Author: Wildbow

Loose Ends – E.1 | Pale

3 hours later, Avery

“Knock, knock, knock.  Can I come in?”

“I think…”

“Hold on,” Verona called over.  She was bent over at the waist, shirt folded up, her face was flushed slightly from being bent over too awkwardly to breathe easily, more than from exertion or anything.

“No.  Hold on,” Avery said.  Verona had one thumb hooked into a belt loop of her jeans to pull it down a bit where Avery had superglued a cut together.  It looked like the material of the jeans might’ve guided an incoming cut so it ran right along where fabric met flesh.  There was already a mess of bandages and some pads taped to the bigger cuts across Verona’s back and stomach.

“Doing first aid,” Avery added.

“Right,” Jude replied.  “I’ll wait.  Guarding the door.”

“Thank you, Jude,” Lucy said.

“Fuck, though,” he said.  “Still doing first aid after three hours?”

“One of us fell asleep partway through,” Lucy said, glancing at Verona.  “We decided rest was important.”

“We also stopped in at the sword moot, to check in, because one of us thought it was a priority,” Verona grunted, turning her head to look up at Lucy.

“Come on, guys,” Avery said, voice soft.

“How sticky is it?” Verona grunted.

Avery prodded the very edges of the cuts across Verona’s back.  “Tacky but not glue-y.”

Verona sat up, and Avery looked aside as Verona pulled her top back down, from ribs to waist.  Avery pulled a sleeping Snowdrop from Lucy’s lap to her own, hands with interlaced fingers cradling her so she wouldn’t slide down the slight slope between lap and her knees.  Julette hopped over onto Verona’s lap, and touched noses with Snowdrop, face scrunching up as Snowdrop made a little opossum sneeze sound.

“Bloody,” Lucy said, poking Verona’s jeans below the cut.  “What do you even do with clothes like this?  Throw them away and try to forget everything, or keep them unwashed as a memory of the triumph?”

“You’d burn instead of throwing away,” Verona said.  “If your enemy got hold of the blood?”

She made ‘spooky fingers’ at Lucy as she said it.  Avery smiled a bit, sitting back.  Verona saw the smile, and she leaned over, bumping Avery’s shoulder.

They kinda settled into a slumped sit, Verona wincing a bit, backs to the wall, butts to wood, the world swaying around them.

This back area of the ship was expansive, with a huge viewing window.  This entire thing was one massive boat, mingled with a city, like a cruise ship, but taller than it was long, more vulnerable to the crashing waves that reached hundreds of feet in height.  Outside, shouted warnings indicated you had to get your ass to a safe zone, or you’d be washed overboard and possibly Lost forever.

Whales with kelp growing on them like moss grew on stones swam through the sky, dark blue and green shapes against a backdrop that looked like a navigator’s compass, astrolabe, and other navigational equipment laid out against a night’s sky, with great gold bands sweeping slowly across the skyscape, cardinal directions marked out, points on the needle steadily moving.

They’d needed to get to a Path to get home, they’d needed to get away from it all, and they’d ended up here.  Parents had a basic report that things were okay, they’d be home as soon as they wrapped other business.  That was supposed to be thirty minutes but then Verona had conked out.

Avery’s jeans still had a damp spot on the thigh because Verona had shed tears in her sleep.

This entire place creaked and Avery creaked too.  She had injuries, enough awkward hits she’d sustained, falls when she hadn’t been immune, bad falls when she’d been partially immune, stuff that had broken her, that had been ninety percent healed with healing potions.  Every time she moved, it hurt.  Not moving for three hours, though, made her stiff.

None of which had anything to do with how her heart felt creaky.  Pushed too far, too much emotion, too much stress.  If it wasn’t for Verona having slumped over to nap on her leg and Lucy being seated right to her left, feeding Snowdrop strawberry-basil ice cream until the opossum conked out, she would have been pacing, anxious, trying to find something to do with herself.  Maybe exploring this Path.  It felt like it was something on par with the Stuck in Place.  A place with ten thousand puzzles, many interlinking, feeding into a singular solution.  Not an escape room, but an escape city.  Boat.  City-boat?

But she couldn’t move, so she’d sat, thinking, putting thoughts and worries to rest.  There weren’t many problems that couldn’t be handled later.  Things to do, but that could be done later.  Enemies who might pop up, but that could be handled at another time, if it came up at all.  No guaranteed problems in the next few hours, days, weeks, months, seasons, or years.

Destinations and arrivals.  Restlessness had dogged her for a long time.  Nora was her reprieve from all of that.  With Nora, it felt like she could sit still.

Here, her friends at her side, it felt like she could be still.  She heard whales crying out, and fish all over the ocean poked mouths out of the water to join in, sweet fish songs added to the howling, wordless whale songs.  The mechanisms of the sky clicked and tocked, percussive, deep, their movements extending from sky to water, where they swept through the water at the edges of this world to stir that water up.  That stirred water periodically came together to produce some of the crashing green-blue waves that could level cities that weren’t boats, the crashes kept from being deafening by intervening architecture.  The noise of those waves would be followed by a steadily tapering blue noise, as water took minutes to run off buildings, into gutters, down to lower roofs, until it was nearly or totally gone, letting the whale and fish songs, and percussion come through clean again.

She closed her eyes, listening, exhaling.

“Don’t sleep,” Lucy said.  “Jude’s waiting outside.  I think he can come in?”

“Oh, shit.  Come in, Jude!” Avery called out.

“Sorry, we’re not moving very fast.  Physically or mentally,” Lucy added.

“It’s okay,” he said, letting himself in.

“All safe, don’t have skin showing anymore,” Verona said.

Avery elbowed Verona.

“Back skin, but backs can be nice to look at too, I think.”

“Not why I’m elbowing you, Ronnie,” Avery said.  “Not for clarifications.  Geezus.”

“I think I’m getting resistant to those lines,” Jude said.

“Verona gets worse when she’s tired,” Lucy said.

“Incentive to get a girl tired, isn’t it?” Verona asked, winking, shooting Jude with a finger gun.

“Yep, getting more resistant.  Came in to let you guys know we’re pretty close to another cycle of this Path, window open for stepping off and going home, if you want that.”

“Is it weird if I don’t want to go home?” Avery asked.  “In the middle of things I had moments I missed people, missed family, thought I might never get to see them again, and now… there’s a part of me that kind of wants to just hang out here, puzzle this place out, mend a bit?”

“Digest,” Verona said.

“We did it, right?” Lucy asked.  “Not as violently as planned, I figured we’d grab onto that spike and use it more, but I guess even when split up, we were on the same page.  Attacked and kept the pressure up in other ways.  And we won.  We’re done?”

Fresh whale cries from the sky echoed around them.

“We’re done,” Verona said.  “Kinda wanted a better surrender from Charles at the end.  Let him sit with things.”

“I think some of him is still in there,” Avery said.  “I hope.”

“Enough to have a chat with him in a few years, or a few decades?  See if he’s reflected?  Get some closure?” Verona asked.

“I don’t know,” Avery said.  “Probably not.”

Verona was rubbing at her palm, looking down at her hand.

“Still a thing?” Avery whispered.

“Yep.  I kinda hoped for a chance to get my hands on him, transfer it over.  No luck.  I was told it was a long shot anyway.”

“Sorry,” Lucy murmured.

“Project for another time, maybe,” Verona said.

“If you guys want to take more of a break, we can keep babysitting, I really don’t mind,” Jude said.

“But our parents might mind.  We did say we were coming back.  Come on,” Lucy said.  She grunted as she stood.

Snowdrop became human, and offered her hands to Avery, helping her get to her feet, despite all the creakiness.  Except Verona latched onto Avery from behind, trying to use her to help stand up, and Julette latched onto Verona, and they ended up at a standstill, with Avery almost falling backwards onto her friend and the cat.

Lucy rescued them, hand under Verona’s armpit, lifting.  Once Verona wasn’t pulling back at Avery, Snowdrop was able to get her fully upright.

“It’s a good thing we can use glamour to make you a tiny animal so I can have my turn carrying you around,” Snowdrop told Avery.

Avery smiled a bit.  “Too bad we can’t, yeah.  Spent just about everything we had.”

In more ways than one.

Metal scraped on wood as Julette, wearing thick gloves, picked up the piece of rebar.  It was mostly straight, except for a slight curve at the part that would be the ‘handle’, making it hard to hold straight without holding the wrong end.  Metal stained black by Abyss, congealed blood bleached by poison or divinity.  The point the thorn was attached was obscured by that blood, which textured half the spike.

“What are we even doing with that?” Avery murmured.  “Feels like just owning it is a threat.”

“It’s poisonous, and cursed, and Abyss tainted, so it’s a threat to us too,” Lucy said.

“Put it over my fireplace, when I have one again?” Verona suggested.

“On open display?” Avery asked.

Verona shrugged.

Jude opened the door, which required turning a wheel to unseal it, then leaned out, whistling, long and high.

There was an answering whistle.

“Should be good,” he said.

“Thank you for everything, Jude,” Avery said.  “Really owe you.”

“I want to say we’re friends, shouldn’t be keeping tabs, but I might have to call that favor owed in sometime.  Not sure where or how, but…”

“For sure,” Avery said.

The bridge past the door was narrow enough that it was hard to stand side by side with someone without both people feeling like they were leaning out over the railings on either side, which only came up to butt level.  Below was a good seven hundred foot drop, to more rooftops, more bridges, and drainage systems that were still shedding the water from a wave that had crashed when she’d been checking the superglue at Verona’s back.

A sky-whale came soaring through the city, turning its belly sideways as it curved through the air, singing its whale song.

“Spots on its back remind me of constellations,” Avery noted.

“We noticed before, on a past visit.  There’s probably a system.  Have to get a better vantage point to see what it interacts with,” Jude said.  “This way.”

This way was through another building that was open to the air -and to crashing waves- on three sides, up a similarly exposed stairwell, and across another bridge.  The room they’d settled in had been chosen because it was a dead end, a quiet space that wouldn’t have people walking back and forth through it.

George, Wallace, Jeremy, Caroline, Mia, Brayden, Oakham, and Bracken were all gathered in the ‘main’ building they’d arrived closest to.  Adorea and an older Garrick that Avery was pretty sure was Rod Garrick were on guard, keeping the Aware out of trouble.

“All in, huh?” Lucy asked.

“Hell yeah,” George replied, looking around.  “Holy shit.  This place.”

“We’ve been saying that a lot,” Caroline said.

“Ship kinda sailed when these guys found their way into the Crucible,” Avery said.  “Thanks for coming to help.”

“Half of that was on purpose, the rest was accident,” Wallace said.

“You guys look rough,” Oakham said.  “If Avery was any paler, you could see through her.”

Avery looked down at her own hand, splaying the fingers out.  The light wasn’t great for a good self-analysis though.

“Home?” Lucy asked.

“How do you even go home after this?  How do you act normal?” George asked.

“Dunno,” Avery said.  “Figure it out?  And we might need to bring your parents in.  Have to sit down, work things out, maybe discuss with the council of Others.”

“Do we have to?” Caroline asked.

“Even me?” Oakham asked.

“Wouldn’t it be a relief?” Avery asked.  “Explaining the house situation?  Maybe we organize some council resources to get things sorted for you.”

“Or you can make your arguments at the council,” Verona said.  “Come prepared, make a pitch about responsibility, self-sufficiency, all that.”

“All things that can be talked about later,” Lucy said.

“Eager to get back?” Mia asked her.

“I think I’m… terrified,” Lucy said.  “Stuff I said, did.  But I didn’t get this far by running away the entire time.  Take us through?”

“Set the address to Kennet,” Adorea said.  She was near a big machine, like a typewriter or printing press, with letters as broad as Avery’s palm.  Letters had been scavenged and slotted into place.  “Can’t say where it’ll drop you, but it should be somewhere in town.”

“When you say ‘drop’, is it going to be like that climb down the rope?” Wallace asked.  “My arms can’t take a lot of that.”

“Nah.  Every Path’s dismount is different.  Everyone set?” Adorea asked.

Avery exhaled slowly.  She nodded.

“Can we come back one day?” Jeremy asked.  “I don’t want this to be the end of the magic.”

“It’s only the start,” Verona replied.  “And you guys don’t even know what’s behind the scenes in Kennet yet.”

“Kennet found,” Avery said.

“Kennet below,” Bracken added, speaking up for the first time in a while, emotions heavy.

Avery could see Verona’s face fall with that mention.  She met Adorea’s eyes.

Adorea hauled on the lever.  The wall the letters and other markers had been arranged in moved, slamming into the opposite wall, and then pulled back.  The letters weren’t left behind in relief, in indents, or anything like that.  The ‘frame’ from the edges of the wall became the doorframe, and the space in the middle was left as a void- an image of a downtown area of Kennet in black ink.

As Avery moved to one side, though, it became obvious the scene was three dimensional, and there was color her eyes had missed at first.

“We made sure to use the reversed letters this time.  Got a Garrick we sent through here with the letters looking like they were right way around, when they were mounted,” Adorea commented.  “Went to a reversed version of home, we haven’t been able to undo it, even sending him back through mirrored or unmirrored again.  Now he’s having to learn to read things the other way around.”

“I hope that works out,” Avery said.  “Thank you, Adorea, Rod?  Rod.  Thanks again, Jude.  Don’t know if we could’ve done it without you.”

“Rest up?  Stay in touch?” he asked.

“Of course.”

Rod smirked.  “You deserve to chill out and rest in the biggest way.  Skip school for a while, smoke a spliff, tell the world to fuck off?”

“Who talks like that?  Why tell kids to smoke a spliff?” Adorea asked.

“Teenagers,” Avery said, at the same time Lucy and Verona said it.

“Teenagers.  Still,” Adorea said.  She was closer to Rod’s age, so there was probably a long-standing relationship there.  Avery felt that.  Family.

She led the way through, Snowdrop riding along with, checked she could read okay, then gave the thumbs-up.

There was a chorus of beeps and boops as some of their phones, mostly the Aware’s phones, recognized the new network.

“Should’ve warned you, you might have issues with your phone network,” Avery said, bracing herself against cold.  Her breath fogged, snot instantly starting to freeze or congeal in her nostrils.

“It’s winter,” Avery said.

“Is that noteworthy?” George asked.  Mia elbowed him.

“I… going from Path to a new place to Path to new place, then the Crucible, you saw only some of it.”

“A place representing aeons, eras,” Verona said, jamming her hands in her pockets.

“Kinda forgot,” Avery admitted.

“Pretty good sign you’re getting a little Lost,” Jude said, gently.

Avery nodded.

“Makes it more important to recoup.”

Avery shivered.  Exhaustion hit her like a wave, and Snowdrop immediately hugged her, pushing energy and warmth into her.  Did not have the resources for this.

Verona and Lucy looked to be in similar boats, but they hadn’t gotten their coats shredded to nearly the same degree.

Avery moved to back up, bumped into Bracken, then glanced back at Jude’s, “Here.”

Jude was holding out his coat.  An old fashioned bomber jacket.  “I can dismount to somewhere indoors.  Return it later?  We don’t have the same climate, so it’s not perfect, but…”

“Thank you.”  She took it, gratefully, pulling it on.  She checked the pockets, making sure she wasn’t depriving him of keys.

“I’ll make you another antler coat if I can, if you want,” Verona said.  “After I figure out what I’m doing.  Lots of rebuilding and stuff to do.”

“Yeah,” Avery said.  The coat was warm but felt alien on her.  She missed her antler coat.

“My mom’s picking me up.  Want to hole up inside?” Lucy asked.

“No,” Verona said.  She picked up Julette and lifted the cat to her shoulder.  “I want to check on my house.  And my mom.”

“Ave?”

Avery typed and sent, holding up a finger on the same hand that held her phone.  It reminded her of five different points of pain and soreness in the bones and muscle of her hand.

Avery
back in Kennet
will come home

The response was fast- like her mom already had the phone in hand.

“I’ll walk, or run, or black rope?” Ave suggested.

“Okay,” Lucy said.

There was a pause, the three of them.  The Aware talking among themselves to the side.

The doorway the Garricks had punched into reality had closed.  The whale songs, fish songs, crashing waves, sound of pouring water, and mechanical percussion of the giant compasses and astrolabes or whatever faded.  There was only silence.

“It feels like if we split up now, more than any other time, we could just… not really see each other again,” Avery said.  “Mission done, each of us with things to do, no cause to bring us together?”

“No,” Verona said.  “I kinda get what you mean, but screw that.”

“We stay in touch.  We reconvene,” Lucy said.  “Huddle.”

They moved together.  A kind of three way hug.  Five-way, if Julette and Snowdrop in their animal forms were counted.  Foreheads touched, animal noses poked inward, a whisker tickling Avery’s cheek.

“Meet up later.  Doesn’t have to be tonight,” Lucy said.  “But soon.  Go.  Call if you need anything.”

Avery went.

George and Mia were on Avery’s way, so Avery walked with them.  They weren’t classmates she’d ever really connected with, and Mia’s efforts at reaching out about Avery being gay had been as alienating as they’d been considerate.  If anything, the pair of them were the faces Avery put to the loneliness of being away from everything.

Still, they had questions.  She did her best to answer.

Until Mia asked a question about the whale Path and Avery was deep enough in thought that she didn’t respond.  Snowdrop hopped down, became human, and did her best to explain about Paths and cosmology and the discussion became more about Snowdrop translation than the stuff they’d been asking about.

Then, with a wave and brief goodbye, George went home.  Then Mia.

Avery had a block with just her and Snowdrop, Snowdrop nestled in by her neck, collar pulled up.

Her hands were stiff and sore- every thwack with an ugly stick or lacrosse stick, it transmitted vibrations back into hand and wrist.  Her brain and hands refused to interact to the point that she could use a house key.

Except the door was unlocked, anyway.  Snowdrop sneezed.

“I hear you, Snow.  Yeah.”

She could hear the babble of conversation.  Half that conversation stopped when the door shut.

“I’m back!” she called out.

“You asshole,” Declan said.  He was the first one to appear, coming in from the living room.  “What the hell!?”

“Stop,” Avery’s dad said, putting a hand on Declan’s shoulder, steering him.

“Why is Declan angry?” Avery asked.

“Why are you bleeding?” Declan asked, like that was the second priority, after calling her an asshole.

“Avery!” Kerry raised her voice, stomping her way through the kitchen, trying to find a way past Declan and Dad.  At the same time, Sheridan and Rowan came through the living room, and they weren’t chatty, they didn’t say anything.

“Is it done?” Avery’s mom asked, at the same time her dad asked, “Back patio?”

“Back patio?”

“Talk?” her dad asked.  “Or do you need something?  Trip to the hospital?”

She shook her head.  “Water?”

“On it,” her mom said.

Snowdrop raised her nose.

“And a treat for Snowdrop?  Bit of fruit?  Declan?”

“I can’t believe you stole Snowdrop,” Declan said, as he went to the fridge to look.

“We told you, Snowdrop is Avery’s,” Avery’s dad said.

“Snowdrop is Snowdrop’s.  I’m hers.  And I needed her.  Kerry, hold Snowdrop?  Gently?”

Kerry took that duty with a combination of a solemn seriousness and a sparkle in her eye.

“Back patio works,” Avery said.  “Cold’s… can’t stay out too long.  Pretty worn out.”

“Where were you?” Declan asked.

“Change of plans.  Declan, Kerry, upstairs, take Snowdrop- that’s okay?” Avery’s mom asked.  Avery nodded.  Her mom added, “Let’s minimize the mess, please.”

The pair, holding a little bag of grapes and some mini-carrots, nearly fell over each other going upstairs.

It felt like there was a fifteen foot gap between Avery and the rest of the family, as she followed them to the dining room.

“It’s done?” her mom asked.

“Think so.  Some wrap-up, but that’s… we can hold off on some of it.”

“How are you?” her dad asked.  “And the others?”

Every question felt really cautious.

“The others are okay,” Avery said.  “Kinda?  Not going straight to the hospital, I don’t think.”

“And you?” he asked, again.

She’d avoided saying because she wasn’t sure.  “I’m… tired.  Feeling… soul… sick?  That was a lot.”

“Soul sick.”

“Like being heartsick but runs deeper,” Avery confessed.  “I had to be mean in a way I- it hurt, doing it.  It was a desperate mean.  I think I got a glimpse of what it was like to be him, in the middle of it.”

“You have a good heart,” her dad said.

It felt like a moment where, if the vibes were different, her mom would come over and hug her.  But that gap.  The pauses between sentences.

‘Normal’ in Avery’s family was everyone talking, voices overlapping.  She’d once disappeared in that normal.

Now voices were nowhere near overlapping, and Avery was the focus of attention.

“Where’s Grumble?”

“Went to bed.  He’s listening to an audiobook in his room.”

Avery nodded.

“So,” her dad said.  He laid both hands on the table, as if they were on either side of an invisible placemat.  Her mom paused a second, then did the same.

“Debrief?” he asked.  “Rowan, want to check on your siblings?  Unless you want-”

“Nah,” Rowan said.  “I’ll go.  Glad you’re back safe, Skates.”

“Thanks.  Me too.  Tell Kerry not to pull on Snowdrop’s tail?  That’s attached to her spine.”

“Sure.”  Rowan went upstairs.

“What’s this?” Avery asked, sitting down, putting hands in front of her, like her parents had.

“Business mode.  It’s a thing between your dad and I.”

“Okay,” Avery said.  “Debrief.  We took a spike of rebar that I pulled out of a dark goddess-”

“Maricica,” her dad said.

“Yeah.  Divinely charged, Abyssal, that’s the dark part.  Poisoned, because she was poisoned.  Kinda Trojan horsed someone in close enough to him to stab him with it.  He ran off into this… this huge spell he’d conjured up.  We followed.”

“Why?” her mom asked.

“Because it was a spell to make a successor.  Someone powerful enough and Charles-like enough to change the world in Charles’ vision.  And he didn’t want it to be us.  He thought we might break it or subvert it or win it but not follow his vision, maybe.  But because we weren’t part of it, we weren’t swept up in it.  We were one of the only ones who could go.”

“Okay,” her mom said, with a bit of a tone like she didn’t think it was okay.

“We Chased him across, hmm… ten thousand years of history.  We tried to find the Others and bring them with every step of the way.  We twisted that spike in his side, jiggled it, hurt him, trying to keep him occupied while others worked to take his power from him.”

“That’s the ‘mean’?” Sheridan asked.

Sheridan was way less snarky and talkative than usual.  It was eerie.  There should’ve been a remark at the ‘thing between your dad and I’ line earlier.

“Some of it.  We pushed him to the edge.  He turned, he cornered us.  Isolated us.  Pretty close call, but we stayed on him, with words instead.  That’s the other half of the mean.  We didn’t even coordinate or plan that, exactly, but when we were isolated we were on the same page, I think.  I think that helped tip him over the edge, or kept him from following through on… destroying us.”

The expressions on her parent’s faces.  Trying to stay all business, even as emotions reached their eyes.

“And that’s it.  Drove a man to the edge and now he’s gone.  He wasn’t a good man.  I’m not sure we had any other great options.  Maybe some of him’s left in there.  Carmine’s in the cru- in the spell.  Aurum’s in there too.  Their power and reach are… small, now.  Sword Moot is taking over responsibilities the Carmine once had.  Kind of a democracy replacing the throne without replacing it entirely.  Lots of stuff to work out, still.”

“Ave,” Sheridan said.  “You left out some key details.”

“Uh huh?” Avery asked, sitting back.

“How badass was my moment?”

Avery smiled.  “Pretty good.”

“I was worried I’d bungle it.  The door opening, seeing all that craziness.  Monsters, weirdos, and then you come jumping in out of nowhere?  Pretty cool, honestly, and it pains me to say that, as the big sister.”

“Not cool,” Avery’s mom said.  “Not like tha-”

“Are you gainsaying me?  One day in?  For serious?”

“Not cool in mom books, yes?” Avery tried.

“Not if you’re in danger.  It’s… cool that you were brave,” Avery’s mom conceded.

Sheridan punched Avery lightly in the arm.

Avery was sore enough it really hurt.

“What’s next?” her dad asked.  “We’ve had a few times now when we thought it was done.  Musser scared off, things quiet, other people handling it.”

Avery drew in a deep breath, trying to wrap her head around it.  “Aware situation needs handling.  Local council meetings.  Probably a lot of them.  Thunder Bay, need to get belated authorization for Sheridan to be a practitioner.  I don’t think they’ll say no, but there are formalities.  The Sword Moot, stuff needs to be handled.  There’s still the St. Victor’s kids who’re left over.  New Faerie in the region.  I don’t even know what’s going to happen to the Peterborough practitioners.  Gotta talk to Clem, sort out the relationship with everything, sort out the Aware relationship with Kennet.  We should formalize something with the Garricks educating Sheridan.  Maybe setting up a game plan for Declan, down the road, while we’re at it.  I should check in with the other two.  I think I’m pretty soul-sick, maybe, but I think they’re in worse places.  There’s still…”

She gestured at the air, across the table, her dad and mom at the far end, Sheridan halfway.

“…so much rebuilding.”

“School,” her mom said.

“Oh, if you’re talking about real life stuff, there’s a whole lot else to catch up on there.  School, Nora, friends, the team, getting my gym teacher to let me run, um-”

Sheridan snorted.  “Priorities.”

Avery shrugged, and had to suppress a wince as that awakened sore spots.

It was so much it felt paralyzing, and then being here, family dynamics not… dynamic?  It made it feel that much harder to tackle.  As if the paralysis could get her here.

“These Faerie, the practitioners, St. Victor’s or whichever, are they-?” her dad ventured.  “An issue?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t think they’re a today problem.  Or a this week problem.  Or a this month problem.”

“Okay,” her dad said.  “But what’s next-next?  Your siblings are upstairs.  What do you need, what do we need to do?”

Avery shook her head.  She had the jitters, like she was cold and shivering, but it wasn’t that she was cold.  Months and months of go, of there always being more she could do.  Right now she felt like she needed to go, even going to Verona, going to Lucy, trying to help.

But was that as bad as not contacting them again?

She knew what she needed, which was rest.  She struggled to articulate just why that felt so difficult to voice, or even imagine, without her thoughts going off in another direction before she’d even fully conceptualized the steps necessary.  She’d spent so long in this mode where every break was a failure, and coming off of everything else that had just happened, the eras they’d crossed.  The internal lines she’d breached.  That feeling multiplied.

To go from that to anything remotely unproductive?  It made her uneasy.

“We could set up meetings,” Sheridan said.  “The Others meet at night?”

“Sometimes,” Avery said, quiet.  “Yeah.”

It made sense to do, it answered that restlessness in Avery, it gave her something to do that wasn’t sitting with… with everything that had happened.  It didn’t fix or solve anything, but it at least postponed that big fat… debt?

It felt like a debt.

Like everything that had happened incurred a debt and everything that followed had to be as momentous in response.

“Hold on,” her mom said.  “Avery?”

“Go to bed.  Sleep.  Rest up.  We’ll try to keep your brothers and sisters quiet.”

Which was the opposite problem.  Not answering that debt at all.  All while this felt so alien, everything too big to get to grips with.

“Maybe call your girlfriend,” her dad said.  “Not too long, not too late.  But if it’s what recharges your batteries…”

Avery swallowed and nodded.

Nora was her own issue.

“Everything in its time.  Rest and recharge for now,” her dad said.  “We’ve been there.  I’m not talking about when there were five of you and Grumble and we overlooked you or took shortcuts.  Other times.  I remember your mom at this very table, close to the time you were born, an expression on her face very similar to the one you have now.”

“Shell shocked?” Sheridan asked.  “I can imagine it.  Avery being born?”

It felt like Sheridan wanted to snark more, but the fact she couldn’t lie was a barrier to that.  It added to this feeling that things were stiffer and more distant than they should be.

“Your mom knows business, she helped out with the market deals and dealing with the Garricks.  I… I try to be a listening ear.  But at least in this, trust us.  You need to rest.”

Avery fidgeted.

“Call Nora if that helps,” he said.  “Or talk to us.  Anything that isn’t you leaving tonight.”

Avery nodded.  Then she pushed her way to her feet.  “I’ll nap, not sure if I can sleep.  Hmm.  Snowdrop ate a ton of strawberry basil ice cream on the way over here.  Don’t let them feed her too much or she’ll get sick.”

“Noted.”

Avery nodded.

“And Avery?” her mom said.

“If I go to check on you and there’s a Fetch in your bed, or a bundle of sticks, or anything like that?  It might be me who gets hospitalized tonight.  I can’t take it.”

Avery nodded.

Followed by her dad, she went upstairs, to where Rowan was in the doorway, watching Declan and Kerry in Declan’s room.

“Avery, Avery, we’re trying to teach her to sit!” Kerry exclaimed.

“If there’s a chance tomorrow, I can show you other stuff she can do,” Avery said.  “What do you think, Snowdrop?”

Snowdrop responded with a note of amusement.

“No, no, come show us now!  Play now!”

“Rowan, Kerry, Declan,” her dad said, from behind her in the stairwell.  “Downstairs?  It’s late, you should be going to bed soon anyway.”

“You’re sending us up, sending us down…” Declan groused.

“Do you want time with Snowdrop?” their dad asked.

Pouting a bit, Declan nodded.

Avery, collapsing onto the top bunk, pulled out her phone.  She had to plug it into the extension cord that was strung up and wound around the post, waiting five minutes so it would boot up all the way.  Anxiety didn’t let her sleep.  Outside, it was dark, cold, and snowy.

Avery:
Can we talk?  Can I call?

No response.  Twenty seconds passed with an agony about the same as the full-body soreness and pain from everything earlier.

The phone vibrated.  It was a request for a video call.

Avery reached for the stuffed seal Nora had got her for Christmas, then held the phone out, so the seal was centered in the shot, Avery offscreen.  She answered.

“Avery?”

“Didn’t think you’d video call.  I’m not looking so great right now.”

“I don’t care.  You’ve got to make this tougher, huh?”

“Tougher?”

“Not showing me your face, I can’t read your expression… and the ‘we need to talk’?”

“What?  No!” Avery exclaimed.  She almost moved the phone to put herself on screen.  “No.  I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Oh.  Okay.  I’m in the middle of a mini heart attack, getting that text.  And weirded out, because I’m talking to a stuffed animal.”

Avery moved the phone, then pulled the seal around, doing her best to position the stuffed animal around her lower face  so the worst cuts weren’t visible.  She thunked her head down onto the pillow.

“There you are.”

“Here I am.”

“You look so tired.”

“I am tired.”

“Are you close?  I wish I could come see you.  I could say something to my mom.”

“It’s… ten thirteen at night.  Would she let you go out?”

“I don’t know.  But I’d try!  Or sneak out, and ask forgiveness later.  Say it was an emergency.”

“I look that bad?”

“I might be biased.  I really want to hug you right now.  Even if you looked better than you ever had, or a thousand times worse, I’d want to.”

Avery was tempted, so tempted, to get up.  To put a fetch in her bed, even risking the mom heart attack.  Travel a Path, go to Nora.  Get that hug.  Screw the questions, screw the reveal of magic and everything it meant.  The want was bad enough to made her heart ache, but it was a kind of heart ache that made the soul-sick ease up.

“Did I put my foot in my mouth again?”

“No.  Nice to hear.  Wish I could take you up on that offer, but I’m in Kennet.”

“I figured, from the background.  You don’t look that bad though,” Nora said.  She’d lain down too, and it was kind of like they were on the same bed, looking at each other across a pillow, Avery still holding the stuffed seal in front of her lower face.  Nora added, “I like the glitter.  It’s a nice touch.”

“The what now?” Avery asked.  She shifted position, careful not to show Nora all the cuts and scrapes from the glass.

Half of her seal sparkled when she held it up to the light.

“No, no no no no.”

Her face, pressed against it- her face had glitter on it.  She’d probably huffed glitter.  It was on her pillow, on sheets, transferred over from seal to her stuff.  To freaking everything.

“Hold on one second,” Avery said.  “Can I mute you for a bit?”

“Sure.  Though a part of me wants to hear.”

“Do you really?  Petty family squabbling?”

“I’d love to hear petty family squabbling.”

“Kerry!” Avery called down, from the top of the stairs.  “You’ve been touching my stuff!?”

“I didn’t!”

“Watch the volume.  Opossum ears.”

“You touched Avery’s things?”

“I didn’t!  I didn’t touch her bras.  I didn’t try them on!”

“My bras?  I was talking about my stuffed seal.”

“Wait, please, Declan’s right, volume for opossum ears, and Grumble’s winding down with an audiobook in the other room.  Let’s calm down.”

“Please, geez.  Poor animal.”

“I love that you’re being thoughtful, Declan, by the way.”

“More thoughtful than Avery.”

“Leaving a stuffed animal in the same neighborhood as Kerry is your own fault, Skates.”

“I can’t have spare clothes in a drawer without them getting pawed through with glitter-covered hands?  I can’t-”

“It’s glamfetti, Avery, it’s bide- bidigi-”

“Biodegradable.  We insisted.”

“Small mercies.”

“-I can’t have stuff in my own space?”

“Technically, little sister, it’s Kerry’s space.  We moved out.”

“That is not the point and you know it’s not the point.”

“Guys, guys.  Seriously?  I need some boundaries.  Especially with everything going on.”

“Noted and heard, Avery.  We’ll talk to her.  Go rest.”

“You asked,” Avery told Nora, retreating.  “This is the Kelly household when we’re not on good behavior for a guest.”

She returned to her bunk, making a face at the glitter that sparkled.  There was a candy wrapper in the corner of her bed too, crammed in where there was a gap in the corner between mattress and bedframe.

Rather than lie down on the glitter, she settled in, back to the wall, slumped down so head wouldn’t hit ceiling, seal in lap.

“You look happier after all that than you did before,” Nora commented.

She could still hear some of the conversations, even though they were supposed to be trying to be quiet for Grumble.  Voices overlapped, without any gaps to get words in.

“Yeah.”

There’s so much I want to show you.  Hold out, please.  I need to build a place you and my siblings and everyone else I love can interact with all of this and be good and safe.

As goals went, it at least nudged her out of the paralysis without dragging her kicking and screaming out of her bed or video call.

3 hours later, Verona

It was a kind of agony that she wanted to start picking things up again, but she couldn’t even bend over properly.  Soreness, a cut on her back, and enough bandage and tape that the physical act of bending over had its own restrictions.

“Peckersnot?” she called out.

Her Demesne was still her Demesne.  She had a sense of it, which was a sense of a lot of damage.

“Page-on?”

Her thumb rubbed at her palm.

Sorry I wasn’t able to protect you, Demesne.

She’d asked Julette to go see who she could find, for more information on stuff that was going on.  It gave her space to think, to digest.

Her breath fogged as she walked uneasily over wreckage that had slumped down the front steps.  Three quarters of the top floor had collapsed onto the bottom floor, roof included.

She ducked under a bit of overhanging wood, stepping through that aperture into the Kennet found version of her space.

Less damage on this end, but part of the collapse had gone down the stairwell, and a pipe had broken, flooding part of her bookstore.

Another detour, going down a broken bit of roof to snowy ground, around a tree, using the trees as another aperture.

Kennet below.

The sky was a dull yellow-red, reflecting lights, and she could feel it.  The rest of this side of Kennet, gutted, emptied, and wounded.  It pulled on her Demesne in the same way hand pressed against glass could create suction and use that suction to pull at that glass.  It didn’t take much to break that seal and stop the pull from happening.  But it was there.

She could stand here, in the wreckage, hand twinging, and she could feel it.  The absence of friends and familiar faces.  There was an absence of people, and that was causing instability and changes in how Kennet below knotted.

Hollow Knot, Verona thought.  That’s something to fix later.

First things first.  Climate adjustment.

She let the wind catch only cold air blowing through, without touching her.

She walked up onto the wreckage and stomped, and the furnace rumbled, kicking to life.  She directed the heat through the material.  Through possessions and things that were covered in light snowfall.  Slowly, it began to melt.

Melting snow filtered down.  Some of that was going into the basement, which only existed in one of the three Kennets.  She put in some effort to stop the water and let things drain out and dry, water running between floorboards and past foundation.

She’d have to be careful.  The alchemy lab was currently buried.  She didn’t want to go the way of Gilkey, because something combined and exploded the moment she exposed it to air.  The Demesne would protect her to some extent, but it wasn’t perfect.  She began working her way towards it, moving things aside, using her sense of her Demesne and her management of it to control things.

Even with the heat from the furnace suffusing the debris, now, and the air getting warm enough her breath was barely fogging, her fingers got numb.  Her back hurt, her forearms felt like she’d just lifted weights and were tired, where they’d been cut, and her hand threatened to put the shit cherry on this shit cream sundae with cramping.

She sensed a car pulling in, and navigated through- not just the debris that was above, around, and below her, but she found her way to Kennet above.

Car headlights illuminated the dark lot the house was situated in.  Or not so situated in.

“What are you doing in there?” her mom asked.  “I don’t think that’s safe.”

“It’s my house,” Verona replied.  She snapped her fingers and pointed.  A piece of wood broke off to the side.  She looked around.  “Charles wrecked it.”

“It took me three tries to find this place.  I was ready to call Jasmine.  Are you okay?”

“It’s my house,” Verona repeated.  “Charles wrecked it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Killed some of my friends.”

“Lucy?  Avery?”

“No.  Anselm.  Mal.  Others,” Verona said.  She drew in a heavy breath.  “My art.  My projects.  Practice stuff.  Magic items I didn’t bring with.  My clothes.  My bookstore.  My laptop.  My schoolwork.  My health.”

“Health?  Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Verona shook her head.

“That’s a lot, I’m sorry.  I’m glad you’re safe.”

It was a lot, and the words felt hollow, but maybe that was because Verona felt hollow.

“Sorry,” Verona said, not quite sure why she’d said it.  “I sound like dad, dumping.”

“He didn’t act that way with me.  I think it’s okay, being upset with all that going on.”

Verona nodded, looking across the house.

“I found a temporary place, I’m still looking for something permanent.  Do you want to come?  Get some rest?  Revisit this in the light?”

“Got rest, napped.  As for light…”

Verona reached out to her Demesne.  The lights mounted where they could illuminate the back lot of the Arena glowed, shining through the trees, and the snow picked up more ambient moonlight.

“It must be cold, at least?  We can go, talk?”

“Cold-ish.  And I don’t want to- I mean, I want to talk, I want to connect.  I appreciate you saying you’ll stay in Kennet, but I’m talked out.  I want to…”

She looked out toward Kennet.

She saw McCauleigh down the road, Julette with her, before McCauleigh was in the Demesne’s territory.  She raised a hand.  McCauleigh waved back.

And McCauleigh and Julette had Peckersnot with them, riding on McCauleigh’s shoulder.

Deja vu, again.

“You don’t have to stay,” she told her mom.

“I’ll stay.  It’s okay.”

McCauleigh jogged over the last bit, and wrapped her arms around Verona.  Verona had been getting first aid from Avery with the cut on her back and arms, while Lucy was at the sword moot, where McCauleigh had gone.

McCauleigh’s arms bumped a cut.

“Am I hurting you?” McCauleigh asked, as Verona took in a sharp breath.

“Good hurt.  My little man.  Fetching miss.”  She gave Peckersnot a high five and Julette a light slap on the cheek as she greeted her.  “McCauleigh, you’ve seen my mom, formal introduction here.  Sylvia Hayward, McCauleigh Hennigar.”

“Need a new last name,” McCauleigh said.  She looked over at the House on Half Street.  “Our home, huh?”

“Sucks.”

“Sucks so much.”

“On the upside,” Julette said.  “Found someone else.”

“Tashlit?”

“No.  She’s back, though.  I have a question for Verona’s mom,” Julette said.

“Seeing you two side by side is so eerie.”

“Any issues with mice?  Or rats?” Julette asked.

“Sootsleeves,” Verona voiced her realization aloud.

Julette had apparently seen the birds in the air and knew what was coming.

Mice, rats, squirrels, pigeons, and children in Sootsleeves’ livery.  Some came down the road, or over the trees.  Others came out of the woods from the south and southwest.

Sootsleeves was last, the crowd parting to let her by, her horse’s hooves making soft sounds in snow when they weren’t clopping on road.  She had hair in a side braid, wore a long coat, and sat with one leg bent in front of her, the other down in a stirrup, in a very casual position, smoking a long cigarette.  Squire-L and Page-on were on her shoulders.

“Need help?” Sootsleeves asked.

“Yeah,” Verona replied.  “What do I owe you?”

“You and your friends freed us.  We owe our freedom to you.”

“Clearing debris?  Sorting stuff?  Seeing what’s salvageable?”

“We are very good at that,” Sootsleeves said, puffing on her ‘torch’, before pointing it.

The animals descended on the ruined building.

“Careful around the alchemy stuff?” Verona warned, pointing.  She hurried up the debris near the front steps, and saw her mother, alarmed, reaching out to catch her if she fell.

Which wasn’t an issue.  Things didn’t slide underfoot for her.  Verona indicated the danger area, and Sootsleeves’ people cleared that area.

“You’ll need to repair and rebuild.  We’d offer our services, but you know the aesthetic we tend toward.”

Ramshackle, piecemeal, and patchwork.  It was a style, but it wasn’t Verona’s.

“Clearing stuff up and seeing what can be saved is a huge help,” Verona said.  “I’ll figure something out for the rebuild.”

“What’s the alchemy situation?” McCauleigh asked.

“Just… sensitive, and I don’t know how mucky it is.  Stuff could’ve combined.”

“What type of alchemy?  Mother War, I can’t believe I’m talking alchemy again.  Is it Creation, elemental, transmutation, deleterious, restorative?”

“A lot of those, some others.”

“Figured.  Can’t be simple, huh?”

“Use me as a guinea pig?” Julette asked.  “If something blows I can put myself back together.”

“And I’m basically immortal,” McCauleigh said.

“Let’s clear the area, move that bit of wall?” Verona asked, stepping back.  “Here, give me Pecker.”

Peckersnot peeped as she took hold of him.

Groups of small animals were now hard at work, moving things aside, or sifting through the piles.  Verona saw some dragging out her lab apron and reached over to take it.  After checking it with the back of her hand for any damp spots that might be acid or potion, she pulled it on, tying it behind her.

Papers.  Verona glanced at one and saw sketches she’d done of Mallory, in what she had talked to Mallory about, as a full-body coverup.  There were some sketches of singular limbs, and some of Mallory in various outfits, imagined as a Kennet below warlord.

“That piece of window?  Don’t cut yourselves,” Verona said.

Mice carried pieces of glass away, sometimes in teams of six.

“Okay, defusing a maybe-bomb,” Verona said, looking at the glass piping and tubes.  She borrowed McCauleigh’s help in getting down into a crouch, as much as she could, and turned some bottles upright.  She passed them to mice and pigeons.  “Keep the contents from spilling.”

Crudely refined elements of Creation from the homunculus work, too close to volatile chemicals.  She extracted those, then indicated more spaces to move things.  She rescued some ‘cookbooks’ with alchemy stuff while they did that.

“Too much to hope for that I forgot about some healing potion I did, huh?” Verona asked.

“There’s other options,” McCauleigh commented.  “Tashlit, going to a faerie market with Avery’s help, getting some herbs.”

“Mmmmyyeah,” Verona replied.  “But that requires leaning on people who might want to rest.”

“Is it awkward I’m here?  That they’re here?  Peckersnot, your attic residents?  Sootsleeves?”

Verona shook her head.  “Different.  Because you have a stake in this place too.  And I believe Sootsleeves when she says she’s okay doing this.  Feels awkward if I’m leaning on the other two, knowing… I’m not saying anyone here’s not dealing with stuff, but-”

“Yeah,” McCauleigh replied.  “Would you go to Avery and Lucy if they needed you?”

“Yeah.”

Verona put some tools into the pocket of her apron, then looked up and over at McCauleigh, who had an arched eyebrow.

“Okay,” Verona said.  “I see your point.”

“I don’t think you guys ever leave each other’s lives entirely, but how you handle things in the next while might decide the shape of things across the rest of your lives.  There’s lots of stories about people banding together for some great battle, saving the kingdom, stopping the end of the world, and it sort of assumes they’re a rock solid team for the rest of their lives.  Or romance for the ages.”

“When they’re just two people boning in an emotional situation?”

“When they’re whatever, yeah.  Thing is, when you go through something that intense, that… much with someone?  Sometimes the fact they were there is a bad association.  Then you…”

McCauleigh made a gesture, cheeks puffing out, hands moving apart.

“Self combust?”

“Drift apart with the slightest breeze.”

“What if it’s the opposite?” Verona groaned, trying to stand, and accepted McCauleigh’s help.  “What if there’s a danger that if me, Lucy, and Avery, after all of this, lean too heavily on each other, we become too enmeshed, too interdependent?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” McCauleigh said.  “I’m not a friendly person.  I’m not good at that stuff.  You were my first friend.”

Verona leaned over, giving McCauleigh a half-hug.

“Saw me, raw and unfiltered, and didn’t run.  Closest I had before that were my siblings and cousins, and that’s… you saw some of that.  My older sister?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I had Mal and Anselm, Oakham and Bracken, and half of them are gone.”

“Yeah.”

“By the way, while we’re talking awkward relationships…?”

McCauleigh nudged Verona, then stepped out of the half-hug, leaving Verona space to turn and look.

Her mom was still by the car, two car lengths from the front of the house, with Raquel talking to her.  Dark silhouettes that were hard to make out past the glare of the headlights.  The car was running, puttering.

“Alchemy stuff looks mostly defused.  We’ll have them leave it alone until you can help them work through that pile.  I’ll stick around, help sort.”

“Thank you.”

Verona made her way down the slope, steadied by Julette, who wasn’t that much more graceful, but was a little less injured.

“Heya,” Raquel greeted Verona.

“Hey.  Checking in?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry if any of your stuff got crushed.”

“It did, but not here.  I moved my stuff out to the Blue Heron, and that got leveled.”

“Devastation wherever we go, huh?” Verona asked.

“I’ll roll up my sleeves and help, if that’s okay?”

“Sure.  Please.”

“Owe you for taking me in,” Raquel said.  “Where do I start?”

“How are you with alchemy?”

“Good?  Been a year but I put on a good showing.  Had to, with my family.”

“Got some spillage, crushed stuff, maybe help out there, keep an eye out?”

“Spooky, but okay.”

Verona looked at her mom as Raquel headed over to where McCauleigh was.

“What do you need me to do?  I was thinking we should go sleep, take a break, buy you something you need in the morning, but…”

“Want to go for a walk?” Verona asked her mom.

“Or a drive?”

“Walk,” Verona countered.  “Don’t kill your battery.  Your car should be safe.  If that’s okay?”

She directed that last bit at Sootsleeves.

“Perfectly okay.”

“Come on,” Verona told her mom.

Her mom turned off the car, and locked it.  Verona indicated the direction, toward the trees.

“We’re going into the woods?”

Verona walked through, hands jammed into pockets.  Her forearm throbbed, and jolts of pain ran through her hand.  Her back hurt, and it felt like some of the tape that had fastened bandage to the cut at her back had come loose when she’d bent over a couple minutes ago.

Her mom eventually came through.

“The car is gone.  So are some of the people.”

“Different layer of things,” Verona told her mom.

The mice and children had gone across realms, and were working on all three fronts.

Verona led the way, pushing past the soreness and pain.  They walked into Kennet below.

Lights were off.  Windows were covered in plywood.  Graffiti covered a lot of surfaces.  Including some murals, already.

Some people were outside, smoking, and a few of them had eyes that reflected the light.  It made Verona think of Nibble and Chloe, except they weren’t ghouls.

“You’ve got a goblin on your shoulder.  People are seeing.”

“I know.  They’re aware of everything.  Like I said, different Kennet.  So, just gonna say, there’s a lot of vacancies on this side of Kennet.  If you haven’t had luck finding a place?”

She made it a question.

“Not a permanent one.”

“Should be doable to find a spot here.  Rent’s going to be a tenth of what it is in Thunder Bay, I figure.  Some crime but it’s not all that bad.  Get a nice sized apartment, save some money.  I’d like to be in the thick of this, starting out my days here, so I’m constantly reminded of what we’re doing and building.  At least until my house is back.”

“I feel like I’m constantly a step behind.  Or a lot of steps behind.”

“If you have any questions, ask.  If there’s something you want to dig into, let me know.  You said you like to go slow, find areas of interest?  I can introduce you to people.  There’s so much cool stuff in all of this.”

“I can tell.  The way you travel.  The fact the house collapsed and you can pull in help and resources and have magic ways to not get hurt.  But where am I in this, as your mom?”

If I hadn’t been pressured, I’m not sure I’d have invited you in, Verona thought.  Not this soon.

She didn’t want to say it.  It felt like a counter-version of her mom saying no when Verona had asked for her mom to take her in.  And her mom had eventually said yes, when faced with magic and everything.

“You know, when all of this started, I didn’t even want to be human?  Miss told me it was possible to become Other.  Leave humanity behind?  I was ready to.  I thought… I could become a cat.  Be Lucy’s cat, be part of her family, be independent.  Go between cat mode and human, staying the same age, same haircut.  I liked my hair, liked where I was at, body-wise.  Fashion-wise.  Freeze it like that.  Then do my own thing.”

“I think I can see why Jasmine’s mad at Miss.”

“It’s not bad,” Verona told her mom, hunching shoulders up, to bring her scarf up some, protecting her face from cold.  She wasn’t in her Demesnes anymore, and the wind was biting.  “Different but not bad.”

“It’d be bad to me, not seeing you grow up.”

Verona shrugged, which was a weird gesture when her shoulders were already raised.  “I need a lifeline.”

“It looks like you have a lot of lifelines.  An army of intelligent animals, your friends, Raquel and…Mickey?”

“McCauleigh.”

“Lucy.  Avery.  The local council.  I talked to Louise.”

“Hoped you would.”

“It was overshadowed by everything else going on.  I asked more times than I should have, if she thought you’d be okay.”

“Thanks for caring.”

“I don’t know how to be a lifeline like that.”

“I need… probably a dose of reality.  More than Lucy and Jasmine can give me.  You were a huge help with the school stuff.  Helping me find a way.  I have so much I want to do, but it can’t be Lucy’s job to keep me real.  Keep me from going off and becoming too Other to function.  I think that’s what Jasmine wanted for me, when she pressured me to bring you into this.”

“My problem is, I’m not sure what that looks like.  Is it supposed to be me insisting we take the car, instead of walking?”

“I wanted to walk to show you this, and because I didn’t want to wade through this, see the damage, and how many lights are off, how few people are here, without company.  Not that you don’t count, Peckersnot.”

Peckersnot peeped.

“So… pushing for the car would’ve been too much.  But I don’t have a frame of reference.  I tried offering help earlier, saying we should go, save it for the morning, but it was the wrong direction, apparently.”

“There’s no rush, I guess,” Verona said.

“Have you eaten?”

“Not much, but I don’t eat a lot.”

“You might need to eat more while you’re healing.”

“True that.”

“Sleep too.”

“I don’t know if I’d be able to sleep.  That place is a part of me, like my arm.  Do you go to sleep with your arm and hand broken in ten places, leaving it lying in a chemical spill?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll probably crash hard later.  It’s not a bad suggestion.”

“So you want routine?  Structure?”

“I guess?”

“School?”

“Nudges here and there.  Homework help?”

“Okay.  Do you see yourself staying with me in the evenings?  Because you’re attached to that house, I feel like you wouldn’t want me living in there.  But you would want to stay there some nights?”

“Yeah.”

“Which worries me because you were talking about being sexually active.”

“I’m safe.”

“I think ‘safe’ is a very nuanced thing.  Some partners surprise you.  Sometimes a boy seems nice and then he turns.”

“Like dad?”

“Maybe.  I was thinking more about the moment of.”

“If I stick to boy stuff when I’m at the house, when it’s rebuilt, it’s my house, it’s my space.  They pull anything and their feet can go through the floorboards, hooking their man-bits on a bent nail on the way down.”

“That’s, uh…”

Verona flashed a toothy smile, cackling a bit.

“…Worrying in its own way.  And you won’t always be there, I hope.  Grudges and sourness can be carried elsewhere.  It doesn’t save you from other pressures.  Emotional pressures?”

“We just beat the Carmine Exile earlier today.  I fought like hell.  He tried to crush me, emotionally, I did okay.”

Her mom sighed.  “Sometimes when you think you’re most immune or secure, it turns out to be the opposite.”

Verona thought about her stance on echoes, from before.  “Fair.”

“What would you say if I drew a hard line?  If I said you’re too young to be experimenting like you described?”

“I’d say I was trying to get a rise out of you.  I was stressed.”

“But you can’t lie either.”

Verona shrugged.

“There’s no rush to do all of that, that I felt strongly about this, and about the consequences that could change the course of your life?”

“Mom’s prerogative.”

“You could call it that.  Common sense.”

“Teenager’s prerogative to sneak around and pull some stuff,” Verona said, clicking her tongue.

Her mom sighed.

“Much less stuff if there’s parent dodging involved?” Verona offered.

They walked through downtown Kennet below.  Verona reminded herself that a good share of the people who’d stayed were people who’d sided with Charles and the Family Man.

The memorial to John was here.  A lonely flower sat on the dais with the statues, weighed down with a rock.  Snow already dusted it.

“Lucy paid a visit,” Verona said.

“She always wore her heart on her sleeve.  I remember how excited she’d get around birthdays and holidays.”

Verona nodded.

She had to try twice to hop up onto the base of the statue, sitting on the edge, one hand touching the flower.  She looked up at the statue.  “Hope we did okay by you.”

Her mom looked so tired.

It was frustrating that she had to take that into account and handle it.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“What are you thinking?”

“That we should get you food.”

“There’s some great hole in the wall places here, open all night.  I don’t know which ones survived the gutting, but… worth a shot.”

“The fact this town closed down in the late afternoon always drove me crazy.”

“There’s other aspects.  Another side of Kennet without any day or night at all.”

“That’s… that’s hard on its own, isn’t it?”

“I’m thinking… a lot of the time, when people stumble onto magic, like Melissa Oakham, we’d try like hell to get them to reject it.  The universe is meant to help things along.  So if they want to pretend it was a bad combination of meds or a nightmare or anything like that, the universe will contrive to support that reframing.  But people find out about all of this, and they cling to it.”

“I see.  Louise mentioned some of that, I think.”

“It doesn’t feel like you’re clinging, or engaged.  It feels almost like you’re trying to ignore it.”

Her mom shook her head, but didn’t say anything.

“The stuff you’re talking about with me.  Food, sleep, homework, shopping.  I feel like… like maybe we might need Matthew Moss’s help, but we could give you an out, and it might even work.  You forget about magic.  These other realms.  I tell Jas it didn’t work out.  Then it’s up to you.  You could handle the basic ‘keeping Verona semi-grounded’ stuff.  Or you could go back to Thunder Bay.”

“What would you do?”

“Same as I’ve been doing.  I- part of the reason I pushed you so hard, I lost people.  Crucial people.  I was on my way to losing more.  I was scared.  I wanted support.”

“I wasn’t very good at giving it.”

“But that’s over with.”

“And the next time something happens?”

“Hopefully it doesn’t.”

“But if it does?”

Verona shrugged.  Peckersnot reached out to her scarf to hold onto it as his perch moved.

“I’m not going to do that,” Verona’s mom said.

Verona nodded slowly.  She felt emotions sweep over her.  Maybe because it wasn’t the answer she’d expected.

She exhaled slowly.

“Miss, Miss, Miss.  Give us a ride?”

The wind stirred, snow raising up in a loose circle around them.

Verona fixed her mask, pulled off her scarf, and wound it around her mom’s lower face.

The sweep of Miss’s sleeve and hair, drawn in vague lines by wind, caught them.  They were pulled to Kennet Found.  The statue changed.  So did the flower beside Verona.

“You!”

The voice was small.  Verona, sitting on the base of the statue, butt very cold, watched as Cherrypop forged her way across snow.  The little goblin held her rock overhead.  “Raaaah!”

Naked, red, and emotional.

“Hey Cherry.  Hey mom?  Give her a lift up?”

“Raah!” Cherrypop roared at the incoming hand, trying to be fierce.  Verona’s mom hesitated.

Verona put Peckersnot down beside her.  Goblins were hardy, so the cold wouldn’t bother them much.  Her mom put Cherrypop down beside Peckersnot.

“I’m ready!” Cherrypop declared.  “You took a long time, but I’m gonna fight!  I’ll ride on Snowdrop and I’ll take my rock and I’ll fling it at him!”

“Who?”

“The red guy!  Charles!  Raah!”

Peckersnot peeped.  Cherry turned on him, tackling him, and the two of them began squabbling.  The fight took them over the edge, down about four feet, into piled up snow.  They rolled down, peeping and roaring.

“When you say you’re not going to do that, is it the going back to Thunder Bay thing?  Or the turning away from magic thing?”

“Either.  I want to support you.  I just wish I knew how.”

“Just… give me something to fall back on.  And I don’t mean friends to save me or rebuild a broken house.  Be- you get so excited about your artist friend or your friend that’s doing social justice stuff, or your professor friend, and you’ll dive into their interests, you’ll drink a ton of red wine-”

“Not that much wine.”

“-and talk for hours.  You can’t do that for me?”

“I don’t know.  It’s been rocky so far- I understand why.  But try me?”

“I sort of had this idea you’d get psyched about this.  Right now we’ve got a Kennet that’s in a really rocky place, right?  Just had a series of attacks, Oakham’s house got leveled, dad’s house got torched, there’s people in the emergency room.  I think Jasmine’s there tonight and she didn’t have a lot of choice, even though she wants more time to go over things with Lucy.  It’s crazy, right?  And you’re looking for places and there’s not much?”

“Sums it up.”

“There’s here, and it’s stable and safe but it’s unusual, not a place people are inclined to visit unless they’re Lost or Other.  Even though it’s… spectacular.”

Her mom looked around, at the arching streets and bridges, canals, and elaborate buildings.  “Yeah.  It’s beautiful.”

“And then there’s Kennet below, and it’s empty, it’s hollow.  There’s no balance.  So, problem solving mode.  How do we correct?  Do we let more people slip out of Kennet found and Kennet above to go to Kennet below?  It’s rougher.”

“Some locals are rougher.”

“Or do we do something bigger?  My Demesne, it’s- there are Demesnes that draw in Others of a particular type.  What if we take that same concept and make it a town thing?  How do we select people?  Who do we select?  How hard do we want to pull?”

“I feel like a lot of the time, I make suggestions but they’re wrong.”

“If you’re thinking back to earlier, when I was getting mad about not being heard, I was maybe being a bit unfair.  So were you though.”

“Even after that.  Earlier tonight.”

“Try?  If you have ideas…”

“I could talk to people I know who work with immigrants.  Colleagues.”

“Could do.  The idea would be trying to find the spirit of the ideas in play, not the exact rules and laws, right?”

“Okay.”

“It’s a blank slate, you know?  There are some people, we call them warlords but they’re not that rough, they’re in charge, but there’s room to try to push something through.  How long have you been working on that Universal Basic Income stuff?”

“Years.  With ups and downs.  Me and a lot of people.  The rug got pulled out from under us before we could get good data.”

“Local community… blank slate, lots of funky dynamics at play, some good, some rough.  Got any pet projects you want to try?  Could try it out.”

“It’s… complicated.  I do what I do with the idea of wider change.”

“Could do some here.  So much of what we’re doing, we want wider change.  A working community halfway between mundane and Other?  If we succeed or put good ideas forward, they get carried out into the rest of the world.”

“I’d need to know more.”

“Rent in Kennet below, then.  Get to know people.  Get involved.”

“Louise made it out to be… she mentioned the warlords.  She and you both mentioned the criminal elements, the brutality.”

“Which are totally things.  But Kennet below is also a place of passionate people.  My friend was a passionate tattooer.  There are artists, herbalists, butchers, who throw everything they are into it.  There’s a reason I love it.  There’s a reason Lucy likes it, even if she’s a bit more wary.”

“If you wanted to introduce me, get me my first meetings with good people here, I could try navigating this landscape.  Tough to start from the beginning, but… I can try.”

“Are we on track to Sylvia Hayward, Warlord?”

“I don’t think so.”

Verona cackled.

“But I’d be willing to help them figure things out.”

“I’m thinking a big city magic ritual might be in the cards.  I don’t have the space set aside to sketch it out like I’d want to do, but some combination of karmic magic, seals, and city magic could draw in the sorts we want.  People who fit that paradigm.  Gotta get my house in order first, to have the workspace.  Getting my bookstore going, finally, would give me resources to tap to improve my handling of some of the side stuff I’d want to do.  I want my bookstore to wander.  But I need the tools to protect myself, and remotely protect Kennet, or protect Kennet while remotely protecting my store, if I need to leave it.  I have so much I want to do.”

“And it starts with the house.  I think I see where your head is at, now.  Can we work a breakfast into there?  You and me, making time to eat together in the morning.”

“Every day?”

“I was thinking of the once, but every day is doable.”

“Okay,” Verona said, nodding.  A weight had been lifted off her, a bit.  She kept nodding, eyes roving, thinking about possibilities.

Verona ran fingers through hair, and it fell back down into the sides of her face, bangs across her eyebrows.  Shaggy.

“Got an elastic?” she asked.

Her mom fished inside her oversized handbag for a hair elastic, handing it over.

Verona pushed fingers through hair again, and then made a crude ponytail.  It didn’t fix the hair framing her face, but it made her neck less hot.

“Need a haircut at some point?  Should we make time for that too?  Get your hairstyle back?”

“I’ll grow it out some,” Verona said.  “Maybe a trim.  I’ve got someone in mind that I want to be, might need to try a few different styles on my way to becoming her.”

“That’s what being a teenager is for.”

“Just knowing someone’s going to check and make sure I eat, make sure I do some school stuff, and it’s not- it’s not me putting a burden on Lucy or Jasmine?  Doesn’t feel like it holds me back.  Feels like it makes a lot of things possible.  No Carmine in my way, no immediate looming crisis.  Bit of rebuilding to do, but… limiters off,” Verona said, voice soft, staring out over Kennet found.

“Some limiters on, please.”

“Verona Hayward, third witch of Kennet,” Verona raised her voice, standing.  With each sentence, she was a little louder, more forceful.  “On my way to becoming a Sorceress.  Dabbler in half-light and shape!  Co-creator of Kennet found, by way of hatching the moon!  Peddler of books not yet written!  Interpreter of the voiceless!”

Peckersnot peeped below, pumping fists in the air, while Cherrypop tried to pull him backward off his feet.

“Thorn in the side of higher powers!  Crucible breaker!”

Her voice echoed out.

“Whooo!” some foundling guy whooped, from far away.

“I hope we did okay by you,” she said, laying a hand on the head of the statue beside her.

She caught a glimpse of Miss, and of Lis, standing at different points of the square in front of the town center.

“Yeah?” she asked them.

Lis nodded.  Miss seemed to be as well.  Peckersnot was on board.

“We’ve come this far.  Time to set something big into motion, turn some heads.”