Pale: 9.2 - Verona
Author: Wildbow

Shaking Hands – 9.2 | Pale

Okay.  Things weren’t super great.  Cannibal ghouls, goblins, and assorted murderers and monsters were all pretty suspicious or hostile towards them.  That sorta sucked.

But it was still better, Verona decided, than the portion of the afternoon she’d spent doing laundry, handling her dad’s underwear to throw it in the washer, and sorting through the stuff in the washer to pull out her dad’s work shirts and hang them up just so, because they shrunk in the dryer and wrinkled if hung up carelessly.  Mowing the lawn with the lawnmower she’d christened Warmed Cow Shit.

That was the awful part of life where it didn’t matter how smart you were.  It just sucked to do and maybe if you were rich you could hire someone to handle it, sure, but she had no real interest in being rich.

This?  This was handleable.  This was the sort of thing where they could work together to figure out a good angle of approach, identify the problem, and handle it.

She was a problem solver.  She was dumb in some areas but she was good at that, especially if she had her friends at her back.  Verona thought of Bristow.  Sometimes she was too good at that.

Edith addressed the room, “The big issues hanging over our collective heads right now are Melissa Oakham, we can thank Snowdrop for tipping us off, there’s the lingering issue of the invading Others who slipped into Kennet and haven’t revealed themselves, and then the ongoing handling of the perimeter and those who slip it.”

“You three are fine trying to get your classmate to a better place?” Matthew asked.

“We’d-” Verona checked with her friends.  “-I think we’d like to try and help with all of it.”

“Okay,” Matthew said.  “If you decide it’s too much or you’re stretched too thin, as many of us here have, then focus on the one thing.  Workable?”

“Workable,” Lucy replied.

“Ken?” Matthew asked.  “Sorry to distract.”

“It’s fine, give me a second,” Ken replied in a vaguely aggrieved tone of voice.  He tied with Charles at appearing the oldest in the room, had a bit of a beer gut, and wore a plaid, summerweight work shirt and jeans.  His expression reminded her of her dad, but it was baked in by another decade or so of aging, framed in hair that had settled into locks with sweat and the kind of vague oiliness that came with insufficient or poorly chosen shampoo and conditioner.  The effort was there but misapplied.

To her Sight, he was a silhouette of a man crammed with five thousand wriggling meaty things, slithering up, down, and around a core of not human bones, but sprawling tracks connecting geometric chunks of concrete.  If she stood closer to him, she imagined she could interpret some of the arrangements.

“You needed something?” Ken asked.

“Any new feelings on the secretive Others?  Or sum it up for the girls?”

“Vaguely hostile,” Ken replied, settling a hand on one side of his stomach.  “Not connected to anyone outside, I think I’d feel that.  I don’t think they’re animal.  Closer to appearing human.”

“And not up to talking to us.  In fact, they may be actively evading us,” Edith said.  “It doesn’t feel like coincidence, that they arrived when we weren’t looking and they just so happen to have avoided running into any of us.”

“And something’s bubbling,” Ken said.

“Bubbling?” Edith asked.  “Are they preparing something?”

“Or plotting, or working themselves up into a- not a frenzy, I think Montague would have shaken them from that early.  Working themselves up, somehow.”

“All the more reason to track them down.  Blunt?” Matthew asked.

“The one group of goblins is looking for a new Barney?”

“It’d be nice,” Blunt said.  “Doesn’t really work in a town this size.  But we might be getting to a special case.”

“While you’re-” Matthew started, but Verona’s voice overlapped his.  He held up a finger.  He tried again, while Verona hung back.  “Since the goblins are making an event of searching for one, can you all look for the new Others while you’re at it?”

“What’s this?” Verona asked.  “This is about the human who paid the bills?”

“Toadswallow?” Matthew asked.

“Ahem, my wheelhouse, I suppose,” the stout goblin replied.  “Some goblins partner with humans who’ve had enough drink to tip over into being Other, at least temporarily.”

“Otherness can be temporary?  Super cool,” Verona replied.

Lucy tapped Verona’s side with her elbow.

“It requires a special case.  A stint of drinking that tests and pushes human limits and severs connections to all things.  A goblin can hop on board to be the imaginary friend, the pilot, the remover of roadblocks.  It’s an art form, a partnership meant to be, where the goblin pilot, the Tod, is nothing without its Barney, the Barney a fleeting mess without its Tod, but together they spin legends.”

“The goblin’s an enabler?” Avery asked.

“My dear, by the time someone’s prepared to leave humanity behind and become a Barney, the idea of enabling as you understand it is a bridge that’s been burned and long forgotten.”

“I’d like to think there’s always a way back to health.”

“Indeed, yes.  Sometimes that way back starts from rock bottom, and sobering up at the end of a Barney-and-Tod binge is a special kind of rock bottom.  In another country, retracing steps from blacked out days, weeks, or months, learning you had, ahem, dates with a string of washed-up celebrities, tipped the initial domino in felling an international drug cartel, and seeded a new religion, with one or all events commemorated with brand new tattoos.”

There was a segment of goblins getting excited as Toadswallow explained.

Toadswallow added, “Once the Barney sobers up, they don’t go back to whatever they were imbibing.  The Tod must find another.  Biscuit here wants to learn to become a Tod, so we’re looking.”

Biscuit was a goblin not all that much bigger than Cherrypop, and weirdly on the not-offensive-looking side of goblindom, with makeup on and clothes possibly stolen from dolls.  She looked pretty hyper at the prospect.

“You said it’s hard in a small town?” Verona asked.  “Why?”

“I’d describe it as having an overcompensation-type sports car on a go-kart track,” Toadswallow explained.  “They thrive and pick up momentum best if they can go from scene to scene, event to event.  There aren’t enough scenes or events here.”

“One wrong move and you’ll punch through or ramp off and you’ll leave the track,” Bluntmunch added, his voice deep and rough.

“Out of Kennet?” Lucy asked.

“With hours of car trip to get to the next place,” Bluntmunch said.  “Yeh.”

“You said it might get easier?” Lucy asked.

“If we go down this road we’re on.  If things keep getting bad, we crater.”

“Crater?” Verona asked.

“I kind of explained that,” Lis said, tired.  She was thirty-something, brown hair, a bit overweight.  Matching to Edith and Matthew, it looked like.  “When trouble comes calling, it’s all downhill with a wind at its back until it gets to Kennet.  Leaving is uphill, wind in that trouble’s face.”

“And that makes it easier for the Barney to stay in bounds, I guess?” Verona asked.

“There’s going to be a point near the end of summer where that effect may start to affect people, too,” Matthew said.  “But that’s a topic for another meeting.”

“Right, sorta forgot, you had stuff you wanted to talk about,” Verona said.  “Thanks for answering about the Barney thing.”

Matthew nodded.  “It’s fine.  Cig, Lis?  We’d like you two to loop through town, think where that hiding spot might be.  Places the goblins aren’t.  Places that Others can’t easily go.  People-dense.”

“I was looking at summer camps and summer schools,” Lis said.

“Good, thank you.  Also businesses, hospitals, anywhere that an influx of new people.  Building on Ken’s instincts from before.  Unless you’ve got more, Ken?”

Ken looked annoyed, but shook his head.  “The bubbling feeling, that’s it.”

“If you four can think of any places Others may be lurking, it would help,” Edith addressed the four of them.  “And keep an eye out for anything unusual, any people who seem out of place?  Your Sight may identify them.”

Verona gave her a thumbs-up as the others nodded.

“Which leaves the third and final major issue of this meeting, the perimeter and patrols,” Matthew said.

Charles picked up where Matthew left off without being prompted, which suggested this pattern had been established before.

“The perimeter holds.  Attention in the form of patrols and regular maintenance support and power it.  The presence of the intruders within the city sap from it.  There are three parts to it: it makes Kennet inhospitable terrain for intruders, it acts as an outright barrier when we need it to, and it alerts us to trouble while deflecting the attention of that trouble.  When all three parts are working in coordination, it works well.  Slows anyone uninvited down, turns them aside, stops them if they’re insistent enough to find their way to the boundary… and you’ll be alerted so you can meet them at that boundary, or flank them while they’re being turned aside.”

Verona nodded.  This was interesting.  She put up her hand.

Charles looked pained, looked at her, then Matthew, who nodded, then back to her.  “What?”

“Saw a wraith, I think, getting chewed up by being inside the perimeter.  Pretty thin and weak.  Things kicked up at the perimeter when I noticed it.”

“That’s the way it’s supposed to work.  That part of it is working fine.  For Others, it slows them down, makes them more tired, makes them need more to eat, whatever it is they eat.  For outside practitioners, it’s a little less effective, has a different influence, but it makes their practice a little less… less meaty, I suppose.  Less practical.  If they had a trick that took a word then it might take a word and a gesture or a bit of diagram to get it to come to life.  They’ll notice it but it won’t stop the determined.”

“Worth saying, that’s working but it’s only when Montague isn’t powering the boundary.  When he does, we get a different flavor of things inside Kennet.  Aggressive, a bit more power for the practitioners, especially the nastier types.”

“I wouldn’t phrase it quite that way, Charles,” Edith said, without looking at him.  “There are some practitioner types, like Matthew was, who I wouldn’t call ‘nasty’.”

“Sorry,” Charles replied, not sounding particularly sorry.  “Practices that hurt, corrupt, and take away from others or from themselves.”

So the ‘wear down invaders’ part was working.  That was interesting, about Montague.

“The second part, the barrier, it’s not working like it should.  What I originally built was like a house of cards, encircling Kennet.  It was delicate to set up but once set up it protected itself from outsiders trying to tear it down.  The skeptic came in and tore through a portion, then kicked the cards that hadn’t fallen yet to her left and right, flattening the cards.  It wasn’t actually cards, but that should give you a mental picture.”

“Could we help?” Lucy asked.

Charles’s entire tone was almost as if he wanted to die, talking about it.  Like he was deathly tired of the subject or something.  “It was mind-numbing and frustrating to set up before.  In this climate?  If you three girls dedicated a week, slept a minimum, if every Other here guarded the perimeter to avoid letting anyone in?  You’d still need a helping of luck.  Two hours of laborious work get undone if one stray echo comes through a spot with no guards, or where the guards are like our goblins, who don’t interact with echoes.  We have a lot of stray things being drawn in.”

Lucy folded her arms, frowning as she thought about it.  “So we’d need the right perimeter guards in the right places…”

“Luck, like I said.  We’d need a dry spell.  It’s building a wall of sandcastles down the length of a popular beach and we’d need a lot of people to decide not to go to the beach that weekend.  We’d need people able to spot and intercept the kids who’d come and kick it down and the people who’re so oblivious they’d walk into it.”

“Think I got it,” Lucy said.

“We have Montague.  How does that impact things?” Matthew asked, twisting around to look at Charles.

“He gives the barrier power.  No side effect I can notice, shores it up.  If we wanted to save up his power, then use him intensively in the final day, skip sleep, it’d take luck out of the equation for the last third of it.  Makes it about hard work and dealing with not having Montague while we’re saving up his power, then dealing with his side effects inside Kennet for a full day.”  Charles sounded as if he resented entertaining the idea about as much as Verona resented mowing the lawn.

“That’s something we’re prepared to do in case of a siege,” Edith said.

“I wouldn’t recommend trying to rebuild it right now.  The cost of using Montague, and you all being tired, frustrated at every small failure, you’d eat each other alive.  Or eat the trio…” Charles growled.

Snowdrop, standing beside Avery, mock-bit Avery’s arm.  Some goblins giggled, others liked Avery’s response, getting Snowdrop in a headlock for a second.

“…And then even if you finished the task, you’d have Kennet in a state, after a full day of Montague,” Charles added.

“Would you be willing to try it?” Matthew asked them.

“Three days of not going home?” Lucy asked, wincing.

“Of practice, though?” Verona asked.

“Mind-numbing, repetitive,” Charles cut in.

“I’d want to do it after- after family leaves,” Lucy said.

“It’d be better to do it soon, I think?” Edith asked.  She looked back to Charles.

“It would.  But I really wouldn’t bother,” he told them.  “We might get some security.  And we might get a powerful Other coming at the barrier with enough force to break it all over again, after that struggle.”

“It doesn’t sound worth it, from what Charles is saying,” Avery said.

“Maybe not,” Matthew said.  “If you three aren’t up for it, I won’t push you.  I just wish there was a way to make things better.”

“It’s up intermittently, it’s up all the way when Montague powers it, then slowly lowers.  At its weakest, we’ve got… imagine great big panes of glass, covering about a third of the perimeter, slowly rotating around Kennet.  Sometimes things bump into it, other times they walk through.”

“And the third protection?” Verona asked.  “Connection stuff, alarms and turning others aside?”

“Nothing,” Charles said.  “We took down what we had.  That part of it is meant to protect itself like the barrier does.  We need the wards to divert attention from the wards.  Incomplete, it’s something for people walking in the woods to find and draw attention to, which puts them close to the barrier and everything else.  It wouldn’t work anyway, way things are.”

“With things treating all roads to Kennet as downhill, wind at their backs?” Avery asked.

“Turn them aside and they continue rolling downhill right after,” Verona mused, rubbing her chin, before adding a quick, “so to speak.  What can we do?”

“Patrols add spirit and intent to what remains intact,” Charles said.

“How are we doing on that front?”

John answered like Charles had earlier: he knew his role.  “Goblins are doing a fine job of keeping an eye out.  Nibble and Chloe had a scrap with a plague doctor Other up at the top of Bowdler.  We’ve been treating the roads as the only port of entry for practitioners and potential witch hunters, and forests as the means of approach for Others, but it’s not that simple.  We’re lucky they had a nose for it.”

“Thank you,” Matthew told the ghouls.

“Give the thanks to Chloe,” Nibble said, he sounded surprisingly normal.  “She sniffed it out, thought it was food.”

“Disappointed,” Chloe uttered the word, bringing her head back to rest against Nibble’s lower body, then flopping over, arms and head draping over his leg.  Sitting a bit above her, he adjusted his grip on her, moving a leg so it crossed her stomach.

“Were you three wanting to help with patrols?” Matthew asked, looking at the three of them.

“Yes,” Verona told him.

“If it helps, and it sounds like it helps,” Lucy said.

“It helps,” John said.  “A problem we run into is that we aren’t all effective against all kinds of Other.  The goblins can’t easily deal with ghosts.  I wouldn’t pit Maricica against something mindless.”

“You can’t pit me against something mindful either.  I go where I please,” Maricica said.

“No offense meant,” John said.

“Do you three want a schedule?  Do you have anything in mind?” Matthew asked.  “Times that work?”

“Probably won’t be four in the morning,” Avery said.  “That’d be hard to explain if I got caught sneaking out.”

“We were talking by text last night,” Verona added.  “We want to meet the new Others.  If there’s ways to help we want to help.”

“Absolutely,” Lucy said.

“Like, I don’t know… is food an issue, Nibble?  Do you have a food supply set up?”

Chloe reached her claws toward Verona, groping, teeth gnashing.  It was hard to tell how much she was being ironic, but some of it was ironic.

“There is no supply for a ghoul,” Nibble answered, once he was sure Chloe wouldn’t stand and she’d settled back against him, smirking a bit.

“None?” Verona asked.

“If I may interrupt,” Matthew said.  “Sorry, we can’t dawdle or chit-chat too much.  Edith and I would like to walk and talk with you girls after we’ve closed the meeting.  We could take you along the same route Nibble and Chloe go, you can ask questions then.”

“Don’t say sorry,” Lucy said.  “Verona will ask questions for hours if she’s stuck on a topic, and this is stuff we need to know.  Tell her to shut up if it’s getting in the way.  I do.”

“I will,” Verona admitted.  She shrugged for effect.  “I’ll ask questions for hours.  Tell me to stop if you’re uncomfortable or whatever.”

“In this world, when an enemy knows you they can destroy you,” Nibble said.  “Questions are dangerous.”

It felt a bit like the new Others had been told things about them that had poisoned the waters.  Like the first impression had been made for them already.  Verona frowned.

“In this world, we’re going to be neighbors,” Lucy told him.  “We’re the practitioners of Kennet and I hope we’ll be serving you guys in some way for a good long time.  Hopefully you’re sticking around and you find… stability, I guess?  Contentment?”

“Mm,” Nibble grunted his response.  Still unhappy, still wary.

“Knowing more about you means we won’t step on your toes as much.  Hopefully,” Lucy said.

“The sun is setting and it should be dark by the time we leave,” Matthew said.  “You three girls can come with Edith and I.  Nibble, Chloe, you come with?”

“We’ll talk patrol schedules, walking the perimeter.  Then you can meet some of the new Others and once you’ve figured out your comfort zones and theirs, you can decide how you want to handle patrols for the rest of summer.”

“And after summer?” Lucy asked.

“We’ll see, I guess.  Hopefully things calm down.  We’ll have to adjust some so we don’t impact your schooling, at the very least.”

“Ugh,” Verona muttered.

“I think a better use of our time would be to have a quick question session.  Does anyone have any questions for the three practitioners of Kennet?  Keep in mind, they’ll probably be reaching out to question you in turn.”

A few hands went up.  A lot of goblin hands.

“Polite questions,” Toadswallow clarified.

A lot of the goblin hands went down.

“Hey Nibble,” Verona addressed the ghoul with a raised hand.  “Unless you’d rather I use another name?”

“Forgot it,” Nibble said.  “Nibble’s fine.  You’re investigating the Carmine Beast, right?”

“Yes,” Lucy and Avery said, at nearly the same time.

“How’s that going?” he asked.

“That’s a loaded question, with potential culprits in this room,” Lucy said.

“Okay.  Been watching a lot of crime drama stuff. I was curious, it’s not that important to me.”

“Tashlit?” Avery asked.

Tashlit mimed, pointing at herself, then pointing at the ghouls, then Verona.

“Can Tashlit come out with us, Nibble and Chloe?” Verona asked.

“Sure.  We’ll have to drive out a short way and then we can walk the rest of the way.  It shouldn’t make too much of a difference,” Matthew said.

“Goblins,” Lucy said.  “Give us your name while you’re at it?”

“Ramjam,” said a goblin who probably weighed about as much as a bowling ball, skinny, with a skull-like head and curling horns.  “I heard you met America Tedd.”

“Not a question,” Lucy said, “But yes.  Liberty too.”

“They’re so great,” Ramjam said.

“Still not a question, and not really, we fought- we left on okay terms.  Avery had a pretty rough fight with America.  Needed healing.”

“So lucky,” Ramjam said.

“Not really,” Avery said.

“Avery won,” Verona butted in.

“Don’t tell them that.  I don’t want to get on their bad side.”

“They respect that crap.  Right?” Verona asked.

A good few goblins nodded.

“We did pretty well in the sparring class against them,” Lucy said.

“I like sparring,” another goblin said.  He looked mostly boneless, like a lot of lumpy crap stuffed into a skin suit the proportions of a short human.  He slapped his chest and an egg-shaped lump slid from beneath his hand to his armpit.  “Humpydump.  I want to know about the sparring.”

“Let’s keep this a Q and A,” Matthew said.

“Were there spikes?” Humpydump asked.

“There were some spikes,” Avery said.  She frowed.  “Kind of.”

“Were there explosions?”

“Let’s stay on track,” Matthew said, looking rather exhausted.  “Let’s keep questions relevant to Kennet.”

“Will you spar in Kennet?”  Humpydump asked.

Verona saw Lucy glance at Guilherme, who nodded.  “Yes.”

“More relevant to the perimeter, and keeping Kennet safe,” Matthew said, leaning forward and bringing his hands to his face, rubbing.

“Do you have a plan?” Lis asked.  Her expression, pose, and position in the room were serious, dark, intent.

Lucy shook her head.  “Melissa, helping patrol, trying to find a way to shore up the perimeter, maybe trying to identify these new Others.  Continuing some stuff with the Carmine Beast.”

“That may only be so we can tell people we are, maybe turn away some practitioners,” Verona added.

Lucy gave her a look.  Verona shrugged.

“Some stuff,” Lucy clarified.

Pretty thin, yeah, but they didn’t need to broadcast they were still intent on this.

“Helping out you guys.  Finding stability.  Cool stuff,” Avery said.

The radio atop the television buzzed, as the television flickered.  They looked, and Montague retreated back into the television.

An old-timey black and white advertisement of a young girl holding her hands to her cheeks, miming surprise, while a man in a waistcoat flourished a bow, holding out a small, gift-wrapped box.  His face was a bloody ruined mess and the blood ran down the television screen to the floor, going from black and white to red as it did.

“Gifts?” Avery asked.

“If you were human, you’d be the kind of kid who reminds the teacher they need to assign homework, wouldn’t you?” Ken asked.

“We told them that it would be fair for you to ask for gifts for the service you do Kennet,” Edith said.  “But the terms of this are different.  When we invited you to be practitioners, we made the invitation with certain needs in mind.”

“Some, even many of these Others want to be left alone,” Matthew said.  “If you wanted to minimize your responsibilities to them, they could hold off on the gifts, and that simplifies things a great deal.  Alternatively, you could make individual deals, a favor for a gift.  Or you could simply demand what you’re due.”

“That feels a bit… not great,” Lucy said.  “Like you’re putting us on the spot.”

“We are.  The new Others are taking on significant responsibilities, their powers are being drained, or they’re fighting to defend this place,” Edith said.  “That could be considered a gift of sorts.”

“There’s no way to argue this point without sounding like an asshole,” Lucy said.  “I don’t even care that much about the gifts-”

“I do,” Verona interjected.  “Gifts are cool, not that I’m going to twist your arm about it.”

“-but I do care that I’m being put in this position.  We didn’t ask, Montague offered.  And now we’re being made to look like bad guys for even entertaining it.  This sucks, you guys, and it sucks because you’re making it suck, and I don’t know why you’re doing that.”

“I want to get stronger,” Avery said.  “And I want to get stronger because I want to protect my family and protect Kennet and protect you guys.”

“If you’re on the level,” Lucy added.

“May I make a suggestion?” Guilherme asked.

“Please,” Lucy said.  “Anything but this current line of conversation.”

“We protect Kennet to receive the protection of living in Kennet.  That’s the deal we entered here at its core.  Any deal with you three is secondary.  We get benefits from you three stepping in to deal with the likes of Nicolette, Zed, Bristow, or Alexander.  Befriending the first two and convincing them to stay away.  Helping to arrange the removal of the other two.”

Maricica tittered.  Verona was reminded of how she’d laughed in the classroom, while they’d been questioned.

“I wanted to change the topic, but not to this,” Lucy said.

“If any deal with you is secondary, make them explicitly so.  You’ll meet each of the new recruits, possibly excepting Crooked Rook.”

“I want to meet her too,” Lucy said.

“Then Maricica or I will let her know.  My point is, make it explicit when you meet them.  If you can help the new Others, you can ask a gift.  Fair and equitable.”

“That sounds decent,” Avery said.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Verona said, smiling.

Lucy nodded, but added, “Thank you, Guilherme.  I don’t like how this was framed, Matthew, Edith.”

“So you’ve said,” Edith replied.  “I don’t think Matthew meant any ill-will.  Right now we’re trying to be as fair as possible to the new Others.  We’re still learning of concerns, sensitivities, past traumas.  Be patient.”

“Be fair to us too,” Lucy said.  “We don’t have any interest in enslaving, or taking over, or anything like that.  Go easy on us.”

“Let’s wrap up here, talk on our walk, then.”

“Questions?  Anything?” Edith asked the room.  “Cig?”

She adjusted the ashtray.  The cigarette rolled slightly.

“That’s a no from Cig,” Matthew said.

“Um,” Avery said, raising a hand.

“Avery?  If it can wait, we can discuss-”

“I’d like to formally announce my intention to do the familiar ritual with Snowdrop.  I know it’s not the best shortcut to power, but if it keeps her around for longer than the usual four or five years of an opossum’s lifespan then I think that it’s something I really gotta do.”

“You gotta,” Snowdrop said.

“I gotta,” Avery said, insistent.

“Do you need anything?” Matthew asked.

“Just Snowdrop,” Avery said.  “Um, but that’s not all of it.”

“About Raymond, we talked about him earlier, he wants to meet Charles.  And about Zed, and about Nicolette, and even Jessica Casabien.  We’d like to stay in touch with them.  I know people won’t be cool about them sticking their nose into things-”

“We won’t stand in the way of your communications with them,” Matthew said.

“I’d like to get the okay to invite them to Kennet.  We can get them to agree to stay quiet, I think, and not interfere.  But when it comes to stuff like the wards, or finding the Others, I think they could be big helps.”

Verona’s eyebrows went up.  She looked around he room and ‘not cool’ was an understatement.

Even Maricica wasn’t smiling.  Toadswallow looked serious.

“Girls, I don’t think that works,” Edith said.  “That may interfere with the idea of what Kennet is.”

Avery glanced at Verona, and that glance was like a plea for help.  She did, presumably, the same to Lucy.

“We interfere with the idea of what Kennet is,” Verona said.  “By being here, by being practitioners in this no-practitioner zone.”

Lucy spoke up, “If that exception exists, then exceptions for guests can exist.”

“They may even make this place stronger against intrusion,” Verona pointed out, before anyone could interject.  “If we set the expectation of having no practitioners except those who respect the town and its Others then a practitioner slipping in like those alchemists did doesn’t defy Kennet.”

“At least until they make it clear they won’t respect the place,” Ken said.

“Exactly, yes,” Verona said.

“That’s a slippery slope, girls,” Lis said.

“Only if we let it be,” Lucy said.  “I think it’s good to keep doors open.”

“We’ll discuss it,” Matthew said, his voice firm.  “We’ll hold another meeting tomorrow night.  If you girls could patrol alongside any Others who don’t want to add to this conversation at that time, it would be a load off our minds.”

We’re not invited to that meeting, it seems.

But Lucy nodded, so Verona did too.

Verona was really curious what had prompted Avery to bring that up.

“Goblins, you’re on patrol, west side.  Circle south, spread out, cut through lower Kennet, see if you can’t identify anything about our quiet intruders.  John?  You’ll also patrol?”

John nodded.  “I’ll take Doglick and Ram.”

“Everyone else, enjoy your evenings.  Nibble, can you take Chloe out for a walk at the perimeter when the goblins are done?  Guilherme, north to east?  See about Rook while you’re at it?”

“I’ve told you we shouldn’t have too set a pattern,” John said.

“Then handle or pace it how you see fit,” Matthew said, rubbing his face again.  “Thank you, everyone.”

The Others picked themselves up.  Jabber gabbled and nammered on as smaller goblins pounced on him and rode him.

“Take Jabber to the back room, please!  Not outside!  John, would you look after Montague?”

The television was bleeding upward, drips extending up to the radio, surrounding it.  It shuddered, sputtered with radio static, and then turned from a brown encasement to a textured crimson one, like blood had dried over the plastic.  The antennae bent and jerked, splintering to have needle-like and iron-filing spikes sticking out from it.  Backwards singing began to play from it.

So cool.  Verona watched as John picked it up and carried it outside, where Cherrypop clamored for an update.

“Hold my hand, Chloe.  Don’t let go,” Nibble said, as he moved to let her stand.  She held his hand firm, and leaned into him.

“Hey, Tashlit.  Glad to see a friendlier face,” Verona murmured, looking up as yellow irises on black eyeballs looked down from Tashlit’s ‘face’ to her.  “I like the shirt.  Teal suits you.”

Tashlit pointed at Edith.  Edith wouldn’t have worn something like that, Verona mused, so that meant…

“Edith bought it for you?  That’s so nice.”

“Avery said your place was a fixer upper.  Is there anything I can do about that?”

“Okay, well, I want to.  Avery said you had music.  That something you’re into?”

“I’ve got tons of music,” Lucy said.  “What format, and what kind?”

“She had a CD player,” Avery said.  “It was latin chanty sort of rock.”

“I want to hear this now,” Verona added.

“Hey, so listen, did you want to come to ask for something, or to tell us something, or-”

Tashlit was shaking her head.

Edith made a hand gesure, and candles went out.  Matthew locked the back door.  It made the inside very dark.

“Cool, great.  How are you for heat at your place?  Is that an issue?”

“I brought that up,” Avery said.

Tashlit put two fingers together.

Verona nodded.  “Small issue.  Really?  I guess if you’re into water, you’d need something.”

Tashlit pulled at the skin of her face, moving it aside.

“And you’ve got loose skin.  Barely attached skin, barely feel it?”

“Cool, cool.  Makes sense.”

“Garage is through here,” Matthew said.  “Tashlit got a ride early, while it was quiet, sat on the patio.  Do you girls want to ride in the truck bed?  I’m not sure if you’d need to do a connection block.”

“Easy enough,” Verona told him.

“Tell us through the window when you’re set.”

“Go in first, Tash,” Nibble said.  “It’s best if I sit between you and Chloe so she doesn’t try chewing on your skin again.”

“Jerk,” Chloe told him.

Tashlit gave him a thumbs up.

It took them a minute to get sorted.  Avery leaned around and tinted the windows with glamour, to better hide Tashlit, while Verona did the connection block, to ward off any cops who might take issue with them riding illegally.  Warding off family, siblings, teachers…

She knocked on the window.  “Good to go!”

The garage door opened, and they pulled out.

The extra precautions didn’t really wind up mattering.  They didn’t see any cars on the road, nobody was in a position to look through the windows, and the ride wasn’t that long.  Just a bit south, to the bottom end of the residential area, where it started to segue into the older factories and buildings.  A few blocks closer to the river and they’d be near where John was holed up.  South of that point was the hidden cave by the riverside where the Faerie were.

They stop by a hiking trail.  The three of them hopped out, while Matthew and Edith climbed out.

“Coast is clear,” Matthew said.  “Not seeing anyone or anything.”

Matthew and Edith moved the front seats so the Others in the back could squeeze out.

Chloe shied back from the sky, which was more purple than anything, the sun well on its way to setting.  Nibble didn’t seem so bothered.

Reacting that way to light when there was barely any light at all.

“Let’s get that sweater off,” Nibble said.

“I like it,” Chloe said.  “Reminds me of when I was human.”

“I know that, but wearing a sweater in summertime gets weird looks if any bystanders see us from a distance,” Nibble told her.  “Come on, arms up.  Duck hands.”

“Can they be dead ducks?” Chloe asked.

“Only if they’re stiff enough to be dead ducks that keep their heads upright.  I don’t want to tear your sweater on your claws.”

“You girls wanted to talk to these two, so Edith and I are going to walk ahead,” Matthew said.  “We’ll signal if anyone comes the opposite way.  Keep an eye on your tail for any bikers.  Not that I think anyone takes this route on a bike.”

“Watch for tree roots, tripping hazard.  Be-” Edith paused, glancing at Chloe, who had the sweater up around her head and armpits now, “-safe.”

“Got it,” Lucy answered.

Nibble pulled off Chloe’s sweater, then sorted out her t-shirt, tugging it down.  He balled up the shirt, then used the claws of one hand to comb at her hair where it had pulled loose of the ponytail.  It draped across her face and she smiled, showing off the jagged teeth.

“That meeting didn’t feel like it went well, and I don’t really get why,” Lucy said.

“No snacks,” Chloe muttered.

“Chloe has a bit less of a one-track mind when she’s had something to eat recently,” Nibble said.  He tied Chloe’s sweater around her waist, then combed her hair back from her face with his claws.  She leaned in and gave him a peck on the lips.  “As for the meeting…”

“Night and day from what our first meeting with the Others was like,” Avery said.

“The difference is the Others knew of you before that meeting.  Came to terms with you, discussed you.  For us, you were an afterthought.”

“That’s on Matthew and Edith, huh?” Lucy asked.

“Some,” Nibble said.  “Walk on the left side of me, Chloe.  You girls on the right.”

“What were we talking about in the middle of the meeting?”

“You were saying you had difficulties with food supply?” Verona asked.

“Sure,” he replied.  “No grocery store to go to.  No place you can regularly find bodies, safe and easy.  When John goes on patrol he can sometimes put a bullet in an animal.”

“Which isn’t ideal, right?” Verona asked.

“I forgot Matthew said you did research.”

“Yeah.  Good to know some of that.  About Faith.”

“Poor Faith,” Chloe said.

“Poor Faith,” Nibble added, voice soft.

“What are the requirements like?  How much do you need?”

“Human corpse every two weeks.”

Nibble shrugged.  “I get by with less.  I’m thinking of Chloe’s needs, here.  If it’s not human, it’s closer to needing one animal every day or two.  Bit more infrequent if it’s a big meal like a deer or something, maybe three animals if it’s birds.  I know some ghouls kill and eat bugs, but at that point it’s something you’re doing every hour of every day.”

“It tastes bad,” Chloe said.  “Animals.  I don’t eat bugs.”

“Tastes a heck of a lot better than losing humanity,” he said.  “Bugs or animals.”

“Scary,” Avery said.  “My grandfather’s had strokes and it takes so much away from him and his abilities, and I think that might be similar-”

“Might be.  But he has doctors, hospitals, right?”

“Yeah,” Avery said.  “Family.”

“He has resources.  The resources are against us.  And when they do exist, if we fight for something or scrabble together a working solution, it doesn’t last.  Outside of a place like this town, practitioners and witch hunters corner us out of some of the ways of getting food.  Because they use it for magic or because they want to starve us out.”

“But that makes you more feral?” Verona asked.

“It makes us dumber, costs us memories, scattershot, pure chance if it’s a memory of something stupid or a core memory.  It regresses us, takes away our understanding of how the world works.  If we don’t have a steady supply, we lose humanity, gain weaknesses.  Opposite if we eat well, but we almost never do.  Our paramour, Faith, she was spawn of a ghoul who ate the freshly dead every day.  He could go out in the sun, pass as human, had all the strengths of a ghoul.  Claws and teeth when he needed them.”

“I miss Faith,” Chloe said.

“I know, babe.  Look, if we don’t eat, it’s the opposite.  We eventually lose our minds.  All of the weaknesses of being ghoul or human, none of the benefits.  Our fangs fall out, our claws break away, we rot fast in some dark place people don’t go and they chalk us up as dead junkies and homeless.  If they ever find us.”

“So what do you do?” Lucy asked.

“I dunno.  I don’t know.”

“Work out a system?” Verona asked.

He shook his head.  “No systems.  Remember, resources are against us.  Even in a place like this, removing that problem of witch hunters and practitioners- hopefully removing that problem, a steady supply of dead bodies isn’t easy to find.  Grave robbing is a lot more effort than you’d think, and many graves are protected by faith, ritual, or both.  Some ghouls like Faith’s old sire find people willing to give away ‘medical cadavers’ off the books, or sell bodies instead of cremating them, but the kinds of human who facilitates that get arrested.  You always wonder when that supply of food will stop and then you’re scrambling again.  Not that you aren’t scrambling to get the money to pay the girl at the crematorium or the cadaver guy.”

“Don’t become a ghoul, Verona,” Avery said.

“I’m not gonna.  I’m not even thinking about that.  I’m thinking about the problem these guys have and how to fix it.  How do we get them meals without issues?”

“I like you,” Chloe said.  “I like the way you think and what you think about.”

Chloe nodded with enthusiasm.

“Hopefully we can figure something out for you guys,” Verona said.

“Yeah,” Nibble replied, but he didn’t look pleased or grateful.

Which went back to how weird the meeting was.  Verona glanced at Lucy, who frowned.  She looked back at Tashlit and Snowdrop, then nearly tripped over a tree root because she wasn’t looking where she was going.  Avery caught her arm.

“Thank you for telling us stuff,” Lucy said.  “I know you were a little wary.”

“You told us stuff about Faith, and how she operated, and how Chloe functions, maybe.”

“I barely function!” Chloe said, “Near Death Experience ghouls and… curse ghouls?”

“Something like that,” Verona said.

“If I’d known more I could have saved Faith.”

Chloe bumped into Nibble, wrapping arms around his body, making him stumble.  As the two of them veered right, Chloe’s claw went out, groping blindly.  Verona stepped back out of the way of it.

Chloe peeked around Nibble back, smiling mischievously as she walked while hugging him.  Like it had been a joke.  But the degree to which it was a joke was kind of in the air.

“Easy does it there, Chloe,” Lucy said.

“Is she- be good, Chloe,” Nibble said, sighing, and adjusting Chloe so she wasn’t peering at them.  “This is why I worry.”

“It seems like a lot,” Avery said.

“It is.  I used to be… kind of fun, I guess.  I might be editing my memories there.  I used to be a loser.  I think my family had money, they left me money when they all passed, all at once.  I stopped living life, ended up like this.  But I used to be easygoing and now I don’t get the chance.”

“Sorry,” Verona said, quiet.

“I love this girl, and that’s love, isn’t it?  You stand by those you love.  Sickness or in health.”

The three of them nodded.

It was hard to really add anything to that.  They walked for a minute, avoiding the tree roots, which wasn’t super easy in the dark.  Verona used her Sight to see in the dark.

In the back, Snowdrop chattered at Tashlit, “I don’t even get to be an honorary goblin.  They’re so mean to me, they don’t share any of their snacks!”

“I think part of what Matthew and Edith were doing was covering for Chloe,” Nibble said.

“Take off your sweater, Chloe, it’s not good to wear sweaters in summertime,” Chloe said.  “Now I need covering again.  Make more sense, Nibs.  Do I need covering up or not?”

“You know what I mean, you aren’t that far gone,” he said.

Verona glanced at Lucy and Avery, biting her tongue.

In the back, Snowdrop went on, “had to tell Bangnut that no, obviously an opossum high score can’t be how much trash blows out of your rear end when you get hit by a car.”

“Snowdrop, geez, what are you telling poor Tashlit?” Avery asked.

In the chatter that followed, Snowdrop talking to Avery while the two of them tried badly to interpret Tashlit’s gestures, it was almost impossible to hear Nibble’s, “Yeah, yet” response.

It felt like adding anything to that or saying anything would be intruding.  They walked down the forest path, stepping over branches, clumps of weed, and roots.  Nibble and Chloe’s irises were pale discs in the gloom, like faded moons in the darkness.

Matthew and Edith waited out where the path ended.  The way they’d taken was a serious detour, a curving path that took them away from the town, then back.  The four-lane road that cut north-south through eastern Kennet ran alongside the space.

Nibble stopped, an arm around Chloe, and turned to face them.  Lucy, Avery, and Verona stopped.

“They were covering for us.  I keep an eye on Chloe, but I don’t know what happens if she has a bad day.  If she goes feral, if she breaks away.  I don’t think we can make oaths swearing it won’t happen.  They’re helping us, protecting us, supplying food sometimes, I’m being careful, Chloe’s… putting in an effort.  You might be able to have more of a conversation with her and see that effort when she’s eaten properly.  But…”

“You can’t promise a mistake won’t happen?” Lucy asked.

“I think there are a lot of cases like that.  A lot of us… we haven’t lived in this cozy town for long at all.  Not like your original Others did.  That pushback, that worry, it’s because we don’t know you and a lot of our situations are messy.”

“We have people we care about just as much as you care about Chloe or Faith,” Lucy said.  “If something happened to them… that’s nightmare material, as far as I’m concerned.  If someone like Chloe hurt them…  just about everyone in Kennet’s precious to someone, like that, aren’t they?”

“Do you have a solution?” he asked.

She shook her head.  “Not a good one.”

“Got a bad one?” he asked.  “I might take it.”

“Binding Chloe?  Just so you know, I feel pretty gross suggesting it, but maybe in a situation where she wasn’t Chloe anymore…”

“Still pretty bad,” he said.  “What about you guys going hands off?  Ignoring us?”

“Pretty bad,” Lucy echoed him.

“Yeah,” he replied, nodding.  He pulled off his beanie hat and stuffed it into a pocket, and combed the claws of one hand through hair, still holding onto Chloe with the other.

“If we found a food supply…” Verona ventured.

“If you can that’s great.  But it’s harder than it sounds.  I think we’re going to go.  We live just down there, in the old factory.  Set up a nook.  Going to watch a movie, I think.”

“Needs to have the high frames,” Chloe said.  “My eyes can’t see it right if it doesn’t refresh the frames.”

“Yeah, got that covered,” he said.  To the three of them, he said, “No hard feelings?  We okay?’

Verona nodded, as did Lucy and Avery.

“Good.  I’ll figure out something to give you for a gift if you can help sort out the situation.  Might be a temporary gift, because the sorting out is rarely permanent.”

“Okay,” Lucy said.  “The gifts really aren’t important to me.”

“It’s the situation of all that and how it was framed.  I get it,” Nibble said.  “I get bad situations.”

He raised a claw in a wave, leading Chloe down the sloped bit of grass.  He exchanged a couple words with Matthew and Edith on the way.

Verona and the rest of their group trailed a bit behind, giving the pair space to walk off.

“Will them being here be a problem?” Matthew asked, as they walked over.

“I don’t think so.  Them being elsewhere seems like it’d be a bigger problem for others,” Lucy said.

“Reminds me of where I was, fresh to Edith’s body, being chased by the doom,” Edith said.

“Sucks,” Avery said.  “That whole thing.”

“They’re good at heart, even if those hearts don’t beat,” Matthew said.  “It’s good you got the chance to talk.”

“What do you think?” Edith asked.

Verona took a step aside, then looked.  They were on a triangular bit of grass, a short cliff up from the four-lane road, which was pretty quiet.  The view was just such that they could see over old buildings, factories, and things to the water.

“Kennet?” Avery asked.

“Here, specifically.  This,” Edith told them.

Verona looked down.  Looked around at the grass, which needed a bit of mowing, had some weeds.  A few divots where something like groundhogs had dug through.  A few trees stood at the back.

“For the Demesnse?” she asked.

“It isn’t pretty but that can be fixed,” Matthew said.  “A colleague who works with me at Buckheed can bring in some dirt, rent a small dozer and push some dirt around to flatten it if you want.  It’s big and it would be yours, if you want it.  The amount of space you start with is pretty important.”

“If I’m taking the familiar, then this would be yours, Ronnie,” Avery said.

“Just like that?  No strings attached?”

“Do what you’re doing,” Matthew said.  “We’ll figure out our end.  Outside of that, no strings attached.”

It was a nice view.  That was important too.  Quiet.  Most traffic went east-west or vice-versa, up at the north end of town.

“Don’t do what that lady in chapter nine of the Demesnes textbook did,” Lucy said.

“But it’s my space.”

“That you’d be sharing.  Seriously, Ronnie.”

Settling down, locking an area down as her own for life, taking on that as a responsibility and investment… it felt like a lot, somehow.  Heavy.

“Are you okay with this?” she asked.  “Spending the money to buy it, gifting it… you bought Tashlit’s shirt… I worry-”

“That’s for us to concern ourselves with.  It’s in our price range,” Edith said.  “For you three, there are things you can do if you have a place of power here, negotiated fairly.  If you want it.”

Verona hesitated.  She glanced at the others.

“It’s up to you, Ronnie.  If it doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t feel right,” Lucy said.

“It’d be cool to have a clubhouse,” Avery said.

“Too unfriendly to wildlife, I don’t like it,” Snowdrop added.

Tashlit gave her a thumbs up.

Verona frowned, digesting, and she couldn’t shake the thoughts that plagued her.  It wasn’t that it didn’t feel right, but… she didn’t feel right.

Maybe she needed to visualize what she wanted her Demesne to end up as, first.

Or to figure out what she wanted to end up as, first.

“Can I think about it?”

“Sure, of course.  This spot hasn’t sold for a while so I don’t think it will get stolen out from under you,” Matthew said.

Edith walked a few steps away to light up a cigarette.  She moved to stand downwind.

“Do you want a ride back?” he asked.

Verona walked a few steps to the side, walked back, then plunked herself down.  “I can turn into a bird to fly back home.”

“I’m going to go stop in to see Guilherme about sparring and stuff,” Lucy said.  “Gotta figure out how to work with my earring.”

“Snow and I have the black rope.”

“Good.  That makes my life easier.  Tashlit?”

Tashlit sat down beside Verona.

“Much easier, then.  Be safe, getting back to your place.  Maybe you could escort her, Verona?  While flying?”

Verona nodded.  Tashlit gave a thumbs-up.

“See you soon, then.  I’ll be in touch after talking to the Others tomorrow night.”

“Thanks, you guys,” Verona said.  “For taking the time.”

“I think the initial step’s one of the hardest, with this sort of thing,” he told her.

“We appreciate it,” Lucy told him.

He nodded, and then he and Edith walked the path.  They didn’t have to go through the forest- there was a way to walk by the road, but they took that route.  Darker and wooded.

Verona sat for a while, Tashlit beside her.  There was some light talk.  Avery went over the notes they had on the Demesne ritual.  Stuff they had to do, stuff they’d have to specify.

Lucy talked about Booker, which was nice.

Verona hinted at some of the Jeremy stuff, with Tashlit leaning in, good for gossip and vicarious boy stuff.

Then Avery had to go home.  Curfew.  Lucy did the same.

And Verona sat for another hour on the grass, Tashlit quiet beside her, looking out over Kennet, bloody, the perimeter ragged and periodically kicking to life.  Would it always be like this?  If the culprit won the throne, would they keep it this way, the perimeter rough, the town darker than it should be?

Like how the ghouls had to be constantly vigilant or they’d descend into their own darkness?  A Death past undeath?  More or less irrevocable?

Tashlit was changing, Avery had said.  Every change in that direction and there was no going back to the person she’d been.  Sometimes it happened all at once, like her initial change before she’d gone to her dad.

Even the stupid Barney thing, it had sounded like it was temporary, a bit of Otherness to wear for a while, but it sounded like going through that whole thing meant that a lot of them couldn’t be Barneys anymore, that they’d leave the drinking or drugs behind.

This would be a corner of the town just for her.  Maybe a screwed up town with a lot of issues, ghouls who needed help, and a spirit representing the average resident of the town… who looked a scary amount like her dad.  Longer hair, more blue collar, but that look on his face… she’d be making the call to set up shop here and it would be a call she made for life.

Permanence was scary.  The steps they couldn’t take back.

The things they couldn’t undo.