10:25
Kim walked over to stand a short distance behind Prairie and assessed the state of Dempsey, Ivan, and Prairie’s feet.
“Weird.” She squinted at the tiles trapping their feet, then squatted down to stare at the floor. “Hmm.”
Ivan twisted at the waist to look where she was staring. “Hmm?”
She nodded. “Hmm.”
Dempsey grunted. “Elaborate?”
Kim lifted a finger while keeping her gaze firmly on the floor. Then she leaned forward and pressed the finger to the tile closest to her. A protest rose to Ivan’s lips as he fatalistically waited for her hand to get trapped in the floor. The tile rippled but didn’t liquefy. Instead, the ripple traveled across the floor away from Kim’s touch.
She rocked back on her heels with another, “Hmm.”
Prairie remained silent next to Ivan, her gaze shifting between the floor and Kim. Dempsey leaned around Ivan to look at Kim. “What?”
She looked up then leaned to crane around Ivan. “It’s Earth,” she waggled her hand, “sort of. Here,” she shuffled forward a little to place her hand on the tile encasing Prairie’s foot closest to her. Prairie followed the motion but again said nothing until Kim said, “Get ready to move?”
Prairie nodded then mouthed, “Okay.”
Kim spread her fingers over the encasing tile and after a mikro it receded from around Prairie’s foot. Prairie quickly pulled that foot back, leaving room for Kim to lean in, place her hand on Prairie’s other foot, and coax the tile free of it. Once that foot was free Prairie quickly took several steps back so her feet were both firmly planted on the wood part of the floor.
“Cool.” Kim contemplated the surface of the tiles which reformed without a blemish to indicate they’d entrapped Prairie’s feet. She slid over close to Ivan’s leg and released his foot from the tile. He wasted no time yanking it free and stepping back to stand next to Prairie. Kim did the same thing to Dempsey’s foot and the other man also hastily retreated from the danger of the black and white tiles.
Kim didn’t pull back. Instead, she leaned in and placed both of her hands on the tiles. The black and white rippled away from the press of her hands, travelling off in diagonal paths. Now that it wasn’t trying to eat his foot Ivan found the weirdly liquid movement of the floor mildly mesmerizing. He watched as it rippled out before hitting the boundaries of the wood floor boxing it in on either side then continuing its movement until it hit the far side of the floor near the banquettes.
Lifting her hands from the tiles, Kim sat down on the floor and cocked her head. Then she cocked it in the opposite direction and ‘hmm’d’.
Dan walked up next to Patti and stared at Kim. “Hmm?”
She looked up. “The floor feels like mud. Uhm,” she paused and considered it again then turned her attention back to Dan, “but the liquid isn’t water. It’s,” she waved her hand and petered off, screwing her mouth to the side.
“I think its tears.”
Gwen’s voice was weak and yet carried easily to Ivan’s ears. He turned to see her struggling to stand, leaning on Siobhan’s arm for support.
“Tears?” Ivan repeated.
Gwen nodded, the motion a bit crooked like her neck was having trouble holding her head up. She pressed her hand to her brow, her head moving in the opposite direction of the push. Wincing she lowered her chin, closed her eyes a mikro, then focused on Ivan. “Tears. If the floor is like mud it’s because it’s absorbed whatever that,” she ticked a finger around, “was.”
“Is that possible?”
Kim answered Patti’s question. “Maybe? The floor definitely feels like mud. And,” she paused, her gaze going inwards as she considered something, “salt.” She looked up at Gwen. “I think you’re right.”
“And this helps us how?” Ben asked.
Kim shrugged.
“I–” Her response broke as another wave of agony and despair washed across the room and over the group. Kim stopped, mouth agape, and rocked back. At least she had the luxury of being on the floor. The others in the group, standing as they were, were once more knocked around like bowling pins, wobbling and threatening to be dropped by the wave of emotion.
“Ugh!” Gwen grunted and threw her hands out. Then she turned her palms up and curled her fingers in towards them in a drawing motion. Almost immediately the wave of emotion shifted from Ivan and he was able to focus again.
Only to be blown off his feet as Gwen screamed and collapsed to the floor in a liquid spill of limbs. Siobhan, closest to her, was literally lifted off her feet. She flew backwards, only stopping when she smashed into the wall. Sliding down its surface, she landed on the floor with a dazed look. Dempsey crashed into Ivan’s left side, staggering Ivan so he smashed into Prairie. Prairie being far smaller than Ivan and definitely far smaller than Ivan and Dempsey combined fell sideways, smashing into the floor with a small cry.
Ivan tried to stop his fall but the impetus of the emotion exploding from Gwen to his right and Dempsey smashing into him from the left was too much to combat. All he was able to manage as he toppled beneath the dual weight was to shift his mass backwards, so he didn’t go smashing down on Prairie but instead landed with his arms caging her slight frame.
The impact of his weight travelled up from his palms, stopping somewhere around his locked elbows. He winced and fought the next wave from Gwen’s direction, gritting his teeth and willing it to flow over him. Prairie stared up at him, eyes wide, the pale blue of her irises stark against the surrounding white of her eyeballs. Her mouth moved but Ivan couldn’t hear what she said, his ears hearing nothing but ringing.
He held his arms locked until Prairie pressed a hand to his chest and pushed, indicating he should let her up. Only then did he realize he no longer felt the pressure of the emotion weighing against his body. He shot a glance to where Gwen was shakily pushing herself to her feet once more, then pushed up on his aching palms to lift himself from Prairie.
Ivan focused on the feel of Prairie against him, soft to his hard, then cursed himself inwardly. Not the time. Or the place. Definitely not the place. Driven by the intruding thought, he shifted his attention to the drilling stares of the women on the banquettes and shame washed over him. He stiffened like a cat with arched back, arms and legs stiff, then flung himself to the side and away from Prairie.
Gaze stark, she looked to the side then pushed up to a squat while making a clear point of keeping her attention focused on the floor and away from Ivan. A protest rose to his throat but then he shifted his gaze to the women on the banquette and the protest died there.
Next to Prairie Kim crouched with her fingers pressed lightly to the checkered tiles no one else could touch, her gaze turned inwards. A flash of movement to Ivan’s left grabbed his attention. He turned in that direction as Patti yelled, “Sass!”
The mouse flew through the air, the movement what caught Ivan’s attention. As he watched Sass landed on a black square two out from the frame of the wood bordering the dance floor. Their white body stood out stark against the black.
Ivan stared with morbid fascination, concern rising up his throat, as he waited for the inevitable when the floor swallowed the mouse. Nothing happened. No swallowing. No rippling.
He turned his head to look at Kim whose gaze was also upon the mouse, though her expression was speculative rather than fearful. Catching her attention with a clearing of his throat, he raised his brows then looked at the mouse, back at Kim, back at the mouse, then back at Kim. She shrugged, then lifted her hand from the floor and turned it up to the air while shrugging again.
“Sass!” Patti snapped, “Get back here!”
Sass planted its paws on its hips and lofted its head, leading Patti to snap again, “Sass!”
Sass dropped its paws from its hips and then started gyrating, lifting its feet up and down in something between a march and a hop. Then it twisted its shoulders forward and back before clapping its paws together. It opened its mouth and started warbling in a high, thin voice while intently staring at Patti. Despite the strains of My Heart Will Go On continuing to wend through the room Ivan could easily hear the mouse, like it rode on a different wavelength than the music, one that directly targeted his ear drums.
“Baa bah bah bah BAH,” It flung its paws out in something resembling jazz hands, “Bah bah bah bah BAHbah!”
Patti frowned at the mouse. “Sass?”
The mouse kept on “Bah Bahing” while holding its gaze on Patti and gyrating all over the square in time to the beat they were weaving with their voice. Patti followed the mouse’s movements with an intent stare then started to hum along with Sass. Her humming melded with Sass’s “BahBahing”, forming a melody that Ivan could practically see weaving on the air.
No, wait. He could see it weaving on the air, golden strands binding Sass and Patti. Above the strands the air wiggled and something that might have been letters flickered and flexed. Ivan squinted trying to make them out, but the harder he tried to read them the more they wiggled, their meaning eluding him.
“Baby, I’m a Queen,” Patti sang in a tentative voice.
Sass stopped dead, perked up, and flung its front paws towards Patti in a “there!” gesture then launched itself on a diagonal to the right and forward three squares. It landed on the black square on all four paws, then pushed back up to stand on its back legs and began to stomp those paws.
Patti leaned forward with an intent look and sang, “Baby, I’m a Queen,” under her breath. Before she finished the full line Gwen cried out and a wave burst with her at the epicenter. Ivan rocked back and to the left, locking his knees to keep himself standing but it was too much and he ended up falling on his left hip then crunching down on his ribs.
He gritted his teeth and shoved up on his elbow. His head swam a little. He closed his eyes and took a fortifying breath, waiting for the dizzy to ease, then he opened his eyes and scanned the group with his gaze, determining their states after the wave.
To his left Abe lay in a cushion of black ink, looking none the worse for the wear. Next to them Dan swayed on his knees then leaned forward to plant his hands on the floor and lowered his head between his arms. Patti, next to him was curled into a ball with her knuckles pressing into the wood of the verge and beyond her Ben was disentangling himself from a spindly white metal chair that had fallen on him, likely when he’d flown into the table and chairs set along the floor.
Beyond Ben the patrons who had been sitting at the other tables and chairs along the floor picked themselves up, their expressions blank, righted their chairs and sat back down with a mechanical fluidity that suggested long practice at the motion.
Movement on the dance floor drew his attention to Sass who appeared to have been unaffected by the wave of emotion from Gwen considering they continued to stand on their back legs, dancing something vaguely like a merengue, while continuing to warble its song.
“I get knocked down.” Kim sang to his right, drawing his gaze in time to see her roll over to her back and stare at the ceiling.
Next to her Siobhan rolled up from her own back to her side then slowly pushed herself up to a seating position with a braced arm. With her other she grabbed her flower crown and righted it, then grinned at Kim while singing back, “but I get up again!”
Prairie, between Ivan and Kim, smiled over in Siobhan’s direction and sang, “Never gonna keep me down!”. Ivan frowned, shifting his attention between the three women, only to have his focus drawn when Abe sang out, “I get knocked down!” staring dreamily at the ceiling while remaining cuddled in their ink cocoon.
“But I get up again!” Dan put action to words, shoving himself up to stand.
To Dan’s left, Patti leaned in, holding her hand to her lips then pointing at Sass, which in turn drew Ivan’s gaze back to the mouse who continued to merengue. Before he could question the dawning knowledge in Patti’s expression, Prairie pushed up to stand, pulling Ivan’s attention to her.
He kind of felt like he was watching a badminton game, if the participants were all intoxicated and singing Tubthumping by Chumbawamba. Well, if all but a mouse were singing that. And a bard. Who you’d think would be joining in. That seemed significant – that she wasn’t singing and she was staring at Sass like the mouse knew the secrets to the universe if only Patti could parse them.
“What,” he started only to have his attention drawn to the right when Prairie wobbled in Gwen’s direction, holding her hands out in front of her with fingers splayed.
“You’re absorbing the emotions?” she called over to Gwen in her sweet voice.
Gwen lifted her chin from her chest and gave Prairie a watery stare. She bit her lip then nodded, a very small nod like it was all the energy she had left in her.
Prairie kept wobbling forward until she was within reach of Gwen then she sank to her knees.
“I think I may be able to help?” When Gwen frowned at her, she continued. “It may be like possession? Sifting energy through Magick?”
Gwen stared like Prairie was offering a lifeline she couldn’t believe in. She reached up a shaking hand, holding it towards Prairie. Prairie closed the distance between their hands and laced her fingers with Gwen’s. Instantly Gwen’s features softened like a small measure of the pressure pulling her skin thin was relieved by the touch.
Ivan’s attention shifted to Prairie’s profile. Her eyes were closed, hard, her damp lashes in a crescent against her round cheek. The compulsive need to smack her hand out of Gwen’s seized him. He had to clench his hand into a fist, hard enough his knuckle popped, but he managed to not lunge forward and separate them.
Instead, he drew a long cleansing breath through his nose, counselling himself that she was a woman capable of making her own choices, as she’d driven home to him, so if she wanted to fuck herself up helping Gwen? Well, that was a decision she got to make even though it felt like a punch to his Adam’s Apple to watch as she tipped forward, leaning her head against Gwen’s shoulder while continuing to clench Gwen’s fingers in a grip tight enough Ivan could read the tension across the space separating him from Gwen and Prairie.
As if she felt his focus, and really considering her Magick she probably did, Gwen looked over at Ivan and nodded. Her features looked a bit less sharp but it was still very clear that pulling in the emotional attacks of the dancers was pulling her apart. They had to do something to fix this!
Like it knew he was focusing on fixing the issue, another wave of emotion barreled across the floor. Ivan rocked as the edge of it clipped his side. The impact was slight, the thrust of it shifting and arrowing for Gwen and Prairie.
Gwen braced, her features going stark, and then she threw her head back and let out a weak yelp. Ivan tensed, ready to shift when she lost control but it didn’t happen. Her shoulders visibly shook as she drew her head back into alignment but otherwise she seemed to be holding it together.
Prairie lifted her head enough to stare at Gwen’s profile.
“Is it helping?” Her voice was thin, but an edge of determination dug spurs in with the words.
Gwen nodded.
“Baby, I’m a Queen.”
Ivan turned as Patti sang the line again, a bit louder, overriding My Heart Will Go On to the point that it was barely background noise and Patti and Sass’s combined song became the prevalent sound hitting Ivan’s ears.
“Baby, I’m a Queen,” came from Ivan’s right. At first he thought it was a trick of the acoustics or Patti’s Magick but then the voice registered. Kim. Not Patti. And muttered, not sung. He turned his head to look at Kim.
She was lying on the floor still but had shifted to her side and she was tracking Sass’s moves with her gaze while alternating looks down at the floor and muttering the line again and again under her breath.
“Baby, I’m a Queen. Baby, I’m a Queen?” She frowned, lifted a hand, and tracked a path across the floor with her finger. “Baby, I’m a–” she cut off as a wave of emotion rippled from where Gwen and Prairie sat. Her arm jerked backward at an odd angle and she cried out. Meanwhile Ivan, having turned to look at her, was hit full chest by the wave.
He stumbled back a step before his feet met an oddly cushioned resistance. Holding his hands out at his sides to retain his balance, he jerked a look over his shoulder. The ink of Abe’s cocoon slash cushion was bent around the back of his legs, hitting him mid-calf. He jerked a nod to Abe who looked up with a slightly dazed expression from the cushion. They raised a finger and saluted him then laid their head back into the support of the ink. A quick sweep of Ivan’s gaze showed the others on that side recovering from the wave.
Satisfied no one was in need of immediate attention, he turned his focus back to his right in time to see Siobhan pushing away from Dempsey who must have caught her when she was tossed by the wave. She cast a look back at him, muttered something under her breath which Dempsey nodded at, then walked over to Gwen and Prairie with wobbly steps while clutching her flower crown with her right hand.
She dropped to her knees on the far side of Gwen and reached her free hand out. “My mother always said a burden shared is a burden lightened.”
Gwen was slow to turn her head in Siobhan’s direction, Prairie even slower to lift her head from Gwen’s shoulder and look at Siobhan.
Siobhan swept her hand towards Gwen then when there was no protest laid her hand gently on Gwen’s shoulder. She visibly stiffened then her expression shifted, hardened, and she stared down at Gwen with narrowed eyes. “Don’t you dare say you can handle this. I know you can. But if I can help you do so you know I’m going to.”
Gwen turned her face up to Siobhan. Whatever she saw in Siobhan’s face made her nod.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispered.
Siobhan lifted her brows. “Seems like The House doesn’t have that compunction. Can you spread some of that,” she waved her hand in a vague gesture, “energy to me?”
Gwen turned her head to contemplate the women on the banquettes across the floor then turned back to Siobhan and nodded. “Yes.”
“Then do so.” Siobhan’s tone was firm, a schoolteacher brooking no nonsense. When Gwen held her gaze steady on Siobhan’s face, Siobhan gave a firm nod and something like a snarl. Then her expression shifted, displaying a mix of pain and confusion before settling into a calm facade as she took a deep breath and dropped to her knees next to Gwen.
“All right, then,” she said on a strained tone.
Gwen reached up and closed her fingers around Siobhan’s hand then turned her face up to Siobhan. Ivan couldn’t see her expression but something in it seemed to satisfy Siobhan as she sloped slightly to the side and rested her head against the shoulder Prairie wasn’t occupying.
The next wave that flowed from Gwen was markedly less severe. It pressed against Ivan’s chest like the soft touch of a child rather than a tackle.
“Baby, I’m a Queen!”
Patti’s voice drew Ivan’s gaze. As he turned to look at her his focus drifted over the dance floor to where Sass dropped to all fours, wiggled their butt, then jumped three squares to the side to land on a white tile. Upon landing they pushed back up to their back legs and gyrated like they were working a hula hoop while continuing to chirp out a series of Bah Bahs.
Humming the tune along with the mouse, Patti sauntered along the edge of the dance floor. She veered around Abe in their cocoon then swept her hand at Ivan, indicating he should move back. Shrugging he did so, allowing her the room to skirt in front of him. She stopped short of running into Kim where she lay on the wood floor and planted her hands on her hips.
“Sass! What is up with you?”
Sass wiggled more vigorously, then planted its paws on its hips in a mirror of Patti’s stance and moved its hips to form a box, hitting the corners of it in time to their Bah and Bahs.
Kim shifted, drawing Ivan’s gaze. She was also staring at Sass. In the near silence of the dance hall, punctuated only by Sass’s vocalizations, Ivan was able to hear her musing tone with little interference. “Could it be that simple?”
She twisted and then craned to look around Ivan. “Dan?”
Dan poked his head out from behind Abe’s cocoon. “Yeah?”
Kim planted her elbow on the floor then shifted up to rest her chin on it so she had a better view of the dance floor. “This looks like a chess board, right?”
“Why ask him?” Ivan turned at Ben’s question. His friend was leaning out and over the dance floor, his torso twisted so he could crane to see Kim.
“Because–”
A wave of emotion rippled from the cluster of Prairie, Siobhan, and Gwen, cutting off Kim’s answer as she dropped to her back and glared at the ceiling. “This is getting tired. We need to fix this.”
Ivan dropped a foot back to brace himself though it was hardly needed. “Agreed.”
Dan ducked his head back around Abe’s ink to look in Kim’s direction. “Could be. Why?”
Kim rolled back to her side to look around Ivan at Dan. “Because Sass is a Queen.”
“Because of what it’s singing?” Ivan asked.
“And because when they move I can see feel a path in the material of the floor. And once I saw them,” she waved at the floor, “I realized I could see a bunch of shallow patterns that I think might be chess moves?”
“Okay?” Ivan drew out the word. He contemplated the size of the floor, interposing an image of a chess board over it. “It’s too big to be a chess board?”
“See feel?” Ben asked at the same time.
Kim waved a hand. “It’s more a feeling than a seeing but–” she waved her hand more emphatically. “I digress.” She squinted at Ben. “Stop being so shiny.”
Stop being shiny? While Ivan struggled to parse the demand, Ben didn’t seem to have the same difficulty because he grinned then dug his hands into his pant pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Can’t help it. I’m just naturally shiny.”
“Truer words.” Quirking a grin, Kim turned back to Ivan. “I’m not sure about the size. Maybe it’s like a super-sized chess board?” She shrugged. “The House, right?”
Like that was answer enough to any odd quirks of dimension, she continued, “I think to move across the floor you need to do chess moves.” She looked down, “maybe.” Then she looked up quickly and gave Ivan an assessing look. “Would you consider yourself a Knight? A Priest? A Baron?”
Before Ivan could contemplate Siobhan, Dan, and Dempsey all answered, their voices overlapping. “Knight!”
Kim rolled up to sit then reached forward to press her palm to the black tile in front of her. “Okay. If you get locked I’ll get you free.” She screwed her mouth to the side. “Probably.”
Ivan eyed the top of her head. “Probably?”
She shrugged then looked up at him with an impatient expression. “What are you waiting for?”
“An explanation?”
Kim turned to look at Dempsey propping up the wall. “You need an explanation?”
Dempsey pushed away from the wall and walked over to stand next to her. “Not really.”
“Excuse me?” Ivan lifted his brows at Kim.
Her “for what?” got a slow shake of his head while he contemplated if she was fucking with him or she was having one of her ‘distracted moments’. The odds were fairly even on either option.
Ivan squared his shoulders and nudged his toe against the verge between wood floor and tile. “I’ve got this.”
“Two over, three up,” she said in a distracted tone, her gaze tracking patterns across the black and white tiles.”
“What?”
“Jump. Don’t walk.” She turned her face up to him, her gaze clearing as she focused on him. “Can you jump to that spot?”
Ivan eyed the tiles. They were large, about two-foot by two-foot, so the move she was describing would require him to jump about six feet on a slight angle. “Probably?”
“I can,” Ben called.
Kim shifted to look at Ben. “You are not a Knight.”
“I’m not?” Ben sounded more curious than offended.
“No.” Kim eyed Ben. “I’m not sure you are a chess piece. But Ivan is.” She turned back to Ivan and lifted her brows. “Waiting.”
Ivan turned and eyed the floor, considering the angle he’d need. Then he looked at Kim. “Left or right?”
She gave the floor an eyeball then turned back to him with a shrug. “Either works.”
“Then left it is.” Ivan took three steps back and ran for the verge of wood and tile. When his leading toe hit the line of the black tile he lofted himself upwards and to the left.
He’d overestimated the amount of force he’d need and almost overshot the white tile. Throwing his weight back slightly he managed to adjust the angle and land on the tile with both feet, though his left foot did brush the line separating it from the black one in front of it.
He threw his hands out to correct his balance. Cautiously he flexed his calf and lifted the foot. It came up, not stuck. Well, guess Kim’s guess might have been right.
Satisfied he was as solid as he was going to be, he turned to look at the others. Sass, to his right, jumped forward two tiles, then planted its paws on its hips and stared at him. The mouse had stopped Bah Bahing – probably because it had gotten its point across. It was a Queen and apparently Ivan was a Knight.
Kim picked her hand up from the tile and turned to point at Dan. “Priest.”
Dan lifted his brows in response to Kim’s abrupt statement. She, for her part, seemed utterly unfazed by Dan’s implied comment. “Move diagonally.”
Rolling to his feet, Dan checked the chest pocket of his tac vest while eying the floor with a measuring look. “How many?”
“More than one. Only Plebes move one. Why is why Dempsey, Prairie, and Ivan got stuck. Not Plebes.”
Abe rolled up to their knees in the cushion of ink and raised a hand. “I might be a Plebe?”
Kim shrugged. “Worth a try. You can jump to any one of the tiles in the second row.”
Abe shoved up from the pile of ink then looked back and reeled it in like it was thread or rope, looping it around their hand where it melted into their skin. Once the ink was secure, they bunched up like a bunny to hop up and forward to land on the white tile up two on the floor.
They righted their cassock while bouncing up and down several times, their boots clearing the tile before landing back firmly on the white stone. That settled they turned and shot the group a thumbs up.
Seeing Abe safe on the white stone, Dan took a few steps back then ran for the edge of the floor and threw himself forward three squares on the diagonal. His feet had barely touched down on the white tile when he rocked back then threw himself forward two more tiles on the diagonal, landing on a single foot before shoving off and going three more forward so he was close to the right edge of the floor.
Once there he turned and nodded. “Priest.”
Patti stopped her contemplation of Sass and raised a hand. “I’m a Queen.”
Then she backed up almost to the wall so she could run for the tiles and jump forward three steps in a straight line forward. She landed firmly on the black tile then lifted her right foot to stand like a crane. Then she put that foot down and did the same with her left before turning at the waist to look at Kim. “Yep. Queen.”
Ben sauntered over to study the tiles, then where Ivan, Abe, Dan, and Patti were situated on them. After a micro he turned to Kim. “I’m a Queen.”
So saying he jumped diagonally to land two tiles from Ivan. As soon as he landed, he turned and jumped forward three tiles forward. Without hesitation he then jumped two tiles to the left, landed, and jumped forward another two tiles before digging his hands into the pockets of his pants and pirouetting to turn back to the wood floor. Flashy bastard.
Not to be outdone Ivan tracked out a move two over and three up and jumped to that tile then eyed the distance between himself and the women on the banquette. Okay. This could work. Or, at least, it could get them across the floor. What they were expected to do once they made it was up in the air.
He really didn’t want to hit any of the women, despite the damage they were doing with their emotional attacks. It would be like smacking his Moms and that was just not something he was good for. If their lives were anything like his mother’s they’d been smacked around enough already. Emotionally but probably physically as well.
“I think I’m a Priest,” Siobhan said.
“Sta–” Gwen started to say then cried out. The wave of emotion that burst from her control rocked across the floor and washed over Ivan. He turned to see Dempsey picked off his feet and thrown back from the dance floor.
As if trapped in a tide, Kim rolled several feet across the space cleared along the edge of the floor by Ivan, Abe, Dan, and Ben’s departure. An almost transparent female shape formed in front of her, halting her roll and gently pushing her back in the Gwen, Prairie, and Siobhan direction.
Ivan shifted to look at the others on the tiles. None of them had moved from their squares and based on their expressions it seemed like they also hadn’t been touched by the wave of emotion.
Patti looked at Ivan and lifted her brows. He threw his hands out in a shrug then looked over at Dan who returned his gaze before shifting to study the floor with a calculating intensity. Dan pulled a pencil from his vest and started waving it at the floor, picking out patterns before nodding and returning his attention to Ivan.
There was a thump then Abe landed next to Ivan. “I think the floor protects us?”
He almost couldn’t hear it for the sound of My Heart Will Go On flooding back in, but it was slightly quieter – slightly – on the dance floor making it possible to hear the others.
Ivan nodded. “Seems like.”
“So, what do we do next?”
Ivan looked over at Patti then at Ivan before focusing on Ben farther up the floor. “Keep going?”
Abe nodded vigorously. “Makes sense!”
“Baron.” Dempsey called from behind Ivan.
Ivan turned to watch as Dempsey shoved away from the wall he’d slammed into, approached the edge of the floor at a clip, then jumped forward to land four tiles out on a direct line towards the other side of the floor with his shield held tight in front of himself.
Kim rolled up and crawled over to the cluster of Gwen, Prairie, and Siobhan. She said something Ivan couldn’t hear, then lifted a hand towards Gwen. It hovered on the air for a mikro then another before she laid her hand on Gwen’s boot with a slight grimace. The grimace intensified for a mikro, then she lowered her head and took a deep breath that raised her shoulders and ribs. She nodded, responding to something Siobhan said then turned to look at where Ivan and the others were arranged across the dance floor.
“Keep going!” she yelled to be heard over Celine Dion.
“We’ve got this!” Siobhan added in a slightly strained voice.
“Yeah!” Prairie called out in a small voice that managed to carry despite its softness, hitting Ivan in the ribs and the heart they protected. Or maybe it just felt like that? Whatever. The timber of her voice, expressing the stress she was under channeling for Gwen, hardened his resolve to complete this challenge and get them all out of here.
He looked over at Dan then over to Patti, covering Abe and Dempsey in the sweep. “We need to get to the dancers.”
“Then?” Patti asked.
He lifted his shoulders. “Not sure. We’ll have to wing it.”
“Oh,” Patti rolled her eyes, “We are great at that shit.”
Ben looked back and grinned. “We are!”
Ivan drew a deep breath through his nose and gave the women on the banquette another look. They returned the look. Like all of them, every single one of the – he counted – fifteen women was staring back at him. Only him. The flat stares that projected despair and resignation, the expressions almost universally the same, weighed on his shoulders like a sodden blanket he wasn’t sure he had the strength to throw off.
Once more he was a small boy, wandering his mother’s dance hall, looking for her, half afraid he couldn’t find her and half afraid he would. Blonde, brunette, redhead; young, old, and in between, they were different and yet the same.
Empty eyes with rings of caked black makeup, full lips tinted red in a cosmetic mockery of arousal, fine lines of dissipation and premature aging along their edges brought on by heavy cigarette consumption and the set of resolve. He couldn’t see the women that well across the distance between them and yet he could see them so clearly. Or possibly that was memory and projection.
The compulsion to fix them as he hadn’t been able to fix his mother tightened a fist around his throat. He swallowed hard to clear it and squared his jaw.
If the other scenarios they’d faced so far had been meant to test each of them in some manner with the garden clearly meant for Siobhan and Kim and the music room for Patti and he figured the gallery for Abe, then there was no doubt in his mind that this space was meant for him. And maybe Ben. Probably Ben too.
“Ben?”
Ben turned at his call. “Yeah.”
“You good?”
Ben hesitated a mikro. The fact he didn’t immediately give a glib response was enough to confirm for Ivan that his friend was equally affected by this glimpse into their shared history.
“I–” Ben started then stopped and turned back to look at the women arrayed like fading flowers in a florist shops window at the end of a long day. Then he turned back to Ivan with a shrug. “No?”
Ivan nodded. “Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Ben echoed. He cast his gaze down, screwed his mouth up in a contemplative expression then shrugged, dug his hands deeper into his pockets, and nodded. “This House sucks.”
“Oh, yeah.” Ivan couldn’t put enough emphasis on that response. He shifted his gaze over the others on the floor. “Let’s do this.”
Enter The Woods 