Pale: 9.6 - Avery
Author: Wildbow

Shaking Hands – 9.6 | Pale

“We need help,” Avery said.

Lucy was in the midst of carefully drying her hair, towel around her shoulders, favoring one arm, and raised her eyebrows at Avery.

Avery had been the last to get up, and as she turned to face the others, Snowdrop stirred, squinted at the bright light from the windows, and then began to work her way under Avery’s shirt and the single sheet they’d slept under.  Avery winced as Snowdrop pressed up against a bit of the healing scrape from when she’d nearly fallen off the bridge outside the Blue Heron.

“Like, mental help?” Verona asked.  She sat at Lucy’s desk, writing spell cards.

“It feels like the world is against us,” Avery said.  “We need friends in our corner.”

“You’re right,” Lucy said, “But it’s not that easy.”

“We’ve got contacts.  Zed and Nicolette.  Um, we’ve got people we can talk to- is that connection blocker up?  No goblins in the vents or anything?”

“Still up,” Verona said, without looking up from what she was putting down on the spell card.

“We’ve got people we can ask about Faerie stuff.  And about Goblin stuff.”

Lucy moved the computer chair Verona was sitting cross-legged in, and Verona stretched her body out to keep drawing, until it looked dangerous.  Lucy took up residence at one side of the desk, picking through some accessories.  “Tymon told me that if I was sticking around for the full summer, he might want to take me out for icecream or something, so he-”

“Wait what!?” Verona exclaimed.

“Quiet,” Lucy told her, whapping Verona across the back of the head with a fistful of accessories.  “My mom might be sleeping in.”

“Tymon likes you?” Avery asked.

“I don’t know, and that’s beside the point.”

“Wuh?” Verona asked, holding onto the desk’s edge and moving her lower body to slide the chair closer to the desk.  “Is it?”

“Maybe he thought we were leaving so he might as well make a play, I dunno.”

“Or maybe he likes you, woo?” Avery asked.

“He also responded to my complaint about how much of a headache all the glamour stuff is by offering me a pill, so… maybe his judgment is a bit screwy.”

“Or maybe he likes you, be happy?” Avery asked.

“Point is, I think if I reached out to him and shot him some questions about spirits and stuff, he could help us there.”

Verona turned the computer chair to follow Lucy as Lucy put her hair into a ponytail.  “When you send that message, can you be super flirty?”

“This is a big part of why I didn’t mention this before.  You were already being a pain with Avery and Fernanda.”

“Help,” Lucy told Avery.  “And please, Ronnie, be quieter.”

Verona cackled again, at a much lower volume, deadpan.

Avery weighed her options, poking more fun or actually helping, and decided to give the help.  Things were hard enough and she wasn’t one hundred percent sure Lucy had it in her to take the ribbing.  “Tymon and Talos for tips on Edith then, maybe.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.  “Maybe.”

“Just in case Miss comes back and she’s a key player, um, I could try asking the Garrick Finders.  I’m going to run that path in a little while, help them out, they sent me some practices to try.”

“Homework, huh?” Verona asked.  “We talked about that last night while waiting for Lucy.  You did your little doodles.”

“It’s on my phone, if you want to look at the specifics.”

“You say ‘if’ like it’s a possibility I wouldn’t.”

“My phone’s in my pants.”

Verona grabbed Avery’s pants from the floor, by her bag, and searched the pockets.  She searched her own pants pockets too, and Avery watched her, frowning.  Avery sat up a bit.  “Don’t mess with my phone while you’re at it.  Just read the email, don’t send anything.”

Verona did a very bad job of looking innocent, sitting up straight, hair sticking out to the sides with bedhead, wearing a tank top and pyjama shorts.  She turned around.

“I’m serious,” Avery told her.

“I’m out of glamour,” Verona commented.

“Why would you need glamour while browsing my phone?” Avery asked.

“I was going to do an illusion of a Fernanda photo, with a heart drawn on it.”

“I’d like to revoke the permission to browse,” Avery said, frowning at her friend.

Lucy sighed.  “Glamour is another thing for the list.  Big things we’ve been asked to do by the council include more patrols, we may be a part of the interrogation of this McKay Other, we should be part of the interrogation because I hate the idea of letting that happen without us knowing the end result…”

“Ugh,” Verona grunted, searching the phone.

Lucy continued, “…Finding the other two and the new Other they’ve got with them, and talking to Melissa.  We should grab that glamour, we should do two of the big rituals, we gotta reach out to some of our contacts, like the practitioners who could give us tips on dealing with the culprits.”

“I’ve gotta name my little goblin buddy,” Verona said.

Avery nodded.  “I haven’t even started figuring out all my stuff for the Path.  I need to work out some of this practice, I need to get the ingredients for the ritual.  I’m supposed to have enough invitations and tickets and things to wedge a door closed, and I haven’t been to that many events in my life.”

“No idea there,” Verona said.  “Hungry Choir pamphlet?”

“That’s, uh…” Avery made a face.  “And if you read the back and forth with Ed about the ritual, it can’t be red.”

“That’s dangerously close.  Can you send a polite message to Ed asking if that’d work?  It’s sort of magic, too, mention that?”

Verona nodded, but commented, “Less magic now.  I don’t think it changes for different readers or move anymore.”

“It’s a lot,” Lucy commented.  “All this stuff we need to figure out.  I don’t know the direction we should take, except… at the end of this, John’s existence is on the line, and if we’re going to change that, it feels like we need to be more ready.  We’ve got ideas on what to do and partway through the Blue Heron stuff I thought we were getting close.  But now I’m feeling like we’re behind.”

“We need help,” Avery said again.

“Yeah,” Lucy said.  “And just… linking thoughts, I’m trying to think of who we could reach out to, and I’m thinking of the Judges.”

“Do they like us more since we toppled Bristow, if he was going to supplant them?” Verona asked, looking up from the phone.

“No idea,” Lucy said.  “But one thing we really need to think about is, again, what does this look like at the end?  What happens when we have a culprit?  Will the Judges step in?  Do we go to them to get the okay?  Something else?  Do we go for the furs?  What happens after?  Or what happens if we have the Carmine furs, do we have to fight to keep them?  Indefinitely?  Will John have to worry about someone donning them and coming after him?  Do the old furs disappear when he takes the role?  After a while?  Do they stay?”

“I figured we’d identify them, bind them, and we’d be clear,” Avery said.  “We got the job from the Kennet Others, they’d let us, wouldn’t they?”

“Would they?” Lucy pressed.  “Because I think some of the systems in place for the more civilized countries on Earth are pretty broken, and I don’t think Kennet and the Judges are that much better.  What if we say ‘we found the culprit’ and then nothing happens and John still dies?”

“Email sent,” Verona said, “Looking at these practices.”

“Should we take Clementine’s ‘clean your room’ approach?” Avery asked.  “Do the big stuff that’s going to cause issues, then tackle the small stuff?”

“What’s big, then?” Verona asked.

“Interrogation, dealing with the invading Others, Avery’s ritual, if it’s a firm deadline…”

“They set a date.  Couple days,” Avery said.  “Which makes things tight.  I want to do the Snowdrop ritual before.  Even if it’s right before.  And I need the ingredients.”

Lucy nodded.  “And you, Ronnie?”

“I don’t know.  There are, like, fifty things I want to experiment with and almost none of them are directly useful.”

“Like it would be neat to figure out a bit about hosting Others, and not like… be Other but maybe have a bit of something Other in me and try that on for size-”

“What do you carve out of your Self to make room, though?” Lucy asked.

“I was going to ask Matthew.  And I feel like being closer to our culprits and to the stuff they’re doing might help?”

“Dangerous and dangerous, though,” Lucy said.

There was a knock on the door.

Lucy opened it, as Avery sat up, pulling the sheet around her waist for privacy and to hide Snowdrop.  It was Booker’s girlfriend, Alyssa.

“Hey, you three are up?”

“Breakfast’s cooking.  Thought you’d want to know.”

“Thanks.  Is my mom up?”

“I think she’s up but not out of bed.”

They got themselves sorted out.  Lucy threw Avery her pants and Avery went with the clothes she’d worn last night, Verona wore her sleep clothes, and Lucy was dressed for the day.  Snowdrop remained bundled up in the sheets.

“Some enchanting work would be cool to do too,” Verona said.  “And some divine stuff, especially now that I’m working with Tashlit some.  And I’m really annoyed that we never got any of Charles’s summoning stuff.”

“If he’s lying about the barrier on behalf of the council, I’m not sure I’d trust what he teaches,” Lucy said.

“If they’re all okay with getting rid of us, then we can’t trust what most of them teach,” Avery said.

“Yeah,” Lucy said, and she looked tired, frowning more than usual.

“I want to hang with Tashlit, see what’s going on there, because I’m assuming she was there-”

“Do we know?” Avery asked.  “That she was?”

“I think she’d be?  She gets a vote and I think she’s a bit bored, so she’d take any chances she gets to hang out.”

They made their way down the stairs.

Booker was cooking, wearing an apron, while Alyssa sat on a stool, chopping.

“Fair warning,” Booker said.  “I’m not an experienced cook, I have a hot plate at the dorm, and breakfast turned out very gray.”

He showed them the frying pan, where bacon and onion were frying.  It did look a bit gray.

“I told him to use separate pans,” Alyssa said.  “But he didn’t want to clean three.  We’ve also got crepes.”

“Hot dang,” Verona said.

“Where are the cutting boards?” Alyssa asked.

Booker went to get one, instead of telling.

“Crepes are fancy sounding but they’re super easy.  Learned how to cook those in grade five for a home ec style thing,” Booker said, handing Alyssa the board.

Avery felt a little in the way, not really sure of the dynamics or people.  Last night, they’d arrived and had a quiet conversation, because Alyssa had been dozing, and Avery hadn’t really had it in her to butt in or anything, so she’d sorta dozed off too, wandering upstairs to let Snowdrop in and then falling asleep before the others had even ventured up from the living room.

Verona took a seat, so Avery took her cue, sitting at the island counter in the center of the kitchen.  It was a good sized kitchen, really clean, very minimal, with almost no food or anything on the counters that wasn’t a direct product of the meal being made.  It was a contrast to Avery’s house, with its supply of chips, healthier snacks, the box of cereal someone had left out, and the various dishes that hadn’t fit in the dishwasher, laid out on a drying pad over more of the counter.  Add in the appliances, the stack of bills, and the counter space disappeared fast.  There was an unofficial rule in her house where anyone who wasn’t cooking or addressing immediate chore or schedule stuff stayed out of the kitchen.  Here the kitchen was almost a hang-out spot.

“I cannot make any promises about your intestinal integrity if you eat this bacon and veg,” Booker said, tipping the pan over onto paper towels.

“This is embarrassing, but I was sleepy last night, and I blanked- your names?” Alyssa asked.

“I’m-” Verona started, at the same time Booker started to say something.  Verona looked at him.  “Go ahead.  I want to hear how you introduce me.”

“Verona is Lucy’s longtime friend,” Booker said, getting out juices and milk.  “Who is a bit of an imp, she’s funny, I think two of my biggest laughs in my life came from her.  Uhhh, she’s a creative type.  Doesn’t like sweet things so… milk.”

“Thank you, sir.  Saying I’m funny makes me feel like I need to say or do something now.”

“Nah.  And Avery I only know through word of mouth.  Likes sports and is good at them, is a sweetheart according to both Lucy and Mom.  New to the friend group and already locked in.”

Lucy nodded once, firm, like this was gospel.

Avery was touched, really.

Booker ventured, “And her family is…?”

“Big and chaotic,” Lucy said.

“Hectic,” Avery supplied.

“Then this isn’t a change of pace for you, here, I bet,” he said.

“It’s way different,” Avery said, a bit subdued.  She wasn’t sure how to follow that up, and Booker had been talked up so much by Lucy that she felt a bit like she was in the presence of someone she didn’t want to offend.

Booker wore an apron and had his long hair back in a ponytail, and wore a sleep shirt with pyjama pants.  He was skinnier than she’d thought he’d be, but she’d seen Jas and Lucy and she should have clued in that he might be similar- both of them were a bit taller than average and slender.  He was handsome too, objectively.  He wasn’t Ulysse, who was probably a twelve out of ten on the gay-girl’s-guess-about-guys scale, but he was probably an eight or nine out of ten which was really up there for Kennet.

She had a bit of a sense why Lucy acted like he’d hung the moon in the sky, because he had a likeable vibe, and Alyssa looked at him in a similar light, even seeming to lean into or cuddle him like he had his own gravity.

Which was cool, and enviable.  Alyssa looked closer to fifteen than twenty-five, only barely taller than Lucy, with a small frame and young face, and she wore a shirt that was big enough it was probably Booker’s, her hair bleached, roots showing, and tied back in a messy ponytail.  It was a happy, sleepy sort of messy look that made Avery feel a bit envious of Booker, even if Alyssa really wasn’t her type.

She wondered if there would ever be a time when she could bring a girlfriend home and have it be easy and comfortable like Alyssa and Booker seemed to be.

She didn’t need to worry about supplying a clearer definition or any elaboration on her family, because Booker was distracted by getting all the breakfast stuff to the counter where Alyssa, Lucy, Verona, and Avery all sat.  “As for Alyssa… this is dangerous, my boyfriend status hangs on the line.”

“Darn right,” Alyssa said.

“There are people with talent and there are people who work their asses off and Alyssa’s pretty close to being top of the pack on both parts of that.  That’s what got my interest, like, damn, this girl’s on top of things.”

“Good start,” Alyssa said, putting jam on a crepe and rolling it.

“I’m supposed to keep going?  She’s from a family of people who work in the Toronto financial district, but don’t let that affect your read of her-”

“-and she’s in Poli Sci with goals of getting a seat in Government, and me, with all my dim views of government in general, I think she will actually be decent.”

“Damned with faint praise,” Alyssa sighed.

“I said you’d be decent in government and that’s a leap for me,” Booker said.  “You want more?”

“What about you?” Avery asked Booker.  “Aiming for Prime Minister?”

“My mom would hang me if I aim too low but I really think I’d rather have a smaller seat and make some meaningful change.  Or lobby for some human rights stuff.  I’m thinking about law school, but that’s a long, long shot.  I’m not that smart-”

“You’re smart,” Lucy said.

“-I’m the guy who slacked off a lot until his last year of High School and now I’m trying to catch up.  I’m working on the ‘working my ass off’ thing,” he said.  He pointed his finger at them.  “Don’t do what I did.”

Booker commented, “I remember the saga of Verona’s grade six ladder story.  Mrs. teacher, I can’t do my homework because my dad fell off a ladder and hurt his back.  We’re going back and forth to the hospital, I’m trying but I slept in the hospital room…”

“And she believed it,” Lucy pointed out.  “Until parent teacher day.”

Alyssa laughed.  Avery smiled.

Verona made a face.  “Then I thought I got away with it when my dad complained about his back, that little detail that brings it together, I changed the subject…”

“I don’t think you were ever going to get away with it, Ronnie.”

“Not with the way you were acting!  Your jaw dropped.”

“Of course my jaw dropped!  It was a straight-faced, complicated lie, out of complete nowhere.”

“Well I’m better now, swore an oath, and with only a few accidental slips here and there, I’ve only told the truth.”

“Ha!” Booker laughed.

“She’s telling the truth, actually,” Lucy said.

“So we’re not going to get any more ladder stories?” Booker asked.  “That’s a tragedy.”

Avery put her crepe together, daubing in some blueberry jam and what might have been leftover fruit salad, then wrapping it up.  She wasn’t sure how to interject, so she just listened.

Her phone buzzed, and it was a reply from Ed.  She showed Lucy while Booker continued ribbing Verona.

Hungry Choir pamphlet should be fine.

That was one invitation and she needed, what, three at least?  Five?  Ten?  Twenty?

There was also a message from her mom, checking in, nothing important.

She put the phone away, glancing around, and saw Snowdrop at the back door, at an angle only she and probably Lucy could see.  Snowdrop, in opossum form, pressing her upper body and face against the glass, limbs splayed.

When Avery was pretty sure she was in the clear, she made another crepe and took some bacon, and wrapped them in paper towel, giving Snowdrop a look.

Snowdrop held up a paw, fingers extended.

She shook her head a tiny bit, then jumped at a voice from behind her.

“Good morning,” Jasmine said.

“I thought you were going to sleep in more,” Lucy said.  “Did we wake you?”

“You didn’t.”  Her mom hugged Lucy around the shoulders from behind.  “I didn’t want to miss a chance to see my kids in their elements and to check in with Verona and Avery.  Did you girls have a good night?”

“A lot of freaky, scary stuff,” Verona said.

“You gotta quit it with the horror movies,” Booker told Lucy.  “You’ll scare away your friends.  Except I remember Verona being weirdly into that?”

“And Avery?” Alyssa cut in.  “What about you?”

“Avery’s brave,” Lucy said, touching Avery’s arm.  “She was jumping off a bridge this summer with some of the older students.”

“Excuse me?” Jasmine asked.  “Was Lucy also jumping off bridges?”

“Or were they small bridges?” Alyssa asked.

“Speaking of brave, and courage and freaky, scary stuff, how are you feeling about your big job interview?” Verona asked.

“I hope you were smoother than that when you changed the subject at the parent teacher interview,” Booker said.

“I’m okay.  And I’m glad you girls are okay.  How is it being home?  Avery?”

There was a look in Jasmine’s eyes, and Avery knew what she was really asking.  Lucy’s mom had been the first adult besides Ms. Hardy that Avery had confided in.

“Okay.  That’s good,” Jasmine said, giving Avery’s back a small rub.  “And Verona?”

“Not too surprised.  Hmm, breakfast, may I partake?”

“It’s your food,” Lucy said.

“The crepes look good,” Jasmine said, getting a glass and pouring orange juice, surveying the spread.

“I notice the acute lack of comment on the bacon,” Booker said.  The bacon had collected lots of charred bits and looked about as gray as it did pink or red.  Verona was happily chowing down on it, at the least.

“I’ll have some,” Lucy said.  She reached, then paused, mid reach, expression changing.

And Booker and her mom noticed.

“What’s going on there?” Jasmine asked, going to Lucy’s side.

“It’s minor, really.”

“You’re bruised, and- show me your other arm so I can compare.  You’re swollen.  What happened?”

“Hit the ground,” Verona volunteered.

“It’s minor, it’s dumb,” Lucy protested.  “I don’t want to distract you from today’s interview.”

“That is maybe the worst answer you could have given me,” Jasmine said.  “How did this happen?”

“I was… I was walking backwards and I…”

“Went over a short wall and fell a bit after that,” Verona supplied.

For a certain meaning of ‘a bit’, Avery thought.

The real story would’ve elicited an entirely different reaction.

“Something like this needs RICE, that’s an acronym,” Jasmine said.  “And maybe a trip to the doctor to make sure there’s no fracture.”

“It’s not that bad,” Lucy said.

“Rest, ice, compression, and elevation.”

“Rest means you shouldn’t be using that arm.  Let’s get you in a sling, bandage it for some compression- Booker, can you get a bag of peas from the freezer?  There’s a tea towel with a pocket for this sort of thing in the bottom drawer by the stove.  You don’t want to put something frozen directly on skin.”

“Got it,” Booker said.

Lucy’s expression was dark, frustrated, and deeply bothered, even as her family bustled around her.

“Relax, Luce,” Verona said, leaning over, “Your mom has plenty of time.”

“I had one big priority last night and that was to not be an idiot and distract her any,” Lucy said.  Her mom had disappeared upstairs, and Booker was going through the fridge.

“It’s no big, really,” Verona said.  “Oh, just hit me, Booker, you’re into music, right?”

“Always trying to get me to listen to new bands,” Alyssa said.

“You like some,” Booker told her.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got any invitations or tickets or anything from events?” Verona asked.

“I do, but they’re back at my dorm, why?”

“I was just wondering.  Need a bunch.”

“I do collages,” Verona said.

“Well, I like my collection, even if I’ve been neglecting it this last semester, so I’m not going to let you cut them up or glue them to something…”

“We’ll get more into that next semester, if you want,” Alyssa said.

Booker dropped the peas onto the counter.  Lucy put them on her elbow.  He looked over at Verona, suggesting, “…What about the library?  It’s a bit of a long shot, but I know they do that thing where it’s a dollar for however many pages if you want clean, blank paper, but you can also use the backsides of papers from failed print-outs for a dime or something?  If you want collage material you could dig through that pile?”

“Would that work?” Lucy asked, looking over at Verona and then Avery.  “It might be more expensive now.”

“Depends what’s in the pile, I’d guess,” Verona said.  Avery nodded.  Verona smiled,  “Good idea, though, thank you.”

Jasmine came back downstairs, and fussed over Lucy, starting with the bandages, then placing the peas, then arranging the sling.  Lucy looked aggrieved.

Lucy didn’t like being weak.  It was important to her that she wasn’t, and something like this really got to her, apparently, though Avery couldn’t put her finger firmly on why.

Avery, sitting at the corner of the counter, looked back for Snowdrop, and saw the opossum had disappeared.  She found herself looking to the side, to where Verona was draped over the counter, head on her arm, looking sideways and watching Jasmine and Lucy.

And she felt that energy that was coming from Verona.  Avery knew her own parents cared but when push had come to shove they hadn’t noticed her hurting.  They had apologized but they hadn’t really done anything to make up for it, in the grand scheme of things.  She wasn’t sure they’d notice the next thing.

She looked across the counter at Alyssa, who looked over and gave her a brief smile that was… sympathetic?

Which was weird until she sorta realized that she and Alyssa were pretty quiet as kind-of-outsiders in this family dynamic that did include Verona to some extent.

It was so easy to escape notice or escape the systems of priority people used, but it took energy to avoid it.

Her phone buzzed and Lucy reacted at the same time.  Lucy’s phone had gone off too.

“We don’t have any plans, right?” Lucy asked Booker.

“Nope, Alyssa and I were going to drive out into nature, possibly,” Booker said.  “Borrow Van’s canoe, could do a picnic by the water.”

“Okay,” Lucy said.  “I guess we’ll find something to do.”

“Back by dinner?” Lucy’s mom asked.

If they were getting simultaneous messages, Avery had only one real guess what that was about.

Matthew sending his batch emails.

They were supposed to interrogate the Other today.

“I think-” Avery started.  “I think I might have to split up with you guys.”

That got a surprised look from Lucy and Verona.

“Lukewarm pocket food, you’re so awful to me.”

“Sorry if it’s linty.  I was trying to be covert and I was worried they’d think I had an eating disorder if I was hiding food.”

“I don’t deserve this.”

“Want to go hide?” Avery asked Snowdrop.

Avery knew that there was a side to things where yeah, if they were interrogating that McKay Other, then it helped if she was there, just like with the conversation with Nicolette.  Someone standing further back from the conversation, trying to make sure they weren’t being too harsh, too paranoid.

But they were tight on time.  The end of summer was a week and a month away, but there were other things edging in on their priorities, their needs.  It was the invading Others this week but something could come up later and if they weren’t careful, they’d miss out on the key stuff, or on getting stronger, or on gathering allies, or whatever.

So she’d told them to be nice, as a favor to her.  Which would let her focus on other things.

It was so easy to escape notice or to be ‘nice’ in a way that meant you were never someone else’s priority.  Or be inoffensive, or not a screaming emergency in the same way perimeters, invading monsters, wars over magic schools and ominous conspiracies were.

There were bigger messes to focus on, there were priorities, there were things she needed to do and things she needed to learn, and her gut feeling was that if she went by Clementine’s system of handling stuff by scale, then at least one important thing would slip away.

So she stood outside a house she didn’t recognize, double checked her phone for the house number, and walked down the path, taking the stairs two at a time to reach the front door.  She hit the bell, and stood so the little camera built into the doorbell could see her.  Snowdrop became an opossum and scampered into the bushes.

The guy who opened the door was middle-aged, balding a bit, with hair grown longer at the sides and back as if to compensate.

“All the time.  Are you one of the, ah, Dancers?”

“I was on the soccer team and hockey team with her.  Can I see her?”

“I’ll check,” he said.  “She’s refused visitors before, so I wouldn’t take it personal.”

“Do you want to come in, or-”

She shrugged, leaning against the railing.  “Outdoor’s nice.  There’s a breeze.”

“Okay,” he said, in the tone of someone who wanted to say something but was holding back.

She waited, leaning against the railing, the screen door closed and the front door open, the breeze blowing.

It was a pretty warm day by Kennet standards.  She hadn’t been putting her hair into a ponytail lately, but she’d done it today, just to have more of the skin on her neck exposed.  She’d stopped by home to change because the idea of wearing a t-shirt and jeans was death when it was thirty-five degrees Celsius out.  She wore an athletic top with a thin ‘y’ of straps at the back and a herb or something on the front, and lightweight shorts with drawstrings longer than the legs of the shorts were, again, just to leave more room for the breeze to touch skin.

The bag had been an issue, because a backpack got too hot, so she’d brought her gym bag, mostly empty, her stuff dropped into it, and it was hanging weird because the weight had all tipped forward.  She took the opportunity to adjust it some.

She’d wanted to wear sandals, but had elected to wear her running shoes.  Just in case.  In the same way she’d brought some magic stuff.  Just in case.

Melissa clunked her way down the stairs, even though her foot wasn’t in the plastic boot anymore.  She stopped as she saw Avery, then carried forward, her dad following her down.

“Hey, teammate,” Avery said.

“Not on your teams anymore.”

“I still see you as a teammate in spirit,” Avery said.

“Well I’m not.  And I won’t be in the future.”

“If you did your physio there’s a chance-” Mr. Oakham said.

“A bad chance, and I do physio, it’s just way harder than you act like it is.  Can you just go away?”

“Melissa needs to walk for her physio,” Mr. Oakham said.  “So if you wanted to hang out-”

“Dad, c’mon,” Melissa looked outright disgusted.

“-I’d give you money to go by the corner store and rent a video or something.”

“Everything’s online anyway,” Melissa said.

“Or something,” he said.  “Thanks for visiting, uhh-”

Melissa made a face at her dad’s back as he retreated to the kitchen.  She looked like she might stand on the far side of the screen door, then decided against it, possibly because of the indoor heat.  She opened the door and limped a bit as she stepped outside, leaning against the railing opposite Avery.

Snowdrop, human, stepped around to the base of the stairs.  Melissa’s expression changed to surprise, a moment of consternation, then a scowl.

“You okay?” Avery asked.

“No, I’m not okay.  My friend group ditched me, you guys are… I don’t know, you’re disappearing off through a cupboard to the magical world of Yorkenstan or something to be witches three, and here I am, left out, getting painful-as-shit physio sessions instead.”

“I bet you are.  Why are you here?  Did Louise’s relative rat me out?”

“I’m a huge rat,” Snowdrop said, deadpan.

“We heard you learned a magic thing.”

“I learned something, it worked a few times, then it stopped, just in time for my parents to think I was crazy.  I tried to show them and it didn’t do anything.  Did you shut off the power on me?  Not allowed for Melissa?”

Avery shook her head.  “Not that I’m aware.  I think it doesn’t work that way.”

“That’s a really complicated question to answer.”

“Want to walk?” Avery asked.

“If you need to do it for your physio, and you’re going to be doing it anyway…”

“I’m not.  It’s supposed to be an every day thing and I’m supposed to do these sessions where I flex and rotate my ankle but it doesn’t work.  I still don’t have any sensation in part of my foot, so I’m cutting back.  I walked yesterday.  Or the day before yesterday, I forget.  Your friend there knows.”

“Let’s walk,” Avery told Melissa.  “For privacy, and for… whatever brought you downstairs when you wouldn’t come for your old friends.”

Avery walked down a few steps, hesitated, and then continued down as Melissa started to descend behind her.

Melissa asked, “Have you seen what they put on Go-Foto?  They’re practically sociopaths, they don’t really care, you know.  They check in because their parents urge them to or coach urges them to, and they take pictures with me and post them even though I said not to, because it’s not about me, really.  It’s about them and their social media.”

“I don’t use Go Foto Yourself.”

“I’d show you but then I might vomit all over the street, from the fakeness of it all.”

“I don’t want to see that,” Snowdrop said.

“Hey, rat.  You missed out.  While you’re telling people my secrets, you should have told my dad about the smoking.”

Melissa indicated a path that took them around the back of the neighborhood.  Trees on one side and hedges or fences on the other.  It looked like bikes took this way to go up and down the length of Kennet without having to navigate traffic.  At the upper end they’d run into the old train station or the back of the town hall and at the bottom end they’d hit a dead end not that far from Verona’s potential demesne.

Melissa dug into her pocket and found the foil packet of cigarettes, removed from its box, looked around, and then lit it.

“You shouldn’t smoke,” Avery said. “Where did you even get those?”

“Louise’s.  She shouldn’t be smoking them anyway.”

“You’ll stunt your growth.”

“Avery,” Melissa said.  “It’s the only thing keeping my weight under a hundred and fifty pounds.  I’m fat, crippled, and greasy and most of my visitors are more than happy to show the world that when they try to sneak photos of me with them and put them online.  The chance I might get cancer later really doesn’t matter to me.”

“You deserve better than that.  All of that.”

“Apparently Hailey’s out, though, you know that?  Dropped from the team.  Weed is legal but coach says we’re not allowed, and after she got frisky with boys around at the end-of-year party, one of the other girls passed it on to coach.”

“That’s a real bummer.  She was a good dancer.”

“She was a shit human being, though.  You know Hailey’s dad’s an alcoholic, right?  I remember my dad saying he’d get drunk off his ass and hit on anything female with two legs.  We joked about it once until Mia made us stop, but Mia’s the one he hit on, once.  Which, like, fine, that’s Mia, you know?”

“I don’t think that’s fine,” Avery said.  “Did anyone tell anyone?”

“I was one of the people who told Coach.  I think someone told one of our teachers, too, later, same incident, but apparently it got them a second visit?  I dunno.  Hailey was pretty pissed about that.”

“I don’t thinks she sounds like a bad person, from that.”

“Trust me, you know how the say the apple didn’t fall far from the tree?  Her apple didn’t even fall out of the tree, it got caught in the branches and rotted.  She was doing the same thing her dad does, drunkenly hitting on boys at the party, including boys others had dibs on, like George.”

“I don’t think you can have dibs on a boy, and I don’t remember her being like that.  She was just hanging out.”

“Doing more than hanging out, trust me.  Is that what we’re doing here?  I tell you stuff and you crap all over anything I say?”

“No.  Not crapping, just clarifying.”

Avery had to work to match her pace to Melissa’s.  She found herself dawdling, zig-zagging a bit.  Kind of like she did when Grumble hobbled around the neighborhood.

It was nice to be in the shade, at least.  The smell of the cigarette made Avery’s nose wrinkle, and it somehow felt way hotter, being close to that small flame.

She checked, just because, and it wasn’t damaged in the telltale way Cig was.

“So you’re gay, now,” Melissa said.

“I’m gay since birth, I’m pretty sure.”

“The girls were talking about it when they visited.  Mia was gloating about figuring it out beforehand.”

“She did, kinda.  I confirmed, because I don’t want to hide it, just… wasn’t broadcasting it.  She seemed pretty cool about it, in an awkward sort of way.”

“She’s not, you know.  She’s not cool, any more than she’s cool with me being a cripple.  She’ll be nice to you and post rainbow flags and whatever, but it’s only for image.  The moment you really need backup, they’ll all let you down.”

“I’m really sorry they let you down, Melissa.”

“I’m not talking about me.  I’m sick of talking about me, it’s a depressing subject.  So what else is there to talk about?  You’re gay, cool, do what works for you.  Girl at the Wavy Tree was gay and really good.”

“Is the kid your girlfriend or something?”

“Yep,” Snowdrop said.

“No,” Avery said, pushing at the side of Snowdrop’s head.  She wasn’t sure how to follow that up.  “Snowdrop’s younger than she looks.”

“Snowdrop, yeah, man, your parents really shit the bed when it came to naming you, huh?”

“Yeah,” Snowdrop said.

“I’m assuming we can’t talk about magic, because I never get a straight answer about that.  But you know stuff, Snowdrop?  Even before I told you  Because I showed you and you have to have told Avery.”

“What does it take?” Melissa asked.  “To get in?”

“A better attitude,” Avery said.  “Maybe.”

Melissa looked over at her.

“I was debating telling you,” Avery said.

Melissa grunted as she stepped forward, looked over.  The more uneven dirt path that had been carved deeper than wide by bike tires was hard for her to walk on.  “I bet you were.”

“It’s a bigger ask than you realize,” Avery told her.  “I’d need to know I can trust you to… not only be cool, but to be good at this.  And I know you can work your ass off from hockey and soccer, but you seem to have given up so…”

“So this conversation is, what, a test?”

“Kind of.  Maybe.  I’d have to talk it over with the others.  And a bunch of stuff.  So just talk to me, for now?”

Melissa grunted as she limped forward, for a few steps.

“Do you need to lean on me?  Would that help?” Avery asked.

“I don’t know what to say, then,” Melissa told her, sounding a bit surly.  “If I say the wrong things, I might scare you off and never get this magic stuff?”

“Being bitter about your friends isn’t great,” Avery said.  “Just as a clue.”

“That’s bad, then, because I haven’t even scratched the surface.”

“That’s bad, yeah,” Avery said.

“You should loop her in,” Snowdrop said.  “It’d be good for you guys.”

“Don’t try to worm your way into my good graces, rat,” Melissa said.

“And referring to my friend as a rat is really not a good move,” Avery said.  “I’m really trying to be nice about you being a little asshole, Melissa, and I’m really reaching, with possibly letting you know about stuff, but… please.”

She accidentally put a lot of her annoyance over Melissa into her tone with that last word.

The conversation died again.

A bike dinged its bell as it came from behind.  They stepped off the path, Melissa leaning heavily into a birch tree, hiding her cigarette, even though she couldn’t hide the smell.  A father, wife, and two kids zoomed through on their bikes, the dad raising a hand in a wave of thanks.

Melissa ventured, “When you dragged me out to meet Louise and that old guy, and that woman with the scars…”

“Charles and Clementine.”

“They said I should be careful.  The old guy looked like he’d been through the wringer, sick and starved…”

“He’s younger than our parents, I think.”

“Really through the wringer.  Wow.  But he said to be careful, that I should look to the girl with the scars to see what’s out there, and she should look to him, to see what waited for her, if she kept looking.”

“Back then, I looked over at you, because I sorta knew you.  We never really hung out, we could have, but you weren’t a Dancer and you always left school or practice so quickly.”

“I was pretty lonely, felt like suffocating, so I was pretty eager to get out of there.  Self-fulfilling, isn’t it?”

“I guess.  You were hurt, your arm, I think.  And you were worn out and dusty and your friends didn’t look much better.”

“Yeah, I don’t think telling you stuff would be the nicest thing I ever did.  I think there’s a good chance you’d be mad at me later on, because it gets heavy or tiring or it’s really rough when it’s rough.  And if this went badly with me inviting you in, I’d really pay for it, I think.”

Melissa pushed at Avery’s shoulder, and Avery turned, saw Melissa had stopped.

“Look me in the eye.”

Avery took another step, then faced Melissa square on.

“Look me in the eye and tell me.”

“This.  All of this.  Look at me and say whatever it is that you’re getting at.  What are you thinking, why?  Why now and not earlier this summer?”

“Because we’re outnumbered and it’s pretty awful,” Avery said, quiet.

“Awful how?  Why?  What’s awful?  You’re outnumbered by what?”

“Can’t say,” Avery told her.

Melissa screwed up her face, looking like she wanted to spit, but couldn’t find a good place.

Snowdrop went to Avery’s side, head against her shoulder, hugging her.  It was nice but with the temperature being what it was the heat of another person against her was a bit ugh.

“You want to know what I’m thinking?” Avery asked.  “I think you’re bitter and you’re unhappy and you might want to be unhappy, and I don’t get why but I want to fix it.  I want to help you and I don’t know a way how that isn’t telling you what’s going on.  But telling you would cost.  And then, even more than that, if I tell you and you’re this bitter or this ready to turn on me or turn on us… that really costs.”

“So what, I’m so piteous that you want to help-”

“-and yet because I’m so awful a person you don’t want to help me?”

“Oh, I want to.  I- I’ve seen you at your best, Melissa, I’ve seen you as one of the only people on the team who really tried and who helped me get that goal against Swanson, when most of the team gave up before we started.  And right now, I could really do with more of that.  You were obnoxious sometimes but you tried and I respected you and I want to help you because you’re in need and I want to help you because you could be so cool, and your single-minded stubbornness could be an asset but…”

Melissa drew on the cigarette.

The opposite of cool, like that, but… Avery wasn’t lying.

“But?” Melissa asked.

“I don’t know.  I’m not good at this.  I’d need some sign or some clue you’re not going to keep being… this.”

Melissa looked startled at that.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it quite like that sounded.”

Melissa smirked, then the smirk fell.

“I really didn’t,” Avery said.

“Avery’s a jackass like that,” Snowdrop said.

They stood in the shaded woodland path, a muddy furrow between them, Snowdrop at Avery’s side, Melissa holding the cigarette as it burned slowly toward her fingers.

Avery felt a droplet of sweat run down her back, and shivered despite herself.

“What happens?” Melissa asked.

“What happens what?  What are you asking about?”

“What happens if whatever?  What are my options?  I mean, this one offer you’re making me, I, what, say the magic words that convince you?  Then what?”

“There’s a process.  I think we’d have to send you to someone we trust, to handle initiating you, but I’d have you put my name on it.  So I own the consequences.  It’d make a lot of enemies but I think they’re enemies anyway.  You’d help us, in exchange.  The big stuff would happen this summer, then after that you’d be free, I guess.”

“Has to be,” Avery said.  “The more you know the harder it is to close the door.”

“What’s the other option?”

“I don’t know, exactly, but I think the alternative is that you carry on like this.  Trying to figure it out.  I know some people who… they stumbled on stuff or worked out a way of dealing with stuff, or they were kidnapped and couldn’t get away from the stuff…”

“They became Aware, but… not exactly capable of… stuff.  It made their lives complicated. In a lot of ways it made their lives… small?”

“Because if you know you can’t be prime minister or C.E.O. of a big company, or it’s harder.  And stuff chases you or you get caught up in a dynamic, depending on however you approached whatever little you’ve seen and figured out.  Some people, they fight it, they deny it so hard it… stuff can’t touch them.”

“I’m not denying anything, though.”

“No.  So if you continued like this, I’d be on the lookout for weirdness.  Patterns, or things you’ve seen or unusual things in the way the world treats you.”

Melissa’s eyes darted around, as she processed that.  “Like seeing or knowing things?”

“Yeah.  Why, have you-”

“I don’t really get it.”

Avery swallowed.  “Sorry.”

“Is it so bad?  Me doing that?  It’s not like I’d ever be a C.E.O. or anything anyway.”

Avery nodded without replying.  “It’s bad.”

“Why?” Melissa asked, concerned now.

“The woman with the scars, Clementine?  It started for her when she was little.  She lost most or all of her family, she can’t hold a steady job so she works online, and it’s not even being C.E.O..  Even love- a simple relationship, it’s hard for her.  Just dating, she’s scared because people who enter her life die.  A lot.”

“And you?” Melissa asked.

“Different… but there have been threats against my family, apparently.”

“I don’t like my mom, dad, or aunt that much, so that doesn’t bother me,” Melissa said, smirking.  But when Avery didn’t play along, she dropped the smirk, going straight to a depressed, detached look, more glum than before.  “Probably not winning myself any points, saying that.  I’m joking, just so you know.”

“I’m not,” Avery told her.  “There might be a third option, and I was going to check in and see if maybe it was an option, but I don’t know for sure.”

“That you realize you don’t want any part of this, and something clicks, and you can let go of it.  The guy who drove us the night of the party… he tried but you were holding onto the idea.  If you could let go, he could help you forget about all of this.”

Ideally that’d happen before the weirdness, because I think once something latches on you couldn’t escape, Avery thought.

Melissa shook her head.  “I can’t let go.  I need for there to be some magic in the world for a cripple like me, even if it’s a tease.”

“You’re not exactly a cripple, Melissa.  You can walk.”

Melissa shrugged, frowning.

Avery sighed, frustrated.  Snowdrop took her hand, squeezing.

“Option two it is, then?” Melissa asked.  “I keep doing this?  Good talk, goodbye?”

“I was asked to handle this.  Because if you keep going you might eventually make a real mess.  For me, Lucy, and Verona, or for others, or for all of Kennet.  And we can’t deal with many more messes before things really start going wrong.”

“You going to whip out a magic wand and turn me to ash here on this path?” Melissa asked.

“No,” Avery said.  “But I think some people would want me to.”

Melissa frowned, staring at Avery, then she fidgeted with the cigarette and dropped it to step on it.  “Funny.”

Avery shook her head, a small gesture.

“I just wanted the privacy to smoke without any neighbors seeing me,” Melissa said, quiet.

“I don’t intend to hurt you, Melissa, outside of an emergency situation like you coming after me with a knife or people’s lives being at stake.”

“I’m not seeing the options here, then.  I’m supposed to, what, I become a witch or whatever like you, if I can pass this B.S. purity test of yours, and you’ll get in super deep trouble?  Or I keep going like this until something goes wrong and I can’t even get a shitty boyfriend?  Or I’m supposed to have an epiphany and I go ‘oh, actually magic doesn’t sound super interesting, I don’t want to know.  Take it away from me!”

“There are options inside option number two, maybe,” Avery said.  “I don’t know for sure but I think the door won’t close and you could get that weirdness, however small.  Let that be the magic, if it happens.  You shouldn’t keep practicing or messing around or showing people.  That just opens the door wider and that might be when the life ruining stuff happens.”

“Just stop and ignore it, and it’ll come to me?”

“I don’t know,” Avery said.  But if you stop there’s a small chance that you’ll forget about this or you won’t be able to keep up the illusion, your mind will convince you it’s a trick, and you’ll become innocent again.

It felt manipulative, leaving that out.

“What if I’ve-” Melissa started.

“If there’s already something weird I’ve noticed?”

Avery’s heart sank.  “Don’t tell me.”

“Because then it becomes a thing!  You just… stop thinking about it, let it be.”

“I can’t!  You can’t say not to think about one of the only interesting, mind-bending things in my life!”

Avery opened her mouth, then closed it.

“You should become like Clementine,” Snowdrop told Melissa.  “It’s a good life.”

“It’s an awful situation happening to a good person, Melissa,” Avery said.  “And I think you’re bitter and you’re frustrated and you need to do your best to let this go, because if you don’t, then it might not ever, ever let you go.”

Melissa raised her hand, then dropped it.  She turned around, like she was going to storm off, then turned back to Avery.

Better to go before Melissa could force it.  “We’re going to leave.  You can find your way home?”

“We had a classmate, didn’t we?”

Avery had already turned away.  Now she stood on the path, her back to Melissa.  The words ringing in her ears.

“We had a classmate who sat up front and then we didn’t.  And there were others at school who disappeared.  I was reminded of it when I was thinking about you and Snowdrop there dating.  That it looks like a small age gap.  Didn’t- wasn’t the guy sorta creepy, a thirteen year old without friends hanging out with an eleven year old?”

Peyton, the eleven year old girl from the police station.

“The Dancers commented on that.  Sharon tried talking to the kid, to get her onto the dance team as an escape, even a short one, so maybe the dude would move on.  Am I making this up?”

Avery looked over her shoulder at Melissa.  Melissa seemed a little startled by Avery’s expression.

Melissa pressed on, “she wasn’t interested in dance, so she told us no.  But it was pretty obvious she was too nice, she got stuck with the weird friend.  We thought about having a come to Jesus talk with him, but Mia wanted to do it without bullying him, which was awkward.  And before we could decide on how, we all… we forgot about him.  His desk was empty.  This happened, didn’t it?”

Avery stalked her way toward Melissa, who backed away a step, winced as her foot came down funny, and then shied back as Avery closed the distance, moving in close.  She raised her hands, shielding her face and upper body- but Avery went low.  She pulled Melissa’s phone from her pocket.

“I thought you were going to kiss me without asking or something messed up like tha- that’s my phone, what the fuck?  Give that back!”

Melissa grabbed Avery’s shoulder, and Avery shook the hand off.

Melissa came after her again, and Snowdrop stepped into the way.

“I’m not above smacking you, even if you’re a bit younger.  Dropping the nice act, Avery?  I didn’t give you what you wanted, so you’re going to steal my phone?”

Avery had no pockets, so she’d kept the centipede card between her waistband and her hip.  With nowhere else to put it, she slid it between the case and the phone.  It took two tries.

The phone display corrupted, black voids opening up in it, revealing code beneath.  She kept it out of Melissa’s sight.

“What are you doing?” Melissa asked.

Avery remained silent, her expression serious.  She accessed the phone and accessed the gallery.

There were photos taken of things from the night of the party.  She selected all of them.

“Why is this pissing you off so much?  Huh!?  Because I can keep going!  I think other people have disappeared like the guy did!” Melissa called out.  She hobbled closer, and Snowdrop got in her way, pushing, cutting her off.

Avery paced, waiting, typed out her orders to the centipede card.  She hoped it would work.

Delete these photos.  Delete all copies on Melissa’s computers.

The card worked its magic.

“That’s not even the weirdest part of it!” Melissa called out.

“He came back, or they came back.  I’ve been walking with no place to go that isn’t getting food so I walked to his house, and he’s back, or something- it’s not him, like I remember him.  Older.  But his mom looked happy.  I tried knocking on her door to tell her about it, but she got weird about it.  Is that the kind of thing you were thinking about?”

“Thanks for the info,” Avery said.

“I don’t get you.  I don’t get why you’re pissed and happy at the same time, I don’t know why you stole my phone…”

Avery looked down, then typed on the phone in the black, corrupted space the centipede had carved out: Hide until she plugs you into the computer, delete the relevant images there, then remove yourself.

She threw the phone to Melissa.  Melissa caught it.

“It’s good info,” Avery said.  “I’m really worried that by telling us, you’ve saved some lives and ruined your own.  You have my number.  Reach out whenever.”

“What, just like that, we’re done?”

Avery shrugged, feeling sad, frustrated.  She put the card back in her waistband.

“What did you do to my phone?”

“Deleted the photos you took.”

Melissa paused, then scowled.  “Fuck you.  Put them back!”

I know that phones will back up images onto the desktop as you put them there, or leave them there or whatever, Avery thought.  I know you can get deleted images back onto a system, and maybe you’re thinking of that too.  But the centipede card is better than that.

“Hey, Ave!?” Melissa called down the length of the path, as Avery walked away.  “Fuck you!  You’re a shit person!”

“If you run into trouble because of this, let us know.  There was a place where people like Clementine gathered, I’m not sure it’s still around, but we could point you that way,” Avery said.

She walked away, and Melissa, after a short bit, hobbled the opposite way.

“That wasn’t useful or good in any big way,” Snowdrop said.

“It was… it’s a tidbit of information,” Avery said.  “At a price.”

“Nah,” Snowdrop replied.  “You fucked up, Avery.  She really wanted help there.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Avery replied.

They had a glimmer of what that third Other was.  The blond one who’d been with Peyton.

A bunch of people had disappeared when the Choir had taken them and they’d left a void where their Selves and lives had been.  Something had crawled into that void to occupy it and live in it, and that something was complex like Edith was complex, made up of individual fragments.  It lived their patterns, including a friendship with a girl who was too nice to say no.  And it had been holding true to the patterns that let it stay close to the police station, where its fellow Others had been.  A bit of delinquency, from someone else.  Like Reagan?  Or her friend?  That explained why it was older.

“Can you go recruit some goblins?  Small ones?  Raid her room and get the diagrams she’s already drawn?  Don’t do any damage or wreck anything?  Just… be thorough?  Get the trash, and everything else?”

“If I take the Warrens I’ll be too slow to beat her there.”

“I’m glad that went okay.”

“I’m sorry too, Snow,” Avery told her friend.  “I hope the others are doing better.”

Snowdrop gave her a quick hug, then reversed direction, ducking into the trees, down a slope.

Avery walked a bit, digesting what had happened, clenched her fists, then kicked a tree, hard.

Melissa was probably Aware, now.  She’d been on that track from the moment she’d opened her awareness enough to recognize Gabe’s absence.  Avery had hoped for help, a friend, or at least cooperation.

Instead they’d gotten a disaster waiting to happen.