Pale: 10.1 - Avery

One After Another – 10.1 | Pale
“None of this Babylonian stuff?” Avery asked.  “That okay?”

“I’m an opossum who can’t read.  I’d rather keep the babble.  You’d pronounce it really well, I bet.”

“Yeah, Snow, alright.  And the circle… there are different options.”

“I don’t like the moon one.”

“The eclipsed circle is a Tyrannical familiar relationship, the Other eclipsed by the Master, Snow.”

“Hmm.  You wouldn’t have to give me strawberry milk anymore.”

“I’m not doing that, and I’ll give you milk anyway.”

“I’m domesticated, so it wouldn’t change much.”

“Not going to happen, so let’s not talk about it.  There’s the option of the two of us in a circle, but that’s very open and I’d worry I’d crush you with my Self.  Or each of us in separate circles… but that’s almost too distinct.”

“You’re a Finder and I’m Lost and we need those circles in a place like this,” Snowdrop said.

Avery raised her eyebrows.

“We have to do it my way,” Snowdrop said, firm.

“No, um.  It works, I think.  And I want to use your input.  It’s a neat observation.  I just worry how fluid things might get, if we don’t use any circle at all.  Is it doable?”

“It’s doable,” Tymon said.  “But it is fluid.  And you’d be open to… this.”

He indicated the surrounding landscape.  The wrought-iron building around the landing, on this end of the concourse, the tiled floor, in white, yellow, black, and red, each tile about three feet across by three feet across.  Paths seven tiles wide and a few hundred tiles long extended on either side of a mishmash of shops, small buildings, and cloth-draped stands.  A staircase led to a narrower path, over the shops.  Short sets of broad stairs allowed people to come in and out on the trains, each stair made up of two three-foot by three-foot tiles.

“Is that a bad thing?” Avery asked.

“No.  Dreg and I did a set of overlapping circles.  Venn diagram style.  We used the ritual itself to decide what went in the overlapping area and what was distinct.”

“So no circle and no old language crap?” Snowdrop asked.  “And we should make it all crazier with no words either.”

“They’d have to be good words,” Avery said.  “Which gets us to the nasty bit.”

“I like nasty,” Snowdrop said.

“Is there any way around binding her?” Avery asked Tymon.  “The whole point is to give something up and lock us in as partners, but the books outline it as dependent on getting the seal applied.”

“No,” Avery said, at the same time Snowdrop said, “Yes.”

“Our relationship didn’t start with a binding,” Snowdrop added.

“Even so.  You weren’t you, then,” Avery said.

“How important is it to you?” Tymon asked.  “Not having the seal.”

“Semi-important.  And it’s only ‘semi-‘ because I don’t get the impression Snowdrop minds.  I get the impression she’d roll with it and never give it a second thought.”

“But it’s important to me because the seal is… the Others I trust and the Practitioners I don’t trust have convinced me that whatever it used to be, it’s evolved to something that’s, hmm… it’s in bad faith, I suppose?  Or used in bad faith.  Snowdrop’s included among the group of Others and if I bound her I think that would change how some of them look at me.”

“Are you going to not use the seal at all?” Tymon asked.  “Because if you skip using it here but then start using it on the regular elsewhere, that hurts the impact of this arrangement.”

“Let me think on that.”  Avery folded her arms, deep in thought.  She glanced over at the others, who were huddled near Nicolette, Lucy exchanging some words with Zed, Verona taking shorthand notes that she’d tidy up to some ridiculous degree later, probably sending an email.

If today went well.  She had to remember that the path thing was deadly serious.

Verona was an improviser, to a scary degree.  Avery did admire that.

And Lucy was very aware of… of the present.  She was present, Avery thought, hyperaware of the words people were using and the details in the situation and stuff.

Avery had often felt like she had to turn her brain off for her best performance.  Eye on the goal, trusting her skates or her soccer cleats to help her get to that goal, mind disassociating from the everyday to get into the rules of the game, of position and movement and where her team was.

This was an improvisation thing, and it was a thing that demanded that Avery dwell firmly in reality and what her actions meant in terms of the world.  She itched to ask the others and she felt like it was very important, at the same time, that she didn’t.

If she did, it would be their decision and she’d trust it.  They were already contributing and taking part.  She was wearing their contributions.

“I feel like if I start having to use the seal regularly, that’s a problem.  That’s not the direction I want to go.  I’d rather…”

She trailed off, eyebrows knitting together as she thought.  Normally she’d umm and uhhh her way through the idea, but she wanted her words on this platform to matter, as she connected with Snowdrop.

“…Charge forward with only the good scraps of convention, leave behind toxic traditions that I’d be keeping only because they’re tradition.  A mentor told us something like that, once.  That we could move on or hold to the past, but we should be consistent.  I want to move forward.”

Tymon frowned.  “So, just to be clear, no circle, no seal?  Just words?”

“Will that work?” Avery asked.

“I suppose that’s up to you.”

“Yeah?” Avery asked, looking at Snowdrop.

Snowdrop nodded.  “Just don’t touch me, either.”

Avery nodded.  Then she reached out, pausing.  Snowdrop took her hand and placed it firmly on top of her head.

“I’d worry about that being patronizing, my hand on your head,” Avery said.

“Head-pats are super patronizing and there’s no way we should ever make them something formalized between us.  That’d ruin everything.”

“You two are wacky,” Jude said, from the sidelines.

“Coming from you, Mr. Fancy Hat, I think that’s real fair,” Snowdrop said, pointing at Jude’s cracked leather cap with the flaps over the ears and goggles at the brow.

“Hey, c’mon.  My great granddad wore this in the war.”

“We’re trying to build alliances here, Snow, so maybe don’t insult the guy’s flappy goggle hat?”

“Aviator hat,” Jude said.

Avery watched as Nicolette blocked Liberty from getting to her equipment.  Liberty brandished a water pistol, while a wailing Cherrypop clung to her ankle.

“What do you think?” Tymon asked.

“Nervous.  About the new path, about the Familiar ritual.”

“Let it fall from the heart,” the mouse at Tymon’s shoulder said, in a man’s voice.

“Like awakening,” Tymon told her.  “Did you run into that?  Where words felt natural?”

“So long as I went with the flow, yeah.  Okay.”  Avery drew in a breath.  “Can you go get them?”

“Sure,” Tymon said, quiet.  He turned, walking over.  “Guys!”

“All good, Snow?  We’ve got your goblin buddies, you want to call others?”

Snowdrop nodded.  “Can I?”

Avery reached for her bag, and pulled out her cape, with the dog tag wound at one point.  She handed it to Snowdrop, and she swept the cape out, pulling it on.  Hat on a string at her neck, mask at her side.  She took the horn and poised it at her brow, and it stayed there, where it would be if she had the mask on and it was still a part of the mask.

Snowdrop hurled the dog tag down, while stepping toward the concourse.

“Miss!” Avery called out.

She could hear John’s boots on the tile.

“Miss!” Avery called out, louder, toward the Lost.  Some heads turned.

Tymon addressed the others.

“Miss!” Avery’s voice rang out.

The others gathered, and the goblins left Liberty’s side to circle around, going behind Snowdrop, where John already stood, feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped in front of him.

For lack of a place to stand, the Garrick family of Finders who weren’t busy going over notes went to stand behind Snowdrop.

“No Miss?” Verona asked.

“No, but it’s understandable, she’s forgiven, I trust she’s keeping the intent of the deal,” Avery said.  She felt a pang of regret and disappointment, thinking, I hope we didn’t hurt her any.  She did say she’d come when called.  Hopefully my extra words keep her from suffering the consequences.

“I guess we’re not doing this,” Snowdrop said.

Snowdrop nodded.  Cherrypop made a noise of protest.

Avery reached out a hand.  Snowdrop clasped it.

Unasked for and unbidden, some Lost from the end of the concourse closer to them changed direction.  The ‘arrival’ area that they’d been dropped into was dark, most of the sunlight blocked off by glass and the wrought iron construction, and a lot of the sunlight that did come through was dappled or filtered, like the circular slash of light that shone through the clock that faced the Promenade.  Light clearly demarcated the starting line, which Jude had confirmed.  As Lost passed from light to the shaded interior, the Lost relaxed their more intent patterns of movement.

The Garrick Finders stepped back and out of the way as the various Others came in, moving to a point off to the side, or behind Avery.

Seven kids with mean smirks and brightly colored pleated skirts and shorts for their school uniforms, color matched.  A girl with a dress and pigtails that puffed out like umbrellas at her waist and behind her head.  A skinny, alarmed, man came running in, dripping wet, wearing only a towel that was so small his hand strained to keep hold of it.  He slipped on the very same moisture he was shedding and fell violently, which made Cherrypop and Peckersnot both start laughing uproariously, almost in sync.

A beast lumbered in from off to the side, head ducking low to pass through the archway from the main concourse.  It was canine and feline and lizard and none of those things, and the labels slipped onto and through it in a way that seemed natural.  It radiated menace and danger and it moved with a slow, loping kind of grace as it moved behind the group.  Below it, more Others came through, including a groom and his bride that were perpetually separated by the beast’s footfalls and by the passage of Lost.  Both were intent on getting to the other and couldn’t.

A man with a high collar and top hat, with only misty shadow between collar and hat, the shadows suggesting features while evidencing nothing.  There was a spider crammed into a business suit, somehow maintaining the angles that made the suit look like a person was inside it, one spidery leg reaching up to hold a bowler hat up roughly where it should be.  An owl with four legs came in, a city in small scale on its back, smaller Lost clustering there.  Avery’s eye was caught by a woman with her hair and clothes in disorder who came running in, followed by an avalanche of rolling buzzsaw blades, axes flipping end over end, blades pushed along the ground by things behind them, something on fire, explosives devices that were yet to go off, and explosives that did go off, giving momentum to the things like the axes that might otherwise have lost them.  She stopped and reached her arms out, catching two things and sliding back a few feet as the others slammed into those objects.  Her body and arms trembled, and everything remained poised, moments from collapsing on top of her and chopping her into at least four pieces.

The shifting beast settled, lying down, and it still towered over everything, framing the back half of the scene.  The woman with the avalanche of stuff behind her shrieked as the configuration changed, and saved herself, hands still out and arms strained, but now with her teeth gripping a knife.

Verona and Lucy stood off to the sides, each with a copy of Famulus, brought by the Blue Heron guys.  Ready to supply answers if needed.  Snowdrop grinned, framed by a backdrop of Lost, wide enough that Avery could see that she still had missing teeth.  Flowers in her hair, which had been combed into waves, predominantly gray dress, earrings flashing as they dangled, moving in and out of the dappled light that shone in through the structures.

“This is where we part ways forever,” Snowdrop told Avery.  “You were lame the day I met you and you’ve only gotten lamer since.  I’m secretly as powerful as heck and there’s no way I’m going to share that with you.”

Cherrypop struggled in John’s grasp as he kept her sitting on his shoulder, keeping her quiet.

“By old rules, I invite you deeper into my world.  I’ve been greedy, Snow, we took you from the forest, I seriously thought I might sacrifice you, and I made you a tool to help me on the Trail.  You did everything you were supposed to and more, you saved me, you won me over, and even if the Trail was a nightmare that I still haven’t completely gotten over, it gave me you.  I wanted to do this here, in a place that’s closer to your nature as a Lost, because we spend so much time in my world.  When we go back, let this ritual help you be welcomed and embraced by that world, by humanity, and by any demesne I establish.”

“I don’t want it and I don’t accept.  I want you and the spirits to hear me, I’m neither Lost, from Spirit, or from Nature.  I’m all of those things and none and you’re not welcome to any of it.  You and me are different in this, and I think that’s important, Avery.  You’re not meant to straddle worlds like me.  You’re meant to stay put and I’m going to make you stay put.”

Avery’s hand tightened, gripping Snowdrop’s.  “I accept any and all help that you’re willing to give me.  I accept any and all shelter and support you provide.”

“Go!” Jude’s great uncle shouted.

Jude’s aunt-once-removed stepped out onto the path, veering left.  The line of them all moved up one position.

The teenager two positions ahead of Avery and Snowdrop was dressed like he was from the nineteen twenties, his clothes rugged, ‘workhouse’, and styled in that direction.  He had mushrooms hanging from ropes tied to his belt, an oversized coin he held with his fingers wrapped around the edge, the flat of the coin lying against his forearm, and he had a very full backpack.

Three Garrick finders were standing on the very edge of the Promenade.  One had a pegboard, and kept making adjustments, placing white and black pegs in, checking a few devices, then talking into a walkie-talkie.  Another was like a court transcriber, typing away on something like a typewriter, and what Avery could see of the paper that was spooling out the end suggested it was gibberish and punched holes.  Jude’s great uncle was handling the overall organization, the rate at which people entered, tracking who was where and who was out, and the information they needed to know.

Lucy, Verona, Nicolette, Zed, John, the two goblins, Fernanda, and everyone else were gathered at the edge, or peering through the open spaces in the wrought iron building face.  Out there, past the threshold, where sunlight fell in a neat line at the edge of the indoor tiles and the outdoor tiles, was the Promenade.  It was an animated scene, each moment something that could be snapshotted and made into a painting, blown up to full size, and put on a kid’s bedroom wall.  Each individual out there was interesting, and the Garrick Finders with their rugged clothes and tendency toward brown, cracked leather, ropes, utility, and scrounged-up things stood out a bit.

Two thirds of the Garrick finders had entered and bailed.  Things moved in a start and stop, and the Lost out there made it look natural, shifting feet and pacing within the spaces they occupied, or moving in twos and threes, sometimes, sharing tiles.  When they shared tiles, they always had to share those tiles, or they were part of a set.

“We need a good vantage point,” the great uncle said.  “Eyes on family as they try to get past the alley.”

The teenager with the mushroom belt nodded.  “Bridge?”

“Please.  Look at the tops of the trains as you go.  Watch out for anything that smiles.  The bridge is narrow, so you won’t have much wiggle room.  Check your walkie-talkie.”

“Lance B. Prescott, coming over top, on the bridge, going to be watching from above while you try to figure things out.”

“We hear you, Lance.  Come on over.”  The reply came through the walkie-talkie, and ended with a double buzz.

“What’s your pattern?”

“Two tiles of movement, diagonals only.”

“Good.  How are we with the clock?” the great uncle asked, walkie-talkie held up to his mouth.

Avery couldn’t make out the words through the crackle, but it sounded positive.

“Fifteen seconds.  Nell is coordinating with her brother on the mapping.  Using the gate of horn to get the shops.   Writing labels and… good.  Go!  Clock!”

The clock resumed, Others moved, and Finders made their self-prescribed movements.

Jude’s older teenage cousin, a girl, moved up to next in line.  Her great uncle tugged on the rope at her waist, verifying it was knotted right, adjusted the straps at her shoulders, then ran through her list of things to do.  “You’ve got the coupon?”

The girl held up a coupon, all business.

“Coupon compels an Other to give us an answer,” Jude whispered to Avery.  “The coupon booklet gives us one a week but regularly steals food from your kitchen at the same time.  We think it takes the things you’re most looking forward to cooking or things you need for big recipes.  It’s sort of an unofficial rule that the person who makes the dumbest mistake and drops off the path soonest has to keep the coupon book and the unhatched chick in their house.  Second worst disappointment keeps the bingo card.”

“I’m curious,” Avery said, though she wanted to focus on what Jude’s cousin was saying and doing.  They were talking about the alley, recapping what they knew.  The alley was tripping up the finders, a gap between two stores on the left path, that Lost kept coming out of.  Smiling Lost.

“Unhatched egg screams randomly.  We don’t know what it does yet but Alexander Belanger said it was strong, so we keep troubleshooting it.  The bingo card makes noises and circles numbers when those numbers crop up randomly in real life and when you get a bingo it dumps you onto a random point on a Path you’ve been to before.”

“That sounds scary.  If that’s the drawback, what’s the good part?”

“Like I said, it dumps you onto a random point on a Path you’ve been to.  It’s useful.  Also means you always get dropped back where the card was when you leave the Path, however you leave, with a fresh bingo card.  It’s… there’s paths with good rewards at the end, and you can get lucky and get dropped close to the end.”

“Can’t you also get dropped like, right into danger?”

“Yeah.  So mostly we keep it in our back pocket and the people who have the bingo card have very boring days with no electronic devices or anything that displays numbers.”

“I think I’d rather have the coupon and egg.”

“They’re really annoying, but yeah.  I don’t know how or why it ended up like that, but it’s how we’ve done it for years.  Your tip about the Forest Ribbon Trail detour really helps with the bingo card.  We’re thinking about preparing the next generation with only one path the bingo card can take them to, and when they get to the you-know-what then they can use the detour.”

“I’m not sure it’s a guarantee.”

“I know.  But we’re thinking about it.”

“Adorea Elizabeth Prescott-Garrick, coming in on the left side, coupon in hand,” the teenager ahead of Avery said, into her walkie-talkie.

“Loud and clear.  Be safe, sweetie,” was the response.  Two more buzzes to wrap up.

“What’s your pattern?” the great-uncle asked.

“Two tiles, straight line.”

“Good, wait for the clock,” the great uncle said.  “We ready?”

“We dropped two more at the alley.  Rod came within an inch of his life as he pulled on the rope.”

“Yeah, but that’s Rod,” Adorea said, not into the walkie-talkie.

“Be nice,” the great uncle told her.

“Rod sucks,” Adorea told Avery, smiling.

Nice smile, not so nice attitude.  “Poor Rod, then,” Avery said.

“Ready in ten… nine…”

Adorea turned forward, squaring her shoulders, then fixed her ponytail, as the countdown continued.

“Go!” the great uncle said, to both Adorea and the walkie-talkie.

Adorea stepped forward.  The clock was audible and the Others shuffled, moving to new positions.  The clock above the archway banged as all movement halted again, but the conversation of Lost and the sounds of wares being hawked continued unabated.

Snowdrop ran over to Avery’s side, arm going around Avery in a half hug as she bumped into her.

“Got the Finder’s Knots?”

“Yep.  And gates of horn and antler prepped,” Avery said, patting her pocket.  “Wearing my barometer.”

“Black rope is a gift from a Lost.  Special movement.”

“You going to be using that?”

“Let’s go over what we know.  Stick to one form of movement.  Maybe you can use that thing, I don’t know, but-”

“Hard in a crowded place.”

“-but if you cheat or bump into an Other, it makes things worse for all of us.  That’s part of why you’re second to last.  The biggest hazard is the Others.  Most are going about their business, they each have a pattern to how they move and you’ll have to work that out for yourself, and there’s a lot of them, so there’s a lot of working out to do.  The ones you really want to watch out for are-”

“The smiling ones,” Avery said, at the same time he said it.

He nodded once.  “Every cheat or failed move seems to get us more smiling faces on the Promenade.  They try to bump into you, moving along their routes, and they attack when they meet you while you’re on your way to a spot or if they land on the same spot as you.  Sometimes it’s blatant, sometimes it’s a sneak attack.”

“Yep.  Sending me to the alley of smiling Lost then?”

“No.  Go down the right side with Jude.  It’s more crowded and it’s worse with the little mistakes we’ve made, but there’s also more stationary Others.  The ones who don’t move have their little interactions if you stop in front of them.  Not that many are in a position to let you stop in front.  Try to put yourself in front of the flower seller, and then later there’s another one in a booth with a chair, booth has had a purple front, a few times.  Sit in the chair, hear her out, report back.  Then… whatever else you can find out about the ones who don’t move.”

“Excuse me,” the man said.  He reached for her belt where she’d knotted the rope and gave it a serious check, top and bottom, before giving it a firm tug.  It got frayed at the end, but the frayed threads held a fairly consistent shape.  “Rope’s good.  You packed light.”

“I either pack light or I pack heavy, rarely in the middle.”

“I pack super heavy,” Snowdrop said.

“Right.  Walkie-talkie, here.  You’re on channel two.  Channel three is for everyone.  Using that is a fast way to annoy us.”

Avery nodded, taking the walkie-talkie.  She looked down at Snowdrop, then checked Snowdrop’s belt.

“Announce yourself through channel two.  Name, direction, role.”

Avery lifted up the walkie talkie and talked into it.  “Avery Kelly and Snowdrop, newbie and Lost, coming down the right side.  We’ll be checking the stationary Others, trying to navigate through, and we’ve been asked to give you guys a fresh set of non-Garrick eyes.  I’ll use my Gate of Ivory partway through if I can.”

“And press-” the great uncle started.  Avery hit the button twice.  “Yes.  When you’re done with whatever you’re saying.  Good.”

“I’m sending Jude in right after her,” the great uncle said, through the walkie-talkie.

“Heard.  I hope you and Jude work well together.  We have high hopes,” a man’s voice came through.

Jude put his hand to his face with an audible slap.

Verona and Lucy approached.  Verona paused, then began to climb the wrought iron of the building.  She hung off it with one hand and one leg, peering through the arch from a higher vantage point.

“Your movement pattern?” the great uncle asked.

“I was thinking long knight’s move.  Three forward, one over, or vice versa.”

“Might be ambitious.  In our first runs through this Path we tried stuff like that.  Bishop’s move, or five spaces in any direction.  But it’s hard to see that far ahead, tracking all the Others and how they move, and it makes it easier to get intercepted by any smiling faces.”

Jude leaned over to her, saying, “Sometimes a Path is best handled by hurrying through it before it can get complicated.”

“This isn’t one of them.  You should reconsider.”

“The reason we brought her is she’s new and she shakes things up some,” Jude said.  “She has decent instincts.”

“Choosing this is bad instinct.”

“Are we good to start the clock again?” a voice came through the walkie-talkie.

“No,” the great uncle replied.  “Talking to the newbie.  Rest, drink water.  Look over your notes.”

“Feels right,” Avery told him.

“I don’t think the Others who are going to knife you or throw you off the side of the path care.”

“Uncle Peter, I think you should let it go.”

“Can you keep up with her?”

“I’ll try.  Three in any direction.”

“Announce yourself.  Make sure the signal’s going through okay.’

Jude lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth.  “Jude Philip Garrick, following Avery.  Guarding her and I’m asking if there are any general observations I should track while I’m at it.”

“We hear you, Jude,” a girl’s voice came back.  “You realize if you mess up here we’re giving you the unhatched egg and coupon?  So every time you go for a pop tart and find the box empty or hear a scream in the middle of the night, you can be reminded of the cringe.”

“That’s not how we determine who gets those things.”

“I think it should be the biggest loser of the event, and if you mess up here you’re definitely it.”

“Agreed,” a guy’s voice came through.

“My cousins suck,” Jude said.

“Enough,” the great uncle said.  “They might be coming in fast.  Communicate with them.  He says he wants to trust the newbie, so he should definitely get the fucking egg and coupon if they don’t make it more than a few moves deep.”

Snowdrop squeezed her hand.  Avery looked down and smiled.

“Get us ready.  Start the clock in ten, nine…”

“I’ll give you sustenance.  Including strawberry milk, and I’ll give you strength and lifespan as part of that.  My lifespan is your lifespan, if and when it helps.”

“I’ll outlive you.  I’ll keep my spirit-ness and Lost-ness to myself.  I’ll hold you down, let you wallow in the worst parts of humanity wherever I can.”

“I’ll lift you up too, from those forces that bind and hamper, as karmic Law permits.  If reaching out to me and taking of my humanity and mortality is meant in goodwill and it helps you, then take.”

“If taking of my stuff helps and is meant in a good way, then you’re all out of luck.”

“I give you sanctuary and asylum.  My home is your home, my protections your protections.”

“I give you my ability to lie, Avery, out of hopes it screws you up real bad and ruins your practice forever.  You get nothing else from me you’d want, in protections and special rules.”

“All of this is yours,” Avery said, her fingers interlacing with Snowdrop’s, their hands held between them.  “With no expectations except that you keep doing what you’ve been doing, no expectations you share any secrets or things given or told to you in confidence.”

“You’re going to have to step it up,” Snowdrop told Avery, “because you’ve been slacking.  You’ll have to tell me everything.”

On John’s shoulder, Cherrypop leaned over to a Lost and did a really bad job of whispering, “I think Snowdrop’s winning.”

Avery moved out onto the path, holding Snowdrop’s hand, pacing their speed so they stopped where they wanted to be as the clock came to an audible halt.  There were already six Others she had to navigate but she’d been able to watch them for a little while.  The little dog balanced on the ball moved like a bishop, but always as far as it could.  There was a young girl holding a potted plant, the foliage sticking out and back, obscuring her upper body from the ribcage up.  She moved one step at a time, had stopped in front of the flower seller, and got water, which she’d poured in the pot.

The bullies, as Avery thought of them, were around Declan’s age, a boy with hair parted, bright red shorts and a red tie for his school uniform, and a girl that was a little taller, hair in braids, school uniform skirt and the thin tied ribbon-bow at her collar a dark green.  Both wore white shirts with buttons buttoned up to a tie.  Both smiled. The boy carried a fistful of sharpened pencils.  The girl a metal meter-stick.

The boy moved one step, then two, repeating.  He could choose the directions: up, down, left, right.  Orthogonal, Jude had called it.  The girl moved similarly, but diagonals.

This was a small part of why Avery had wanted the long movement.  The non-smiling Lost were either moving and trying to cooperate, going about their day, and would avoid moving into the way unless they had only one available movement or their moves were strict, like the colorful ball with the circus dog on it.

Small movements created problems if and when they got to a place that was seven tiles wide and two smiling Lost were there, poised to attack, ready to move one or two tiles each.

From white to yellow.  Avery moved closer to the kids.  They moved closer to her.  All of them on the left side of the path.  Jude was right behind her.

Avery stopped.  Snowdrop stuck out her tongue at the girl in the green school uniform.  The girl smiled and slapped her palm with the meter long strip of metal, then touched the tile with it, eliciting a blackboard screech as the corner dragged on material.

“Hey Jude, just so you know,” a voice came in over the walkie talkie, “an awful lot of these Others are recognizable.”

“Keep tabs on that?  If we can figure out which Others recur here and which ones are native to the Promenade, that could be useful.”

“Can hidden faces smile?” Avery asked.

“No,” Jude said.  “With most things out on the Paths, if there’s a rule tied to something you can manage with one of the five senses, it’s rarely going to lie.”

“When I walked the Trail, one of the objects was buried in the paint, the cat skull was barely visible under an Other’s skin, and the coin was under a layer of dirt.”

“Go!” the great uncle’s voice came through the walkie talkies.

From yellow to black.  Avery moved off to the side.  The kids were too slow to follow.

“Where the heck was your starting point?  A murder room?”

“Yes,” Snowdrop said.  “Avery’s murder room.”

“I figured the path always threw you for a bit of a loop,” Avery said.

“I mean, sometimes, but that’s a lot of loops.”

“I got stuck out there.  With the-” Avery remembered how Jude had skipped naming it.  “You know what.”

“Shit.  Was that what you talked about, during the ritual?”

“I laughed and went home and I didn’t help,” Snowdrop said.

“Snowdrop got taken off the Path by a rival, leaving me there with… her.”

“He gives me the occasional bad dream and I spent a few minutes with him.  What do you even do?  Sneak around to the detour?”

“She got that too.  An acquaintance came and gave me some emotional support, my friends negotiated and got my attacker to step in and replace me, and her boss kind of arranged a way out for her after that.”

“Oh… I think I remember that.  I wasn’t part of it though.”

Black to red.  Avery moved up ahead, to the flower seller.  A woman with a basket almost too big for her, leaning back against a large gardening spade she’d plunged into the tile.  Her hair had flowers worked into it and each of the flowers had an insect in it.

“Here, a free sample,” the flower seller said.  “The next one costs.”

Avery took a pair of black, old fashioned gardening gloves.  They looked slender, matched to her hand size.  She turned them over and smiled.  “They look nice.”

The flower seller smiled.

“Gloves from the generous flower seller,” Avery reported to the walkie-talkie, buzzing twice.

“Any side effects?” Jude asked.  He was pretty close to the girl with the long ruler, and she had a lot of his attention.  Avery focused on what came next.  Sparse population of Others, but she hadn’t gotten a good glimpse of them.  A small fridge with a door slammed shut, two legs and a butt sticking out.  Occupied two tiles.  And there had been an Other who she’d glimpsed while it was moving but she couldn’t see it now.  Two dimensional, maybe.

The rule was to touch all four colors, rest twice.  Then touch all four colors again.

The kids moved closer.  Jude tensed.  The ball was also back on its way toward them.

Avery watched the others ahead and how they moved.  The fridge guy kicked at the floor, toes pushing, and slid a few spots down.  Moved three, then two…  The hidden Other was only visible when moving, not when stationary.  Moved one tile at a time.  Easy enough to avoid, unless it was a pattern like one, one, three.

Jude answered the question she’d asked a bit ago.  “You hear stories about people who get lost, get stuck on a strange path for weeks or months, they come back, but the Path sits with them.  Any weirdness?  Things going missing?  Stuff about you not functioning like it should?”

“Nothing,” Snowdrop said.

“What are you thinking, Snow?” Avery asked.

Snowdrop gave her chest a pat, then pointed over Avery’s head.

“The antler?  I guess my broken antler was staying up when it should fall down.”

“Could be a Lost thing.  Entangling what you had with you back then with you.  It might be worth looking at the clothes you wore back then.”

Avery tracked the Other movements, staying put.

The girl moved next to Jude, smiling.  She licked the edge of the ruler and drew a line of blood on her tongue, then spat blood on the ground by his feet.

“I hate these kids,” Jude said, watching her.

“There’s another one further ahead.”

“At least it’s just one.  There can be seven.”

“Falling Oak Avenue.  Pretty common path.  If this works out I’ll give you the details.”

From red to white.  Avery moved.

A slap and a yelp from Jude got Avery’s attention.  The girl in green had got him.  He held his hands to his rump as he moved next to the flower seller.

“Not sure.  Ow.  Ow ow ow.”

He did.  His pants were split across the buttocks, and he was bleeding.

“A sample for you, sir,” the flower seller told Jude.  She reached behind her and got a tall arrangement of metal that looked like it was meant for flowers to grow up.

“Thanks,” Jude told her.  “Ow.  This hurts.”

It was bleeding a lot.  The fabric from the cut to his knees was crimson now.

She could hear Jude hiss as he jogged to his next spot.  She made a mental note.  The fridge guy hadn’t budged.  Three two one zero?

Another Bully from further up the path was standing directly across from Avery, smiling.  He wasn’t carrying pencils or anything.

“Give us a minute?” Avery asked, through the walkie-talkie.

“Will check in in a minute.”

She handed her bag to Snowdrop, opened it, and got some first aid stuff.  She tossed it to Jude.

“Should I pull off my pants?”

“I have two brothers and have zero interest in what’s in your pants.  So unless you care what the Others think…”

“Would you strip here?”

“I dunno, Jude.  But bandage your ass somehow, okay?”

He turned, facing the open sky, and pulled down his shorts, leaving his boxers on.

The girl in green pointed and laughed.  Jude flushed and pulled his shorts back up, grabbed a pad of bandage, and put it inside the slit in the seat of his shorts, did it with another bit of bandage and then stretched bandage around his pelvis, outside his shorts.

“Okay.  For my notes, is this research or are you in a pinch?”

“I got nicked,” Jude answered.  “Bandaging up.”

“Jude got a metal flower thing, by the way,” Avery said.

“It’s not a trellis,” Snowdrop said.

Avery gave Snowdrop a look. “Flower trellis.”

“How do you know what a flower trellis is?” Avery asked.

“I dunno.  It’s not like I’m researching flowers to find ones with rude names or because I’m named after one.”

She watched Jude, sympathetic.

“There are pins in there for holding the bandage together.  Sorta hourglass shaped, little hooks to catch on the fabric.”

“You know this stuff?”

“Only what I picked up from sports.”

He found it and used it to keep the bandage in place.

The Others talked, and seemed to mostly ignore their presence.  Avery checked faces and things that approximated faces, looking for smiles.

Music was playing from booths, conversation made a hubbub, and a train had pulled up on the left side of the path, with Avery only able to glimpse it through the various materials that made up the booths and shops.  She could smell food and a lot of it was along the lines of baked goods, teas, cakes, and things that made her think of the dream with Montague.  Except probably not lethal.

Possibly enchanted or Lost, though.  A cake that would make her crap out coins or something.

The clouds were changing color as they moved, as was the sky.  It played tricks with her eyes, because a golden hue to the clouds could cast out onto the concourse and then the white tiles could look gold.

There was a feeling that reminded Avery of a suspension bridge.  She couldn’t see sway and there wasn’t exactly a creak, but this place was suspended and something in that reached her midsection without operating by way of any of her conventional senses.

“Good to go,” Jude reported.  “Sorry.”

“Then in three, two, one… go!”

Black to yellow-  Avery moved, but the fridge thudded as it turned ninety degrees onto its side, then reversed direction.  It hurled itself across three spaces, and she had to quickly adjust.  It changed speeds, giving her time to duck past, but it was moving to the space she wanted.  No, Black to red.

Putting her next to a booth.  There was an Other standing just inside, at an angle she hadn’t seen, smiling at her.  He stood a little askew, and a paper with a smiley face was stuck to his forehead, obscuring his face.  Snowdrop stood next to her, sharing a tile with her, hugging her.

Stationary?  She felt like standing next to a stationary, smiling Other would give her a bad event.

He didn’t say or do anything.

“Everything okay?” Jude asked.

“Other, right next to me,” she said.  “Smiling.”

“Hold!” Jude called out, shouting into the walkie talkie, his volume almost loud enough that Avery could imagine he was shouting in case it didn’t get through.

She needed red, and then she had two rests.

This guy, if he moved at all, would have free access to her in the meantime.

And she had no reds.  The fridge was moving two spaces to one.  Maybe she could jump onto the fridge, but would that count?

She felt like there were three possible answers there and she didn’t love any or all of them.  The first was that it was blocked, simple as that, and she’d be punished for trying to occupy it.

The second was that the square the legs stuck out into was technically the one that was occupied and the fridge didn’t count.  Few of the Lost on this promenade seemed to occupy more than the one space.  Could she stand on the fridge, if the fridge was on a red space?

The third idea related to that.  It was a white fridge.  It was square-ish.  If she stood on top, did it count as a white space?  She needed red.

She didn’t want to quit here.

“Research, or are you trouble?  I can guess,” the voice came through the walkie-talkie.

“Bit of a pinch,” Jude said.  “I think Avery might escape with her rope?”

Avery looked down at the rope at her waist.  She didn’t want to tug on the rope and get jerked back to reality.  She reached down.

Her hand slid into Snowdrop’s.

She reached for the Familiar bond.

“You’re the best part of an animal friend and a friend.  This is the part where I’m meant to establish extra oaths and promises.  I want you to be a part of what I do and build until I’m so old or disabled I’m physically incapable of moving.  I’ve brought you into scary stuff and I’ll do it again, but I want to give you the good things.  You were almost dead when Verona found you and I want you to have a great, full, rich life that you wouldn’t have had otherwise.  I’ll do my best to give it to you, or give you the opportunities to have that.”

Snowdrop nodded.  “And I’m going to ruin your life and I never want to see you set up a family.  I’ll be the treasure to your trash, the day to your night, and the cool flourishes to your out-of-nowhere biteyness.”

“That’d be pretty cool.  If you’re happy with it.”

“My mom lived where she lived all her life and then she gave birth to me.  I didn’t even travel while I was inside her.  That’s the sort of thing that contrasts an unmoving lump like you.  Let’s sit around, get fat and be bored.  I don’t straddle any worlds and I want to inflict that on you.  Let’s share the worst parts of one another with each other.”

Avery smiled.  Her eyes roved over the various Lost before going back to Snowdrop.  The silver eyeshadow hadn’t quite fixed the permanent dark circles there.

“Then I bind myself to my word,” Avery said.  She took the broken horn from over her head and pressed it to Snowdrop’s collarbone.  “To what I’ve sworn to you, to intent.  We forego the direct use of the Seal of Solomon, but we keep its intent.  You were bound once, symbolically and literally, and that’s enough.  I trust you.”

“I’m calling this off, I don’t accept, I can’t trust you,” Snowdrop said.  She pulled off an earring.  She reached over to Avery’s friendship bracelet and stuck the length of the earring through the braided fabric.  “I swear nothing.”

To Avery’s Sight, the mist rolled, and she could see the tether of the connection between them, extending along her arm, with friendship bracelet with the dangling opossum charm.  It worked around the black rope.

Silver ran through the fabric of the bracelet, and copper-tinted light through the antler.

Various Lost and practitioners clapped.

Avery closed her eyes, then opened them again.  Not for her Sight, but for Snowdrop’s.  She saw a world that was a bit shuffled.  If she looked at the stack of napkins in the nearby teahouse, she could see glimpses of the second and third napkins in the stack.

Her sight didn’t travel in straight lines, and she could see more of what was around corners.

Little hairs stood up all up and down her body, and she was reminded of what it felt like to be a bird or small dog.  Except it was a fresh, clean feeling instead of a blanket that smelled like bird, wrapped around herself, obscuring other senses.  She felt a little bit closer to being a six pound opossum than a ninety-something pound girl, but she didn’t feel weaker.  It was probably only a difference of ten or so pounds, in actuality, but that did make a difference.

Sharing the best parts of each other with one another.

Avery could see beneath the things on one of the tea tables, to the surface of the table itself.  Yellow table, and by process of elimination, there was a yellow tile beneath the square base.

“What’s your feeling, Snow?”

Snowdrop nodded, following Avery’s gaze without needing to look up at Avery or Avery needing to point.

“We’ve got a move.  I’m not sure what happens, though.”

“Okay,” Jude said.  “My moves get a little tight after this next one.”

Jude raised his walkie-talkie to his mouth.  “Okay, figured it out, we think.”

“Then in ten… nine… eight… seven… six…”

The Other with the smiling paper on its face was still close to Avery.  Jude had gotten nicked when the schoolgirl had intercepted him in the course of moving and Avery was pretty sure that came down to skill.  Sharing a space with the smiling Other at the end of the movement felt like the sort of harm that was inevitable, guaranteed.

“Five… four… three… two… one… go!”

Snowdrop ducked low, punching, as the Other reached for Avery.  Fist to crotch.  Avery moved, tugging Snowdrop away from the Other.  Over three spaces to the teahouse, through the open front, and then she leaped onto the table, framed by three Others.  The others picked up their plates and cups as she landed.  The tablecloth shifted, sliding underfoot.  Snowdrop almost lost her balance, became an opossum for Avery to bring closer to center, then snapped back to human form, standing beside Avery, peering past her at the Others.

The woman to her left looked normal, but as she reached for her cup, tea moved away from her reaching hand, and she had to snatch up the porcelain, turning the cup sideways as she brought it to her face.  Avery wasn’t sure how she drank like that, because there hadn’t been enough tea in there to reach her mouth.

The woman in the seat facing the open window had a chalice-shaped pin and fluid in the top of her hat.  She held three cups with one hand and two with the other.  She gave Avery a look, then tipped one fistful of cups back.  Tea, Avery could see with the round-the-corner Snowdrop Sight, flowed and sloshed from one cup into the cup below, into the cup below, and finally into the woman’s mouth.  The woman set them down and motioned for a refill.

The third woman who sat at the table wore a posh outfit with white trim to the hat and body, but the white trim was all teeth.  Her eyes were rimmed with teeth and the more Avery looked the more they seemed to yawn wide.  Teeth and more teeth behind them and more teeth behind those, an abyss, deep… dark, infinite and framed by teeth at the same time, all polished, all white.

Snowdrop tugged on her arm.  Avery realized she was leaning forward so much she’d almost fallen onto the woman.  Or into her.

“Very sorry for the inconvenience,” Avery said.

“I did enjoy your Familiar ceremony, dear,” the woman with the cups said.

“We must each give you some rules to follow, however.”

“How we doing, Avery?” Jude called out.

“First, you must show some respect to those who clearly give you the right of way,” the first woman said.

“Second, you must take any train you’re in a position to,” the one with the cups added.

“Third, you must eat what is offered.”

“That last one’s a tragedy,” Snowdrop said.

The woman with the teeth held up a plate.  There was a tart.

“Are these rules all on the Promenade must follow?  Just Finders?” Avery asked.  “Is this table like a place to get hints?”

“Yeah,” Snowdrop said.  “Yes, and yes, in that order.”

The woman motioned, in a hurried way.  Avery quickly took the tart off the plate, broke it in half, and gave half to Snowdrop.

“Always the case,” Snowdrop said.

“New rules?” Avery asked.

The countdown had started on the walkie-talkie.

“Because I’m standing here?  A penalty for taking your table?”

“A benefit, sometimes,” the first woman said.

“Go!  Don’t rest!”

Startled, Avery moved on, jumping from windowside table to the concourse again.  Snowdrop followed right beside her.  Was Snowdrop moving better now?

The ball rolled beneath her, dog yipping as it trotted on top.

She stopped.  Now we rest two turns.

She had freedom to pick her destination, but the fridge was taking up one edge, by the shop windows, the schoolkid was closer, and the Other she’d been face to face with was here.

A train had pulled up, about four or five moves further down the concourse.  Some Others departed, new ones arrived.

“I’m worried,” Jude said.  “Close to being stuck.”

Avery was too, though she didn’t want to admit it.  “I’m worried if I move off to the far right and a train pulls up, I’ll have to get on.”

“Rule from etiquette ladies at the tea house.”

The lady with the cups waved.  Snowdrop waved back.

“I think you can get on some booths and tables,” Avery reported, to the walkie talkie.  “I just did one.  I got a bunch of rules I have to follow.”

There was no response.  She looked back at Jude, who shrugged.

After a delay, there was a crackle, and then the answer, “Okay.  We can use that.  The alley knocked out most of ours. They went home.  How are you guys looking?”

There was a sequence of four or five responses, before Jude got his chance.  “Pretty close to being cornered.”

“Can you get close to a clock?”

Avery looked around.  Not even any stationary Others wearing watches she could reach for.  “None I can see.”

“Then in ten, nine…”

Avery hated this methodology, even if she understood it.  The countdown leading to the go, that felt like a starting gun.

Except she wasn’t supposed to move this time.

Avery stayed still, and Others moved along the path, closing in.  The Bully with empty hands and bright blue shorts and bow tie stepped into a spot she wanted.

She had a lot of options, because each rotation let her take the colors in any order, but she had to take four.  The long knight’s move meant she moved three, then moved once to the left or right, or moved one and then moved three.  It gave her a lot of spots but a good number of those spots weren’t even spots.  She was close to the wall of the tea shop, Fridge took up a spot, the Bully took one, the guy with the paper for a face behind her took up one behind, and she didn’t want to move next to them anyway.

Nothing hidden under any surfaces either.  No more tea tables.

Crimson clouds rolled overhead, against a bright, white-blue sky.  A distant train hooted.

The ones with smiles were coordinating.  The girl with the green dress was catching up and would block one, the one with the paper blocked one… and bystanders were getting in the way.

Could she throw a Finder’s Knot?  Disrupt an incoming Other’s pattern?  Did that stall them a turn?

She didn’t love that because she was still in a pinch.  It wasn’t that there weren’t any moves.  It was that there weren’t any good ones.  Stalling one and moving into a space it would otherwise take still meant she was in close proximity to a bunch of Others.

And it felt like an asshole move to bonk an Other who was possibly hostile because that was the rule of this place.

Jude was shaking his head.

She looked back, and she saw Verona, still like a cat up a tree, hanging off the wrought iron.  Verona waved.

“Can we pause?” she asked.

“There’s only a handful of you left.  If you want to go because your movement is too complicated to work out, then that’s fine.  We’ll share notes and pay you later for the trouble.  Try to get a good look at things with the gate.”

“I want to pause, not stop,” she said, exasperated.  Man, Jude’s family was a pain.  “Can we have Verona do a Gate of Horn?  To share with me?  I want her perspective on all of this.”

Verona, distant, looked down as the Garrick’s older relative addressed her.  She climbed down and hopped to the ground.

“I’ve got goggles,” Verona said, through the walkie-talkie.  “What do?”

“Go back to where you were?  I need to see the rooftops and things.”

There was an exasperated sound.  Then Verona, wearing ridiculously round goggles, made her way up the edge of the archway.

“Don’t pass through into the sun!”

There was a pause.  Avery watched as Verona hooked an arm into an open gap and then radioed back, “I’m being careful!”

“You think there’s a rooftop spot?” Jude asked.

“I don’t think there’s a pattern to the tops of the stalls or anything.”

“By my bond to Avery,” Verona said, using the walkie-talkie as she said it.  “Open the Gates of Horn.  Let her see what I see.”

“Let me see what Verona sees,” Avery said, closing her eyes.  She felt Snowdrop at her side.  “Let Snowdrop see what Verona sees through this.”

She’d gotten an edge from Snowdrop’s sight.  Now with Verona’s…

She opened her eyes and the world was wreathed in what looked like very sheer cheesecloth, sheer curtains, foggy plastic, and other things.  There were edges and hard shapes to it, where things weren’t all the way three dimensional, and there was slithering, throbbing meat hiding beneath that insufficient cover, similarly piecemeal.  Organs without things to attach to, and shadowy hints of more that Avery wasn’t sure she’d ever find if she went digging for what they were hinting at.

“Yum,” Snowdrop said.

“You’re a strange cookie,” Avery said, blind to what was going on around her as her eyes showed her Verona’s view from the one end of the Promenade.  “And your Sight is mostly colorblind.  It’s all white and red.  I need to see the floor tiles.”

“Sorry,” Verona’s voice came through.  “About being colorblind, not about being strange.”

“The strange part of you is great.  Unsettling, but great,” Avery said.  “Can I see what you see without the Sight?”

The Sight went away, and Avery could see through her own eyes again.  “I can tell you what I see.  What do you need?”

“The bridge,” Avery said, looking up.  “Do I have enough spaces to move, if I start here?”  Three over, one to the side?”

The bridge was about twenty feet over their heads, running in a straight line over the shops.

“You’re good to go,” Verona said.  “Three to your left, one back.”

Avery nodded, biting her lip, and crouched.  “Go small.”

“You’re going to make it there this fast?” Jude asked.  “You only get a couple seconds to move.”

Snowdrop went small, settling on Avery’s shoulder.

“And hold on,” Avery said, pulling on Snowdrop energies.  Small hairs stood up all up and down her body.  She held the device to her mouth.  “Good to go.  You good, Jude?  You should have a move.”

“We’ll figure that out if this works.”

“Counting down…” a woman said.

Avery waited, crouching on all fours.  She pulled on the energies more, making herself lighter, smaller, a bit more animal, and she tapped her heels together.

“Three… two… one, go!”

She leaped, a burst of wind picking up her cape.  Up to the bridge. She didn’t land square on the tile she wanted, but she caught the railing, judged the gap, and then slid herself under and through it, to the space.

That was way scarier than jumping off the bridge at the Blue Heron.

Lucy whooped, and Verona followed suit.

There were Lost on the bridge, though, and she didn’t know their pattern.

She pulled off her shoes, and she motioned to him.

“Avery sucks at throwing, by the way,” Verona said.

“Can someone take that walkie-talkie away from her?” Avery asked.

“I don’t think I can make that jump!” Jude called up.

She tossed a shoe.  It went square into his hands.

“Seriously though,” he said.

“Want to throw it back to me and bail then?” she asked.

One of Jude’s guy cousins laughed, mocking.

Big families are a pain.  Poor Jude.

He motioned to her, and she threw her other shoe.  It landed beside him, and he got it.

“Tap your heels three times, then jump!  Maybe make some nice promises to air spirits!”

“I’ll never smoke a cigarette.  I’ll plant a tree,” Jude could be heard.  “I’ll put up wind chimes.  Three small favors, and in exchange, don’t let me fly off in the opposite direction I want to jump like an asshole.  Give me the height I need.”

“…three… two… one… Go!”

Jude leaped.  Avery moved, black to red.  She caught his wrist as he grabbed the railing and pulled him over it before hurrying forward.

“Go again!  We don’t have anyone near a clock!”

She moved again.  Red to yellow.

There was a guy in a male leotard on the bridge, skinny, carrying a heavy dumbell on one shoulder.  He scowled, staring at her with dull eyes, but the pattern on his leotard was a bunch of clown faces, all smiling.

“Prepare your next moves.  It’s one more and then a pause for Avery and Jude.  I hope the rest of you are keeping track.”

Just navigating this path was rough enough.  She wasn’t sure she was figuring out anything.  The table thing, maybe.  Maybe it was a question of getting to the other side?

They were barely a third of the way there.

“Here,” Jude said.  “I think I gotta call it quits.  Take your shoes.”

“I’ll follow along but this bridge isn’t wide, I can only move up and down, not side to side.  Not unless I want to jump down.  I’ll tug my rope to escape.”

“It’s not the landing that kills ya,” Snowdrop said.  “It’s the falling part.”

“I’ll watch from above until I’m stuck, but I think we can call this a general success.”

She took her shoes back as he threw them to her.

She didn’t have any great moves either, but… she paused.  Down by the train that had just let out Others, an Other was resting.

Not Miss.  No, she didn’t expect to see Miss, especially when Miss had been unable to answer the call.  But when they’d seen Miss on the bridge of light beams, there had been another Other there.  A ballerina in a blue tutu, head turned away.

“I’ll observe for a bit but then I’m stuck,” Jude reported.  “I’ll take some quick shorthand notes on Others while I’m up here and do a look around with the gate of Ivory, see what’s the same and what’s different.”

The Gate of Ivory was a contrast to the gate of horn, which let people share what they saw.  The Gate of Ivory would switch up what the path looked like, scrambling the riddle and the aesthetic while keeping key things intact.

And then Avery leaped, Snowdrop clinging to her shoulder.  She threw a paper down below her and produced an insulated cushion of air.  Her shoes barely touched the tile, with the delayed landing.  She stopped by the Ballerina.

“Uhhhh, Avery!” Jude called out.

“Avery!  You do know who she is, right?”

“She’s a friend of a friend, right?” Avery asked.

The ballerina nodded, the bun at the back of her head bobbing up and down.

“She’s kind of an Other with more confirmed Finder kills than the you-know-what, according to our records.”

“But she’s not smiling!?” Avery called out.

“Yeah, but would you get close to you-know-what if it wasn’t smiling, here?”

Avery gave him a dramatic shrug.

“Is Miss okay?”  Avery asked.  “Do you know?”

The ballerina shook her head.

“Are you alright?  Need anything?”

“Go!” the walkie talkie sounded.

Avery stayed put.  Rest one.  Some of the others she’d circled around by going up to the bridge were venturing closer.  There was another further up, in the direction she wanted to go.  The one with the paper in front of its face was at the back of the pack.

“Well, it’s nice to see a friend of Miss.  If you run into her, tell her we miss her and we say hi.  We’re hoping she can stick to the plan of her coming back before the end of Summer.  I think we need it.”

“Got any advice on all of this?” Avery asked.  “Tips?  I don’t know what I can do to balance things or pay you back, but I’m happy to negotiate.”

The ballerina motioned, and it was a surprisingly graceless motion, hurried, violent.  A swipe of the hand.  Like go, move, or run.  Then she returned to a more poised position.

“Did you get that, Snow?”

“Run?” Snowdrop asked.

The ballerina brought her hands to her face, where Avery couldn’t really see through her head to make it out.  Avery almost went with Snowdrop Sight to see around the sides of the tightly bunned-up brown hair, but the Ballerina turned her face skyward, hands cupped.

There was no sound, but it was pretty clear what she meant.

Time with Tashlit was helping Avery on that front.

But it was unnecessary, because the schoolkids behind Avery were howling, now, voices overlapping.

They didn’t name it, but it was clear they knew, too.

“Is she here?” Avery asked.

The Ballerina shook her head.  Then she pointed at a vacant train platform, two spots further down from the one she’d come in on.

Avery stayed put for the second time.

“How soon?”  Any time was too soon.  Avery waited for the commotion from the recent movement to settle, as people reported in.  “Is it because of something we did?”

The ballerina shook her head.

“Scheduled?  By some rule?  Or does she show up at random?”

The ballerina held up two fingers.

Then there was a bit of silence.  Avery anticipated the check-in, to see if everyone was ready.

Avery brought the walkie-talkie to her mouth.  “I have just been informed by a friend of a friend that you-know-what from the Forest Ribbon Trail will be making an appearance by train.”

“Be prepared to rope out.  We worried it might happen, but we can deal with it.  Keep a healthy distance.”

“The healthiest distance is inside her mouth while she chews,” Snowdrop said.

“That’s a vivid visual, Snow,” Avery said, giving Snowdrop a hard pat on the shoulder.

“In three… two… one… go!”

Avery took in the Others around her.  She was getting a feel for how they moved.  Some looked stubborn and they tended to move in straight lines, others looked like they were meant to move.  They tended to move as far as they could until they hit a wall or dead end.

She looked back and saw the ballerina, still there.

“Thanks for the warning, by the way!  That should help!” Avery called back.

The ballerina shook her head.

“It’ll help,” Snowdrop said.

Avery went to put the walkie-talkie up to her mouth, to warn the others, but she was drowned out by a train whistle.

She had a sinking feeling.

There was more commotion at this train than there had been for other ones.  The horn continued for longer.  Lost figures raised their voices to be heard, which made others raise their voices to compensate.

Avery froze on the spot.  Not that she could move, but if she’d thought more, maybe she would have used a tool or something.  Her mind roved, looking for answers, and skipped over a few blanks.

The Wolf stepped off the train, moving with a casual ease as she gripped a mousy woman about Avery’s size, who was holding a huge adult wearing a diaper, bib, and with a pacifier in his mouth in her arms.  The Wolf shoved them off the platform and into the open sky.

“The Wolf-” Avery spoke into the walkie-talkie.  She was drowned out by the commotion.  Lost and Others looked at her.  “It can move while the clock is stopped!”

The wolf kicked at a kid who was cowering in one spot, a boy with a hummingbird’s face.  Her foot punched his head into and through the wall of a stall, leaving a bloody smear there.

“Release the clock!” Avery shouted into the walkie-talkie.

“Go!” came the almost inaudible reply.

She moved.  Red to black.  Just about every Other moved away from the scene, except the smiling ones.

“Excuse me, sorry,” she remembered to tell one, as it let her slip past.

“Go again!” the walkie talkie buzzed.

Black to white.  “Sorry, sorry!” Avery apologized to the Others she was cutting off.  The hostile Others were drawing closer.  Schoolkids.

“We have to stay and help!” Snowdrop shouted.

Avery touched the rope at her waist.  “You first, Snow.”

“I take issue with that,” Snowdrop said.  She gripped the rope, slid her hand down to the part of it that was insubstantial, and then pulled, twice.

Avery hugged Snowdrop close, then tried her own.

Avery moved.  White to yellow.  She had to stop now.

Nothing.  It wasn’t working.  And Avery was stuck between the Wolf and the smiling group of Others who hadn’t fled.  Stuck for this one moment.

“Rope isn’t working!” Jude’s voice rang through the walkie-talkie.  “Wolf’s on the right side, a third of the way down, not far from Avery.  He’s not moving!  Pause, I don’t think Avery has a move that isn’t toward him!”

The Wolf was still there, foot sticking through the wall, the limp body of the hummingbird kid slumped there.

The Wolf was smiling.  She hadn’t been before.

The tall old woman with the black hair and the blood red dress pulled her foot back out of the hole she’d made, and her toes were curled.  Curled around something black.

The old woman raised her knee and leg up, reaching down, and grasped the wires in her gnarled fist.

She tugged, pulling them out of the wall, toothy grin on her face as she turned Avery’s way.  She advanced, dragging more of the wiring out.

“Clocks stopping time is the only way a rule or something can be suspended,” Snowdrop told Avery, quiet.

Avery’s eyes went wide.

Wires to cancel out ropes?  Or more than ropes?

The train that had brought the Wolf wasn’t departing.