’s needs, and leave the Seal out of it.”

“Good sentiment,” Lucy said.

“Hi, world of Others and weirdness, here’s Kennet,” Avery said.  “Keeping the best parts of that very old practice, but we’re not emphasizing the binding, sealing, hard establishment part.”

“Yeah.”

Avery looked around.  “Let me think.”

“For absolute sure,” Lucy said.  As she said it, she wrapped arms around Verona’s shoulders from behind, and rested the soft part of her jaw on Verona’s head.  “No rush.”

Verona closed her eyes for a moment.  “I hope it’s okay we’re bringing you in as a third set of eyes, more objective, untainted with assumptions.”

“It’s fine, for sure,” Avery said.  “If I was going to be mad about being left out of discussions, which I’m not, I’d only have myself to blame.  I got busy with hockey and Nora.”

“Got busy with Nora, got it,” Verona said.

“Shh,” Lucy shushed her.

“You know, I have conversations with you, Ronnie,” Avery said, “and I’ll go to bed that night and I lay there thinking, do I have accidental double-entendres and awkward lines all the time, and nobody’s telling me?  Or is my friend really good at catching them, and singling me out for some reason?”

“I have a talent and it’s funny because you’re the most innocent out of us three.”

“Do you want her to quit it?” Lucy asked.  “Or I can whap her upside the back of the head when she does it, as a deterrent.”

“I can totally stop,” Verona offered.

“No, I’ll let you know if I do.  I’m not that innocent by the way.”

“Oooh,” Verona cooed.

Lucy mimicked the sound.

“Ooooh,” Verona repeated.

“I’m not that un-innocent either.  Don’t let your mind run to conclusions.  We’ve made out and stuff.”

“And stuff,” Verona said.

“Shut up.”

“It’s really cool,” Lucy said.  With her head resting where it was, every opening of her mouth dug into the top of Verona’s head.  “That you were able to get past the rough part, with everything going on.  I’m really happy about that.”

“I owe her so much,” Avery said.  “How many people hear ‘I have big secrets, I can’t tell you, I need you to trust me, I’ll tell you when I can’ and actually give that trust?”

“Not many,” Lucy said.

“Can I just say something?” Verona asked.

“Oh no,” Avery said.

“Oh no?”

“You’ve dug this hole for yourself, Ronnie,” Lucy said.

“I’m worried now,” Avery said.  “Bracing myself.”

“Ugh,” Verona sulked.  “Well now you’re both kind of ruining the impact of it.”

“Does it only work if I’m innocent and defenseless?” Avery asked.

“All I was going to say was you’re worth that extra patience and consideration, in my books,” Verona said.  “You’re cool, you’re caring, you’re genuine.  If you, I dunno, kept a secret and spat in my face and pushed me into the river, I wouldn’t be all ‘what the fuck, Avery’, I’d be, ‘something’s wrong with Avery.  She needs help’.”

Avery was just far enough away that it was hard to read her expression.

“Goes a long way, I think,” Verona said.

Lucy squeezed Verona harder.

“I wonder sometimes,” Avery said.  “The way things were at the end, those last moments.  I didn’t feel like the person you were describing.”

Verona nodded.  Lucy’s head bobbed with the nod.

Verona felt her heart rate climbing slightly, even just remembering the final moments.  Screaming against something that seemed inevitable and eternal.  Feral.  She’d had moments over the past few weeks where she’d think about it late at night and she wouldn’t be able to sleep for an hour or two after.

It made her think of her dad.  It made her feel like she needed to dig into practice stuff, thinking long and hard about what she could do to never, ever, ever feel like that again.

She rubbed at her palm.

“I feel like that about all of it.  Family man onward,” Lucy said.  “I don’t think it defines us unless we let it.”

“I’m trying,” Avery said.  “Dollop of blood in the bathwater, though, turns it all pink, though.  You know what I mean?  I can’t shake this idea that it started with me being stuck on the Forest Ribbon Trail and ended with me trying to cut Charles as deep as I could with words like the Wolf did to me, and that’s the bookends of this… this massive part of my life, and that’s the tone of it all, and that’s something I keep with me for the rest of my life.”

“How you were with Charles shouldn’t change how you are with Nora,” Lucy said.

Avery made an unsatisfied sound.

“Can’t say the bookends are a thing for me,” Verona said.  “But the low moments were low.”

“I wanted him to die.”  Avery’s voice was quiet.  “I wanted to break him.  And it seems like it worked.”

“I wanted him to feel it.  Like I could scream and fight enough to get past the stupidity,” Verona said.  “Make myself as spiky and clawed and desperate and venomous enough it hurt too much to do anything to me.  Fighting for any angle to get away, demanding as much attention as I could, so maybe you guys had a shot.”

“Before John went into the Arena, I created a dueling circle, keyed to be a battle of wills,” Lucy said.  “I challenged Charles to that.  We didn’t really fight, though, but… there was that battle of wills, anyway.  If that makes sense.”

“Three against one.  Even when we didn’t plan it or communicate during,” Verona said.

“Yep,” Lucy said, with more emotional weight than ninety-nine point nine percent of ‘yep’s got.

Avery sighed.

“I know it’s not the point,” Lucy said.

“Nah, I don’t know,” Avery replied.  “I don’t know if I even have a point or if I’m getting too deep in my own head.”

“That’s when you talk to people,” Lucy told her.  “Get outside takes.”

Avery nodded, looking out over Kennet from her rooftop perch.

“You can’t change how shit started or ended,” Verona said, “Barring some weird-ass excavator practices, some powerful Incarnate or Envoy effects, Wishes-”

“Ronnie,” Lucy said.

“-or any of a bunch of stuff that costs way more than it’d be worth, with way too many checks and balances in the way…”

“Ronnie,” Lucy repeated.  She gave Verona a light shake.

“…but one thing we can do is single out the good stuff.  Take something out of it and put it to work doing something that makes the pink bathwater forgettable.”

Avery nodded.  She turned, looking down at Verona, and raised an eyebrow.  “Hinting that we should get back to talking about practice stuff?”

“Not the aim, but I wouldn’t complain.”

“You two look like an Other, Lucy behind you like that, one head on top of the other.”

Verona and Lucy stuck out their arms like zombies, making groany noises.

“Come hug!” Verona offered.

“If I get into your clutches I’m not sure I’ll have a free moment to think about this puzzle of yours.  Let me think?”

“Sure.”

Verona took in the quiet.  No traffic, no sounds, no wind.  The ski hill had wound down for the night, the nonessential lights around downtown had shut off, and snow was falling, glittering around them.

“You’ve got something in your backpack that’s poking my stomach,” Lucy said.

“Well move, then, dum-dum.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“I’ve got curfew, can’t check my phone while I’m in fake Other mode with Ronnie,” Lucy said, still hugging Verona’s shoulders, rocking right and then left.  “But we do have a deadline.”

“This is nice, though,” Verona said.

“Yeah, okay.  So… I’m figuring if I guess right, it works like me guessing Miss was Lost, way back when,” Avery said.

“Validates,” Lucy said.  “There’s a little bit of power and meaning in that.”

“Remaining objects would be skull, woven object, optional flower,” Avery mused aloud.  “If we’re looking at the meaningful events in that area, south of Kennet, my head goes to Edith being dead, Yalda died down that way… further south of Kennet.”

“Yeah,” Verona said, holding her tongue.  She really, really wanted Avery to get this one.

“It’s where Raph died.  Using his skull would be grim and weird… not that I’m necessarily judging if that’s the direction you chose…”

Avery’s tone changed as she glanced down, trailing off.

“We didn’t go that route,” Lucy assured her.

“Okay, good.  Because it’s grim and weird.  And not that important to Kennet.  Other deaths, more important?  Skull’s hard.”

“Skull’s hard,” Verona agreed.

“Did we bury something or someone?  The goblins?  Was it where we buried Humpydump and Fishmittens?  You said it forms a loose timeline, so… the- wait, Yalda.  Woven object is the doll?  You were able to find it?”

“Woven object would be the doll, as our ‘threads’ for the big ritual.  Put some of Sootsleeves’ best on the task,” Verona replied.  “It was in the burning Arena in Kennet below.  I guess Charles tossed it after extinguishing the Hungry Choir.”

“And Yalda lived in the house by the factory.”

“And,” Lucy said.  “I think as places go, the factory where Chloe attacked me… and where we mended things, and being close to the house where John held us at gunpoint… and we mended things.”

“Connections,” Avery said.  “Thread, fate, woven object.”

“I’m so psyched you got that,” Verona said, and she couldn’t take the smile off her face, even if she’d wanted to, which she didn’t.

“I might be a ditz sometimes, but I do have a good brain for some of this stuff.”

“Saying that, you up the stakes for yourself,” Lucy told her.  “Because you need to get the next one right to prove you have that good brain.”

“Skull.  Death,” Avery said.

Verona watched as Avery shuffled her feet, one hand on the chimney for balance, tracing a path through the locations with her finger.  She stopped when she was pointing at the Kennet Arena.

Verona nodded to herself.  Pretty much a gimme.

“Death.  Where the Carmine died.  And John.”

“Yeah,” Lucy replied.  “Good brain.”

“Not good enough to figure out the skull.  Give me a moment, see if I can’t figure it out?”

“Deadline.  My curfew.  Not that I think my mom would get that mad,” Lucy said.  “If I said it was stuff like this.”

“We should leave time to talk sleepover this weekend.  Would do tonight, but you guys have school, boo, ick.”

“Boo, ick,” Avery echoed, absentmindedly.  “Skull, skull, skull, damn it.”

“I’d like to invite McCauleigh,” Verona said, more to Lucy than Avery.

“Something a bit bigger?” Lucy asked.  “No objection.  She’s been hanging with the Dancers, right?  Mia said.”

“Yeah.”

“But she can’t use the battle dancing because it breaches Innocence.”

“She can use some of the underlying stuff, but no practice.  Trying means the universe tries to screw her out of advantages in the Innocent world.”

“Skull is hard,” Avery said, from the rooftop.

“What, with the cues we gave you, you’re ten out of eleven?  That’s an A if this was a test in school,” Verona said.  “Come on.  Come down, we’ll hug, we’ll talk sleepover and we can figure this out at the sleepover.”

“Weird ass test,” Avery murmured.  She put hands in her pockets, leaning against the chimney, looking.

Verona noted that Avery was wearing a new coat.  It was nice enough, but it wasn’t the antler coat, and the fact Avery was wearing fashion that didn’t quite fit her made her feel farther away.

“Your coat’s still in the works, by the way.  Sorry, it probably won’t be this winter.”

“All good, looking forward to it,” Avery replied, eyes on the Arena, sounding mildly annoyed at the interruptions.  She was still focusing on that, Verona guessed.  Avery frowned.  “No piece of the Carmine’s still around, right?”

“Nope,” Verona said.

“Skull’s hard,” Lucy reiterated.

“Give me a hint?”

“Might be the best skull in the region,” Lucy said.  She paused.  “Skulls, but I’m focused on one.  Also worth saying we’re pretty biased here.”

“Does what a skull’s meant to do, thoroughly tested,” Verona added.

Avery frowned.  She looked at the Arena, then back down to Verona and Lucy.  “I have one idea, but it’s messed up.”

“Uh huh?”

“Messed up like I’m either going to say it and you guys look at me funny, or I’ll be right and I might look at you funny.”

She probably figured it out.

“So, taking another direction before I try that answer… Is this some ‘power of friendship, we put our heads together’ thing?” Avery asked.  “Tying back to how when I went to the Forest Ribbon Trail, the skull was still inside the cat’s head?”

“We don’t have that much ego,” Lucy said.  “Hur dur, best skulls in the region, here.”

“Thoroughly tested,” Verona mimed Lucy’s tone.  “Cool idea, though, but no.”

Lucy snorted.  “Also gets problematic if you figure this is death.  With the amount of power and scale we’re talking here, having everything terminate in our heads is liable to give us an aneurysm.”

Avery hopped down, frowning, holding back as Lucy and Verona extended arms for that promised hug.  “Is it-?”

A While Later

Ramjam’s hammer came down with enough force to sink into ice and snow, in the back lot of the Arena.  Bubbleyum dusted off her hands of bits of snow and grit, then stepped back, as the diagram work lit up.

The diagram extended across all three layers of Kennet, with emphasis on Kennet below.  They hadn’t drawn big, long lines across the streets and buildings of Kennet above, but those lines were visible if Verona looked at the reflective parts of the ice, or up in the air.  Through the reflection was a facet of Kennet with a darker sky and, as she walked around, the Arena, still on fire, after all this time.  The elaboration around the Arena and the lines drawn in Kennet found were visible in the air, as light shone through the snowfall and formed faint refraction as it bounced off of brighter surfaces.

Verona checked her phone.  It was about time.  Ten fifteen at night.  They’d had to nudge and push a lot to clear the space to do what they needed.

“Do us one last favor, Ramjam?” Verona asked.  “Rest.”

There was a crunching sound, and the goblin hammer with its curled horns on either side came apart.  Each piece broke apart further, until only the skull at the center with its large horns remained, eye sockets large, nose small, mouth wide, with lower jaw missing.

Butty’s pointed, grinning skull and Lewdtube’s squat, broad skull with its maniacal ear to ear grin were already in place, set into the snowbank.  Flowers people had brought, a lone candle, and some odds and ends had been donated.

Among those odds and ends, Verona had put a homemade tattoo gun and a piece of poetry inside a resealable bag in there.  Both were things she’d had to make, because the real ones had been lost in the house collapse and cleanup.  She’d made the tattoo gun the same way she’d done for Mal, shortly after their first meeting, and she’d recalled the poetry as best as she could, from when Anselm had recited it.  She’d scribbled down a few lines in a notebook when talking about poetry becoming song lyrics, with him- the only structure and reminders she had to go off of.

The snow and ice of the rink and parking lot had taken on a brighter tint.  A pale spot where the Carmine Beast’s body had once come to rest, the diagram positioned at the head of it, near where the snow was scraped off and deposited from the ice rinks and plowed lot, piled high.

Liberty and Avery were a few paces back, talking.  Lucy stood closer to the Arena doors, arms folded.

Verona used her Sight, and traced the lines, making sure everything was good.  The lines traced out, tying to the moon, which was tied to the greater diagram.

To her Sight, the meaty core of the moon began to leak, seeping down along those lines of the diagram, touching the peak, racing down the slope toward its neighboring items in the valley and downtown.

Lucy used her sight, and in the flare of crimson that came right after she’d switched, Verona could see the tracks of the Carmine tracing their way down the mountain, in a path that would end here.

That power came crashing through.  Crimson power, clotted and bloody, meeting the edge of the circle around the snowbank.

Avery came over, laying down some more of the spellwork.  Connection manipulation, to doubly protect this.

Lucy had walked forward and now reached out, tapping fist against the scuffed part of Ramjam’s skull, at the forehead.

The skull was absorbing moonlight, glowing with a faint white light.  The snow of the snowbank began to give, melting as if from intense heat.  The snow pile crumpled unevenly and inconsistently as parts succumbed, and washed down and away.

The skulls remained where they’d been planted on and in the snowbank, now hovering in the air, along with the items and flowers.

Avery gave Lewdtube’s skull a rough pat as it passed, giving it a push to help it on its way as other things drifted.

Verona gave Butty a ‘spank’ on the rear part of the skull to complete the trifecta, though most of her attention was on the tattoo gun and book.

The light refracted, and it painted suggestions of figures- pillars of faint blurry light that gathered in groups, or stood alone, four, five, or six feet tall.  A crowd.

They were silent as they departed, walking past the Arena, past figures- a few in the woods, more in the front parking lot.

The valley lit up as the diagram work around the rebar was activated.  McCauleigh and Anthem would be out that way.

Liberty leaned in to whisper something in Avery’s ear, as if respecting the silence as much as she could, then ran off that way.

As the light swelled over that way, it cast shadows on the surroundings, particularly on the mountain face.  Verona had stitched a shadow of a sword to the rebar, which hadn’t been her original plan.  She’d wanted to transmute it into a sword, but she’d second guessed herself.  It was a bit tacky, after the fact.

It was weapon enough.

Matthew and his hosts had handled the woven object.  Across all of Kennet, Verona’s Sight painted everything as swathed in translucent gauze, meat and blood contained within.  That gauze fluttered, reacting, and some of it seemed to get longer, with more trailing threads.

Power and diagram lines fed into the market area downtown, but that hadn’t kicked off yet.  Toadswallow had wanted to do it without practitioners, so Raquel and Sheridan were over there, observing and ready to act in case of emergency, but the rest was up to Toadswallow.

In the setups for Awakening rituals, there were often five items to represent five pillars.  Depending on environment and how traditional a group was, Nature often contested for the spot with Fortune.  Flower or Coin.  In all the different copies of Essentials, which Verona had really only gotten around to reading a week ago, it seemed like twenty different families could have twenty five different variations between them.  Some incorporated elements of their home practice, or assigned labels, or had Others stand in at sections of the diagram.  Many included all the pillars.

Well, it wasn’t like they weren’t doing their own ‘awakening’ ritual, minus the awakening part, scaled up times one hundred.

They waited in silence, looking down the length of the big road that led out of the Arena, toward that end of town.

Fortune could represent the new ways, industrialization, city, commerce and capitalism.  Urban instead of rural.

Thing was, Toadswallow was trying to mingle that with old ways.  The way practice was pre-Seal, when Others offered their power on a case-by-case basis.

There was a tension in the air, not so much because Verona figured he might fail and scuttle the entire thing, but because there was tension in the idea itself.  It was one of the things they were trying to convey here, and she couldn’t fully shake the idea that the Alabaster Assembly or the Sable Prince would show up to wag a finger at them or something.

It was a relief to see that light swell from between buildings downtown.  The flows of power smoothed out and got less clotted, until the lines were settling into a deep crimson, that became black, and then a dark blue.

That was half of Kennet, and the lines if viewed from high above would paint a crescent moon.  Facing that crescent moon was a half circle of meaningful objects.

Seven in total.  Being absent, they’d thrown their hats into the ring, so to speak.  It didn’t have to be a sacrifice, but they’d decided to sort of make it one.  So the hats would still be there, but they’d be hung up at the Awakening site, protected from elements and Innocent attention.  That was their spot, out of the seven.  In a way, it felt like putting childhood behind them.  Matthew and each of the hosts they’d awakened at the same location had contributed things they were willing to put out there too, too.

The Others had another circle on that end.  They’d focused on objects they’d been given, gifts and help, or things borrowed that they now intended to repay with interest.

The Aware, led by Louise, from Mrs. Schaff to Oakham, Jeremy, Caroline, Mia, George, and all of them.

Foundlings.

Outside contacts.  From markets, from neighboring areas.

Guests.  People rescued from trouble, or who’d come to study and learn.

Seven circles on that side, to balance out the fact that some elements of this side, with the pillars, were heavy.  Occupied by clusters of people standing in a diagram circle, or occupied by items that represented those people, so they could be free to act elsewhere.

Shrines lit up, one by one, at Kennet’s outer border, making the perimeter clearer.  As they did, a violin started playing nearby.

Verona watched, Sight still active, as the power began to creep across the sky and out into distant regions.  Lis had been tapped for this, and while she was still on probation, in a way, she was lending them her effort.  Here, she’d be keeping the door open, constrained by the flows of power coming from all of this.

Verona took one last look at those vague, faint images, closed her eyes, shutting off her Sight, and with so much going on, it was very much like the movies, when a light switch would be flicked and there would be a bang as the lights went out.

Except for the violin playing, and a faint smell of food, Kennet was normal to eyes without Sight.

Now we see.

Or hear.  The violin playing was now accompanied by a choir of children’s voices.  It came from the residential part of Kennet.  Verona’s old home.  Lucy’s place.

Sootsleeves’ anthem.

Kennet above had a population of four thousand people, give or take.  The people that came through from the circles of key groups were about a tenth of that… and that was to start with.  Verona could see lights coming on in houses, and people peeking outside to see what was going on.

Lucy elbowed Verona, and Verona turned to look.

Miss, alongside Lis, Montague, who was occupying a mannequin, the clotted blood and stuff forming his suit and shifting features, though he was apparently mute, and beside him, the Turtle Queen.

“How’s the city magic part of this going?” Verona asked.

“This costs,” Lis said, unhelpfully.

“You came from a fucked up place and fell in with fucked up people,” Lucy told her.  “We’ve offered a lot of enemies the opportunity to surrender, back off, make amends.  This is the amends part.  Rebuilding trust, helping Kennet.  Yeah, it’s going to cost.  It isn’t going to be fun.”

“I made my oaths, I’m following them.”

“How’s the city magic part going?” Verona repeated.

“Residents of Kennet ate less than they needed to and put off going to sleep.  It wasn’t easy,” Lis said.  “Adjustments to late night programming, favorite movies, distractions.”

“Thank you for managing,” Avery told Lis.

“Are we putting feelers out?” Verona asked.

“They’re out.”

The procession was coming over the bridge.  People were showing more interest, mostly bewildered.

Food followed.  Offerings of meat, grilled vegetable, bread, sweets, wine, alcohol, and other drinks were on tables hoisted by groups of masked foundlings, or by denizens.

Verona wasn’t close enough to hear, but she could tell from the postures and reactions that the offers of free food were being uneasily accepted or turned down.  Not so good.  But offers of alcohol were something else.  Maybe it was the fact the bottles were sealed.

“We might need to break the ice, give people assurances,” Avery said.  “I’m going to go talk to the Aware.”

“Good plan,” Lucy said.

Avery jogged off.

“Some are coming already,” the Turtle Queen said.  “A mimeisthai.”

“That’ll be… interesting,” Verona said.

“One with hooks in this event already.”

“Okay.”

“Others may take a few days to arrive,” Lis said.

“How long can we keep this going?” Lucy asked.

“That entirely depends on how many problems accumulate before we have to stop and handle things.”

“Right.  But in terms of supplies?”

“Our foundlings are working.  The ones who aren’t carrying things are making food and things for the welcoming ritual,” Miss said.  “They’ll take shifts, they don’t sleep.  Supplies are plentiful.  Available numbers… not so much.”

“That gives us until partway through the lunch hour tomorrow.”

“And alcohol?” Verona asked.  Kennet below had an entire factory dedicated to producing drinks.

“That extends things, but it will help most at extending tonight into the late hours, and extending tomorrow.  People won’t drink as much in the mornings.  If we can push proceedings into the early afternoon, a Saturday night spent drinking will draw more of a crowd.”

“We don’t want this to be about the drinking,” Lis said.

“Okay,” Lucy said.  “So we maybe need more effort from Kennet Aware?  Maybe I’ll make bruschetta again.”

“The more the better,” Miss said.  “The more the food, the greater the offering, the greater the outreach.  There’ll be a sale in the market, interesting things at stalls.  That will have to be our market’s last grand sale in a long time.  Toadswallow confided he didn’t have much to spare.”

“This is working, then?” Verona asked, anxious.

“There’s a perceptible shift.  Give it time.”

“Cherrypop, I think you’re not understanding what I’m saying.”

Verona turned around.  It was Luna Hare, coming down this way from downtown, toward the main road leading up to the Arena, with Snowdrop in tow.  Cherrypop stood on Snowdrop’s shoulder, hanging onto a tuft of hair, swaying wildly and precariously as Snowdrop walked.  Luna Hare wore her rabbit mask.  Snowdrop had her coat open, the visible text reading:

-ow are we
not extinc-
yet?

“‘Cause you’re a goober!  We give her milk!”

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t-”

“Yes!  Bahahaa!”

“No, please, no milk,” Snowdrop could be heard saying.

“I’m saying she likes milk.  If she says something’s good, that means it’s bad.  If she says something’s ugly, she means she likes it.  She’s your friend and she likes you,” Luna Hare insisted.

“All wrong,” Snowdrop said, dryly.

“So wrong, bahaha!”

“I think you’re making progress,” Snowdrop said.

“I’m starting to suspect Cherrypop is doing it on purpose,” Luna Hare said.  She looked over at Miss.  “Hello, Miss.”

“Hello, child.”

“I think I’m being bamboozled.”

“So bamboozled!” Cherrypop crowed.  “You think I don’t know her better than you?  She’s my best friend, it annoys her so much, ’cause she doesn’t like me!  I’ve known her longer!”

“Incoming Innocents,” Lucy said.

Montague and Miss were already pacing, moving further back toward the shadows beneath trees.

Cherrypop moved beneath Snowdrop’s hood, only her head poking out.  “You’re a baby, compared to me!”

“That is true,” Luna Hare said.  She tilted her head, then looked at Miss.  “I’m starting to doubt my take on reality, Miss.”

“Bamboozled you!” Cherrypop cried out.  “I’ve got a brain like a pencil eraser so worn down the metal tears the paper, and I’ve outsmarted you!”

“She might be outsmarting me, Miss.”

“You’re spending a lot of time around reversed speech and a stubborn, aggressive wrongness,” Miss told Luna Hare.  “Not to mention that you’re tired and spent.  We’re all spending from our Selves to make this work.  Take a break?”

“Do you have any errands for me to run?”

“A break for your own sake, not mine.”

Luna huffed, seeming more upset than if she’d been told to run three laps around Kennet and do paperwork on everything she’d seen.

People were starting to filter out as they crossed the bridge.  Some foundlings were carrying boxes which they set up at a corner, quickly arranging a hot chocolate and cider stand.  Kitty-corner to that spot was a booze station by some denizens, apparently.

People still seemed confused and wary, which, like, valid.

Avery was talking to George and Mia.  As they went to get hot chocolate and cider and help get the ball rolling, some neighbors went to stop them.

“I’m going to go poison myself and eat everything an opossum can’t and shouldn’t, while dodging Avery,” Snowdrop said, looking at Luna.  “You can’t come.”

Cherrypop poked her head out, tongue sticking out between sharp teeth.

Numbers were swelling, as more people took notice and got boots and coats on to see what was happening.  Verona felt a weird kind of rush that was simultaneously a… disconnection?  It was like, yeah, awesome, this was coming together, the practice worked, though there might be an element of it working too well, if it drew in too many people needing some serious planning and preparation to accommodate, all at once.

But on the other hand, she’d had the sleepover with Lucy, Avery, and McCauleigh the other week, and that had strained her upper limit of people.  All three were people she adored, she vibed with them, understood them, and it had almost been too much.  Like every tease had to be balanced against insecurities or weak spots or how tired the others were, or the conversation would keep moving on before she was ready to throw something in there, so every contribution felt a quarter-note off from landing.

This was a lot more than that.

Verona put her mask on.

Matthew was in the thickest part of the crowd, talking to a few hosts.  He spotted them, and came over.

“Can he help?” the Turtle Queen asked.  “I don’t think you want me and Montague as the sole line of defense.”

“Help?” Matthew asked.

“Mimeisthai,” Miss said.

“I have no clue what that is.”

“Much like Turtle Queen, but it doesn’t spread, it’s a single entity that grows, feeding into itself instead of infecting and converting.  Which isn’t to say they don’t pull in the weak minded,” Miss said.

“Okay, hm.”

Verona chimed in, happy to have something to latch onto and sink her teeth into.  “Think giant lizards or monkeys that trample cities, but take the animal out of it and replace that part of them with really good branding, imagery, or symbols.  Oh, and when you pop them, they can explode into hundreds of Bugges- like mini Turtle Queens.  Or baby versions of themselves, which can grow up to be full-on Mimeisthais.”

“How in the blackest hell is any city still standing?” Matthew asked.  “The shit we deal with.”

“They tend to have enough weight that they have depressions, which we’ve talked about a lot.  Pushing the fabric of things down beneath them so they’re constanly in a crater that fills up with appropriate power and spirits and whatever.  Basically altered reality all around them.  Which is good, in a way, because it helps shield them against Innocent attention, take a chunk out of things before sealing it around themselves, becoming a pocket realm or whatever.  But also bad because they’re powerful in those spaces.  You know, obviously, stands to reason, right?”

Matthew turned, staring at Verona with dark eyes.

Some kids on the street were crying.  They wanted hot chocolate and treats, and parents were saying no.

He frowned at Verona, then turned to Miss, Lis, and the Turtle Queen, who stood in the shadows of trees, where the spots that would be shady in daytime were nearly black now.

“Not all are that big.  Few manage it,” the Turtle Queen said.  “This one is on its way.  A practitioner has been encouraging its growth.  It likes our event, there’s a matching theme or symbolism, which means it has been attracted from further away.  It’s racing here, we have twenty minutes.  The practitioner is already headed this way, but it may be days.  A follow-up to the original visit we’ll have to account for.”

“A practitioner who wants to encourage these things?” Matthew asked.

“So it seems.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers.  “How concerned are we, here?”

“It’s aligned with us, more or less,” Miss said.  “If it’s responding to this ritual.”

“A gargantuan golden retriever that licks and pisses on everything to claim it and show its love is technically aligned with us,” Verona pointed out.  “Loves us, is interested in us, but… slobber and piss, still.”

“Just so,” Miss answered.

Matthew sighed.

“The parallels between it and what we’re doing in our event will mean it grows fast when arriving.  We’ll need to meet it with a firm presence at the perimeter.”

“Need help?” Lucy asked.

“I have no idea,” Matthew said.

“We’re losing momentum with the ritual,” Lis said.  “I don’t want to sound uncooperative, but this would be a lot easier with help.  If you want me to help potential residents find their way here faster, then I need to conserve power.”

“Help how?”

“I was told I would get more help than I’m getting now.  The bus route?”

“Avery’s the one to ask,” Verona said.

“And the mayor is looking for you.  He’s not on board.”

“Ugh.  Okay,” Lucy said.  “That’s doable.  On it.”

“Twenty minutes, you said?” Verona asked.  “For the Mimeisthai?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.  Bring me in when it- she?”

“She.”

“When she shows?  If she’s a bad communicator, maybe my ‘speaker for the voiceless’ stuff can help?”

“Okay,” Matthew said.  “Maybe.”

Verona and Lucy turned away, navigating the swelling crowd.

“Lucy!”  The shout came from Alayna Weagle.

With the call-out, some others from the high school had noticed.

“Pretend you didn’t hear,” Verona said, ushering Lucy around the crowd.

“Hearing stuff’s one of my things,” Lucy said.

“They don’t know that.”

“Dings my presence and power.  Like you being a crappy moon-hatcher or whatever.”

“Or whatever.”

“Hey!” Avery called out.  Making a beeline toward them, dodging through the crowd.

“Giving our location away,” Verona muttered.

“We might have to accept that we’re in a crowd and we might be recognized,” Lucy said, waving back at Avery.

“Put on your mask, at least.”

Lucy pulled her mask out of her bag and tied it on.

Avery, catching up, opossum at her shoulder, head sticking out beneath a layer of scarf that definitely had a goblin under it too, saw what they were doing and masked up.  Luna Hare followed, doing an admirable job of running with a very full cup of hot chocolate, with a dusting of very red spices, a mini-chili, and orange peel in the foam.  Not a drop spilled.

“They’re coming,” Lucy said.  “Innocent classmates.  I think I hear the mayor.”

“Mayor is that way- lives in one of the big cabin-houses very south end of town.  He walks on the shore to Alpeana’s cave,” Avery said.  “Um, yeah, there’s Alayna, Hailey, Sharon, Andre and Logan off that way.”

“Hunting pack,” Verona said.  “They were being a problem, right?”

“Not super great at school, yeah,” Lucy said.  “I don’t know if they’re going to be super happy something’s happening or pissed they didn’t get to be a part of it, despite asking a lot.”

“Pissed,” Avery said.

“Fuck.”

“Sorry, Luce, that you’re dealing with that,” Verona said.  “Um.  Any blackguards close by?”

“A couple, but the way that group didn’t listen to me, they wouldn’t listen to Oakham.”

“It’d rile them up more,” Lucy said.

“Where’s my cat, then?  Julette, Julette, Julette.”

Verona, Verona, Verona.

Coming from downtown, only a minute or two behind them.

They hung back, using the bulk of the crowd and the surge of activity to keep people between them and the hunting pack of Innocents.  Some mask vendors were getting set up, and some foundlings were giving out baked goods.

“Something on the to-do list for after, need a balance of meat, bread, sweets and other stuff from the Aware, or cooperating people of Kennet,” Lucy said.

“Noted,” Avery said.

“Mimeisthai incoming.”

“A what now?”

“Big Bugge, basically.  Could be very big.”

“Damn it,” Avery said.

“It’s like something that eats welcome mats for breakfast and gets much bigger while doing so, and we laid out a massive welcome mat for untethered, lost, and wandering Others and potential black sheep who fit Kennet’s paradigm, in the wider region,” Verona said.  “Except we don’t know exactly what it’s after, what theme, symbol, or whatever else.”

“Could be one of the pillars?” Lucy asked.  “One of the items we used?”

“We’ll figure it out.  Julette!”

“Can you be a distraction?  Classmates.”

“Can I mess with them?” Julette asked.

“Want to set them up for a big head-screw?  We’ll talk to the mayor, loop back, mess with them then?”

“Cool.  Saw McCauleigh hiking in from the valley.”

“Cool.  Will catch up with her later, if possible.”

“Are you setting up the shop?”

“Gotta wrangle this first.”

With every passing moment, it felt like more stuff was coming up.  Verona saw a cluster of goblins in gunked-up human form.  Tatty as an old woman, Biscuit as a full-bodied teenage girl wearing ill-fitting clothes most dads would not let their kid leave the house in, expression halfway between nonspecific sympathy and bewilderment.  Kittycough was a teenager who was more rangy than skinny, like beef jerkied human, covered in tattoos.

Denizens were out, and a lot of them walked that edge of being very weird looking but still in the realm of ‘believable human’.  A group of guys who were in that upper one percent of height and muscle.

And then so many Foundlings with masks.

The weirder people were steering clear, or were gathered in groups in places like the other side of the fence, in the schoolyard, smoking, just far enough away and in enough shadow that they could draw a raised eyebrow, while being capable of walking away before someone could navigate their way to them.  More were down the shore of the river, with no easy paths to walk to join those groups.

There was laughter as one of those groups held up a bucket to catch poured hot chocolate from the ledge above them, which they then distributed to their friends.  Another one ducked under a poured stream of steaming hot chocolate to catch warm bread before it could hit snow.

Kennet had a population of about four thousand people, technically, and right now it felt like it had a population of eight thousand.  Residents were hurrying to get set up, so you couldn’t walk for a minute without there being food on offer.  Free food.  Or goods, or long-lasting sparklers, or masks, or streamers tapping into spiritual flows, that billowed out constantly.

They found the mayor.

“Bigger than Christmas,” he said.

“Kennet’s been through a lot,” Lucy said, pushing her mask up.  “Seemed necessary.”

“Who are they?” he asked.

“Locals,” Verona said.

“Are they?” he asked.  He turned his head, taking it in.  “It feels too out of control.”

“So?” Verona asked.

“So- what if there are problems?”

“We’ll deal with the problems.”

“You’re- there were men at that booth, giving away alcohol to anyone old enough?  Apparently without a license?”

“We filed, it’s sorted,” Lucy said.

“You-”

“We sent an email too,” Lucy told him.  “About this.  Like you asked.”

“That did not find its way to me.”

Lucy shrugged.

“I don’t like this,” he said.

“Gotta give people a reason to come to Kennet,” Avery said.  “Welcome them, draw interest.”

He made a small scoffing sound, nearly drowned out as a car slowly made its way down the street, patiently waiting for people to move out of the way.  It towed in some stuff for a booth.  The people in the car were singing, and as the sang, some bystanders picked up the tune.

“It’s eerie,” the mayor said.

Part of the reason they’d set it up this way, with Verona having made a very specific choice for the phase of the moon as she drew up the diagram, was that they wanted to test the waters, toe the line.  To an extent, they were looking for people who engaged with this.  And the people who might not.

A few days ago, Lis had said the mayor wasn’t someone who embraced change.  He embraced power, and attention, and he’d come to them before to try to get more claim over the Christmas event, after it was such a hit, but he wasn’t the type of person who would roll with this, or become Aware and embrace it.

According to Verona’s mom, he was a guy who’d rode into power after the guy before him had laid the groundwork for businesses like the ones Verona’s dad, Connor, and Kelsey had been part of.  Then he’d claimed credit as those policies and efforts bore fruit, cut local support for the local hospital, and put a lot of effort and funds into showy stuff like the renovation of the area around the town center downtown, that didn’t do a lot.  From there he’d kind of coasted like Kennet had coasted.

If their reinvention and actual revitalization of Kennet had a side effect of not making him want to run again, Verona didn’t exactly feel like she’d be brought to tears over it.

“I think you’re wrong when you say all these people are from Kennet.”

“They’re residents,” Verona said.

He shook his head.  “No.”

Yeah.  He wouldn’t run again.  Wouldn’t stay.

He was an artifact of a Kennet that had been dying a slow death, saturated in cigarette smoke and alcohol, a drowning man who’d caught his breath only for a few gasps on nights there was hockey at the Arena, or cheap tourists flooding in to the ski hills when they were open.

“Maybe you’d have a better sense of things if you paid more attention to the community?” Lucy suggested.

“I don’t appreciate that tone or way of talking to me,” he said.

She met his eyes, not responding.

Kennet would have to change, to become what it needed to become.

“There’s already issues, questions.  The police may come through ordering booths to be torn down.  Food that’s not in sealed packages thrown out.”

“Word might get around it was you that pushed for it,” Avery said.

“Is that a threat?”

“If stating the facts is a threat, maybe double check what you’re doing?” Verona asked.

“People are enjoying this,” Lucy said.  “But they’re unsure.”

“They should be.  This is... disconcerting.”

Innocence budging up against Awareness.

“You have two choices, as I see it,” Lucy said.  “Play along.  Take something good and apparently spontaneous and play along, encourage community.  Encourage something unique.  You getting photos taken while drinking hot chocolate would help break the ice.”

“An announcement and more preparation would do a better job of ‘breaking the ice’,” he retorted.

“Come on, dude,” Verona said.

“Or be the killjoy,” Avery said.

“Oh, by the way, Ave,” Verona said.  “Lis wanted to ask you about the buses.”

“Buses?” the Mayor asked.

“I’ll call,” Avery told Verona.

“Why masks?” the Mayor asked, looking at Luna Hare, who stood in the background.  “It’s not Halloween.”

“Does this look like a Halloween mask?” Luna Hare asked, sounding bewildered.  She looked at Snowdrop.  “Are people afraid of hares?”

“Terrified,” Snowdrop told her.

“Christmas made more sense.  This is messy.”

“This makes sense too,” Avery told him.  “But you have to play along, listen, take things at face value.”

“Or mask value,” Luna Hare said.

“Or that.”

“If you’d planned this better, it could’ve been used for community fundraising.  A nominal fee for that alcohol and hot chocolate-”

“It has to be free.  That’s the point,” Verona said.

“Why?”

“Listen, take things at face value,” Avery said.

“Can I talk to your parents?”

That’s the opposite of listening and taking things at face value.

It nettled Verona.  A button that was still very pressable.

“They’ll probably just tell you to talk to us,” Verona said.

“Like Avery said, it’s up to you,” Lucy told the mayor.  “There’s a concert planned for tomorrow night, but we need more people to contribute to keep things going long enough.  It’d help if you helped.”

They left him to decide.  No other options that weren’t forceful or weird.

“What do you think?” Avery asked.  “Will he?”

“I think he’ll put in the basic minimum effort to get photos taken,” Lucy said.  “Ronnie?”

“Yeah?” Verona asked, absently, her mind already on other factors.  Things they needed.  The Mimeisthai.

“What if your mom became mayor?”

“That’d be weird,” Verona said.

“Not this coming election cycle, but later, maybe?”

“So weird.  I don’t think she’s the mayor type.”

“Who is?  Or who is, that’d fit?”

“Let’s… let’s put a pin in that, okay?” Verona asked.

The music being played by various foundlings was not a cohesive whole.  Violin music cooperated and harmonized with other music in earshot, but when approaching those other sources of music, they were playing with other neighbors, for a different sort of sound.  It seemed to encourage wandering and participation.

A good few of the denizens were in the crowd too.  The outgoing ones were more outgoing, more willing to join a group and start a conversation, start joking.  The least outgoing ones were happy to be set dressing.  Interesting people in the background, enjoying the free food.

Verona, Lucy, Avery, Snowdrop, and Luna were passing the group where Julette was talking to Alayna.  Verona paused, lurking.

“-not Verona.”

“Because you’re wearing a stupid mask?”

“It’s a great mask.”

“Don’t be bullies, guys,” Mia said, from the sidelines.  “That’s not Verona.”

“You’re the ones bullying us, leaving us out.”

“You’re not listening,” Verona said, as she joined the conversation, pushing her mask up.  She enjoyed the realization from that group that the person they were harassing wasn’t Verona.  “Why would we bring someone in if they aren’t listening, helping, or playing along?”

“You aren’t bringing us in anyway.”

“This is it,” Lucy said.  “You’re so caught up in being upset you’re not part of it.  Go with the flow, figure it out, enjoy it.  If you can, if you really can, then that’s your road in.”

That, or being such a complete potential disaster, like George, that we have to bring you in before you wander into Kennet below and don’t find your way back out, Verona thought.

“I’m going to go talk to Matthew,” Verona said.

“Go for it,” Lucy said.  “I’ll wrangle.”

“Looks like our other guests came.  I’ll call Odis and then we’ll talk to them?”

“I want to be part of that too,” Lucy said.

“Don’t stress!  Don’t overwork!” Verona raised her voice, because she was a few paces away, and there was enough bustle now that it was easy to be drowned out.

“All good!” Lucy replied.

And Verona believed that.

She threw an arm around Julette’s shoulders, and the two of them walked together, leaving the group behind.

Cig was being smoked by someone in a group of people who’d walked a good few paces away from sidewalk and road.

Freak and Squeak were on the school roof, sitting on the edge.  Squeak, lying down with head on the ledge, with enough distance, could pass for a very ugly, bug-eyed dog with a questionable dye job.

As Verona walked through the crowd, Julette found an opportunity to become a cat.  She was tired.  Verona held her, while getting her phone out.  Julette periodically helped with gloved button presses by booping the screen with her nose.

All the Others and people of Kennet were drained by what they were doing.  It made them vulnerable, but there were layers of defense.  Perimeter, Others, Awareness, and Innocence.

They had to hope that was enough.  The first test of many was coming.

During a quick browse-while-walking for one of the downloaded books that was taking up way too much space on her phone, to refresh herself, Julette peering at the screen at the same time, Verona was intercepted by McCauleigh.

“Is it working?” McCauleigh asked.  She reached over to scratch Julette.

“Kinda!  Some good, some bad.  Incoming trouble.”

“They mentioned.  You said you might help, they said to find you.”

“You found me.”

McCauleigh lightly punched Verona in the arm.  “Where are the others?”

“Busy.  Man, it’s chaos.”

“Good chaos?”

“Good-ish Chaos.  Don’t suppose you have any experience with Mimeisthais?”

“Opal Winters taught a class on Scrivener Others at the Blue Heron.  But not much.”

“Damn.”

Together, they went into the valley, where Anthem, Miss, Matthew, the Turtle Queen, and Montague were.

Preparations were made, to bolster the perimeter and draw attention to it, preparing for the imminent arrival.

“Can I host it?  Her?” Matthew asked.

“You can try,” the Turtle Queen told him.

“I know I can try,” he said, sighing.  “Will it kill or hurt me?”

“We don’t know.  I’ll let you know when it’s closer.”

“Okay,” Matthew said.  “Times like this, I miss the Doom.  Fucked up as that is.”

“Bus is on its way, by the way,” Verona said.  “After which point things get interesting.  We’ll need to vet a lot of people really fast.”

“What have you got us into?” Matthew asked.

“We agreed as a council.  Let’s not put it on the girls,” Miss said.  “There’s a consensus we put enough on them.”

“Yeah, I know.  I’m- just talking how I talk.  Nervous.  Incoming hit, when we don’t know how hard, or if we’ll be able to recover fast enough.”

Montague bumped his shoulder with a mannequin hand, then formed two parallel horizontal lines with his arms, stepping forward.

“He’ll guard you,” Verona said.

Montague jerked a hand her way, pointing at her with a fist.

“No voice as part of that setup, Monty?” Verona asked.

He turned, and as he did, raising one hand, his hand passed through the Turtle Queen.  She crashed apart like a wave broken on the shore, and the mannequin body he inhabited went through a brief alteration, like cards being flipped over, starting at the hand and arm, passing over his body, flipping red and black to green, black, and gold, turning the chewed up, burnt, melted plastic, tumorous suit he wore into something briefly elegant, a face briefly visible, before she withdrew control and presence, and he became the mannequin again, sculpted, immobile features with crud in the grooves, dressed in a fucked up suit, joints made semi-mobile with clotted blood and melted plastic tumor.

He didn’t reply, but one shoulder was raised, in a shrug, as the Turtle Queen resettled around him, hand on his lowered shoulder, chin on hand.

“Tried and it didn’t work, or didn’t-”  Verona habitually raised each hand as she offered each option in a binary choice, and he was already moving, indicating that first option.  Like hammering ‘1’ on an automated call, ‘dial 1 if you want English.’

“That’s a bummer,” Verona said.

“We had something more elegant, but it broke when he put power into it,” the Turtle Queen explained.

“Wanted to mention, it came up a few days ago.  Luna wanted another tea party later,” Verona said.  Luna had run off after Snowdrop when Snowdrop had run off after Avery.

“He’d be interested,” the Turtle Queen said.  “He wants to invite someone who hasn’t been.”

“Think we can get Alpeana to sit still long enough?” Verona asked.  “Join us for a sit down?”

“We can try,” the Turtle Queen replied.  “Our Mimeisthai is coming.”

Matthew’s eyes went dark, and he drew in a deep breath, followed by an exhalation that seemed to go to layers deeper than air and the mundane elements.  Like he should be deflating, color leeching out of him, but he wasn’t and it wasn’t.

The snow around him crunched slightly, caving in and adapting to whatever adjustments he’d made, as if he was inside a giant hamster ball and had suddenly gained five hundred pounds.

Montague and the Turtle Queen were the front line.

Snow stirred and billowed, and the Mimeisthai appeared at the other end of the valley.  A speck, at first.

“You can’t host it,” the Turtle Queen warned Matthew.

“Noted.  Thank you.”

She looked like an old fashioned nutcracker, but female, hair white in spiraling curls, dress decorated and multilayered, a little hat in a style that was half cap and half crown.

About the size of a nutcracker too.  More than a foot tall, less than two feet.  Launching toward them with snow billowing behind her.

Verona switched on her Sight, while she still could.  She had only a moment’s glimpse, enough to see that there was a lot more than snow billowing behind the Mimeisthai.

The Turtle Queen looked tense.

The Mimeisthai reached the perimeter, and Montague reached out.  Vein-like tendrils, forking spider legs, reaching arms, and nebulous flesh reached out to match the lines and patterns of the underlying diagram, drawing on nearby shrines for reinforcement.

Turning that perimeter into a wall.

The Mimeisthai hit it, and Montague immediately withdrew.

“Hey!” the Mimeisthai called out.

She hit the barrier.  The Turtle Queen reacted, this time.  Similar lines and patterns were etched out in gold, black, and green, with images filling in the spaces between them – repeating turtleshell patterns tiling spaces, treasure, reptiles, raised hands, and women with scaled skin or black skin, or both.

The Turtle Queen held firm.

“Hold on,” Miss said.

“Hello!  I can barely see you!  I can’t see your face.”

“As it should be.  Be still and don’t test our barrier, while we figure out if we can negotiate your entry?”

“Oh,” the little nutcracker woman said.  She was wearing a dress in sky blue and midnight blue, with pearls on it.  “You don’t want to do that.”

“Don’t I?”

“Welcome me with open arms.  You’re my favorite sort of people, you know that?  You get it.”

“What do we get?” Matthew asked.

“The holiday.  My name is January March, and I don’t blame you if you don’t recognize an Other like me, because we’re rare.”

“I think we actually had a Mimeisthai come through for the Carmine ritual,” Verona said.  “Going by the wanted posters and ads that popped up everywhere.”

“You talk like my practitioner.”

“You’re a familiar?” Matthew asked.

“Naw.  Partner.  If I tried to be her familiar I’d pop her at the seams.”

“Glad I didn’t try and host you,” Matthew said, under his breath.

“I don’t self identify as a mimeisthai,” the nutcracker said.  “I self identify as a Very Good Idea.”

“What idea?” the Turtle Queen asked.

“There should be a holiday after New years.  A big one.  Why stop at Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas?  In January, preferably, but March will do.  And here you are…”

“Throwing a big welcoming festival,” Verona said.

“You know, I can barely see you.”

“So if we’d waited a few more days, then we’d be in February, and you wouldn’t have noticed or cared, huh?” Verona asked.

“Yep!  Guess so.  But you wouldn’t do that, would you?  Because you seem cool.  So let me in.  This is my jam.  I have so many ideas.”

“Give us a moment?” Miss asked.

“Why?” the nutcracker asked.  “If you needed money and someone said sure, here’s a hundred trillion dollars, would you say no, we need to think about it?”

“Yes,” Matthew said.  “I’d have questions.”

“Seize the day,” January March said.  “Seize opportunity when it falls into your lap.”

“Give us a moment,” Miss said.  “I have no doubt you offer opportunity.  But we have responsibiltiies.”

“Holidays are a time to shirk responsibilities.”

The mimeisthai poked at the barrier.  Turtle Queen extended her influence. It looked like she had a hard time getting traction on snow, but she made it glitter gold.  Further out, in the wings, trees adapted to her, shedding snow, darkness deepening.  Christmas lights appeared and glowed an amber gold color.

Bracing the diagram on either side of the valley, strengthening the patterns.

January March responded by rising up.  It looked at first like the snow was lifting her up, but snow broke away.  A parade float.  A giant robot.  New clothing with price tags still attached.  All interconnecting in vague ways.

Until it was a sentiment pile of stuff, keeping a similar sky blue, navy blue, and white color scheme, with the nutcracker woman at the helm, looking increasingly confident and willful.

Montague prepared to relieve the Turtle Queen.  Matthew stood behind both.

“Hey, January March?” Verona asked.

“You know one of the most annoying things about big holidays?”

“I know lots.”

“It’s when they’re shoved down your throat, too early, too in-your-face.  If you’re making up a new holiday…”

“I represent it.  It’s stray thoughts from CEOs and kids, who wonder if there’s a cool opportunity, that feed me.”

“Right.  Wouldn’t it be cool to be a nice, refreshing holiday, that moves away from all that?  Not in-your-face?”

“Not tacky?  Not obnoxious?”

“Tacky can be charming.”

“Can be.  But so soon after Christmas?  When people are tired?  You don’t want people to resent you.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” January March said.

“We heard your practitioner encourages your growth.”

“Some!”

“Does he or she hold you back?” Verona asked.

“Constantly.”

“Huh.  Can you be an observer, taking notes, maybe helping out, until your practitioner shows up?”

“She had to give her kid to her mom so she could start driving over.  So lame.  Who doesn’t bring their kid to a celebration?”

“Every moment with you is a celebration, huh?’

“Should be.  It really should be.”

“Do you think you can be chill until she shows?”

“There are only a few days left in the month.  What holiday wants to share a month with Valentines?  Ick.”

“There’s March, right?” Verona asked, trying to speak the language of this Other who had a very specific frame of mind and focus.

“There is.”

Miss said, “If we can negotiate a peace and a bit of support for our event, and have you follow certain rules for the duration of your residency-”

“Oh, I’m not staying.  I’ve got things to do.  Things to become.  I want to become bigger than Santa.”

“Then for your stay, I suppose.  We could talk about you helping to coordinate an event in the future,” Miss finished.

The Other’s eyes lit up.

“Playing with fire,” the Turtle Queen said.

“If it’s a choice between playing with fire and being set on fire…” Matthew said.

Montague pointed a fist at him.

The Turtle Queen stepped back from the perimeter.  Her influence flowed out of it.

“We’d need to talk to your practitioner partner before confirming anything,” Miss said.

“Alright.  I’ll play,” the Other said.  “Sort out the rules you want me to stick to.”

That took nearly half an hour, and when they finished, they gave permission, and the Other became a glyph on Matthew’s t-shirt, periodically animated.

Verona broke out laughing, seeing it, because Matthew looked so grim and dark with his eyes bleeding shadows and his Self hollowed out, and he was wearing a shirt with such an enthusiastic, colorful character on it.  McCauleigh joined in, even though it seemed like she was laughing more at Verona’s laughter than at Matthew, specifically.

As that whole thing wrapped up, there were Foundlings waiting to report in.

A ghoul had appeared at the north end of Kennet.  Ghouls could be territorial with other ghouls, or they could bond into packs of cannibal undead, and so measures had to be taken.  Dog Tags accompanying the meeting with Nibble and Chloe, to see how things went.

And the buses.

Verona walked with McCauleigh across Kennet, to the west end, where the rest stop had been.  Clem had crashed into the car with the furs, there.  Now a bus was parked there.  Guided by Odis to coast on certain flows that the ritual here was casting out, picking up people who fit.  Bringing them in.

Lucy and Avery found Verona, Julette and McCauleigh, as they walked over toward the rest stop.  Verona gave a brief outline of what had unfolded.

“Was it too coincidental, that an Other comes and offers power for all this, just in time?” McCauleigh asked.

“It’ll be a pain to manage, I think,” Verona replied.  “Net positive, but not an ace in the hole out of nowhere.”

The buses were emptying.  Even halfway across Kennet, the celebrations could be heard.  A bunch of the people on the bus looked bewildered.

The first of the new denizens of Kennet below.  A girl with half her head shaved, hair dyed pink that transitioned to blue.  A mom with three kids.  A rough looking guy.  A scattering of young teenagers, a handful of whom looked like they were maybe homeless.

Or they had been homeless.

Verona felt a pang.  Her initial thought, when she’d imagined what Kennet below could become, had been art.  Creativity.  It was what had drawn her to Mal.  Not necessarily talented creativity, but a driven sort.  Anselm had loved poetry.

Her initial discussions with people like the new Principal and the Bitter Street Witch hadn’t gotten a lot of traction, maybe because that didn’t click for them on the same level.

Not a lot of these people conveyed that creative side.

No, when working her way through the ritual, what Kennet was, what they were offering, what it could become, she’d settled on a different thing to drive for.

They were like McCauleigh, like Raquel.  Like so many of the Others.  People with no place to go.

Like Anselm and Mal, Oakham, McCauleigh, and so many others that Verona had become painfully fond of, they were people who didn’t walk life’s conventional path, or had been forced from it.

She felt a fondness for them before she’d even gotten a good look at them.

“We have to vet them,” Lucy murmured.  “Make sure we’re not missing anything.  Potential problems.  Stuff slipping through the filters.”

“Yep,” Avery agreed.  “Also making sure they have what they need.  Making sure they’re comfortable.”

“It’ll be the same as with the Mimeisthai,” Verona said.  “Not easy, but a net good, I think.  There’s a strength in that, having so many different people, different groups.  Better than stagnating.”

“Yeah,” McCauleigh murmured.

Another bus was already coming.

Heck and hell, better than stagnating, but this sure was going to be a long two days.

Avery nudged Verona.  Verona turned to look.

It wasn’t just the busloads of people, or the Others that were filtering in.

Guests had come, invited to Kennet, and they were going to stay.  Young practitioners.

Verona took a second, taking things in, absorbing the sentiment of it all.  Shaping a new Kennet.  Her dad had moved away to be closer to her uncle Bruce, sending a pissy email to her.  Maybe the mayor would bail after an election cycle.  Kennet was on its way to becoming a sanctuary.  A place that innovated, that fostered something new.

“Are we okay?” Lucy asked.  Maybe because she’d seen something in Verona’s expression.  “Overwhelmed?”

“Very,” Avery said.

“Burning out?”

“I’m okay,” Avery said.  “Excited, but also overwhelmed.”

“You said,” Verona murmured.

“You guys?” Avery asked.  “What about you?”

“I’m okay,” Lucy said.  “Took it easier.  Prepared mentally for this.”

There was a pause.

“Ronnie?” Lucy nudged.

Verona had been feeling drained by the crowd.  But this was a very different crowd.

She wanted Kennet Below to change, to be for them what the House on Half street had been for McCauleigh and Raquel.

What it had been for her.

“I’m okay.  Split up duties?  You want to handle the new practitioners, Ave?”

“I thought you’d want to,” Lucy said.

“I do.  But I also…”

It was hard to put words to that soft spot she already felt for these people.

Verona shrugged.  “Want to welcome them, Ave?  More outreach?”

“I wanted to get more involved with the Kennet below side of things, actually.  This seems more my vibe than earlier stuff.”

“Okay,” Lucy said.  “You guys tackle this.  I’ll talk to our new guys, get them sorted and placed.”

The ‘new guys’.  The Belangers had been uprooted as a clan and hadn’t found great accommodations since.  The Bitter Street Witch had come back with a bunch of the youngest Belangers in tow, as a temporary thing to alleviate pressure.  Gillian Belanger-Ross was among them.  Nicolette had a job but would come tomorrow and stay longer-term.  She hadn’t gotten the traction she wanted in their inner circles, but she’d won enough people’s respect to be able to volunteer this.

Then Matthew’s junior hosts could stand to learn a little something, so they’d participate.  Bea Wint had come, and some effort was warranted, to make sure she’d fit in.  Liberty was planning to stay for a while, because there was only so much regular schooling she could take, and the Blue Heron wasn’t a thing anymore.

They weren’t at all equipped to be or offer a school, but that wasn’t the point.  They’d give lessons, where they could, but this would be more like practical study.  All of those people could be immersed in all of this, when there was so much to be immersed in here, now.  Maybe they could carry away more respect for Others or different ways of thinking.  More than that, it was more of that sanctuary, more of that refuge.  For those young practitioners and people who’d been uprooted, Kennet would offer a break from it all.

Verona, Lucy, and Avery had delegated, found help, and were working on stepping back, or only stepping partway in.  That gave them room to work on passion projects.  Verona had thought it was the work on the ritual that fueled her inner fire, but here, feeling that soft spot, she felt like it might be passion of a different flavor and intensity.  Something she could love doing, amid the fun magic stuff and peddling that excited her.

She nodded, to herself, to them, fixed her collar, with a cat draped across one side of it, and then stepped forward to welcome their new people.