Pale: 5.2 - Verona

Verona

To Verona’s Sight, the trees to her right were a blur of spiderweb and film, a continuous mass, while the town to her left was shrouded, every building enveloped in white-grey wrapping, the dim lights glowing against the film while the contents, surface, and ‘bones’ of the building appeared to be missing.  They took a path that gave her a sweeping view of what was going on, and she saw a city enveloped.  Like dense spiderweb had been layered over it all, keeping the shape even as the city and everything else were taken away from beneath.

It was hollow, and within that hollow, she could see aggregate red masses, throbbing and moving.  A heart that beat, growing more agitated over time.

She gripped the rack at the top of the truck, standing on the bed, and let Matthew carry her toward trouble.  Away from trouble too, she figured.  Lucy and Avery were dealing with their own parts of this bigger situation, and she was leaving them behind.

They were stronger together.  The best points of her life these days were when they were a trio.  The worst parts were when she was alone, which was usually when she was with her dad.

Funny, when she’d always thought of herself as a loner.

Her hat flapped but didn’t leave her head, and the rush of wind helped a lot to cool her down.  Getting cool and then hot again always made her sweat like heck, and the Ruins had been cold.  The summer evening was warm.

Verona had tried to bring up what Nicolette had mentioned back in the library, when they were figuring out who should go after who.  There was something about binding, and how they were supposed to hit the targets of a binding with the opposite of that thing.  She really, really hoped that Lucy and Avery had picked up on that, when she’d stressed that they shouldn’t go after targets too similar to one another.

She would have said it, but Matthew and Edith had been in earshot.  She would have phoned them, but her phone wasn’t in service.  Because things were disjointed in time, different parts of the city moving at different speeds.

It wouldn’t be good to mention binding in front of Matthew and Edith, not when the local Others had been so sketchy about their willingness to teach that stuff.

“Where are we going!?” she called out.

“What?” Matthew called out, through his driver’s side window.

“Following my instinct!  I feel pressure!”

If they found the skeptic, she’d have to dissuade her.  Somehow.  Verona was guessing this Griggs woman would be stubborn.

And if Matthew’s instincts were wrong and he drove her out into the middle of nowhere, then maybe she could loop back and help the others.  She wouldn’t mind that.  Then they could deal with the skeptic together.

Or, and she felt it was necessary to account for this stuff, because Lucy worried and she really, really, really, really wanted to not let Lucy down, she had to consider the worst case scenario, and be a bit paranoid.  Which meant considering that Matthew and Edith might drive her off into a secluded space and come after her.  Or let something else come after her.

She reminded herself where her spell cards were, along with her glamour stuff, like pre-prepared feathers and cat hair.

She could run if she needed to, she was pretty sure.  She could fight if she needed to.

Which got her thinking about their last fight, just a few days ago, and the outcome of that.  The Cold Tears thing at the end of school party.

“Whatever happened with Melissa!?” she called out, adjusting her grip so her arms were folded along the top of the truck, foot braced to keep herself from sliding back.

A body hit the roof.  Verona let go of the rail, which was a mistake, because the truck was still moving at a good clip and it left her with only her two feet under her.  Her arms windmilled, she walked back three quick steps as she tried to regain her balance, looking down to see if she could grab the side, and then slid on the last step.  She tripped over the hatch at the very back of the pickup, careening out over onto the road.

She reached for the feathers in her pocket and found the fur instead.  Glamour.  She touched it to cape and pulled the cape around herself.

She’d been trying to make the glamour use with the cape a thing, in the same way they’d been told about glasses being tied to the Sight.  She hesitated at the last second, the ground coming at her fast, and threw down a paper, hoping it was the right one.

The blast of wind was a lot, and as it pulled at the folds of her cape, she worried it was too much.  Rather than dampen the velocity of her fall, it thrust her skyward, and in the gloom, her Sight not really helping all that much, she had little sense of anything around her.  She flipped, head over heels, and the flipping might’ve been higher velocity because of the way she’d balled up, cloak pulled around herself.

She screeched, tumbled through the air, and then contorted her body.  Tail was a guide, legs pulled in close while they faced the sky, splaying out while she faced the ground.  She repeated the process for two flips, fixating on her landing point and controlling the movement of the rest of her body as she landed, making contact with all four paws at once.  Her body absorbed the landing, and the glamour fell away with the impact.

“Och, lassie.  I didnae mean ta friten ye.”

Verona picked herself up.  The truck had skidded to a stop, and Alpeana was perched on the roof.

“Been a bit, Alpy,” Verona said.

“Och, aye.  Tha business wit tha politics an’ tha ill blood.  Ah cannae abide by it.  Ah hope ye’re well.”

“My heart’s racing, but I’m alright.  What if you made it up to me by being my familiar?”

“Ye move fast, lassie.  Bold approach thar.”

“I’m kidding with you.  Partially.”

“I’m not sayin’ nae ta ye.  Ah wouldn’t mind a break fae a’ this,” Alpeana said, ducking into the ditch by the car to avoid the headlights of incoming traffic.  “Speaking o’…”

Matthew waited for the other car on the road to pass, then climbed out.  Verona remained where she was, a little ways behind the truck.

Matthew looked uncomfortable in his own skin, rubbing at his neck, then his wrist.  In the wake of the rubbing, bindings appeared, magic circles and lines drawn out on skin, in what could’ve been flesh-tone ink on flesh, glowing black as they were agitated.

On the other side of the car, Edith climbed out, her eyes glowing.

“Thar’s trouble, Matt, Edie.”

“What trouble?” Matthew asked.

“Ah was daein’ me rounds, ‘n some uninviteds came in.”

“Edie’s lot.  Spirits.  Somethin’ else.  It’s tha Aware ye said were comin’.  Trekkin’ in a whole mess behind ‘er.”

“Is it the Gilded Lily?” Verona asked.  “Did she have things?”

“Aye, but I cannae tell ye if there was anythin’ to it.  Every tit and thar mum’s got things.”

“Are they far?” Matthew asked.

“We need to curb this.”

“Aye.  I’ll show ye the way.  Glad ta contribute.”

She indicated a path that led down the road.  Verona jogged up to the truck and climbed back in.  Alpeana climbed in the back, crouching so low that she wouldn’t really be visible from adjacent cars.  Her eyes entirely black, her hair long and tangled, her arms and legs bent like she was poised to leap.

“Alpeana,” Matthew said.

She shrank down a bit more.

“No surprises while I’m driving.  Please.”

“Ah’m not so good at these thin’s.  Used ta be we walked ta church and we walked back.”

“Hmmm.  Good rule of thumb?  If you saw someone swinging a wood axe around, would you spook them mid-swing?”

“This is bigger and faster than an axe swing.”

“That thing about the familiar… Avery and I have been teasing each other for a bit.  Would be cool, if you had a preference, but you’ve been gone a lot.”

“Aye.  Tryin’ ta stay on top of this.  Bleedin’ all ways, all’m are troubled out thar.”

“Yeah.  And staying a bit away from the Carmine beast succession thing?”

“I’ve no part in tha, best I’m aware, and I dinnae want to.  Let what happens happen, an’ Ah’ll keep doin’ what ah need be doin’.”

“I hope it works out.”

“Ah’m hopin’ it at least doesn’t do any harm.”

She had a strong suspicion Lucy would have feelings about that stance.  Maybe Avery too.

“We’re meant ta go left, here,” Alpeana said.

Verona knocked on the window.

“What!?” Matthew called back.

“Are you scared of him?” Verona asked.

“Scared o’ tha Moira, a wee bit closer to tha surface.”

“Be canny, careful lassie,” Alpeana said, quiet.

The truck drove for a bit, with two more turns, and they didn’t really have a lot to say.  Verona kind of appreciated the silence, and the chance to keep an eye on things without distractions.

The truck rolled to a stop.

Verona and Alpeana climbed down, and Matthew and Edith got out.

“A girl with a lot of trouble following behind her sounds like the Gilded Lily, so… watch out for weird things,” Verona said.  “I might have to draw up a diagram to contain the thing.  I gave my other one to Avery.”

“Let’s see what’s going on, first” Matthew said.

They walked down the base of the mountain.  They were still a bit above Kennet, giving them a nice view.  Louise’s house behind them, the city before them, shrouded in cocoon.

She still had a few bird bodies, and another cat body.  She had her spell cards, minus the wind one.  She still hadn’t rebuilt a nice stock since Melissa had dumped her bag out.

“I asked about Melissa, before we were interrupted,” Verona said, to Matthew and Edith.

“Yeah,” Matthew said, his voice soft.  “We took your friend home.  We tried to talk to her, without giving too much away.  She wasn’t willing to listen.”

“She’s kind of single-minded.  I remember her not being really great at sports or dancing or anything, but she would practice like crazy and eventually get there.  She was center on the hockey team, with Avery as right wing.”

“You’ve known her for a long time.”

“Not really known.  But like… ever since about kindergarten, she’s been either in my classes or in another class in the same year.  I’ve seen her face a lot.”

“We told her to call us if she had questions,” Edith said.  “She hasn’t called.”

“Okay,” Verona said.  She gave it a bit of thought.  What would Melissa be doing, then?

Going back to the same places?  Maybe?  Or did she keep something she shouldn’t?

“If you want to give us some directions that you think might work, we could try that,” Matthew said.

“What happens if she kept some of my magic notes and she’s copying them?”

“It shouldn’t work,” Matthew said.  “Not without a power source, or the emphasis and attention on her words and actions that comes with being Awakened.  Even if she had the notes.”

“It could,” Edith said.

Matthew raised his eyebrows.

“It would need a few things.  If her word wasn’t trusted, it would slow her down a great deal.  But if she knew enough to be careful about that…?”

Edith trailed off, leaving it almost as a question for Verona.

“I didn’t write down any of that, pretty sure,” Verona said.  “Nothing about awakening, or words, really.”

Edith continued, “…then it could be accidental.  She’d have to be isolated or otherwise be unusually principled about when, where, how and how honestly she chooses to speak.  She’d have to be unusually dogged about copying and setting down patterns.”

“So, like, cooped up in her room, not talking to her parents, drawing the same runes over and over again?  I could sort of see that second part.  Not the not talking to her parents bit, probably.”

“It’s unlikely,” Matthew said.  “That’s a lot of effort repeating something that isn’t working on the first, fifth, tenth, or fiftieth try.”

“Yeah,” Verona said.  “Hard to imagine.  She’d need something that let her think she had a shot.”

Matthew sighed.  “A bit of a relief, then.  Besides, most would become Other, instead of Awakening in a raw way.  With no clear power sources on hand, she would be draining from herself.  Depending on the practice she’s trying, and how well, she could spend too much of herself and invite the wrong thing in.”

“Not unlike me,” Edith said.

“I don’t think you’re wrong,” Matthew said.

“It took me a little bit to find my feet.  Until then, I wasn’t right.”

“I’m kind of mentally giving that a two out of ten chance it happens,” Verona said.  “For Melissa.”

“That’s high,” Matthew told her, a bit surprised.

Verona reminded herself the feathers were there, tucked into her sleeve.  Not because the situation was bad, but because she was letting her guard down.

She looked out over a cocooned Kennet, with its throbbing, writhing larvae of a heart beneath it, all dotted with dull blue lights.  “I think the Carmine Beast’s blood is soaking into things.  Makes that sort of mess more likely.”

“Aye,” Alpeana said, as she reached over from branch to branch, moving through the woods.  “It’s a right bloody fankle.”

“That fankle ends if John steps up to the role of Carmine,” Matthew said.  “That influence would be his.”

“And that’d be a good thing?” Verona asked.

“I think so.  I like John, I respect him.  And I think he’d be a good judge.  Different, but good.”

“So you’re rooting for him?  You want him there?”

“Yeah,” Matthew said.

Verona looked over at Edith.

Edith added, “Yes, but I worry about what follows.  I don’t think John survives it, for one thing.”

They descended past the tops of the trees, into the recesses of thick forest.  It was dark, to a surprising degree.  Verona had first experienced this when going to save Avery from the Forest Ribbon Trail.  She kept her Sight on, but it didn’t help much.  She tended to see better when there was at least a little light, and there wasn’t much.

Alpeana scurried through the branches overhead, so fast she was almost twitching in her every movement.

“I feel it.  Pressure,” Matthew said.  “I was chasing it, driving this way and that.  We’re close to a nice big patch of it.”

“Is that your Sight?” Verona asked.

“I lost my Sight a little ways into hosting this thing,” he said, giving his chest a thump.  The markings flared again, jittery, and Edith backed away a half-step.

He took a moment, then looked over at Verona, “My Sight is gone, but my vision is tinted.  I’m more sensitive to some things.  Kind of like Sight, but not optional.”

“Ah,” she said.  “Any idea what’s this way?”

“Edith?” Verona asked.

“Eddies and whorls,” Alpeana said.

They walked in silence.  It was so dark Verona almost walked into a tree, and she could pretty much see in the dark.  Here and there, animals made noises, at least until Alpeana scurried one way or another.  Animals seemed to fall silent when she was within twenty paces of them.

Verona moved more in Alpeana’s direction, down a side path that eventually rejoined the main path.

She was getting kinda tired of walking, but she wasn’t about to complain.

“About Melissa,” Matthew said, as Verona rejoined them.

“Do you have a preference about what we should do?”

“Are you asking because you don’t know?”

“I’m asking because we want your opinion.” he said.

This felt a bit like a test.

It felt a bit like a reaching out.

And she really didn’t have a great answer.  She wasn’t sure why it was being directed at her in specific.  Or if Matthew and Edith aimed to ask the other two and compare the answers.

Or if they asked because, Melissa stumbling onto all of this was Verona’s fault.

She’d brought her stuff to the party so she could fend off problems for her friends, not to cause them.

Melissa was, in a way, Verona’s responsibility.

“Let me talk to her, maybe?” Verona asked.  “At the very least, I’ll check if she’s got anything of mine, still.”

“Alright,” Matthew said.

“Alpeana?” Verona asked, her voice sounding eerie in the dark woods.

“Aye?” Alpeana’s voice sounded ten times as eerie in the dark.

It was comforting.  Like the weirdness was shared in a way that made it theirs.  The wildlife scared off.

“Have you visited Melissa Oakham?  To give her nightmares?”

“No, I haven’t,” the Scottish accent came from nowhere and multiple places at the same time.  “Ah’ve held off, so I’m not interferin’.  D’ye want me ta start?”

“Not just yet,” Verona said.  “What happens when you hold off?  You did for my dad, and… for us?”

“For yer Lucy, aye.  After tha gun was put to ‘er bonny head.  It don’t do nothin’, haudin’ back.”

“Okay,” Verona said.  “Does it help, if you do get into it?  Give them a shake?”

“Can do, aye.  Can do a wee number on them too.  Tha pure tough ones, they dae better, ordinar’.”

“Aye, but Lucy-” Alpeana went silent.

“Trouble,” Matthew said.

Just like that, Alpeana was off, scampering through trees faster than Verona could run, and Verona ran forward.

She didn’t know why she did it, when she wasn’t good at trouble, but there was a teeny tiny part of it, she realized mid-dash, that had to do with not wanting to be entirely alone with Matthew and Edith in a dark wood without anyone friendly nearby.

Maybe that was stupid, letting the suspicions about the Carmine Beast murder color everything.  Maybe it was naive, thinking Alpeana was a friend.

She bounced off a tree trunk in her hurry, doing her best to see in the dark with her Sight.

She hated to do it, but she touched the cat’s fur in her back pocket, which she’d laced with glamour, she didn’t touch her cape, and instead, she brought her hand up to her eyes, two fingertips touching each eye.

“Let me see bright,” she whispered.  “Improve my Sight.”

She had no idea if rhyming worked, but it couldn’t hurt.

She dropped her hand and it was like moonlight was shining down through the foliage, making the tree trunks stand out dark, the uneven forest floor now easy to navigate.  She could dodge the thickest bushes and the fallen branches.

She caught up with Alpeana after a minute.

Alpeana hung on a branch, hair drooping down in a way that obscured much of her body.  Her pale arms stuck out of the black tide that flowed down from that point, piling on the forest floor, some bracing against the ground, others with nails digging into the arms of an old man.

The old man bucked and thrashed.  For a moment, it looked like he was going to be strong enough to rise up, sitting up and maybe pushing his way out, fighting the hands.

“Lend me a wee hand, lassie?” Alpeana’s voice was more ethereal than before.  “A bit o’ spirit, or anything ye can hain?”

“I need to know more before I do.  Sorry,” Verona said.

“Ye dinnae go on tha patrols with John, these last few weeks, aye?”

“He’s a kenspeckle figure ’round these parts.”

“I have no idea what that is.  Kenspeckle?”

“She means we know him,” Matthew said, behind Verona.  “Couple of times every year, he’ll try to find a way in.  Miss would leave it to John, most often.”

“I can help?” Verona asked.

“Please do,” Matthew said.

“He’s dangerous?  Bad?”

Verona swung her bag around front, opening the front pouch, and then grabbed a folded paper.  She unfolded it as she drew nearer.

She was two paces away when the old man surged to a sitting position, then stood.  Alpeana grabbed him with multiple arms, the tide of darkness vomiting out wide and thick, making him bend.

But it didn’t make him fall.  He staggered forward, and Alpeana had to fight to crawl across branches and find a grip, that let her stay above him.

His face emerged from the darkness.  It was an old man’s face, but it looked like someone had taken the old and baked it in a bit too much.  Like those little details that made an old person look old, wrinkles aside, had multiplied.  Too many liver spots, too many broken veins.  Too many old scars, too much yellowing of the teeth, which were a bit too long as he fixed his eyes on her and smiled rictus-wide.

Alpeana fought to bring him under control.  He pushed back, arms twisting, struggling to find an angle.

Verona swiftly backed up a few steps.

One finger found purchase, dragging against one of Alpeana’s ten pale arms until the arm was pulled just a bit down, then seizing it in the firmest sort of grip.

One wrench, a sharp movement, and Alpeana’s forearm snapped.  Half of the arms that were reaching out of the morass snapped with it, in a cacophony of dull cracks that shook the area.  Small branches rained down around them.

The flow of the morass grew weaker.

The frail-looking old man stood a little straighter, pushed back a little harder.  The smile didn’t leave his face.

He locked eyes with Verona.

She swallowed hard, backing up a step.

Alpeana dropped from the branch, the mass above him collapsing down.  He staggered forward a few steps.

“Edith,” Matthew said.

“I can’t burn him without hurting her.  And I’d hurt her more.  And Matthew-”

There was something.  Edith was pointing off to the side.  Verona wasn’t in a position to see what she was pointing at.

Multiple of Alpeana’s limbs twisted, broken end of bone audibly grinding against broken end of bone, as the old man used the sole bit of leverage he had, while being swamped with oily darkness.

Verona hesitated, then lunged forward, running.

She hadn’t spent the last few weeks doing nothing.

A bit of glamour, a photograph-

Creating an image.  Of herself.

She closed in, ducking low while her image went high.

He let go of Alpeana’s arm and grabbed the image, because it was close enough to be an easy movement, and Verona saw a glimpse of him palming something pink and bloody, before punching that same palm into her image’s mouth.

The image disintegrated, and the pink thing was flung into the darkness, instead of what it was meant to do.  Verona jabbed out with the thing she’d palmed, from the folded up paper.  The Thorn in the Flesh.  She stuck it into his leg.

But she was below him, and he fixed his eyes on her.

He dropped, letting himself be pushed to the ground by Alpeana’s weight, directly atop Verona.

Alpeana’s hand gripped Verona’s ankle, and hauled her, between his legs and into oily darkness.

She slammed the door with enough force the neighbors could hear it.

The door opened with matching force, hitting the wall.

She strode for the front door.

“You do not slam a door in my face!”

She got to the door, unlocked it, and he grabbed her arm, hard.  She pulled, trying to get free, and she couldn’t.

He pushed her arm back, until her back was flat against the door, and he loomed over her, holding her there, huffing for breath, while she did much the same.

“This is my house, you’ll respect me if you want to live here.”

“Then get a fucking job, Verona, grow up, and leave.”

“I would if I could.”

“You could if you tried.  But you don’t, and I don’t know if it’s to spite me-”

“Not everything’s about you!” she shouted.

“Not everything’s about you!  If you’re not going to get a job, go to college, or take a training course-!”

“I’ve heard this a million times!”

“And you never listen to me!”

She fought, trying to get away.  She could smell his breath, and he remained twice her size.

He had grey in his hair, now.

He squeezed her arm harder, then let her go.

She pulled back, resentful, moved to the side, and tried to open the door.  He didn’t let her, remaining where he was, keeping her from opening it fully.

“Are you going to waste your life?” he asked her.  “Is this it?”

“I guess so.  Fuck you for that, I guess.”

She tried to open the door with enough force to make him back off, he didn’t, and she stormed off, leaving him there, heading to the side door and using that to leave, instead.

Out into Kennet.  A bit duller, a bit darker.

To Melissa, twenty or so years old, with multiple piercings in one ear, low-slung jeans, and a top with a hole in it near the collar.

“Yeah.  Everything sucks, y’know.  Except you, you’re tolerable.”

They walked, or Verona walked and Melissa limped, out into a Kennet in Twilight, too littered with things, but somehow nonspecific, areas blurring into one another.

Lucy was there, with a bunch of the popular kids.  Mia, Emerson, George, and Wallace.  Wallace had his arm around Lucy’s shoulders.

She looked so pretty.  She looked so nicely put together, fashionwise, and so happy, and whole.

Pity or something in her eyes.

“Ronnie, I tried getting in touch.”

“Do you want to hang out?”

“Hey, don’t,” Emerson said, quiet.

“Come with us?  Catch up?”

“Or just you and me?  We can go grab a bite, if you haven’t eaten.”

“Hey,” Wallace said, shifting his arm so he had a hand at her shoulder, like he wanted to hold her back.  “We only have a bit while you’re still in town.”

Lucy shrugged away from the hand.  “What do you say?”

“I don’t want to inflict myself on you,” Verona said.

“You’re not.  Really, you’re-”

Lucy’s voice sounded far away.  Verona walked away, arm in arm with Melissa, which wasn’t as dramatic as it could’ve been, because Melissa wasn’t a fast walker.

Avery was gone.  Avery had left first.

Lucy had left for University after.

Verona went with Melissa to a space behind old buildings, littered with decaying old chicken nuggets.  They found a seat on wooden pallets.

Melissa had the stuff.  A glass pipe.  A baggie.  A lighter.

Verona fidgeted, waiting.  Everything, her dad, Lucy, Avery, feeling ashamed, anxious, hopeless.  A bone deep, profound sense of loss, for everything that could have been and everything that should have been.

She drew in a breath so deep it hurt, and had to fight to avoid making a sound as the breath left her lips.  Her eyes were wet as she watched Melissa finish.

“Talk to Jer lately?”

“He’s head over heels for you.”

“I don’t want to inflict myself on him.”

“Only I get the pleasure of your company, huh?”

“You can tolerate me,” Verona said, not looking at anything in particular.  Images blended into one another.

It was always worse in the moments before.  Worse because relief was a breath away.  The emotions came crashing in, heavy and hard in a way that made her feel diminished each time, and then she could put that glass pipe to her lips.

She put the glass pipe to her lips.

And it could all be washed away in throat-burning, lung-burning chemical smoke.

Hands reached for her and she fended them off.  Lying on her back, swatting them away.  Shielding her head and upper body from- from everything.  Helplessly flailing against that.

“I wanted ta get ye as far from him as I could.  I pulled ye in too deep.  I’m sorry, lass.”

Verona focused her eyes, arms still shielding her head.

He was bent over, his one leg not working so well, the rest of him weakened, but not really bowing or breaking.

She looked around, for Matthew and Edith.  They weren’t helping because-

A figure, a woman, staggered forward.  Too thin to be Edith, and she was, head to toe, entirely on fire.

She was an echo, Verona realized.  And then she wasn’t.  The fire consumed her.

“Can ye help me, Verona?  I need a wee bit more.”

“I don’t know how,” Verona said, blinking away tears.

“Ye can jus’ say it.  Hold this hand, aye?”

Alpeana, not a human but a morass with limbs sticking out here and there, trying to press down a man who refused to bow, reached out one broken arm.

Verona took it as gently as she could, so she wouldn’t cause any pain.

“I take power from Kennet’s Others, for Kennet.  I give it to you.  Draw and drink until you have what you need,” Verona said.

She felt it, pulling from her when she, right this moment, didn’t feel like she had a lot.  But Alpeana swelled, the mess of black drain-hair reaching out like it was prehensile, invading his ear canals, nostrils, and mouth.  It took on a weight that made him fall to hands and knees.

“What is he?” Verona asked.  She cupped Alpeana’s arm with her free hand as she sat up, then stood, so she wouldn’t jostle it too much.

“A variant on a ghoul,” Matthew said, behind her.  “Eater of Unborn.  He causes women who were pregnant to… have you taken health class?”

“Yeah,” Verona said, quiet.  “I’m twen- I’m in ninth grade, Matthew.”

Almost outright lied there.

“Go easy on tha wee bairn, Matthew.  I put ‘er through tha wringer.  Dinnae mean it, but…”

“The details don’t need to be dwelt on.  Ghouls can range from weaker than a kitten to impossibly strong, depending on how well they eat.  Most tie themselves to death alone.  He ties himself to birth and death both.”

Alpeana had him pinned, now.

“The echoes- are they part of him?”

“There were spirits too,” Edith said.  “There’s a tide of invaders.  Most are nothing, but if we don’t deal with them now, they might become problems later.”

“Oh,” Verona said.  It was hard to think, because the nightmare sat so big and heavy in her mind.  “Is that how they would have treated you, back in the day?”

“Maybe,” Edith said.  “I got lucky.”

“Can we steer them, or give them sanctuary, or something, instead?” Verona asked.  She wasn’t sure why she was fixating on this like this.

“We should do something about that one first.”

“What do you want to do?  Kill it?”

“You can’t kill something dead.”

“Then birth it or…?”

“I have no idea how you’d do that.”

“Yeah,” Verona said.  “Bind it?”

“Matthew,” Edith said.  “One slipped down that way.  I’ll try handling this.”

“Careful, Alpeana,” Edith said.

Alpeana shifted position, so she was suspended directly above the old ghoul.  Edith bent down, and to Verona’s sight, she unfolded.

The Girl by Candlelight emerged, bright and warm on an already warm day.  Statuesque and bearing the candle across her shoulders, lit at both ends.

She bent down, touching the candle’s flame to the ground.

It ignited, drawing out a flaming circle.

The circle grew thick and tall, closing in a ring around the old man.  In the moment before it fully closed, Alpeana pushed him back and away, then retreated through the gap before it could close.

“Better if you do this than me,” the Spirit said, sounding very similar to Edith and very different.

“Just tell me,” Verona said.  “What do I do?”

“May I come in?  Only a bit?”

“What happens if you �come in’?”

“I can reach through you, and you can draw on my power.  Many practitioners act as vessels to hold spiritual power.  You’d have a bit of me in every bit of you.  You’d do it for a minute or so.”

There were other questions to ask.  She wanted to say yes, but she was afraid to say yes if it meant she was doing like she’d done in the nightmare, pushing the world out and away.  She wanted to do right by Lucy, by Avery, and be reliable…

The fastest way to get as far away from that was this, and yet…

“I need to hold onto me right now, I think,” Verona said, hugging her arms to her body, as if it was cold.

“Then I don’t know what to do,” Edith said.

“Can you clear the ground around the flame?”

“Thanks,” Verona said.

Alpeana, human again, bent in close, and reached out gingerly.  Verona took the thorn back.

“I don’t think so, but thank you.  Thought I might have to lose this.”

“Ye have my thanks for tha aid.”

She drew in the dirt with a stick, as Alpeana pulled away debris and patted down broken earth.

“I found it,” Matthew said.  “Dealt with.”

“I felt you handle it,” Edith told him.  “I offered a more direct line of aid, it would have let her touch and push power into the fire, but she refused.”

“I think it’s better you didn’t,” Matthew said.  “But I think some of our Others would be uneasy, seeing our resident practitioner already knows how to draw up a binding.”

“Some would be,” Edith said, almost inaudible.

Verona drew, doggedly, with emphasis in each stroke.  “I don’t know how to properly bind.  This is item enchantment type stuff.”

“It looks like it should work,” Matthew said.  “It feels like it should work.”

“That’s good, then.”

The old man stood, lit by the flames in an otherwise dark wood, smiling.  He paced a bit within the circle, which had been drawn out ten feet wide.

“I found the source of this particular problem,” Matthew said.

“The perimeter’s weak.  Things are slipping through somehow.”

“They’re movin’ wi’ direction,” Alpeana said, from behind Verona.

“Pushed or pulled?” Edith asked.

Alpeana shrugged, watching Verona draw.

“Is this the Aware, again?” Matthew asked.

“It wouldn’t be the skeptic.  I guess it could be Daniel.  But the Lily makes most sense.”

“The Lily is pulling in outsiders?”

“She draws magic items to her, or she finds her way to them.  Maybe there’s something…?”

“That tight a pattern?” Matthew asked.  “She does one thing.  Suddenly breaking from that to include Others doesn’t work.”

“If she has a certain power source or origin point?” Verona asked.  “If the power, say, came from a god and then the god changed its mind?”

“Even gods tend to hold to patterns.  It can cost nearly as much to change direction as it does to get the thing started in the first place,” Matthew said.

“Okay,” Verona said.  “Then probably it’s one thing.  Maybe an item.”

“Weakening the perimeter and drawing in Others by the same thing?” Matthew asked.  “That’s inconvenient.”

“Tha toon’s wet wit’ Carmine blood, Mattie.  It asks fer more bloodshed.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, clenching his fists.

“We’ll do our best.  Lucy, Avery and me,” Verona said.  She was about halfway done.  “Trust us.”

As she said that, the flames dipped.

The old man stepped closer, pressing his lips together into a tight, almost smug smile.

“Edith?” Verona asked.

“Ah’m nae feelin’ so strong,” Alpeana said.

Alpeana was… she looked less like she had hair that had been pulled from a tub drain, and more like she had really filthy, regular hair.  Features had softened, there were freckles on her skin, and her dress wasn’t as tattered.

“The skeptic.  She’s watching,” Verona said.  She looked around, scanning the darkness.

She didn’t see any faces.  She didn’t see any camera.

“Get somewhere safe,” Edith said.  “Matthew-”

Matthew was stock still.  One fist clenched, the other wrapped around it, held at waist level.

“I’ll go,” Edith said.

“But-” Verona said.  She looked back at the fire, and the smiling ghoul, lit by the ring of flame.

“I have to go.  It’s too dangerous if I don’t.  If something happens to Matthew, you may have to deal with the skeptic, before the Doom hits its full strength.”

“I- knocking her out might do it.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Edith hesitated, looking at Verona and Matthew, then said, “Be safe.  I love you.”

Matthew flinched at that.

Then Edith ran, following Alpeana into the deep woods.

Over the course of a minute, Verona paced, looking and trying to find the skeptic.  Matthew remained still.

The fire that ringed the old man was steadily becoming a regular fire.  The kind that burned out.

“Move fast,” he said.  To the ghoul, he said, “Run.  Leave, if you know what’s good for you.  Anywhere but here.”

The ghoul showed his teeth, then cracked its neck and shoulders.

“Yes?” Matthew asked.  “You’re not welcome here.”

“You’re not a Lord, to tell me that.”

“I’m the closest thing we’ve got to one.”

“I’ll go.  But I will come back.  You will owe me one favor.”

“I’ll do no such thing.”

The ghoul smiled, bowing his head.

And then he moved, swift.

Leaping over the flame.  Out into the woods.  Not in the exact same general direction as Edith and Alpeana, but not especially far from them either.

“Come,” Matthew said.  He started striding the other way.  “I think the best thing to do would be to get very close to her, or get very far from her.  The middle ground is the most dangerous.”

“I can’t see her.  My Sight’s not, um-”

They walked through dark woods, in a focused direction.

“If we can find her trail,” Matthew said.

“Yes.  Somehow.  If we can deal with her, then we might have options.  But- what?”

Verona had stopped in her tracks, at a face in the gloom.

It was a trick of the light.  Maybe.

Or an Echo, as a person without the benefit of Sight might see it.

“If the Doom gets loose, get far away, and try to put a circle, any kind of circle, around yourself.”

“What happens if it comes for me?”

“It draws back, poised, and then it strikes, in a singular blow.  It’s strong enough that it can be direct, or it can be circumstance.  You can’t avoid it, but you can dampen the blow.  If I’m alive and my wardings are intact, it should be drawn back to me eventually.  You may have to deal with this skeptic woman to let that happen.”

“Thank you, for helping tonight.”

“Glad to,” Verona said.

“I really am,” she said, considering and then deciding.  “I am.  I want to be a part of this.  I want to help.”

“I wish I knew how Miss found you three.”

There was a moment she could have asked, but it felt awkward to.

And then, a bit through the dark woods, looking for any sign of the skeptic, Matthew touched a tree trunk where bark had been cut away.

“Do you have a light source?”

Verona dug for her flashlight.

“The fucking perimeter,” Matthew breathed.

All around them, there were flat, round stones with the centers hollowed out, hanging from trees, and there were bundles of sticks in the ground, shaped like dolls.

Many had been broken or uprooted.

Verona pulled the brim of her hat down a bit.  She had to consider she might be on video.

“The perimeter, damn.  Damn.  This is not easy to replace,” Matthew said.

“This keeps Others out?”

“It keeps a lot of Others away, and it slows the approach of people with negative intentions.”

“I could learn at the institute how to make this stuff,” Verona said, her voice quiet in contrast to his being loud.

“This is a mess.  The fact she didn’t just break it, but she upended them, it makes things worse.”

There was an animal carcass on the ground, bloated.

“The wards that Charles put down a decade ago… the goblin alarms and wards, Edith’s runes… torn up.  I can’t tell, but it seems to have had a domino effect.”

“Domino?  One knocking down another as it fell?  How?  How bad?”

“I have no earthly or unearthly idea,” Matthew said, “except that it seems to have collapsed…”

He extended an arm, indicating… it looked like everything to the left of him, then everything to the right.

They picked through the ruins, Matthew picking up the occasional thing and putting it upright.

“Do you see which way she went?” he asked.

Verona shook her head.  She couldn’t make heads or tails of this mess, let alone divine which way the skeptic might have gone.

“The Skeptic’s here, then something else is drawing the outside Others to Kennet.”

“Probably the Lily,” Verona said.

“It’s coordinated,” Matthew noted.  “They were painted as random.”

She digested that, while picking through things, and taking note of the old, old protections that had been set up.

There was a story about how Kennet came to be what it was.  This was… it was one brief chapter in that story.  Now with a big hole carved in it.

She thought back, trying to figure out the interplay of Aware that had done this, and thinking about whether one other member of the group could have played a part in things getting this messy.  The loop guy?  Ted?

“Bristow,” she said, quiet so the camera wouldn’t overhear her.

“The landlord.  He collects them.  He puts them into the apartment in configurations, where they boost each other, or play off one another.  There’s… it’s like the building’s a diagram.  He might have arranged them into some kind of interlinked set, before he sent them off.”

“They don’t operate like a set.  Each going off in their own direction.”

“But each, inadvertently, is playing off of the others.  Maybe in the way Bristow wants.”

“All the more reason we need to find her.  Any signs?”

No trail, nothing she could figure out, looking at dark gray against dark grey in the gloom of a tree-shrouded forest at night.  Her flashlight shone on one thing at a time, her phone casting a bit of additional light.  It didn’t help that she was spending a fair bit of time looking around, making sure the ghoul wasn’t out there.

It sucked that it got away.

But as she looked back, she saw light.

He looked, and he stood straight as he saw.

“The way this is supposed to work,” he murmured, “is that Innocents are too unnerved to remark on the odd things they find.  Especially with some of these types of ward.”

“It doesn’t matter when it’s her.  It doesn’t matter that phones aren’t working across Kennet.  She called the police.  They were the cop cars we heard earlier.”

“They’re only now getting here.”

“Because time’s broken in Kennet,” Verona said.

She felt prenaturally calm.

The nightmare was fading into the background.  She wasn’t sure if being this calm and collected was her being strong like Alpeana had meant, or if it was weakness, but… it was all she knew.

To keep it together, in the face of the unreasonable.

“Can you hold it together?” she asked him.

“I don’t know.  It’s been years since I had to wrestle the Doom like this.  Now twice in one night.”

“Go,” Verona said.  “Trust me.”

“Trust me.  Go.  But before- before you do,” she had ideas.  “I need you to say some things.”

“You’re not going to face the police head on?”

“I can figure this out.  Hurry, we don’t have much time, and you need to get clear.  Tell me…”

She walked him through it, as the flashing lights drew nearer.

Somewhere in those woods, the Skeptic’s camera tracked them, monitoring them and stripping them of all power and protections.

Instructions given, she let Matthew go.

Opposites defeat opposites in bindings, Verona thought.

Hat pulled low, she ran into the darkness, fleeing before the cops could arrive.

Opposites beating opposites seemed like a sword that cut both ways.  If pretty beat ugly, then by the other side of the coin, ugly beat pretty.  Truth beat lies and lies beat truth.

As far as Verona could reason it, it came down to which could get the advantage on the other first.  To have the upper hand, to beat them down, or to encircle them.

She would try, here.  She wanted, needed this.

To face this woman, who, at least on paper, represented that ugly, dismal, lonely, and wonder-less reality.  To beat her.

And she’d have to hope Lucy and Avery were doing the same.