7:2
Everyone started talking pretty much at once, their voices overlapping into the buzz of angry insects.
Dempsey’s “Faith is great but how about a plan?” was met by Ben’s scowl and a snapped, “Since when are you making the calls, new guy?”. You knew it had to be bad when Ben snapped at his potential new idol.
Patti stood there, gaze darting to the left, to the right, to the center, trying to track the scattered conversations. And Dan sat back, arms crossed, his expression inward.
Meanwhile Siobhan started muttering, more to herself than to Prairie though Prairie was the closest and therefore the most likely to hear and reply. “We shouldn’t be here.” Her eyes darted around the room. “They know we’re here and they’ve proven they can get to us here. We shouldn’t be meeting. It makes us vulnerable.”
Prairie sighed, pressing her chin harder to Siobhan’s shoulder. “We can’t let fear dictate our actions. Also, if they can get to us here they can get to us at home or anywhere else. Why shouldn’t be stick together so we know when one of us goes missing, if it happens again?”
“I can’t-” Siobhan stood up abruptly, causing Prairie to fall back. Turning quickly, she rushed for the front door, her hands balled into fists at her side, so driven by the moment she didn’t even grab her bag from the floor next to the chair. Prairie scooped up the bag then scrambled to follow and Ivan pushed away from the wall to follow Prairie.
In the confusion no one saw Gwen peel away and head for the back exit, plunger swinging against her leg and expression set in determined lines. The first one to notice or say anything was Dempsey who looked around the group to gauge where everyone stood and therefore noticed one of them missing.
He leaned over in his chair to look at Patti, deeming her most likely to have an idea as she seemed to have her eyes all over. “Where’s that Gwen girl?”
Patti turned back from where she’d been looking to the bar and frowned at Dempsey. “She’s right-” she cut off on a frown. “She was right here. Ben?”
Ben looked up from the inventory he was doing of his jacket’s contents. “Yeah?”
“Where’s Gwen?”
“She’s right-”
Dempsey pushed up from his chair and strolled towards the door Ivan, Prairie, and Siobhan had rushed through. Dan rose and followed, then Ben did the same with a hastier step.
Patti took a quick stop at the bar, explaining the bathroom situation to Helena, the tender on duty, then hurried to follow. Halfway to the door she stopped, turned on her heel, and grabbed Sass from its perch then snatched up her shield and cudgel. The way this group worked there was a strong chance they’d be in the wind before she had a chance to come back for her stuff. She exited to controlled pandemonium as the group reacted to Gwen’s disappearance.
“I’m sure she just went to The House,” Ivan was saying to Siobhan who had a wild look in her eyes that suggested she was a solid second from doing something and who knew what that would be but it wasn’t going to be very calm and it wasn’t going to be very collected and it was likely not going to be very ‘Siobhan’.
“Without telling anyone?” Siobhan asked.
Ivan nodded. “She did when you were-” he trailed off.
Siobhan visibly collected herself. “We have one confirmed missing. Potentially two. I need ideas.”
“She isn’t miss-”
Siobhan cut off Ivan. “Can you be sure about that?”
“Well,” Ivan looked anywhere but at Siobhan’s increasingly wild eyes. “No. But…”
Again Siobhan took a cleansing breath, folded her hands, forced a smile. Whatever it was he saw in that smile had Ivan dropping back a small step and Ben lifting his hands in defense of a statement that hadn’t been made but certainly felt implied.
Voice steady and posture relaxed, Dan inserted a measure of calm. “We’ll go to The House and see if Gwen is there. Then we can reassess.”
Siobhan’s nod of acknowledgement was jerky, a little manic, reflected in her too wide eyes. Prairie took a deep cleansing breath through her nose, then laid a hand on Siobhan’s arm. When Siobhan turned to look at her, Prairie smiled. “It’s good to have a plan.”
Another jerky nod from Siobhan, then Prairie looked in the direction they’d need to take to get to the swamp and the house crouched therein. “Walk with me?”
Siobhan’s nod this time was smoother. By general consensus, the group checked their supplies quickly, then after determining they were set for whatever might come up, they stepped away from Leo’s. Just as they were doing so a blond in a priest cassock came striding up to the pub, the front of the ankle-length garment flaring open to reveal soft black boots laced up the calf to hold the pants tucked into them secure.
An albino crow chick, hair all poof and floof in a downy halo around their head, with bright inquisitive eyes taking in the group and the road and the buildings and the traffic of vehicles and people that turned the world into a whir of Impressionist art, they were neither tall nor short, neither lean nor thick though the cassock played tricks with that, and their pale cheeks held the fullness of youth not yet carved by time and despair. They were a fledgling inching along the edge of the nest, claws tight in the weave even as their chest flexes and their wings hunch in preparation for flight and their bright eyes darted, quick mind parsing danger and potential, suspended in the moment between becoming and being, falling and flying.
There movements were an exploration of dichotomies. On the verge. Confidence and hesitation; swagger and slump. Wide-legged gait eating the ground, narrow shoulders hunched to protect the bag strapped across their chest. Bold gaze behind the scrim of fluffy bangs sieving the air for possibility, chin down and pulled back the guarded mistrust of a hatchling.
Steps lively, they paused in their path to the pub and turned to head for the group, swinging stride and caved ribs, laser stare and tight mouth. When that mouth opened to speak it was a surprise to not hear a reedy ‘gronk!’, but instead “Dempsey?”
Dempsey stopped. Turned. His expression settled into something resembling welcome. “Hey, Abe. Didn’t expect you so quick.”
“You said you had something interesting for me,” the crow in priest clothing said, adjusting the cross strap of their bag.
“Something came up.” Dempsey frowned, looking at the group who had stopped and turned to look at he and the blond. He jerked a thumb at the group. “I could send you a message when we get back. Or,” he paused, rubbed the side of his nose with his thumb, “you doing anything?”
The blonds look was equal parts exasperation and humor. “Evidently not anymore. So, do you have something else in mind?”
“We’re doing something. Could be interesting.”
Ben separated from the group who were in a holding position and strolled over. “Warden, who’s your friend?”
The blond held out a hand. “Abe. I’m Abe.”
Ben eyed the hand for a second too long, then reached out and shook it. “Ben. You a friend of The Warden?”
Dempsey cut in before Abe could respond in the negative or positive, and thereby potentially confirm the information Ben was fishing for. “Abe’s a tattoo artist. I asked them to look at Dan’s new tatt. Hey, Dan,” he raised his voice to carry to the group a short distance from them. “This is the person I told you about that could look at your art.”
Dempsey encouraged Abe to join the group, waving his hand as he stepped away from the pub. Abe secured their bag and walked over, looking at Dan who separated from the group and gave an upward head jerk in greeting. Abe mirrored the movement. Dan did the same.
“You look like bobbleheads,” Patti muttered, giving Dan a nudge. “Go talk to the kid. I doubt they bite.”
Dan slanted a glance at Patti, then walked forward with hand extended. “Dan.”
“Abe.” The blond took the hand, then turned it to so Dan’s knuckles were facing up. Their eyes lit up with interest. “Is this the piece?”
“Yep.”
Ivan strolled over. “Can you do that while we walk? We have somewhere we need to be.”
Abe lifted their gaze from Dan’s hand and nodded before focusing on the word across Dan’s fingers. As the group started moving towards the swamp Abe hummed their interest, turning Dan’s hand slightly so they could see where the filigree around the letters wrapped Dan’s fingers like rings. Dan for his part watched the blond, his feet on autopilot.
After another hum and several more twists of his hand, Dan ventured. “Have you seen anything like it before?”
“Huh?” Abe lifted their gaze from Dan’s hand, nearly stumbling as they focused on Dan’s face with bleary eyes.
“Easy!” Dan said, tightening his arm so he braced the slighter Abe.
“Thanks,” Abe murmured, darting a glance for the road they walked towards the swamp before delicately tapping each of the Dan’s fingers above the filigreed bands with their fingertips and humming again. A look of concentration tightened their features, then they tapped the knuckle below the letter H. The letter surged slightly, pulling subtly towards Abe’s finger and getting a smile from the artist along with another ‘huh’.
Abe released Dan’s hand as they drew near The House. “Interesting.”
Dan raised his brows. “Interesting?”
Abe nodded, the enthusiasm of the gesture causing their bang to dance over their eyebrows. When they didn’t elaborate, Dan asked. “What is it?”
“Magick.” Abe gave Dan an encouraging smile and another head bob.
Dan gave Abe a look from under his brows. “What kind.”
Abe shrugged. “Not sure.” They pulled their mouth to the side, bit their lip.
“Have you seen anything like it before?”
Head bob, hair dancing with the jerk of the chin. “Yes.”
“Elaborate?”
Abe raised a finger, tapped their chin, “I need to think about it.” They turned suddenly, looking at The House. “Is that your friend?”
Dan turned to confirm as Gwen came stomping up to the group, snatching open the gate hard enough to jerk at its hinges before they could reach the bounding wall.
Her “She isn’t here!” clashed with Siobhan’s “You can’t just walk off like that!”. Ivan took a step back, gaze darting between the two women as Siobhan strode up to the fence, took up a fierce stance with fists planted on her hips, and gave Gwen a look that reflected the bite in her tone.
Gwen pointed her plunger at Siobhan. “I needed to do something!”
Siobhan wasn’t backing down. Instead she gave the plunger a pointed look and then glared at Gwen. “You could have been taken!”
Gwen drooped, dropping the plunger as her face softened with sorrow. She sniffled. Hard. “You’re projecting.”
At Siobhan’s soft “Oh!”, Gwen placed her hand gently on Siobhan’s upper arm and gave her friend a watery smile. “I didn’t think about-” She shook her head, started again. “I’m sorry.”
Siobhan dropped her head for a second then squared her shoulders and her chin. She gulped visibly. “Are you sure she isn’t here?”
Gwen shrugged. “Not really. The House didn’t open when I yelled at it. Or asked. Or, well,” she kicked the dirt, “I may have pleaded too.”
Abe shot Dan a look that was all question and quietly asked, “The House didn’t open when she asked?”
Dan jerked a nod, his gaze going between Siobhan, Gwen, and The House. “Seems like.”
Abe shifted their gaze to The House, their expression shifting to speculation. “The House responds to you?”
“Yep.”
Patti sidled up to Abe and Dan, responding to the look of confusion on Abe’s face. “Welcome to the mad house, kid.”
“It’s a mad house?” Abe’s voice rose on the last. Patti shook her head in the negative. “Only figuratively.”
Abe looked to Dempsey. Dempsey looked back and shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I’ve never been here before.”
Abe turned back to Patti, who seemed the most likely source of information. “Why did your friend say The House didn’t open for her?”
Patti shrugged. “I’m guessing because it didn’t.”
Sass gave a ‘peep’, drawing Abe’s eye. “You have a mouse in a house on your belt.”
“You’re wearing a cassock.” Patti raised her brows at the look Abe turned on her. “What? We aren’t playing ‘state the obvious’?” She softened the words with a grin, then jerked a thumb at Sass. “The mouse in the house is Sass.”
Sass leaned further out the window and waved at Abe who gave a very tentative wave back then said in a restrained voice. “The mouse is waving at me.”
Patti slanted a glance at Sass. “Seems like.”
“Does it understand us?”
Patti shrugged. “Not sure. Probably.”
Abe perked up. “Is it a Magick mouse?” They stooped to look at Sass, their nose inches from the mouse, all curiosity and no fear. Their voice rose an octave and pulsed with excitement. “I’ve heard of Magick animals but I’ve never seen one!”
Sass leaned forward and booped Abe’s nose, causing the blond to rear back with a surprised look before smiling in such a way that their face was transformed. Instantly they shed at least ten years, going from an early adult to a child in a blink. “That is- Wow!”
Patti smiled. “I’m Patti. I think I’ve seen you around Leo’s?”
Abe shrugged. “Maybe? I like to draw in the corner booth. And I know who you are. You sing so good!”
“Thanks.” Patti waited for Abe to say something else. When they didn’t she slanted a glance at the bag strapped across their chest, “You said you draw. You some kind of artist?”
Abe lifted their shoulders a smidge. “I guess.”
Dempsey ambled over, drawn from his observation of Gwen and Siobhan where they stood near the gate talking to Ben, Ivan, and Prairie. “Abe’s a tattoo artist. Asked them to come look at Dan’s tatt.”
“Oh,” Patti nodded to Dempsey then shifted her attention to Abe, “You have an opinion on it?”
Abe’s expression shifted from wonder to confidence in a heartbeat. They tightened their hand on the strap of their bag. “Maybe. So-” they shifted the conversation a bit roughly, turning to Dempsey. “I was asking Patti about this house.”
“Oh?” Dempsey tilted his head, levelling a look on Patti. “Did I get it right? Did that Gwen say she talked to the house and it didn’t talk back?”
Patti frowned. “I forgot you’ve never been here. I don’t know that much because I’m pretty new to the group but here’s the skinny. This house seems to be Magick, though I don’t anyone has suggested how. The first time I saw it,” she waved vaguely in the direction of the gate, “it wasn’t here. In this swamp. It was in another province.”
“Couldn’t be the same house.”
Patti shrugged at Dempsey. “It is. Or if it isn’t then there are two identical houses in two places. With exactly the same wall and gate and the exact same plants in the garden in front. That’s how Siobhan convinced me it was the same. She didn’t look beyond the gate at the other house, just rattled off a list of things beyond it and she was one-hundred percent on them.”
Dempsey crossed his arms, contemplated the house. “Interesting. How about Gwen saying she talked to it?”
Patti dropped her voice, “When Siobhan was abducted Gwen screamed at The House and the door opened.”
“Like it was unlocked and it swung open?”
Patti shook her head in the negative. “The door was closed. And locked. And it opened when Gwen yelled at The House.” At Dempsey’s and Abe’s doubting looks she widened her eyes. “I saw it. With my own two eyes. Shit was Magickal. Then there’s the fact that its bigger on the inside than the outside. And the inside changes.”
Abe’s eyes got very wide and they shot a glance at the house. The look Dempsey gave the house was a little more calculating. “How so?”
“The first time we entered, in that other province, we were looking for a woman named Diana who’d disappeared from-” Patti paused, looked down at Sass, murmured, “her castle?” to which Sass clearly nodded. Patti looked back at Dempsey. “This woman, whose husband found us, disappeared from her castle. There was a story left behind with echoes of Cinderella in it. When we entered the house there, which her husband saw as a hunting lodge but we saw like this,” she swept her hand at The House, “it looked like a palace.”
“Patti?” Patti jumped at Ben’s voice. He must have wandered over while she was explaining The House to Dempsey and Abe. “Can you do that thing with the songs like you did the first time?”
“The thing with the songs?” Dempsey asked. Patti nodded, “Gwen isn’t the only one that the house seems to listen to. That first time with Diana I’m fairly sure it used Bard Magick to let me know we needed to climb in the window. The door was booby-trapped.” She started walking to the gate, then looked back at Dempsey and Abe. “Coming?”
Abe nodded, their wide eyes echoing the enthusiasm of the movement. Dempsey shrugged and uncrossed his arms. “Might as well.”
His look was ripe with speculation as he followed Patti to the fence. While she hadn’t given the full story of the place what she had revealed made him wonder if potentially he was looking at the largest and most powerful artifact he’d ever seen. He couldn’t be sure but there was something about the place, stronger as he neared the gate, that tugged at his Magick. He amended his earlier thought to add “most dangerous” to largest and most powerful. His hands literally itched to figure out how to contain it.
“Your pants are wet.” Abe’s observation jerked Dempsey’s attention from The House.
“Solid observation.”
Abe just looked up at him, their expression politely expectant. Dempsey dug his hands into his pockets. “Pipes burst in the bathroom at Leo’s.”
Abe cocked their head, waiting for Dempsey to expand.
“The group has a missing member. Named Kim. Elemental Magick.”
“Missing?”
“Taken. Probably.” He jerked his head to indicate Siobhan where she was carefully picking her way through the herb garden beyond the gate. “That one. Siobhan. She was kidnapped. We got her back. Could be Kim was taken by the same people.”
“And she broke the pipes when that happened?”
“Undetermined. But, yeah, probably.”
Abe swept their gaze over the others. “They are an interesting group.” They lifted the last word so it was a question. Dempsey nodded. “Hero types.”
“Oh.” Abe cocked their head one way. Cocked it the other. “Do you know how Dan got the Magick embedded in his skin?”
“So it is Magick?”
Abe nodded.
“Your kind?”
A shrug. “Not sure. Feels like but-” Abe nodded, stepping through the gate Dempsey held open. “Different.”
“How?”
Abe paused. Rubbed the fingers of their right hand together, like you might test the quality of a bolt of cloth. The tattoos there, heavy crocheted black lace that stopped at the first knuckle, flexed, drawing the eye. “Older. Jagged. Maybe?” Right before they came up to the rest of the group, Abe added, “By the time I come in contact with Magick like this its already found itself.”
At Dempsey’s questioning look, they expanded. “This Magick,” they rubbed their right arm under the cassock, “knows what it is.” They rolled their eyes. “Not explaining well.”
Dempsey and Abe stopped next to Dan who had his gaze trained on Patti where she was swaying with her eyes closed, humming random notes that didn’t resolve into any recognizable song. She frowned and then changed the pitch. Tilted her head, shifted the rhythm slightly then raised it up an octave.
“What’s she doing?” Dempsey shifted to ask Dan quietly so he didn’t disturb what Patti was doing.
Dan shifted the toothpick he was working into the corner of his mouth. “When we couldn’t get into The House where Diana was held Patti started hearing that song ‘Come to My Window’. Ended up we had to go to the window to get in. Ben’s already tried picking the lock. Ivan has examined the door to see if there’s any mechanism to trip. And Gwen has done whatever she does to make The House listen to her but it isn’t opening.”
“How’s that work? The making The House listen to her?”
“Not sure.”
“Is it alive?”
“Not sure.”
“What are you sure of?”
Dan shook his head. “The House let us in when Siobhan was taken.”
“Is it Magick?”
“Not sure.”
Patti’s shoulders slumped. She stopped humming to loudly sigh.
“Nothing?”
Patti rolled her lips over her teeth and shook her head to Ivan’s question.
“Stay here.” Dempsey looked down from his considerable height at Abe who was considerably lower, indicating the spot with a thrust of his finger, then walked up to the door.
The windows to either side of the door shifted slightly, drawing closer to the door, almost as if they were watching him. He’d have dismissed the thought if not for the fact he’d contacted several artifacts in the past that had the capability to do exactly that. Usually they were ones that were tied to blood or human sacrifice and in his experience that which watched was the residual Spirits of those whose stolen Magick powered the objects. It was possible that was what they had here.
Nausea gnawed at his stomach, rising in a wave of bile to the base of his throat, as he considered the sacrifice needed to empower something the size of a house. If it really could translocate and could restructure itself too? In his travels Dempsey had run up against people who did depraved things for power, but the scope of what it would take to make this…
He shook his head and pressed his hand to the door. His Magick pulsed from him, fusing with the structure of the wood. He imagined it like electromagnetic radiation emitting from the pulsar that was his core, expanding to merge with and engulf the Magick that powered the house. Within seconds he knew something was wrong. The Magick of the house overwhelmed his, a gravitational wave tearing his Magick from the reservoir inside of him. It was gutting him. Mustering his strength Dempsey contracted at his base, pulling hard against the lure of the house.
Whether it was his effort or the house released him made no difference. Just that he was released. As he stumbled back a step he felt his core pulling Magick from the world in greedy gulps too large for him to contain, like a parched land incapable of absorbing a heavy rain drowning in the very essence of what it needed to survive. Sensation rushed into his head, a black wave of Magick obliterating his senses and his thoughts. One breath to the next he dropped unconscious on the stoop.
Though they didn’t know the why of it every person there felt the tug of Dempsey’s mad grab for Magick. Shadows writhed around Ben, seeping from his skin. He snatched at them and they fought him, snapping snakes fighting their tamer. Fighting to hold their writhing length, he smashed the shadows between his palms, rotating his hands as he drew the Magick back into his core.
Patti’s mouth gaped, words like breath lost to a lover’s kiss escaping her. She inhaled, gasped, grasped at the air with splayed palms as pops of shadow like dust motes burst across her vision. Finally, she was able to gulp a breath. It punched the back of her throat, Magick and air hitting like a two-inch diameter chrome bearing.
Prairie’s eyes just rolled back in her head and she dropped. Ivan, whose Magick was more integrated within him and therefore less likely to be jerked out, managed to lunge forward and catch Prairie before her head hit the ground. He breathed a sigh as he snatched her up against him, closing his eyes for a moment to shake off the weird ringing in his head.
Siobhan also fared better than the others which was lucky as she was able to catch Gwen as she also dropped boneless, like a marionette with her strings cut. Dan braced his legs and rode out the wave of dizziness that assailed him. When he saw Abe falter next to him he reached out and clasped Abe’s shoulder in his hand, effectively keeping them on their feet too.
When Patti moved to crouch next to Dempsey Abe dove forward with a shout, “Don’t!”
Startled Patti fell back on her butt, causing Sass’s house to bounce on the ground and seriously rattling the mouse who let out a confused “Squee!”
Abe walked over and offered Patti a hand up. “There’s a serious disturbance in the force right now.”
Patti cocked Abe a look. “Geek.”
Abe looked a little abashed, to which Patti added, “Compliment. Not put-down.”
“Oh.” Abe curled their shoulders forward, caving in their ribs and making themselves smaller as they stared anywhere but at Patti. “K.” They nodded, still not looking up. “Dempsey does that when his Magick overloads. Like a white dwarf.”
Ben moved to stand over Dempsey and scratched his head. “Huh.”
“So,” Patti asked in a dry tone, “You know what that means?”
“Uh.” Hand pressed to the back of his neck, Ben shifted his weight from foot to foot. “It means he sucks?’
Abe snorted, chagrin smothered beneath Ben’s humor. “He-” Nod. Nod. “Does.”
Ben crouched to eye Dempsey’s slumped form. “Can we move him?”
Abe shrugged. “Maybe in a few minutes?”
Rising, Ben dusted his hands off. “Okay.”
He moved over to where Prairie was stirring against Ivan. Her eyelids drifted open slowly and her lips curved on a soft smile as she rubbed her head against Ivan’s chest. Sighing she blinked several slow sleepy blinks then fully focused. It was clear the instant she realized where she was because for one moment her smile grew wistful as her eyes focused on his face then she stiffened and struggled to push away from him.
“I know, I know,” Ivan grumbled, gently setting her on her feet. “You are not a damsel.”
The nod she gave him was lethargic, the smile the same. “Exactly.”
Ivan reached over and bopped her on the nose to which she wrinkled her face up and gave him a scowl that would have been more intimidating if it wasn’t so cute.
“Uh,” Patti said from where she still crouched near the door and Dempsey’s inert body, “Does anyone besides me hear that?”
Sass thumped the windowsill of its house with its paws. It heard it.
“Hear what?” Siobhan looked up from where Gwen was groggily rubbing her head against the ground. “Wait-” she frowned and cocked her head. “I think-”
Patti hummed then added lyrics to the tune that was slowly pulsing from The House, “There’s a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure ‘cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.”
Siobhan picked up the lyrics, melding her voice with Patti’s, “In a tree by the brook, there’s a songbird who sings. Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.”
On the chorus Gwen startled mumbling, her voice breaking as she joined in with a voice that wobbled slightly, “Ooh, makes me wonder.” Prairie came in on the second, “Ooh, makes me wonder.”
Patti’s voice soared over the others as she opened to the Magick that was pulsing back into her like a creek refreshed by a Spring thaw. “There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west and my spirit is crying for leaving. In my thought I have seen rings of smoke through the trees. And the voice of those who stand looking.”
Abe, crouched near Patti and therefore in ground-zero for the impact of her song, swayed, their eyes going glassy. A hand, Hope stretching over the knuckles, closed on their shoulder, steadying them. They looked up, a look of gratitude directed at Dan, who gave an upward nod of acknowledgment.
Abe’s lips moved on a word that remained unvoiced.
Siobhan, Prairie, Gwen, and Patti’s voices blended, Gwen’s weak but slowly gaining in power. “And it’s whispered that soon if we all call the tune then the Piper will lead us to reason. And a new day will dawn for those who stand long and the forests will echo with laughter.”
“They do that.” Dempsey’s rusty voice startled Abe and Dan who turned to see Dempsey pushing up onto an elbow. He blinked to clear his vision.
“Do what?” Abe asked quietly, voice slow still from the effect of Patti’s Song.
“Randomly sing.” Dempsey shook his head.
“Binds us.” Dan offered.
Dempsey rubbed his breastbone. “Does anyone feel-”
“Magick.” Abe’s voice was quiet, reverent, as they patted their hand on the air. “You can feel Magick.”
“Yeah.” Dan’s lips curved on a small smile. “I think Patti does that.”
Gwen’s voice boomed on the next verse, drawing Dempsey, Dan, and Abe’s attention. “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now. It’s just a spring clean for the May Queen. Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”
She sat up fully, frowning, and rubbed her chest before turning enough she could direct a glare to Dempsey. “Was that you, Shady?”
Dempsey sat up fully and shrugged. “If it was?”
Gwen rolled her eyes, got to her feet, and dusted off her ass with her hands. “You suck.”
Patti, Ben, and Abe all snorted, causing Gwen to level them with a frown. Ben waved it off as Patti stood fully, cracked her back, then looked at the house and the open door that lead inside.
“Anyone question who the Piper is and why he’s calling us to join him?”
Ivan frowned, reared his head back at Patti’s question. “Huh?”
“The song.” Patti jerked her head towards the open door. “The next verse is ‘your head is humming and it won’t go, in case you don’t know. The Piper’s calling you to join him.’” Her expression took on a note of contemplation. “My head *is* humming and I’m guessing everyone else’s is too.” Several nods confirmed her statement. She cocked her head. “And now it’s stopped.” At the looks turned her way she added, “The music. Stopped.” Her eyes took on a determined light. “I’m done questioning if someone is telling us something. I’m going with whoever they is they are.” She jerked her head at The House.
Siobhan’s lips turned up, the first evidence of anything besides concern she’d shown since the bathroom had erupted in water. “Kim, Gwen, and I actually had a talk about that.”
“Yeah.” Gwen dusted her hands together. “In the bathroo-” she tapered off and stiffened. “Huh.”
“So,” Ben said, looking at the open door. “Anyone not want to enter?”
Abe’s hand started to rise from their side but then they eyed the door, cocked their head while a look of uncertainty morphed to one of curiosity, and then lowered their hand.
Ivan strode over and offered Dempsey an arm up. Dempsey hesitated then took it, using Ivan’s grip to pull himself to his feet. He rolled his shoulders until his elbows met behind his back and cracked his neck. “Got nothing better to do.”
Ivan jerked his chin to the door. “Then let’s go.”
Enter The Woods 