10:28
“Hello?” Ivan called into the dark. It ate the sound almost from the mikro it left his lips.
A voice came from the darkness. From everywhere in the darkness, all around Ivan. Aria’s voice.
“Perfection does not exist. It’s a mirage. A shimmer on the horizon you chase only for it to disappear when you reach it.”
Ivan found himself frozen, transfixed, waiting as Aria’s voice paused. There was something like a sigh that rippled the dark so it caressed his skin like a physical presence.
“You are enough in yourself. Embrace who you are. The sublime and the flawed. That is the only perfection you should chase. The only one that matters. Perfect understanding of yourself.”
Again her voice paused. The darkness sighed. When she spoke again there was the sound of exasperation and pride riding the words. “This is something I am learning watching you.”
For a long, long moment the words hung on the air. And then they faded and as they receded into the darkness a circle of light snapped into focus under Ivan’s feet, falling from a point above him.
He looked up to find the source, but it was obscured by the darkness. Then he spun around, his gaze struggling to pierce the dark.
Before he had more than a mikro to wonder at the change in the space, another circle of light snapped on several feet to his left. There was a distinctive snap of sound as the dark receded from the circle. Patti stood in it, spinning wildly as she searched around her. Then slightly in front and to the right of Ivan another circle of light popped into focus, revealing Dan in a slight crouch with a book held out at the length of one arm.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Circles of light sprang up in various locations in the dark revealing Abe – looking around in wonder, Kim – with a flare of fire in her palm, Siobhan and Prairie with circles almost merging. Another pop and a slightly larger circle formed with Gwen and Dempsey standing together where their two circles formed in a Venn diagram.
An empty circle of light popped into existence forward of Ivan and to the right. Ivan had a mikro or three to stare at the space with a frown and then Ben slowly resolved along the far edge of the circle. His form poured from the dark line where light ate darkness, ribbons of dark clinging to his shoulders as he settled himself with legs straddling the ground and shoulders set. His gaze searched the dark, landing on Ivan with a rough intensity.
Ivan lifted his chin in a nod of acknowledgement before turning to cast another look at where Siobhan and Prairie stood in their spots of light. Prairie lifted her hand and waved. Ivan hesitantly lifted his hand to the level of his hip and waved back.
A flash of light off in the distance demanded Ivan’s attention. His gaze lingered for a mikro on Prairie, mind cataloguing her features as he searched out any signs of strain, then shifted to focus on the beam of light cutting the darkness some distance from where he and his friends stood.
He strained to see what was highlighted by the light. Movement in his peripheral drew his attention to the circles of light around his friends travelling over the dark ground as they approached him. Dempsey and Gwen were the first to reach him.
When the edges of their circle of light lapped up against his they merged, expanding the circle so they stood in a larger pool. Siobhan’s light broadened and brightened the circle next, followed by Kim’s and Prairie’s. Dan, Abe, Ben, and Patti approached from their scattered locations, their circles joining the combined one until the entire group stood in a pool of light large enough to accommodate them all.
As soon as Dan joined he shifted to look across the dark plane to where the light speared some distance away. He stabbed a toothpick into his mouth, shifted it from one corner to the other. “Guessing we go there.”
Ivan shifted to stand next to Dan. “Guessing.”
“Nothing like the present!”
Ben stepped forward. The light circle shifted with him. With various exclamations of agreement the entire group moved forward, keeping pace with Ben’s quick steps.
The dark they traversed was wide and seemed to expand to the horizon. The distant light slowly grew as they cleared the distance between themselves and it and as it did so something slowly resolved in its center.
It was tall. Tower tall. Ivan had trouble imagining how large a circle of light had to be to encompass it but he didn’t have to imagine long as the distance fell away beneath the feet of the group.
Soon enough they drew close enough for Ivan to make out that the tower was made up of mattresses. Probably fifteen.
They varied in size, some slightly taller than others. All in all Ivan estimated the pile was about sixteen feet high. Which was to say pretty damned close to the tower his mind had first guessed it to be.
He looked to his left where Siobhan kept pace with him.
“That’s a lot of mattresses.”
“It is.” Her response was very matter of fact.
“Guessing Grace is at the top?”
“I’d say that would be a good guess.”
“Think we can climb it?”
Dan answered from his right. “It depends on how sturdy the mattresses are.”
Ben cast a look back over his shoulder. “Won’t know until we try.”
He started forward at a clip, dragging their circle of light closer to the verge of the light the mattress tower stood in. Without needing to seek accord, everyone moved along with him. Ivan, with his longer legs, beat Ben to the mattress pile. He planted his hands on his hips and craned his neck to look towards the top of the pile.
He slanted a glance at Ben standing next to him. “You see the top?”
Ben gave him a look. “You are taller than me, dumbass. Do you?”
“Nope.”
“Then nope.”
Dan walked up on his right and eyed the mattresses. “You think we’ll need to scaffold it so we can climb up?”
Ivan assessed the pile. “Maybe? Feels like if Grace is up there, and the chances are pretty much one hundred percent she is, then it should support a climb.”
“Sure?”
“Wait.” Ivan took a long breath and searched inside of himself to where his Magick pooled. He carefully nudged a stream of it out of the pool, asking it to flow into the mattress structure. A stream of data flowed back to him from it as it surged in, around, up, and down.
A schematic formed in his mind, overlaying the tower of mattress. He ran his gaze over it, assessing the details with quick darts of his eyes, then called his Magick back to himself. It settled with a sense of contentment in the core of him. He waited for it to fully set before he turned to look at the others who were studying him with varying degrees of interest.
“Three people, one at the back and two at each end, pushing inwards a the same time will stabilize the pile so it will support the weight of someone climbing it.”
Patti lifted a finger. “Rock climber. I volunteer to climb.”
Ivan eyed the mattress pile. “Whoever hits the top has to be strong enough to carry Grace down. I’m not sure a fireman’s carry will do it since they’ll have to climb down with handholds.”
Dan idled up and craned his back to look at the pile before prodding it with a hand. “What if we do something like a cheerleading pyramid?”
Ivan turned to look at Dan. “Explain?”
Dan pulled a book out of one of the many pockets on his tac vest, flipped from the back to an empty page, then sketched out a rough diagram. He stopped to assess the mattresses. “About fifteen feet?”
Ivan nodded. That was what his Magick had assessed it at.
Dan turned to look at the group, pointing his pencil at each of Ivan’s friends then turning back to scribbled something in his book. After a mikro or three he looked up. “Ben and I are a similar height. Same for Patti, Abe, and Siobhan. Here’s what I propose.”
He turned the book to show the page to everyone. He’d sketched a rough pyramid of stick figures, three at the bottom, two above that, and one at the top.
“I figure you’re, what, six three?” this to Ivan. Ivan nodded at the assesment. “Ben and I are around five ten.”
Ben sauntered over and looked at Dan’s sketch, offered “Five nine,” then kept on sauntering towards the mattress pile.
“Close enough,” Dan waved off Ben’s correction. “And Patti, Abe, and Siobhan are around five seven or eight. Which puts us over seventeen feet. Plenty to get to the top of the pile safely.” He tapped the drawing. “Patti, Abe, and Siobhan at the bottom. Me and Ben in the center. Ivan at the top. We can lean against the pile for support if we need it but this should work if we brace our hands around the feet of the people standing on our shoulders.”
“And what do we do?” Gwen asked in a voice slow with fatigue.
Ivan tapped the air with his pencil, picking out each of the remaining members of the group. “Dempsey in the back bracing it. Kim and Prairie on either end. You resting.”
“Yeah, she’s definitely asleep.” Ben’s voice drifted from above. Top of the mattress pile above.
“Ben?” Ivan pitched his voice to carry.
Ben poked his head over the edge of the top mattress. “You were talking too long. I got bored. She’s still asleep. So, all your cheerleader pyramid thing was gonna fail. Plus I didn’t have a lot of faith in that pyramid thing anyhow. Easier to climb.”
Ivan sighed and fought to not roll his eyes. It wasn’t like Ben was wrong. Expecting a pyramid with him at the top and Siobhan, Abe, and Patti at the bottom to hold was testing the limits of physics. Plus, it was all predicated-on Grace being able to help them get her down and that seemed moot if she was asleep. “She’s asleep?”
“Are you having trouble hearing me?”
“No. Just confirming.”
“She’s asleep.”
“Did you try waking her?”
“Nah, I just figured I’d climb up here because the view is better.”
Ivan rubbed a brow, sighed, and tried to remember why Ben was his best friend. Oh, yeah, shared crappy childhood.
Dan tilted his head back and called up to Ben. “Kiss her.”
“Come again?”
“Kiss her!” Dan called louder.
There was a small delay then Ben offered, “I’m not her prince?”
“But maybe The House sees you as a prince?”
“No?” Another short delay. “I’m not assaulting a sleeping woman.”
There was a wealth of dark memory in Ben’s word choice. Memories that Ivan and he shared. Memories that made them the very least likely to touch a woman without her consent. Even to save her. Because there was no salvation in assault.
“Excuse me.” Patti pushed passed Ivan on the left, then scrambled up the mattress pile, clinging to the sheer side like a mountain goat born to the activity. She made the top in less than a mero. Way less. Once at the top she clambered over the edge and vanished from sight.
Her voice drifted down. “Shake her?”
“I did.”
“Hard?”
“See?”
“Grace? Grace, hon. Time to wake up.”
There was a long moment of silence then Patti sang something too low for Ivan to hear well enough to determine its tune. Then she sang a bit louder. Still too low but clearly amping up the force. Another pause then she snapped, “Grace!”
The sound of a slap rang out, consumed a mikro later by the muffling darkness. It was followed by Ben’s, “We’re going to have to carry her.”
“I’m not sure about the logistics of that while climbing down.”
“Fireman’s carry?”
“You need to hold her on. Not enough hands.”
“Rope?”
“You have some?”
Ivan shifted foot to foot while he listened. He slanted a glance to Dan, next to him. Dan shrugged and shifted his toothpick then craned his neck to look up the mattress tower as Ben’s “Uh, yeah,” floated down.
“Where did you have that?”
“Magick? It’s only ten feet though. No long eno—wait. Magick.”
There was silence for several mikros then Ben exclaimed in a frustrated voice, “Damn it. I can’t keep them solid. How does Abe do this?”
“Ink is more solid than shadow?” Patti offered. “Different Magick?”
Ben poked his head over the side of the mattress and yelled, “Abe!”
“Yes?” Abe called from Ivan’s left.
Ben swiveled his head to look at Abe. “Need you.”
Abe shifted foot to foot. “Uh. Okay? Up there?”
“No. At Leo’s.” Ivan couldn’t see it but guaranteed Ben was rolling his eyes. “Yes. Up here.”
“I, uhm,” Abe sidled over to stand next to Ivan and eye the mattresses like they’d grow teeth. “Don’t know how to.”
“Know how to…?”
At Ben’s question Abe scratched a hand under the fall of curls on their forehead then wrinkled their nose. “I don’t know how to climb?”
“What’s to know? You just climb.”
Patti’s exasperated sigh clearly carried down to Ivan. A mikro later her head was poking over the side of the top mattress. Then she turned and swung a leg over the side, following it with the other. “I’ll come show you. Not enough room up here for three of us and Grace anyhow.”
“Wait.” Dempsey walked up to the mattress pile, his words stopping Patti. “Let some of us secure the pile first. Just to be safe.”
So saying he sauntered around the pile and disappeared behind it. Kim and Prairie approached the pile and took up spots on the ends, stretching their arms to lay their hands flat along the mattresses. Siobhan and Gwen hurried over and disappeared behind the pile, leaving only Abe, Ivan, and Dan to stare up at Patti as she dug her toes into the space between mattresses and navigated down the mattress pile with the same ease she’d climbed up.
Jumping the last few feet she landed with bent knees then dusted off her hands and turned to Abe. “I can climb up with you if you’d like?”
Abe tilted their head back to look at the mattresses again then turned their gaze to Patti. “I’d like that?”
Patti clapped her hands together. “Okay. So, the first thing to know is that most of climbing is in your lower body. I know it looks like its all your arms but they are kinda just guiding you and keeping you steady. The thrust is in your legs and butt.”
“Okay.” Abe looked down at the skirt of their cassock. “This is prolly gonna get in the way.”
Patti eyed the cassock. “Likely.”
“Okay.” Abe unbuttoned the cassock from the waist down then swept the split fabric to either side, tying the pieces together behind their back to reveal a baggy pair of leggings. They checked their boots, leaning down to tighten one of the laces, then stood back up and looked at Patti. “Just dig my fingers in?”
“Reach up as far is comfortable.”
“Okay.” Abe reached up an arm and buried their fingers in the crack between two mattresses, then stretched their other arm up and did the same before looking over their shoulder at Patti.
Patti walked over and got handholds a little over from Abe, leaving enough space for movement but staying close enough to catch Abe if they needed it. “Now, bend your knee, get your leg up about half way to your hip and find a foothold.”
Abe followed Patti’s advice then looked over at her. “Okay.”
“Now tighten your thigh and pull yourself up so you can get your other foot into place.”
Abe followed Patti’s direction, lifting their free leg and getting it into the crack between mattresses. They clung to the side, their ass sticking out. Ivan stifled a laugh at the picture they made ass out, eyes squeezed shut, arms shaking as they held the precarious position.
Cracking an eye, Abe turned their head very slowly to look at Patti who’d pulled herself up to hang on the tower next to Abe. “Okay?” Abe’s voice warbled. “This hurts.”
“Yeah.” Patti’s tone ws sympathetic. “It does the first few times. Faster you can get up the less time you’ll be hanging from muscles not used to this.”
“Okay?” Abe’s voice wobbled more.
“Pull in your butt, straighten your legs and reach up to get new handholds. Then repeat. We’ll be up in no time.”
“Okay!” Abe’s usual enthusiasm flowed into their voice, smoothing out the wobble. They reached up, stretching out for the next handhold then moved one leg then the other, shoving themselves a few feet up the mattress pile. Patti followed along next to them as they scaled the pile until they both were almost at the top.
“I’m gonna touch your butt.” Her warning got a sharp turn of Abe’s head. “Just to steady you. And push you over the top. Sometimes the lip is the worst part.”
“Uh, okay?”
At Abe’s tacit acceptance, Patti put actions to words, reaching over and shoving a hand under Abe’s ass. “Push hard with your legs. I’ve got you.”
“Okay?”
Abe went flying over the top of the mattress, disappearing from Ivan’s view then Patti came sliding back down to stand at his side.
“What’s going on up there?” Ivan asked.
“Girl. Asleep. Won’t wake up. Ben and I came up with the idea of lowering her down in a cradle but his rope is too short and his shadows won’t stay solid enough. We figured Abe can use their ink to do the job.”
Dan nodded. “Makes sense.”
It was a mero or two before Ivan saw a swathe of darkness being lowered over the top of the mattress tower. Ivan couldn’t see Abe or Ben but he could hear them.
“You got this?” Ben’s voice drifted down.
“Yes.” Abe’s tone was a bit strained. The dark bundle jerked against the mattresses.
“Can I?”
“Sure!”
The bundle’s jerking smoothed out and it started moving down the side of the tower.
By silent consent Ivan, Dan, and Patti formed a triangle at the bottom of the mattress similar to the base of a cheerleading pyramid. As the bundle moved to the halfway point down the mattress tower they lifted their hands.
Ivan, being taller, was the first to have the bundle hit his palms. It was softer than he expected. Silky. He bent his elbows as the bundle continued its descent, letting his hands guide it without taking its weight. When it lowered far enough to hit Dan and Patti’s stretched out hands they did the same.
Ben peered over the side of the mattress pile, marking the position of the bundle. He nodded and withdrew his head. “They’ve got her. You can let go.”
“Okay!” Abe replied. A mikro later the ink withdrew, receding from the form laying in Ivan, Dan, and Patti’s hands to reveal a petite woman with tousled blonde curls, pale skin, and dark lashes lying against the apple of her cheeks.
Patti and Dan gave Ivan a look them stepped back so Grace sunk into his cradling arms. He adjusted his grip and pulled her in to rest against his chest, a frown forming as she made no indication she’d felt the change in her location. If not for the soft rise and fall of her breath against his chest he might have thought her dead. That was how little she moved.
Her legs flopped over his arm and her hands lay clasped against her chest, crushed against him. He loosened his grip, shifting her slightly so she lay with her face up. A quick shift and the back of her head rested against his shoulder. Still she didn’t move beyond the shallow rise and fall of her chest, so subtle Ivan felt it more than saw it.
He shifted a look over at Dan. Dan reached over and pressed his fingers to her throat, testing her pulse, then shrugged to Ivan.
“What’s going on?” Dempsey yelled over from the back of the mattresses. Ivan looked to Grace, half hoping she’d wake at the loud sound. But she remained quiescent.
“She’s not waking up. She’s breathing. Barely? I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Prairie poked her head from around the end of the mattress.
“I mean,” Ivan shrugged, the movement shifting Grace against him. And still she didn’t do more than breath shallow and light. “She’s breathing.”
“Patti?”
Patti looked over at Prairie’s question.“Yeah?”
“Brace this side so I can check her?”
“Yeah. Sure. Got it.”
Patti and Prairie switched places, so Prairie could peer at Grace in Ivan’s arms.
“Can you please place her on the ground?”
Ivan gave the ground a quick look, then stooped and carefully placed Grace’s lax form on it. Prairie dropped to her knees and pressed her fingers to Grace’s throat as Dan had. Then she lay two fingers against the pulse in Grace’s wrists. Her features creased. She lay her head against Grace’s chest and her frown deepened.
Sitting up, she tilted her head up to stare at the dark something passing for a ceiling. Then she brushed her hand lightly over Grace’s sternum, tracing a slightly diagonal line towards the mattresses before shifting her gaze to Ivan and Dan.
“There’s something in the mattresses with a hook in her Spirit.”
“Something?”
At Ivan’s question she shrugged. “Something.”
“Can you break it?”
“I’m afraid to. It feels more like her Spirit is in the mattresses than in her own body. If I break the connection I don’t know if her Spirit will recoil back into her body or if it will go to whatever has a hook on it.”
“But couldn’t you just, you know, grab it like you did Ben, Dempsey, and Patti’s in the garden?”
“Maybe? I’m not sure. Ben, Dempsey, and Patti’s spirits were in Spiritus. I just had to follow them. Its my realm to manipulate so I knew I could retrieve them. This?” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“The pea.”
Ivan turned to look at Dan who was staring intently at the mattress tower.
“What?”
“The pea?” Dan looked at Ivan and Prairie. “Where is the pea?”
“Come again?”
Dan scratched at his chin. “All of these situations have involved a Magick item. Considering this story I think the item here would be a pea. Where is it?”
“In the mattresses.” Ben said from where he was climbing down the side of the mattresses. “Careful.” He reached out a hand to steady Abe who was climbing next to him. After Abe was secure, he looked back to Ivan. “They know the girl in the story is a princess because she can feel the pea under the mattress, right?”
He shifted his attention to Dan who nodded.
“Right.”
“So, my amazing skill at finding cool shit says the pea is probably in the mattresses. You said something is pulling Grace’s Spirit there, right?” He looked at Prairie. It was her turn to nod.
“Yes.”
Ivan lifted his voice to be heard through or around the mattresses. “Dempsey?”
“Yeah?” came back around the mattresses.
“Is there a Magick item in the mattresses?”
“Mikro!”
“You can stop holding up the mattresses. Ben and Abe are down.”
“Okay! Yeah. There’s an item in the mattress. It feels weird.”
“Weird?”
“Magick not Magick?” Dempsey came around the pile so Ivan could see him sawing a hand.
“Magick not Magick?” Siobhan came up from behind Dempsey. “How?”
Dempsey shrugged. He frowned and looked at the mattresses. “Hard to–”
Whatever he was going to say was muffled by the sound of Gwen yelling out, “Watch out!”
That was all the warning they got before shining strands of Magick came darting from the dark at them from all sides.
Enter The Woods 