9:1
Picture in your mind a quintessential pub. A picturesque pub. Charming. Classic. Quaint. Pick your synonym. Plop it on a city street corner, fronting a sidewalk of paving stones, with a door set flush, squaring off the corner of the building, slap a flower box painted white, overflowing with green foliage and red flowers, above a door painted forest green, a third of it glinting glass panes, light deflecting off their beveled edges, and you had Leo’s.
Its brick walls received a new coat of white paint each year, the color mellowing as the days dwindled until they reached just the right balance of white giving way to orange-pink that beckoned with the promise of broken-in comfort and familiarity. The glow of light, diffuse through the tinted glass of the windows, a siren’s lure offering warmth for the weary, respite at the end of a busy day, a cool pint and a warm pie to fill your stomach.
A siren’s lure Kim very assiduously ignored as she dug her hands into the pockets of her cargoes and started a slow tour around the block. The black hands on the stark white face of the clock mounted above the profusion of red and green bursting from the window box above the green door pointed in what Kim poetically read as a slightly accusing way at the five and the three, the long hand obscuring the three pointing out she’d been circling the block like a shark around chum for a solid fifteen meros.
She’d been on time. Early even. But upon approaching the oh-so-charming green door with its oh-so-inviting light filtered through its oh-so-picturesque tinted-glass panes everything inside of her had risen up in one huge balk. Like Bawk, bawk, bawk; her chicken heart making its displeasure known in the herky-jerky shuffle of feet heading right the fuck away from that door.
It was a toss-up if it was her feet or her heart leading the way, sending her in a long meander around the block once, twice, three, and then four times. Gwen, on Kim Duty that day, stuck to her like Peter’s shadow waiting the snip of Wendy’s scissors saying nothing, just walking along with hands in pockets and gaze fixed on the sky.
Their silence stretched, Kim describing in minute, flowery detail every damned crack in the sidewalk in a running monologue in her brain and Gwen doing whatever Gwen did in her head – envision unicorns skipping rope while singing ‘Jimmy Crack Corn’ or unravel string theory perhaps – for once more around the block. Then, on the next rotation Gwen said, “Nice day for a walk,” to which Kim responded with a distracted, “Yep.” And that was it until the next lap.
The next time they passed the door to Leo’s, Gwen offered Jeff on door duty a quick upward snap of the chin in acknowledgment when he rose, put his hand on the door, then settled back on his stool as they tooled on past him, then dug her hands deeper into her pockets, rounding her shoulders, and ventured, “How ’bout them Orioles?”
“The birds?” Kim responded in a distant tone.
“Sure. Go with that.”
Kim squinted, tilted her head, screwed up her lips. “I prefer Jays.”
“Yeah.” Gwen paused like she was actually considering the merits, Orioles over Jays, then offered, “Jays. Yep. Jays. Jays are good,” before tapering off into silence broken by the scuff of their feet on the sidewalk and the sound of people passing by on the street.
As they slowly strolled past Leo’s again and Jeff rose again, then sat again, and Kim’s feet kept on going, Gwen asked, “Why does unicorn pudding taste like cotton candy?”
“Because pineapple makes no sense.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Can’t say.” Kim’s voice was somewhere on the horizon, near where her gaze was focused, “Never talked to one. Not a fruit-o-mancer.”
Gwen stopped at this. Kim kept on two more strides before halting and turning back to look at her friend who met her questioning look with a question of her own, “Do you think there are fruitomancers?”
Kim shrugged. “Maybe? Could be a form of alchemy, I guess?”
Gwen looked to the sky a tick, then said, “Dancing raisins,” to which Kim snorted. “Right?”
Gwen dug her hands deeper into her pockets and started walking again, Kim falling in with her. “I’d make an excellent fruitomancer.”
“You would. Missed opportunity. The gods laugh at the plans of mortals.”
“Right.” Gwen eyed the rapidly approaching bulk of Leo’s as they turned the corner at the end of the block. “We going in this time?”
Kim stopped walking and contemplated the door, then scratched her wrist, curling her fingers in against her heart. “Maybe?”
Gwen shrugged then crossed her arms, giving Kim a steady stare. Kim drew a slow breath and massaged her breastbone with her knuckles.
“I want to go in.”
“No. You don’t.”
“No. I don’t. Are you,” Kim wiggled her fingers near her temple, “ooby doobying me?”
Gwen lifted her brows. “Ooby doobying? By which you mean imagining you naked?”
A snort burst from Kim. “Yes. Exactly that. No, are you smoothing me out?”
Gwen scratched her jaw. “Maybe.”
Kim considered this for a mikro then shrugged. “Okay.”
“I can’t completely help it.”
“Yep.”
“Really. It’s not like I can turn it off.”
“Doesn’t it, you know, make you nuts to always feel what other people are feeling?”
“No. Not really.”
“Doesn’t it make you nuts to always feel what I’m,” Kim leaned into the word hard, “feeling? There’s a whole lot of,” she paused, pulled a face, tapped her temple, “swamp in here.”
Gwen shrugged, all casual like. “Not really.”
“I don’t know how you do that shit. I have enough trouble feeling what I’m feeling. Having to feel other people’s shit too?” Kim fake gagged.
Gwen tucked her hair behind her ear. “It’s easier when its other people’s feelings. You can step away from them.”
“That’s deep.”
“Right?”
Kim lowered her head and contemplated her toe, pushing it at the crack in the sidewalk. “Who takes care of you?”
“What?”
“You take care of all of us. Who takes care of you?”
Rather than answer Gwen slanted her gaze to the door and called, “Hey, Jeff.”
Jeff, silent up ’til then, shifted on his stool, lifted his chin, and pitched his voice to carry. “Gwen. Kim. You two coming in?”
Kim lifted her voice to carry to Jeff. “Maybe?”
“Okay.” Jeff shrugged, then crossed his arms and went back to scanning the street and sidewalk with his gaze, projecting he could wait all day. No rush. Whatever.
Where Leo’s was made of brick and familiarity and comfort, Jeff, the doorman slash guard was carved of stone, a gargoyle, like that cartoon where the creatures were big and strong and battled on the side of good rather than the carvings from ancient churches those characters had drawn inspiration from. Guardians at the gate, turning away barbarians.
Once upon a time, before she was kidnapped from within the safety of Leo’s with its sturdy walls and sturdier doormen, Kim might have looked at Jeff and thought “security”. Once his presence at that door would have underpinned her sense of Leo’s as a safe place. Now it just sort of served as proof that safety was an illusion, a shimmering mirage drawing in the unwary.
Maybe it was that Jeff’s presence once gave her a sense of safety but, yeah, not so much anymore. Now he was just, he was like a big old punch in the face of how very unsafe…. something something… you could guard the door all you wanted but if the enemy was within what was the use? Or if the enemy could get in. Or – whatever! It felt like there was a metaphor in there somewhere. Or something. And, yes, still stalling. Super. Excellent. Way to be strong!
Kim lofted her chin, indicating Jeff and the door. “What’s the use?”
Gwen blinked. “The use?”
“Of guarding the door. They can get in anywhere.”
“They can. So today its Leo’s you don’t enter. What is it tomorrow? The grocery store? Work? Maybe you stop leaving your house. Where does it stop?”
Kim’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. I just feel…”
“Helpless. I know. And it’s okay to feel that way. A bad thing happened to you and you aren’t just going to shake it off and start up your life as usual. But it doesn’t mean you have to stop your life completely.”
Kim gave Gwen a long look, to which Gwen crossed her arms and griped, “What?”
“How are you so smart?”
Gwen just shrugged. “So, can we go in now?”
Kim eyed the door and twisted her mouth to the side. “Maybe another mero?”
Gwen nodded and went back to idly watching clouds drift by.
“I feel like a fucking idiot,” Kim muttered from the side of her mouth.
Gaze still on the clouds, Gwen said, “You feel like someone who suffered a trauma and is dealing with it.”
“Badly.”
“Is there a goodly?”
“I don’t know. Feels like there should be.”
Gwen shifted her gaze from the sky to Kim’s face. “Your feelings are valid.”
“You think?”
“I think,” Jeff called, “You should come inside. Your frightening away customers.”
“Seriously?” Kim lifted her brows and crossed her arms, shooting back at him, “Could you at least pretend to not be listening to a private conversation?”
He shifted to look directly at her, a measure of amusement in his raised brows and in the quirk of the corner of his mouth. “Is it really private if it’s in front of me?”
Before Kim could consider a comeback, and as if in support of Jeff’s point, three people approached Leo’s, their steps hesitant.
The man and the woman had a similarity about them. Not in looks. He was tall with a swimmer’s build, broad shoulders and narrow waist emphasized by the brown tweed vest he wore over a white button-up tucked into a pair of worn jeans; she was slight, with delicate shoulders curved forward as if to protect a weary heart and defined collarbones standing out beneath thin straps of a cotton sundress.
No, it wasn’t in their looks, but in their expressions. Both had about them something taut, tendons and cartilage and all the things that connected a person tense like high tensile steel in a bridge battered by high winds, straining to keep the structure whole.
As if sensing the touch of Kim’s eyes, the woman curled thin fingers into the edges of her cardigan and tugged it over the exposed collarbones, obscuring the straps of her sundress as she leaned away from the arm the man tentatively raised to drape over her shoulder. There was a wealth of emotion in the gesture; rejection, fear, amplified by the deeper curving of her shoulders and the chin dropping a mikro too late to hide the tightening of her lips or the rapid blinking of her eyes.
The man lowered his arm, leaving it to hang, lax, a flag drooping in dead air broadcasting dejection as clearly as if the feeling was shouted at the top of his lungs. He turned his eyes to the third member of their party, his expression searching.
Where the woman in the sundress was made small by her emotions, the other woman was simply small. Tiny. Maybe five-foot, five-foot one. She had an open expression emphasizing expressive eyes the color of a cloudless sky, the color stark against porcelain skin too smooth to be quite real. Delicately rounded cheeks blushed the palest pink. Lush lips several shades darker than that pink, set narrow in a triangular jaw, formed a natural pout.
Her slight height was emphasized by the long, long, *long* blond braid draped over her shoulder to trail down to her knees. Really. Her knees. The braid had to be the better part of four-and-a-half feet long.
You didn’t expect hair that long in a shade that light. The rope of it should have been dark, the thickness of it having depths of blue or cinnabar; not the yellow of corn silk. Hair that color should be thin, like the dusting on a child’s head, showing scalp through its sparse cover. It wasn’t. It was thick. The braid had to be, like, three inches across, a rope meant to drape down the side of a cliff not over the body of a walking, talking human.
And she was talking. Quietly so Kim couldn’t hear the words, but by the way the man’s shoulders straightened and his arm took on a more natural angle Kim would guess the words had been reassuring. When the woman laid a soft hand on the man’s upper arm he nodded and turned to the narrow woman beside him. He lifted his hand, held it hovering over her skin, then redirected the movement to point at Jeff and the door of Leo’s. The woman looked down, blinked, then nodded and started for the door. The man and the other woman moved to bracket her, a step behind, an honor guard protecting the slight woman’s frame from whatever might come at her from the back or the side.
Something in that woman’s fragile appearance, the hesitance of her steps, her half-raised gaze shifting between the cobbles of the sidewalk and the front of Leo’s, hit Kim right in the breastbone. She turned her gaze to Gwen, then shifted it back to the woman, then back to Gwen.
Gwen forced a smile and speared her fingers through her hair. “I’m good.”
The man and the two women entered Leo’s, Jeff making a show of holding the door open for them, his squared shoulders and intent look focused on the slighter of the two women speaking of awakened protective instincts. Few could truly resist the impact of Jeff at his most protective, a fact made manifest as the woman slanted a glance at him and offered a tentative smile.
He murmured something to her then shifted his gaze to the man following close behind her. The man lofted his chin in that way men did. Jeff returned the gesture, then nodded, his hooded gaze steady on the man’s face.
The woman with the long hair stopped dead in front of Jeff and craned her head back, back, back to look him in the face. She planted her hands on her hips, tapped a foot, shifted her weight left to right. Then nodded and said something that drew a quick grin from Jeff. He stepped back, crossed his arms, and cocked his head to indicate the door. She nodded then walked through, then turned back for a mikro, her gaze tracking the street in jerky movements before she pivoted on her heel and headed in.
Once the woman was through the door Jeff looked to Gwen and Kim. “Coming?”
Kim rolled her shoulders back, straightened her spine, and headed towards him. “Yep.”
She paused three steps into the foyer. On the peripheral of her vision a wobbling shape formed, pulsing in time with her quickened breath.
Gwen, stomping along in front of her, turned and lifted her brows. “Breathing?”
Kim took a juddering breath through her nostrils and nodded. “Yep.”
Gwen searched Kim’s face with her gaze then shrugged and turned back to shove the inner door open. She strode into Leo’s, not hesitating, the gait saying she knew Kim would follow. Compelled by Gwen’s confidence, Kim rolled her shoulders again, cocked her head to the right until her ear rested near the cap of her shoulder so her back realigned, then took a deep breath and pushed into Leo’s. If her step hesitated a mikro crossing the threshold there was no indication anyone noticed.
Kim blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior, lit by candles and lanterns clustered on tables and hanging from sconces on the wall and off heavy black wrought iron hooks sunk into the dark beams that contrasted with the white painted walls and complimented the walnut tables and mismatched chairs. Gwen wandered towards a dividing wall set to the left and then behind it, heading for their “usual table”, leaving Kim to follow or not as she saw fit. For a spare mikro she gave into the dragging sensation pulling at her back, demanding she get the fuck out of there. Then Patti looked up from where she was clearing the top of the long bar to the right with a rag and called out, “hey!” before dropping the rag on the bar top and swinging the hinged section of the bar up so she could step from behind it.
A sharp squeak from the shelves running above the bar drew Patti’s eye. She stopped, tipped her head back, and looked up to where Sass was tipped back to stand on its back legs so it could energetically wave its front ones at Patti. Patti reached up a hand, palm cupped, and Sass hopped off the shelf and into it. Pivoting back to the door where Kim still hovered, Patti lifted her hand so Sass could hop on her shoulder then anchor its hand in the long sweep at the front of Patti’s undercut.
Sass secured this way, Patti strode towards Kim. “Hey. Wondered where you were. Everyone else is here.”
Before Kim could say anything Patti held up a finger, then turned back around to stride towards the bar, her steps eating the space like a person starved gulping down grilled cheese and tomato soup. Patti leaned over the bar, standing on the toes of one foot so she could reach over and behind, then came back down with a mug in each hand. Securing them with the ease of long practice she returned with an equally hungry step, holding out one of the mugs towards Kim. “Here. Marcus made you this. No alcohol. Other than that I have no clue what’s in it.”
“Uh,” Kim eyed the mug then took it from Patti, clasping it hard between both of her hands. “Thanks.”
“You don’t have to drink but sometimes it’s good to have something to do with your hands.”
Kim offered Patti a tentative smile, absorbing the concern behind the sentiment. “Thanks.” She lifted the mug towards her mouth, but didn’t drink, instead just letting the mug hover as she scoped the room with her gaze. It was the usual throng, middling busy with the after-work crowd who flocked to Leo’s prior to heading home or settling in for a long night of whatever suited them.
Over to the left in ‘their booth’ Brandon and Patrick hunched over a chess board, chins on fists, eyes on the pieces, occasionally shooting each other assessing glances which could have been to hustle a move along or could have just as easily been a move in the slow game they had been playing with each other for what felt like years now. Seriously, sometimes Kim wanted to just go over, grab them by the back of the heads, and smash their faces together while screaming “kiss him already!”
The only strangers seemed to be the man and the two women who were just then settling at the bar. So, of course, Kim’s gaze locked on them. They weren’t doing anything suspicious, just three people coming in for a drink, but they were *new* and her definition of new had shifted to take on dark undertones.
The woman with the hair pulled out a tall stool and indicated with a sweep of her hand that the other woman should sit, shooting a look to the man behind the other woman’s back. He said something then placed his hands on the backrest of the stool, pulling it out further and hovering beside it as the slight woman alighted on it then focused on the bag she settled in her lap. Prentiss, one of the bartenders who worked with Patti, sidled over to them. The woman with the hair engaged with him. He nodded then turned to pull several glasses from the rack and place them on the bar before turning back to the shelved bottles arrayed on the back wall.
Across the way, at a table near the stage, a shout rang out and Clarence, a regular, rose, grabbed a deck of cards from the table where his usual group met nightly to play setback, strode for the fireplace against the side wall, and flung the cards into the fire. Bill, one of his friends, braced his hands on the table and rose slightly to toss, “you better have another deck, fucker,” at Clarence. Clarence’s antics drew no other comment, just a few grunts and sips from glasses from the others at the tables as they waited for Clarence to amble back to the table.
It was almost like they’d seen Clarence do this before. Oh, wait, they had. Almost every night Clarence would get offended at some hand and bend, spindle, or mutilate at least one deck of cards. He was passionate like that.
Kim just shook her head and hid a snort behind the rim of her mug. Same old Clarence. Same old Bill. Same old, same old. The comfort of the familiar seeped into her, loosening the stiff muscles in her back so her shoulders dropped slightly and the next breath she took soothed ribs she hadn’t even realized were banded tight.
The sight of the bathroom door opening caused that band to snap tight again. More so, rather than less, when she saw Prairie emerge, smiling softly at something Trudy, sitting in her usual squishy chair, with her usual half-filled glass of whiskey and the book of the day propped on the arm, said to her. The muscles around Kim’s eyes flexed, echoing the curl of her fingers digging hard into the mug between her hands.
Before Prairie was even with her, Kim snapped out, “Don’t go to the bathroom alone.”
Prairie lifted her eyes, blinking softly.
“Never. Go. Alone.” Kim bit off each word.
“Oh.” Prairie’s lips softened into a gentle smile. She leaned in, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial level. “You know I’m never alone, right?”
At Kim’s confused look she made tipped her head and made a vague gesture at the air. “Ghosts.” Before Kim could yay or nay that, she gave an impish smile, “Also I have Kirby now!”
“Kirby?”
Prairie gently patted her side. “Kirby.”
Kim’s gaze followed the movement, understanding following a mikro later. “Oh. Kirby. How is,” she worked the word out real slow, “Kirby?”
Prairie’s smile beamed. “He’s great. The ghosts like him.”
“They would.”
Prairie shifted her attention towards the table behind the dividing wall. “Are you coming over? Everyone is here. Dempsey has been explaining what he discovered about the objects we’ve recovered.”
Curiosity pricked Kim. It didn’t completely drive away the apprehension, but it mellowed it. A little. “Oh?”
“He can explain better than I can. If you come over?”
“Subtle.”
Prairie gave her another soft smile. “Well, are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Coming over?” Prairie shifted her gaze to indicate the table partially hidden behind the dividing wall.
“I guess.” Kim made a big project of shrugging. “I’ve got nothing better to do.”
“Great.” Prairie gave another soft smile
Kim found herself returning Prairie’s smile. Her ribs rose and fell on two more steady breaths before she loosened her fingers around the mug to something less than a strangling grip, slanted a look at Patti, lofted her brows at Sass who was peeking out from the curtain of Patti’s hair, then jerked her head towards the dividing wall.
“Heading in.”
Putting actions to words, she walked across the space towards the table where her friends gathered. At her back she felt the bathroom across the distance of the bar, a silent presence that did not recede despite the distance growing as she moved towards the table. It was only when she cleared around the dividing wall, putting the wall between her and the bathroom did her back stop tingling. The prickling along her jaw remained, drawing her awareness to how she clenched her teeth.
Shifting her jaw she forced herself to put a small span of space between lower and upper teeth, then dragged a hard breath through her mouth that expanded her ribs outwards. She closed her eyes and blew the breath out through pursed lips, then opened them again to focus on her friends clustered around the table in front of a merrily crackling fire.
Siobhan looked up at Kim’s approach then indicated the empty seat next to her with a subtle tilt of her head. Kim walked over and slid into the seat as Prairie took the empty one beside Ivan and Patti dragged over a stool which she placed so she could sit behind and to the right of Kim, effectively blocking the small space between Kim and Siobhan and neatly cutting off Kim’s view of the rest of the room. A little more tension released in Kim’s back. Her shoulders rolled and she sat a bit higher in her seat then focused on Dempsey speaking in a low, steady tone, making vague gestures with his large, blunt-fingered hands in emphasis of his words.
Ben leaned in from Kim’s other side. “Hey, you’re…”
A quick grunt from Gwen, settled next to Ben and beside Dempsey at the large, round table, drew Ben’s eye and he quickly replaced whatever he was about to say with, “here!”
“Yeah. Sorry, I made us late…”
“Dempsey was telling us what he found out about the items,” Gwen interjected, poking a finger towards the now quite Dempsey.
“Oh?”
Dempsey folded his hands on the table and leaned in a little. “I’ve studied the slipper from Diana, the axe from Mal, the sword Prairie brought back, and the ring Gryphon gave us. The first three are empty, although the sword from Prairie is empty in a different way. Not activated more than empty. The ring though is what unlocked the information because its active and its full of energy.”
“Energy?” Ivan probed.
“Magick.” Dempsey laid his hand flat then twisted his wrist so the hand cut up like a blade. “The objects are conduits for power. Something like magnets and batteries combined. They can draw energy and store it, then release it. Or,” he stopped, then started up again after a quick pause, “I think they can. I haven’t found the mechanism for release yet. But they definitely siphon Magick. ”
Gwen’s eyes grew wide and she leaned away from Dempsey. He looked at her, his expressions searching then the corner of his mouth quirked up and he shook his head. “I don’t have any on me.”
The concern smoothed from Gwen’s features but she didn’t shift any closer to the large man, just nodded and gave an abrupt, “Smart.”
Dempsey rubbed a finger beside his mouth, like he could smooth away the small smile. “I can be.”
He shouldn’t have wasted the effort since he ended up grinning, big, when Gwen crossed her arms and snapped, “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Gwen’s lips tightened at his, “I won’t.” Like, it was real clear she was fighting hard to retain her petulant expression.
To her, “you will,” he replied, “Probably,” then made a point of turning his focus back to the others at the table. “What I know.” He tapped his forefinger on the table with each point. “The objects are batteries that siphon Magick.”
Gwen narrowed her eyes. “How do they siphon Magick?”
“Don’t know.” Dempsey tapped his finger and continued like Gwen hadn’t interrupted. “I haven’t figured out how they get activated.”
Gwen opened her mouth to ask another question. Dempsey preemptively said, “Don’t know,” and then continued, “None of them are actively siphoning Magick. They appear to be turned off. Or,” he narrowed his eyes, like he was thinking, then added, “dormant. It’s possible they are alive. They feel more alive than a construct but not as alive as people do.”
Ivan lifted a finger. “How-”
Dempsey cut him off. “Don’t know.”
Ivan lowered his finger and slow-nodded. Dempsey grunted in what might have been manly, manly thanks, then continued, “I don’t know how they get emptied, though judging by the state of the axe and the shoe they do.”
Dan leaned in, focusing hard on Dempsey. When he opened his mouth like on a question Dempsey raised his hand, patted the air like he was soothing it, then tapped his finger on the table again. “I don’t know why they are the shapes of objects from Fairy Tales. Fairy Tales that we seem to have lived through with people kidnapped and placed in them.”
Siobhan straightened and pinned Dempsey with an intent stare at this. You could almost see the wheels moving in her head or smoke rising from it; that’s how hard she appeared to be thinking. But, she kept her counsel while Dempsey continued. “I don’t know why the people are kidnapped or what’s done to them, but I suspect that may be the key to unlocking the objects.”
Gwen crossed her arms and set her jaw on mulish lines. “Well, what do you know?” to which Dempsey shrugged. “What I said. Batteries. Siphon Magick. Release it. Maybe alive. Kind of. Any other questions?”
Ben immediately straightened and shot back, “Are you The Warden?” to which Ivan laughed under his breath, Dan shook his head and lowered his chin to hide a grin, and Dempsey just lifted his brows.
“Any other questions?”
“Why are you so obsessed with that?” Kim mumbled to Ben under her breath.
“Because The Warden,” Ben whispered back from the side of his mouth, like that was an answer.
“That’s not an answer.”
“All your getting.”
“But I was kidnapped.”
“Nope.”
“Killed.”
“Still alive.”
“Prairie brought me back. Don’t you feel bad for me?”
“Since I was one of the ones you mostly killed? Nope.”
It was then that Kim realized the table was very quiet and right after she realized that she noticed that everyone was staring at she and Ben pretty much exclusively.
Dempsey’s stare was pretty much the heaviest. “If you two are done?”
Kim shrugged and pulled a face like, ‘sure, go ahead.” Dempsey was just about to do that when the two women and the man from the street, and the bar, approached the table, stopping near the dividing wall and hovering there. The blond with the long hair dug her hands into the pockets of her jeans and cleared her throat. “Can we interrupt?”
“Seems like you already did,” Kim mumbled, gaining a sharp look from Siobhan to which she responded in a loud whisper, “Well, they did.”
Patti poked her in the shoulder, “Be nice.”
Kim slanted a glance over her shoulder at Patti, “Sure.”
Then she refocused on the three strangers. If her voice was a little gruff? Well… strangers. “Can we help you with something?”
The second of the women dug into her bag, pulling out a sheaf of paper. Dan went still like a bluetick hound caught a scent. Siobhan leaned forward, tightening her clasped hands so her knuckles popped white against the thin skin. Prairie whispered “oh,” while Kim muttered a less eloquent, “Well, fuck,” then drew a deep breath and released it on a hard sigh.
She planted her hands on the table surface and pushed to stand, indicating her chair before going to stand against the side of the fireplace with her arms crossed. “Have a seat.”
The long-haired woman didn’t hesitate, moving immediately around the table to take the chair Kim freed. When the man and woman continued to hover near the wall, Gwen rose and walked towards them. Stopping beside the woman, she lifted a hand, letting it hover near the woman’s stooped shoulder. The woman looked up at her. Something in her expression had Gwen giving a soft smile and gently laying her hand on the woman’s shoulder blade.
The woman’s stance visibly changed, her shoulder straightening subtly and her chin lifting so she could meet Gwen’s gentle gaze. Gwen rolled her lips over her teeth and nodded, then made a vague gesture with her chin towards the table. She pulled back when the man slid his arm tentatively around the woman’s shoulders and led her to the table. He pulled out the chair Gwen had freed up then laid his hands gently on the back. The woman twisted the papers in her hand, then laid them on the table, and gently smoothed the pages, keeping her gaze intently on the movement like she could smooth out her thoughts with the paper. She took a seat in Gwen’s abandoned chair, then folded her hands carefully in her lap.
“I…” the woman petered off, then started again. “We… That is…” She stopped and shot a look over her shoulder at the man who laid a gentle hand where the curve of her neck met her shoulder. He squeezed then gave a nod, indicating with her chin that she should continue. She swallowed visibly then turned back to focus on the pile of papers to which she proceeded to speak in a soft voice.
“Our daughter, Roanne, disappeared yesterday.” Siobhan and Dan leaned in to better catch the woman’s words. Gwen walked over to stand beside the man and delicately patted his back when he lowered his head and took a deep breath through his nostrils. The woman lifted her hand and laid it over his on her neck. “She was going to her grandmother’s house.”
Lowering her head, she stared at the papers stacked in front of her. “We…” she blinked rapidly and rolled her lips. “We found this in her room. It’s a story. It isn’t in her hand. I don’t…” She stopped, swallowed hard, then looked to the side.
The man stepped into her silence. “My name is Phillip. This is my wife, Catherine. As Catherine said, our daughter Roanne is missing. We contacted the Guard. They seem to be…” he stopped and gulped heavily, then lofted his chin and smoothed his expression into one of stoic control. “doing a good job searching for her. Nothing against them. I’m sure they are good at their jobs. But,” he turned his gaze to the long-haired woman, “our neighbor had heard something about your group looking for any information on strange stories appearing after disappearances and suggested she should contact you.”
Siobhan leaned forward and laid her hand gently on the woman’s hand where it fretted at the edge of the papers. “That was good advice. We can help.”
The woman lifted tear smeared eyes to Siobhan. “Can you?”
“We can.” No hesitation in Siobhan’s response. A tentative smile curved the edge of the woman’s, Catherine’s, mouth before being chased away like she couldn’t even allow herself a mikro’s hope.
Kim leaned to the side to get a decent look at the profile of the woman with the long hair. There was something about her. She was too calm. Or confident. Or… something. Yes, Kim was a bit paranoid. Sue her. But the woman sat there like she’d been a member of their group forever. Yeah, that was it.
There was a familiarity to the woman. Catherine and Phillip sat there, an island made up of the two of them, separate, like you’d expect for people inserted into a group. But the woman with the long hair sat there all relaxed and calm, leaning back with one arm draped over the back of the chair, hand dangling lax, her gaze ostensibly focused on Catherine and Philip as they told their story, yet Kim couldn’t push back the incessant certainty that the woman – name as yet unrevealed and wasn’t that interesting? – was cataloging every detail of each of the people around the table. Like a raptor slowly drifting on an air current, to the casual observer just enjoying a good float but anyone with eyes for it could see it was really scoping the ground looking a nice fat bunny or maybe a squirrel to swoop down on and chomp.
Look, if she was *just* paranoid Kim would be reading that intent in Catherine and Phillip too, being they were strangers also. But she didn’t get that off them. Only off Goldilocks over there. So, while everyone else might be focused on Catherine and Phillip and the pages on the table Kim was going to keep a nice eye on the other woman.
Feeling a burst of warmth through the leg of her cargoes, she looked down to see Fire poking itself, in the form of a fire coyote’s pointy nose, out of the fireplace next to her. Perhaps driven by the intensity of her thoughts, it focused its intent on the woman, small sparks popping from the fireplace commas to its implied thoughts. Kim uncrossed her arms to drop her hand and gently brush it from the point where its “eyes” emerged from the flames and back over the arching sparks of its ruff.
Almost like she could feel Kim’s intent, or maybe the spike in heat from Fire, the woman shifted slightly into the arm draped over the back of the chair and slanted Kim a look full of quiet smile before turning back to focus on Catherine as she delicately pushed the papers forward with a gentle push of her fingertips.
Siobhan leaned in with an open look of comfort and carefully slid the papers out from Catherine’s fingers, her soft nod projecting a promise of care. Sitting back in her seat, Siobhan looked around the table, her gaze going from Dan to her left then all the way around, assessing for ascent which, of course, she received. That settled, she picked up the top page and began to read.
Enter The Woods 