Pale: 10.2 - Lucy

One After Another – 10.2 | Pale
“Go, go, go,” Lucy urged, whisper quiet.  Snowdrop and Avery came down from upstairs, their eyes the inverted white pupils, pink irises and black surface of Snowdrop’s Sight.  Lucy gave them a nod, then guided Melissa toward the door that went from inside Edith’s cabin to the porch.

“I’m not really a go person,” Melissa replied, surly, and decidedly not whisper quiet.

“You said you’d cooperate,” Avery said, blinking away her Sight.  Snowdrop’s eyes went back to normal at the same time.

“And you said you’d be straight with me, finally.  You’ve got to help me help you and I need help to walk straight so put two and two together.”

“That makes no sense,” Avery told her.

“It makes a ton of sense,” Snowdrop said.

“I’m trying- I’m giving you- I’m providing…” Melissa paused, struggling to get over the hump of the sentence as she navigated in the dark.  And she stopped moving, as if that would make it easier.  Lucy reached out for her wrist, to tug Melissa forward again, and Melissa pulled her hand away, supremely offended.  “…You guys, I’m always been trying.  Always.”

Avery hit the light switch, turning off the cabin lights.  She put the broken padlock back on the cabin door.

“I know you were too hungry to pay attention, but I liked them okay.”

That was Nibble.  It was the ghouls out there.  At least.  Lucy leaned in close to Avery, whispering, “Ghouls.”

Snowdrop glanced around, and her eyes settled on a point in the distance.  Avery nudged her and Snowdrop looked away.

“And now you’re whispering.  You said you’d be straight,” Melissa accused.

“We’re trying, Melissa,” Lucy said.  “Meet us halfway?  Come on.  Do you need a hand down the stairs?”

“Then go down the stairs,” Lucy said, biting back her exasperation.  Avery headed down the stairs first.  Melissa limped her way down the first two.

“You’d have to go.  I shouldn’t show myself to the innocent.”

“She’s not that innocent anymore.”

Lucy felt a chill.  She helped Melissa down the stairs despite Melissa’s initial protest, then they started down the path, back toward home.  Lucy made it about five steps down the path, then paused, turning back, because Melissa was already lagging behind.

Again, she held her tongue.

“Stay close, stay safe.”

Nibble stepped out of the darkness.  He was pale, skinny, wore a beanie hat, t-shirt and shorts, and none of those things on their own really conveyed ‘flesh eating undead monster’.  The whole package though, and the little details like how quietly he moved and how the paleness of his skin held onto the darkness and didn’t transition so much as it appeared in a sudden way… yeah.

Lucy’s thumb went to her neck, running along the chain to the weapon ring.  She didn’t put it on.  Not yet.

His appearance startled the daylights out of Avery, who took about five steps back in short order, and Avery’s movement startled Melissa, who then turned and saw him.

“Oh!” Melissa nearly fell as she turned to face him.  She stumbled back a step, then took stock of everything.

Snowdrop had gone still, at the same time.

“How scared do I need to be?”

Lucy’s finger slid through the hoop.  The chain was still at her neck, keys and dog tag attached to the chain, along with the ring.  It was a squeeze, putting her finger through with the chain there, but she was armed if she wanted to be, now.

“Oh, awww,” Melissa said, with two different emotions in each half of the utterance, one surprised, the second close to being heartbroken.

“Not of me, not of Chloe,” Nibble said.  “There’s someone worse out there right now.  I wanted to warn you, and help.”

“Should I feel better?” Melissa asked.  “And what the hell, guys?  I’m here- I’m standing, look at this!  You don’t have to outrun the bear or… creep-ass dude out in the woods, you just have to outrun the sad sack with the limp?”

Avery had made it a fair bit ahead of their group, but that was what Avery always did, Snowdrop was close to Avery, and Lucy had been ahead of Melissa, waiting for Melissa to catch up.  Putting Melissa at the rear of the pack, closest to Nibble and least able to run away.

“That wasn’t what we were doing,” Lucy told her.  She pulled her hand away from the ring.

“The hell.  Assholes,” Melissa muttered.  “Not consciously.”

“I wonder what that’s like,” Snowdrop told her, confidentially.  “I was the biggest kid my mom had.  I never got left behind.”

“Sorry, she’s in a bit of a state, Nibble,” Lucy told Nibble.

“Nibble?” Melissa asked, scoffing.

“It’s the name he got when he was born,” Snowdrop added.

“What’s the danger?” Lucy pressed, to avoid letting Snowdrop and Melissa derail or confuse the conversation further.

Nibble looked a bit nervous.  “Man with a gun out in the woods.  Hunting us.”

“We heard the shots,” Avery said.  “We thought it might be John.”

“Okay!  Okay.  Good enough for me.  Moving, going,” Melissa said.  “This way?”

“That way works,” Nibble said.

Melissa began moving with purpose, for once.  Melissa at maximum walking speed was a bit slower than Avery at casual walking speed, but it was nice to see.  Lucy joined in, matching Melissa’s pace.  Avery, Snowdrop, and Nibble accompanied.  Nibble glanced back over his shoulder.

“Is he like… us?” Lucy indicated herself and Avery.  “Or is he like John?”

“John,” Melissa snorted.  “Can’t get over that name.”

“Neither,” Nibble said.  “He’s like her.”

He indicated Melissa.  Melissa turned and looked.

“Hah, what?” Melissa scoffed, slowing down.  She paused, then began giggling.  “What?  You’re joking.”

“Keep moving,” Lucy urged.

“Are you really not joking?  Does our gunman have too much junk in his trunk and really ebal- exaggerated, sad fantasies about minor actors nobody else pays attention to, coming and sweeping him off his feet?”

“What can I say in front of her?” Nibble asked.

“In a way that’d be really depressing if you knew how many hours he spends doing it?” Melissa continued, ignoring that Nibble was talking, giggling at her own statement, or the image it put in her head.

Nibble went on, “She’s close to being Aware, if she isn’t there already, but she has the inherent innocence you can’t give up unless you…”

“Give us the basics?  What do we need to know?” Lucy asked.

“Look out for bells tied to tree branches.  They’re hard to see, if you’re looking in ways that don’t use your eyes.  They alert him.”

“A lot of things are hard to see if you don’t use your eyes,” Melissa said, sagely.  She’d gone from good humor to jokey.

“Call John?  Yes or no?”  Lucy asked.  “Stay close, Ave.”

Melissa shook her head.  “I can’t get over this.  The guy called John and a mystery gunman like me?  There’s no way to take this seriously.”

“Yes,” Avery said.  “I vote yes.  And yes, I’ll stick close by.  Nibble?”

“Yes.  I called Matthew and Edith but they didn’t reply.”

“On it,” Avery said, pulling a chain from around her neck.

The coverage of trees thinned out a bit, further down the path.  Toward the base of the ski hills, some woods had been cleared, and there were stretches where trees had grown in dense, stretches where trees were more spread out along the grass, with many paths around them trampled down to dirt by people walking around, and stretches more like field with the occasional tree.

The area ahead fit that last group.  Field, tall grass that was occasionally mowed, so the grass that had regrown was doing so in stubborn spikes that stuck out of the matted grass that had been left from the last pass of the riding mower.  There was a ridge where the ground sloped up to a short six foot cliff, and a group of trees had decided to grow up there.  The short kid standing on something to make himself appear taller.

“No ticks here,” Snowdrop remarked.

“Thanks, Snow.  Guess that’s another thing to watch out for,” Lucy said.

Avery was moving ahead, and she indicated a diagonal path across the field.

Cutting across to where there’s more cover?

Lucy looked back, studying the darkness and the treeline they were leaving behind.  She nodded.

“He spent a while over here,” Nibble said.  “That’s weird.  Isn’t that weird?”

John rose to a standing position out of the grass.  Melissa yelped, and Lucy reached for Melissa’s face to get her to be quiet.  Melissa fended her off.

“It’s odd,” Lucy agreed, in a belated way.

“Tying bells to trees, setting traps, pouring out salt.  That took at least an hour, probably two.”

“Doing random shit?  Guess he is like me,” Melissa said.

“Melissa, please,” Lucy urged.  She paused, trying to think of what to say or what to ask for, then said, “please.”

“What is it?” John asked, as they caught up to him and Avery.  Avery was checking the grass ahead of them.

“Witch Hunter,” Nibble said.

“Oh what?” Melissa asked.  Lucy elbowed her, and she fell silent again.

“Type?  Methodology?”

“I don’t know about that stuff.  Traps.  Little bells everywhere.”

“Like this?” Avery asked.

At the tail end of a bit of tall grass, one set of stalks were old and grown enough to be rigid, and a bell had been tied to the bowed stalk, so the bell itself was nearly hidden in the grass to the side.

As John drew closer, the stalk moved a bit.  John stopped ten feet away.

Nibble produced a similar effect.  Snowdrop got to about five feet away before the bell stirred, the stalk it was tied to swaying slightly.

“They’re silent, so be careful,” Nibble murmured.  The stalk reacted faintly to his voice.

“Has it rung already?” Avery asked.

“He’s shot in the past, after we disturbed the bell.  Not always, only sometimes, I think he was too far away when we jarred it last time,” Nibble reported.  He turned.  “Chloe was supposed to stay closer than this.”

“She’s out there?” John asked.

“I really hope she is.  Because if she isn’t, he already got to her.”

“How far behind was he?” Avery asked.

“A way back, but he shoots at a distance.  He passed us, tried to get us to come closer, then he circled around behind us pretty fast.  Seems to know what he’s doing.”

“We could stop here,” Avery said.  “I mean, option one is we keep going but I think we’re going to stumble over one of those bells and there’s not a lot to hide behind out here.”

“You want to stop, though?” Lucy asked.

“Pause for a minute.  Diagnose?” Avery asked.

Lucy nodded, shrugging off her bag.

She, Avery, and Snowdrop crouched around the bell.

“Come on, Chloe,” Nibble murmured, looking around.  “Maybe she didn’t want to step out into the clearing?”

“Would she not want to?” John asked.

“Wouldn’t normally bother her.”

Lucy pulled out papers, figuring out what she had and what Avery did.  Avery had a deck of cards.  Sure.  Lucy had an image on her phone, snapped of a diagram Nicolette had used, taken by Verona.  She sat in the grass and sketched out the same diagram, albeit rougher.

“No swords,” Lucy noted, scribbling down the note.

“Connection reaches out and then goes to tatters, blowing in the wind.  There’s threads extending out from the tatters,” Avery said.  “One’s loosely tied to him.”

“Could we ring it, see which goes taut?” Lucy asked.

“Could.  If I was looking in the right place at the right moment,” Avery said.

“He could shoot you while you were out looking,” Nibble said.

“We can’t set the table,” Lucy told Avery.  “It might be that it’s dark but it might be because we’re so close to Kennet.  There’s too much staining for me to see detail.  That skews the results.”

“How do we set the table without ringing the bell?” Avery asked.  “Melissa?”

Melissa was standing by, watching, a frown on her face.  “Table?”

“Can you help?” Avery asked.  “And not ask too many questions, and don’t mess around?”

“I don’t know.  Can I?”

“Seriously,” Lucy told Melissa.  “This is like… imagine disarming a bomb.  Those two guys, Nibble and John?  They’re tougher than the guys who you ran into last week, and they’re a little spooked, I think.”

“Concerned,” John said.

“See?” Lucy asked.  “So we need you to help us out.  Because-”

Lucy reached for the bell.  It swayed away from her hand as she got about a foot away.

Avery tried.  At about two feet, it started moving gently away from her hand, dangling, as if she was holding a strong magnet.

“It doesn’t like you guys.”

“We can go with that.  Can you help us?  I think you can handle it.”

“Handle the bomb bell thing.  Do I have a choice?”

“If you don’t there’s a good chance one or all of us get shot.”

“I don’t know,” Avery admitted.  “Still need to figure that part out.”

“Here,” Lucy said.  She reached into her bag, got her investigation notebook with the interview notes and portraits, and turned pages until she had a blank page.  She glanced back to make sure Nibble and John hadn’t glimpsed anything too telling, then drew a circle, as best as she could.  “Hold this beneath it.  As close as you can get to the bell without touching it.”

Melissa took the notebook with the spiral binder and held it out.  Avery put her foot out carefully, keeping it low and close to the ground, and nudged grass out of the way, so it wasn’t up and around where the bell dangled.

Lucy looked, using the Sight.

Dim, but there was staining.  The contrast to the white of the page made it easier, and there wasn’t the omnipresent staining that was all around Kennet.  It was dark out and that didn’t help matters, because it meant the world was cast in shades of dark blue, darker blue, and black.

“This helps,” Avery said.  “Finer threads going out.  To other bells?”

“Good,” John said, quiet.  “Any directions that don’t have many?”

“Some,” Avery said, twisting around, looking at their options.

“Stain on the grass where he tied it,” Lucy observed.  “He’s hurt people.  A lot.  The bell itself is clean.  He’s careful with it.”

“Are you guys making this up?”

“Wait, this’ll get even wilder,” Avery said.  She shuffled cards, then touched Melissa’s elbow.  “Excuse me.”

“Sure, do whatever,” Melissa said.

Avery laid cards out on the part of Melissa’s arm that was extended out.

Jack of diamonds, ace of diamonds, two of clubs, jack of diamonds.

“That’s two of the same card.  Did you mix two decks together?” Melissa asked.

“Nope,” Avery said.  “Defective production, maybe?”

“What does it mean?” Lucy asked.

“I’m surprised there aren’t more spades,” John remarked.

“Do you know this stuff?”

“No, but I know the spade is the suit of violence.”

“It’s not an inherently violent object,” Lucy said.  Lucy referenced her phone and sketched out the diagram that Nicolette had used.  The collector’s arrangement.  Each space had a meaning noted in a scrawled-down word.  “Any sightings?”

“He’s hard to see,” Nibble said.  “You have to use regular eyes.  Where’s Chloe?”

“How was Chloe tonight?” John asked.

“Sharp but… weak.  There was an incident in the shower.  She burned her shoulder, too.  She was as weak as a baby in the aftermath of it.”

“She stayed behind while you went to the girls?”

“Because of her,” Nibble said, indicating Melissa.

“I’m getting so many mixed messages,” Melissa said.  “Saying I’ll get powers but they’re not really powers, it’s more like a curse that’s going to ruin my life more, but also ahh, stay away from Melissa, and this guy that’s like me is out there with a gun and you’re freaking out more than you did when there was that cop and that kid who was definitely not in our class-”

“Take it easy, Melissa,” Avery said.

“And he’s supposedly a witch hunter?  Is that why you guys are on my ass so much?  You’re witches and I’m, what, heir to a line of witch hunter powers, crippled by some rival witch from outside of town?”

“No, that’s silly,” Lucy said, drawing and making notes.  It was hard when she had to switch from using her pen to zooming in on sections on the image on the phone.  If they made it out of this okay, she’d have to keep a few copies on hand, like Nicolette did.

“Do I get a love triangle?  There was that show where the girl found out she was a half centaur and that’s why she was so good at riding horses-”

“I liked that one,” Avery said.

Lucy, still drawing the diagram out, shot Avery a look.

“It was well made, it was what was on, and Kerry was blissfully quiet for the entire runtime, sue me.”

“She had the secret heritage and she got a love triangle,” Melissa said.

“Opossums are monogamous, they never cheat, don’t have anything complicated going on,” Snowdrop said.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, why is this kid so obsessed with opossums?” Melissa asked.  “She’s worse than Caroline from school, with her horse obsession.  Hey, do you think Caroline watches the centaur show?”

“Done,” Lucy said, finishing.  “Water?”

“Got some,” Avery said.  She had a sports bottle half-filled with water.

Lucy uncapped it, laid it on Melissa’s arm, that was outstretched and holding the notebook with the circle on it, then poured it out over the page and arm.

“Sure, do that,” Melissa said.

Lucy picked it up by the corners, being careful not to tear it.  Ink from the pen ran and bled out, and a lot of it was bleeding into a select few circles.  Nicolette had walked them through the ways to do this, and Nicolette had a way of explaining things that suggested a simple, quick-and-dirty way of doing it, the practical, usual way, and a hint of the fancy way that it could be done better.  Lucy really appreciated that.

This was the quick and dirty way.

Nibble was talking to John, off to the side, the two of them standing guard, watching the edges of the more open field.  All of them were huddled, ducking low, grass taller than them in places, the ridge with the trees between them and the place they’d entered the field from.

“Scattered fills,” Lucy noted, “like the rose Guilherme gave us to give to Verona.”

“What the fuck?  Does Verona have a love triangle?  Jeremy and some guy called Guilherme?  That sounds foreign.  What the fuck, why does she get a foreign boyfriend?”

“There’s no love triangle.  I don’t think there’s even any love,” Avery reassured.  “Definitely no triangle I’m aware of.”

“Hmm,” Lucy said.  “Interact, protect, eye, access.  Maybe family.  Fits for a throwaway item.  I don’t get the feeling there’s a lifeline… again, throwaway item, recently made or prepared.  It’s a ward of sorts.  Can Witch Hunters, uh, do what we do?”

“They can utilize some techniques,” John said.  “Many lean on superstition and find their way to certain patterns, or they have one trick or one servant they steal from someone they’ve gone after and they use that.  Combine that with what your friend Melissa can do, and keep their eyes closed or minds turned away when it comes to certain things, so they remain… innocent.”

“Are they all this intense?” Avery asked.

Melissa’s eyes were wide.

Lucy had a bad feeling about that.

“I can imagine there are many who try this or aspire to be this good, but if they don’t get good at this, they don’t survive.”

“Thinking of Guilherme, makes me wonder about um, that interact bit,” Avery said.  “And connections.”

“And Guilherme type solutions?” Lucy asked, rubbing fingers together.

“Melissa, can you lower the book about a foot, foot and a half?  Keep the bell above it?”

Lucy dug in her pocket and found the compact.  She smudged her finger, then moved as low to the ground as she could, arm outstretched for the notebook.  She traced a smudged red line around the circle.  “Tell me when I’m by a thread, Ave.”

“You can’t get as close as I can.”

“Right.  Okay.  Now.  You’re right under a few.”

Lucy drew a smudged line out to the edge of the page, directly away from the center of the circle, and lifted.

Edges of the smudge flaked away.  Three threads went taut, lifted up by her finger.  Drawing her finger along the lines, she could smudge them, painting them a stark red that cut through the blue-tinted gloom of nighttime Kennet, making them faintly visible in reality.

“There’s real threads,” Melissa said, awed.

“Heads up,” Lucy murmured.  She pinched one thread, then gave it a sharp tug.

A bell sounded, about thirty feet away.

The sound of the gunshot, distant, almost immediately followed.  Melissa shrieked.  All of them ducked low, wary.

“Holy shitballs!  What the shit!?” Melissa cried out.  She moved the book and almost jostled the grass, but Snowdrop caught her and pulled her down onto her ass.  “Shit on me!”

“Shh!” Snowdrop urged.

“I heard that bell,” Nibble said.

“I wasn’t exactly subtle about it,” Lucy told him.

“What?  No,” Melissa told him.

Lucy picked out another thread.  She gave it a tug.

The peal of the bell was clearly audible, even at a distance.  The gunshot followed once again, the bullet causing dirt to plume.  It was followed soon after by another, even further away.  Tracing a line.

“He’s coming,” Nibble said.

“Yes,” John said.  “Can you keep doing this while we run?  Mislead?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said.  If we move we might lose the focus we have on the bells and the connections that tie them together.”

“Another option, then.  I do think we should run.”

“There’s a gap we can run for,” Avery said.

“Be careful,” Nibble said.  “There was a gap in the barrier he rigged up, and he put a trap there.”

“Good to know,” Avery answered.

John looked at Lucy and Avery.  “Can you silence them all?  We should get away, talk to others, and regroup.  I don’t want to engage him when he’s secured this area like this.  We’d just have to watch for the traps as we ran.”

“Silence is sort of your thing,” Avery said, touching her ear.

“Kind of,” Lucy agreed.  Her finger still had glamour smudged on it.

“I’ll be back.  Do what you can,” John told them.

John ducked low, then headed off in the direction of the other bells they’d sounded off.

Lucy drew the silence arrangement that Verona had first done back at the shack with Brie, when she’d insulated the air that would carry the sound, and added the swirly, swooping embellishments that indicated connection.

The earring helped.  She felt it work, felt it make the smudge not catch on certain parts of paper, while it exaggerated and fattened the line in others.  Things were smooth, artistic… it was a nicer looking diagram than any one she’d normally put together.

Lucy didn’t insulate the air.  She did the opposite.  She encouraged it.

She tore the page with the circle on it from the book, partially finished diagram extending around the circle.

She laid the page on the ground, then reached over, finishing the core rune.  The triangle of air.  “For the protection of Kennet and its population, human and otherwise.”

“We draw on what we’re owed,” Avery added.

Verona’s absence was very much felt.

The wind stirred.  Bells began tinkling, and at the first sound, there was another gunshot.

But they picked up, and soon, all across the clearing, bells were chiming, each with a high, sweet sound that carried in a way that would let it be heard from a mile away.  Grass blew and trees swayed.

“Go!” John shouted.  “He’s there!”

“Fuck!” Nibble cried out.  “I don’t see him.”

“If he trapped the gaps, go where there’s more noise!” Lucy told them.  She held onto Melissa’s upper arm.

John reached out, and he was holding something.

Lucy took it.  It was about the size of her pinky finger, but deformed at one end.  Metal, and it felt like it weighed five pounds.

“What he’s shooting at us.  It’s treated.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Can I?” Nibble asked.

“He’s shooting at us!” Melissa shouted.  There hadn’t been any gunshots- Melissa was still processing the fact, shouting it aloud.  Lucy could have easily been doing the same thing, but there was no point to it.  She was used to holding her tongue.  It took a lot to get her to lash out.

Lucy tripped over a ridge that she couldn’t see in the dark, where the path briefly split in two and joined together, the grass in between the two splits having produced a small grass-tufted peak.  She fell, and because she was helping Melissa stay steady as she ran, she brought Melissa down with her.

Nibble appeared at her side.  His hand on her upper arm was cold, the fingertips rough.  He helped her stand.  She passed him the bullet.

“Smells like an old, dry grave,” Nibble said.

“Bury a soldier with ninety nine bullets and his blessing, given in advance, place one more on the gravestone,” John said.  “In a time of need severe enough to warrant disturbing a good soldier’s grave, unearth that cache.”

“He thinks this is that severe?” Lucy asked.

“He might be the type who thinks all work he does as a Witch Hunter is in need.  It could be he found a cache on its own, and had no attachment to the soldier.  It would lessen the weight of the bullet, but it’s still potent enough.  It was something I read about in stories about soldiers retiring after they buried a friend, picking up the gun again.”

“John doesn’t like Westerns,” Snowdrop said.

“He has a hundred of these?  What, heavy bullets?”

“Bullets with a grave gravity to them,” John said.  “And I’d guess he has more than a hundred, though there’s a limit to what he can carry.  Any group that would do this would do it more than once, all in the same graveyard.”

“What do the bullets do?” Avery asked.

“I don’t know.  Nothing good.”

“Let’s not get hit by one?” Avery asked.

“Good policy for bullets,” Melissa said.  Wise as ever.

“Okay, so where are we running to?” Avery asked.

Already, she wanted to split up, to increase their options.

“The parking lot,” Lucy said.  “Maybe the teenagers are still there.  Might slow him down.”

The bells rang, intermittently and incessantly, a hundred wind chimes spread out across the field.

A man, far behind them and catching up, because Melissa was not a fast runner anymore.  Dark hair, messy, bag slung over his shoulder, holding the gun braced against his chest.

The man adjusted his hold on the gun, pausing mid run to plant his feet, looking down the sights.

John lurched, his own handgun drawn.  Shielding the group of them with his own body as he aimed.

Lucy covered her ears preemptively, ducking low.  Even with that, the gunshots, close and far away, were too loud, uncountable in an exchange that seemed to take place between two beats of her heart.  Three rapid shots from John, one answering shot from the Witch Hunter, before he fell, dropping out of sight.

The bells pealed, high and fierce, all chaos, the wind disturbed and angry now.

The Witch Hunter found his feet again.  One member of their group stayed down.

“Are you free?” Avery asked.

“Gimme a moment.”  Lucy had her phone to her ear, and stepped away from the gathering of her family, Booker ribbing Mom, Alyssa sitting on a stool, laughing.

“You need to stand up for me if you want to be in my good books, Alyssa,” Mom said.

Lucy looked into the hallway.  The luggage cases were there, by the door.

“Not really free, no.  Why?  What’s up?”

“I know.  Believe me.”

“On a scale of trivial to super mega major, how major is this?”

“Booker’s leaving tonight.  It’ll be my last chance to see him before Christmas, probably.  He’s spending Thanksgiving with Alyssa.”

“Aw crap.  Crap, um…”

“Hmmmm, then!” Avery replied.

“Just tell me.  Is the Melissa situation urgent, and is it worth me missing out on my goodbye time with Booker?”

“I’m going to feel like an ass if I tell you to come, now.”

“Share the load.  I’m going to feel like a jerk if I leave.”

“The goblins mentioned to Snowdrop that Melissa’s hanging out with older teenagers and drinking.  Snowdrop told me.  It’s bad.  Not super urgent, but it’s bad.  Biscuit is over the moon.”

“I can imagine.  Did you check in with Matthew and Edith?”

“No.  Gotta wrangle family for a bit, I can call after.”

“I’ll do it now.  Talk to you soon.”  Lucy hung up.

She found Edith on her contact list.  The phone rang.

“Matthew.  We’ve got a Melissa situation.”

“Again?  What’s the story this time?”

“She’s drinking, for one thing.  It sounds like she’s in a bad way.”

“Okay.  We sort of knew about that.”

“Stuff in general, about her.  Edith and I have been postponing a discussion on the subject.  And decisions.”

“Are Verona, Avery and I going to like that decision?”

“I don’t know, Lucy.  But listen, Edith ran into trouble last night, we’ve got reports from Montague, Cig, Lis, and John.  Don’t go out.  Stuff’s apparently dangerous right now.”

“Is this you shutting us down again?”

“It’s me telling you it’s dangerous out there.  We’re hunkering down, we’re going to have Montague put in a little extra effort tonight, see if we can squeeze out the small fry, and we’ll coordinate for other stuff.”

“That doesn’t do Melissa much good tonight.”

“No, but it might be best if you leave her be.  While things are this bad, until we have a grip on it, stay home.”

“No, Matthew.  I really want to, but if things are only going to ramp up… that leads to us sitting this out until the end of summer.  No.”

“Edith wants to know if you have John’s tags”

“Yep.  Until further notice.”

“Okay.  Alright.  Keep him ready, then.  Just be prepared, a lot of the Others are hanging back for right now, until we have a better sense of who or what we’re dealing with.”

“With freaking Melissa, we’ll need it.”

She returned to the kitchen, and her mom and Booker had moved out to the backyard.  The door was closed.  Alyssa picked strawberries out of a bowl with her fingernails and dipped them in chocolate.

“What are they doing out there?” Lucy asked.

“Serious adult-to-adult mom and son talk,” Alyssa said.

“Can I interrupt?” Lucy asked.

“Okay,” Lucy said.  She fidgeted.� “I hope they won’t be too long.”

“Mm,” Alyssa grunted, strawberry in her mouth.

Lucy went and got her bag, sorting her things out.  She returned downstairs, and they were still out there.

She thought about intruding, but Booker was giving Mom a half-hug, one arm around her shoulders, and Lucy didn’t want to take away from that.  She’d chance a bit more trouble on Melissa’s part and run a little harder to get there before she interrupted that.  It was probably something Mom looked forward to for months.

Is Booker okay?  Lucy thought.  She glanced at Alyssa, who glanced over at her, thought about asking, and didn’t.  Booker seemed okay and she could figure that out after talking to her mom.

It felt like a five on the scale of personal questions and she wasn’t sure about raising the bar to that level in what was kind of one of her first interactions with Alyssa alone.

“Are you in a band?” Alyssa asked.

And Lucy had no idea what that question was or where it fit on the scale.

“I mean, you’re into music and you have this… image?  A crafted self-image, you know what I mean?”  Alyssa floundered.  “Confident, specific style.  Reminded me of friends who were in a band.”

Lucy could have let her continue to struggle.  She decided to show mercy.  “No band.  But yes, I pay attention.  I kind of have to.”

“I don’t think I started paying attention to what I was wearing until I was a senior.  I went to a few stores I liked and picked things that fit.  But I didn’t have to.”

“Sorry, I wanted to say something but we’re almost out of time, with me leaving, so I went for it.  It’s something I’ve wondered a few times, I asked Booker and he told me to ask you.  Start a conversation.  Real helpful, right?  And you’re always going off to meet with your friends.  They have similar images.  Well, Avery more.  Verona wasn’t so hot when she came by, but even with her, a bit.”

“It’s cool,” Lucy said.  “Images, huh?”

“Like you’re a part of something.”

“It’s not wrong.  Works,” Lucy agreed.  “It’s a kind of band.”

“Yeah.  For now at least.”

“Then I won’t pry or tell Booker.  Thanks for telling me.  You know, Booker adores the heck out of you.”

“Yeah,” Lucy replied.  Her heart was a bit heavy though, because she felt like she’d missed out on so much time with him, over this brief visit.  “It goes both ways.”

“He talked you up so much, and I saw glimpses of you on the calls.  I thought he might be exaggerating, and he really wasn’t.”

“That’s nice to hear,” Lucy said.

She hesitated, then sat at the table, reached for the strawberries, and Alyssa moved them closer, passing the chocolate closer too.

“He warned me it’d be scary if I got in your bad graces, and it’d be tough but wholly worth it to get in your good graces.  I wasn’t sure what to think about that, except being worried about ruining the trip somehow.”

Lucy popped a chocolate-dipped strawberry into her mouth.

Alyssa went on, saying, “I thought you’d be a kid, and you really aren’t.  So I was intimidated, and I really like your brother, so I didn’t want to spoil things.”

“I didn’t?  Because I wanted to know, and Booker’s too nice to be one hundred percent honest, sometimes.”

“You’re fine,” Lucy said.  “Booker likes you and you make him happy, and I came prepared for you to say or do something mildly racist-”

“Booker said you had a tough year on that front.”

Lucy nodded, a bit of a rushed gesture, then went back to what she was saying, “-and I planned to bite my tongue if it was mild, and I’d maybe lose a tiny bit of respect for my brother because he was putting up with it.  And you didn’t, so thanks, I guess.”

“You think I would?  From what you saw of me?”

“Sometimes it seems like nearly everyone does,” Lucy said.  “Nearly everyone, except for my friends, and even Avery’s sorta needed a reminder, and Verona got over it early because we knew each other when we were little.  And other times I feel like it’s all question marks and I could go crazy trying to figure it out.  And other times… dunno.  I used to think it was all me, and there was a chance those question marks were all false positives and that was almost easier to believe.”

Alyssa got a strawberry.  It was a weird one, with a kind of strawberry tentacle wound partially around it.  She held it up, and Lucy nodded once, acknowledging it.  Alyssa dipped it in chocolate, then said, “Easier to believe how?”

“Just… easier to think I was a screwed up, paranoid kid, than to think the world was that gross.  And then Paul happened and stuff happened with my teacher and I don’t, really, not anymore.  Not since a few years ago.  Which is all a long-winded way of saying people suck and you didn’t suck so points for you.”

Alyssa took a second, strawberry in mouth, before saying, “My mindset going in was mostly that I didn’t want to add to your tough year.  I’d kick myself for years if I managed to say or do something like that.  But I didn’t want to ignore your existence either.  Which is why I asked a random question.”

“Thanks.  It’s cool, you’re fine.  I guess I won’t hate it if you keep dating Booker.”

“You make him happy, you play off each other well.  That’s the important thing.”

Alyssa nodded.   “Any word from Verona?  Since you brought her up?”

“Just that the process started and they talked to her dad and her mom.  She’s at the beach.  I dunno.”

“Yeah.  Putting it lightly.”

They sat, the closed glass door between them and Booker and mom, who were apparently having a heartfelt talk.

Lucy turned her eyes away, found another strawberry with a kind of puckered anus shape between two mounds, and showed Alyssa, who smirked.

“I’ll keep this one,” Lucy said.  “Friends will like it.”

“I wonder if there’s a way to preserve the shape.”

“I dunno.  Verona would know the answer to that, I bet.”

She thought of Verona, and of Melissa, and of Avery, who was waiting.

She might have to interrupt Booker and her mom after all, if she was going to show up in time to be able to help.  Maybe she could tell Avery to go ahead and she’d fly over.

“I might have to leave early,” Lucy said.  “Before you guys do.”

“Friend… of a friend, is in trouble.  Booker would know more about this stuff than you, I’m betting.”

“I dunno.  She was in gymnastics, dance, kind of thing that’s really big for girls in our grade.  More than half the girls in class are super into it.  Supposed to go to New York this fall and everything, getting time off school.”

“And she played soccer and hockey with Avery, she was super active and… foot snapped off after a bad gymnastics landing.”

“Off.  Only skin still attached.  Super grisly, everyone there freaked out, ambulance called, and… she’s not taking it well.”

“Friends sorta dropped her, but she sorta dropped them too.  She’s bitter and angry and jealous, she’s getting into trouble, over and over, and sticking her nose where it really doesn’t belong.  It’s not even a downward spiral, exactly.  More like… freefall.”

“Booker has talked about stuff like that.  Friends in freefall.”

“We weren’t even her friends before exactly but she keeps crossing paths with us so we end up helping.  Her parents don’t know what to do and she’s messing things up for herself as much as any of the outside stuff is piling up.”

“Booker’s said he had to leave some people like that behind, when he went off to school.  That he could have stayed, but…”

Lucy made a face, nodded.

“It’s hard to do that when they keep crossing paths with you.”

“And a bunch of people keep expecting us to step in, because we’re the closest things to people who could help.”

“Nobody else you could go to?  Nobody you could send them to?”

“We- Avery contacted someone in Winnipeg we know.  But Melissa- uh, the freefalling person, she didn’t exactly bite.”

“I’ve run into that.  People in dark places don’t always want to accept the help.  The darkness can be more comfortable.”

An image of Verona darted through Lucy’s mind’s eye.

“So, maybe you can guess, or try your hand at an answer, and if you’re way off, you lose points,” Lucy said, elbow on the table, hand on her cheek, looking sideways at Alyssa.  “What would Booker do?”

“Hoo boy,” Alyssa said.  “You don’t make things easy, do you?”

“Because I think I know what he’d do, because he’s talked about it some, but I’m not sure you’d love the answer.”

“Leave them behind?” Lucy asked, an accusing note in her voice reserved for Alyssa.

“Maybe.  But I think he’d try to help and support some guys he considered best friends who sure didn’t seem to think of him as a best friend back… and he’d be really, horribly upset at the fact he couldn’t help them more when maybe they couldn’t be helped or didn’t want to help.  And leaving them behind is part of that.”

Lucy got a strawberry and ate it without the chocolate.  It was faintly sour.

“That might be a bit of what he’s talking to your mom about.  Seeing friends after coming home who haven’t been doing as well since he left.”

Lucy nodded.  “So I just… leave her?  Abandon her?  Melissa?”

“I can’t say, Lucy.  I really can’t, without knowing more about the situation.  I don’t know what the dynamics or resources are like here in a town like this.  But I think that’s the road Booker went down and he’s unhappy about parts of it.”

Lucy frowned.  She didn’t like to think of Booker being that unhappy.

“How many points do I lose?”

Lucy shrugged.  “Dunno.  We’ll have to see, I guess.”

“Okay, well, at the risk of losing more points, some unsolicited advice.  Not a ‘what would Booker do’, but a ‘what would Alyssa do’…”

“…Start from a place of compassion.  There aren’t any guarantees it’ll turn out okay, it might not even help things turn out okay, but you’ll kick yourself a lot less.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly a bundle of warmth and cuddles.”

“You sure?” Alyssa asked, matching Lucy’s posture, elbow on table, hand on cheek.  “You’ve got a lot of warmth reserved for your mom, Booker, and Verona.”

Lucy looked out the window, then sighed.

She straightened and got up, then walked over to the door.  She knocked.

Booker beckoned for her to come out.  She did.

“I’m going out,” she told her mom.  “Avery wants some backup.  Wanted to say goodbye.”

“Family stuff?” her mom asked.

“Okay,” her mom said.  “I can guess why Avery wants backup.  Be safe, watch for cars.”

“Wearing brighter colors than the last time you nagged me about that.”

“I came so prepared to be crazy worried about you,” Booker said.  “And I ended up crazy proud of you instead.”

She hugged him tighter with the arm that was wrapped around his back.

“I don’t know what to say,” he told her.  “Except it won’t be too long before I’m back.  Christmas?”

“You’re going out east with Alyssa, right?” she asked, pulling back from the hug a bit.  “Swing back here on your way back?  For a dinner?”

“Please?  Pretty please?  I’m greedy.”

“We’ll see what we can do.”

“I’m going to go to Avery,” she said, making a pleading gesture.  “There’s virtually nothing I want more.”

“Laying on the guilt, Luce?”

“Super thick.  And stay in touch, please?  Super pretty please?  Don’t make the next time I hear from you be Christmas or almost-Christmas.”

“No way that happens.”

She nodded.  “Love you.  Drive super safe.  And be careful out there.”

“Love you too.  I will.”

She backed up, then headed back inside at a jog, scooping up her bag.

“Don’t be too late!” her mom called.

She nodded again.  Then she turned around and Alyssa was in front of her, still sitting on the stool.

“It was great to meet you,” Alyssa said.

Lucy nodded, and there was a moment of Alyssa’s expression turning sympathetic, and at the same time, Lucy was unsure how to part ways.  A wave?  handshake?

She leaned in and gave Alyssa a brief, one-second, one-quarter hug, and then hurried off, out the front door, closing it behind her.

She paused, her back pressed to the front door, and stared skyward, moisture collecting in her eyes.

Deep breath, focus, lips pressed firmly together.  One hand clenched into a fist, the other held the strap of her bag super tight.

She didn’t want to cry for the stupid reason that she was saying goodbye to Booker.  That she only had his company for about a week; a two week stay, but he’d spent some time with her mom before she’d come back from school.  She hated that stupid things were taking away from her time with him.  Stupid Melissa things.  Stupid Melissa.

She got her fox mask, compact, and made a change.

Fox-form.  She ran down the wide street with its widely spaced out homes.  Large yards, often with fences that were two logs with a gap that’d stop basically nothing except maybe a car.  Maybe.  Or chain link.

To Avery’s house.  She headed for the bridge, taking familiar streets, with one diagonal shortcut across a lawn as a car’s headlights shone down the road.

Verona’s dad stood on the edge of the lawn, dropping off garbage at the curb.  He stopped as he saw her.  She stopped as she looked at him, wearing her fox form, breathing hard.

Emotions roiled inside her, flaring, boiling up.

He put the bag down, then patted his pockets, including the polo shirt pocket and his shorts.  Then, not quite turning his back on her, he retreated to the house, leaving the door open.

He emerged again, carrying the recycling bin tucked under one arm, loaded with the packages of microwaved dinners and cans of ginger ale, phone in his other hand.

He stopped when he saw her, human form, standing where the fox had been.

He hesitated, and she stared him down as he stood there, top of the stairs to the house, and decided how he’d approach this.

Then he walked down the stairs, crossed the lawn while sliding the phone back to his pocket, and set the recycling bin down.  Almost as an afterthought, he said, “Hi, Lucy.”

Then he turned to go back inside.

“Where are you going?  Is that really all you have to say?” she called out after him.

“Coward,” she called out.  “Not even going to engage with me?  Is there a trace of shame there?  Guilt?”

He turned, and he shot her a wounded look.

“Did you really say my mom was a bad mom, Mr. Hayward?” Lucy asked.

“It was the heat of the moment,” he answered.  “Sorry.”

“Did you say Booker was a screw-up?  That I was?”

“She told you all that, huh?” he asked.

“She sure did.  Can you say it again to my face?  I’ll point out right now that Booker’s doing great at school, he’s terrific.”

“Not that it’s really any of your business, but I was trying to convey to my daughter that every family has its difficulties.  Even yours.”

“Don’t B.S. me,” she told him.  “Verona’s not dumb.  She knows what you said.”

“She’s not dumb but she does dumb things sometimes.  Part of being a teenager, like it’s part of being a parent to steer teenagers from the dumber decisions.”

“You’re not filling me with confidence right now,” Lucy said, clenching her backpack strap.  Her eyes were still moist from the front steps of her own house, and being in fox form hadn’t given them the chance to go back to normal.  She breathed hard from the run.

“Confidence?” he asked.

“That you’ll do better.  Because you need to do way better, Mr. Hayward.  You’re messing up and you’re messing Verona up, and I’m missing the hell out of her and I’m worried, and the reason is because you messed up.  You did this and her mom had to take her because she couldn’t take going home.”

“I always mess up, apparently,’ he said.  “According to Verona, according to my wife, just a few nights ago, according to your mother, and I’m sure, when they get around to it, child welfare will say it.  But they don’t pay attention, they don’t live in this household, they haven’t walked one step in my shoes.”

Start from compassion, Lucy thought, thinking of Alyssa’s words.

“Fuck offffff!” Lucy raised her voice.  “And fuck you!  If I lose my friend because of you, Mr. Hayward, if you can’t improve this situation and she ends up getting moved somewhere that isn’t Kennet, to foster care or with her mom, you and I are going to have some real issues.”

“Noted,” he replied.  “It’s not going to happen, Lucy.  They don’t move kids to foster care because of an argument about chores, and none of us, not me, not Verona, and not Verona’s mother, want her to go live with her mom in Thunder Bay.  She’ll come back home.”

Lucy stood on the far side of the street, fists clenched, breathing hard, staring him down.  She’d made it a point not to move any closer.  To avoid a repeat of the Paul situation.

She had no idea how Verona would react to that.  She remembered how Verona had reacted to Alpeana and the nightmare.

She’d have to move closer or deliver some sort of impact to nail it in, though.  She couldn’t do that without moving closer and that was the rule she’d set for herself.

“I’m going inside, Lucy.  Go have fun running around at night.”

“I hope you go to therapy, Mr. Hayward.”

He gave his head a small shake.  “You keep going to your therapy, Lucy.  It seems like you need it.”

He walked the rest of the way into his house.

He shut the door behind him.

Breathing hard, moisture in her eyes, Lucy twisted, letting glamour twist with her.  Paws hit road.

She ran hard, crossing the water of the ‘river’ where it was shallow and still, dried up by the heat, and making her way to Avery’s house.

She found Avery, who wore a jersey top with a sports bra, shorts, and her running shoes, hair down.  She had her bag slung over one shoulder.  It looked like Avery had grown up by a year or two in just the short time they’d been active.

Snowdrop was beside her, and even Snowdrop had changed.  Snowdrop was more put together, dressed a little less like a homeless kid, hair tied back into two braids that ran along the corners of her head, with spiky strands of pale hair sticking up. She wore a dress with a super-short denim jacket that read ‘staring contest winner 2020’ superimposed over a sketchy-style opossum, with eyes done in white with many extra sloppy circles surrounding them, tongue sticking out of mouth.  She wore one earring.  The other one was attached to Avery’s friendship bracelet, which Avery had moved to her neck, the end strands tied to another spare dog-tag beaded metal chain.  A draping arrangement of multiple necklaces of varying lengths with the friendship bracelet as one of the lower ones.

Snowdrop’s eyes were animated, her eyebrows drawing together into a slight frown as she looked at Lucy, as if she could read Lucy’s expression beneath the fox’s facade.

Avery pointed, and then started running.  Lucy followed.

It was a zig-zagging kind of race, Lucy moving faster, but Avery lunged forward by fits and starts, whenever she saw an angle to use the black rope, coordinating with Snowdrop.

“Here!” Avery called out, as Lucy caught up.

‘Here’ was a parking lot, where the cars that gathered to use the ski hill would all be come winter, if they didn’t walk over and carry their skis and snowboards from the nearby houses.  Teenagers were using it as a hang-out spot.  Teenagers and twenty somethings.

Lucy shrugged out of the fox form, primarily to have the ability to view the scene from more than a foot and a half above ground.  Lucy scanned the crowd for Melissa, and it wasn’t super hard.  Melissa was small and had distinctive hair.

Melissa, sitting on the hood of a janky old car with a twenty-something boy.  It looked like- was that vodka?  Melissa was drinking vodka?

“Frigging Melissa, frig, fuck frig,” Lucy swore.

“You really didn’t want to leave Booker behind, huh?”

“Pain in the ass- why can’t she make this easy?”

They approached from an angle, walking up the slight slope to the lot, gravel crunching under their shoes.

Goblins were around.  Snowdrop headed over to them.  “Hey, you punks!”

The goblins stopped and looked over.

Biscuit seemed to be leading the crew of smaller goblins.  Nobody bigger was around.  Bangnut, Cherry, and Pecker were all gathered nearby.

“Her!” Biscuit chirped, pointing, looking up at Lucy, Avery, and Snowdrop with large eyes.

“We found one, we got one!” Bangnut cheered.

Biscuit hopped and punched at the air, prancing because she couldn’t stay still.

“But!” Biscuit cried out.

Lucy put her hands on her hips, but Biscuit didn’t tend to speak in more than one word and she didn’t break pattern here.

Biscuit drooped, face sagging, and paused, looking up at Avery with her best puppy dog eyes.  She was actually pretty good at it, especially for a goblin.

Biscuit dropped her face until it was pressing against the gravel.  Then, slowly, she ground her face into the gravel, swishing it side ot side, fingers clawing at the finer grit beneath it.  She punched the ground.  Something between a tantrum and wallowing in abject misery.

Peckersnot gave her a pat on the head.  Then Snowdrop picked her up.

Avery raised her hand in a wave.  Melissa saw them.

Melissa leaned over and gave the boy next to her a hug, then pulled on his shoulder to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Frigging Melissa…” Lucy muttered.

“What did I do wrong this time?” Melissa asked, as she walked over.

Snowdrop, cradling the upset Biscuit, turned away, keeping Biscuit out of sight.  The other goblins lurked beneath a car.

Compassion, Lucy thought.

“What are you doing this time?” Lucy asked.

“It’s the thing, you said.  You told me I had options- I have to do one of four things?  Five?”

“I’m pretty sure getting drunk with a group of skeevy teens wasn’t one, Mel,” Avery said.

“Is forgetting.  I’m getting blackout drunk.  Like you told me.”

“That wasn’t how we put it,” Lucy said.  “This is dangerous.”

“This isn’t the way to do it,” Avery added.

“It’s the only way- I don’t know how else to.  Works for me, so far,” Melissa said.  She swayed. “I can stop when I’ve brain damaged myself enough I can pretend it was all a dream, hows that?”

“It might be harder than that,” Avery said.

“Might be!” Melissa raised her voice, no modulation.  “Mebbe!  I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, then!  If I can’t!  Want to bash on my skull?  Brain damage another way!”

“No, I don’t want to bash on your skull,” Lucy said.  “But that guy you were hugging- is that okay?  Is this whole thing going to be okay?”

“Nothing’s okay!  That guy- Sean’s my cousin, so don’t worry.  There’s zero interest.  Less than zero.  But he said if I wanna hang somewhere that isn’t with my lame parents he’ll have my back so thas what I’m doing!  Hanging!  He gives me something to drink?  Suuure.  Very sure.  I’m trying not to be bored out of my skull and this almost works!  I’ve got to do something!  Nowhere else to go.”

“Melissa…” Avery winced.

“No carbs in vodka so maybe I won’t be a sad sack of fat.”

“You could get sent away like you were worried,” Avery said.

“Maybe!  But here I am!  Nowhere else to go until I go there I guess!  And then there’ll be really nowhere else!”

She was raising her voice a lot and people were looking.

“Look, mr. blind man.  Look at that!  Listen, mr. deaf guy.  Do you hear that?  Now march, cripple girl.  Dance, cripple girl, do a flip!”

“You’re not that badly off, and we’re not asking a lot,” Lucy told her.  “We don’t have to go far.  Let’s just talk about stuff we don’t want others to hear.”

“Wheeeee.  Tell me to do one thing, then we’ll do another.  Forget, but also, let’s talk about secret stuff!”

But Melissa did follow them.

“Sorry, Mel.  I wish this was all easier,” Avery said.

“You wish this was all easier?  Mannn, you have no idea.  I have whole days, days I feel more shitty and miserable than I ever have, and my parents are bored, bored of me being sad.  And you know who’s more bored?”

“Us?” Snowdrop asked.

“Fucking me!  I’m so bored of all of this!  Maybe my parents are sick of my shit and maybe you guys are but I’m way more sick of it!  I’m sick of all of this because I don’t get to go to work or go to school or run off and play at magic!”

“Are you… is there anything fun about this, drinking?  The smoking?”

“What pills?” Lucy asked.

“Painkiller stuff.  Really strong.  I had leftover from the last refill, but it, they don’t tell you this in the drug classes, it dries out your poo.  It’s like crapping out gravel.  Nothing moves through.  So I’m taking a break, I’ll drink for a bit, then finish it off… until I stop thinking about stuff.  So if you really want to help-”

Lucy reached out, and pulled Melissa into a hug.

“Ew,” Melissa grunted.

“Doesn’t sound fun,” Avery said.

“It isn’t at all.  But nothing is anymore.  I don’t have friends.  You guys don’t like me.  You come here because you’re told to, I bet.”

“We did,” Lucy said, still hugging Melissa.  “At first.  We came because you’re a mess and it could cause trouble.  But I came tonight because I cared.  My brother’s leaving town and I cried because I didn’t want him to go, like a little kid instead of a teenager.  But I came because I cared.”

“You cried?” Avery asked.

“Shush!” Lucy told Avery, breaking the hug and pointing a warning finger.

Then she looked at Melissa, who was slumped back against a car, looking the picture of misery.  She’d be even worse when the hangover hit.

“What do you want, Melissa?”

“What are your aims?  What would make you happy?” Lucy asked.

“Every time I try to answer that I get told no.  No, it’s dangerous, no, it’s not as cool as I’m thinking…”

“We can’t bring you into this world.  I think that’d be like throwing fuel on you while you’re smoking.”

“Sure, of course,” Melissa replied.  “Of course.”

“Look me in the eyes.  Seriously.”

Melissa made eye contact, but even though her gaze remained locked to Lucy’s, her head shifted and swayed a bit.  Lucy supposed that was about as serious as she was going to get.

“What else sounded cool?” Lucy asked.

“Having a superpower, except it apparently isn’t a superpower, and apparently it gets me into trouble.”

“Connecting dots?” Lucy asked.  “Like you did with Gabe?”

“Apparently it’s a disaster.  But it’s cool.  And it’s something.  Detective Melissa.”

“What’s the line of thinking?” Avery asked.

“That Melissa might be a trainwreck no matter what we do.  She’s getting into trouble no matter what, but at least she’ll be one we can sorta steer or manage if we step in.  And maybe she’ll even find some joy in it?”

“Trainwreck Melissa, I’ve got the caboose for it.  I hate being fat, I hate it so much.  Why am I saying this out loud?”

“Because you’re fourteen and you drank most of that bottle of vodka?” Avery asked, indicating the beer bottle sized container Melissa still held.

“And all of another one!  My family can deal with alcohol pretty well.”

“No,” Melissa said.  “But wouldn’t that be badass?  I did drink most of this one.”

“If you’re serious about this, if you’re game, and if you’re willing to please please please pull your head out of your ass and listen to us…”

“Cooperate,’ Avery interjected.

“An effort can be made.”

“…we’ll try to be straight with you, when and where we can.  But you gotta take it for granted that if we don’t, we’re doing it for good reasons.”

“This doesn’t seem like a good deal.”

“Come on, there’s more to it,” Lucy told Melissa.  She motioned for the goblins to stay where they were, walking with Melissa until they were out of earshot.  “And by going this far, there will be danger-”

“Still sounds rotten.”

“We’ll see if we can make you the Connect-the-dots type of Aware,” Lucy said, glancing at Avery.  “If there’s some happiness to be found there.”

“I don’t care about being happy anymore,” Melissa said.

Lucy could have screamed.  She bit her tongue.

“…I care about belonging to something.  I don’t belong to family, I don’t belong to the Dancers, I don’t fit in with all those older teens who’re drinking and shit.  I don’t belong to- there’s no- there’s no me to belong to, I don’t fit to anything.  I’m so lonely it feels like my heart doesn’t beat anymore.”

Avery hugged Melissa from the side.

There was no ‘ew’ or protest.

“Help us solve a mystery, Melissa,” Lucy said.  “Help us connect some dots, how’s that?”

“You’re just using me, aren’t you?” Melissa asked.

“A bit.  But I also want to help and if this is your road to happiness… fuck it.”

“I’m not complaining,” Melissa said, mumbling a bit.  “I want to be used.  I want to be useful.  I want to be wanted.  Awesome.”

I think it’s good we got you away from that party and those older boys, then, protective cousin or no, Lucy thought, looking back.

“Just go along with stuff, where you can?” Avery asked.  “Don’t fight us every step of the way, okay?”

“I am in a very going-along state right now,” Melissa said, raising the bottle she still held.  “You have no idea.”

“Let’s maybe take that away,” Avery said.  She put her hand on the bottle, and Melissa surrendered it.  Avery passed it to Snowdrop, who put it in some pocket or something.

“See?  Going along.  I can do it sometimes.”

“That’s terrific,” Avery said, glancing over at Lucy.

If this doesn’t work, I’m blaming you, Alyssa, Lucy thought.  Which was unfair but whatever.  She was in an unfair mood.

The conversation with Brett was dark in her thoughts.

“What are we up to?  Where to?” Melissa asked.

“There’s a cabin this way.  And a murder victim’s body was stored in the cellar,” Lucy told her.

“Can’t hurt to take another look, right?” Lucy asked.

“Let’s hope not,” Avery said.

They headed away from the parking lot and partying teens, into the lightly forested area south of the Bowdler ski hill.

They headed toward the parking lot.  Not many of the partying teens were still around, and many were soused.  Bells sang, wind jostling each, each producing an augmented sound that jarred with the heavy footfalls as Lucy did her best to help support their soldier friend.

Nibble struggled to drag John while at the same time digging in John’s side with his claws.  Fishing for the bullet.

John wasn’t bouncing back.  They were operating under the assumption that John might be able to heal if they could get the bullet out.

There was another gunshot.

Chloe.  In close quarters with the Witch Hunter.  He wheeled on her and shot again.

Teenagers and twenty-somethings were responding to the noise, looking to try and see what was going on.

Which raised issues.  Lucy knew she was a recognizable face, and if she was tied to some shooting victim and random violence, there would be questions.

She didn’t know what to do.

“Chloe!” Nibble shouted, top of his lungs.  There was an edge to the sound that wasn’t human.  Darker.

They weren’t making enough headway while carrying John.

Chloe lunged, at the same time the Witch Hunter tossed something in the air, raising his hand as he threw out something like sand.  Salt.

Chloe stumbled into and through it, and her strength left her.  The Witch Hunter caught her, then pushed her to the ground, fending off the slashing claws with the length of the rifle..

She sprawled on the ground, too weak to even stop the fall.  He adjusted his grip on his rifle, aimed-

Avery stepped out of grass from behind him, grabbing the barrel.

He barely even flinched, asserting his grip with one hand, then elbowing Avery across the side of the head with the other arm.

“Nibble, if we get caught in a fight with him-”

“I need to go!” he growled.  “It’s Chloe!”

“Save Avery too!” Lucy called out.

He was gone, moving quickly through the darker portions of the field and tall grass.

John’s body was like a sack of lead weights as it collapsed to the ground.  Lucy tried and Melissa added her strength, but they couldn’t budge John’s mass.

“Leave him,” Lucy said.

Lucy tried her phone again.

They ran back to the parking lot.

“What the hell’s going on?” a teenager asked.  “Is there an animal out there?”

“I think there’s something feral,” Lucy replied.  She kept running, while Melissa stopped, huffing for breath.  She motioned for Melissa to follow.

Melissa seemed to hesitate, then nodded, following after.

Nibble snatched up Chloe, carrying her away, while the Witch Hunter was focused on Avery.  He threw flares, and the crowd took interest, watching, as the scene was partially illuminated in dark red.

Avery wasn’t moving right.  Like she was off balance.

That hit to her head.  Fear gripped Lucy’s upper chest.

“Is he chasing her?” someone asked.

“I think something’s after her, the way she’s moving.”  Another bystander.  “He’s trying to shoot it without shooting her.”

He’s trying not to waste bullets on something that can move like Avery does.

Snowdrop’s human form appeared, lunging for Avery.  Knocking her to the ground as there was another shot.

“I think he was trying to shoot her!  I’m calling the police!”

The Witch Hunter pushed the grass aside.  No Avery or Snowdrop.

He turned and looked at Lucy and Melissa.  People standing nearby shrieked at the attention from the gunman.

Lucy moved.  Into the parking lot, into the now-sparse collection of cars.  There wasn’t any good nook, no place she could go.

The Witch Hunter didn’t have to cover a lot of ground.  They hadn’t been able to drag John far without Nibble’s strength.

With Nibble running with Chloe, Snowdrop and an injured Avery gone, he was marching toward where John laid.  Taking targets as opportunity presented.

“Come on, come on,” Lucy muttered.

There.  A ditch.  She hurried over, huffing, hopped the ditch, and then reversed direction, heading back the way she’d come.  Throwing the tag down.

Looking down the slope further down the parking lot, she could see the Witch Hunter look up.

Hopefully there’d been enough shadow that it wasn’t too mysterious.  Not that she cared that much.

Lucy slid down the slope as Melissa caught up.

“Keep an eye out!  Is your cousin around?” Lucy asked.  “Can he drive?”

“Yes and no way,” Melissa said.

It sounded like she’d sobered up some with the fear.

Lucy ripped John’s shirt and investigated.  It was a grisly wound, all considered.  She’d expected a neat, round hole.  Nibble had done a lot of damage, trying to fish in the stomach injury with his claws.

She dug fingers into wet, sucking blood, and found it a tangle inside, stuff getting caught between her fingers, parts that felt like they were the way further in or between bits of internals until they really didn’t.

Bullet, where’s this grave bullet?

We need you fight ready, John!

Lucy snarled, pushing until her finger hurt, but a strand of something broke and she could work her hand in, nearly wrist deep.  Fishing, groping, searching for something.  A bit of solid, no, that was deceptively tense tissue.

She growled, face contorting, as she pushed her hand in deeper, another inch of give.  It was so hot inside.

She had glamour but this was so far from a Fae kind of operation that she didn’t think it would last, if she reshaped her hand.

She touched it, and it scraped her finger.  The bullet, two pieces, collapsed and torn metal.  Her hand was too slippery.

“Lucy,” Melissa whispered.

I don’t want to hear it.  I know.

“Run, then,” Lucy said.

“You said you’d listen!”

“Fuck you!  You said I belonged!  You’re all going to this effort and I’m doing nothing except being slow.  Fuck off!”

You’re doing more than being slow, Lucy thought.

Melissa had found something.

But none of that mattered, because John, because this Witch Hunter, because Avery was hurt, because-

She heard the gun cock.  Teenagers shrieked.  Tires stirred up gravel.

I’m in the ditch.  The depression that ringed the car park, keeping moisture from collecting there.  At least they can’t see me.

“Move,” the Witch Hunter said.

“Fuck off,” Melissa replied.  She stood between him and Lucy.

Lucy’s fingers slipped on bullet.  The constriction around her wrist was making it hard to hold onto anything.  John was still so out of it he barely reacted to her digging around in his insides.

“Who or what are you, getting in my way?”

“I’m a sad sack loser who was actually having a kind of cool night until you showed up so fuck you!”

“You’re not one of them.”

“Fuck off!  I’m part of the team for tonight at least!”

“You’re not one of them.  What’s your name?”

“You’re human, and you’ve been hurt by them, haven’t you?”

“I have.  Most of us have.  People, broken by them, until we’re a little more and a little less person.  I’m honorable.  If you step out of my way, I’ll give you five percent.”

“You were paid to be here?”

“Were you?  I saw you limping.  Did they offer healing?  Did they offer treasure?  A special item?  A dollar?”

“That’s not a yes.  Getting a raw deal aren’t we, miss?” he asked.  “Not getting much, but you’re willing to set your life on the line?  Move aside.”

“Fuck off, no, I’m not going to let you shoot my classmate.”

Don’t give him information.

Lucy’s fingers couldn’t get a grip.  She was realizing it was impossible, but she was already wrist deep.

He stepped up closer, close enough to be toe to toe with Melissa, looking down.

“What do you want out of this?” he asked her.  “Because they’ll eat you alive, you know.  They’ll string you along or they’ll string you up.”

He had a gun to Melissa’s head.

“Is that what they told you?” he asked.  “No.  Not at all.  This is all what they’ve set up and made over centuries.  It’s only your fault according to them, because that’s how they arranged it.”

“Here!” Lucy shouted.

“And… company of multiple sorts.  I’m getting a better picture now.  I’m going to leave now, Lucy and Melissa.  Whichever one you are with her hand in that man’s guts, I’ll put a bullet in you sooner than later.  And to you… Lucy or Melissa, it’s not your fault.  There’s better ways and better things.  I can tell you things they never wll, and show you ways to deal with the threats that are going to be lurking in the shadows all your life.  I can show you how to feel empowered again.  I’ll be around.  I’ll come to you if you come looking for me.  Whether you want answers or a ticket out of… this.”

He moved, and Melissa shuffled her feet, staying between him and Lucy.

“Thank you, Melissa,” Lucy said.

Melissa turned, then sat down heavily, shaking.

Lucy’s arm was too tired to pull anything free, even her hand.  So she leaned forward, her head against John’s chest, hand stuck, until friendly faces came.

Melissa nodded, expression unreadable.

The Others came to them, and Guilherme knelt down.  Lucy noted the goblins, from all three groups, original, Tatty’s, and Creamfilled’s.  Guilherme was here, but Maricica wasn’t.

Nothing that jarred with what they’d discovered back at the cabin.

“Here,” Melissa said.  “It fell between the sink and the wall.”

Lucy, Avery, and Snowdrop approached.

“Oh man,” Lucy whispered.

“How did you even find this?” Avery asked.

“Dunno.  Is that my power?”

“I don’t know, Melissa,” Lucy said.  “But good finding anyway.”

The syringe was sturdy, with fine, dark filigree all down the glass, denser toward the end with the needle.  Artistry that could only come from the one place.  Inside was a oily slick of darkness, glistening, strands and clumps gathering into shapes suggestive of body parts.  And one blob of white that moved through it, to the surface of the glass.

The blob of white had a face.  Edith’s.