9:2
Despite Leo’s being, well, Leo’s with the Setback crew shouting at something someone was doing that was probably dramatic and over the top and likely involved setting something on fire or flushing it down the toilet or whatever and the quiet plunk, plunk, plunk of someone idly playing with the keys on the piano – the sound could not be described, even by a stretch, as actual music, just plunk, plunk, plunk – and the soft, swirling sound of bodies moving an organic song a subtle soundtrack lying below the sound of voices and clink of glasses and tap of trays on tables and bar, the space around the table was distinctly silent, as if cocooned by some strange Magick built around focus and intent and, yes, a subtle fear that pulsed staccato jolts of neurotransmitters like electricity through veins and synapses.
Siobhan was the first to push away the silence, drawing a deep breath before neatly stacking the papers in front of her and sitting back in her seat while settling her gaze on Catherine and Phillip.
“We know what this is. We can help.”
Like he was just waiting for that, for someone else to say, “I’ll take it from here”, Phillip collapsed, a marionette with cut strings. The shaky breath he took was loud in the continuing quiet around the table, as was the small sob Catherine suppressed. The woman with the long hair pushed up from her chair like she was going to move to them but, driven by the whole “still no name” thing and the niggle it gave to her nethers, Kim blurted out, “Who are you?”
The woman stopped short, frowned real subtle like, then jerked a thumb at Catherine and Phillip, said, “I’m their neighbor” like *that* was an actual answer, then continued in her path to stop beside Phillip whose shoulder she gripped and squeezed as she whispered something low in his ear.
Seriously? Mysterious much? Ivan shot Kim a “what the fuck?” look. Before she could respond with a meaningful glare, he turned his attention back to Phillip, Catherine, and Suspiciously Mysterious Woman, denying Kim a very valid and sensible response. She caught Siobhan’s eye and slanted a glance at the woman. Siobhan’s lips tightened slightly and she nodded. Well, at least someone appreciated her concern.
Before Kim could make more of a thing of it, like a smart person, the woman with the long hair turned back to her with a frown. “I’m sorry. That was rude. My name is Rachel. I live next door to Catherine and Phillip. I work with Nona Stroga. After the problem her daughter had she made sure to spread the information about these stories. Its why I knew to bring Catherine and Phillip here.”
In the face of that completely reasonable and arguably true answer, Kim kind of couldn’t see pushing it further. Especially after Ivan had already given her the “shut the fuck up” look. She might not be socially savvy, like at all, but even she caught that clue. Besides it was completely reasonable and probably true. Pushing it further was just… yeah, awkward. Letting it go.
“Do you have an image of Roanne?” Dan’s question drew Catherine attention. “It could help.”
Catherine’s eyes widened. She reached for her large bag on the floor beside her chair, planted it in her lap, and dug around in it for several mikros before pulling out a folded piece of paper. Curling her lips over her teeth, she handed it over to Dan without unfolding it. He made quick work of the unfolding, then smoothed it out on the tabletop.
Leaning in Kim saw it was a flyer for a missing person. A girl. Pretty. Maybe fifteen. Sixteen. Around there. That age when the promise of adult beauty pressed from beneath the scrim of childhood softness, bones and presence straining against what every teen perceived as the detention center of youth. If only they knew.
Kim shook off the thought and focused on the girl on the flyer. It was a drawing, not a photograph; not unheard of in their world but most often indicating the subject of the image was a Magicker whose Magick made capturing their likeness with technology impossible.
She had eyes like her dad, wide and expressive, though where Phillip’s were full of sadness and tightly controlled fear, the girl’s held a spark of mischief that invited you in on whatever scheme she was imagining in her teen head. As the drawing was black and white it was difficult to tell what color the shoulder-length hair, pulled back and held at the left temple with a butterfly clip, was though it appeared somewhere between light and dark. Much, Kim considered, looking at Catherine’s ash blonde bun, like her mother’s.
“Is Roanne’s grandmother a Magick user?” Dan asked, to which Catherine gave a small nod.
“My mother. Yes. The gift seems to have skipped me but my mother is a Magick user. Her gifts are varied.”
“Does Roanne show similar?”
“I’m not sure. She’s young. And most don’t show skills until at least their teens, right?”
Ivan answered. “Often. Some are younger, but mostly its teens who show Magickal affinities.”
This drew another nod from Catherine. She drew a subtle pattern on the tabletop with her fingertips, focusing on the movement like it held the secrets of the universe. “My mother feels Ro has Magick. She says The Mother told her so.”
“The mother?” Siobhan probed.
Catherine nodded, gaze still on her fingers. “Mother Earth. My mother’s creed centers on her.”
In their world of Magick and wonder, there were as many beliefs slash faiths as stars in the sky. While many believed in a singular god, creator, there were plenty who believed in other things. Older things. The gods. God. Goddess. God and Goddess in connubial bliss. Mother Earth. A sentient bowl of Fruit Loops (What? *Magick.*) Aliens from outer space. Or inner space. Or the god within, which one cult swore upon, which seemed like a whole lot of egotism to Kim, but, whatever…
The details were whatever made it all work in your brain or heart or soul or essence or wherever you worked shit out. Belief was the important part. Not so much what you believed in. Just that you had belief.
In a world where strange ass stuff – like people who could, you know, summon primordial creatures or walk the buffer between life and death – injected a literal metric ton of questions into the ethos it was good to embrace some kind of structure of certainty, and faith offered that for many. So, Catherine’s mom believed her Magick came from Mother Earth. Cool. It was a little troubling that Granny thought that the Earth Mother “spoke to her” but, hey, sentient blobs of mud kind of communicated with Kim. Literally could not poke holes there without, you know, getting mud in her face.
Dan’s voice drew Kim from her musing. “Does Roanne have a red hoodie?”
Phillip gave him a look of confusion. “How is this relevant?”
“Please. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.”
After a terse silence broken by Phillip’s harsh drawn breath, he nodded. “She does.”
“Her grandmother gave it to her?”
“She did.”
“Does she carry a basket to her grandmother’s?”
“She does.”
Dan stopped a mikro, like he was digesting, then pressed on. “The sneakers? Her mother’s?”
This time Catherine answered. “They are. Will these details help you find our daughter?”
“Probably not.”
“Then why ask them?” Phillip snapped.
“Because it tells us this story is about your daughter. There are too many details that are true. So, how could someone know these things? You said the story was not written by your daughter?”
“It,” Catherine’s voice broke. She stopped. Swallowed. Then continued in a voice that was thick with tears. “It isn’t her handwriting. Not even close. Ro dots her Is with this swirling thing.” She lifted her hand, sketching out a vortex shape. “Those,” she looked to the papers in front of Siobhan, “no swirls. Dots.”
She cupped her face in her upraised hands and drew a deep breath before lowering her hands and pinning Dan with a hard gaze. “Will you find my daughter, Sir?”
“Dan. My name is Dan.”
“Dan? Will you find my daughter?”
The corner of Dan’s mouth quirked on what was probably meant to be a reassuring smile but the ghost of failure in his eyes, past histories left unspoken, made the gesture one more of pain than comfort. “It’s what I do.”
The answer seemed to satisfy Catherine who leaned back into the comfort of her husband’s hand, still on her shoulder. She lifted her hand again and squeezed Phillip’s. “We…” Her voice broke again. She rolled her lips then looked over her shoulder at Phillip who immediately picked up where she’d stopped, “We appreciate any assistance. We trust the Guard to do their best but…”
It was Rachel that finished, “Nona has great things to say for how you helped with Llora. If you need anything from Catherine or Phillip to help with your search we live on the outskirts of The Flats, on Branch Street. They are at number 12. If you don’t have anything else to ask them that might help, I think I’ll get them home.”
Dan rose and offered Rachel his hand. She took it, brushing her thumb over Hope stretched across the knuckles. Dan’s brows quirked on a subtle frown, there and gone in a heartbeat, then he squeezed Rachel’s hand before releasing it. “We’ll be in touch.”
Then, as if just making some lightning connection, he shifted his gaze between his knuckles and Catherine and Phillip. “One more thing?”
It was Phillip that answered. “Yes?”
“The birthmark?”
“Yes?”
“She has one. Looks like a sun?”
“I’m not sure if it looks like a sun, but yes, my daughter has a dark birthmark.”
Dan digested this then nodded. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you.” With that Rachel offered Catherine a hand up from her seat, then she, Catherine, and Phillip moved away from the table, leaving the group to pointed looks, whispered conjecture, and the shuffle of papers as Siobhan leafed through the story once then handed it over to Dan who carefully scanned the words, running a broad fingertip along the lines as he read. Once he was done, he handed the papers over to Abe who took them with a confused look.
“Any insight?” Dan asked.
“Uh,” Abe twisted their mouth to the side then looked down at the paper. “I’m not…” They cocked their head and looked at Dan. “What am I looking for?”
“Not looking.” Dan tapped the name “Roanne” at the top of the page. “Feeling.”
Abe blinked at Dan, looked at the paper, blinked at him again. At Dan’s chin lift, they gently laid the fingertips of their blackened right hand on the page. As soon as their skin made contact they started then looked up at Dan with wide eyes. “Do all the stories feel this way?”
Dan nodded. “I didn’t notice before the last. I went back and checked each one just to be sure.”
A look of wonder transformed Abe’s features. “They are written in Ink.”
Kim frowned. Uh, yeah, of course they were written in… “Wait. Are you saying the same thing that’s on, uh, you,” she made a broad gesture to the dark ink on Abe’s hand, “is on the paper?”
Abe nodded enthusiastically, setting their mop of hair dancing. “Yes.”
“And that isn’t normal?”
Dan answered this time. “No. It isn’t. At first I thought it was just that I felt it because I have this,” he tapped Hope, “so I went back and checked books in the archives thinking maybe all stories felt that way.”
Dempsey leaned in. “They don’t?”
“No.”
Dempsey poked a tongue in his cheek, moved it around, looking inward for a mikro before refocusing on Dan. “If I got you some samples of some books I have that I get an indistinct read off of could you tell me if they feel the same?”
“Yes. Probably.”
Abe’s focused bright crow eyes on Dempsey. “Do you have many? Books like that?”
“Not many. A few.”
“What are they about?”
“Don’t know. Not written in a language I recognize.”
Dan stared at him. “Where did you get them?”
“Here and there.”
When Dempsey didn’t expand Dan gave a short nod. “I’d like to see them.”
“That can be arranged.”
“Now?”
“Is it going to help with this situation?”
Dan grunted, leaned back and crossed his arms. “Probably not.”
“Then, no. Not right now. We should focus on how to find the girl.”
Gwen frowned. “Who put you in charge?”
“Uh, no one. Just a question.”
“Whatever.” Gwen’s eye roll and tone were, at best, half-hearted, like she was going through the motions more than anything else. Honestly, her being able to keep up her suspicions about him for as long as she had, considering mostly Gwen had never met a person she didn’t like, was kind of a testament to her interest in the guy.
Kim had this theory that Gwen took longer to warm to people who would actually be important to her. Those that were going to drift in and out, buoyed on the cloud of love and acceptance Gwen exuded like, well, like a cloud or a rainbow-toned unicorn fart – or, yeah, that wasn’t a good picture. Anyhow, insert grandiloquent description of the miasma of joy Gwen projected like an aura – Gwen just accepted them.
Like they were an ocean and the tide was going to wash them in, wash them out, and she was just going to be like the shore, touched for a mikro before they moved on, carrying a small bit of her away with them. Honestly, that was a great analogy, because that was Gwen. The beachfront, washed against, losing a small bit of herself perhaps with each person she encountered and the emotions they carried so she slowly eroded away.
Kim figured the ones that Gwen expected to stay, to bring something to her eroding shore, those were the ones she pushed at. Probably because she *expected them to leave*, like everyone left and she gave them that excuse before she got attached, before she embraced them fully, before she made them part of her essence and added to her landscape.
Kim realized she was drifting, like that ocean of people she envisioned, when she caught the tail end of Ivan’s question, “The House?”
“Do we assume?” Siobhan asked to which Ivan shrugged. “Why not? It always ends up there.”
“Not always. Llora was in that tower.”
Dan scratched his thumb beneath his lower lip. “Rapunzel has a tower. Red Riding Hood has a cottage. The House makes sense in this story.”
Ben leaned in. “This story?”
Dan nodded slowly, then poked a toothpick into the corner of his mouth. “Yep.”
“Expand?” Ben spun his hand, like he was reeling something in.
Dan reached over and tapped the papers stacked in front of Abe. “This is a Story.”
“It is.” Ben’s tone questioned Dan’s point. Or maybe his intelligence. Dan for his part just lifted his brows.
“Story. Capital S. Its written in-” He paused, looked at Abe who picked up the thread. They leaned in, excitement in their eyes, busting out of the tips of the fingers they gestured with in emphasis of their words. “It’s written in the stuff of creation.”
“The stuff of creation?” Ben drew out the words, injecting them with skepticism.
Abe, undeterred by any implied slight in Ben’s tone, nodded enthusiastically. “It’s like,” planting their elbows on the table, they leaned in and flared their hands, “if the creator was an artisan, right?”
“Uh, okay?” Again Ben drew out the word.
“I’m a tattoo artist, right?”
“Right?”
“And Dan is a writer.”
Dan shifted in his chair but didn’t interject.
“So, when we see what makes up the world, we see ink.”
Dempsey made a humph of interest and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.
“Someone else,” Abe spun their hand, “say a sculptor, might see it as clay or marble or whatever the raw material is that speaks to them. Like, you know that famous sculptor who said he freed the art from the marble?”
Ivan gave Abe a curious look. “No?”
“Yes, well, a famous sculpture said something like “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set it free.” Like the angel existed within the marble. It was a thing that existed. The artist didn’t create it. It was just waiting for him to free it. To make it part of the world. Does that make sense?”
Ivan frowned. “Maybe.” He went silent a mikro then nodded. “Yes. It makes sense.”
“So, the ink that Dan and I see? Everything exists in there, already, it just needs to be given form. For us that’s words. Does that make sense?”
“What does that have to do with this being a story?” Ben asked, then corrected himself, “Or Story with a capital S?”
“I think,” Dan started to answer then stopped. He worked the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other, then back again. Everyone waited because what was the sense in pushing? Dan would get there. He just needed a mikro.
After moving the toothpick back to the corner of his mouth again, Dan pursed his lips slightly. “This is a theory.”
When he went silent again, Ivan prompted, “Okay. What’s the theory?”
“I think that this Story,” Dan indicated the papers with a jerk of his chin, “was written first. It might have been used to affect Roanne, putting her on the path to her grandmother’s house so she could be abducted. Maybe by the boy in the story.”
Ivan wasn’t the only one to sit back. Or to blink. It was Prairie that stepped into the silence that ensued, “That’s…” a gentle smile spread her lips, lighting her expression from within, “amazing. If it’s true. Is it?”
Dan shook his head. “It’s a theory.”
“Is it?” Siobhan asked, her tone slightly sharp. “Is it true? The story you found that I was in, are you saying that someone manipulated my reality to make me vulnerable to them?”
“It’s a theory.”
Siobhan drew a sharp breath through her nostrils. Kim moved over, compelled to place a hand on Siobhan’s shoulder. Siobhan flinched and Kim yanked her hand back, “Sorry,” rising from her throat. Siobhan flicked a glance back over her shoulder, saw it was Kim, and then it was her, “Sorry,” that came out, clashing slightly with Kim’s.
Kim met her gaze, holding it steady, then whispered. “This sucks.”
Siobhan nodded. When she didn’t say anything, Kim added, “We’ll get through it.”
Again Siobhan nodded. Again, Kim felt the need to inject, “We’ll get them.”
“Will we?” Siobhan whispered to which Kim shrugged because, really? Would they? I mean they could try. They could really try. But, ugh, this was like a jigsaw puzzle. With all white pieces. And it had fallen on the floor. And probably they didn’t even *have all the pieces.* It was, kind of, false hope to say they could solve it. At least given what they had right now. But false hope was still hope, right? Sort of? It had hope *in it*.
Ivan stood up, moved to behind Siobhan, and laid a large hand on her shoulder. “We will.”
Siobhan looked up at him. His expression, set jaw and clenched full lips, spoke of determination. Once Ivan got that look? Well, not much stood in his way when he got that look. Or some stuff did, but it got flattened. This was definitely, no question, Ivan’s ‘getting shit done’ face. And woe betide anyone who got in his way. Smash. Flat. Done.
Faced with that look, Siobhan caved. It took a strong and determined person to challenge Strong and Determined Ivan and, really, the speed at which Siobhan relaxed suggested she hadn’t really been dedicated to trying.
Ivan looked at the others. “So, we going to The House?”
Ben scratched his head. “Maybe it would be smart to have Dempsey do that thing with the cards?”
“Why?”
“Measure twice, cut once?”
Ivan lifted his brows at his best friend. “I’m rubbing off on you.”
“Nah. I just want to see The Warden in action.”
Dempsey shook his head and sighed. Otherwise, he just let that lie. The glint in Ben’s eye suggested he expected nothing less. Just, Ben lived to poke the bear.
“I could do that. Before I do,” Dempsey planted his elbows on the table, folded his hands in front of his face, then leaned in towards Abe while framing the edges of his mouth with his thumbs. “If the ink the story is written with is not normal ink but the stuff you manipulate, could you pull it from the paper and get a read from it?”
Abe pursed their lips, then tipped their head to one side then the other, the slightly jerky motion reminiscent of a bird looking down both sides of their beak at the world, assessing. They lifted a hand, fingered their bottom lip, then dropped it to the table. “Maybe? But,” they paused, scratched their neck, buying themselves a mikro, “then it would be gone. I’ve never been able to get something that jumped onto me to go back to the source.”
They tapped the back of their right hand with their left pointer in emphasis, drawing the eyes of the others at the table.
“You mean,” Ivan asked with a frown, “every piece of,” he paused, tested the word, then shrugged like it was the best he had, “ink you have on you is some of that creation Magick you encountered that took up residence on your skin?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. Also no clear concern in the energetic head bob Abe gave in emphasis.
Ivan’s frown deepened as he focused first on the exposed ink on Abe’s hand, then on their face. “That’s a heavy burden for a kid to carry.”
Abe’s lips quirked. “I’m not really a kid.” They wrinkled their nose. “Kind of can’t be when you have my kind of Magick.” They slanted a glance at Dan. “Am I right?”
Dan grunted, shifted in his seat, crossed his arms. After a mikro of giving Dan a “look” from eyes that suddenly held the weight of a world in them, Abe turned back to Dempsey with a happy smile that chased the darkness away like a puppy barking its tiny little bark at a mailman trying to enter their yard.
“So. I *could* probably get the story to leave the paper but then no one else would be able to read it.” They wrinkled up their nose. “Do you want me to try?”
Siobhan was the one to respond to that, dropping a hand over the papers in front of her. “No. We might get insights regarding the writer of this story. Or Story. But I don’t think it will lead us to Roanne. Right now that needs to be our priority. There’s a young girl out there either abducted,” she stopped, swallowed, continued, “or just missing. If she isn’t at The House we’ll have wasted precious time going there.” She looked at Dempsey. “Your cards can determine that? Right?”
“Maybe.” Dempsey reached into his jacket and pulled out the silk-wrapped cards. He unwrapped them then loosely shuffled them. “The details we got from the story and the poster were pretty good so it could help with a reading. At least to rule out, or in, The House as where she’s at.” He looked over to Dan. “Can I have that flyer?”
Dan got up from his seat, moved around the table, and placed the flyer, image up, in front of Dempsey who didn’t stop in his shuffling. Once it was set to his preference, Dan stepped back a few feet, set his feet, crossed his arms, and tilted his head to watch over Dempsey’s shoulder as the large man did his thing with the cards.
Sass leaned forward from its perch on Patti’s shoulder, letting out a high squeak as it pitched forward and reaching out small paw hands to grab Patti’s hair to catch itself before it fell. Patti winced and lifted a hand to cup in front of Sass who immediately stepped into it and clung to her fingers as she moved her hand to rest on the table. Sass jumped from her palm and scampered across the table, coming to a stop at the top edge of the flyer, a great vantage point for the small creature to watch Dempsey and the cards. Which it did, with great intensity, following the hypnotic rhythm of the cards from one of Dempsey’s hands to the other, then rocking gently to the sound of his voice as he began to speak.
“She is young. Early teens. She has shoulder-length hair. She is wearing a red hood her grandmother, a wise woman though they call her a Wild Woman, gave her as protection.”
He laid the first card face up. On it a woman knelt on one knee, stroking the forehead of a lion. Only as they watched the lion changed, in one mikro the golden hair becoming gray, the next the broad, flat plane of its nose shifting, lengthening, becoming more pointed. Its rounded ears became pointed. Feline eyes became canine. From one mikro to the next it went from lion to wolf.
Prairie sat back with a soft gasp. Siobhan raised a hand to press to her chest and leaned forward, eyes wide. Ben fingered the side of his mouth and muttered a near silent, “The Fuck.” Sass, bless its little mouse heart, made a noise that could only be interpreted as a murine giggle.
As the lion shifted to a wolf, the woman’s features shifted from that of an adult to take on a younger curve and the long golden hair darkened and shortened to dust her shoulders.
Kim darted a glance to Gwen, who looked back with wide eyes and a shrug before turning her attention to the card which had settled its image to one of a young woman, hair somewhere between light and dark at shoulder-length, hugging a wolf.
Magick. Damn.
“She’s walking in the woods,” Dempsey continued, timber unchanged. Likely he was used to the image on the cards changing. “She has a basket. She is going to see her grandmother.”
He laid down another card. This one had a beautiful, full-figured woman, a crown of stars sitting on her blonde hair, expression smooth and projecting peace. The shift of the image was more subtle this time, the woman’s features transforming from those of a woman in her prime to one who had seen years and wonders and knew things that others only imagined might be true. A lush forest curved behind her in a vaguely crescent shape, a stream wound around her, and wheat bloomed in the foreground; the elements blending to form the impression of the earth’s embrace of the woman.
“It is getting dark. Someone approaches.”
Dempsey placed a card with a full moon on it. Below the moon, in a grassy field, a dog and a wolf tipped their heads back, howling at the glowing orb.
“Then,” Dempsey stopped, frowned, focused on the cards leaping between his hands, the movement so swift as to indicate they moved of their own volition not his. This impression was furthered by his deepening frown, the way he narrowed his eyes and focused on the cards. Lying his left hand flat as the pile formed fully there, he flicked his right hand forward and caught a card that appeared to leap from the center of the stack. He made a slight noise, flinched, curved his fingers around the card, then quickly snapped it down on the table next to the moon card.
The Five of Pentacles, its image that of two people walking through a storm. One appeared injured, using a crutch. No, a staff. Definitely. What had been a crutch became a staff the figure leaned heavily upon. The other, barefoot, had a blanket draped over their head. No. Not a blanket. A hood. Behind them was a church. No, it was a church. But in a mikro it shifted to a cottage. A cottage everyone at the table recognized. The first figure faded, becoming one with the storm, leaving only the second, hooded figure standing forlorn in front of the cottage.
Dempsey stared at the deck of cards sitting quiescent in his left hand, then swallowed somewhat heavily, and turned his hand, placing the cards on the table and cupping his fingers over them. That settled he looked around the table.
“I think she is at The House.”
If his fingers shook slightly as he gathered the four cards with his right hand, no one commented. Well, no one commented on his hand.
“Did those cards change?”
Leave it to Ben to break the tension and also to ask the question pushing at the others.
“Yes.” Dempsey’s response was gruff.
“Do they usually do that?”
“No.”
“Well.” Ben paused, then added, “All right. So, we go to The House?”
“Yes.”
Enter The Woods 